A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

Smoke blurred the sun above Nzene. Though it was a stone city, the wyrms had found plenty of kindling. The thatched roofs in the outskirts, the storehouses, the gardens and the cloth markets, the sacred groves, the palms that lined the widest streets – all burned with a livid fire.

Gashan had been right. Dedalugun was too immense to slice with ease between the Godsblades, the way the limber wyverns could. It had wings big enough to darken the city. Time and again it flew over the sun.

Tunuva defended the temple quarter. As she sank her sword into a giant serpent, she smelled the cedars blazing in the House of Edina, saw two orchardists tow out a basket of rare seeds. Now and then, she would glimpse a familiar cloak in the red fug of smoke and brick dust and sand. The ground shook as a grey winger brought down a statue of Gedani.

Esbar was nowhere to be seen. For a time, they had guarded an enclosure where several nobles had taken shelter in their manses. They had worked together, slaying anything that came near, until a hulking wyvern crashed between them, a harpoon in its belly.

The lesser wyrms had destroyed one of the city walls, letting a flood of creatures past. Now they rampaged throughout Nzene. Tunuva carved her way towards the rampart closest to Mount Dinduru. Though the gate was still barred, it remained a weak point. She sensed a shudder of power – one of her sisters, mantling a street or a square with a warding.

Kediko could explain it away later, if anyone cared. Tunuva sincerely doubted they would.

A burning tree crashed across the path in front of her. Ash choked her, hot cinders fluttering past her eyes. She sheathed her bloody sword and snapped open her spear, using it to skewer a beast and shove it off a soldier, whose gut was frayed open.

To her right, she saw Gashan wielding her own spear, as if she had never put it down.

The Mother had lived in Yikala, but she must have set foot in Nzene. She had loved all Lasians as her own, and Tunuva meant to defend them, for the woman who lay in the coffin.

Blood smeared her tunic from wounds that had already closed. Tunuva mopped her brow, breathing hard, alert for any glint of golden hair, or a cold white face. They had buried Canthe, and yet.

And yet.

War horns blared out. Tunuva flattened herself to a wall as the Royal Guard came thundering on horseback down the street with swords and crescent blades. Archers shot at the winged snakes that flapped over the city, each arrow flashing dull gold in the sunlight.

High on the slopes of the promonotory, with creaking groans, lines of catapults slung huge blocks of sandstone into the air. Three wyverns fell upon the highest, smashing its long arm to splinters, torching the remains.

‘There,’ a man roared.

Tunuva looked up when rubble came tumbling on to the streets. Dedalugun had landed on Mount Dinduru.

‘Come forth, Kediko Onjenyu.’ Its voice rumbled across the city, carrying the dark resonance of an earthquake. ‘Come forth for the reckoning, blood of the vanquisher.’

Gashan was overseeing the springalds. They slanted towards the great wyrm and released hails of bolts towards him. The catapults tried next, for good measure. Slabs of stone crashed into the mountainside below him, each with a sound like a thunderclap, loosening a thousand rocks, raising screams of horror far below. Dedalugun winnowed its wings.

It was a terrible fiend to behold. Not as large as Fýredel, but every scale and sinew spoke of chaos and a shattered world. Thick black smoke vented from its jaws, its nostrils.

‘Tuva!’

She turned. Esbar forced her way through the crowd, drenched in blood.

‘Did you see?’ she shouted. ‘Mulsub is still in its breast. See how it catches the light?’

Tunuva craned her neck, narrowed her eyes against the sun. When Dedalugun leaned out from its roost, she saw the glint. The spear was stuck there like a thorn. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘We can use it to wrench off a scale.’ Esbar drew a blade and knifed away a beast that must have once been a goat. ‘That was how the Mother defeated the Nameless One. She broke a gap in his armour with Ascalun, so she might pierce the flesh beneath. If we can ground Dedalugun—’

‘The siege engines can’t reach it. How can we?’

Jeda ripped the head off a winged lion. Close by, Ninuru was so drenched in blood, her fur had turned pure red.

‘The stone,’ Esbar said over the din. ‘It feels like Canthe, calls to her magic – the same magic that drove Dedalugun away in Carmentum. Do you think you can use it against him?’

Tunuva groped for it. ‘It may speak to water,’ she said. ‘If we lure the wyrm to Lake Jodigo—’

‘It’s worth a try.’

They charged in the same direction the warriors had gone, their ichneumons running beside them.

