Chris Wraight - Master of Dragons

Neither Ashniel nor Malchior replied to that. Ashniel chewed her lower lip, thinking hard; Malchior stared moodily into the fire. Drutheira watched them scornfully. Their minds worked so sluggishly.

‘Then what do we do?’ asked Ashniel eventually.

Drutheira sighed. The sun had nearly set. Shadows had spread across the clearing and the air had become chill. She felt weary to her bones. ‘What we have been trying to do: get back to Naggaroth. I cannot commune, so we must get to the coast. Malekith must be told that he has daemons amongst his servants.’

Malchior looked up at her, his eyes bright with a sudden idea. ‘We have a steed.’

‘It will not bear us all,’ Drutheira said. She watched the last sliver of sunlight drain away in the west. In advance of the moons rising, the world looked empty and drenched in gloom. ‘In any case, I did not raise the beast merely to test my suspicions of Kaitar. We have more than one enemy in Elthin Arvan.’

Her eyes narrowed as she remembered her humiliation, years ago, at the hands of the asur mage on the scarlet dragon. The pain of it had never diminished. The long privation since then had only honed the sharp edge of her desire for vengeance.

‘We cannot leave yet,’ she said, her voice low. ‘Not until I find the bitch who wounded me.’

She smiled in the dark. She could sense Bloodfang’s presence, out in the night, curled up in its own endless misery.

‘And we have a dragon of our own now,’ she breathed.

Liandra heard the voice before she awoke. It echoed briefly in the space between waking and sleep — the blurred landscape where dreams played.

Feleth-amina.

She stirred, her mind sluggish, her body still locked in slumber. Then her eyes snapped open and her mind rushed into awareness. She had been dreaming of Ulthuan, of fields of wildflowers in the lee of the eastern Annulii, rustling in sunlit wind.

Feleth-amina.

Fire-child: that was what the dragons called her. The dragons always gave their riders new names. They found Eltharin, she was told, childish.

Liandra pushed the sheets back. It was cold. Nights of Kor Vanaeth were always cold, even in the height of summer. Shivering, she reached for her robes and pulled them over her head. Then, barefoot, she shuffled across the stone floor of her chamber to the shuttered window.

Feleth-amina.

It was Vranesh’s mind-voice. Those playful, savage tones had been a part of Liandra’s life almost as long as she could remember. The two of them had been bonded for so long that she struggled to recall a time when the link had not been present.

Where are you? she returned, fumbling with the shutter clasp.

You know. Come now.

Liandra opened the heavy wooden shutters, revealing a stone balcony beyond. Starlight threw a silver glaze across the squat, unfinished rooftops of Kor Vanaeth. Her tower was the tallest of those that still stood, though that was hardly saying much.

Vranesh was perched on the edge of the railing, waiting for her. The sight was incongruous — Liandra half-expected the balustrade to collapse under the weight at any moment.

I was asleep , she sang, still blurry.

You were dreaming. I could see the images. Your dreams are like my dreams.

Liandra rubbed her eyes and reached up to Vranesh’s shoulder. Familiar aromas of smoke and embers filled her nostrils.

Do you dream? she sang.

I have known sleep to last for centuries. I have had dreams longer than mortal lifetimes.

Sleep to last for centuries , sang Liandra ruefully, settling into position and readying herself for Vranesh’s leap aloft. That would be nice.

The dragon pounced. A sudden rush of cold wind banished the last of Liandra’s sluggishness. She drew in a long breath, then shivered. It would have been prudent to have worn a cloak.

‘So what is this?’ she said out loud, crouching low as Vranesh’s wing beats powered the two of them higher. ‘Could it not have waited?’

Below them, Kor Vanaeth began to slip away.

It could have waited, but the mood was on me. You have not summoned me for an age, and I grow bored.

Liandra winced. That was true enough. She had been over-occupied with the rebuilding for too long and, in the few quiet moments she had had to herself in the past few months, she had known it.

Forgive me , she said, her mind-voice chastened.

Vranesh belched a mushroom of flame from her nostrils and bucked in mid-air. The gesture was violent; it was what passed for a laugh. Forgive you? I do not forgive.

Imladrik had told her that. Liandra remembered him explaining it to her, back when she had asked why the dragons suffered riders to take them into wars they had no part in.

‘They do not suffer us,’ he had said. ‘They have no masters, no obligations, no code of laws. They do what they do, and that is all that can be said of them. These things: blame, regret, servitude — they have no meaning to a dragon.’

‘What does have meaning to them?’ she had asked.

She could still see his emerald eyes glittering as he answered. ‘Risk. Splendour. Extravagance. If you had lived for a thousand ages of the world, that is all you would care about, too.’

I cannot remain here all night , she sang to Vranesh. I will freeze, even with your breath to warm me.

Vranesh kept going higher, pulling into the thinner airs. You will be fine. I wish to show you something.

The stars around them grew sharper. Wisps of cloud, little more than dark-blue gauzes, swept below. The landscape of Elthin Arvan stretched away towards all horizons, ink-black and brooding. Faint silver light picked out the mottled outlines of the forest — Loren Lacoi, the Great Wood. The trees seemed to extend across an infinite distance, throttling all else, choking anything that threatened their dominance.

You are changing my vision , sang Liandra.

Not my doing.

Liandra smiled sceptically. Vranesh had only a semi-respectful relationship with the truth.

Let us call it coincidence , Liandra sang.

Something had definitely changed. She could see far further than usual and the detail was tighter. She almost fancied she could see all the way to the Arluii range, or perhaps the Saraeluii, impossibly far to the east.

Tell me what you can see , sang Vranesh.

Liandra narrowed her eyes as the dragon swung around, giving her a sweeping view of all that lay beneath them. Stark sensations crowded into her mind. The intensity was almost painful.

‘I see lights in the dark,’ she said softly, speaking aloud again. ‘Just pinpricks. Are they watchfires?’

They are the lights of cities , sang Vranesh.

‘Ah, yes. That is Tor Alessi, along the river to the coast. And Athel Maraya, deep in the forest. How is this possible? And that must be Athel Toralien. They are like scattered jewels.’

What else do you see?

‘I see the forest in between them,’ said Liandra. ‘I see the whole of Elthin Arvan resisting us. We are invaders here. The forest is old. It hates us.’

Vranesh wheeled back round, pulling to the east. Her body rippled through the air like an eel in water, as sinuous as coiled rope. It does not hate. It just is.

Like the dragons , Liandra sang.

There are many things we hate. What else do you see?

Vranesh flew eastwards. The dragon’s speed and strength in the air were formidable. Liandra doubted any were faster on the wing, save of course the mighty Draukhain. Ahead of them, blurred by distance and the vagaries of magical sight, reared the Saraeluii. Liandra had visited them many times, always in the company of Imladrik. Those mountains were truly vast, far larger than the Arluii, greater in extent even than the Annulii of home.