The stocky lord gave a sharp intake of air. “Half? Goodness me. And the enemy?”

“Similarly depleted. Some thousands fled into the woods across the river, when the Dread came. The rest ran for their ships and sailed south.”

“They fled? Will they return, do you imagine?”

“We don’t know for sure as yet.” Elyon had another bite of bread, munching hungrily. “So, nothing from Varinar? What about the west? The Twinfort? Anything from there?”

“Nothing. No word, Sir Elyon.”

“And the east?”

The Lord Protector of the Vanguard shook his head. “Except for that crow, everything’s gone dark. No riders have come, no ships. We’re living in fear that Drulgar will pass over our heads, and reduce us to ruin as well. Some of the men even reported seeing him when he flew north. From afar, yes, but even then…” He looked Elyon in the eye. “Is he as big as they say? A flying mountain…”

“More a volcano,” Elyon said to that. “His blood…it’s like lava. The very air around him seems to boil. It is enough to blister skin, my lord.” He did not have time to discuss it in any more depth, nor did he want to think about it. He took another bite of bread, chewing quickly, to replenish his stores of energy, eating like a starved man. Of those there would be many hundreds of thousands soon. Millions, even. These nice full plates will grow scarce, he thought, even for a lord like Harrow. “Are you all on rations here?” he asked.

“We are. In preparation.”

“Preparation is over. It’s happening as we speak.” He didn’t need to define what ‘it’ was. “Well, I should be away then. I’d like to reach Varinar by first light if I can.” Or what’s left of it.

“As long as you’re well rested, my prince? You do seem rather…shaky, shall we say?”

“I’m not quite back to full strength, but will be soon. The wind helps as I fly.” Elyon finished eating, helping it down with a cup of cold water. Lord Botley Harrow followed him as he stepped out through the balcony doors and onto the terrace outside. A cold wind was blowing, whistling unnervingly through a moonless night. Elyon gripped the Windblade’s haft, listened for warnings, heard nothing, and withdrew the blade. The air began to stir around him. “You called me prince just now,” he said, giving Harrow a final glance. “It’s official, I should tell you. Or as close as can be, before we put the crown on his head. My father…we named him king two hours ago.”

A smile gripped at Lord Harrow’s lips. “Well, it’s about time he relented. I trust he got through the battle unscathed?”

“He is uninjured. Only tired.”

“And others? You have to get going, I know, but tell me…”

“Vesryn’s dead,” Elyon said, half blurting it out. The words were a knife to his heart. He had to pray he would find Amara. Pray he found her so he could tell her that he’d released her husband, only to watch him die. But with honour, he told himself. A hero. He restored his pride before he fell. He cleared his throat, trying not to dwell on the nagging notion that it was all his fault. “And Dalton Taynar as well,” he finished. “He bled out on the field, in his nephew’s arms. Rodmond is now Lord of House Taynar.”

“I see.” Lord Harrow took a moment to digest that, performing the expected courtesies as he dulled his tone and dipped his eyes in respect of the fallen. “Their losses will both be felt keenly, I am sure. Your uncle in particular…I always liked him, despite his recent transgressions. Did he…die well?”

“As a hero,” Elyon said, remembering the defiance as he stood before the Dread, remembering the crushed armour, the whispered words that had left his uncle’s lips as he died. “Aleron should have been First Blade,” he’d croaked. “I’ll give…my seat…to him.” His parting thoughts as he’d left this plane had been for the wrongs he’d perpetrated, for Aleron, for his part, however small it might have been, in denying his nephew the chance to forge himself into a great man, to win a famous seat of his own at Varin’s Table. Elyon had passed out soon after his uncle’s death, he had later learned, undone by the blast of Eldur’s staff, by the godly power of the Bondstone. Yet when he awoke, alone, moved to a bed in the ruin of the city, he had wept for his uncle’s loss…and those words…those words that would live with him forever.

I’ll give…my seat…to him.

He drew a deep breath, steadying himself, and looked upward. “Watch the skies, my lord,” he said to Harrow, without turning to face him. “I will stop again on my way back, if I can, and report on what I find.” He said nothing more than that. Summoning the winds, he soared, up and away into the starless night.

