Chapter V3: Crawl in a Dragon's Mouth and Die |
The bells chased them down the stairs.
Two, two, wings in the blue.
Except the dragons weren’t in the blue, now were they? They were in the city. The castle. The king’s own chair, soon as the one wearing Orin’s face saw fit to take a break from killing.
Aaron, Rose, and Lochlann were behind the rest of those fleeing. The stone stairs below them were incongruously empty, like this was any lazy spring day—just a lull in the market traffic, nothing to be running over. Then they reached the first landing, rounded the first bend, and they’d caught up to them: to the families who’d had to decide who would carry the children, and who the weapons, and the neighbors lending extra arms; to the people who’d taken charge of the choke point ahead, to make sure none were trampled in squeezing through; to the rear guard, who moved heavy rectangular shields aside to Aaron’s little trio pass, never taking their eyes off the descent behind them. The first row had shields braced; the second, swords in hand. They should have had pikes: the good steel ones that were stored in alcoves along all the shelter stairs, the ones that fit into divots in the landings to brace against heavier opponents bearing down. Those pikes had been going missing an awful lot, this spring, and it seemed today was the day it mattered.
Aaron’s foot slid as they came to a stop, just behind the under-equipped rear guard. He didn’t need to look down to see what it was that he’d slipped in. Blood, Rose’s blood, still dripping from her hand, because she’d slit her palm wide escaping her brother’s doppel through a door she’d opened in stone.
Orin’s doppel had not tried to follow. None of the castle dragons had.
“Let me wrap that,” Aaron said, now that they were behind defenses, slim as they were.
The princess gave him her hand. Aaron took a few linen strips from his pocket pharmacy and did it up as best as he could, which was decent. It had still bled through near before he was done. She’d need stitches, next they had time for them.
Behind them, the choke point was clearing as more of the townsfolk made it down the next flight. Aaron didn’t bother with more than a glance to it; he knew Rose wouldn’t be joining that queue. Not until all the rest were through. Blood nobles, and their inbreed insanity.
“Are you going to use that?” Second Lieutenant Lochlann Varghese asked, eyeing the sword at Aaron’s hip.
“It’s not sharp,” warned Aaron, but he handed the practice blade over all the same. Dull was better than nothing, and the lieutenant had left his own blade barring the council chamber doors in the castle. Lochlann joined Rose on her other side at the rear guard, because he was crazy, too.
Humanity’s defenses should have begun on the stairs themselves. Should have begun in the uptown, truly, but they were clearly past that. The shelter stairs were scattered evenly throughout the city, in side-streets and cul-de-sacs kept always clear, even when merchant caravans cluttered the streets. Each plunged steeply into the plateau; each turned sharply, two or more times, at broad landings that allowed for grouped defenses against the narrower stairs above and behind. Landings with little armories all their own, in case the uptowners had been forced to flee without their bulkier weapons. Everyone would have sword or dagger or salt on them always, of course; but pikes and bows, shields and incendiary devices tended to be left at home.
Each bend turned the staircase narrower, tightened the passage, caused the kind of crowding they were seeing now. Because the shelter stairs had been built before evacuating a whole city downwards had been a concern. The tunnels carved below were meant to be the city. And these stairs were meant to be the first kill box. But the slits above the stairs where militia could drop rocks or shoot from were empty, save for the smoke coming through. There’d been ballistae there. Should have been. Aaron had been working all spring with the Captain of the Guard to get them ready. He’d told the man to check his ranks for dragons.
The stairs were clearing behind them. The rear guard took their shields with them when their time came, wisely not relying on the next landing’s armory to have what they needed. Two turnings later, they reached First Down.
No dragons had followed. No need, when they were already here.
The smell of smoke had grown stronger with each landing. Before their own rear guard had even reached the bottom, others of humanity’s militia had already tried to retake the defensive rooms carved above the stairs; they were coming back now, holding cloth to nose and mouth, coughing as they shook their heads. Whatever was up there wasn’t worth saving.
Everyone who could evacuate down Queen’s Stair with them already had. It would have been standard procedure to seal the stairs at this point, to stop any enemies coming down after them. With their own defenses set ablaze ahead of them, the militia wisely refrained from nailing themselves in a coffin with a corpse fly: they left the way clear. For all the good it would do them, or all the ill.
“We need better weapons,” Lochlann said, Aaron’s dull practice sword still in hand. “All of us do.”
