The Chrysanthemum Seal (The Year of the Dragon, Book 5) Read online

  How lazy and complacent are these guards?

  He felt Emrys directly below. He linked with the beast to see the situation through the eyes of the dragon. There were two men in the stall; one was watching the door, the other — he recognized Thorfinn, the rider — stood by a large, harpoon-like device aimed straight at the dragon’s heart.

  Any minute now they will receive their orders, thought Bran and forced himself to stay calm. Crawling, crouching and sneaking, he made his way to the iron stairwell leading to the lower decks.

  “Who’s there?” the guard finally noticed something was amiss. Bran scrambled down the stair as quietly as he could. It was pitch black down below, and he dared not shine a light. The guard’s torch swept the floor. Bran hid in a small side corridor. The door at its end was locked.

  Somebody was coming from down the main hallway. Bran was trapped; he clenched his right hand, ready to summon the Lance. The shadow of a man crept towards him.

  The mane of golden hair was unmistakable.

  “Leif!” Bran whispered.

  The chaplain turned, surprised. “Bra — ”

  Bran sprang, covered Leif’s mouth with his hand and pulled him back into the small corridor.

  “Be silent.”

  “Leif, is that you?” the guard cried from above. Bran snapped his fingers; they burst into flame before the chaplain’s face.

  “If you try anything, I’ll burn your eyes out,” he whispered. Leif nodded; Bran released his mouth.

  “Yes, Madoc, don’t worry. I just stumbled on these damn stairs.”

  The guard chuckled and walked away.

  “I need your help, Leif,” Bran said. “They’re going to kill my dragon.”

  “I know. I just spoke to the Vice Komtur. I’m sorry, Bran, but I can’t go against the Komtur’s orders. It would be treason.”

  Bran summoned his Lance. Clenching his teeth and frowning in its faint, blue light, he could only hope he looked as desperate as he felt.

  “If Emrys dies, I will have nothing to lose. How many men will get killed before you subdue me, do you think? In these cramped corridors, where you can’t count on your black dragons…?”

  Leif opened his mouth then closed it. Then opened it again.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Leif opened the stall door. The soldier leapt up and aimed his rifle at him before sighing with relief.

  “By the Bull, Leif, don’t you ever knock?”

  “I’m sorry. You’re wanted upstairs.”

  “Me?” The soldier looked at Leif suspiciously. “What for?”

  “How do I know?” Leif shrugged and smiled nervously.

  Don’t be so nervous, thought Bran, observing the exchange from the shadows. He had one distinct advantage over the men inside: watching the scene through the eyes of his dragon, he knew exactly where each of the guards stood, and could plan out his attack in detail.

  The soldier shook his head. “I don’t know. There’s supposed to be two of us here at all times.”

  “Oh, I can wait,” volunteered Leif. “I can’t sleep tonight anyway.”

  The two soldiers looked at each other; Thorfinn shrugged.

  “Who wants me?” asked the other one.

  “Madoc, I think. He’s by the cannon.”

  “Right. This better not be some kind of a prank. I’m not in the mood.”

  He passed Bran by a breath, muttering curses to himself. As soon as he disappeared up the stairwell, Bran charged inside, straight toward the harpoon gun.

  But Thorfinn was faster than Bran had expected; in a swift move he swivelled the cannon and squizzed the trigger, releasing the giant lance.

  “Rhew!”

  Bran’s fiery missile met the harpoon mid-flight. The explosion threw both men apart, showering Bran’s tarian shield with debris and hot oil.

  Leif howled and ran outside, screaming for help.

  The Gorllewin rider scrambled up first. Ignoring his scorched wounds, he drew a gunpowder pistol. The bullets bounced off the boy’s bwcler. Thorfinn dropped the gun, grabbed the eagle-shaped hilt of his sword and charged forward. The blade burst with bright red dragonflame. A round shield of thin, folded metal unrolled instantly from a bracer on his left arm.

  Bran swept his Lance in panic. The weapons clashed with a loud crackle, Thorfinn’s sword surprisingly resistant to the blade of light.

