There was no question of selling my axe, and none of us had left with anything of worth other than Orsha and Dorsi. Both were in good health despite the days of travelling, and we sold the mule easily, to a farmer who would only speak to Mira.
‘Are you settling here?’ he asked, eyeing us suspiciously. ‘You’ll need to see Boyar Calazan.’
Mira and I exchanged a look. So this village was under Calazan’s dominion, in the realms of the pact.
‘No,’ said Mira. ‘We’re continuing north.’
The man made the sign of the cross, an arcane way to ward off evil. ‘You know those are the Voievod’s lands?’
‘We do,’ said Fen, but the man ignored him and turned again to Mira.
‘You’re best to stay here. I could use a house girl.’ I didn’t like the tone in his voice. His home was small and rundown – I doubted he had more than one place to sleep in there.
‘I am not seeking employment,’ said Mira stiffly. ‘Are you not afraid, living so close to the Voievod?’
‘Our master has an arrangement,’ said the man. ‘Brings him things he wants. Means he leaves the rest of us alone.’
His eyes traced over Mira again, and my hand twitched towards my axe. Kizzy had been a bargaining chip for this man’s peace. It did not seem a fair price.
‘What “things” does he bring the Dragon?’
The man shrugged. ‘Don’t know what you’re looking for, but you won’t find it north.’
‘How many days is it to his castle?’
The man crossed himself again: it looked like a twitch. ‘This is the last village before his lands. A day’s ride.’
I looked at Orsha, standing docile by the house. I was not keen on taking her to the Voievod’s lair. But she was a brave horse, and perhaps we would find somewhere safe to hide her.
The mule’s sale had given us enough silver to buy a blade from the blacksmith, and the farmer begrudgingly sold us two hard loaves of a quality that confirmed his need for a house girl.
Our bellies stretched by the coarse bread, we rode on, taking turns to walk. As we passed through the scarce copses, Fen searched the trees for more yew.
In the end, it was not as Old Charani supposed. We did not melt easily into the Dragon’s lands as ice into thawing rivers. The boundary was clearly marked by a fence we saw from the brow of the hill. At first I thought the wooden stakes were topped with demoni, as Boyar Valcar’s castle had been. But as we drew closer, I saw the truth of it.
‘Căcat.’ said Mira. Fen, who was walking beside us, pulled up suddenly, placed his hands on his knees, and threw up. His portion of the coarse loaf splattered onto the ground.
I felt faint, and longed to look away. But my gaze was locked onto the horror of what I was seeing.
The twisted shapes, gaping mouths, monstrous limbs were not stone.
They were flesh, and bone.
They were people. People, impaled upon a fence of wood, stretching as far as I could see.
Orsha side-stepped, shook her head against the bit. The reins were slack in Mira’s hands, and she let them drop. The horse cantered a fair bit back up the hill, Fen stumbling after us, before I could convince her to stop the mare.
I slid off the saddle and held the reins tight.
‘Mira,’ I said, gripping her ankle. ‘Mira, you don’t have to do this.’
She stared off into the middle distance, unresponsive. I knew she was thinking of Cristina. In all our night-time trysts she had never spoken of her, but I did wonder if they had been to each other what Mira was now to me.
Fen caught us up, gasping, clutching at a stitch at his side.
‘You neither,’ I said, turning to him. ‘Neither of you need to come. You could take the horse and go.’
They exchanged a look. Fen’s face was crumpled and bloodless. He wiped his mouth with his hand. Mira’s face was blank, wiped clean by shock and what I recognised as the same numbing fury I felt churning inside myself. I forced myself to look back down the hill. My heart tolled like a death knell.
The castle was beyond that gate, and who knew what horrors awaited me there? All I knew for sure was that I wanted to get there before nightfall. I turned back to Mira and Fen, and he was standing beside the horse, his hands locked together, ready to help me up.
‘Are you sure?’ I said.
‘Quickly,’ said Mira, gesturing for me to get on. ‘We have to reach the castle before sundown. Before they wake up.’
All of us kept our heads bowed as we crossed the threshold of the Dragon’s boundary. For the first time, I understood his moniker. It was like walking into a dragon’s lair. Traveller girls did not enter such places in stories. Knights yes, and other heroes. Never a girl seeking her twin, with naught but her dead mother’s axe and some yew to save her.
Mira seemed to have shrunk inside herself since the sight of the impaled bodies. None of us felt much like speaking – there was nothing to say against the horror – but I longed to hear her voice, comforting as a kiss against my cheek. I wondered if Kizzy had seen the same sight, forced my mind away from the horrible possibility of her fate—
No. You saw her. You saw her dancing.
Other voices crowded me.
And Old Charani saw a promise ring for Fen.
And Cook saw none for Kizzy.
And where was Kem in all of this? Not the fence … No. There was no possibility but to push the thoughts down and go on, until we reached the top of the hill, the fence at its base a macabre necklace of uneven beads.
Before us, atop another hill, almost level, was the Dragon’s castle. It was not, as I had seen in my vision, black and pulsing, like a malign organ. It was, with its whitewashed walls and the afternoon sun bearing down on reddish slates, almost beautiful.
The turrets were squatter than the ones on Boyar Valcar’s castle, and rather than a dragon coiled atop a mountain, it looked like a stone forest, petrified trunks gleaming. Dread churned in my gut. I had learned my lesson from Malovski: just because something looked harmless, didn’t mean it would not crush your throat.
We paused only a moment to stare, before plunging down into the valley. The fence dropped out of sight behind us, but I knew it would stay etched on my mind for all my days.
There was a collection of stone houses at the throat of the hill, but at a glance it was obvious they were abandoned. The roofs had blown away, or were caved in. The sight of the wooden struts, arrowing up through wisps of straw, made me shudder. They looked too like bone showing through tortured flesh.
I gripped Mira’s waist tighter. Would I have been so glad of her presence this past week, had I known the terror of what I was leading her towards? Though the Dragon’s reputation preceded him, I don’t think any of us had approached, in our darkest nightmares, what we had just seen. Even the horror of the strigoi child had failed to impress upon me the depth of his depravity. What had turned his heart to stone? Had he been born a monster, or made one?
As we passed through the ghost village, a wind picked up, moaning against our faces and sending doors crashing about on broken hinges.
Orsha reared. Caught off balance, I fell, pulling Mira down with me. Her feet slipped the stirrups and she landed hard on me. I, in turn, landed hard on the handle of my axe, the shaft biting into my ribs.