I was home. Castle Gundar. Halfway across the world! Those were the East Mountains around my home. I knew them all by name, I’d spent years clambering among them—Old Woman, Cloud Catcher, Demon’s Tooth, the Needle, the Three Sisters—only—how the Hells was I come here?
I took a step, tripped over a loose stone, and fell against something—someone—
It was Berys, at my side. Looking pleased with himself.
Lanen
As soon as Berys and Marik disappeared, Shikrar drew his head back out of the room—just as well, he didn’t really fit. Jamie and I scrambled over the rubble of the wall. Shikrar for all his size was hard to see in the fitful moonlight, but there by his feet—a tiny figure—
Oh, dear Goddess.
Varien. Varien. Varien.
I ran towards him and we met with a thump, arms wrapped round one another, and held on as though we would never let go. I was swearing at him—“Damn you, Varien, where have you been, I couldn’t hear you, I thought that bastard had killed you”—but I am not certain that he heard me. He was muttering much the same nonsense, after all, and we kept interrupting ourselves as we kissed frantically.
Of course, it couldn’t last. He had just managed to control himself so far as to lean back within my arms and look at me, when with the loudest noise I had ever heard a great light burst into the dark sky, flames leaping high against the stars, and bits of masonry began to rain down upon us.
The College was burning.
Jamie
“NO!” cried Rikard, sprinting towards the doors. I managed to catch him and haul him back just in time, for Shikrar would have trampled him as he hurried towards the fire. I only just noticed Kédra landing outside the College walls.
I had only seen Shikrar briefly in the fight in the High Field, burning off the little demons: I had been dealing with my own distractions when he took on the big Raksha. After that, despite his great size, he had impressed me mainly as being wise and calm as we spoke together on the way down from the mountains. True enough, his sheer size was a threat, but it was hard to know what kind of real power he could wield. I had just watched him tear apart stone walls with no apparent effort, but I still wasn’t ready. He moved across the courtyard like a snake through water.
“For Shia’s sake, let me go!” shouted Rikard, wrenching himself free. He ran like a man demented and began pounding uselessly at the doors of the burning building, unlocked but unmoving. “There are people trapped in there!”
Shikrar stood before the doors. “Stand away, Gedri,” he said, that vast ancient voice deep and resonant in the courtyard.
I hadn’t thought Rikard could move that fast. Just as well I was wrong.
Shikrar tore open the doors like a child tearing a leaf of grass, and flung them to the stones. Several dozen people rushed out, fire behind them, terror in their eyes. Some were shouting, some were screaming, some were wide-eyed and staring and looked as if they would never speak again. Vilkas and Aral, borne hither by Kédra, ran to help their comrades.
Magister Rikard did well then, drawing them all away to the far side of the courtyard, asking, listening, calming. In moments he returned and began to speak, his voice impossibly steady.
“Berys has murdered the Magistri with the help of a huge Raksha and a horde of the Rikti—and when the Magistri were gone, he set them loose on the students and left.” Rikard’s voice cracked. “From what some of them said, he was dared to call on one of the Lords of Hell. These”—he gestured back at the little group huddled by the shattered gates—“only got out because the demons took Berys’s guards along with everyone else. These folk were closer to the doors and they had the presence of mind to run. They—we—Shia save us,” he shuddered, his voice cracking at last. “We are all that is left.”
A huge voice laughed on the wind, a laugh that racked my body with one great shudder, so heavy it was with evil. We all turned to see the vast figure that rose up, surrounded by the flames that consumed the College, seeming to enjoy their heat. It was the size of Shikrar but more nearly human in form, though horned and fanged in a hideous mockery of the Kantri. “Soon not even you, little wizard,” it cackled, and spat at Rikard. A ball of poisonous green fire burned towards where Rikard stood staring aghast. He raised the best shield of his Healer’s aura that he could muster, but it looked pale and weak in the light of that obscene fire. I was too far away to help, too far away to do anything but watch him die—when the balefire was batted out of the air by a dark wing, striking the ground with a loud hiss and smoking poisonously on the cobbles.
