The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (27 page)

wisely, had scuttled away, but a small grey squirrel was grubbing about among some nearby tree roots. I let my auma commingle with it. It sat up with a surprised chirrup. Hearing it, Stygg aimed another dart, which missed the squirrel’s ear by the width of a blade of grass. The creature dashed around the back of the

tree. I let it catch its breath and groom its tail before I guided it into a viewing position. There I watched the Nomaad dealing with Grella.

He was remarkably strong for his size. He lifted Grella up and threw her over his shoulder as if she was nothing but a coil of rope. For a moment, I thought he might leave Gwilanna. He grimaced when he saw her and muttered the word ‘rynkler’

several times. He nudged her with a callused foot and seemed disappointed to hear her cry. He wiped his arm beneath his nose, both ways. One of the villhund started to howl. “Neh!” he warned it, glaring   at  them.   The  pack  picked themselves up and mooched away. The man poked Gwilanna again. “What Stygg do with you?” he grunted. But he’d made up his mind as quickly as he’d said it. Grasping the shawl in one hand and twisting it once to wrap the contents, he yanked Gwilanna off the ground and stumped away, swinging her along like a bag of rocks.

I sent the squirrel in pursuit.

The sun had gone down and night was upon us by the time Stygg had reached his

destination. He had led me to a derelict

shack set deep among a coppice of hawthorn trees. He whistled a greeting call. Given that the Nomaad usually lived alone, I was surprised to hear a woman’s voice reply. “Where ya bin? Where ya bin?” She craked like a bird with a bone

in its throat.

“I bin huntin’,” he said. “I made me a

catch.”

“I cun smell it. T’ain’t no fish nor

hund.”

“Be a gurl, and she be mine.”

“Gurl?”

“Aye, mine.”

“You live ’ere, you shares.”

“I ain’t givin’ you nowt – not nowt o’

this catch, Muther.”

“You do as Griss sez. Lay it down. Let

us see it.”

Stygg let Grella slide off his shoulder. She groaned as the back of her head struckearth.

The woman poked her head through thewindow of the shack, illuminated by thelantern she held. She was the oldest,ugliest crone I’d ever seen. One round eyewas poking out of her head like a sticky,overripe plum. There was a stitched-upsocket on the other side. Wiry threads ofsilver-grey hair clung to the rear of herscalp like worms. I almost gagged in thesquirrel’s throat as she tipped her head tosquint at Grella and the eye made apopping noise in the socket. “Taan,” shesaid with a lick of her lips. “You bring

that inside. We cun use that, we can. What

ya got in yer paw?”

“Babby, I reckun.”

“You
 
reckun
?”

“Ain’t sure.”

“Well, izzit or ain’t it?”

“Babby,   alright  –   but   old,   not babbylike.”

“Can’t ’appen, you loaf.”

“Can, sez I.”

“Show me.” She wobbled a scrawny hand. “Griss wud see this babby, she wud.”

Stygg opened the shawl.

The old woman leaned further out of the

window. Her nose was as pointed as a raven’s beak. The nostrils twitched. The

eye shrank back. “That be a babby wi’ a

curse yon its ’ead.”

“Cursed? How be?”

“Witched by a sibyl. Be a wrong ’un, for sure. Lookee at them rynkles. T’ain’t natrul, izzit?”

“She ’ad it, tho’.” Stygg pointed at Grella. “’Er. The Taan gurl. Weren’t no sibyl anyways near. ’Eld it, she did. Tight, like her own. Sang to it. Pretty.
 
She
 
weren’t frit.”

“Din say I wuz frit. Din
 
say
 
I wuz
 
frighted
, jus’ that it’s wrong. That rynkler ain’t no use to no eremitt. Throw it to the

dogs, the accursed thing.”

Stygg’s sighs became a grunt. He bent

down to do the deed.

At that point, Grella raised her head.

“Stop.” She sounded wuzzy, still suffering

from whatever had been on the dart.

