‘Then it is done,’ said Kard. ‘An hour before first light tomorrow, I will visit you here to request you disperse the DemonShroud. From that moment, I will command all forces of the Julatsan city and College, mage and soldier, man and woman. Do I have this authority?’

‘Yes, General Kard, you do,’ said Kerela. ‘And you have the backing, the blessing and the prayers of all of us. Save our College. Stop our people dying.’

Kard smiled. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Sha-Kaan’s entry into the Broodlands had none of the triumph of his previous return. He slipped through the mists all but unnoticed, announcing his arrival to a ministering Vestare only as he landed. Dispensing with the usual formalities of welcome, he enquired about the use of the Melde Hall, stilled his body and switched straight inside.

There, lying flat on his flank, neck and tail both stretched out, was Elu-Kaan, all manner of cuts and scores evident on his head and neck. One wing was unfurled, its membrane marked and dry but mercifully unbroken. But it was his breathing which worried Sha-Kaan. Rapid and ragged as if his lungs had lost capacity and his every inhalation dragged their surface over teeth of stone.

Though tired, stiff and in considerable pain after his battle and bone-wearying flight to Teras, he immediately ordered his ministering Vestare to tend to Elu-Kaan. He moved his great bulk out of their way, sat down and snaked his head to the ground by Elu-Kaan’s.

He hardly had to ask the question. The reason Elu was damaged had to be an encounter with the Arakhe and the reason he was not in the flow of interdimensional space was because he had clearly not found a way through to his Dragonene inside Julatsa.

Close to, Elu-Kaan’s muzzle was covered in myriad scratches from the claws and teeth of the Arakhe. All but impervious to Dragonfire, they were a dangerous foe but seldom ventured from their dimension to trouble the huge animals whose souls they dare not take. But this DemonShroud penetrated the sanctity of inter-dimensional space and Elu-Kaan had stumbled into their innate fury and had almost paid the ultimate price.

There was no formal contact between the two races. For all that dragons were hard to negotiate with, Arakhe would not talk at all. Theirs was a simple doctrine that assumed all other races in all other dimensions were inferior to them, to be used and destroyed as necessary. Sha-Kaan, who had only one encounter with them in his long history, would concede that in most cases, they had reason to believe so. But dragons and now humans and elves had learned to either use them or deal with them effectively and this made them more unpredictable still.

Elu-Kaan’s eyes flickered open as he felt Sha-Kaan’s breath on his face. A dark discharge ran from his nose but this was so far ignored by the Vestare who concentrated on his wing and the scales and skin that covered his chest cavity.

‘I am sorry, Sha-Kaan, I have failed you,’ he said, voice rasping and wheezing.

‘Speak with your mind, Elu, I am open to you. Rest your throat and your lungs.’

‘Thank you,’ said Elu-Kaan, a pulse of gratitude for the honour of mind speaking with the Great Kaan accompanying his words.

‘Soon you will be able to do so as of right,’ said Sha-Kaan. ‘Now, tell me of your journey and your encounter with the Arakhe. And I will hear no talk of failure. Yours was a mission of risk and that you survived at all is testament to your ability and strength. If you should tire, tell me and we will talk at a later time.’

‘You are hurt, Sha-Kaan.’

‘Look to your own injuries, Elu. I need to take your information to my Dragonene. Speak while you are able.’

Elu-Kaan took as deep a breath as was possible for him. His body shuddered with the effort and the pain. Sha-Kaan again wondered what the damage could be but thought to ask a Vestare later.

‘It is hard to follow the corridor without a Dragonene as beacon but I could follow the streams and markers I knew, and the signature of Balaia is strong.’ Elu-Kaan’s eyes were closed once more and Sha could allow the frown of worry to spread across his features. Another breath, shorter this time, heaved across Elu’s body. His voice faded for a moment and then recovered. ‘I could feel the presence you call the Shroud as I approached Julatsa and the location of my Dragonene but behind it was silence like the void we felt when the Balaians cast their spell that tore our gateway.’

‘Calm yourself, Elu,’ said Sha-Kaan as he felt the increase in the younger dragon’s heart rate. He glanced across at the Vestare who worked feverishly on his chest with heated mud balms and scented steams. They would take some time to filter through the skin. One of the Vestare moved between the two dragon’s heads and rested a steaming pot beneath Elu-Kaan’s mouth and nostrils. His surprise at the new scent was followed swiftly by a relaxation of the muscles in his neck as the gentle fragrance of mist and leaf carried its healing properties to his lungs.

‘The Vestares’ skill is a blessing,’ said Sha-Kaan, nodding to the servants of the Kaan, who bowed in response to his notice though they could not hear the exchange between him and Elu. ‘Now, how did the Arakhe get close to you?’

‘I felt I could move through the Shroud but as I touched its presence, I could feel the magic was strong and a link between the Balaian and the Arakhe dimension, not of the Arakhe alone.

‘And it was full of Arakhe and they flooded my corridor, repulsing my fire and attacking me with their feet, their hands and their teeth. Those that bit inside my mouth hurt me. It was like ice and it quelled my fire and now it burns in my neck and deep within me . . .’ He trailed off again as a cough racked his body, causing his tail to reflex and slap the ground behind him and the Vestare near him to jump away sharply. New discharge shot from his nostrils and bowled over the pot whose contents drained into the hot moist earth of the Melde Hall. It was immediately replaced by another.

‘Enough, Elu-Kaan, you must rest.’

‘No, Great Kaan, there is one more thing,’ Elu’s mind voice was fading and Sha-Kaan guessed the balms and scents were designed to force sleep upon the wounded dragon. ‘The Shroud is full of Arakhe and they are baying for the souls of the Balaians. They think they have been given a way to breach the Balaian dimension that the Balaians cannot close. We must pray to the Skies that they are wrong because there is no way we can help them, the power is too great and we are too stretched.’

‘But what might it mean?’ asked Sha-Kaan, trying to close on the ramifications of the new threat. Elu-Kaan had the answer.

‘If they can beat the mages with whom they made the Shroud, they can expand its compass at will. It is another gateway, Great Kaan, and without Balaians to control it, could swallow our melde-dimension as easily as the gateway over Teras.’ Elu-Kaan’s mind contact slipped away and, for a moment, Sha-Kaan thought he had died. But a glance at the Vestare and their calm ministrations told him that Elu-Kaan was merely at healing rest.

He pulled his neck away from the ground and stood. There was no time to be lost and there was no time to rest and heal his own wounds. He had been right. Again, Balaians, trying to protect themselves, had set in train an event over which they no longer had any proper control. This time he could not talk just to Hirad Coldheart. This time, the entirety of The Raven had to hear him. Without another backward glance, he walked to his corridor and sought to travel interdimensional space, Hirad Coldheart’s signature as his guiding beacon.

Chapter 20

Barras knocked quietly, hoping to find the General asleep but the order to come in was rasped out immediately. The old elf negotiator entered Kard’s rooms in the base of the Tower, to find the General sitting by a small fire, his chair pulled over to an open window. A steaming mug rested on the sill and Julatsa’s senior soldier was gazing out at the star-lit sky. Night was a release, if only because the Shroud was all but invisible in the dark and somehow less menacing, though its aura sent shudders down the spines of any within its influence. By the master sand-timers, it was about two hours before dawn.