Chapter 164
A ring of flame racing inward through dry gold barley. Smoke rolls up into the paper-grey sky. The seventy islanders huddle in their string-marked corner, screaming. The crew is scattered across the acre.
beating at the flames with her straw hat, over and over, the brim catching fire, her face streaked with soot and tears.
still sitting enormous at the edge of the field like an old woman on a doorstep, the fire reflected in her one bright eye. She looks moved.
in the smoke, coughing, grabbing Öde by the shoulder.
stopped dead by that. He nods once.
The crew splits up at a run, each heading for a different part of the fire.
Rougeina, Moth-Swap, again and again: every barley-moth fleeing the fire is a door. She swaps with a moth beside the islanders' corner, grabs a child, swaps with a moth at the water's edge, sets the child down, swaps back. Again. Again.
Smurjan's third shadow rears up into Bakasura: the colossal maw, jaws wide, bites a whole wall of fire out of the field. THE WHOLE BITE.
Drekk swings the Marka broadside to the acre and works the bilge pumps like a madman, spraying grey sea-water over the near edge.
Kompis, with Tyst, the silent rifle: no flash, no sound, and one by one the Gleaners on the barges throwing fresh torches drop them into the sea.
on the farmhouse roof, sitting up properly for the first time this arc, eyes open, grim.
writing in the smoke with one finger:
MACRO : RAIN = 10 SECONDS
A small black cloud forms above the islanders' corner and dumps ten seconds of rain, hard and loud. Their corner of barley steams, soaked and safe. Ten seconds exactly, then the cloud is gone.
swaying, sliding down the thatch, his book falling shut on his chest.
Boots. Shouting. Through the smoke, two dozen Gleaners with crowbars and sledge-hammers charge the farmhouse, the one thing in the field that isn't burning: stone walls, a thatched roof, a wooden door painted blue.
across the field, turning, seeing them.
standing in front of the blue door. Alone. Small. A golden retriever with singed fur and ears flat, between two dozen men and a house that isn't even his.
And his tail stops wagging.
The same warm brown eyes. And gold coming up behind them like a sunrise.
On the ridge of the farmhouse roof, wings spread wide over the whole house like a roof of its own, crouches the Manticore: a golden lion's body, wide gold-feathered wings fanned out from gutter to gutter, and a long scorpion tail of amber glass curling high over the chimney, catching the firelight like honey. He is gold from nose to tail. Only the eyes are the same: warm, brown, a dog's eyes.
Below him two dozen Gleaners skid to a stop in the ash, crowbars up, staring.
Behind him the ring of fire, and in the smoke a girl with a scythe, mouth open.
The Manticore roars, and the wind of it blows the nearest flames flat. His wings beat once, and a whole line of Gleaners tumbles backwards through the ash.
The amber tail sweeps, glass singing, and snaps the hook-chains of three barges at once. The barges drift free, and Gleaners leap overboard to swim for them.
on his back in the ash, looking up at the golden lion standing over him.
The Manticore lowers his huge golden head, sniffs the man once, and doesn't bite. He just growls, low and long, right in his face.
(He crawls away backwards, fast.)
watching from the edge of the field. Her bright eye narrows, interested, assessing.
The fight is over. The Gleaners are back on their barges, pulling away. The fire has nothing left to eat. Smoke drifts low across the acre.
The Manticore folds his wings over the farmhouse roof, then shrinks, gold settling down into fur, until a singed golden retriever sits on the doorstep in front of the blue door, panting.
dropping to his knees beside him, burying his face in Mingus's neck.
(Mingus licks his ear.)
rising from the edge of the field, small again, the salvaged strength draining out of her as the grey bell and mill-wheel fall back onto her barge. Bird-thin, bent, dragging her coat.
And now, in the silence, they see it. The last field is ash. Every stalk. A black, smoking acre floating on grey water. The scarecrow is burned to a stick, with an old man's felt hat lying at its foot. Only the farmhouse stands, stone and thatch, a blue door, a golden dog on the step.
The seventy islanders stand in their soaked green corner, the one patch of colour left.
walking slowly into the middle of the black acre. She kneels. She picks up a handful of ash and lets it run through her fingers. Grass tries to spring up round her boots, and burns brown at once in the hot soil.
The emerald names are still there, 111 of them, glowing faintly against the soot. But for the first time they flicker, like candles in a draught.
on her knees in the ash, holding her grandfather's hat, her voice gone very small.