Silver Dragon Codex Page 5

  “But Belen and Ebano—” he started.

  She cut him off. “Later! There’s a seven-foot walking werewolf who wants to eat your face, and that pew isn’t going to stop him! Ebano’s fine. You’re not. Now climb!”

  Jace didn’t need to be told a third time. He grabbed the light silk rope and jerked himself upward. Hand over hand, as quick as a cat, he scampered up toward the rafters. The werewolf, now free of its entangling wooden planks, jumped for the rope. Jace felt its hot breath against his ankles as it leaped to bite at his legs, but the werewolf fell short. Jace flipped himself upside down on the rope, twisting his ankles around the top portion to keep them safely out of the way of the foaming beast below. With a few more tugs of his legs, Jace pulled himself up to the rafter, took Cerisse’s hand, and swung aboard.

  “We have to get them up here.” Jace looked down at the mesmerist, who was still standing by the fire between Belen and the frozen werewolf. The third creature was climbing through the broken window now, and more had begun to pull open the door and pour in through the front.

  “I don’t think we have to worry about that.” Cerisse clung to the thick rafter, her grin shining in the dim light. “Look.”

  Ebano wrapped his arm around Belen’s waist and drew something from his belt with a flourish. Belen clutched her makeshift club with one hand, grabbing him with the other. Ebano snarled, holding the frozen werewolf’s eyes with his own. Then, with a loud command in his native tongue, he flung his hand downward and a burst of brightly colored yellow smoke exploded at his feet.

  The smoke engulfed them, breaking the hypnotist’s hold over the frozen werewolf. It howled in delight, crashing forward into the drifting waves of color—and found nothing.

  “Nice trick,” Cerisse muttered. “Where are they?”

  “Look with your eyes,” Ebano intoned with the aplomb of a practiced stage performer. “See with your heart.” He was standing on the wooden rafter behind them, holding Belen by the waist and smiling like a cat that had gotten into a fisherman’s net.

  “How did you—”

  “What was that—” Jace and Cerisse burst out together. They stopped and laughed, clinging to the heavy oak rafter high above their enemies.

  Below them, more and more of the werewolves poured through the door and the broken window, circling and snapping at the air. The thunder outside rocked the building once more, shaking the walls with its rolling echo. The fire that Ebano had started on the floor sputtered, but the wolves did not approach it, keeping a respectful distance even after the blaze died. The only light in the room came from lightning that flashed outside the window. Jace clung to the thick oak, staring down at the pack of vicious creatures. Fear fluttered in his stomach. The height didn’t bother him, but the sight of all those teeth and claws, well, that wasn’t the kind of net he wanted to land in if he should fall.

  Just then, lightning shattered the darkness outside, flashing through the windows. Jace caught sight of a smaller figure in the doorway. It stood draped in a fluttering cloak instead of heavy, thick fur. The thumping as the thunder passed wasn’t that of padded feet, but instead of a heavy staff upon the floor, coming in from the heavy rain.

  “Is that Mysos?” Jace whispered.

  “No,” Belen answered through gritted teeth. Her eyes were better in the darkness than Jace’s, or even Cerisse’s, if she could make out the solitary figure surrounded by the ever-moving pack of werewolves. “It’s a woman.”

  Light flared again, and Jace thought at first that it was another bolt of lightning. But then the flash stayed, bursting through the room in a sharp spread of cold bluish white light.

  Belen was right. The woman now stood in the center of the room. She was dressed in rags that wrapped around her thin, wicker-frame body. She held on to a staff that was little more than a torn and ravaged tree limb, with knots and broken bark marring the length of the wood. Her gray hair, mussed and laced with greenery as though she’d been sleeping in the musty woods, was twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were wide and rolling, brown as mud surrounded entirely with white.

  “Starlings in a tree.” She spoke in a voice as dry as burning twigs. “Come down, little birds, and—” Her voice fell and her eyes widened as her gaze fell upon Belen. The mad old woman clutched her staff with both hands, baring her teeth amid the howls of the wolves around her.

