Falling Down

Dragons poured towards the Fury. Whatever riders Valmeyan had sent quickly turned and fled. Hyrkallan didn’t bother with subtleties but gave chase directly. Jehal supposed that when you had so many of the monsters that you could blot out the sun with them, stealth was a bit of a waste of time. They reached Gliding Dragon Gorge and the realm of the Harvest Queen, the realm of Queen Zafir, and Hyrkallan flew on. Jehal supposed he could have stopped, could have quietly dropped away, taken his handful of dragons back to the palace; but would it have made any difference if he had? Probably not, not to what mattered. I’m sorry, Lystra, but what else can I do? A trade perhaps? But what for what? You for the the Adamantine Palace? And then let Zafir send her assassins after both of us? The same Zafir he still hungered to hold. Yes, that Zafir.

Here and there, as they flew, Jehal saw palls of smoke dotting the landscape. Watersgate, Plag’s Bay. Maybe Valleyford, if he strained his eyes. Hyrkallan ignored them. Scorched earth, that was Zafir all over. Across the Fury, every town was burnt; when Jehal took Wraithwing down for a closer look, some were still smouldering, little coils of smoke twirling out of the ruins. The damage was a day or two old, no more. Jehal couldn’t think why Zafir would destroy her own realm, but then he couldn’t think of why she did lots of things. Slaughtering the cattle we would have taken to feed our dragons? And we would have done it too, taking whatever we need. A horde like this must spell death for any realm it passes. Even if we don’t burn it to ash, we’ll eat everything in our path. Behind us, all will fall into starvation and ruin. Ancestors, please let this war be quick.

Ancestors? Who am I praying to? The father I suffocated in his bed? He’d be laughing. Meteroa? Pouring derision on everything I do most likely. Distancing himself from all of this. Making sure none of the rest of our dead folk get the impression that this is somehow his fault. No, his ancestors weren’t going to be much use here. Never were really, even when they were alive. Made his lip curl, just thinking about them. You wanted to be Vishmir, and when that didn’t work, you demanded it from your sons. Well here I am, father, Speaker of the Realms. You know what? You’re all dead, so if you want any family honour out of this sorry mess, you might start trying to be a bit more constructive. Or did his ancestors think it better to watch the world burn than to admit they were wrong? To admit they’d made a mistake?

No. Don’t answer that. Don’t even think about it. Instead, he forced his way to the front of the horde, where he could fly his colours and be the first into the attack. King Jehal. Speaker Jehal, leading from the front. So, ancestors, what about that then? Vishmir would have been proud; Prince Lai would have called him an idiot, and he’d probably wind up dead because that was what usually happened to the man at the front. But what have I got to lose? Nothing much any more.

The Pinnacles were up ahead, three dark shadows on the distant plains, a hundred miles away. He had dragons around him, to either side, up and down, behind him as far as he could see. They were everywhere. Hyrkallan’s B’thannan. All the rest. Wings surging, necks straining with purpose. He could see the eyes of the closest, gleaming, teeth bared, riders grinning. They all knew. They all knew what was coming.

Zafir’s outriders must have seen them coming. Had to. There were no clouds today, no place to hide. Hyrkallan had no special trick to play; nor did he need one. Numbers. That would be enough. How many dragons did Valmeyan have? He had his own eyries, Zafir’s dragons that had escaped from Evenspire, a few dozen Meteroa had had at the Pinnacles, most of Narghon’s eyries. What was that? Pushing five hundred adult dragons? Against nearly half that many again. All the dragons in the realms, or as near as made no difference, all in once place. Did anyone have a strategy for this? He tried to think about Principles. Divide your enemy. Take them down piece by piece. Encircle them. Envelop them. Crash down on them from above. The Carpenter, the Falling Leaves, the Hammer and Anvil. Principles was good on how to destroy your enemies with few losses of your own once you’d established an advantage in numbers. For what was about to happen, Prince Lai had nothing to say. It wasn’t supposed to come to this.

The sky about the Pinnacles was swarming. His heart crept up his throat. Dragons. Hundreds of dragons, enough that they seemed like dark clouds slowly rising into the air. His spine tingled. The hairs on his skin burned. Valmeyan was going to make a fight of it. Both clouds of dragons were climbing, trying for the height advantage, but in the end it was all going to be much the same. As he started to make out the individual dragons ahead of him, as they filled the sky and filled his vision, Jehal urged Wraithwing on. Lead from the front. Show them how they make princes in Furymouth. For what it’s worth . . .

There were times, he thought, when you forgot how big a dragon was. How truly immense they were. You forgot when you rode them every day. When you took them for granted. When they weren’t anything more than a way to get from one place to another.

And then there were times when you remembered. Remembered they could swallow you whole and you wouldn’t even touch the sides.

