From behind them, blue lightning arced across the sky, piercing the eyes of three Wesmen who fell clutching at their smoking faces. The attack faltered. Hirad batted aside a clumsy thrust, stepped inside, head-butted his opponent back and followed up with a stab clear through the heart. Beside him, The Unknown raked his blade across two chests, blood fountaining from a sliced artery and smashed lung while Thraun’s snarls and growls accompanied Wesmen cries of desperation.

Hirad glanced over his shoulder. Ilkar and Erienne had pushed a boat out on to the water. At twenty feet long, it would easily take them all. Will was tugging at the sail stays, slightly unsteady as he stood on the rocking vessel. It was time to fall back.

The Wesmen had lost their appetite for the fight. Thraun ran at small groups who scattered, keeping them away from the beach. Hirad and The Unknown moved backwards across the sand. More lightning from the fingers of Denser, more Wesmen fell, faces blackened, eyes gone.

‘Get in and we’ll push out,’ ordered Hirad. Arrows flew the gap across the beach, clattering off Ilkar’s HardShield. Hirad grinned. The Raven slick as ever, an unshakeable unit.

When he hit the water, he turned as did The Unknown, running and jumping through the shallows to push the stern of the boat on which the three mages and Will sat, the cold water shocking his muscles to new life.

‘Tell me if they start following us,’ said Hirad. More arrows bounced from the shield. The boat moved through the gentle tide and waves, the wind bringing nothing more than choppiness to the Inlet this near the shore. Behind him, he heard splashing and in the boat Will straightened. Hirad turned. Three Wesmen ran at them, circling axes above their heads and roaring battle cries.

To his left, The Unknown tapped his blade into the water, the normal ring of steel on stone reduced to a splash and muffled grate on the shingle below. They waited but the Wesmen didn’t make it. From their right, the water exploded upwards and Thraun surged from the surf he’d created to bear one down into the water, fangs deep in his thigh. A shout rang out from the shore and the others turned and ran, their kinsman left to float in as the tide dictated, his blood slicking the moonlit water.

Hirad yelled in triumph, exulting at the fires that scored the dark above the burning camp. The Unknown clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Come on, let’s get this boat moving.’ The old friends scrambled the few yards to the small craft and climbed aboard, Thraun paddling strongly beside them. In moments, the sail was unfurled, the wind snapped the dark canvas taut and The Raven headed back to the East. Home.

Chapter 13

Sha-Kaan and a dozen of his lieutenants flew from the Broodlands, already aware that they were almost certainly too late to save Jatha and the party of Vestare who were supposed to meet The Raven.

In the skies above Teras, the gateway hung in the sky, myopic gaze expanding inexorably. Around its surface, the guard flew their defensive holding pattern, at ease in the clear sky that day and comfortable that their vision would give ample warning time to assemble a defence to quell any attack.

But how long would the clouds stay away? How long before Sha-Kaan was forced to deploy more and more of his tiring Brood to fly patrol in the banks of thick, rain-bearing cloud that periodically swept down from the mountains of Beshara, drawing moisture to deposit on his lands? The rain fed the Flamegrass but the cloud obscured their enemies. Right now, clear skies were preferable. The River Tere, running through the heart of the Broodlands, was full and powerful and the Vestare could channel it to the beds of cultivated Flamegrass. It was in the open plains that their harvest would suffer, for the Flamegrass was greedy for moisture and wilted quickly without it.

But away towards the devastated lands of Keol, where Septern’s gateway lay hidden by Vestare cunning and design, new columns of smoke smudged the sky, new fires coloured the earth. Sha-Kaan took his dragons high into the bright sky, calling barks of welcome and warning to the guard as they passed. As they flew hard over the hills of Dormar and the wastes at the borders of Beshara, the dark shapes in the sky revealed themselves to be of the Brood Veret.

The Great Kaan was surprised and pulsed a query to his cohorts. Slender and quick, the dragons of the Veret were semi-aquatic, normally inhabiting the caves and seas to the north of Teras, never straying far from their Broodlands deep in the Shedara Ocean. They were characterised by blue and green colouring, thin muzzles which jetted slim concentrations of fire, short necks, four even, webbed feet and long, slightly flattened tails that powered them through the water.

They possessed poisonous spikes of bone that ran along skull and neck but their wings, small and swept back for speed through air and water, were their weakness. Gone was the reservoir of secreted oil that lubricated landborne dragons and resisted fire, replaced instead by a veined water lubrication lattice. The lightweight system gave their wings greater manoeuvrability but, with armour non-existent, it was vulnerable to being burned off by the scorching temperatures of dragon fire. But they had to be caught first.

The Kaan closed. Sha-Kaan could feel Jatha’s fear, sensing his pounding heart and his laboured breath as he and the Vestare ran to escape the Veret. There were eight of the enemy Brood, all intent on their quarry. What taxed Sha-Kaan as he commenced his first attack dive was why the Veret had strayed so far inland and whether their interception of his Vestare was by coincidence or design.

The Veret didn’t sense the threat of the Kaan at first, had no idea that above them, Sha-Kaan’s fire was ready, his jaws open and dripping fuel. He glided hard down, slipstreaming a young marine-blue Veret only half his own length who was chasing down a lone Vestare.

The man was neither quick nor agile enough, his dodging among stunted, blackened trees not adept enough to confuse the Veret’s approach. Sha-Kaan could see him, darting left and right, back and forth, stopping and rolling, sprinting and standing, just as he had been taught. The theory was there - the momentum of dragons in the sky robbed them of the manoeuvrability to accommodate sudden changes in pace and direction but the practice against the more agile Veret was lacking.

And so it was that as Sha-Kaan lined himself up behind the young male Veret, the enemy dragon, having tracked his quarry with deft wing alignments and slight movements of head and neck, opened his mouth and exhaled two tight jets of fire that tore through the Vestare’s body. The victim was hurled from his feet into the bole of a tree, his flaming corpse flopping to the ground, chest holed massively, head aflame. Around him, wood blazed in the sudden inferno and the wave of flame rolled away into the forest, igniting branch and leaf and scattering birds.

Sha-Kaan rolled slightly right and unleashed the power of his fire, ripping into the Veret’s fully deployed wing as he braked to bank away from his dive. The young dragon’s head jerked around in shock to snap a glance at Sha-Kaan before the fires destroyed his wing membrane and he barrel-rolled into the blackened forest, dying body bouncing from the ground before driving uncontrolled into a stand of shattered trunks to lie still, a cloud of earth and dead leaves erupting into the air.

Sha-Kaan pulled up sharply, searching the ground for Jatha whose presence he could still feel, and the sky for a view on the battle. Kaan chased down three Veret, the agile blue-green animals spinning and turning as they sought to flee their larger, more powerful assailants. Below and to his left, a Veret was locked in the air with a Kaan. Spikes had punctured the softer underscales of the Kaan’s neck but she held on, jaws clamped behind the Veret’s head. Blood was pouring from the wound and Sha-Kaan pulsed the order to release. The returning pulse saddened him. The poison was overwhelming the dragon’s system. She would die but she wouldn’t release the Veret to live. He watched as the two spiralled to their deaths before homing in on Jatha.