Chris Wraight - Master of Dragons

They slipped along the corridor and up a narrow torchlit stair, passing more bodies on the way.

‘What is your plan?’ Drutheira whispered, limping after Malchior. ‘You know some way across that desert?’

Malchior turned back. His face was curiously hard to make out, a shimmering reflection just on the edge of vision.

‘We don’t have long,’ he said. ‘If you wish to live, just shut up and follow me.’

He didn’t wait for a response before pressing on. Ashniel followed after him. She was clearly in some pain, and said nothing.

Drutheira’s eyes went flat. On another day she would have flayed the skin from his palms for talking to her like that. This was not another day, though; mere moments ago she had been contemplating the certain prospect of death. She felt like she’d been doing that for a long time.

‘Play at this all you want,’ she muttered, shuffling after Malchior, her limbs stiff and aching. ‘Once we’re out, it won’t save you.’

Imladrik spied the smoke from a long way out and immediately knew what it meant.

Dawi , growled Draukhain, picking up speed.

So fast , murmured Imladrik. He had expected it to take far longer for them to regroup after Tor Alessi, but perhaps that had been a foolish hope. It was not in their nature to retreat.

The dragon powered through the air, faster and faster, picking up truly furious momentum. As he surged towards the burning city, Imladrik could see the extent of the dwarf army that surrounded it.

It was huge. The desert floor was covered in a thick, dark layer of bodies, all converging on the embattled spires at their midst. The rolling sound of war-drums made the air thrum.

Draukhain plunged into the heart of it, his wings driving powerful downbeats like hammers, his jaws already kindling with heart-fire.

Imladrik watched the walls race towards him. They were broken in a dozen places, crushed into wreckage and clogged with the bodies of the slain. He couldn’t see any asur defenders still on the walls. Here and there banners of Ulthuan and Caledor flew from tower-tops, but it was clear that the city was lost.

We are too late , he sang, his mind-voice filled with horror.

Not yet , snarled Draukhain, angling down towards the battle. He raced towards the dwarf rearguard still out on the plain, swooping into a low glide.

This time, though, the dwarfs were prepared. A barrage of quarrels flew up from the rank of bolt throwers lined up along the approaches to the city. Brynnoth had taken Morgrim’s counsel and saved every one of them.

Draukhain banked hard as the darts whistled past him. They were poorly aimed, but there were many of them. A second wave surged up from the earth, making the air thick with barbs. The dragon narrowly missed colliding with a six-foot-long spiked bolt, checking his surging flight and losing precious speed.

No time , urged Imladrik. To the city.

Draukhain obeyed instantly, sweeping across the rows of bolt throwers and powering towards the walls. As he went he carpeted the ground before him in a rolling wave of fire. Several of the war engines burst into flame, exploding as their tinder-dry frames ignited. Others kept up the attack, pursuing the dragon as he sped past, aiming to puncture a wing or sever a tendon.

Imladrik barely noticed the rain of darts. His eyes fixed on the burning spires ahead, desperately searching for some sign of defiance. He thought he caught a flash of magefire and his heart leapt — only for it to be sunlight glaring from dawi armour plates.

The centre , he sang, and Draukhain shot over the walls and thrust towards the tallest towers. Bolts, quarrels and arrows followed them, none biting but several coming close.

A cluster of spires loomed up at them, hazy in the kicked-up dust and smoke. Draukhain weaved through them, loosing tight gouts of flame at any dawi exposed on the surface. He spied a whole phalanx of warriors making their way across a high bridge suspended between tower-tops and pounced after them, climbing steeply and vomiting a column of immolation. They scattered, desperately trying to escape the inundation.

At the last minute Draukhain pulled up. His long tail crashed into the slender span as he soared past, slicing straight through it. The bridge collapsed, dissolving into a cataract of powdered stone and sending the surviving dwarfs plummeting to the earth below.

Imladrik scoured the cityscape. At last, he made out some defenders — asur knights engaged in a fighting retreat towards the huge Temple of Asuryan, just a few hundred of them surrounded by a far larger force of dwarfs.

Down there , he commanded.

Draukhain plunged, tipping left to evade the nearest spire and diving hard. By the time he reached ground-level he was travelling very, very fast. He crashed into the dwarfs, scraping his claws along the ground and dragging dozens up with him, then shooting clear and hurling away those he had skewered. Their broken bodies tumbled headlong before slamming into the walls of the buildings they had ruined.

Draukhain immediately banked hard for another pass, narrowly missing the turret of another tower. The confined spaces of Oeragor’s fortress heart were hard to manoeuvre in — with every wingbeat Draukhain risked crashing into a solid wall of stone. Whenever he rose above the line of the tower-tops the bolt throwers would open up again, sending a cloud of darts screaming towards them.

This wasn’t Tor Alessi; the dwarfs were not facing battalions of mages and spearmen, nor were there other dragons to rake the bolt throwers while Draukhain slaughtered the infantry. They were alone, a sole dragon and his rider against an entire army, grappling over a fortress that had already been lost.

Imladrik felt like screaming. The hot rush of killing hammered in his temples again, the familiar surge of fury that always came when the dragon was unleashed. This time, though, it was tainted by other things: guilt, frustration. He was too late. He had tarried at the coast for too long, tied up with the business of the war there, dragged down by the complaints and concerns of others.

Liandra. Is she here?

Draukhain thundered down a narrow gap between buildings, his wings brushing at the edges of the stone canyon, covering the cowering dwarfs below in vengeful flames. Then he leapt steeply upwards, swerving away from a looming watchtower before hauling his immense body into the clear.

The bolt seemed to come out of nowhere. As if guided by fate, it scythed through the maze of spires and speared clean through Draukhain’s right wing. Its steel tip pierced the hard membranous flesh and lodged fast.

The dragon immediately tilted, righting himself a fraction of a second later. The pain of the blow radiated through Imladrik’s mind, a sharp echo that felt as if his own right arm had been impaled.

Down lower! he sang urgently.

More quarrels spiralled through the air, a constant barrage, hurled over the towers by the ranks upon ranks of bolt throwers brought up to the city. They shot above and around them, mere yards away.

Imladrik looked about him, despair mounting. He almost gave the order to pull away then, to power clear of the city’s edge and seek respite. There was precious little to save in any case — he needed to think.

It was Draukhain that prevented him. The wound seemed to enrage him, as if the sheer impertinence of it somehow pricked his immense sense of superiority. The dragon flew harder, barrelling into the sides of buildings around him and crushing them into rubble. His flames surged out, cascading like breakers against whole rooftops and street-fronts. He roared and bellowed, his tail thrashed, his jaws gaped.