Axallio Axar gave a firm nod. “I should have been given that honour from the start. I asked the Father and the Founder, but Marak took it from me.” He scowled. “Lord Eldur chose poorly that day. Now Marak has fled, and left you to me.”

Fled or dead? Amron thought. He still did not know. “Are we fighting or talking?”

The comment rankled the younger man. “This is how it is done,” he called out, in a bitter shout. “Is that not so, Daecar? Some talking at the start. Then the fighting. It was so with Dulian, yes. I have heard the tales of how you taunted him that day, before you crippled him and killed half his soul. They call it mercy here, but no. It was cruelty. Evil. You are a villain, Amron Daecar.”

Amron did not care to listen to the man’s meaningless bombast. He knew what had happened that day. He knew it was not mercy, as they said. He threatened to kill my sons, he thought. Those words could not be spared. “How old are you, Axallio?” he asked.

The man grunted and lifted his chin. “Four holy turns.”

Thirty-two. The number eight was sacred to the Agarathi. Some called it a holy turn, the passing of eight years. “Just a boy, then.”

“A boy who has ridden Angaralax for a dozen years,” the Fireborn snarled at him. “Our bond is unbreakable, you will see.” He leaned back in the saddle, as though to prove it, and Angaralax reared up high, pausing to stand tall with wings outstretched before smashing his bulk back down. The earth trembled. Smoke drifted out through the dragon’s teeth. Amron did not quell. The dragon was formidable, there was no doubt, but he’d faced Drulgar now. A child, he thought. That is all the rest are. “Marak and Garlath. Ven and Malathar. Not even Dulian and Vallath can match us.”

Amron doubted it. “Are you afraid, Axallio?” he asked.

“Afraid? Of you?” The man laughed aloud. “I fear no one, Daecar. Nothing. You may hold this god-shard, but that is nothing to me. Gather them all. Reforge them. I still would not quiver. Varin’s heir or no, I hold no fear of you.”

The man was lying. Amron had fought enough Fireborn to know that. “I will give you one chance. Fly home, leave this land, join the rebellion against your master. Do this and I will spare you. Do it not and you will die.”

The man’s face went red with rage, and Angaralax bellowed a fearsome roar. That was as good an answer as any.

“So be it,” Amron murmured. He stepped forward to engage.

The dragon stirred at once, shifting backward and twisting its bulk to swing out a lashing tail. Amron knew he would. He’d faced enough dragons in his time to know they often led with the tail, especially so when they were afraid. He turned with the motion of the beast, bracing his feet. The air sparkled, frosting, as he swung his blade in a rapid horizontal arc. A spray of ice blew over his foe, spreading into a thick white cloud, slowing the tail as it whipped around. Amron shifted stance, heaving the blade high, and swung down with all his might. His timing was perfect. The steel hacked down through the scale armour, through horns and spikes, biting deep into the meat and muscle. The beast bellowed. The tail kept coming. It slammed into Amron’s chest, knocking him back a pace or two as ice exploded from his breastplate, reforming almost instantaneously as he heaved the blade back out with a spray of frost and blood.

The dragon swung back around. Blood sluiced freely from the wound, but the tail was thick and it would take a lot more than that to sever it. Angaralax slammed his forefeet into the ground, ripping away chunks of mud and earth, head tipped high and roaring. Amron saw his chest beginning to glow, the fires stirring. He swished the Frostblade. A cloud of frozen air swamped the beast, steaming as it enrobed him. The king swished again, and again, and again. And then he swished some more.

The dragon’s motion was slowing, each swing of the Frostblade a new frigid fetter to chain him. Amron could see Axallio Axar shouting wordlessly as the air froze and closed about him. His silken cape had turned stiff as stone, frost forming on his armour. Angaralax was widening his wings to try to thump the air and take flight, but the wings were too slow, the webbing rigid. Amron swished and swished and swished. His power was unlimited here.