Varien
Shikrar flew high, foulness spurning.
Fury fuelled him, fanned his anger,
drove him upwards: urgent his desire,
swiftly to deal death to the demon.
Words cannot do him justice. I had never seen him fly so brilliantly, never in all our long lives together. Lanen and I held each other and watched in awe. He spiralled high on the updraft from the flames, keeping out of his enemy’s reach, gaining height, watching the demon’s every move keenly.
There in the midst of burning stone, grown vast on its obscene feast of flesh, was the Lord of the Fifth Hell, a huge Raksha. It grew in its wrath, trying to make itself as large as Shikrar, but it was trapped—it seems even Berys had some sense left, and had not loosed it to rampage where it would. The thing was bound, likely to the building: if the building were destroyed, it might find itself untrammelled.
The flames, fanned by the wild wind, bothered it no more than they did Shikrar, but it seemed to take a passing pleasure in the destruction the fire was causing. It started to lean over towards us, but Shikrar swooped down and breathed Fire upon it as he passed—not the puny flames that humans know, but the true Fire that is part of our being. The distraction worked, though the demon managed to move out of the way of the flame. For the most part. We all saw the scorch mark on its upper arm.
It laughed. I knew about the Lords of Hell and was prepared, but several of the students were violently sick at the sound. So would Death itself laugh to see a world dying of plague.
“So, the great Kantri are reduced to this? A little firebrand to tickle me. Eat stone, dragon!” it cried, and wrenching off a great lump of stone, threw it at Shikrar.
With the merest flick of his wings Shikrar avoided the missile. This seemed to amuse the creature, for it tore off larger and larger sections of wall to throw at him. None of them came very close, for Shikrar watched the Raksha’s every move. When it stooped for a moment to break off more stone, he darted in and struck with fangs and claws, tearing a great hole in its shoulder, ripping gashes in its flesh as he passed swiftly out of reach again, away from the long arms and poisonous claws. He was forced to swerve again and again as the thing grabbed at him, but it was soon clear that he was wearing it down, flying in, biting and away before he could be touched, tearing holes in the foul flesh, darting away out of reach as its claws tried to score his armour and failed to find purchase.
At last, though, his boldness was his downfall. The Raksha, in real pain now, grabbed for him as he shot past a little too close. It caught the tip of his tail, throwing him off balance in the air before the edged scales cut deep into the demon’s hand. It cried out but held on. Shikrar beat his wings furiously but he could not get free.
Vilkas
I was glad I had not eaten, for when my stomach heaved when the thing laughed, there was nothing to come up. Being so near to so evil a creature sickened me to my bones. Aral held my arm when I doubled over, and I swear I could feel her thought travel through her hand.
“I can’t fight it, Aral!” I cried, shaking her off. “It’s too big!”
“What does physical size have to do with anything in the realm of the soul?” she asked, far too reasonably for my liking. “Even if you can just distract it from Shikrar, that would be something!”
I grabbed her arm and drew her to me, so that our faces all but touched. “Damn it, woman, don’t you understand?
” I snarled, barely above a whisper. “It’s all I can do not to fall to my knees. I’m shaking so badly I can barely stand. I’m afraid, Aral. I am by damn petrified and I can’t do a sodding thing about it!”
She shook me off, her anger matching mine. “If you could direct just a fraction of that anger towards the right object, we’d be a damned sight better off.” She turned towards the battle. I could see her aura glowing around her, bright and strong, but then she stopped. Swiftly she drew out of her tunic the pouch that hung around her neck. “Please, Lady,” she said as she drew out the great ruby and held it to her heart with her left hand. “Hear me. Your kinsman has need of your aid.”
Suddenly her aura was twice as bright, and within the blue there shone a corona of red light clear as the noonday sun through finest stained glass.