  I don’t have time.

  He panicked. He wasn’t planning on a sword fight. Thorfinn was the better fencer of the two of them. He struck again, a deft, swift cut, which nearly took Bran by surprise. He parried it with the bwcler and missed his chance to strike. Another blow made the bwcler flicker; the flame burned hot against Bran’s face. He pushed the Gorllewin away and whirled the Lance, aiming low, at the enemy’s legs.

  At that moment, a thick plume of bluish dragon flame enveloped Thorfinn’s head and upper body: Emrys had decided to join the fight. The Gorllewin screamed, shielded himself from the fire and fell forward.

  Straight on Bran’s Lance.

  The blade of pure light sliced him neatly in two just below his unprotected waist. Blood and guts splattered around.

  For a moment yet, Thorfinn lived; he reached his hand towards Bran, twitching on the sword hilt in spasms, his mouth twisted, wheezing. The other half of his body lay strangely separate, jerking in deathly throes.

  Bran stood transfixed. No time, he repeated to himself in shock. No time.

  He forced himself to look away. He wiped the blood off his face, cut through the chains holding Emrys, and leapt onto its neck. The dragon roared and spat a ball of fire into the corridor, and then turned around to face the ramp leading out of the stables onto the quarterdeck.

  Tearing its way through the thin metal bulk, Emrys climbed outside into the night. Bran heard gunshots but bullets could not pierce the dragon scales, reinforced now by the rider’s shields.

  Don’t they have any dragon-slaying weapons?

  He got his answer immediately. With a whining of chains and the hissing of mistfire, the great turret in the middle of the quarterdeck rotated until the twin barrels of its missile launcher were aiming straight at Emrys.

  “Up!” cried Bran, and pulled Emrys into the air just as the first rocket whizzed underneath them. The proximity fuse exploded, throwing the dragon and the rider aside. For a moment, Bran found himself hanging upside down, holding on to the dragon’s horns. Another rocket burst right above Bran’s head, deafening him; the tarian buzzed blue, showered with shrapnel.

  But they were getting away. The shore was close. Emrys was giving all it had, flying for its life at breakneck speed. Soon they were above the fishing village, the temple, and the sizzling bamboo grove.

  Bran looked back. The great shadow cast by the Black Wings was unmistakable. The first of the dragons was already in the air, rising swiftly from the deck of the Star. The ship was far behind, and Bran was sure this time he’d be able to get away. He relaxed his grip on the dragon’s horns…

  In the corner of his eye he noticed another dark shape dimming the stars to his left.

  Annwn’s Hounds…!

  He had forgotten about the dragons on land. The Firstborn and its brethren had already caught his scent. Another rose to his right, heading for the mountains rising on the moonlit horizon to cut off his escape route.

  At his current speed he could lose two, maybe three pursuers… but not all seven. His heart sank. Was everything lost after all? He needed some trick.

  As skilled a rider as he was, he was a burden to his mount. Alone, Emrys got through the Sea Maze and flew across the wide ocean to Yamato, without a rider trying to steer it according to his own whims and needs.

  Bran unbuckled the thin leather belt of the Gorllewin uniform and tied his hands over the dragon’s neck to make sure he wouldn’t fall off during the swift manoeuvres. He was not yet in the blind, mindless rage necessary to summon the Dragonform, but if his guess was correct, he no longer had to be.

&nbs
p; A deep breath and a brief invocation later, he world around him slowed down and magnified. The wind, the lights, the smells, all became brighter and more powerful. Looking below, he saw a tiny squirrel jumping from tree to tree with an owl in grim pursuit. Above him, the stars beamed like tiny Suns. He sensed the Ninth Wind like currents of water washing over his body. There was no need for him to steer, he let the dragon pick its own path through the streams of air, making sure only that it headed in the right direction — deeper inland, into the mountains.

  In his-their-mind, Bran-Emrys drew a complex, twisting flight path, shooting madly through river canyons and forested gullies, until all below — the trees, the rocks, the forest shrines, the mountain streams — was just a dark grey blur.

