Darkburn Book 4: The Haunt of Ternss by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Chapter 34

At once Meya dashed out of the chamber. She was already at the top of the staircase when Huldarion caught her arm.

“Not down these stairs,” he said, remembering that the creature had been approaching the east wing. “We’ll go the length of the building, and down the staircase at the far end.”

She nodded, and Huldarion, trying to hurry while still appearing calm, led them all across the landing into the main body of the monastery.

As he entered the first of the dormitories, there was another deep, vibrating rumble. The floor lurched underneath his feet, and then a crash soon followed – slow, drawn-out, and ending with a noise of falling rocks.

He stopped. That sound came from below, on the western side.

Running towards him, fleeing past the empty bunk beds, were Delgeb, Yaret and several others: Tamu, Herval, Ingebré and lastly Leor.

Tamu immediately began to pour out a stammering apology to Huldarion. “So sorry, I’m so sorry, I was trying to get him to come but he kept saying that he wanted to go up on to the roof and I couldn’t–”

“I want to see this serpent,” Leor said.

“Never mind that!” said Delgeb. “You’ll see it soon enough. Huldarion, the floor of one of the dormitories has just fallen in. We can’t get out that way.”

“What shall we do?” Gaelera asked. She sounded, not alarmed, but merely interested. Huldarion inwardly cursed her and all her race of Kelvhans: for were they not the reason he was trapped here?

“Back to the stairs,” he ordered. “If the creature’s on the west side of the building, the east stairs may be safe.” He took Meya’s arm and hurried them back – only to see Novesnu running up the staircase with the other pair of Kelvhan soldiers.

“No way out down there,” Novesnu said. “It’s blocked. My Lady. My Lady.” And he took the time to bow first to Meya and then Gaelera. Such are the constraints of Kelvhan rank, Huldarion thought distractedly.

“We’ll go up on the roof,” he said. “There’s a walkway going round the walls. Up there the darkburn cannot reach us. Once it leaves the building we can decide on the safest route down.”

“If there is one,” Delgeb said. He gave her a look.

Back up the spiral stairs they ran, a large group now, Huldarion feeling like a small clay figure in some game of catch-cat where the pieces were shuttled busily around the board. He was the first to emerge on to the roof; the long slurred rush of the sea came to his ears. From the other direction there came the sound of screaming.

“Stay here,” he commanded Meya and Gaelera. “Leor, you shall have your wish: come with me.” He walked briskly with Leor and Novesnu along the section of the tumbled walkway that led to the front of the building. He steeled himself and prayed his legs would hold him as he looked down.

The air was hot and full of smoke. The screams came from a Kelvhan, with burning clothes and hair, who lay writhing on the steps. A little further down, the steps with littered with the bodies of three more, crushed and smoking. Probably the very men whom he had just ordered to evacuate the building. Amidst the bodies and the scattered rubble, like a vast log, lay a long black tail emerging from the monastery: it thrashed, once, with a heavy beat, and hit the injured Kelvhan. The man flailed and then was still.

The nausea. Fierce, helpless loathing. The dread, despair, the horror. It bid him fling himself off the high parapet into black oblivion. Die, just die. There was no other escape.

So his mind told him. Meanwhile his body told him that it was on fire. Reeling with the smell, the heat, the darkburn aura, he fought his way to will-power as if through a thicket of thorns and managed to take a step back. He heard his own voice saying, “Where is the rest of it?”

Delgeb leaned far over the parapet – he had not even noticed her follow him, and felt that he should reprimand her, except that he had not the will, no ability to organise the words; and in any case, to pull her back he would have had to lean right over and he could not do that.

So he said, “What do you see?” and was thankful that he could speak.

“Its head’s inside the building.” Delgeb pulled herself upright, with an effort. Her face was taut and grim: so were the others’ countenances, reminding him that he was not the only one to suffer these effects. Even if the bodily pain was his alone, they all endured the mental anguish. They relied on him, and he must command himself.

“We will go back and follow the walkway to the other end,” he said. “Leor. What do you know of this monster? What can you do about it?”

“It’s a sea-serpent,” Leor said, his voice hoarse with apparent shock. “I know nothing about sea-serpents.”

