The Obsidian Throne

  J D Oswald

  * * *

  THE OBSIDIAN THRONE

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue – Rebirth

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE OBSIDIAN THRONE

  J D Oswald is the author of the epic fantasy series The Ballad of Sir Benfro. Dreamwalker, The Rose Cord, The Golden Cage and The Broken World are available as Penguin paperbacks and ebooks. He is also the author of the Detective Inspector McLean series.

  James runs a 350-acre farm in north-east Fife.

  For Alex

  Now I can tell you how it ends …

  1

  Lost another one today. A promising lad, he just disappeared from my study, leaving the fire to burn out and the plates uncleared. There is no sign of him in the castle, and the major domo knows nothing of him. A shame. I had high hopes.

  I remain convinced that there is within men the capacity to know and manipulate the subtle arts. Many show an innate sensitivity to the Grym, which is the source of all life after all. If I can just find a way to increase their mental discipline and dampen down their innate curiosity, I am sure this experiment will succeed.

  From the working journals of Gog,

  Son of the Winter Moon

  Cold wind whipped tears from his eyes as he tumbled tail over nose over tail. Benfro gripped tight on to his precious cargo, falling faster and faster from Gog’s high tower. Still far away, the roofs of the smaller buildings that clustered about it like piglets round a sow were nonetheless hurtling towards him with terrible speed. And still all he could see was the image, the horrible echo from the past as Inquisitor Melyn’s fiery blade crashed down. Cracked scale, ancient leathery skin, wiry flesh and arthritic bone no match for the concentrated power of the Grym. The conjured blade that had taken his mother’s life now claiming another victim he was powerless to save.

  He heard screaming, high-pitched and terrified, but it barely registered in his mind, still reeling from the shock. It was easy to tumble over and over, see the sky then the buildings, the dark storm clouds then the rain-slicked slates, shiny and ominous. Something small plucked and pecked at his arm and he glanced down almost casually. A lifetime ago Benfro recalled scooping the two people into his arms. The younger, the boy whose name he couldn’t remember, was thrashing wildly, desperate to escape the dragon’s scaly grip even though to do so would surely mean he would plunge to his death. The other one, the young woman, was calm. She fixed Benfro with her gaze, ignoring the way her hair blew around her like angry snakes, ignoring the iron grip he had around her even though it must have made breathing all but impossible, ignoring the rapidly approaching rooftops.

  ‘You have to fly.’

  The words were in his head, calm and serene as the Mother Tree. Or Lady Earith. She had eyes of deepest green, this young woman. Benfro could see them clearly, the flecks of gold that hung in the black pupils like stars in the deepest night. His missing eye showed him so much more.

  ‘There is no time for that. Now you have to fly.’

  This time the words came with greater force, pushing the fog from his mind. Or was it the vision of this woman in the aethereal, the aura that stretched and moulded around her a far bigger shape? Whatever it was, Benfro felt himself awaken, and realized then that he was falling fast. Acting on instinct, he snapped open his wings to their fullest extent, catching the air at the perfect moment to halt his tumbling and turn his plummet into a glide. The strain pulled at muscles still weak from his encounter with Fflint, pain rippling through his back and the older injury he had sustained in his escape from Mount Arnahi. For an instant he thought he was going to drop his precious cargo, held tight in arms that were beginning to feel the strain. He pulled them tighter, shutting off the screaming from the boy even as he suppressed the slow count that started at the back of his mind.

  Try as he might, Benfro couldn’t keep his wing tips feathered, the pain and the weakness bending them out of shape as cruelly as Fflint’s mad temper. Looking down to the rooftops, far too close now, he tried to gauge his speed, pick out a route that would see them safely to the ground. It was all coming too quickly, and with a sickening sense of inevitability he realized he was going to crash.

  ‘Hold tight,’ he said, as if his companions had any choice in the matter. He held his wings wide for as long as he could, watching as the dull slate roofs rushed up to meet them. Then at the last possible moment he twisted in the air, wrapping his wings around the two terrified people, letting his back take the full force of impact.

  Slate shattered in an explosion of noise, ancient rafters cracking like dead bones as his momentum took him through the roof. Benfro had the briefest of glimpses of an attic space, dusty and heavy with cobwebs, before his back jarred against a wooden floor, driving what little breath he had left out of him. Floorboards and joists shattered like dry tinder and he passed straight through.

  The next floor was some kind of sleeping quarters, its ceiling far higher than the attic above it. Dazed by the twin impacts, Benfro could do nothing but scan the room as he tumbled, more slowly now, towards a floor covered in faded rugs. A platform raised in one corner formed a sleeping area much like the one he had used in Lady Earith’s palace in Pallestre, only where that had been draped in finest white linen, this was heaped with the skins of great furred animals. A vast empty fireplace dominated one wall, but before he could take in much more than that and a large doorway, clearly built with dragons in mind, Benfro hit the floor.

