Northern Storm

Chapter Twenty

Do you suppose it’ll still be here when we get back?’ Risala looked up from the anchor she was resolutely digging into the ground.

Satisfied that the rope he was tying around a sturdy knot tree was secure, Kheda shrugged. ‘That depends on how much of the violence Velindre can draw out of this storm with her magic’ The winds were whipping up spray from the sea to mingle with the rain dampening Kheda’s sturdy brown tunic. Is it an omen that the storm we need has arisen in a mere natter of days? Or just to be expected, given the season and the latitude?

‘Did you hear that?’ Dev was up on the Reteul’s deck. The boat was bobbing madly in the narrow tree-choked inlet he had finally grudgingly accepted as an anchorage. He froze in the act of nailing a batten across the hatch to the hold.

‘The dragon?’ Kheda looked up at the cloud-covered sky, mouth half-open.

‘What?’ The bald wizard spared him a brief glance. No, Velle, I was talking to you. I’m relying on you to draw this storm’s teeth. You keep it from wrecking my boat.’

The magewoman was standing a little distance away, face turned into the accelerating wind driving white-crested waves to crash all along the muddy shore. The larger billows were forcing their way up the inlet to wedge the Reteul still further into the clinging thicket of knot trees. ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said absently.

‘Do we have any more ropes?’ Kheda surveyed the ungainly lattice tying the boat to the shore. He shook his head. ‘This is madness, Dev. The boat’s still right in the path of the fiercest storm of the season so far.’ Dev stood up on the deck. ‘The shorter ropes will save it from being smashed against the shore by the first winds and when they snap, the longer ones will hold it as it rides the surging seas.’

‘What if they don’t?’ Risala demanded. ‘Where will the Reteul be when the storm passes?’

‘What will it be?’ Kheda muttered under his breath.

‘Kindling?

Where will any of us be? Isn’t this whole voyage madness? You’ve failed in your suborning of magic to defeat this dragon so far. All these wizards’ theories have been proved wrong. Why are you trusting them now? Do you honestly believe they know what they’re doing this time?

He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of one hand.

What else can I do? I will not return to face the people of Chazen with the news that there is no way to kill this dragon. If I do, we might as well all take to our boats and flee to cast ourselves on the dubious mercy of the neighbouring domains.

I cannot go back. We can only go forward. I can only follow this path.

‘We need to get inland before the storm comes any closer,’ he shouted above the rising skirl of the wind. ‘Bring your swords, Dev. There may be hogs or water ox in the forest. They’ll be even more inclined to fight than usual if they’re fleeing the storm.’ He looked at Risala. ‘Keep your eyes open, and stay close to me.

‘Always.’ She smiled faintly. ‘At least the storm’s blown away that foul humidity, and the sweat flies.’ Dev jumped ashore and grinned at Kheda as he handed over the warlord’s twin scabbarded blades. ‘If you manage to lose this boat for me, I’ll take the price of a new one out of the dragon’s hoard.’

‘Those are Chazen gems,’ Risala retorted.

‘Stolen by wild men?’ Dev queried, dark eyes wide in pretended surprise. ‘Hoarded by a dragon? Surely Chazen has no use for jewels so tainted with ill luck and enchantment?’

‘Enough.’ Kheda thrust his swords securely through his doubled belt and pointed towards a narrow game trail. ‘Get into the trees. Velindre!’

The blonde magewoman hurried across the shore as fat drops of rain thudded on the ground. ‘The heart of the storm’s nearly here.’

‘I know,’ said Kheda curtly.

‘How?’ Velindre slowed as the tangled knot trees blunted the knife edge of the wind. ‘How did you know today, of all days, was going to bring such a tempest? The skies have been clear for the last few days, the seas calm.’

‘As they so often are before a run of wild weather. How did I know it would come today?’ Kheda checked to be sure Dev wasn’t getting too far ahead before explaining. ‘The pattern of the tide told me that this morning. As for knowing it’s nearly here, well, just listen.’

They stood motionless as the knot trees rocked around them, muting the sound of the surf crashing against the shore. Contorted grey branches rasped across one another, the slap and rattle of their stubby fleshy leaves quite unlike the rushing turmoil of the ironwoods and tandra trees growing inland where the salt water never encroached, no matter how high the seas rose. Gouts of rain came and went, the abrupt showers mere playthings of the winds.

Velindre shook her head. ‘What am I listening for?’

‘What you’re not hearing.’ Kheda walked along the path, Risala at his heels. ‘The loals weren’t singing at dawn but the mean lizards have been fighting among themselves all morning.’ He quickened his pace to catch up with Dev. Now they’ve gone quiet as well. And no birds sing.’

‘Every fisherman and islander knows how to read these signs,’ Risala added. ‘They’ll all be ashore and sheltering in steep, deep valleys or hidden caves.’

‘Let’s hope that’s fortuitous,’ Kheda agreed. No one will see the dragon killed with magic, if we finally manage to slay this cursed beast.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ murmured Risala. Do you mean you hope we slay the beast or that you hope we do it undiscovered in the act of suborning magic? Or both? It’s much the same, isn’t it?

With the tall trees all around, the path was sheltered from the worst of the rain now pouring down steadily, heavily. Kheda could smell the moisture running down the grooved trunks of the ironwoods, channelled along the kinked fronds of the tandra-tree leaves. For the moment, the rain was sinking into the damp leaf litter and the thirsty seeds. It wouldn’t be long before the torrents falling from the sky would overwhelm the sodden earth and seek their own course across the cluttered forest floor. Then this hollowed path would become a stream, the bare earth underfoot slick and treacherous. Kheda increased his pace.

Velindre was pressing close behind the two of them. ‘All these signs and portents to do with the weather, are they all recorded?’

‘Of course.’ The wizard woman’s ignorance astounded Kheda. ‘How else can we reach for the future with one hand if we don’t hold fast to the past with the other?’

‘How far back do these records go?’ The blonde woman in her creased zamorin clothes strode along with him. ‘And these changes in the tides and the ways the birds and animals behave, they would be portents of what you call the earthly compass? It’s just the heavenly compass that’s stargazing?’

‘Ignorant superstition, you mean?’ Kheda stopped so suddenly that Risala bumped into him and Velindre had to pull herself up short. ‘Dev explained all your northern attitudes to our lore. Have you realised yet just why we hold your magic in such contempt? Did your reading on your voyage explain that?’ His anger rose with a recklessness to equal the storm winds shaking the trees all around. ‘You know nothing of the world that surrounds you and you care still less. How can you northerners hope to choose the best path for your future when you are so wilfully ignorant of the signs laid out all around you? You wizards are still worse, heedless of the violence your magic does to the natural order of things. You twist the very fabric of the seas and the skies and the land to suit your own whims, never mind that you are corrupting and destroying everything that the past has written into the present to guide you.’

