He glanced behind him, to see what lead he had. The guard, knife in hand, face screwed up in rage, was just emerging from the door.

Plenty. He’d make it with time to spare. He’d worry what lay beyond the wall when he was outside it. It couldn’t be worse than what he was running from.

No shouts. No alarm bells. He didn’t care why not. The view through the gate was widening: a lake, a mountainside, and open sky.

A shadow flickered over him. By the time he looked up, it was ahead, over the wall, turning back, a roar of wind under leathery, translucent wings. Dalip was almost at the gate when the scene beyond vanished, and the gap was taken up with a lunging, grinning reptilian head and a lithe, coiling serpentine body. Wings unfurled, it blocked his way, even if he was going to chance the razor-sharp teeth and two powerful sets of claws. The black scales only served to highlight the red of the open jaws.

It flapped its wings. The gale it created almost blew him over. He skidded to a halt. It hissed, and snapped at him, prevented from closing on him by its sheer size.

This was his gaoler, not the men. How could he possibly escape if this monster was loose?

Something heavy met the back of his skull. He was almost too surprised to fall. An arm came around his neck and a knife blade was pressed to his ear.

‘That was stupid, lion man. Very, very stupid.’

‘It’s a dragon. It’s really a dragon.’ Dalip didn’t struggle. There was now no point to struggling, or escaping, or any act of defiance. The geomancer had a dragon.

‘Wyvern, she calls it. I’ve seen it eat a man in two bites.’

It hissed at him again, its forked tongue rippling. Dalip could feel its hot, moist breath, smell its last meal rank on the wind.

‘I didn’t know. I didn’t understand.’

‘If I cut you, if I slice through your ear so that you bleed, I don’t think even she could hold it back. The scent, you see, it drives it wild. You’d be dead meat before you’d run another yard.’ The guard tightened his grip and the keen edge of the knife kissed Dalip’s skin.

Dalip swallowed against the man’s arm. The wyvern pulled its head back through the gate and stretched its wings. In two beats, it was perched on the wall, peering down at them, head cocked to one side to see them better.

‘What’s it going to be, lion man? In the belly of the beast, or back inside with me?’

The wyvern’s claws scrabbled for purchase, and it flapped to keep its balance. To Dalip, it looked like its wings were blotting out the sky.

‘Back inside. Take me back.’