The Dusk Watchman

CHAPTER 31

Ruhen opened his eyes. ‘She’s dead.’

‘Good,’ Ilumene said, ‘I never trusted the bitch, never mind her little gift to you.’

The boy looked at his muscular bodyguard, just returned from his hunt in Narkang lands. Ilumene was dressed for battle, in white-bleached leather armour stiffened with painted steel strips. Beside him, Venn’s normal black was covered with a white cape. His ruined wrist was encased in a bright, milky crystal. He might carry only one sword now, but he had lost none of his Harlequin dexterity, and he carried a Crystal Skull. Venn was far from vulnerable.

‘What about the element of surprise?’

Ilumene shrugged, his grin wolfish. ‘Fine when you’re using it, but some never do. They just hold their surprise in reserve, waiting — always bloody waiting. You’ve been carrying that sword Zhia gave you for months. I know you’ve been wary of revealing that she’d sided with us. Now we know they’ve found out about Aenaris, there’s no reason not to use it.’

Ruhen blinked, and the shadows danced in his eyes. ‘I had best not disappoint you, then,’ he said at last and gestured towards the ornate doors of the Duke’s Chamber. ‘Shall we?’

The fine wall hangings of the lower chamber of the Ruby Tower had been covered by strips of cloth, collected by the white-cloaked devotees of Ruhen from all over Byora. The Knights of the Temples had spread far, and the response had been great. Even those states as yet unscathed by war had heard of the horrors inflicted — the obliteration of Scree and Aroth were all too easy to imagine when daemons roamed the lonely roads and woodlands, providing fertile ground for a message of peace.

The preachers had brought back prayers back from every village, town and city, and Ruhen could smell the power in them, growing drip by drip. Currently that power was out of reach — daemons and Gods alike were shaped as well as sustained by the worship of their followers, while Azaer had refused to become dependent on mortal followers. This was a time of transformation however: the Land would be remade, and he would too.

‘I still don’t like this,’ Ilumene said at last, not moving from where he stood. ‘We’re wasting a lot o’ men.’

‘Learning compassion, Ilumene?’ Venn inquired, a look of sour scorn on his face. ‘I hadn’t thought old dogs of the Brotherhood capable of such tricks.’

Ilumene gave him an unfriendly look. ‘Aye, and I can juggle too. I’d teach you how, but there ain’t much fucking point, is there?’ He turned away from Venn and squatted down to look Ruhen in the face. ‘You gave me command of the armies, remember? Making sure they deliver is my responsibility.’

‘And thus far their job is to be defeated,’ Venn continued. ‘Success isn’t admirable until you’re asked to do something difficult.’

Ilumene ignored him, waiting for Ruhen’s response.

The boy showed no emotion at the squabbling of his underlings. ‘You are concerned we might lose the support of the Devoted?’

‘They ain’t happy about Emin’s armies cutting through ’em, but backing out at this stage ain’t an option, not with the losses they’ve taken. Continuing to take my orders, though — that might be harder if we’ve done nothing but lose ’em men. You provide the Devoted with legitimacy for their expansion, but Telith Vener and Afasin still see you as just a figurehead, one to be used and dropped if it costs them too much. We can disabuse the buggers of that, but it’ll stall us at a time we really don’t need.’

‘Afasin speaks with no voice now his army is broken,’ Ruhen said in a voice so soft it was almost a whisper. ‘The others know that.’

‘He still speaks within the council and that’s enough.’ Ilumene straightened. ‘The Knight-Cardinal’s yours, body and soul, but he’s the only one of ’em. Lord Gesh too, perhaps, but on military matters his opinion ain’t worth much. If you show your power now, folk might start to ask why we’re retreating away from the Circle City in the first place — and certainly why we’re doing so while sacrificing ten legions or more, whether or not they’re our weakest troops. It’s a half-arsed commitment to battle, a sop to Karkarn’s will that will convince no one and loses too many in the process.’

‘What does my general advise, then?’ Ruhen asked, one hand raised to stop Venn’s objections.

‘Either send most of your forces, or beat the retreat for them all. What else is there? Defeats paint a picture that serves our purposes, I know, and every report of savage sorcery and inhuman combat brings more followers to the cause, but we ain’t following the old plan very closely any more.’

Ruhen nodded slowly. ‘This mortal vestment remains something I wear, and you do well to remind me of mortal concerns. But this defeat would serve us.’

