This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury, it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever nearer, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

PROLOGUE

The eastern horizon glows nightshade-blue, then lavender, then ochre. The world turns. The Orb of the Makers rotates gently through the void, tracing the pattern of the Great Dance, just as it has done since the steps were laid down by those long departed.

It all moves. It all changes.

A new day. Much like all the others those eyes have seen, and they have seen so many.

They do not blink, not like a human’s eyes would blink. Once every twelve heartbeats, a sliver of translucent flesh flicks across yellow sclera. There are no lids to lower. Folds of forest-green skin, mottled with tough knots of glandular eruptions, roll away from the jawline. A vast belly sags against the stone floor, cream-white like bone, gravid and misshapen. Huge hands rest against the curve of it, the long fingers extended.

The watcher sees the first sliver of gold as the sun breaks the lip of the world’s edge. It sees the mist of the morning curl upwards, steaming from the tree canopy.

It is already hot. As the sun rises, the air will shimmer with more of the wet, close heat. The sun’s fuel will warm the watcher’s blood, stirring its sinews into movement, animating the formidable mind within that domed, jowled head.

The watcher sits in a courtyard of stone. The glyphs on the stone are worn. Cracks run from the flagstones of the square, up the steep-pitched steps of the pyramid behind it, up to the summit and its narrow corbelled arches.

The watcher, hunched at the base of the pyramid stairs, pays the courtyard no attention. Its eyes are on the horizon, and they are as fixed and rigid as the axis of the world. They look out intently, watching the corona of colours flicker around the rising sun, colours no mortal would ever notice, colours that would send a human mad with desire and horror were he somehow ever to catch a glimpse of them.

They are growing stronger, those colours. The world’s light refracts through them, distorting and changing. The watcher knows what the colours mean, and what their growth portends. The watcher has been observing the heavens for twelve years, as unchanging as granite, as silent as the black earth under the stone of the temple, determining whether the colours should be responded to, and if so, in what manner.

And now, as the twelfth year reaches its end and the thirteenth begins, as the sun’s passage traces the dividing line between great cosmic periods, as the heat of the air swells through the trees and the insects circle in the pools of light, the watcher reaches its conclusion.

From the shadows, other eyes slide open. Frigid, scaly limbs uncurl. Tongues flicker out, drinking in the aromas in the hanging air. They too have been waiting a long time.

With a dry hiss like the scratch of quill on vellum, bipedal creatures pad into the sunlight. Their skin is pale blue and mottled, bleached to near-white by the baking sun. Wide, golden eyes stare from blank ophidian faces. Vanes and throat-frills waver, blotched and streaked with vivid colour.

They wait. They stand motionless before the bloated giant in their midst.

One long finger lifts by a fraction, wavering as it rises. The creatures track its movement, studying the path it takes intently.

For a moment further, nothing happens. The courtyard is still. The stone swells with heat. The forest rings with its unearthly chorus.

The finger descends. The creatures scurry back into the shadows, their sinewy limbs rigid with purpose. They move in concert, enacting the instruction of the watcher without hesitation.

A muffled clatter of activity emanates from deep within the pyramid. Dull impacts boom out from the dark places, the sound of brass gongs being struck by snake-hide mufflers. A low chanting breaks out from one of the many hidden chambers, a hoarse dirge dragged up from reptilian lungs not made for song. More voices join it, drowning out the birdcalls in discordant ensemble.

A great work has been started. A prediction has been made, and measures taken to respond to it. Forces will be summoned within the pyramid now, forces no warmblood could come close to understanding. Such energies will take time to coalesce. On an as-yet unspecified day in the future, a day to be determined by the Great Dance and its many mysteries, those energies will be unfettered and much will be created, and much destroyed.

But that day is still far off. The watcher remains in position, its limbs draped in vines. Heat is already rising from the stone, bathing the friezes in shimmer-haze.

The boom of the gongs continues. The cries of the birds still break from the trees.

The watcher is motionless. Unperturbed. Silent.

For now, there is nothing to do but wait.

CHAPTER ONE

Two hundred years later

Haerwal hauled the reins back and his steed pulled up, champing at the bit. The stallion’s eyes rolled and its hooves stamped on the dry earth. The rest of Haerwal’s detachment, now less than twenty strong, clattered to a halt behind him, safely back behind Caledorian lines after their last skirmishing raid.

The captain, still breathing hard from the gallop, twisted round in the saddle and looked over his shoulder. He gazed out past the helms of his troops. The vista beyond was at once majestic and devastating.

The wide Vanamar Plain was teeming with high elf warriors. Their weapons glittered like jewels in the fierce sun and the cries of battle rose up from the dust, fierce and proud. Bodies lay motionless on the fringes of the mighty infantry phalanxes, strewn upon the earth like discarded dolls.

Two huge armies were locked in each other’s embrace, shrouding the dry earth in an unbroken sea of ithilmar and steel. As trumpets blared out from the command positions and arrows whistled through the air in flocks, squares of swordsmen and spearmen crashed into one another, fighting with the grim, stoic determination that ever marked the asur way of war.

Beyond the sea of struggling bodies, over to the east of the battleplain, the land rose in rocky steps. Banners snapped in the stiff breeze, displaying the emblems of the Island City, Tor Elyr. Royal blue horseheads rippled across white fields, and gold pennants whipped out like the tails of lions.

‘Senseless,’ spat Haerwal, wiping his mouth and preparing to ride back into the fray. The very sight of the Ellyrian devices depressed him. ‘By Asuryan, this is senseless.’

All around him, the ranks of Caledor stood, strong and united. The soldiers’ sky blue helmets, each tipped with a spiked imitation of drakes’ wings, ran away in close-ordered ranks towards the turmoil of combat ahead.

As he recovered his breath, he saw a detachment of Caledorian cavalry muster for another charge. Their lances dipped and the percussive thud of hooves broke out again. Above them, the harsh sun made the steel tips of their lances glisten. The distant Annulii mountains were little more than a blueish haze, running away towards Lothern in the south-west. To the north, the still waters of the Inner Sea glittered like a field of diamonds.

Lord Rathien’s forces were mighty. The Caledorian prince’s power had grown prodigiously in such a short time. Haerwal should have been pleased. He’d served the lords of Tor Morven for centuries and, like all his kin, had dreamed of a return to greatness for Caledor. So he should have welcomed the army his lord had dragged together using little more than willpower and promises. He should have welcomed such a show of force and intent.

He felt sick. Fighting the greenskin was one thing, and he had never once shrunk from marching against the cursed brethren of Naggaroth. But the enemy this day were loyal subjects of the Phoenix King, just as he was. The contest between princes to be next in line to replace the ageing Bel-Hathor had long been acrimonious, but this was the first time that bad blood had spilled over into open war. Indeed, it was the first time in centuries that asur warriors had been forced into battle with their own kin. For a people beset with enemies and suffering a long, slow decline in numbers, such folly was almost unimaginable.

Haerwal couldn’t even remember the roots of this particular dispute. There had been a gradually escalating sense of tension in Lothern for months. Rumours of assassinations abounded, and frantic whispers spoke of a new age of sorcery to come. The denizens of the cities had lost control of their emotions and allowed themselves to be swept up in the fervour of the succession race. All Ulthuan had drifted into a febrile state of uneasiness and the merest suggestion of an insult had become sufficient for arms to be drawn. There had been skirmishes between rival groups, some of which had escalated into pitched encounters.

So it had been with Rathien of Caledor and Valaris of Ellyrion, two of the keenest contenders for the throne, and now two of its most bitterly opposed generals. In support of their conflicting ambitions, whatever the result of the battle on the Vanamar Plain that day, hundreds would die.

‘Senseless.’

Haerwal yanked his mount’s head round and gave it a sharp kick in the flank. The horse broke into a reluctant walk, warming up for yet another plunge into the grind and harry of close combat. A youth ran up with a cluster of fresh spears and a gourd of water. All around Haerwal, the rest of his detachment was similarly replenished.

Ahead, no more than five hundred yards distant, the two vast masses of infantry were intertwined with one another. There must have been over twenty thousand soldiers on the field, filling the plain from edge to edge. The formations were orthodox – regiments of spearmen in the centre protecting a fragile core of archers further back. On both flanks the cavalry prowled, looking for the opening to launch another charge. The heavy armoured charges of the Caledorian horsemen contrasted with the more rapid skirmishing of their Reaver opponents, but the result was much the same – a trail of twisted, broken bodies and long slicks of wine-dark blood in the furrowed earth. As yet though, neither side had broken the deadlock.

Haerwal was no Dragon Prince; his low birth prevented entry into that elite cadre. Though none was closer to Rathien in counsel, his rank was merely captain of auxiliaries. Such troops were kitted out with kite-shaped shields and long spears, and they were there to harass the enemy, to soften them up for the real dealers of death. It was exhausting and dangerous work and half of Haerwal’s hand-picked detachment already lay in the dust with the bloodied corpses of their steeds.

But there was no let-up and no time to mourn. Battle called again.

‘To me!’ he cried, though there was no conviction in his hoarse voice. ‘For the honour of Caledor!’

He kicked his horse into a canter, and the squadron began to pick up speed. Haerwal hefted his spear in his right hand and spurred the horse into the gallop.

The wind raced around him, and the flanks of the enemy thundered into range. For all the excitement of the charge, Haerwal felt the irony in his rallying words.

He would fight, just as he had always loyally fought. But there was no honour in this ruinous battle. No honour at all.

Valaris of Tor Elyr watched as the mass of Caledorian riders mustered for another pass. His armour, an elaborate mail coat of ithilmar scales, an heirloom of his house, shimmered as he moved. He had yet to enter the fray himself, but the time had come at last. His forces were committed and their orders had been given. Now everything would be put to the test.

He felt a warm glow of satisfaction. The brutal encounter, unprecedented as it was, was just one more step on the path to the Phoenix Throne. An unpleasant one, perhaps, but Rathien of Tor Morven, the headstrong fool, had forced his hand. Valaris took no pleasure in spilling the blood of his own kind, but given that the choice had been taken from him, he took some comfort from the fact that the blood would be Caledorian. Times had changed and the insufferably arrogant Dragon Princes respected nothing but the ruthless application of force, and even then only when it had been rammed down their pale throats and used to choke them.

‘My lord!’ came the urgent voice of one of his adjutants, a blond officer from the Reaver corps. His young, elegant face was bruised and streaked with blood, but his gaze remained clear and steady. ‘The centre cannot hold. That cavalry–’

Valaris held his hand up.

‘You fear horses?’ he asked disbelievingly, taking up his own helm at last and placing it on his head. ‘What kind of Ellyrian are you?’

The adjutant flushed, but held his ground.

‘The Dragon Princes are too heavily armoured,’ he said. ‘Our riders cannot stand against them.’

Valaris took up the reins on his charger, an ice-white destrier named Rhyleas. There were few horses in the world better – or more intelligent – than those of the wide grasslands of Ellyrion, and Rhyleas stepped proudly in full knowledge of its pedigree. The horse, at least, had no fear of the enemy, Dragon Prince or otherwise.

‘No,’ said Valaris, drawing a longsword from its scabbard. The metal of the blade flashed sharply in the sun. ‘They cannot.’

The adjutant looked exasperated.

‘Then what do you expect us to do?’

Valaris smiled at the young officer coldly. So many of his troops expected bravery and ostentation alone to get them through their battles. If they lived long enough, they’d learn the need to be cannier than that.

‘When the enemy’s strength is unmatched,’ said Valaris, feeling his steed’s urgency to charge into the heart of the fighting, ‘turn it into weakness.’

The adjutant frowned, working hard to divine what that meant.

‘I do not–’

‘Ride with me,’ said Valaris. ‘I will show you the meaning of guile. By the time the sun sets, this field will be stained black with the bloodied dreams of Caledor.’

Lord Rathien of Tor Morven sat forward in the saddle, relishing the power of the charge, and lowered his lance. All around him, other Dragon Princes did the same. Their battle cries rang out over the surging tide of troops, as clear and vital as the flames of Asuryan.

A massed charge of Caledor’s finest was a thing of wonder. The spearhead of cavalry thundered across the plain, hammering up clouds of dust in their wake and making the ground beneath them tremble. Four hundred horses, each barded with shining scales of silver and crested with plumes of sky blue. They tore into battle like the vengeance of the gods, irresistible and magnificent.

Rathien was, as ever, at the forefront, goading his mount the furthest and hardest. The ranks of the enemy hove into view, masked by the churned-up clouds of dust. He saw regiments of spearmen struggling to turn their ranks to face the threat. Behind them, he knew the archers would be hurriedly taking aim, seeing the charge too late and struggling to react.

Rathien laughed. It was a laugh of savage joy, a glass-clear sound of exuberant battle-lust. He belonged in the saddle. He belonged on the field of combat. The long months of politicking and manoeuvring against his rivals had driven him close to madness, and even though Haerwal had counselled against war, Rathien had always known it would come down to that in the end. Haerwal was too cautious. The same, Rathien knew, could never have been said about him.

‘For Tor Morven and Caledor!’ he roared, scanning the rapidly approaching ranks of the enemy for his first target. The Ellyrian spearmen before him held their ground, but their faces were pale with fear.

‘For Caledor!’ his troops cried back, and the noise of their massed shout echoed across the plain.

Then they were in, crashing through the meagre defences like a gale through saplings. The spearmen were thrust aside, downed under the churning hooves of the horses or impaled on the long lances of the Dragon Princes. The momentum of the assault carried the horsemen deep into the phalanx of defenders, hurtling through the scant resistance in a storm of whirling steel and flailing limbs.

Rathien’s warhorse powered over the defenders, crunching them aside or riding them down. The prince’s lance impaled the nearest spearman cleanly, punching through his armour and lodging deep in the chest. The wooden shaft buckled and then shattered as the force of the charge carried Rathien deeper into the morass of breaking defenders, and he let it drop.

With a fluid movement, Rathien drew his longsword and brought it round in a quick, whistling arc. Two more spearmen felt the bite of it, going down in a torrent of blood before they could get their cumbersome spears into alignment. Another half-dozen defenders were trampled or kicked by his steed, broken under the remorseless tide of driving hooves.

The enemy broke. Against that furious onslaught, they had no defence at all and their pristine ranks dissolved into a panicked disorder.

‘Vengeance!’ bellowed Rathien, watching with relish as his troops ripped apart the Ellyrian footsoldiers. ‘Slay them all! Let none live to mourn this day!’

The infantry began to run, sprinting back across the plain and ceding the ground they’d occupied. All thoughts of honour forgotten, they dropped their weapons and fled, pursued through the drifting dust by the murderous, wheeling Dragon Princes.

The momentum of the charge didn’t let up. The Caledorian cavalry surged after them, cutting down the hindmost without mercy and riding over the ones who stumbled.

Rathien maintained the punishing speed of the attack. As he forged through the dust-clouds ahead, he could imagine the whole army unravelling before him, breaking open like an egg. Once the hard shell of defenders was smashed aside, the lightly armed core of archers awaited, packed in tight rank order and unable to flee quickly. When his Dragon Princes came amongst them, the slaughter would be memorable indeed.

‘Run them down!’ he cried, feeling his voice hoarsen from shouting. His body was bathed in sweat, and his heart thudded with the deep, strong rhythm of combat. His whole body was suffused with a profound feeling of invincibility.

‘Lord!’ came the first cry of alarm.

The plumes of dust parted for a moment, exposing the battlefield ahead of them.

There were no defenders left. There were no ranks of archers cowering before the charge of the cavalry. Ahead of him was nothing but empty dust, baked hard by the sun, broken only by the remnants of the spearman battalions they’d ridden through, still running hard.

The line of spearmen had been a screen. The entire army of Tor Elyr had parted in two, all to allow the cavalry to overshoot and outrun their supporting infantry battalions. With astonishing discipline, thousands of defending soldiers had withdrawn under the cover of the roiling dust, drawing the assault on.

‘Come round!’ yelled Rathien, suddenly seeing the danger.

He could scarcely believe it. An entire rank of footsoldiers had been sacrificed in order to get the Dragon Princes out of position. All about him, his knights arrested their charge, tugging on the reins and hauling their mighty steeds to a skidding, whinnying halt.

Rathien cast a look back at the way they’d come. His Caledorian footsoldiers had been left far behind. They were running fast to come to the aid of the cavalry, but he saw clearly that they’d arrive too late.

‘Withdraw!’ roared Rathien, knowing he had precious seconds to avert disaster.

He was too late. From either flank, like flocks of dark insects descending on to exposed crops, the arrows began to fly.

Valaris rode hard, escorted by his Reavers. He had taken his finest mounted detachments out of the main conflict and run them swiftly south of the battlefield, skirting the margins of the fighting and bringing them up parallel with the Caledorians’ rearguard.

If his opponent had been a cautious general, he would have established significant reserves towards the rear of his army to prevent such an attack. Valaris himself had done so with his own forces, knowing full well that such a deployment left the main body of infantry in the front lines weakened.

But that didn’t matter now. Valaris could see for himself that Rathien had taken the bait and ridden his elite Dragon Princes right through the centre of battlefield. That had been a blunt manoeuvre, and one that a more experienced commander would never have undertaken until the risk of flank attack had been neutralised. Valaris had trusted to his opponent’s recklessness, and the gamble had paid off. He could already hear the screams as the storm of arrows from his concealed archers found their marks.

‘Come about!’ he cried, leading his Reavers back up towards the southern flank of the Caledorian rearguard.

As the line of Ellyrian horsemen came into range of their target, Valaris saw with satisfaction that the enemy defences were minimal. Rathien had committed everything to the central attack, and as a result every other element of his army was exposed. As Valaris drew into charge range, he saw the enemy footsoldiers stationed around the baggage caravans and repeater batteries struggling to form up in defence.

‘Charge!’ roared Valaris.

Giving them no time to get into position, the cavalry of Tor Elyr plunged straight into the Caledorian infantry, crashing through the disorganised defences just as ruthlessly as the Dragon Princes had destroyed the false wall of spearmen. The Reavers were more lightly armoured than their Caledorian counterparts, but were swifter on the charge and their spears were as deadly as heavy lances in a loose melee.

‘Strike fast!’ cried Valaris, crouching in the saddle and feeling Rhyleas propel him deep into the heart of the fighting. ‘Break them, then withdraw! Do not get drawn on!’

The Reavers did as they were ordered, tearing through the ragged Caledorian rearguard, striking down any stragglers and torching rows of hawk-shaped bolt throwers as they swept past. The shouts of alarm from the defenders turned to screams of pain and terror.

Valaris remained at the forefront, swinging his longsword with almost casual abandon. Everything had unfolded as he had foreseen and even amid the slaughter he could take a grim kind of pleasure from that.

Then he noticed that the adjutant, the blond Reaver captain he’d been speaking to earlier, was riding alongside him, close at hand even in the charge. The youth’s face was fierce with bloodlust, and he handled his steed with ferocious mastery.

‘Did I not say it?’ shouted Valaris, dispatching a fleeing swordsman with a downward plunge of his blade. The adjutant heard him, and grinned in reply.

‘Black with their bloodied dreams,’ he replied, wielding his own sword with dreadful relish.

By the time Haerwal fought his way to Rathien’s side, the field was already lost. The Caledorians had been badly outmanoeuvred. Their heavy cavalry had been drawn into a ruinous encounter with massed volleys from the Ellyrian archers. Once the momentum of the charge had been lost and the arrows had taken their toll, the enemy footsoldiers had been free to close in on the beleaguered Dragon Princes. For all their peerless power in the sudden assault, the elite horseriders were weak when their speed had been taken from them.

The Caledorian infantry had been hampered in coming to their aid by a sudden attack by the Ellyrians’ fast-moving cavalry on the rearguard. Caught between such well-orchestrated assaults, Rathien’s army had folded in on itself. The Dragon Princes remained defiant to the end, hurling contemptuous insults at the mass of troops that swarmed up to attack them. The same could not be said for the Caledorian infantry, many of whom fled the field as the tide of battle swung against them.

From horseback, Haerwal cast a weary eye across the carnage. All those long months of preparation, all that gold spent on an army worthy of Caledor’s proud past, had been for nothing. The lone horse that trailed behind him, led by a long rope and slathered in sweat, was riderless. Its owner lay, like so many others, crushed and lifeless on the soil of Ulthuan.

