Draconic Shenanigans - Episode 49

Chapter Forty Nine: The Poisoned Light

(Artwork not my own, all rights go to stockcake.)

Peter rippled over the wreckage of the town of the Wizard’s Tower, antennae twitching and waving. His hundreds of feet moved like waves on the sea shore, propelling him forward. He flowed on to the road and reared up, insect eyes scanning the area. He turned and ran up the street like water. His antennae flicked over Quenril’s limp form. After a moment he reared up again ad started whistling like a steaming kettle.

His bug head swung round as Bartholemew came waddling out of the darkness, Tasnar hanging on as the giant lizard scrambled through the cluttered streets. Tasnar slid off and came hurrying across the cobbles to Quenril’s side. He visibly relaxed once he saw that Quenril was breathing and uninjured, that the blood and other less pleasant stuff coating him had belonged to werewolves and not himself. Peter whistled, whilst Bartholemew blinked and flicked his tongue. Tasnar pawed at his throat, pulling his cloak free.

“I have you brother,” he muttered as he wrapped Quenril’s prone form in the thick material, “I have you. Don’t you die on me tonight. Don’t you dare.”

The crackling was just back ground noise to him as he gathered his brother’s limp body in his arms and struggled to lift him on to Bartholemew’s back. The lizard flicked his tongue and then turned his head at Tasnar’s tap, Peter scuttling along in their wake, peeping and whistling quietly as his antennae flicked over the rubble and broken road surface.

Tasnar turned his head sharply as he heard the massively heavy steps behind him but it was Lady Zilvra and her siege beast.

“Is he...?” Lady Zilvra started.

“Quenril is going to recover,” Tasnar interrupted, heedless of the dangers of interrupting a women and a Matriarch no less. He had no strength to care about that right then, “Sabal…” He stopped ad swallowed, the vision of what his cousin had been reduced to swimming across his vision and he shuddered, “Sabal… will not. Sabal… is for the flames. I’m sorry. The… the werewolves got to him before… before we could.”

He didn’t look up at her, didn’t see her expression, didn’t see Estella embrace her from behind. He heard the siege beast’s rumble shudder through the air but he was too tired to look, staying sat on Bartholemew out of sheer habit, his arms locked around his brother’s limp form because he could not conceive of letting go.

The beasts marched on to where Ulrich’s siege beast had started cleaning up the mess of battle. It was surprisingly delicate about nipping the werewolf corpses out from among the rubble before it flicked them to the back of its throat and swallowed. That was when it wasn’t being fed by Damned Souls who had already started the slow, cold, stinking job of cleaning up the battle field.

There was the sound of a slow surf on the shore as Valodrael followed them up towards where Ulrich was crouched over Kaelin’s grandfather, knife busy at work.

“A little damage in the throat and over the heart but other than that it should look preachy spread out on the floor once it has been cured,” Ulrich was saying out loud to one of the Damned Souls which was watching him work.

Estella watched as she waited to climb down after Lady Zilvra and then she sniffed. She could smell woodsmoke but it was stronger then chimney smoke usually smelled.

“Fire!” Kaelin screamed, “Fire!”

Amelia’s sodium elemental weapon had been effective at destroying werewolves and their unnatural derivatives but the fires she’d turned them into were spreading through the wreckage and the flames crackled hungrily as they spat sparks into the darkening night, crawling over shattered timbers, broken barrels and splintered furniture.

“Bucket chains!” Cyril cried from the battlements, “Bucket chains!”

Damned souls turned their malformed faces from the business of cleaning up the mess to scramble for pots, pans, buckets and barrels, some smashing out windows to scramble through into unbroken houses to raid kitchens for what they needed. Others dashed to the wells and started winching on the windlasses, drawing up water from the deep wells, pouring it out into every pot and pan held out to them.

Jeremiah pushed off from the steps of the Wizard’s Tower’s deeply recessed door, beating up into the night sky as the flickering orange glow grew and pulsed, the voices of the fire growing towards becoming a chorus of destruction. He liked that. Elisha had been another who had dared to judge him for his worship of the One True God, if the fires now claimed everything this Mastersmith had tried to build then it was merely the Will of the One True God being done, his righteous judgement being visited upon those who proved themselves unworthy by their denial of the glory of the One True God. He tugged his beard as he surveyed the south and east quarters of the Tower’s grounds. He turned his head, catching the flash of orange out of the corner of his eye.

Amelia seemed to be fleeing, disappearing into the gloom over the Dead Swamp. It surprised him , a little but she was a descendant of those who had risen in wicked and sinful rebellion against the One True God so it was hardly surprising that she herself was false. Without full and complete submission without any boundaries to the Will of the One True God there was no salvation, only selfishness, only sin and the condemnation of damnation.

At the three o’clock mark of the Tower’s grounds the goblins yelled ad cringed, afraid and fascinated by the leaping twisting flames in equal measure. They were lovely, so lovely, great billows of heat and light that twisted like the veils of dancing figures. They swirled and spun and spiralled, living things that coiled around their fuel and devoured, lashing through the air, hunting for more.

The goblins yipped and yattered, frightened of the fire but entranced by the light, the warmth, the sparks shining, reflected in their eyes as their ears flapped and twitched.

“Behold the glory of the One True God,” Jeremiah smiled, swooping low, hovering just above their heads, dragon fingered wings fannig the flames higher, “Behold the purity of his cleansing Will. It is pleasing to the One True God that the fires be fed with the worthless trash of the unbelievers. Feed their bodies to the fire, consign them to the flames. Send the burning higher so that all those that house a rebellious spirit maybe cleansed from the surface of Hestia so that she maybe a pure and perfect bride for her only proper master, the One True God.”

The goblin jibbered and jabbered, gazing up at hi, brows furrowed with confusion and doubt. The story of how Stink-of-the-Midden had died warred in their heads with the vision of the dragon they had seen hovering over them as they fought the werewolves and how like giants they had felt when they had done what the dragon had told them to do.

Jeremiah narrowed his eyes, seeing their hesitation and then he smiled.

“Oh my God,” he muttered, “The One True God of all the world. Grant unto me the image needed to win these souls to your cause. Make it so that they will pledge themselves to you body, mind and soul with no barriers and no boundaries so that you may do with their eternal essence whatever you wish. Grant me the power to make them bow wholly and completely unto you. So may your will and your will alone be done.”

Even as he finished the prayer the warmth spread from the books in the pocket at the small of his back until it enveloped him whole.

“Dragon!” the goblins squeaked and squealed, “Dragon!”

“Obey the one true god,” Jeremiah proclaimed, “Feed the fire with those that displease him. Prove that you are worthy of his love. He watches you, tests you. Prove that you are worthy of his regard. Feed the unworthy to the fire and cleanse Hestia of their presence, this is the will of your god, the One True God.”

“Dragon! Dragon!” the goblins squeaked and then, then they did as they were told. They swarmed towards the carcase of the white werewolf they had brought down and grabbed it, tugging and pulling against each other as they ceased it. Gabbling and shouting and spitting, they somehow managed to goblin handle the dead werewolf towards the fire even while they argued and quarreled.

The stink of fur going up in flames was rank and sour, making the eyes water. A goblin squealed, flame licking over the back of a hand but the rest of the swirling, squealing mob were busy laughing, dragging other pieces of wood out of the wreckage, tossing them into the fire, squeaking with glee as the flames claimed them and climbed higher.

The whooping voices of damned souls suddenly echoed through the night. With a thunder of wings, be that bat like, feathered or insectoid, two squads of the malformed beasts dropped out of the sky, barking and growling at the goblins, knocking both wreckage and further bodies from goblin fingers, kicking away wreckage before it could ignite, some of them physically grabbing goblins by the scruff of their necks and hauling them away from the hungry flames.

Goblins squeaked and squealed back, slapping away the hands trying to save them, grabbing at the damned souls trying to corral the fire, trying to herd it, pen it and control it, lashing out at the ones trying to stop the folly of feeding a conflagration that was already out of control.

Jeremiah spiralled higher and smiled as the goblins turned on the damned souls. They hadn’t managed to feed the fire that much but they were tying down some of the ones who could have put the blaze out quite nicely. He grinned wider as his wings caught the building updraft and he was pushed into the sky without an ounce of effort. He winced as an ember pinged off his wing membrane but it was a small price to pay to be able to watch the goblins and damned souls fought in the streets as the blaze grew around them and embers sheeted into the air, little fire fly lights that winked and sparkled as they carpeted the shattered road surface, melting into the strange black resin it had been laid with and biting at any foot, paw, hoof or boot that stood upon them.

Jeremiah flew off into the night, leaving them to look after themselves. His god was pleased with the chaos and destruction he had wrought but he still had work to do. He was close, he was so close. He heard the whispers of it. The locks were restored, the keys were in place. It would not take much more to turn them but they still needed turning, there was still a critical mass that needed to be reached. Then, then the world would see the pure glory of the one true god and Jeremiah would be at his right hand, his favourite servant, his first and greatest disciple.

Behind him, almost heedless of the fire beginning to roar and whip its tendrils around them, the goblins screamed and swarmed, grabbing and pulling and yanking at the damned souls trying to put out the fire. Long things, short things, chimeras of man and elf and other people mixed with snakes and rabbits, horses, bears and wolves. Beaked thing cawed and croaked, things with feathers hissed, hooves clattered on stone as damned souls strove to pull the goblins away from their single minded drive to try and plunge themselves into the growing inferno or at inferno or at least feed more fuel into its maw. The night turned black and orange around them, a thousand stinging, biting embers on the wind, little flames beginning to crawl up window frames and across roof tiles.

At the nine o’clock mark Kelin finished lashing a rope around a water butt, the rope hanging in two long loops, the longer one trailing from the bottom of the butt. The water splashed and plished into the great barrel as a damned soul struggled to fill it.

“Are you sure this will work?” it asked, the words coming from a human style mouth in an inhumane face, its six arms not pausing in its work.

“Best shot we’ve got,” Kaelin grunted, not meeting the eyes that looked at her through secondary, smaller mouth, “Just keep filling that second one.” She tensed and jumped, pushing down with her wings as hard as she could. Every arm and chest muscle she had screamed in protest but she dragged the load of water into the sky. She just clearer the roof tops with her load but she didn’t need height, if anything the lower the better as it would make the drop more accurate. She pointed herself in the direction of the fire at the ten o’clock mark and screwed her eyes shut, panting with the effort, soot catching at the back of her throat. The heat hit her wings, lifted her and without looking she let go of the shorter loop. The butt dropped, flipped and dropped its load. “With a raging hiss steam rose, fire spat and flames died. Kaelin turned and looked down. The fire was shrunken but not out, leaning away from the damped ground, hissing and more fitful. She drifted on, dropping, managing to summon enough energy to make sure the butt didn’t crash and crack. She stumbled to her knees as she landed gasping but she forced herself back up, shaking off the other loop and reaching for the now full water butt.

“Shut it,” she grunted at the damned soul as it opened its speaking mouth. She hauled the new water butt into the air. As she fought for height she saw Amelia lumber back into sight at the edge of her vision. Kaelin frowned even deeper than effort and pain was making her do. Amelia seemed to be in trouble, her flight unsteady and her belly heavy, sloshing with the contents she’s swallowed.

The orange dragon dived head down, dropping at a viciously steep angle towards the fire that was flaring at the two o’clock mark. She flared her wings, slamming into a break stop and the contents of her stomach slammed forward. The noise was one part burp, one part burf.

The fire whined and spluttered, roughly two thirds out and Amelia wobbled in midair, gulping with discomfort.

“Ow,” she muttered, “Ooph.” She struggled back to the level and turned back to towards the pond she’d found in the Dead Swamp.

“I’m never getting this taste out of my mouth,” she complained to the night air.

The flying damned souls at twelve o’clock beat at the flames with soaked towels and blankets, slamming the flames again and again, stamping out embers and sparks, no matter how much it hurt their feet. Their surrounded it, beat it back, chased it down. It whined at them fitfully as the flames shrunk, starving as the damned souls denied it food.

