Master of Dragons

Chapter Twenty

Grondil strode onwards through the morass of blood and churned-up mud. It swilled over his shins, dragging at him, though he barely noticed the pull.

Up ahead the walls of Tor Alessi burned a vivid red in the darkness. Trails of fire shot up from the trebuchets and bolt throwers, streaking out in the night. The noise of battle was deafening — a frenzied melange of drums, shouting, screams, magefire explosions.

‘To the breach!’ he roared, blind to all else. His hearthguard strode with him, weathering the storm of arrows that whined and clattered about them. He had no idea how many had managed to follow him thus far. The battleground had dissolved into a vast scrum of straining bodies and labouring war engines, all formation lost in the churning melee at the base of the walls.

The sudden arrival of the dragons had changed nothing. They soared and dived into the host, lighting up the sky with flashes of iridescence. Their power looked phenomenal, but that did not concern Grondil. No opponent, however towering or malevolent, had ever truly concerned Grondil. They all drew breath; they could all be killed.

His contingent was still fifty yards short of the walls and making heavy weather of the march. The shells of ruined trebuchets burned in the mud around him, grisly monuments amid a press of straining bodies. The attack was faltering; it needed something decisive to turn the tide.

‘The breach!’ he bellowed again, swinging his warhammer around his head. The walls ahead had been hammered into semi-ruins, exposing the soft innards of the city within. If a salient could be pushed into the city’s perimeter, sheltered by the walls and out of the sweep of the dragons, that might be enough. Grondil could already see the jagged edges of the stonework picked out in the firelight, swarming with defenders trying frantically to shore up the defences. Axe-blades flickered in the half-light, rising and falling like picks at a coal-face.

He tried to run, to break into the charge that would carry him to the fighting. His armour clattered around him, weighing him down. He stumbled, falling to one knee, tripped by jutting debris left in the mire. Hot air rushed across his back, scorching him under his armour. A tart stench of ashes clogged his nostrils, followed by a sharp scent of blood.

Cursing, he twisted round to beckon his contingent onward, and his jaw dropped.

They had gone. They had all gone, swept away as if scooped out of the ground by the hands of some daemon of the earth. All that remained was a vast crater of scorched soil, thick with blackened corpses. In the centre of it writhed a gigantic creature, a golden dragon with wings unfurled, its serpentine tail coiling around it, its long neck arched above him.

Up close, it was colossal. Grondil had never seen a living thing so enormous. He almost lost his grip on his hammer.

The rider on the dragon’s back lowered a sword in his direction. It danced with a strange, elusive light that made Grondil’s eyes smart.

He didn’t wait for it to explode into life. He pushed himself up from the mud and broke into a charge.

‘Grimnir!’ he bellowed, holding his weapon two-handed and scouring the creature’s hide for a weak spot. All he saw was a screen of glistening golden armour, flawless in its protective coverage, splattered with great streaks of dwarfen blood like honour markings.

Before he could get within strike-range the dragon belched a searing blast of flame. It overwhelmed him, raging across his plate armour, worming its way into every joint and crevice. He staggered on for a few more paces, blinded by the heat, hoping to land at least one blow before his strength gave out.

The heat suddenly ebbed. Grondil reeled, trying to squint through the pain, to somehow get into position for a swipe.

But the dragon had taken flight again, hovering just a few yards above the wreckage of Grondil’s company. The downdraft of its huge wings was acrid and gore-flecked. For a moment longer Grondil stayed on his feet. He dimly heard shouts of alarm, of retreat. Somewhere close by, something exploded with a dull boom — a siege engine, perhaps.

The beast loomed over him, magnificent and terrible, out of reach of his warhammer, impervious to anything he could throw at it. Blood sluiced down Grondil’s armour. Delayed by shock, he felt the onset of the burns he’d taken, waves of pain that swelled across his whole body. Then, as if as an afterthought, the dragon turned in the air, switching back sinuously, its tail sweeping round in a casual arc. The heavy end-spine caught Grondil square in the chest, hurling him back through the air, driving his breastplate in and crushing the ribs beneath.

Grondil thudded back to earth twenty paces distant, sliding on his back, his spine arched in pain. Through blood-wet eyes he saw the dragon climb higher into the air, its body a dazzling mottle-pattern of crimson and gold. It snaked higher, graceful and unconcerned, its rider already searching for fresh prey.