Haerwal rode up to Rathien. The prince still fought on foot and his armour was blotched and mottled with blood. All around him lay corpses, the remnants of his once-proud honour guard.

‘Lord!’ Haerwal cried. ‘We must withdraw!’

Haerwal’s surviving riders rode on past, driving the nearest Ellyrians back and creating a momentary bulwark against the surging onslaught around them. Beyond that fragile line, the battle still raged unabated, though in truth, it was now little more than a massacre.

Rathien looked up at Haerwal, and there was desperation in his face.

‘Rally them!’ he spat, wiping his blade on his cloak and striding back towards the Ellyrians. ‘This day is not yet done!’

Haerwal drew up the riderless horse he’d led across the battlefield. Merely getting it there had been perilous. To die now would be only the greatest of the many irritations he’d endured in Rathien’s service.

‘I have never defied you,’ said Haerwal, keeping his voice level. ‘But look around you. There is no one else left.’

The ever-present dust, driven up by the endless movements of men and horses, still drifted across the plain. As the filmy curtains ripped away in the breeze, Rathien suddenly stopped. A broad image of the battlefield opened up before him.

The sun had passed into the west, and its light was weak. The Ellyrians were running rampant. All semblance of rank order had disintegrated on the Caledorian side, and isolated knots of fighters were being taken apart by disciplined assaults from mounted troops.

Even as Rathien watched, an isolated Dragon Prince was dragged from his mount by a group of warriors in the white robes of Ellyrion. The knight fought desperately, taking down two or three before his sword was ripped from his gauntlet. His assailants hacked at his body long after he was dead and motionless. Their movements were animated with real hatred.

‘If we do not leave now, we will die,’ said Haerwal, calmly articulating the obvious.

He did his best to remain calm. Remonstrating with Rathien was always difficult, and getting impatient never helped. Even as Haerwal waited for a response, he could hear the approach of more soldiers from every direction. The fighting was not yet over, whatever decision was made.

At last, Rathien turned away from the scene of butchery. The fire of anger in his eyes had gone, to be replaced by a strange kind of darkness. He mounted his horse slowly, as if all vitality had been drained from him.

Haerwal waited for the order. Despite all that had happened between them, it broke his heart to see his lord so stricken.

‘Sound the retreat,’ said Rathien, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘You are right. All is lost.’

CHAPTER TWO

The chamber was sunk in shadow, lit only by four bobbing lyr candles. They drifted around the circular space, throwing soft beams of varicoloured light against the dark stone.

Anlia barely noticed them. The object on the table before her absorbed all her attention. A small crystal sphere hovered a hand’s breath above the copper surface, rotating slowly and reflecting the light of the candles. Shapes moved within the sphere, ghostly remnants of faces, or snow-streaked mountainsides, or the heavy swell of unbroken waves. Each vision lingered for a moment before fading out to be replaced by another. The procession was dizzying and hard to interpret, even for Anlia’s experienced eyes.

But there was always a pattern in the end, some underlying unity. The sphere was a hirameth, a speaker of future truths, one of the many arcane products of the loremasters of Hoeth. It never lied, though it sometimes told the truth in such an opaque way that the result was much the same. The trick, Anlia had been told, was to treat it like a child, and a wayward one at that.

She screwed her eyes up, peering into the candlelit depths. She’d been working for hours already and her strength was waning. She could feel her eyelids getting heavier, and forced herself to keep them open.

Two messages emerged, swimming up from the dark depths of the hirameth. The first was confirmation of something many scryers across Ulthuan had long been predicting. The Winds of Magic, those capricious eddies of aethyric matter that washed across the world and gave power to those with the gift to control them, were gaining in strength. Like the gathering of thunderheads far out at sea, they were churning and boiling, ready to spill out across the lands of mortals and blur the tenuous barrier between the Realm of Chaos and the physical world.

Anlia pushed back her fringe of long copper-brown hair and leaned forward, screwing her vision tighter and wringing out the last drop of prophecy from the crystal before it faded. She was good at such work, better than most people gave her credit for. She could see things that most others, even the mightiest sages of the Tower, would miss.

And so she saw the second message there, another fragment hidden within the shadows of false visions, the reflections of reflections.

She saw the sea, curving away towards the western horizon. She saw the coast of distant Lustria, steaming in perpetual heat. She saw an island, one that didn’t yet exist, but whose potential was scored across time like the slip of a stonemason’s chisel.

And there were other things: echoes of something from the far past, a fusillade of desperate cries and fire in the skies…

‘Do you like what you see?’ asked her companion, speaking amiably from the shadows.

Anlia didn’t look up at him, but a flicker of annoyance crossed her alabaster features.

‘Do not speak to me,’ she muttered. ‘Not now.’

There was an avuncular chuckle from the margins of the chamber, though from exactly where, it was hard to tell. The floating candles didn’t illuminate much beyond the sphere on the table, and the walls were hidden in shadow.

‘Don’t forget who taught you how to do this, girl. There are others I could spend my time tutoring.’

Anlia exhaled sharply with irritation. The visions were sinking into a fog at the centre of the orb. Her concentration was breaking. She knew from experience that once that happened, she’d never get it back.

She ran her hands across her face, then through her hair. She sat up, rolling her tense shoulders. It was only then that she realised how long she’d been hunched over the orb, and how cramped and painful her muscles had become.

‘There aren’t many who would put up with you,’ she said.

The lyr candles floated higher, towards the conical roof of the chamber. The sphere descended back towards the copper tabletop. It touched the metal with a gentle clink before rolling across it towards Anlia.

‘I’ll ask you again. Did you like what you saw?’

Anlia collected the sphere into her hand and placed it within a sandalwood box at her feet. Her movements were as protective as a mother’s with her child.

‘I didn’t have a chance to finish,’ she replied, locking the box closed and rising stiffly from her chair. Her deep red robes were crumpled and there were lines of fatigue under her eyes. ‘Perhaps you prevented me from doing so deliberately.’

This time there was no laugh.

‘That’s an unworthy thought.’

‘Is it?’

‘It is. But I forgive you. So what’s next for us?’

Anlia rocked her head from side to side, trying to loosen vice-tight sinews.‘ We travel to Lothern. He’ll want to see this.’

‘Lothern is dangerous for you. You should stay here. In secret.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do. My shoulders are killing me.’

‘Then do not downplay the danger. Would you like me to massage them for you?’

‘I never downplay the danger. And yes, I would. You always know what I need.’

From out of the darkness came a pair of asur hands, smooth-fleshed and pale. Anlia sat back in the chair and let them knead her weary, knotted flesh. Her eyes closed, and she felt her body relax at last.

‘He’ll want something good though,’ she said drowsily. ‘Right now, I have no idea how to sell this.’

‘You’ll find a way,’ came the comforting reply. ‘You always do.’

From the plains north of Lothern to the borders of Caledor was a punishing ride of six days that should have taken eight. The horses were driven hard to keep them moving up the steep mountain paths, and many went lame and were left behind. That was a criminal waste, a pointless loss of precious stock, but Rathien found himself unable to care.

He still burned with anger, and the ever-growing distance from the battlefield fuelled his gnawing sense of shame. He barely noticed the scenery around him, the plunging mountain shoulders, striated with foliage as they fell away towards the glittering disc of the Inner Sea. He spoke to none of his retainers, and none of them dared speak to him. His surviving retinue, nineteen household cavalry in battered Caledorian livery, travelled with none of the high-stepping swagger they’d adopted on the journey east. They filed through the narrow mountain passes like thieves, going quickly and with sullen, hunted looks. The remainder of the army, those few that had escaped death or capture, trailed along behind, a ragged train of wounded and dispirited warriors that extended far down the crumbling mountain trails.

Rathien found conflicting emotions raging within him. On the one hand, now the worst of the battle fury had faded, feelings of profound remorse preyed on his mind – there had been no glory in that sordid fight and good warriors had died pointlessly for a goal that would now never be realised.

On the other, the need for vengeance still nagged away at him. He had been humiliated. That required a response.

Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t let it go. With every pace taken away from Vanamar, the turmoil in his soul intensified. He despised the bloodshed, but could not turn aside from it.

Why do I feel this? Why now?

It was as if the entire world had intensified the warlike emotions of his people and driven them to the surface. Discipline, the one trait that separated the sons of Ulthuan from their decadent kin in Naggaroth, the one thing that tempered the hot blood of Aenarion and prevented it from spilling over into endless conflict, seemed harder than ever to summon up.

Something was changing. Something was stirring.

Still locked in his thoughts, Rathien brought his steed to a halt before the Marble Gate, the dividing ridge between the soft country of Eataine and the rugged highlands of Caledor. To his left, the huge mass of the Annulii rose up, curving into the north-west and dazzling with sun-flashed snow. To his right, the terrain fell steeply in a series of uneven terraces, tumbling away to the narrow strip of coast below. Ahead of him, the road plunged straight through the crest of the ridge. The dark earth of Caledor was visible on the far side of the opening, glowering under the hot sun.

A hundred miles further on, and the crumbling towers of Tor Morven were waiting for him, perched on the side of the mountain Kaerel over the dry valley of the Liledh. His ancestral home, stuffed with riches but home to barely half the inhabitants needed to keep it in repair.

His mother would be there, pale and proud, eager for news of her only son’s military success. Rathien could already see her drawn face, the pulled-back knot of grey hair, the hawk’s glare of expectation. She was always there, pacing across her chamber in the seaward tower, hands clenched tight, thin mouth tight with incipient judgement.

Haerwal drew his horse alongside Rathien’s. The two of them sat beside one another for a long time with no words being spoken.

‘All is not lost, lord,’ the captain said at last, keeping his voice low so the rest of the riders, most of whom were still picking their way up to the Gate, wouldn’t hear. ‘You still have support in Caledor.’

Rathien shook his head bitterly.

‘Caledor,’ he repeated, as if the name had become hateful to him. ‘There is nothing in Caledor.’

He turned to face his captain, and shot him a glance of contempt.

‘We have become weak, Haerwal,’ he spat. ‘We, who once were kings. Now even the horsetamers dare to stand in the way of our ambition.’

‘Maybe so. But there is still strength to be found.’

Rathien was about to respond with his customary disdain, when he paused.

There was a strange tang on the air. The wind that whined down from the peaks was sharper than it should have been. The sunlight was stronger. Even the rock beneath him seemed to vibrate with a low, almost imperceptible rhythm.

Everything was more vivid, picked out in clearer lines.

More real.

‘There is strength,’ agreed Rathien, his face pensive, still looking hard at stone and sky. ‘One gate closes, another opens.’

Haerwal looked at him uncertainly.

‘I don’t–’

‘I was told that once. Years ago, in Hoeth.’

‘Lord, you speak in riddles.’

Rathien looked up at the distant peaks. Cloud drifted down the shoulders of the mountains, dazzling white. Thousands of years ago, those places would have shimmered with magic. They had been home to creatures of such power and grace that Caledor had built its ancient fortunes on them and nothing else.

Rathien looked long at the summits, his mind turning new thoughts over, his face locked in a grim mask.

‘We’re not going home,’ he said at last.

Behind them, the entourage of riders began to back up along the road. Their steeds, bad-tempered Caledorian warhorses, stamped and whinnied.

Haerwal looked worried.

‘We are at the gate, lord,’ he pointed out. ‘We go onward, or we go back to Lothern.’

Rathien shook his head.

‘Do you not feel it, Haerwal?’ he asked. ‘Do you not sense the change? There is power running through these mountains like blood in a vein. It has infected all of us. This madness has a source, and we must seek it out.’

Haerwal looked nonplussed. Rathien couldn’t blame him for that. Haerwal was a decent warrior and an accomplished adviser, but no mage. The Winds of Magic washed over him leaving scarcely a trace. For Rathien though, steeped in the heritage of the Dragontamer and trained in the ancient arts of his people, the shift in the world’s balance was palpable.

The Winds were already stronger, and he could sense them waxing further.

One gate closes, another opens.

‘I have danced to the wrong tune for too long. There were other paths I should have trodden.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Rathien laughed, and his eyes glowed like jewels.

‘You will,’ he said, and for the first time since leaving Lothern his voice rang with conviction. ‘When this is over, you will understand everything.’

CHAPTER THREE

Under the strong sunlight, the great port city of Lothern revelled in its magnificence. Soaring towers of ivory and gold jutted up from the glassy waters, each topped with jewel-studded crowns and long pennants in livery of gold and crimson. Graceful bridges spanned the many canals in smooth arcs of stone, under which brightly painted boats glided on their way to and from the harbour. The air was sharp with salt and the thousand aromas of spices, herbs and fresh produce brought from across the civilised world. Along the wide quayside, voices in a hundred different tongues rose and fell.

Overlooking it all was the vast Emerald Gate, the huge arch of stone that guarded the narrow straits to the south. Hewn from the very feet of the mountains in the days of legend, it towered above even the mightiest buildings of the port city, framing the jagged profile of the Glittering Tower beyond. Bastions and fortified citadels studded the mountainside above, each manned with garrisons of Sea Guard and equipped with pristine ranks of bolt-throwers.

The Strait of Lothern was one of the wonders of the world, a reminder of the awesome power of the children of Aenarion in the days of their glory. Even now, while the power of the asur had waned and the future of Ulthuan looked bleaker than it had for centuries, the majesty was still evident in every facet.

None of which made much impression on Valaris. He sat in his chambers at the summit of the Tower of Silver Tears and looked over the unmatched vista with mild boredom on his refined features. He cradled a goblet of wine in one hand and the crumbs of an almond sweetmeat in the other. The exertions of fighting were long behind him and after several hot scented baths and the expert attentions of a quietly charming masseuse from Saphery he was beginning to feel something close to himself again.

He took a long sip of his drink and considered the deeds of the past months. Bel-Hathor was nearing the end of his life. The petty contenders for the Throne – Ulenwe of Saphery, Erione of Cothique, Rathien of Caledor – had been eliminated by diplomacy or warfare. That left only Valaris himself and Finubar, Prince of Lothern. The latter had many advantages, chief among them the stated favour of the Phoenix King, but his long journeys to far lands in support of obscure goals had weakened his hand at home. By contrast, Valaris had money and armies, and the quiet backing of many who wished to see less contact between the asur and lesser races.

All of these things were useful, but the matter was evenly balanced. The next few months would be decisive and there was still plenty of work to be done.

His thoughts were interrupted by a soft chime from outside the chamber. He looked up, irritated, to see one of his serving girls hovering anxiously close by.

‘Your pardon, lord,’ she said. ‘There is a mage in the antechamber. Anlia of Loedh Anlyn.’

Valaris felt his heart skip a beat.

Anlia.

She had agreed to remain hidden, out of sight and out of harm’s way. Coming to Lothern was both dangerous and stupid. She had never been adept at keeping her movements secret, and there were watchful eyes in the city.

‘Show her in,’ he said, brushing the crumbs from his robes and placing the goblet on the table next to his chair.

As Anlia entered, Valaris was reminded of how young she looked. Her copper hair framed a slender face, and her movements were the brash, unsophisticated ones of immaturity. He felt his heart sink. Of all his many gambles, this was the one that troubled him the most. His mood soured almost painfully at the sight of her.

‘Anlia,’ he said, rising smoothly. ‘How delightful to see you.’

High up in the Annulii, the wind from the north turned cold. It brought waves of sleet with it, grey and biting. Haerwal struggled up the steep incline, letting his horse find its own way. Water ran down the smooth curve of his helm and dripped between his breastplate and undershirt.

He shivered and looked over his shoulder. The rest of the household guard made their way as slowly as he did and the column of mounted soldiers ran down the slope in a long, uneven line. Behind them came the rest of the troops. Their heads were low, turned away from the freezing rain.

They saw little purpose in this mountain crossing. Haerwal sympathised with them. He didn’t see the point either. Rathien’s mood, ever changeable, had oscillated wildly over the past few days. He’d gone from black despair to reckless optimism in the space of heartbeats. It was the optimism that was dangerous, but the despair lingered longer.

Perhaps his mind had finally turned. Haerwal had been with the family since Rathien’s childhood and had seen it coming for many years. The pressure exerted on him by that witch in Tor Morven would have cracked a lesser man decades earlier. His mother had been desperate for some recovery in the fortunes of the bloodline, so desperate that she’d forced her only son into the race for the Phoenix Throne, something more sober heads knew was far beyond his reach.

And Rathien had tried to please her. Since returning from Hoeth as a youth, steeped in the Lore of Fire and determined to master the craft, he’d given up everything to please her. He’d spent what remained of the family treasure on diplomats and ambassadors, bribes and warriors, all to please her. At every turn, she’d been breathing over his shoulder, reminding him of the great deeds of his father, a bully and a tyrant who’d squandered his ancestral honour on petty wars and lowborn maidens.

Haerwal kicked his horse higher up the slope, ignoring the rain snaking through the chinks in his armour. He drew alongside Rathien, who was plodding on doggedly, his shoulders hunched against the weather, his head low.

‘Magic,’ said Rathien, out of the blue. He was staring straight ahead, his gaze intense.

‘Your pardon?’

‘I should have trusted to magic.’

Rathien’s expression was hard to read. It was a mix of determination and desperation, as if the two emotions were warring within him.

‘I was wrong to discard the craft of my fathers,’ he said, a note of bitterness in his voice.

Haerwal struggled to find the words to reply with.

‘Perhaps you–’

‘I was fated to be a mage, Haerwal. I learned the Lore of Fire. I should have mastered the mysteries, not been seduced by the command of armies. Damn her!’

Haerwal said nothing. He wasn’t even sure if Rathien was truly speaking to him.

‘Now I can feel it. I can feel the power of the world stirring. A storm is coming, one that will kindle every dormant ember on Ulthuan. It will give me the strength to do what is needed. It will give me the strength to do what should have been done years ago.’

Haerwal looked at his master warily.

‘And what is that, lord? I need to tell the troops something – they have no idea what we’re doing here.’

Only then did Rathien look directly at Haerwal. His eyes glittered with a steady resolve.

‘These are the Dragon Spine Mountains,’ he said. ‘The glory of Caledor rests with the firedrakes. It always has. This is what we have forgotten. This is what will restore us to our rightful place in the order of things.’

‘They will not wake. Their time has passed.’

Rathien smiled, and the expression was troubling in its intensity.

‘They will wake, Haerwal.’ His voice was strained but clear. ‘Do you not feel the magic burning? With every step, it grows.’

‘If that is so, then other creatures will be drawn to it too.’

Rathien shot him a look of scorn then.

‘Just what is it that you fear, captain?’

As if in answer to that question, an echoing roar broke out from the cliffs ahead of them. Instantly, the Caledorians snapped to attention. The infantry started to run up the slope to join the horsemen, drawing their weapons as they came. The mounted troops did their best to control their mounts, all of which had broken into a stamping, rearing unease.

Haerwal felt a spear of dread stab at his heart. The roaring was throaty and rattling. It came from more than one set of jaws, and rang from the stone like the tolling of a great bell. He picked up the aroma of death on the air, drifting down from the high places and staining the breeze with its polluting stench.

Haerwal drew his own blade and clamped his fist tightly around the grip.

‘In this place,’ he said, his voice thin, ‘everything.’

‘You should not have come.’

Valaris looked at Anlia sternly. In response, the young mage smiled back. Her expression was both sweet and knowing.

‘Hear me out before you send me back,’ she said, sitting opposite him without being invited to. ‘I did not take the risk lightly.’

Valaris grunted.

‘Quickly, then.’

‘You have been kind to me,’ she said, settling into her chair. ‘More than kind. You gave me shelter when others wished me… elsewhere. I have used my time in seclusion well, and know how to repay a debt.’

Valaris inclined his head noncommittally, but kept listening.

‘I have heard much of your military adventures,’ she said. ‘There seem to be more of them every year. Why is that, do you think? Why are the nobleborn of our realm suddenly so ready to take up arms to settle their grievances?’

‘I do not intend to give you a lecture in the arts of state, Anlia. There are weighty matters at stake.’

‘I have no doubt. And yet, it is still strange. I have learned much in the last year, and seen much. My visions have increased. They have given me an answer. You should know, lord, that a storm is on the verge of breaking. The Winds of Magic have grown stronger. They drive the world more violently and with each day their power grows. Even now they test the bounds we have learned to place on ourselves. But where there is danger there is always opportunity. And there is opportunity here, my lord, the opportunity of a generation.’