“Put a chain on that,” said Griss. “Lay it in the barn. It cun side with the pig.”

“Ain’t chaining it. Wants it for a wife, I does.”

“WIFE! What Taan’s gonna whisper in

your
 
thick lugs? Chain it. Look at them long white legs. You don’t put no chain on them they be off thru the trees like a scoldy rabbit. Don’t wannit runnin’ away now, do we? It cun work, it can. It cun cook. It cun clean. It cun prob’ly skin a rat

cun
 
this
 
pretty catch.”

“My baby,” said Grella. “Don’t hurt my baby… ”

Griss replied with a soggy sniff. “You won’t be needin’ that babby no more. The dogs,” she said to Stygg. “Or the mud

pools. Go.”

“No!” Grella scrabbled to her knees.

The dart dropped from her neck. Shegripped Stygg’s legs.

“Strike it down!” his foul mother

squawked.

Stygg was in two minds about that. But he gave in to his ma and swiped his fist across Grella’s face. She fell sideways, dribbling blood from her mouth. I thought I heard one of her cheek bones crack.

Despite the hum of pain, she raisedherself again. “If you take her you might aswell kill me now. I’ll do nothing for you. I’d rather starve myself than stir a pot foryou.”

“Idle, wicked talk,” squeaked Griss. “I’ll be ’aving the meat off yer bones fer

that. An’ yer pretty Taan hair.” She ran a hand over her repulsive head. A spider that had made its web behind an earlobe

scuttled away and hid itself inside the ear. Griss pointed to the baby. “Be rid of it, Stygg.”

But   Stygg  was   undecided   again. “What’s a babby eat?”

Griss shook the lantern, sending a flare of light into the trees. “What? What blether you sayin’ to me now?”

“Scraps, ain’t it? Leftovers is all.”

“Milk,” said Grella, holding her face. “The child needs milk. You’ve got a goat. I can smell it. I’ll milk it myself. I’ll work. I promise. I’ll do what you ask if you spare the baby. I’ll sew for you as well.”

“Sew?” said Stygg. “What need ’ave

we of—”

“Hold your fat tongue,” Griss said to her son. “Splain yerself, gurl. And makee quick.”

“I’m Taan,” said Grella. “I can sew things for you. Dresses. Tapestries. Things you can trade.”

I looked at Griss. The crone was

licking her blistered lips.

“I got ’oles,” said Stygg, pulling at his

rags.

“Give me a needle, I’ll make you a

robe.”

A wide smile spread across his goofyface. “What sez you, Ma?”

“I sez you’re a love-struck eremitt loaf. All right, be giving her the babby – thenchain her.”

They put her, as Griss had suggested,with their pig – or what was left of thewretched beast; it had festering weltswhere its ears should have been and

hobbled around on three good legs. Stygg hammered a link around Grella’s ankle

and chained her to a post beside the animal’s trough. He soon saw the error in this. When I returned, a day had gone by and he was drenching Grella with buckets of water to clean off the pig dirt she’d trailed into the shack. He moved her

instead to a barn infested with scabby mice and insects which liked to suck

blood from her flesh. (I spent my next few visits in the guise of a spider, eating as many of those parasites as I could.) Over several days, I saw her make a crib in a

log pile for the baby. She herself slept rough on sacks on the floor.

I watched Stygg construct another chain. Not as stout as the first, but long enough to let Grella move around the shack or reach

the well from where they drew water. They put her to work from the moment they had her. Scrubbing in the mornings, cooking in the afternoons. Stews. Always stews. Usually mice from the barn. Topped and tailed and boiled in their skins. They made her catch woodlice and sprinkle them into the stewing pot, whole. If Stygg caught a pigeon or a squirrel in the woods she would be told to stuff it

with spiders, for flavour. (Several times I had to hide my host away to avoid ending up in the pot myself.) Now and then Stygg

slayed an elderly villhund. If Grella was lucky they would throw her a bone. Otherwise, she ate the same slop she made for them. And in case she ever thought of poisoning them, with fungus or some deadly leaf or thorn, they would always make sure she ate a bowlful first – then

give some of the juice to Gwilanna. At every tasting, the sibyl cried. No matter how hard Grella blew on the juice, it always scalded the baby’s lips. It was a wonder the wrinkled child survived.

