He kept running, heading for where he thought the first bridge was. Debris littered the roads again here. The windows over the streets were all smashed and broken glass crunched under his boots. Doors had been kicked in and houses were burning from the inside. Broken pieces of Taiytakei rockets lay scattered about. There was no movement except the odd soldier from the ships picking through the ruins. The tide of sword-slaves had already swept through this quarter of the city and everyone had either fled or was dead or hiding.
Crazy Mad slowed and then stopped, a weird look on his face as though he'd been taken by a sudden urge to go inside a house and find out, in the middle of the city's death, what these people who'd taken him for a slave were like. To see how they lived. Tuuran shook him and pulled him on, pointing back the way they'd come. ‘You want to wait for those stone things while they climb out of the sea or shall we keep moving?’
Crazy Mad shrugged. ‘Depends whose side they're on, doesn't it?’
‘Did you want to go and tap them on the foot and ask?’
They passed more bodies as they closed on the bridge. Taiytakei at first, men and women pulled from their houses and beaten and butchered. They caught up with the last of the looters, a group of sword-slaves carrying bulging sacks. Tuuran shouted at them to draw their swords and head for the bridge. They shook their heads and laughed at him. Disappointments, all of them, but he couldn't really hold it against them.
In a small square they passed a pile of corpses, a hundred or more thrown together and set on fire. Here and there Tuuran saw furtive faces staring at him from the shadows. City folk trapped by the roaming looters. The attacking Taiytakei had set their slaves loose on the city. No quarter! Do your worst. Take what you will. And after years of pent-up fury the slaves had become savage animals. These men would never forget and they'd never be slaves again, any of them. And the Taiytakei would know that. .
It hit him then: there wouldn't be any ships coming to take them away. That was why all he'd seen so far were sword-slaves. The Taiytakei were holding back. They would sweep the city when it was all done and put down every slave they found, no matter for whom they'd fought. Or maybe they'd use their dragon. The dragon would be perfect.
Bastards!
The bodies changed. They passed more dead sword-slaves now, some riddled with arrows, others with scorch marks on their skin, and then even a few Taiytakei soldiers with their swords and armour stripped away. They were close to the bridge, three wide spans of gold-glass sitting on squat black piers and lined with a hodgepodge of huts and tiny houses. Towers on each pier rose above the main spans. At the far end another lone tower frowned over the sea. The din of fighting wafted across and flashes of lightning burst from the bridge and arced over the water. Three giant stone golems lumbering through the waves were heading for the bridge.
‘So. These golems, then,’ grumbled Crazy Mad. ‘Worked out whose side they're on yet or do I need to go and ask after all?’
Tuuran scowled at him. ‘Let's just get to the bridge before they do.’
75
Zafir opened her eyes. She hung sideways out of Diamond Eye's harness. The air smelled strange. Sharp and bitter. For a moment she couldn't remember who or where she was. For that moment she was in a dark room and something was coming, something terrible that turned the pit of her stomach cold and made her want to be sick with fear. She gasped for each breath.
The air filled with distant sounds. Booms. Thunder. She could smell smoke. Evenspire. I'm at Evenspire! The memory was like a knife. She jerked up and looked behind her, searching for the dragons that would come like rockets through the cloud, diving down at her Onyx to tear her to shreds, only it wasn't her on Onyx's back but one of her riders; and then Jehal would come and he'd be coming to save her, only he wasn't and it was the great betrayal. .
No dragons. And the sky was a dull and cloudless blue, tinged with wafts of grey and brown smoke.
Not Evenspire.
Diamond Eye wasn't moving. For some reason no one was running across the burning stone yard to finish her. She fumbled for the harness straps and undid them one by one, still on the edge of panic. She'd been here before. Sinking in the water. About to drown. A man made of silver. Haven't you forgotten something?
Her mind was playing tricks on her. Her head felt full of wool. Everything was unfamiliar. Where in the realms. .? She pulled the last buckle loose and fell off Diamond Eye's back hard onto the scorched stone. Not the realms. And she was the Taiytakei's dragon-riding slave and they'd sent her to war and someone had hit her with lightning. Her armour was splintered. When she sat up to look at it, much of the glass was crazed with cracks. The gold was smeared here and there as though it had started to melt. Which wasn't possible. Was it?
She laughed. And I'm still alive. A dragon-queen! And then the laughter wanted to become tears because Diamond Eye still didn't move, and without a dragon what was she? Nothing; and so now they'd kill her, or else they'd dress her in a whore's silks and perfumes and pass her around among themselves, a novelty for their amusement.
Her legs were shaking. However hard she tried they wouldn't quite be still, but she managed to stand. She still had the bladeless knife she'd taken from the Watcher. No, they'd not have her again. Never.
Across the open yard, among the burning pieces of whatever this fortress had been, men were moving. They ran quickly from one piece of cover to another. She wondered why, and then streaks of bright orange fizzed overhead and landed in a crazy pattern around the far end of the fortress and exploded in balls of fire. A few fell closer. Zafir stood and watched. Flames washed over her but her dragon-scale kept them at bay.
The visor on her beautiful perfect helm was cracked. What do I do now? Without a dragon she was pointless. She stumbled to Diamond Eye's side. He was hot, the exertion of the battle making his scales burn. She could smell the scorching of the leather in his harness. ‘Wake up! Be alive!’ She beat on his scales with her fists. You can't be dead. You can't! I won't allow it! WAKE UP! But dragons didn't sleep, not really. They didn't do a lot of things that other creatures did. They didn't breathe.
Diamond Eye twitched. ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ Furious hammering against the dragon's hide. Pointless. He wouldn't even feel her. And yet perhaps he did, for as she screamed at him he lurched and raised his head and rolled to his feet, and she felt such a wave of relief and joy and. .
Fury!
The force of it knocked her back. She stumbled and fell. Diamond Eye bared his teeth. His eyes burned and such a rage filled her head that she screamed, the only way to let even a part of it escape. The towers! The towers! She tried to turn her head towards the place from where the lightning had come but she could barely even move as the dragon's fury crushed all other thought like a tidal wave. Diamond Eye threw himself into the air without her. The tower where the lightning cannon stood was glowing again, white hot. He crossed half the distance before it fired and a second bolt of lightning struck him, this time in the chest. Zafir closed her eyes and screamed at the noise and at the dragon's rage and pain as his wings faltered and he smashed to the ground again, twitching and writhing. Wings and claws and tail lashed and struggled, pulverising everything around him, wood and stone and metal alike. Then violent joy burst in her as he staggered to his feet and launched himself forward a second time. The tower was already glowing again, but not yet as brightly as before.