Chris Wraight - Master of Dragons

Draukhain drew close to the platform’s edge. Imladrik pushed himself from his mount, stumbling awkwardly as he touched down on to the stone. His joints were raw and stiff, his limbs wooden. Servants rushed to aid him and he waved them away.

‘You doubted the drakes,’ Imladrik replied, allowing himself to take a little satisfaction in Salendor’s rare humility.

To his credit, Salendor bowed. ‘I did. And their master.’

Imladrik turned to Aelis. ‘Any word of Liandra?’

Aelis shook her head. As she did so, Imladrik felt a warmth at his back, running up his spine. The air stirred, rustled by an ember-hot wind.

He turned. All six of the dragons were suspended above the platform, five of them still bearing their riders. They held position in a semicircle, heads lowered, spines arched steeply. They hung in perfect formation, huge and terrible, making the robes of the mages bloom and flap from the beat of their wings.

Before the battle each one had been a different colour, as glorious as new-mined precious gems. Now they were all red, covered in the blood of the slain, dripping as if dipped in vats of it, glistening in the light of the fires like raw sides of meat.

‘They salute you, lord,’ said Aelis, her eyes shining with wonder.

Imladrik saw then how he must look to the others. He too was drenched from head to toe in blood. He too looked like a visitation from some other world, one of reckless savagery and unlocked murder.

He didn’t know what to say. The dragons’ fealty, for the first time, embarrassed him. In the light of what he had done, his failure, his loss of control — it felt like a mockery.

You become the dragon, the dragon becomes you.

‘Enough,’ he said, turning away from them and beginning to walk. His heart was heavy, his footprints dull crimson smudges on the marble. ‘My son is here. The boy has need of me.’

Yethanial woke suddenly. She had only been asleep for a short time, retiring early after a long and gruelling session at her writing desk. Ever since Imladrik had gone her mind had struggled to retain its focus. She dreamed of him often, imagining him at the heart of battle, mounted on that damned creature that made his moods wild and dark.

Her chamber was still lit by half-burned candles. The windows rattled from the wind, a strong easterly. She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Sleep, she knew, would be elusive now.

It could not go on. She had tried to pretend that all was well for too long. She reached out to the table by her bed and rang a small brass bell.

A few moments later her maidservant entered, bowing as she drew close to the bed.

‘I asked you for word of my son,’ said Yethanial.

‘There has been none, lady. Not for many days. The master-at-arms believes…’ The girl trailed off, uncertain whether she should go on.

‘That he is no longer on Ulthuan,’ said Yethanial. She had come to the same conclusion herself, but unwillingness to countenance it had prevented her from acting. ‘We must accept that he is right. And if he is not on Ulthuan, then there is only one place in the world he would have fled to.’

She reached for a scrap of parchment — there were always several lying close to her bed — and began to write with an old quill and half-clotted ink.

‘I have stayed here long enough, pining like some useless wife. I am not some useless wife. I am a daughter of Isha with the blood of princes in my veins.’

She handed the parchment to her servant. ‘Take this to the harbourmaster at Cothmar. Ensure he finds me a good ship — fast, and with room for a dozen guards. Take my house seal so he knows who asks him. I will travel tomorrow and will be at the quayside by noon.’

The maidservant bowed again, taking the parchment. ‘How long will you be gone, lady?’

Yethanial sat back against her bolsters, dreading the long night ahead.

‘I have no idea. Long enough.’

The maidservant left, hurrying as she went. Yethanial heard her echoing steps as she skipped down the stairs. Soon after she heard the slam of doors and the creak of the great gates, followed by the drum of horses’ hooves in the night.

She hated the thought of leaving. She hated not being in Ulthuan, and hated the thought of a long and dangerous sea crossing. Caledor, had he known, would almost certainly have forbidden it.

Yethanial lay back, pulling the sheets around her. It could not be helped. Even if she had not had such dreams she would have made the crossing, for the sake of her son if for nothing else.

It had always been Thoriol who had drawn them together — he, in the end, remained the strongest bond between them.

One by one, the candles in her chamber blew out, gradually clothing the room in darkness. Yethanial lay there, her mind alert and unsleeping, her hands loosely clasped over the counterpane. Even when the last one guttered out, little more than a pool of wax in the silver holder, she was still awake, her grey eyes shining with resolve.

Liandra shaded her eyes against the horizon-glare. For a moment she didn’t believe it — just another mirage on the baking world’s edge, a false hope born from desperation.

Then it didn’t go away. She looked closer, squinting into the distance. It stayed put, tantalisingly so.

A city. The city. One she had never visited but had known must be close: Oeragor, Imladrik’s own, thrust out into the utter margins of asur territory in Elthin Arvan and raised from the choking desert in defiance of all reason.

Drutheira didn’t say anything. It would have been hard for her to do so with a gag ripped from her own robes wrapped tightly around her jaw. The druchii’s eyes were red-rimmed, her stance slumped in the heat.

Every so often on the long trek east she had fallen, no doubt from genuine fatigue. On those occasions Liandra had waited patiently for her to get up, neither helping nor hindering. The druchii witch didn’t like to show weakness and would struggle to her feet again when she could. With her arms bound tightly, her tongue clamped and her staff shattered she was no longer a threat, just an encumbrance.

Killing her would have given a modicum of satisfaction. Over the past two days Liandra had come close. Once, in the middle of the night as the campfire burned low, she had reached over to the witch’s slumbering form, knife in hand, just a hair’s breadth away from plunging the point into her throat.

It had not been mercy that had held her back. In a strange, shadowy way Liandra felt like the dark elf had been part of her life for a long time, an integral part of the struggling tale of the colonies. Drutheira was a dark mirror to her, a spectral counterpart of Liandra’s own fiery presence.

When she had first come round from her deep unconsciousness, the witch had smiled thinly.

‘So you won,’ she had said, as if that was all there was to it.

It had been unutterably eerie to look into the violet eyes of her quarry. The hatred Liandra felt for her was too intense to generate even a token response. She stayed her dagger-hand, though.

Perhaps she had learned something from Imladrik after all, and saw the larger canvas spread out before her. The witch knew things: she knew why the druchii had been active, why they had been sent, how many were still in Elthin Arvan. Her very existence was the proof Imladrik needed. If Liandra could bring her back to Tor Alessi alive then the dream of a settlement was not yet dead.

All of which, though, meant nothing if she failed to keep her alive.

Liandra hauled Drutheira along behind her on a length of cord taken from her belt. The witch was in a far worse state than her, ravaged by what must have been months out in the wild. Liandra never untied her and never let her speak again, but soon stopped fearing her powers.