In the evenings, they made Grella sew. For this, she needed basic materials. Grisssent her son on a mission. I did not follow

him through the Is, but three days later he returned to the shack with a bundle of

spoils. Across the floor he spilled tapestry

cloths, needles, wool. I saw Grella blanch. She knew, as I did, what had happened. Stygg had crossed the border and raided a krofft. Taan blood was still

drying on his hunting knife.

With a heavy heart, Grella set to work. Her only comfort, besides Gwilanna, was the tapestries she now began to make. She drew pictures of that last day on Mount Kasgerden. The glory of Galen. The darkling in flame. Her captors were awed, their greed ignited. From what I overheard of their eager conversations, they knew that a dragon had died on the mountain. And here was the story recorded on cloth. Ignoring their disinclination to trade, Griss bustled Stygg out with Grella’s first tapestry, telling him she wanted a brush

for it at least. Stygg did better than that. He brought back a brush and a mirror, too. Griss rejoiced. She ordered Stygg to hold Grella in a chair. Then she took a rusted, sickle-shaped knife and cut off Grella’s long fair hair. From it she made a wig of sorts, which she plastered to her head with a thin layer of goat dung. She hung the mirror from a tree and went out six or

seven times a day to admire her grisly reflection. I watched her from the body of a sparrow and encouraged the bird to sit above the mirror and loose its waste

products over the glass. None of this bothered Griss. The repulsive old crone just wallowed in her new-found vanity and ‘wealth’, and ordered Grella to produce more tapestries.

Grella   stayed   calm  and   workedsteadily, sometimes taking a cycle of themoon to complete one piece. Sheertiredness prevented her from working forlong (many times I would come to the barnand find her asleep with a cloth in herhands, the mice nibbling at the edges ofit). She was also aware that every timeher supplies ran out, someone else in Taancould be murdered by Stygg. I watchedher scratch marks on the wall of the barn

to keep a tally of all Stygg’s raids. If any chance of revenge presented itself, his punishment was sure to be multiply unpleasant. Daily, Griss screamed at her to speed things up. The incoming trickle of knick-knacks and treats was becoming a way of life for the crone. Grella stuck to

her rigid pace and was rash enough at times to argue with Griss that quality, not quantity, would reap the best rewards; it usually brought her a slap across the face. Or a kick in the ribs. Or a lash from a

cane. It was all I could do not to call

down a dragon and burn this foul place out of existence. I hated seeing Grella suffer like this. But I obeyed Joseph Henry and did not get involved – though I was once, unwittingly, almost the cause of both our deaths.

One night, when the fire stars broughtme to the barn, I immediately sensed thatsomething wasn’t right. I commingled withmy favourite host, the squirrel (it tended towait for me now), but its limbs felt stiffand its auma strange. I looked up at Grella

from the floor of the barn. “Ah, there you are,” she said. “I’ve something to show you.” She lifted Gwilanna and pulled out a tapestry she was keeping hidden. She turned it round and pointed to the picture. “Look, that’s you. My only friend.” It was a portrait of the squirrel eating a nut. The tail and the body were already sewn in. She was starting to work on the arch of the

eye.

A fever raged in my head. I began to shake. The squirrel’s teeth chattered. The space between me and the tapestry image began to melt into a murky gel. “What’s the matter?” said Grella, puzzled and disturbed in equal measure. At that moment, the firebird, Aurielle, rushed into my mind.
 
Grella must not complete this

image
, she said,
 
or you will stay in the timeline in the form of the squirrel.
 
This was the price I had paid for repeatedly using the same host animal: Grella had grown familiar with it. She had pulled me too far into her consciousness. I was in