“Come, Sister. We waste time here. Let us greet him.”
They mounted their dragons, allowing the beasts to stretch their wings and rouse their sluggish circulation. Once accomplished, they rose from the side of the mountain and headed south.
They had only been aloft for half an hour, when Tayem pointed across the snowscape to a speck moving across the line of a distant range of mountains.
“Could it be?” Mahren said.
“That is no bird or raptor,” Tayem said. “It is too large.” They spurred their mounts onwards, and it seemed that even they sensed the presence of a long-lost brother.
The speck grew to the size of a pinhead until Tayem made out the movement of great wings on its flanks, and still it increased in size as they closed the distance.
Another fifteen minutes and Tayem could clearly see the features of one she had previously observed only as a mound of sleeping scales. The dragon she now beheld was magnificent, possessing a sleek reddish-black hide, and a crimson crest crowning its head to match fiery-red eyes that burned across the distance.
“Oga!” Tayem shouted across the skies. “Welcome back.”
49
Shout at the wind
Vanya knew most of the idioms and folk tales told in the kingdoms of the Imperious Crescent. She had heard poetic turns of phrase from Dragonia, cynical witticisms from Hallow’s Creek and even crude sayings from Kaldoran stonegrabes. All of these were picked up through ten sols of wandering as an itinerant bard. The one that came to mind as she witnessed the slaughter at Wyverneth on the tenth day of the sixth month of the sol Wishellen, was ‘salamander in a saucepan.’ She could not have felt more out of place if she had tried, yet Brethis’s charismatic address had stirred her. She was gripped by something greater than herself and motivated by the need to contribute to a greater good than her own self-preservation.
She had joined Brethis’s dissident faction knowing she was no warrior. Yet she had healing skills, and more than the usual woman’s share of independence, courage and sheer pluckiness. If nothing else, she reasoned, her foolhardy volunteering might yield material for a dozen ballads; that was if she survived — a diminishing prospect given what she now witnessed.
From her vantage point at the edge of the Eastern forests, known to Dragonian locals as Ocdrund, she observed the initial advancement of dissident forces against the outlying Cuscosian troops. The full moon bathed the open ground with its pallid light, revealing an enemy dug in behind sharpened garbeech stakes. Vanya was not privy to the entire battle tactics of the allies she had sworn allegiance to, but she knew the dissidents were charged with overrunning these defences as a flanking attack. If successful, it would pave the way for a full frontal assault by Dragonians and Gigantes, coinciding with the fall of the Dragon Talon gates. Whether Cistre’s covert force managed to breach the internal defences to achieve this was very much open to the fates.
Fates? Vanya had her own primitive beliefs; mainly devoted to earth gods and forest spirits, but she had long since abandoned any notion they had plans for her. She didn’t like the idea that her life was pre-ordained anyway, and Brethis’s bold speeches had cemented this philosophy. Death holds no fear for me, she told herself. But death and dying were two different things, and what she now witnessed swept aside her sense of a noble conflict, harrowing her to the core.
At first the dissidents had taken the unsuspecting Cuscosians by surprise, swarming over the outer defences and routing the defenders with minimal losses, but they had grown over-confident. They stormed the walls of Wyverneth with their make-shift ladders, constructed more from idealism than any joiner’s skill. Scaling the battlements was supposed to be a last resort, only attempted if the gates did not fall. Only they had been impatient, not waiting for Aibrator’s signal — and paid the price. No sooner had they placed the ladders against the walls than the Cuscosians poured cauldrons of corrosive fluid over the climbing soldiers. Vanya heard the screams of agony float across the killing fields and her heart faltered.
She ordered runners to retrieve what wounded there were, but after fifteen minutes, half of them returned with only a few dissidents that had the breath of life in them. The acidic liquid had corroded their heads and shoulders to the bone, bubbling flesh dissolving away as the casualties moaned in agony. She attempted to wash away the viscous fluid but only succeeded in getting it on her fingers, burning them and rendering her abilities useless.