‘What are you arguing about now?’ Dev had stopped where a scatter of boulders had rolled down from some hidden crag and held back the ironwoods and lilla trees to leave an irregular clearing. Nothing,’ retorted Velindre, indignation darkening the tan on her cheekbones.

Risala looked past Kheda to the barbarian mage. ‘How close are we to the dragon’s lair?’ Dev jerked his head along the trail. Not far.’

‘Good. We don’t have time to waste.’ Velindre squinted up at the sky where racing squalls of darker hue were banding the pewter grey that had hung over them since morning. Not if I’m to raise a cloud dragon from the height of this storm.’

She pushed past Kheda and strode along the path, her cotton-clad legs long and lithe. Dev hastened to stay ahead of her. Risala walked close to Kheda. He kept a wary eye on the forest all around. Lilla trees creaked ominously, torn leaves whipped away before they could fall to the ground. Whole sprays heavy enough to defy the winds came tumbling along the path to whip around their ankles before being snatched by a gust and tossed into the undergrowth. The wind chilled Kheda and the rain soaked them both to the skin, even in the shelter of the trees. The sky overhead rapidly darkened to the colour of twilight. Kheda kept one hand on a sword hilt, straining his ears to try to pick out any hint of a maddened animal above the sounds of the storm-tossed forest. Are you reading the signs aright? The signs of the tempest, certainly. Those are unmistakable. What of the higher portents? What of the heavenly compass and the stars that have been hidden by cloud every night since that first failure to rid the domain of this beast? But the stars are still there, even if we cannot see them. The heavenly jewels continue their dance around the heavenly compass.

The Sea Serpent has just moved to the arc of marriage where the Diamond that is the warlord’s talisman rides. I have no idea what to make of that. But the Pearl is directly across the compass, where the Sailfish swims in the arc of life. That should be a good omen, as the Sailfish rise to greet the moon and fishermen catch the weightiest females just as it wanes.

The Greater Moon is in the next reach of the sky, where we look for portents of wealth and material success, and there’s the Hoe, promising rewards to those who strive for land and family. In the furthest reaches of the sky, the Sapphire rides there as well, unmoving for year after year. Does that promise daylight and clarity in such a conjunction? According to these wizards, the Sapphire is the gem of the cloud dragon. Could it be possible that the heavens are showing me that this abomination will lead us to success?

What of the Ruby, if that’s the gem of this fire dragon, this true creature of wild elemental magic? That still rides in the arc of travel, hardly a surprise given that the creature had to come from somewhere. What has the Horned Fish to do with the beast? That’s a strange creature, warm-blooded and suckling its young in the midst of the cold ocean. Does that show me the dragon has travelled out of its allotted place in its journey here? Hardly something I need telling. The ivory I found on my own journey, that I carved into a dragon’s tail, that came from a horned fish. What does that mean?

He paused in his speculation to negotiate a fallen tree and kept a wary eye on a stand of towering ironwoods creaking and swaying wildly as they fought with the storm assailing them from all sides. There must be something more to the Ruby since the Amethyst lies straight across the compass, where the Canthira Tree spreads its branches and where portents for those close as blood, be they friends or not, can be found. Amethyst for calm and new ideas, new beginnings, with the Canthira Tree that is the first to recover after fire has devastated a forest, whose seeds do not sprout unless they have been through fire. Is that hope for the future to set against this dragon’s destruction?

The Pearl and the Opal are the talisman gems against dragons. If the moons mark the dragon’s head, what lies at its tail? For the Pearl, it’s the Diamond, along with the Sea Serpent. Is that what I have become? A hidden darkness to bring peril and death?

Death itself lies opposite the Opal, in that reach of the sky where the Net embraces such omens, along with portents of inheritance. But there are no significant stars or jewels in that arc of the sky.

What will any of this mean if one of us has our brains dashed out by a falling branch? That will be a plain enough portent: one of utter disaster.

Kheda abandoned such fruitless speculation as the sound of falling water ahead echoed above the rising clamour of the storm. The two wizards stood where the path ended abruptly at the lip of a deeply carved gorge. The rocks were dark and mossy with the return of the rains and the vivid white foam of the cataract splashed noisily below. Spray drifted up to coat the thick ferns of the gorge’s side in a fine mist. ‘It’s in one of those caves, isn’t it?’ Risala wiped rain from her eyes as she stared at a riven cliff face rising out of the tangle of forest on the far side.

Unbothered by her soaking clothes, Velindre studied the pewter-coloured rock pierced with an array of black caverns. ‘This is a curious place for a fire dragon to choose to lair.’

‘Want to lay a wager on which cave?’ Dev suggested with a hint of malice glistening on his wet face. ‘If you’re feeling confident enough to encroach on my element.’

‘The merest mageborn tied to water and overwhelmed by that waterfall would feel the fire being drawn to this place,’Velindre commented with interest, ‘antipathy in their affinity notwithstanding.’ She looked up at the wind-tossed trees craning over the edge of the gorge, the crease between her brows deepening as she considered this new puzzle.

‘Is the dragon in the cave?’ Risala asked apprehensively beside Kheda. The warlord put his hand on his sword hilt.

And just what use is a blade going to be?

No, but it can get here in the blink of an eye if it wants to.’ Dev grinned. ‘And it’ll want to, once I get my hands on its hoard. Grabbing any thing’s stones gets its attention.’ He laughed uproariously at his own joke.

Kheda took the opportunity to quench his thirst from a water skin he had slung over one shoulder and then offered it to Risala. ‘You’re feeling the dragon’s magic, are you, Dev? Like you did before?’

‘What?’ The bald mage looked a little bemused. No, not as such, now that you mention it.’

‘We can’t wait.’ As Velindre spoke, a crack of thunder split the dark clouds overhead. ‘Go on then, Dev. Go and start kicking its stones.’

‘How do we cross the gorge?’ Risala peered into the broken chasm. Mere moments in the open rain had plastered her black hair flat to her head.

Kheda looked downstream. ‘There’s a bridge.’

‘What?’ Velindre broke off from studying the clouds to look. ‘Why?’

‘Who cares?’ Dev was already moving cautiously towards it. ‘It’s what we need.’

Kheda hesitated before following him, ignoring the stinging, chilling rain. ‘These caves would be places for meditation and seeking portents. Velindre, where are you going to work your magic? Can you do it under cover?’

