"Dragons, we seek dragons!" they chanted.

The city must have once been beautiful, Tanin thought—a place of marvel such as he'd never seen. Cobbled roads stretched between houses—real houses of stone, several stories tall and topped with domes, not simple clay huts like men built across the sea. Palm trees, fig trees, and flowers grew along the streets, and bronze statues stood in city squares, shaped as winged bulls. Far ahead, past a hundred streets and countless homes, rose a palace, a building that Tanin knew nobody in the north would believe could exist. Columns lined its walls, blue and gold, and lush gardens grew on its roof.

Whoever had built this city had created a wonder, but today this was a place of rot. Demon drool covered the cobblestones and blood stained the walls. Several corpses lay strewn across the street, torn apart. Demons were feasting upon the entrails.

"Dragons, we seek dragons!" they chanted, sniffing, moving from street to street. They spoke in many tongues; Tanin could understand his own language and make out several others.

"I guess flying is out of the question," Tanin muttered.

Maev grabbed his arm and pointed. "Look, past that dome! A tower. The stories say the prince is kept in a tower. Let's grab the boy and get out of this place." She walked by a dead monkey—demon teeth marks could be seen upon it—and shivered. "I want to go home."

Tanin grinned bitterly. "What happened to Maev the Brave, the girl who spent years boasting of being an explorer, an adventurer, a heroine?"

She gave him a withering glare. "Say another word and that girl will plant her foot so deep up your backside, you'll be able to bite her toes." She tugged him along. "Now come on, you stupid lump of a brother."

They kept walking, moving down a cobbled road lined with wineshops. Soon they reached a palisade of columns, each rising taller than oaks. Their capitals were shaped as silver men, their heads lowered, their arms hanging at their sides, the palms facing outward. Beyond the columns spread a wide boulevard, its flagstones smooth and polished. A procession was moving down the road. Priests walked at its lead, clad in white, swinging pots of incense. One priest held a clay tablet engraved with cuneiform writing; he sang out the words. Behind them moved seven bulls, tugging a great chariot of wood and metal. Upon the chariot rose a great statue of the same slender, silver man, his palms open, his head lowered.

"Taal!" chanted city folk, kneeling on the roadside as the procession passed by. "Taal!"

The demons swarmed above, hissing with hatred, sneering, spitting. Yet they dared not approach the procession, and when the smoke of the incense wafted near them, they fled with shrieks.

"This city's in the middle of a bloody war," Maev said, peering from behind a column. "Taal must be their god, the slender silver man."