I gave you a chance, he thought. The Frostblade swung back and forward in an ice-white blur. You should have taken it, Axallio. The air had become a pale wintry shroud, the shadow of the dragon encased within it. Its motion slowed, slowed, and eventually stopped. Amron took a pace through the mist. Dimly he could hear the crazed strains of battle around him, but here he seemed to be in another world. It had even begun to snow, he realised, a localised storm formed by his blade. Would that every battle could be fought here, he thought. He had never felt so invulnerable.

He reached the frozen dragon, with the frozen rider atop him, entombed in a layer of glass-like ice. Axar’s face was twisted into a white rictus of pain, his eyes open, panicked, staring, but dead. The man was gone, Amron knew. The body could not sustain such a swift decline in temperature and be revived, not without fatal effects. The dragon, though…

Already he could see it warming from within, the ice cracking and breaking from the scales, the glow of its furnace flame spreading from its molten core. Amron did not know how long it would take to become fully mobile, and nor did he want to wait to find out. It felt wrong to slay a beast this way, like killing a man when he was down and defenceless, a dishonourable act, but he had no time for such misgivings.

He will kill many if I do not, he told himself, as he moved over to the beast’s head, and saw the open eye staring at him, hating him, saw the fear in it and the rage. The huge head was raised too far off the ground for him to cut at it, the neck lifted high, but that was no hurdle to Amron Daecar. With a small measure of reluctance, he raised the Frostblade, pointing its tip up at the softer underside of the dragon’s jaws, and summoned the power of Vandar within it. A spear of clear ice coalesced, hard as crystal and sharp as godsteel. He thrust upward. The spear launched forth to drive deep into the beast’s jaws, cutting up and through the roof of his mouth. A shudder ran through the dragon’s mighty body, more flakes of ice cracking and falling. He saw the pupil in that eye dilate. Blood gathered to dribble out through its teeth, hot and steaming as it fell.

But the beast was not yet dead. Another spear was fired upward, shattering into the first. Already it was melting, dripping icily down to mingle with the blood. The second spear drove through the first and both surged deeper, piercing through the bone of the beast’s upper jaw. Another ripple went through it. More blood gushed, mingling with the meltwater to turn pink as it splashed onto the ground. The brain was pierced, Amron knew. He could tell from the way the eye ripened and rolled over. Still, he summoned a third spear for good measure, to be absolutely sure.

When that was done, he took a moment to look upon his fallen foe, watching as the fires dimmed within its cavernous chest, the furnace guttering out as the forge shut down. The ice thawed enough for it to slump and sag at the body, crusts of frost breaking off as it crashed suddenly down to sprawl dead upon the field, half-frozen limbs jutting out at odd angles. Axallio Axar remained fixed to his saddle, poking out unnaturally, frozen like a statue. Amron shook his head at him, disappointed. He was no Dulian, no Ven, no Ulrik Marak. Just another gallant fool, the king thought. Who thought he was a hero.

The white pall around him was weakening, lances of sunlight piercing the shroud. The din of battle returned to his ears. He turned, moving away from the fallen beast. Gradually, the battlefield opened back out before him, a chaotic swell of frenzied fighting. His host were battling in pockets, he saw, each an island in a sea of red and black. Some islands were large, others small, but in many the tides were coming in as the Agarathi numbers told. They are overwhelming us, the king fretted. It was not meant to go this way.

A shout hailed him. He saw the young face of Sir Reginald Hightree racing over on his armoured horse, fighting his way toward his king with a strong guard of men-at-arms in Borrington blue. “My king. Angaralax, I saw him come down to face you. Is he…”

“Dead,” Amron confirmed. “And Axallio Axar.” His eyes flitted to the city walls, still some distance away. He could not say for certain how well Sir Torus was faring, but it seemed to him that the knight’s charge had been held. “We need to secure the city, Sir Reginald. Come with me. All of you.”