No,’ the magewoman replied shortly. ‘I’ll stay here.’ She stared up at the sky and her blonde, short-cropped hair bristled with faint blue light.

‘Will you stay with her?’ Kheda looked at Risala. ‘I don’t want you with us, if me and Dev bring down this dragon’s wrath on our heads by looting its hoard.’

Risala nodded jerkily. ‘I suppose it’s as safe as anywhere with her.’

Kheda stepped close and took her hand, kissing her softly on one cheek. ‘If the dragon turns on her, knock her out,’ he whispered into her ear. A tendril of her sodden hair was cold against his face. ‘If it has no magic to follow, it may not find her. Then leave her to whatever her own fate may be and save yourself. Someone has to take word back to Itrac if we are lost.’

‘You’ll tell her of your victory yourself.’ Risala twisted to kiss him full on the lips with brief, sweet longing.

‘How you saved Chazen.’

‘Come on!’ yelled Dev, now down at the flimsy bridge. ‘We’ve a lot to do before you two can start celebrating!’

‘Try to find some shelter.’ Kheda tore himself away and went after Dev as fast as he could across the wet and treacherous rocks.

The mage was already testing the narrow bridge, a swaying structure of ropes woven from hairy vines and floored with crudely sliced lengths of hakali bark. ‘Wait,’ Kheda shouted.

‘If I fall, I’ll fly.’ Dev shrugged. ‘We want to bring the dragon here anyway, don’t we?’

‘There are footprints.’ Kheda knelt where smudges in a patch of bare earth had caught his eyes. ‘I’m beginning to wonder who built this bridge. It doesn’t look like Daish work’

‘So it’s Chazen work,’ Dev called, irritated. ‘How would you know it? You’ve never been hunting in these forests, have you?’

The bald mage made his way cautiously across the vertiginous bridge to the narrow ledge of open ground between the gorge and the cliff face with its dark, blank caves.

‘Come on!’ He beckoned to Kheda, yelling above the fury of the storm. ‘If it holds me, it’ll hold you. Are we going to do this or not?’

Kheda hurried across the bridge, feeling it flex and swing beneath his feet. His speed carried him over before his balance deserted him and he staggered to a halt beside Dev. ‘Which cave is it?’

‘Here.’ But Dev was looking back over the chasm rather than at the rock face.

Kheda looked, too, to see Velindre bathed in a nimbus of dark-blue light, a point of blazing sapphire between her two hands. The clouds above swirled into a spiral storm, black and riven with lightning. The whirlwind extended its murderous claw down towards the mage-woman but her magic reached up and seized it, drawing all the might of the turbulent gale into a column of blue brilliance edged with rainbows. ‘She’s really getting the knack of that,’ Dev breathed, his tone a curious mixture of envy and admiration. ‘She better had show me the trick of it when we’re done here.’

‘Then let’s get done here,’ snapped Kheda. ‘Which cave?’

‘This one.’ Dev disappeared into a sloping angular entrance.

Kheda followed, and within fewer steps than he had anticipated, the sound and fury of the storm outside were a muted memory. The cave floor was dusty and hard underfoot, smudged with wet footprints. The walls of the tapering cleft disappeared over his head into a black crack that didn’t even offer the reassurance of solidity. He ducked instinctively. He could smell dry stone and damp cotton as his wet clothes seemed to press in on him like the enfolding walls.

Turning a corner into darkness, Dev raised a hand full of bright magelight and Kheda followed to see a cavern opening outwards on either hand. The walls were ancient ripples of water-carved rock, with rounded corners opening on to further passages that sank away into unseen depths. On one side a tunnel entrance raised up higher than Kheda’s head had broken through to throw down a shattered scree. The roof was a black mystery high above, strung with pale curtains of living rock painted with muted blues and browns. Spines rose up to meet them, trailing curious patterns across the undulating floor and casting impenetrable, sharp-edged shadows.

It wasn’t just Dev’s magelight showing them this scene. In the middle of the cavern, a fiery glow burned on a bed of sparkling jewels, drifts of sapphire, emerald, diamond and even amber, so rarely found in the Archipelago. Red-gold and radiant, a single rounded ruby of unimaginable size shone in the centre, lit from within with fiery magic and filling the cave with uncanny, brassy light. The air was warm, Kheda realised, and it would be warmer still close to the dragon’s creation.

How did the beast meld all those gems together into that?

Why did it do that?

‘That’s . . Kheda stumbled over the unfamiliar notion. ‘Is that what the dragon is using to focus its magic?’

‘Yes,’ Dev said softly. He stood, his hand upraised. The mageborn flame in his palm was lengthening, thinning, drawn through the air towards the great jewel until it narrowed to invisibility. ‘And guess what else?’ He laughed. ‘It’s an egg. Well I never. I wonder if Velindre knows this, or Azazir.’

‘What?’ Even as Kheda sought to deny the notion, he looked again and saw that Dev was right. The ruby sphere was unmistakably flattened and tapered as if some bird or lizard had laid it. The glow at its heart was the same living flame that burned in the fire dragon’s eyes. He even thought he could see a miniature dragon outlined within it. Then he blinked and the image was gone, only a memory smudged across his vision

‘Then we have to smash it before it hatches.’ His mind still reeling at the impossibility of all this, Kheda looked around the vast cave. There was no sign of daylight penetrating the surrounding darkness to indicate any other entrance. An odd thought occurred to him. ‘How did a dragon that size get in here?’ As he glanced back at the narrow passage to be quite sure it was too small for the beast, movement caught his eye. Dev!’

The warlord barely had time to draw his swords before the wild man was on him. As it was, Kheda’s backward step betrayed him as he tripped on some stony ridge. The wild man swung a stone-studded club at his head and Kheda barely drove the blow aside before he fell heavily.

‘Here, you bastard, eat this!’ Dev threw a blazing handful of fire at the savage. The flame flared scarlet and scorched through the air like an arrow. It didn’t reach the painted wild man, however, veering wildly awry to arc back across the cave and disappear into the shimmering light surrounding the ruby egg instead.

‘Piss on that!’

As Dev cursed behind him, Kheda tried to scramble to his feet, but the savage swung his club again, knocking the warlord’s leading sword out of his hand and numbing his fingers. The blade went skittering away to be lost in shadow.

‘What are you, some wizard? Then come and fight a real mage!’ Dev’s belligerent shouts didn’t distract the savage, intent on aiming another crushing swing at Kheda’s head. The mage’s hurled dagger had more success, slicing through the air to strike the wild man a glancing blow on one painted shoulder. The invader glared at the wizard, bellowing some incomprehensible challenge that echoed around the uneven walls.

