‘Everything, rhunki,’ urged Imladrik, still trying to rescue something from the wreckage. ‘If we could just calm ourselves…’
‘That is wise counsel,’ said Salendor, suddenly lifting his head up and looking around the chamber. At the sound of his voice, the space fell quiet. ‘We have been arguing for hours and achieving nothing. Perhaps some time apart would be beneficial.’ He glanced over at Imladrik, seeking his approval. ‘Some wine, some food.’
Imladrik considered that for a moment, seemingly torn between pressing on and cutting things short before they descended into a brawl.
‘Very well,’ he said resignedly. ‘We will adjourn. But, my lords, I implore you to consider what has been offered here. Reflect on it. Let us hope we may convene in a better temper.’
The session rose. As servants filed into the chamber with refreshments, Salendor quietly made his way to the entrance and walked outside.
Caradryel got up and followed him. As he neared the canvas opening, Imladrik broke free of an animated discussion with Caerwal and called him back.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
Caradryel nodded in the direction of the city. ‘Salendor,’ he said, and that was all that was needed.
Imladrik looked distracted, no doubt already thinking of ways to salvage the upcoming session. ‘Are you sure you’re–’
‘Leave him to me,’ Caradryel said. ‘You worry about the dawi.’
Imladrik nodded. ‘Very well, but if he’s ready to move…’ He paused, his face looking almost haggard for a moment before hardening again.
‘You know what to do,’ he said, and turned away.
The land raced past in a blur. The two drakes dived and soared, each snapping at the other as they tried to find purchase, neither landing the decisive blow.
Drutheira had been reduced to hanging on grimly. The crimson mage was far more powerful than she’d guessed. A dragon – a real dragon – was also far more powerful than she’d guessed. Her own mount was bigger and more steeped in sorcery, but its erratic mind made it a haphazard and flailing combatant.
She had no idea where they were. The hours of flying had left her disorientated and exhausted. The Arluii were long behind them, a hateful memory now consigned to the north. Seeing her companions on the mountaintop swatted aside so easily had been like taking a kick to the stomach – they should have been able to cripple the mage at least. Perhaps their powers had withered during the long years of the hunt, or perhaps they had just got careless.
A sun-hot burst of flame rushed past her. Bloodfang wheeled down to its right, tilting clear of the blast, its chains clanking as it spun away from the danger.
‘Back!’ she cried, driving the spike-point of her staff into the creature’s neck again, though it did little good. ‘Do not run!’
Bloodfang had long since ceased responding to her commands. The beast had been badly mauled, first by dragonfire and then by talons – the pain seemed to have driven what little sanity it possessed into abeyance.
Drutheira glanced over her shoulder. The red mage was close behind, just as she had been since the fight over the mountains, her face fixed in a mask of hatred, her staff still glittering with nascent sunbursts of power.
Drutheira raised her own staff, dragging up yet another gobbet of raw Dhar potency, dreading the pain it would bring her.
‘Kheledh-dhar teliakh feroil!’ she shrieked, her voice cracking, and launched a trio of spinning black stars at the red dragon.
The creature evaded two of them, pulling up high with a sudden thrust of its wings and arching over the star-bolts, but one impacted, cracking into its exposed chest. The bolt detonated with a sick snap, making the air around it shudder and bleeding out lines of oil-black force. The star-bolt clamped on, sprouting slick tentacles that gripped and ripped like a living thing.
The red dragon bucked and twisted, bellowing in pain, nearly throwing its rider off and falling further behind.
‘Now!’ Drutheira screamed at her wayward steed, wishing she could grab the monster’s head and force it to see what she had done. ‘While it is wounded!’
The red dragon’s roars of pain must have penetrated into even Bloodfang’s pain-curdled mind, for it responded at last, switching back mid-air and inhaling for a fresh blast of dragonfire.
By then the asur mage had done her warding work, ripping the sorcerous matter clear of her mount’s flesh and casting it away. Bloodfang lurched into range, its massive wings thrusting like bellows, fire kindling between its open rows of yellow teeth. The red dragon responded as best it could, uncoiling its wracked body and summoning up flame-curls of its own.
Bloodfang slammed into it, hurling a raging stream of dragonfire at its torso and following up with scything swipes from its extended forelegs. The two beasts crunched together, meeting with an echoing crack of bone.
Drutheira’s mount ripped into the other drake’s already ravaged neck-armour. Claws and tail-barbs flew back and forth, dragging and biting. The two creatures grappled with one another, rolling over and over in the skies, retching fresh dragonfire into one another even as their jaws bit deep into fissured armour.
Blood splashed across Drutheira’s face as she gripped tight, trying to keep her head as the world whirled around her. She caught fractured glimpses of her adversary doing the same thing, lost in the savagery of the dragons unleashed at close quarters.
Drutheira had lived through a hundred battles, but the viciousness of this one took her breath away. Both creatures were consumed with primal bloodlust, far beyond reason or mortal understanding, roaring into one another like hounds on a stag. Bloodfang was the bigger, the heavier and the more powerful – its muscles rippled under steel-hard armour as its claws punched out – but the crimson dragon was still the quicker and more cunning, writhing out of the reach of its enemy’s jaws and biting back with attacks of its own.
Drutheira swung around in her mounted vantage, getting a brief glimpse of open water far