The fire at the six o’clock mark unfortunately seemed to have a fuel source hidden under the wreckage of a siege beast shattered house as it leapt and roared and billowed in the faces of the damned souls trying to contain it, threatening to melt flesh and char bone. They flinched and cringed back, buckets of water and sand going wide of their mark. They yelped in distress afraid of the fire but also desperate to please their Master Smith.

Hartseer came careering out of the dark, a bucket of water in all four of his hands.

“Get me water!” he barked, “I’ll do the rest!”

The damned souls stared for a second as bucket after bucket was tossed on the flames. A serpent tailed thing with a siren’s face slapped the damned souls around it, hissing and barking at them. Driven by its blows and scolding the damned souls hastily formed a line behind Hartseer, bucket after bucket passed from hand to hand to him. The fire roared and shrieked and snapped at Hartseer, tongues of flame licking across his limbs. Hartseer paid them no mind, face still the unchanging metal mask, eyes steady as he forced the blaze to halt its charge. The fire writhed, shrieking like a soul being torn apart at the lip of the crucible.

Further round the circle Thorian dashed through the streets carrying a massive beer barrel that he’d refilled with water once he’d drunk the contents. He’d been told once that a tree that was still full of water was too wet to burn so he figured that if he was full of drink he’d be too wet to burn as well.

“Nee Nah!” he bellowed as he ran, “Nee Nah! Nee Nah! Nee Nah!”

His boots squeaked on the ground, the barrel swung and the water sloshed… on to the stones.

“Oh…” Thorian belched, “Burger it!” He swayed slightly and squinted.

Tasnar came up beside him and throw the bucket of water with a lot more accuracy. The fire cracked and popped, the flame equivalent to a whimper as it lost ground to the smothering water.

“More drink on the fire, less in you,” Tasnar noted to Thorian.

“Yeah,” Thorian sniffed, “That might be a good idea.” He belched again.

The cracking of wing beats made them both duck. The water butt swung by crazily on the end of its ropes as Kaelin grunted and heaved with every wing beat. Every muscle in her upper body was screaming, her lungs felt like she’d swallowed a red hot coal and spots were beginning to dance before her eyes but she gritted her teeth until her jaw hurt and as a shifter there was a lot of jaw to ache. She forced herself on.

“Load away!” she yelled as she reached the fire, letting go of the shorter loop. The water dropped and the fire at the ten o’clock mark died with a wet sizzle and a cloud of steam that stank of damp ashes.

“Nice one Kaelin!” Thorian yelled up to her with a grin. Tasnar gave a more subdued wave of his arm.

Away from them, closr to the edge of town two siege beasts lay, eyes confsed as they watched their riders. Ulrich had left the work of shinning Kaelin’s grandfather. With the ten o’clock fire now officially out and with so many fighting the fires else where, he had instead chosen to support Lady Zilvra through this moment. If any thing now was the perfect time for it, everyone else was busy, they were distracted, they weren’t paying Lady Zilvra any attention as she went through her first wave of grief for her cousin. She had lost body guards as well this night but her cousin was family and Zilvra was running out of family. Together they washed what they could of him but the werewolves had made a shredded mess of most of him. In places there was no washing, it was more a case of trying to pack and wrap what they could with what they had to hand to hold him together long enough so that they would be able to have the funeral without him falling to pieces in the process. Lady Zilvra cried the while time as they worked, shuddering and sniffling, a total break down from the dignity a Matriarch was supposed to have. Ulrich let her lean on him. He could not understand grieving for a brother or a cousin as his kin had made it plain from his earliest memories that they would have preferred him dead but he had grieved for his grandfather, the only one who had thought he was worth anything, he had mourned and had his grief weaponized against him so he knew why she had sent Tasnar away. She had broken down once before in front of her kin and the fear that one day that moment of weakness would be used against her still lingered so here, now, in the dark, she could grieve with only her favourite, her love as witness. It was when it went quiet and it would go quiet, that she would pull the dignity of an Ash Elf Matriarch back into place and become all regal authority again. For now though, in the noise and the fire light and dark she could cry.

The noise was loud even here in the dark, half a circle away from the fight.

The goblins yelled and snarled and bite, swarming and clawing at the damned souls who were trying to stop them from feeding more fuel into the fire. Embers billowed around them, timbers cracking and splitting as the wind began to build, flame curling around the still standing window and door frames, jars and bottles exploding inside pantries and kitchens as the blaze ran fingers over still standing eaves and broken furniture.

Choking on smoke, half blinded by soot, cinders, burning fur, feathers and skin akin the damned souls did their best to hold the goblins back, chattering to each in their own tongue. They could see the light in the goblin’s eyes, not the red glow of the fire they seemed so desperate to feed but an infernal pale glow that blinded rather than illuminated. The damned souls recognised the signs of beings that had been caught in a delusion not of their own making, this was not the goblins’ fault, it was the fault of the one who had chained their minds and used powers that no mortal should touch to break them to his Will. The damned souls recognised a colour of hell.

Even while they heaved and pulled and sometimes physically carried the goblins away from the fire, the damned souls barked their thoughts to one another. Most of them involved making sure that they spoke to Hartseer once the fire fight was done and told him exactly what had been done to the goblins. In their minds, the King’s Special needed a prune as some of its member where not even trying to be better people.

Like toddlers having a temper tantrum the goblins struggled and hit and kicked at the very ones trying to save them. Damned souls grunted as little green and grey feet kicked them in the ribs and hands battered at their shoulders and heads. Some swore as little hands grabbed ears and pulled. Despite that they still tried to save what they could from the fires.

Estella held on grimly as Peter scuttled up the side of a still standing house. She had borrowed the the bug from Ulrich and now she sat tall as he reached the apex of the roof. She craned her head, looking first north and then south. The blaze at six o’clock was still trying to break out but Hartseer and a whole cluster of damned souls had surrounded it and seemed to be working efficiently to pour on the water. Whereas, the fires at twelve and what she could see of the fire at two o’clock, only had small squads of damned souls battering the flames back and they were working at the edge of wht they were capable of.

Behind her Thorian finished climbing back up the rigging on to the back of his siege beast’s neck.

“That away,” Thorian gestured and his siege beast stopped off south. That decided it.

“That way,” Estella gestured to the fire at twelve o’clock and below her Valodrael grinned and surge up the street, oily black form surging and bunching. As he did so he drew in the rattling breath that preceded the Chill of the Void. It was the wind rattling the branches of a forest encased in the ice of a freezing rain storm, the first cracks of the shattering ringing through the frigid air.

The damned souls leaped back with yelps as the air screamed with the snap contraction as the fuel the fire was feeding on froze, the glacial touch of Valodrael’s elemental weapon locking the heartwood in his freezing will. The very stones cracked and popped as fractures split wide, pinging sharp splinters into the night.

Valodrael slowed so he could grin at the dumb founded damned souls and give them a very magnanimous nod. After a moment one of them had the where withal to bow back to him and the others followed suit after a moment. That was just delicious for the night. An absolute treat. Valodrael looked round and saw the fire at two o’clock. In an instant, he could tell that though it had been water bombed once it had not been properly doused and it was trying to grow again. He started forward, frowning. Amelia was spiralling above the flames but she didn’t seem to be well, clutching at her stomach, her head hanging as she flew.

Valodrael’s eyes narrowed into a scowl as he saw Jeremiah heading towards Amelia and something in the priest’s movement told Valodrael that he did not have Amelia’s best interests at heart.

“Oh my god, the One True God,” Jeremiah muttered as he flew, “He who owns everyone and everything as you created them all, look upon the descendant of the ones who betrayed you and deliver your judgement. Let the guilt of the forefathers be passed down, even unto the seventh generation. Let her pay for the rebellion of her fowl, unworthy ancestors. Let the world see that she is no different from her selfish, self centred, self willed, self serving originators so that they may judge her and all her unnatural, hybrid kind. Let her see foes where friends once stood. Let her see enemies where she should see allies. Let her turn on her comrades so that they will know the truth of all her traitorous kind and finally realise that she and all her species as lives unworthy of life. That they should be scrubbed from the surface of Hestia, never to darken the skies with their unnatural, unclean wings ever again. In the name of your gracious and righteous Will so mote it be!”

Amelia reeled in the air, the pain driving like a dagger strike through her skull. She vented a scream and stumbled, wing beat fouled. Gasping again the vicing that was making her eyes wobble in her skull, she recovered, fighting the rolling pain in her stomach that threatened to turn her inside out.

“Help us!” She heard the cry of the nice Jeremiah man. Still trembling, her head throbbing she managed to turn to see him, flying desperately through the air towards her. Part of her wondered how he had started becoming a dragon himself but through the pain haze the thing she saw most of all was his look of terror. Struggling to focus her eyes it looked genuine.

“Jewel of the Heavens!” Jeremiah cried, “They are attacking again! The werewolves are attacking again!”

“Where?” she barked.

“There! There!” Jeremiah dipped and pointed. Her vision swam as she turned her head but then it cleared and she could see the pack of werewolves trying to use the fire at the two o’clock mark to sneak back into the city.

“You!” she roared, “Get out of our swamp!”

The damned souls had a chance to look up just before the flood of grey gloop struck. Instantly the trio hit flung themselves to the ground and started rolling, knowing that they had to get as much of the stuff off of themselves before ignition happened. The damned souls that hadn’t been hit scattered, knowing what was going to happen and wanting to be no where near it when it did.

The coughing roar echoed through the night.

Limping round the wall, hanging on to Cyril, Elisha stared, eyes wide, mouth slake.

“Amelia,” he whispered, “What have you done?”

Jeremiah watched with gleeful satisfaction as the trio of damned souls burned and the fire spread. Thus was the Will of the One True God completed. The True God of the world did not forgive sinners, he burned them, as they rightly deserved. Only when all the broken, all the impure, all the imperfect were cleansed from the world would there be the perfect, unbroken paradise of complete and total obedience to the One True God. No barriers, no boundaries, no boarders. Complete and utter unquestioning total and immediate obedience. Purity in its cleanest form.

“Be thou perfect, even as thou father is perfect,” he quoted, feeling the books in his pocket grow hot as his god accepted the sacrifice but even as he basked in the approval of his god his hold on the minds of the goblins begin to slide.

Several of the goblins kept hitting and kicking at the damned souls even as their minds began to lose sight of the dragon that had gazed with approval at their efforts. Like toddlers the height of a temper tantrum their brains where caught, locked into a single track of action and they were going to scream and scream and scream until they were that exhausted their brains crashed and rebooted. The problem being that they were punching and kicking at the same time as screaming. Others, released from their visions of Jeremiah’s god, when from screaming because they needed to feed the fire to screaming because they needed to get away from the fire. Unfortunately for the damned souls, they couldn’t tell the difference. A scream of frustration sounded much like a scream of terror so they hung on to the wriggling, shrieking goblins, not realising that much of the kicking and punching would stop if they just let go.

And all the while, all around them, the fire spread and grew and devoured. Its voice mutated from a crackle to a growl to an outright roar as it sucked the air in from the surrounding town, the mind beginning to build as the flames licked higher, tasting the sky.

Blackened with soot, cinders crunching in his joints, Hartseer threw bucket after bucket on the fire at the six o’clock mark, the damned souls not handing him water as they were the group that had scurried down from the ten o’clock mark were swotting at fountaining embers with soaked rolls of cloth and heavy mats, keeping the fire at six o’clock from spreading north east towards the one at three o’clock. What ever happened they had to keep the fires from linking together. Once the fires started merging together there would be no stopping it. It would be a fire storm in a matter of minutes, a conflagration that they would be hard pressed to put out without the aid of a Storm Dragon and as none of their kind lived near Portasia it would be damn difficult to attract the attention of any of the blue scaled dragons before the fire ravaged across half country.

Hartseer didn’t look away from the flames as he heard the odd creaking and groaning from above. A trickle of water splashed across one shoulder as he continued seizing bucket after bucket, hissing to steam in a moment. If Hartseer could have frowned he would have done so. The damned souls must have been getting tired if they were sloshing water so carelessly. Then it occurred to him that where the water had landed on his shoulder it must have come from above.

“Load gone!” Kaelin yelled and the water hit the fire in a single lump, back washing with a surge and a splash, cutting runnels in the soot caking Hartseer and at the same time splattering him with black mud made of doused ash.

