But it was Tom Lachlan, Bad Tom, who feared nothing, who shouldered into the grim wounds and cut deeper. He pushed past Michael, and entered into the dragon’s black flesh; the burning ichor fell on him, and he cut with the blade he’d taken from another dragon, and he roared “Lachlan for Aa!” with each cut.
And Sauce, for once, followed his lead; her cuts were neat, precise, and chunks of the dragon’s neck fell at her feet, and Gavin was by her, and Michael pushed in with them, opening the hole like a sailor flensing a whale. Michael’s spear burrowed into the dragon’s side, as a stream of magicked arrows rolled from Cully’s fingers, and even in a wind like a hurricane and a wall of snow the great bows loosed and spat, and the shafts, arcane and deadly, plunged deep into the flailing thing’s hide.
Perhaps it was Urk of Mogon who first struck one of the great red eyes. Or perhaps it was Tippit or No Head or Long Paw. But by the time that Tom Lachlan was swinging his sword like a woman splitting wood, by the time that Michael was black with ichor, his hands burned raw even under the weight of twenty amulets, by the time that Philip de Beause was shoulders deep in the very flesh of the dragon, and Gavin was almost drowning in black blood, it was blind, and it had ceased to cast. Gouts of fire and ops struck it; the last tatters of its defences fell away, never to recover, and it was naked to its enemies, and now they were without mercy.
The whole line of the company pressed forward into the black shield.
A vast rainbow of light began to rise from the valley of the Lilly Burn, and float like a child’s dream of a cloud across the battlefield. Thousands of faeries; perhaps millions of them. Their fury of colours and lights swirled amid the storm.
Blanche was walking with the banners, and Francis Atcourt clearly wanted to go forward, to strike a blow, and she drew her own sword. She looked over her shoulder, and there was another figure in armour pushing at her shoulder, and she went forward again, into the black shield. Arrows flew over her, and she didn’t have a helmet, and she was empty of fear, terror, joy, or even the lust for revenge.
“Keep pushing!” said the shrill voice behind her.
Blanche glanced back and saw Clarissa, the Queen of Arles, flushed, and with her shoulder in Blanche’s back.
Blanche had a sword in her hand. She went forward with the line. No one tried to stop her, and when the black shields parted, she went forward with the banners, and her lithe sword, marked deeply with Mortirmir’s M, slashed a strip off the black hide with eight hundred other swords.
And deep in the cave of black flesh, Tom Lachlan roared “Lachlan for Aa!” again, and struck, and more black flesh rolled away; Sauce cut up, sottano and the ghiavarina, almost a live thing, cut high, mezzano as if slicing a curtain, and another panel of flesh fell away, and there was white bone.
The spine.
Bad Tom paused, faced with the reality of the thing.
A grin covered his face.
“HECTOR! I AVENGE THEE!” he roared, and cut into the bone of the dragon’s spine.
And then they were covered in faeries; the tide of colour descending on the dying dragon, leaching his black and taking him for their own.
When the fortress of his mortal immanence was no longer practicable, Ash fled to the high aethereal, to wait another hundred aeons, grow new allies, and …
He was not alone. Even as the hideous faeries stripped his essence like hermetical heyaenas on a carcass, he was naked on the endless plain, and he was not alone.
There in the aethereal stood an infinite tide of figures of gold, more than an army of bogglins; and each of them imbued with the shining gold of transcendence, rank upon rank, like a phalanx of angels. Some he knew; most be knew not; and at their head, the golden figure of a knight. His nemesis the Red Knight, at the head of the phalanx; men and women, irks and wardens, rank on rank his victims and his enemies and all the others; men and wardens, women and irks blazing like suns.
And on the glass-covered floor of the chapel of the abbey of Lissen Carak, Desiderata raised her hands and said, “Te Deum.”
Epilogue
Christmas Eve
Adrian Goldsmith was the last man to leave the scaffolding. He was an odd young man, a study in contrasts, like so many of his generation; he wore the somber, plain clothes of a workingman, and yet on his hips was a knight’s belt, and on his collar was the wheel badge of the company.
Below him, in the nave of the great hall of the new palace of Liviapolis, the dowager empress, great with child, sat on a chair specially made for her to watch the progress on the vast fresco. Goldsmith waved, and she smiled, and her knight, Galahad d’Acon, waved, too.