He marched on foot, Hightree and his men forming a cordon to his left and right. In short order they came upon the Giant of Hammerhall, an island unto himself, grunting as he swung and chopped with greatsword and warhammer. The man looked to be tiring. Dozens of men lay butchered about him. He was bleeding from a small hole in his left leg, where the cuisses met the poleyn protecting his knee. “Damned dragonknight got me,” he bellowed, in a fury. “Got him back, and the rest of them.”

“We’re making for the city, Sir Taegon,” Amron said. “Where is the Hammerhorse?”

“With Wolfsbane,” the giant knight grunted. He grimaced as he put weight on his wounded leg. If the spear had cut into his knee that could be a serious problem. “They’re competing. For kills. Least it looked that way to me.”

Amron might have smiled at another time. The notion of horses competing for kills in battle amused him. “We’ll leave them to it. On me, Sir Taegon.”

The giant joined them, half limping as he went. The air was beginning to thicken with a mix of steam and smoke, swirling from the burning city on a southerly wind, and above them the skies were curdling. When a cloud passed over the sun, Amron felt a tingle slither up his spine. Vandar’s Smile, he thought. Blotted. He turns from us.

It was not true, he hoped, but the omen did not encourage him. Nor Lord Strand’s lack of showing. He marched on, casting frost as he went to drive the enemy away. Sir Reginald called out what he saw, counting dragon numbers such as he could. “At least thirty,” he shouted out. Most were smaller, riderless, darting down and up and down and up, picking weaker men for foes. Some circled high, waiting for their time to strike, like eagles hunting prey. At one point Amron was certain he saw a true eagle above them, by the shape of it, but it was hard to say for sure. Ahead, the city came and went between banners of smoke and fog. His glimpses were dire. Another breach had opened up in the walls, he saw, and a river of red and black was pouring inside, clambering over the broken stone.

“The city,” he roared out, to the men he passed. “Make for the city! Secure the streets!”

Others echoed him. He heard a warhorn blow a loud blast nearby, others responding across the field. A man in black ghosted through the fog, blood spattered across his cloak. “Rogen,” Amron called to him.

The ranger hastened to join him. “Sir Trystan is dead,” he reported. “A dragonknight stabbed a dagger through his eyehole before I could get to them. I failed you.”

He failed himself. The boy was reckless and paid for it dearly. “You did what you could,” he told the ranger. “What of Sir Bryce?”

“Fighting with Conwyn and Joyce. They were leading a charge for the easternmost breach last I saw. The Agarathi…they were breaking through.”

“My lord…to the left,” warned a voice.

Amron turned that way and saw a great swell of enemy soldiers pouring toward them in a sudden charge. The Borrington men surged to defend him, clashing with sword and spear and shield. Several dragons were following them in, diving as one, two, three, four of them reached out with their great sharp talons to snatch men from the saddle and flap away. Sir Taegon roared and tried to leap, swinging his greatsword, but his leg buckled and he fell to one knee, smashing a fist into the ground in rage. The dragons wheeled around for another pass. Amron turned with them. Men were shouting around him. “Watch the right,” they called. “East. They’re coming from the east.”

Then suddenly another man shrieked out ‘west’ and another said ‘to the left…the left!’ and Amron did not know where to look. All of a sudden dragons were coming down from everywhere, from left and right and east and west, from the city ahead and the torn earth behind. “Protect the king! Protect the king!” Sir Reginald was shouting, and then Whitebeard was there right with him, and Sir Taegon surged to his feet and lurched over as well. Men gathered to form a shield wall, but Amron wished they hadn’t.

“Move aside!” he commanded. “Give me room. I need space!” He swung an arm, shifting men out of the way, and tried to swing the Frostblade upward as a dragon flew by, but another armsman got right in front of him. “Damn it,” he cursed. He had to be careful here not to freeze his own men. “Stand aside, that is an order. All of you…step away and give me space!”

