Morgrim looked tired. Caradryel guessed that he had been engaged in many long sessions of argument with his thanes during the night. Morgrim had very little to gain from any cessation in hostilities but plenty to lose; perhaps the strain was getting to him.
‘Grondil speaks the truth,’ said Morgrim. ‘We can talk around this as much as we like, but we will always come back to the same issue. You ask us to believe you, to trust you, yet trust is just the thing we do not have.’
Imladrik raised his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘We’ve talked ourselves hollow over this. Your people in the high places, mine in the lowlands. There is room for us to live alongside one another.’
‘For now, perhaps,’ said Morgrim. ‘But in a year, when memories have faded? What shall I tell the High King — that we had the chance to destroy our enemy when he was weak and instead let him recover to come after us again?’ He shook his head. ‘You must give us more. There is a blood-debt on your head.’
Caradryel had been watching Imladrik’s exchanges for so long that he’d almost forgotten the other members of the Council. Against the odds, it was Caerwal who spoke up then, his blank face uncharacteristically animated.
‘Blood-debt?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘What of my people? Who will pay the price for the slain at Athel Numiel?’
Eldig snorted. ‘Perhaps it was not dawi who killed them. Perhaps it was these druchii. After all, who can tell?’
Caerwal shot to his feet. ‘Do not dishonour them!’ he shouted, his cheeks flushing.
Grondil and Eldig both stood up and started to shout back. Caradryel glanced at Imladrik again and their eyes met. Imladrik gave him a weary look that said this is hopeless.
Then, just as the entire chamber dissolved — again — into a series of bawling matches, a lone elf slipped in to the tent from the asur side and sidled up to Salendor. He wore the livery of Athel Maraya, and in all the commotion no one gave him a second glance.
No one, except, for Caradryel, who observed carefully. The elf stooped low and whispered something in Salendor’s ear. Then, just as silently and with as much discretion as before, he rose to his feet and ghosted back out. Salendor sat for a while, pensive, no longer paying much attention to what was going on around him but staring down at his hands.
‘And so what do we have left to talk about?’ demanded the runelord Morek amongst the hubbub, his old voice cracked and cynical.
‘Everything, rhunki,’ urged Imladrik, still trying to rescue something from the wreckage. ‘If we could just calm ourselves…’
‘That is wise counsel,’ said Salendor, suddenly lifting his head up and looking around the chamber. At the sound of his voice, the space fell quiet. ‘We have been arguing for hours and achieving nothing. Perhaps some time apart would be beneficial.’ He glanced over at Imladrik, seeking his approval. ‘Some wine, some food.’
Imladrik considered that for a moment, seemingly torn between pressing on and cutting things short before they descended into a brawl.
‘Very well,’ he said resignedly. ‘We will adjourn. But, my lords, I implore you to consider what has been offered here. Reflect on it. Let us hope we may convene in a better temper.’
The session rose. As servants filed into the chamber with refreshments, Salendor quietly made his way to the entrance and walked outside.
Caradryel got up and followed him. As he neared the canvas opening, Imladrik broke free of an animated discussion with Caerwal and called him back.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
Caradryel nodded in the direction of the city. ‘Salendor,’ he said, and that was all that was needed.
Imladrik looked distracted, no doubt already thinking of ways to salvage the upcoming session. ‘Are you sure you’re-’
‘Leave him to me,’ Caradryel said. ‘You worry about the dawi.’
Imladrik nodded. ‘Very well, but if he’s ready to move…’ He paused, his face looking almost haggard for a moment before hardening again.
‘You know what to do,’ he said, and turned away.
The land raced past in a blur. The two drakes dived and soared, each snapping at the other as they tried to find purchase, neither landing the decisive blow.
Drutheira had been reduced to hanging on grimly. The crimson mage was far more powerful than she’d guessed. A dragon — a real dragon — was also far more powerful than she’d guessed. Her own mount was bigger and more steeped in sorcery, but its erratic mind made it a haphazard and flailing combatant.
She had no idea where they were. The hours of flying had left her disorientated and exhausted. The Arluii were long behind them, a hateful memory now consigned to the north. Seeing her companions on the mountaintop swatted aside so easily had been like taking a kick to the stomach — they should have been able to cripple the mage at least. Perhaps their powers had withered during the long years of the hunt, or perhaps they had just got careless.
A sun-hot burst of flame rushed past her. Bloodfang wheeled down to its right, tilting clear of the blast, its chains clanking as it spun away from the danger.
‘Back!’ she cried, driving the spike-point of her staff into the creature’s neck again, though it did little good. ‘Do not run!’
Bloodfang had long since ceased responding to her commands. The beast had been badly mauled, first by dragonfire and then by talons — the pain seemed to have driven what little sanity it possessed into abeyance.
Drutheira glanced over her shoulder. The red mage was close behind, just as she had been since the fight over the mountains, her face fixed in a mask of hatred, her staff still glittering with nascent sunbursts of power.
Drutheira raised her own staff, dragging up yet another gobbet of raw Dhar potency, dreading the pain it would bring her.
‘Kheledh-dhar teliakh feroil!’ she shrieked, her voice cracking, and launched a trio of spinning black stars at the red dragon.
The creature evaded two of them, pulling up high with a sudden thrust of its wings and arching over the star-bolts, but one impacted, cracking into its exposed chest. The bolt detonated with a sick snap, making the air around it shudder and bleeding out lines of oil-black force. The star-bolt clamped on, sprouting slick tentacles that gripped and ripped like a living thing.
The red dragon bucked and twisted, bellowing in pain, nearly throwing its rider off and falling further behind.
‘Now!’ Drutheira screamed at her wayward steed, wishing she could grab the monster’s head and force it to see what she had done. ‘While it is wounded!’
The red dragon’s roars of pain must have penetrated into even Bloodfang’s pain-curdled mind, for it responded at last, switching back mid-air and inhaling for a fresh blast of dragonfire.
By then the asur mage had done her warding work, ripping the sorcerous matter clear of her mount’s flesh and casting it away. Bloodfang lurched into range, its massive wings thrusting like bellows, fire kindling between its open rows of yellow teeth. The red dragon responded as best it could, uncoiling its wracked body and summoning up flame-curls of its own.
Bloodfang slammed into it, hurling a raging stream of dragonfire at its torso and following up with scything swipes from its extended forelegs. The two beasts crunched together, meeting with an echoing crack of bone.
Drutheira’s mount ripped into the other drake’s already ravaged neck-armour. Claws and tail-barbs flew back and forth, dragging and biting. The two creatures grappled with one another, rolling over and over in the skies, retching fresh dragonfire into one another even as their jaws bit deep into fissured armour.
Blood splashed across Drutheira’s face as she gripped tight, trying to keep her head as the world whirled around her. She caught fractured glimpses of her adversary doing the same thing, lost in the savagery of the dragons unleashed at close quarters.