Pirate and King, chapter seven

7

Shouting armed guards and eerie justiciars cleared a path as the new heirs made their way through a shattered and burning city. Chaos and death were everywhere. An eye-watering, acrid stench filled the hot, surging air. Mages, local officials and rescue teams did their best, but the damage was severe, having spread from Five Points with tidal-wave force.

A dozen airships soared overhead, dropping fire-bane in long and drifting blue clouds. War bells tolled without ceasing as one region after another cried out for help. Valerian was led through the city along with the rest of the family. Not his choice. He wanted to leave… but he couldn’t. Not while a muttered spell might beat back the flames engulfing a row of houses. Not while there was any way at all he could help. Magic was hard to control, the manna grown suddenly scarcer, but fire was still his ally, and it listened. In theory. With Firelord trapped, the rapacious element was free to do as it wished, and what it wanted to do was burn.

Flames leapt from rooftop to woodpile to garden, flaring through alleys and into the homes. Valerian rushed to confront it, transporting himself directly into the path of that roaring blaze. An elemental figure formed inside of the firestorm, leaning down to peer at him, glowing intensely, blistering hot.

‘Why do you bar me, servant of Flame?’ It crackled aloud.

“Because people are trapped, and I would allow them time to escape,” he explained, as bits of fire rained down to flicker and dance on his shoulders and hair.

‘They are fuel,’ said the elemental, in a voice like a collapsing roof. The elemental’s will strove against the elf’s fading magical power, seeking to force its way through.

“No,” insisted Valerian, stepping forward aggressively. “Open a path. Let them out!”

‘To stop is to die, Servant of Flame,’ replied the elemental, growing still taller as it pulled in fire from all over Karellon. ‘Need more fuel.’

The blaze closed in from three sides, snapping paving stones and charring the buildings to ash. Try as he might, Valerian wasn’t able to stop the fire alone. All he could do was to make it keep circling, while the crowd of frenzied people trapped inside ran this way and that. Some tried to fly, but they hadn’t enough manna and just ended up crashing back onto the ground. Then Val’s grandparents arrived, adding their power to his. See, Galadin, too, had borne Firelord, while Alyanara was semi-divine… and they could not have been any more needed or welcome.

"Enough!" snapped Lord Galadin, while his lady rose high overhead, weaving spells with the skill of a goddess.

Working together, the three elves forced back that hissing and spitting red wall. The elemental flared and roared, fighting back. It swiped at the elves with fiery limbs, nearly overwhelming their magic and shields. Aly looped and dodged high above it. Glowing like a star, Illyrian's lady chanted aloud in a pure, clear voice, keeping the pressure on that rampaging flame-spirit, sapping its heat and light. Val and Galadin wove spells of command, meanwhile, working to dispell the fiery creature. One elf, it might have defeated. Three were too much. The blazing elemental retreated, then shattered to millions of drifting sparks, allowing a few hundred people to flee with their lives. For some, the help was too late. In the market quarter there was nothing to do but speak words of release over heaps of charred brick and seared corpses. Only the combined efforts of Galadin, Alyanara and Val prevented a total inferno. They, and that swooping fleet.

“You’ve taken the mark?” asked Galadin, after he, Val and Aly drove back another roaring conflagration, this one bearing down on Riverside. Galadin was the Sword Arm of Firelord, a connection that still carried weight, for the god wasn’t drained to a husk or dead, like the others. Just trapped at the heart of reality.

Val had been using Alfea’s spear to help direct magical force, making the weapon almost a wizard’s staff. Now, as their guards called a halt to remove another obstruction, he touched the spear to the ground point-downward, causing his magical barrier to grow even wider. Then, as Aly bent to scoop up a wailing child, Val answered his granddad’s question.

“No, Sir,” he said. “Not officially. But in another plane, a version of me has served as the Shining One’s arm.” (And the shrunken god’s last follower, at one point.)

Galadin nodded. The ‘mark’ he referred to was a carved and branded tattoo, blazing clear though armor and cloth. Val could see it, and he felt the tingling start of a similar mark, beginning to form on his own chest. Firelord wasn’t entirely gone, and that made all the difference.

Galadin had noticed his grandson’s emerging tattoo, and he smiled. (Both of them looked half-wild, silvery hair and blond blown about by the constant updrafts and tipped in glittering sparks. But, thanks to Firelord, they were harder to burn than water.)

“Bear it in honor, Valerian,” said his granddad. “I would not have predicted that you’d be the one to inherit the mark, but I’m proud that you’ve chosen to follow this path.”

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Noise and commotion from up the street prevented Val from responding with more than a very deep bow. He wasn’t… he’d never been good at expressing emotion, but his grandfather’s words and evident pride were tucked away in a warm golden box of their own. For later, when he had time to react.

Alexion had been away clearing debris from their route, helping to lift beams and rubble off trapped people with Keldaran and Reston. Now the former exile crossed back to rejoin the weary fire-crew. His expression and posture were tense; his aura snapping with restless, barely pent rage.

“They’ve opened a gate,” said Alexion, sounding grim and upset. “The way is still blocked, and it’s another five miles to the palace, but I’d rather walk or fly the distance on Vernax than trust to justiciar magic.”

Valerian glanced up at the soaring dragon, whose golden scales reflected red firelight high overhead. Every so often Vernax and Sawyer landed on one of the airships, causing their hapless perch to dip and veer, dropping fire-bane on Low Town and the warehouse district, instead of just spraying the noble quarter. There was a lot of yelling up there, with taunts and jeers from patrolling Quetzali.

