A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)
A Day of Fallen Night: Part 2 – Chapter 39

It took most of the day to reach the Broken Valley. Furtia flew after King Padar, who rode one of a pair of dragons, both with scales like polished iron. He carried a staff of pure dragonbone, which attracted wisps of cloud and marked him as a member of the House of Kozol.

They followed the coast for a time. Only when Dumai could see the eastern end of the peninsula, where it met the Empire of the Twelve Lakes, did the three dragons turn inland, cloaking themselves in cloud.

‘Aren’t you glad you came with us, Lady Nikeya?’ Dumai called over the wind.

Nikeya coughed hard before replying. Her nose was pink where she had staunched a bleed.

‘Delighted, Princess,’ she said with a weak laugh, shuddering in her bearskin. ‘Flight is so refreshing.’

Dumai managed to refrain from needling her again. For once, she looked too pitiful.

In the cloud, it was hard to see their own hands, let alone the queendom far below. Only when they soared over a pine forest did the dragons shake the clouds off, leaving their riders cold and soaked. Dumai shuttered her eyes against the low bronze sun.

I sense the risen fire.

As Dumai leaned out to touch her scales, Kanifa tightened his hold on their rope. I feel nothing, great one.

You are not a dragon, earth child.

I do see something. Strands of damp hair snapped at her face. That must be the place we seek.

Mount Yeltalay shouldered up from a great swathe of cloud, flanked by hills and shallow mountains. The dragons landed before they could enter it. As they exchanged rumbles, Dumai slid from the saddle and held a sleeve to her nose. The rotten smell was terrible – the stench that had clung to her clothing for hours after she had seen the boulders in Seiiki.

‘Here,’ Furtia hissed aloud.

‘Here,’ the Sepuli dragons agreed in unison.

King Padar dismounted with caution, the bone staff in a holder on his belt. He had exchanged his crown for a gilded helmet, bearing the crest of the House of Kozol. After judging the damage to his drenched overcoat, he led them to a tall stone gateway, etched with Sepuli and Lacustrine characters that warned of death and poison. They could just see the tip of the mountain from this low viewpoint, wearing a tattered hood of snow.

‘There should be guards here.’ His gaze darted, and his hand went to his dagger. ‘Be mindful, Princess Dumai. There are pools of mud and water that will boil skin from bone.’

Nikeya coughed, still ashen. ‘How exciting.’

Kanifa drew his sword. Dumai wished she had her own, not knowing what she would use it against. The dragons parted around the gateway, floating a short way off the ground.

Every tree they passed was dead. Steam fumed from simmering cauldrons and bloody cracks in the slopes, forming the thick white roof that Dumai had mistaken for cloud. Sculptures were hewn throughout the valley, seeming to sweat in the warmth, the rock holding a stain like rust. The dragons flinched irritably from the steam, keeping their heads down while trying not to touch the valley. Dumai reached up to place a hand on Furtia.

It’s only steam, she said. No water can harm you, great one.

Water turned by tainted fire.

They trod with care into the soupy foothills of Mount Yeltalay. Houses rotted on tall stilts, while towers had crumbled into heaps of stone, thick with yellow moss.

A rickety boardwalk greeted them, winding through the mist, into the ruins of a settlement. King Padar tested it underfoot before he put his weight on it. Dumai followed him.

‘This was an outpost,’ he said. ‘People lived here for decades, to broaden their knowledge of the world – alchemists, metalsmiths, skywatchers.’ He frowned at a large bronze urn, dulled by mud. ‘That is a Lacustrine instrument, for measuring the tremors in the ground. They must have left in a hurry, to have abandoned an object of such value.’

Dumai eyed it. ‘What drew them to this place?’

‘They saw the earth was open here and came to hear its deep secrets.’

‘And smell them.’ Kanifa watched the steam rise. ‘I’m not sure I could stand these fumes.’

‘Listening to the earth sounds like Northern oddness,’ Nikeya said hoarsely. ‘I hear they have conversations with ice.’

‘They did once,’ King Padar agreed. ‘Now they praise a warrior.’

‘You seem half a warrior yourself, good king, traipsing through dangerous valleys with strangers.’

‘I had another life before I wore a crown.’ He glanced back at Dumai. ‘Much like you, Princess.’

They kept going, walking in the dragons’ shadows. Behind the base of a fallen tower, Dumai spotted a cave. Clearing the trailing moss from its mouth, she saw a faded mural of a peak brimming with fire, and people reaching for the stars.

A yelp pulled her attention away. Nikeya had put her boot straight through the ground. She lurched away from the scalding pool beneath, losing her footing.

‘Nikeya,’ Dumai said, starting towards her.

‘I’m fine.’ Nikeya caught her breath. ‘Stay there.’

Kanifa stretched out a hand for hers. Nikeya grasped it and let him drag her away from the pool.

‘Come to the boardwalk,’ King Padar said, beckoning. ‘The Broken Valley is fragile. If you had slipped into that pool, there would have been nothing left to send back to Seiiki.’

Dumai gave Nikeya her flask before she followed him. For once, the Lady of Faces was silent. Her hands shook as she drank.

The sun had gone down, making the fog much harder to cross. Furtia raised her head, and her crest shone like a clear full moon; the Sepuli dragons did the same.

King Padar stopped where the boardwalk did. When Dumai saw the reason it had buckled, she took a careful step forward, so she could see over the edge, to where the earth had yawned wide. Furtia bared her teeth, eyes wildening.

Too many.

Dumai stared into the rift. Inside, pitted boulders were clustered together, leaking molten lava through their cracks, rattling. Not one small clutch this time, but hundreds. King Padar knelt beside her, the glow catching in his eyes.

What are they?

Twistings of fire and earth. Furtia hissed. They cannot be calmed now. The sky will burn . . .

Something broke through the nearest rock, cracking its dark crust.

‘Princess Dumai,’ King Padar said, his voice calm, ‘go with the Stormcaller back to Seiiki, to warn them. I must fly to Her Majesty.’ He looked at her sidelong. ‘I fear we are too late to stop whatever is about to happen.’

‘Yes.’ Dumai became distantly aware that she was trembling. ‘Good luck, King Padar.’

‘And to you.’

A tail with a ridge of spines curled through the rock. As she turned, King Padar caught her sleeve. ‘There’s a Lacustrine alchemist – Kiprun of Brakwa,’ he said. ‘Kiprun will know how.’

A thrum and rumble made them both look up, Dumai with a heartbeat like a swallowed bird. She knew to fear any unexpected sound from a mountain. At once, she was back at the temple, watching a snowslide rip down the first peak, praying it would miss the village.

Rocks clattered down the slopes, jolting her back to the present. At first, she thought Mount Yeltalay would erupt – until something moved in the steam, a vast and hulking shape her mind refused to understand. Reeking black smoke threaded through the greyness.

Suddenly she was staring into eyes like two great braziers, disembodied by the murk. Dread bound her limbs. She was no longer aware of anything but herself and the beast.

This is the sire. From beneath the mantle. Furtia roared at it. Too strong to fight alone.

One of the Sepuli dragons came for the king. He lunged for the saddle rope and was gone. Kanifa spaded Dumai to her feet, and they stumbled towards Furtia, pulling Nikeya with them.

Behind them, the creature threw its jaws open. The boardwalk started to burn, and every boulder cracked, turning the valley to a furnace, as if the very bedrock of the world had broken.