‘So we make it a defeat, but one we’re truly escaping from, rather than leaving in our wake. Provoke a response to truly flee from. We’re at the point where we need to take risks — to show them as a real danger, they actually need to be a real danger to us. We’re leaving the Circle City anyway, but your followers don’t know that. They need to feel there’s no choice before they flee.’

‘You suggest a flawed battle-order?’ Ruhen asked. ‘One that will go wrong quickly enough to require a retreat for all forces?’

‘For starters, but we need to sacrifice more than that. Our surprise is gone, you know that. So we can’t hold back the power you wield or Emin won’t buy what we’re selling. He’ll know using Aenaris will come at a cost for you, but he’ll be just as suspicious if you refuse to use it when you’re finally faced with your enemy.’

‘And we then pray for controlled disaster?’

Ilumene shook his head. ‘Leave the prayers to the Devoted. I’d prefer to trust our enemy: give them something on which to concentrate their ferocity, a sign of your power that the whole Land’ll take note of. It forces them to meet power with power, and in the sight of the Land yours is the more palatable.’

‘You’re suggesting we stay here?’ Venn demanded, advancing on them to force himself into the decision. ‘How long — days? A week? Are you so certain of our scrying that any delay does not risk us being trapped?’

‘March the Embere troops out with everything the Circle City has to offer,’ Ilumene urged. ‘Keep Certinse’s four legions from the West in reserve. Send the army beyond the fens to meet King Emin head-on. The faithful masses will follow them, and they’ll take grave losses, but the survivors will scatter, taking word of what happened far and wide. We lose what we lose and accept that. They’re recruiting hard in Embere, Raland and Tor Salan, and after this loss they’ll bring together every soldier they can.’

‘Who will lead this disaster?’ Ruhen asked.

Ilumene smiled. ‘Express your confidence in General Afasin — white-eyes are born for war, after all. He’ll be cautious, unwilling to commit, and Emin will break him. Telith Vener will support Afasin over Chaist, and Certinse won’t oppose if I tell him not to.’

‘We get word of the defeat and flee with the remaining troops, carrying word of their ungodly crimes in battle. Perhaps plague and ruin marches alongside our enemy? Rojak, does your bride-in-chains think she could manage that?’

Venn’s lips became a tight little smile as the dead minstrel came forward in his mind. He gestured with his crystal-bandaged hand and a flash of dark light burst onto the tiled floor at his side. Ilumene blinked, and then there was a ragged figure kneeling on the floor, her head bowed. Slowly the Wither Queen looked up, staring with undisguised hatred through her matted grey hair.

‘My queen would be delighted to aid your holy mission,’ Rojak said, savouring every word.

The former Reaper and Aspect of Death spat on the floor between them, and the spittle became a pale maggot wriggling on the ground, until Ilumene stamped on it. The action caused her to flinch, but the hatred in her dead eyes remained.

‘I am your slave,’ she hissed at last, ‘as I knew you would always make me.’

Ruhen shook his head. ‘Lord Isak made you this way; it was he who made you dependent on Venn’s power. But if you continue to serve, your price will still be paid: you will still have your place in the Pantheon, and before we are done you will see the truth of my words.’

‘I see only lies and false hope.’ She bared her broken, decayed teeth. ‘But still I have no choice.’

With that, she was dismissed and Rojak receded once more, leaving Venn in control of the body they shared. ‘The decision is made,’ Ruhen said after a long silence. ‘Let us go to the Devoted council and offer our wisdom.’

He reached behind his head and touched the weapon wrapped entirely in leather that was strapped to his back. The sword was enormous and unwieldy, but he bore it as though it weighed nothing.

‘Perhaps it is time we gave their sceptical souls a little encouragement.’

‘Your Majesty,’ the scryer croaked, looking up from where he knelt at the roadside, ignoring the splattering rain and the ground churned into mud by the soldiers. ‘The enemy has halted and taken position on the plain to the northeast.’

‘Scouts confirm it,’ Dashain said. ‘Looks like they’re all together, and actually offering battle for once. Can they think choosing the ground will win it for them?’

King Emin shook his head and scowled. Neither Vesna nor Isak commented. They were surrounded by a full regiment of both Kingsguard and Tirah Palace Guard, providing personal escorts to the two men, and the sight of the Ghosts’ distinctive black and white tabards had added fire to the bellies of their untested recruits.