The flight to Varinar was not a long one, not by the standards he set himself. Over the last months he’d flown often between Varinar, King’s Point, and the cities in the east, and only days ago he’d engaged himself in his most taxing flight so far; from King’s Point to Eldurath and back, with barely any rest at all. And when I returned…

He had anticipated the risk of finding the city under siege. He knew he might have to fly straight into battle. But Drulgar? Eldur? The Calamity and the demigod? Such world ending threats were not expected, and Elyon, exhausted, frazzled, with the Windblade in his grasp and the Eye of Rasalan on his back, had flown right down and fought them both.

Or tried to, he thought, as he glided smoothly above the dark waters of the Steelrun River, reflecting on the battle. In truth he was little more than an irritant to Drulgar, a fly to be swatted, powerless to hurt him. No. No, that isn’t true, he tried to tell himself. The Dread felt it when I drove the Windblade through his scales. He reared and roared. I made him feel pain. It was a small thing, yes, a pinprick in his hide, but enough to give them some hope. He is vulnerable, and he knows it. Father is right. It only takes one bolt…

He quickened his speed a little, eager and afraid in equal parts to find out what had become of the city. The fool in him, the hopeful boy, clung to the small thin chance that he would find Drulgar dead. That he would sight that great black-red carcass lying astride one of Varinar’s many hills, with a thousand ballista bolts poking from his body and one, that crucial one, embedded in his eye and down into his brain. He could imagine it. How the defenders of Varinar had cheered as he fell. How the man who released the mechanism that fired the bolt upon the beast would be revered as a hero for all time, honoured beside Varin himself. A common soldier. Not even a knight, less one of Varin’s Order, raised above all others as the one to down the Dread.

The notion pleased him, unlikely as it might be, and he flew on, heart pounding, basking in that desperate hope. I’ll know soon, he thought. Soon the city would unveil itself, still burning in places he did not doubt. In King’s Point the fires had burned out quickly, with so many stone structures denying its spread, but Varinar was different. Though the ancient inner city had been raised in marble and fine stone, the same could not be said for the vastness of outer Varinar, where timber structures dominated sprawling sections of the Lowers. Fires were common there in summer, and had been for long centuries. Once before they had ripped through entire city regions…now there were fail-safes and procedures to contain the spread…but this was different. ‘The very fires of hell itself pouring from the Lowers’ Sir Bomfrey Marsh had written in his note. There will be no stopping such a spread, Elyon thought. It will feast until it’s had its fill, and there’s nothing anyone can do to sate it.

He clenched his jaw, the wind whipping at his hair. He had taken off his helm, attaching it to his swordbelt, to let the air rush past his cheeks, to keep him awake and alert. It knocked against his armour as he went, a wild constant rattling that seemed to announce the death of a man, woman, or child with every toll. Elyon was not certain what the population of Varinar was, though the word million had been used more than once. And more now, he knew. Thousands upon thousands had poured in through the gates in recent months, fleeing to the capital to escape the war. They went there to keep their children safe. They were told the city was unbreachable…they were promised they’d have nothing to fear…

Tap, tap, tap, went his helm.

Dead, dead, dead, he thought.

He grimaced, closing his spare hand into a fist. As he did, a faint light appeared in the skies, a soft glow on the far horizon. He narrowed his gaze, peering through the rushing air. Fire. It was as he’d feared. Fire, still burning, three days on…

The city was still long miles away, yet already he was seeing signs of destruction, a path of ruination paving the way to Varinar. Ships, blackened and burned, lay washed up against the banks of the river. Riverside inns had suffered the same fate, and hamlets built along the shore, and the jetties and little rowboats that wandered in and out of them, and the orchards and river-markets, trading posts and watchtowers that overlooked the water, all burned. The lands along the Steelrun had once been rich with life. Now they were black and dead.

On the horizon the light was growing brighter, as if the sun was rising in the north, as though all the world had been twisted and turned about, as though everything was wrong.

And yet there was a light now in the east as well. The rising of a true dawn. A different light, of purity and hope, climbing up to fight the fire. It spurred Elyon Daecar on, casting away the gloom in his heart. They had lost much, but not all.

There remains a lot to fight for.

The last miles passed quickly. Rising to get a better vantage, Elyon saw first the city walls, facing south. The double bulwark was thick and tall, the stone laced at intervals with godsteel supports. Built with massive bastions, the walls looked mostly undamaged. There were no major breaches. The gates and barbicans remained intact. The crenelations atop the wall walks were scarred and marked, but barely. To an invading army of men, finding a way into the city would be the first priority. Rams for the gates. Trebuchets and catapults for the walls. Ladders and siege towers to scale the battlements.

But to a thunder of dragons, none of that mattered.

