Crazy Mad stood up. He started pacing, talking to himself. ‘Like he was in Tethis. Like Saffran Kuy. Except Saffran lived by the river, not with the fishermen. The fish for his army of little spies were brought to him. Sun and moon! He has to be here somewhere, and we have to find him.’
‘Got any sense, he'll be long gone.’ Tuuran turned his back to the dying city. ‘Me? I'll help you look if you like. I just want to kill me some of those night-skin slaver bastards while I'm at it and I'll be happy.’ He looked further along the curve of the shore and traced the route the Taiytakei at the docks had told him with his fingertip. Another half a mile to the first bridge and the nearest of the three islands. The Eye of the Sea Goddess, was it? Then up and up to a sheer pinnacle hundreds of feet above the waves, gleaming towers clustered around its crown. Another bridge, the one he'd seen so clearly from the docks. Then the last pillar of rock with its glittering palace and its towers of glass and gold. His finger stopped and pointed. ‘There,’ he said. ‘That's where I'm going. If I was a blood-mage or a death-mage or a whatever it is you're looking for and I was stupid enough to still be here in the first place, that's where I'd be. With the kings and lords of this city. Safest place, if there's a safe place to be had at all.’ He grinned. ‘Well, safe until the likes of us get up there.’
Crazy Mad didn't even blink. ‘Then that's where we're going.’
‘Good!’ Tuuran rubbed his hands. ‘Should be a lot of fighting to get up there, I reckon.’ And yes, it helped that that was where the Taiytakei lords would be waiting to meet his axe and where all the gold would be afterwards, and what more could an Adamantine Man ask than to sack the palace of one of the kings who'd bound him into slavery? Yes, up there would do very nicely, and if you were looking for a crazy mage while you were at it, well, why not? He jumped back down to the alley, axe over his shoulder, short stabbing sword in his hand, the way it always used to be long ago, and jogged off towards the shore, humming to himself with Crazy Mad running beside him.
73
Diamond Eye plunged among the glasships. Lightning shattered the air above Zafir, beside her, all around her. Noise deafening, light blinding, yet Diamond Eye jinked and dived and rose and rolled between the thunderbolts. The air smelled of fire and sorcery, the burning tang that sometimes rose from the depths of her old palace where the Silver King had made his miracles. One bolt struck Diamond Eye's wing. Sparks arced along its length. They rippled over the dragon's scales and crackled across her armour; for a moment the wing fell limp and Diamond Eye tipped sideways and plunged, but only for a moment before he recovered and powered up again. The glowing golden rims of the glasships brightened to fire once more but they were too slow. Diamond Eye tore through them, in among them, tooth and claw and tail and fire, smashing and shattering them. One loosed a lightning bolt as he raced above it. Zafir felt the straps of her harness creak and groan as the dragon wheeled and landed on the glasship's back. He tore at its golden heart and let loose a torrent of fire until the glass glowed red and the gold began to melt, until the heat was unbearable even through the dragon-scale lining of her armour and her face was as red as a cherry and the sweat ran off her in rivers. Parts of the harness began to smoulder. She was almost weeping, begging him to stop before he cooked her alive and yet he wouldn't, he simply wouldn't. She felt his rage at these ships-that-flew, all-consuming, burning her on the inside as his flames scorched her without.
A bolt of lightning hit the glasship. She felt the shudder. More sparks ran over Diamond Eye's scales and then another thunderclap. She felt her skin prickle.
Stop! But he wouldn't, and she almost fainted from the heat until at last the glasship shuddered and began to slide out of the air. Diamond Eye let it go. Zafir watched it tip and plunge into the burning city. It hit the ground and exploded in a shower of smashing glass and twisted gold. Diamond Eye powered up again, wings shovelling the air with such force that the wind itself almost screamed in pain. He aimed for the next.
‘Smash it! Smash it!’ Zafir howled. She had to open her visor, had to, so the rush of wind could cool her face and her head, because otherwise she was going to melt like the glasship gold. ‘Smash it! Tooth and claw!’ More fire now and she'd be scorched to the bone, but Diamond Eye shot underneath the next glasship. Its rim shone with a ferocious white light, lightning ready to be unleashed. He lashed it with his tail and the glass disc cracked. Lightning flashed and danced down Diamond Eye's scales. A white aura shivered and crackled over Zafir's armour. Every hair stood on end. Her skin tingled and her heart fluttered as the gold amid the glass began to glow and little sparks flicked from her fingers into the dragon's back. Diamond Eye twitched. For a moment he froze in the middle of the air and began to fall again, but then his wings moved once more and the stolen lightning arced back and the glasship's core exploded. Shards flew like arrows, peppering Zafir, rattling against her. She felt the sting of something on her cheek where she'd left her visor open. Behind them the glasship broke in two and fell out of the sky. She watched it go. It had a bright glowing fireball hanging underneath it, and she watched that too as it hit the ground and burst into an inferno. She had enough wits at least to close her visor before the wave of scorched air came and threw them upward, dragon and rider both, as the glasship's remains vanished into the flames. Diamond Eye snarled and dived at the next and then the next, one by one until the last of the glasships fell. The glasships were the Taiytakei's terror. They would come with their fire bombs and their lightning cannon and destroy everything in their path — like dragons — but for dragons they were easy prey. A dragon was worse and now they knew it. She'd given Tsen what he'd wanted all along — a demonstration of a dragon's power — and she wished he was here to see it, to beg her to stop so she could tell him that she'd barely even started.
She let Diamond Eye have his way and swoop lower. Where the glasships had fallen the city was ablaze beyond hope, but he wanted more. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, pressing herself against his scales to avoid the scorching choking wind as he flew through it and burned whatever was left to burn. Hungry! His urge to feed wrapped around a vicious gleeful joy, the frenzy of the burning shattering thing she'd allowed him to become.
‘Ships.’ When she had him out over the sea she let him burn those too, but she kept him away from the little boats bouncing on the waves with their cringing soldiers. A part of her hardly cared — Let them all burn — but that was an animal part. The cunning in her said no, let the soldiers reach the shore, let them live and let them fight and wait until the end and be the ruin of them all when they think it's done. So she burned whatever was in her path and left the rest alone, and set her dragon towards the island lit up with flashes and thunderclaps where there would be a battle worthy of them, where more ships clustered, burning and adrift. A large four-master reared out of the waves, sails still intact. A flag flew from its mast and Zafir wondered if perhaps all of the ships had flown flags to show for whom they fought. It hadn't occurred to her. In a dragon war you knew the dragons from your own eyrie, all of them by sight. You knew your friends and your allies and anyone else was the enemy. And it wasn't so much that the riders knew, it was the dragons — they knew.
Diamond Eye tucked in his wings and arrowed for the ship. They are all the enemy. Her own thought, but he latched on to it with a crushing hunger. Dragons and ships. Oil and water.