‘Eyes?’ Hirad shrugged.

‘Small target. Not viable if the head is moving. One of those things in this dimension could kill anything and any number it wanted.’

‘You’ve forgotten the power of magic,’ said Styliann stiffly. The Unknown ignored him.

‘The hide is incredibly tough. Even on the underside and the wings. Acid might have an effect, so will certain flame- and perhaps ice-based magics. But, as with all these things, our real problem will be getting close enough.’ The Unknown breathed out through his nose. ‘The bare fact is that if one attacks and you’ve nowhere to hide, you’re dead.’

‘That’s not the answer we were looking for,’ said Ilkar.

‘So going there will be suicide,’ said Hirad.

‘So will staying here, apparently,’ said Will.

Denser raised a hand. ‘Hold on, hold on. What are you talking about now?’ The Dark Mage was staring straight at Hirad.

Ilkar nudged the barbarian. ‘Go on then. Sha-Kaan’s your friend, after all.’

‘He’s not my friend,’ said Hirad.

‘Closest thing to it,’ returned the elf.

‘Oh, right, yeah. I noticed how he went out of his way to not actually burn my skin off or bite me clean in two. If that’s not friendship, I don’t know what is.’

Ilkar chuckled. ‘See,’ he said. ‘Bosom buddies.’

‘So just because—’

‘Must you?’ Denser’s voice cut across Hirad’s next remark. ‘We just want to know what’s up.’

‘You don’t,’ said Hirad. ‘But here goes anyway. The situation, I think, is this.’ He breathed in deeply and pointed behind him. ‘That rip in the sky is a direct corridor to the dragon dimension. Apparently, there’s a similar mess in the sky on the other side. The trouble is, Sha-Kaan’s family, he called it a Brood, the Brood Kaan, has to defend the rip to stop other Broods coming here to destroy us.’ Hirad nodded at the dragon’s corpse. ‘That’s because they have no way to close the rip. Sha-Kaan says we have to close it.’

‘Oh, no problem,’ said Denser. ‘We’ll just snap our fingers and the job’s done. How the hell are we supposed to achieve that?’

‘That was pretty much our reaction,’ said Ilkar. ‘Sha-Kaan pointed out rather bluntly that it was our problem and we’d better not fail.’

‘Or else what?’ asked Erienne.

‘Or else, ultimately, another Brood will get in here in sufficient strength to do exactly what it wants,’ said Ilkar. ‘And those of us who travelled through Septern’s rip have a good idea what that means.’ For the Julatsan mage, the scenes of blackened devastation, the chaotic weather and air of violent death were all too easily recalled.

Movement caught Hirad’s eye. Darrick had ridden back into the square, his cavalry once more under his command. He made for the dragon but changed direction at a wave from the barbarian.

‘I think he ought to be in on this,’ said Hirad. Once apprised, Darrick’s face was as gloomy as The Raven’s.

‘Now,’ said Styliann, who had remained silent and withdrawn thus far. ‘I accept that this rip, as you call it, represents a significant threat. I also accept that dragons are powerful creatures and we need to develop means of disabling and destroying them from distance.

‘What I don’t see is why other Broods would want to come here to destroy everything and why, by all the mana in the Mount, does this Sha-Kaan care if they do?’

‘Now that’s a good question,’ said Darrick.

‘Ilkar?’ asked Hirad. ‘This was where I got a little shaky in my understanding.’

‘Unknown, help me out if I get too vague.’ Ilkar rubbed his face while he thought. ‘There is a link between our dimension and the Brood Kaan. The very existence of certain elements here helps the Kaan to live and breed. These elements feed their psyche and that is as important to them as feeding their bellies. Their existence depends on the base fabric of our dimension remaining intact. If we go, they go. That’s why they care.’

‘Why don’t they just station enough dragons around the rip to guard it?’ Styliann said sniffily.

‘Well, because, strangely, they’ve got better things to do with their lives than die in our defence for the rest of time,’ snapped Hirad. ‘They aren’t our servants.’ Ilkar laid a hand on Hirad’s arm.

‘The point is, my Lord, that they are already forced into that action,’ said the Julatsan. ‘But Sha-Kaan was insistent that, one, they couldn’t guard the rip indefinitely and, two, we caused the problem and though the Kaan would help, it was up to us to sort it out.’

‘How long do we have?’ asked Darrick.

‘We don’t know,’ said Hirad.

‘That’s not helpful,’ said Denser.

‘I think the straight answer is, Sha-Kaan himself doesn’t know. He just said that when the shade covers the city, it will be too late.’ Hirad shrugged.

‘What’s that, then, some kind of dragon time-keeping code?’ Erienne was nonplussed.

‘We’re not sure yet,’ said Ilkar.

‘Then you should open your eyes more,’ said Styliann.

‘What?’ Hirad bristled.

‘Calm down, Hirad Coldheart,’ replied the Lord of the Mount. ‘I appreciate how difficult it must have been out there. But now is the time to think. There are no shadows at noon because the sun is at its highest point in the sky. Normally. But that rip will cast a shadow. No way is it big enough to shade the whole of Parve yet, but . . .’

‘Oh Gods,’ breathed Denser. ‘He’s saying it’s not static. It’s not contained. It’s going to grow.’ He turned from them, his face fallen.

‘So we’ve got a time-limit but we don’t know what it is,’ said Will, glancing up at the rip.

The Unknown nodded. ‘Yes, but we can work it out, can’t we? Measure the rate of growth of the rip’s shadow. It’ll be rough but it’ll give us an idea.’

‘Indeed we can,’ said Denser bitterly. ‘But there are bigger issues to settle as well.’

‘Like how the hell do we close it,’ said Erienne.

‘And what is happening east of the Blackthorne Mountains,’ added The Unknown.

‘To name but two,’ said Denser.

‘Not being funny, but the starting point has to be your casting of Dawnthief,’ said Hirad.

‘Absolutely,’ said Denser.

‘Sha-Kaan termed it “inaccurate”.’ There was a smile on the barbarian’s face which grew broader as the slight sank in, turning Denser’s pale face to an angry red.

‘And that great fat lizard would know, of course,’ he stormed, shaking off Erienne’s calming touch. ‘For his information, my casting of Dawnthief saved his precious psyche-feeding dimension from its biggest ever threat. I trained my whole life for that moment . . . inaccurate. Bastard.’

‘Denser, you don’t have to convince us. We know what you did,’ said Hirad. ‘But Sha-Kaan doesn’t see it that way. He doesn’t much care who runs Balaia so long as its fabric remains intact and there are enough dragonene to serve his Brood.’

‘But he can’t expect us not to try to save ourselves,’ protested Denser.

‘I tried that one,’ said Hirad. ‘No dice. He just accuses us of not understanding the power of the spell.’

‘Well, tough.’

‘For the Kaan and for us, yes,’ said Thraun.

‘Right,’ said Will into the pause that followed. ‘So what are we going to do?’

Sha-Kaan emerged from the gateway into a blizzard of wings, fire and snapping jaws, the noise of a hundred cries of exultation, pain and command mingling with the whoosh of wings and the whiplash of tails. The battle covered as far as he could see in any direction, the sky full with scale and claw and enough wing to shroud Parve from the sun. It was impossible to estimate the number of dragons in the vicinity of the rip or the number of Broods involved in the battle. All he was sure of was that, barring skeleton defence of their lands, structures and peoples, the entire Brood Kaan was fighting for its collective life. There were in excess of four hundred Kaan in the sky and they were outnumbered.