  Still they came; the Black Wings in relentless pursuit. They weren’t letting him go easily this time. The Firstborn was leading the chase. Bran could sense its primeval, snarling joy, like that of the chief wolf at the head of the pack. And the others were not far behind. The buzz of the Farlink commands coming from all seven riders was almost unbearable. The forest around Bran-Emrys erupted with the fire balls the dragons started spewing in excitement. Splinters and scorched particles of earth rained from the sky.

  And then, suddenly, it all stopped. Bran returned to his own body and looked back to find that the Black Wings had halted as if they’d come up against some invisible barrier. A couple of stray fireballs flew past Emrys, sizzling the treetops, but no more.

  They almost had us. Why did they stop?

  He looked down and saw a silver-grey ribbon of a wide river valley cutting right across the mountains from east to west. A border river, he realized. They can’t fly farther than this. Not until the treaties are signed.

  He felt his left leg burn with sharp, intense pain. One of the fireballs must have grazed it. Emrys’ scales, too, were blackened in several places.

  I have to get down before I fall off…

  He flew around a few wooded hilltops and found one remote enough to hope he would not be found by a search party before dawn, and landed between two towering cedar trees.

  “We made it,” he said, stroking the dragon’s scales. “We made it.”

  But he was in no mood to celebrate. The dying gasps of Thorfinn the dragon rider rang in his ears as he fell into a tired sleep.

  Komtur Perai coughed and squinted, forcing a few tears out of his eyes. The scorched bamboo grove was still smouldering billows of grey, sharp, biting smoke.

  He picked up a shard of the hut’s wall, baked by the heat into a piece of pottery, and weighed it in his hand.

  “That’s cut off neatly,” he muttered to himself.

  Just like poor Thorfinn.

  He turned to face his Seneschal, running up the hill from the temple below.

  “The Councillor’s boat is coming,” the Seneschal announced. “The patrol’s seen it right off the Narcissus Cape.”

  The Komtur threw the shard back onto the pile of rubble and wiped his hand on his uniform. “Hurry up with that,” he ordered the soldiers, cleaning up the debris, “and pay attention to tracks, if you can find any. I need to know who helped him escape.”

  “You think he had help?” asked the Seneschal.

  “He must have. How else did he get to the ship?”

  “But who would betray us?”

  “Not my men, that’s for sure. I’ve known every one of them since they were ensigns. I can’t vouch for those who came with the ships, though. That chaplain, Eiriksson, for example… I’ll raise this with Aulick tonight.”

  “What about the Yamato?”

  The Komtur looked at the eerily quiet fishing village sprawled beneath the temple. It had been emptied of all the inhabitants prior to their arrival, except a few chosen by their Yamato hosts to serve the needs of the dragon riders. He never trusted any of them.

  “I’m sure they have spies among the servants, but they don’t speak our language. And the boy wouldn’t know theirs.”

  “That’s what he said. We know he’s been here before.”

  “And we know a month ago he was on a Dracalish ship bound for Huating. It would take a genius to grasp this language in such a short time. Has the girl been found yet?”

  The Seneschal shook his head. “Gone without a trace. We have her mother, but she’s just blethering some gibberish about demons.”

  The Komtur wrinkled his nose. “I don’t think I trust Otokichi with this interrogation. These are his own people, after all. The better we have our own interpreters the better.”

  “Brother Gwilym is trying his best, Komtur.”

  “I know, Seneschal. But sometimes, our best may not be enough.”

  He raised his eyes to the horizon to where a thin plume of black smoke still rose from the deck of the Star.

  So much damage caused by one boy. He’ll pay for it…

  A large, ornate rowing barge, painted bright red and festooned with flags and lampions, appeared slowly from beyond the tip of the peninsula, and stopped. The Komtur imagined the chaos aboard; the scrambling officials, the confused orders. This was the first that the Yamato delegation had seen a Gorllewin ship, and it didn’t help that the Star of the Sea was one of the largest and most modern in the fleet. Compared to her, the barge was a mere speck.

  “What do we tell them?” asked the Seneschal.