Valaris raised an eyebrow sceptically.

‘Fascinating for you, I’m sure. How does it help me?’

‘It could help both of us. You need power. You need to sway the undecided noble houses to your cause. As for me, I have gone too long without tasting the fruits of the aethyr. I need to flex my muscles again.’

Valaris studied her closely. There was no deceit on Anlia’s young face. There was excitement there, though, the excitement of a child before a festival day.

‘Go on.’

‘Location is paramount,’ Anlia explained. As she spoke, a finger of her right hand lifted a fraction, and a translucent veil spun into existence between them. It hung, six feet in diameter and glittering like broken glass. There were marks on the veil. Valaris recognised the outlines of coasts picked out on the surface – those of Ulthuan and Lustria. Between the coastlines lay hundreds of miles of ocean, empty and shifting as if stirred by the breeze.

‘There are fulcrums,’ said Anlia. ‘Places where the Winds are drawn most keenly. On this occasion, there is only one. When the storm comes, this fulcrum shall be at the centre of it, drawing power to itself. This will be the eye of the hurricane, lord. I have seen it.’

As Valaris watched the fragile map, flame-like ripples began to circle around a nondescript spot of ocean. The ripples grew ever more violent, until it seemed as if he were staring into the lens of a huge, fiery eye.

‘The middle of nowhere,’ he observed bluntly. ‘And underwater.’

‘You have ships. Take me there, and I will do the rest.’

Valaris frowned.

‘And suppose I did. What would you be able to do?’

‘I would raise the fulcrum above the waters. I would create an island of pure magic in the endless sea. You and I would stand atop it as the Winds raged about us. The paths of the future would open up to us, and the power of the sacred stone would fill us. I could send your image into the mind of every blood-royal on Ulthuan, and they would see your majesty revealed as if you stood before them clad in flesh. Their wills would be yours from that moment, driven by the dread potency of the storm. They would look for the next Phoenix King in their hearts, and see only you. Even after the magic had waned, they would see only you.’

Anlia looked at Valaris with a half-smile on her lips.

‘Enticing?’ she asked.

Valaris maintained his intense scrutiny, his brow creased in concentration. Anlia owed him more than money. It was he who’d installed her in the remote citadel of Loedh Anlyn after what had happened in Hoeth. She’d been headstrong back then, headstrong enough to destroy herself, but she was older now and his sponsorship had accomplished much.

The transformation had been impressive. Perhaps – finally – the investment he had made was reaching its maturity.

‘You spin a pretty story,’ he said. ‘So why won’t every mage with a sail and a weather-spell be rushing there ahead of us?’

Anlia nodded, and retrieved something from under her cloak.

‘You bought me many toys when you placed me in my secret tower,’ she said, withdrawing the hirameth and rolling it casually in her palm. ‘Some of them were more useful than others. Take it on trust, lord, that none know of this but me.’

She gave him a playful look.

‘And now you too.’

Valaris said nothing in reply. He made no gesture at all. He just kept watching, studying her face, considering the options, thinking around the dangers and the opportunities.

‘You were foolish to come here alone,’ he said at last. His expression remained severe, but some of the irritation had fallen away from it. ‘Even now it is not safe for you, so do not leave this place unless I give you the order.’

He leaned forward, gazing at the glittering image of the oceans that still hung between them.

‘For now, though,’ he said, and only then did his voice betray his hunger, ‘tell me.’

CHAPTER FOUR

The beast burst into the open, and terror came in its wake.

It was gigantic. It loomed above the line of mounted knights, lurching into the air with a clumsy, laborious thrust of bat-like wings. Its grizzled flanks were the dull grey of rotting flesh. The heavy torso, covered in spines and tufts of wiry hair, was veined black and studded with shifting images of ruin. Huge limbs raked the air, each terminating in claws the size of a man’s chest. A long, sinuous tail flailed behind it, whipping and curling as if possessed of its own malign intelligence.

Rathien looked up at it, blade in hand, and felt hope suddenly drain from him. The stink of corruption bloomed out, fanned by the downdraft of those massive wings. The creature’s three animal heads, each distorted into expressions of frenzied, leering hatred, bellowed fury at him. Its eyes burned the red of the setting sun, and dagger-shaped tongues flicked out from behind rows of curved feline teeth.

‘Chimera!’ shouted one of the knights, only fuelling the panic in the air.

Though the refugees from the battle numbered a few hundred, all of them knew the legendary power of such creatures, and so also knew what the odds were. None of the warriors fled, but their faces went pale.

Rathien brandished his sword defiantly, shaking off the crushing dread that had suddenly clamped on to his heart.

‘Warriors of Caledor!’ he cried, bracing to meet the challenge. ‘Fear no darkness! Remember your oaths!’

The knights responded first. They kicked their rebellious steeds up the slope, raising their shields and holding their swords point-forward. The ragged line of cavalry surged forward, picking up momentum just as the chimera dropped out of the air and crashed down among them.

Rathien rode with them, gritting his teeth, driving his terrified horse into close range and aiming his sword for the monster’s shaggy neck. A shadow passed across him as the wings thrust down again, wafting a cloud of nauseating filth over him, but he held his course, straight into the maw of the approaching creature of Chaos.

In front of him, a rider was smashed aside by a heavy swipe from the creature’s barbed foreleg. Another was lashed from the saddle by the snaking tail. One of the three heads swung round, and huge jaws clamped over the helmet of a third rider, muffling his screams as the teeth tore through the plate and into the flesh beneath.

‘Asuryan!’ roared Rathien, angling the blade to strike just below the chimera’s central head.

He never even saw the claw come round. It whipped across from the left, fast as a crossbow bolt, catching him full on the left shoulder.

Rathien was thrown from the saddle. He flew several feet through the air before cracking heavily into a wall of rock. His head snapped back against it, and his sword dropped from his hands.

For a moment, everything was lost in a whirl of disorientation. Through blurred vision, he saw the chimera stamp down on his stricken horse, crushing the beast’s ribcage with almost unconscious disdain before wheeling round to take on the press of warriors rushing into the assault.

It prowled on four legs like a colossal panther, though it was capable of rearing up and slashing out viciously with its forelegs. When it did this, the mighty wings flared above it, fanning the stink of death and causing the soldiers to gag and choke. The chimera shook off every attempt to land a blow, crushing any move to get close enough in to bring blades to bear. A few arrows bounced from its iron-hard hide, launched from further down the trail by rows of kneeling archers. The missiles did no damage at all, and with every kick or lash of its massive limbs another one of Rathien’s troops died.

Rathien staggered back to his feet, shaking his head to clear it, watching the butchery unfold with growing horror. He saw the monster pull apart a rider with a shake of one set of jaws even while its foreclaws ripped open the chest of another. Its third head attacked, jawline splayed wide, and a column of white-hot flame jetted out, engulfing the front rank of footsoldiers. The victims fell back screaming, tearing at their eyes and rolling on the ground to try to douse the agonising flames that ran over them like burning oil.

Despite it all, the Caledorians kept on coming. The knights, most of whom had been thrown from their horses, charged at the beast on foot, trying to find some way to stab at its flanks with their longswords. The footsoldiers did likewise, though their light armour made them easy pickings. Even some of the archers closed in, edging up the track and trying to give their arrows a better chance of punching through the beast’s thick hide.

It would make no difference. As clearly as blood on snow, Rathien saw that the attacks were doomed. The chimera was dragging them down in droves. Already, the ground beneath its feet was slick with gore and the monster’s heavy claws trampled the bodies of the slain into the gravel of the track.

They were all going to die.

Rathien knew then that he had failed, and failed utterly. There would be no redemption from this, and no returning to Caledor.

A pall of utter darkness descended over him. He balled his fists and cried aloud with rage. The fear left him, replaced by a dreadful, savage fury. Even in the heart of a hundred battlefields, he had never been consumed by such raw anger and frustration. It was as if the Winds of Magic, the powerful gales he had felt growing for so long, had sunk into his very soul, animating it with a coruscating frenzy of grief.

He took a single stride towards the beast. Ahead of him, he could see his sword lying in the dirt where it had fallen. He ignored it. He felt power throbbing in his palms, power the like of which he hadn’t felt since learning the secrets of fire magic in Hoeth as a youth.

It was coming back. After all those years, the power was coming back.

‘Beast of darkness!’ he roared.

His voice echoed across the narrow way, rebounding from the high cliffs of granite above. Even amid all the slaughter, one of the chimera’s three heads turned to face him. For a moment, a pair of jewel-red eyes glared straight at him. There was nothing but bestial hatred in those eyes, a hatred for every other living entity that walked the earth. No desire existed in that ruined visage but to slay, to destroy, to maim and to consume.

The eyes blazed, and black lips pulled back from blood-slick fangs. The chimera sensed the magic building up within Rathien, and knew what danger it was in. With a savage growl, the creature shook off the warriors clustered around it and lunged towards the real threat. As it pounced, its wings thrust out and down powerfully, hurling the mass of muscle, flesh and bone towards Rathien with the force of a massed cavalry charge. All three heads screamed with hatred, leaving long strands of saliva hanging in the air behind.

Rathien held his ground, and thrust both hands out before him.

‘Calamann ya noresh aqshy!’ he cried, feeling the power within him surge to the surface like water boiling over in a cauldron.

Streamers of fire, angry and spitting, burst from his open palms. The twin columns of roaring flame crashed into the oncoming chimera, stopping it dead and running across the corrupted flesh like quicksilver.

The creature bellowed in pain and fury. The rock broke under it as it flailed and writhed, trying desperately to regain its feet.

Rathien remained unmoving, his arms extended, his legs braced. He could feel the throb of magic swelling up within him, roaring and boiling in a seething morass before spilling out of his physical form and slamming into the beast before him.

He heard himself crying words of power, words that he had thought he had forgotten years ago. The blazing pillars of conflagration grew ever more devastating, tearing into the hide of the monster and burrowing deep into the black flesh beneath.

The chimera made one last attempt to get to him. It reared up, claws raking. Ebony fluid cascaded down its broken withers, boiling and steaming as it coursed through the curtains of fire. With a huge lunge, it pounced, reaching out to grasp Rathien in its foreclaws, goaded by its insatiable need to kill even in the midst of its agony.

Still Rathien didn’t move. He stood as rigid as the statues of the Phoenix King, waiting for the impact. He channelled more power, shuddering as the flames discharged from his body, struggling to remain conscious as he became the conduit for such terrifying force.

The chimera plunged through it all, screaming and roaring. It stalked through the flames, reaching out with its hooked claws and straining its long necks to bite.

It almost made it. For a fearful moment, Rathien was only inches away from the horror’s jaws. He stared into the closest set of eyes, facing off with the beast, gazing defiantly into the reflective orbs.

The torrent of fire never let up. It thundered out of him, making the air shimmer and shake, consuming its target in rolling bursts of rose-red immolation.

Then, with a howl of anguish that made the earth tremble, the chimera crashed to the ground. Its scorched flanks shuddered. Its charred wings cracked. It struggled on for a while, rolling back and forth, trying to summon the strength to rise again, but the vital energy had been seared from it.

With a final cry of release, Rathien cut off the deluge. The flames guttered out. He staggered forward, suddenly faint.

The chimera still burned. It was locked in its final agonies, and made no effort to rise. The screams of ferocity were replaced with mewls of pain. Its tail still thrashed back and forth, though now the movements were spasmodic and erratic.

Wearily, Rathien limped over to where his sword had fallen. He was exhausted, more than he could ever remember being before, and blood ran down the palms of his hands. He stooped to retrieve his blade and dragged himself closer to the burning body of the monster.

All around him, Caledorians were getting to their feet, or warily edging closer, all of them watching their prince with awe on their faces.

Rathien stood over the smouldering body of the chimera. Even slumped in the throes of death, it still dominated all around it.

One of the three heads still moved. As Rathien lifted his blade high, turning it so the point faced directly down, a single pair of eyes fixed him with a glare of distilled malice.

Then the sword plunged, stabbing deep into the neck and carrying through. A hot gout of black blood gushed up, splashing over Rathien’s face and neck. The chimera’s corpse shuddered for a few seconds, twitching madly, then slumped into stillness.

Rathien felt the sting of the blood against his flesh. He didn’t wipe it away, but stayed locked in position, both hands on the hilt of his sword. Deep within him, the magic was still pulsing away. He knew he had unleashed something of tremendous power. Even then, even while the chimera’s corpse still smoked and trembled, he felt a twinge of unease, and the questions returned.

Why do I feel this? Why now?

For a few moments more, he stayed in position. For a few moments more, he gazed down at the beast he’d slain.

Then, crippled by fatigue and blood-loss, he fell to his knees. He swayed for a moment, fighting against the dark, then toppled over on to the cold stone and knew no more.

Night fell in Lothern. The boats rocked gently on the oil-dark water, and lamps glowed softly in the shadows. The hubbub of the day passed into the peace of the dusk. For all its long decline, the city was still beautiful when the starlight fell upon it.

Anlia walked casually down the empty street. The air was warm and she enjoyed the brush of the sea-breeze against her face. The smell of salt and spices was everywhere, and it calmed her.

She knew she should not have left Valaris’s tower to wander the streets alone. He had given her strict instructions to remain hidden while he made preparations for the voyage south. Anaphelox had counselled against it too, just as he was wont to.

Everyone was always telling her what to do. They always had done, and she had always ignored it.

She rounded a corner, walking away from the harbourside and heading towards the cluster of elegant towers that marked the beginning of the loremasters’ district. The light from the lamps began to fade and the shadows pooled around her like wells. The faint sound of voices faded as she left the sparsely populated quays behind.

Anlia felt vindicated. For so long, she had felt the weight of tragedy on her shoulders. Now, at last, an opportunity for redemption had come and she had seized it with both hands. Valaris, to his credit, had seen the chance too. The journey ahead, she was sure, would be the beginning of her return to greatness. It would be the fulfilment of the potential which so many, herself included, thought she’d squandered on that fateful night in Hoeth.

She strolled past the pale stone base of a soaring citadel, admiring the handiwork over the lintel. Her mood was benign.

Watch out!

The voice entered her mind suddenly and fiercely, breaking her stream of thought. She shrunk back immediately, hugging the near wall.

A bolt of piercing silver light whistled out of the gloom and slammed into the ground at her feet, fizzing and smoking as it tumbled past her.

Her heart leapt. She froze, staring at trail of magical discharge. For a moment, she had no idea what to do. Her hands started shaking.

Run, you fool!

She broke into a halting scamper, turning and heading back in the direction of the busier quayside. For the first time, she realised just how unnaturally quiet the streets around her were.

Twenty yards ahead of her, the silhouette of a robed figure dropped down on to the ground. She saw a hand shoot out, glowing silver.

She veered away just as a second bolt hissed past her.

Go left. Then straight on. Hurry!

She followed the instruction, nearly stumbling on the cobbles as she changed direction. She’d known there was danger in Lothern, but such an immediate attack was unexpected. How had they known she was there?

She sprinted down a long, wide road. On either side, huge buildings rose up into the night air. From behind her she could hear the soft padding of rapid footfalls.

Acting on instinct, she suddenly swerved right. Another orb of iridescent energy shot past her and vanished, spinning, into the shadows.

Her breathing became ragged. The vice of panic rose up in her gullet. She had to think. Who was this? Who had sent him? Could she fight him?

The street ended in a narrow, enclosed courtyard. Walls rose up on the three sides before her, shutting her in. There were no lit windows, and the ivory sheen of the stars cast little light.

Keep running. There is a way out on your left.

‘Why am I running?’ she protested. ‘Why am I always running?’

She skidded to a halt in the centre of the courtyard and whirled round. She felt the prick of magic start on her palms.

No! Keep running!

‘Not any more,’ she said out loud, summoning the first slivers of power.

A black-robed figure entered the courtyard. His head was bare, and Anlia saw a look of pure hatred warp his features. Without breaking stride, the mage drew his hand into a fist and unleashed a roaring blaze of argent fire.

Anlia crossed her arms and summoned a warding shield. The blast detonated across it, knocking her a pace backwards but failing to penetrate. Still running towards her, her attacker drew a glittering blade that shimmered and shifted in the starlight, and came straight for her.

She raised her hand.

‘Malaren teras!’ she cried, and her whole body blazed with light.

Two shimmering outlines appeared by her side, rippling into existence at her command. They had the form of loping wolves, though their fur shone with an unearthly glimmer and their eyes glittered like diamonds. They leapt at the mage, snarling in fractured, echoing voices.

Anlia fell back, content to let her magic-summoned beasts do the work for her.

Fool!

The wolves went for her attacker’s throat, jaws gaping. As they struck, they exploded into a kaleidoscope of splintered light, then span wildly out of existence. Anlia stared stupidly for a second, shocked by their destruction.

Her assailant thrust aside the remnants of the conjured wolves and pulled his blade back to strike. As he closed in, she suddenly sensed the full extent of his power. He had been warded, and powerfully.

Slipping and tripping as she twisted to escape, she cursed herself for her stupidity. Of course he would have been protected. Without her staff, without time to prepare a proper counter-spell, she doubted she’d be able to break it.

A hand grabbed at her cloak, hauling her back. She saw starlight flash from the edge of the rippling blade. She blurted out fresh words of power, knowing it was too late, knowing that they would do nothing.

Then, suddenly, the courtyard was bathed in a violent burst of blood-red light. There was a roaring, like the rushing of a mighty wind, and a cry of terror. The grip of the mage loosened and Anlia felt his body being ripped away. The roaring intensified, reaching a savage crescendo, then blew out.

She whirled round, breathing hard, eyes still wide with shock and fear. The red light faded away. Her pursuer was dead. He lay on the floor of the courtyard, his neck broken and the shimmering blade cast uselessly by his side. Blood ran down the front of the black robes, seeping into the material. She noticed the silver amulet around his neck, and felt the power radiating from it.

The device on the amulet was that of Hoeth. She recognised it well enough. One of Pelean’s acolytes, then. Not much older than she was. Even in death, his hatred for her still marred his unseeing visage.

Beside the body stood another figure. An asur lord, he was perhaps a little taller than most, a little leaner too. His face was locked in accusation. There was something very unsettling about his eyes.

‘Stupid girl,’ he said.

His voice was cultured, but the anger within it was profound.

Anlia, her heart still thumping and her breath short, nodded shakily.

‘I know,’ she said, burning with shame. ‘I’m sorry.’

The asur took a step towards her and reached out for her face. He took her chin in slender fingers and forced her to look at him. The grasp was uncomfortably tight.

‘Do you understand what’s at stake here? Do you even realise what has been done for you?’

Anlia couldn’t look away from his eyes. She felt tears start and struggled to quell them.

‘I do. By the gods, I know. I will learn from this.’

‘Do so,’ said the asur stranger, and the harshness in his voice remained fervent. ‘I wish you to succeed, Anlia. I wish you to do great things. But if you make it impossible for me to help you, then I will leave you to the mercy of those that wish you dead.’

His face came closer.

‘And believe me, if they take you, then death will be the least of your concerns.’

CHAPTER FIVE

The fires burned. There were dozens of them, sprawling across the mountainside like the pyres of the dead.

Some of them, higher up the slope, were pyres. Most though had been lit to keep the remaining soldiers alive during the harsh night. Groups of Caledorian troops huddled around the fires, wrapping their cloaks tightly about their tired limbs. Out of the edges of the makeshift camp, sentries stood in groups of four, heavily armed and vigilant.

At the centre of the encampment, Rathien lay unmoving. Every muscle ached. His hands blazed with pain still, as if the skin had been stripped off and the residual flesh doused in acid. He had not been conscious for long. On waking, it had taken a while for him to remember where he was, why he was there, and what he had done.

His face had been badly disfigured. The blood of the chimera had bored into the skin, turning it black. He could feel it still, eating away at him, gnawing away at his body like a parasite.

Haerwal sat a few feet away, preparing a herbal elixir from the meagre supplies he’d brought with him.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Better,’ Rathien croaked, though he didn’t mean it. ‘How many were killed?’

‘Many.’

There was accusation in his voice.

‘You blame me,’ said Rathien.

Haerwal didn’t reply at once. He looked miserable, the way someone would look when breaking news of a death. Then, with a sigh, he put down the elixir.

‘I don’t think it’s enough, lord,’ he said.

Rathien narrowed his eyes.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I don’t think waking a dragon will be enough. We are defeated. Our army is scattered, or imprisoned, or dead.’