“Charming,” he noted, “I suppose I should thank you that you didn’t drop that on me.”

Kaelin didn’t hear, trying to spot if there was a well closer to the fire at the three o’clock mark that the one Hartseer’s damned souls had been using, her six handed helper shadowing her through the streets below, his eyes apparently more than fine despite living behind lips and blunt teeth rather than the eyelids of a regular face.

The inner wall shuddered and the head of Thorian’s siege beast looked over it, its cheeks bulging and its throat ballooned out and rippling from side to side. It scrambled, kicked, hauled itself up on to the top of the wall above the fire at three o’clock, its feet caked with the rich earth and leaves of the inner garden of the Wizard’s Tower.

“Up you go,” Thorian encouraged, “Now spit!”

Thorian’s siege beast opened its mouth a fraction as its throat contracted. The water sprayed in a great fan, some of it sticky and smelling of dog’s breath but that did not stop it from working. The fire contracted a fraction, wailing and hissing, embers dying in the sudden puddles that splattered the road closest to the wall.

“How’s that?” Thorian asked. Ulrich didn’t answer for the simple reason that Ulrich wasn’t there. Lady Zilvra was sat at Sabal’s side, puffy eyed and haggard but quiet now, watching as Ulrich administered to Quenril. Ulrich was not happy about Quenril’s colour and was busy trying to rub some circulation back into his limbs, which had the added benefit of roughly scrubbing off the slick of blood and other less pleasant fluids he’d got coated with.

“He must have fought like a demon,” Ulrich muttered, checking Quenril’s fingers for breaks. It occurred to him to wonder how fast werewolves usually healed. He knew Kaelin’s now finally deceased grandfather had seemed to regenerate more like Thorian did these days but he couldn’t remember Kaelin managing the same trick. He’d have to ask about it sometime.

“How are the others doing?” he asked, rubbing Quenril’s arms briskly. He thought a little colour was coming back into Quenril’s skin.

“The fire directly north of the Wizard’s Tower and the fire directly south are extinguished,” she reported, “There appears to be trouble with the other fire to the north of the tower. There is something wrong with the orange dragon. I’ve never heard tell of a dragon like her before so I am not sure but she seems to be stoking the flames.”

“What?” Ulrich looked up and stared at Amelia’s erratic behaviour. He heard a faint whisper of what she was yelling. Kneeling down, he rubbed more frantically at Quenril.

“Blasted priest,” he muttered as he worked, “I wish we had left him behind.”

In the streets of the town the damned souls from the now extinguished fire at twelve o’clock raced to the fire at two o’clock, the fliers water bombing the flames in several successive runs, making it squeal and hiss, the lashing flames waning as the water denied it fuel.

Several of the unwinged damned souls scrambled up on to the roof tops as the houses there were more complete, unruined by the attentions of a werewolf siege beast. Once they gained the roofs they jabbered and flapped their arms, trying to catch Amelia’s attention, trying to draw her away from their comrades. Several even threw things in their efforts to lead her away.

“Oh my god, the One True God,” Jeremiah pressed his palms together even as he hovered, “Let this unworthy descendant of the traitors who abused you bare the righteous punishment for their heinous acts. May she awaken from her delusions only when she has finished burning every ally, every friend and every single single last member of her unclean family to ashes and ruin. May she wake only when there is no one left who can forgive her. May she live forever with the guilt that her ancestors should have felt when they merely considered betraying and abandoning your righteous and upright ways so that she may never, ever live in peace ever again. May her every waking and sleeping moment be consumed with the knowledge that she and she alone destroyed everything she cared about. In your most holy and ever lasting name, so may it be!”

The books grew uncomfortably hot in his pocket and Amelia dived again.

“Get out of our swamp!” she bellowed at the werewolves she could see capering on the roof tops of the town. Her sodium breath followed a minute later.

The damned souls on the rooftops realised that they had in fact attracted Amelia’s attention and threw themselves across the roof tops to avoid that trailing rain of chemical based pain. They ran, they fled, some leaping the gaps between roofs, some jumping down into the alley ways as Amelia scorched by over head, each one not knowing how many she had missed or if they themselves were the only survivors of her attack. There was something wrong, they knew it. Amelia had been their friend, there was no reason she would suddenly turn on them and she kept yelling about ‘our swamp’, still using the collective possessive so who did she mean if she was not talk about them?

Jeremiah turned with a smile and swooped low, diving towards Thorian.

“Thorian? Thorian!”he cried, “The dragon has gone mad! She’s attacking our people! You’ll have to slay her!”

“Er what?” Thorian looked up from where his siege beast was sucking fry another pond.

“The dragon! Amelia! The Jewel of the Heavens!” Jeremiah explained impatiently, “She has gone insane. She’s starting the fires and attacking our people!”

Thorian frowned and looked around. Jerry wasn’t under attack. Kaelin wasn’t under attack. Hartseer was fine. Thorian twisted round in his rigging, trying to check that Ulrich was alright.

Jeremiah glared.

“The damned souls! You twit!” he thundered.

Kaelin had heard enough. She slammed her barrel down and shook out her pinions, twisting Haggis round as she did so. She thumped into the air, her slip stream rocking Jeremiah’s hover, turning him slightly.

“How rude,” he muttered, straightening his roes. He didn’t notice the wisps of smoke coiling from the edges of his garment’s huge pocket.

Valodrael on the other hand had noticed the smoke coiling from the edges of eves and round loft windows where sodium had dripped between tiles into attic spaces and was now in the process of setting roof beams on fire!

He reared up, braced against the heating wattle and daub wall. He flicked his left hand, the claw on his forefinger lengthening, glowing with the light of a thousand suns. The window exploded as the heat punched through it from both sides. A second later the flash over happened, fire roaring louder than a dragon, louder than fury, louder than the end of worlds. The loft became an airless void of red and orange, a vicious maw snapping and biting, chewing and gnawing at beam and strut and truss. Valodrael was already drawing his answer in, his star speckled hide shimmering with dying suns as he metastasized the power within.

The artic air blasted through the loft, fire brushed out before it, chard wood rimmed with frost in an instance. Without breaking for breath Valodrael turned his head and sent the chill of the space between stars blasting over the tiles. Flames perished in an instant, the air groaning as snow fell in autumn and started melting on the tiles in a heartbeat.

Valodrael surveyed his work, nodding to himself and only then sunk back to the road. He craned his head back to track where Amelia was. There was something seriously wrong here, he could smell it. A moment later he could smell the warm dog and feather smell of Kaelin as she landed on the tiles. He smiled as the skirling drone of the pipes cut through the air. He wondered if the wolf woman would concent to being part of his horde. Though they hadn’t had the chance to be close in the last few weeks,he knew that she and his queen, Estella, had been close to being friends. Kaelin was going to be alone after this night, without pack or family. Little people were not supposed to be left alone in the world so perhaps she’d consider the shelter beneath his wings. Estella had been alone for far too long and it would be a fair trade if this journey to find flesh and blood of his own resulted on her having a chosen family big enough to hold up her and her horde.

A second later he winced as Kaelin’s music cut through the night with all the smoothness of a rusty knife, the notes scratching and scrapping over his ear fins. He flinched, backing down the street, shaking his head and grunting, trying to resist the urge to paw helplessly at his head.

Above Amelia roared and whipped round in the air, snarling and shrieking. Wings thumping, she started powering towards the roof where Kaelin stood. Kaelin played on, braced, tensing, ready to leap out of the way. Amelia suddenly broke sideways, pulling up, hanging in the air for a moment, clasping her head, her vision flicking between the sight of yet more werewolves grappling with the goblins in the flames and the view of damned souls desperately trying to keep the goblins from their efforts of self immolation. She groaned, temples thumping and stomach churning.

Hartseer clambered over the lip of the inner wall at the six o’clock mark. It was the quickest highway in this town and he took off, limbs slicing air, the view blurring as the stones rang to his foot falls. He made no other sound, no breath, no yell of effort as he reached the turn at the three o’clock mark and threw himself off the edge. He was pushing off again almost before his foot touched the tiles. The apex beam cracked, splintering but Hartseer was already gone. A leap, a hand spring, a half twist, metal impossibly lithe and fast. This was what the paladins had feared above all else, the fact that Hartseer could move in ways they could not calculate and could not sense. He arched off the end of the roof above the fire and crashed down into the blaze. The sparks fountained high.

The goblins quietened, eyes wide, mouths agape as the fiery wreckage shifted and settled. The damned souls blinked, confusion stamping across their mismatched features.

The embers geysered into the sky as the fist punched up through the wreckage. Glowing cherry red the figure of the paladins’ nemesis shouldered aside burning timbers and shattered tiles, shoved away blazing wood, stamped embers and coals into dust, seized flaming fuel and hauled it away from what had not yet caught fire, corralling the heat, denying it its ability to spread, denying it escape routes.

Some of the goblins backed away, panting in the heat and the awe of this being that strode through flame and battle as if such things where to be shrugged off with barely a glance. Others stood still, heedless of the embers and sparks kissing their skin with scars finding themselves a new god to worship.

Some however were still struggling and screaming in the grip of the damned souls. A damned soul who torso was a halo of so many pairs of arms it was difficult to count them all reached the limits of its patience. It moved with a speed and co-ordination that made the eyes ache to watch. Barking like any patient telling their errant young to sit down, shut up and be more considerate of others, it ceased the still struggling goblins, all the still struggling goblins and knocked their heads together before dumping them in what was left of the gutter to nurse their skulls and snivel.

Jeremiah noticed the little side show and realised that the goblins were no longer serving their purpose. He circled a moment, considering his options. Those that did not serve their purpose wholly and completely, without question were not worthy servants of the One True God, therefore they had not earned the right to live and deserved only to die screaming. Not that their deaths would redeem their faults. Nothing could redeem a failure once they proved that they were not worthy of the One True God.

Then he saw it.

A damned soul standing shoulder to shoulder with Hartseer, growling and barking something as they fought the flames. It was gesturing back at the goblins and it didn’t take Jeremiah a moment to understand that the accursed thing was reporting that the goblins had been under Jeremiah’s influence. Jeremiah ground his teeth.

“By your power as the One True God,” Jeremiah spat, “Make these pathetic insects fear you Klu’ga’nath!”

The goblins screamed as one.

“Dragon!” they shrieked in terror, “Dragon!”

It was back, the dragon that shone with an inner light only now the inner light was no longer a blessing, a beacon calling them to serve, now it was scolding. It looked at them and judged them as not good enough, as not worth the effort, as not acceptable. Their minds did not have the words for it, could not have explained it but their souls felt it, felt it to the bottom, to the core of their beings. The dragon in the light looked at them and hated them, hated them because they were not good enough. They had been unacceptable, they were unacceptable, they would never be acceptable. They were worthless, valueless, useless. If they laid down and let the pigs trample them to death that would not be a painful enough death for them to make up for the air they had stolen, the space they had thieved, the foulness they had spread upon the world by choosing to be not good enough, by choosing to be selfish, self centred, self worshipping, self willed. By choosing to have boundaries, to have wants, to have needs that the dragon did not give them permission to have. They were worthless, they were foul, they deserved to die. They were nothing, if they threw themselves into the fire to burn right this very instant it would not be enough to earn acceptance because their very existence, their selfish, boundary constricted existence, was enough for them to be condemned and damned for all time. They were foulness, they were disgust give form and nothing they ever did would change that!

Screaming in terror, the goblins broke and ran, some running right through the fire to get away from what they saw, even as part of them knew that they would never be able to run far enough to get away from it because its judgement, which was right and good and true and just, would be forever there in their minds, telling them that they were dirt, they were filth, they were waste. That they were nothing and if their entire race was to die right that very instant it would not be enough to repair the damage they had done to the world by stealing its air from proper people who earned the right to live by serving the dragon without any limits, any limits, at all.

Most of the goblins didn’t realise that they were sobbing as they fled but they knew they deserved that because they were nothing, they had failed to earn the right to work and therefore did not even have the right to die. They only that the right to lay down in the rest of the filth and wallow in it like the scum they were until it ate the flesh off their bones and even that would not be an agonizing enough end to earn forgiveness.

