Now there was full-blown panic, but Piotr roared and advanced on those attempting escape. Calabash jerked to its feet, but made no further move, instead making an alarmed keening sound as more succumbed to the azure dragon’s wrath. Emuel watched, appalled, as two women dissolved with barely a whisper, forced into the azure light by Piotr. The silver-eyed men tried to protect their masters, swinging crackling staffs. But their weapons were of no use, and they came apart just as easily as the rest.
“Silus, do something!” Illiun shouted.
But Silus was doing precisely what his god had asked of him. The azure dragon was the creature of which Kerberos had spoken. Were he to do nothing more than watch, he would be fulfilling his god’s will. He saw Hannah crying, clutching Rosalind’s hand as the two of them cowered behind Shalim. Silus looked to his own son, and saw the fear and confusion there. He realised what he had to do. This was murder, pure and simple. It didn’t matter that his god has asked it of him, it would end now.
He turned to Katya and Emuel. “Take Zac and run. Don’t stop. Go as far as you can. I will find you.”
Katya clutched Zac to her breast as she and Emuel hurried away, but the press of panicking bodies was growing ever tighter as the dragons hemmed them in, like cattle being driven through the gates of a slaughterhouse. The light of the azure dragon was everywhere, unmaking those it touched. Emuel waited for death to reach them, but then he heard Calabash’s call. Pushing his way through the press of bodies, the stench of fear all around him, he led Katya and Zac to the dragon.
“Emuel, what are you doing?” Katya shouted. “That thing will kill us!”
Calabash brought its head in low and opened its jaws. For a moment, Emuel thought Katya would be proved right, but then the dragon nudged them behind it, shielding them from the slaughter as it stood protectively before them.
Piotr roared as it moved against Shalim, who stood with his fists raised for want of a better weapon. Seeing his friend in danger, Silus ducked under the dragon’s right flank as it swung around, the great sail of its wing soaring over his head and slamming into Shalim’s chest. The man dropped, badly winded, as, behind him, the threads of light sought out his wife and child.
Silus tumbled between Piotr’s hind legs and found himself on his back, looking up at the pale belly of the beast. He drove his sword up, but the blade bowed against the tough flesh, barely making an impression. He was about to try again when the dragon shifted and turned to face him. Now out of the creature’s shadow, Silus saw that Shalim had taken the opportunity to hurry his family away from the site of the massacre, and he urged them to keep going.
Piotr growled, and as it did so Silus saw two great fleshy sacks inflating on either side of its throat; the dragon’s belly might have been armoured by thick hide, but these looked very vulnerable indeed.
Silus feinted to the left; the dragon snapped at empty air and growled in frustration, its neck pouches distending further. Silus came in close and swung his sword, the skin of the pouch above him slowly peeling back as his blade cut deep. A thickly-veined membrane rolled slowly away from the incision, hanging like a goitre. He lashed out again and Piotr cried out as the membrane finally ruptured.
Silus didn’t know what he had expected dragon’s blood to look like, but it wasn’t this pale, almost translucent tide that now washed over him. The substance covered him from head to toe – it was in his eyes, his hair, he could even taste the acrid tang of it at the back of his throat. Whatever this was, he realised, it wasn’t blood. It smelled something like the pitch they used to tar the hulls of ships in Nürn, or the naphtha employed in the immolation of heretics outside Scholten Cathedral.
He wiped his eyes just in time to see Piotr swing round again, its great scimitar-blade teeth only inches from his face as it breathed out. Silus saw something like a spark deep in the dragon’s throat and there was a gust of hot wind. When the beast made a sound like a cough and shook its head, Silus dived beneath its jaws, before leaping back to his feet. Seeing the wound in the dragon’s throat, he struck out again, and this time was rewarded with a rich, amber flow.