  “You.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ou dare return here after the woe you’ve caused, the lives you’ve ruined?” The ancient woman stomped her staff upon the ground, the hem of her tattered cloak and skirt swirling around brown, earth-stained feet. Anger radiated from her slight form, shaking her shoulders. “You return here only to die—you, and all those who come with you.”

  “You … know me?” Faced with such deep hatred, Belen struggled with the words. Jace saw her knuckles whiten around the heavy oak rafter, her face paling before the woman’s threats.

  “Who, whom you have ruined, would not?” the forest hag spat. “We would never forget your face, Belengithar—no matter how you try to hide in sheep’s clothing.”

  “We?” Jace seized upon the word. “You’re a survivor of this village—are you implying that there are more like you? Others who lived through the attack? We need to find them, ask them what happened. Belen doesn’t remember anything—”

  “And I want to make this right,” she cut in, “to help anyone who was hurt. But I need to know where they are to do that.”

  “Where they are?” Cackling, the old woman spread her hands wide. “They are here! Look upon them, dragon and friends of dragons! See the people you have cursed.” The werewolves howled and snapped, leaping toward the ceiling in desperate attempts to catch anything that hung too low. “You did not just destroy this village in your attack, Belen. You left its spirit in as much rubble as its houses, rent and broken.”

  “The werewolves?” Cerisse gasped.

  “Yes, the wolves. But they are not true werewolves. The moon holds no power over them. They are cursed wolves, the entire village forever condemned by Chislev, cursed for their failure.” Her red-rimmed eyes stared. “I will tell you the story before you die, yes, I will, so that as the wolves strip the flesh from your bones, your last thought will be of her great betrayal.” She smiled, and there were black holes between her teeth. “This village was once blessed by the goddess Chislev, and even after the gods left this land in the great Cataclysm, we always felt that her power remained among us, however silent, however soft. We knew this because Chislev’s hands remained among us. The forest stayed green and warm through the winter, our butter was always sweet, our streets clean. We protected the stone at the center of our village—a stone sacred to Chislev—and we had peace.

  “Then she came.” Snarling, the old woman stamped her staff on the ground once again, knocking aside one of the broken pews. “From the sky, without reason, she brought a rain of ice and hail where there had only been warmth. Her claws pulled down the village, ripped up the houses, tore away the stone. And for what? We did nothing to her—nothing. We left milk on the doorstep and sacrificed the first hunt each winter to the great silver dragon of the forest. We revered her—and she destroyed us. Chislev’s grace fled this village, and we were cursed for our failure to protect the sacred stone.”

  Ebano said something in his strange tongue, muttering as if he were trying to muddle out some of the details. He tugged on Belen’s sleeve, catching her attention, and she turned a stricken gaze to him. “Not kill?” he asked her, trying to make himself clear. “Belen not kill?”

  “Hey, that’s a good question.” Cerisse raised her voice to shout down over the noise of the wolves. “Did Belen kill anyone? Or are they all werewolves?”

  The hag scowled. “Minus a few lost to hard winters, the wolves number the same as the villagers once did, yes.”

  Cerisse brightened, and Ebano sat back on the rafter. “You didn’t kill anyone, Belen! That’s great!”

  “Gr
eat,” Belen muttered, looking down at the vicious creatures beneath her feet. “Yeah.”

  Jace called down to the hag. “Why were you immune to the curse?”

  “I was cursed as well, though not the same as the others.” She snarled at him. “I did not lose my human form because someone had to tell the tale. Someone had to take vengeance on the one who did this to our village! I was the priestess of the stone, I who told the seasons by its shadow and prayed to Chislev, even after others had forgotten her name. So did my mother, and her mother before her. For my failure, I was given the task of recovering the sacred stone, though my powers were stripped and my body withered. Chislev is angry. She will have vengeance on the one who stole the stone. I will give Chislev vengeance, and then, perhaps, she will lift her curse. Even without magic, I will call on the villagers who were cursed by my failure, and they will seek vengeance for me.”

