World's End (30 page)

It had turned into a poor day to be drunk. There was no telling how much time had elapsed between the sound of the great stone falling and the descent from the skies of more Invia than Sharfy had believed existed in the world. All around the city they landed. At first he wondered if the drink in the flask had gone bad and was playing with his head.

As things progressed in the newly ruined city it looked as if the Invia were
helping
people. They were digging furiously through the rubble of collapsed buildings, tossing aside pieces it would have taken several men to lift. They moved through the wreckage as fast as they moved when in battle. They carried wounded people from under the debris and flew them out of the city: men, women, children, many of them unconscious in the Invias' arms, possibly dead. The Invia carried them over to the fields where there had been stacked piles of lightstone (now scattered everywhere). They placed the people gently down. Some Invia stayed there among the wounded, while others flew back into the city to fetch more. Scores, dozens, hundreds of people were soon brought clear of the ruins, where fires had begun to burn.

The group of young people had come to the woods's edge to
look down upon the scene. Sharfy didn't notice them until one or two began crying. Their houses were probably under that great skystone slab, maybe their families too.

Sharfy ducked deeper into the woods to piss, half expecting a great chunk of skystone to land on him before he'd finished. He thought he heard the
whoosh
of beating wings. One of the kids cried out in alarm. Sharfy got his sword out and ran back. He had indeed heard wings; there was an Invia flying away from the woods, back towards the city. ‘What happened?' he asked the kids.

‘They took my sister,' said one of them.

‘Why? She hurt? Must've been hurt. They're helping people. I been watching them down there. Getting hurt people out of the city.'

‘You need to look closer, old man. They're tying people up down there.'

‘What? No they ain't.' He peered down. Maybe his eyes weren't what they used to be (and the liquor had made everything a touch blurry) but he'd seen nothing like that. ‘Why'd they pull people from fallen-down houses only to tie em up? Bah. You don't know nothing. Too young to know nothing.' Sharfy lost sight of the Invia in question among all the others swooping in all directions. ‘Invia don't bother you if you leave em alone,' he insisted. ‘What'd your sister do first?'

‘I … I don't think it was an Invia,' said a skinny young boy. Tears were starting in his eyes.

Stupid kids! ‘Course it was. Got wings, looks like a woman? Invia. You never saw one before is all.'

‘It didn't look like they're meant to look.' The others nodded agreement, eyes wide in fear. ‘Its
face.
It was
ugly.
'

‘It's coming back,' said another of them. ‘What do we do?'

Sharfy entertained the possibility that something peculiar was going on after all. The Invia
were
coming back – this time there were four that he could see. They flew languidly, but they were coming. ‘Climb up in the trees,' he said. ‘Up there quick. The ones with thick leaves. Can't fight Invia. Even if you kill em you're Marked. Better hide.'

He followed his own advice, scrambling up the nearest tree and shielding himself behind thick fans of green. He peeked through a gap in the leaves and saw the kids still just stood there gawking, like first-timers in battle. Then the Invia were upon them: wings beat the air loudly.
Now
the kids ran, for all the good it would do them. Sharfy risked leaning out a little to get a look, just as one of the Invia flew right past his tree. He had only a glimpse, but it was enough to know something was indeed very wrong: what should have been a beautiful woman's face was hardly even a woman's. Its mouth was wide, almost ear to ear. Its skin was tinged with green, its hair like damp coils of white rope. And its teeth … lots of teeth …

I've seen war mages prettier than that, he thought with a shudder. Maybe the creature was ill. The teenagers' voices erupted in a short-lived panicky chorus before they were all seized and carried down.

Sharfy swigged from the liquor flask again, deeply. Screams carried from the field below. Sharfy dropped to the ground, forgetting his years again – the jolt shot through his whole body, his knees and ankles flaring in pain. The people down there just kept screaming and screaming …

He hobbled to the woods' edge for a better view and soon saw why: something else was descending from the sky with slow majesty. Something big. The dragon's colour was a deep gold on its belly and legs, shining like metal. It ran to rich deep
brown up the middle of its body, with black points along its wing tips and tail. Spikes fanned down the long length of its back, all down its tail. It was huge, far larger than the dragon Far Gaze had battled with.