The mudbrick wall was the thickest the Nzeni had built. Beyond, the creatures screeched for blood, trying to claw and smash their way through the gate. Hundreds of people had thrown their weight against it, their shoulders bracing splintered wood. Guards formed up to kill whatever might break through. Tunuva slipped between them and climbed the ladder to the top, where archers released flaming arrows. Other soldiers hurled rocks and spears, or poured hot sand from massive urns. The bridge across the ditch had been cut down, but still the monsters came.

A red cloak caught her eye. Yeleni Janudin lay dead, her lifeblood dying the cloak darker.

Behind the archers, Siyu danced with lethal grace. Her foe had the face and paws of a wildcat, grown into the body of a wyrm. Twisting to elude its claws, she flung up her spear to block a bite, and when it sank its teeth into the haft, she drew a curved Eyrsri knife, one made for cutting through armour, and sliced across its throat, spraying blood. It slumped before her, twitching.

Dedalugun let out a horrendous roar. From here, the beast was nothing but sound, too high to see. Tunuva realised it had put the sun behind it, so no archer could take clear aim.

Siyu stepped away from the corpse. Tunuva reached her just as she sank to her knees beside her sister.

‘Siyu,’ Tunuva said, ‘we will bury her in the valley. I swear it.’ She grasped her by the shoulder. ‘Keep defending this last wall. Esbar and I must get through that herd.’

‘No.’ Siyu caught her wrist. ‘Tuva, don’t leave—’

‘We go only as far as the lake, to slay Dedalugun.’

‘How?’

‘I think I know a way.’

They both looked up when the wyrm trumpeted its dominance again, making the entire city tremble in its shadow.

‘Let me come.’ Siyu wiped her face with her cuff. ‘Dedalugun killed Lalhar. I will avenge her.’

There was no time to argue, so Tunuva nodded. She watched Esbar soar from the wall, and then leapt herself, into the moil of monstrosities. Together, they ran straight at the ditch and dived across. Siyu landed beside Tunuva, still gripping her slick knife.

They sliced through a thousandfold horde, the world narrowed to glimpses, parts: dripping teeth, the gleam of claw, the haunches and heads of too many creatures, cruel beaks tearing at their cloaks. More than once, Tunuva saw human limbs mangled into scale and iron, just as she had in Jrhanyam, faces moaning at her. Her mind locked them all out.

Ahead, Esbar wielded twin swords, using her fire to burn open a path when none appeared. Whatever she hit, Tunuva dealt it another blow, and Siyu handled whatever was left. A wyvern flew over their heads and blasted flame across the wall. A second torched it again, baking the bricks so dry that cracks spread and splintered across them.

The third wyvern swooped low. With a scream, it drove its entire body into the wall, breaking it down, its head shattering what remained of the gate. War horns sounded a warning as the creatures stampeded over the ruins and poured into Nzene.

Tunuva grasped Siyu by the hand. They vaulted the breastworks the Lasians had built to make the creatures’ advance more difficult. Without stopping, Tunuva climbed on to Ninuru, pulled Siyu with her, and rode straight after Esbar, who had already mounted Jeda.

Lake Jodigo was untouched. During the summer, it could appear as thin and clear as glass, a mirror lying flat against the sunburnt earth. Now the winter rains had swollen it, the water deep and dark. The closer Ninuru came to its shore, the harder the stone hummed against Tunuva, chilling her.

They were far away from the city now, though not too far to stop hearing the screams, human and animal and wyrm. Dedalugun sat on the mountain as if it were his throne, a giant of ancient lore. Its scales could have been hewn from the same rock.

Esbar swung off Jeda and looked towards the wyrm. Tunuva watched as she held up both hands. Her fingertips turned gold.

And then she let her fire erupt.

In more than fifty years, Tunuva had never seen a sister of the Priory unleash her earthly fire with such power. It blazed towards the sun in two pillars of ferocious light, which twisted into one, roaring like wind. Her hands spread wide, the tendons straining in her neck.

Tunuva gazed at her in wonder. It was as if Esbar was drawing the Womb of Fire through her body – as if she herself had become the Dreadmount. Washtu, come again.

Saghul had chosen well.

Siyu summoned natural flame and laced it through the firestorm. It was bright enough to be seen from the city, even in full daylight. The smell of siden soaked the air.

At last, Dedalugun turned. It saw the beacon in the desert, fire not breathed by any wyrm.

‘You see us,’ Esbar hissed. ‘We see you.’

