She clutched her staff, feeling the dull stirrings of magic under the surface once more.
‘They’ll take this place, that we know,’ she said grimly. ‘But, by Isha, we’ll make them bleed for it first.’
For a long time Drutheira had heard nothing. The cell was dark, the walls thick. A few dull booms, some muffled shouting from the corridor outside, not much else.
Hours had passed. She began to get very thirsty. It had been a long time since her captors had brought her anything to eat or drink. No doubt they had other things on their minds.
She tested her bonds again, straining against the metal shackles keeping her ankles and wrists locked tight to the chair. She could only move her head fractionally before the chain around her neck pulled tight, restricting her breathing. She’d nearly passed out a few days ago testing the limits of the restraints, and didn’t fancy repeating the experiment.
The asur were not careless about such things, which was a shame.
An ignominious end, she thought to herself. Buried alive in a city on the edge of the world.
Then she heard a series of thumps above her. She sat perfectly still, letting her acute senses work.
The slit of light under the cell door flickered. She heard more heavy cracks, like iron-shod boots clattering on marble. Voices were raised in alarm and challenge, followed by a sound she couldn’t make out.
Drutheira tensed. Either the asur were coming for her or the dawi had penetrated this far down. Neither eventuality was good for her.
The door shivered as something hard hit it. More voices rose, followed by a sharp, wet sound of steel punching into flesh, then a strangled cry.
Locks slid back, chains rattled. Drutheira stared directly ahead, determined to look whatever was coming in the face. If they made the mistake of ungagging her before they slid the knife in then there might still be some way back for her.
The door creaked open. Two asur dressed in the white robes of the city burst in. One of them looked badly wounded, cradling an arm in a sling. The other seemed to need time to steady himself and adjusted slowly to the near perfect dark of the cell.
Drutheira waited patiently. Through the open doorway she could see bodies lumped against the stone floor.
The nearest guard drew a long knife from a scabbard at his calf and loomed over her. Drutheira felt the steel against her cheek, cold as night. She didn’t move a muscle. She didn’t so much as wince as he pulled the blade across her face, severing the gag and freeing her mouth.
She immediately started to speak – words of power that would burst their eyeballs and shrivel their tongues. Before she could get the spell out, though, the guard clamped a hand over her mouth, leaning close. Drutheira looked up at him, almost amused by the effrontery of it.
‘Do nothing foolish,’ came a familiar voice.
The guard pulled the linen from his face, revealing Malchior’s badly sunburned features.
Drutheira’s eye flickered to one side. Ashniel leaned against the cell walls.
Malchior withdrew his hand and got to work on the rest of her bonds.
Drutheira swallowed. Her throat was almost too parched to speak.
‘How?’ she croaked.
‘With difficulty,’ said Malchior, unlocking the clasps at her ankles.
‘We nearly died getting here,’ said Ashniel weakly. ‘And nearly died after we arrived.’
Drutheira raised an eyebrow. So they hadn’t been killed by the dragon. How they had tracked her to such a place, and why, were questions for later. The fact they were before her at all was verging on the impossible.
Malchior released the last of the locks. Drutheira got to her feet shakily. For a moment she thought she would collapse again – the blood rushed painfully through her joints – but she managed to remain on her feet.
‘You have your staff?’ she asked.
Malchior nodded. ‘Take robes from the guards. I can do the rest.’
As Drutheira hobbled from her cell into the corridor outside she saw the results of their labours: six corpses cooling on the stone. She stooped over the nearest and began to strip his robes from him.
‘Where are the dawi?’ she asked, pulling them over her head.
‘Everywhere,’ said Ashniel.
‘This city is dead,’ said Malchior flatly. ‘We might have waited longer, but the dwarfs are killing everything that moves.’
Drutheira smoothed white linen over her druchii garb. The asur fabric smelled foul. ‘Then how are we going to get out?’
Malchior looked at her distastefully, as if he regretted coming after her at all but had been persuaded against his better judgement. ‘Deceptions are not as mysterious to me as they are to you.’