Kheda seized the opportunity to regain his footing, drawing his dagger from his belt as he did so, wincing as his hand ached viciously.

Not as good as two swords but better than one empty hand. I’d rather have the sword in my leading hand, with the dagger us backup. Armour mould be better yet but at least I have blades and this invader is still naked. Let’s see how he bleeds.

He feinted at the wild man, who dodged backwards with another swing of his stone-studded club in an attempt to knock Kheda’s weapon aside. He was dressed like every other savage the warlord had seen, in a worn leather loincloth. His bare legs and body were painted with red-ochre flames, the designs clear against his dark skin in the bright golden light filling the cave. More russet mud caked his bristly black hair

Kheda moved carefully from side to side and watched the wild man’s black eyes track his every move with feral intelligence. ‘Dev, is this some savage wizard?’ he asked conversationally. ‘Can you tell if he has anyone backing him up?’

Not that I can see,’ answered the wizard with vicious satisfaction. ‘And he’s no mage. He must just be in thrall to the dragon or serving it somehow.’

‘We’ll have to kill him to get to that egg.’ Kheda surprised the savage with a rapid thrust. The wild man recoiled before recovering an instant later to threaten Kheda with a crunching blow to his leading leg. Kheda evaded the strike with a sideways step, his shadow sprawling across a ridged wall of flowing stone. The wild man would have sidestepped with him but the barrier foiled him. Kheda dodged the other way and as he passed in front of the wild man, his shadow darkened his enemy’s face for an instant. A roar from outside made the whole cave tremble, stones tumbling down the scree in panic. The very air seemed to pulse with the sound. Crimson fire erupted behind Kheda and the brilliance filling the cave flared once more. Wild man and warlord alike flinched away from each other as their eyes closed irresistibly under the blinding assault.

‘I can’t reach him with any spells,’ spat Dev furiously.

‘The ruby devours all the magic’

‘Don’t try,’ Kheda snapped as he blinked through tears of pain. ‘Get between him and the light instead.’ What?’

The wild man attacked before Kheda could explain, swinging his brutal club in a frenzy. Kheda ducked and dodged and slashed with his sword, leaving the savage’s arms bleeding from an array of deep cuts. The wounds didn’t seem to slow the wild man. He kept on coming, pressing Kheda ever harder as every new bellow of fury from outside seemed to goad him on.

‘Dev! Smash that gem!’ The warlord hacked at his foe with a flurry of strokes born more of fearful rage than swordsmanship. His dagger hovered ready, waiting for any chance to launch a fatal thrust. The savage landed a crushing blow on Kheda’s shoulder, the warlord barely managing to turn to lessen the impact. His whole ann went numb for a moment and the sword almost slipped from his nerveless fingers. The savage stepped forward, raising his club above his shoulder to bring it smashing down on Kheda’s unprotected head.

‘Hey! You with the shit in your hair!’ One of Dev’s swords came spinning through the air to slap against the wild man’s chest. The flat of the blade didn’t even break the skin and the blow barely gave him pause before the sword clattered to the floor. The savage switched his gaze from Kheda to Dev for an instant, lip curled in a sneer.

As he did so, the mage dodged to one side, letting the full glare of the ruby egg’s magical fire fall on the wild man’s face. He flinched and blinked and Kheda thrust his dagger deep into his naked midriff. The wild man fell against him, dropping his club to fasten his strong hands around Kheda’s neck. They fell backwards, locked in a deadly embrace. Kheda landed hard on the ridged floor, back and ribs agonisingly bruised. He fought with the dagger still embedded in the wild man’s entrails, struggling to rip the blade sideways for a killing stroke. The savage’s fingers tightened around his throat and Kheda forced his jaw down into his chest, hunching his shoulders, fighting to save himself from strangulation. As it was, he was being rapidly throttled, the breath crushed in his windpipe.

With a last effort as his vision blunted, Kheda threw the savage away with a twist of his hips. An insignificant gap opened between them and he managed to tear the dagger blade across the wild man’s belly. Blood and entrails flowed out of the gash to smother his hands. The savage collapsed across him with an incoherent gasp, rank breath foul in his face.

Kheda struggled uselessly for a moment, throwing his head from side to side to get free of the dead man’s clinging fingers. Dev!’ he yelled hoarsely.

The wizard neither answered nor came to his aid. Kheda drew a deep breath and heaved the wild man’s corpse off himself. Wincing at his bruises, he staggered to his feet, breathless, looking as if he had been the one disembowelled with the blood and foulness on his midriff. The cavern reverberated at another deafening roar from outside.

‘Best keep clear,’ Dev called over his shoulder as the final echoes of fury ran away to be lost in the labyrinth of stone.

The mage scuffed his bare feet through the drifts of gemstones, brushing them aside as he approached the brilliant ruby egg. He would have been hard pressed to encircle it with his arms. The golden flame burned in its scarlet heart, white hot at its incandescent centre. Kheda hesitated and stayed where he was. This is wizard’s work, so leave him to it. What could you possibly do to help anyway?

Dev rubbed a hand thoughtfully over his bald head, beams of sweat glistening like the diamonds scorned beneath his feet. Slowly he drew his remaining sword and extended his arm back and sideways. With sudden violence, he brought the blade up and around in a flashing arc to smash down into the top of the egg. The steel exploded into a shower of burning splinters that ripped through the air to bury themselves in the stone walls all around.

Kheda had ducked away as soon as Dev launched the strike. Hiding his face in his forearms, he winced at the sting of a handful of vicious slivers biting deep into his back and shoulder. He looked up cautiously. ‘Dev?’

The wizard was staring over towards the black hole that had been their way into the cave. His tunic was bloody, torn in countless places. Sparks of steel shone in the wounds to his hands and face. He didn’t seem to notice.

‘This really could all go horribly wrong,’ he remarked conversationally. Looking back at the egg, slowly, painfully, he knelt beside it and rested his cheek gently against its shining shell. His dark eyes glowed with reflected red fire and his mouth curved in a slow smile of ecstasy. He laid one hand palm down against the curved surface of the egg and, turning the other over, he cupped his palm and summoned a frail scarlet flame.