  This time it held, the rug cushioning a tiny fraction of the blow. Dust billowed up around him as the force drove the last remaining wind from his lungs. Something cracked in his back, pain spearing through the muscles like a hot knife. Benfro’s head snapped back, bouncing off stone with a horrible crack that dulled his senses for merciful moments. He was dimly aware of something struggling in his arms. They were locked rigid and he could barely muster the energy to release them. His wings drooping by his sides, he could only lie there, stunned and confused. High above him, an ornately plastered ceiling had been ruined by his sudden arrival. Above the hole, he could see light, dull and grey and overcast, shining through the ruins of the roof.

  And then a face blocked the view, straggly black hair hanging down until it almost touched his nose. Dark green eyes peered at him, an expression both quizzical and shocked.

  ‘Benfro?’

  This time the voice was in his ears, not his mind. She spoke much like Errol, only in a higher tone, a slightly different accent as if she’d spent more time speaking Draigiaith. Benfro tried to open his mouth in reply, found he couldn’t even do that.

  ‘Benfro? Come on. Wake up.’ She leaned in closer, tapped at his nose with
one finger a couple of times, then drew back her hand and slapped him hard across the snout. He tried to move, affronted by her actions more than anything else, but still he was paralysed, scarcely able to think.

  ‘Damn you, dragon. You saved us from the fall. Don’t die on us now.’ This time the young woman slapped him harder, and with her touch he remembered her name. Martha. She was Errol’s friend. The one they’d been looking for. He needed to find Errol, find Magog’s jewel and take it to the place where the long-dead dragon mage’s last mortal remains lay. Only then could he break free. But Gog was dead. Gog, who was the only one able to take him back. Without him, surely all hope was gone.

  ‘Breathe, you great scaly beast.’ This time the slap was more of a punch, and Benfro felt something even stronger behind it. He flinched instinctively as she drew back for another blow, took a deep breath for what felt like the first time in a thousand years. As his lungs filled, he felt his hearts hammering away in his chest, the burning sensation in muscles stretched too far. Something caught in his throat and he coughed, convulsing in agony and belching up a gout of pure white flame. Martha jumped clear just in time to avoid being scorched. The fire hung in the air like a living thing as Benfro coughed and hacked. He rolled over on to his front, seeing the boy Xando standing a short way off, face white, eyes wide and holding one arm like it might be broken. Without knowing how he did it, Benfro’s missing eye showed him the swirling patterns of aura about the boy, confirmed the break. It would be easy enough to set, but it would take time to heal.

  ‘Wh—’ Benfro tried to speak, but his throat was tight from coughing. He levered himself up on to all fours, shook his head to shift the cobwebs clogging his thoughts. The motion set his wings swinging, and pain lanced up one, so sharp he almost blacked out. He fell forward, the shock jarring up his arms and setting off even more fire in his back and his damaged wing. Too soon after Lady Earith had healed him, he’d pushed himself further than was wise.

  ‘Careful. You’re badly injured. Best not to move too much.’

  Benfro felt a touch on his shoulder, and with the words came a warmth that soothed away at least some of the pain. He looked up at Martha again, seeing that strange aura superimposed on her mundane self. A mystery he couldn’t begin to unravel.

  ‘Help the boy. His arm’s broken.’ His words came out in a hoarse whisper, as if he had been shouting at the top of his lungs for hours. Maybe he had. Martha cocked her head to one side, ever so slightly, then smiled. She took her hand from his shoulder and he instantly wished she hadn’t. The pain came in waves, each breath jabbing needles into the knot of muscles on his back at the roots of his wings. Slowly, tentatively, he reached out his senses, his missing eye seeing parts of him he could never have seen before and in ways he could only start to understand. As Martha tended to Xando’s injuries, so he inspected his own.

  Given the nature of the fall, he was mostly fine, just badly sprained muscles. His back was a mess of bruising beneath his scales that would ache for many days. His wings were largely undamaged, just sore from the beating they had taken from first the roof and then the attic floor. None of these injuries were causing him all the pain. That was a length of timber, a roof truss that his fall had broken off. Its sharp, jagged point had somehow wedged between two scales in his side and the impact with the stone floor of this sleeping chamber had driven it deep into his side. Thick black blood seeped around the edges of the wound, slicking his scales and dripping on to the dusty rug.

  Errol remembered his brief time working with the old stable master at Emmass Fawr, before Father Andro had taken him under his wing and introduced him to the many wonders of the great library. He’d mucked out stables, carted shit and straw down the stone-arched corridors of the great monastery to the midden levels. He knew the stench of horse manure well. After a while it had faded. He would maybe catch a whiff of it under his fingernails where the scrubbing brush hadn’t reached, or in his hair when he washed, but it was only an echo of the full-on stench. And even that had a certain charm to it.

  Not so the filth he waded in now.

  The air was full of it, making it hard to breathe. His head was light, thoughts hard to pin down, and no matter how long he was stuck in the great cave, no matter how many carts he loaded, pushed along their short rails and tipped into the deeper cavern, still the smell was as potent as ever. It clung to him like wet clothes. He was drowning in it, slowly losing all sense of self as the strange compulsion made him dig at the pile. For a moment, when the cry had gone up and more effluent had come crashing down, he had felt the faintest stirring of the Grym, but it hadn’t lasted, and though he had waited for another flood with perhaps more enthusiasm than any of his wretched co-workers, no more had come.

