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
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 him. 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.”
He hugged her so hard that he almost dragged her under.
“Where’s Zac?” he said.
“With the others. Come on.”
She led him to a rowboat, its oars missing and its hull blackened by fire. Within were huddled their companions, starting with each fresh explosion, staring into the fog with fearful expressions. Illiun had survived the assault of the dragons, although of his people only Hannah, Shalim and Rosalind had survived.
“I’m presuming,” Silus said as he scrambled into the boat, followed by his wife, “that this isn’t what you intended, Kelos?”
“No.”
There was a peal of thunder and the water erupted ten yards off to starboard, lifting the boat on a swell that threatened to capsize them.
“Well then, do something!” Silus shouted.
“I can’t,” Kelos said. “The only reason I managed to perform the sorcery in the first place is because I had the blood of a dragon. Here, I don’t have enough power to do it again.”
With a roar, a line of fire arced over their heads, before silence descended. A break in the fog briefly showed them the dull copper disk of the sun and, just beginning to move before it, the azure glow of Kerberos. To port and starboard, shadows loomed, rearing up like cliffs. But cliffs don’t move, and when two vast galleons hove into view, their flanks bearing down on them, panic began to break out in the small vessel.
“Row!” Ignacio shouted.
“With what?” Katya said. “We don’t have any oars.”
Gun ports opened alongside each ship, and they were close enough now that Silus could see the spark of fuses being lit.
He dived overboard, quickly filling his lungs with water, drawing the very essence of the ocean into himself. Positioning himself directly beneath the rowboat, Silus closed his eyes. He focused on the flow of blood through his veins and the movement of the water around him, and opened up a channel; a strong current taking him in its grasp, the water blood-warm and echoing with the beat of his heart. Silus raised his arms and the rowboat was borne aloft on the back of a wave that quickly curled down the narrow channel between the two great ships, just as the sliver of sky above them began to disappear.
The boat sped out onto open water, the power of the wave quickly diminishing. Behind them, the ships’ cannons fired, the galleons erupting in flame, blown to matchsticks in an act of mutual destruction.
“I don’t think that those were Final Faith ships,” Dunsany said. “Just what the hell is going on here?”
“It seems,” Silus said, pulling himself back into the boat, “that Kelos has landed us in the middle of war.”
Ahead of them, the water was crowded with ships. Vessels of all sizes jostled against each other as bodies flung themselves from deck to deck, swords flashing as boarders were repelled and corpses pitched into the churning waters below. Cannon fire punctuated the roar of hand-to-hand combat, ships sinking swiftly as they were
