‘Believe me, you are the lucky one,’ he rasped. Quieting the horses who had started to back up, he ran back to the ballista and slashed one of the harness ropes. The ballista shifted its weight and the horses moved reflexively to balance it, one whinnying nervously. Below him, four faces looked up in mute shock. Blades were drawn.
‘I warned the last who came to tell the next that all they would find here is death. You chose not to listen.’ He lashed at the other harness rope, splitting it at the second strike. The ballista rolled quickly down the ramp, scattering the hunters and gathering pace as it bounced over rock and tuft. A wheel sprang away and the main body ploughed left to plunge over the edge of the path, tumbling to its noisy destruction in a stand of trees some two hundred feet below.
Below the ramp, the hunters picked themselves to their feet, the engineers looking to the warriors for guidance.
‘There’s nothing they can do for you now,’ said Hirad. It is safe, Great Kaan.
A shadow rose from the hills behind Hirad and swept down the path. It was enormous and the great beat of its wings fired the wind and from its mouth came a roar of fury. The hunters turned and ran but another shape took to the air over the path below them and a third joined it, herding them back towards Hirad.
The trio of dragons blotted out the stars, great bodies hanging in the sky, their united roars bouncing from the mountains around them, the echoes drawing cries of terror from the hunters now turned hunted. They huddled together, the dragons circling them, lazy beats of their wings flattening bush and grass and blowing dust into the air. Each one was over a hundred feet long, its size and power making a mockery of the pitiful band who had come to kill one. They were helpless and they knew it, staring into mouths that could swallow them whole, and imagining flame so hot it would reduce them to ashes.
‘Please, Hirad,’ mumbled one of the engineers, recognising him and fixing him with wide desperate eyes. ‘We hear you now.’
‘Too late,’ said Hirad. ‘Too late.’
Sha-Kaan powered in, his wings beating down and blowing the hunters from their feet to sprawl beneath the gale. His long neck twisted and arrowed down, striking with the speed of a snake and snatching up a warrior in his mouth. And then he was gone into the sky, his speed incredible, his agility in the air breathtaking. He was impossibly quick for an animal his size and the hunters left on the ground gaped where they lay, too traumatised now even to think about getting back to their feet.
The man in Sha-Kaan’s mouth didn’t even cry out before his body was torn in two and spat from the huge maw, scattering blood and flesh. The Great Kaan barked his fury into the night, the sound rumbling away like distant thunder. Nos-Kaan soared high, then dived groundwards, the men below his gaping mouth screaming as he fell towards them. With a single beat of his wings, he stalled his speed, the down-draught sending the hunters rolling in the dust, their cries lost in the wind. He looked and struck as Sha had done, his victim crushed in an instant and dropped in front of his comrades.
And finally Hyn-Kaan. The Great Kaan’s bark brought him low across the ground, a great dark shape in the starlight, his body scant feet from the rock, his head moving down very slightly to scoop his target into his mouth. He flicked his wings and speared into the heavens, a human wail filtering down, cut off, and followed by the sound of a body hitting rock.
Hirad licked suddenly dry lips. They had said they wanted revenge. And they had said they wanted men to know their power. Yet the elf at his feet was still unconscious and had seen nothing. Lucky for him. Hirad loved the Kaan and theirs was a bond that would not be broken by such violent death. Yet once again, he was reminded of the unbridgeable gulf between man and dragon. They were majesty, men their slaves if they so chose.
Hirad brought his attention back to the lone engineer, alive still and surrounded by the torn carcasses of his friends. He had soiled his breeches, liquid puddling around his boots where he crouched in abject terror of the three dragons circling above him. Sha-Kaan landed and grabbed him in one foreclaw, bringing him close to his jaws. The man wailed and gibbered.
Hirad turned to the mage, uncorked his waterskin and dumped its contents over the elven head. He gasped and choked, groaning his pain. Hirad grabbed his collar and hauled him upright, a dagger at his throat.
‘Even think of casting and you’ll die. You aren’t quick enough to beat me, understand?’ The mage nodded. ‘Good. Now watch and learn.’
Sha-Kaan drew the hapless engineer even closer. ‘Why do you hunt us?’ he asked, his breath billowing the man’s hair. He tried to reply but no words came, only a choked moan. ‘Answer me, human.’ The engineer paddled his legs helplessly in the air, his hands pressing reflexively against the claws he could never hope to shift.
‘The chance to live comfortably forever,’ he managed. ‘I didn’t realise. I meant you no harm. I thought . . .’
Sha-Kaan snorted. ‘No harm. You thought us mindless reptiles. And to kill me or one of my Brood was, what does Hirad call it? Yes, “sport”. Different now, is it? Now you know us able to think?’
The engineer nodded before stammering. ‘I’ll n-never d-do it again. I swear.’
‘No indeed you will not,’ said Sha-Kaan. ‘And I do hope your fortunate companion pays careful attention.’
‘My fortun—?’ The engineer never got to finish his question. Sha-Kaan gripped the top of his skull with a broad foreclaw and crushed it like ripe fruit, the wet crack echoing from the rock surrounding them.
Hirad felt the mage judder and heard him gasp. His legs weakened but the barbarian kept him upright. Sha-Kaan dropped the twitching corpse and turned his eyes their way, the piercing blue shining cold in the darkness.
‘Hirad Coldheart, I leave you to complete the message.’ The Great Kaan took flight and led his Brood out to the hunt.
Hirad stood holding the mage, letting the terrified elf take in the slaughter around him. He could feel the man quivering. The smell of urine entered his nostrils and Hirad pushed him away.
‘You’re living because I chose you to live,’ he said, staring into the elf’s sheet-white face. ‘And you know the word you are to put around. No one who comes here after the Kaan will succeed in anything but their own quick death. Dragons are not sport and they are more powerful than you can possibly imagine. You understand that, don’t you?’
The mage nodded. ‘Why me?’
‘What’s your name?’ demanded Hirad.
‘Y-Yeren,’ he stammered.
‘Julatsan aren’t you?’
Another nod.
‘That’s why you. Ilkar is short of mages. You’re going to the College and you’ll put out the word from there. Then you’ll stay there and help him in any way he sees fit. If I hear that you have not, nowhere will be safe for you. Not the pits of hell, not the void. Nowhere. I will find you and I’ll be bringing friends.’ Hirad jerked a thumb up into the mountains.
‘Now get out of my sight. And don’t stop running until Ilkar says you can. Got it?’
A third nod. Hirad turned and strode away, the sound of running feet bringing a grim smile to his lips.
Chapter 2
The last few days had been the most tranquil and relaxing period of Erienne’s remarkable life. They had been the days aboard ship when she knew that she had escaped the fetters of the Colleges at long last. Not just Dordover, all of them. And in the calm, late summer waters of the Southern Ocean, with the temperature rising to a beautiful dry warmth, she and Lyanna had finally been able to rest and let go the cares of what had gone by and think on what was to come.
Looking back, the voices in her head had become so regular they had seemed a part of her. Urging her to leave and be with them. She recalled the night her decision had been made. Another night in Dordover, another nightmare for Lyanna. One too many as it turned out.