Chris Wraight - Master of Dragons

Imladrik felt failure press on him. Perhaps their spirits had been misaligned. Perhaps the boy needed more time. Perhaps he himself was to blame.

He tried not to let himself consider the alternative, the possibility that burned away in his mind like a torturer’s blade: that Thoriol did not have the gift, that unless the fates granted Imladrik and Yethanial another child, mastery of dragons would die with him and the House of Tor Caled would never produce a rider again.

I could not live with that.

Moving slowly, his heart heavy, Imladrik began to walk. He would have to hurry to catch Thoriol; when the boy’s temper cooled, they would talk, discuss what had happened, learn from it.

Even as he thought it, though, he knew that the failure would change everything. Something new was needed, and he had no idea what it would be.

Imladrik shook his head, pushing against the ashen wind and picking up his pace. His mood of exhilaration had been doused; the descent to Kor Evril would be harder than the climb.

Drutheira stared out at the sun setting over the Arluii. Neither of the others had spoken to her since the grim trek down from the gorge, not even Ashniel. Occasionally she had caught them looking sidelong at her, but the accusatory gazes had quickly fallen away. They were still scared of her. Sullen, but scared.

Now, crouched around a meagre fire and with the wind snatching at their robes, the questions came haltingly.

‘You’re sure you finished it?’ asked Malchior.

‘Of course I’m sure,’ snapped Drutheira.

‘But Hreth-’ started Ashniel.

‘It wasn’t Hreth. Khaine’s blood, even you could see that.’

‘Kaitar,’ said Malchior.

‘Yes. Or whatever was inside Kaitar. And we banished them both.’

Drutheira found it hard to concentrate. Her mind kept going back to the final glimpse of Sevekai as he sailed over the edge. The Hreth-thing had been little more than a grasping bundle of ashes by then, but Sevekai had been alive.

She shouldn’t have cared, and didn’t know why she did. They had shared a bed together, of course, but Drutheira had shared the beds of many druchii and not mourned their deaths a jot. Their relationship had been neither close nor deep; they had been thrown together by their orders, both refugees in the grime of Elthin Arvan seeking a way home, so she should have cared as little for Sevekai’s death as she had for all the other many deaths she had either caused or witnessed.

Perhaps it was the fatigue. She felt like she had been crawling across the wastelands forever, hunted by both dawi and asur, forced to creep into mountain hollows and make temporary homes in the trackless forest like any common bandit. Even the simple task of getting back to Naggaroth had proven beyond her. For the first time in centuries, she felt vulnerable.

Are we still capable of loyalty? she mused, watching the sun sink lazily towards the western horizon. Do we even remember what it is? Could we go back?

She knew the answer to that even as she asked the question. They had all made their choices a long time ago; she certainly had. Sevekai had been so young — he’d had no knowledge of the Ulthuan that had been, the one that she had fought alongside Malekith for mastery of. He could never have known how deep the wounds ran; he had not lived long enough to learn to hate purely, not like she had.

For a long time hatred had been enough to drive her onwards: hatred of the asur, hatred and contempt for the dawi, hatred of those in Naggaroth who had plotted and connived to see her exiled to the wretched east in pursuit of a mission of thankless drudgery. Now, perhaps, the energy of that hatred had dissipated a little.

I am exhausted , she admitted to herself at last. Unless I find a way to leave this place, to recover my spirit and find fresh purpose, I will die here.

‘So what of Kaitar, then?’ came Ashniel’s voice again, breaking Drutheira’s moody thoughts. ‘Still you tell us nothing.’

Drutheira glared at her. The three of them sat on blunt stones in a rocky clearing. The fire burned fitfully in the centre of the circle, guttering as the mountain wind pulled at it. Mountain peaks, darkening in the dusk, stretched away in every direction. The Arluii range was big, and they were still a long way from reaching its margins.

‘What do you think he was?’ asked Drutheira.

‘Daemon-kind,’ said Malchior firmly.

‘How astute,’ said Drutheira acidly.

‘But why?’ asked Ashniel. ‘Kaitar was with Sevekai for years. He followed orders, he killed when told to. Can you be sure?’

‘You saw it leap. It was a shell. As was Hreth.’ She poked at the fire with her boot. ‘Banished, not killed. You never truly kill them.’

Malchior kept looking at her, a steady glare. ‘How long did you know?’

‘A while. Sevekai guessed it too.’ Drutheira suppressed a glower. Malchior was a thug, not half as clever as he supposed, and explaining herself to the two of them was tiresome. ‘But none of my arts would divine it. For as long as the orders from Malekith were in force I couldn’t move against him, but it has been over a year now since I was able to commune. Time to test Kaitar’s mettle, I thought.’

Ashniel snorted. ‘ Test it?’

‘If he had been druchii the dragon would not have harmed him. Up until then, believe me, I was not certain.’

‘So it was all for him,’ said Malchior. ‘The dragon in the dark.’

‘I’ve been hunting that dragon for thirty years. An opportunity presented itself: skin two slaves with one knife.’

The dragon still shadowed them. She had not yet attempted to ride it — it was too soon. Its spirit was wild and frenzied, damaged like a cur beaten too often by its owner. The only thing stopping it from killing them all was the bond of magic placed on it hundreds of years ago.

Urislakh, it had once been called; the Bloodfang. The black dragon still answered to that name, though only grudgingly, as if unwilling to remember what it had been in earlier ages.

She didn’t know where it was at that moment. Possibly aloft and out of sight, possibly curled up in some dank crevasse hissing out its misery. The beast would come back when Drutheira summoned it — her leash was long, but it was still a leash.

Ashniel still looked pensive. ‘So what does it mean?’ Her frail, almost fey features were lit red by the firelight, exposing the hollowness of her cheeks. The rose-cheeked bloom she had once worn when in the carefree courts of ancient Nagarythe had long since left her. ‘Was Kaitar one of Malekith’s creatures?’

Drutheira shook her head. ‘Daemons serve their own kind. We have been duped.’

She let the words sink in. It was a shameful admission. No greater crime existed in Naggaroth than to be made a fool of, to be deceived by a lesser race; and of course, to the druchii, every race was a lesser race.

‘But for what?’ asked Malchior, speaking slowly as his mind worked. ‘What was its purpose?’

‘Who knows?’ said Drutheira impatiently. ‘Maybe it was watching us. Maybe it was whispering everything we did to its dark masters. Maybe it was bored by an eternity of madness. You should have asked it before we killed it. Perhaps it would have told you.’

Malchior flushed. ‘Don’t jest.’

Drutheira sneered at him. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. We have already been made fools enough.’

‘So you care not.’

‘Of course I care!’ she shouted. The firelight flickered as her sudden movement guttered the flames. She collected herself. ‘It still lives, somewhere. We have lost four of our number. The asur and the dawi will kill us when they find us. That is it. That is the situation. Of course I care.’