‘How many?’

‘Your Majesty, I lack Master Holtai’s skill,’ the scryer said, a quaver in his voice. He tried to summon the image clearly enough to estimate the Devoted numbers. ‘Soldiers? Perhaps twenty thousand? Fifteen of infantry, five of cavalry, I’d guess.’

‘But?’

‘There are others — or something, at least. Civilians, or barbarians from the Waste-’

‘How many?’ the king demanded.

‘I have no idea,’ the scryer admitted. ‘I cannot even guess — several thousand, at least, but they are just a formless crowd. I have no means of comparison.’

‘An army of the devoted,’ Vesna commented sourly. ‘They’ve found their saviour. The people of the Circle City have come to fight for their new lord.’

‘The shadow would throw away its worshippers so easily?’ Dashain asked, but her voice was more hopeful than aghast. She had seen enough of Azaer’s work to know compassion was never a factor.

‘It doesn’t need so many now,’ Isak explained, his great shoulders more stooped than normal. ‘My actions have seen to that. Those it would overthrow are weakened. The shadow doesn’t need the power it had planned for.’

‘Not just your actions,’ Vesna said pointedly, ‘Zhia’s too — and handing Aenaris to Ruhen was deliberate, not the consequence of something else.’

‘We can save the blame for another day,’ Emin muttered, casting a quick glance towards the huddled figure of Doranei, still mounted and waiting on the edges of the king’s guards.

Whether or not Doranei deliberately had placed soldiers between himself and the man who had ordered him to murder his lover was unclear. No one, not even the king’s bodyguard, wanted to explore that question, but it hung in the air all the same. Zhia had betrayed them when she handed Aenaris to their enemy — Ardela had seen her attempt to poison Ruhen frustrated by the touch of the shining sword they had all been at such pains to hide.

Though they had no actual evidence it had been her, Zhia had always been one to play both sides, and her unswervingly principled brother Koezh was the only other one who’d known where it was hidden in the Byoran Marshes. Doranei had agreed to his king’s request — he had asked Doranei, rather than ordered — but none of that eased his hurt now.

‘This is almost the entire Devoted force this side of the Evermist Hills. They must have a plan beyond letting us slaughter them before the eyes of the Land,’ Emin said at last.

‘Is that not enough?’ Vesna asked.

Emin shook his head. ‘It’s a damn waste, and Ilumene’s too clever to throw away so many soldiers. For a start, we believe they’re looking for a reason to march east, towards Thotel and beyond. That’s a long way to travel, even if he can convince the Chetse to let them pass without a fight, and he’ll want troops to spend on that journey, not here.’

‘So they have a surprise waiting for us?’

‘No,’ Isak said suddenly. He wasn’t looking at Emin; his attention was also fixed on Doranei. For once Isak’s head was uncovered. His hair had grown long enough to hide the uneven shape of his skull, but the rain was falling like tears down the carved channels of his face.

‘No?’ Vesna prompted, black iron fingers flexing; the spirit of Karkarn within him sensed impending battle.

‘What surprise could they hide?’ At last he looked at the rest of them and pointed with one charcoal black finger at the scryer. ‘They don’t want the final confrontation here. We still control the greater number of Skulls. They’re not so stupid as to think they could hide another army from Endine or Vorizh — so what surprise could there be?’

‘That’s what worries me,’ Emin said, ‘but we have no choice. General Bessarei, make camp. Tomorrow, we march on the enemy.’

Ruhen stood before the thousands who had answered the call to accompany their armies. He closed his eyes and breathed in the faint honey scent of snowflowers, carried on the swirling breeze that grew steadily colder as the morning progressed. The flowers filled the southern end of the Stepped Gardens where an old wall stood. Above them fluttered tiny, five-pointed winter stars, which dotted the uneven top and colonised every nook and cranny of the wall itself.

The wind carried more than just the scent of flowers. He tasted the hopes and fears of all those assembled and felt the fervour of their belief like unexpected sunshine on his cheek. On his back he wore the wrapped sword — Ilumene had adapted a cross-chest baldric and incorporated it into Ruhen’s tunic. He was small enough that the sword still threatened to catch on the ground, but Ruhen was determined to keep it with him, especially now Zhia was dead and her secrets revealed.

This was his temple, even more than the prayer-festooned Duke’s Chamber, with its walls of unassailable conviction built by desperation and longing.

