Sheb spat to seal the fend.

‘We don’t like spears,’ Rautos whispered. ‘They’re . . . dangerous.’

The ghost agreed. Fleshless and yet chilled, shivering. There had been a spear in his past—yes? Perhaps? A dreadful thing, lunging at his face, his chest, slicing the muscles of his arms. Reverberations, shivering up through his bones, rocking him back, one step, then another—

Gods, he did not like spears!

‘Come on,’ Taxilian said. ‘It is time to find a way in.’

There was a way in. The ghost knew that. There was always a way in. The challenge was in finding it, in seeing it and knowing it for what it was. The important doors stayed hidden, disguised, shaped in ways to deceive. The important doors opened from one side only, and once you were through they closed in a gust of cold air against the back of the neck. And could never be opened again.

Such was the door he sought, the ghost realized.

Did it wait in this dead city?

He would have to find it soon. Before the hunter found him—found them all. Spear Wielder, slayer, the One who does not retreat, who mocks in silence, who would not flinch—no, he’s not done with me, with us, with me, with us.

We need to find the door.

The way in.

They reached the dragon’s stone forelimb with its claws that stood arrayed like massive, tapering pillars of marble, tips sunk deep into the hard earth. Everywhere surrounding the foundations the ground was fissured, fraught with cracks that tracked outward. Rautos grunted as he crouched down to peer into one such rent. ‘Deep,’ he muttered. ‘The city is settling, suggesting that it has indeed sucked out the water beneath it.’

Taxilian was scanning the massive tower that comprised the limb in front of them, tilting his head back, and back. After a moment he staggered, cursing. ‘Too much,’ he gasped. ‘This one leg could encompass a half-dozen Ehrlii spires—if it is indeed hollow, it could hold a thousand inhabitants all by itself.’

‘And yet,’ Rautos said, coming up alongside him, ‘look at the artistry—the genius of the sculptors—have you ever seen such skill, on such a scale, Taxilian?’

‘No, it surpasses . . . it surpasses.’

Sheb stepped in between two of the talons, slipped into shadows and out of sight.

There were no obvious entranceways, no formal portals or ramps, no gates; no windows or apertures higher up.

‘It seems entirely self-contained,’ said Taxilian. ‘Did you notice—no evidence of outlying farms or pasture land.’

‘None that survived the interval of abandonment,’ Rautos replied. ‘For all we know, after all, this could be a hundred thousand years old.’

‘That would surprise me—yes, the surface is eroded, worn down, but if it was as old as you suggest, why, it would be little more than a shapeless lump, a giant termite tower.’

‘Are you certain of that?’