But the armory on First Down—significantly better stocked than its staircase cousins—was just as ablaze as the defensive rooms, and whether dragon tar burned hot enough to ruin the metal inside was of little consequence at this moment, when it would burn long enough to keep the humans out. The smoke billowed over the low ceilings, forcing their group past in a crouch.
“Where do we go?” asked Rose, who’d only been down here once in her life. She knew Salt’s Mane better than she did her own city.
“The food stores,” Aaron said, because he had his priorities, and no one else had a better idea. There was a fair deal of food stored down here, in case of famine or siege.
There was a fair big dragon sitting outside the granary. It had shoved the length of its body, tucked wings included, back into the tunnel behind it, and was presenting its broad-scaled belly to those who came near. Its eyes were half-lidded, ready to snap shut should it spot any drawn bows among its admirers. Otherwise it was just… sitting.
Just controlling all access to the bulk of their food stores, after friends of its had done for any weapons that might persuade a dragon to move.
It was a big one. Second year, at least; maybe even third. There was no way it had gotten down the stairs as anything but a human.
Their evacuees had reached the others now, those who’d come from other stairs, those who lived down here, those who’d come down for lunch and were only now realizing that anything they’d left in the uptown might well be forfeit. At least it was anything, not anyone: it was getting hard to move with how many bodies there were about, which rather implied that most bodies had made it down safely.
Aaron pushed his way towards the center, making sure Rose and Lochlann were with him. Their group, bafflingly, mostly kept with them.
“Excuse me, sorry, excuse me,” one of the fellows with the shields was saying, squeezing down a hall turned to the side as he tried to make himself small while carrying about a great hunk of wood.
Each level of the lower town was built around its center. The open heart of the plateau, where the tunnels opened to walkways that ringed the great cavern inside, with their railings letting anyone and everyone stop to admire the view. Probably it had been a proud thing, once; the safe haven the O’Shea’s had build. The old castle. It hung from the heart like some silkworm’s great cocoon, its filaments the bridges and pillars that connected it to the river below and all the levels of Twokins below. It wasn’t lit by any fire, but it was never hard to see. No matter how crowded the tunnels were getting, there wasn’t a single soul stepping foot on those bridges.
The castle itself was huge; the space around it greater still. A perfect place for flying.
The dragons were gliding in lazy loops.
The dragons were watching the humans at the railings, even as the humans watched back.
The dragons were diving to harry anyone who dared try for the stairs to Fourth Down.
The lower town had been carved over hundreds of years by humanity: to suit their needs, to protect them, to seal them safely away. But that safety only fully extended to Third Down; at Fourth began the rough-hewn tunnels and natural caves of Twokins proper. There were exits to the outside there, for those that could find them. The dragons weren’t harassing those mustering on First Down, or Second, or Third. Only those daring to go lower. The dragons were trying to keep their new-caught humans snug in this jar of their own making.
One of them flew too close to the old castle. Didn’t even touch it, but its wingtip crossed some line in the air that the old castle couldn’t tolerate, and suddenly the creature was spasming in the air. It managed to catch itself on a lower bridge, hindquarters just brushing the river below, and drag itself up before the currents or the Minnow’s relatives could make do for it.
And there was the real defense down here. The thing that had used to keep humanity safe, before they’d carved out ballistae rooms above their staircases or added in their cute little weapons alcoves. Word was, the castle used to protect the whole of the plateau. But that was centuries ago. The Letforget had been let forget. And here they were now.
Aaron took a breath in, and let it out slow. Whatever was happening here, it was clear the dragons weren’t trying to kill them just this instant. They were taking their time with whatever this plan of theirs was. So Aaron could, too, if slightly less.
“Come on,” he said, and pushed away from the rail. Rose called behind her, getting the others to follow them. Which wasn’t his intent, but it didn’t hurt any, so long as she didn’t try that blood noble always-the-last thing here. As Aaron was the only one who knew where they were going, and he’d sacrificed one of his arms to holding onto hers, he managed to keep her from indulging in her family’s self-sacrificial streak. Lochlann, not being a blood noble to begin with, raised no protest in staying right behind them.
The dragons were watching the main stairs, the big ones that ran right by the center, where they could see without landing. Aaron hadn’t frequented the main stairs since he was five.