As it descended it moved in a controlled shift from side to side the way a leaf falls, wings fanned wide. It was surreal to see the vast thing set down with just a few strides to halt itself in the same field the Invia had brought the rescued people. A hush fell.

Set into a sharp-featured skull atop a long curved neck, the great dragon's eyes were dark and set deep in wide slits. Slowly it drew back its wings and folded them, arching its head back, unmistakeably the pose of a king among its kind.

Sharfy's throat went dry; his knees trembled. He put a hand on the nearest tree stump to keep from falling. Renewed screams rang out among the people all over the field before it. Only a few managed to run away. Those ones the Invia quickly rounded up and brought back.

The great dragon's head slowly turned, surveying the scene before it. Sharfy was struck by a sense of malevolent intelligence like nothing he'd seen or imagined in all his years. It wasn't anything he could have spoken aloud … but watching the great creature, it almost seemed to him that it was
within its rights
to destroy a city of these lesser beings, to do what it would to these wailing, crying helpless ones.

‘That's the one she meant,' said a voice right beside Sharfy. He jumped and screamed. Shadow was back. ‘I'm not going to do what she wanted me to. She said she'd kill you if I didn't do it, but she lies. She lies to everyone.'

‘Shut up! Don't want to hear your shit. Not now. Look at that.' Sharfy kicked the tree in frustration. He knew there would be
no running away now that Shadow had returned. He couldn't run away, not with someone here to witness it. If he did, the last tale of Sharfy would be about a fleeing coward.

Maybe those kids would tell such a tale anyway, if they lived long enough. He'd scrambled up a tree, after all, and let the Invia take them down there. That had been a missed opportunity to die with the glory of a true warrior's death.

He undid the flask lid and tipped every burning drop down his throat. He said, ‘Remember I told you, never back down? I'll show you how.' He drew his sword and marched towards the incline.

‘Where are you going?' said Shadow behind him.

‘Make that big bastard thing swallow this,' he said, shaking his blade. He was surprised to find he meant it, surprised to find he was so furious. ‘Wrecked the city. They were just trying to clean up. Doesn't even care. Sits there looking at it all. It could help, if it wanted. Just
sits
there.'

There was a flurry of motion as several Invia approached the dragon with bundles in their arms. Sharfy was close enough now to see the bundles were children. What happened next made him stop cold. The dragon lowered its head, opened its mouth. The Invia placed two of those bundles on its lower jaw. They may have been already unconscious, for neither of them moved. The dragon closed its mouth, eyes shutting in pleasure. Its jaw worked as it slowly chewed then swallowed.

Those gathered suddenly understood why they'd been gathered and what awaited them. They screamed. Sharfy ran down the incline, now almost blind with anger, thinking he'd scramble up the huge thing's back, run up along its neck maybe, go for the eyes since its scales were probably harder than plate armour. But he tripped and slid the rest of the way down the incline,
falling so awkwardly he was lucky not to break his neck. ‘Stop it,' he yelled, his voice lost in the horrified screams, as two more bundles were put in the dragon's open mouth. These ones writhed and kicked, needing to be held by the Invia. A riot broke out among the more able-bodied people in the crowd. But they were unarmed, and there were far too many Invia for them to have a chance. Invia darted through the crowd with a blur of their wings' white. People fell.

The dragon reacted to none of this. Its servants had things under control. At its leisure it ate the morsels placed in its mouth, savouring them. It was in no hurry.

Sharfy got painfully to his feet – how old and useless he felt. Somehow it seemed to him that his younger self would never have let any of this happen. Tears blurred his vision. His sword arm shook. He'd staggered only a few more steps when, to his shock, a
second
dragon appeared beside the huge one. This new dragon looked small at first – only a little bigger than Dyan in size. But it grew, till in just a few seconds it was the same size and shape as the big one. It had no colour – it was black and featureless as a shadow.

As a shadow …

Sharfy dropped his sword as understanding hit him. ‘Kill it!' he screamed.
‘Kill it!'