Some heard, calling for others to move back, but the Agarathi were thick about them. “Protect the king! Protect the king!” No sooner had Amron found a bit of room than others came rushing in to fill the space, their backs to him, shields held close, swords and spears and pikes facing out.

“Move aside,” the king roared again. “Rogen, Taegon, help make room! Make room!”

But Taegon Cargill was no longer there. Amron glimpsed the giant knight in the throes of combat with a dragon, his warhammer cast aside as he swung with his two-handed greatsword. Men were being scattered as the beast twisted and turned, his tail whipping them aside. Shields went flying from grasps, and swords and spears. Amron saw a blade come tumbling down to drive into the neck of a young Mantle man in his black cloak and bat sigil. Another was knocked out by a heavy godsteel shield, to be trampled by a charging horse. Sir Taegon was swinging, roaring. He gave a great hack, but the dragon jerked away, spinning fiercely to trip Taegon up with its tail. Then the battle churned about them and Amron saw no more.

“Rogen!” he bellowed. “Sir Reginald! Clear a path!”

Whitebeard was there, ahead of him, rasping out the king’s orders, but Sir Reginald too had been drawn into the fighting to Amron’s left. The dragons were still diving, one and then another and then another, like nesting birds harrying and harassing some predator trying to steal their eggs. He swung his eyes about, calling for Wolfsbane, trying to whistle as he did when hailing him, but the horse was nowhere to be seen. The world had closed about him, thickening and tightening. The Agarathi legions were pressing from all sides.

Suddenly a bright amber light filled his sight as a dragon glided atop them. “Shields!” came a shout, and men swung their shields upward, the flames licking down through the spaces between them. Amron needed no such defence in his icy armour, yet the men flew to defend him all the same. Cloaks caught fire, and beards and hair. Burning men threw themselves into the snowy mud, rolling and screaming. Some were trampled in the chaos and never stood. Others staggered back to their feet, muddied and scorched.

“Spears!” someone was calling. “Spears!” They flew at the passing dragons, most missing or glancing harmlessly away. A few struck their targets. One dragon roared and twisted and fell, disappearing into the swarming horde. But they kept coming. Clawing and snapping and killing. Amron felt the heat of one behind him, and spun about as it reached out to grasp him. He ducked, the long talons raking at his armour, tearing off chunks of ice that quickly reformed. Another followed right behind, snatching up one of the Borrington men-at-arms to drag him into the skies. A thick curtain of smoke drifted over from the city. Mist rose from bodies and mouths, breath fogging; flakes of snow and ash were swirling. Another man was snatched away. Behind, the glow of firelight told of another spear of flame. Amron whirled, thrusting the Frostblade at the firebreathing beast, but his ice spear missed, vanishing into the shrouded air.

“Target the fire-breathers!” he roared. “Take them down! Take them down!”

The air was suffocating. Everywhere was steel and fangs and fire. Claws raked and ripped and tore at the men about him, tugging them skyward to fall bloodily back down where they landed hard on the soldiers below. He pushed, driving men aside, trying to fight his way toward the enemy ranks, but he was trapped, enclosed. “Make way! Make way!” He raised the Frostblade, sending a pulse of white light across the field. “Make way! Move aside! Move!”

A searing heat blew across him, and suddenly he felt talons closing about his sword arm. The dragon thumped its wing, struggling to lift him. Up he went, a metre, two. Men saw and reached out, grabbing to pull him back down, but then another dragon was there, bathing them in flame. The king was drawn upward, through ash and smoke and mist, his captor beating the air into a furious storm to lift him in his armour. His rerebrace and vambrace and gauntlet all groaned as the talons tightened.

He kicked hard with his legs, trying to dislodge himself, and snatched out his dagger with his spare hand to slash at the dragon’s foot. Blood came down in black-red rain, but the dragon did not release him. A smaller beast descended, flapping, snatching at a leg, and together they drew him higher…higher…