Twilight of the Dragons (29 page)

“No. A bigger problem!”

“Really?”

They all looked up. And saw the dragon circling high overhead. Then she swept down, and something tumbled from her mouth even as she entered the dive. It glinted, silver, and it took moments to realise it was a
knight
in full armour.

Volak landed with a
crash
in Tower Square, and shook out her wings, her head coming up, eyes fixing on the Iron Wolves.

“I confess,” she said, voice a musical rumble, “as to being amazed you still live.”

“You murdered my fucking dogs!” screamed Mola, taking several steps forward.

“Yes, yes, come to me little fat man. Let us see if your fat can run molten through the gutters.”

“I'll cut off your fucking head,” he snarled.

Volak chuckled, head turning slightly, to observe the splice. “Interesting choice of playmates,” she said. Fire flickered around her nostrils. “They are not born of this world, but carry the stink of the Furnace in their skin. I wonder which demon gave them a stamp of approval.”

Kareem shuffled sideways, and nudged Narnok in the ribs.

“Hey! What?”

“Look!”

“
What
?”

“
The splice
!”

And indeed, the group of splice had turned, and their odd eyes and drooling muzzles were facing Volak. Every single one of them.

“They don't seem to like her,” muttered Kareem.

“Good! Neither do I!”

“I think…” said Dek. But it was too late. The splice attacked.

One leapt from the shadows, a bound, to land on Volak's back. Jaws snapped down as claws, or rather, a curious combination of claws and broken hooves, stabbed and scraped at her scales as her head reared, she turned to look behind, and backed up several steps and roared.

The others leapt forward, bounding across the ancient stone flagstones of Tower Square. Three more leapt onto Volak's back, and she reared up suddenly, a terrifying vision, as one splice jumped for her throat. Her claw slammed out, catching the splice and sending it flying through the air, where it hit the cobbles rolling, dug in its claws, leapt up and charged back into another attack.

Flames roared out, setting one splice on fire. Up went its tattered, scarred horse hair, but still it came on, screaming now, jaws chomping, until Volak grabbed it between both claws and ripped it in half. Blood rained down. The great wyrm tossed aside the two body parts with contempt, and looked back again at the four on her back, biting and clawing and stabbing. Her tail whipped up, the great spike lashing through a splice, impaling it. Blood poured from its twisted horse muzzle. Volak's tail lifted the creature high into the air, still wriggling, still vomiting blood, and launched it at a nearby half-collapsed church, where it crashed through a wall and lay still.

Yet more splice came from the shadows, charging at Volak, leaping at her, leaping on her. She realised her error too late, and unfolding her wings, gave a great flap, lifting up from the ground, spinning slightly. But there were ten splice on her back now, doing their best to cause maximum destruction, and the weight alone must have been incredible, never mind the fact they were squirming and fighting. Volak roared again, wings flapping, and lifted perhaps twenty feet off the ground. A splice came from the top of a building, a massive leap, soaring through the rain to clamp jaws on the very edge of Volak's left wing. Volak screamed, fire roaring, as she tipped to one side, started to spiral, and was dragged back down to the ground by the sheer weight of splice…

“Come on,” growled Narnok.

“What, fuckwit? What do you mean
come on
?” Dek stared at him.

“Let's go join in!”

“Join in
that
?”

“Together, we can kill it!”

“Together, we can get fucking torched!”

“Come on, brothers!” roared Narnok, single eye squinting, scarred face contorting. He might have looked like a clown, if he hadn't been so fucking lethal.

Volak roared again, and flames washed Tower Square, turning night into day. Rain sizzled. Splice rumbled and spat and growled.

“I agree.” Mola stepped forward, boots crunching old stones, and in each fist he carried a battered short sword. “I want to fuck her for what she did to my dogs.” Tears still wet his cheeks. “I say we help the splice, although I never thought in my lifetime I would utter such words. We have a common enemy now. An enemy common not just to the city, but the whole of Vagandrak. That dragon needs to fucking die.”

“Come ON!” roared Narnok, and sprinted down the rubble, battered axe in battered hands.

Mola followed, with grim long strides, his eyes filled with hatred, his heart filled with vengeance.

Dek and Kareem looked at one another.

