Саймон Морден - Down Station

Were they slaves, too? Could he enlist them or at least get them not to give the game away?

‘If you make a sound, he dies. If you don’t, you get to do whatever it is you want. You can join us, or not, as you choose.’

They glanced at each other, at the steward, at Dalip, but mainly at the floor, their hands, the bottles on the table. Dalip eased the steward into the room and knocked the door closed with his heel. It didn’t look like he was going to get either co-operation or defiance from them.

‘The door over there, the one that leads to the bridge. Can one of you open it?’

Again, they looked everywhere but at each other. Then, the older one’s head came up, and she brushed a strand of grey hair away that had fallen loose from her tightly tied knot. Despite the hesitant restraining hand of her companion, she walked deliberately around the barrels and racked bottles, and lifted the first of two heavy bars blocking the door.

‘Don’t,’ managed the steward before Dalip cut him off with a tightening of his arm.

She put the bar to one side, then heaved the other from its hasps.

‘Open it, and step away. I don’t want you to get hurt.’

She rested the other bar next to the first, and put her shoulders to dragging the door open. The outside blustered in, and she walked back to Dalip.

She spat in the steward’s face, then she walked out.

Dalip felt the steward stiffen, smelt their sour smells of sweat mingle.

‘You can go too, if you want,’ he told the other woman. ‘But don’t do anything that’ll stop us.’

She nodded. She looked young and scared, not just of the steward, but of him. He’d always thought of himself, on the rare occasions that he did, as a quiet boy, a good boy, dutiful and diligent. Certainly not someone to be frightened of, yet there he was, ready to drive a knife into someone’s side if they so much as spoke out of turn.

Luiza poked her head around the opened door, and waved the others on. They crept in, doubled over, then stretched out. Stanislav was last in and pushed the door firmly shut.

‘Where is she?’ asked Stanislav.

‘Up, I think,’ and he had the presence of mind to ask. ‘The geomancer’s at the top of the tower, right?’

The serving girl was watching them all with amazement, her hands clutched over her mouth. Then she nodded.

‘Why is he still alive?’ said Stanislav. He barred the door behind him, pushing the thick wooden bars back into place.

‘Because he’s useful.’

‘His use is at an end. Finish him.’

‘He can get us close to the geomancer.’ Still, despite everything, Dalip was reluctant to be ruthless, even though he knew it was costly and he wasn’t the only one paying.

‘He will get us all killed.’ Stanislav held his club low and squared up to the steward. ‘I have met his kind before: the ones that are more vicious, more cruel than the generals they serve. They are not driven by any ideology, only by the desire to do evil and the permission to do so.’ He leaned forward into the man’s face. ‘Am I not right?’

If he was, the steward didn’t offer an opinion.

‘Gag him, tie his hands. Elena, keep a watch on the stairs. Mama, check the room for anything we can use.’

Dalip forced the steward to his knees. Luiza grabbed a scrap of cloth from the bottling table, wodging it into a damp ball and presenting it to the steward’s mouth. He resisted, and Dalip had to make him open his mouth by twisting the knife-point through his close-woven clothing and into his skin. When he gasped at the pain, Luiza jammed the cloth in. His breathing became noisily nasal, and he tried to cough it out. She slapped him hard, once, twice. He glared at her, and she raised her hand for a third time. He flinched, and her lips twisted into a smile.

She tied the gag into place with length of cord, and since she seemed to know what she was doing, Dalip forced him to the floor and made him offer his hands for her to bind behind his back. It looked to Dalip that she was cutting his circulation off, the bonds digging deep into his wrists as she twisted and wound. But she was taking some degree of pleasure in doing so, and the steward was in no condition to complain.

The man was going to die soon, and it didn’t really matter how tightly he was tied: Dalip still couldn’t accept that, though, and tried to imagine a scenario where he didn’t have to kill everyone in order to make them leave him alone.

Mama had found nothing much useful, but she’d dragged a crate of stoneware bottles containing a sharp, clear spirit into the open space. She unstoppered one of the bottles and held it up for Stanislav, who sniffed at the open neck. ‘That will burn. Bring some of them.’

Dalip dragged the steward upright. Since being bound, he had become more compliant.

‘Is there anything we should know before going up the stairs?’ Dalip asked the serving girl. ‘Anything that’ll make it difficult for us?’

‘Are you going to kill her?’

‘That depends,’ he said. Stanislav narrowed his eyes at him, but said nothing. ‘We need to know how to get past the dragon, so we’re guessing we need her alive for that.’

The serving girl blinked.

‘We must go,’ said Stanislav. ‘Strike now, while we still can.’

‘No, wait.’ Dalip held the steward’s coat by his collar. ‘What are we missing?’

The serving girl was shaking with confusion. ‘The mistress and the wyvern.’

‘Yes?’

‘She is… she is the wyvern.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Dalip.

‘She changes between woman and beast.’

‘You have got to be joking.’

‘No.’

No wonder the steward had been so confident, so arrogant. They burst into the geomancer’s room at the top of the castle, and within seconds they’re facing a massive, angry dragon. And not some animal, either, but human intelligence and guile.

‘What the hell do we do?’

After a few moments, Stanislav said: ‘Nothing has changed, and now that we know, we can use it to our advantage. If we can get the geomancer before she changes, then we kill both her and the dragon at the same time. We go in hard, all of us. Bring her down. Stop her any way we can.’

‘What if she changes first? What if she’s already changed?’ Dalip looked at his knife. It didn’t seem very big now.

‘Then we have to kill a dragon instead.’

Stanislav had only seen the creature in the distance: he didn’t understand quite how fierce it was, nor how large it was. Some of them were going to die in the fight, and the thought made Dalip hesitate.

‘What does she value most? If we got hold of that, would she negotiate with us?’ He shook the steward. ‘What about him? Does he mean anything to her?’

The serving girl looked as if she was about to faint. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. She keeps all of her treasure with her.’

‘This discussion is over,’ said Stanislav. ‘We must attack, kill her, escape. It is all we need to understand.’

‘I’m trying to do the right thing here!’ Dalip’s voice started to rise, and he clamped back down on it. ‘There has to be another way.’

‘There is no other way. That much is clear.’

‘Give me some time with her. Ten minutes. Quarter of an hour. I can talk our way out of this, and no one has to fight.’

‘This is foolishness. She will kill you, and she will be warned.’ Stanislav shrugged off Luiza’s hand. ‘I did not think you a coward.’

‘I’m not… Look, she’s not going to kill me if she thinks you’re going to burn her tower down with all her treasure in it. Even if she turns into a dragon and flies away, she can’t carry it with her.’

‘Once she has turned into a dragon, then killing her becomes so much more difficult. She can keep us trapped here until we starve. Or make another mistake such as this one.’