Salendor grimaced, feeling the physical pain of the summoning. His lungs ached from chanting the words, his hands bled from gripping his staff. The siege had become a gruelling test of endurance, a clash of two equally deadly and equally implacable enemies. The entire lower levels of the city were now furiously contested, the many breaches in the walls glowing like a ring of embers. Vast blankets of smoke hung over the lower city, brooding across sites of slaughter. Every so often another war engine would ignite, exploding in an angry bloom of crimson, or another watchtower would crumble under the relentless onslaught of the stone-throwers, dissolving into yet more shattered masonry.
Salendor whirled his staff around his head, using the growing momentum to add to his summoning. The winds whipped up around him, sparking and surging. Soon he had his target: a battering ram being dragged up to the main gates, covered in metalwork protection and warded by powerful runes of destruction. Though the sigils were carved in the dawi tongue Salendor could sense their malign power well enough.
‘Othial na-Telememnon fariel!’ he shouted, dragging an aethyr-mark out from behind the veil. His staff burst into blazing silver light and he loosed the fire, sending it snaking down through the burning towers. The magical beams homed in on their distant target unerringly, spiralling through the chaos before smashing into glittering shards across the battering ram’s housing. Each shard burrowed deeper into the metal plates, dissolving iron and pulverising timber.
Lit up by silver explosions, the battering ram made an appealing target for the surviving archers. First a flaming bolt hit it, then several pitch-dipped arrows impacted. With its thick outer shell compromised, the barbs tore deeper into the mechanism within.
The battering ram’s progress ground to a halt. Soon the entire structure was listing, its immense axles broken, its back aflame.
Salendor grunted with satisfaction. That would set them back.
His satisfaction did not last long. The gatehouse was relatively secure, but elsewhere the situation was deteriorating. More breaches in the outer perimeter had been inflicted. One looked particularly bad – a huge gouge in the stonework with dawi actually clambering up the ruins. He could just make out valiant clusters of archers clinging to the two ragged edges, pinning the invaders back. A bold stand, but precarious.
His fellow mages were tiring. One of them, Eialessa of Eataine, as powerful a spellcaster as he had ever seen, looked out on her feet. Several of the others had pale faces and sunken eyes.
‘Where are the damned dragons?’ Salendor asked aloud, tilting his head to the heavens. Imladrik had been gone for hours – it was becoming absurd. ‘Where is the lord of this city?’
Nothing but darkness and tattered clouds answered him. The sky was streaked with sullen red glows, interspersed with occasional sharp flashes of magelight.
But then, finally, he sensed a change on the air. Something stirred, a rush from the west, the echo of something very, very high up.
He saw nothing. The sky remained dark and mottled. The fires continued to burn, adorning Tor Alessi in a corona of sullen anger.
For all that, Salendor could not suppress a smile.
‘Ah,’ he breathed, raising his staff once more, forgetting his fatigue and remembering anticipation. ‘Now, my stunted friends, we shall see.’
Imladrik pushed Draukhain higher. The first pinpoints of starlight clustered on the extreme eastern horizon, glowing in a deepening sky. It was perishingly cold. The other dragons coursed and wheeling around him, wings rigid for the glide. Telagis’s emerald wings glinted in the dusk as he swept past Draukhain, bowing his head in submission as the greater drake’s shadow fell across him. Imladrik could sense the dragonsong of the other riders, whispering to their mounts, holding their immense power in check.
Down below, far below, his city burned. He could see the flare and pulse of the flames, barred by black lines of smog and ruin. The sun still shone in the west but was setting fast, making the tips of the waves looked like burnished bronze.
Why do we wait? sang Draukhain. The kill-lust was high in him; Imladrik could sense it pressing on his own mind.
I am preparing myself, Imladrik replied. It has been a long time since you and I went to war.
Nonsense. We have been killing druchii for months.
They are different.
Draukhain snorted. Bonier, perhaps.
Imladrik looked down, peering through the layers of drifting smoke. The vision was hellish, like the opening maw of Mirai in the depths of the gathering night.
The dragon knew well enough why they paused. Draukhain knew almost everything about him – the shape of his moods, the tenor of his thoughts. Sometimes Imladrik wondered if keeping secrets from his mount was even possible. Some things had been surrendered a long time ago – the right to a solitary mind, the right to an undisturbed sequence of mortal thoughts.
I do not wish this to be a slaughter, Imladrik sang.
Then do not ask me to unfurl my claws at all.
I am serious. We must drive them from the walls, but limit our wrath to that.
Draukhain flexed his pinions, preparing for the dive that would take them hurtling into the battle below. Even now, you harbour dreams of ending this?
Imladrik smiled bitterly. Not any more, but they are not daemons. Kill in proportion: that is the maxim.
Proportion! sang Draukhain contemptuously. Aenarion would have laughed to hear it.
And look what became of him.
Draukhain spilled a savage, metal-grating noise from his smoking jawline. Then we hunt.
Imladrik rested his blade on the dragon’s shoulder bone-spur and tensed for the shift.
Aye, Draukhain – we hunt.
He gave the mental order. His mind connected with those of the five other riders, and for a moment they were locked in silent communion. He felt the hot presence of the Caledorians, so similar to his own; he felt Heruen and Cademel prepare for the dive. He saw the varicoloured wings pull in tight, their