As he spoke his features rippled like water under a dropped stone. Ashniel’s altered too – she became less conspicuous, little more than a shadow in the flickering torchlight. It wasn’t much of an illusion, but amid all the confusion it might suffice.
‘Lead on, then,’ Drutheira said, bowing slightly. Malchior’s cockiness was already beginning to irritate her.
From further up ahead she could hear the sounds of combat – horns blaring, asur crying out in pain and aggression, the heavy clang of steel on stone. It might have been nice to linger, to watch a while, soaking in the air of misery, but that would be a luxury too far.
They slipped along the corridor and up a narrow torchlit stair, passing more bodies on the way.
‘What is your plan?’ Drutheira whispered, limping after Malchior. ‘You know some way across that desert?’
Malchior turned back. His face was curiously hard to make out, a shimmering reflection just on the edge of vision.
‘We don’t have long,’ he said. ‘If you wish to live, just shut up and follow me.’
He didn’t wait for a response before pressing on. Ashniel followed after him. She was clearly in some pain, and said nothing.
Drutheira’s eyes went flat. On another day she would have flayed the skin from his palms for talking to her like that. This was not another day, though; mere moments ago she had been contemplating the certain prospect of death. She felt like she’d been doing that for a long time.
‘Play at this all you want,’ she muttered, shuffling after Malchior, her limbs stiff and aching. ‘Once we’re out, it won’t save you.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Imladrik spied the smoke from a long way out and immediately knew what it meant.
Dawi, growled Draukhain, picking up speed.
So fast, murmured Imladrik. He had expected it to take far longer for them to regroup after Tor Alessi, but perhaps that had been a foolish hope. It was not in their nature to retreat.
The dragon powered through the air, faster and faster, picking up truly furious momentum. As he surged towards the burning city, Imladrik could see the extent of the dwarf army that surrounded it.
It was huge. The desert floor was covered in a thick, dark layer of bodies, all converging on the embattled spires at their midst. The rolling sound of war-drums made the air thrum.
Draukhain plunged into the heart of it, his wings driving powerful downbeats like hammers, his jaws already kindling with heart-fire.
Imladrik watched the walls race towards him. They were broken in a dozen places, crushed into wreckage and clogged with the bodies of the slain. He couldn’t see any asur defenders still on the walls. Here and there banners of Ulthuan and Caledor flew from tower-tops, but it was clear that the city was lost.
We are too late, he sang, his mind-voice filled with horror.
Not yet, snarled Draukhain, angling down towards the battle. He raced towards the dwarf rearguard still out on the plain, swooping into a low glide.
This time, though, the dwarfs were prepared. A barrage of quarrels flew up from the rank of bolt throwers lined up along the approaches to the cit
y. Brynnoth had taken Morgrim’s counsel and saved every one of them.
Draukhain banked hard as the darts whistled past him. They were poorly aimed, but there were many of them. A second wave surged up from the earth, making the air thick with barbs. The dragon narrowly missed colliding with a six-foot-long spiked bolt, checking his surging flight and losing precious speed.
No time, urged Imladrik. To the city.
Draukhain obeyed instantly, sweeping across the rows of bolt throwers and powering towards the walls. As he went he carpeted the ground before him in a rolling wave of fire. Several of the war engines burst into flame, exploding as their tinder-dry frames ignited. Others kept up the attack, pursuing the dragon as he sped past, aiming to puncture a wing or sever a tendon.
Imladrik barely noticed the rain of darts. His eyes fixed on the burning spires ahead, desperately searching for some sign of defiance. He thought he caught a flash of magefire and his heart leapt – only for it to be sunlight glaring from dawi armour plates.
The centre, he sang, and Draukhain shot over the walls and thrust towards the tallest towers. Bolts, quarrels and arrows followed them, none biting but several coming close.