Haerwal looked directly at Rathien. His eyes were pleading.

‘We are destroyed,’ he said. ‘Accept it. End this march, I beg you.’

Rathien felt the words impact like slivers of ice at his heart. For a moment, his will wavered. The skin on his hands and face burned with pain.

It would be better to go back to Caledor. He closed his eyes, and let his mind sweep back to the dark fields of home. There would be remonstration there, to be sure, but also rest. Sweet, blessed rest.

‘You know I can’t do that,’ he said, keeping his eyes closed. ‘You know there’s nothing for me in Tor Morven.’

He opened his eyes.

‘Something has awoken in me. I am more powerful than I could ever have dreamed of. Can you explain it? It is the will of the gods. I must believe that.’

Haerwal looked back at him, and there was doubt etched on his features.

‘Mastery of this magic is the work of a lifetime. What I saw you do back there…’

He trailed off, not knowing how to end the sentence.

Rathien sat up with difficulty. Since awakening from the dark sleep, the whole world seemed different to him. Everything was sharper and more vital. The remorseless energy within him was growing still. He could feel it, gestating inside his body like a living thing.

More real.

‘You need not come with me, Haerwal. The others can leave. My soul tells me the drakes will stir. I can wake them. Everything is possible.’

Haerwal looked at him steadily. In the flickering firelight, his features looked stretched and twisted.

‘To be a Dragonmage is a sacred calling,’ he said. ‘You left that path a long time ago. You cannot return to it on a whim. You must not return to it.’

Rathien smiled, though the gesture made his lips crack painfully.

‘You fear I will fail?’

‘No,’ said Haerwal, his voice grim. ‘I fear you will damn us all. I fear you will succeed.’

Anlia crept back through the door to Valaris’s abode. The key she’d lifted earlier clinked in the lock as she closed it behind her. She padded up a long, winding stairway, trying to keep her breathing shallow and her footfalls light.

She eased open the door to her chamber, wincing as the faintest of creaks emanated from the old wood. Inside, the room was lost in shadow. Feeling her way, she crept over to the cabinet close to her bed. After some fumbling, her fingers found a lantern. She whispered a single word, and the candle within the glass flickered into life.

‘I am glad to see you back alive, Anlia.’

She spun round, fists clenched, ready to summon more magic.

Valaris sat on the side of her bed, his legs crossed. His face was as smooth and relaxed as ever, though there was a tightness at the edges of his mouth.

‘My lord,’ stammered Anlia, trying too late to affect an air of offended pride. ‘A little late, is it not, to be in the chambers of a lady?’

Valaris shrugged.

‘If that was my ambition, I’d have achieved it long ago. You left this place against my orders.’

Anlia bowed her head. There was little point in attempting further deception.

‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps you have forgotten that, even after all this time, there are still those who wish to kill you. They are not stupid. They will not forget what you did.’

Anlia smiled wryly. She’d already been reminded of that.

‘I know.’

Valaris raised an eyebrow. ‘So one of them found you. What happened?’

Anlia shrugged. She didn’t want to relive the experience.

‘I dealt with it. I’m not as defenceless as you think.’

Valaris looked exasperated then. He shook his head wearily.

‘Pathetic. So close, and you jeopardise everything. I am wondering, yet again, whether I can trust your judgement.’

‘You can. You know you can.’

‘Really? You act like a child in the face of danger. Despite all that has been done to aid you, you persist still in this recklessness.’

‘So what would you prefer? To cage me in your hidden citadels forever?’

‘Do not tempt me,’ said Valaris grimly. ‘You told me you had learned to control your powers.’

‘I have.’

‘You killed seven mages in Hoeth, Anlia. There is a price on your head from Saphery to the remains of Nagarythe. Their acolytes will hunt you down to the six corners of the earth. Do you not understand this?
They will keep coming. They will never relent.’

‘It was an accident! You know this. I was young and terrified. I have learned to control my art.’

Valaris shot her a level gaze. In the semi-dark, his eyes were like pools of pitch.

‘So you say. But if that is true, then I do not know how you did it. I know so little of you, Anlia, despite our long association. I must take much on trust. You ask me to protect you, to seek out books of lore for you to study, to deflect the attentions of the vengeful noble families who hunt you still. And what, after all this, do I get in return?’

‘You get power, lord,’ said Anlia. ‘None has worked harder for you than I. Let me prove it to you.’

She came closer to him, kneeling on the floor and cradling the lantern in her lap.

‘You will not regret your choice,’ she urged, looking up at him with a pleading expression on her face. ‘The loremasters of Hoeth never understood me. They were scared of my power. They sought to punish me when the power was unlocked too early. They knew it was their mistake. You saw their short-sightedness. You saw my innocence even when all others cried for my execution. Do not forget what you saw then, lord. Do not forget the promises I made to you, and those you made to me.’

Valaris said nothing for some time. His eyes roved carefully over her face, as penetrating as ever.

‘If I take you to this place, then you must be my mage, Anlia,’ he warned. ‘Riches and influence await both of us, but only if you submit to me. Can I trust you to remember that?’

Anlia smiled.

‘I am your mage, my lord,’ she said, as meekly as possible.

Valaris rose from the bed then, straightening his robes.

‘Remember it,’ he said, making for the door. ‘Remember what it means.’ He paused at the doorway and looked back at her. ‘I almost forgot. Who were you talking to, just before you came in?’

Anlia started. ‘Talking to?’

‘I thought I heard voices.’

‘I am alone, lord. You can see that.’

Valaris looked sceptical for a moment, as if pondering whether to put that to the test, then shrugged.

‘You have persuaded me to venture this thing,’ he said, sounding as if he still doubted the wisdom of his decision. ‘Do not make me regret it. The ships are ready, and we sail with the dawn.’

Two days of climbing, and the heights of the Annulii became ever harsher. The wind lashed hard, screaming down from the ice-fields at the roof of the world. The roar of the high winds was constant, an ever-present rumble that preyed on the nerves. Every so often, an echoing cry would sound out like the screams of children, or women, or some flock of unearthly summit-creatures.

It might have been a trick of the wind. It might not have been.

Rathien, Haerwal and the household guard pressed on, passing up into the snow-clad slopes. All the surviving horses had been sent back down the mountain, together with the wounded and most of the footsoldiers. Those that remained in the diminished band were mostly the blood-servants of Rathien’s house. No more than thirty still remained – a pitiful return from the mighty host that had left Tor Morven with such hopes of conquest.

As he trudged through the snow, Haerwal ached all over. Like all the others, he carried wounds from the fighting. When the chimera had attacked, his death had been moments away. Then Rathien had summoned the fire.

After years of forgetfulness, Rathien had become capable of summoning such fire that even the beasts of Chaos had no answer to it. Haerwal knew enough of the ways of magic to know that such a sudden reversal could only be the result of some profound change in the world. Nothing made sense any more. Old rules and old laws had lost their power to govern, even as the spirits of the asur strained at their self-imposed bonds.

Haerwal gritted his teeth against the driving sleet and pushed such thoughts to the back of his mind. The column of troops, all with cloaks clutched tight against the cold, rounded the corner of a great spur.

Beyond the corner, the land suddenly fell away. Directly ahead was a great valley, running transverse, its depths lost in a rolling tide of cloud. The far side, visible in patches through gaps in the sleet, was sheer and dark, and the snow on its ledges ran in stark bands. The nearside terrain dropped precipitously. The track curled round the mass of rock to the right as if for protection. It looked like it gave out a few hundred feet further up.

Haerwal peered over the edge, and felt the queasy grip of vertigo.

‘What now, lord?’ he called out. There was no path across that yawning gap, and no point in following the track much further.

Rathien turned to face him. The black marks on his face had spread, lending the exposed flesh a bizarre mottled aspect. Haerwal could see a vivid, unsettling light in his eyes. There was a strange, latent energy there.

‘Do you not see it?’ he cried.

As he spoke, Haerwal drew up close behind him. Loose stone bounced over the edge where his horse stamped, chinking from the rock beneath as it tumbled into oblivion.

‘I don’t–’

Then he did.

The curtains of sleet and half-snow parted for a moment. The path did end a few hundred feet up the slope, but there was a tower at the end of it. Not much to look at – thirty feet high, and pocked with holes. A steep-pitched roof had partially fallen in, and the talwood door banged loose in the mountain air.

But the tower was not what held his attention. Beyond it, a pier of stone extended out across the void. It was slender, like a bowstring stretched shiver-tight, and the far end was lost in mist. There was no rail or parapet – just a blank road of rock, hundreds of yards up in the high air.

Asuryan only knew who could have built such a thing. Perhaps no mortal had done so.

‘Yes,’ he said, quietly. ‘I see it.’

Rathien laughed.

‘We’ll make camp in the tower,’ he said, failing to disguise the yearning in his soul. ‘We all need shelter.’

‘And then?’

Rathien was looking hungrily across the gap.

‘You stay there. All is ready, and I cross with the dawn.’

CHAPTER SIX

The sunlight blazed from the waves, so sharp that it made Anlia’s eyes water. The hawkship’s lateen sail was full, taut against the rigging, the hard white of unbroken snow. Spray burst up from the prow in showering cascades as it plunged through the swell. All around her, the unbroken ocean vista stretched out of sight, lost in a haze of blue.

She remembered leaving the stone quays in Lothern three days ago. The great harbour had been as busy as ever, jostling with warships and trading galleys. Alongside the slender asur vessels had been mighty carvel-built galleons of the Empire, rolling on the water like drunkards. There had been sleek dhows and carracks, bilge-slopping cogs and the caravel of a visiting duke from some petty realm or other. All of those ship names had been new to her, explained patiently by the hawkship’s master, a grey-eyed Sea Guard called Noreth.

‘Ugly creations. Slow,’ he’d remarked, looking over the array of wildly different vessels with distaste. ‘And more of them every year.’

She remembered passing under the Emerald Gate, that colossal arch of sea-green stone. Seeing it at close quarters had thrilled her more than she would admit. There had been eagles flying alongside them as they passed the threshold, majestic creatures that wheeled and darted in their wake, escorting them from the heart of the harbour and into the open sea.

The Tiranien was superb. Everything on the hawkship – the spars, the balance rods, the asfel rigging, the pennants – was clean and clear. In its wake came the other ships, a whole flotilla of sleek vessels plunging through the spray. Their pristine sails glared white under the unbroken sunlight.

Now the span of the sky was cloudless. The wind raced, tangling her long hair and blowing it across her face.

None of that cleared the lingering echo of fear from her heart. Ever since the encounter in Lothern, she had been jumpy, her nerves strained by the very lack of confinement she’d once chafed against. She was out in the open, free of the security of Loedh Anlyn’s thick walls and the reassuring cloak of anonymity.

Despite the prize ahead, despite the anticipation of all that power, she was still afraid. And the presence of the Sword Masters made it worse.

As she looked out over the pitching foredeck, she saw one of the white-robed warriors negotiate his way to the prow. He was as sure-footed at sea as he would have been on land and compensated for the tilting motion of the ship with a fluid, unconscious ease. His robes rippled in the wind, exposing the taut outline of his killer’s limbs underneath.

‘Got used to them yet?’ asked Valaris. He joined her on the reardeck, standing at the rail and leaning into it.

‘Since you ask,’ she replied, ‘no.’

Valaris grinned. His tanned skin looked healthy under the strong sun. ‘You’d better. They’re not going away.’

‘But Sword Masters? Of Hoeth?’

Valaris shrugged. ‘They have no idea who you are. In any case, you’re under my protection.’

‘You know I can’t take that chance. They take their orders from the Tower.’

Valaris laughed. ‘But you’ve taken such ingenious precautions.’

Anlia didn’t like to be reminded of that. It was demeaning. Her appearance had been subtly altered with a minor spell. Not enough to frustrate a determined attempt to uncover her, but sufficient to protect her identity at a distance from non-prying eyes. Her face had filled out, her eyes were blue rather than green, her accent was less pronounced and her hair was a shade darker. It look a little effort to maintain the illusion, but it made her feel slightly less exposed.

‘Mere conjuring,’ she said. ‘If they see through it, or guess the truth, then you will be defending me against a whole troupe of those killers.’

Valaris didn’t look concerned. Since leaving land, he had relaxed.

‘You worry too much,’ he said. ‘They’ve probably never heard of you.’

Anlia turned away from him, irritated by the change in his mood. If she wasn’t being admonished for being incautious then she was being admonished for the opposite. Ironically, as the days had passed, her bearing had become the opposite to Valaris’s. As they drew ever closer to their goal, she had become more nervous, more willing to see the potential for disaster.

She looked out over the southern horizon. The ships were making good progress. So far, the journey had been uneventful. They had all been lucky.

The fulcrum was not far. The Winds of Magic surged around her, stronger already than the world’s winds. She could feel the heaviness of the air press against her, as if before a thunderstorm. The heavens dripped with raw aethyric matter, desperate for release.

That fuelled her anxiety. There were creatures in the deep places that Valaris knew nothing of. As the tide of magic waxed, they would be drawn towards the centre of storm. Even out on the empty seas, there was always danger.

‘What are you looking for?’ asked Valaris good-naturedly, shading his eyes against the sun.

Anlia didn’t reply, but screwed her own eyes up, scrutinising the southern horizon. She saw nothing untoward. Just as it had been since they’d left, all was clear, and all was benign.

Then, just as she was about to give up, she noticed something. Like all the children of Aenarion, she had exceptional vision, but her innate powers allowed her to see other things too, things that extended beyond the purely physical.

She tensed. Far ahead, still under the waves, something was moving.

‘Prepare your ships for defence, lord,’ she said, and there was none of the usual levity in her voice. ‘Perhaps bringing Sword Masters was wise after all.’

She looked at him, knowing that her face betrayed her nervousness.

‘I do not wish to alarm you, but I fear we shall need them.’

Rathien walked out onto the stone pier. He was alone. Around him, above him, below him, all was lost in a moving haze of pearl-grey.

One step at a time, moving carefully, Rathien crept forwards. The stone beneath his boots was greasy with lichen and rainwater.

He couldn’t see the far end of the bridge. He could barely see a dozen feet ahead of him. As he went, an eerie sense of travelling without moving overtook him. He took a step, and then another, but nothing seemed to change. The stone was the same dank, mottled grey; the sky the same morass of gently churning vapour.

It was almost silent. His footfalls were muffled, though there were deep, rolling booms from somewhere far below him. The mountains were always making some noise or other, like a creaking hold of a giant ship.

Rathien took a deep breath, feeling the wet air in his lungs as he pulled it in deep. It smelled clean. It had the raw abrasiveness of snow-washed rock, of old mosses, of sea-born winds stiff with brine.

But there was something else there, something his Caledorian senses were quick to pick up where others might not have. An undertow of something more earthy, more elemental.

He smiled and pressed on. His heart was beginning to beat harder. His face still throbbed with pain, and he could feel the skin tightening up. The black marks left by the chimera were permanent and he knew they would scar him forever.

That didn’t concern him. In a strange way, he had come to relish having them. They were a mark of the change in him, the mark of his passage from one world into another.

Ahead of him, the mist parted slightly, revealing the end of the stone bridge. It was hard to know how far he’d walked. It must have been over a hundred yards, up into the heavens like a god of myth.

A shallow incline ran from the bridge’s end, a mix of gravel and loose rock from the peaks above. Beyond that was an opening in the stone cliff. An immense dolmen, dank and blotched with dull orange lichen, formed a doorway into the mountain. On all sides of the narrow ledge, the rockface soared away, both up and down.

As Rathien approached the doorway, he saw writing on the face of the lintel. Some of it was eltharin. Other sections, more badly faded by the passage of time, were in anoqeyån, the obscure tongue understood only by the loremasters.

He stood for a moment, his cloak lifting in the wind, reading the warnings, panegyrics and hymns carved there.

As he did so, his pulse quickened. There were curls of smoke at his feet, darker and more pungent than the mist that surrounded it.

He knelt, and closed his eyes. His hands touched the earth.

Then, slowly, working hard to remember the words of power, fragments of a language more ancient even than those on the lintel, words which had once been part of the only tongue of any kind spoken in the world, he began to speak.

There was a mind, older than the bones of the mountain in which it slumbered. It glowed in the dark like an ember, almost cold, red-brown against infinite dark.

No thoughts stirred in that mind. No movement registered against the cloak of dull, dormant shadow. It was on the hinterland between life and death, the grey shade-realm between energy and inertia.

It had lingered there for centuries. Perhaps longer. It was deep in the great sleep, buried faster than pearls in the lightless trenches of the ocean.

There was no self. No presence. No heartbeat, no breath.

Just a faint glow, ash-warm in the heart of the darkness.

It didn’t sleep as a mortal slept. A mortal mind dreamed. A mortal mind expected awakening. Mortal flesh twitched and moved, stirring in advance of the dawn.

This sleep was a finger’s breadth from oblivion. It was the sleep of an intelligence that did not expect to see the dawn. It had seen so many that the rotation of night and day, year on year, had ceased to be any more meaningful than the void in which it lingered.

It was the sleep of vastness, the sleep of a being whose age had passed in flame and for which the residual world was a fragile ghost-image.

Rathien reached out, gingerly extending the flicker of light that was his own mind. For a moment, there was something. A stirring, a sigh, a wisp of air.

Then nothing. The mind was cold.

The world was not his own. Stars in the sky wheeled, burning like shards of frost on a velvet ground.

They were not stars he knew. They were younger, fiercer.

There were shapes against the stars. Wings flashed out, veined and splayed, sweeping down through the air of ancient nights.

The wings passed over primordial seas, dark and deep. Over mountains, lit only by the starlight. Over plains, jewel-hard and smooth like glass.

There were more of them than birds. Great flocks of them, barring the diamond light of the heavens.

No, not flocks.

Herds? Gatherings?

There were no words in eltharin for what he was seeing. There were no colours in that place, only light and dark.

Wings beat over dead earth. No sound but the beat of those wings, leathery and heavy. It was pure. A dreadful, severe purity. Saurian intelligences moved across the unlit lands, indulging in unearthly duels and following inscrutable policies, masters of ash and bare rock.

Only light and dark.

They had done this for millennia.

The mind that had been Rathien’s wavered, weakened by the vision. He knew there was something missing, but he’d lost the words to describe it. He knew this world no longer existed, but he had no idea what had taken its place.

Somewhere close by, his body endured.

The magic still pulsed, throbbing like a heart.

And the mind before him, the mind that lay in shadow but had existed for uncounted aeons in a world of flame and war, stirred.

CHAPTER SEVEN

They burst out from the waves like the tentacles of some gigantic monster, writhing and snapping in a flurry of foam. But the churning tendrils were not aspects of a single living thing; they were individuals, great serpents of terrible power and speed, driven up from their icy homes by the unbound magic raging through the waters.

‘To the rails!’ roared Valaris, marshalling the Sword Masters and hurrying to take up his own place.

Trumpets blared from the lead vessels, but in truth there was no need to sound the alarm. The sea had turned from a placid, white-tipped paradise into a boiling, seething maelstrom of violence. The wind itself was whipped up into a violent rage by the onset of the serpents and the hawkships plunged and rolled through the growing swell.

They had raced out of the south, coursing across the waves and leaping high into the air. They were huge creatures, each at least four times as long as the Tiranien and with necks over twenty feet in diameter. Their long, dark green torsos were scaled and shiny, crowned with a spinal ridge of barbed spikes. Every movement they made gave away the sleek musculature beneath the hard outer skin. They were masters of their realm, and swarmed up from the waters with a frightening speed and power.

Valaris grabbed his blade and unsheathed it. The deck pitched and yawed wildly, nearly throwing him over. Up in the rigging, sailors frantically tried to furl the sails in as the winds howled into a gale. Sword Masters thronged along the railings at the edge of the deck, their faces set like flint carvings, calmly adjusting their stance and waiting for the first of the serpents to come among them.

Anlia stood in the prow alongside Valaris. Her hair streamed out behind her, lashing in the wind.

‘What is this, girl?’ demanded Valaris, watching grimly as the swarm of sea snakes raced towards them.

‘They are drawn by the magic,’ said Anlia grimly. ‘They will not suffer us to approach the fulcrum.’

The lead serpent reared up out of the sea, exposing its gaping jaws. A sleek reptilian face leered at them for an instant, showering water over itself in a dazzling cascade before plunging back down below the surface. Its body followed it down in a long arc, sliding through the waves with an eerie, frictionless ease.