He led Rose and Lochlann and their winding following back into the side tunnels. Into a tavern, through the kitchen, and down the rough one-man not-strictly-legal stairs that led to its storeroom below. Then they were through the even less legal side-door into a gambling den behind someone’s home tunnel, and out into Second Down via the same someone’s living room.
They had to cross in front of the open center again. But they were on Second Down, hardly at risk of escaping whatever trap this was, and the dragons paid them no particular mind as they passed in front of the railings. They could have turned here, could have crossed one of the many bridges to the old castle itself—but that was no place for humans, anymore than it was for dragons. The O’Shea’s had sealed it and sealed it remained. The dragon who’d brushed too close earlier was stretching its wing, in and out and in, like shaking off a pain.
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Across the way and back up a level, some of those who’d come from another part of the city were trying to put out the fire in the armory. Another group was trying to force the dragon from the food stores. The former was meeting with some success; the latter was meeting only dragonly indulgence, as the great beastie simply kept the bulk of its body jammed in their way no matter how they prodded at it. It had only spat tar at them twice. Even if by some stroke they managed to kill it, they’d still have to move it. Good luck there.
Aaron lead his two people back into the safety of stone on all sides; the others followed, like ducklings after the wrong mother. The tunnels held no light save that made by people. Lamplight slipped around the edges of door curtains, or spilled out where they’d been pushed to the side; those marked little stores with someone’s family rooms right behind them, restaurants or communal stoves, or simply someone not adverse to unexpected company. Aaron had earned a few meals when he was younger, dropping in to help some father wrangling laundry and toddlers both, or keeping old grandmothers company while the rest of their family was away. Not generally on Second Down; most strict-kept humans hadn’t liked the look of him, on Second Down. But Third and below followed much the same rules for visitors, and were more welcoming besides. Near every door was drawn aside, now; neighbors and those from the upper town squeezed together in nearly every opening, even more packed here than they’d been on First Down, and getting louder by the minute with opinions instead of actions. Aaron kept moving, and his kept following.
There was a crack in the wall near the church to Man’s God. It didn’t look like much: dark at this end, the kind of dark that usually meant a crack was closed on the other end. Aaron shimmied down it first, and moved aside the wadded blanket that kept light from shining through. And felt a pang of guilt, for showing to humanity’s militia a path that had saved many a Face a beating. Or at least, delayed it. But he still stood in the shaft, while parents lowered their children down to him. Rose refused such assistance, and made the climb herself. And when she missed the footing and fell, well. It was a short drop by then, and a good lesson in not moving until she was sure of her grip. Better to learn it before they went deeper.
“This is why I found you in the church last fall,” said Lochlann, and not as a question. “Why you turned up there, instead of anywhere else.”
“It was a safe place for hiding,” Aaron said, which was as close to a prayer of gratitude as he was ever like to give.
Those with shields had to abandon them on the level above; Aaron had them tuck the bulky things behind the statue of Man’s God, in case of future need. When they were all through, he shoved the blanket back in place. Which left him standing rear guard. If the uptowners thought he was guarding them, instead of the interests of all the Faces who might yet come this way, that was on them.
They were on Third Down now. It wasn’t near as packed as Second; on Third, there were those that knew how to evacuate quick and quiet, when they had to. Aaron’s ducklings didn’t have to cross by the center to reach the blacksmith’s. Her forge wasn’t large enough for everyone to follow him in. Not that they needed too; he was only checking the place. Her forge was still lit, but already cooler than she’d have had it for working. Her favorite tools were gone, everything except the anvil and her molds.
“How do we get down to the next level?” asked Rose, who’d come in after him. Asked it like she had complete confidence in his ability to manifest another short cut. He couldn’t. Well, he could: when the forge was fully cooled, there’d be its chimney they could crawl through, if going out onto the sheer face of the plateau’s cliff were appealing. But as for another convenient little slip from one level to the next: no. No, the militia worked too hard at plugging the holes between Third and Fourth Down for that; between the levels the uptowners came to shop in, or shelter in through the winter, and Twokins, where the rats reigned. They’d all have to be smaller than this to fit the cracks that remained.
Speaking of: Aaron moved aside the cloth that marked off the blacksmith’s forge from her home, and stepped into the little room beyond. It joined up with her neighbor’s larger home. He’d never been clear on if she was related to them, or had simply inherited a home already linked to theirs, and adjusted her definition of family accordingly. He stepped over the bedding of six children and five adults, and back into their pantry. They did their actual cooking back in the forge room, he knew—most of her immediate neighbors did, and she’d built a brick oven against the forge’s side for the purpose. No no sense wasting all that heat. But the pantry was over here, to keep it cool.
