“Oh yeah, riding lessons every day when I was growing up in the slums of the Capital City.” Kihrin made a face. “Of course I’ve never ridden!”
Janel grinned. “Good thing you just need to hang on.”
Scandal shoved Kihrin again.
“Fine!” Kihrin snapped. “But don’t blame me if I fall off.” Urthaenriel murmured angry complaints as he sheathed her, but he ignored that. Kihrin grabbed a section of Scandal’s mane for leverage and jumped up on her back. Naturally, Scandal wasn’t saddled, and Kihrin felt sure that this wasn’t going to make for a fun ride.
He looked over in time to see Relos Var summon a horse out of thin air, a creature of smoke and darkness that looked ephemeral but held his weight perfectly.
“Show-off,” Kihrin muttered.
But all of them immediately perceived a problem. The narrow main path through the slums only allowed for one horse at a time, but now it was jammed with people trying to run away from the city. Some of those people were pushing others out of the way, resorting to violence in panicked fear for their lives.
“Make way!” Janel screamed, but they paid no attention. The firebloods shouted something too, but it seemed unlikely the Marakori had understood them.
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Relos Var said. “We do not have time for this.”
Relos Var brought his hands together.
A portal opened on the ground ahead of them, spanning the width and length of the entire bridge.
Everyone on the bridge—as well as every building, shanty, and shack—fell through. Behind them on land, farther down the road leading to the city, Kihrin heard shouts and screams and the accumulated crash of multiple objects. Presumably this was every displaced building, shanty, and shack—all hitting the ground of their new location at the same time.
Scandal said something. So did Star. Kihrin liked to imagine both cursed eloquently.2 Kihrin himself could only look, slack-jawed, aware most of the others appeared similarly stunned. Time froze for a moment as everyone stared.
Then Kihrin remembered that this was the man the Eight Immortals had said they couldn’t kill. Although technically speaking, Relos Var wasn’t a man anymore. And on the plus side, the bridge was clear, and the Marakori living there were now evacuated.
Caring not at all what everyone else thought of his sorcery, Relos Var opened a second, less trap-like portal. “To the east gate,” he announced.
After a moment’s hesitation, everyone guided their rides—whether horse or fireblood—through.
* * *
When Kihrin exited the portal and looked back toward the shore, he realized he’d underestimated the bridge’s length. Suddenly, he understood why everyone had immediately gone for their horses, even if Var had then provided a faster passage. The bridge was miles across. He suppressed a shiver, thinking of what Relos Var had done.3
Of course, that same mistake in scale meant Morios loomed even larger than he’d initially thought. Still, once in the lee of the east gate’s white quartz walls, Morios was no longer visible. The terrified guards within had little to go on, in terms of protecting their people. They’d just seen the bridge’s entire shantytown vanish before their eyes, accompanied by a roar reminiscent of an earthquake. The bridge must therefore have seemed the greatest threat, representing the most obvious and deadly use of witchcraft. So the guards had decided not to let anyone leave.
“You!” a rattled guard shouted. “Identify yourselves!” He looked like he might fire his crossbow without waiting for an answer.
Janel ignored him. “Here!” Janel said, dismounting. “Var! That wall there!” She pointed, not at the gate itself but at the wall beside it.
The wizard raised an eyebrow at her commanding tone, but regardless, he narrowed his eyes at the offending structure. It began collapsing in on itself, as if succumbing to age and the weathering of millennia in a matter of seconds. The crowd behind it pulled back, clearly terrified. Oh, and Morios became visible once more.
“Good,” Janel said. “Now I need—”
Several of the guards fired their crossbows.
Relos Var batted them out of the sky before he turned to Janel. “Enough of this! You have a job to do.” He held out his hand, and a spear appeared in it, which he tossed in her direction. Khoreval.
Janel caught it. “My job is to protect my people, Relos! I’ll deal with Morios once the city is cleared.”
“He’ll bring the city down around your ears!”
“So distract him,” Kihrin said.
Var turned his head. “What was that?”
“You’re a dragon too,” Kihrin said. “Don’t even try to pretend you’re not. Every person who participated in that ritual to create Vol Karoth was turned into a dragon, including you. So you’re more than capable of distracting Morios, until we can evacuate. Then we’ll talk about killing the damn creature.”
Relos Var stared at him, lips drawn back in a sneer. Janel watched, waiting for Var’s response.
“Well?” Kihrin said.
Relos Var turned his phantom horse around and galloped to the edge of the bridge, away from Lake Jorat and toward Demon Falls. The phantom horse jumped.
For anyone else, it would have been suicide. But Var seemed to hover for a second in the night air, the magical construct horse vanished, and his form blurred. What replaced him was an extraordinary sight—enormous and reptilian, winged and clawed. He confirmed what Kihrin had long suspected: that he was the dragon Kihrin had seen briefly in Kharas Gulgoth before Relos Var had shown in up person. That indeed, the morgage hadn’t been mistaken when they had depicted nine draconic shapes—not eight—leaving the site of the botched ritual that had created Vol Karoth. His hide glimmered with metallic rainbow shimmers in the predawn light.
Gasps and some screams echoed from those realizing two dragons were now on the scene. Relos Var was clearly smaller than Morios, but that didn’t make him small. And since there had never been such a thing as a good dragon, no one could be blamed for assuming the new dragon’s motives were equally malevolent.
Urthaenriel sang Kihrin a song of hate.
“Not yet,” Kihrin whispered to her. “Not yet.”
Relos Var banked, caught a crosswind, then turned and soared back toward the city. He was silent as he glided in toward Morios …
And slammed into the other dragon. Morios’s metal spikes screeched against Relos Var’s more elegant serpentine armor. Then both monsters tumbled backward, sailing over Atrine and splashing down into Lake Jorat, out of view.
“You know he was the only one of us here who can open a portal, now Thurvishar’s run off somewhere,” Janel pointed out.
“He was also becoming impatient with our insistence on ‘saving lives,’” Kihrin said. “Now he has something interesting to distract him, so let’s help these people, shall we?”
Ninavis trotted up next to Janel. “You have this handled?”
“It’s even easier, now that we don’t have to worry about the shanties blocking our way. We should be fine.” Janel gave Ninavis a significant look. “You know what you need to do.”
Ninavis waved to the riders behind her. “Come on, people, let’s move!”