‘Do something about this,’ snapped Valaris, grabbing hold of a line of rigging and bracing for the coming impacts. ‘And do it now.’

But it was too late. The serpents swept among the ships, surging into their midst like a pack of wolves tearing into a flock of prey animals. They went dazzlingly fast, hurtling along in the flurry of spray and swell, corkscrewing and darting through the walls of moving water.

As soon as they came within range, arrows flew at them from the hawkships. Archers had climbed into the rigging and hung precariously, legs braced and locked around the cords.

The darts enraged the beasts further. Those that were hit issued a strange bellowing cry of pain, and dived down to avoid the onslaught. Others reared up from the water, their snakelike jaws snapping in fury before lunging back towards the ships.

The masters of the hawkships were phenomenal sailors, able to swing their vessels round in the tightest of curves. Some of them managed to veer around the serpents’ attack, using their momentum running down the mountainous waves to shoot clear before hauling back round to let the archers loose more shots.

Others were less lucky. As Valaris watched, a brute of a serpent shot up from the depths almost vertically, spearing close to the Ramortien. Its body rippled as it emerged, shedding water as it powered into the air. Arrows flew at it, but did nothing to halt its progress.

Its long body arced over the reeling vessel before hurtling down on the far side of the ship. The head cleared the end of the decking and dived back into the waves. Then, like a bridge collapsing under its own weight, the great scaly torso crashed down on to the middle of the hawkship, smashing the wood beneath and toppling the rear mast.

Sword Masters on the ship raced to hack at the exposed flesh, using their long blades to devastating effect. The glossy skin broke open, carved into ribbons by the expert blows. Oblivious to its wounds, the serpent slid on, dragging the ship over on to its side.

With a huge, lingering crack, the hull split open. Water gushed up from the breach, pearl-white and furious, washing away the warriors still trying to close in on the serpent’s body. For a moment longer, the hawkship somehow stayed afloat. Valaris saw desperate crewmembers leaping from the rigging and into the churning waters below.

Then it broke in two, severed by the serpent’s cutting movement. The line of dark green scales sunk beneath the sea, dragging the remnants of the ship down with it. Cries of terror were just audible over the tumult as the crew were sucked into the whirlpool of destruction. In a cacophony of creaks and snaps, the remaining masts broke apart, toppling like trees and sending up plumes of foam as they crashed into the water.

The serpent’s tail flicked contemptuously, and then was gone. In its wake lay nothing but broken spars, ripped sailcloth, and blood hanging in the water.

By then other ships were being attacked. The entire flotilla was under assault, tormented and harried by the huge, deadly creatures of the deep.

Valaris spun round to face Anlia, and his face was livid.

‘Use your magic!’ he demanded. ‘Destroy them!’

But Anlia didn’t look back at him. She remained perched over the prow gazing keenly into the south. The serpents seemed almost irrelevant to her.

‘They are beyond me,’ she said. ‘Order the master to maintain speed and course.’

Only then did she look at him, and there was something like excitement in her eyes.

‘We are almost upon it,’ she said. ‘Bring me to the fulcrum, my lord, and I shall yet deliver us all.’

He opened his eyes. He was shivering uncontrollably.

He was crouched over, his head on the stone, shaking against the ground.

Pain had woken him, the pain of ice snaking over his limbs. His skin was cracked and bleeding, rigid with the cold.

In all the pain, he didn’t remember his name for some time. When it came to him, his lips were too parched and blackened to say it.

Rathien. My name was Rathien en elien Morvenna. I was alive.

And he was still alive, though only barely. The wind tore at him, ravaging his tortured flesh. He couldn’t move. He was clenched tight, locked in a rictus of shivering, agonising cold.

When the shadow passed over him, he couldn’t lift his head to watch it. He could hear roaring, the constant thunder of the wind.

Then there was a sudden burst of something as hot as molten lead, rolling back the mists and bathing the mountainside in violent orange.

It hurt even worse, the warmth. Rathien felt his limbs scream in protest, unable any longer to tell the different between extreme cold and extreme heat.

There was more of it, coursing out and washing over him until it seemed the air had turned into a sea of magma.

The warmth allowed him to scream from his own lips. He rolled over, still screaming, wrapped in the cloak he’d worn in Lothern, over and over in the mud.

There was something in the air above him, out over the bridge. The sound of leather thrusting against air rolled over him, repetitive and heavy. Everything stank of hot metal.

He pushed himself up on to all fours, and his elbows and knees felt as if they had been impaled with rusty pins.

Rathien stopped screaming, and tried to look up.

There was no mist around him. There were no shifting clouds of vapour. The sky was open, burned clear by columns of vivid flame.

In the distance there were shouts of alarm. Voices he recognised were whooping and crying out, whether from joy or terror he couldn’t tell.

He had no idea how long he’d been out. His belly was yawningly empty. The pain made him groggy and nauseous. He was still seized by shivering, even though the air was now as hot as a blacksmith’s forge.

Rathien only had time for one glance upwards before he passed out again. It was a single glimpse, a blurred impression of what he’d done. Then his body gave up, wracked with talons of agony.

His face crunched against the gravel as he fell. His cloak sunk over his body like a shroud. He was dying again, just as he had done before.

But this time, like any mortal of the earth, he knew he would live to see another sunrise.

Magic was everywhere, rippling in the air, thrumming in the earth. It would sustain him, just as it had already done.

And he had the vision now, the vision of what he had done.

The sky!

He had seen it. He had witnessed the creation of the storm of magic.

The sky!

He didn’t feel the hands come for him, dragging him back across the bridge. That, like so much else during his ordeal on the mountain, was forgotten and never recovered. But the vision remained, the sight of his accomplishment.

More, much more than he’d dared to dream.

More, much more than had been done for thousands of years.

The sky was full of dragons!

CHAPTER EIGHT

Another ship went down, smashed apart and dragged to the bottom of the sea. A swarm of serpents rolled and pounced in its wake, sweeping up the struggling mariners within their serrated jaws before diving down into the icy depths.

Huge waves crashed against the sides of the Tiranien, threatening to dash it apart before the creatures could complete their deadly assault. Noreth steered the vessel with impeccable skill, weaving at full tilt through the cracked and listing hulls of other ships. He had already evaded the attacks of half a dozen sea snakes, judging their angles of attack to perfection and making use of every last breath of wind in his ragged sails.

Time was running out though, even for him. The flotilla was being torn apart. Ahead of them, the ocean boiled with fury. There was no escape.

Anlia smiled, and breathed in the raw energy all around her. Her pulse was fast and heavy, and her palms ached from effort of withholding the potency within. She felt intoxicated by the mix of aethyric currents whirling around her.

She knew, as none of the rest of the crew could know, that they had reached their destination. The onrush of the serpents had failed to prevent them. Now the fulcrum was within range and her strength was magnified a thousandfold.

‘The storm has broken,’ she whispered, feeling the awesome energy uncurl within her. This was what she had come for. This was what Anaphelox had promised her and what all the years of patient, secret labour had been in aid of.

Ignoring the lurching of the deck, ignoring the screams of the wounded and dying, Anlia let her arms rise and began to murmur the words of command.

They came easily to her, just as they always had done. She’d enjoyed an instinctive control over the Winds since childhood. A long time ago, she had even been proud of that fact.

It was pride that taken her to the Tower so young, to refine and augment her innate ability. But the loremasters hadn’t refined it. They had attempted to suppress it, to restrict it to age-old patterns that crushed her spirit. At first, she’d tried to respect them. She’d worked hard at the rites, sincerely believing she could learn to use them.

But she couldn’t. Her gift was too raw, too resistant to control. So the accidents happened, the ones that had killed Pelean and Erwen and the others. Her too, nearly. And after that there were the trials, the questions, the accusations and the death threats from vengeful families. At that point, she’d believed that her life was over.

But then Valaris had taken her into his protection, seeing the potential in her that others had missed. And after that, unknown to any but her, Anaphelox entered her life and showed her another way to master the huge potential within her.

Ah, blessed Anaphelox. He’d unlocked the full ambit of her reach. She’d learned so much from him in Loedh Anlyn, and now this moment was the reward.

She closed her eyes, remembering what he’d taught her. The noise of the sea battle receded into blurred and muffled thuds. Behind closed lids, she heard the constant whisper of her protector.

Good girl. Concentrate now.

She saw the fulcrum, still deep beneath the waves. It glowed white, like a heated tong in the fire. The waters raged around it, boiling away and hissing their impotent displeasure. Lines of force, shimmering like strands of golden hair, radiated out across the cold depths.

Anlia lowered her head and let the power wrapped tight within her unravel. It lashed out and she gasped. Like bulging floodwater bursting across a weir, the magic began to flow. The discharge took her breath away. It was painful, as painful as searing irons held against her flesh.

Anlia clenched her jaw, and opened up further.

You are doing well. You are the conduit. You are the vessel.

Anlia kept her eyes shut. She knew that her body would be blazing like a pyromancer’s firework. She knew Valaris and the others would be backing away from her, distracted even from their doomed fight against the serpents.

It made her laugh, despite the shuddering pain. Once she started laughing, she couldn’t stop. She felt burning clouds of light expel through her open mouth. She was full of the aethyr, and the aethyr was spilling out from her.

I knew you could master this. My finest student.

The laughter turned into cries of agony. Flames were thundering through her, flames not of fire but of the raw stuff of magic. They were every colour and no colour, rippling and waving, burning and consuming.

She heard booms from above, and the whip-crack of lightning. She unleashed yet more raw magic, the energy ripped from her soul and flung out into the world. The roar of its passing outmatched that of the growling thunderheads. It outmatched everything. The elements around her screamed and recoiled, withering away in the face of the torrent of arcane essence.

Magic was everywhere, glowing and spiralling. As if a great hole had been punched through the veils of reality, it flared across the boiling seas, racing out from Anlia’s slender profile and tearing out into the world.

A little longer! You are doing it!

Anlia cried out words then. She hadn’t meant to – they leapt, unbidden, from her lips. Over and over, she summoned up yet more bursts of crushing, immolating magic. She saw the results in her mind’s eye. The waves rushed back, nearly throwing the ship over. Fire plummeted from the heavens, slamming into the racing waters, sending up rolling flanks of steam. Lightning forked through the maelstrom, darting across the foam-lashed waves.

And below it all, the monstrous outline of rock, steep sided like a watchtower, obscured by great walls of foam as the waters swirled around it, dark under the waves, rising, ever rising.

She saw ancient eyes open. She saw blue scaled hides moving in unison, a young sun and the endless expanse of jungle. She saw cold-blooded claws unfurl and blunt jaws crack open. Above it all there was a broad skull, picked clean by the wearing ages, empty eye sockets and power immeasurable.

None of that was familiar. None of that had been in her earlier visions.

Enough, child. It is done.

The images rippled away. She opened her eyes, releasing the power, and the world rushed back into focus. She felt drained and leaned against the railing for support.

The Tiranien still ploughed through the tumult, tossed across the fury of the oceans like a feather. A huge serpent, larger than any she’d seen before, was closing in on them. Arrows flew from the masthead but did little to dent its furious progress. It would soon be in range.

Valaris whirled round to face her.

‘What have you done?’ he demanded. His face was drawn with fear and frustration. The fleet he’d spent so long piecing together was being torn apart.

Anlia gave him her most winning smile.

‘Saved your life, lord,’ she said.

There was a huge, shuddering crash. The Tiranien reeled as if seized by a giant hand. Spars showered down from the rigging, severed by the force of the impact. All across the ship, crew members lost their footing and sprawled across the heaving deck. Even the Sword Masters struggled to keep their feet.

The chasing serpent, on the verge of lunging at the stern, suddenly sheered away. Its long body curled round and plunged back the way it had come.

Anlia laughed. Valaris had been thrown from his feet and was struggling to regain his position.

‘Behold,’ cried Anlia, adjusting her stance to compensate for the ship’s movement. ‘The fulcrum!’

The Tiranien was rising into the air. Incredibly, it had been pushed up from the waters and was being thrust into the heavens. Water showered from its tortured hull as it was dragged from the waves and hoisted far above the turmoil.

Valaris found his footing at last and staggered to the railing. He looked over the edge in disbelief.

The fulcrum was rising. A vast column of dark rock was pushing up from the sea floor, grinding and cracking as it came. The scale of it dwarfed the ship that it carried. The Tiranien had run aground between two spurs of jagged stone, locked tight and held rigid. Now it was being borne upwards as the colossal pillar of stone rose ever higher into the sky.

Anlia looked up. The topmost pinnacle of the fulcrum was above them, no more than fifty feet distant. Below them, the mountain grew ever larger, shoving the waters aside in great churning waves as more of it was exposed. Seawater ran down the flanks of the fulcrum in great weeping cascades.

The noise was tremendous, a booming thrum of moving earth like a rolling procession of earthquakes. The serpents circled around the base of the rising fulcrum, driven into even greater heights of frenzy by its ascension. Some plunged back down into the deeps, unable to bear the introduction of such raw, potent magical energy. Others dashed themselves against the rock in their pain and madness. Amid that frenzy was the wreckage of the other ships, all destroyed and rendered down into tumbling shards of wood and scraps of fabric.

Anlia turned to face Valaris.

‘Did I not say it, lord?’ she asked, grinning like a child. ‘Did I not say that I would show you the true extent of my power?’

Valaris’s face was locked into an almost comical expression of surprise. As he peered over the precipice, the fulcrum at last stopped moving. With a growling shudder, the pillar of stone stabilised and held rigid.

In the middle of the trackless ocean, surrounded by the detritus of conflict and the residue of the storm, a new island had been created. The Tiranien perched over six hundred feet above the waves, lodged just below the pinnacle of the fulcrum that Anlia had dragged up from the ocean floor.

For a while, it seemed that Valaris had forgotten how to speak. The rest of the crew picked themselves up gingerly, staring out over the scene of devastation. They moved as little as possible, as if terrified that the Tiranien would break into pieces at any moment and send them tumbling to their deaths.

Anlia didn’t share their worry. She could feel the integrity of the structure beneath her feet. She could feel everything around her – the density of the stone that held them aloft, the texture of the air that she breathed, the level of fear running through the minds of her companions. Magic coursed within her like music echoing in a cathedral.

The feeling exhilarated her. It was hard not to break into spontaneous laughter.

Valaris gripped the rail tight, his knuckles white. He seemed less taken with the majesty of the spectacle.

‘What now?’ he asked, and his voice was weak and querulous.

All pretence that he was the master of situation had fallen away. In the face of Anlia’s awesome magecraft, he was nothing more than a frail, mortal warrior. It looked like he knew it.

Anlia motioned towards the summit of the fulcrum. The rock soared away from them in a sheer cliff-face of seawater-drenched ledges.

‘That is the heart of it, lord,’ she announced, gazing up at the pinnacle in rapture. ‘Join me there and I shall show you the true meaning of wonder.’

The sky was full of dragons.

They blazed like comets, soaring across the mountainside on splayed, veined wings. Their armour-clad flanks glistened in the pale light as they spun and flexed in the air. Gouts of fire burst out, rippling across the empty spaces before guttering into palls of acrid smoke. They were the colours of jewels, of flame, of sunlight. They were gigantic, each the size of a fighting ship but as fluid and supple as rope.

They roared with freedom. They were spirits of ancient fire, summoned into the world of matter and unleashed upon it as the instruments of the gods.

Rathien gazed up at them from where he lay.

He should have been dead.

He had been spent. His body had been wasted, blasted into a dried husk by the icy winds. The strain of meeting with the dragon’s mind had destroyed his own. He still remembered the final plummet, the descent into utter darkness.

But he was alive. Not just alive, but strong. There was still pain across his face, but it was the pain of cleansing. He had been tempered in the flames, and emerged the stronger for it.

Rathien looked up. The largest drake, the one whose mind had been buried in that awful cave, was hovering far above him.

He knew the dragon’s name. Khalathamor.

He knew Khalathamor was one of the monarchs of his kind. The two of them had shared much during that long, strange merging of consciousnesses. There was still some sympathetic connection there. Rathien lifted his chin up and sensed the great soul’s touch once again.

With effortless grace, the dragon glided lower, sliding through the thermals on outstretched wings, before coming to land on the stone bridge.

The dragon was magnificent. As he came to rest on the stone, great claws uncurled to grasp tight. Golden flanks shimmered in the weak sun. A long tail curled under the span, balancing his weight perfectly. The slender head, crowned with rear-sloped spikes of bone, looked down on Rathien. The eyes, golden too and bar-pupilled like a cat’s, regarded him with a cool interest.

The aura of a dragon was overwhelming up close. The creature stank of hot metal.

The proximity filled Rathien with a savage kind of joy. He pushed himself up from the ground and limped slowly up to the bridge. The closer he got, the more the wounds of his face blazed with pain. He ignored it.

The dragon lowered his head. The jaws were massive, longer than Rathien’s entire body. The ridged neck arched, and there was a low hissing from deep within the serpentine throat.

‘Great one,’ whispered Rathien, coming alongside the lowered chin-spike.

The dragon’s eye was huge and unblinking. Rathien saw his reflection in the mirrored surface, distorted as if viewed through a crystal looking-glass.

The dragon lowered himself further, crouching low against the stone like a hunting dog. The scaly flesh at the junction of wing and shoulder sunk closer to the ground.

Rathien felt the thrill of anticipation. He looked up at the space, then back again.

‘This is permitted?’ he asked, hardly daring to believe.

There was a low growl of displeasure from those fearsome jaws, and a gust of smoke escaped through rows of teeth.

Rathien smiled, and bowed in apology. Of course. A dragon did not make empty gestures.

Slowly, courteously, Rathien approached the proffered seat. As he drew close, he saw how heavy the scales were and how they curved across the muscle in a seamless covering like ithilmar chainmail.

Lithely, feeling the rejuvenation of his whole body gather pace, Rathien leapt up into position. He settled across the nape of the dragon’s neck, slotting in between the bunches of muscle at the base of each huge supporting wing-spur.

Khalathamor reared his great, fluid neck up. The vast wings extended, unfurling in a rustling glory of blood-coloured flesh.

Flexing his body to cope with the movement, Rathien felt a fresh surge of exuberance. He felt as magnificent as his mount, a mere extension of that magisterial presence.

He could feel the deep heartbeat of the beast beneath him. He could smell the acrid metal-aroma around him and hear the constant hiss of fire-laced breath ahead of him. Most of all, he could sense the mind, the ancient intelligence locked in that colossal skull. It spoke to him, not in words, but in vivid images and sensations. He saw visions of a long-lost world of light and shadow superimposed across the vista before him.

Rathien’s head turned at the same time as the dragon’s. They moved in unison then. From that moment on, they would always move in unison.

Khalathamor flexed his wings and beat them. The downdraft was immense, washing over the stone and sending loose rocks tumbling into the valley. He swept them up again, picking up momentum. Readying for the leap, he reared up on to his lean hind legs.

Rathien let his body flex and adjust in sympathy with the dragon’s movements. His vision was sharper, and his heart beat more strongly. All the anguish, all the failure, was forgotten. He had power at his command, more power than any of his kin had wielded for a thousand years.

Khalathamor leapt from the bridge, plunging down into the void below before a mighty pull of blood-red wings thrust them back up again.

Rathien felt the wind whistle painfully past his ears, his breath taken away by the sudden, terrible speed. Then he looked down, and saw the mountainside below him, already receding as the dragon – his steed – flew up higher.

His soul sang. His body rejoiced. He was alive, more alive than he could ever remember.

What is your desire?

The voice entered his mind like the memory of a dream. It was ancient, that voice – deep and rich, full of a profound melancholy and the accumulated patina of uncounted ages.

It was only then, after all those days of labour and struggle, that Rathien remembered why he had come into the Dragon Spine Mountains.

My kin are close, he responded, using his mind just as the dragon did. It seemed as natural to him as breathing. They will ride, just as I do. Then guide me, great one. Guide me to my adversary.

The dragon issued a rasping cough of flame from its long jaws. The backwash rushed over Rathien, singing the edges of his cloak.

As you command, Khalathamor replied, and wheeled back round to where the other drakes still flew.

CHAPTER NINE

Anlia climbed up the slick rockface, going as fast as she dared, sensing the raw energy bleeding from the pinnacle ahead of her.

