“Terrible,” he murmured, lost in admiration. Fresh flames licked out across the air, harbingers of the inferno to come. “Yes, that is right. Terrible… and magnificent.”
Anlia screamed. Her mouth didn’t move, and no sound broke from her cracked lips. She screamed nonetheless, and the echo of it rang out across dimensions.
The dead weight of dragonfire blazed across the dome she’d conjured up, flaring and burning. Keeping it in place was a horrifying task. Though her body showed no marks, the roaring flames scorched her as painfully as if she’d thrust her hand into a pail of hot coals.
Why hadn’t she seen this? Why hadn’t the hirameth warned her of interference from other asur? Why hadn’t Anaphelox shown her?
She knew she was badly overstretched—the rite of apparition was well underway and there was nothing she could do to pull it back. Ferocious energies played out above her, fed now by the voracious power of the fulcrum. Aethyric columns were gaining in strength, running away from her, coiling into strange new shapes as if they had a malign will of their own.
If she’d been free to concentrate, she might have been able to impose some order again. But she wasn’t. The dragons swept down from the sky, each one of them more than a match for her, each one of them bursting with furious, white-hot energy. Their presence was devastating, throwing the Winds of Magic into disarray and dragging everything towards the consuming aspect of aqshy.
Why didn’t you warn me?
Another drake came round for an attack. It was deep bronze along the flanks, and its heavy reptilian head was marked by what looked like a joyous smile. It drew close, opened those vast jaws, drew in a single, colossal breath and the world disappeared once more in a riot of fire and thunder.
Anlia gritted her teeth, pouring every shred of power she possessed into the flimsy dome of warding. When the flames hit, the dome buckled like a sailcloth in a deluge. Cracks appeared across the skein of diamonds, and tongues of fire burst through the barrier. The asur sheltering under it cowered, faces down, pressing their bodies to the cool rock as the air boiled with sudden heat.
Flames raged for a few more dreadful moments, then blew out. The dragon swept over them, so low that Anlia saw the claws of its trailing limbs nearly scrape the roof of the dome.
That last torrent had exhausted her. She felt dizzy, and fell to one knee. One more hit like that, and her spell would fail.
I can help you.
Anaphelox’s voice dripped into her ear like honey. Anlia’s heart leapt.
“Do it!” she cried out loud. “Why are you waiting? Where have you been?”
Another dragon drew closer, coming into strike range.
Give me permission.
“What are you talking about? Just do it!”
The dragon’s jaws began to open.
Give me permission. You need to release me to do this.
“You have permission! Do whatever is needed! I sanction you! By the gods, damn you, preserve us!”
The stink of hot metal bloomed out. The jaws filled the sky above them, licked with flame.
Thank you.
As the words left her mouth, Anlia felt something dark unwrap from her soul. It was only then, in the last moments of her life, that Anlia realised the full, horrific truth of what had been travelling with her for so long. She saw eyes staring back at her, released from her mind and swimming up into reality. Something vast and terrible uncoiled, at once intimately familiar and unknowably strange.
She would have fought against it, but her strength was gone in an instant. She would have screamed, but by then her lips were no longer her own.
Haerwal watched the summit disappear under a fresh barrage of crimson fire. Inthalgar, circling higher up and waiting for her turn to dive in, responded to the assault with enthusiasm. The concert of flames seemed to excite the drakes and they weaved around the rock tower in ever tighter curves.
Haerwal could take no pleasure in it. The action was murder, plain and simple, committed in the name of ambition and revenge. The frustration he’d felt with Rathien since the passage of the mountains reached its tipping point.
“This is enough!” he roared.
Inthalgar remained eager to plunge into the assault, but Haerwal forbade her. For the first time, he realised the control he had. A dragon was a hugely powerful beast, but it became clear that an assured rider was, at least sometimes, capable of countermanding its intentions. Haerwal suddenly—and unexpectedly—felt properly in command.
Ahead of them, Khalathamor was readying himself for a fresh plunge towards the pinnacle. Rathien, hearing Haerwal’s cry, held his position for a moment longer.