The demon had hold of Shikrar’s tail and was drawing him nearer, despite Shikrar’s desperate effort to get away. Aral lifted her right hand in a fist and sent her power to surround the Raksha’s hand. Her arm shook, then her whole body—and her fingers began to open.
So did the demon’s.
The red light from the soulgem twined around Aral’s sending, pulsing, and the Raksha shook to that pulse as it fought. It reached across, trying to grip Shikrar’s tail with its other hand, claws grasping—Aral stood shaking as she used every ounce of her strength to hold the thing still, just for a moment.
It worked. Just for a moment, but it was enough. The demon, furious, could not move. Shikrar turned back and, using his rear claws, slashed deeply at the wrist of the hand that held him. Aral’s strength failed and her aura winked out. The Raksha, suddenly able to move again, watched the sharp scales on Shikrar’s tail slice through the remains of its ruined hand. It screamed and spat balefire at Shikrar as he climbed. The green fire landed on Shikrar’s back, searing, and it was Shikrar’s turn to cry out.
The Raksha’s cry had been music to my heart. Shikrar’s pain, I swear, screamed along my own back.
Varien
Shikrar, moving awkwardly now but out of reach, flamed his fangs and claws clean as he climbed. His fire appeared diminished, and he was favouring his injured shoulder.
He spoke then, and I truly feared for him: he sounded desperately weary, in pain and out of breath. “Be warned, creature. I am the Eldest of the Kantrishakrim. Quit this place and return to the Fifth Hell, or by my soul I swear you will know the True Death.” And still he climbed.
It laughed again, despite its mangled hand. “As if you could deal it to me! I have been loosed among men, I have feasted on souls and flesh and fear this night. I will have a taste of dragon to season all, as none of my kind have known this long age past!”
It is very difficult to judge distances at night, especially if you are looking straight up. Shikrar had been beating his wings less and less often. When the creature began its speech, he seemed to reach the end of his strength and seemed to be falling. The demon laughed and opened its arms to crush and rend him.
But this was Teacher-Shikrar, who had instructed every Kantri youngling for the last thousand years in the art of flight, who had often boasted even to me that he had not taught us everything he knew. It is true, he was falling. Directly at the demon. Very, very fast.
The Raksha reached out with both arms, its ruined hand hanging loose, ready to grapple with Shikrar at last. The rows and rows of teeth in that distorted mouth gleamed in the light of the dancing fire. Shikrar was dropping like a stone, arrowing directly at its face, claws and wings held close as if he did not dare to attack—as if he were protecting himself—but—he held his furled wings close by his sides, not tucked over his back.
What in the name of sense is this, my friend? I wondered, but did not dare to use truespeech lest I distract him.
—and at the last instant he swerved and pulled up at what seemed an impossible angle, using just the tiniest bit of wingtip, arcing backwards and up and rolling as he went, along the line of his descent. He seemed to miss the demon entirely, except for his tail—which he struck deeply and embedded in the thing’s torso as he passed. His momentum threw him around it at incredible speed, but at a bizarre angle that it didn’t seem able to anticipate. Shikrar’s long supple body quickly wrapped around the Raksha, but it managed to get one arm free and raised it to strike.
Its ruined hand dangled useless from the raised arm, mocking it, as Shikrar’s full length was thrown around the creature’s torso faster and faster. His razor-sharp foreclaws sliced around its throat as he whipped around, and he used the last of his wild momentum to slam his upper fangs against its armoured head.
By the time the Lord of the Fifth Hell realised what was happening it was already dead.
Shikrar had managed to lock his foreclaws about its spurting throat and—he closed his hands. The deadly claws sliced that hideous flesh like so many swords, and at the last the sound of bone snapping was sharp in the night air. The thing collapsed. Shikrar unwrapped himself from it, threw it off him, and drew in a deep breath. I drew my own with him, nearly choking as I tried to force my human throat to breathe Fire. He seared the head first, to ashes; then the body, scorching the surrounding stones clean of every drop of Raksha blood, every trace of balefire.
