Chris Wraight - Master of Dragons

‘Elgi crimes are not our concern,’ said Morgrim.

‘They should be,’ she said wearily. ‘If you had listened to him you would know why. If you care for anything other than bloodshed, kill her. Kill her and cut the heart from her body. And tell her Liandra of House Athinol ordered it.’

In truth, though, she could not bring herself to care overmuch. Drutheira had done her work. If she lived on she was now a ruined thing, destined for nothing but some petty oblivion. The seeds she had planted had grown into dark fruit and would keep growing now whatever else was done.

She dragged herself over to Draukhain. The dragon dipped his shoulder as low as he could. It was hard work getting the body in position. Several times Liandra nearly slipped, crying out with frustration and anger. Eventually, though, Imladrik’s corpse settled in the hollow between the dragon’s wings. His cloak hung limply over the armoured hide.

Liandra turned before mounting. In front of her stretched the carcass of Oeragor, destroyed by the dawi who now occupied it. They stood in silent ranks, still bristling with sullen anger. She could tell that they did not want to see her leave alive, but none would gainsay Morgrim.

‘You will never know how much he held himself back,’ Liandra told him. ‘He was the best of us, and you have ended him.’

Morgrim nodded again. The dwarf seemed almost numbed by what he had done. ‘He will have a place in our annals. Govandrakken . He will not be scorned.’

Liandra shook her head. She could take no comfort from the dwarfs’ obsession with records and grudges. More than ever it seemed pathetic to her, a dull rehearsal of rituals that signified nothing. If they could not see what tragedy their stubbornness had unleashed then they deserved the war that would cripple them.

She climbed into position, no longer looking at the dwarfs below.

Can you fly? she asked Draukhain, feeling his pain as her own.

The dragon’s legs tensed, ready for the pounce that would propel him aloft. His ravaged wings spread, casting a tattered shadow over the stone.

I will bear you to Tor Alessi , he sang, his mind-voice stricken with a dull kind of emptiness. But fly? Truly fly? Never again.

Drutheira re-wrapped the linen around her head again, knowing that it would do little good. The sun seemed to beat down between the weave, torturing her already scarred skin further. She wanted to drink again but their supplies were scant enough. Malchior, Ashniel and she each carried a gourd of gritty water and a few hard loaves — all they had managed to scavenge in the wreckage of the city — and she didn’t hold out much hope they would last them long enough.

Ahead of her, Malchior still walked with reasonable fluency. Ashniel was weaker, carrying a couple of injuries. One had been sustained when the red mage’s dragon had demolished the mountainside she’d been standing on; the other when her disguise had slipped and an Oeragor guard had recognised her. The knife-fight, Drutheira understood, had been vicious.

‘We should look for shade,’ Drutheira complained.

Malchior halted, and looked around him. The scrubland ran away from them in every direction, flat, hard and open. ‘You see any?’

Drutheira pushed her headdress up a little, squinting in the light. The sun was high in the sky still; it would be hours before the relative cool of dusk. Smoke rose from the northern horizon, now miles away. Oeragor would burn for a long time before they put the fires out. It was fortunate, in a way — slipping out amid all the confusion had been trivial, aided a little by Malchior’s subtle arts.

‘Walk at night, rest by day,’ she said.

Malchior’s expression was unreadable; like all of them he’d wound fabric around his face to ward off the worst of the sun.

He reached down for his gourd and took a swig. Ashniel did the same, swaying slightly.

‘So how did you find me?’ asked Drutheira at last. She’d been putting it off, not wanting to give Malchior the satisfaction, but curiosity got the better of her.

‘I could follow you,’ said Ashniel quietly.

Drutheira turned to face her, surprised. Ashniel had always been the quiet one.

‘I could sense you,’ Ashniel repeated. ‘Ever since the dragon came. Something in the aethyr.’

Drutheira didn’t like the sound of that. If some part of her resonated in there then there were plenty of other things that might be able to track her down.

‘It took days to cross the desert,’ said Malchior. ‘I argued against it.’

‘But we needed the dragon,’ said Ashniel. ‘To get home.’

Drutheira smiled acidly. ‘A shame it died, then.’

‘It didn’t take much art to blend in once we got to Oeragor,’ said Malchior, rather pompously. ‘Their minds were on other things.’

‘By then you knew the dragon had gone,’ said Drutheira. ‘Why did you still come for me?’

Malchior shrugged. ‘We missed your company.’

‘We needed you,’ said Ashniel, more seriously. ‘We know nothing of this land.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Drutheira.

‘You must do. You were in Malekith’s circle.’

Drutheira winced. ‘Don’t assume that means very much.’

Malchior exhaled irritably. ‘We need to get away from this Khaine-damned place.’ He looked at Drutheira reluctantly. ‘You studied the maps longest.’

Drutheira enjoyed the admission, wrung from him like sweat from his headdress. ‘That, of course, is true.’

Ashniel looked like she was going to collapse. ‘Do we have to do this now? And where are we going?’

Malchior’s mouth twisted in scorn. ‘South,’ he said. ‘Everywhere else is crawling with dawi.’ He glanced at Drutheira. ‘You agree?’

Drutheira nodded.

‘Nowhere else to go,’ she said. As she spoke, she tried to remember the charts she’d seen so long ago. Naggaroth seemed almost like a dream. ‘There was a river marked. There must be one, sooner or later. Vitae, was that it? Some arcane language. Malekith knew something about it.’

‘How far?’ asked Malchior.

‘A long way. We can’t walk. We’ll need to find somewhere to recover, or try to get to the coast. A boat — that would be useful.’

Malchior snorted derisively and turned away. ‘I’ll keep an eye out.’

Drutheira looked briefly north again, over to where Oeragor smouldered. The evidence of its ruin was like a premonition, a harbinger of what was to come for all Elthin Arvan. Soon there would be nothing in the colonies but fire, a blaze she had helped to start.

Who would know it, though? Would anyone ever whisper her name with reverence in the hallowed courts of Naggaroth? Drutheira, the destroyer of empires. If she couldn’t find a way back, then no one would, and that silence would be worse than death.

Malchior started to walk again. Haltingly, Ashniel followed him. Drutheira took a sip of water before falling in behind them, trying to ignore the residual pain in her joints.

But I am alive , she thought to herself, remembering the malice in the eyes of the red mage, the certainty that she had finally run her down. To be breathing still, to be free, that was more than improbable. Despite it all, my heart still beats.

She kept walking. The southern horizon stretched away from them, shaking in the heat. The emptiness looked like it went on forever.

Morgrim hobbled through the streets of Oeragor. He could feel blood sloshing in his boots. His ribs were cracked, his shoulder-blade fractured. When he breathed it felt like dry grass was being shoved down his throat.

Everywhere he went, his warriors saluted him. They raised their fists and bowed their heads. Some of the younger ones shouted Khazuk! They all knew what had been achieved. His name would go into the records, carved into the stone tablets buried in the vaults of Karaz-a-Karak. Starbreaker would summon him to the throne. The runelords would honour him. The pall of disgrace that had hung over his bloodline since Snorri’s death would lift.