  The old woman stretched out a withered finger. “Even dragons can die, Belengithar, and your friends will die with you! You can’t stay up there forever. Your food and water are down here with the wolves. You’ve no fire and the night is turning very, very cold.” The rain outside pounded on the school windows, blowing through the main chamber with the shivered breath of ice.

  “I don’t think she’s going to compromise,” Cerisse muttered under her breath. Jace tended to agree. The woman didn’t seem sane, and living with all these wolves probably wasn’t helping. Plus, there was the village’s curse.

  “We have to find a way out of here.” Jace frowned. “Belen, any ideas?”

  The wind shifted her silver hair, tickling her serious expression. “We can’t fight. I don’t want to hurt them, even if they’re attacking us. I’m glad we didn’t cause them any harm when they first attacked.” She peered around the room. “If we could make it across these rafters to the wall and then down through the window, we might be able to escape into the woods.”

  “Then what?” Cerisse shook her head and her auburn braid swung below the rafter where she lay. “We get chased through the woods at night, in the storm, by around three score of wolves? How does that make us safe?”

  Belen frowned. “Well, I hadn’t exactly planned on going with you.” All eyes riveted on her, and she flushed. “She’s after me, right? And the wolves … she won’t let them chase you if I’m still here. Once you’re outside and safe, you can find a way to come back in and save me, maybe in the morning when the wolves start to sleep.”

  “I don’t like you risking yourself, Belen,” Jace said immediately, and Cerisse rolled her eyes. He ignored her and continued. “What if Ebano uses one of those smoke bombs—”

  Ebano rolled his fingers out from his palms. He quoted another of Worver’s lines: “Keep in safety that which you care for most.”

  Exasperated, Jace asked, “What does that mean?”

  Ebano pointed down at the wolves. “Bag,” he said simply.

  “You left them in your bag? Great.” Jace sighed. “Not a lot of options, then. We all head for the window”—he stressed the “all”—“and Belen waits in the rafters while the rest of us get out into the woods. We’ll find weapons or a way to draw some of those wolves away from the school building, and then come back for her.”

  Cerisse slid to her knees on the rafter and began to crawl. “Ebano, tie this rope around your waist, and then we’ll tie it to each of us—Jace and me—so that if anyone falls, the other two can hold him up. Does that make sense? No, no, don’t turn the rope into a snake, Ebano, that’s wonderful, but now’s not the time.”

  Jace and Ebano followed her, with the mesmerist between the two acrobats. Although this wasn’t Ebano’s forte, the gangly man had the reach to pull himself from one rafter to another, and his balance wasn’t bad. The wolves beneath them jumped and ran in circles. Some paced back and forth beneath Belen, and others simply remained where they were, eyes glittering in the light. Belen was right, Jace admitted to himself. They wanted her.

  But that didn’t mean the wolves wouldn’t kill them all if given a chance.

  Swinging Ebano by the rope first, they burst out the window in a quick flash of motion. They fell more than fifteen feet through the broken glass window to the wet ground below, cracking shoulders and rolling in the muck to try and shed the impact of their fall. Ebano, having fallen the shortest distance, was the first on his feet. He untied the rope binding them together. By the time he tugged Jace to his feet they could hear the werewolves baying behind them.

  “Run!” Jace said it and did it all in one breath. Several wolves raced out the front door of the school building, and others jumped to the sill of the window, ignoring the glass that cut their feet. “Stay together!”

  They raced through the darkness and the ruins, ducking from one hiding place to another as the wolves followed their path. Where he could, Jace stopped to harry the beasts, using his sword to cut them as best he could before darting away again. He could see Cerisse doing the same in the darkness, throwing rocks to slow their pursuers or to cause echoes of a false trail that led the wolves away. Ebano followed, his steps silent. Despite the blinding sweep of rain that pelted down from the heavens, Jace thought they were making good time through the village … until they turned a corner and found themselves facing the plaza and the schoolhouse—again.

  “The wolves are herding us like sheep,” Cerisse gasped, brushing water out of her eyes.