  Now the hem of his cloak was caked in a foul sheen of excrement, weighing him down more effectively than any chain. His feet were soaked in the caustic liquid that seeped out of the mess and into the cracks in the rock floor. His hair was matted, face smeared. He didn’t want to think what condition his hands were in. Even if he could escape, find somewhere with fresh air and clean running water, it would take a lifetime of scrubbing to get the mess off. And even then he would still smell it. There could be no escape.

  ‘You. Stop digging. Eat now.’

  Errol was so wrapped up in his misery, so overwhelmed by the fetid air, that he didn’t at first hear the words. And even when they did seep into his consciousness, he didn’t really understand them, or think they were anything to do with him. The heavy slap to the back of the head was easier to understand. He cringed, leaning on his shovel, then turned slowly to see the supervisor standing behind him.

  ‘Eat. Sleep. More digging tomorrow.’ The supervisor took the shovel from Errol’s weak hands, almost causing him to topple over into the mire. He pointed towards an opening in the cavern wall, flicked his hand dismissively. Too weak even to think, Errol could do nothing but comply.

  His feet led him to a rough cave dimly lit by a fire that had almost gone out. A black cauldron was suspended over it from an iron tripod, something liquid and dark steaming inside. Errol looked around, but there seemed to be no one else having a break right now. He found a stack of rough wooden bowls on a ledge close to the fire, picked one up and ladled some of the food into it. At least he assumed it was food. He could smell nothing over the miasma wafting in from the great cavern. Despite the stench and the muck crusting his hands and fingers; despite the cloying sensation in his throat that made him gag whenever he opened his mouth, he was still hungry. Tilting the bowl to his lips, he took a sip of the lukewarm liquid, surprised that it didn’t taste like everything else smelled. Thin and weak, it was still more nourishing than any meal he could recall eating. It took some of the foul taste away as it washed down his gullet, filled his stomach with residual warmth. He would have killed for some bread, but there was only the soup, so he ladled another bowlful, looking around guiltily as if expecting to be told he had taken too much.

  Exhausted now that he had stopped working, his whole body cried out for rest. He bent down to examine a bundle of rags nearby, to see if there was something he could make into a bed, then recoiled in horror. The rags were clothes, wrapped around a man. Even in the minimal light spreading from the dying fire, Errol could see he was dead. He stood up too quickly, backing away from the corpse in horror. His foot caught on something and he stumbled to the floor amid a pile of rags that cracked like broken bones. Errol had seen death before, but something about this place amplified the terror. He scrambled towards the fire, convinced the dead were rising all around him, come to take him to their cold, empty world. There were people here he knew, their faces twisted in silent screams of agony. Alderman Clusster staggered towards him, leaning heavily on the tall form of Tom Tydfil the blacksmith. Godric Defaid was there, his eyes missing, hands little more than ragged stumps. Poul Gremmil sat weeping by the fire, and when he looked up, Errol could see the embers glowing through two holes where his eyes should have been. A hand
fell on his shoulder, and he looked round to see Duke Dondal, his head tucked under one arm, his neck a bloody stump.

  ‘Wha—?’ Errol tried to speak, but the dead were all around him now, crowding in so close he couldn’t breathe. The faint light from the fire darkened away to nothing, just the barest glow on the jagged rocks of the cave roof. And then as he fought for breath, the darkness engulfed him completely.

  ‘We must reason with them. Find out what they want. Nothing can be gained from this fighting and destruction.’

  Prince Dafydd glanced out of the palace window, across the broken rooftops and away to the far plains below, where Queen Beulah’s armies had massed for the siege. For a moment he thought the seneschal might mean to parlay with her, but even he knew that they had a better chance of reasoning with the dragons circling menacingly above the Neuadd than with the queen whose throne they had just stolen.

  ‘Do you seriously think they’ll talk to us, Padraig? I’m not even sure some of them can speak.’

  Princess Iolwen sat on an ornate gilded throne placed on a raised dais at one end of the room. She looked uncomfortable, but that might have had as much to do with the situation as the chair. Usel the medic and Captain Venner of the palace guard made up the rest of the impromptu war council, with young Teryll the stable hand looking very much out of place as he sat beside the princess on a low stool. War council. Dafydd suppressed a hollow laugh at the thought. There was no war here, just annihilation. Either the dragons would destroy the city or Beulah would raze it to the ground, build afresh once she had put every man, woman and child within the walls to the sword. He had no doubt in his mind how merciful she would be.

  ‘At least one of them spoke to you before. When they first arrived at the Neuadd.’ Seneschal Padraig stood in front of the throne, hands clasped together in supplication, although to whom he was begging, Dafydd couldn’t tell.

  ‘Could you identify the beast, Usel?’ Iolwen addressed the question to the medic, who was standing with his back to them all, staring out of the window. He said nothing at first, then slowly turned to face them.