“They're mad,” said Kareem, twirling his short sword and rolling his neck to release tension. “
Fucking
mad.”

Dek grinned then, showing missing teeth. “Yeah lad. But you only live once, right? And you have to live that life to the full!”

With howls, they charged down the scree of tower stones, catching up Narnok and Mola, and all four charged, ducking a random blast of fire as Volak spun around, claws and tail lashing, fire spewing from her angered, triangular head.

Tower Square was a chaos of thrashing limbs, snapping jaws, squeals and growls and bites, random jets of flame igniting detritus lying all around, and even splice, that sprinted away, howling, only to return seconds later, leaping back at the dragon in an attempt to bring her down.

Volak was suffering.

There were two long wounds down her back, where splice had used razor claws and sharpened hooves to
lever
up scales and attack the unprotected flesh beneath. Dragon blood ran down her matte black flanks, and dripped to the cracked and broken flagstones.

Narnok arrived, with the others, and started hacking at Volak's chest. Her head came down, eyes widening as Narnok's axe flashed up, carving a groove of sparks across her black scales.

“I said I'd carve my name on your arse!” he screamed.

Volak's claw lashed out, a backhand swipe that picked Narnok up and propelled him across the square, to land hard, rolling, axe clattering beside him and damn near cutting his own head from his sorry neck.

Volak's head lifted, and she roared, and her head dropped, and fire screamed from her maw. But the splice pulled her to one side, three on her wing, tearing at her, and she was dragged staggering across the square until her tail snapped round, spike impaling a splice, then sawing it in half with five long, measured movements. Horse guts and human internal organs spilled to the stones, where they glistened like oil.

She whirled about, then, the mighty wyrm, and her tail and claws lashed out, cutting two splice in half simultaneously. Then she leapt, wings beating, but instead of trying to take to the sky, she flipped backwards, landing on the splice which tortured her from behind, crushing them, if not to death, then at least into broken, pulverised bones.

Kareem ran in, sword hacking. Volak's rear leg caught him, smashing him aside where he lay, stunned, wondering if he were dead.

Dek danced backwards as another claw sought him, then he rolled to one side as a blast of fire nearly disintegrated him. “Fuck this,” he muttered, and ran to Kareem, helping the stocky fighter to his feet.

“We'll never kill the fucker like this!” screamed Dek.

Kareem nodded, speechless, still dazed from the blow.

Volak rolled over, and using legs and wings, regained her feet. Behind her lay five dead splice, crushed into sacks of flesh-filled bone dust. Three more squirmed, crushed out of recognition but still, amazingly, alive.

Volak roared, and fire painted the skies, turning rain to steam in an instant.

Narnok pushed himself to his knees, still stunned.

And Mola stood, a sword in each fist, eyes defiant.

“Fuck you!” he screamed, and charged Volak.

Volak's head suddenly dropped, eyes narrowing, and with a short intake of breath, she narrowed her lips, and sent an intense blue jet of fire straight at Mola. He was caught in the blast, picked up, smashed backwards, clothes and skin and beard and hair flaming bright until… until the jet of fire whistled and screamed, reaching an intensity of pitch, and Mola slowly disintegrated in that blast, the flesh charred from his bones, his bones burned into ash…

The fire stopped, abruptly.

Two smoking short swords hit the stone flags with clangs, steel turned blue from the heat, their lengths twisted, distorted, bent out of all recognition.

And Mola had gone.

Volak's head came up, and her proud, arrogant, condescending eyes surveyed the remaining men and splice, most of whom were backing away, their fight gone, their bones broken.

“Is this the best you can hit me with?” she snarled, and lowering her head she spat a ball of fire to the flags. “IS THIS IT, YOU FUCKING INSECTS?”

“Er,” said Narnok, turning to Dek.

“Fuck,” said Dek, turning to Kareem.

“Time to leave?” suggested Kareem, face drawn in shock.

Volak strode forward, and they could see she was injured, with great bloody rents in her back and flank. One wing was tattered, torn, several bones broken. Her one blind eye had turned from jet black to milky white. It made her curiously asymmetrical.

“You cunts are going
nowhere
,” she hissed, and lowered her head, to stare at the remaining Iron Wolves.