As the dragon’s blood drenched him, he felt a peculiar surge of energy. Before he knew what was happening, he was on his knees, darkness descending. He was not afraid, for he saw now that he was beneath the waves and the song of the ocean surrounded him. A weak glimmer of sunlight barely revealed the shapes that moved below, but he knew what they were. After all, their blood ran in his veins.
They opened their arms to welcome him and everything that was human fell away.
KELOS FELT THE surge of magic as the dragon’s blood was spilled and saw the terrible change that it wrought upon his friend.
Silus fell, his eyes rolling up until they showed only the whites, his back arching until the mage was sure his spine would snap. Indeed, even from where he stood, he could hear the bones shift. Silus cried out as, all along the curve of his back, black spikes punched through the flesh, blood tricking from the wounds. His shoulder blades realigned and grew, fan-like protrusions slicing through skin and spreading out in quills of black bone. The fingers of his hands elongated, the nails growing into sharp talons. Silus’s screams were muffled as his jaw distended and his gums shrank back from teeth that now looked as keen as blades.
The raw magic in the dragon’s blood had woken that which had lain dormant – or which Silus had suppressed – and the Chadassa nature had become his own.
Kelos watched Silus fight like the creatures who had bequeathed him his powers, with a ferocity and blood-lust that chilled the mage. When the dragon tried to close its jaws around him, Silus’s right arm lashed out and his fist punched through the roof of its mouth. He didn’t need his sword now, and he soon finished Piotr, the amber blood of the dragon soaking the sand around him in a spreading pool.
Seeing its companion slaughtered, the azure dragon raised its head and let out a long ululating call. The answer seemed to come from all around them, and soon Kelos saw dark shapes to the east. From this distance they looked like a flock of crows. More dragons were winging their way towards them, the beat of their wings whipping the desert sands up into spirals as they came in to land.
As the azure light of the dragon had begun to seek out and take apart Illiun’s people, Ignacio led his people in song; the Swords raising their voices to their god in praise of His judgement. Now, however, they clearly had a more pressing concern, as the monster that Silus had become headed their way.
“Die, demon!” one of Ignacio’s companions yelled.
Kelos couldn’t help but admire the man’s determination, but his faith stood him in no stead against the claws of the Chadassa hybrid. He was torn apart within moments, his gore covering his companions as they began to draw their own swords.
This was all going horribly wrong. Kelos had meant the revelation of the dragons to be awe-inspiring, a prelude to the audacious sorcery he would perform to send them all home. Now they were surrounded by more of the terrible creatures, fighting had begun to break out amongst their own kind, and soon Illiun and his people would be entirely eradicated. Kelos no longer had time to carefully channel the power of the azure dragon, but needed immediate access to its magic, and he had just seen the best way to achieve that. He was only sorry that it had come to this; the death of such a magnificent beast would be a tragedy.
Ignacio himself was now facing off against Silus. Unlike his brother in faith, he had fought against the Chadassa before and had already scored a few hits. Bloody red stripes banded Silus’s torso, one so severe that Kelos could see ribs through the wound.
“No!” he shouted, as Ignacio brought his sword to bear once more. “Don’t, I need him.”
Ignacio danced out of the way of Silus’s talons and turned to the mage as he raced towards them. “Keep out of this, Kelos. Much good Silus’s plans have done us. Now let the true agents of Kerberos deal with this.”
“Silus... Silus, look at me,” Kelos said, ducking in front of Ignacio and wavi
ng his arms. As ruthless as he knew the newest recruit to the Swords to be, he didn’t think that Ignacio would go through him to get to Silus.
Kelos barely retracted his stomach in time to avoid Silus’s swipe to his torso. Had he been standing an inch closer, he would have been disembowelled.
“That’s it, come to Kelos. You remember me, right?”
He drew Silus back, step by step, taking him ever closer to the azure dragon. Only a few of the settlers remained; Illiun was amongst their number, and he was doing his best to protect the survivors. Kelos could just make out Katya, Emuel and Zac huddling against the flanks of the black dragon, who appeared to be shielding them from the conflict. Katya noticed the mage and raised her hand and smiled, assuring him that they were safe.
