‘Leave them,’ ordered Darrick. He turned to his centile Captain. ‘Stay here, keep this flank free then withdraw slowly at your discretion. Don’t chase anyone and keep a HardShield up.’

‘General.’ The man nodded and swung round to issue orders. Darrick ran back to the centre of the now much subdued fighting.

‘Lieutenant! Where is my mage?’

Hirad’s dreams were troubled. Time and again, he awoke with a sense of falling, his heart hammering in his chest and painfully in his throat. And while he slept . . .

Adrift in a vast sea of nothing. Below him, fire laced the land. Calls of pain and anguish flooded his mind and a sense of desperation suffused his wracked body.

He was alone. Last and lost.

Around him, the air was empty. No stars shone though it was dark, no cloud filled the sky. The only light flickered far below. And down there it was dead. He had nowhere to go.

To stay above was to die. So was to move down.

He fell.

‘Dreaming again, Hirad?’ asked Ilkar from nearby. Night was full, warm and very quiet.

Hirad nodded and sat up. ‘Emptiness,’ he said. ‘I felt I was flying but nothing else was alive.’

‘Let’s hope it’s not prophetic in any way,’ said the elf. ‘We’re all anxious, Hirad. You’re not alone in not sleeping.’ Ilkar indicated himself. ‘Probably best you don’t dream, eh?’

Hirad nodded again. ‘Easy to say, hard to do. Anyway, I don’t think I am. I think it’s Sha-Kaan’s dream.’

He lay back down, smiling inside at Ilkar’s raised eyebrows. This time, the Great Kaan soothed his mind into deep, dreamless sleep.

‘Damn it, I didn’t think he’d tumble us. At least not so soon,’ said Darrick.

Blackthorne smiled and leaned back in his chair. ‘I told you he wasn’t stupid,’ he said.

The command tent was a beacon of light in a darkening camp in which Darrick had forbidden all but vital fire light to give the Wesmen as little sight of them as possible. Dusk was upon them, the Balaians had been allowed to withdraw and an uneasy calm had settled over the camp.

The Wesmen had stationed a hefty presence a respectful distance from their borders and were clearly unwilling to move in, fearful without their Lord to drive them.

Darrick had sent mages out to check the surrounding numbers. The Wesmen covered the main trail, the forest and crags with squads and scouts but had chosen not to encircle the Balaians. Their remit was clear enough.

The only good news was that Izack had not planned on stopping until within striking distance of Senedai’s forces. He would however, have to move to a different position than planned in an effort to avoid Tessaya.

‘How many will he take with him?’ asked Darrick.

‘Well,’ said Blackthorne. ‘From your reports, Tessaya was separating his forces along tribal lines. The Paleon are numerous though they’ll have taken casualties both in the battle for Understone and today. Even so, if he takes them all, it could be as many as four thousand.’

Darrick gaped and his body felt hot. ‘Izack’ll be slaughtered.’

‘Not unless Tessaya finds him,’ reasoned Gresse.

‘He won’t be hard to spot once he starts fighting,’ said Darrick grimly. He passed a hand over his face, seeing his plan collapse. ‘What a shambles. We can’t waste time taking them on here, there’s no point. Look . . . How dense is the cover crag-side?’ He looked over to where a pair of his mage assassins awaited his next order.

‘Not as dense as in the forest, sir,’ said one, scratching at two days’ growth of stubble. ‘We could clear it a little.’ He smiled slightly.

‘You’d have to clear it a lot to make a difference to our route,’ Darrick said, seeing the man get his train of thought.

‘There are eight of us,’ said the assassin. ‘Anything is possible. They don’t have cross-reporting, they are merely expected to shout if they see anything.’

‘Make them unable to shout, will you?’ asked Darrick.

The assassin nodded. ‘We will prepare immediately.’ He gestured his companion to follow him from the tent.

Darrick turned back to find the eyes of the Barons and his surviving centile Captains wide on him. He shrugged.

‘What choice do we really have?’ He spread his arms wide, shrugging.

‘They will see us and they will follow us,’ said Gresse. ‘It can’t work.’

Darrick shook his head. ‘If we all trooped out together, yes. But we won’t. Here is what I want done. I want every able-bodied man brought to the rear of the camp. No injured will be coming. I need a token presence to remain here, highly visible. I suggest the cavalry.

‘We will walk a mile back down the trail before turning up into the crags, using the mages to assess threat ahead. We will run all night if we have to but I will not let Izack die uselessly.’

‘And what about the wounded and those you leave behind?’ asked Blackthorne. ‘Even should you succeed in this hare-brained scheme, when dawn breaks they will be overwhelmed and suffer the fate you so wish Izack to avoid.’ His voice, low and stern, was tinged with anger.

Darrick smiled, hoping to defuse it. ‘There’s more. Once the runners are away, I need volunteers to help the injured to move out of the camp and hide elsewhere.’ He stared squarely at the two Barons.

‘And the visible force?’ asked Gresse.

‘When the Wesmen work it out and rush in, ride like the wind.’ His smile broadened as he saw Gresse’s eyes sparkle with the thought of it all. ‘Well? What do you think? If we pull this off, we can make a real difference, maybe even turn the tide and give The Raven the time they need.’ He looked around the assembled command team. ‘Are you with me?’

To a man, his Captains nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Baron Blackthorne?’

‘A nursemaid to the sick, eh?’

‘I prefer to see it as a defender of the helpless,’ said Darrick. ‘Far more glory in that, I think. Baron Gresse?’

‘Young man, you are an outrageous risk-taker. Outrageous enough to win. I’ll have the horses ready as dawn cracks the sky.’

Darrick clapped his hands together, feeling the excitement surge within him, banishing the aches and tiredness of the afternoon’s fighting. ‘Then let’s get moving, because we really don’t have the time to waste.’

Chapter 35

Fires were alight all across the Broodlands when Hirad awoke, rested but still tired. He rolled over and sat up, joining The Raven in complete bemusement at what he saw.

The fires were strung, three dozen strong, along the banks of the river, casting an eerie yellow light that reflected from the mist, covering the Broodlands in pale luminescence.

And what the light showed was thousands of Vestare in groups and teams, some examining weapons and stitching armour but most tending to the hundreds of dragons covering every inch of free space. Vestare fussed about necks, wings, heads and talons, applying balms, singing songs and saying prayers to the Skies for Brood victory. They were tiny against the immense bodies of the Kaan, who stretched out their full lengths, many reaching well in excess of one hundred feet, their hulking bodies towering sometimes as much as fifteen feet. Great heads rested on the ground, some with jaws wide while the Vestare crawled in to spread their protective and healing creams on the flame ducts.

The sense of size was awe-inspiring and The Raven stared on, eyes roving the massive flanks, the twitching wings bigger than the largest warship sail and the muscled necks that carried those huge skulls.

‘How long has this been going on?’ asked Hirad.

‘It seems like ages,’ said Ilkar. ‘And I cannot believe you slept through it for so long.’

‘Kept that way, I think,’ said Hirad. He nodded in the direction of Wingspread, outside of which Sha-Kaan had just appeared. ‘Come on, he’ll have a few things to say to us.’