The Raven Collection

‘Garonin, that’s what they call themselves. They didn’t believe me. Showing them resulted in the three of them dying.’

‘Back to the old methods of negotiation, is it?’

‘You have been my wife for too long. Is my face really that revealing?’ Sol shook his head. ‘They made me angry. Wanted to stop me getting back to you. I can’t have that, can I?’

Diera stroked his face. ‘You never could. Lucky for me you always make it, isn’t it?’

‘I tell you one thing though. They mean to drain us of every drop of mana we possess and they will not stop until they get it. They are too powerful here on Balaia. We can’t turn them away forever. And that means for you, for ordinary Xeteskians, it is time to leave.’

‘And go where? If they are determined to kill us all, then nowhere is safe.’

‘We’ll find an escape,’ said Sol. ‘Things the Garonin said to me, mistakes they made. This isn’t over, not by a long way. The dead will help us.’

Diera threw her arms around his neck and they clutched each other tight.

‘Why does it always have to be you?’ she said, her face buried in his shoulder.

‘I’m just lucky, I suppose.’

She broke away and punched his arm. ‘Bastard. What happens now?’

‘Well, we get a few hours more sleep. Then I go to the Mount and we work out how to turn the Garonin away once more and where to run in the time that gives us. As for you, my love, I mean what I say. Take the boys. Take anyone else who believes enough to go with you. Head west. Find Tessaya. He knows you. The Wesmen will guard you until I get to you again.’

Diera nodded and sighed. ‘All right. But you know Jonas is already talking about Beshara. He’s not stupid. If we have to run, why not to a place where dragons will guard us?’

Sol blinked. Beshara. Realm of the dragons and inextricably linked to Balaia by the mental co

‘How can I have been so stupid?’

Chapter 16

Sha-Kaan soared back into the clear blue heavens above Beshara and looked down at the devastation below. A line of seven vydospheres travelled the plains of Dormar, driving towards the steaming forests of Teras. His forests. Home of the Kaan.

The vydospheres spa

Behind the vydospheres, Dormar was a wasteland, worse than the ancient blasted lands of the Keol. The Garonin had already visited destruction upon the homelands of the Naik, the Skoor and even the ocean-going Veret. Now, closing on the lands of the largest brood, they were meeting significant resistance. Sha-Kaan could still see the wilderness expanding, the fires burning, spreading and consuming on a wider and wider arc.

Away to the south, the smoking ruins of an eighth vydosphere littered the ground, sparking fire here and there as it slowly disappeared. From the fu

Sha-Kaan roared his flight to him. Thirty dragons, climbing hard into the sky, beyond the range of the tracers of white fire and the looping, smoking explosive projectiles. The Garonin had flooded the plain with men and weapons. They crushed Flamegrass underfoot, powdered the homes of the Vestare in their path and rendered all that was living to pale dust.

Yet they were still vulnerable. Six flights of dragons were in the air above them, awaiting the order to strike. Others from allied broods were on the way. The sky was filling with the massive shapes of dragons and the deafening noise of their calls and barks.

Sha-Kaan twisted his long, slender neck to check the damage to his one-hundred-and-twenty-foot-long body. Russet gold scales, some warped with age, others blistered by the heat of enemy weapons. Those blackened by the lick of dragon fire were trophies earned in forgotten conflicts.

He snapped his wings to their fullest width and executed a long, graceful turn, bringing him round behind the centre of the Garonin advance.

‘Hold your shape. Breathe only on my command. Do not break, do not falter. Escape at best speed and angle.’ Sha-Kaan’s pulsed orders were greeted with thoughts of acknowledgment, determination and assurances of victory. ‘Kaan. Dive.’

Sha-Kaan’s bark was a shattering cry that echoed over the clanking, thundering noise of the Garonin invaders and their machines. In their harnesses, the dim-witted hanfeer tossed their heads and shuddered. The dragons dived. Wings tucked in tight, necks stretched out, the wind whistling over the mounds of their bodies. Their tails stabilised their lightning descent.

Sha-Kaan led them screaming towards the ruined plains. He snapped his wings out to brake and turn barely a hundred yards from the ground. He swept up to the horizontal, dipped even closer to the dust, and forged in. Garonin weapons were trained. They fired. A hundred teardrop streams of white light rattled out.

Heat blossomed on Sha-Kaan’s body. Scales were burned and ripped from his belly, from his back and flanks. To his left, a Kaan was struck square in the muzzle. The dragon roared agony. The head, engulfed in fire, was torn apart and the body dropped to the ground to impact the dust and roll over and over. Sha-Kaan ignored the pain in his body and the tears in his wings as fire drops clipped them. He urged his dragons to hold and they did. Up and to the right another was caught in a crossfire of six weapons. The vast body exploded under the pressure of the impacts. Flesh filled the sky, knocked dragons aside. A wing spiralled down, folding in on itself and colliding with another Kaan below it. The dragon lost his bearings and, temporarily blinded, ploughed into the plains.

Sha-Kaan opened his mouth and felt the flame ducts swell. He swept through the line of Garonin soldiers. His jaws beheaded one, his claws dropped and tore up four more, breaking them and casting them aside. Around him his Kaan exulted. Sha-Kaan tasted blood in his mouth and sniffed more revenge.

He focused on the rear of the vydosphere. Huge before him, a billowing metal shell, vibrating as it built to another combustion. He let the fuel from his flame ducts enter his mouth. Through his nostrils, he inhaled the air of his land.

‘Breathe.’

Twenty mouths disgorged super-heated flame. The dragon flight split around the body of the vydosphere, pouring flame across its surface. Fu

Sha-Kaan crested the apex of the vydosphere. In their harnesses, the hanfeer were burning, screaming impotent rage. One had fallen sideways. The other still tried to move forward.

‘Clear, my Kaan. We are done.’

The vydosphere gouted smoke and steam through torn plating. Huge areas of the skin were sucked inwards. Sha-Kaan did not look round to see the explosion. He used the wave of force to drive him over the ground at even greater speed and into the forward lines of Garonin already engaged in fighting the dragons clouding the air above them.