This would be simple – another clean sweep, driving the dwarfs back out onto the plain and picking them off. After that the assault could slow: the walls would be secured and the dragons could take up stations above them. The lesson in power would be enough – even Morgrim, stubborn as he was, would have to pull back in the face of it.
As Draukhain arrived at the breach, though, the dragon suddenly pulled up sharply.
What is it? sang Imladrik, looking about him concernedly in case some stray barb had somehow penetrated the dragon’s armour.
Your blood is on the walls.
For a second, Imladrik had no idea what he meant. The dragon soared higher, clearing the breach before banking tightly over the eastern wall-end.
Imladrik looked down. Several dozen archers still manned the intact ramparts overlooking the ruined section. Several more lay on the parapet surface, their light armour pierced with quarrels.
I do not under– began Imladrik, then broke off.
Draukhain dipped lower and broke into a hover, his massive body held immobile with all the poise of a kestrel.
I sensed it, sang Draukhain. For once, his voice was neither sarcastic nor wrathful. Your blood.
Reluctantly, fearing already what he would see, Imladrik peered into the lambent shadows. One of the archers, the one closest to him, had had his helm knocked from his head. Imladrik recognised the face even amid the fire and murk. For a horrific moment he thought he spied Yethanial there, her bruised features twisted in pain.
Then, in a moment of no less horror, he saw the truth. It was Thoriol, prone, his robes wet with blood, his eyes closed and unmoving.
‘What madness–’ he started, before being shocked into silence.
The surviving asur on the walls stared up at him, their faces fearful. The surviving dwarfs beat a hasty retreat under the whirling shadow of Draukhain’s wings, summoned away by frantic signals from the battlefield.
Imladrik was unable to take his eyes from the scene. Thoriol lay awkwardly on a broken slab of marble, his hand still half-holding a longbow. He was dressed in the manner of a common archer. The last time Imladrik had seen him he’d been arrayed in the acolyte’s robes of Tor Caled.
He should have been in Caledor. He should have been safe.
Draukhain began to labour in the skies. Imladrik could sense the itch for combat become restive. He looked back over his shoulder, over to where the sea of dwarfen warriors marched, their momentum stalled but their numbers still formidable. The other dragons wheeled and dived at them, lighting up the dusk with blooms of consuming fire.
And then, distracted, Imladrik felt his long-kindled bloodlust boil over. He felt the spirit of the dragon surge through his limbs, animating them with a dark, cold fire. He saw the pale, bruised face of his only son before his eyes.
They have done this. They dragged me here. They caused this war. They laid waste to this land. Damn them! Damn their stubborn, ignorant, savage minds!
Draukhain responded instantly, rising higher against the backdrop of swirling smoke. The beast’s animal spirits burst into feral overabundance. Fires sparked into life between his curved fangs. His pinions spread, splaying out like a death shroud.
‘Damn them!’ roared Imladrik, giving in at last, feeling the hot rush of exhilaration take him over. ‘Damn them!’
His blade became hot in his gauntlets, searing like the cursed steel of the Widowmaker itself. He felt the blood of Aenarion throb in his temples. The runes on his ancient armour glowed an angry arterial red, responding instantly to the preternatural powers unleashed across the sacred silver.
Draukhain pounced, sweeping out into the dark with a magisterial surge. Imladrik levelled his sword-tip over the ocean of souls before him. He no longer saw them as worthy adversaries to be curtailed. All he saw in that moment, his soul twisted with blood-madness, was prey.
The other dragons sensed the change in mood. They dived into the enemy with renewed fervour. The lowering sky fractured with bursts of fresh flame and cries of dawi agony. The asur behind the walls, also sensing the vice of restraint lifting, began to pour out through the gaps in the walls. They spilled out on to the plain, murder glittering in their eyes.
Amid them all and above them all, mightier than all others between the mountains and the sea, came the Master of Dragons, unleashed at last, his brow wreathed with darkness, his countenance as severe as Asuryan’s, his soul burning with the madness of Khaine.
They have done this, he sang, his mind-voice icy. Leave none alive.
Chapter Twenty
Grondil strode onwards through the morass of blood and churned-up mud. It swilled over his shins, dragging at him, though he barely noticed the pull.
Up ahead the walls of Tor Alessi burned a vivid red in the darkness. Trails of fire shot up from the trebuchets and bolt throwers, streaking out in the night. The noise of battle was deafening – a frenzied melange of drums, shouting, screams, magefire explosions.
‘To the breach!’ he roared, blind to all else. His hearthguard strode with him, weathering the storm of arrows that whined and clattered about them. He had no idea how many had managed to follow him thus far. The battleground had dissolved into a vast scrum of straining bodies and labouring war engines, all formation lost in the churning melee at the base of the walls.
The sudden arrival of the dragons had changed nothing. They soared and dived into the host, lighting up the sky with flashes of iridescence. Their power looked phenomenal, but that did not