Narnok brandished his axe.

Volak gave a patronising laugh, and breathed in, deeply, ingesting the air she needed to mix with her fire glands in order to produce an inferno.

There should have been some last words, but Volak was beyond it.

There should have been a miracle, but Volak would no longer allow it.

She breathed in, single good eye narrowed in hate,
to think such fucking maggots had so much fight in them
…

Her ignition caught, and with a roar Volak released the furnace…

T
he taste was something special
. He'd never tasted anything quite like it before. He'd experienced every fine wine there was on offer, every gastronomical delicacy the finest chefs could imagine and create. He'd tasted every lip, nipple and quim he could get his tongue on, and he did have a special fondness for the quim, and its wide variety of intriguing flavours. Every quim was different, a flavoursome palette, a subtlety that he was sure his supposed contemporaries overlooked. But not him. Oh no. Quim was up there with the finest wines, strongest brandies, spicy wines, and with the testicles of young piglets, roasted in garlic, and the dry, panting, fear-filled lips of a woman who knew she was about to be raped.

Skalg grinned to himself, revelling in his debauchery.

But… so what? So fucking what?

The world had mocked him, put him down, put him in a hole – quite literally. A mine shaft. A fucking collapsed mine shaft. And now he had risen, through the Church of Eternal Hate, through the ranks, to become First Cardinal… and then
beyond
, to the Great Dwarf Lords themselves, and then further still, to populate this body of a great wyrm, a dragon, the most powerful creature ever to walk the soil of Vagandrak.

And a thought entered Skalg's mind.

His dragon tongue licked slowly across his lips, and across his fangs. For he could still taste it. Still taste her. Still taste…

Kranesh.

Her blood. Her fear. Her anguish.

Her
blood.

But now,
now
, Skalg was in charge.

And the thought taunted him.

What…

What if…

WHAT if…

What if he never gave the body back. What if he turned on the Great Dwarf Lords. Fuck them, and their sanctimonious preaching pile of donkey shit. Who were they to say what lived and what died? Who were they to say what happened in the world, what happened in the Five Havens, what happened to dwarves and men and elves?

Fuck the Great Dwarf Lords.

Fuck my gods.

I will destroy Volak, and then I will rule.

I will rule the world, like no crippled hunchback has ever ruled the world before. Or will again.

I will rule with omniscience.

I will rule with hate, and fear, and total violence.

I will rule with utter dominance.

H
is name was Kokar
, of the clan Karik 'y Kla, and he was angrier than any dwarf in the Five Havens. And quite rightly so. His daughter was dead. His beautiful, precious only daughter. It had taken days for it to sink in. The official church letter had told him the facts in cold clinical ink… accidental death from a high fall. He found it hard to believe. How the fuck did you fall from the fucking Blood Tower, of all places? It was church-owned. It had safety barriers. And Kajella was not a young female dwarf known for taking risks. She was sensible. She was dependable. She was
normal
.

Kokar frowned.

His anger increased so much he thought his heart would burst.

By the Great Dwarf Lords, he wanted to get revenge on the dwarf who had done this.

Not only allowed it to happen.

Oh no.

The one who had
done it
.

Because Kokar was armed with
the truth
.

And the
truth
burned him worse than any lies.

You see, it was all about money. At the end of the day, everything is about money. Doesn't matter if you're Irlax's fucking handmaiden, right hand better than the left, or one of Skalg's Educators. Every single dwarf has a lever point. A point where they think,
fuck me, really, how much? Just for a few words?
And the problem with Skalg, Kokar had realised early on in his investigations, the
problem
with Skalg was that had become so fat, so rich, so powerful, he viewed certain people as parts of the furniture. If a young dwarf had come into his chambers to make up the beds and arrange his slippers and wash his silk dressing gown, she no more existed than did the cabinet carrying his bottles of brandy. And, even better, the more ugly a serving wench was, the more Skalg treated her as if she didn't exist, such was his arrogance, vulgarity and superiority complex.

On the night of Kajella's death, one such cleaner had been present.

Ugly. Pointless. Poor. Pathetic. To Skalg, at any rate.

But more importantly, she was
invisible
.

