Song of the Dragoons

The route we took to the gate was fairly circuitous. We decided on walking, seeing as how the others would probably be a while longer anyway, and we wanted to get personally familiar with the layout of the city. Grace had already been here a couple times before, and was able to give us a rough outline of where we were and where we were going. While we had stepped out of the cathedral into the Chapel Ward, where the city's clergy lived amongst glittering fountains and polished cobblestones, we almost immediately went into the Goldenrod Ward, where a large portion of the city's middle lived. Even though she described the people of this ward as being "something like Vandermaine", the city itself still surprised me. It almost felt like the city was built on top of itself; there was a lot of vertical navigation going up and down stairs, and there were even a few lower or higher landings that were only accessible via ladders. The streets were cramped, but reasonably clean here. We didn't see that many people out and about, but those that were seemed moderately well-to-do, like artisans or managers at a factory, wearing slightly thicker trousers and buttoned shirts now that summer was nearing its end.

We stopped by the cliffside while Emrys inquired around a loose collection of bakeries, meat markets, and grocers about where we might be able to find someone to supply the castle. There was a tall iron fence lining the edge of the cliff, its top covered in sharp spikes that would hopefully keep reckless kids from climbing over and falling. The floor of the gorge was some five hundred feet below, choked with dilapidated buildings that seemed to rise high out of necessity rather than grandeur. A kind of three-dimensional road system linked the flat roofs with lower balconies and towers, dense to the point I couldn't see the actual ground anywhere. The ornamental flourishes of the architecture up here were completely absent down there, with most structures consisting of shoddy brickwork and cracked clay shingles.

"It's the old city," said Grace. "They say it's where Yorving first began, but it's been more or less abandoned by everyone on the cliffs."

«I can see,» I said. And smell, too. A normal human probably couldn't detect the foul vapours of tanning chemicals, waste water, mould, and rot from all the way up here, but I could. And over all of it was a thick miasma of blood scent. It wasn't good-smelling blood, either. It smelled rotten, like that monster on the mountain. Sweet in a wretched way.

Grace gave me a nudge. "Hey. I gave you some time to yourself, but now that it's been two days…how are you feeling? About the night before last?"

I sighed. «I…don't really know what else to say about it,» I said. «I'm getting pretty tired of having to fight off a demon in my brain just to act normal. And I really hate the idea that it can make me transform in my sleep. And…» I swallowed hard thinking about my next words. «It's really feeling like there isn't anything I can do to stop this, either. Brand told me that I just need to fight it, but fighting it feels like it just makes the thing stronger. That's what I did then. I felt it in my head and tried to force it out, and it just took over anyway.»

Grace leaned up against the fence, looking up at the noonday sky. "Well, maybe fighting it isn't the answer."

«Like you'd know better than the dragon who's dealt with this her whole life.» I shook my head. «Sorry, I…that was rude. I just feel like Brand is probably the expert here.»

Grace shrugged. "Expert or not, her advice clearly isn't working. Maybe you just need a different approach. Maybe, since it seems to come out when you're angry, you should try being…less forceful. Letting it go, instead of cutting it out."

«I'll try anything at this rate. I just want to be done with it. Linus said we might be able to make a cure if we can get another one of those stones, but you and I both know how likely that is. I…urgh.» I stepped away from the fence. The headache that that incense at the cathedral gave me was gone, but that putrid blood scent was bringing on a new one. I saw Emrys heading back from the shops, and I shook out my wings as I urged Grace towards him, hoping that the disturbance of air would blow some of the scent away.

«I'll be fine,» I whispered only to Grace, before speaking up to Emrys as well. «If we're finished, we should go. I don't want to be the ones holding everyone else up.»

Grace frowned, prompting a quizzical look from Emrys, but we kept on. Though the streets meandered, it was a pretty straight shot to the gate, entirely uneventful, though we did see some interesting sights along the way. First was a rail station, which made Emrys suddenly very excited and he babbled on about the intricacies of rail travel and its rise since the fall of the empire up until the second thing, which were two more of those "chasseurs" we saw in Bryn Corben. Grace and I shared a look after they passed us by, but didn't stop for them. Hopefully, we would be able to mutually ignore each other.