Grondil felt oblivion creep up on him. His limbs went cold. He couldn’t lift his hammer. The whirl of battle around him became muffled, as if underwater. He kept his eyes fixed on the heavens, trying not to slip away too soon.

He would have raged then, if he had been able. Not against his own death, which meant little to him, but for what the dragon had done to the army about him.

Grungni’s beard, he thought, aghast at the cold realisation even as his mind slipped into darkness. We cannot beat them.

Morgrim watched the dragons with a slow and growing sense of awe. He had witnessed such creatures before, of course. He had even come close to riding one — the very sapphire monster that was currently ripping his armies into shreds — but he had never seen one unshackled in battle. Only his ancestors in the days of glory, back when Malekith had fought alongside Snorri Whitebeard, would have witnessed such terrible carnage.

He stood grimly amid his faltering legions, resting on his axe, staring fixedly at the bloodshed.

‘We cannot hold them!’ cried one of his thanes — he did not even notice which one. Warriors were hurrying into position all around him, reserves suddenly pressed into action and charging out across the battlefield. He heard the bellows of captains exhorting their troops to move faster, to fight harder, to bring the damned drakk down.

None of them, not one, considered falling back. Faced with a terror greater than any living dwarf had faced, they just kept advancing, hurling themselves into the fiery maw of it with death-oaths spilling from their lips.

We never learn.

Morek limped up to him out of the darkness. The runelord’s grey beard was flecked with ash and blood, his staff leaking a thick dirty smoke.

‘The drakk…’ he began, his gnarled face wide with shock.

Morgrim nodded. ‘I can see, rhunki. I can see it all.’

Out across the far side of the raging battle, the elgi had pushed out of their citadel, emerging in strength from the breaches his own war engines had carved into the outer walls. Their infantry were formidable enough — well-organised squares of mail-clad spearmen supported by cavalry squadrons that moved steadily across the ceded ground. On their own such soldiers would have been a worthy test.

But the dragons… they were something else. Morgrim stayed where he was, saying nothing, in silent awe of their supremacy, their matchless arrogance, their contempt.

Some madness had taken hold of them. They crashed to earth in flailing whirls of claws and tails, crushing everything beneath them, before launching back into the skies with broken bodies trailing in their wake. They smashed siege engines apart. They belched gobbets of coruscation that melted all but the gromril masks of his best equipped elite. Bolts fell harmlessly from their armour. No axe or blade seemed to bite. Those that stood up to them died and, since no dwarf ever ran from danger, that meant whole regiments were wiped out with horrifying speed.

As the sun finally met the western horizon, casting crimson rays across the fields of death and sending long barred shadows streaking out from the base of the towers, the dragons still glittered like jewelled spears, their scales flashing vividly like the coloured glass in the shrine of Grungni.

He remembered Imladrik telling him of the Star Dragons. Morgrim had scoffed at the description.

‘We know how to kill drakk,’ he had said.

Imladrik had laughed. Back then, they had often laughed together. ‘Even daemons struggle to live against a Star Dragon,’ he had replied. ‘On this occasion, my friend, you do not know of what you speak.’

I did not. Truly, I did not.

The runesmiths were struggling as they attempted to drag up rune-wards that would do something to halt the dragons’ rampage, the elgi mages in the city were freed up to send their own magics whirling and bursting into the shattered dawi formations. Everything had been overhauled, turning with agonising swiftness from the long grind of a city siege into the sudden slaughter of a rout.

‘We cannot fight this,’ said Morgrim quietly. With every second that passed more of his host was being hammered into the ground. He could smell the blood on the air, thick as woodsmoke.

‘There must be a way,’ Morek insisted, still breathing heavily from whatever summoning he had been attempting. His staff looked as if it had been retrieved from a magma-pit; even Morgrim could see that the power had been burned away from it.

‘There will be a way,’ agreed Morgrim. ‘But not this day.’

Morek looked at him doubtfully. ‘The thanes will not retreat.’

‘They will, because I will order them to.’ As he spoke, Morgrim felt a sense of resolution he had never felt before, not even after Snorri’s death. The bloodshed inflicted by the asur was so outrageous, so wild, performed with such abandon that he could scarcely believe he had once entertained notions of making peace with them. Under their veneer of superiority they were as bloodthirsty as any lurking creature of the mountains. They were animals.