“What is this stuff?” she said to one runner.
“Dragon spit,” the woman replied.
How could the Cuscosians have come by this weapon?
Then she remembered the battle of Lyn-Harath and the harvesting of remaining dragons from Wyverneth’s pens.
“We can do nothing for these,” she said, “only retrieve casualties attacked by sword, arrow or spear. These we can treat.”
“What do we do with these poor souls?” The woman said, gesturing toward the writhing victims of the fyredrench.
“Release them from their torment,” Vanya replied and handed her a two-edged dagger.
“I have never — ”
“Then it is time you learned,” she said and thrust the hilt into her palm. There was no time to cajole her further, and she turned her attention to the stretchers that now returned. These were men and women bearing light wounds, most struck by crossbow bolts from the battlements. Her orders were to patch them up and send what she could back into the fray.
After a further half hour of treating these wounded, she realised her efforts were futile. They had sent two back to the battlefield only to see them struck down straight away in a rain of bolts from above.
“We are useless here,” she said, looking at the twenty remaining physickers. “If we are to perish, it is better we take some of the enemy with us rather than comfort the dying.”
She drew her sword and exhorted those around her. “Take up arms, brave warriors. For that is what we have become. Tonight we go into battle in the cause of justice and freedom.”
And despite the fear on every face that looked to her, she also sensed a grim determination to stand up to an enemy that had cowed them too long. They would lend their strength to the cause — or die trying.
~ ~ ~
Etezora ran to the east side of the battlements, pushing her way through the throng of soldiers. Tuh-Ma lumbered behind, eager to watch the carnage he no doubt anticipated would ensue.
When she reached the outer wall, the first contingent of dragons were swooping down from above. She had just enough time to witness her soldiers repelling a wave of attackers from the walls, and to observe giant crossbows being brought to bear.
“Now we shall see how your beasts fare against our weapons, dragon haujen,” she cried.
The Captain issued his instructions to the ballista teams, urging them to wait until the dragons were within one hundred paces. Etezora held her breath until he ordered the men to fire in two volleys. She heard the click of the mechanisms release and saw three shafts, six spans long, shoot at the nearest wyrms. One flew wide of its target as the beast swerved, but two struck home, one piercing the thigh of a battle dragon, the other embedding itself in the soft throat tissue of an iridescent ayku. The magnificent creature recoiled with a roar and plummeted downwards, taking its rider with it in a death spiral.
Two more shafts flew from the second volley, both of which missed their targets.
Why so few bolts? Etezora thought. She looked back at the ballistas, noting that five of them lay broken on the flagstones. One seemed to have burst into dozens of pieces, a shard of one stave having sprung back and mashed the face of a crew-member to a pulp.
“What is wrong with the ballistas?” she screamed at the captain. “Did you not test them before use?”
“We have not had time,” the Captain replied. “This is their first trial.”
“The components,” she said, “who made them?”
“Why, Nalin and his engineers,” the Captain said.
/> “That krut!” Etezora hissed. “He has sabotaged them. Eétor warned that the stonegrabe could not be trusted.”
“Shall we load them again?”
Etezora looked up at the circling dragons. “No. The wyrms are wary, and in any case I have another weapon at my disposal.”
She stepped toward the battlement, feeling the Hallows rising like a deluge in her mind.
“Careful, Mistress, you are open to attack here,” Tuh-Ma said.
“Out of my way, Ma. This moment is mine.” She fixed on the squadrons of dragons, looping like giant kites in the night sky. “Where are you, dragon haujen?”
It was impossible to follow an individual beast as the troupe swarmed back and forth. Instead, she picked on the closest. It was much further away from her than the forest-warriors she had targeted at the Dead Zone battle, but she was much more powerful now. She held up her hands and directed a bolt of purple energy at the beast and its rider. It struck the target, effortlessly wrapping around the dragon’s neck like a lasso. The unleashing of this intensity of power filled Etezora with unprecedented ecstasy such that she laughed out loud. She gave herself fully to the Hallows, allowing energy to surge in pulses through the lasso. Each pulse constricted the ring of energy more tightly until it cut off the dragon’s airway. It was now writhing mid air, having long since thrown its rider to the ground, hundreds of feet below. Still, this was not enough. She pulled on the cord of energy, drawing the beast toward her.
