Master of Dragons Read online

  Now we take her, she snarled.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘You have given us nothing!’ accused Grondil, flecks of spittle flying. ‘You say you do not think of us as fools. Well, you have a strange way of showing it.’

  Caradryel watched the dwarf lord rage. The display was impressive, full of the red-cheeked, fist-slamming bravado the dwarfs employed when they wished to get a point across. Grondil had stood up to speak, though the difference in height, as far as Caradryel could see, was slight.

  Caradryel glanced over at Imladrik, sitting calmly waiting for the tirade to finish.

  ‘What would you have me do?’ Imladrik replied. ‘Summon the druchii before you?’

  Grondil glowered. ‘It would be a start.’

  ‘Enough,’ muttered Morgrim irritably. ‘You have made your point.’

  Grondil glared at Morgrim for a moment. Then, grudgingly, he sat down again.

  Morgrim looked tired. Caradryel guessed that he had been engaged in many long sessions of argument with his thanes during the night. Morgrim had very little to gain from any cessation in hostilities but plenty to lose; perhaps the strain was getting to him.

  ‘Grondil speaks the truth,’ said Morgrim. ‘We can talk around this as much as we like, but we will always come back to the same issue. You ask us to believe you, to trust you, yet trust is just the thing we do not have.’

  Imladrik raised his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘We’ve talked ourselves hollow over this. Your people in the high places, mine in the lowlands. There is room for us to live alongside one another.’

  ‘For now, perhaps,’ said Morgrim. ‘But in a year, when memories have faded? What shall I tell the High King – that we had the chance to destroy our enemy when he was weak and instead let him recover to come after us again?’ He shook his head. ‘You must give us more. There is a blood-debt on your head.’

  Caradryel had been watching Imladrik’s exchanges for so long that he’d almost forgotten the other members of the Council. Against the odds, it was Caerwal who spoke up then, his blank face uncharacteristically animated.

  ‘Blood-debt?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘What of my people? Who will pay the price for the slain at Athel Numiel?’

  Eldig snorted. ‘Perhaps it was not dawi who killed them. Perhaps it was these druchii. After all, who can tell?’

  Caerwal shot to his feet. ‘Do not dishonour them!’ he shouted, his cheeks flushing.

  Grondil and Eldig both stood up and started to shout back. Caradryel glanced at Imladrik again and their eyes met. Imladrik gave him a weary look that said this is hopeless.

  Then, just as the entire chamber dissolved – again – into a series of bawling matches, a lone elf slipped in to the tent from the asur side and sidled up to Salendor. He wore the livery of Athel Maraya, and in all the commotion no one gave him a second glance.

  No one, except, for Caradryel, who observed carefully. The elf stooped low and whispered something in Salendor’s ear. Then, just as silently and with as much discretion as before, he rose to his feet and ghosted back out. Salendor sat for a while, pensive, no longer paying much attention to what was going on around him but staring down at his hands.

  ‘And so what do we have left to talk about?’ demanded the runelord Morek amongst the hubbub, his old voice cracked and cynical.

  ‘Everything, rhunki,’ urged Imladrik, still trying to rescue something from the wreckage. ‘If we could just calm ourselves…’

  ‘That is wise counsel,’ said Salendor, suddenly lifting his head up and looking around the chamber. At the sound of his voice, the space fell quiet. ‘We have been arguing for hours and achieving nothing. Perhaps some time apart would be beneficial.’ He glanced over at Imladrik, seeking his approval. ‘Some wine, some food.’

  Imladrik considered that for a moment, seemingly torn between pressing on and cutting things short before they descended into a brawl.

  ‘Very well,’ he said resignedly. ‘We will adjourn. But, my lords, I implore you to consider what has been offered here. Reflect on it. Let us hope we may convene in a better temper.’

  The session rose. As servants filed into the chamber with refreshments, Salendor quietly made his way to the entrance and walked outside.

  Caradryel got up and followed him. As he neared the canvas opening, Imladrik broke free of an animated discussion with Caerwal and called him back.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  Caradryel nodded in the direction of the city. ‘Salendor,’ he said, and that was all that was needed.

