of a dragon. It was why he couldn't leave the Kaan even if he wanted to. Not that they were particularly vulnerable. But there was always the chance. Humans were nothing if not tenacious and ingenious; and this latest group marked another development.
Hirad still found it hard to conceive of minds that so quickly forgot the debt they owed the Kaan dragons; and it had been The Unknown who had put it in context when delivering word that the first attack was being prepared, after overhearing a drunken boast in The Rookery.
'You shouldn't be surprised, Hirad,' he'd said. 'Everything will ultimately have its price and there are those who will choose never to believe what the Kaan did for Balaia. And there are those who don't care. They only know the value of a commodity. Honour and respect reap no benefit in gold.'
The words had ignited Hirad's fury exactly as The Unknown had intended. It was what kept him sharp and one step ahead of the hunters. They had tried magic, poison, fire and frontal assault in their ignorance. Now they used what had been learned by the deaths and by the watchers. And for the first time, Hirad was worried.
A party of six hunters; three warriors, a mage and two engineers, was moving carefully and slowly into the foothills below the Choul, where the dragons lived. Their route had taken them away from any population that might have alerted Hirad sooner and they brought with them a crafted ballista, designed to fire steel-tipped wooden stakes.
Their plan was simple, as were all the best-laid. Unless Hirad was sorely in error, they planned to launch their attack this night, knowing the Kaan flew to hunt and feed under cover of darkness. The ballista would be positioned under a common flight path and it had the power to wound, and perhaps cripple with a lucky shot.
Hirad wasn't prepared to take the risk so descended to meet them before clearing the Kaan to fly. The hunters had made two mistakes in their plan. They hadn't factored Hirad into their thinking and
only one of their number was elven. They had placed themselves at the mercy of the night and would soon discover the night had none.
Hirad watched them through a cleft boulder. They were roughly thirty feet below him and a hundred yards distant. The barbarian was able to track their movement against the dull grey of the landscape by the hooded lantern they carried, the creaking of the ballista's wheels and the hoof-falls of the horses that pulled it.
They were nearing a small open space where, Hirad guessed, they planned to set up the ballista. The slope there was slight and a butt of rock provided an ideal anchor point. Hirad knew what had to be done.
Backing up a short distance, he moved right and down into a shallow ditch that ran parallel to the small plateau. With his eyes at plateau level, he crept along its edge and waited, poised, sword sheathed and both hands free.
The mage led the horses up the incline on the near side, a warrior overseeing their progress on the other. The two engineers walked behind the ballista with the final pair of hunters bringing up the rear.
Hirad could hear the horses breathing hard, their hooves echoing dully through mufflers tied around their feet. The wheels of the ballista creaked and scraped as it approached, despite constant oiling by the engineers, and the odd word of warning and encouragement filtered up the line.
Hirad readied himself. Just before it levelled out, the path became a steep ramp for perhaps twenty yards. It would be slippery after the day's showers. As the hunters approached it, they slowed, the mage out in front, hands on both sets of reins, urging the horses up.
'Keep it moving,' came a hiss from below, loud in the still night air.
'Gently does it,' said another.
The mage appeared over the lip. Hirad surged on to the plateau and dived for his legs, whipping them away. The mage crashed to the ground. Hirad was on him before he could shout and hammered a fist into his temple. The mage's head cracked against stone and he lay still.
Racing low around the front of the suddenly skittish horses, he pulled his sword from his scabbard. The warrior on their other side had only half turned at the commotion and was in no state to defend
himself. Hirad whipped his blade into the man's side and as he went down screaming, the barbarian leant in close.
'Believe me, you are the lucky one,' he rasped. Quieting the horses who had started to back up, he ran back to the ballista and slashed one of the harness ropes. The ballista shifted its weight and the horses moved reflexively to balance it, one whinnying nervously. Below him, four faces looked up in mute shock. Blades were drawn.
'I warned the last who came to tell the next that all they would find here is death. You chose not to listen.' He lashed at the other harness rope, splitting it at the second strike. The ballista rolled quickly down the ramp, scattering the hunters and gathering pace as it bounced over rock and tuft. A wheel sprang away and the main body ploughed left to plunge over the edge of the path, tumbling to its noisy destruction in a stand of trees some two hundred feet below.
Below the ramp, the hunters picked themselves to their feet, the engineers looking to the warriors for guidance.
'There's nothing they can do for you now,' said Hirad. It is safe, Great Kaam.
A shadow rose from the hills behind Hirad and swept down the path. It was enormous and the great beat of its wings fired the wind and from its mouth came a roar of fury. The hunters turned and ran but another shape took to the air over the path below them and a third joined it, herding them back towards Hirad.
The trio of dragons blotted out the stars, great bodies hanging in the sky, their united roars bouncing from the mountains around them, the echoes drawing cries of terror from the hunters now turned hunted. They huddled together, the dragons circling them, lazy beats of their wings flattening bush and grass and blowing dust into the air. Each one was over a hundred feet long, its size and power making a mockery of the pitiful band who had come to kill one. They were helpless and they knew it, staring into mouths that could swallow them whole, and imagining flame so hot it would reduce them to ashes.
'Please, Hirad,' mumbled one of the engineers, recognising him and fixing him with wide desperate eyes. 'We hear you now.'
'Too late,' said Hirad. 'Too late.'
Sha-Kaan powered in, his wings beating down and blowing the
hunters from their feet to sprawl beneath the gale. His long neck twisted and arrowed down, striking with the speed of a snake and snatching up a warrior in his mouth. And then he was gone into the sky, his speed incredible, his agility in the air breathtaking. He was impossibly quick for an animal his size and the hunters left on the ground gaped where they lay, too traumatised now even to think about getting back to their feet.
The man in Sha-Kaan's mouth didn't even cry out before his body was torn in two and spat from the huge maw, scattering blood and flesh. The Great Kaan barked his fury into the night, the sound rumbling away like distant thunder. Nos-Kaan soared high, then dived groundwards, the men below his gaping mouth screaming as he fell towards them. With a single beat of his wings, he stalled his speed, the down-draught sending the hunters rolling in the dust, their cries lost in the wind. He looked and struck as Sha had done, his victim crushed in an instant and dropped in front of his comrades.
And finally Hyn-Kaan. The Great Kaan's bark brought him low across the ground, a great dark shape in the starlight, his body scant feet from the rock, his head moving down very slightly to scoop his target into his mouth. He flicked his wings and speared into the heavens, a human wail filtering down, cut off, and followed by the sound of a body hitting rock.
Hirad licked suddenly dry lips. They had said they wanted revenge. And they had said they wanted men to know their power. Yet the elf at his feet was still unconscious and had seen nothing. Lucky for him. Hirad loved the Kaan and theirs was a bond that would not be broken by such violent death. Yet once again, he was reminded of the unbridgeable gulf between man and dragon. They were majesty, men their slaves if they so chose.
Hirad brought his attention back to the lone engineer, alive still and surrounded by the torn carcasses of his friends. He had soiled his breeches, liquid puddling around his boots where he crouched in abject terror of the three dragons circling above him. Sha-Kaan landed and grabbed him in one foreclaw, bringing him close to his jaws. The man wailed and gibbered.
Hirad turned to the mage, uncorked his waterskin and dumped its contents over the elven head. He gasped and choked, groaning his
pain. Hirad grabbed his collar and hauled him upright, a dagger at his throat.
'Even think of casting and you'll die. You aren't quick enough to beat me, understand?' The mage nodded.