Morgrim drew his axe and held the blade up before him. It reflected the gold dusk-light dully, picking out the intricate knotwork on the metal. He pointed it up at the distant figure of the sapphire dragon, still tearing across the battlefield and lashing tongues of flame down on the warriors beneath its massive span.

‘I curse you,’ he cried, his voice as withering as gall. ‘I curse you in the name of immortal Grimnir and the spilled blood of my people. By my blade, I shall find you. By my blade, I shall hunt you down and I shall end you. This is my oath, made in the name of my cousin, made in the name of vengeance, which shall bind us both until death finds us.’

Morgrim’s arm shook as he spoke, not from weakness but from fervour. His battle-axe whispered its own response — a sibilant yes, barely audible over the clamour of the field. The runes glowed angrily, throbbing from the steel like torchlight. Morek watched, awe-struck.

‘It is alive,’ he said, staring at the blade. ‘You have awakened it.’

Morgrim felt the truth of that. The dragons had kindled something, unlocked something. He remembered Ranuld’s prophecy, the mumbled words under the mountain. He could feel Azdrakghar humming between his fingers.

The battle was already lost, ripped from his fingers by the arrival of the dragons, but other battles would come. The dawi would learn, growing stronger and more deadly even as the elgi crowed over their reckless slaughter.

‘Do what you can to shield the fighters,’ he said coldly. ‘We will retreat — for now. Vengeance will come.’

Even as he said it, the word struck him as absurd. How many causes for vengeance had there already been in this messy, dirty war? How many more would come before the end, piling on one another in an overlapping maze of grudges and resentments?

It mattered not. For the present, all that mattered was keeping what remained of his forces intact, preserving them and holding them together. Then the counsels would begin, the recriminations, the renewed oaths. All of them would home on to one thing, and one thing only.

How do we kill the dragons?

Morek hesitated a moment longer, loath to be part of anything but pure defiance. To fall back, even temporarily, was anathema. Eventually, though, even he bowed his grizzled head.

‘It will be done,’ he said.

By then, Morgrim was no longer listening. He had turned his mournful gaze back over the battlefield. It was rapidly turning into a charnel-pit.

We will learn, vowed Morgrim, watching the blistering attack runs of the sapphire drake and marvelling at its unmatched destruction. We will learn, and then we will come back.

He felt the axe shiver in his fist.

This is not the end.

Imladrik had no idea how much time had passed. Hours seemed to go by in which he had no awareness of anything at all, though they might well have been mere moments amid the combat. Everything melded into a blur, a long smear of violence. His vision was ringed with black, filmy with the blood that had splashed into his face and across his helm. All he heard was the rush and roar of the dragon, the mighty wall of noise that thrummed and raged in his ears.

The sun had gone. Flying through the flamelit dark was like flying through the recesses of a dream. Brilliant explosions of dragonfire and magelight briefly exposed a desolate waste of mud, bone and broken weapons. Tattered standards flew from splintered poles, bearing the images of mountain holds. Every so often Draukhain would spy a living soul and go after it, bearing down like a falcon pouncing on a hare.

The core regiments had gone. They had been smashed open, first by the dragons and then by the vengeful spear battalions that had emerged in their wake. The battlefield had been thinned out, harrowed, flensed.

He remembered the screams. Hearing dwarfs scream had been a strange experience — it took a lot to make a son of the earth open his throat and give away his agony.

All of them had fought. He had admired the hardened units in the centre of the advance on the gate — they had resisted for the longest, striding towards him with utter fearlessness as he glided in for the kill. Their thick plate armour had given them some protection from dragonfire and their blunt warhammers and mauls had been able to crack with some force into the hides of the ravening drakes.

He didn’t remember how long it had taken to kill them all. The whole recollection was little more than a mix of blind wrath and delirium. Draukhain had raked into them again and again, tearing up the ground beneath their feet and shaking them in his jaws like a dog with its quarry. Imladrik had been a part of that, guiding him, fuelling his rage, amplifying the annihilation.