It took Adrian a long time to get down; No Head’s scaffolding was itself a miracle of design, and he had included ladders and platforms enough for a siege, or so it seemed to the artist-knight as he climbed down.
He bowed to the dowager empress when his feet were on solid marble. “Majesty. I wanted you to see what it would look like.”
Mortirmir accepted a nod from No Head and raised his arms, flooding the upper portions of the palace with light. But he did more than add light; working from Goldsmith’s drawings, he added touches of colour that would be there in the final work; he gilded pieces of armour, and added a deep black to the dragon.
The Porphyrogenetrix, Irene, caught her breath. “Oh my God,” she said simply.
By her side, Gavin Muriens burst into a grin. “He’d like that,” Gavin said.
“When Adrian is done,” Mortirmir said in his most pedantic voice, “I’ll add a level of enhancement, and then make the whole ceiling an artifact; with its own hermetical lighting and protections …”
“Thank you, Morgon,” Blanche said. She was still lying back, looking at the wonder of the depiction above her. “Are we all there?” she asked. “I mean …”
Goldsmith laughed. “I’ve done seven hundred portraits,” he said. “1Exrech is the only baron I have yet to do; I’m going west when the thaw comes. I got Duchess Mogon this morning, and Looks-at-Clouds.”
Blanche looked at the hermetical sketch. “We have been asked if this work is not … too frivolous for such a brutal winter,” she said. “But we say, no man would cancel Christmas Day because he had a bad harvest. Let us remember our hour of triumph, even as we roll up our sleeves to work. What matters is not Gabriel and his … death.” She paused, and commanded herself. “What is important is that we, together, triumphed.”
“That is what I am painting,” Goldsmith said.
Irene glanced at Gavin.
He was trying not to cry.
The next day, Christmas Day, as part of Christmas Mass, Tom Lachlan and Sukey were married in the great hall of the palace of Liviapolis. Sukey had insisted that they be married amid the rebuilding and the repairs. And Sukey generally got her way.
The bride was given away by the new Earl of Towbray, who had only just been invested with his new lands and title by the Queen of Alba. His father had died suddenly, in an accident, while hunting. The queen stood by Earl Michael on this occasion, Kaitlin being a step behind. And Tom Lachlan, whose family was dead, was supported by Ser Alison Audley, known to almost everyone as Sauce, who was now also the Marquesa of Albin; and by her stood Donald Dhu, for the Hills.
The vast hall was packed; every man and woman who could get a ticket was there; the front rows had most of the nobility of the Nova Terra and a surprising number of nobles of the Antica Terra, too. The gates remained open; the soldiers of the empire kept the road clear; grain from Etrusca was feeding the farmers of Alba in the worst winter anyone could remember. The snow fell, and fell; the cold deepened. But the grain rolled through four worlds, and the farmers of Alba had other allies; allies who left a bag of nuts by a cottage door, or a basket of dried berries on a front step.
Regardless, at the wedding, everyone wore their best and tried to forget the snow, the press of business, the alliances, the betrayals, and the dead, and the succession crisis of the empire. Because some stories end, and other stories begin; and e
ven as it is foolish to forget the past, so it is foolish to cling to it.
The Patriarch of Liviapolis said the blessing; Tom and Sukey exchanged a kiss that had Tippit bellowing “Get a room” in his old accustomed way. The company cheered the new earl and his lady, and then three thousand men and women, bogglins, irks, and wardens sat to feast. The dowager empress gave the toast; the Queen of Alba cried, and the two sat together, laughing and weeping by turns, as women who have endured much often do.
And when the feasting was drawing to a close, the Empress Blanche rose and led her people out into the great square, which the Nordikaans had sweated to clear of snow, and there ten thousand of her people joined all the revelers in forming circles, circles within circles, and the music began to play, and all across Alba, all across the Nova Terra and the Antica Terra and even across other worlds, there was dancing to celebrate the new sun, to shore up the wards that hold the dark at bay, and that promise tomorrow.
And then, when Blanche’s baby stirred in her, and her breath came in gasps, and it seemed that everyone might have reached an exhaustion of everything that made a party great, there fell a silence across the square. And from the west, from the gates of the city, there came the sounds of bells, thousands of bells, or perhaps millions, and in rode the knighthood of Faery and their ladies, hundreds of irks on great stags and forest horses, and there was Tapio on a magnificent white hart, and there Tamsin, like a flower in the midst of winter.
