Sol tensed.
‘Who?’ asked Sirendor.
‘Take a look.’
Hirad’s silhouette arm gestured at the translucent walls of the passageway. Sol stared into the maelstrom without. Grey-, white-and gold-flecked brown. A chaos of light and dark, swirling and racing. He shuddered to think of the forces at play out there, beyond the flimsy barrier.
For a while he saw nothing but the void. A ghostly wing, there and gone. The merest glimpse of a long, sinuous neck. A trailing tail, lost in the roiling space. And then there, flying by their sides, beneath them and above them, Kaan dragons. Dozens, a hundred maybe, cruising the walls of the passage, spiralling around it, enclosing it in a solid wall of dragon scale.
‘We are come,’ rumbled Sha-Kaan, his voice reverberating along the corridor.
Ahead Sol heard screams and saw the mass of the dead pack even more tightly together and increase their speed. He tasted their fear as if it were his own.
‘We will not harm you. We have come to protect you.’
Sha-Kaan’s voice stilled the panic as surely as day follows night. Now, Sol heard chatter and cheers and he felt a surge of relief that suffused his entire being. It felt wonderful, and reminiscent of a life long past.
‘Oh yes, forgot to mention that. Emotionally, you’ll find we are all very close indeed,’ said Ilkar.
‘Thanks for the warning, but this one I think I can handle. The Soul Tank gave the same sense of togetherness to the Protectors.’
‘The Garonin are close,’ said Sha-Kaan. ‘Already, we have fought them out here. They are attracted to the mass of mana within, just as I am attracted by the touch of your mind, Hirad.’
‘Good to feel you too, Great Kaan.’
‘Let us make sure this ends well. The Garonin will try to breach the corridor. We will do what we can. But you must also be ready.’
‘What can we do?’ asked Sol.
‘You will know.’
Multiple flares of light erupted outside a little way further along the corridor. Sol heard dragons roaring. Sha- Kaan beat his wings and was gone. The walls wobbled under a collision. Above their heads Sol saw a Garonin soldier bounce and roll, his body a mass of flame. A dragon’s jaws came down on him, ending his pain.
‘It begins,’ pulsed Sha-Kaan. ‘Fight hard.’
Hirad was already pulling at Sol’s arm.
‘We need to catch up with the rest,’ he said.
‘What will we do?’
‘Come on, it’s where the fight will play out.’
The Raven quintet and Auum’s Tai soared away down the corridor. Sol forced himself to believe it could be done, and with every passing moment he found it easier to follow them. He shook off Hirad’s arm.
‘I’m all right,’ he said.
He was certain Hirad was smiling. Seeing his face would have brought great comfort. The thousands of dead were moving as fast as their combined mass would allow. The corridor bulged as they pressed on. Outside, there were flashes like a cloud shot through with lightning. He heard solid thuds and saw the crowd swaying right, a shoal of fish trying to dodge a predator.
‘They’ve landed!’ called Hirad. ‘We have to stop them. Sol, it’s you we need.’
‘Why? I don’t understand?’
‘You are the free soul,’ said Auum, close by. ‘You bind us all just as you bind this place.’
Sol tried to stay calm and he forged ahead. Flame splayed across the corridor. There was a scrabble of claws and the shape of a dragon’s tail stabbed down almost to the heads of the dead. Sol looked right. A limp body, huge and lifeless, its wings shredded, spiralled away and was lost to sight.
‘Dear Gods burning.’
Lines of harsh white light appeared on the wall of the corridor. They spread quickly, looking like a lattice of ice across a window. The wall hardened around them. Flame beat down in the same place. Garonin soldiers cried out. The light flickered briefly but was not extinguished.
‘Move!’ shouted Hirad from somewhere ahead. ‘Move, keep going.’
The wall exploded inwards and Garonin soldiers entered the corridor on the wings of a hurricane. The noise was incredible. A harrowing whistle and a roaring gale in one. Dead near the breach were sucked out into the void. Garonin waded though the masses, striking out with the instruments they held in both hands. And where they struck, bright grey silhouettes faded quickly to black and then were gone.
Everything was being dragged towards the breach. The void was inhaling and it meant to capture them all. Flame lashed across the tear. Sol saw Auum, Ghaal and Miirt’s silhouettes flash by him and slap into a Garonin soldier. Auum’s hand came back across the enemy’s neck and his head parted company from his body.
The shocking sight brought Sol hope and understanding. He let the gale take him and he threw himself forward, arms outstretched. They plunged into the chest of his target and he felt his hands squeeze the enemy’s heart. Hirad and Sirendor were flying together. Sol saw them crash into the midst of the dead and he saw a Garonin flattened against the far wall, rebound from it and be sucked from the corridor.
The gale intensified. Garonin still came through. Braced against something Sol couldn’t sense, Auum, his Tai and Thraun waited to pounce. The dead were racing away up the corridor with Hirad and Sirendor in pursuit of the enemy amongst them. Silhouettes faded with hideous regularity.
‘The breach!’ called Auum from across the other side of it. ‘Sol, close it.’
Auum thrust his hand deep into the skull of a Garonin soldier and flung his lifeless body back into the path of others coming through. Ghaal, clutching one side of the tear, evaded a flailing weapon and smashed his free hand into the gut of another, tearing out entrails as he pulled it clear.
Sol dived for the breach. Here, the howl of the wind was extraordinary. Its pull was immensely powerful. Sol was dragged towards it off balance. He collided with a flapping section of wall and grabbed hold. A Garonin weapon swung towards him. Miirt’s hand clamped on the enemy’s wrist, squeezing and crushing the bone inside to dust. The Garonin screamed. Thraun completed the kill.
Sol looked at the breach. He could taste the chaos. He could feel his soul drawn to it. He reached out a shadow hand and touched the wall at the top of the breach. The two sides flowed together beneath his hand. Sha- Kaan had been right. This felt as natural as waking in the morning. A Garonin soldier thrust his upper body through the breach. Sol drew his hand quickly down. The wall knitted seamlessly together, snipping the enemy neatly in half.
The wind died but further along they could hear another tear being made.
‘No rest,’ said Auum. ‘Not yet.’
Sol stared at his hand very briefly but could see nothing at all. He angled his body and flew on forward.
Fyn-Kaan took the full force of the concerted fire across his belly. The scales split and his body was torn apart. Sha-Kaan roared fury. He plunged through the gore being scattered into space and unleashed flame across the corridor. Five Garonin were reduced to charred remains. He angled his wing and turned along the length of the corridor. In three more places, the Garonin were forcing breaches. He called flank dragons to him and ploughed along the surface, his claws ahead of his body and his neck arched to strike.
Garonin turned their weapons and fired. White tears spanned the space and thudded into Sha-Kaan’s wings and chest. He did not flinch. Snapping his neck forward he snatched two soldiers in his jaws and bit down with all his prodigious strength. The feel of bone cracking was satisfying. He spat out the remains. With another beat of his wings, he was onto more of them. His claws tore into armour, which flashed white uselessly as it was ripped aside.
Sensing danger, Sha-Kaan flipped his left wing and climbed sharply away from the corridor. A thick column of light slammed into it where he had been, searing the wing and left-hand side of one of his flankers. The dragon mourned as it fluttered away into the void, out of control and spinning to its death. The corridor was undamaged though within, the panic of the dead was evident.
Sha-Kaan sensed Hirad and his people in the heart of the fight. He pulsed to the Kaan to support him. He turned away, arcing up and left in a long looping curve that brought him above the Garonin vydosphere, which was hanging in space, loosing its huge bolts of energy and launching its teams of soldiers.