Kokar's payment of five years wages had persuaded her to tell the truth.

And it was a truth that left a bitter, sour, nasty taste.

Kokar was a rich and powerful dwarf. He'd made his fortune some years back, investing in new mine digs. He'd been lucky. Or wise. As the saying went, the mountain gives, and the mountain takes away. In wealth, the mountain had been good for Kokar. It was only evil dwarf flesh that got in the way.

Kokar had employed assassins to murder Skalg.

It had seemed a quick and easy solution.

Only,
only
they failed, because of some Educator bitch who was pretty good with a blade. Money bought witnesses, and Kokar had tracked Skalg to the Cathedral of Eternal Hate. Now, he stood outside the doors, looking up and down the street. The Five Havens seemed deserted now. Gone were the looters and protesters. The escaped dragons had seen to that. It was as if the whole of the Five Havens were in some kind of lockdown; a self-imposed lockdown based on the foundation of fear. The dwarves knew the dragons were going to return, to complete their reign of destruction in retribution for thousands of years of abuse. And instead of fighting, of preparing defences, they knew deep down in their hearts it would all be ineffectual. As a race, the dwarves had pretty much gone into some kind of group withdrawal.

Not Kokar.

Kokar wanted to fight. Kokar wanted to kill. And Kokar wanted
revenge
.

There were no guards outside the Cathedral of Eternal Hate, but that was probably because Skalg had locked the quite incredible, extravagant, ornate doors. Kokar signalled to three of his associates, and they ran forward, placing a box at the front of the doors. One struck a match, a long, evil looking stick, which burned with a foul colour and even fouler odour. He touched it to a taper.

These were chemicals used to blast down in the mines.

There came a bright fizzing. Sparks.

Kokar looked up and down the street again. After the dragons, nobody really gave a fuck.

The explosion rocked the ground. High above, several slates were jostled loose from the cathedral's roof, and fell, spinning silently, to crash and shatter on the street. Kokar looked up in trepidation, but he needn't have worried. This shit was used for blasting rock. In comparison, a cathedral's wood and iron-banded doors were nothing more than hot butter.

Kokar gestured, and his hardiest soldiers entered through the smoking portal, crossbows at the ready, and they found the door, and began their descent.

Down, down towards the Iron Vaults.

Kokar had it on good authority that's where Skalg would be hiding.

There was a halfway point called the Block. Kokar remembered it, from distant memory. This is where Skalg left his faithful Educators to guard him against any possible but unexpected intrusion.

Now, they were dead, with crossbow bolts in bellies and short black daggers sticking out of eye sockets.

Kokar hadn't lost a single dwarf.

Such was the power of surprise.

They descended more steps. Deep, deep into the bowels of the Cathedral of Eternal Hate. It was cool, down here. Cool, and calm. Especially after the rampage of the dragons.
Such a shame
, thought Kokar,
that the Church of Hate doesn't extend these safety margins to the common people
.

He smiled, a narrow, evil smile, and thought about Skalg.

D
warves marched through the streets
. Irlax was dead. The dragons had escaped. There was no heating. No steam. No power. The dwarves were pissed. They wanted answers. Nobody seemed to have answers. When they knocked on the doors of a Church of Hate, Church Guards and Educators slammed doors, told them to fuck off, were rude and ignorant and arrogant, as they had always been. But now the dwarves were scared. They had seen their world under the mountain grind to a halt. All their social privileges had been suddenly removed. Firebrands burned in fists. Chants started to fill the empty streets. The dragons were gone. They didn't seem to be returning. The dwarves wanted answers. The Crown could not respond. And so, it was down to the Church.

But the Church was silent.

And so the dwarves began a concentrated programme of destruction…

S
kalg
, First Cardinal of the Church of Hate, was beyond such things.

He no longer inhabited the world of human flesh. His was a world of power, and energy, of dragon lore and feeling like a supreme being. Slowly, he had begun to experience Moraxx's memories as she begged and begged to be released, as she grew weaker in her fight to regain her mind. And Skalg knew, as night turns to day turns to night, that eventually her mind would break, crack open like a fracture-corrupted pebble, and her essence, her
soul
would dissipate. Moraxx would be no more. Skalg would inhabit the dragon flesh fully. Skalg would
be
the dragon.

