Page 139 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
“We have been soldiers, you and I,” he said. “We have done terrible things, but when the battle is done, we return to our lives. The evil memories are left here.” He cast his hand at the muddy battlefield, discarding something unworthy.
The girl eyed him distrustfully, which showed her intelligence. He had lied. The memories always followed.
“Gor Blimey,” a soldier swore, and the others spun, heads tilting skyward.
The black dragon circled the battlefield once, then settled far enough away that the wind merely rustled their clothing. Lord Wellington lifted his nose to check the air. The wind held no killing cold.
A woman and man dismounted and walked toward them, the man tall, the woman short and swift-paced. Soon, they arrived. Their clothes were as muddied and torn as any soldier after a hard fight, but the man’s had been shaken out, the seams pulled straight, his neckcloth retied. The lady’s appearance had been recently repaired as well. Lord Wellington, unhappily married and familiar with the intimate habits of a shocking number of women, recognized hair and clothes neatened as much as one could without one’s own bedroom and maid.
“Wellington,” Mr. Darcy said.
“Darcy,” Lord Wellington returned. He bowed to the woman. “Mrs. Darcy.”
Mrs. Darcy did not speak.
Lord Wellington’s gaze traversed the field of battle. “Fortune favored us today. The slaver’s control of their crawlers collapsed as we attacked. Without them, our enemies were swiftly reminded that they were overextended and outnumbered in hostile territory.” His gaze finished at the black dragon, colossal, patient, and still. “I assume I should attribute this good fortune to you?”
Mr. Darcy waited for his wyfe to answer, but she either did not hear or did not care to speak, so he replied, “The world of draca has changed. The creatures we call foul crawlers are changing, too.”
Lord Wellington nodded once. “I sent a man to Pemberley. Lieutenant Colonel Fremantle. He has not returned.”
Mr. Darcy’s posture, already excellent, became exact. “He delivered his message and aided Miss Bennet on a crucial and dangerous task. He was a hero. Unfortunately, he did not survive.”
After a difficult pause, Lord Wellington asked, “Miss Bennet is well?”
“Yes.” Mr. Darcy seemed to have more to say on that topic, but unusually, he struggled to express it. He looked over his shoulder to the south. A wave of tiny birds were approaching, swooping to explore every corner of the battlefield, and watching them, he said, “Quite well.” He turned back and asked, “What of Bonaparte?”
Lord Wellington addressed his answer to Mrs. Darcy. “Captured. He is being brought here to formalize terms. He requested, respectfully, to surrender his sword tola dame de guerre.”
Mrs. Darcy spoke at last. “No.”
She walked around Lord Wellington to reach the girl, who was tall for her age, so they were of a height. To her, she said, “The dead are gone. The vengeance they seek, the guilt they would bestow, goes with them into the night. You are forgiven. But keep your memories. Memory is all they have left.”
The girl nodded. Mrs. Darcy walked away toward the black dragon.
Lord Wellington, who had watched many soldiers on many battlefields, said to Mr. Darcy, “Care for your wyfe. Take her away from this. She has seen too much.”
“I know,” said her husband. “I will.”
The wave of song draca passed over their heads, and one landed by the girl, singing.
Mary Bennet,dramatic in dark black, puzzled her way through a maze of shattered Bargate stone. An entire side of the hill and thirty yards of the meadow below had been blown apart. The depth of the hole at the center was impossible to judge—it was choked with debris, the bottom already obscured by steaming water.
Freshly fractured gravel slid under her boots as she tried another path. Carefully, she skirted a boulder taller than her which radiated piercing heat. She stopped to examine another, adjusting her crooked spectacles to see the clawed grooves cut into the rock, spanning wider than she could stretch her arms.
This path succeeded, and Mary exited the worst of the debris. She walked beside a rocky outcrop and reachedla Demoiselle des Parfumswho was sitting tiredly, tied with her back to a tree.
“Mademoiselle Bennet,” the perfumer said hoarsely. Her clothes and face were dusted with crushed stone, and she licked parched lips.
Mary walked to the perfumer’s flying steed. It was now a fluffy cocoon of cloudy-blue silk large enough to conceal a pair of oxen. Gingerly, she pressed the side, feeling the stiff chrysalis-like wall beneath and, under that, the churning vigor of metamorphosis.
Cocoons were all around them: secured in trees, tucked in sheltered spots beside rocks. The smallest were fastened under delicate glovewort blossoms.
Mary returned and sat facing the perfumer so their eyes were level. “You have no allies. The slavers are stripped of their perverted servants. Your Emperor is captured. The French soldiers are surrendering, and the English soldiers are searching for you. They despise you. They may shoot you on sight.”
La Demoiselle des Parfumsdid not deign to answer, just adjusted her shoulders to a more comfortable position. She eyed the ring on Mary’s left thumb.
Mary’s hand clenched the lustrous, black band. “Why did you kill my mother?”