The south gate was a busy one, with a steady flow of traffic in the roads both inside and outside. The most that could be seen for a customs checkpoint were a handful of guards that pulled any obviously cargo-carrying visitors aside after entering to check their belongings, so we just hopped over the wall. Oddly, it seemed like a lot of the traffic away from Yorving were visitors who were getting turned away; maybe to control the spread of the Scourge?

The road just outside the walls was bordered with soft grass fields on either side, which were entirely empty of people. Grace, Emrys, and I claimed one near the cliffs overlooking the lake. I'd been able to catch distant glimpses of Lake Amarclere as we had flown north from Bryn Corben, and seen it from afar when we went to the castle, but this was the first time I was really able to sit and take it in. There was a quality to it similar to what I had felt in the sea. As it stretched out over the horizon, it prompted one to ponder what sorts of things could lie beneath its placid surface. Just staring at it made me feel like I was sinking.

The way it glimmered in the sun was enough disturbance to keep me from becoming lost in thought as I had at the ocean for the hour or so it took for the rest of the flight to arrive, more or less all at once. They set down one after another, all the dragons lying in a loose ring around our partners to rest.

«Wish I could say we had a productive outing,» I started. «The archvicar is…»

"Not going to be useful to us," Emrys finished. "Bastard…."

I gave a slight, annoyed shrug. «He doesn't seem concerned with the city's problems in general, apart from using them as a whip for the people who listen to his speeches. So the best we really learned is to avoid him going forward unless absolutely necessary.» I looked around at the others. «Hopefully the rest of you got something a little more substantial.»

«We got a map.» Arthur nudged Rosalie with his tail, prompting her to unroll a more detailed map of the city and its surroundings. A few things immediately stood out on it—especially a village in the woods to the north that I hadn't seen marked on any of our other maps—but it was definitely something to study in more detail later.

"We've uncovered much of the problem, actually," said Yura. "Ingo, Brand, Griffin, and I visited the Bellflower Quarter on the north side. The residents were…somewhat mistrustful, but we managed to get some word on the Butcher. Apparently she kills in the Old Quarter, down the cliff. None of the people in the Bellflower Quarter had actually seen the pillories—we got…what is the saying?"

«"The runaround",» answered Griffin.

"Yes, that," agreed Yura. "We were sent to the Dock Ward. I think they were just trying to get us to leave, but some of the dock workers had actually seen the pillories, near an old church in the lower Old Quarter. They said that new ones appear there every night."

«We didn't actually go into the Old Quarter,» Griffin quickly tacked on. «It sounds dangerous. Scary. That's where a lot of the fiends are.»

"We heard that part from the vicar," said Grace.

Rosalie retrieved her map again. "There is one church marked in the Old Quarter," she said, handing the map over to Grace.

"'The Church of the Saintly Ewer'?" Grace read. "Sounds Cèlisian. Wonder if the vicar knows about them being terrorised by the Butcher."

"Probably," Emrys muttered.

«If we know she goes there every night, then this should be pretty easy,» I said, a simple plan forming in my head. «Get there before sundown with some traps, set them up around where the pillories are, ambush the Butcher when she gets there.» I paused. «Actually, "she"? Did you find anyone who knows who the Butcher is? Might help us track her down.»

"The people were not open to much questioning," said Ingo. "It was a struggle to get them to tell us what they did. The only reason we know that part is because that's what they called her by, but they wouldn't say anything else." He let out an irritated huff. "It was almost like they didn't want her gone."

«Hmm.» I turned that over in my mind. The possibility that someone like the vicar had put in the alert about a killer was raised. That whoever she was, the "murderer" accusations were an exaggeration, or something of the sort put out to tarnish her reputation, and maybe those of the people associated with her. The vicar definitely seemed like the kind of person who'd make a false accusation like that.

«We'll need to be careful not to kill her,» I said. «I want this sorted out before we make any decisions we can't take back.» I looked to Arthur. «You're a trapper. You know how to make any traps that would be useful here?»