Twenty feet away now. Such a short distance to travel, even if the way was perilous. The cliff was sheer and unforgiving, with no path and few handholds. Below her, hundreds of feet down, the waters boiled and rolled, still unsettled by the vast magic unleashed earlier. Serpents prowled around the base of the fulcrum and their sleek bodies looked like leeches as they swam under the sapphire surface of the sea.

She clamped her fingers into a narrow crack in the cliff and hauled herself up. The wind whipped at her, dragging on her robes and threatening to pull her down, but she paid no attention. Her whole being was consumed by the need to reach the pinnacle, to achieve the task that she had been created to achieve.

For so long she had been given orders by others. She had been patronised and belittled by Valaris and the loremasters, even Anaphelox. In a short time, all that would be forgotten. Valaris would be in her debt forever. When he ascended to the Phoenix Throne, she would be at his side, radiant and untouchable.

There was, though, something almost indescribably strange about the stone beneath her fingers. Beneath the aroma of brine there was a subtler note. She couldn’t place it at all. For want of a better description, the word reptilian came into her head. With every pull of her arms, with every step she took, the impression of something utterly alien sank deeper into her mind. She remembered the visions she’d had when summoning the fulcrum from the deep.

Who had made this place? She should, perhaps, have asked Anaphelox about it earlier. She could ask him now.

Be careful!

The warning came too late. She reached for another handhold and her fingers slipped from the greasy stone. She tried to grab on to a spur of rock at her shoulder, but her fingers clutched at air.

With a horrific lurch, she realised she was going to fall. She scrabbled for purchase, and the movement pushed her away from the rock. Her feet slipped and she felt awful emptiness yawn away beneath her. As she began to plummet, she screamed in terror, all thoughts of conquest and magic suddenly forgotten.

A hand grasped hers, and she was yanked to a halt, her feet scraping the stone.

Her heart pounding, she looked up. Gilean, the Bladelord commander of the Sword Masters, held her one-handed. His other hand was clamped on to one of the ledges, and his legs were braced wide.

She hung for a moment, swaying in the breeze. As soon as her mind started working again, she felt relief flood throughout her body.

‘I know you.’

She stopped breathing, and felt her blood run chill. In her panic, her mask had slipped. Gilean was looking at her quizzically. His grip was the only thing keeping her alive.

She stared back at him. She had been uncovered.

Could she reinstate the illusion? Could she somehow silence him? If she dropped, could she possibly survive? Her mind raced, throwing up nothing useful.

Gilean frowned, concentrating hard.

‘I remember your face.’

Anlia gave up then. There was no way out. It had been exhausting, all the subterfuge. To be uncovered after so much time was, in its own way, a relief.

‘I am a fugitive from the Tower,’ she said, readying herself for the moment when the Bladelord would let her fall. ‘If you feel the need to enact your masters’ justice, you will never get a better chance.’

Her heart beat quickly. Gilean didn’t move. He stared at her. Below them, the surf churned against the jagged rocks. She could hear the other climbers draw closer, but they were still too far away to intervene.

It seemed to last an eternity. She steeled herself, expecting at any moment to be released.

Then Gilean hauled her up. His grip remained tight. Acting on instinct, she grabbed on to the nearest knot of stone, and felt some stability return. Her feet lodged in a crack in the rock and the pressure left.

Gilean looked at her intently, still clutching her hand.

‘You delivered us from the serpents,’ he stated baldly. ‘If there is justice to be served, it can wait.’

Anlia nodded weakly. She was trembling all over. Even hanging so precariously from the fulcrum, her breath heavy and her heart pounding, the irony of the situation still struck her. She had seen the Sword Masters as a mortal threat, as the vengeful tools of Hoeth.

‘Thank you,’ she said, breathlessly. ‘By Isha, thank you.’

Gilean nodded, and released his grasp. ‘Go more carefully.’

Anlia grasped the rock tightly, waiting for the shivering in her muscles to subside before pressing on.

That was stupid, came the familiar voice in her mind.

‘I know,’ whispered Anlia, feeling the cold stone against her face. ‘Yes, yes. I know.’

Haerwal winced and clung on tight. He couldn’t remember being more terrified. Every sinew of his body protested. Every rational capacity told him that it was utterly stupid, a certain route to an early and ignoble death.

But it was too late. He was aloft. Like all the others, he had been carried into the air by a dragon. When they came for you, swooping down from the summits of the mountains, it was impossible to resist the call. They spoke in your mind, and their voices were imperious and terrible.

Fumbling and nervous, he’d climbed on to his dragon’s back, gripping securely to the bone spurs in front of the enormous wings. Then the creature had hurled itself into the air and terror had taken on a new meaning.

Admittedly, after a few minutes of horror, things had gotten better. Haerwal had begun to realise that it was almost impossible to fall. The firedrake moved with an astonishing grace and speed. Every movement he made was compensated for. Soon, like all the others, he was heading south at huge speed, tearing down from the Dragon Spine peaks and out beyond the coast. The phalanx of dragons, resplendent in gold, red, sapphire and silver, shot across the waves, banking and dipping close to the water.

The speed made his heart race. Haerwal was no coward and had fought on a hundred battlefields in his long life, but hanging on to the plunging, snaking back of a giant lizard as it hurtled through the air scared him rigid.

‘How do you find it?’

The voice was Rathien’s, coming from a few hundred feet away. There was something about dragonflight that made the speech – even the thoughts – of the other riders strangely easy to pick out.

‘Majestic, lord,’ replied Haerwal through a clenched jawline, knowing what was expected of a Caledorian.

He heard Rathien’s laughter clearly. Despite the rush of the wind and the roar of the flames, Haerwal found he could communicate easily not just with Rathien but with the other Caledorians who’d dared to mount a firedrake. It was almost as if they all shared a single part of one great, fractured mind.

That was, he supposed, how he knew that his dragon’s name was Inthalgar, and also that she was a female a little over five thousand years old. Certainly no one else had told him.

Inthalgar banked suddenly, and Haerwal scrabbled for a handhold. His heart leapt a beat as, for a moment, he was suspended high over the ocean with nothing between him and a drop of five hundred feet. Then the dragon righted herself, pulling up through a thermal.

Haerwal could feel the dragon’s mind almost as clearly as he could hear the words of his master. Inthalgar was amused.

You are clumsy.

‘Blood of Khaine,’ swore Haerwal, not deigning to answer Inthalgar and adjusting his riding posture inexpertly. His drake was a dull red across her scaled hide, and the flesh of her massive wings was pearl-white. ‘Anything, anything, to get him to stop this madness.’

Rathien now flew a long way ahead, perched on the back of a huge golden dragon with wine-red wings. The prince hadn’t been the same since walking out across the bridge in the mountains. The brooding he’d indulged in since the defeat in Eataine had been replaced by a fey kind of glee. He seemed to glory in the danger and speed of dragonflight. Unlike Haerwal, Rathien controlled his steed with what looked like innate control.

Haerwal had to admit he’d been surprised. In the long hours of waiting for the prince to return across the bridge, he’d been quite ready to believe that Rathien had died. When the drakes had finally emerged though, in the midst of his fear there had also been pride. Though no Dragon Prince, the blood of the Dragontamer ran through his veins too.

Now though, as the shock of the transition wore off, Haerwal found his mind filling with doubts again.

‘You have done what you said you would do, lord,’ he cried. ‘What now?’

Even as Haerwal finished speaking, the huge golden body of Khalathamor wheeled around, thrusting upwards from the power of a single devastating downbeat. Inthalgar arrested her course and made to follow the path taken by Khalathamor. In their wake came the other dragons, all riding the winds with power and speed.

‘Revenge,’ came the clear voice of Rathien. ‘If there cannot be victory, then there can at least be vengeance.’

Haerwal shook his head. His knuckles were white from the jaw-tight grip, and the nausea brought on by the erratic, violent dragonflight had not gone away.

‘Do you dwell on Valaris still?’ he asked. ‘What purpose can that serve?’

Rathien swung around, then powered low across the water. For a second, Haerwal caught sight of the prince’s disfigured face. It made him look more daemon than asur.

‘Vengeance has its own purpose,’ he replied, and his voice was as cold as the grave.

Then Khalathamor beat his wings heavily again and the golden dragon surged away to the south.

‘Its own purpose,’ Haerwal muttered bitterly, looking at Khalathamor’s whipcurl tail as it receded into the sky ahead. With every passing hour, Rathien seemed to be consumed further by his obsessions. It was almost as if the chimera’s blood had stained his soul as well as his skin. ‘So the futile battle continues.’

Inthalgar gave a disdainful snort from her nostrils, and a wave of acrid ash ran over him.

We travel for the fulcrum. The enemy is there.

‘Oh, shut up,’ said Haerwal, blurting out loud in his fear. ‘For the love of Isha, just keep me close behind him without tipping me into the sea.’

Valaris stood at the summit of the fulcrum and flexed his limbs, trying to ease the stiffness of the long climb from his joints. All around him, Sword Masters stood watchfully, their robes rippling in the wind. Their faces were impassive, and every one of them had a hand on the pommel of his weapon.

He could see for miles. The sea extended in every direction towards the horizon, choppy and endlessly moving. The fulcrum was the only speck of land. Everything else was ocean, boundless and primordial.

The pinnacle was flat and smooth and extended about fifty feet in diameter. That didn’t leave much room for the survivors of the Tiranien’s voyage to cluster without getting in the way of one another.

After so much uncertainty though, and so much danger, he finally began to understand Anlia’s vision. Somehow, closeted away in the citadel he had found for her, she had seen the potential of the storm of magic. In a most unlikely fashion, it had been her, rather than some aged master of mages, who had discovered the location of the fulcrum.

He had to hand it to her. Though she looked young and behaved younger, she had stumbled across something of quite staggering power. It defied all likelihood, and yet gave him the chance he’d been waiting for. Surely that showed the gods at work. Surely that indicated the hand of greater powers in all that had taken place.

Valaris turned to look at her. Anlia stood in the centre of the space, arms outstretched, eyes closed. She’d been there for hours, saying nothing, drawing power towards her from the stone under her feet. If he had not known better, he would have thought she wasn’t doing very much at all.

The raising of the fulcrum had dispelled any doubts he might have had on that score. Anlia’s full potential had been released by that, and it was awesome. Even with his mortal senses, Valaris could feel the quickening elements race around her. She was preparing a cantrip of truly frightening proportions, a spell so powerful that all of Ulthuan would feel the measure of it when it was complete.

Anlia began to murmur out loud. The air above her shimmered like the air over a candle. A bead of sweat ran down her brow, even though the air was clear and cold.

Valaris let his eyes wander across the water-smoothed stone at her feet. The flags were drier now and paler than the dark cliffs below. There were marks on the stone, worn and hard to read. Not words. Crude pictures, perhaps. It was hard to make much out – a pyramid, maybe. Some kind of blunt-jawed creature. An angular serpent.

Then his eyes were drawn to a glyph depicting what looked like a giant toad-like being sitting on an angular, vine-clad platform. He started to move closer to it, strangely intrigued.

‘My lord,’ came Gilean’s voice.

Valaris looked up. Unlike the rest of the Sword Masters, the Bladelord had turned away from Anlia and was facing north.

‘What is it?’ asked Valaris, forgetting the carvings and coming to stand by his side.

‘You should have told me about your mage.’

Valaris started. ‘She told you? Of her past?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’ Gilean turned to face the Ellyrian. ‘When this is over, there will be a reckoning. The judgements of the Tower do not lapse. She must face justice.’

Valaris considered this. Though unexpected, there were advantages to such a scenario. Once Anlia had done what she had promised to do, her usefulness to him would be diminished. He had run many risks to keep her safe from the consequences of her actions; perhaps, in the future, the costs of doing so would outweigh the benefits.

‘Of course,’ he said, looking over at her. It was hard not to feel a little sadness as he betrayed her at last. For all her headstrong impetuosity, she had had such irrepressible vitality. ‘She will be submitted to your judgement.’

‘I am glad that is how you feel,’ said Gilean. ‘But, for now, I suspect there will be more pressing matters to attend to. You should look north.’

Valaris did so.

‘I see nothing.’

‘There, on the far horizon.’

For a moment more, Valaris made out nothing but the haze of the water and sunlight. Then he saw the first movement.

‘Do you see it, lord?’ asked Gilean.

‘I do,’ said Valaris, squinting against the glare. ‘At least, I think I do.’

He looked closer, suddenly feeling a stab of unease.

‘Tell me, Bladelord – am I going mad, or is the sky on fire?’

CHAPTER TEN

Air and fire.

They were the elements of the Dragonmages, the twin tools they used to bend the world to their will. As Rathien flew low across the oceans, he was surrounded by both. Khalathamor’s withering breath washed back over him, hotter than the sands of Araby. The haze of it made his armour glitter as if fresh-forged.

‘I see it, lord!’ cried Haerwal, close behind on his right flank.

‘As do I,’ replied Rathien, resting his hand on Khalathamor’s neck in silent thanks. The ancient dragon had guided him well.

The phalanx of drakes had swept southwards from Ulthuan, speeding low across the waves like bolts from a repeater. They were tireless on the wing, able to eat up the miles without rest or complaint.

So it should have been, of course, for the air was their home. A dragon was a terrifying enough prospect on land – all spines and scales and choking smoke – but in the air, they were veritable angels of destruction.

The tips of their wings extended, exposing the streaked and patterned flesh. Their long tails curled and flicked as they plunged through the heavens. Their jaws gaped wide, drinking in the pure air and expelling it in gouts of smoke and sparks. As they speared to their destination, they left behind a long trail of burned metal stink and hanging, smouldering ash.

Rathien leaned down closer to Khalathamor’s massive head.

‘I see my enemy, great one,’ he said. ‘He is your enemy now. From this moment forth, all enemies we face will be shared.’

There was no reply from the great drake. Khalathamor mind-spoke rarely. The understanding he shared with Rathien was so complete that there was seldom need for words.

The pace of the phalanx’s advance only began to slow as the dragons neared the tower of rock. Rathien could see magical Winds circling around the pinnacle, brighter and more dazzling than the sunlight. Lines of shimmering force ran up through the stone and out into the sky, terminating in the high heavens in a cloud of spinning brilliance.

A spell, one of great magnitude, was gathering momentum. The closer he got, the more Rathien could feel the tingle of it on his flesh.

‘Valaris of Ellyrion,’ he said, speaking to himself. His wounds burned at him, fuelling the dark mood of revenge that had lodged deep in his soul. He no longer had the will to resist it. ‘Whatever you’ve done here, it will not be permitted to endure.’

As the dragons approached the tower, they reared up into the air, deftly halting their onward rush and breaking into a high circling pattern over the pinnacle. Khalathamor was at the forefront, and drew closest to the summit before arresting his forward momentum.

From that vantage, Rathien could spy the flat top of the rock tower. There were asur standing on the stone, many of them. Some were in the white robes of Sword Masters, others looked like Sea Guard.

Only one soul drew his attention, though. Valaris. As Rathien laid eyes on his rival, he felt his hatred flare up again. The bitterness of the road from Eataine stirred once more, and the memory of that darkness fuelled his anger.

The Ellyrian prince was far down below, staring up at him, shock written all over his cultured face. Even from so great a distance, there was no mistaking that face. It had been the face of his vanquisher; soon it would be face of the vanquished.

Sword Masters hurried to come between the prince and the dragons. A touching gesture, though little more than a statement of futile loyalty.

Standing behind them all was another figure, a female mage in robes of red. The magic came from her. The aura around her was impressive. If Rathien had been alone then her powers, fuelled by the fulcrum of magic she controlled, would have been far in excess of his.

But he wasn’t alone.

‘Prince of Ellyrion!’ cried Rathien, sitting forward as Khalathamor came to a halt. The drake’s wings beat heavily to maintain position.

Rathien could see Valaris’s lips move, but heard no words. The strange power the dragonriders had to communicate with one another evidently didn’t extend to the speech of those on the ground.

‘Our contest is not yet over!’ Rathien cried. ‘You are overmatched here. Do not make me spill more blood for no cause. Cease whatever rites your mage has entered into, and yield this place – I claim it for Caledor!’

Khalathamor drifted closer to the rocks, giving Rathien a better view of the Ellyrian’s response. Rathien still couldn’t make out the words exactly, but he could see the expression perfectly. It was as defiant as he’d expected, and, given the circumstances, impressively profane.

‘So be it,’ he said, adjusting his posture and preparing for the plummeting dive. ‘You have given your answer. Now hear mine.’

‘They’re attacking!’

For the first time since spying the trails of fire on the horizon, Gilean sounded alarmed.

Valaris froze, unable to move. He’d shouted appropriately scornful abuse at Rathien, but in truth the sight of the dragon hovering in the sky above him had chilled his blood.

It was massive. There was nothing, nothing, that could stand against such a beast – and there were many of them to contend with. The downdraft of the dragons’ wings alone nearly brushed the Sword Masters from their precarious positions. They were nightmares made flesh, remnants of the myths of Caledor brought writhing and blazing into reality.

And then his dread turned into real fear. Unbelievably, Rathien’s dragon began to swoop down on them, its head dipping and its wings furling like a falcon. It raced earthwards, erupting into summer-yellow flame as it came.

‘He would not da–’

Valaris felt Gilean grab at his robes, trying to pull him away. He heard the sudden, disbelieving cries of the Sword Masters. He heard his own blood thumping in his temples.

He saw fire.

The golden dragon vomited a raging, twisting torrent of flame, smothering the tip of the rock tower and rolling down the cliff edges, scorching the stone and vaporising the lingering seawater. Valaris flung himself to the ground, covering his head with his arms.

He felt sudden, terrible heat. The flames raged for horrifying moments, burning away the air itself in a thunderous roar of destruction, before blazing out in a final gutter of fury.

Then the momentum of the drake’s run carried it over the peak, and it swept out across the waves, banking sharply to come back for a second pass.

Valaris raised his face from the rock, astonished to find that he was still alive. He lifted his hands. They were unharmed. Gingerly, he looked around him. The Sword Masters were doing likewise, and even their stoic faces were pale with surprise.

It was only then that he saw the glittering dome of diamonds above him. There were still flames flickering over the dome, dying out as the seawinds gusted across it. He twisted around, rising to his knees as he did so, and saw Anlia looking at him. She was still standing, but her face was red and streaming with blood.

‘I can’t hold them off for long!’ she gasped, her face twisted in horror. ‘They are terrible!’

Valaris had no words with which to reply. He looked over at Gilean, then back at Anlia, then out over the ocean. Other dragons were closing in. One by one, the drakes were lining up to burn the life from the fulcrum.

They were beautiful, those creatures. Sunlight flashed from their scales as their sinuous bodies slid into attack postures. There were warriors riding on them, clad in the proud armour of Caledor.

It was then that Valaris found himself lost in that awful beauty of it all, mesmerised by the killing dance being played out in the sunlit vastness. He forgot to feel hatred for his enemy, or even surprise at the reckless attack. For Valaris, like so many of his kind, dragons had become little more than a myth, a mere memory of more glorious days.

‘Terrible,’ he murmured, lost in admiration. Fresh flames licked out across the air, harbingers of the inferno to come. ‘Yes, that is right. Terrible… and magnificent.’

Anlia screamed. Her mouth didn’t move, and no sound broke from her cracked lips. She screamed nonetheless, and the echo of it rang out across dimensions.

The dead weight of dragonfire blazed across the dome she’d conjured up, flaring and burning. Keeping it in place was a horrifying task. Though her body showed no marks, the roaring flames scorched her as painfully as if she’d thrust her hand into a pail of hot coals.

Why hadn’t she seen this? Why hadn’t the hirameth warned her of interference from other asur? Why hadn’t Anaphelox shown her?

She knew she was badly overstretched – the rite of apparition was well underway and there was nothing she could do to pull it back. Ferocious energies played out above her, fed now by the voracious power of the fulcrum. Aethyric columns were gaining in strength, running away from her, coiling into strange new shapes as if they had a malign will of their own.

If she’d been free to concentrate, she might have been able to impose some order again. But she wasn’t. The dragons swept down from the sky, each one of them more than a match for her, each one of them bursting with furious, white-hot energy. Their presence was devastating, throwing the Winds of Magic into disarray and dragging everything towards the consuming aspect of aqshy.

Why didn’t you warn me?