“But about serpents, yes? About darkburns, yes? This one seems happy enough to be on land.” He was sharp. “Think,” he said. “And now walk back. Don’t run.” His body was a torment; each step a battle with his muscles. Yet he tried not to show it.

So he walked – did not run – back to the others where they stood on the south-facing parapet, overlooking the long fall to the sea. His stomach turned again at the sight of that crawling, curdling surface, an echo of the serpent’s coils written in foam and restless water. He noticed that Yaret looked ill.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“It’s the drop,” she said, her mouth barely moving.

“Of course. I understand.” Why should someone’s else’s clear distress make his own a little easier? It seemed a curious and shameful thing, yet so it was. He felt better knowing that she felt worse. And of course the darkburn was once more shielded from his sight. “Delgeb? Stay next to Yaret. Go carefully.”

This last instruction was partly to himself, as he tried to ignore his unwilling limbs and set out to lead the way along the parapet, conscious of the grasping fingers of the sea below. The walkway was wide, if uneven; and although its bordering wall was broken, nobody was likely to fall over it unless completely overcome by vertigo or fear.

So do not be overcome, he thought. Command. Command.

Meya was directly behind him, with a long chain behind her: Herval, Ingebré, Gaelera, Maeneb and the Kelvhans, then Delgeb and Yaret, and lastly Tamu and Leor, who was tugging at his beard. A useless wizard, thought Huldarion with a surge of impotent anger, he has nothing to offer. Yet he knew that his anger was really directed at himself.

“Courage,” he said to Meya, who was stepping carefully just behind him. “We are already half way there.”

“If the staircase at the other end is not blocked,” she said. How did it help anyone to say that? Again he felt anger surge up in him. Unfair, unfair. Control it.

But in what felt like a horrifying embodiment of his emotion, the floor beneath him abruptly surged up too. His feet rocked, sending a jolt through his body. At first he thought it was some betraying weakness of his muscles; but a second later, it was repeated, a shuddering thrust of stone beneath his feet. He clutched at the low wall, and then at Meya, grasping her gown tightly. She was starting to say something when the roof began to tilt.

For several yards on either side, the parapet was rising. The stones parted: the old wall gave up easily, and crumbled. Behind him, a Kelvhan cried out in alarm. Meya stumbled, lurching sideways so that her gown tore in his grip. For a dreadful moment he thought she would go over the edge onto the rocks below.

He grabbed her by the nearest part of her that he could reach – her hair – and pulled her upright, seizing her arm whilst somehow keeping his own balance as the stone walkway rocked and swayed beneath them.

“Back! Back!” he cried, for he feared that the whole remainder of the roof was now about to fall. The long line staggered backwards towards the eastern end, Yaret collapsing on her hands and knees as they reached the staircase they had come from. There was a clatter and thunderous rumble of loosened stones; but the monastery roof did not fall in.

Instead, it rose. Grinding and clashing, the remains of the parapet, thick stone beams and paviers all heaved up into the sky, seeming to form an impossible tower – a flying path of tumbling stones – until he realised that behind them was a long, uncurling, thrusting neck: an eyeless head that twisted, seeking.

It was Huldarion’s turn to stumble to his knees. Novesnu helped him up. He looked at Meya, who seemed bewildered and indignant – oddly unafraid. Yet he was afraid. How could he save her? Save all of them?

For even if the serpent couldn’t reach them here, the walkway was in danger of collapse: the roof beneath their feet, the staircase, all of it. The world roared around him, sea and stones together in a terrifying chorus. Everything was trembling, and so was he.

“Leor!” he cried out. “Do something!”

The wizard’s mouth was open. He looked stunned. He will do nothing, thought Huldarion wildly, he is as witless and useless in the face of this monster as I am.

“Back down the stairs!” he ordered. The Kelvhans were already trying to usher Gaelera down the staircase, although she seemed reluctant. She was staring at the darkburn.

Huldarion turned his head. More of the serpent was emerging from the roof, its long neck reaching higher and higher, stones bouncing from its black scaly flanks as it rose. He glimpsed tiny, rudimentary legs. They were as nothing next to that thick twining body, which shed flakes of soot or charcoal as it ascended. How long was it? Surely it could not bear its own weight. Soon it must collapse…

And then it did: the long neck quivered and at last began to fall.