«I know several traps,» said Arthur, «…but I would need tools and supplies to make them. Preferably a workshop, too. We can probably just buy some small clamp traps. They'll hurt, badly, but shouldn't cause permanent damage. Though, I'm going to say to you now that it's pretty difficult to make sure a trap can hurt something without leaving a nasty mark if you're dealing with something small, like a human. We're…they're, I guess, pretty fragile. Bigger clamp traps would just take your leg off, and caltrops aren't much better.»

«Right,» I said. «Hopefully we'll have things that are a little less murky in the future. But for now, "clamp traps" will do. Worst case, we can…give a little of whatever our pay ends up being to make sure she gets good medicine, if she ends up being innocent.» I stood, stretching out my wings. «Let's go. We've preparations to make.»

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We spent a good deal of our remaining daylight in one of the north districts called the "Rosary Walk", where we could find a lot of shops, stores, and market stalls selling all manner of goods. Most were dealing in items that didn't have much relevance to knights such as us, and most of our searches ended up being dead ends. I spent time looking for the ingredients I needed for some of the potions on Linus's list, but the ones he noted were rare were nowhere to be found. I wasn't surprised, but I got a small stock of some more common reagents for a single one of our ten castles. It took some willpower to hand it over, but I made it. Arthur bought a couple hunting traps shaped like steel jaws with a pressure plate in the middle to snap them shut, as well as a bundle of twine, some rope, and a couple large blocks of wood. He said he'd explain once we got to the point of setting them up.

The sun swept by, and soon it began to descend the western sky. We set out then, hoping to catch some of the light while we still had it at the bottom of the canyon. It was nearly impossible to find a way down onto the streets from the air, so we were forced to pick a rooftop that looked like it would hold our collective weight. The wood strained and groaned, but didn't break.

The quarter was dead silent, and filled with that awful, pungent smell from earlier. I could tell it was affecting the other dragons, too. The only sign of activity was quiet shuffling coming from the house we stood on, and the sour scent of fear that accompanied it.

"Too quiet," said Ingo. "Something's wrong with this place."

«The vicar did say that the Scourge was confined to here,» I said. «I bet people stay locked up in their houses when they can.» I nodded towards the path made of wooden boards to our right. «Come on. That church is east of here. Just follow the river.»

Getting down to the river was the first challenge. The pathways in this district were not designed with dragons in mind, and none of us ersatz felt safe shifting back. As much as I hated to admit it, Emrys was right about the advantages a dragon form gave us, and armour was one of those advantages. Given how they'd fared so far, I trusted my scales against the fiends a lot more than just the oversized robe I'd be wearing as a human.

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We walked over the planks to another roof, then down a shingle covered slope to a small bridge over to the balcony of a thin tower, down the spiral stairs inside, until we finally reached the lowest level, where a door opened out onto one last low rooftop that was close enough to the ground for us to jump.

The streets were more navigable than the higher paths, but they weren't any more pleasant. The cobblestones were drenched with a mixture of brackish water and stale blood. Puddles formed in any divot deep enough to support them, and the opaque water writhed with flies, mosquitoes, beetles, and centipedes. We avoided the water as much as we could. Piles of refuse littered the edges of the road. All of them smelled rancid, but I couldn't tell whether they were rotten food or flesh, rubbish, debris, dead plants, or all of the above. They were just the colourless mush of decay.

There weren't any corpses, thankfully, which I had been worried about given the state of things and the vicar's warning about this ward. I wondered whether there just hadn't been that many deaths, or if there were corpses that had been…removed.

When we finally found the river, it was little more than a dark creek flowing rapidly east, into the lake. It didn't smell much better than the streets at large. There was enough space on its banks for us to walk unimpeded, though the buildings had stretched to cross over it above our heads many times, depriving us of what little sunlight remained in the day.