  Imladrik looked distracted, no doubt already thinking of ways to salvage the upcoming session. ‘Are you sure you’re–’

  ‘Leave him to me,’ Caradryel said. ‘You worry about the dawi.’

  Imladrik nodded. ‘Very well, but if he’s ready to move…’ He paused, his face looking almost haggard for a moment before hardening again.

  ‘You know what to do,’ he said, and turned away.

  The land raced past in a blur. The two drakes dived and soared, each snapping at the other as they tried to find purchase, neither landing the decisive blow.

  Drutheira had been reduced to hanging on grimly. The crimson mage was far more powerful than she’d guessed. A dragon – a real dragon – was also far more powerful than she’d guessed. Her own mount was bigger and more steeped in sorcery, but its erratic mind made it a haphazard and flailing combatant.

  She had no idea where they were. The hours of flying had left her disorientated and exhausted. The Arluii were long behind them, a hateful memory now consigned to the north. Seeing her companions on the mountaintop swatted aside so easily had been like taking a kick to the stomach – they should have been able to cripple the mage at least. Perhaps their powers had withered during the long years of the hunt, or perhaps they had just got careless.

  A sun-hot burst of flame rushed past her. Bloodfang wheeled down to its right, tilting clear of the blast, its chains clanking as it spun away from the danger.

  ‘Back!’ she cried, driving the spike-point of her staff into the creature’s neck again, though it did little good. ‘Do not run!’

  Bloodfang had long since ceased responding to her commands. The beast had been badly mauled, first by dragonfire and then by talons – the pain seemed to have driven what little sanity it possessed into abeyance.

  Drutheira glanced over her shoulder. The red mage was close behind, just as she had been since the fight over the mountains, her face fixed in a mask of hatred, her staff still glittering with nascent sunbursts of power.

  Drutheira raised her own staff, dragging up yet another gobbet of raw Dhar potency, dreading the pain it would bring her.

  ‘Kheledh-dhar teliakh feroil!’ she shrieked, her voice cracking, and launched a trio of spinning black stars at the red dragon.

  The creature evaded two of them, pulling up high with a sudden thrust of its wings and arching over the star-bolts, but one impacted, cracking into its exposed chest. The bolt detonated with a sick snap, making the air around it shudder and bleeding out lines of oil-black force. The star-bolt clamped on, sprouting slick tentacles that gripped and ripped like a living thing.

  The red dragon bucked and twisted, bellowing in pain, nearly throwing its rider off and falling further behind.

  ‘Now!’ Drutheira screamed at her wayward steed, wishing she could grab the monster’s head and force it to see what she had done. ‘While it is wounded!’

  The red dragon’s roars of pain must have penetrated into even Bloodfang’s pain-curdled mind, for it responded at last, switching back mid-air and inhaling for a fresh blast of dragonfire.

  By then the asur mage had done her warding work, ripping the sorcerous matter clear of her mount’s flesh and casting it away. Bloodfang lurched into range, its massive wings thrusting like bellows, fire kindling between its open rows of yellow
teeth. The red dragon responded as best it could, uncoiling its wracked body and summoning up flame-curls of its own.

  Bloodfang slammed into it, hurling a raging stream of dragonfire at its torso and following up with scything swipes from its extended forelegs. The two beasts crunched together, meeting with an echoing crack of bone.

  Drutheira’s mount ripped into the other drake’s already ravaged neck-armour. Claws and tail-barbs flew back and forth, dragging and biting. The two creatures grappled with one another, rolling over and over in the skies, retching fresh dragonfire into one another even as their jaws bit deep into fissured armour.

  Blood splashed across Drutheira’s face as she gripped tight, trying to keep her head as the world whirled around her. She caught fractured glimpses of her adversary doing the same thing, lost in the savagery of the dragons unleashed at close quarters.