The damned souls and Hartseer stared as the goblins disappeared into the dark. Hartseer shuddered. Their wails were the wails of those damned because they had failed and he knew that sound. The fire licked around the wreckage around him and for an instant he wasn’t standing at the foot of the Wizard’s Tower. He was standing in the burning shell of manor, the smoke column mingling with the savage wrongness of the sky violated by magics that should never have existed, the flames flicking with colours that were all wrong as he screamed, the blackened, twisted shell of his adopted daughter at his feet. He screamed, wordless, long, hopeless, his soul breaking inside his metal frame as he knew he’d betrayed the last child he had left.

Reality snapped savagely back.

Hartseer screamed and stamped on the fire. He screamed and screamed and screamed, crushing the fire out of existence, his screams becoming high and thin, almost song like, almost ritual. When the fire leaned away from him at last he slowed and stopped. He buzzed, the sound of metal vibrating to the frequency of agony as he learned once again the true agony of leaving behind his mortality – that eyes of glass cannot cry.

There was a thump of a wing beat behind him and the fire flared as fresh air billowed past him. He turned. Jeremiah smiled as he folded his wings.

“So considerate of you to help us with our little goblin problem,” he stated.

Hartseer twitched, an arm lifting, fingers splaying. If he’d still had teeth he would have gritted them. Pure, unadulterated loathing poured through his frame. He loathed the priest. He utterly loathed him. He loathed everything about him, the self indulgence, the smarmy charm, the cruelty, the under handed cunning, the way he used the cracks in society to get away with his abuse. At Nether Wallop, Hartseer had wondered if Jeremiah had learnt to channel his sadistic desires into the channels he himself had done, the channels that kept them tamed so they could be used for the right reasons, used for the serve of the many and the protection of the few, but it seemed all the priest had done was learn who he could bully and torment without being brought to task. Hartseer wanted to strangle him.

At his back the fire surged and snarled, licking flames over his shoulders. Without a word he turned back to beating the fire into submission. Here was something he could beat, that he was allowed to beat.

As Amelia twisted and turned in midair, the surviving damned souls at the two o’clock mark scrambled for buckets and wet blankets, beating the fire back, trapping it, dousing its fuel, controlling its spread, chasing down the hot spots and destroying its air supply. The fire snarled and snapped but it was shrinking, fading, whining as it retreated and found no where to retreat to.

Above them Kaelin stood, the piper on the roof, blowing into Haggis’ wing bag as hard as she could, the drone cutting through the air, the tune swirling, whirling through the night, fast, exciting and some how grounding all at the same time. It cleared the mind, it called for choice, for the hearer to decide their own path. It demanded resistance, it demanded questioning authority, it demanded that the hearer think. They didn’t have to think what the music named, they just had to think.

In the sky, soot stained and scorched, Amelia threw her head back and screamed. She arched, inverted and fell. She came down back first, wings out stretched, screaming the entire way. The house had been sturdily built and strong, its beams firm and untouched by fire but nothing made by human hands was built to withstand the weight of a fair sized dragon dropping, uncontrolled and flaying from the sky. The roof caved, the walls burst, windows shattered, everything tumbling in on top of the moaning, sobbing mass that was a Tropic Dragon who was in the throws of tasting betrayal for the first time ever.

Jeremiah turned away from the angry form of the King’s Blade and muttered a prayer to his god.

“Are you just going to stand there?”

Thorian jerked around, heart hammering as he heard Jeremiah’s voice just behind him. His siege beast bucked and fidgeted as well, apparently also hearing the priest’s voice where the priest’s voice shouldn’t be.

“I thought you orc children were supposed to be brave,” Jeremiah’s scorn was biting, “I thought you were supposed to never be afraid of a fight. Since when has Thorian Vandervast been a coward! A yellow bellied, crawling coward! Slay the dragon before she slays all of us!”

Thorian frown and scratched an ear, watching the pile where Amelia was buried. He opened his mouth to reply and instead reached out and tugged one of his siege beast’s ears as it went to lunge off the wall. There was something not right with the whole thing. He couldn’t say what it was exactly but after a season of travelling with the priest he had a feel for when the priest was trying to cause trouble and right now his mind was saying Jerry was trying to cause trouble.

In fact, Thorian nodded to himself, he was fairly sure that Jerry had lost the plot some where along the way. Granted Thorian wouldn’t be able to help him find it again as he didn’t know what the plot looked like but he was fairly sure Jerry had lost it.

Hartseer could feel Jeremiah’s gaze locking on to the centre of his back as he worked, striding into the fire, the buckets of water he carried steaming before he even dumped them on the fire, the flames coiling about his legs, fire licking over his frame. He didn’t care what the priest was planning. Once they were done here he was dragging the man back to the capital and throwing him right back into the cell he’d come out of. Let the King and courts of law decide if the man was worth sparing or not, Hartseer for one was sick of the damage the priest was doing while he was loose. Whatever good he had done was out weighed by the mayhem that was following him.

Hartseer stamped out embers and cinders, the damned souls following him into the breech, beating the fire back. They nearly had it back to the size it had been when it had first started, before the goblins had either run crazy or been bamboozled into feeding it with fuel. The fire wailed but they were implacable. Fire had its place but that place was not chewing through the entire town. This fire needed to be tamed, corned and killed. There was no pity for the rabid animal. The shepherd drove the injured wolf from the flock, he did not bind its paw.

On the west side of the Tower, out beyond the broken outer wall, a little group gathered round a bundle too small for the history it carried. Quenril was sat up, groggy and sickly pale, riding on Bartholemew as Tasnar paced beside him, the siege beasts following behind, eyes confused but following their masters.

They had laid Sabal back down in the grove of ground ivy under the trees where Tasnar had laid him while the battle had still been going on.

“We usually burn our dead, if they have earned that honour instead of being left for the kerveads,” Lady Zilvra said and glanced to where the fire glow was fading from the sky around the Wizard’s Tower, “But fire in this ‘surface world’ seems to grow without limits unless it has been carefully contained and we have no time for containment.”

“Humans mostly bury our dead,” Ulrich explained, “But it has to be a certain depth down or wild animals can… well, they don’t stay buried let’s put it that way.”

Lady Zilvra took a long, jagged breath and bent. The stem of ground ivy turned in her fingers.

“Little things,” she murmured, “Such little things and yet they bring such joy just by being seen.” She knelt amongst the stems, their earthy, bitter sweet scent rising on the damp night air. She breathed it in. A tear trailed silver and bright down her face. Ulrich reached down and laid a hand on her shoulder. She reached up and clasped it, her hand soft and warm over his rough knuckles. She breathed out.

“Something to try,” she murmured and lifted her hand away after a moment, digging her fingers deep into the loam. The words she muttered were whispering and sibilant but they contained a comfort, a calmness that hadn’t been there before, even as she held her own pain.

The ground ivy rustled, moved in patterns that had nothing to do with the breeze of the stars. Green stems moved, roots pulled free of the ground. Ulrich stared and hung on to Lady Zilvra’s shoulder as the ground ivy parted, moved, crawled up, over the winding sheets, closing over Sabal’s mortal remains, shifted and creaked with a sudden rustle of vegetative growth. It almost seemed to shimmer as its root grew, bound, coiled tight, seemed to embrace the poor, ruined thing that had once been a friend. None of them had noticed the tiny rose plant that had been hiding among the ground ivy until it fountained up into the starlight glen. It reached into the air, green fingers covered in thorns, its branches spreading wide and then bending down, sheltering the mound beneath it, covering it with its tangle of wooden claws. Buds swelled at the bases of the branching leaves and burst open, revealing hearts of bright gold lipped in white in the centre of circle of bright magenta petals, soft and delicate and yet so very, very strong.

Tasnar gasped a smile.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, the tears flowing, “It’s…”

He sank to his knees and cried.

Ulrich moved, reaching out a hand, holding them both steady against the pain neither of them properly understood. In the dark it was almost peaceful, almost… Until the roar shattered the night.

Jeremiah snapped the book shut and stuffed it back into his pocket, walking over the scorched road and passed the tumbled stones of the burnt out houses.

“I take it that you want me to give my report directly to the king,” he smiled at Hartseer’s back, ignoring the flames that still fluttered and danced around them.

Hartseer jerked and froze for a moment before he turned to face the priest.

“That was the idea,” his voice was grim, “Seeing as your redemption has been less than.. satisfactory.”

He expected Jeremiah to protest, to argue, maybe even to run. He did not expect Jeremiah to smile, to smile like he’d just been given the best gift ever.

“You know, Hartseer,” Jeremiah’s fingers twitched, “You really are one of a kind. Just. Like. Me!”

He flung his arms out wide and all of a sudden there were three other Jeremiah’s stood around Hartseer. The King’s Blade actually took a step backwards as the Jeremiahs, all the Jeremiahs started laughing. They laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed.

Hartseer’s glass eyes sparked with sudden fear as all of them started warping, twisting, stretching in ways that the human body were not supposed to be able to manage. They light up from the inside as skin bubbled and cracked, nails lengthened into claws, as dragon skin robes became not clothes but skin itself, as beard and hair twisted into horns and jaw ridges.

Hartseer turned his head again and again, stunned as the four dragons that shone with poisonous light ceased their hideous cackling and smiled down at him, smiles of fangs and glares and burning hunger. Their mouths gaped and the roar shattered the night.

Peter stumbled to a halt, Estella clinging to his shell as she stared in horror at the towering quartet of dragons that had suddenly shouldered their way above the houses that still stood. They weren’t as big as Nanny Tatters had been but they were still giant and there was something so unnaturally wrong about them, something off about their proportions, their scales, the way the light moved within them. Her mind screamed as it recognised the uncanny valley effect that had marked the Shadow creatures that Jeremiah usually summoned to put terror in his foes.

“Oh gods,” she gasped, “Oh gods help us!”

Thorian, on the other hand, grinned from where he could see the new beasties. His broad sword sang from its scabbard.

“It’s Thorian time!” he bellowed.

He smacked his siege beast with his other hand and it lurched down from the wall, snorting and growling as it thundered towards these new challengers. Thorian beamed as it roared its defiance. Jerry had said he, Thorian, needed to slay the dragon so he was going to slay the dragon, just not the dragon Jerry had wanted him to slay.

The crash as the siege beast and the closest dragon clone came together was a crunch of ribs and a smack of muscle hitting the butcher’s slab. Hartseer dived out of the way as the dragon stumbled back several paces.

Still sat on Peter’s shell Estella raised her arms and started turning her hands, her talismans singing their hearts out to help her channel the power. She held the spell longer than she had ever tried to before, sweat making her shirt cling to her, layering it up, over and over, holding it there until the entire spectrum of light and a few colours unnamed glowed within the circle, the edges fizing as the power fought her control.

With a yell of effort she punched through the circle, belting it through the sky, razor edged and snarling.

The Jeremiah-as-Dragon copy closest to her turned and the light within it blazed up, making the eyes ache with its bitter impossibility. Estella threw up her arms before her face and saw her arms bones through her flesh, saw the spell of sprite given power unmade, unravelled, devoured by that toxin light.

Blinking streaming eyes, she saw the thing’s grin through the blue purple glow distorting her vision. With a yell she did a double punch up and the water below responded, smacking the dragon in the face and soaking the still burning wreckage. She didn’t bother listening to the hiss of the dying fire, she was more concerned with the snarl that was now being directed her way.

“Oh shite!” she said and Peter whistled his agreement. The maw opened, the light within swirling as it clenched, promising to flay her every last atom clean.

Valodrael roared, the roar that ended the world, the roar of the destruction that thundered as the ice dam was breached and disintegrated, scouring the valley clear of life, soil and even rock. The Chill of the Void slammed into being as he leapt and this time it wasn’t the wall of cold, visible only by how the moisture froze out of the air, it was a solid mass of black, the raw stuff of the abyss between the stars where light ended and matter went to die.

It engulfed the Jeremiah-as-dragon copy as Valodrael crashed to the road surface, head low, wings high, mouth stretched wide as the air screamed and shrieked , collapsing into the freezing blast with a noise that screamed like avian things in agony. The scolding, caustic light flickered, faded, vanished within that frigid flood.

