That was something.
‘You will break!’ screamed Drutheira, slamming her staff on the rock at her feet.
Bloodfang reared up before her, forty feet in the air, its body snapping and twisting like a fish caught on a wire. Flames gusted and flickered, covering the black dragon in a nimbus of ash and light.
From her cliff-edge vantage high over the northern scarps of the Arluii, Drutheira could see its anguish – its jaws were twisted and torn, its eyes stared wildly. Every so often it would swoop down, flames licking at the corners of its mouth, ready to snap her up in a single bite.
She stood firm, staff raised and feet apart, knowing the creature could not break its magical bonds. Bloodfang would always pull out at the last moment, doubling back on its length, screaming with frustration and shooting back into the sky.
The beast’s misery radiated out in front of her, a pall of anguish that seemed to stain the air itself, the agony of a great and noble mind laid to waste by the slow arts of the Witch King. Though she knew little of dragon-lore, she understood well enough what a mighty feat it must have been to enslave one of the famed fire-drakes of Caledor.
She wondered what exactly must have been done to break its spirit. Had it been raised from an egg by Malekith and tortured from birth? Or had it somehow been lured into the Witch King’s clutches once full-grown and imprisoned in secret? She could not imagine what torments must have been applied, perhaps over decades, to turn what had been born as a creature of ecstatic fire into such a twisted, ruined horror.
Bloodfang’s wings were ragged and punched with holes. Some bore the marks of hooks or iron rings. Its scaly hide was dull, as if caked with soot. Only its eyes still flashed with intensity – they were a white-less silver, and were painful to gaze at for too long.
Black and silver: Malekith’s favourite colours. Truly, he had left his imprint heavily on the world.
‘Break!’ she commanded again.
Purple-edge lightning forked out from the tip of her staff, crackling around the hovering dragon and causing it to roar in fresh pain.
‘You know my voice now,’ hissed Drutheira, applying more power to the halo of dark energy dancing around her. ‘Resisting will only bring you more pain.’
Bloodfang screamed at her, flicking the barbed point of its tail within a few feet of her face. Pain was the only thing its ruined mind truly understood.
Drutheira withdrew the sorcerous lightning, freeing Bloodfang from the lash of it for a few moments.
‘Come, now,’ she said, her voice softer. ‘This can end. What remains for you, should you resist? You cannot go back to your kind now – they would rend you wing from wing. We are your guardians now. We are your protectors.’
That made Bloodfang scream again, though the strangled tone was different – almost a sob, albeit one generated from iron-cast lungs. Its wings beat a little less firmly; its body writhed with a little less frenzy. Its huge head, gnarled with tumours of black bone and horn, slumped lower.
Drutheira smiled. ‘That is better. We may yet come to understand one another. Come closer.’
Malchior and Ashniel were nearby – she could sense their sullen presence – but neither came out into the open, for they had neither the power nor the will for this work and did not wish to risk inflaming the dragon more than necessary.
It hates us, thought Drutheira as the battered creature sank a fraction further in the sky. It hates us, and needs us. Truly Malekith has excelled himself with this: he has taken our self-loathing and given it form.
She lowered her staff and the last of the lightning flickered away, dancing across the bare stone like scattered embers. Drutheira took a single step towards the dragon, which continued to descend even though its fear and anger had clearly not gone away.
‘Give in,’ Drutheira urged.
Despite herself, she couldn’t resist admiring the beast’s damaged magnificence. Up close its sheer size was daunting. It stank of charred flesh and old blood, every downdraft of its wings sending a charnel mixture of ancient kills to waft over her. The thought of enslaving such power was faintly ridiculous – the beast could slay her with a casual twitch of its talons.
But it wouldn’t. That was the genius of sorcery.
‘Give in,’ she breathed, watching the long neck bow in exhausted submission before her.
It came closer. She saw long trails of hot tears running down its cheeks and almost let slip a cry of joy. Her whole body tensed, ready for the most dangerous moment – Bloodfang’s will had been ground down further, but the spark of rebellion had not been entirely extinguished.
Just a little closer, she thought, inhaling deeply as the wings washed pungent air across her. A little… closer…
Bloodfang’s jaws reached the level of her shoulders. She snatched the staff up again and it blazed into purple-tinged life. The dragon tried to jerk away but it was too late – snaking curls of aethyric matter locked on to its neck, lashing fast like tentacles.
Drutheira launched herself into the air, leaping high and pulled upward by the crackling lines of force. The long whips of coruscation acted like grapple-lines, hauling her onto the creature’s bucking neck and over to the rider’s mount at the junction of its shoulders.
It all happened so quickly; before Bloodfang could lurch away from the cliff-edge Drutheira had straddled its nape. She planted her staff firmly, driving the spiked heel into the dragon’s flesh. It screamed again, snapping its body like an unbroken steer’s, trying to dislodge the goading presence on its back.
‘Ha!’ roared Drutheira, her eyes shining. She held her position, hanging on tight to the wing-sinews that jutted out on either side of her.
Bloodfang raced into the air, corkscrewing up
