Chapter 57

‘By your name you are made

By your name you are bound

By your name you are unmade’

I felt the magic scythe into me, loosening the bonds of my soul. She would intone Talgoth’s name next, driving me from my body and binding his name and soul to it. I didn’t look away from her; I wanted her to be my last sight. But I was wrong, as wrong as I had ever been in my life.

‘By your name I call you,

By your name I unbind you,

By your name I unshackle your spirit,

Stratus Firesky, the Dead Wind, the Cold Wind of the North, Destroyer, and Doom of Krandin,

By your name you shall be whole once more, Great Heart,

By your name you are free and whole.’

There was a single moment of pure silence in the cavern as she sung the last syllable, and then the magic that she had gathered swirled and poured into me in a jet of golden light. Shaped by her will and my full name in perfect draconic, the construct was faultless and unstoppable. It filled every part of me, hurling Talgoth’s presence from my mind. He had been part of the spell from his own free will from the outset, and could not resist it now, not without risking breaking the spell, which was potent enough to destroy him and his entire castle.

I felt my spirit swelling as the unadulterated power of the Songlines drew me back into my flesh, and the comforting weight of my body settled back around me even as my senses reconnected.

The silence of the cavern was gone, replaced by Anakhara’s screams as Talgoth unleashed his anger at her. His staff and the runes etched into the iron that bound her burned star-bright as he made a violent gesture, throwing her from her perch. Iron bent and bones snapped as he slammed her into wall and floor with enough violence to rip at least two of the chains from her flesh. These swung and writhed like headless snakes while raw magic discharged from the ends of them, burning the meat and blood that clung to them. She slid to a halt and lay still, the fires within her eyes dim and flickering. He didn’t dare kill her, but he could hurt her. My surprise passed even before she hit the ground, replaced by an elemental fury.

‘Talgoth!’ The force of my roar set the chains to swinging and shook a thousand crystals loose, sending them raining down around us.

He spun towards me, staff still blazing. I could feel the potential locked within it, far more than I had ever seen within an artefact and certainly more than any living wizard had ever turned against me. I was still trying to recover my wards when he attacked.

White fire lanced towards me, cutting a strip of flesh from my flank as I desperately twisted aside. I smelled my flesh burning some time before the pain hit, but by that time he had already launched another attack and I had no time to worry about it. The beam flattened into what looked like nothing more than a gigantic sword, and he wielded it at me like one too. It sliced through the floor at my feet as I scuttled backwards, leaving behind a deep scar with molten edges.

But Anakhara had not only freed me, she had restored me. My sorcery responded to my mind’s call with alacrity, and before he could advance and deliver another blow I loosed a thunderbolt at him. It exploded against his wards, halting his progress for a moment, giving me a chance to close with him before he could trap me against the walls.

He barked a command and his sword fragmented into dozens of glowing arrowheads. I knew what was coming next and threw out an angular wall of force in front of me. It deflected the burning shards, sending them skittering off into the walls where they buried themselves in the rock, leaving the walls pockmarked with molten gashes.

‘Fool!’ he shouted. ‘Your sorcery is mine.’

I felt the dark energies cut the flow of the Songlines off in a single stroke, then swell and dart forward like a thousand vipers, siphoning the energies out of me in great gulps. He launched a barrage of magical bolts at me as I reeled from that onslaught, each one potent enough to do me a serious injury. These shattered against my shield, and while it held steady for now, I now had to renew it from a finite and rapidly dwindling pool of sorcery.

I spooled out a separate strand of sorcery, the effort of maintaining the shield and manipulating this new strand into the construct I needed sent the blood pouring from my nose. The tortures I had suffered stood me in good stead now, for centuries ago the pain would have debilitated me, but now it was just another agony to bear. I released the sorcery, and a glittering ball of flame manifested over my shoulder. It swiftly grew in size and then shot forward, trailing sparks. He was laughing even before it burst on his shields. And kept bursting, filling his field of vision with flares of golden light that blinded his still human eyes. I knew he could disperse it with a thought, but I didn’t need it to last long.

By the time he banished it, I was descending on him, the roar of the wind-spells that had propelled me into the air still echoing about the chamber. I could see his staff rising, the tip glowing. It smashed into me, tearing my flesh and breaking at least two of my ribs, but it wasn’t enough to turn me aside. He’d have to have killed me outright to have any hope of that, and he needed my body too much to do that.

I smashed my fist down upon him but his physical wards were as unyielding as bedrock. He even had the audacity to lean on his staff and laugh at me.

‘You stupid animal.’ I felt his magic flex and watched as he let a rivulet of the blood that was flowing from my wounds through the shield to pool at his feet. He dipped the end of his staff into it, then spun and tasted it. ‘You don’t deserve the power you have. I don’t know how you managed that little trick, but it won’t matter. There will be no death for you. You will serve me until the end of time.’

I looked at the blood on his lips, then at the stream of blood and where it was soaking into the hem of his robes, and bared my teeth, which only made him laugh again. I swatted at him, knowing that my raking claws would do little except agitate his wards, but I didn’t need them to do anything else. I spat a stream of fire bile as my claws rattled across his shield, the viscous fluid pattering to the floor while he laughed again.

I watched the pale stream of bile mingle with the blood he had dipped his staff into. Blood that he had allowed under his shield.

He lifted his staff as the tip lit with a fell light, a spell of terrible potency drawing the dark energies together and I backed away. His mouth was open, no doubt ready to spout some dire threat, when the bile ignited at his feet.