It was less empty than he’d have figured. Only the family’s emergency bags were gone—they’d not had enough warning to make off with the rest, then. No mind: on Third Down, so close to Fourth, most knew that wasn’t their job. Not in a true emergency.
There was a squeak from the back as he entered. And a little jump, from a startled black form that went darting into a chink in the wall near as soon as Aaron had spied it.
He crouched down. “Well met. Does the marquise know they’re trying to block the granaries?”
The little rat stuck just its nose back out, whiskers quivering. It gave an equally little nod.
“Good,” Aaron said, and no more need be said. He stood, and left, and nearly ran into Rose peering in behind him.
“Was that a doppel?” Rose asked, from behind him. And, “What am I saying, of course it was, it understood you so of course.”
Aaron didn’t correct her; it wasn’t as if he could always tell a doppel just by looking, either. Not that he saw how understanding mattered; he’d never met a rat who couldn’t understand. Though it was only the doppels he expected to speak back.
“Who’s the marquise?” she asked, but he’d already given enough secrets away to uptowners for the moment. He’d spill that one if and when it became necessary.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Third Down wasn’t so extensively tunneled as First and Second. He could pick a stair out of sight from the center, but he couldn’t pick a route that kept them out of sight. They had to pass in front of the railings. And they were a large group, much larger than Aaron wanted to be responsible for.
One of the littler dragons flew past as they crossed through the open-sided hall. Then turned, in a tighter loop, and passed again. Whether it recognized them as the same group that had seemingly skipped from First to Third Down without using stairs; whether they were moving with too much purpose; whether whatever, it settled its foreclaws and chest on the rail, body dangling behind it, and stuck its head down their hallway. Men and women shied past it; one brave toddler reached over its father’s shoulder towards its snout, babbling the only nonsense syllable it had, dadada, and got firmly pressed back into its father’s chest. The burbling turned to screaming, then. Better an unhappy child than a new dragon doppel.
Across the open center, Aaron caught a glimpse of what the larger dragons were up to now. A glimpse was enough: they were prying up boulders from the river’s edge and the rougher walls below, and shoving them into the main stairs between Third and Fourth. A neat trick, that, fine as sifting weevils from flour: most types of doppels that lived here could wiggle right through the cracks they’d left, leaving only the strict-kept humans trapped up here.
His group turned a corner. The dragon watched them, shifting through colors in the way Aaron was almost entirely sure meant speech. Whatever this one was saying, the message was made of alternating flashes of cloud white and sky blue that took up the whole of its wings, and seemed just the thing to catch quite a bit of attention.
They turned another corner, and the stair was just ahead of them. And the sound of a dragon scrabbling to join them in their hall was just behind them. The humans in the rear were making unhappy human noises, which were distinct from other animals’ sounds simply because Aaron could understand the curses being thrown.
The dragon rounded the corner, and it was stepping over their group, rather delicately picking where to put its feet next and then simply shoving the people under it to the ground with its weight. They seemed fine enough in its wake, but they certainly weren’t happy in the moment. Nor was the dragon, when it saw the stairs ahead. Aaron had gotten the first of their group down by then, but stupid Rose was a stupid blood noble and waiting to be stupid last, waiting for all these people Aaron didn’t care about to be safe ahead of her—
The dragon flashed white. It was a lot less delicate in picking its footing as it surged forward, shoving the rest of them back as blocked the stairs with its body. It was a little dragon, but that still made it three or four horse lengths.
They had one dull sword and three daggers between them. And whatever else the militia carried, but they weren’t Aaron’s. The dragon had two large and unarmored eyes, forced down near to them by the low ceiling. Aaron very much appreciated having Lochlann and Rose with him, but wished he had some of his old friends here, as well. A real Kindly Soul—a real assassin—would have found this entirely too easy.
They could try another stair, but there was no guarantee it wouldn’t go exactly like this. Or be blocked by stones before they ever got there. They could let themselves stay penned in the upper levels, like the dragons clearly wanted; wait around complacently, and see what had been planned for them.
Yeah, no.
“I’m going to do something stupid,” Aaron said.
“If you already know it’s stupid…” Lochlann said. It seemed an argument they’d had before, and not one Aaron had lost.
