Page 33 of Among the Burning Flowers
‘No. There is no cover in the marchlands,’ Liyat said. ‘But Harlowe and his ship will still be in Oryzon.’
‘What use is a fucking ship?’ Melaugo almost screamed. ‘It’s wood!’
‘It’s a way out,’ Liyat shot back. ‘We need to leave Yscalin, and theRose Eternalis heavily armed. It’s our best chance.’ She reached for her saddle. ‘Unless you have another plan?’
Melaugo did not have another plan. Her mind was a white roar of dread, barely contained by her skull. Her mare had already been taken, so she wrestled a sleek black palfrey from its stall. It resisted her with some force, whinnying in alarm.
‘Trust me,’ Melaugo growled, ‘you don’t want to be near a wyvern. I don’t know how they turn you into war beasts, but I doubt you’ll like it.’
The palfrey snorted. While Liyat held off the other thieves from the back of her mare, Melaugo buckled on a saddle and swung her leg across it. Together, they joined the rest of the Yscals who had been outside when the gates closed. Some were trying to get in, hollering the names of their loved ones, but most were fleeing in droves, either on horseback or foot.
Not daring to look back, Melaugo sent her palfrey galloping after Liyat, on to the wine road that led to the coast. In their wake, the people of Ortégardes cried for mercy, trapped by their own defensive wall.
****
The screams from Ortégardes took hours to fade. When they did, the silence was thunderous. Melaugo hoped it was because she and Liyat were too far away to hear them, and not because there had been no survivors. The wyrms hadbeen known to raze entire cities, leaving the streets littered with bones.
For almost a day, Melaugo rode after Liyat, who barely uttered a word. The other absconders stayed away from them, and from each other. Perhaps they were all convinced they had shamed the Knight of Courage with their flight, but Melaugo was a realist. Other than leaving the storm drain open, there was nothing she could have done without her weapons. Perhaps some fortunate soul would come upon them in the Golden Pear. Now she had only a single blade.
If Harlowe had already left Oryzon, that blade was another way out.
They soon ran into others on the wine road – a river of Yscals, all bearing what they could, making for the western ports of Córvugar and Oryzon. Some rode on carts and horses, while others were on foot. Melaugo glimpsed appalling burns on some of them; others were covered in ash and soot, coughing.
This assault had been going on for hours or days. Hard to tell the precise amount of time. At every turn, the wyverns had overtaken the messengers, making it hard for word to spread.
It seemed they had come from the Spindles, perhaps even from Cárscaro. Now they were making their way between the largest settlements of Yscalin, often announced by the Knights Defendant, and it seemed the artillery had been sabotaged. King Sigoso had sent letters to all of the city officials and castellans, commanding them to ensure his subjects’ compliance.
‘I swear to the Saint, it was in his own hand,’ one man was saying, his face red and sweating. ‘His Majestytoldus to destroy the war engines! He ordered us not to resist the wyverns!’
‘That’s the Grand Chancellor of Abraba. He used to punish any word against the king with public floggings.’ Liyat watched him. ‘If evenheis condemning Sigoso, this story can only be true.’
Abraba was the City of Temperance. Small wonder that they had crumbled, with instincts like theirs. They had probably been afraid to use too many arrows. But farther down the road, Melaugo overheard some hopeful news about Samana, the City of Courage, where many guards and soldiers had defied their sovereign. Refusing to dismantle the artillery, they were using it to drive off the wyverns. Their grand chancellor had apparently joined the rebellion.
Samana was one thing. It was a garrison city, the stronghold of Yscali military power, where most Western artillery and firearms were made – but Melaugo had little hope for the rest of Yscalin. Even though it had the largest standing army in the West, expanded by King Sigoso after the sudden death of Queen Sahar, none of its soldiers had ever faced wyverns.
During the Grief, everyone had either hid or fought. As far as Melaugo knew, there had never been a formal surrender to the wyrms. It was a unique tactic; she would grant Sigoso that.
At last, they reached the crossway between the wine and salt roads, where some people had collapsed in exhaustion. Not all of them had steeds, and many were carrying packs or children. Melaugo looked back, sweat on her brow. In the distance, the sky was dark with smoke.
‘We can’t rest for long.’ Liyat led her tired horse towards the river. ‘King Sigoso must be held to ransom. There can be no other reason he would try to stop us mounting a defence.’
‘A good king would still urge his people to fight to save themselves,’ Melaugo said bitterly. ‘Yscalin has artillery and—’
‘Not enough. Half of the war engines are in a state of disrepair,’ Liyat said. ‘Nobody wanted to spend the coin to maintain them. Every generation has believed that it would not be their burden.’
‘Who told you this?’
‘You know I have friends all over Yscalin.’
Melaugo glanced over her shoulder again, swallowing the metallic tang of her own fear. ‘If all of the sleepers on this continent have woken,’ she said, ‘it will be overrun in a matter of days.’
‘And the Draconic plague will return.’ Liyat climbed back into her saddle. ‘We have no choice but to leave. It will spread like wildfire.’
‘What about your work?’
‘I will see to it later. Harlowe once offered me a place on theRose. For now, I will accept.’
‘A ship is nothing to a wyrm.’