His spellcasting faltered as flames bloomed at his feet and raced up his dry skin. He staggered back with a screech, and I lunged forward, emptying my bile bladder over him and the floor around him before he could gather enough wit to seal his shield again. The spray ignited as soon as it touched the flames and he staggered backwards as the very air around him caught fire. Realisation dawned quickly, but by then he was standing in a pool of burning liquid. His shield flexed, sealing him away from the heat and flame, but his feet and legs were already aflame and the smoke was thickening by the moment. He summoned a deluge of water, which almost impressed me. In all my years, I had only ever seen a handful of men who were able to function for anything more than a few heartbeats once the fire was upon them.

It was shame for him that, for all his wisdom, he had not learned anything about dragonfire. Fortified by the glow stones and yellow rocks of the great swamps, my fires burned regardless of rain, river or sea, and suffocating them would only win a temporary reprieve for they would burn as long as any fluid remained to burn. His cries became more frantic as the water simply spread the fire that was climbing up his body, and his repeated denials devolved into coughing.

I felt his protective shield wavering and hammered my fists and claws into it, sheathing them in a veneer of sorcery that forced his wards to reset and replenish with every blow. Two of my claws were torn off by the impacts, but I could sense the potency of his spell weakening as fire and fear ate at his control, and I redoubled my efforts. A dozen more blows later the shield gave way with a thunderclap, sending his half smouldering form sliding back across the floor, his staff rattling away across the stones and over the edge of the Vortex.

‘Die!’ I roared, driving three of my claws through his bony chest, pinning him there as I spat the dregs of my bile across him, coating every part of him in liquid fire. His attempt at spellcasting became a scream as it ignited.

He died as miserably and agonisingly as I had ever dared to dream. While the healing I shared with Tatyana was crude and let her draw as much energy as she needed, the healing energies that Anakhara gave Talgoth were carefully regulated to protect his fragile body and could not be increased to compensate for the damage. All they could do was slow the time it took him to burn to death.

I watched him burn until the pain of my injuries pushed through my anger, at which point I pulverised his skull with my fist, spraying his rancid brain across the floor. I staggered towards Anakhara’s still form and was perhaps halfway to her before my legs folded beneath me and I fell.

The impact of my chin on the floor jolted me back into the consciousness I was desperate to cling to. I pulled myself forward with splintered claws until I was close enough to lay a hand upon one of hers. Her iron claws were cool to the touch, the vile runes that marked them dark and silent.

‘Anakhara Skydancer.’ I spoke her true name, and was rewarded by a faint flicker of light within her sockets. I didn’t really know if I was feeling sorrow, grief, joy, or anger. All of them.

‘I’m sorry, Stratus.’ Her voice was a sigh.

‘Sorry? You saved me, my love. You saved us.’

A shudder passed through her. ‘I dreamt of you sometimes.’

I gritted my teeth as a wave of agony washed over me. ‘I thought you were dead.’

‘I am, Great Heart.’

‘No.’ I meant it to be a shout of defiance, but my treacherous body turned it into a sob. She whispered my name and I felt her mind reaching out to mine. I welcomed it, and our memories and thoughts crashed together. Her early memories were fragmented and broken by the torture and enchantments that she had endured at Talgoth’s hand. There were glimpses of our life before, isolated moments here and there, but mostly it was a terrible blankness, an indistinct haze filled only with memories of pain, desolation and, through it all, Talgoth’s voice. I felt the despair and fear that had overwhelmed her in this time, a corrosive and toxic mixture that had eaten away anything wholesome and good until they were entirely forgotten and that awful state had become all of her existence. It was a crushing, terrible thing, and having felt the strength of his will I could not imagine what it must have been like to be the sole focus of it for every moment of every day for so many years.

‘You have to go, my love.’ She squeezed my hand with terrible strength. ‘The chains are broken and the spells bound to his body will soon unravel. It will be a cataclysm.’

‘I’m never leaving you again.’

‘You have to.’ Sparks sputtered from some of the runes upon her only to turn to blood when they touched the floor. ‘My wings are broken. I am broken.’

‘I’m taking you home,’ I said.

‘You will obey!’ she snapped, the words and the compulsion within them battering me like a sudden squall. It vanished as suddenly as it had come, and she then shrunk back from me, turning her head away. ‘I’m sorry.’

I pulled myself closer, slowly so as to avoid triggering her defensive wards. They glittered into life as she backed away.

‘No, keep away.’

I ignored her protest and instead nudged her snout with my own.

‘I’m a monster,’ she said in a trembling tone.

‘But you’re my monster.’

She turned her head and laid it under mine, and we lay quietly, simply together again.

‘It’s starting,’ she said quietly. ‘Please Stratus, go.’

I could feel it too, although likely not as keenly as she could. Talgoth’s destruction had removed a major component from most, if not all, of the enchantments layered upon Anakhara and throughout the citadel. Like a disturbed or miscast spell, those energies were moving along pathways that now had nowhere to go and were building to a potency that would force its own and no doubt cataclysmic outlet, judging by the amount of power that they had been dealing with.

‘I cannot lose you again.’ I gathered my will and channelled it into my body, feeding my limbs with new strength and knitting my fractured bones and burned flesh, uncaring of the price I’d pay for it.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m taking you home.’

‘Stratus, no! Beyond the mists the wards will strip your power. You’ll never make it over the mountains.’

‘I’m not leaving you,’ I said, a growl at the edge of my words. I slid my arms under her and lifted. I walked to the edge of the floor and unfolded my trembling wings.

‘I love you,’ I said, and fell into the void.