Murtagh

Newfound alarm caused him to stagger to his feet. He gave Thorn a weak pat on the nose and cast about for his bedroll. A corner of it stuck out from under the ruined table. He grabbed it and started to move toward the dragon’s side, meaning to climb onto his back.

Outside the broken house, shouts and brassy horns sounded, along with a clatter of arms and armor as soldiers rushed in.

Blast it! “We have to get out of—”

A section of roof caved inward, and the slate shingles poured across Thorn’s back with a dusty, deafening discord.

Thorn roared, and Murtagh both heard and felt his jolt of mindless panic. “No, wait! It’s all—”

The crimson dragon reared and tried to spread his wings, only to be blocked by the walls of the house. Then he truly went mad. He thrashed like a great snake, and the shell of the building shook and shuddered, and beams tumbled down, and walls collapsed, and a thick cloud of dust darkened the air.

Murtagh crouched and covered his head with his bedroll as the house fell around them. He tried to join with Thorn’s mind, but the dragon was too far gone in his fear; Murtagh could not reach him, could not calm or reason with him.

His wards deflected a mass of timbers that would have crushed him, and he gasped at the sudden loss of energy. Zar’roc. He needed the sword, needed the energy stored within the sword’s ruby pommel.

A moment of shocking silence followed. Before him, Murtagh saw mounds of beams and rubble coated with a finger-thick layer of ashy dust. The house was no more, and beyond its confines, shadowy shapes of men moved behind the curtains of obscuring haze.

THUD.

A beat from Thorn’s wings blew whorls of dust spinning into the sky and cleared the area around Murtagh. He lifted his head.

A shifting group of soldiers surrounded the square, their faces white with fear, hate, and dust. They held their spears pointed toward Thorn—as if the weapons would do any good against a dragon—and they cursed Murtagh and Thorn and shouted insults and provocations. Flights of arrows arched in from between the buildings, whistling their deadly song.

“Thrysta!” Murtagh cried, and the arrows shattered in the air and fell harmlessly to the streets.

Thorn roared again, and the men shrank back. Desperate, Murtagh pressed his mind against Thorn’s, but it was like battering his head against a wall of blank stone. Fear ruled the dragon’s thoughts—no other emotion was strong enough to intrude or override. In that moment, he was become a mindless beast, and Murtagh did not know how to help him.

Thorn twisted and swung his tail through the air and struck the nearby houses. The weight of his tail, and the strength driving it, broke the buildings, snapped their timbers like dry kindling, and sent doors and shutters and shingles and entire walls crashing to the ground.

Murtagh ran toward Thorn. “St—”

The dragon turned and placed a paw over Murtagh. The weight pushed Murtagh to the ground, and then Thorn’s claws curved around him, and a forceful yank caused his neck to whip as Thorn loosed an unearthly bellow and sprang into the air.

Murtagh struggled to move, struggled to see, but the cage of Thorn’s talons was immovable, unbreakable.

Thorn roared again. Beneath them, Murtagh glimpsed the soldiers fleeing through the streets, and he thought he saw Esvar’s face among the throng, the yellow-haired youth’s expression fear-stricken and accusatory. Closer to the fortress, he spotted two figures garbed in the dark robes of Du Vrangr Gata, and also a trio of elves standing by the corner of a building, the air shimmering between their hands as they chanted in what he knew was the ancient language.

No!

More arrows flew up toward them, and an enormous jet of flame shot out from Thorn’s maw. Even closed within Thorn’s paw, Murtagh could feel waves of searing heat rolling out from the fiery torrent.

The arrows flared red, white, and yellow and vanished like sparks in a campfire.

With another roar, Thorn bathed the buildings below in a stream of liquid fire. Yellow sheets billowed from the roofs, and the flapping of the ravenous flames drowned out a chorus of shouts and screams.

Murtagh was shouting as well, but Thorn wasn’t listening.

Then they were flying across the city, and as Thorn flew, he laid down a track of burning destruction. A spell of some kind caused the air about them to grow cold and thin, but whatever the intended outcome of the enchantment, the effects soon vanished, and Thorn continued as before.

They passed over the edge of Gil’ead, and then Thorn was climbing into the sky with desperate speed, and the only sounds were the rush of air and the heavy beats of his wings.

CHAPTER XVI Aftermath

Thorn flew for hours.