Dedalugun launched himself off Mount Dinduru, displacing snow and rock, and came soaring towards the lake. Tunuva took the white stone from under her tunic. It was cold now, glowing bright, a full moon in her hand.

‘Tuva, hurry,’ Esbar shouted, her hair blowing about her face.

Tunuva held the stone towards Lake Jodigo. An unseen cord tightened between it and the lake, as if she were holding a fishing line. She willed the water to rise from its bed.

Ripples spread across the surface. Not enough, but even that small tug had sapped a great deal of her strength. Dedalugun was hurtling towards them, descending enough that its underside almost grazed the ground. Tunuva clenched her teeth and tried again.

Esbar and Siyu both quenched their flames. Breathing hard, Esbar nocked an arrow to her bow, turning from fire divinity back to human. Except for a glaze of sweat, she looked almost unmoved.

Her arrow struck Dedalugun straight in the eye. Its claws ripped trenches through the earth. Landing hard enough to break the ground, it poured its red fire on Esbar and Siyu, and they wrapped themselves in wardings.

Tunuva gripped the waning jewel. The water stirred, heaved, fell out of her grip. She almost fell with it, shuddering. Dedalugun rounded on her with a roar.

Just when she thought the lake would never move, something drew her gaze up. Flecks of silver rained through the sky, weeping and darting from a broad streak of light – a bearded star with a split tail, longer and brighter than any she had ever seen.

In her hand, the stone turned brilliant white, so cold she almost dropped it in agony. A cold that hurt her fire. Dedalugun had looked skyward as well, but now its fiery gaze returned to her. Tunuva tried to weave a warding, only to find her magic frozen. In all her life, it had never failed to answer her call. Fear stoppered her throat. Her hand ached and shook around the stone. Suddenly it weighed as much as a boulder.

Before she could so much as reach for a weapon, Siyu was there, wrenching at the spear in its breast. She kept hold of it as Dedalugun reared, lifting her from the ground. Siyu braced her boot on its scales and pulled, and when she fell, the spear came with her.

She landed in a crouch. Dedalugun made a sound like the earth grinding. In freeing the spear, Siyu had opened a hole in its armour. The wyrm struck her away, and she lay still on the sand.

‘Siyu,’ Esbar screamed.

Her cry sliced into Tunuva, even as she echoed it, agony clenching her chest. Siyu did not move.

Dedalugun turned back to Tunuva, blood leaking from its eye. It sizzled where it hit the ground. Tunuva backed away. All around her, the world smelled different, like metal. Her own magic was shrinking in her veins, cowed by the comet, but the stone was shining bright enough to come near blinding her. This time, the need to pull was overwhelming.

Lake Jodigo shivered in anticipation of her touch. She looked at Siyu, then the comet.

Smell of iron. Smell of blood.

She remembered pushing, bearing down, as Armul emerged from her, the bricks underfoot, her body toiling. All the while, Esbar had stood at her side, never once letting her go.

Tunuva remembered that feeling with her whole heart, allowing it to fill and wake her every sinew, and turned it on itself. She drew, as if to drag a twisting fish from the Minara. As if to take her child back into her womb, where he could never have been lost.

She drew, and with one mighty pull, Tunuva Melim lifted the lake.

At once, her body ached to its joints, and she would have given anything to sleep. Instead, she imagined the water as the fire she could no longer touch, drawing and gathering it to her will.

At first, it was like lifting a weapon too heavy for arms.

And then, as the stars fell, it was as easy as breathing.

The lake had too much salt in it to sustain any life. She swept it over Dedalugun, and all that heavy water shattered on its wings. She drove it deep into its maw and down its burning throat and right the way through its foul entrails, willing the water to ice. Dedalugun tried to beat its wings, then crashed to the ground, steam venting between its scales, boiled in the furnace of its own belly, its roars and screams drowned by bubbling water.

Esbar ran to where Siyu lay. She snatched up the enchanted spear and charged towards Dedalugun, boots splashing through the flood. Tunuva kept forcing the lake through the wyrm until that loose scale broke away altogether, snapped off by the torrent of lakewater – and Esbar plunged the spear into the flesh beneath, right to its heart.

Dedalugun screamed. With the last of her will, Tunuva lifted what remained of the lake away from Esbar and Siyu before letting it crash back into place, water spraying and roiling. When she looked up, the wyrm lay still, steaming.

By the time Tunuva got to her, Esbar had cradled a soaked Siyu in her arms. She reached for Tunuva, and they wept beneath the bearded star – holding each other, holding the child they both loved.