  Drutheira had lived through a hundred battles, but the viciousness of this one took her breath away. Both creatures were consumed with primal bloodlust, far beyond reason or mortal understanding, roaring into one another like hounds on a stag. Bloodfang was the bigger, the heavier and the more powerful – its muscles rippled under steel-hard armour as its claws punched out – but the crimson dragon was still the quicker and more cunning, writhing out of the reach of its enemy’s jaws and biting back with attacks of its own.

  Drutheira swung around in her mounted vantage, getting a brief glimpse of open water far below them, but dared not shift position further to get a better look. She gripped Bloodfang’s bucking neck two-handed, no longer able to use her staff, summon magic, or do anything other than weather the storm.

  ‘Elemen-dyan tel feliamor!’

  The words somehow rose above the deafening roars, piercing the confusion like a sudden shaft of sunlight. Drutheira snapped her head back up and what she saw took her breath away.

  The red mage was standing – standing – on her steed’s back, bracing herself with one hand while the other whirled her staff around her head. Her poise and balance were incredible, as if she could somehow anticipate every movement her mount was making and adjust for it ahead of time.

  Drutheira tried to drag herself into an attacking posture, to kindle her staff and summon up some kind of response, but Bloodfang’s violent movements made it impossible and she fell back heavily against a bulge of heaving wing-muscles.

  Then the world exploded around her. The red mage launched her magic: a coruscating bloom that blistered the air and ripped into the glimmering world of the aethyr beyond. Drutheira heard a sudden clap, followed by a howl of wind and the tart stink of burning. Bloodfang, agonised by a sudden burst of aethyr-brilliance, twisted its massive head over to bite at the source.

  ‘No!’ cried Drutheira, hauling on the beast’s chains. ‘Do not–’

  It was too late. Bloodfang’s massive, sore-encrusted jowls closed on the mage’s incandescent staff-tip even as she thrust it out. Its point drove up through the roof of the creature’s mouth cavity, searing clean through flesh, gristle and bone.

  The red dragon spun away, breaking free of Bloodfang’s throttling embrace and powering back into the open sky, leaving the mage’s flaming staff embedded in the black dragon’s maw.

  Drutheira tried to clamber up towards her steed’s head to retrieve the lodged staff, but it was hopeless – she had no command of such work, and Bloodfang had been driven into a frenzy of spasms.

  The length of spell-wound ash kept burning away, crackling like lit blackpowder. Bloodfang’s mouth was now smoking, and not from the creature’s native fire-breath. It arched, clawing at its own face, lost in a hell of pain and confusion as the staff worked its way in towards the brain.

  Drutheira clung on, hoping against hope to find some way to pull things back from the brink. The scarlet dragon made no attempt to come at them again – Drutheira caught a fragmentary glimpse of it limping through the air, bleeding profusely, head lolling with exhaustion.

  That was the last she saw of it, for Bloodfang plummeted further, losing height with every jerking wingbeat. Its neck thrashed about, its head shook back and forth, its limbs extended rigidly, stiff with pain.

  ‘Fight it!’ screamed Drutheira, seeing how fast the world below was racing up to meet them. Now it was clear where they were – out over a wide strand of water that glittered in the sun. Bloodfang was heading right for it, perhaps unable to gain loft, perhaps somehow aiming to douse the agonising fire that raged in its skull.

  Drutheira watched helplessly as the dragon’s eyes turned from silver to gold before exploding in a splatter of flaming liquid. The skin around its jaws broke open, exposing taut cords of sinew within. Bloodfang’s own furnace-like innards now worked against it, feeding the inferno that raged down its neck and into its lungs, hollowing it out, purging the ancient sorcery that had sustained it and turning it into a flesh-bound caldera.

  Drutheira had seen enough. Struggling still against the dragon’s tumbling flight, she pushed herself out over a shoulder-spur, almost losing her staff in the process. With a sickening lurch she saw how far she had to fall – over sixty feet, though dropping fast.

  Bloodfang seemed to sense that she was abandoning it and twisted its blind head round a final time. Even amid its anguish the dragon managed a final burst of fireborn hatred. Drutheira pushed herself clear, leaping from her steed as the flames screamed over her. The heat was intense, sweeping across her back and shoulders, but mercifully brief. For a terrifying moment she felt the world open up below her and the whistling surge of the air racing past her cartwheeling limbs.