Kelos continued to draw Silus onwards and when he felt the heat of the azure dragon at his back, he tumbled to the side, hoping that Silus would now ignore him and switch his priority to the larger target.
Kelos was glad to see his instincts pay off, as Silus launched himself at the dragon.
The mage was hypnotised, for a moment, by the sheer brute violence before him.
The azure dragon was all controlled rage and precise, focused force. Katherine Makennon would give her right arm to acquire such a weapon, Kelos considered. Perhaps, then, it was just as well that he would no longer be attempting to bring any of the dragons back to Twilight.
Somehow, Silus had managed to clamber onto the dragon’s neck; he made a sound that was somewhere between a growl and a scream as he sank his teeth into the creature’s rough hide. Kelos felt the sudden rush of magic as the first drop of the dragon’s blood was spilled, but it wasn’t enough. For the sorcery he intended to perform, he required a full sacrifice.
The mage suddenly ducked as the dragon turned, its tail coming round like the boom of a ship caught by the wind. He regained his feet quickly and backed away, only for a ferocious gale to whip up the sand around him as something moved between him and the sun. Kelos looked up to see more dragons coming in to land.
As the Swords drew their weapons and warily eyed the new arrivals, Kelos hurried to gather up the rest of the group. He was dismayed to see that, besides Illiun, few of the settlers had survived the azure dragon’s attack, though he was relieved to see Shalim, Rosalind and Hannah amongst their number. Bestion remained with the Swords, supporting their assault on the newly-arrived dragons with prayers and chanting. No matter, they would be close enough for the spell to take effect.
Kelos felt the surge of power as more of the azure dragon’s blood was spilled. But when he turned to look, Silus was nowhere to be seen and there were patches of scarlet amongst the pools of amber.
The azure dragon stumbled. It sported a deep gash across one eye and its right wing was hanging by just a few threads of sinew, although there was more than enough fight left in the beast to deal with the remaining humans cowering in its midst. Yet more dragons were darkening the sky, spiralling down to join their companions. Two of the Swords had fallen to claws and teeth, though Ignacio himself still stood and, fighting alongside another of his cadre, brought one of the great winged lizards down. But the magic that bled out of the creature was not sufficiently powerful for what Kelos intended. For that, only the azure dragon’s blood would suffice.
And as the great dragon closed in on them, the mage weighed up their options.
He could, he supposed, use the magic that already surrounded them to kill them all before the dragons had the chance. Instantaneous death by sorcery was surely preferable to the pain they would experience as they were torn apart by these creatures. The only other option was to teleport himself and his companions to elsewhere on this world, but the dragons would find them soon enough and their supplies were likely to run out well before then.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Zac shouted, though it was not a cry of distress but a call of greeting.
Kelos turned, but all he could see were dragons. Then he noticed one of them behaving peculiarly, shaking its head as though trying to free itself of some annoying insect. But what clung to the bony protrusions that grew from the top of the dragon’s skull was no insect.
Silus had dug his clawed feet into the neck of the dragon and was guiding it by yanking its head this way and that, batting its companions aside as it lurched across the sand.
The azure dragon, intent on the humans before it, didn’t see the beast lumbering towards it. As it opened its jaws to strike, Silus force his mount’s skull down and spurred it into a charge. Just before the two creatures struck, he launched himself at the blue-skinned dragon, slamming into its flank and digging in with his claws. He clung to the beast, limpet-like, as it bucked and spun; no matter what it did, it could not dislodge him. When the dragon finally began to tire, its great chest heaving with every breath it took, its cries becoming more and more plaintive, Silus tore open its throat and spilled its rich golden blood across the sand. There was so much of it that it lapped up against Kelos’s heels, the heady stink of it astringent in his nostrils. The thrill of so much power was almost too much, and the mage had to damp down the sorcery he could feel flowing through him, lest the raw magic tear them all apart.
