Burning Ashes by James Bennett

Author:James Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2018-12-10T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Dusk. All Hallows’ Eve.

At an unspoken signal from the king, the goblins climbed the thorn wall. In a tide as thick as ivy, the creatures made short work of the briar, hacking with axe and sword. By the time the wyverns plucked Ben free, from where he’d hung mounted on the branches like some fabulous trophy in a feasting hall, he was slipping in and out of consciousness. Loss of blood and fatigue conspired to weigh him down like lead. The thorns, each one a yard long, remained lodged in his body, pinning any chance of recovery. Heat tingled around his wounds, his flesh slick, raw and feverish in countless places, but the thorns neither withered nor withdrew once severed from the thicket and, unable to move, he had no way to eject them. Nor could he risk changing into human form, using his dwindling size to slip out of the snare. For one thing, he’d seen the king manipulate the briar for himself (hawthorn, a sprig in his hand) and he suspected that his bonds would shrink along with him if he made the attempt. For another, his present bulk stood a better chance of keeping the thorns away from his heart. Arthur meant to slay him—he didn’t kid himself otherwise—but if he’d learnt anything at all about knightly conquests, then the king would want to make a show of it, dead or no.

What residual instinct echoes in your brain? Ben mused as the wyverns clutched his horns, drawing his heavy-lidded gaze up to the bearded skull above him, the king sat high in the saddle. Do the worms chew on your chivalry, Arthur? You’d weep to see yourself. There’s nothing left of you but blue light and ruin …

The Dead and Buried King had no answer. Six or more wyverns had borne Ben aloft and, wings flapping overtime, carried his limp and bleeding body up and over the top of the barrier, rudely depositing him on the other side, onto the flagstones of Trafalgar Square. The square lay in shadow, dwarfed by the wall of thorns, but it was far from empty. A mighty roar went up at the sight of him, clubbing his stunned and wheeling brain. Filth and sweat stung his nostrils. Some of it, he noted, human.

Groaning, he looked down on the rabble, his gathered audience, welcoming him to the arena of his defeat. From the steps of the National Gallery to the four bronze lions crouched around the base of Nelson’s Column, the horde spread out in a bristling carpet. Goblins hollered and bashed their swords against wooden shields. Greenteeth cackled, dragging their hunched, bony forms up to the inside edge of the fountains, the grand Victorian cascades silent, the waters stagnant, black with weeds, blood and shit. Bugbears looked up with round yellow eyes and open beaks, their ursine bodies aquiver. Ghouls, gargoyles and shucks slinked at the eastern limits of the square, eyes glinting from the shadows of the wall. A pair of hounds, skeletal, frost-eyed, barked and howled to see their master return.

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