Then Valodrael ran out of breath, panting and heaving, eyes glaring as the Jeremiah-as-dragon copy was revealed, grinning and laughing, completely unharmed, the sick light within undimmed. The laughter was not the laughter of a dragon, it was the laughter of a man, the laughter of Jeremiah, taunting his one time companions from within the lips of a dragon.

“What does it feel like, little one,” the Jeremiah-as-dragon copy asked, “To realise that you are nothing!”

Valodrael lifted his head and growled, lips rippling back from his teeth, eyes slitted, wings arched, tail out stiffly behind him. The growl vibrated through the feet as much as through the ear bones. The Jeremiah-as-dragon copy laughed.

Jeremiah-as-dragon, the real Jeremiah-as-dragon was also laughing, absolutely howling with it as Hartseer rolled through the fire to evade the front foot stomp that nearly crushed him into the pavement. Hartseer scrambled, scrabbled as thumb claws of wings nearly impaled him, a tail blow smacked him across the street, as a clawed hand ripped own the front of a house, trying to bury him. Hartseer did a very undignified, six limbed crab flip to get out of the way of that one and didn’t bother to stand, skittering across rubble piles like a metallic spider.

“I’m going to kill you, you pathetic stick insect!” Jeremiah-as-dragon promised Hartseer, “I’m going to crush you like the bug you are! You dare to think you have the right to judge me!?! I am the Avatar of Klu’ga’nath!” The world shuddered and the fires flares purple as everyone organic felt like their brains were being rung out through their ears. “I am his most favoured servant! You dare to think you have the right to decide slime like those goblins where worthy of life? They are no more worthy of life than you are, you corroded freak! If they were worth anything at all they would have ripped you apart for daring to question the Will of Klu’ga’nath!”

Hartseer’s joints groaned, the closest he could come to feeling sick and he flipped himself on to his feet, the better to run. He ducked behind a half ruined wall.

“For someone who says that he’s going to kill me, you do seem to be wasting an awful lot of time puffing and blowing,” he called, “What’s the matter? Still too fat to do the job properly?”

Jeremiah-as-dragon roared and demolished the wall with a single blow. Hartseer leapt.

The light undid the world, or perhaps the world became the light, it was hard to tell. It was soundless, it was scorching and fire died in its wake, the wood it had been feeding on turned to perfect replicas in salt.

Hartseer stumbled, the right side of his body and his right arms blackened and pitted.

“You sir,” he grunted, “Are not nice.”

“And you are a pathetic insect,” Jeremiah gloated, “A freak, a failure. You failed to save your people, you failed to save your family, you failed to stop the Domilii and the Lost Continent burned because of that failure. You failed. Everything you do fails. Everything you touch rots. Everyone you care about dies because of you!”

“Price of immortality,” Hartseer grunted one jump ahead of the blows, “You are always the one left behind.”

The toxin, boiling light scoured across the road, the walls, the wreckage. Damned souls fell back from the pyre of light that blinded but never illuminated, of heat that burned but never comforted, throwing themselves through house windows to find hard cover within.

Hartseer slide down the far side of one of the rubble piles on his back.

“Ha!” one of the Jeremiah-as-dragon copies barked, I wonder if you will be so cocky when I have reduced your king and his whey faced brats to salt. In fact, I think I’ll start with the daughter. The little princess would be so pretty made out of salt, don’t you think?”

Hartseer roared, launching himself at the Jeremiah-as-dragon copy. It lifted a foot to squash him and reared back with a howl, blood, think and dark running from a slash across its palm. Hartseer was a whirlwind, slashing and hacking, driving the Jeremiah-as-dragon copy before him back, littering its thick hide with a hundred rips and tears. The other two Jeremiah-as-dragon copies closed in, boxing him, grinning as they started pulsing with the growing power of the venomous light. Jeremiah-as-dragon started to laugh again.

“Dodge this, metal man!” he crowed.

Kaelin pushed higher into the sky, the crossbow she’d snatched from a house cocked and loaded, her eyes narrowed as she locked on to her target. Jeremiah-as-dragon was too busy tormenting Hartseer to double check that the rest of them were going to let this happen. As far as he was concerned he was the biggest, baddest killer of them all, what need did he have of looking up? He was still a coward though, hanging back and letting his magically created copied take the risk of being sliced to pieces by the King’s Blade. Jeremiah did always like being at the back of the action.

She didn’t dive, she lined up the sight of accursed sigil in its cage of antlers between her feet and just closed her wings. The bolt rattled in its groove as she dropped, her stomach pressing up into her ribs. She held her breath as the wind roared in her ears, squinting her eyes as they streamed, staying locked on target.

A second, a second before she had to flare her wings, before her feet smacked into that cage of twisted antlers, she pulled the trigger, he bolt slamming through that poisonous sigil.

Jeremiah-as-dragon stumbled to a halt, his eyes glazing, his mouth hanging open, tongue flicking back to feel along the roof of his mouth, slicing itself on the head of the bolt that jutted through his pallet.

“Down boy!” Kaelin snapped.

The look of shook on his face was remarkably similar to the one Ratcliff had worn when Marmaduke’s bronze sword had slammed into his chest. Jeremiah-as-dragon tilted and then fell face down, shattering the road surface in a spider web pattern, a last rattling breath fading from his lungs, forced by the impact.

With a howl all three of the Jeremiah-as-dragon copies threw back their heads, stuttered like lightning bolts staggering over the hills and snapped out of existence with a trio of thunderclaps that shook what glass was left whole in the town of the Wizard’s Tower.

“I’ve…” Kaelin started as she stepped off of Jeremiah’s antlers. She was cut off as a roaring wailing geyser of green fire laced with shrieking faces burst into the sky as Jeremiah’s puppet drake burst n a welter of emerald flame and charred skin.

“Ew,” Estella said quietly even as a skein of bright blue power came flowing and curling through the darkened streets. It reached for Jeremiah’s body and some hoe it had the look of Jeremiah’s brow beaten vigor puppet.

Thorian’s siege east snapped its jaws on the light, somehow sinking its teeth into the impossibility of its substance and shaking it apart.

“That. Was. Awesome!” Thorian beamed at Kaelin.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a really, really, REALLY long time,” Kelin beamed.

Estella laughed even as the damned souls came scurrying out of their hiding spots to force the fire back once more. Valodrael inclined his head to Kaelin. With a rattle and a slither Hartseer folded away his blades and bowed to her. He turned his head to focus on something fluttering out of the gloom.

Gerald, Jeremiah’s bat winged moth came clattering and lurching through the streets, leaving behind a trail of bright blue shedding fur that faded even as they watched. The moth crash landed on the road and crawled unsteadily to his master’s shrunken side, tottering as his wings crumpled and his antennae shed branches.

Kaelin started as she realised Jeremiah had shrunk back to just being Jeremiah rather than Jeremiah-as-dragon, the blood running from between his lips matting his beard, the twisted crown of antlers empty now save for the fletching of the bolt that had shattered his skull. Gerald reached out one leg to his master and stilled, the blue fading entirely from his patterns. With a quiet pop, his exoskeleton cracked. He shattered like a wine glass breaking in slow motion, the wind from the dying fire and the night breeze blowing his dust away, spiralling it into eddies as it was born back towards the Dead Swamp.

“I feel sorry for the moth,” Kaelin noted and turned away. She turned back, double checking that what she thought she had seen, she had actually seen.

Jeremiah ad landed face down in the dirt of the road and the back of his robe was bulging, rippling and writhing as if something in there was fighting to force its way out.

“What the ever loving mothers is that?” Thorian stated peering down from his siege beast.

“Kill it!” Kaelin barked, all her hackles rising, “Kill it with fire!” She backed away, looking round wildly for something to match actions to words as the soft dragon hide robes bulged and strained in ways the human body should not be able to manage, particularly a human body that was fleshly dead. Something in her mind screamed as she remembered the squirming, worming flesh of Nanny Tatters after the Domilii had possessed her.

Hartseer was more direct. He strode forward, blades clicking free and slashed down.

Hartseer smashed into the upper storey of one of the still standing houses fifty feet away, the wall bursting under his weight, the wooden upper floor and ground floor giving way and dumping him into the cellar, his whole body ringing like a bell.

The three books Jeremiah had so carefully collected and so lovingly fed burst. Their locks shattered, their spines ruptured, the pages fountained into the night sky, staining it with a light that should not have been as the text on their pages flared with a blue-purple glow that made the mind shudder and the eyes bleed.

Thorian bellowed, his siege beast reeled back, Estella screamed, Peter shrieked like steam through a burst rivet while Kaelin rolled and scrambled across the still warm ashes and cinders, mind a white bleach noise of thought destroyed while her stomach rebelled.

“Oh dear god!” Ulrich cried in the grove where Sabal’s rose now grew, eyes locked on the towering, growing, flaring column of light, the form within that radiance pulling itself together as the pages of the books dissolved around it, their words becoming the threads stitching its form whole, “I know that dragon!”

Lady Zilvra went dead white as she stared.

“Aieeeee! Aieeeeee!” Tasnar screamed, “It’s the Betrayer! Aieeeeeeeee!”

The dragon, the impossibility made of flesh and light, was taller than the Wizard’s Tower, its wings casting not shadows but light, a burning, shearing, blinding light that attached the minds of all who could see it, filling the mouth with a bitter metallic taste while the skin itched from the inside and the stomach heaved. Kaelin crawling near its feet, spat blood from bleeding gums.

“FINALLY! I can cleanse this perdition MYSELF!”

The voice wasn’t heard, it was too damn vast to simply be heard. It struck the chest like hammer blows, slamming into the body over and over again, shaking the teeth in the skull and rattling internal organs.

Kaelin dragged herself upright and pushed off, powering low until she could pull up just in time to clear the outer wall and land on it, which she prayed was out of the things immediate strike range.

“Like you did last time, freak?” she cupped her hands around her mouth, “Sorry if I don’t hold my breath, seeing as last time you tried you wound up trapped in a dusty old book. You….”

She fell silent, voice drying up as eyes the size of table tops swung in her direction. The sheer raw, unfettered disgust for her existence hammered into her skull.

“INSECT!” the voice barked, slamming her lungs again.

“It’s Thorian time!” the orc child’s roar was echoed by the thunder of his siege beast. The siege beast was part werewolf and werewolves didn’t run from what they feared, they attacked. The siege beast roared again as it charged, mouth wide, teeth gleaming, eyes glaring, Thorian riding its neck, sword levelled as he bellowed his challenge at the massive monster before him.

The blade bit deep, light rather than blood, spilling from the gash. Thorian stood on the back of his siege beast’s neck, hacking and howling as he swung over and over again. The siege beast ripped and tore, ignoring the burning in its mouth as it bite and wrenched.

The over pressure wave of the Dragon God’s roar shattered not only what glass was left in windows but also the few pieces of rich crystal heir looms that were hidden away inside the houses. Thorian’s ears bled, his vision turning green as blood vessels rupture. Even then his sight, built to see movements in near pitch black environments caught the motion. He leapt before he thought.

The crunch as the Dragon God’s tail smashed into Thorian’s siege beast was the sound of an organic thing breaking. Kaelin flung herself out of the way as the siege beast’s dead weight shattered the stones she’d been standing on a second before. It crashed through that section of the wall as if it was a child’s sand castle, blocks the size of packing crates exploding across the countryside beyond, punching holes as deep as a man’s leg into the turf, the siege beast’s broken body tumbling among them. It’s entire rib cage had been staved in like a defective barrel. When it came to a stop it didn’t even twitch, eyes already dull.

Amelia rolled over, shrugging her way out of the wreckage of the house she’s fallen in. She looked up in time to see Klu’ga’nath’s tail lash over head. She frowned. Mixed with the creak of a flesh whip large enough to block out the sun and the groan of the air fighting to contain something that impossibly large there was something else, something that sounded like…

Her eyes went wide and she thundered into the air, shoving aside the ache in her ribs, ignoring the pain in her back. If Thorian Vandervast could stand to cling on to that scorching hide then she could stand forcing her wings to respond. She set her jaw and hammered at the air, building hieght building speed, trying to pull as much air into her lungs as possible, her muscles shuddering as she forced the last possible dregs of salt from her system.