“Do you not relish this?” came Rathien’s shout from across the gap between them. His voice was still exultant. “Where is your mettle for the fight, son of Caledor?”
“There is no honour in this!” shouted Haerwal. “They are defenceless. We can take this place without killing them.”
Rathien laughed, and his clear voice rang out over the waves. Angry flames spurted from Khalathamor’s nostrils.
“That we can!” Rathien cried, taking up his staff and readying for another attack run. “But remember the fields of Eataine. They began this bloodletting—the price must be paid.”
Haerwal saw Khalathamor’s body tense, the great wings folding up to allow the dive. But it never happened. The dragon bucked in mid-air, as if suddenly repelled by an invisible blow.
The mage, the one in the crimson robes, had bent double, clutched by some sudden agony. All around her, the Sword Masters were turning in shock and fear. Black tongues of flame licked out from her, lashing like whips of ebony.
Inthalgar stiffened beneath him, and her huge eyes narrowed. Haerwal felt a sudden spike of hatred shudder up through the creature’s body.
Daemon.
The dragon’s thought was unequivocal, and suffused with a dreadful, single-minded loathing. The emotion was so strong that Haerwal was almost overcome by it. It made him light-headed, and he had to grip on to the bonespur ridge to avoid losing his purchase.
By then Inthalgar had changed course and was flying directly for the fulcrum. All the other dragons, Khalathamor included, did the same. The sky was filled with the rush and clap of wings as all the other drakes wheeled towards the same point.
Up on the summit of the fulcrum, the body of the mage was ripped apart with a echoing crack. A thin scream hung on the air for a moment before being obscured by a massive roar of rage and release. What remained of her limbs stretched out obscenely, extending high into the air and bulking out with astonishing speed. The flesh rippled and snapped as it wrapped around rapidly growing bones. A vast head, bull-horned and snarling, rose up from the ruins of a mortal neck, and blood-red batwings unfurled.
With a massive bellow of triumph and liberation, the daemon soared up into the air, tearing upwards through the heavens even faster than the dragons. A sword unfurled from a clawed hand, and green-edged flames trailed in its wake.
No sign of the elven mage remained on those grotesque features of ruin. If her self still existed in any form at all, then it was imprisoned within the nightmarish monster that her own magic had unleashed.
The dragons swooped after the daemon, rushing to engage it. They filled the air with furious spears of flame, lost in their frenzy of hatred.
The daemon remained beyond them and swept its blade up in a savage stabbing motion. For a moment, it looked as though the cutting edge had connected with nothing more than air.
But then there was an echoing crack, and what sounded like tearing. A glittering rent opened up in the sky. Multicoloured light, vivid as peacock’s tail, spilled out through it. The wind screamed, tearing at the edges of the rip. The gulf ripped wider, exposing a lattice of shifting madness beyond.
Haerwal stared at it in open-mouthed horror. The gouge in the sky revealed a swirling, throbbing cacophony of lurid hues beyond. The effect was literally sickening—a stomach-churning overspill of pure Chaoti
c essence. Haerwal didn’t need the senses of a mage to see what unnatural destruction had been unleashed. A rolling stench of corpse-sweet aromas blotted out the harsh metal smell of the dragon and he gagged on it.
Then limbs began to stretch through the gap.
Haerwal was able to look at it for only a few moments before his throat clogged with bile. He reeled, feeling his grip on his mount loosen.
The pursuit of Valaris was forgotten. The portal drew closer. More creatures emerged, cackling and flapping.
Inthalgar raced towards the rip in the sky, screaming defiance and billowing flames. As she hurtled into range, Haerwal of Caledor closed his eyes, clung on tight, and wept tears of blind terror.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Valaris stared up into the heavens, shaken to his core by what had just happened.
Anlia was gone. She had screamed for a single moment before being suddenly cut off. Then she had begun to change.
