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.
Kelosfelt 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 waving 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