They flew right over, Elyon knew. They targeted the towers, and the turrets, and the ballistas on their turntables. They rained fire upon the battlements, incinerating the bowmen. The walls were of no concern to them.

Beyond the walls, the vastness of outer Varinar spread. Elyon flew over, swerving between great black pillars of smoke, pouring from the many fires still burning in the Lowers. Far below, he could see faint signs of movement, shadows shifting through the smog. Some looked to be in groups, attempting to douse the flames. Others were sifting through the great swathes of rubble, freeing those trapped beneath, perhaps, as they were doing in the ruin of King’s Point. There was some sense of order, at least. That alone gave him hope.

He scanned, as he soared, gliding slowly now to take it in. Across the breadth of outer Varinar, the destruction was severe, though far from complete. Some districts appeared to have escaped untouched, protected by one hill or another, especially in the western side of the city. The worst of the destruction was down the centre, Elyon saw, as though Drulgar the Dread had led his dragons straight for the ancient heart of Varinar, on the shores of Lake Eshina. The city as he once knew it, Elyon thought. Thousands of years ago.

His flight took him along that trail, scanning, logging the scale of the damage. Though many of the hilltop towers had been torn down, some remained standing, and he saw signs that the ballistas there were still in operation, that soldiers were still manning them, that all was not lost.

He saw dragons as well, dark carcasses in the gloom. One, and then another, and then another and another and more. They were sprawled out among the rubble, beside broken stone towers and atop still-standing buildings, hanging over the edges of the walls, filled with arrows and bolts. Some were small and thin, others big and bulky, with empty saddles on their backs or none at all, wild and riderless, minions of the Dread.

In the east, the bloom of dawn was growing brighter, casting away some of the gloom. Elyon continued north, toward the ancient inner walls, to where the Ten Hills of Varinar stood, topped with their greathouse keeps and palaces, arenas and temples. He came to a stop, hovering, and took in the scale of the devastation.

At the heart, the Royal Palace, where the Kings of Vandar sat upon the godsteel throne…where great councils had been staged…where wars had been started and ended…where history made…was no more, the great high hill on which it once stood scattered now with great blocks of rubble. There were gouge marks upon the stair leading up to it, great deep ditches torn into the stone as if Drulgar himself had ploughed straight into it, blasting the palace apart with his bulk.

Elyon looked upon the other hills, each in varying states of destruction. Keep Taynar, a spare grey castle, had been shattered down to its foundations. The same went for Keep Amadar, the greathouse of his grandfather, the once proud castle reduced to utter ruin. Through the swirling smoke and ashen air, he looked upon the keeps of Houses Oloran, Pentar, Reynar and Kanabar, all built atop their hills. All but the last were badly damaged, missing wings and towers, belfries and balconies, their yards filled with rubble, smoke rising from the wrecks.

Only Keep Kanabar looked to have been entirely untouched, away on its wide low hill in the west, lit by the light of the rising sun.

And Keep Daecar. His home. The halls and corridors where he’d played as a boy, the yard where he’d sparred with his brother. The chamber where he’d slept, the hall where they’d hosted greatlords and kings, the family feast hall where they’d dined…

Elyon looked down upon it, and breathed out. Amidst all the destruction, amidst the tumbled ruins atop the Ten Hills, Keep Daecar remained standing; burned, battered, a blackened husk, but not broken. He set his jaw, closed a fist, and spoke aloud, up there in the skies, “House Daecar still has teeth.”

Across from the palace, the great amphitheatre of Varinar, where the Song of the First Blade was sung, remained standing as well, and down in the lake-side harbour some of the wharves and jetties, the strong stone docks, appeared to have escaped unscathed.

He looked north, across the dawn-lit water, to the island on which the Steelforge stood. The bridge linking it to the city appeared to have been broken in places, the stone collapsed into the lake, and the four tall towers at the corners of the Steelforge had clearly been assaulted. But not destroyed, he saw. Elin’s Tower, and Iliva’s Tower, and Ayrin’s Tower were all damaged. Only Varin’s Tower, facing south toward the city, had been torn down and toppled, its ruin cast into the water or left to scatter the bridge below.

He knew, Elyon thought. Drulgar…he knew.

The rising sun continued to cast the city in a clearer light. Elyon commanded the winds to steady him against the gusty air, and took in the entirety of Varinar once more, turning slowly in a long, solemn circle. He spent a few long moments logging what he saw, to deliver to his father on his return. Then, without further thought, he made straight for Keep Daecar.