He wore a pearl-detailed tunic, open at the front to display a scored coin hanging on a chain around his neck. His preachers had carried the symbol far and wide; people spread across hundreds of miles now wore one just like it as an expression of their devotion. Most had not been touched by Ruhen’s shadow-spirit, of course; they were simple objects of faith, but there were dozens that did carry some trace of him, and Ruhen could feel his presence reach out like the folds of night.

Behind him he sensed Ilumene and Venn moving up to stand close as Luerce appeared on Ruhen’s left. The pale-skinned Litse was known by the whole crowd and the murmurs increased as they saw him. He was the First Disciple in their eyes, the shepherd of their flock of children, their link to Ruhen himself.

Strangely it was not Ilumene but Venn who would remind Luerce of his true position — the one he occupied in Azaer’s eyes. Or perhaps it was the spirit of Rojak in Venn’s shadow that was jealous of the reverence they showed Luerce, reverence that should rightly belong to Rojak as Azaer’s most favoured.

My twilight herald has a human soul still, Ruhen reflected, smiling inwardly. He fears the slow dissipation that Jackdaw has succumbed to, forgetting he is not one to be burned at the wick but a far greater part of me.

The end comes soon; they can all sense it. And in their human ways they bicker and squabble, for the waiting is suddenly too much for them to bear.

‘Brothers and sisters of peace,’ Ruhen called out in his solemn, child’s voice. ‘War has come for us.’ He bowed his head, his eyes closing for a moment as he savoured the new flavours bursting on the air: the earthy tang of fear blossoming, nectar-sweet anticipation, and hope, too, their faith in their saviour remaining unshakable. Against such flavours, how could flowers ever compare?

‘War has come, with its many faces, but with one purpose.’ Ruhen spoke in his usual soft voice, but Rojak was on hand to carry those words to the faithful. ‘The king and conqueror, ever keen to expand his reach; the heroic knight, eager to kill for his lord and further his own legend; the white-eye butcher, hungry for blood and pretending slaughter is glory rather than a monster’s basest desire. They come, and this day the Knights of the Temples shall face them.

‘I am just a child, too weak to march, too small to fight. They go to defend us, those of us who cannot defend ourselves, but they are outnumbered by an enemy more terrible than any the Land has seen.’

He hesitated, showing rare apprehension on his face to those close enough to see and appreciate the frailties of their saviour.

‘Our defenders face a terrible enemy, but it is not the Knights of the Temples that Narkang’s daemons seek to kill: no, they are coming for me — it is my blood they seek, and if our protectors fail, this plague of daemons will come to the Circle City.’

He shook his head sadly. ‘I cannot allow this horror to befall you, you are all innocent in this, but as long as they fear my message of peace they will hunt me. It is clear to me now that I must leave Byora, leave this protecting home and step out into the Land to walk alongside the preachers who carry my words.’

He stopped, the conviction on his sombre face enough to dampen the dismay and alarm that rushed around the gardens. There were gasps, the spice of panic waxing strong on the wind, but no shouts or cries this time. He didn’t want them to feel outrage, not now. The horror of what he was about to provoke would do that.

Until then, let them have hope. Let them see the saviour they desire.

‘This path has opened before me. The Gods have shown me the way’ — he smiled — ‘and all without the help of priests to interpret their wisdom.’

The comment lightened the mood a shade and Ruhen saw many of his white cloaked followers sit up a little straighter at their saviour making a small joke in the face of such impending terror.

‘I will travel east,’ he announced. ‘I will journey into the Waste, letting the will of the Gods guide my feet. I will travel into the lands scarred by the excesses of war and hatred, over poisoned earth and across fouled water, to seek the answers I know are out there. But before I go, I wish to share with you a gift, to protect the brave defenders of peace and this city, all I have ever known.’

He turned, and Ilumene hurried forward.

‘I ask for three of you to carry this gift,’ he continued as Ilumene untied the bindings around the sword on his back, then he gestured at the Litse. ‘Luerce, bring forward three whose faith is strong enough to bear this burden.’

There was no lack of volunteers, but the stern, silent Harlequins at the base of the steps prevented a sudden rush forward. Luerce picked his way down the steps with an almost fussy precision, revelling in the reverential air, uncaring whether the awe was reflected or not.

This one is the perfect servant, content in his place and faithful to his word, Ruhen reflected as he watched the shaven-headed disciple survey his eager flock. He is a rare man within my coterie of flawed traitors, trusting in his rewards to come and careful not to dream too grandly. Ilumene did well there.