‘Dev.’ Kheda’s voice was puzzled, pleading, even though he had no notion what to say or ask of the wizard. He shivered as a sudden chill shook him, gooseflesh raised on his bloody arms. His bruises and lacerations ached viciously and his damp and foul clothes clung coldly to his shrinking flesh. The flame in Dev’s hand burned taller and brighter and the light filling the cavern turned to an ominous scarlet. The golden flame within the egg glowed more fiercely, writhing and twisting. Dev’s flame spilled over the edges of his hand and flowed across the egg, dimming that inner radiance. The scarlet fire ran around the mage’s face, still pressed to the surface of the ruby, and down the sides of the egg to pool around the wizard’s knees. His dagger was melting in its scabbard, drops of metal burning their way through the wood and leather. Stray diamonds and sapphires cracked and shattered where the burning magic touched them. Dev didn’t react. His eyes were open but fixed, as if he stared into some unimaginable distance. Scarlet fire burned in his pupils and the rapturous smile on his face widened. Kheda shivered. All around the chill was deepening, biting deep into his bones. Ahead, the egg burned with a ferocity that he could feel drying his lips and eyes, scorching his exposed skin. He tried to take a step backwards but could not do it.

I cannot leave him. I must see this through. The golden flame was filling the egg now, expanding from its white heart. Dev’s scarlet fire was still pouring from his hand, coating the ruby, stifling the incandescence within.

‘Dev!’ Kheda took a pace forward and the scarlet fire flared, heat striking him like a physical blow. He winced and stepped back, rubbing at tears provoked by the piercing light. He squinted painfully and saw a horror that froze the breath beneath his breastbone.

Dev’s hand was burning: not merely holding the blood-red magic, but being consumed by it. The skin of his palm was gone, revealing the white bones beneath. As Kheda watched, his hand became a skeletal lattice wrapped in scarlet flame. The skin of his wrist began to peel back, tendons shrivelling to nothing, fibrous muscle laid bare, glistening, before the creeping tide of magic devoured it to leave blood-smeared ivory. The twin bones of his forearm were revealed, finger-width by finger-width.

It’s like some nightmare of ulcerating rot in a wound. Can I save him, if I can get to him? If I cut off the arm before it devours the rest of him? At the elbow? At the shoulder?

Kheda stepped forward again but the heat was a physical bather now. Bathed in ruby light, his hands and face ached ferociously. Try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to force his way any closer through the excruciating pain. In the shadows behind him, his back was colder than he had ever known, knotted with fierce pain to counterbalance the searing agony before him.

Is this all I can do? Just watch?

Dev still smiled with that beatific stillness. Where his face was laid against the surface of the egg, the skin had burned away and the flesh beneath with it, his jaw and teeth exposed in a deathly rictus. The fiery glow spread, consuming his weather-beaten cheek and his thin lips, peeling back his eyelids to expose the socket beneath. In the hollow of bone, his eye was a ball of sweating flame. His other eye, as yet untouched, glowed ever brighter with scarlet fire.

The fiery gold within the egg pulsed, its brilliance fading with every labouring beat. The flame still flowing from the calcined bones of Dev’s hand darkened to a clotted crimson even as it burned ever more fiercely. The air in the cavern was throbbing and somewhere on the very edge of hearing, a piercing note was building.

Dev drew a long, shuddering breath. The fire had devoured his nose, leaving a ragged pit in the middle of his face, and his mouth was entirely gone. What little remained of his expression was still euphoric but that might just have been the curve of his naked, charring jawbone.

There’s no saving him now.

The wizard spoke, startling Kheda horribly. His voice was no different, no trace of the barbarian in his mocking tone as he spoke, his eloquent Aldabreshin speech unaffected by the grotesque min of his face. ‘I really think you’d better get out of here, my lord.’ His words were slow and languorous and the breath rasped in his throat. As Dev blinked his remaining eye, the burning of the other socket was momentarily quenched. He shuddered like a man trying to hold himself back from the cataclysmic throes of passion. ‘This really doesn’t concern you.’

Never underestimate the wisdom of a dying mans words. With that long-held truth forcing him back, Kheda retreated in what he hoped was the direction of the tunnel out of this inferno. He tripped and stumbled but could not look away from the sight before him. The crimson flame was spreading outwards now, wrapping Dev entirely in its lethal beauty. The mage twisted this way and that as it consumed him with its incomprehensible delights, greedy crackles stifling his groans of ecstasy. Slowly, resolutely, the blackened bones that were all that was left of the hand where this deadly fire had first kindled began to close into a fist.

Kheda saw the fiery gold within the egg crushed to a dull thread writhing at its heart. With every breath, it shortened, halved and halved again. He looked for the way out. There was no way he could reach it before that tarnished light died.

And that’s going to do something horrendous.

He flung himself behind a ridged conglomeration of stone flowed from the cave’s roof and grown from its floor. He buried his face in his hands and drew up his legs like a cowering child.

With a soft sigh, the crimson fire exploded outwards, setting the very air of the cavern ablaze. The whole crag shuddered with the anguished howl ripped from the tormented dragon outside. Stone tapers crashed from the ceiling to smash the ripples of the floor into ruin.

The darkness was total. When Kheda opened his eyes, he could see no difference. He could not see his trembling hand in front of his face. All he could feel was his shaking breath on his scored and bloody palm. His ears were still ringing from the deafening noise. If anything else was going on outside, he couldn’t hear it.

If you can’t see and you can’t hear, you can still feel. You haven’t come this far, at such a cost, to give up now. Move!

He got to his handstand knees and felt shards of stone viciously painful under his tender skin. Slowly, he knelt upright and waited, eyes instinctively closed the better to concentrate, rejecting the darkness all around.

Just a breath of movement in the air, that’s all I ask for. There it is. And a green smell with it, of life and hope, among ill this hideous reek of scorched death. And swords to fight with, if there’s still an enemy out there.

Sheathing his dagger, he fumbled around in the darkness where his sword had fallen, as best as he could tell. He found a blade and won a cut across his thumb for his pains. Clutching the naked sword, he crawled towards that wisp of air promising escape. Carefully, he swept his empty lacerated hand across the mute stone, shuffling to protect his knees. After every few paces, he halted, waiting until his heart was calmer, trying to ignore the dreadful echoes still reverberating in his ears. His head throbbed, the pain somehow worsened by the strengthening scent of normality waiting for him beyond the confines of the cavern.

Finding the wall by grazing his knuckles against it, he clambered awkwardly to his feet. He flattened his free palm against the water-smoothed stone and eased himself along, stubbing his toes here and there against the invisible malice of the floor. Finally, his hand slipped into a void and the fresh scent of the forest outside steadied him as he stumbled. He rounded a corner and light forced its way down the tunnel to draw him on. Kheda blinked and squinted as the light strengthened, stabbing at his eyes. He reeled out of the cave mouth and collapsed against the cliff face, mind and senses in turmoil. The light had seemed so bright but there was no clear sun above him, only the cold grey of the storm clouds he had left behind earlier. The punishing pain in his ears wasn’t merely the echo of the fighting dragons. They were still roaring high in the sky above, tearing at each other in frenzy. Kheda looked up, appalled, despairing.