It had all happened so quickly. Even the Sword Masters, knocked off guard by the attacks of the dragons, had been unable to react in time. Even if they had done, Valaris doubted they could have made any dent in the progress of whatever horror Anlia had unleashed within herself. The monstrous bull-headed beast had burst into existence so quickly, and its terrible power had been obvious even before it had leapt into the sky to take on the firedrakes.
Anlia, you fool. I should have guessed the truth.
But there was no time to speculate, nor to grieve. The sky had turned into a raging inferno, scored by streaks of dragonfire and other, less wholesome flames. Things were emerging from a rift between the worlds. He saw curved horns, staring eyes, stretches of pale flesh scored with iron rings, and then he had to look away. His palms started to sweat. He could feel panic rising within him like a tide. Everything was unravelling, unfolding into a morass of swirling fire and warped, bellowing creatures.
“My lord!”
Gilean’s voice was still controlled, though even he sounded shaken by what he had witnessed. One by one, the Sword Masters were getting back to their feet. They were pulling back together in a tight knot around him, swords still poised. They watched the carnage unfolding above them with an eerie calmness. The other crewmembers, mostly Sea Guard, looked terrified but did their best to maintain a semblance of defiance.
“Bladelord,” acknowledged Valaris, trying not to let his panic show too obviously. “Can we make it to the ship?”
“We cannot,” said Gilean. His robes glowed orange from the firestorm in the heavens. “Stay close.”
Valaris laughed bitterly.
“What good will that do? We need to get off this rock.”
“Too late for that, lord. And you might wish to draw your blade.”
Valaris was about to protest when something heavy crashed into the stone behind him. He whirled round to see a spidery creature extract itself from the impact crater. It had long, black-furred legs, six of them, and a head like a fly’s. Seven eyes glowed like hot coals from its blank face, and pale green slime dripped from the end of dirk-like talons ridged along its hunched spine.
It pounced at him, flailing. Valaris hardly had time to cry out before three Sword Masters, each moving in smooth concert with the others, interposed themselves. Their blades whirled in perfect arcs, carving up the abomination in a flurry of sticky fluid and matted hair.
The respite lasted only seconds. More grotesque beasts slammed down on to the fulcrum, skittering and rattling as they recovered and raced into combat. Soon the Sword Masters were fully engaged, their holy swords dancing as they stood firm against the tide of misshapen horrors.
Valaris drew his own blade. He felt shaky on his feet, unprepared and out of his element. He stood where Anlia had been.
Whatever had been summoned in the sky over the fulcrum was now leaking fragments of insanity into the world of the living. Those fragments had teeth and eyes and an appetite for flesh.
“Blessed Asuryan,” he muttered, holding his blade in a loose grip and readying to use it. “Preserve us all.”
The air sung, with madness. The sunlight itself seemed to bend and warp into new shapes, curving around the rent in the sky and blazing into cascades of glittering incandescence.
Rathien found it hard to even look at the creatures emerging from the portal. Most were no bigger than he was, though their bodies were many-limbed and twisted into grotesque, spine-refracting contortions. Some had wings, and they flapped in foul clouds to the pinnacle below. Others were flightless, and plummeted like stones. Some of the latter fell on to the tower of rock and swarmed at the Asur defenders; others crashed into the sea and were lost.
But the lesser creatures were of little consequence. In their wake came greater daemons, huge and foul. These were nearly the equal of the dragons in size, though the outline of their bodies shifted perpetually like wavering mirages. Only fleeting impressions were possible—spikes and eyes and flailing barbs of iron. Rathien saw bat-wings unfurl, as dark as ink, before rippling away in scraps of shadow.
The sight of those monsters drove the dragons mad with rage and aggression. If Rathien had been thrilled by their power before, he was in awe of them now. They flew straight at the daemons, wreathed in star-hot flames, roaring with primordial fury. Two armies, one warped by Chaos, the other pure and devastating, clashed in mid-air. The sky was filled with the roar and thunder of titanic energies colliding.