‘Venn, shield your senses,’ Ruhen called behind him, and a hurried flare of power told him his order had been obeyed.

Three white-clad disciples came stumbling up the steps behind their shepherd: a burly, bearded man with odd-coloured eyes and the mien of a soldier fallen on hard times; an older woman, grey-haired but with a proud bearing and strong, handsome features, and a slim, black-haired youth following close behind.

Ruhen bowed to the three when the tallest came level with him and they stopped, hesitantly sinking to their knees. The Stepped Gardens grew quieter still, a congregation at prayer, as Ruhen looked down and, without ceremony, slipped off the cloth wrapped around the hilt of his sword.

The air filled with sparkling light, each mote of dust on the breeze glittering like a cloud of ice crystals. Gasps ran around the crowd and the wide-eyed youth kneeling before Ruhen gave a moan of shock. Ruhen slipped his small fingers around the shining sword grip and drew it from the scabbard. The blade sang in the daylight, casting a corona of dancing, dazzling light around him, and his followers sighed and whimpered, their hands raised to shade their eyes from the burst of white light that was as bright as the sun.

Ruhen was unable to look at the weapon held high above his head, but he felt his hand tremble at its touch. Without looking he could feel the pure, bright light shining through his skin, seeping into his bones and forcing his shadow-soul away. He gritted his teeth, unused to the discomfort slowly building towards pain, but determined.

Aenaris — the Key of Life, had been buried far from the sight of others in the Library of Seasons until the Menin lord broke the spell hiding it. Aenaris, wielded by the Queen of the Gods, Death’s equal, until the last days of the Great War. Azaer had kept its distance during those terrible days of earthquake and flame, of which only confused memories remained.

Many said the Queen of the Gods had sided with her beloved creations and fought at their side. Her name was considered accursed by all followers of the Chief of the Gods; it was recorded only in works of heresy, invoked fruitlessly by the foolish or the mad.

Did Zhia know her gift would pain me? Ruhen wondered as his skin crawled and the palm of his hand shrieked in pain, or does the Land seek balance for the white-eye’s burdens?

With an effort he lowered the weapon, feeling the shadows in his eyes recoil as light filled his mind. He took a step forward, then one more, and sensed the three disciples were within reach.

‘My gift I give to each of you,’ Ruhen croaked, ‘and so I charge you: bear my blessing in the name of peace.’

It was a long blade, wider than Ruhen’s palm, with a short tip like a crystal formation and a large forward-slanted guard. Each of the grip’s eight smooth faces was engraved with a phoenix, flanked by leaf-laden branches. Ruhen forced himself to face down its breathtaking presence and stare directly at the weapon more potent and powerful than anything in existence except its mate, Termin Mystt.

With his eyes closed and a single image in his mind, Ruhen touched the tip to the chest of each of the three terrified disciples. ‘Bear my blessing,’ he whispered tenderly to each as the vast magic surged out of Aenaris.

The youth was knocked backwards by its force and caught by Luerce, standing behind him, while the woman cried out in something between agony and ecstasy. The bearded man shuddered as though impaled and dropped flat on his face. The air shimmered white around him and rampant magics hissed in his bones.

Ruhen staggered back, visibly struggling with the power until Ilumene came forward to steady him. With Ilumene’s big hand carefully holding his own, Ruhen managed to return Aenaris to its sheath. Ilumene wasted no time in rewrapping the hilt until the crystal sword was again entirely hidden from view, then he stepped back, blinking away the ghost-trails of light.

Dazed by the power of the weapon, Ruhen stared dumbly at his hand as the pain receded. Everything was blurred after Aenaris’ bright light. Slowly focus returned and he looked down at the small hand of the body he’d stolen before its mother even realised she was pregnant, blinking at what he saw.

Aenaris had left its mark on him, Ruhen realised gradually. The pain in his eyes and reeling shadows under his skin diminished, but a white mark remained on his hand. His palm and the inside of his fingers were scorched white where he had touched the crystal sword. He flexed his hand, testing the sore, taut flesh for signs of greater damage, but if he had really been burned, the Key of Life had healed him, just as it had when an assassin had shot him the day the Harlequins arrived.

