Juliet McKenna - Northern Storm

‘Seeing and hearing have more value than armour in this.’ Kheda strained eyes and ears. ‘Are we the only ones going forward? Can you hear anyone else?’

A scream ripped through the mist and the clouded air swirled violently around them. More yells tumbled’over each other, punctured by a rattling sweep. Then the mist gathered ever closer, deadening the noise.

‘Its tail?’ hazarded Zicre through clenched teeth. He brushed frost from the front of his tunic but the oiled leather vanished beneath a fresh layer of white.

‘Where’s its head?’ Kheda gripped his sword tight with aching fingers and peered into the fog. He could feel cold moisture seeping through his hair to trickle down his scalp and temples.

A stealthy current in the air alerted him an instant before he saw the sapphire glint of the dragon’s eye cutting through the white mist. Its blue head darted forward, jaw agape, cobalt tongue lashing, blue-black blood dripping from its chin. Kheda didn’t flinch, sweeping his sword around and up to slash at the slack hide beneath the dragon’s jaw. He ripped the blade away and ducked sideways to lose himself in the mist. The creature’s roar of pain made the fog all around throb.

Kheda tensed at a swirl of the vapour then relaxed as the other three emerged and crouched beside him. ‘We have to catch its head somehow,’ he told them forcefully, ‘so we can force it down and have at its eyes. We have to blind it!’

‘We’ll find a net.’ Mezai was shivering so violently he looked like a man in the grip of fever. Jerking his head at Beyau, he stumbled backwards to vanish in the white mist. The swordsman hesitated. ‘Go,’ Kheda ordered.

Zicre moved to stand with his back to Kheda’s. Do you think it can see us through this?’

‘I don’t know.’ Kheda shivered as the other man’s weight pressed the frozen padding beneath his mail against his chilled flesh.

His words were lost as sobbing forced its way through the dense mist, cut off short in a horrifying gurgle. The dragon’s hiss rasped through the blinding fog, seeming to come from all directions. Kheda drew his second sword and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

‘Ware!’ Zicre shouted and flung himself sideways as the dragon’s forelimb raked through the mist, glittering claws ripping across at chest height.

Kheda wheeled around, dodging awkwardly. He flailed blindly with his swords and made contact more by luck than judgement. His blade ripped a claw from its socket, the crystal talon nearly skewering Zicre before it disappeared into the enveloping fog. The dragon bellowed and its head loomed above him, teeth bared, dodging bloody blue saliva. Kheda stood his ground and hacked at the beast’s neck and jaw with all his strength. One blade clashed against its teeth. The dragon recoiled, only to snap at the blade, shattering the tempered steel to lethal needles. Kheda flinched from the blinding shower, fleeing blindly. The dragon’s foreclaws struck him a glancing blow on his mailed back, sending him tumbling over frozen vegetation that crackled beneath him. He rolled over on to his back, raising his remaining sword. A shadow darkened the fog, pierced by a glint of sapphire flame.

‘Hey!’ Zicre found a fallen spear underfoot and flung it at the mist-shrouded dragon.

Kheda heard the polearm strike with a solid clunk. The dragon’s head whipped across to snap at Zicre, trailing tendrils of haze and slaver. Diamond drops spattered Kheda’s armour. The steel rings and inset plates of his hauberk cracked and split where the drool landed.

‘My lord.’ A hand grabbed his shoulder. It was Mezai.

‘Are you hurt?’ As Beyau hauled him up, Kheda realised there was a rent in the back of his chain mail. No.’ He gripped his remaining sword and scanned the white opacity for the dragon and Zicre alike. ‘Have you got a net?’

‘And grapnels,’ Mezai confirmed with bitter satisfaction.

‘What’s happening?’ Kheda strained his ears for any sound that would offer an answer. ‘Where are the others?’

Before anyone could speak, the dragon attacked, murderous maw agape and intent on Kheda. The warlord waited until the last instant before darting aside, hacking at the side of the creature’s long, scaly face. Mezai threw a grapnel at the dragon’s head and the curved tines tangled in the crest of spines at the nape of its neck. It roared and reared up, trying to shake off the biting metal teeth. Zicre appeared and flung himself on the rope to add his weight to Mezai’s, pulling the barbs ever deeper into the creature’s flesh. ‘Chazen! Here! Chazen!’ Kheda shouted into the empty mist as loudly as he could, moving between the dragon and the two men, lest it try biting at them.

The dragon was more concerned with the immediate cause of its pain. It ducked its head in a futile attempt to escape the tormenting grapnel. Beyau seized his chance and flung a broad net over the beast’s head, the wide mesh weighted with pierced and polished stones. The dragon shook its head with a furious hiss, snapping at the weights dangling just out of reach. It licked at the net and the rope crumbled to dust at the touch of its freezing saliva. ‘Chazen!’ A second net came spinning out of the mist, the web black against the encircling pallor. It landed squarely on the dragon’s head and men followed it. Kheda knew some of them from the Gossamer Shark, and others who had volunteered as scouts. The rest he didn’t recognise. A double handful ran to lend their strength to Mezai’s rope, slipping over the icy ground. Their combined weight began inexorably dragging the dragon’s head downwards.

More ropes and nets appeared from all directions, everyone intent on snaring the dragon’s head. The creature roared with fury, fighting the binding cords and cables. It clawed frantically, first with one forelimb, then the other.

‘Let me get at its eyes!’ Kheda stood, watching and waiting, sword at the ready.

The dragon bellowed and reared upwards, dragging those closest off their feet as they clung to their ropes in frozen terror. It slashed at them with murderous talons and two men fell backwards, eviscerated in a single stroke. One rolled over to land at Kheda’s feet, the bloody void of his abdomen frozen solid before he came to rest.

‘Chazen!’ The men of the domain raised their vengeful cry. More rushed forward to haul on the ropes and grapnels tangled in the dragon’s spines. Nets smothered its muzzle, caught in its teeth. It tore at the mesh with a forefoot but only succeeded in ripping the lethal fangs from its own jaw.

‘Bring it down!’ Kheda yelled.

Mezai raised a breathless chant that the warlord recognised from the Gossamer Shark’s rowing deck. Hoarse with exhaustion, other mariners joined in. Fishermen picked up the rhythm in the next breath and the hunters and merchants weren’t slow to follow. With every man’s might brought to bear together in the rhythm of the gasping, tuneless song, the dragon’s head dipped. They drew it further down with every beat. The wheezing chorus took on a menacing, exultant note. Kheda watched the creature’s burning sapphire eye brought lower and lower. He gripped his sword and waited for the moment to strike. As the dragon’s scaly jaw dipped to touch the ground, hailstones fell so thickly that Kheda couldn’t see through them. Big as the most precious pearls, they bruised his head and face brutally. Gasping and squinting through the pain, Kheda stumbled forwards. He could barely keep his footing on the icy spheres and his feet were so numb he couldn’t feel them. All that mattered was that he could still see the dragon’s eye glowing blue through the mist.

Cries of distress rang through the fog and the coordinated assault dissolved in pain and panic. Kheda pushed past some nameless islander still clinging to a rope despite the jagged ice lacerating his bare hands. Drops of the man’s red blood were falling frozen to join the drifts of hailstones now ankle deep.