She reached the level of the top of the Wizard’s Tower and opened her jaws. The grey gloop hit true and ran down the scales of light and being. Amelia didn’t wait to see the ignition. Her eyes drooped shut as she banks away, her mind drifting free of its tethers. All she could remember to do was lock her wings into the glide and allow the air currents to carry her, all systems utterly depleted, the muscle shaking shuddering through her. Part of her realised that it was a strange notion to know the shape of your own skeleton by the way your muscles twitched and tugged against it but that was a small and shrinking voice in the darkness that filled her skull.

Behind her the night bloomed with the chemical fire and the great dragon howled with outrage at having been struck by the worthless and irredeemable.

“Oh you like them apples?” Valodrael managed to grin his serial killers smile despite the flashing, stuttering bursting of super nova dancing over his hide, “Try this on for size!”

He reared on to his back legs and his wings boomed wide. He drew a deep breath and concentrated. The air crackled as he suddenly towered over the houses. He drew another breath and the world creaked as it made way for him. He breathed again and damned souls, wreckage and fire scattered before him, his feet clearing hole courtyards, building pushed aside as he expanded.

Ulrich gapped as Valodrael shouldered aside the sky aside. He’d always sensed that the lives of the world had bent around Valodrael, reality being forced to contain a much bigger creature in a space that was much too small for it. Now? Now Valodrael dropped all pretence. Now the world held him at his true size and he matched the Wizard’s Tower for scale.

“Stand and face me!” Valodrael thundered and then gulped breaths, stars whirling and dying more rapidly on his hide.

“Who are you?” Klu’ga’nath demanded, bending down to peer more closely at the dragon who had suddenly appeared before him. He sniffed. Something about a dragon his little human dupe had despised as said dragon had slowed down his efforts to spread chaos, destruction and despair ran through his mind. He had enjoyed watching that despicable evil little worm squirm with impatience, even if it had meant longer before his freedom was finally complete. Perhaps this little dragon was worthy of being allowed to live. Perhaps it had no faults. Perhaps it was prefect, as all things should be, as he demanded all things to be.

Valodrael opened his mw and Klu’ga’nath reeled back, screaming, the icy touch of the smaller dragon’s elemental weapon freezing his tissues, solidifying his light, ripping across nerve ends and esoteric senses, violating his sense of self, driving him back, stealing breath and blinding sight. Even after its touch had finished clawing over him it still cut with crystalline agony.

Klu’ga’nath screamed again and lashed out blindly, clawing for his enemy but Valodrael had already shunk down below the attacks, making reality bend once more to fit him.

Klu’ga’nath shrieked, hide of unreality splitting along lines and fractals of ice. He had felt this pain once before, in the final days before his imprisonment and the memories burned him. Screeching, he launched himself into the sky, clawing and gasping, light falling from him like blood from open wounds. The air heaved to take his weight. He screamed again, clawing at the air, half blind, pieces sloughing off as they thawed. Something bit, part way up his tail.

“You don’t get away so easy,” Thorian bellowed, digging his fingers in and readying another swing with his other hand.

Klu’ga’nath hammered the sky with his wings and writhed, whip cracking the sky with his sinuous length. Thorian’s hand was torn from its grip and he tumbled through the air will a yell. He snatched out and grunted as his chest smacked into the surface of a scale. He burrowed his blunt strong fingers into the gap between the scales, that lip where the sheets of keratin over lapped and made sure of his grip. His fingers tingled in a strange way as he did so and his skin seemed to be taking on a darker shade of green, almost as if he’d been out in the sun too long. He sniffed as he pulled himself higher against the wind. He didn’t care about the tingles, he just wished that fowl taste got out of his mouth and pushed off.

He swung his sword again, the blade crashing off the scale with a lot of noise but no real effect.

Klu’ga’nath roared and twisted.

“Whoa!” Thorian gasped as his body lifted away from the wall of dragon before him and then he slammed back into it, breath driving fro his lugs and leaving him dizzy with it.

“You’ll have… to do better… than that,” he gasped.

Klu’ga’nath snarled and corkscrewed through the air, the clouds streaming away from him as his wings thrashed the sky.

Thorian felt his fingers peel away from the scale and he fell, tumbling through the air. Klu’ga’nath kicked out like a swimmer pushing off and Thorian shouted as his ribs bent under the impacted but he wrapped both arms around the digit that hit him. He couldn’t get his arms all the way around but it was enough. Klu’ga’nath snarled with frustration, his body threatening to tumble every tie he tried to coil up enough to swap this annoying little tic off his foot.

Thorian gasped, the air thin and cold up this high but he could not see the stars for the light shining inside this dragon. He wish it would turn it off, for some reason it was making him feel sick.

Screaming with frustration, Klu’ga’nath spiralled, wings booming, tail lashing across the sky with the sound of thunder. The putrid little insect stuck like a burr, like a thorn in his foot.

“So,” he rumbled, the sound thundering across the sky, “You like to fly? Let us see how you like this!”

The air groaned as Klu’ga’nath rolled, flipped and dropped like stone. The air was not the only thing groaning. Thorian pulled a face, fighting to hold back his dinner as his stomach pressed up and his lungs pressed down. The wind howled and roared in his ears, the cold clawing tears from his eyes. The clouds were ripped away in tight spirals as they plunged. Thorian realised the big beasty wasn’t trying to slow down and he gamely forced his eyes open against the snarling wind.

“Oh squit!” he bellowed as he realised what the big old beasty was aiming for with its wide open back foot, the lights rushing up to meet them.

Thorian shuffled round the toe until he was on the knuckle rather than the cease side.

“That will not help you, insect!” The voice shook Thorian’s bones. He didn’t reply. He let go, flinging himself out into the air stream, splaying his limbs wide.

“No!” the voice roared with frustration as Thorian caught the edge of the knee spine but Klu’ga’nath didn’t bother to try and brake, fully committed to the dive.

Hartseer pulled himself up to the edge of the door, crawling out of the cellar on hands and knees, gazing up in amazement at the sky boiling with the passage of the Dragon God, the clouds writhing like a creature in agony. The howl of tortured air warned him a second before some of the blackness and writhing light resolves into a form tearing through the underside of the clouds, a form that seemed too big for the sky to hold.

Klu’ga’nath struck the Tower, a noise that shook Hartseer all the way through, the power of an entire super storm released in a single blast, rock shattering free, blocks the size of houses tumbling through the air.

“Go! Go!” Valodrael roared, charging through the streets at the size he regularly held. Estella siezed Peter’s antennae, dragged him round and slapped him into a rippling gallop, Valodrael at her side in an instant, wing out spread to take the falling debris, hide rippling as it struck.

In the streets, south of the Tower, damned souls scurried and leaped, rock exploding around them as houses imploded, struck by pieces of the falling tower. On the top of the inner wall Cyril threw himself over Elisha, crying out as lumps the size of fists pummelled his broken wing and injured back, their hurry to reach the quarter still affected by fire becoming a death trap in an instant. Cyril screamed.

Rubbled showered through the air, timber became flying shrapnel, glass a thousand knives that ripped and tore. And above it all the thunder of vast and unforgiving wings beating for height as it left behind ruin on the gale force down draft.

Hartseer scrambled from the doorway, seized a beam that pinned down a long, serpentine damned soul and heaved it aside.

“Can you move?” he shouted, even though the first thunder of the Tower’s shattering had passed.

“I think so,” the thing lisped, stirring faintly, shaking its head, slightly deafened.

“Good,” Hartseer snapped, hauling it up and pulling one of its arms over his metal shoulders, “People! We have to move!” The damned souls pulling themselves up from the rubble stared at him blankly, dust and small debris pattering around them. Above them light spilled from the Tower’s ruined south side, the wards crackling as they strove to hold the tower together.

“Move people!” Hartseer roared, “We have to move before…”

High above them there was the bang of tearing rock. Hartseer looked up.

“Oh no,” he whispered.

Groaning, cracking the top of the Wizard’s Tower moved, the light of the wards faltering, flickering, dying.

“Run!” Hartseer screamed.

In the grove to the north west Ulrich dropped to his knees as slowly, almost impossibly slowly, the Wizard’s Tower heeled over, bending at its wound, twisting as the centre of gravity changed. Bang after bang rang out as smaller towers broke away from central column, tumbling through the air, smashing into the gardens and town below.

“Trakanhini!” he pressed the first two fingers of his right hand against the inside of his left wrist, “Trakanhini hear us now! Help!”

The clouds boiled away to reveal the just waning moon glowing down.

Elisha scrambled to his feet and heaved Cyril upright, pulling him, almost dragging him back along the wall.

Damned souls ran and leapt and scrambled through the wreckage, chunks and lumps of the Tower slamming down around them, on them, dust billowing, shrapnel racking through them.

The scream of ripping rock was the death cry of something alive being torn apart.

Hartseer stumbled, staggered through the dark as the Tower’s shadow fell upon him. His eyes snarled as he fixed them upon the light beyond the edge of the darkness, ignoring the screaming howl of shatter stone. He was not going to die tonight! He hauled on the damned soul at his side and somehow it broke in to a slither as fast as a run. Together they raced for the gap.

Kaelin dived and snatched one of the smaller damned souls up and whip turned as the squirrel like thing clung to her. She pummelled the air, other winged damned souls following her lead, taking the same risk to save their comrades.

An avian thing o her right, carrying a cat faced damned soul was smashed out of the air by a chunk of masonry the size of a siege beast, Kaelin didn’t flinch, didn’t drop her cargo, jinking and dodging the tumbling ruins.

Elisha and Crowface ran along the battlements of the inner wall until Cyril suddenly snatched out and yanked his master back. The blow of the small tower smashing across the wall knocked them off their feet. Coated in stone dust, they rolled over and scrabbled back up. They pelted down the small access steps two at a time, heedless of the risk of slipping. They charged through the gardens at the very foot of the Tower, leaping vegetable beds, vaulting hedgerows.

Peter began to slow, stone dust clogging his breathing pores. Valodrael snarled and snapped at him, forcing him on, Estella clinging to him, screaming as the howl of the dying Tower echoed across the Dead Swamp.

Hartseer threw the Damned Soul beside him forward and leapt after, hands clawing at the air, legs peddling as if he could force the air to take him further.

The ground jumped up to meet him and then the over pressure wave smashed him through the air, something that felt like a sledgehammer smacking into the small of his back. He struck the ground again and rolled across the gravel, rock, brick, stone and shattered cob walls blasted around him, nearly seven hundred feet of the top of the Wizard’s Tower exploding on impact, bursting out as it meet the ground with the force of the heel of a god.

Hartseer rolled over ad picked himself up, lifting a hand to the dent in his back, knowing that if he had still been a mortal elf, he would have had a snapped spine. Dust settled over his glass eyes and he lifted a hand to wipe it away only it wouldn’t come away and he realised that the dust wasn’t in his eyes, it was in the air. It billowed and pattered down, ash, rock dust, powdered glass, wood mashed to sand and stone turned to dust.

Damned Souls picked their way through the destruction, eyes wide in inhuman faces, dust turning them all the same shade.

A gentle, deer faced damned soul with four long ears and split hooves for feet, crashed to her knees and wailed come shrieked in the ruin.

A arm, so coated in dust it looked like it belonged to a statue pocked out from beneath the rubble. It was not made of stone.

The deer faced damned soul wailed again, head back. She wailed a third time and then dropped her face to her palms, sobbing and moaning. Another voice cried, others wailed, a few even laughed, laughed because nothing in the world would ever be funny again.

Hartseer just stood, stood hands clenched, trembling as pebbles and grit shifted and rattled as it settled.

Wings whumped behind him and he turned to see Kaelin land on a block of stone that had shattered the house it had crashed down upon.

“Where’s Thorian?” she demanded.

Thorian was hanging on to the knee spine of a titan sized dragon made up of flesh and light that was seriously ticked off that he was still there. Thorian set his jaw and gripped tighter with his left hands as his body waved from side to side in the slip stream, wings that could over shadow whole cites creaking and crackling in the air. His skin was beginning to blister and peel, the bad taste in his mouth now joined by the taste of blood. He felt sick. He also felt sure that the big old dragon had done something real bad back at the Tower. He didn’t like that, he didn’t like that this big, shouty dragon had hurt his friends. And he also didn’t like the way all its snarling and growling was making his chest and his ears and his head hurt.