His attention was dragged towards the three disciples by a sudden howl from the youth, who was convulsing in Luerce’s arms. His eyes was staring unseeing up at the sky, his back was arched in pain. The alarmed First Disciple eased the youth onto the flagstones at the top of the stairs just as pinpricks of light appeared over the surface of his body. The same thing was happening to the other two, though the woman had somehow stayed upright, but as the flowering stars intensified, she moaned and bent forward as though in prayer.

Each of the three curled up as the light started weaving a skein of shining threads over them. The spider-silk slowly enveloped them and Ruhen found himself taking a step back as his immortal senses felt the rush of magic around them continuing to expand until it had become an unseen torrent of power in the air.

Venn sensed it too, and distantly Ruhen heard the former Harlequin gasp and fall to his knees, nearly overwhelmed despite the shield he’d had raised.

The woman shuddered as though struck by two great blows and writhed left and right under the cocoon of power. Where she touched the shining threads they stuck to her clothes, then her hair and hands too, searing her skin just as Aenaris had marked Ruhen. One hand pushed out, reaching towards him, an awkward movement, jerking forward and back, and when she moved, a lattice of white threads remained.

Beside her the young man kicked wildly, his silence disconcerting, as though he was suffering an agony that could not be expressed with a scream.

The three figures became increasingly blurred, hands and feet thrusting out under the webs of magic, all unnatural angles and movements that expanded the cocoons and all-too-soon stopped corresponding to anything human. Behind them Ruhen saw a scramble of figures, Harlequins and disciples alike, drawing back — all fearful of touching those glittering threads that seared the pale daylight.

The younger man’s cocoon tumbled down the slope onto a lower tier, momentarily out of sight until an arm or something drove upwards and expanded its form higher than a man. The two remaining came together with a hiss and crackle of competing energies, burning the air between them and creating some sort of barrier against which both pressed as they continued their astonishing growth. By fits and starts their progress went in opposite directions, blackening the grass as they reached it and scoring trails over flagstones.

Another spasm brought one, then the others, up even higher, as though a horse were rearing up within the cocoon. Shapes pressed against the inner surface, curved and alien in form, but against the intense light Ruhen’s eyes could not make out anything definite. Again the boy was forced to retreat, now shielding his shadow-lidded eyes from the light.

Something arched and held its position, working up into the air with sharp, jagged movements. The shapeless masses were growing larger with every passing moment and at last the cocoons were starting to weaken, sagging and tearing in places. The lightbound shapes rose again, this time driving up from the ground and huge grey talons ripped through the membrane. The frayed edges curled away as they were torn, flapping in a breeze Ruhen could not feel, until they caught against the talons and feet above them and melted onto the flesh and bone.

The nearer shape lurched forward and almost toppled as a long limb pressed against the inside of the membrane and ripped it open with a savage jerk. Shreds of burning white light burst out and lashed across Ruhen and his most loyal. He heard Ilumene cry out in alarm, but he had no time to turn as light suddenly exploded across his eyes. Ruhen reeled, hands clasped to his face as searing pain more intense than the burning touch of Aenaris blanked out his vision.

Ruhen cried out for the first time in his life, shock and pain mingling to cause the Land to lurch underneath him. Only unseen hands stopped him from falling to the ground — hands he realised were Venn’s after crystal wiped across his face and hauled the pain away.

Ruhen shuddered, half-cradled in Venn’s trembling arms, and tried to blink away the blur in his eyes. He felt his left eye obey and gasped as he suddenly made out the shape ahead of him: a near-translucent outstretched wing the size of a ship’s sail. His right eye saw nothing though, just a uniform white nothingness, as though thick fog had suddenly descended.

He touched his fingers to the skin there and hissed as he discovered a long, raw wound curving up from his cheek to his ear. His eye was too numb for him to be able to tell whether the lid was even open or not, but questing fingers found it was, though covering his eye with his hand made no difference to the dull white blur he saw.

‘Master, can you see?’ Venn demanded hoarsely, tilting Ruhen’s head to inspect the burned flesh. ‘Your eye, it’s gone entirely white,’ he croaked, lowering his voice as he added, ‘the shadows are gone from it.’

Ruhen struggled up, disorientated by the unfamiliar sensations, but more horrified by his childish frailty and weakness. ‘It is blind,’ he gasped. ‘I see nothing.’

The wing above was suddenly retracted and a long claw protruding from the wing’s knuckle was driven hard against the ground seeking purchase. It caught the edge of a paving stone and stuck fast while the struggling creature heaved against the smoking remnants of membrane around it.