“Get her through. I can find another way,” he said, and held the lieutenant’s gaze until the man nodded. Which earned him Rose’s outrage, but that wasn’t Aaron’s problem. The dragon was.
He didn’t need to kill it. Just… get it to move enough so that Lochlann could pull Rose through. Even if he couldn’t follow, he could wait things out in any of a dozen hidey-holes. His old spots would be a tighter squeeze now that he’d spent near a year feasting like a lordling, but he’d manage. In a few day’s time the blacksmith’s forge would be cool, and he could find out where its chimney led.
Right. He’d fought dragons before, and this was the smallest of the lot; he’d just… do it again. Without his sister’s backup, this time. Because she—
He wasn’t thinking about that right now. He was charging a dragon, who had to have heard them talking, but was still surprised. Not surprised enough to let him take its eye. It shut them tight even as he used its elbow as a stepping stone up to its neck. Its long neck, that twisted around so that he was facing sharp teeth instead of stabable eyes, and the only reason it didn’t snap him in half right then was likely because it was under orders not to harm its king’s new humans unless necessary. Aaron’s level of threat did not yet rate a “necessary.”
The last two times he’d fought a dragon directly, he’d gone for eyes and wings—those were about the only areas a fellow could stab with just a dagger, unless he wanted to make like his sister and shove a blade into its mouth. But this one had closed its eyes and canted them away from them besides, and shifted its wings back were the low ceiling protected them, and trying to work his dagger between two scales just gave it enough time to scrape him off with its muzzle. Gently, even, just to rub it in. And then it pinned him down with a taloned foot, and overall looked like it wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. Or with Lochlann and his dull sword drawn for a fight he couldn’t win, or Rose and her ornate dagger and still-bleeding hand. And her fey mark.
The dragon paused, its colors shifting wine-red and splotchy on a background of white. Then it carefully smoothed its scales to what seemed its natural peach tones, and bowed its head respectfully to her.
“Oh for…” The princess straightened herself up. “If you care not to offend me, move aside.”
Its colors rippled uneasily, but it did not move.
“They’re coming,” someone called, at the junction where their hall met the open-sided one. “They’ve stones to block the way.”
“Retreat?” Lochlann asked. His eyes were on the dragon, but his words were for Aaron. Or possibly Rose. Aaron was still rather pinned, and his stupid idea had turned out even stupider outside his head, and probably he should let her make the call, seeing as he wasn’t sure he’d be able to join them.
The dragon was also waiting on her answer, until it wasn’t: there was a thump-crack, like stone plates shattering. It jerked. Its leg pressed down and its claws pressed in and Aaron couldn’t move couldn’t breathe—
But he was looking up, which was the perfect direction to see the little stoat squeezing through the gap between the dragon’s wings and the ceiling, then up its neck. The stoat’s fur was brown and white with its newly grown summer coat. A bit patchy, though, particularly around its paws. Even patchier when it shifted to human. The change was flicker-quick, starting from one paw; which meant the dragon saw a dagger in the stoat doppel’s hand before it ever saw the man behind it. And then it wasn’t seeing much. It bellowed, thrashed; the man kicked off from its head, the speed even greater when it flickered back to a stoat. Aaron had never understood why, but a big thing suddenly made small moved fast. Then the stoat was clear, and the dragon bashing its own head against the ceiling, and Lochlann had rushed to use his sword to lever its foot up because he was an idiot and Rose was pulling Aaron clear because he’d not taught her any survival instincts.
The three of them had just stumbled clear when, with another of those thump-cracks, the dragon jerked. Stilled. And slumped, lifeless, to the floor.
It had two crossbow bolts in its rib cage, rather neatly clustered together.
On the stair case behind it, the blacksmith squinted up at her handiwork, one eye covered by its patch, even as she fitted another bolt to something suspiciously like an enclave crossbow.
The stoat doppel hopped up on the dragon’s side and strolled, human again, to examine the bolt wounds. “First barely broke the scales, much less the ribs. Second was just a lucky shot. You sure you’ve got the tension on that thing right?”
The blacksmith’s reply was less than polite. The doppel was still grinning as he turned, and looked at those he’d just saved.
Aaron smiled, an arm wrapped around his ribs. “Hey, Clev.”
Clever Hands also smiled. “Crawl in a dragon’s mouth and die, Aaron.”