Another drake came round for an attack. It was deep bronze along the flanks, and its heavy reptilian head was marked by what looked like a joyous smile. It drew close, opened those vast jaws, drew in a single, colossal breath and the world disappeared once more in a riot of fire and thunder.

Anlia gritted her teeth, pouring every shred of power she possessed into the flimsy dome of warding. When the flames hit, the dome buckled like a sailcloth in a deluge. Cracks appeared across the skein of diamonds, and tongues of fire burst through the barrier. The asur sheltering under it cowered, faces down, pressing their bodies to the cool rock as the air boiled with sudden heat.

Flames raged for a few more dreadful moments, then blew out. The dragon swept over them, so low that Anlia saw the claws of its trailing limbs nearly scrape the roof of the dome.

That last torrent had exhausted her. She felt dizzy, and fell to one knee. One more hit like that, and her spell would fail.

I can help you.

Anaphelox’s voice dripped into her ear like honey. Anlia’s heart leapt.

‘Do it!’ she cried out loud. ‘Why are you waiting? Where have you been?’

Another dragon drew closer, coming into strike range.

Give me permission.

‘What are you talking about? Just do it!’

The dragon’s jaws began to open.

Give me permission. You need to release me to do this.

‘You have permission! Do whatever is needed! I sanction you! By the gods, damn you, preserve us!’

The stink of hot metal bloomed out. The jaws filled the sky above them, licked with flame.

Thank you.

As the words left her mouth, Anlia felt something dark unwrap from her soul. It was only then, in the last moments of her life, that Anlia realised the full, horrific truth of what had been travelling with her for so long. She saw eyes staring back at her, released from her mind and swimming up into reality. Something vast and terrible uncoiled, at once intimately familiar and unknowably strange.

She would have fought against it, but her strength was gone in an instant. She would have screamed, but by then her lips were no longer her own.

Haerwal watched the summit disappear under a fresh barrage of crimson fire. Inthalgar, circling higher up and waiting for her turn to dive in, responded to the assault with enthusiasm. The concert of flames seemed to excite the drakes and they weaved around the rock tower in ever tighter curves.

Haerwal could take no pleasure in it. The action was murder, plain and simple, committed in the name of ambition and revenge. The frustration he’d felt with Rathien since the passage of the mountains reached its tipping point.

‘This is enough!’ he roared.

Inthalgar remained eager to plunge into the assault, but Haerwal forbade her. For the first time, he realised the control he had. A dragon was a hugely powerful beast, but it became clear that an assured rider was, at least sometimes, capable of countermanding its intentions. Haerwal suddenly – and unexpectedly – felt properly in command.

Ahead of them, Khalathamor was readying himself for a fresh plunge towards the pinnacle. Rathien, hearing Haerwal’s cry, held his position for a moment longer.

‘Do you not relish this?’ came Rathien’s shout from across the gap between them. His voice was still exultant. ‘Where is your mettle for the fight, son of Caledor?’

‘There is no honour in this!’ shouted Haerwal. ‘They are defenceless. We can take this place without killing them.’

Rathien laughed, and his clear voice rang out over the waves. Angry flames spurted from Khalathamor’s nostrils.

‘That we can!’ Rathien cried, taking up his staff and readying for another attack run. ‘But remember the fields of Eataine. They began this bloodletting – the price must be paid.’

Haerwal saw Khalathamor’s body tense, the great wings folding up to allow the dive. But it never happened. The dragon bucked in mid-air, as if suddenly repelled by an invisible blow.

The mage, the one in the crimson robes, had bent double, clutched by some sudden agony. All around her, the Sword Masters were turning in shock and fear. Black tongues of flame licked out from her, lashing like whips of ebony.

Inthalgar stiffened beneath him, and her huge eyes narrowed. Haerwal felt a sudden spike of hatred shudder up through the creature’s body.

Daemon.

The dragon’s thought was unequivocal, and suffused with a dreadful, single-minded loathing. The emotion was so strong that Haerwal was almost overcome by it. It made him light-headed, and he had to grip on to the bonespur ridge to avoid losing his purchase.

By then Inthalgar had changed course and was flying directly for the fulcrum. All the other dragons, Khalathamor included, did the same. The sky was filled with the rush and clap of wings as all the other drakes wheeled towards the same point.

Up on the summit of the fulcrum, the body of the mage was ripped apart with a echoing crack. A thin scream hung on the air for a moment before being obscured by a massive roar of rage and release. What remained of her limbs stretched out obscenely, extending high into the air and bulking out with astonishing speed. The flesh rippled and snapped as it wrapped around rapidly growing bones. A vast head, bull-horned and snarling, rose up from the ruins of a mortal neck, and blood-red bat-wings unfurled.

With a massive bellow of triumph and liberation, the daemon soared up into the air, tearing upwards through the heavens even faster than the dragons. A sword unfurled from a clawed hand, and green-edged flames trailed in its wake.

No sign of the elven mage remained on those grotesque features of ruin. If her self still existed in any form at all, then it was imprisoned within the nightmarish monster that her own magic had unleashed.

The dragons swooped after the daemon, rushing to engage it. They filled the air with furious spears of flame, lost in their frenzy of hatred.

The daemon remained beyond them and swept its blade up in a savage stabbing motion. For a moment, it looked as though the cutting edge had connected with nothing more than air.

But then there was an echoing crack, and what sounded like tearing. A glittering rent opened up in the sky. Multicoloured light, vivid as peacock’s tail, spilled out through it. The wind screamed, tearing at the edges of the rip. The gulf ripped wider, exposing a lattice of shifting madness beyond.

Haerwal stared at it in open-mouthed horror. The gouge in the sky revealed a swirling, throbbing cacophony of lurid hues beyond. The effect was literally sickening – a stomach-churning overspill of pure Chaotic essence. Haerwal didn’t need the senses of a mage to see what unnatural destruction had been unleashed. A rolling stench of corpse-sweet aromas blotted out the harsh metal smell of the dragon and he gagged on it.

Then limbs began to stretch through the gap.

Haerwal was able to look at it for only a few moments before his throat clogged with bile. He reeled, feeling his grip on his mount loosen.

The pursuit of Valaris was forgotten. The portal drew closer. More creatures emerged, cackling and flapping.

Inthalgar raced towards the rip in the sky, screaming defiance and billowing flames. As she hurtled into range, Haerwal of Caledor closed his eyes, clung on tight, and wept tears of blind terror.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Valaris stared up into the heavens, shaken to his core by what had just happened.

Anlia was gone. She had screamed for a single moment before being suddenly cut off. Then she had begun to change.

It had all happened so quickly. Even the Sword Masters, knocked off guard by the attacks of the dragons, had been unable to react in time. Even if they had done, Valaris doubted they could have made any dent in the progress of whatever horror Anlia had unleashed within herself. The monstrous bull-headed beast had burst into existence so quickly, and its terrible power had been obvious even before it had leapt into the sky to take on the firedrakes.

Anlia, you fool. I should have guessed the truth.

But there was no time to speculate, nor to grieve. The sky had turned into a raging inferno, scored by streaks of dragonfire and other, less wholesome flames. Things were emerging from a rift between the worlds. He saw curved horns, staring eyes, stretches of pale flesh scored with iron rings, and then he had to look away. His palms started to sweat. He could feel panic rising within him like a tide. Everything was unravelling, unfolding into a morass of swirling fire and warped, bellowing creatures.

‘My lord!’

Gilean’s voice was still controlled, though even he sounded shaken by what he had witnessed. One by one, the Sword Masters were getting back to their feet. They were pulling back together in a tight knot around him, swords still poised. They watched the carnage unfolding above them with an eerie calmness. The other crewmembers, mostly Sea Guard, looked terrified but did their best to maintain a semblance of defiance.

‘Bladelord,’ acknowledged Valaris, trying not to let his panic show too obviously. ‘Can we make it to the ship?’

‘We cannot,’ said Gilean. His robes glowed orange from the firestorm in the heavens. ‘Stay close.’

Valaris laughed bitterly.

‘What good will that do? We need to get off this rock.’

‘Too late for that, lord. And you might wish to draw your blade.’

Valaris was about to protest when something heavy crashed into the stone behind him. He whirled round to see a spidery creature extract itself from the impact crater. It had long, black-furred legs, six of them, and a head like a fly’s. Seven eyes glowed like hot coals from its blank face, and pale green slime dripped from the end of dirk-like talons ridged along its hunched spine.

It pounced at him, flailing. Valaris hardly had time to cry out before three Sword Masters, each moving in smooth concert with the others, interposed themselves. Their blades whirled in perfect arcs, carving up the abomination in a flurry of sticky fluid and matted hair.

The respite lasted only seconds. More grotesque beasts slammed down on to the fulcrum, skittering and rattling as they recovered and raced into combat. Soon the Sword Masters were fully engaged, their holy swords dancing as they stood firm against the tide of misshapen horrors.

Valaris drew his own blade. He felt shaky on his feet, unprepared and out of his element. He stood where Anlia had been.

Whatever had been summoned in the sky over the fulcrum was now leaking fragments of insanity into the world of the living. Those fragments had teeth and eyes and an appetite for flesh.

‘Blessed Asuryan,’ he muttered, holding his blade in a loose grip and readying to use it. ‘Preserve us all.’

The air sung with madness. The sunlight itself seemed to bend and warp into new shapes, curving around the rent in the sky and blazing into cascades of glittering incandescence.

Rathien found it hard to even look at the creatures emerging from the portal. Most were no bigger than he was, though their bodies were many-limbed and twisted into grotesque, spine-refracting contortions. Some had wings, and they flapped in foul clouds to the pinnacle below. Others were flightless, and plummeted like stones. Some of the latter fell on to the tower of rock and swarmed at the Asur defenders; others crashed into the sea and were lost.

But the lesser creatures were of little consequence. In their wake came greater daemons, huge and foul. These were nearly the equal of the dragons in size, though the outline of their bodies shifted perpetually like wavering mirages. Only fleeting impressions were possible – spikes and eyes and flailing barbs of iron. Rathien saw bat-wings unfurl, as dark as ink, before rippling away in scraps of shadow.

The sight of those monsters drove the dragons mad with rage and aggression. If Rathien had been thrilled by their power before, he was in awe of them now. They flew straight at the daemons, wreathed in star-hot flames, roaring with primordial fury. Two armies, one warped by Chaos, the other pure and devastating, clashed in mid-air. The sky was filled with the roar and thunder of titanic energies colliding.

Every time a dragon engaged a daemon, the profile of the warp-spawned creatures seemed to solidify. Talons raked, jaws snapped and tails lashed, all in a tumbling, grappling mid-air joust. The sounds of the clashes were deafening, a mix of daemonic screaming and draconic thunder. The hatred of each breed for the other was absolute and the strength and speed of both were staggering in their intensity.

Khalathamor was at the forefront, immolating and striking out at everything within range. Fresh from his last kill, the great dragon hurled himself into contact against a sinuous, snake-headed monstrosity sliding out from the portal. The drake let slip with a blistering bloom of flame before crashing into it, wrapping his tail around its oily body and locking his jaws on its dark-scaled neck.

As the gigantic beasts came together, Rathien reeled from the impact. The snake daemon flailed frantically, rearing up a spine-crested head to strike at the dragon’s neck. In a blur of movement, Rathien saw many eyes, each of them blazing pale-green. Flails of saliva, thick and bilious, slapped across his armour, fizzing where they touched the metal.

Still off-balance from the collision, Rathien somehow managed to get his fist into position and cried out words of command.

His arm erupted into a blaze of coruscating fire. It screamed straight at the glowing jaws of the daemon in a throbbing, spiralling column. Pure high magic slammed into the creature of darkness, exploding in a rolling ball of crimson flame, streaked with pitch-black fronds of corruption.

The snake’s head snapped back. A great crack echoed out, sending shockwaves radiating through the ash-flecked air.

Khalathamor bit deeper, and the daemon was ripped in two. The sound of the sinews snapping was like the crack of a whip. The dragon released his grip, and the two halves of the snake-creature, now limp and ragged, span down towards the churning waves.

Then the golden dragon was moving again, powering heavily through clouds of floating spores and curtains of balefire.

Rathien could sense the outrage burning in the noble creature’s mind. Such foes were the immortal enemies of his kind, the ones who had wrested mastery of the world from them. Rathien needed to give no orders to attack – all the dragons were fully committed and flying into claw-range with a reckless abandon.

Rathien stole a hurried glance around him. The sky was full of wheeling, diving monsters. The dragons were terrifying in their wrath, but more daemons were spilling out into the sky with every heartbeat.

Valaris, the damned fool, had torn a gouge between the realm of the senses and the raw stuff of Chaos. Rathien did not have the skill to close such a portal and was astute enough to know that if it remained open for much longer then even the dragons would succumb eventually to the infinite tide.

‘There!’ cried Rathien, spying the master of the carnage, the architect of the rift. It powered through the air on vast wings, swinging its flaming sword in bone-crushing arcs. Already two drakes had been downed by the colossal daemon and its power seemed to be growing with every passing heartbeat. ‘We shall slay it together, great one.’

There was a low, grinding rumble from Khalathamor’s ribcage as the dragon adjusted course and made for the daemon of Chaos. Rathien adjusted his stance for the attack, determined to maintain his position, and murmured words of command in readiness.

He found his senses growing sharper, his mind raised to a higher pitch of clarity. Everything that had brought him here – the pointless wars on the fields of Eataine, the poisonous expectations of his bloodline, the bitterness over his realm’s decline – faded into insignificance.

All that remained was valour, determination, and skill at arms. And whatever other faults they may have had, in those things the sons of Caledor had never yet been found wanting.

Inthalgar fought on, though she had sustained terrible wounds. A dozen daemons had been ripped apart under her claws, but each one of them had fought ferociously before going down. A horned monster with a barbed flail and wings like the dragon’s own had nearly killed her outright during a horrendous, grappling duel that had rolled through the crowded skies.

Throughout it all, Haerwal knew he had been useless. His growing sense of being in control had been exposed for a hollow sham – the best he could do was to hang on tight and not get himself killed. Just coming into such close proximity with the daemonic was enough to risk being plunged into unconsciousness and oblivion.

Despite her wounds, Inthalgar attacked tirelessly. Haerwal could sense her hatred flowing just as strongly as before. She seemed incapable of fear. Even though blood ran down her left flank freely and one shattered foreleg hung limply from her torso, she still sought out the most formidable daemons to take on.

The dragons were not invincible. Several had been completely destroyed by the creatures of darkness and many of the others were taking frightening amounts of damage.

Haerwal still shuddered to recall the death-screams of the downed firedrakes. It was the worst, most chilling sound he had ever heard. In those screams were aeons of experience being ripped from the world, a near eternity of irreplaceable wisdom and guile suddenly stamped out. The death-throes of a thousand mortals were insignificant next to such profound loss. It had been horrific.

Inthalgar banked suddenly left to avoid an incoming flock of razor-winged flyers with stretched, elongated heads. Haerwal had become used to the sudden shifts in orientation, and threw his weight to the right to compensate. Despite this, his body still leaned far out over the drop and he held tight, feeling the heavy pull of gravity drag at him.

He looked down, just for a moment, wondering how far the drop to the water was and whether he’d survive it if his grip was somehow shaken free.

But there was no water under him. Where there had been wind-lashed waves just moments ago, there was now dry land.

Haerwal’s eyes widened in shock.

Inthalgar righted herself, seeking fresh targets. Haerwal remained hunched over the ridge of her thick neck, staring down in wonder.

The sea was roaring away from the fulcrum. In colossal walls of thundering foam, the ocean itself was being withdrawn from the land beneath it. A vast circle had opened up in all directions. The fulcrum stood in the centre of it, suddenly towering even higher than it had been.

The scale of the change was staggering. Even as swirling ranks of dragons and daemons fought one another to the death, the waters were being hauled apart. No power Haerwal had ever seen, not even that awakened by Rathien in the Dragon Spine Mountains, could come close to what he was witnessing.

Haerwal righted himself and searched the skies for Rathien. Khalathamor was some way off, locked in aerial combat with a massive bull-headed daemon, too far away to hail.

Haerwal stared down again, unwilling to believe the evidence of his senses.

They hadn’t lied. The seabed was fully exposed in a vast, expanding disc. There were markings across that disc, regular markings. For all the world, they looked like streets, the shells of temples and the ruins of pyramids.

Down on the newly isolated land, something was stirring, something more alien and esoteric than anything he had ever seen.

‘Isha’s tears,’ murmured Haerwal, held rapt by the unfolding scene below, distracted even from the fire and slaughter all around him. ‘What new madness is this?’

CHAPTER TWELVE

No trace of Anlia’s body remained visible within the daemon’s massive frame. It had consumed her utterly, latching on to the magic she’d unleashed and drawing the necessary power from it. The suave pretence at subterfuge it had once employed was nothing more than a memory and its true form was unveiled in a welter of gore and fizzing aethyric residue. It bellowed with a primordial anger, stoked by the bleeding vortex above it. It was raw, bestial, unstoppable.

The daemon’s flesh was the colour of old blood and as tough as beaten bronze. It had a bull’s head, though the muzzle had been stretched and bulked by the warping power of its ascension. Four sets of long horns curved down from its tattooed brow and chains of iron swung from its vast shoulders. Two sets of wings beat the air, tattered and marked with rips. It was almost as much at home in the skies as Khalathamor was, and just as strong.

When it roared, the air shook. When it swung its flame-edged sword, the trails of oil-black smoke lingered in its wake, acrid and bitter.

In every sense, it was hellish.

Coming in close, Rathien could sense the raw potency bleeding from the abomination. The daemon leaked magic with every movement and coils of glistening fluid rolled down its muscular torso.

Khalathamor kept moving, circling around it, using his superior control to dart in for rapid, fire-stabbing attacks. Rathien augmented those sorties with bolts of flame. The orbs of fiery energy crashed into the tough hide of the creature, each time knocking it back and enraging it further.

But the daemon was no witless beast. It knew how to feint, how to draw in the attack and then respond. Twice already, its sword had bitten deep into Khalathamor’s flesh, carving through the scaly hide and drawing out blood the colour of molten lead.

The two massive creatures circled around one another, plunging and wheeling through the press of fighting, dodging lances of fire. Streaks of ash and smoke spiralled around them as each combatant parried vicious swipes from claw and blade.

Other daemons circled around the duel – flocks of lesser creatures, smaller in stature but still possessed of spite, malice and cunning. They latched on to the dragon’s tail or wingtips, biting and clawing. Soon Rathien found himself working hard to protect his steed from such attacks, leaving Khalathamor alone to face the full wrath of the greater daemon. The dragon maintained the thunderous power of his assault, launching ferocious torrents of star-hot flame while raking with talons the length of a man’s arm.

Rathien twisted round, kindling fresh energy. A flock of biting creatures with spiked faces and diaphanous wings had latched on to Khalathamor’s tail. Rathien let the flames ignite in his palms before twisting his wrists in a flickering motion.

The fire exploded into a shower of sparks, moving and rolling like a flock of birds. The spinning points of light cascaded down Khalathamor’s torso, bouncing from the scales of the dragon’s hide and falling away.

When they reached the daemonic assailants though, they lodged fast. The searing sparks stuck deep into the unholy flesh, worming their way in further. The daemons screamed and let go of Khalathamor’s bucking flesh. Rathien whispered a word of power, and the sparks blew up into raging infernos, consuming the daemons in an orgy of blood and flame. Smiling savagely, Rathien searched the skies for the next assailant.

But then Khalathamor bucked violently and his whole body shuddered. Rathien spun round, only to see the twisted face of the daemon loom up, mere yards away from him. He had to choke back vomit as waves of sickening reek washed over him. The beast roared again, and gobbets of bile slapped across his armour.

Khalathamor had come in close, and the two massive creatures were now interlocked with one another like wrestlers. They raged and hacked at one another, tumbling through the air, ringed with long trails of smoke and ash.

The daemon swung with the long edge of its blade, looking for the bite that would punch beneath Khalathamor’s armoured shell. The dragon belched fire and raked his heavy claws, twisting to evade the sword even as it pressed for the kill. Gouts of thick, steaming blood – Rathien couldn’t tell whose – sprayed messily into the air and fell around them like crimson hail.