“I would see the fear of death in your eyes,” she said.
She pulled the beast in like a fish on a line, not feeling any loss of power despite the creature’s naturally superior strength. Then, when it was close enough for her to observe the anguish and shock on the beast’s face, she squeezed one final time. The dragon went limp, suspended in space as if Etezora held it in her own grip.
“Hah! I am Nurti — slayer of dragons,” she cried. With a final burst of energy, she threw the dragon down into the midst of the attacking Dragonian foot soldiers, pulverising them and breaking the beast’s body in the process.
She stood atop the battlements, her chest heaving with a mixture of exertion and exhilaration, revelling in what she had just accomplished.
“Queen Etezora is supreme!” Tuh-Ma said, jumping up and down. “But beware, Mistress, Dragon Riders will single you out.”
The blue-skin’s perceptions were accurate, for as Etezora focused on another dragon, the riders who had witnessed the bizarre death of the beast swung their mounts around and descended en masse. It was clear they intended to swamp Etezora with their numbers.
“Your majesty,” the ballista captain said, “we must take cover. We cannot hope to repel such an onslaught.”
Etezora raised her arms again, felt the Hallows guttering forth, and shouted. “Let them come, I am more than a match for any dragon.”
~ ~ ~
Through hate-filled eyes, Cistre led the attack on the battlements. A battle fury consumed her, having thrown away any sense of caution. She had seen Etezora and her soldiers bring down Rargorren and Ymre, together with their riders — Sayndriosse and Nyrris, and her anger knew no bounds. She recalled all the riders and their mounts by name, yet she did not know if any of those left flying the skies would survive to mourn their passing.
This shall not be, she thought, and fixed her ire on the figure now standing triumphantly on the battlements of their once proud palace with arms raised to the heavens. The distance closed, and still the Cuscosian Queen had not unleashed her Hallows-fire.
Why does she wait? Cistre thought. Does her power need to re-energise?
Then, with a detonation that split the night, Etezora unleashed her dreadfully familiar loop of energy. It crackled toward Cistre, and in that moment she knew she was defenceless, her dragon too much set on its course to change trajectory. She cried in anger and frustration, bracing herself for the impact, when from the corner of her eye she caught a flash of green and silver. A skeredith beast darted in front of her, taking the force of Etezora’s bolt in the chest.
“Sheldar!” she cried.
Muthorus swerved to miss the stricken mount, sending him on a course that would drive him into the palace wall. Cistre pulled on the reins, urging the dragon upwards. It was enough to clear the wooden castellation, although Muthorus’s feet grazed them, shooting splinters of wood into the air. He stalled at Cistre’s command, flapping his leathern wings to arrest his flight and beating the Cuscosian guard backwards.
The dragon alighted on the battlements and Cistre slipped out of the harness, drawing her sword in one fluid motion. Etezora was fully absorbed in strangling Sheldar’s mount and would have been open for attack, only her troll stood between her and Cistre, wielding a wicked-looking club in two hands. Incredibly, Sheldar had maintained his position in the harness, but if his mount’s twisting continued in the same manner, it was only a matter of time before he fell with it — just as Ymre had. She had to reach Etezora before that happened.
“Dragon-woman not pass Tuh-Ma,” the troll said, spitting gobs of mucus at her.
“We’ll see about that,” Cistre said and lunged at the creature. For one so seemingly cumbersome, Tuh-Ma moved with a speed that defied his bulk and knocked the blade aside with his club. By the time Cistre had recovered, the blue-skin had stepped inside her guard and pummelled into her, driving her back with the force of his wart-covered body. The blow knocked Cistre off balance, but she was lithe enough not to fall over backwards. The blue-skin had not pressed home his charge, obviously not wanting to leave his Queen vulnerable. This was wise, as further dragons were now landing on the battlements and in the courtyard below.