He slammed through the heavens, wings pumping, high, high above the night-time land of Vagandrak. And his ears picked up the call, the cry of Volak. She was under attack. She was fighting, snarling, her flames roaring out, the deafening sounds echoing through the highest reaches of the thinning atmosphere.

Skalg banked, and dropped, ice frosting his scales, then dropped further, circling, searching. Mountains to the south, the Mountains of Skarandos, a vast jagged line stretching all the way to the Plague Ocean. Beyond the mountains rolled the dunes of Zakora, the desert lands, and as Skalg spiralled, seeking, so beyond the Plague Ocean he saw the vast, forbidding darkness of the Drakka, many leagues deep and stretching all the way north to the Rokroth Marshes.

This openness, even at night, was so bright with stars, so vast, to a dwarf from the mines it was like taking the lid off the top of the world.

Skalg gasped, for maybe the thousandth time, as still these visions stunned him. A billion stars twinkled. Skalg could not comprehend the size of the universe, and his own tiny, microscopic part in it.

More sounds came to him, picked up by his incredibly acute hearing. Sounds of fighting, of roaring, battle cries, snarls. Screams. Animal screams…
almost
animal screams.

Skalg orientated, and saw the storm clouds rolling towards him from the west, towering clouds disgorging rain and strikes of lightning. From his high vantage point, with his vast vision, it looked like a huge, broiling monster stalked across the land on legs of lightning. Below, trees and buildings lay scorched as the sheer force of nature exacted its revenge on Man.

Skalg powered forward, dropping now to enter the storm. Clouds whipped by, wisps and streamers, and he was buffeted by this incredible force and yet he screamed and roared his laughter into the violence.

I defy you
, thought Skalg.

I defy the world
.

I defy Nature
.

Dropping lower, rain and wind lashed at him, buffeting him hard, making his scales shimmer in the ethereal gloom of the storm. And then he saw it, the city, far below. Vagan. War Capital of Vagandrak. Grim and stark, with areas destroyed, others crumbling, others burning violently.

You have been a busy girl, haven't you, Volak? You have been teaching these horrible little insects a lesson. Well, now, now it is time for us to meet… and I have been waiting for this moment for so long. Treasuring it, in fact. Because when you are out of the picture, the Empire will be
mine.

Skalg powered through the storm, and started to lose height, and he heard Volak's roar once more, and his eyes narrowed in Moraxx's face as he plummeted towards the Queen of Wyrmblood…

V
olak exhaled
, and a stream of fire erupted from her jaws – at the same instant Moraxx hit her hard from behind, smashing into her from a fast high dive, and sending them both crashing along the square. Narnok, Dek and Kareem ducked and squawked, diving away from the two great beasts as the stream of fire whirled about them, turning night to day, sizzling rainfall and then shot up into the sky. The two dragons rolled, entangled, and Moraxx was already biting and clawing, and Volak didn't fight back for a few moments… she was stunned by incomprehension.

Moraxx, disentangled now, climbed to her feet and shook out her wings. A great claw swiped at Volak, tearing a line of scales from her chest and drawing blood beneath the armour.

“WHAT?” shrieked Volak, fire blasting from her jaws as she flapped her wings, dancing backwards. “You attack ME?”

Moraxx grinned at her, black eyes narrowed.

“You look like you've been to war,” said Skalg with Moraxx's mouth.

Volak was staring with her one good eye, staring in absolute disbelief. Her chest rumbled, and she clenched her claws, tail whipping from side to side like an irate tomcat.

“Think very carefully about what you are doing, Moraxx.”

“I have thought long and hard,” grinned Moraxx, taking a threatening step forward.

“We can win this war together. Re-establish the Blood Dragon Empire. Why would you turn on me now?” Volak's head tilted. Her remaining dark eye seemed to glow black. “Only… there's something wrong, isn't there?”

Moraxx said nothing, but took another step forward.

“You have tasted the blood of Kranesh, have you not? I can smell it on your deviant lips.”

“I tore off her head with my own teeth,” grinned Moraxx, tongue licking her lips.

“Then you really have come to try and kill me. It is a sad day, Moraxx.”