I seized Burrich’s arm to guide him back from the lip of the pit but he twisted free of me, crying, ‘Swift! Where is my son?’ as the next explosion slapped the earth against our feet. I found myself driven to my knees and Burrich prone beside me. The air was thick with drifting crystalline ice, and Burrich choked and spat and shouted out, ‘Swift! Swift, where are you, boy?’
‘I’m here, Papa!’ the boy cried out, and he came bounding to us through the hanging fog, hurtling into Burrich’s embrace. His eyes were huge.
‘Thank Eda, you’re safe! Stay close by me, now. Damn my eyes. Fitz, what is happening? I expected flame and sparks and smoke, not this! What has that mad man done?’
‘It’s like a log bursting apart in the fire, Burrich, no more than that. The powder has burst, breaking the ice that surrounded it. I did not think it would be like this, but it’s over now. Be calm.’ But even as I spoke the words, seeking to reassure myself as much as him, the earth heaved a second time under our feet. At the same moment, I felt a furious mental onslaught.
You will pay, you puny treacherous grubs! Your blood will be shed, a bucket for every loosened scale on his flesh. I come! Tintaglia’s wrath is upon you! All of you will die!
‘We’re trying to help him, not harm him!’ I flung the words wide, voice, Wit and Skill. She made no reply.
But as I blinked the clinging mist of ice from my lashes and peered down into the pit, something stirred there. The settling flurry of ice crystals concealed it, but within that haze, something dark bucked and heaved, showing above the settling mist like a breaching whale. I heard the squeal and crack of breaking ice, and a smell came to me, a stench of trapped and scabrous flesh, a reptilian stench. I scrabbled to my feet and then ventured closer to the edge of the pit, peering down.
A slow and mammoth struggle was taking place down there. Parts of the dragon’s emaciated back were exposed. His tail humped and twitched, almost a separate creature as it strove to free its lashing tip from the ice. One immense hind leg was free, the overgrown claws of the long-captive dragon scoring deep gashes in the ice as it strove to free the rest of his body. Then a wing unfolded, clumps of ice flung wide as it lifted like the tattered canvas of a derelict ship. It flapped desperately, and the waft of unhealthy animal gagged me. Icefyre struggled there, his head and neck still encased in ice. As the mist of ice crystals settled, the humans straggled back to the edge of the pit and stared down, some gawking, some transfixed with horror. Chade’s face was a picture. I could not decide if his awe was for the destruction his powder had wrought or for the size of the creature he had partially bared.
Burrich spoke first. ‘That poor beast.’ He lifted both his hands, the fingers wide, and pushed gently at the air before him. So often I had seen him gesture as he approached an uneasy horse. Now I wondered if quelling calm emanated from his hands. He raised his voice suddenly. ‘He needs our help. Shovels and picks, but I want you all to go carefully. It would be as easy to harm him now as to help him. Don’t encourage him to struggle.’ One hand clamped onto Swift’s shoulder, and the other stretched out a little before him as he stumbled toward the edge of the pit. ‘Easy, easy down there,’ he was already calling, and his words, freighted with soothing Wit, were for the dragon. ‘We’re coming. Still your struggles, you’ll only hurt yourself. Or us. Be easy now. We’ll help you.’
Again, I was aware of the flow of comfort that went with those words. The dragon, too, seemed affected by them. Or perhaps it was exhaustion that made his struggles slow and then cease.
‘Mind the edge of the pit, man. The ramp is this way. Swift, guide your father down there. We’ll need him.’ Web’s brow was bleeding from a glancing blow from a chunk of flung ice. He strode past us, unmindful of his own hurt, shovel in hand. For the first time, I became aware that the blast had injured some of us. One Hetgurd man was down, unconscious in the snow, blood trickling from his nose and ears. One of his fellows knelt by him in bewilderment. Civil had caught his hissing cat and held him in an awkward hug, trying to calm the struggling animal. I looked around for Dutiful, and saw him already hurrying down the ramp toward the trapped dragon, using a pry bar as a stave as he descended. The floor of the pit had been broken, reminding me of ice floes on a restless sea.
‘My prince! Be careful! He may be dangerous!’ Chade bellowed after him, and then he went hastening down the ramp and into the pit. Witted and unWitted alike converged on the trapped creature and began removing the loosened chunks of ice. It was hazardous, for the dragon continued to buck and heave as he struggled to free himself.
The stench was terrible. Starvation and dormant snake fouled the air. Burrich seemed unfazed by it as he stepped forward and then set his hands calmingly on the creature’s black and scaly hide. ‘Be easy. Let us clear away the loosened ice before you struggle any more. Breaking a wing now will not help you.’
He stilled. It was not Skill but Wit that carried to me the dragon’s panicky suffocation. I sensed Icefyre’s attention was focused elsewhere now, and suspected that he communicated with Tintaglia. I hoped he would tell her that we were trying to help him.
‘We need to get his head free. He can’t get enough air to struggle,’ Burrich told me as I came closer.
‘I know. I feel it, too.’ I tried not to smirk as I added, ‘I am Witted, you know.’
I had not realized that Swift would overhear me. Perhaps, because my ears were still ringing, I had spoken more loudly than I thought. But he stared at me, avid and intent. ‘Then you are FitzChivalry, the Witted Bastard. And it’s true that my father raised you in the stables?’ There was a strange lilt in his voice, as if he had suddenly discovered a link to fame and legend in his own family. I suppose he had, but I did not think it was healthy.
‘We’ll discuss it later,’ Burrich and I said at almost the same instant. Swift gaped at us and then gave a strangled laugh.
‘Clear that loose ice from around his left shoulder,’ Web called as he strode by, and men hastened to obey him, Swift among them.