Growling, Klu’ga’nath rolled in midair and brought his knee up, a hand bigger than the floor plan of some human houses Thorian had seen came down to scratch the irritating flea off.

With a roar of his own Thorian swung out wildly with his right hand, his broad sword shining as it cut deep into the dragon’s palm. Light flowed like the Valkari trails that sometimes shone in the sky in winter and Thorian thought he saw something like a thick black rope in that light. He swung again. The rope parted and slithered back into the surrounding flesh like a cut tendon because that was exactly what it was.

Klu’ga’nath bellowed and the sky rang like a struck bell.

He rolled, folded his wings and dived.

Thorian nearly lost his sword as the wind tore at him. He gritted the blade in his teeth, wincing at the taste and clung on with both hands. He didn’t see the surface of the lake rushing up to meet them in the dark but he sure felt it.

It was like an all over hammer blow, every muscle struck at once. His lungs burned, his ears ached, his vision blurred as his eyes were pressed back into his skull. He scrunched his face up, closing down his nostrils even as his face bones and his teeth ached.

The water about them turned black as Klu’ga’nath dived deeper, the only light coming from the sickly aura that emanated from the dragon’s bulk. Thorian’s lungs burned but he didn’t let go, narrowing his eyes as he peered into the slip stream, trails of light billowing around him. He wasn’t sure but it seemed that the light pouring from the dragon’s palm was slowing, not so much of it washing into the water as the dragon’s body undulated through the current.

Thorian worked his fingers along, digging into the crack between two scales, gripping his sword with his teeth, dragging his body through the water that tugged and pulled at him, threatening to yank him off. He frowned as he thought he felt a shudder run through the big, old beasty. He worked his way a little further round the knee joint, a cold band of iron closing around his head and another tightening on his chest. The dragon shuddered again and suddenly the angle flow of water changed. Thorian could tell they were heading upwards all of a sudden, the ache in his ears and his eyes lessening. He almost smiled as he saw moonlight shining down through the rippled surface of the water, a pattern of shifting, dancing light that broke in a crazed cross chop that spun and raced away from a central point.

Then he frowned, his vision beginning to blur. The selfish dragon was having a good old breather at the surface and wasn’t letting Thorian have a sniffty. Thorian took his sword out of his mouth and slammed it against the scale in front of him. He grunted a bubble escaping his mouth, racing away to the surface. He swung again. It was difficult to get any really power behind the blow, the water slowing his arm and the darkness crowding in at the edges of his sight. Then the dragon moved. Thorian felt himself being dragged through the water but now he couldn’t tell in which true direction. He could only grunt again as he was mashed up against the scale, the cold bands of iron crushing is chest, the bubbles lost in the maelstrom of rushing water.

When it stilled he managed to peel his cheek away from the scale’s rough surface and looked up.

Two eyes, eyes the size of the small round houses of the short swords in his village glared down at him through the water. Eyes that shone with a colour that oozed into reality from somewhere else, eyes that boiled with raw, unhinged disgust for Thorian’s existence.

Thorian went to swing again and the cold raced from his fingers and toes as he realised that in the confusion of the last blast of water he’d lost his sword. Then the world slammed into his ribcage, mashing him against the scaly knee. Pain bloomed, first fire hot and then freezing cold, in his back, in his ribs, in his belly. Blood, real honest to gods blood, bloomed in the water around him and the dark finished closing over his head as the last of his air rushed away in a fountain of bubbles and the coiling trails of his blood swirling to the surface.

Klu’ga’nath flicked the scrap from his claws and hunched in the water.

The surface of the lake exploded as the dragon the size of the mountain erupted from the deeps. The first down sweep broke the surface into a thousand ripples, fanning out as droplets the size of barns were, shaken loose from the membrane. The second hammered the water’s surface, forcing the water out in a racing ring that was followed by a second, then a third. Klu’ga’nath roared with the frustration of it, back legs peddling against the surface tension cling.

Powering her way along the direction of the Dragon God’s last known flight path Kaelin saw the scolding light tower into the night, even as the roar battered her and nearly shook the damned souls flanking her from the air.

“Keep going!” she shouted, hearing the thump of their wings falter, “Thorian needs us!” She adjusted her flight direction with a bank, the massive, thundering dragon acting as her beacon even as she had to narrow her eyes against the pressure waves its wings were producing. Where ver that thing was there Thorian would most likely be.

Klu’ga’nath pulled up into the night, his tail dragging and coiling through the air as it came free of the lake. It seemed to go on for miles then he was free of the lakes clinging grasp and banking into the rising turn. With a roar of triumph that silenced the whole world, he rose and sliced up into the clouds. They writhed in tight spirals and then he was gone, only a deformity of the cloud layer tracking where he went.

Kaelin was not interested in the cloud layer, she was busy scanning below, trying to see where Thorian was.

The chirruping cries of the damned souls let her know they had seen him at the same time she had done. Locked in formation they closed their wings and dove towards the lake’s surface. Something that looked like a cross between a cobra, a lizard and a dragon fly swooped in lower and faster than any of the others, skimming the water far out from Thorian’s bobbing form, flicking open its neck and torso hoods as it did so to provide as big a platform as possible. It settled in the water with hardly a splash, closer now to Thorian but taking care not to jolt him.

Kaelin was secretly impressed with the damned souls sheer level of co-ordination. The smaller fliers that had survived the werewolf attacks landed on their living pontoon and spread out along its side while a slightly larger one landed on its other side to keep it balanced. The moment it had paddled along side Thorian they were reaching out, pulling him closer, squeaking to one another. One even ducked its head under the water to check him for injures. It came up squeaking frantically. The little fliers at once started turning him round in the water so they could pull him up face first onto the pontoon. Kaelin frowned and then saw why.

Jeremiah’s god had opened Thorian up from back to front, water was sloshing in places that no outside contact should happen in.

“Is he even alive?” Kaelin muttered as she circled above. A bug faced thing beside her called down to the ones below. Te one acting as counter balance called back up.

“He is,” it translated with a clatter of its mouth parts, “For the moment.” Kaelin nodded after a moment.

“Get him up people!” she yelled, “We’re on a time limit!” She knew the sand grains were falling. They had an hour, maybe less in which to get Thorian any help that might work and they still had to get him back to the Tower.

The small ones clustered around Thorian and leapt as one for the heavens. As they rose, larger fliers moved in, taking over hand holds as the little ones started to struggle. Kaelin moved in and took hold of Thorian’s right arm with her left hand, trying not to look at the mess that had been made of his back. Part of her wondered if they flipped him upside down by accident would he just fall apart like a badly made toy. A flier barked at her.

“He says to fly lower,” her bug faced translator chittered, “Match the one on the left.”

Kaelin frowned, worried that the damned souls didn’t realise that flipping him could do even more damaged and then she dropped half a foot lower, matching height with the damned soul on the left, while the ones holding his feet flew slightly higher. At once she saw why, between having his head down and his feet up the water came pouring out of his lungs at every jolt of every wing beat.

They flew hard, the little ones and their now air born pontoon left behind in the race to get Thorian to help. Kaelin clenched her teeth and flew on, willing Thorian to keep breathing as he coughed and spasmed between them.

As they approached the shattered Wizard’s Tower they saw a lantern being waved back and forth in the forest on the West side. They skimmed lower and gradually the figure resolved itself out of the night until they could clearly see Ulrich standing at the mouth of a large tent that had been put up in their absence, the ground dwelling damned soul busy around it, erecting more tents and helping the humans of the Tower settlement being lead out of the Tower’s doors.

They landed as carefully as they could and lowered Thorian to a stretcher as gently as they could manage.

“Bring him in here,” Ulrich’s face was tight with worry, turning to lead them into the tent. Inside was hung with lanterns and Lady Zilvra, her hair tied back tight and her sleeves rolled up was scrubbing her hands with harsh lyre soap. She turned without a word and started examining Thorian.

“How bad is it?” Ulrich asked as he set the lantern down and started scrubbing up.

“Not good,” Lady Zilvra stated as the damned souls stepped back outside, “He.. he has some magic. I’ve not seen this in an orc child before. They are tough but not this tough. His body is trying to build itself back together, rapidly, but there is just so much damage. I’m not sure…”

“Hydra tail fries,” Ulrich explained, coming to Thorian’s other side, “He took on some of the regenerative properties, same way Kaelin gained her griffin wings.”

“That explains it,” Lady Zilvra took a deep breath and reached for her tools, “I will try. It will hurt. Ash Elf healing magic always hurts, we know no other way, yet. It was always that everything must be paid for in pain, even healing.”

“Do what you must,” Ulrich nodded. Lady Zilvra set to work. It was painful. She had to correct where the healing was going awry, trying to wield two incompatible tissues together, guided them back into the right path of healing, Ulrich acting as her second pair of hands, doing whatever she said without question, speaking quiet words of encouragement whenever she faltered.

Kaelin turned away. She could handle battle and the needs of cleaning meat but not this slow cutting of flesh while it still breathed. It made her want to scream or throw up or pass out or all of the above just thinking about it. She turned, gave a nod to Tasnar where he watched over Quenril at the side of the tent and stepped outside.

In the fading night, damned souls and townsfolk where putting up tents, Elisha and Crowface directing the work.

“Where’s Hartseer?” Kaelin stepped up to Elisha and asked without preamble.

“He is trying to discover if the remains of the Tower is structually sound,” Elisha informed her, “My people spoke of great creakings and groanings after the earthquake.”

“Earthquake?” Kaelin frowned.

“When the Tower fell?” Elisha did not condemn her ignorance, they were all running on shock and adrenaline drop, “We need to organise the recovery camp, tents, latrines, hidden fire pits. I want as few signs as possible that we survived this night, especially from the air. Many, many are the dead. I want no more to join them.”

“Gotta yah,” Kaelin nodded and joined the damned souls efforts to camouflage the tents, her ears flicking as she thought she heard the rumble of distant thunder. She hoped it was thunder. Dawn was rising when a shout came from Elisha’s attention. Kaelin turned her head as well as she heard a whirring, creaking whistle she had half recognised.

“We found it in the ruins of Old Jim’s workshop,” a peasant with a mouth crabbed with age was explaining, “Don’t think it belongs to either those pointy eared burgers or the werewolves that came after them but it seemed to be looking for something so we thought it best to let you see to it, mi’lord.”

“It’s Ulrich’s automaton,” Kaelin said, stepping forward, “He’ll be glad to know you are still in one piece Marmaduke. Mostly.”

Marmaduke whistled sorrowfully, carrying the lower half of his arm in his other hand.

“Ah, there you are old boy,” Ulrich emerged from the tent, drying his hands as he did so, “Good to be seeing you.”

“How is Sir Thorian?” Elisha asked quickly.

“he’ll live,” Ulrich grinned, “You have to say it, he’s a tough old boot. Zilvra doesn’t think that there are any others that seriously injured so I’ll have a look at what I can do here. Come on Marmaduke, let’s get you patched up.” The automaton whistled and limped forward on his twisted ankle.

“Cyril,” Elisha said quietly, “See if you can find Old Jim to help with this. I believe he survived our struggle against the werewolves.”

“Sir,” Crowface nodded and hastened away as carefully as he could so as to not jolt his injured and battered wing.

By full morning, the pace had slowed, from exhaustion if nothing else. Kaelin found herself sat beside Thorian’s stretcher, where it had been put on a table just outside the door of the tent, both Zilvra and Ulrich believing that honest to god normal sunlight would speed up the healing process, helping to purge the last of the light of Jeremiah’s god from his system. Kaelin did have to admit that the hideous blackening of Thorian’s skin was fading as its natural green blush crept back. She closed her eyes herself, letting the warmth soak through her feathers.

“Hey,” Thorian’s voice made her start. She looked down to see him smiling up weakly at her, his head on one side as he had to lie on his front.

“Did we win?” he asked, teeth still blood stained from his bleeding gums.

“Not sure,” she admitted.

“Oh, that’s a problem then,” Thorian closed his eyes again.

“Yeah,” Kaelin agreed weakly, “ ‘Cause we now have no idea where the big burger’s gone.”