The river rapidly curved downhill as we drew nearer to the edge of the city, and eventually Rosalie pointed to a road away from it, which took us through a series of cramped alleyways and into a paved plaza. It wasn't much, just an open circle of cobblestones surrounding a statue of a human whose features had long been eroded away. It was by far the least compact area of the Old Quarter we'd seen, with patches of dirt to the sides that might have once held living grass, flanking a long hall. The roof had numerous holes and the door had been torn from its hinges, but the collapsed steeple hanging limply to one side told me it was the church we were looking for.

They were shaded in the darkness behind the church, but in those patches of dirt stood fifteen or more wooden pillories. Each had a corpse locked in between the wooden bars. Some of the corpses seemed fresher than others, but all had begun to decompose, most of them to the point that they weren't recognisable. Only a couple were nothing more than bones, but the rest all had chunks missing, bearing the obvious marks of teeth and claws. I tried not to look at the grotesque array.

"That's more than twelve," said Grace.

"I doubt the vicar has been keeping good track," grumbled Emrys. "He seems like the type to—"

A gunshot cut him off. It wasn't too close, but it was close enough that several of us jumped, startled, into fighting stances. It sounded like it had come from up the river.

Once it was clear the shot wasn't aimed at us, I jerked my head towards the church. «We should hurry,» I whispered. «Arthur, Rosalie, Yura, Brand, you four set up the traps. The rest of us will see if there's anything important in the church.»

They nodded, and Arthur retrieved what all he had brought while the rest of us walked through the destroyed entryway. The church was completely wrecked. It might have once been a grander house of worship, but now the single long hall was torn to shreds. Broken pews had been tossed around, as had tables and the chapel altars that had been set into the walls. No valuables remained, all either stolen or destroyed, save for the main altar at the back, behind which stood a large stone statue of Saint Cèlis, her face covered in a veil and her open palm reaching forward, still leaking a small trickle of pure, crystalline water, despite the conditions of the building. On the altar rested an odd communion chalice, its bowl much wider and deeper than I was used to, and with a faded blue stripe painted on the rim. It was large enough for use as a ewer, just like the place's name suggested.

At the end of the aisle on the right, there was a small set of stairs going down to a wooden door that must lead to a basement. Unlike the doors at the entrance, this one was intact. And it was glowing. Intricate circular glyphs were engraved on the front, lit up in dark sanguine red. I didn't see a power source for the enchantment, but it clearly was one nonetheless.

"Looks like there's nothing in here," said Grace.

«Apart from that.» I gestured with my wing towards the suspicious door.

Emrys walked over to investigate, stepping down the steps to get closer. He reached his hand out, thankfully stopping just short of touching the mystery magic, and traced the glyphs in the air with his finger.

«Any ideas?» I asked.

"It's a seal," said Emrys. "Whatever's behind this door, whoever put this here wanted it to stay there. We won't be able to open it without breaking the thing down."

I tilted my ears forward, listening for what could be on the other side. All I heard was a slow scratching noise. «Do we think the Butcher is keeping prisoners, or do we think that she's keeping something worse locked up?»

Emrys stepped back, tracing his fingers in an X-shape in front of him before whispering a single syllable that somehow sounded like ten different sounds all at once. A low red glow came into his eyes. "Hard to say," he said. "Looks like the glyphs were powered less than twenty-four hours ago, so I bet our Butcher is behind it somehow." He blinked, and his eyes went back to their usual colour. "Either way, it's sturdy, and pretty well made. It's set up so only certain people can open it. Whatever's behind it, I recommend we finish dealing with the Butcher first, as this should keep any potential threats well enough contained until we are finished."

That must have been that clairvoyance thing Yura had talked about. I made a note to ask Emrys how to do that later. «Agreed,» I said. More gunshots echoed out from the district, a rapid bang-bang-bang from three bullets. I flinched. «We should regroup and find hiding places now.»

Emrys nodded, and we headed back outside the empty church. Arthur had finished with his traps, only able to place three with what supplies we had been able to carry. Two clamp traps rested in front of the dirt patches, driven into the ground with spikes, while the twine and rope had been used to hoist the wooden block into the air in front of the church, attached to a simple mechanism on the outer wall that would drop the block if the twine was disturbed, with just enough weight to injure without killing a human it landed on. I was impressed at how much Arthur could accomplish with comparatively little in the way of supplies.