The big dragon whipped its head around, suddenly aware of the new presence behind it. There was a flash of light, like lightning but coloured with the orange of fire. A scream rang out unlike any scream Sharfy had heard before. Another flash of light. This time it was longer-lasting, temporarily blinding all who had their eyes open. There was the fast, heavy
thump
of the huge dragon running; and there was a flurry of whistling shrieks as all the Invia took to the sky at once.

When the light flash faded out and people's sight returned, the dragon and the Invia were gone. The ground where it had been was badly ripped and torn. Shreds of gold and brown skin were scattered around. Sharfy collapsed onto his backside and did nothing for a while.

He could not tell how long later it was that Shadow appeared beside him again, blinking in and out of visibility, talking. ‘I hurt it but I couldn't kill it,' he said. ‘It went away … but it fought hard. It hurt me a lot to shadow it.'

Sharfy supposed that after what Shadow had just done, he owed the ghost the dignity of an answer. ‘You sound sick. You dying?'

Shadow's voice was indeed faint. ‘Too much thought came into me, when I shadowed it. I knew too much. Its thought was like … worlds of water and lightning, all running through me, fast. I didn't understand it. I didn't have control any more, not till it flew away. Then I came back. I think I must have fought it.'

‘Speak sense,' Sharfy said weakly. But the magnitude of what Shadow had done was slowly occurring to him: Shadow had actually done it. Somehow, he'd actually made the huge beast go away.

‘Well done,' said a familiar voice behind them. In human form, Shilen walked down the incline, smiling at Shadow like a proud parent. Sharfy was too drained to care that she'd come. He didn't bother reaching for the sword, which had fallen from his hand.

Shilen said, ‘Fear not. Tzi-Shu will think it was a god who attacked him. Besides, soon you will be in Vyin's protection and
shall need to fear no one. You did very well, Shadow. Are you hurt?'

‘Take away the traps,' said Shadow, his eyes growing as they turned upon Shilen in a way Sharfy found unsettling. For if Shadow could scare away a huge dragon like that, he was a friend worth having; and an enemy Sharfy, for one, didn't want.

‘Soon we shall change the traps, so you may leave whenever you wish to, and go to them only for healing,' Shilen answered him. ‘Remember, the traps have been designed to replenish you when you are weak. First, you must continue to practise mirroring great powers. It will grow easier and safer for you each time. Do as we ask and we will show you how to break free of the traps whenever you wish to.'

Shilen gazed at the ruined city, and at the field now vacant of all living people. The group who'd been brought there to be a dragon's meal had already headed for the road, carrying the wounded with them. A few returned to pick through the city's rubble.

‘This what you wanted?' Sharfy said to her. ‘Glad with what you see?'

‘Dragons are not all the same,' said Shilen. ‘Tzi-Shu hates humanity and did this for his own pleasure – it does not mean all other dragons would do the same. Not all of us wish harm upon humans. But you need us to protect you from those dragons who do, for you are not capable of stopping them. So be more careful with your words.'

‘You didn't do much protecting today,' said Sharfy.

‘I would have stopped Tzi-Shu, had I the power to stop him. I do not. Those dragons who may have stopped him have not yet descended from the skies. Do not hate the Invia – they must obey, if any of the Eight give them instruction. Shadow, rest
now. Recover. There will be another test soon. If you survive it, you will be assigned to Vyin, to be his weapon. You will shadow him if he is attacked by either dragon or Spirit. None of the gods could withstand a battle against
two
of him, nor could any of the dragons.'

Shadow lashed at her but again she had come as just an illusory copy of herself. Although he didn't succeed in hurting her, for some reason she looked surprised and worried. It was as if she'd expected him to be pleased with her words. She said, ‘Think, Shadow. Vyin is a friend of humanity. For the good of your own kind, you must help him.'

Shadow knew he had no kind. He took Sharfy in his arms and took him away from there, going only half as fast as he might have – he felt weak and sick. Shadowing the huge dragon had made a blank page in his memory. There was just a haze of ache and light, and the pain of having lifted an enormous burden.