After all this, after Dev ‘$ death, and such a death, and it still isn’t ended?

The fire dragon was struggling to free itself from its new foe. The cloud dragon Velindre had summoned from the storm was a very different creature from the white innocent she had sent against it before. This was a bigger beast, longer and stronger, vigour in every line of it. Its spines were the dark blue-grey of a rainy season tempest, paling just a little to armour its head in twilight blue. Cloudy white gleamed beneath its jaw and down the front of its neck but back and flanks were armoured with scales the hue of a leaden overcast. Its underbelly was the colour of the dirty foam lashed from the sea by a whirlwind. Its storm-blue legs were thick and muscular, tipped with talons brilliant as lightning as its hind feet ripped at the dull crimson of the fire dragon’s hide. The ruddy beast was held by the cloud dragon’s dark, brutal tail entwined with its own.

Both creatures were grievously wounded, each bleeding from great gashes ripped by teeth, claws and magic along their flanks. They had torn the scales from each other’s breasts, the flesh beneath lacerated bone deep. Bite marks showed plainly in the cloud dragon’s mist-tinted wings, the holes shimmering with rainbow light. The fire dragon had suffered appalling injuries to one of its wings in turn. The membranes between the long, splayed bones had been cut to bloody scarlet ribbons by claws and teeth.

It flapped frantically with its remaining sound wing to save itself from falling, all the while fighting to defend itself. Pulling the stricken creature mercilessly down with its weight, the cloud dragon brushed away its flailing copper foreclaws with contemptuous ease. Every blow of its own that landed sent a burst of blue magic crackling through the fire dragon’s hide, warping and splintering its scales, racking the creature rigid with agony. The cloud dragon’s broad head weaved from side to side on its long, corded neck. It gaped, teeth like crystal knives vicious in its dark blue mouth. Only its eyes were the same as those of the creature that Velindre had first sent against the fire dragon. They shone, living sapphire beneath its bristling brow ridges, as it darted its head forward to tear at the fire dragon’s throat. Ruby blood poured down the red beast’s neck and hissed to steam on the cloud dragon’s dark scales.

The fire dragon’s struggles subsided to no more than token defiance and its feebly flicking tail brushed the tops of the tallest ironwoods. The cloud dragon untwined itself with a convulsive twist and soared upwards with a thunderous sweep of its wings. The fire dragon fell, too exhausted to recover itself. At the cloud dragon’s cry, a spear of lightning shot from the turbulent clouds above to stab deep into the fire dragon’s side. The beast’s back arched in such agony that its lashing tail almost struck its own screaming head.

The red dragon fell to the ground, smashing the forest beneath it as it rolled down the slope, helpless. Trees held it for a moment before breaking under the strain and letting it roll free once more. Its flailing tail swept aside the bushes and clinging vines trailed from the chipped and broken spike. The beast scrabbled at the ground with ungainly claws in a vain effort to slow its rolling tumble. It could not find purchase in the loose soil, merely gouging great furrows in the dark, pungent earth. All along the trail of destruction, the crushed, sodden foliage was ablaze. Birds sprang frantic from their roosts, screeching their tenor. Some escaped but the slowest died in plummeting bursts of flame, devoured by elemental fire. Where’s the wizard woman? Where’s Risala? As Kheda stood, transfixed by fear, the cloud dragon carved a lazy circle in the sky, crowing its triumph. It stooped like a falcon as the red dragon moved, struggling to rise to its feet amid the flames that rushed to succour it. With a shattering hiss the cloud dragon breathed out a cloud of vapour that snuffed the fires, leaving the chanted stumps of the broken trees coated with ice. It circled again and this time a wind rose to follow its bidding, ringing the fire dragon around with splintered branches and ripped-up tree roots, showering the hapless creature with earth and leaf mould. The wind whirled faster and faster, narrowing into a spiral, pulling in broken wood and soil and even rocks from an ever-widening circle. The cloud dragon circled ceaselessly above. Every time it raised its gaping head to the clouds above and roared, a shaft of lightning shot down to pierce the whirlwind

The cloud dragon finally dived towards the dark spiral and lashed at it with its massive tail. The whirlwind disappeared to reveal the fire dragon struggling feebly, battered into submission by windborne missiles. Its hide was dulled with dirt and blood and bruises and it barely had the strength to raise itself into a crouch. All it could do was peer upwards, ruby eyes failing in the gloom as it hissed pathetic defiance at its killer.

The cloud dragon bated its wings and hissed back. Ice fell from the clouds around it—not the rare storm-born hailstones that occasionally offered these islands a puzzling portent, but jagged shards with razor edges raining down. They fell only on the fire dragon, pummelling it to stillness. The rest of the forest was untouched.

Kheda watched. He couldn’t have moved if the murderous ice had been turned on him. Someone has to bear witness. Even if I can never tell anyone what I have seen.

Satisfied, the cloud dragon turned to fly high into the sky, rising higher with every stroke of its wings. As it rose, the clouds parted before it, revealing a clear blue sky. As the creature shrank to a mere outline high above, the storm dissolved into rags of cloud that paled and disappeared faster than any natural change in the weather. The sun shone down, bright and warm. The cataract sparkled merrily, rushing noisily down the gorge.

The fire dragon lay still, the fire in its eyes quenched at last. Steam rose all around it as the ice melted in the wounds torn in its flanks and belly. Dark-red blood, no longer bright with ruby radiance, flowed sluggishly to the ground and stained the forest floor an indelible black.

Kheda watched and waited.

Is it truly dead? How do I make sure? Hunters die every year when some jungle cat or whip lizard turns out not to be quite as dead as it looked. I don’t want to prod that and find it still has life enough to crush me in its death throes.

He moved warily towards the frail vine and hakali-bark bridge, looking all around and holding his remaining sword ready.

Was this bridge that wild man’s work? His and some more of the savages? What will they do now their dragon is slain?

He froze as he saw stealthy movement on the far bank, beyond the ruin wrought by the dragon’s fall. Then indescribable relief flooded through him.

‘Risala!’ His shout sent lira finches fluttering up from the rock face behind him.

She moved out of the shadow of a stubborn ironwood and waved. ‘Where’s Dev?’ she yelled. Kheda shook his head, unable to speak.

Risala looked at him for a moment, then beckoned him on. ‘Over here.’