Every time a dragon engaged a daemon, the profile of the warp-spawned creatures seemed to solidify. Talons raked, jaws snapped and tails lashed, all in a tumbling, grappling mid-air joust. The sounds of the clashes were deafening, a mix of daemonic screaming and draconic thunder. The hatred of each breed for the other was absolute and the strength and speed of both were staggering in their intensity.
Khalathamor was at the forefront, immolating and striking out at everything within range. Fresh from his last kill, the great dragon hurled himself into contact against a sinuous, snake-headed monstrosity sliding out from the portal. The drake let slip with a blistering bloom of flame before crashing into it, wrapping his tail around its oily body and locking his jaws on its dark-scaled neck.
As the gigantic beasts came together, Rathien reeled from the impact. The snake daemon flailed frantically, rearing up a spine-crested head to strike at the dragon’s neck. In a blur of movement, Rathien saw many eyes, each of them blazing pale-green. Flails of saliva, thick and bilious, slapped across his armour, fizzing where they touched the metal.
Still off-balance from the collision, Rathien somehow managed to get his fist into position and cried out words of command.
His arm erupted into a blaze of coruscating fire. It screamed straight at the glowing jaws of the daemon in a throbbing, spiralling column. Pure high magic slammed into the creature of darkness, exploding in a rolling ball of crimson flame, streaked with pitch-black fronds of corruption.
The snake’s head snapped back. A great crack echoed out, sending shockwaves radiating through the ash-flecked air.
Khalathamor bit deeper, and the daemon was ripped in two. The sound of the sinews snapping was like the crack of a whip. The dragon released his grip, and the two halves of the snake-creature, now limp and ragged, span down towards the churning waves.
Then the golden dragon was moving again, powering heavily through clouds of floating spores and curtains of balefire.
Rathien could sense the outrage burning in the noble creature’s mind. Such foes were the immortal enemies of his kind, the ones who had wrested mastery of the world from them. Rathien needed to give no orders to attack—all the dragons were fully committed and flying into claw-range with a reckless abandon.
Rathien stole a hurried glance around him. The sky was full of wheeling, diving monsters. The dragons were terrifying in their wrath, but more daemons were spilling out into the sky with every heartbeat.
Valaris, the damned fool, had torn a gouge between the realm of the senses and the raw stuff of Chaos. Rathien did not have the skill to close suc
h a portal and was astute enough to know that if it remained open for much longer then even the dragons would succumb eventually to the infinite tide.
“There!” cried Rathien, spying the master of the carnage, the architect of the rift. It powered through the air on vast wings, swinging its flaming sword in bone-crushing arcs. Already two drakes had been downed by the colossal daemon and its power seemed to be growing with every passing heartbeat. “We shall slay it together, great one.”
There was a low, grinding rumble from Khalathamor’s ribcage as the dragon adjusted course and made for the daemon of Chaos. Rathien adjusted his stance for the attack, determined to maintain his position, and murmured words of command in readiness.
He found his senses growing sharper, his mind raised to a higher pitch of clarity. Everything that had brought him here—the pointless wars on the fields of Eataine, the poisonous expectations of his bloodline, the bitterness over his realm’s decline—faded into insignificance.
All that remained was valour, determination, and skill at arms. And whatever other faults they may have had, in those things the sons of Caledor had never yet been found wanting.
Inthalgar fought on, though she had sustained terrible wounds. A dozen daemons had been ripped apart under her claws, but each one of them had fought ferociously before going down. A horned monster with a barbed flail and wings like the dragon’s own had nearly killed her outright during a horrendous, grappling duel that had rolled through the crowded skies.
Throughout it all, Haerwal knew he had been useless. His growing sense of being in control had been exposed for a hollow sham—the best he could do was to hang on tight and not get himself killed. Just coming into such close proximity with the daemonic was enough to risk being plunged into unconsciousness and oblivion.
Despite her wounds, Inthalgar attacked tirelessly. Haerwal could sense her hatred flowing just as strongly as before. She seemed incapable of fear. Even though blood ran down her left flank freely and one shattered foreleg hung limply from her torso, she still sought out the most formidable daemons to take on.
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