  Then came the splash and booming rush of impact. She plunged deep below the surface, her robes billowing around her, bubbles swarming into her face and making her gag. She had a sudden terrible fear of hitting the bottom and tried to kick against her momentum. Something snagged against her left ankle and her heart-rate spiked, driven by panic.

  Somehow, though, she managed to push up again. She thrashed her way to the surface and her head broke through. She drew in a desperate breath before ducking under again, gulping and spluttering, then pushed back up, her cheeks puffing.

  As she emerged she saw Bloodfang go down. The creature was howling, wailing in abject degradation as its face melted away from the bone. Its wings had gone limp, fluttering like a shroud as its chained body rolled earthwards.

  The dragon hit the water a hundred feet from her, crashing down with a gargling roar and sending out waves like the wake of a warship. Foam surged up around it, vapourising instantly as its sorcerous flames were finally doused. Its huge tail whipped out a final time, sending spray flying high, before it too was dragged under.

  Drutheira caught a final glimpse of the dragon’s ruined head, gasping for air, before the hissing waves closed over it, then all was lost in a welter of steam and bloody froth.

  The waves from the impact hit her next, nearly swamping her and sending her back under. Her limbs felt like lead weights and her flame-seared flesh smarted – it was all she could do to flail away, blundering towards where she supposed the shore must be.

  The sky above her remained empty, with no sign nor sound of the red mage. She swam on, doggedly pulling into calmer waters. Soon she was amongst reeds, then she felt soft mud under her feet. She hauled herself upright, wading through the shallows, breathing heavily.

  Standing knee-deep, she looked around her. The shoreline was empty – a parched scrubland of ochre soils and meagre bushes. The sun beat down hard from a clear blue sky, already warming her sodden body.

  Her breathing began to calm down, the shaking in her hands eased. There was still no sign of the red mage. The asur’s steed had been horribly wounded; perhaps it too had fallen to earth.

  Bloodfang, though, was gone. Against all expectation, Drutheira felt a pang of remorse at that.

  She shook her head irritably.

  It was a beast, she remonstrated with herself. A dumb
, mad beast. May the day come when all the dragons are so enslaved.

  She started to wade again. A silty beach drew closer, covered in a scum of algae and beset by clouds of flies. Beyond that, desolate land stretched away from her. She could see bare hills on the eastern horizon, their crowns baked butter-yellow and dotted with sparse vegetation. Already she felt thirsty, and the heat was growing. The sky remained empty, devoid even of birds.

  Perhaps I killed them both.

  Her head was light. Already the past two days of unremitting combat felt like some crazed, poppy-fuelled dream, and she still didn’t know quite what to make of it.

  It had not gone how she had expected, and certainly not as she had planned, but she was alive. That was the important thing: she was bruised, alone, exhausted, but alive.

  ‘So then,’ she said out loud, sweeping her dark, hollow eyes across the strange landscape before her. ‘What now?’

  Caradryel made his way quickly to the city. Just inside the gatehouse he caught up with Feliadh, who was waiting for him with a dozen of his troops in tow.

  ‘Is it time?’ Feliadh asked.

  ‘It is,’ replied Caradryel. ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘Into the Merchants’ Quarter.’

  Caradryel nodded. ‘Then we follow him there.’

  They went swiftly. Caradryel let his hand stray down to the long knife at his belt, and cursed himself for not bringing something a little more useful.

  The Merchants’ Quarter was not far, though the name had long since ceased to signify anything meaningfully mercantile. The old storehouses and market squares had been given over to supply depots and training grounds, and like everywhere else in the city the place was crawling with soldiers.

  ‘Who has responsibility for this place?’ asked Caradryel as they made their way deeper into the warren of streets.

  ‘The Lord Caerwal,’ said Feliadh.

  ‘Really? Interesting.’

  They reached a ramshackle courtyard near the centre of what had been the clothiers’ market. One of Feliadh’s soldiers was waiting for them at the junction of two narrow streets.