A cluster of spires loomed up at them, hazy in the kicked-up dust and smoke. Draukhain weaved through them, loosing tight gouts of flame at any dawi exposed on the surface. He spied a whole phalanx of warriors making their way across a high bridge suspended between tower-tops and pounced after them, climbing steeply and vomiting a column of immolation. They scattered, desperately trying to escape the inundation.
At the last minute Draukhain pulled up. His long tail crashed into the slender span as he soared past, slicing straight through it. The bridge collapsed, dissolving into a cataract of powdered stone and sending the surviving dwarfs plummeting to the earth below.
Imladrik scoured the cityscape. At last, he made out some defenders – asur knights engaged in a fighting retreat towards the huge Temple of Asuryan, just a few hundred of them surrounded by a far larger force of dwarfs.
Down there, he commanded.
Draukhain plunged, tipping left to evade the nearest spire and diving hard. By the time he reached ground-level he was travelling very, very fast. He crashed into the dwarfs, scraping his claws along the ground and dragging dozens up with him, then shooting clear and hurling away those he had skewered. Their broken bodies tumbled headlong before slamming into the walls of the buildings they had ruined.
Draukhain immediately banked hard for another pass, narrowly missing the turret of another tower. The confined spaces of Oeragor’s fortress heart were hard to manoeuvre in – with every wingbeat Draukhain risked crashing into a solid wall of stone. Whenever he rose above the line of the tower-tops the bolt throwers would open up again, sending a cloud of darts screaming towards them.
This wasn’t Tor Alessi; the dwarfs were not facing battalions of mages and spearmen, nor were there other dragons to rake the bolt throwers while Draukhain slaughtered the infantry. They were alone, a sole dragon and his rider against an entire army, grappling over a fortress that had already been lost.
Imladrik felt like screaming. The hot rush of killing hammered in his temples again, the familiar surge of fury that always came when the dragon was unleashed. This time, though, it was tainted by other things: guilt, frustration. He was too late. He had tarried at the coast for too long, tied up with the business of the war there, dragged down by the complaints and concerns of others.
Liandra. Is she here?
Draukhain thundered down a narrow gap between buildings, his wings brushing at the edges of the stone canyon, covering the cowering dwarfs below in vengeful flames. Then he leapt steeply upwards, swerving away from a looming watchtower before hauling his immense body into the clear.
The bolt seemed to come out of nowhere. As if guided by fate, it scythed through the maze of spires and speared clean through Draukhain’s right wing. Its steel tip pierced the hard membranous flesh and lodged fast.
The dragon immediately tilted, righting himself a fraction of a second later. The pain of the blow radiated through Imladrik’s mind, a sharp echo that felt as if his own right arm had been impaled.
Down lower! he sang urgently.
More quarrels spiralled through the air, a constant barrage, hurled over the towers by the ranks upon ranks of bolt throwers brought up to the city. They shot above and around them, mere yards away.
Imladrik looked about him, despair mounting. He almost gave the order to pull away then, to power clear of the city’s edge and seek respite. There was precious little to save in any case – he needed to think.
It was Draukhain that prevented him. The wound seemed to enrage him, as if the sheer impertinence of it somehow pricked his immense sense of superiority. The dragon flew harder, barrelling into the sides of buildings around him and crushing them into rubble. His flames surged out, cascading like breakers against whole rooftops and street-fronts. He roared and bellowed, his tail thrashed, his jaws gaped.
He would take on the whole army, Imladrik knew. He would fly into it, again and again, until one of them lay broken in the dust.
Imladrik looked down then, through the murk and the dirt, trying to make some sense of the milling confusion at ground level. Dwarfs were everywhere, gazing up in either fury or wonder, some running for cover, others angling crossbows in their direction.
Draukhain broke out of the narrow spaces and swung round into a wide courtyard, pursuing a whole company of fleeing infantry into the open. Hundreds more waited for them there, all heavily armoured in iron plates and carrying huge, ornate warhammers. As soon as he saw them Imladrik realised this was the heart of the dwarf army, the thanes and their elite troops at the forefront of the fighting. Dozens of quarrellers crowded the space, jostling to get the first shot away. Bolt throwers had been erected around the courtyard’s edge, each one strung tight and loaded.
