Juliet McKenna - Northern Storm

Kheda took a slow, careful breath to avoid any spasm of queasiness and did his best to pitch his words to carry to the farthest man he could see without speaking overly loudly.

‘First and foremost, we cannot risk letting the dragon fly away, so we must foul its wings with nets and ropes.’ He glanced at the contingents from the fishing boats. ‘Those of you without much armour, tear into its wings, ripping the membranes. For the rest of us-’ he included everyone with an impromptu blade in his gaze ‘—if its hide is proof against another dragon’s teeth, it’ll be proof against the best swords. So we attack its wounds. We set it bleeding again. It’s already weak. We want it weaker still’

‘Weak is one thing, dead’s another,’ interrupted Zicre, ignoring looks of outrage at his temerity. ‘How are we to kill it?

‘The quickest way to any creature’s brain is through its mouth or its eyes.’ Kheda fixed the hunter with an unwavering gaze. ‘That’s my task. What I need the rest of you to do is keep it distracted by so many attacks that it doesn’t realise what I aim to do, until it’s too late.’

Confused protests rose from Beyau and Mezai and others besides, while the armoured warriors of Chazen tried to force their way closer to their warlord, with fervent assurances that they would be at his side, their swords with his.

Kheda ignored them all as he looked at the rugged shoulder of the peak, a dark shadow against the mist lightened under the strengthening sun. ‘The path leads up round that spur?’ He looked to Zicre and got a silent nod of confirmation. ‘The terrace is beyond that?’

He drew a deep breath, grateful for the pungent chaelor oil masking the stench of decay. Setting a punishing pace up the hill, he was soon feeling the strain in the backs of his thighs and calves. As the path widened to claim a broad, undulating ledge at the base of the peak, men drew level with him on either side. Beyau was surrounded by waniors of the Chazen household, their armour brilliant with beads of moisture, the muffled light of the sun turning their naked blades to dull silver. Mezai was in among the fishermen burdened with their nets and ropes, other men from the Gossamer Shark gripping clubs and long knives.

A broken knife edge of rock rose sheer on one side, the broad ledge falling away into a confusion of forest on the other. As the slope grew less cruel, Kheda pushed on faster, Zicre still at his side. Beyau and the swordsmen ran with them, faces grim beneath the brow bands of their polished helms. The tramp of the countless feet behind Mezai and the mariners reverberated across the steep valley.

Kheda rounded the shoulder of the peak and the hollow of level ground between the two ridges running down from the peak opened up before them. Some of the biggest ironwoods he had ever seen had claimed this sheltered, fertile spot for their own. Hidden from foresters who would have cut them down long since and thought them a mighty prize, they had soared upwards.

The great grey trees with their lofty crowns of dense green leaves looked no more than saplings behind the massive bulk sprawled in front of them. The reek of decay hung stifling in the air. The dragon lay awkwardly, hindquarters slumped to one side, stormy-blue hind legs drawn up to its pale grey belly, its massive tail, dark as thunder cloud, curling around. The wounds torn in its hide by the dead fire dragon gaped wide, dark bruised flesh barely visible beneath clusters of flies and beetles, intent on feeding and not caring if their prey was alive or dead. Every now and again the dragon’s skin twitched in a feeble attempt to shake off the tormenters. A few flies were dislodged, only to return with buzzing eagerness. Where beetles fell away, their place was instantly taken by newcomers from the glittering horde scrambling over and around each other. The ground below the creature was a crushed mass of bushes and saplings foul with blackened blood.

There was more life in the front end of the dragon. It rested on its chest, forelegs braced, white crystal claws digging into the shattered twigs and leaf litter. Its massive blue-grey head swayed from side to side, hoary spines bristling with malice the length of its long, muscular neck. Eyes blue as sapphire glowed with malevolence beneath frosty brow ridges and it opened its mouth to hiss menacingly, long cobalt tongue flickering over teeth like steel sword blades. With a rattling clap, it spread its wings.

It couldn’t spread them very far. The rents torn by the fire dragon had ulcerated horribly. Purple slime soiled the cloudy membrane, oozing from the spreading wounds. The creature’s defiant hiss turned to one of agony as it let its wings fall back in painful disorder.

The men of Chazen crowded behind their warlord, each man lending courage to those gathered close around him, inadvertently pressing Kheda forward. He raised his sword slowly, then cut it down with an audible swish. He was already running, Zicre on one side, Beyau on the other, mariners, waniors and huntsmen hard on their heels.

The dragon disappeared. A veil of mist opaque as silk came down before their astonished eyes. Kheda barely hesitated, plunging on through the fog. After a moment’s indecision, the men with him followed. The whiteness wrapped around them, denser than ever. Kheda looked from side to side and found he could barely make out Zicre or Beyau even though he was close enough to touch them. He slowed just a little.

‘Where is it?’ Beyau asked through clenched teeth. ‘It can’t have flown away.’ Shivers wracked Kheda and he looked down to see frost forming on his chain mail. Not on those wings. And we’d have heard it.’

‘What magic is this, my lord?’ Zicre’s sweat-sodden clothing crackled as he fought against its sudden icy embrace.

‘We must kill it before we all freeze to death.’ Kheda gasped. The all-enveloping mist deadened his words and he realised he could barely hear anything beyond aim’s length either.

‘My lord?’ It was Mezai, teeth chattering uncontrollably, breath frozen white in his beard. ‘Come on,’ Kheda said with difficulty, his jaw stiff with cold.

‘My lord!’ Barely coherent, Beyau threw himself at Kheda and knocked the warlord off his feet. The dragon’s head appeared out of the deathly mist, snapping at the void where Kheda had just been standing. Mezai and Zicre stumbled forward, brandishing their weapons. Their yells of wordless defiance were instantly swallowed by the fog swirling ever denser around them.

‘I got it!’ The ice in Mezai’s beard cracked as he grinned, proffering his crude hacking blade.

Kheda pulled himself painfully to his feet, chilled thighs and forearms aching bone deep from the impact on the brutally frozen ground. ‘Well done.’ An icy smear of dark-blue blood glittered on the burnished steel of Mezai’s weapon.

‘Here, my lord.’ Zicre bent to recover a scatter of small blue-white scales with fingers withered by the cold.

Tossing aside the chaelor-soaked rag, Kheda held out a gloved hand and examined the scales the hunter laid on his palm. They were edged with putrid flesh where they had been ripped from the underside of the dragon’s jaw. He closed his hand around them and felt them crumble. When he uncurled his fingers, all he held was glittering powder.

Velindre said it would fade away to nothing.

‘Perhaps its hide won’t be so tough after all,’ said Zicre cautiously.

‘Come on.’ Kheda threw the dust away, brushing his hand against his thigh.

They advanced slowly, Kheda at the forefront, the other three behind him to make a rough arrowhead, every man’s eyes looking in all directions. Shadows in the fog fleeted on the edge of vision. Noises came and went so fast they might just have been imagined. Kheda ripped off his helmet and threw it away. ‘My lord,’ Beyau protested.