All around them, the dragons raised their voices in a song for their dying master. To them, this may have been the most beautiful of melodies, but to Kelos it sounded like a thousand enraged cats scrapping in a room full of broken harps. They now had only moments before they were torn apart by the enraged beasts, and Kelos tried to shut out their cries as he concentrated on weaving together the threads of sorcery.
There was a sudden stink of ozone and then lightning was striking the ground all around them. Kelos quickly threw up a shield against the rain of actinic fire. Looking up at Kerberos, he grinned.
“Nice try, you bastard. But guess what? We don’t need you anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, please ready yourselves; this may be a bit of a bumpy ride.”
The azure dragon breathed its last and Kelos took the creature’s escaping lifeforce and intermingled it with the power rising from its cooling blood. Then, sensing each and every one of his companions around him, holding their faces in his mind, he began to reverse the spell that had brought them to this godforsaken world.
There was a quiet that put Kelos in mind of a small country church on a weekday afternoon. It was strangely calming, although when he looked around him, the scene was utter chaos. Hearing nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat, he smiled. This was true power, true sorcery; in comparison, everything he had done before had been nothing more than tricks to please the simple-minded. On his return to Twilight he would be lauded as the highest mage on the peninsula. None would be able to equal his power. He could feel the very fabric of existence in his grasp. The ground was crumbling beneath them; the sky was falling with a sigh; stars tumbled and sang and Kelos saw, just for a moment, exactly how everything was put together.
And it was only a simple matter, then, of opening a door and ushering his companions through.
PART THREE
A HISTORY LESSON
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
HE WELCOMED THE shock of the cold water, letting the sea into himself as he sank into its depths. He called to his brethren, but though they had seemed to surround him just moments before, now there was no sign of them. He looked down at himself and saw that his flesh was changing: its dark hue growing pale, the claws with which he had so joyously shredded the flesh of his enemies receding. He felt diminished, empty. He was the only one of his kind. He was alone. He was–
Silus.
On remembering his name, everything else fell away like the wisps of a dying nightmare. The last thing Silus could remember was the harsh brightness of the desert and the dragon looming over him, amber blood gushing from a tear in its throat. Now he found himself drifting, looking down into the depths of the ocean. From somewhere nearby came a slow repetitive thud, like the beating of a vast heart.
A flash lit up the water twenty yards to his right. A shockwave buffeted hi
m. Tendrils of blood snaked from his nose, drifting around his face as he blinked away the blotches crowding his vision. When the murk cleared, Silus saw a rain of debris falling slowly to the seabed far below. Turning amongst the shattered spars, shredded cloth and scattered weapons were many bodies, and dismembered parts. Men clawed at their throats as they were sucked down into the darkness, their last breaths escaping them in streams of silver bubbles. They fell through water inky with gore. Shoals of quicksilver fish darted through the blood and viscera, feasting on the offal, some even brave enough to take bites out of men not yet dead.
Silus moved to help, but before he could reach any of the drowning men there was another flash, closer than the first, the explosion stunning him for a moment so that he could do nothing but watch as a sinking ship, trailing bodies in its wake, tumbled towards him.
Sensation returned to his limbs and he darted out of the way of the tumbling vessel, only to become caught up in its wake, dragged down with the lithe, pale bodies that spilled from the dying ship. Just before the darkness became absolute, Silus pushed himself away, striking for a surface painted scarlet, ochre and green by the fires that raged above.
As he emerged, Silus was assaulted by the sounds of battle. Not that he could see the conflict, for a dense fog hung over everything, heavy with the stink of gunpowder. Vast shadows moved within the pall, occasionally emitting gouts of fire, illuminating the water and showing Silus the broken bodies that floated there.
“Silus!” It was Katya, swimming through the dead towards him. “Thank the gods, you’re alright.”
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