At some point the war-horns had sounded again, marking the retreat. That didn’t stop the killing. The dragons raced after the withdrawing columns, harrying them, picking off the outliers and tearing them to pieces in mid-air. The dwarfs never turned their backs. They left the field in good order, facing the enemy the whole time, stumbling backwards over terrain made treacherous by blood-slicks. They left behind huge baggage trains, each composed of dozens of heavily laden wains and upturned carts. When the dragons got in amongst the ale-barrels, the night was lit up with fresh explosions and racing channels of quick-burning fire.

Only when they reached the cover of the trees did the worst of the slaughter break off. The dragons wheeled up and around again, hunting down those still out in the open. The asur infantry, seeing the assault begin to ebb, established positions out on the plain, unwilling to break formation by pursuing the dawi into the shadows of the forest.

It was then, slowly, that Imladrik began to recover his equilibrium. He felt the swell and dip of the mighty muscles beneath him and smelled the smoky copper stench of his mount. He saw the stars spin above him and the gore-sodden earth stretch away below. For the first time since the kill-lust had taken him, he truly took in the scale of the destruction.

He allowed Draukhain to carry him across the face of the plain. They flew in silence, the roars and battle-cries stilled.

He could not count the dead. Thousands lay in the mire, spines broken and armour cracked. They stretched from the walls right up to the eaves of the trees, half-buried in muck and slowly cooling gore.

Draukhain still flew strongly. His spirit burned hot. A palpable sense of satisfaction emanated from his blood-streaked body.

Imladrik said nothing. His heart was still beating far faster than usual. His breathing was shallow and rapid. His palms were scorched even through his gauntlets and his sword still glowed red.

The dragon did not slow until they reached the walls again. He flew low over the asur on the plain, who whooped and saluted as they soared overhead, before rising up towards the Tower of Winds.

No, sang Imladrik, his first words since giving the order to unleash the drakes. The walls.

Draukhain understood, and banked steeply, heading back towards the breach where he had first sensed Thoriol. In a few moments he had found the spot again and hovered over it. Menials were already at work clearing the bodies from the stonework, labouring under the light of torches brought up from the lower city.

Imladrik guided Draukhain to the breach. The parapets were almost clear; only a few sentries from the archer companies remained, and they cowered in the dragon’s shadow, awe-struck.

‘Where are the archers who were stationed here?’ demanded Imladrik, finding it strange to hear his mortal voice out loud again. His throat was raw and painful.

One of the sentries, shading his eyes against the fiery presence above him, stammered a response.

‘Th-they withdrew to the healing house. With the others.’

‘Their wounded?’

‘They took them. The captain died. Two others died.’

‘Who lived?’

‘Loeth did, lord, and the Silent, and-’

‘The who?’

‘Thoriol, the Silent, lord.’

A desperate hope kindled. ‘Go to the healing house now. Find the captain of the guard and tell him to place a watch on it. Tell him that Imladrik orders it, and will be with him soon.’

The sentry bowed, and fled.

Then Draukhain rose up once more, spiralling higher, his tail curling around the charred and semi-ruined spires.

Where now? the dragon asked.

Imladrik drew in a long, weary breath. He felt sick. He saw Yethanial’s face before his mind, calm and grey. Then he saw Liandra’s, the polar opposite. He wanted to be furious with her still, but sheer exhaustion got the better of him.

The Tower of Winds, he sang gloomily.

He knew why such torpor affected him: it was always the same after the brief releases of power. Every action had its price, and losing control exacted a heavy burden.

Draukhain thrust upwards, his flight as effortless as ever. The dragon could have flown for days and never grown weary. He was a force of nature, a shard of the world’s energy captured and given form; for such as him a night’s carnage was of little consequence.

You have done what they asked of you, Draukhain sang, in a rare concession to Imladrik’s disquiet. This is the end. We shall hunt them all the way back to their caves now.

Imladrik laughed hollowly. Ah, great one. No, this is not the end. This is just the start.

Draukhain’s long neck swung to and fro in a gesture uncannily like a mortal shaking his head. You will never be satisfied.

No, probably not.

They reached the open platform just below the tower’s topmost pinnacle. Salendor was there, as were Aelis, Gelthar and many other mages. The spellcasters looked on the edge of collapsing. A raw aroma of aethyric discharge hung on the air like snuffed candles.

Salendor was the first to salute Imladrik. He looked genuinely impressed, his hard expression softening into something close to relieved remorse.

‘Hail, lord! You did as you promised.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You become the dragon, the dragon becomes you.

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