The first rider he hit was still trying to climb, urging his dragon up. Wraithwing screamed over him and ripped everything off the dragon’s back. Riders, saddles, ropes everything, all strung together. He didn’t drop it though; instead Wraithwing swung the whole lot at another dragon, entangling its wings. It spiralled, crashed into another and the whole mess disappeared towards the ground. Jehal didn’t watch. The next dragon was right in front of him, had turned to meet him head to head. He flicked down his visor, pressed himself against Wraithwing’s scales and closed his eyes. Fire washed over him; a gale almost ripped him out of his saddle, and then he was still alive and that dragon was gone and now there was another, dropping on him from above. Black. They all looked black. Wraithwing rolled. For a second Jehal was upside down, the slabs of the Pinnacles hanging half a mile above his head. He lurched, helpless, as Wraithwing and the other dragon brushed past one another, and then it was gone, straight down, over his head, spreading its wings. Its tail curled like a whip as it passed to snap at him, but Wraithwing was still rolling, pulling him away from the danger. The tip missed him by about the span of a man’s arms, slapping Wraithwing’s side with enough force to jolt them both.

If that had been me . . . He’d seen men hit by the whip of a dragon’s tail before: sometimes in eyrie accidents, and Meteroa had always been fond of finding new ways of using his dragons to execute people. The result was . . . well, messy was about the only word for it.

Another dragon. A cloud of them. Everywhere. Moving so fast he couldn’t tell which was which. He caught glimpses of white streamers, some of them still tied to dragons, others fluttering uselessly in the air. Something huge and yellow shot over his head. Wraithwing twisted, but the dragon was one of their own. The yellow veered, bucking in the air. A dark brown hunter landed on its back, ripped its riders to pieces, then lunged away – but too slow. Wraithwing bathed it in fire, and as it flew away, saddle and harness disintegrated, flailing riders scattered into the air.

Why am I doing this? Jehal threw himself forward again as Wraithwing made a vicious half turn and swooped away from a pair of war-dragons. He plunged. For a moment, as they fell sideways, a severed head fell with them. Jehal had no idea whose it was.

Wraithwing levelled out for a moment. Jehal could feel the dragon’s joy, how it revelled in the fight.

Bits of someone’s saddle bounced off Wraithwing’s shoulders. Jehal risked a glance up, but all he saw was a seething, swarming mass of shapes, huge things that flashed and twisted and lit up with gouts of fire, while pieces of man and saddle and the occasional stricken beast rained down around him. Saw a flash of all that and then had his spine almost wrenched in half as Wraithwing arced into a tight loop and arrowed upside down into a gap between three other dragons, so close that the tip of a wing brushed Jehal’s head. He had no idea whether they were his or Zafir’s. Didn’t see if they had white streamers or painted bellies, Could hardly see a thing with the wind in his face unless he pulled his visor down, in which case he could hardly see a thing anyway. The sky everywhere was a roiling mass of dragons, the wind that roared at his ears warm with the heat of them.

A flash of fire. He pulled his visor down. Still alive a few seconds later, he lifted it up again. He looked for other dragons with white bellies, but looking for anything was almost impossible. He could barely lift his head off Wraithwing’s neck for long enough to work out which way up he was. The dragon looped and spiralled down, trading height for speed to keep him alive among a hundred other dragons doing just the same.

Should have ridden a hunter. They might be meant for chasing snappers, but those sharp manoeuvres are just the thing for piling into a cloud of, oh, how many enemy dragons? A few hundred, was it? Now won’t we all have a laugh if Hyrkallan has changed his mind at the last minute and broken off the attack, and it’s just me in here.

The tip of a wing swept overhead. Wraithwing pulled up short, crushing the air out of Jehal’s lungs, made another loop. Jehal caught a glimpse of six riders on the back of a huge war-dragon, three of them manning scorpions, before Wraithwing flipped over and almost landed on the back of it, obliterating them all with one savage sweep of his claws. Jehal didn’t even know they were there, didn’t even know whose side they were on. Didn’t have time to care. It was all Wraithwing now, picking and choosing. He was just a passenger now. Just keep me alive!

The war-dragon was plummeting towards the ground in forlorn pursuit of its riders. There. I’ve done my bit. Three of the enemy down. Play the numbers. Three for one and we’re bound to win, even if there aren’t really very many of us left to appreciate it. Can I go now? Play dead and leave?

Two white-bellied dragons arrowed down either side of him, one after the other. Riderless. Most of the battle was above him now. Not good to be down near the bottom. Death comes from above. The first rule of Principles.

A war-dragon came at them from the side, mouth open wide, fire building up inside its throat. Wraithwing rolled Jehal away, took the fire on his belly. That only put him in the path of a second dragon, which swung its head around and raked Wraithwing and Jehal alike with flames. Jehal snatched for his visor again. He snapped it down as the first blast of scorching air licked his face, then screamed in pain. His palm was on fire. He couldn’t see anything because of the visor. His good hand gripped Wraithwing’s scales. Burned. They’ve burned my hand off. Terror gripped him. If the fire had been hot enough to burn through the dragon-scale covering his gauntlets, what had it done to his saddle, to the ropes and straps that kept him on Wraithwing’s back?