We all scattered; the dragons were too big for us to stay hidden all together, so we slipped into the nearby buildings, or hid with our partners behind bushes. I leaped up on top of the church's crumbling roof, making sure it was stable enough for now before laying down to wait. Emrys and Grace laid on their stomachs beside me.

The passage of time was agonisingly slow, but I had enough experience with staking spots out like this that I was able to keep myself awake as the moon rose in place of the sun and the sky turned black. There were more sets of gunshots in the intervening hours, picking up to a nerve-wracking degree once it was night, but none of them were close enough to pose a threat for now.

The first sign of an intruder was the sound. I wrote it off as some irrelevant, distant noise at first, but it only grew closer. Metal scraping against stone. Then heavy footfalls, slowly coming down the street towards us. I snaked my head forward just enough to get a clear view over the edge of the roof.

The person approaching was a minister. Normally their vestments were white and maroon. This woman was wearing all black, including her gloves and a cowl around her face. She was tall and muscular, with unwashed greying hair sticking out from under her cowl. Behind her, she dragged two objects. One was a cross between a cleaver and a flail. I realised after a second glance that it was actually the four-sided heavy blade of a guillotine attached haphazardly to a short chain. It scraped loudly against the cobblestones. The other was a dead body, slashed and mutilated, leaving a thick trail of blood behind it. Across her back, the minister carried a wooden pillory; surely the fate of this new victim.

I nudged Grace, and we sunk lower in our hiding spot. The woman didn't seem to pay her surroundings much mind as she angled for one of the dirt patches. Suddenly, just before stepping onto the trap, she stopped, raising her head to sniff the air.

"What's that smell?" she muttered, her ragged, hoarse voice carrying a strong accent. "Oh, breaking into our church again, are ya? Hunters come to drink the blood of the damned? You better not have taken a kill…."

I froze, hoping she hadn't somehow scented our location, but she dropped the body and moved towards the church. Then, I heard a metal clicking sound, the sound of a door opening. I crawled back towards one of the holes in the roof to peer in.

The sealed door was slowly pushed open by a beast. If it was once human, it was far more mutated than the bandits out on the moor. It crawled on all fours, still twice the size of an adult human despite its stance. Its body was thin as paper; I would have used the phrase "skin clinging to bone", had its grey scaly skin not been hanging loose in wet sheets. Its hands and feet were tipped with wicked claws, and its face had a serpentine aspect, nowhere near human. It hissed as it walked forward, joined by two more slightly smaller beasts exiting behind it.

They circled towards the minister, and for a moment, I thought our job would be done for us. Then the minister stepped back, ushering the monsters towards the pillories and the corpses resting in them. "Good," she said. "Still alive. Come, now. Food is here."

«Can we handle all of them?» I asked Grace nervously.

She shrugged. «Never seen monsters like them. We'll have to find out. But I think we're good to kill them, at least.»

As the beasts moved closer to the tripwire, she counted down on her fingers. Then, when the trap was sprung, the heavy wooden block fell down, smashing into the side of the first fiend. Despite its frail appearance, the blow merely rocked it, and it howled in rage.

"Now!" shouted Grace. She jumped to her feet, sliding her spear into its rifle form and taking a shot at the minister. More shots echoed from the guns of the others as I and the other dragons jumped to the ground.

The first shot caught the minister by surprise, but the others went wide as she twisted and ducked with shocking dexterity, pulling a heavy-looking single-handed gun of her own from where it had been concealed in her robe. "Vicious hunters!" she screamed. "More beasts for the graveyard!"

I pounced towards her, but one of the fiends tackled me from the side. Its claws raked my scales, scrabbling to find purchase as it howled and screeched, its muzzle snapping at my face. I rolled over, holding it back with my hands while I kicked it with my legs, but I couldn't find anything to attack other than loose skin and hard bones. Its dark, purplish blood dripped from its flayed body, hissing loudly where it touched the cuts it was driving into me. I screamed and, in desperation, wrenched myself to the side, hurling the fiend away. I weakly stood, barely able to hold myself up. I felt fire in my blood, and ice in the same time. The thing's blood must be toxic. Incredibly so, if it hit me that fast.