Pull away, warned Imladrik, seeing the danger. They couldn’t miss. Even a blind bowman with a single arrow couldn’t miss in that space. Pull away!
Draukhain paid no heed. He fell into attack posture – wings splayed, claws out, jaws open. He flew at them in a blaze of fire and loathing, ripping through their ranks like a wolf loosed amid cattle. Imladrik bucked as the impact came, nearly losing his seat. He saw the walls race around in a blur, broken by scattered dwarf corpses, many on fire, others torn into tatters of bloody flesh.
Draukhain thrust upwards, nearing the far side of the courtyard and needing to climb again. Imladrik felt bolts slice into the dragon’s side – two of them, each punching deep within Draukhain’s armoured hide.
Draukhain twisted in agony, almost crashing straight into the oncoming wall, hampered by his impaled wing. Flames flared out from his outstretched jaws, bursting across one of the bolt throwers and blasting it into ash.
The dragon tried to gain loft, but a fresh flurry of crossbow bolts slammed into his outstretched wings. They pierced the flesh, sending hot, black blood spotting in the air.
Away! ordered Imladrik, glancing up at the sky above. They were hemmed in, overlooked by walls on all sides. This was no place to get bogged down.
Draukhain’s claws brushed against the ground. He pounced back at the dwarfs, almost running, his wings rent and bloody. A ferocious swathe of fire burst from his maw, clearing the ground before him. Dwarfs caught in the blaze staggered away, clawing at their eyes or trying to roll the flames out.
The carnage was terrible – Imladrik saw scores dead, face-down in the dust and blood, their armour charred black – but Draukhain couldn’t kill them quickly enough.
More quarrels screamed across at them from the far side of the courtyard. Two more found their mark, biting deep in Draukhain’s thrashing neck. Imladrik felt the pain of it again, blinding in intensity.
Caught by the impact, Draukhain skidded to one side, tilting over wildly. His shoulder crashed to the ear
th, digging deep into the stone flags and tipping them up. Imladrik was thrown clear, leaping at the last moment before his mount careered into the side of a terrace. The impact was huge – a crack of breaking stone, a shower of masonry over the prone body of the huge beast. Rocks the size of a dawi’s chest thudded into Draukhain’s flanks, denting the armoured scales.
Imladrik leapt to his feet and spun around, his sword in hand. He twisted his head to see where Draukhain had landed, and saw with horror the half-buried outline of dragon flesh amid a landslide of rubble.
Ahead of him, their formation steadily recovering in the wake of the dragon’s ruinous descent, stood the dwarfs. They shook themselves down. They gazed up at the beast, now crippled and in their midst. They saw the lone elf standing before him.
They drew their blades.
Draukhain barely moved – perhaps stunned, maybe mortally wounded. His presence in Imladrik’s mind was almost imperceptible. Being without it was terrible, even amid all else, like having his memories excised.
He turned to face the enemy. More than a hundred limped towards him, and others were entering the courtyard. Recovering their poise, they spread out, hemming him in. Some of them started to murmur words in Khazalid – battle-curses, old grudges.
Imladrik gripped his sword tight. Ifulvin was ancient, encrusted with runes of power and forged in the age of legend before the coming of the daemons. The ithilmar felt heavy in his gauntlets; he would have to find a way to make it dance.
‘Do not approach him,’ came a thick, battle-weary voice from the midst of the advancing dwarfs.
They instantly fell back. The speaker emerged from among them, alone. Imladrik recognised him at once – the heavy-set arms, the embellished armour, the dour air of sullen hatred. He carried his huge axe two-handed, and runes showed darkly on the metal.
The two of them faced one another, just yards apart. The remaining dwarfs fanned out, forming a wide semicircle of closed steel around them. Imladrik could hear Draukhain’s broken breathing behind him, moist with congealed blood.
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