  “Nothing.”

  “But — they will ask…”

  “About what, a fire in the bamboo grove? These things must happen all the time.” The Komtur took off his spectacles, cleaned them of soot and put them back on. “What do you want me to tell them? That we lost a prisoner? That we allowed a boy to run free all around our base? That a foreigner whom, let me remind you, we brought to Yamato, is now somewhere out there, in the non-treaty territory, probably on his way to Taikun’s enemies in Satsuma? That he stole our treaty drafts? Do you know what that would do to our prestige? We need that settlement, Seneschal. Our country needs it.”

  “What if they find him?”

  The Komtur glanced one last time at the damaged Star and shook his head with resignation.

  “Well, Seneschal — let’s just pray that they won’t.”

  CHAPTER X

  There was no respite in the night.

  The ground shook from the elemental bombardment, as blasts of dragon flame and lightning tore the darkness apart. The siege of Suchou, the rebel capital, had entered its final stages.

  Edern stood on the battlements of a small fortalice they had captured a week earlier, and watched the violent fireworks erupt over and beyond the mighty walls of the city, as the wizards and dragons tried with all their might to pierce through the magic shield surrounding it — a miniature version of the bubble barrier protecting Qin. Somewhere in the west, a squadron of Blues fought against a patrol of longs, a flicker of colourful sparks marked their complex manoeuvres. In the north, a rebel hill fort was slowly dying in the shower of rockets fired from a gunboat which had managed to make its way far up the Wusong River.

  Edern stretched his arms and rubbed his cat-like eyes. The bright colourful flashes of the magic eruptions, which he could see without the need for True Sight, were hurting his head. The Tylwyth Teg could survive long without sleep or food, but this was his fifth waking night in a row, and the strain was beginning to take its toll. There was always the danger of a night sally from Suchou, and Edern believed he had to be there for his men just in case.

  The responsibility of commanding the entire great Western army was a heavy burden, and one that Edern had never prepared for, despite his long service in the Royal Marines. He had been trained more than sufficiently to be able to replace the Ardian if he fell in battle. But the rank of a Commodore was never in his sights.

  It’s not that he lacked ambition. But a Tylwyth reaching such a high position was unthinkable in the predominantly human Dracalish army. Simply put, it didn’t happen. He wasn’t even a real soldier, a conscript — but a mercenary bound with a temporary contract with Her Imperial
Majesty’s army. He fully expected to be relieved of his rank as soon as this damn war was over. And the day could not come sooner.

  He may have been Arthur’s Kin, but he was no Arthur the Faer and his dragon was not Y Ddraig Goch. He tried his best to manage, but with each day he was growing more exhausted and restless.

  Edern tried his best to emulate Dylan’s strategies with what little resources he had to spare, and had done so with considerable success. That he could plan and conduct operations all day and night was certainly to his advantage, as was the natural swiftness of reflexes and intuition which, when applied to strategy, allowed him to react to the events faster than any human commander. A chain of surprising victories led his army to the walls of Suchou in what must’ve been record time. It wasn’t the end of the war yet — Jiankang, Qin’s Southern Capital, still remained in the firm grip of the rebels, and their vast regional armies were still spread far and wide all over the hinterland, but the inevitable fall of Suchou was bound to be at least the beginning of the end.

  This should have been a reason to celebrate for the victorious commander. But Edern’s thoughts were far from celebratory. He was tired, irritated, and above all, bored of this slog of a war that he and his men had to take part in for reasons he could not fathom. His contract with the army obliged him not to question his orders openly, but that didn’t mean he never pondered them in his head.

  His soldiers were itching to move on to another campaign. They were marines: mobile, brutal, fast; used to jumping from one frontline to another wherever a short, sharp, surgical strike was needed. But this was a different kind of war. At some point, after another lost battle, the rebels had lost their technological advantage: either they ran out of resources, or their suppliers ran out of patience. What they lacked in machines and strategy, they made up for in numbers. Thousands after thousands of their fighters poured at the fully mechanized defensive lines in a massive suicidal rush.