‘Burn them.’
The dragon bowed its head to Marith. Smoke curled from its mouth. Its eyes like mage glass. Cherry blossom. The sunlight dancing on rough water. Luminous sea creatures sliding through Carin’s hands.
Never look into a dragon’s eyes. Never. Look into a dragon’s eyes and you lose your mind. It hurts. Hurts you. Marith stared back at it. The dragon blinked and turned its head away.
‘Burn them, destroy them, tear them apart.’
The dragon hissed. Or laughed. Or wept. Lust shimmering off it. Oh yes, dragons did feel desire, and love, and want, and need.
‘Sekne, Ansikanderakesis.’ Yes, My Lord. Its soft green voice like the smell of summer trees.
Marith watched as it wheeled up into the sky. The setting sun caught it, lit it, it blazed red as the King’s Star. It dived down like a thunderbolt just as the sun disappeared behind the western hills. He heard the howl of the fire from its mouth.
A silver light shot up from the Illyian camp to meet it. Mage fire, he thought, nothing of significance. Then the light reached it, enveloped it, the dragon struggling in a mesh of silver, bathed and covered in beams of light. Its fire choked out, he saw its wings beat frantically, the head and tail twist and writhe. It screamed.
Shadows tore from the sky. Rushed up to defend the dragon. The silver light took them. Like a mist rising from a river on a winter morning, or standing on a hilltop as the clouds came down.
The two armies watched mesmerized. Gods wrestling in the sky. A firebird of gold and silver rose up to the battle. Grappled with the shadows. A hawk catching geese on the wing, killing in the air. Gold feathers and fragments of shadow tumbling down. Crashing onto the Illyian army beneath but they did not move, stood staring, died staring where they stood. The night full of wonders. No moon, no stars, only gold and silver magic and the muffled jets of dragon fire.
Fighting. Fighting. A pageant of wonders. Gods dying ruined. Light and death and pain dying in the sky. Drifts of gold and silver. The dark formlessness of the shadows, faceless teeth and claws. Frantic wing beats, the dragon’s body writhing. Muffled explosions of dragon fire. The most beautiful thing a man had ever seen. And silent. Slow and silent. So far away. Sparks from a bonfire. Fish moving beneath the skin of water. Nothing real.
A dragon can’t die, thought Marith. A dragon is a marvel. An impossibility. Beyond death. A dragon can’t die.
The dragon ripped free of its bindings. Screamed. Tore frantically across the sky. Wounds running the length of its body. It showered blood down on the Illyian army. Flew unsteadily, one wing ragged. Fire gushing out of its mouth and its belly. Screamed. Screamed. Screamed.
Wounded. Bleeding.
Dying.
You’ve killed a dragon, Marith. Dragon killer, you are. Of course they can die. Just mortal things. Life’s an illusion. Everything dies. Even that, in the end. Even beauty. Everything.
And it was gone. A distant crash of fire from the hills far in the west.