Kheda took the bridge more slowly this time, stomach quaking at the thought of the yawning chasm below him. He kept his eyes fixed on Risala who looked back, unwavering, her hands held out to him. As soon as he was on solid ground, he ran, slipping on the broken leaves. As he folded her in his fierce embrace, she buried her face in his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Kheda gasped. ‘Ah, careful. I may have cracked a rib.’

‘Is that all?’ Risala looked up, her face smudged with dirt and her black hair tangled with leaves. ‘None of this is your blood?’ She pulled back and grimaced at the gore coating him.

Kheda drew her close again. ‘There was a savage in the cave, guarding the . . .’ He stumbled over the words. ‘The gems that the dragon had gathered. It had made some kind of egg, that was central to its magic somehow.’

‘Is it gone?’ Risala looked up, eyes wide and fearful. Kheda nodded. ‘Dev . . .’ He swallowed hard. ‘Dev destroyed it and it destroyed him.’

‘Oh.’ Risala rested her head against Kheda’s shoulder. He stood still, taking comfort from the warm solidity of her body against his. The careless song of the cascade was joined by a few hesitant chirps of birds seeking and offering reassurance, crookbeaks and chequered fowl and the extravagantly tailed glory-cocks. The zip and churn of the forest’s countless insects resonated softly through the underbrush once again.

This is life, this is reality. This is what I have been fighting for through all this nightmare of the unnatural and the impossible. This is what I want, for me and for Chazen.

The aches in his back and side reminded him of the price he had paid.

Let’s see the final balance settled.

‘Where’s Velindre?’ he asked at last.

‘Over there.’ Nestled in his arms, Risala didn’t stir.

Kheda waited, eyes closed, for a long moment. He sighed. ‘Come on.’

Risala reluctantly pulled herself free and, taking his hand, led him across the blackened scar sliced through the forest. Velindre lay curled like an infant in the shelter of an iron wood’s tall buttress roots. Like Risala, she was filthy from the detritus flung from the periphery of the whirlwind. Rips here and there in her tunic and trousers showed bruises darkening on the pale skin beneath. Her face was buried in her arms, hands clasped around her head, and she shook with silent sobs.

Kheda looked wonderingly at Risala, who could only shrug helplessly in reply. He knelt and laid a careful hand on the magewoman’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right, it’s gone, it’s dead. Where are you hurt? Are you bleeding?’

Velindre shook off his hand with a jerk of her shoulder and snarled something unintelligible into her arms. ‘Where are you hurt?’ Kheda repeated more forcefully.

‘I said I’m not hurt.’ Velindre startled him, pushing herself up from the ground to sit, loose-limbed in her soiled clothes. She scrubbed tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands, leaving dirty smears across her face. ‘Yes, it’s gone but it’s not dead. Don’t ask any magic of me till it is.’ Her voice broke into fresh weeping.

Satisfied at least that she had no obviously life-threatening injuries, Kheda sat back on his heels. ‘The fire dragon, that’s dead, surely?’ he asked carefully.

Velindre nodded, striving for some composure with visible effort.

‘The cloud dragon, that still lives?’ Kheda tried to hide his apprehension. ‘But it cannot last? You said so. It will fade? In a few days?’

‘That’s right.’ Velindre just about had her tears under control now. ‘I brought it here and made it a murderer of its own kind and now it will just sicken and die.’ Her voice was thick with self-loathing. With no notion of any possible consolation to offer, Kheda got to his feet. ‘Then Chazen will finally be free of the creatures.’

‘Then we had better let Chazen know.’ Risala was looking down the shattered slope of the forest. ‘They need to know the beast is truly dead.’

‘And the sooner the better,’ Kheda agreed, joining her to stare at the mined carcass of the fire dragon. ‘Well, they can come and see it with their own eyes, if they feel the need.’

‘Let’s just hope no one sees that cloud dragon in the meantime,’ Risala said tensely

‘We don’t need that complication, not after all the trials we’ve been through to get this far,’ Kheda agreed heavily.

Velindre pushed past them both, tears still slowly running down her dirty face, intent on the massive corpse.

They picked their way carefully down the slope after her. Sudden doubt assailed Kheda as they grew closer. ‘It is dead, isn’t it? Truly dead?’ He gripped the sword he held tighter still and realised with a shock that it was Dev’s blade he had picked up from the cavern floor, not his own.

‘Yes,’ said Velindre tersely.

Kheda studied the dead dragon through the clouds of steam still wreathing it. It was immense, awesome even in death. Its injuries were appalling, seen close to. Splinters of ruby bone poked through the torn flesh of its ruined wings. Other lumps spoke of more broken bones, dark swelling spreading to force scales apart. Savage bites cut through skin and fat, muscle and sinew. Loops of crimson viscera bulged between the lips of a great rent in its golden belly.

‘It smells familiar somehow,’ Risala said with wonder. ‘How can that be?’

Kheda thought for a moment. ‘That bite of quenched fire, it’s like a swordsmith’s forge, isn’t it?’

‘What are you planning to do with it now?’ Velindre challenged.

‘Fire is the ultimate purification,’ Kheda began doubtfully. ‘I don’t like the idea of leaving it here to rot.’

‘You don’t think you can set fire to this, do you?’ The magewoman laughed without humour. ‘It won’t burn, you fool!’

Kheda didn’t answer, seeing the iridescent carapaces of can-ion beetles already hurrying through the leaf litter towards the monstrous corpse. He watched as one reached a black smear of the fallen dragon’s blood. The beetle waved its antennae briskly and accelerated along the glutinous trail.

You thought it would turn up its little legs and die, didn’t you? So the unthinking creatures of the forest will reduce this mighty tenor and spread its substance across this island, across this domain, if you don’t do something about it. Declaring this valley, this whole island, a place of ill omen isn’t going to suffice. But death changes everything, haven’t you always been told that? Is every mention of dragons fraught with ill luck?

He cast his mind back to the endless tomes he had studied during the interminable wait for Risala and Velindre. Dragon teeth and claws are mighty talismans in some poems, aren’t they?’ He looked at Risala. She nodded slowly. ‘And scales and anything made of its hide.’

‘Talismans?’ Velindre looked up from studying the rugged spike at the end of the dragon’s tail. ‘To protect you? That might just work, you know,’ she commented with sour interest. ‘It would certainly give any other true dragon flying this way pause for thought, when it got a sniff of such a powerful rival sliced to ribbons.’

She looked up at the sky, grimacing as she blinked away more tears. No dragon is going to want to meet whatever could do that. They’re not going to know it was all a sham.’

Kheda looked at the green-hued flies buzzing through the air to cluster around the edges of the dead dragon’s wounds.