“Not what I meant,” Thorian yawned, “Meant that there’s another dragon coming.”

Kaelin looked up at the sky.

“Ulrich!” she yelled, “In coming!”

Ulrich dashed out of the tent, sword in hand, Lady Zilvra a step behind him, wrackingher hand bow. Old Jim followed them to the tent flap. Kaelin had been surprised to discover that Old Jim was a damned soul nearly seven feet tall and massively broad with four arms and six eyes in his rabbit like face, six eyes over which he wore glasses as said eyes were milky and squinted without their lenses.

Amelia, laying near the hospital tent looked up from slowly lapping at a bowl of brine so thick it was more a salt soup than water. She didn’t not meet the eyes of the damned souls and flinched away from them, tears regulating trailing down her muzzle and she tried to shrink herself and her shame as small as possible. She peered at the approaching shape, hide still rippling with the muscle tremors of a nervous system deplete to the edges.

“It is my nephew,” she said quietly.

“Your nephew?” Ulrich asked but Amelia looked away, going back to her bowl of brine, unable to meet his eye. Ulrich’s mouth thinned. If Jeremiah hadn’t been buried beneath several thousand tons of masonry, Ulrich would have seen if he could find a necromancer to resurrect him just so that he, Ulrich, could kill him again. He had worried about Jeremiah’s interest in Kaelin, it had never crossed his mind that the heretic would dare to muck about with the mind of a dragon. Now here they were, Amelia hollowed out by a guilt that was not hers to carry and yet she had too. If Jeremiah was still alive Ulrich would have strangled him. He looked back at the fast approaching dragon.

“Someone should find Hartseer,” he noted. With a yip one of the small and scurrying damned souls dashed off, happy that it could be of use.

The approaching dragon was at least smaller than Jeremiah’s god so they could relax on that score but as it drew closer they could see that it was the most unusual colour they had ever seen. Mostly it was purple, a striking royal purple that artists and dyers the world over spent lifetimes trying to replicate, but it was also tiger striped with bands and streaks and splotches of bright orange, its wings particularly blazing with the pattern as the early morning sunlight shone through them.

It back winged and landed careful on the road that had lead out of the worth west gate of Tower Town. As it turned towards the refugee camp, it shank, its for becoming liquid as, with silent grace, it reformed into the black coated form of Prince Relian. And he did not look happy.

“Your Highness,” Ulrich bowed, “We…”

Prince Relian held up a hand for silence and then pressed his palms together, closing his eyes as he strove for calm.

“Just. What. The. Actual HELL! Did you do?” he demanded.

“Er, I’m not sure myself,” Thorian admitted from where he lay, “But I did try to give that bid beasty a right good kicking.”

“It was my fault sir,” Hartseer admitted, not meeting his prince’s eye, “When they returned to Nether Wallop I thought he had finally learnt to control his need to hurt and kill. I thought he had learnt to be more discerning about who he was allowed to kill. I was wrong. I decided to bring him back to the Capital as of this morning but he…” Hartseer waved an arm at the ruin of the Wizard’s Tower.”

Prince Relian rubbed his face.

“Your lack of judgement is deplorable,” he stated, “But you cannot take the full blame. Those books were never supposed to be in a single person’s possession ever again.” He ran his fingers into his hair.

“Books?” Ulrich asked, “I thought he only had the one.”

“That’s what I thought,” Kaelin agreed, not admitting that she had helped him steal the first one. Prince Relian pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Ten thousand years old,” he explained, “We brought an end to the God War by imprisoning that Thing in a trio of books. They were supposed to be scattered across Hestia so that they could never be brought together and fed. They were both prison, lock and key. They were supposed to keep that Thing contained for all eternity, to keep its fanatic fundamental perfectionism imprisoned. That’s why we allowed the Ash Elves of the ancient days to steal one of those books. We thought that it would remain locked away in the Underworld.”

“Well that didn’t work,” Kaelin stated, “And neither did the books. There was always going to be some idiot who thought they could strike a deal with it.”

“Why do you suppose we have been breeding ourselves for the last ten millennia?” Prince Relian snapped, “All the hybrid dragons, all of us, we were all breed to act as the back up plan, to try and have something powerful enough to face it down. We’re spent ten thousand years trying to breed something powerful enough to take it out of the equation.”

“So what’s the problem?” Kaelin asked.

“We might not be enough!” Prince Relian shouted, royal composure cracking up.

Amelia stood and limped over.

“Nephew,” she said quietly, concern swimming in her eyes, “What has happened? Is your father…?”

“Father’s fine,” Prince Relian clenched his fists, digging his nails into the palm of his hand, “Grandfather… It attacked the Capital last night. Grandfather… he took the full blast. Straight to the chest. He… He just…”

Amelia stepped forward, reared and enveloped the Prince in arms and wings, becoming a mound of warmth that shut the rest of the world out. Kaelin sniffed, remembering what that had felt like. Ulrich turned away from the sounds of harsh pain. He beckoned the others over to gather round Thorian’s stretched, noting confusion on the faces of many.

“Alright, here’s the low down,” he explained quietly, “Royal or Night Dragons, sometimes known as Amethyst Dragons, are one of the only dragon species to have strong family bounds. Most dragons can’t care less for their families, some even view their own children as competition or even outright food. My guess would be that the orange dragons have a similar mind set, hence why there has been a marriage between the two clans.”

“Er, he’s a dragon,” Thorian stated.

“Yes,” Ulrich nodded, “Some dragons have that ability, they can ‘go human’ for a time. Night dragons are known to do it for years at a time. It’s where dragonkin come from. The other thing about Night Dragons is that they don’t care much for gold and gems, certainly not enough to hoard them. What they love is hoarding societies. Now it certainly explains some of Portasia’s history if we have a family of Night Dragons as the royal family, just trust me on that Thorian okay? They will have been leap frogging in their human forms down the ‘generations’ to keep up the disguise but if they have just lost the patriarch then that is a massive blow for the family. Usually they start preparing for the hand over of power centuries in advance. This is going to upset the dynamics in the family. Think of them as a tribe with out a chief right now Thorian.”

“Ah,” Thorian’s look of confusion disappeared, “So they is going to want to fight it out to see who the next chief. That’s not going to be a good time for us with Jerry’s big, ugly beasty flying around.”

“Exactly,” Ulrich agreed, “We are going to have to walk very careful right about now.”

“Perhaps we should listen to what the Prince has to say before we decide,” Elisha counselled, “If this family of Night Dragons is as old as the Prince’s words suggest then they have lost family members unexpectedly before now. Though this has undoubtedly been a huge shock, especially considering the manner in which it has happened, they seem to have a strong system for the succession already in place. We do not need to add foundation less worry on top of the justified fears we already face.”

“Good point,” Ulrich nodded and turned in time to see Prince Relian coming close, one hand on Amelia’s shoulder but standing taller.

“Where is the priest now?” he asked Hartseer.

“Flat sir,” Hartseer reported, “Reassuringly so. Flat and buried some where under that lot.” He pointed at the fallen tower.

“I suppose that is as good a method of disposal as any,” Relian noted after a moment, “What about the werewolves?”

“Dealt with,” Ulrich replied, “My mechanical servant struck the last blow to the Alpha, in fact…” Tasnar came out of the tent and spread the hide of Kaelin’s grandfather at Prince Relian’s feet, “Proof that Ratcliff will no longer be infection the world with his presence.”

Prince Relian gave the skin and its still attached head a long look.

“Good,” he said at last, “Lady Kaelin? Can you confirm that this was your grandfather?”

“Aye,” her mouth pinched, “That was my old man and I’ll say thank you to Ulrich for saving me the bother of kin killing.”

“Very good,” Prince Relian nodded, “In that case I need a word with Lady Charlotte Darling.”

Kaelin frowned but clicked open the locket.

“Lady Charlotte Susan Darling,” Prince Relian addressed her formally, “Can you confirm that this being was your cousin Don van Ranchiff?”

“I can and I will, Your Highness,” she curtseyed, “I testify that was my cousin Donvan Ranchiff of the family Ranchiff and sole heir to the estate there in.”

Prince Relian took a breath and then pulled something from his sleeve.

“These were supposed to be granted at a proper awards ceremony,” he admitted, “To mark us being able to stand most of the team down but under these circumstances we are going to have to keep you on the active rosta. Your Grace, Lady Kaelin Ranchiff and Darling, I here by present to you your inheritance – the Barony of Darling and the Earldom of Ranchiff. It is a joy to have them out from under direct Crown Control.”

Ulrich made a noise of complete surprise. Kaelin stood frozen in shock.

“Well take them then,” Lady Charlotte prompted. Kaelin didn’t move.

Lady Zilvra and Estella stepped forward and helped her lift her hands so Prince Relian could deposit the scrolls in them.

“Take good care of those,” Prince Relian instructed, “We don’t want to have to do another confirmed copy, not in these times.”

Kaelin managed a noise that could have been a yes. Estella kicked her ankle.

“Am I supposed to say thank you?” Kaelin squeaked.

“At this time, I’ll let it slide,” Prince Relian admitted, “Because unfortunately we need you to stay in active service.” What was left of the King’s Special and their allies looked at him.

“Father is in the north organising the evacuation to the dwarf Holds,” he explained, “Mother is heading south with Princess Amara to spread the word among the Tropic Dragons and try and make contact with the Swamp Dragons. We may even be able to rope in a couple of Tomb Dragon’s to our cause through that is always a risk. Hartseer, we need you on the ground helping father keep things organized. I will be heading to the elf lands to try and take them warning that the Destroyer has returned. I can only pray that I can get ahead of it. Lady Zilvra, if you and your people are willing, we need you to show us the secret entrances of the Underworld and help us get as many people underground and kept alive as we can.”

“Why?” Thorian asked, levering himself up so he was sitting with flinch, “Why underground?”

“For the same reason I must ask you, Elisha, to ascertain whether the Tower is stable enough for the cellars to be used and if they are, to get your people down there as quickly as possible,” Prince Relian explained, “Solid rock is the only protection we have against this thing. Anything organic, flesh, wood, timber, cloth, bone, all of it, it will all turn to salt under the touch of that thing’s light. Solid stone is your only defense.”

“What about cob or earth?” Estella asked, “If the walls were thick enough?”

“Maybe?” Prince Relian hazarded, “I am not sure I would want to try it. Why do you ask?”

“Houses dug into hill sides,” she explained, “Without disturbing the trees. They would be small, cramped even, but hidden from this thing. If it cannot see the towns, why try and blast them off the map?”

“It is something to consider,” Prince Relian noted after a moment, “Lady Kaelin, the castle of the Countess of Ranchiff has an extensive underground network of cellars and sublevels. If you could open it up to the surrounding populace it would be appreciated.”

Kaelin nodded.

“Guess we should be thankful this thing has attacked at the start of winter,” she noted, “At least we are not trying to work the fields.”

“Indeed,” Prince Relian noted, “Of yourself and the rest of the King’s Special, we need you to start hunting for anything, anything at all that might help us re-imprison this thing. In ten thousand years we have lost the knowledge of how it was done. We need you to hunt out anyone, or anything that might have that knowledge or be able to come up with a different solution and convince them to help.”

“I can help there,” Estella interrupted again. They looked round at her.

“I am the friend of a Gealach Dragon,” she admitted, “We have been away for a long time but particularly in the areas where Amelia has encouraged growth, I believe I can open a door to her fae territory. She will want to help with this and it will enable you to move faster on your journey.”

“So be it,” Prince Relian nodded, “Aunt Amelia? We need you to track the coasts. Try and rally as many of the Coral Dragons as possible. We all know out tasks, let’s get to them. Good luck to us all.”

He turned and walked to the road, shifting back to dragon as he went. He barely broke stride as he lifted away from the ground, angling away east.

“Oh well,” Thorian grunted, standing up, “Guess I’ll have a sleep later. That’s point, how’s you going to run a big, old place like a castle, Kaelin?”

She thought about it as she tucked the scrolls away in her sleeve.

“I think I’ll have you as the chief of my guards,” she said to Thorian, “And Ulrich? Ulrich can be my butter.”

Despite everything Amelia laughed as they turned away to the camp to gather up supplies for the journey ahead.