“Go,” said Huldarion, shoving Meya towards the staircase. He had never experienced an earthquake, but that was surely what he felt as the long body thumped down on the parapet. The vibration echoed through him, trying to shake his joints loose and remove all power from his muscles. Stones were sent hurtling through the air as if on wings and then began the long trajectory down the cliff face to the rocks below: he heard the clatter and splash above the roar of waves.

He pushed the others over to the staircase. Gaelera stood transfixed, but not with terror – almost with excitement. Maeneb tried in vain to drag her on.

“Go!” shouted Huldarion, and the Kelvhans, thankfully, herded Meya down and ran down after her, just as he felt another juddering deep thump reverberate right through his bones. The thing was on the move. It had hauled more of its body onto the parapet, shedding great stones as easily as gravel down into the sea.

Another heave, and the serpent pulled its entire body out of the monastery, like some huge revolting parasite that had been lurking there whilst eating its host from the inside. Now it lay at full length along the roof in steaming, twitching undulations. The heat was intense – as was the almost incapacitating aura.

Before Huldarion could prevent her Delgeb pushed past him, sword in hand. She ran up to the blunt twitching head and hacked it with her sword. The steel bounced off, recoiling sharply: but she took the hilt in both her hands to stab the thing, and this time the blade went in.

The head reared up and writhed. Delgeb leapt back, leaving her sword buried in the creature’s neck. Huldarion saw that hers was not the only sword-hilt visible there. There were already two others.

And an instant later there was a fourth: as Delgeb retreated, Ingebré ran up to take her place and do the same, stabbing at the neck. But although the creature pulsed and reared Huldarion thought the swordstrokes could be little more to it than pinpricks. All the same, he was wondering whether to risk his own sword in the same way – and his own life, but he was not dispensable – when he was flung backwards into Novesnu.

It was by no action of the darkburn. He was momentarily blinded and half-stunned by the dazzling crackle of a bolt of lightning. It came from Leor’s outstretched arms and hit the darkburn in the middle of the body. The creature squirmed, before it flung its head a few yards closer to them with another heavy thump.

Huldarion was exasperated. How could lightning wound a thing that was already burnt to cinders? The wizard was more likely to roast the Riders than destroy the serpent. “Fire is no good!” he yelled at Leor, who was looking bemused at his own effort. “Retreat! Get down the stairs!” For everyone was standing here too long, gaping at the convulsions of the darkburn.

“It wants to die,” said Yaret wretchedly. “It wants us to kill it.”

What nonsense. He had no time for this. Yet in another, inward, flash as if of self-made lightning, the scene before him was inverted. He was himself a giant wyrm, blind and writhing in the darkness – scorching, excoriating, constant darkness – looking for an end. For relief. For death.

He was shocked. But then the scene abruptly switched back to reality. He was a man in trouble on a rooftop, trying to save his people from a monster.

Again the head rose: the body coiled its bulk against the stones, as if bracing itself to rise up again. But it seemed to struggle. A spasm pulsed along its body. Could it after all be wounded?

“Maybe it can’t support its own weight,” said Tamu suddenly. “Maybe it can only survive out of the water for a while.”

“It’s been out too long already,” Maeneb snapped; and she drew a short knife and ran forward to attack the darkburn as the other women had.

“No, no!” cried Gaelera. Finally she moved – but not to safety. She rushed after Maeneb. Nobody was close enough to stop her except Yaret, who made an attempt to put herself into Gaelera’s path.

Gaelera shoved her aside as if she were made of straw. Yaret fell over: Gaelera ran on after Maeneb, her wide skirts stiff, her arms outreached as if in pleading.

Maeneb raced up to the darkburn and plunged her knife deep into its neck. Before she could retreat, the huge body heaved in a new convulsion. With a harsh loud crack, more of the parapet collapsed.

Not just the parapet. Suddenly the whole building underneath their feet was quaking, as the darkburn flailed along its edge. It raised its neck and brought it down again with a crash of masonry. Then Huldarion heard a great rumbling roar that at first he thought came from the creature’s mouth: but no, it was the cry of the monastery itself as its stones were ripped asunder and the whole south wall began to tumble.