Disorientated by the whirl of movement, Rathien struggled to get into position. He cried aloud words of summoning, ready to let fly with fresh bolts of flame. Though sickened by the creature’s foul stink and deafened by its constant barrage of roaring, he held his defiant stance on Khalathamor’s back. Another rider might have been driven to terror by the inferno of combat, but Rathien remained focussed, locked on the task at hand, his mind working in seamless union with that of the dragon.

He never looked away. As he prepared to generate the next maelstrom of flame, he kept his eyes open and alert. It was then that, without meaning to, he let his gaze drift over to the daemon’s face.

Their eyes locked.

Rathien froze.

The daemon’s presence was immense. It was timeless and infinite, an unyielding well of malice. As Rathien struggled to look away, the daemon’s will clamped down on him, suffocating him. Khalathamor kept fighting, immune to the sorcerous mental assault, but Rathien felt himself reeling.

He couldn’t summon the spell. His mouth was sealed. With a growing sense of terror, he felt his lips begin to lock shut. He knew the daemon was doing it, but he was too weak to resist. Control slipped from his mind to the dread intelligence of the creature of Chaos. Deep within that intelligence, he had the faint impression of a young woman’s voice screaming over and over again, as if trapped within a nightmare without end.

With mounting horror, Rathien watched as his own limbs began to rise. The daemon, still grappling with the dragon, let the ghost of a smile ripple across its malformed lips.

You asur. So easy to control.

The mocking voice, smooth and urbane, bled into his mind. It was the mirror image of the daemon’s raging physical form. Rathien fought against the command, but his will was no longer his own. The flames he had kindled to use against the creature of Chaos flared up between his fingers.

He would use them. He would bring them down, burning through Khalathamor’s hide and burrowing under the scales. He struggled and the veins on his neck bulged. Sweat burst out across his face, running down the wounds inflicted by the chimera and making them flare up with pain.

Soon your soul will join the one I already own. Your agony will be joined to hers.

Even as the golden dragon swung through the heavens, locked in deadly combat with this mightiest of monsters, Rathien saw himself preparing to plunge his burning hands into Khalathamor’s back, ready to murder the great soul he himself had roused from an eternity of slumber.

Tears rolled from his eyes, and he screamed aloud from the pain and horror. He was going to do it. Slowly, shaking, Rathien’s hands came down. The flames burst out, piercing and lethal.

Then, suddenly, the pressure withdrew.

Rathien gasped for air and wrenched his hands back. He nearly fell from his seat, rocked by the sudden loss of pressure.

The air before him disappeared into massive, rolling ball of green-tinged energy. A huge boom shot out from where the daemon had been, throwing Khalathamor back across the skies in a rolling, flailing arc.

Rathien gripped tight, able to do nothing but hold on and weather the storm. Huge fronds of dazzling green light lanced past him, hissing as they went. The sound of terrified screams echoed through the heavens, punctuated by more massive explosions.

Khalathamor righted himself, beating his wings hard to haul himself back aloft. Rathien stared back the way he’d been thrown, poised to discharge the power that still fizzed in his hands.

The daemon was gone. The bull-headed beast had been ripped from the skies. There were a few scraps of blood-coloured flesh spinning in the air, but nothing else.

‘What happened?’ he gasped, struggling to make sense of it.

A new power rises.

Khalathamor’s mind-voice was strained and weary. Only then did Rathien see the jagged wounds in the dragon’s long neck. Some of them looked like bite marks. Blood ran freely over the creature’s hide, dripping down its hanging limbs.

Rathien looked out over the aerial battlefield. In all directions, daemons were being ripped apart in mid-air, their bodies torn open and flung into scraps. Blood of every hue – purple, crimson, yellow, green – fell from ruined bodies. The surviving daemons were wailing now, lost in their own world of pain and terror.

‘Holy Asuryan,’ Rathien murmured, held rapt by the sight of such butchery. It was almost sickening. ‘What power could–’

Then he stopped speaking. He saw the architect of the new carnage, and his face went white.

Valaris pulled his blade back, ready to stab the point into the chest of the creature before him. At least, he thought it was the chest – it was little more than the bloated juncture of about a dozen jointed legs. Above that, something like a mouth, or maybe two mouths, stretched wide, exposing rows of hooked teeth and several lashing tongues. The daemon leapt wide, scampering like an insect and ready to spring.

Then it was gone – suddenly blown apart in a spinning orb of flesh and bone fragments. The pieces showered Valaris, lashing him with stinking gobbets of body parts, most of them lurid pink and still throbbing.

He staggered back, wiping his face free of gore. All across the summit, other beasts were ripped open in an orgy of splattered ichor. The rain of flesh subsided, slapping to the ground and slipping into the cracks in the stone. A slurry of viscous slime ran over the platform.

The Sword Masters were mostly still on their feet. Many had died, but Gilean remained stalwart among the survivors. The warriors of Hoeth re-formed their circle of protection around Valaris. Their expressions remained watchful, their movements tight.

The daemonic horde had been destroyed, swept aside like so much fodder. Droplets of blood and fragments of warped flesh continued to rain down from above, bouncing from the stone and into the puddles of gore. The dragons still flew, weaving through the storm of corrupted flesh like sharks cruising through the remnants of a ravaged shoal of fish.

Valaris pushed his way to the edge of the fulcrum. He was suddenly aware of a vast, nebulous sound – the rushing echo of the tide coming in.

Except, when he reached the lip of the stone, he could see that the tide wasn’t coming in.

It had gone out. A long way out.

The ocean had been peeled away and was now pinned back in a vast circle perhaps half a mile in radius. At the limit of the great arc, the waters raged and roared in boiling cliffs of ivory-white, desperate to rush back over the land and drown it again.

Lightning cracked across the open sky, lancing through the destroyed remnants of the daemonic incursion. There were no stormclouds to generate it; the bolts emerged from nothing. He looked out over the landscape of devastation. Hundreds of feet below, the land was now as dry as desert sand.

‘What did this?’ asked Valaris. His voice was unusually humble.

‘I sense something…’ began Gilean, before trailing off. ‘By the gods.’

‘What is it?’

‘A little to your right, lord. Just look.’

Then he saw it.

The bones were moving. They had lain immobile since the last great alignment, many thousands of years ago as a mortal would reckon it. Now they were moving again, stirred by ancient magics and driven onwards by the raising of the fulcrum.

Bones clinked as they reassembled into skeletons. Some were vaguely man-shaped; others had the size and profile of beasts – horses, a man might have guessed, or cattle.

They were neither. No skeletons of anything warm-blooded marched among them. They were the heavy bones of lizards, great saurian beasts of the steaming jungles. All had been dead for millennia. Now, awkwardly and ponderously, they were animating again.

The cadavers moved unsteadily, lurching on unbalanced limbs. They crawled almost silently, their approach only punctuated by the tap of bone against rock. In crowds of dozens – then hundreds – they drew close to the fulcrum. Some were already scaling the foothills.

Above them, gently rising through the lightning-raked sky, was another skeleton. This was this one that Gilean had seen from the pinnacle. This was the one that Rathien and Haerwal had witnessed from their high vantage. This, it was clear, was the one that had banished the daemons.

The dragons came nowhere near it. For those with the skill to see, magic shimmered in the air around it. The very elements seemed to make themselves subordinate to it. As it ascended, it was easy to imagine the entire world sinking to accommodate its whim.

Like the skeletons in the lost city below, it had the outline profile of a lizard. A huge, heavy skull sat atop a hunched, desiccated ribcage. Emaciated hands lay in a shallow lap of crossed legs.

It slumped on a stone platform. The base of the platform had carvings on its square sides, carvings very much like those at the summit of the fulcrum.

The seated figure was huge. In life, it would have been bulbous and bloated, possessed of sleek folds of green flesh. Now it was bleached white and empty, though none of its awesome presence seemed to have been drained away by the mere fact of its death.

In a battlefield full of wonders, it dominated all else. The dragons, those magisterial beings of fire and talon, seemed diminished by its arrival. The daemons it had destroyed were like a memory of a nightmare banished by the rising sun. It could have been the centre of the universe. For those watching its ascent, it might as well have been.

It didn’t move any of its bony fingers. It looked incapable of normal physical movement, locked as it was in calcified paralysis. But its will – that was a different matter. That will still lingered, deep and old and calculating. Its sentience alone was sufficient to drown out the magical aura of the dragons.

The tear in the sky’s fabric rippled a little, then shrank, folding up and out of existence. There was a long wail from somewhere, a howl of spectral frustration. Lightning cracked across the sky again, fierce and vital.

Then it was gone. The corruption was gone. What remained was the world’s air, free of taint, cold and with a tang of salt.

The slann had come to claim its own.

Rathien watched the skeleton rise. For a while, exhausted by the clash with the daemon, he had been unable to do anything but observe it. But then, as the creature continued to ascend, he felt his pride stir.

So much had been sacrificed. The fulcrum still lay before him, vast and powerful. His army of firedrakes was ravaged but intact.

The scars on his face fizzed with pain. They goaded him, reminding of his failures.

‘We can still possess it,’ he urged, bringing Khalathamor around for a new attack.

The dragon, his mind sluggish from the many wounds he had taken, resisted him.

This power is beyond me.

‘No power is beyond you, great one,’ Rathien insisted, feeling heat blossom from the creature’s iron hide. He was ready to summon the fires of aqshy again. ‘We have bled for this fulcrum. I will not surrender it now.’

For a moment longer, Khalathamor opposed the will of the Dragonmage. The long golden body remained immobile, suspended over the dry city, clearly unwilling to return to the rock tower where magic still stained the air.

But the mighty creature was exhausted. The magics that had summoned him were old and strong, and such cantrips bound its will tightly.

With a bitter hiss of smoke and ash, ancient wings thrust down powerfully. The dragon flew fast and true, heading straight for the mage-priest on its platform. As he went, blood ran like tears down his flanks.

‘Lord!’ came Haerwal’s voice, desperate but far-off. ‘No more of this madness! Remember yourself!’

Rathien ignored Haerwal’s pleas. The manservant had always been craven counsel. It was time to put such timorousness behind him. The daemons had been banished. His rival lived, but was in disarray. The drakes still flew with him.

He was a Dragonmage, forged in the fires of war, the very embodiment of vengeance.

Everything was possible.

Valaris span round, raising his blade. The movement was clumsy. He was already tired and the sight of the creeping tide of undead lizardmen unnerved him, if anything, more than the daemons had.

Skeletons had reached the summit of the fulcrum. There were dozens of them, creaking and limping across the stone. They were bigger than the daemons had been, their shoulders crowned with spikes and ridges. Their dry jaws uttered no challenge, but their bony hands clutched blunt cleavers carved from black stone.

They advanced slowly, hauling their rattling bodies forwards with effort. Some of them were missing bones, even whole limbs, but that didn’t stop them. Like the rising sun, they advanced remorselessly.

The remaining Sword Masters didn’t hesitate. They swept into battle, whirling their blades in great arcs. Valaris watched the first one make contact. The blade was angled perfectly, aimed at the neck-joint of a huge, lumbering saurian creature. It hit the target with precision, aimed with all the speed and power of a peerless devotee of the art of Hoeth.

With a flash of jade energy, the blade bounced off the bones, shivering from the impact. The Sword Master reeled, his balance knocked away by the unexpected resistance.

By then it was too late. The creature lowered its spiny head and broke into a stumbling charge. A long horn of bone punched into the Sword Master’s midriff, ripping through the white robes and emerging on the other side. The warrior’s equanimity was broken with a scream, swiftly extinguished.

Valaris backed away. He’d seen enough. In front of him, the rest of the Sword Masters had fallen into combat and were faring similarly badly. Their swords were unable to penetrate whatever dire magic was sustaining the skeletal lizards. They fought on stoically, never taking a step back, but the outcome was in no doubt.

When Gilean fell, his head crushed into shards by a lumbering monster with a huge, stained skull, Valaris knew that all hope was gone. He retreated to the north side of the fulcrum. Over his shoulder there was nothing but the long drop to the ruins below. He could already feel the wind tug at him, beckoning him down to oblivion.

‘You will not take me,’ he hissed, watching as the undead lizardmen stalked towards him. He kept his blade raised in a futile gesture of defiance. ‘As Asuryan is my witness, you will not take me.’

It was then that the air was filled with the stink of hot metal. The chill of the sea-wind was replaced by the heavy thud of wings, and a blast of fire-flecked air rushed around him.

He whirled around and saw the vast body of a dragon hovering just feet away. The beast was dull red on the flanks with pearl-white wings. There was a rider perched at the junction of the mighty shoulder-spurs, beckoning to him frantically.

‘Come!’ the rider shouted. ‘My steed can bear you! Come away!’

For a second, Valaris hesitated.

He looked back over the fulcrum. So many bodies. Blood stained the stone where Anlia had stood. He remembered her vitality, the promise she had shown.

Giving up on the fulcrum was hard. Surprisingly hard. Perhaps the dragon could turn the tide of battle. Perhaps it could be persuaded to–

‘I cannot wait!’

The Caledorian’s voice was shot through with fear. That, more than anything else, convinced Valaris. There was no more fighting to be had – the cause was lost.

Valaris sheathed his sword and turned away from the slowly advancing skeletons. Drawing in a deep breath, he gauged the distance between him and the hovering torso of the drake.

He leapt. For a terrible second, he was suspended over the void, arms cartwheeling. His heart raced and he saw the sharp edges of the ruins far, far below.

Then he crashed on to the creature’s broad back. The Caledorian grabbed him by his robes and hauled him up. Valaris scrabbled for purchase, finally managing to gain something of a seat behind the dragon’s rider.

By then the firedrake had pulled away from the fulcrum. It went fast, hurtling from combat.

‘My lord Rathien has lost his mind,’ said the Caledorian. His expression was tight and stricken with grief. ‘I acted so that something might be salvaged from this disaster. I should have done so sooner.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Valaris, moving his head warily. It took a while to get used to the sinuous, arching flight of the dragon, and he was still disorientated from the sudden leap across the gulf.

‘Behind us,’ said the Caledorian. The words were clipped. ‘He has chosen death, and this time I will not try to prevent him.’

Valaris looked over his shoulder.

The fulcrum was already far behind. The summit swarmed with skeletal lizard-forms. No dragon, elf or daemon remained to contest it. The inscrutable ancients had returned to preserve what had always been theirs.

For the first time, Valaris gained an appreciation of how pathetic his attempt to seize the pinnacle had been. Its true masters were far more powerful than he would ever be.

Anlia should have known better than to try. And he should have guessed what dark power had enabled her to master the magic within her. For every service rendered, there was always payment.

Then he looked more closely. Not all the dragons had fled. There was one remaining, streaking into combat like an air-bound comet, trailing flame and clouds of ash. The beast was golden, and its wings beat like the drums of a whole army. There was a figure mounted on its back, clad in bronze armour and wreathed in tongues of flame. The rider flew fearlessly, desperately coaxing more speed and fury from his wounded mount. The mage-priest, that eerie floating mass of rock and bone, turned slowly to meet it.

The rider’s command was perfect. His profile was majestic against the open sky. Though his flight was surely doomed, there was a nobility in his bearing that he had never possessed as a leader of mortal troops.

Rathien of Tor Morven would die in the manner of his fathers. He would die a Dragonmage.

Valaris looked away. Despite all that had passed between them, he had no desire to witness the final clash. Ahead of him, the surviving dragons were beating a path northwards, back across the unquiet seas, back to their haunts in the mountains. Though their flight still possessed a heavy, graceful power, many carried terrible wounds along their jewel-like flanks.

For all their magnificence, they had been led into defeat.

‘You can take me to Ulthuan?’ asked Valaris, suddenly feeling weary to his bones. The heavy pall of defeat was beginning to sink in.

‘I can,’ replied the Caledorian.

‘Lothern?’

‘If you wish.’

Valaris nodded.

‘And what will you do after that?’

The Caledorian stared straight ahead, his expression unreadable.

‘I will return to Tor Morven. I will serve. What else is there?’

Valaris paused for a moment. There was something impressive about the dragonrider. He didn’t hide his fear, but there was a certain solidity to him. Perhaps if his master had shown similar sense, things would have gone better for him.

‘You could serve another master,’ said Valaris. ‘Such things are not unknown. You have saved my life, and I know how to reward those with a sound head on their shoulders.’

The Caledorian let slip a single, bitter laugh.

‘Oh really, lord?’ he said. ‘And what could you offer me that I do not already possess?’

‘To serve the Phoenix King, Caledorian. To serve the mightiest monarch of the world. Does that prospect do nothing to stir your blood?’

The dragon rider looked over his shoulder then, straight into Valaris’s eyes. There was a look of weary humour on those long-suffering features.

‘Do you know how long I have listened to words such as those, my lord? No, you cannot use that bait to entice me. I am sick of the aspirations of nobleborn. I will return to Caledor and find another way to restore the fortunes of my house.’

He turned back, resting a hand on the neck of his steed, his cloak rustling in the sharp wind.

‘And in any case,’ he said, his voice laced with a wry fatalism, ‘I do not believe you will be successful. As I tried to tell Rathien, it does not matter how many dragons answer your call if the mind of the Phoenix King is already made up.’

Inthalgar wheeled left, gradually reducing speed as the cursed fulcrum fell away towards the horizon. There were huge, rolling booms in the distance, and flashes of green light on the southern horizon. Around Inthalgar, the surviving drakes matched pace, their wings stretched taut. Though battered and bleeding, they were still magnificent, still beautiful.

‘While you have pursued your wars of ambition, wiser heads have been looking to the future,’ said Haerwal, steering the flight of dragons north, back towards home. ‘You asked if I would serve another master. Maybe I will, in time. When this folly has been forgotten, I shall send word to Finubar of Lothern.’

Haerwal smiled then, though the expression was dry.

‘I sense great things ahead for him.’

EPILOGUE

The eastern horizon glows nightshade-blue, then lavender, then ochre. The world turns. The Orb of the Makers rotates gently through the void, tracing the pattern of the Great Dance, just as it has done since the steps were laid down by those long departed.

It all moves. It all changes.

The watcher’s eyes are on the horizon, just as they are every morning.

The colours have receded. The storm has passed across the world, and blown itself out. The imbalances have been corrected. The edges have been smoothed.

The pyramid is silent. It has been silent for more than a century. The great magic conceived in its cool depths has run its course. Its blue-skinned priests have retreated back into the depths of the jungle. The watcher is alone again, squatting in the courtyard, waiting for the sun to warm its blood, watching the insects rise.

It knows what happened in Azatlatlan. It knows that the invading warmbloods were killed. It knows that the ancient pinnacle was restored to its proper place, and the seas drawn back over the pyramids. If it takes satisfaction from that knowledge, there is no sign.

It also knows that there were fire angels present. There has not been strife between the watcher’s kind and fire angels for many thousands of years.

The watcher did not foresee the fire angels. It did not foresee the golden one, the one that dared to assault Venerable Lord Khatmaq. That one had been powerful, steeped in energies birthed in aeons long past. It had taken a long time to die, as had the warmblood who had ridden it.

The warmbloods did not understand the fire angels. If the watcher had been capable of astonishment, it would have been astonished that warmbloods never noticed the similarity between those ancient beings and the saurians that still populated the jungles of Lustria. Warmbloods never made the link between them, nor inquired into what terrible events must have taken place to sunder such creatures from one another.

They did not see patterns. They did not see the Great Dance. The mathematics of cause and effect were opaque to them. They would ever blindly pursue their foolish dreams, driven by desires and emotions that had no significance in the wider scheme of the universe.

They would be greedy. They would be weak. They would be defeated.

The watcher blinks.

Heat is already rising from the stone, bathing the friezes in shimmer-haze. The cries of the birds still break from the trees.

The watcher is motionless. Unperturbed. Silent.

There will be crises again. There will be disturbances of the Great Dance. When they come, the watcher will act again.

But not now. The alignment is as it should be. The storm of magic is over.

For now, there is nothing to do but wait.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Wraight is a writer of fantasy and science fiction, whose first novel was published in 2008. Since then, he’s published books set in the Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and Stargate: Atlantis universes. He doesn’t own a cat, dog, or augmented hamster (which technically disqualifies him from writing for Black Library), but would quite like to own a tortoise one day. He’s based in a leafy bit of south-west England, and when not struggling to meet deadlines enjoys running through scenic parts of it.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2011 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by David Gallagher

Map by Nuala Kinrade.

© Games Workshop Limited 2011. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-0-85787-211-1

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* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.