And the Faery Knight rode to the center of the square, and his great stag reared, and people roared their approval.
He bowed to the dowager empress, and to the Queen of Alba.
“I beg leave to ssspeak,” he said.
The dowager waved that he might.
“I am the Lord of Faery,” he said. “And on thisss night when all the worldsss are open, and all magicksss true, isss there by chance sssome knight here presssent with a vow, who will run a courssse with me for the love of hisss lady?”
Because when some stories end, others begin.
Characters and Names
Ablemont Friend and confidante of the King of Galle. Architect of the Gallish plan to take Alba, and betrayer of Arles as well. Uncle to Clarissa de Sartres.
Acon, Ser Galahad, d’ Also referred to as D’Acon. One of Queen Desiderata’s most loyal knights, a royal messenger (not an imperial messenger) and a rising star in Alba. Hopelessly in love with the Empress Blanche.
Adam, Ser Eustace l’Isle d’ A knight of Galle, friend of De Vrailly.
Aetius Warlord and Emperor of Man in the very distant past.
Alamain Borders, the The mountains and woods at the eastern edge of the “Antica Terra” (the lands commonly held to fall under the control of “man”). The limit of the conquests of Livia and Aetius. In fact, the Steppes run from the Alamain Borders to the Empire of Qin and are full of nomads of every culture, including irks.
Alcaeus, Syr Gentleman of the Morean Empire, as well as one of the Red Knight’s most trusted lieutenants.
Almspend, Rebecca Also known as Becca, Lady Almspend, Rebecca Lachlan, or Lady Lachlan. The queen’s confidante and friend. When necessary, also the Chancellor of the Realm and the Head of Military Logistics. Lover and eventual partner of Ranald Lachlan.
al-Raisouli, Salim The greatest of the Ifriquy’an magisters after the death of Al Rashidi.
Al Rashidi The greatest magister alive; one of the creators of “the plan.” Friend and teacher of Harmodius, and the founding intellect behind the great plot to win the gates. His full name is Abū l-Walīd Muhammad bin ‘Ahmad bin Rušd.
al-Shirazi, Magister Qatb al-Din An astrologer and philosopher from the far eastern kingdom of Safir.
Amicia, Sister Formerly the Red Knight’s love; a sister of the Order of Saint Thomas, and a living saint.
Angelo di Laternum, Ser A knight of the company.
Anne, Sister The Prioress of Abbington, second in command of the Order of Saint Thomas’s nuns.
Antonio, Father One of the company’s chaplains.
Archbishop of Lorica, the Lorica was the first diocese of Alba recognized by the Patriarch of Liviapolis, and the Archbishop of Lorica, not the Bishop of Harndon, is the religious head of the Alban church.
Ariosto Gift of Ghause Muriens, the Red Knight’s difficult mother, and enamored of both Blanche and Amicia, the griffon is perhaps the most powerful of the Red Knight’s allies. Likes sheep.
Armring, Thorval Nordikaan axe bearer.
Arnaud, Father Former chaplain and knight of the company, a priest-knight of Saint Thomas.
Ash The great dragon, the enemy.
Askepiles The now dead (although his body is occupied by Harmodius) magister of Thrake.
Ataelus The Red Knight’s black warhorse.
Atcourt, Francis Friend of the Red Knight, an old, experienced knight who wants to live to retire.
Aubrichecourt, d’ A knight of Galle, friend of both De Vrailly and of Clarissa de Sartres and the Sieur du Corse.
Baillie, John le Retired mercenary in Abbington, and baillie for the Order of Saint Thomas. Then knight of the company and eventually corporal before dying in the fighting in Thrake in The Fell Sword. Lover of Mag the Sorceress.
Barbara, Saint Patroness of gonners and explosions.
Bateman, Mistress Anne Lady Anne—one of the richest and most powerful people in Harndon.
Beatrice, Donna The Empress Blanche’s “lady maid.”
Beause, Philip de Veteran knight and master jouster of the company, whose magical resistance to death is now drained.