The long neck whipped round with devastating swiftness. It caught Maeneb and Gaelera; it flicked them, in a hurtle of legs and arms, and threw them both far out, beyond the swiftly crumbling wall. Huldarion, in mute horror, saw the pair of women – separate now – turn in the air like discarded dolls and then begin the long drop to the sea.

A second later the wyrm itself began to fall. Its head reached out towards him even as its body descended amidst an avalanche of falling stones, in a thunder of destruction that blended with the roaring crash of waves.

The tumult echoed in his ears. He stood there stunned. The thing was gone. But Maeneb and Gaelera – lost. Maeneb, his trusted friend, his faithful Rider.

And Gaelera. Her disappearance filled him with appalling horror, because of the consequences. She had been under his protection. All the Kelvhans but Novesnu had already fled down the staircase and had not seen their Post-Regent’s daughter being flung into the sea. How could he excuse it to them? What could he do?

He could not speak. He could not move. A sickness of horror and shame invaded him, a dreadful serpent eating his insides.

But Novesnu, next to him, said tersely, “They can survive. They got thrown out far enough. If they can swim.”

“Maeneb can swim,” said Delgeb. “Can Gaelera?”

“Most likely not. But I can,” said Novesnu. He was pulling off his cuirass and boots as he spoke. Two seconds later, he had taken a run at the remnant of the parapet and leapt out.

Still Huldarion found himself speechless; immobile. If he tried to move he would fall over. He could not look over the side. He could not bear to see the man’s body dashed against the rocks.

But Delgeb, less squeamish, stepped to the ruined edge to peer down. “He’s in the water. And I can see Maeneb too. She’s swimming.”

“Gaelera?” He heard his own voice croaking like a raven’s.

“No… Oh, yes, yes! There she is. I see her head.”

He forced his limbs to walk across to the now precarious edge, and looked. Three heads were bobbing in the water: out beyond them, the swelling and steaming of the waves showed where the darkburn had most likely gone, submerged once more for now.

It ought to have been me who leapt in after them, thought Huldarion. And yet I could not have helped: my scars will not allow me to swim well enough: that thing would drown me.

Nobody else showed any inclination to hurl themselves into the sea. Yaret was on her knees and throwing up.

Yet Huldarion himself began to feel a little less sick with fear. Gaelera was alive. Now, with the darkburn invisible underneath the waves, he was able to pretend a self-command he did not feel. Had anybody guessed his helplessness?

“Unless the darkburn swims away, the seas round it will boil,” said Tamu urgently. “We need to fish them out.”

“Then let us get down to the shore as fast as possible,” Huldarion said forcefully. “There must be some exit that isn’t fully blocked. We need to find it.”

“We need a boat,” said Leor mournfully.

“Well, you can conjure up a boat for us, can’t you, Leor?” he demanded tersely. “Any sort of raft would do.”

“I don’t know,” said Leor. Huldarion mutely cursed the wizard as doubly, triply useless. But he himself could act now: and he needed to get everybody out of the collapsing building.

“Down, down,” he shouted, shepherding them down the staircase to the first landing where Meya and the Kelvhans waited.

“Where is Gaelera?” Meya asked him with a frown.

“With Novesnu. No time to explain. Move on, quickly.” Thankfully she did not argue as they ran on down the next flight of stairs.

Below that, in the shadows, his heart sank; for the bottom of the staircase appeared at first glance to be blocked with fallen stones. But light was seeping past the barrier, and on coming closer he saw a narrow gap where, if they could move some of the rubble, they might scramble through.

“Help me shift these blocks,” he told the Kelvhans, and helped them heave and roll away the biggest of the obstacles. More light appeared: the gap grew wider. Eventually it would grow wide enough to let them out.

But not yet. This all took too long. He himself felt scarcely able to lift even the smaller rocks; for he was grimly conscious of the continuing pain down his left side. Every movement needed gritted teeth.

He was exasperated with his own body. Why could it not do his bidding, when his people needed him? How many had died while he was running up and down the stairs? Did Gaelera live, did Maeneb? How many more would die, if the darkburn came ashore again?

And here he was, still sick with shame and fury at himself, and trapped within the monastery.