The wild winds had died about the same time as the Lord of the Fifth Hell, but the fire that had destroyed the College burned on. As Rikard began to organise the survivors to put out the blaze, I moved near to my old friend.
“Shikrar, my friend, I owe you everything,” I said. “Life, love, and all. And to think I used to consider myself a decent flyer! Never will I say that again, my word to the Winds, while yet you live.”
“If I’d flown a little better the damned thing would have missed me altogether,” he said, his wings drooping in the Attitude of Pain and his voice strained.
“So you are not yet without flaw? Even after all this time?” I chided him gently.
It raised a tiny hiss of amusement. “It seems not,” he replied, and his voice quavered a little.
“Shock, I expect,” said a deep voice behind me, and the Healer Vilkas strode forward, pale in the firelight that still flared in the ruins of the College. “Or reaction. Or loss of blood. Most likely all three. Do you permit, Lord Shikrar?” asked Vilkas, drawing his power to him.
“As swiftly as you may, Mage Vilkas,” said Shikrar, his voice shaking plainly now with pain and exhaustion.
“Aral?” said Vilkas softly. That lovely young woman moved to join him, the soulgem still clutched in her left hand, but before she could summon her aura once again Shikrar swiftly moved his huge head very close to her. I was proud of her, for she hardly flinched at all.
“Lady Aral,” he said softly, “I had lost that fight ere I had well begun, were it not for your aid. I am in your debt.”
She did not speak, but reached out her right hand, tentatively, and touched his mask. He bowed to her touch. I turned my face away.
Vilkas was glowing brightly. He led Aral around to the wound on Shikrar’s back and right flank.
I would not have believed it if I had not seen it. Perhaps it was the strength of the soulgem, perhaps it was the response of Aral’s soul to Shikrar’s kindness, and perhaps it was simply that Vilkas, frustrated at being of no service in the struggle, was intent on proving his worth. They did not cover over the wound, as we would have done with khaadish. They healed it from the inside out: Raksha-trace washed away with Healer’s fire, bone-scorch soothed and burnt muscle renewed, blistered flesh eased, torn and melted scale made whole before my eyes. It took them the better part of an hour, but they healed Shikrar as we watched. When their task was done, the only indication that he had been wounded was the outline of new scale, lighter than the rest, where that terrible burn had been.
Maran
“You who have not flown before, be warned,” Kédra had said, flexing his wings as we climbed into his hands. “It is a wild night for flying. The air is full of sudden drops and cross-currents this night. It will be rough aloft.”
That was when I learned that dragons are liars. It wasn’t rough aloft, it was bloody terrifying aloft. Still, Kédra got us there alive, so I was inclined to forgive him. I did wish at the time that it hadn’t been so dark, or so frightening, because I didn’t expect to have the chance to fly again.
He landed outside the wall just as Shikrar released the survivors from the Great Hall. Vil and Aral went to join their friends; the rest of us milled about, helpless, but not willing to leave.
My eye was drawn first to a pair of observers—actually, they stood so close together it was hard to make out that they were two people. As it should be.
Once I knew that Lanen was free and safe in her husband’s arms, I found a quiet corner from which to watch the proceedings. It was obvious that greater folk than I were needed, and they all rose to the challenge. When the students were taken to The Brewer’s Arms I followed, and managed to get a room to myself. To be honest, I didn’t want anyone around who might smell Raksha-trace on me and overreact.
Maran, you’re at it again.
To be honest, I wanted to be by myself to think things over. I had seen Lanen in the wild firelight. Truth to tell, my eyes had not left her. She had stood, her arms around Varien, all through the battle. If she’d been in pain, injured, tortured, she could not have done so. In fact she hardly let go her husband all through the battle, all through the aftermath—and he held her every bit as tight.
What did she need me for? What would she gain by seeing me? At this stage, surely I would only remind her of unhappiness. I could leave tomorrow, while the rest of them were busy making whatever plans were to be made. Just slip away, unnoticed. No one would miss me, least of all the daughter I’d never known.