He lifted the visor. A part of him, some little bit of murderous primitive, didn’t care a hoot about his hand. A part of him was loving every moment of this, almost singing out of sheer joy. This was a part that came from the dragons, from Wraithwing and all the other dragons around him. A battle madness. Principles had never mentioned that.

He managed to focus on his hand. His gauntlet was still there, the dragon-scale intact. The soft leather on the inside of his hand was black and crisped. He’d been still closing his visor when the fire came. Hadn’t closed his fist in time. Simple mistake, easily made, and that was that. He had no idea what his skin looked like underneath and no intention of finding out. Lobster-red with flakes of black most likely. He cursed. The pain was excruciating.

A moment to breathe. A moment of clear air. He tried to look, tried to see what was happening, who was winning, but everything was a whirlwind of madness. Dragons falling from the air, scores and scores of them, a rain of monsters in futile pursuit of their fallen riders. They all looked the same. Dark. Colours all lost in the wind and the blur, in sun and speed. The battle had become a swirling cloud, as high as a mountain, spread out over the three peaks of the Pinnacles. In some places the sky was almost empty. In others, dragons looped and snapped at each other in such tight circles and in such numbers that he couldn’t tell one apart from another. Overhead, three dragons slammed into each other, all their riders crushed and killed together. He watched the dragons plunge past him. Dark streaks flashed through the air. Scorpion bolts. The spent ones fell like a deadly rain on whatever lay below. Dragons, riders, the Silver City beneath. Thousands of them.

He saw dragons racing away too: terrified riders desperate to live. Saw others give vengeful chase. In that moment, he understood. Principles was a lie. There was no strategy here, no tactic to outwit the enemy, not in this sprawling shapeless horror. There was terror, that was all. It was who broke first, nothing more, nothing less. Whose riders fled in fear and whose gave themselves up to the dragon-fury, which was every bit as terrible.

For a moment he watched appalled, for the few seconds he had to think before there was a war-dragon attacking from below. Wraithwing was already turning; Jehal could feel his desire to fight. Enough running and ducking. Enough of scorpions. Tooth and claw. The southern way. He could feel the other dragons around him answering, returning Wraithwing’s challenge with glee.

The war-dragon almost caught him. Wraithwing let it, then slashed the air with his tail, slapped the other dragon on the nose and turned in the way that only Wraithwing could turn, flipping in the air. The dragons doused each other with fire while Jehal pressed himself flat, visor down, shielding his damaged hand from the flames and hoping not to die. Wraithwing shuddered. Tooth and claw and tail tore and lashed at the riders on the war-dragon’s back, and then they were apart and he was still alive. Safe.

Safe until he felt a sudden sharp tug on the saddle and Wraithwing’s scales started to slide under his hands.

No! He flipped up the visor. He was strapped to his saddle, but the whole harness was moving. No! No! No! His fingers fumbled with the straps. A dragon saddle and harness weighed as much as a man. And then what? Ride bareback? I hate to tell you, but that only works with horses. He almost shouted at Wraithwing to dive for the ground but bit his tongue. The dragon would do exactly that, and then what? It didn’t make much difference whether you fell off the back of a dragon from half a mile up or from fifty feet about the ground, the mess was still about the same.

He cast a quick glance behind. The war-dragon was still there. Lots of ropes and bits of harness trailed behind it, but it hadn’t gone for the ground. Someone was still alive to tell it what to do. Any moment now that someone would come back for another go.

Vishmir’s cock! The saddle slipped again. Wraithwing was flying in a straight line now, with long careful wingbeats, his body slightly twisted as though trying to help Jehal stay balanced. Which would have been all very well if they had lots of open space around and could glide very gently to the ground. Less helpful in the middle of a fight. Might as well have painted ‘Eat me’ on his back.

A shower of stray scorpion bolts fell from the battle above. One punched a hole through Wraithwing’s wing. The dragon didn’t flinch.

I’m going to fall.

Now half a dragon-rider fell past him. A few seconds later a war-dragon followed, one without a painted belly, Jehal saw. Stupid thing, waste of effort, noticing that. Don’t have time, don’t have time! The saddle shifted again. Started to slide.

Saddle straps were gone. Still no one was diving to finish him. All he had to do was pull himself forward out of the saddle slowly and carefully, wrap his arms around Wraithwing somehow and fall out of the sky a little way so everyone thought he was dead. And then, just maybe, if he was really, really lucky, slowly glide to ground and make a nice gentle landing without shattering every bone in his body.

Right. And then Hyrkallan will land beside you and personally bend his knee and call you speaker. Because that’s just as likely.

Wraithwing veered sharply. For a moment the sun turned off and everything went dark. Jehal squawked in panic as he and the saddle fell away, and then something enormous went straight over him, a vast black shape. Talons as long as a man’s leg snatched at the space where he’d been, tore a furrow in Wraithwing’s back, ripping scales and the muscle beneath, and pulled away what little of Jehal’s harness remained. Then the black dragon had passed, the sun came out again and Jehal was left hanging in the air. Alive and perfectly unharmed and with a sudden and dire shortage of wings.

And then he fell.