The others were struggling with the rest. The fiends had rushed us, pinning down the dragons and frantically trying to snap at their necks and joints. The humans were doing their best to flank, but the monsters' scales were sharp at the edges, and their whipping their bodies around slung those blades everywhere, along with their poison blood. Arthur went down as the fiend pressing in on him drew long bloody cuts on his wings while Rosalie ineffectually stabbed at the monster's impenetrable exposed spine. I saw Brand breathing fire, but didn't have time to see its effect on the monster before I had to spin and bash the one in front of me with my tail before it could corner Grace against the church wall.

The minister gave up on Griffin's dancing, evasive movements as soon as she saw the fiend off me. She charged, hefting the flail. I braced to jump to the side and evade, but she paused her blow at the last second, spinning her firearm around her finger before pulling the trigger, a loud crack sounding in the air as a spray of metal shot blasted me in the flank. It wasn't enough to reach anything vital, but the shock stunned me for just a moment, making me stumble as the fiend lunged to sink its long fangs into my leg, holding me still and driving more of that poison into my veins.

The guillotine came up, windmilling around the minister's shoulder. Ingo took a shot her way as she swung, hitting her in the arm, but it didn't even slow her down. The blade was coming for my neck. I braced myself as hard as I could, hoping my armour was tough enough to keep me from being killed instantly, at least.

Then there was movement in front of me. Grace dove forward, holding her spear up high. The weighted tip of the guillotine slammed into the cross-brace, driving a deep dent into it. But the weapon's inertia wasn't that easy to stop, not when she caught it off-centre. The back of the blade kept swinging, pulling the tip off the spear and jerking it into Grace's chest. It slashed through her armour, and I saw droplets of blood spray out. She fell over onto her side, struggling to push herself up.

My breath caught in my throat. I felt the Fiend's screams rising like an oncoming storm in my ear. Take her and leave! Leave the rest!

For once, it and I were in agreement, at least partially. I lunged forward, slamming my shoulder into the fiend that had my leg, snapping one of its fangs off and sending it skidding away on the cobblestones, while I walked shakily back to where Grace still laid, grabbing the back of her coat in my teeth to set her on the saddle. The minister whirled her flail for another strike, but Ingo hit her first, whacking his club into her leg. She spun to slash him, and he ducked just in time, but didn't manage to avoid the spray of shot that came just after, catching it on his breastplate.

I didn't have time to make sure everyone else followed my lead. I hesitated just a moment to scream «Run!» before beating my wings down to get to the church's roof once again, readying to take off and leave. Emrys jumped onto my back from where he had been waiting, and as I leaped into the air, I glanced back to see the others following my lead. Arthur and Brand blasted their attackers with fire, forcing them away just long enough for their partners to grab onto the skylines and for them to take off. Ingo was last, hanging behind long enough to stab the sharp tip of his club into the minister's shoulder, before another blast from her gun made him stumble back, gasping from exertion, which was enough of a distracted for Griffin to forcibly grab him and go.

I kept looking back at Grace and the prince, even as the poison made my vision turn hazy and caused my wings to falter as they pulled us up and out of the gorge of the old city. Emrys held her still, as her grip had fallen limp. He was trying to trace a circle with a free hand, but he kept having to steady her again, dropping the spell.

«Prince, please!» I shouted.

"Doing the best I can!" he retorted, his voice raising in intensity for the first time since we'd met. "I'm no physician, I just know the basics!"

"We saw a clinic in our search earlier today!" shouted Yura. Of all of us, he seemed the least injured, and his bruiser was slick with blood. "This way!"

Brand turned west, and the rest of us angled after them. The poison made every muscle in my body pulse with pain, and I could hardly stand to keep my wings spread. I just kept back looking at Grace, every glance giving me another burst of adrenaline to speed up and keep going.

«Come on,» I whispered through our bond. «We'll make it. Just hold on a little longer.»

I received no answer back to comfort me as we flew over the city.