For all that, Salendor could not suppress a smile.
‘Ah,’ he breathed, raising his staff once more, forgetting his fatigue and remembering anticipation. ‘Now, my stunted friends, we shall see.’
Imladrik pushed Draukhain higher. The first pinpoints of starlight clustered on the extreme eastern horizon, glowing in a deepening sky. It was perishingly cold. The other dragons coursed and wheeling around him, wings rigid for the glide. Telagis’s emerald wings glinted in the dusk as he swept past Draukhain, bowing his head in submission as the greater drake’s shadow fell across him. Imladrik could sense the dragonsong of the other riders, whispering to their mounts, holding their immense power in check.
Down below, far below, his city burned. He could see the flare and pulse of the flames, barred by black lines of smog and ruin. The sun still shone in the west but was setting fast, making the tips of the waves looked like burnished bronze.
Why do we wait? sang Draukhain. The kill-lust was high in him; Imladrik could sense it pressing on his own mind.
I am preparing myself, Imladrik replied. It has been a long time since you and I went to war.
Nonsense. We have been killing druchii for months.
They are different.
Draukhain snorted. Bonier, perhaps.
Imladrik looked down, peering through the layers of drifting smoke. The vision was hellish, like the opening maw of Mirai in the depths of the gathering night.
The dragon knew well enough why they paused. Draukhain knew almost everything about him — the shape of his moods, the tenor of his thoughts. Sometimes Imladrik wondered if keeping secrets from his mount was even possible. Some things had been surrendered a long time ago — the right to a solitary mind, the right to an undisturbed sequence of mortal thoughts.
I do not wish this to be a slaughter, Imladrik sang.
Then do not ask me to unfurl my claws at all.
I am serious. We must drive them from the walls, but limit our wrath to that.
Draukhain flexed his pinions, preparing for the dive that would take them hurtling into the battle below. Even now, you harbour dreams of ending this?
Imladrik smiled bitterly. Not any more, but they are not daemons. Kill in proportion: that is the maxim.
Proportion! sang Draukhain contemptuously. Aenarion would have laughed to hear it.
And look what became of him.
Draukhain spilled a savage, metal-grating noise from his smoking jawline. Then we hunt.
Imladrik rested his blade on the dragon’s shoulder bone-spur and tensed for the shift.
Aye, Draukhain — we hunt.
He gave the mental order. His mind connected with those of the five other riders, and for a moment they were locked in silent communion. He felt the hot presence of the Caledorians, so similar to his own; he felt Heruen and Cademel prepare for the dive. He saw the varicoloured wings pull in tight, their iridescence furled.
For a moment all six dragons teetered on the brink, their riders sitting back in the saddle. Then the steepling fall began, and the drakes shot earthwards.
Imladrik felt the wind race past him. Draukhain took the lead position, racing down like some gigantic falcon, already breathing heavily with an iron-furnace rattle in his lungs. Gaudringnar followed closely, shadowed by the swift Rafuel.
Tor Alessi rushed up towards them, rapidly growing in size. Imladrik held his position carefully, watching as the three lines of walls separated and became individually visible. He picked out the flashes of magefire in the pinnacles and the staccato delivery of the bolt throwers. He saw the fires burning along the parapets in the lower city, throbbing and flaring in the gathering dusk.
Draukhain growled with joy. By then he could smell the dawi. He extended his wings again and began to sweep into the attack run.
Hunt well, sang Imladrik to his companions, knowing that once the dragons were amongst the enemy they would each fight alone. That was ever the way with them: they were solitary predators.
The summit of the Tower of Winds shot past, the first of the tall towers to be reached. The drakes split, cascading like lightning across the city. Imladrik caught sight of Salendor standing on one of the highest platforms. The mage-warrior looked elated, and saluted him as he passed.
Then Draukhain plunged down further, snaking through the thud and shriek of projectiles and beating his wings harder.
The walls, sang Imladrik, gripping tight against the push of the wind. Drive them from the walls.
Draukhain powered towards the nearest breach, the clap of his wingbeats like thunderbolts. The dawi did not see him coming until far too late. Even then, what could they have done? Run? None of them were fast enough. They had scoffed at the legend of the drakes and now their mockery would kill them.
Imladrik guided the dragon towards the largest of the rents in the eastern flank of the city — a huge hole in the stonework the width of a hawkship’s sails. Dwarfs were battering away at a thinning line of elven defenders, pushing gradually into the lower city.
Draukhain roared, making the residual bulwarks of the twin wall-ends shake further. In a spiralling flurry of dislodged stone, he crashed into the dwarf front rank.
It was like being hit by a tornado. Dawi were hurled into the air by the impact, plucked and dragged from the rubble by Draukhain’s claws or slammed clear by savage downbeats. The lashing tail accounted for dozens more, sweeping them from their positions and sending them cartwheeling, broken-backed, into the seething mass beyond the walls.
Then the fire came. Draukhain twisted around, still airborne, spewing a massive, writhing column of dragonfire that crashed across the stonework like clouds tearing around a mountain summit. Even the staunchest of the dwarfs fell back in the face of that, clawing at terrible burns as they staggered clear.
Imladrik rose higher in his seat, riding the swerve of his mount. He bent his mind to the task of dragonriding, adding his consciousness to Draukhain’s own, melding his awareness with that of the mighty drake. They were like twin entities bound within a single gigantic physical frame.
Draukhain snapped his wings back and thrust clear of the breach, leaving a trail of smouldering carnage in his wake before pushing out into the horde of dawi beyond. Staying low, he punched into them like a ploughshare breaking into soil, blasting blue-tinged sheets of flame across the reeling lines before plucking the most defiant of them from the earth and flinging them high.
All across the beleaguered city the tale was the same. Each dragon hit the attacking armies at once, devastating the vanguard and driving deep into the supporting troops behind. These drakes were no drowsy, gold-hoarding wyrms of the eastern mountains — they were Star and Moon dragons, the most powerful beasts in all natural creation, sheer engines of destruction, avatars of primordial devastation. The dawi had never seen the like, and they shredded them.
Imladrik felt the lust for killing swell up within him. The taste of dawi blood came to his lips as splatters of gore streaked across his silver helm. A savage smile half-twitched on his lips, teetering on the brink of spreading.
Retain control, he sang, guiding Draukhain further into the press of dwarf bodies. He could see siege towers up ahead, all ripe for destruction.
Draukhain hurtled low over the battlefield, raking the oncoming hordes. The dwarfs who attempted to rally were first bludgeoned with dragonfire, then gouged by Draukhain’s jaws and talons, then swept aside with the disdainful flicks of his immense tail. Crossbow bolts clattered harmlessly from the dragon’s scaled hide. Axes and warhammers were wielded too slowly to make an impact; even those that connected did little more than bruise Draukhain’s armour.