We must withdraw.
No! The vehemence of her denial surprised even her. This is the chance – I will not lose it.
Even as she sang the words she saw them – two robed figures standing on the very lip of a high crag below them, each one chanting, their staffs running with black-purple illumination.
Vranesh thrust towards them immediately, corkscrewing and undulating to avoid the abomination’s pursuing fire. Liandra felt fresh stabs of pure pain explode within her and fought to maintain consciousness. Her staff felt impossibly heavy in her hand, and an almost overwhelming urge came over her to let it fall away.
Fight it! sang Vranesh, bucking hard to her left to evade a spitting column of dragonfire.
Liandra gritted her teeth, feeling sweat sluice down the nape of her neck. Her hands shook as she summoned aethyr-fire back to her.
You are a daughter of Isha, she recited to herself as the edge of the crag raced towards her. You are a daughter of Isha.
She could see their faces now – two druchii sorcerers, one male, one female, each bedecked in tongues of dark fire. At the last minute, faced with the crimson hurricane of fire and flesh barrelling towards them, they broke, sprinting back along the crag-top and seeking shelter.
The sudden cessation of their pain-magic revived Liandra. Her staff sprang back to life, shimmering with pent-up golden fire.
‘Asuryan!’ she cried aloud, swinging her staff around her head before hurling its tip in the direction of the fleeing sorcerers.
The air shook as the fire blazed free, streaking after the druchii and detonating around them in a hard crack. The entire crag-top exploded in a roar of shattering stone.
Vranesh pulled up at the last moment, claws scrabbling through the breaking summit. With an echoing boom the crag began to collapse, dragging whole chunks of slush and granite down the far side. Liandra swayed in her seat as Vranesh’s momentum carried them both over. The pain had gone, but the abomination was still hurtling after them, snarling close on Vranesh’s tail.
Did we get them? she asked, twisting her head to catch sight of the sorceress – she could smell and hear the dragon but no longer see it.
Vranesh didn’t reply. Her huge breaths were strained. A hot aroma of burned copper rose from her torn neck-scales as she thrust up skywards, more laboured than before.
Then Liandra caught sight of the enemy, still close but hovering forty feet clear, strangely indecisive, as if the loss of the sorcerers had given its rider doubtful pause.
Liandra’s eyes narrowed. She crouched low across Vranesh’s straining shoulders, her staff still rippling with power.
Now we take her, she snarled.
Chapter Sixteen
‘You have given us nothing!’ accused Grondil, flecks of spittle flying. ‘You say you do not think of us as fools. Well, you have a strange way of showing it.’
Caradryel watched the dwarf lord rage. The display was impressive, full of the red-cheeked, fist-slamming bravado the dwarfs employed when they wished to get a point across. Grondil had stood up to speak, though the difference in height, as far as Caradryel could see, was slight.
Caradryel glanced over at Imladrik, sitting calmly waiting for the tirade to finish.
‘What would you have me do?’ Imladrik replied. ‘Summon the druchii before you?’
Grondil glowered. ‘It would be a start.’
‘Enough,’ muttered Morgrim irritably. ‘You have made your point.’
Grondil glared at Morgrim for a moment. Then, grudgingly, he sat down again.
Morgrim looked tired. Caradryel guessed that he had been engaged in many long sessions of argument with his thanes during the night. Morgrim had very little to gain from any cessation in hostilities but plenty to lose; perhaps the strain was getting to him.
‘Grondil speaks the truth,’ said Morgrim. ‘We can talk around this as much as we like, but we will always come back to the same issue. You ask us to believe you, to trust you, yet trust is just the thing we do not have.’
Imladrik raised his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘We’ve talked ourselves hollow over this. Your people in the high places, mine in the lowlands. There is room for us to live alongside one another.’
‘For now, perhaps,’ said Morgrim. ‘But in a year, when memories have faded? What shall I tell the High King – that we had the chance to destroy our enemy when he was weak and instead let him recover to come after us again?’ He shook his head. ‘You must give us more. There is a blood-debt on your head.’
Caradryel had been watching Imladrik’s exchanges for so long that he’d almost forgotten the other members of the Council. Against the odds, it was Caerwal who spoke up then, his blank face uncharacteristically animated.
‘Blood-debt?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘What of my people? Who will pay the price for the slain at Athel Numiel?’
Eldig snorted. ‘Perhaps it was not dawi who killed them. Perhaps it was these druchii. After all, who can tell?’
Caerwal shot to his feet. ‘Do not dishonour them!’ he shouted, his cheeks flushing.
Grondil and Eldig both stood up and started to shout back. Caradryel glanced at Imladrik again and their eyes met. Imladrik gave him a weary look that said this is hopeless.
Then, just as the entire chamber dissolved – again – into a series of bawling matches, a lone elf slipped in to the tent from the asur side and sidled up to Salendor. He wore the livery of Athel Maraya, and in all the commotion no one gave him a second glance.
No one, except, for Caradryel, who observed carefully. The elf stooped low and whispered something in Salendor’s ear. Then, just as silently and with as much discretion as before, he rose to his feet and ghosted back out. Salendor sat for a while, pensive, no longer paying much attention to what was going on around him but staring down at his hands.
‘And so what do we have left to talk about?’ demanded the runelord Morek