  As she spoke, two of the massive werewolves blurred in from the shadows to the right, their faces contorted in feral smiles. A third, smaller figure—probably a woman—slunk along the wall of a house on the other side. “They’re flanking us,” Jace warned the others. He tightened his grip on his short sword and tried to remember that these beasts were—had once been—human. “Don’t kill them,” he growled.

  Cerisse stared at him as if he were insane, four daggers twisted in her fingers. “Kill them?” she spluttered, rain slicking her red hair. “We’ll be lucky if we can hurt them!”

  Ebano straightened, pressing his palms together in preparation.

  The first one charged. It roared toward them, jaws open, claws extended, and met with the tip of Jace’s sword. Although the acrobat wasn’t the finest swordsman in the world, his reflexes saved him more than once in the wolf’s attack. It could see better than he could in the darkness, but he was faster, and the rain made the muddy ground shift, another benefit for Jace.

  The boy wheeled, striking out behind him with the sword. It caught the wolf on the shoulder, scoring a bloody mark that would soon close. The creature struck again, howling. Jace leaped, drawing his feet up and allowing the werewolf to swipe beneath him. The claws nearly hamstrung him, but Jace was faster, and pulled his sword beneath him so that it thrust down beneath his feet. Using gravity and his agile grace, Jace slammed down onto the wolf’s back, sword first. The creature screamed and fell, crumbling to the ground. He knew that it would be on its feet again as soon as its wound magically healed, but at least for now, he’d won. It only made the moment a little less glorious that four more were circling just at the edge of his blade.

  He could see Cerisse climbing on the second werewolf’s shoulders, dodging its flailing arms nimbly as its mouth snapped at the empty air where she’d just been standing. Ebano was using his mental powers to still the third, though the darkness made it difficult. Jace could already hear more beasts in the shadows, coming closer with every breath. He tried to ignore them, blocking the werewolf’s strikes with quick thrusts of his short sword. It was getting easier to see his opponent, its snarling fangs whiter, and its eyes gleaming in the … firelight?

  “Jace!” Ebano’s voice rose over the ruckus. “The school!”

  He hadn’t noticed the glow start, flickering at the edge of his vision while his attention was taken up by the werewolf’s attack. Jace twisted past the wolf’s lunge, trying to look where Ebano was pointing. His eyes fixed on the one standing building left in the square. The school was on fire.

  “Oh my gosh!” Cerisse cr
ied, legs flailing from the wolf’s shoulders. “She’s going to kill Belen! The hag said that Chislev would have vengeance. Belen can’t get out of there without the wolves tearing her apart—and if she stays inside, she’ll burn to death!”

  On the stairs of the building, a shadowy figure with ragged robes and a staff guided the wolves out, cheering on the fire with mad laughter.

  “We have to help Belen!” Jace tried to get past the werewolf, but it blocked him and threw him backward to the ground, leaving thin gashes across his chest from the tips of the its claws. He was lucky it hadn’t caught him more fully, or he might be looking at his stomach inside out. He leaped to his feet and tried again, but there were more wolves around them, slipping through the ruins, over the broken walls. The fire grew higher and higher, sweeping quickly up under the eaves toward the roof despite the pounding rain. It cast racing shadows of wolves all around, on the walls and the plaza square, flickering in the lightning and dancing over mud and stone.

  It took a moment to recognize that one of the shadows was neither human nor wolf. It pressed from within the church, stretching out darkly against the flame, roaring in an echo of the fire’s hunger. With a breath, as thunder once more split the sky, the roof of the building exploded into shards. Stone crumbled as if struck by a mighty blow, and the wolves howled in rage and fear.

  A tremendous head, as large as the horses that pulled the caravan wagons, rose within the flame. It shone as bright as fire-forged metal, sparkling and shimmering amid the heat of the blaze. The neck and wings that flared out against the sky were silver, swordlike, crested, and they swooped with glittering, metallic luster. The creature bellowed with rage, and ice swelled from its breath, mixing into the rain to form a long cone of cold, glittering sleet.

  “Dragon!” Cerise choked.

  “Belen!” Jace screamed.

  Ebano only smiled.