So the insects are wiser than you. Spreading this creature’s substance through the domain could protect it. Death changes everything. What was once destruction is now a weapon in your hand, a defence.

‘Then let’s flay it and send some token to guard every village.’ Kheda looked dubiously at the mountain of reeking flesh rising before him.

‘That’ll be a long and filthy job,’ said Velindre savagely. ‘If you can find anyone brave enough to risk touching the creature, even now it’s dead.’

‘Then I’ll do it alone,’ Kheda shot back. ‘The blood and sweat and labour might even purify me. The stars above know I owe some mighty penance for bringing down magic on these islands in the first place.’ Even as he quailed at the prospect of such an undertaking, optimism rose in Kheda’s breast. ‘Do you suppose they’ll believe us, without coming to see this for themselves?’ Risala grinned unexpectedly, No one’s seen real dragonhide in time of memory. I think we’ll find people willing to come and lend a hand to win themselves a dragon scale of their very own.’

‘You’ll be keeping its heart for yourself, I take it?’ asked Velindre, an odd note in her voice. ‘I imagine such a ruby would be beyond price.’

‘What’s its nature now that the dragon and Dev are gone?’ Kheda asked her. He looked at Risala. ‘Is it talisman beyond measure or curse beyond bearing?’ Both women shrugged helplessly.

Kheda frowned. ‘That wizard who led the invaders last year, he was wearing a dragonhide cloak, don’t you remember?’

‘The one Dev killed,’ Risala interrupted him. ‘I remember.’

‘So those savages, without blades or even clothes, do you suppose they know how to kill a dragon?’ Kheda wondered.

‘Where is Dev?’ Velindre rounded on Kheda.

A chill ran through him despite the hot sun beating down. ‘He was burned, in the cave,’ he began incoherently.

‘And you left him?’ Velindre shot the warlord a furious glare before hurrying towards the frail bridge. Kheda shouted after her. ‘He’s dead. He must be.’

His words echoed back from the cliff face. Velindre halted, looked at him and then continued on her path.

‘Come on.’ Risala looked at Kheda. ‘We owe him that much.’

Finding himself at a loss for words, Kheda followed her.

They caught up with Velindre at the entrance to the tunnel into the crag. She looked at them angrily. ‘I can’t even summon some magelight, not with all my power tied up in that dragon.’

‘Wait.’ Kheda looked around and spotted a tandra tree clinging to a rocky cleft a little way upstream. He drew his dagger and climbed up the rounded stones to cut a stubby branch and a plump seedpod. It was the work of a few moments to drive a slit into the soft wood and wedge in the black oily seeds along with the silky white fibres that had cocooned them.

‘Spark-maker?’ Risala proffered one and Kheda snapped the steel wheel with his thumb. The tandra fluff flared and the seeds sizzled, burning with an aromatic greenish flame.

He realised that the two women were looking at him. ‘Let’s go.’ Holding the torch carefully before him, he led the way into the blackness.

They halted in unspoken apprehension where the tunnel opened on to the vast cavern. The light of the torch reached out into the darkness and struck a myriad sparks from the dull stone walls. ‘Jewels.’ Risala picked at a diamond glint. ‘Buried in the rock.’

If I hadn’t managed to hide, they’d have cut me to pieces. ‘Resources to help rebuild Chazen,’ commented Velindre dourly. ‘They’re yours if you want them.’

‘Leave them,’ said Kheda abruptly. ‘Remember what Dev said about jewels tainted with ill luck and enchantment.’

Never underestimate the wisdom of a dying man’s words. ‘You can’t leave them here.’ Risala retreated from the glittering wall. ‘Some fool will come and dig them out.’

‘Is this Dev?’ Velindre had advanced across the cave floor and was looking down at a hairless blackened body, flesh shrunk to a semblance of charred leather. The wizened head gaped in a silent scream, clenched fists drawn up as if the corpse still sought to fight the hideous death visited upon it.

Kheda approached, glad of the tandra seeds’ aromatic smoke wafting around to mask the stench of death. ‘This was the wild man who was here.’ He raised the torch and looked across the cave. ‘He was tending that, I suppose. Dev said it was an egg.’

‘An egg?’ Risala echoed, disbelieving. The great ruby was still there on its bed of jewels. It was dull and blackened, its surface opaque with a dull haze of cracks. The sapphires and emeralds around it had been reduced to no more than glistening dust. Glistening dust mingled with pale-grey ash. That must be all that’s left of him.

‘Dev brought down some fire of his own on it.’ Kheda struggled to explain. ‘He killed the magic within it but the fire burned him, too.’

‘Fire is the ultimate purification,’ Risala murmured as she bent to retrieve Kheda’s fallen sword from the floor.

Does that mean the taint of Dev’s presence is lifted from Chazen, all that he did, all that he was? Velindre walked slowly over to the lifeless dragon’s egg. She crouched down and laid a hand on it. Kheda shivered at the recollection of Dev doing almost exactly the same thing.

‘I want this,’ the magewoman said softly. ‘You promised me payment for my services to you. I want this.’ No!’ Kheda’s rejection echoed harshly round the cavern.

‘You can give it to me or I will take it.’ Velindre stood up in one fluid movement. ‘My magic will return and I won’t be accepting any food or drink from your hands till it does,’ she added with a harsh smile. ‘I want this and I have earned it. We’ve earned it, Dev and me. What stain would that leave on your future, Chazen Kheda, to dishonour our bargain like that? When he has died in your service, wizard or not?’ Remember it’s not only dying words that hold wisdom but chance truths spoken from the most unlikely sources.

‘Why?’ Kheda cleared his throat. ‘Why do you want it?’

‘That really doesn’t concern you,’ Velindre said softly, looking down at the lifeless egg. She glanced back at Kheda and the torchlight reflected in her dark eyes. ‘Here’s something for you to think about. You want to show all the people of your domain that the dragon is truly dead. That’s all well and good as long as they don’t ask too many awkward questions about how it died. How will you answer those? Can you offer any other explanation besides the cloud dragon killing it? What then? Everyone will be as terrified as before, or more so. And your rule will have been cursed by two dragons, not just one. Believe me—I can make sure that everyone sees this new calamity flying above your islands.’ She smiled eerily in the flickering light. ‘Or you can tell everyone honestly that this new dragon slew the old beast. Then you can bring everyone to see you kill that foul and dangerous creature yourself. You would never have killed that true dragon with your feeble steel but I can give you more than a fighting chance against the dying simulacrum. Wouldn’t that be purification enough for you? What wouldn’t such a mighty deed do for your rule over this domain, Chazen Kheda? Give me this egg and I will give you that dragon.’