‘The sword,’ Venn suggested, watching the beast like Ruhen, mindful that only swift action could properly repair injuries.

Venn’s wrist had set as it was, pressed agonisingly back into the semblance of position, but then it had healed that way. To undo that was beyond any healer’s skill. Though the Key of Life might have that power, the pain it would cause was too great; Venn’s breathtaking skill was gone forever, at least in mortal terms.

‘No,’ Ruhen croaked, pushing away Venn’s hands and steadying himself, his attention fixed on the monsters as shrieks of panic rang out across the Stepped Gardens.

The nearest tore away the last of the membrane and lifted its head to the sun, oblivious to the aghast faces watching. A thin blanket of autumn cloud covered the sky, but the dragon shone with an inner light that lovingly illuminated every scale. Huge muscles bunched under the shimmering reptilian armour, while a needle-tipped tail wove with a cobra’s promise. Its broad head was grey, seamed in black below its spiral-horn-studded brow, while the top was almost perfectly white, echoing the hooded cloaks all three had worn. The man’s disconcerting eyes — one had been brown, one green — were now pale and luminescent.

The dragon stretched its wings out wide and roared a challenge to the heavens that Ruhen felt like a blow to his ears.

Beside it, the second beast rose up and regarded its sibling with unblinking eyes; this one was more slender, with a sharp beak and a spear-like head where once an ageing woman’s face had been. It was even whiter than the first, carved from ice, with eyes a paler blue than any Litse’s, but when it opened its mouth to add its voice the tongue and flesh were unnaturally black.

The last, the young man, was darker than the others. The only white on its body was a streak that ran down its spiked spine; the rest was shadowed grey. Great claws tightened and furrowed the earth as the dragons’ birth-cries split the sky and tears fell from the heavens to splatter on the heads of those fleeing the gardens. Ruhen didn’t move, unafraid of the enormous monsters, enraptured by the sinuous, lethal shapes crafted by his mind.

‘The power of the Gods,’ he whispered, savouring the thrill of creation that was only intensified by the pain that remained in his ruined eye. He touched his white-marked fingers to his face. ‘And this I sacrifice.’

Hunger. Prey.

The words echoed out from their minds, barely formed thoughts and emotions. Azaer heard them, just as he had heard the silent calls of men like Venn or Witchfinder Shanatin: an echo beyond human ears, a need of basic and primal origins.

‘ One must stay and watch over this city until you are called,’ Ruhen ordered, and the three heads swung down to face the boy who commanded them.

Behind him, Ruhen felt Venn tense at the scrutiny of these inhuman, terrifying beasts.

‘ I am marked by your rebirth, just as you are marked by the devotion of your former selves. One will stay; the others will fly west and fight in my name.’

The largest of the three drew back at that, whether affronted or angered, it was impossible to tell, but Ruhen stared it down. With each passing heartbeat he sensed the latent feelings of the three devotees returning as they remembered their blind obedience, their desperation to serve, their sense of purpose in his presence. He was so much smaller than they, but that resonated deep inside their hearts: the protection of the weak, the service of innocence. They would follow the child to a new form of glory.

Obey.

The dragons leapt into the air one after the other, driving up with their powerful hind legs before sweeping out their huge wings and battering the air down. Ruhen was driven to his knees by the force of their strokes, but once aloft they circled low over Byora with little effort needed.

‘ One to stay, two to go, ’ Ruhen repeated, and the third dragon, the greyest, broke away from its siblings and turned into a long circle that encompassed much of Byora before turning and heading up to Blackfang’s jagged mountaintop. The remaining two beasts watched it go, then they too began to climb high into the sky, until they were indistinct shapes against the distant clouds. There they drifted on the far winds for a time until they caught the scent of those they sought and darted away on long, powerful wing-beats, cutting through the air like the arrows of Nartis.

‘Venn, Rojak,’ Ruhen said to his black-clad disciple, ‘now it is your turn. That Skull of Song you hold: sing a song of fair winds and summer skies. The Stormcaller knows how to ward against dragons. Remove that option from him.’

‘See my power, white-eye,’ Ruhen whispered to the wind as flakes of snow began to sweep past. ‘Match it if you dare. Unleash the horrors of the Dark Place against me — declare yourself the monster the whole Land secretly believes you to be.’