Without taking her eyes off Sheldar, Etezora sent another purple bolt from her free hand at a dragon that had landed to her right. She now held two beasts captive, one still in mid-air and the other squirming on the flagstones just a few strides away from her.
Cistre swung at Tuh-Ma again, forcing him to take a step back as he parried the blow with his club. “Attack the Queen from all sides,” she shouted at the rapidly swelling ranks of Dragon Riders who now joined her.
Etezora looked around, the nooses of electric energy loosening a little as she lost concentration, and Cistre thought she detected a look of panic on the Queen’s face. She swung her weapon repeatedly at the blue-skin, her nimble points and jabs compensating for the imbalance in strength. Two of her blows found their way past Tuh-Ma’s guard, one slicing into a leather pauldron, the other cutting into the bare flesh of his forearm. The wound was only slight, but Cistre had smeared her blade with one of Milissandia’s poisons prior to the battle.
How long will you remain standing once the toxin does its work? She thought.
It was then that a loud cry issued from the foot of the battlements. “What transpires?” she enquired of the nearest Dragon Rider.
“The Dragon Talon gate has been opened,” he replied, “Aibrator has succeeded.”
The news lent strength to Cistre’s arm, and she slashed at the troll, forcing him back until he jostled against his Queen, who now found it difficult to maintain her hold on the two struggling dragons.
“Etezora,” Cistre cried. “Your gates are down and our warriors will soon have stormed your defences. Surrender now, and we may yet spare your lives.”
“Never,” Etezora replied. “My Dreadguard still outnumbers your forces ten to one.”
“You cannot hope to prevail against our dragons. Give the command to stand down, now.”
Etezora still had her Hallows grip on the two beasts, but only to hold them at bay. She looked at Cistre intently, and then smiled in such a way that the Dragon Rider thought her face would crack.
“Your dragons?” Etezora said. “You place your trust in those wyrms? Look to the skies, schjek, and see how they are faring.”
Cistre followed the Queen’s gaze to where she should have seen the remaining host of the Donnephon descending. Instead, dragon after dragon writhed in the air, two dropping
like stones to the ground; yet more were close to death.
“No,” she moaned, “it cannot be happening again.”
50
Busted souls
Edenbract, a site of great antiquity, older than Zodarin; perhaps even older than the accumulated sols of the great dragons themselves. Sandstone columns stood like guardians, their decay acting as a measure of time in a place of uncounted days. Moonlight shone down, illuminating the relics and causing the surrounding scar birch to cast their own peculiar shadows on the scene.
The amioid had read somewhere that this ruined temple had been erected by the ancient ones in reverence to the gods of the Hallows. He had also heard that the simple ring of columns acted as a focus of power to summon the Hallows — or to hold them at bay. The amioid had no doubt which purpose he had in mind tonight.
At the centre of the weathered blocks a cleft in the ground loomed, issuing forth purple vapours like the very breath of evil, and it seemed that the ichor that coursed through his vessels increased in speed at the sight of it. Deep within its bowels he swore he detected the very shifting of Varchal’s foundations, the planet’s unholy response to Sol-Ar’s ineffable traversal of the heavens.
He did not possess the true gift of far-sight, but something in the ether told him the timing of his quest was apt, urgent even. His amioid form was now fully manifest, and he made no effort to shape-shift, his only attempt at concealment being to pass through Cuscosa in the still of the night. Those who beheld his true appearance either cowered in fear, or deluded themselves they had seen an apparition. The amioid knew they would wake next morning to the memory of an abomination passing them by, like a tornado leaving them out of its trail of destruction or a great monster ignoring them as it searched for more worthy prey.
Ah, the sheer intoxication, it thought, welcoming the tendrils of energy once again. They entered the pores in its skin, energising it and suppressing the peculiar benevolent emotions elicited by the blight.
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