“I can fly, Sir,” offered Valerian. “At least, I could… Manna is harder to work with, now, but I think I can follow you through the air, especially with Sawyer helping to lift me.”

Alexion grunted. The gate he’d spoken of flickered and glowed like a puddle of sunlit water laid on its end. Five, maybe six yards away across broken rubble and charred, piled-up wagons. Alexion’s green eyes went to Alyanara, who’d gotten that lost little boy calmed and quiet. The prince cleared his throat.

“You’re an heir, Aly,” he said to her. “The next in line after me, and I don’t want anything to do with that cursed dragt throne. Can you fly or levitate? If you can’t, Vernax might be able to carry two full-sized riders.”

It was the longest speech he’d addressed to her yet. Distant and stiff, but something. Aly patted Sten’s heaving back. (That was the little boy’s name. He was four years old and couldn’t find mummy and dad, but the lovely elf had found him.) She lifted her head to meet Alexion’s gaze, radiant even while surrounded by terror and death. There was so much to say, but what came out was,

“I am able to fly, Father.”

Alexion seemed to relax a bit. Maybe he’d been gruff because he expected her to reject him as had Kaazin, his half-drow son? She didn’t know. Couldn’t ask in front of so many others. Instead, Aly continued,

“I can remain behind long enough to anchor the gate for the others. I have enough power for that. Once they’ve gone through… Kel, Reston… my lord, if you please…” (Galadin nodded assent. Their ranks had reversed, but Aly remained polite.) “…Once everyone’s through, I will join you and Val in the air, Father.”

“And me,” cut in Alfea. She did not have to hide her true nature any longer, for the gods and their laws were no more. Fee was a Quetzali princess, with stained-glass butterfly wings and the lower body of a beautiful, feathered serpent. Very much, she could fly. “I will help to keep Valerian out of trouble.”

Aly smiled at her violet-haired granddaughter-in-law.

“Famously a thankless and difficult task,” she joked lightly.

(Which wasn’t fair. He got into no more trouble than Lerendar did, or Uncle Reston, and it was safer not even to mention Granddad’s antics.)

Alexion ignored the humor, not knowing them well enough to respond in kind. He just nodded, saying,

“Works for me.”

Then one of the red-robed justiciars drifted back to speed them along. Alexion’s face hardened. His green eyes narrowed to glowering slits.

“Pray to your dead gods that nothing goes wrong with that gate, vulture,” he snarled, leaning forward. “I meant what I said at Five Points. I’ll scrape Karellon down to the bedrock if even one of my people comes to harm.”

“There will be no irregularities, Highness,” whispered the masked justiciar, lifting a hand to point at the sparkling gate.

Vernax had sensed Alexion’s need. The dragon came banking down from on high with Sawyer; the pair of them weaving and darting like swallows. They landed with a combined KER-THUMP, filling that littered roadway with a storm of membranous, shiny gold wings and russet feathers.

Sawyer pounced like a cat. Butted his beaked head against Val, who reached up to scratch behind the griffin’s pointed ears. The slight brimstone and monster stench didn’t bother him a bit.

“Feel like exploring the palace, Drumstick?” he whispered, anchoring himself to the ground by tapping a ley-line. At that point, a tree would have been easier to knock over than Val.

The griffin screeched, grooming Valerian’s ash-blond hair and right shoulder with a beak that could have bitten an armored fighter in half at the waist. That was maybe a “yes” in Sawyer-talk.

Meanwhile, Alexion had already embraced and greeted Vernax, then swung himself up on the dragon’s ridged back. Val watched them launch, shifting his gaze when his father came over to join him.

“To each his own, said the lady as she kissed her troll,” remarked red-haired Keldaran, shaking his head. Then, “Be careful, son. Griffins are touchy, and this one is young.”

Keldaran’s mount Raider was back at Illyrian, but dad was an experienced rider and knew what he was talking about. Val nodded. Maybe someday, he’d be able to look at his father and not see a severed, slack-jawed head, held up by its tangled hair, dripping blood. Maybe.

“I’ll remember your lessons, Dad,” he said, putting a hand forth to touch Keldaran’s warm, living arm. “Meet you up at the palace.”

Uncle Reston sauntered over and tousled his hair with a big, rough hand. Reston hated griffins and wouldn’t have anything to do with the creatures, being a horseman through and through. He was a half-elf, feen Galadin, by the mortal woman Lana, but mostly raised by Alyanara.

The lovely demigoddess came to stand with her “boys”, Keldaran and Reston. Leaning forward, she kissed Val’s forehead, sending power and healing surging clear through him and on into Sawyer. The griffin rattled low in its throat, a deeply contented sound.

By this time, Vernax was just a glittery spot, high and off to the west. It was time to go, but Valerian waited while Alfea rigged a sling for the baby. Then, with his wife back in her (still surprising) real form, he called on the faltering manna around him and flew.

The city dropped spinning away underneath him as Valerian rose in the turbulent wake of Vernax. It would have been quick to catch up, only Sawyer wanted to play. The griffin shrieked wildly, dashing and swooping around Val, who did his best to match the young predator’s moves. (Yes, he was in a hurry. No, you do not simply ignore a sportive griffin in flight. Not if you value your limbs.)

Slower than he would have liked, they banked off west to the palace… or what remained of it. There, he’d face the Grand Council and hopefully prevent Alexion from taking his longed-for revenge.