Benn, Mistress Aphra Master ironworker, a leader of the crafts in Harndon, as well as an amateur poet and playwright; close friend of Rebecca Almspend, whose lover she may or may not have been at other times.
Bent A veteran archer of the company.
Berengar, Ser A veteran knight of the company, best friend of Ser Danved. Silent and cheerful.
Berrydrunk A Golden Bear warrior.
Bess Partner of Bill Redmede, a veteran Jack on her own, now pregnant.
Bicci, Lucius di See Patriarch of Rhum, the.
Bin Maymum, Magister Yusuf Yahudat philosopher and astrologer.
Black Drake Another name for Ash.
Black Heron A veteran Outwaller (Sossag) war leader and hunter, serving as a ranger with Aneas. Not to be confused with Heron, a Huran, serving with the company in the Antica Terra.
Blessed Virgin The Virgin Mary from Christian mythos.
Blizzard, King of the Woods A powerful albino Golden Bear Clan leader from the central Adnacrags.
Blue Berry A young bear of growing power.
Born, Grand Seigneur Estaban du A lord of Occitan.
Brewes, Ser George Veteran knight of the company, formerly no friend of the Red Knight and now a senior leader.
Broadarrow, Ser Balin Prior of Harndon. Second in command of the Knights of Saint Thomas.
Brown An assassin.
Brunet, Ser Uc An Occitan knight.
C.2 An imperial messenger bird. The birds are all known by a letter-number designation.
Carlos A company archer and sometimes the company trumpeter.
Carter, Robin A company archer. Also a great friend in real life, and the reviewer @ParmenionBooks.
Cat Evil An Outwaller and a Jack officer. A master woodsman.
Caves, Jack A Jack.
Cheney, Edmund Also referred to as Chevins, Edmund and Allen. A journeyman Bladesmith and captain of the Harndoner militia.
Christos, Syr A Morean knight, former captain of the army of Demetrius, now reconciled to the new emperor. Went sword to sword with Bad Tom and lived to tell of it.
Cigne An Occitan ranger.
Clothyard, John A royal forester officer.
Comnena, Syr George The Caesar. Friend of Morgon Mortirmir and the Red Knight, from an ancient imperial family. He will become the next emperor should the Red Knight fall.
Comyne, Hamish One of the Red Knight’s household pages.
C
onstantine III Son of the former king and Queen Desiderata; King of Alba. Currently in diapers.
Corner, Matteo Captain of the Venikan marines. Venike has a vast fleet and her marines are the toughest and most flexible troops in the old world.
Corse, Sieur Du Formerly one of the Red Knight’s enemies. Now Regent of Galle.
Coucy, Haegert Squire of Albinkirk.
Courtois, Giron le A legendary knight.
Crabbe, Old Mother A survivor in Lady Helewise’s manor house.
Crayford, Ser John Formerly captain of Albinkirk and lover of Lady Helewise. A great knight.
Crom, Abby A woman of the company.
Crowbeard, Ser Kit Captain of the Earl of Trowbrey’s knights.
Cully The Captain’s archer.
Cynthia A ranger from northern Albin.
D.13 An imperial messenger bird. Imperial messengers are roughly the size of a golden eagle and are black on one half of their bodies and white on the other half.
Dar as Salaam A great city in Ifriquy’a and also the name usually given to the sultanate that stretches all the way along the north coast of that continent and that held most of Hatti as well (since lost to armies of the Wild). The inveterate foe of the Necromancer and usual ally of Venike despite their religious differences. The people of Dar and parts of Occitan and Iberia do not follow Christianity and are pious followers of “Submission to God,” or Islam.
Dabbaj, King Rostan The easternmost King of Man; King or Shah of the Safir.
Daispainsay, Ser Edward Lord of Bain. A loyal officer of the Queen of Alba.
Daniel, Ser A leader of the green, or scout, banda of the company; also called Daniel Favor.
Danved, Ser Veteran knight of the company, a man who makes loud jokes, a master of the poleaxe.
Dariush of Thrake, Maria Mother of Alcaeus, sometime mistress of emperors and a master of the game of power.
Daud the Red Master scout for the company, green banda.
Davide, Father Chaplain of the company and a friend of Sauce.
Deadlock Veteran ranger of the Adnacrags, also an explorer. Will probably get his own stories in time.