03 Demonstorm by James Barclay

Author:James Barclay
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2010-04-12T19:50:13+00:00

taste something acrid and sour in his mouth. His mind reeled under the weight of emotion pressing from every direction. And finally, he opened his eyes and drank in the skies of Beshara.

What he saw chilled his bones. Beneath him, as Sha-Kaan's head swept around to give him the panorama, the sky was a mixture of flashing scales, blinding yellow flame and dark smoke, torn by the winds of the upper skies. The battering roar of mouths disgorging fire swept up to him on a tide of fury so intense it shuddered him.

Hirad couldn't begin to count the dragons intent on destruction below. He recalled the sight he had seen in these same skies at the time of the Noonshade rip but it was a mere skirmish compared to this.

'Almost a thousand dragons chase a petty squabble and damage us all such that we may never recover,' toned Sha-Kaan. 'And outside our dimension, the Arakhe will be sensing it all. Fire this intense and the temptation of dragons to switch out of the battle and move

into inter-dimensional space to escape could open the door to them.'

The noise from below was truly extraordinary. A flight of Skoor, twenty strong and glittering sand-yellow, curved in a tight arc and drove through the left flank of their enemies where they pressured fellow Skoor. Massed in a roughly spherical formation, they tore into their targets. Flame scoured every point of the compass around them. Forward, the lead dragons collided wjth those in their path.

It was a devastating tactic and one being mimicked across the fight. Dragons bellowed and squealed, their wings, bellies and backs scorched and bubbling. Smoke trails criss-crossed. Fangs ripped into necks. Dragons by the dozen fell from the sky. Yet still the Skoor were losing the battle. Outnumbered five to one, their moves couldn't hope to counter the enemy strength for ever. But their pride kept them fighting. The attrition rate was awful.

'On a day when we should have been working to secure all our futures, one brood has been rendered extinct and others will be so depleted they cannot hope to survive.'

Hirad felt the ocean-deep grief as if it were his own.

'In our pride we used to think it was other species so blind that they would fight each other over nothing though their mutual extinction was the only sure result. And yet we are worse. Our failure could extinguish so many lives because we have chosen to touch them without offering them the choice to refuse us.

'Tell me you are close to Xetesk.'

'Less than a day, Great Kaan. But there's one hell of a fight coming to get in there. The demons aren't exactly going to usher us in, are they?'

Sha-Kaan paused. Below, the centre of the fight exploded in appalling flame, engulfing fifty, a hundred even. 'When is the fight?'

'It's already begun. Julatsans and the Al-Arynaar are under attack as they approach Xetesk. We're joining them and we'll all enter the city early tomorrow morning.'

T will bring the Kaan to you.

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