The spars were the bones of wings, the sailcloth thin membrane. The sharp angles were jutting shoulder blades, splayed hips. At the same time, this was so unlike the beast that had attacked Finarra Stone as to belong to someone else’s nightmare. It massed three times the size, for one.

Dragon. Thing of myth, the yearning for flight made carnate. Yet … see its head, the length of its neck so like a serpent’s body. And those jaws could devour a horse entire. See its eyes, smeared black in blood like tears.

The Warden reined in. ‘Captain Bered must see this.’

‘Ride back,’ said Sharenas. ‘I will examine it more closely.’

‘I would advise against that, milady. Perhaps it is a quality of the Vitr that nothing dead stays dead.’

She shot him a look. ‘An intriguing notion. Go on. I intend to be careful, as I happen to greatly value my life.’

He swung his horse round, kicked it into a canter, and then a gallop.

Facing the dragon again, she rode closer. At fifty paces her mount baulked, so she slipped down from the saddle and hobbled the horse.

The giant beast was lying on its side. Its flank bore wounds, as of ribs punching out through the thick, scaled hide, but she could see no thrust of white bone from any of them, and there were scores. The huge belly, facing her, had been sliced open. Entrails were spilled out in a massive heap, and these had been slashed and chopped at, savaged as if by a sword swung in frenzy.

Something else was lying near the belly wound, amidst disturbed sands. Sharenas approached.

Clothing. Armour, stained by acids. Discarded. A long, thin-bladed sword was lying close to the gear, black with gore. And there … footprints leading away.

Sharenas found that she was standing, motionless, unable to take another step closer. Her eyes tracked the prints up the strand to where they vanished between boulders crowding the verge.

‘Faror Hend,’ she murmured, ‘who walks with you now?’

Chapter Eight

EIGHT

‘THERE IS NOTHING bold in the wearing of weapons,’ haut said, the vertical pupils of his eyes narrowed down to the thinnest of lines as he studied the array on the table’s battered, gouged surface. ‘Each one you see here is but a variation. What they share is of far greater import, Korya. They are all arguments in iron.’ He turned upon her his lined, weathered face, and his tusks were the hue of old horn in the meagre light, the greenish cast of his skin reminding her of verdigris. ‘You will eschew such obvious conceits. For you, iron is the language of failure.’

Korya gestured at the weapons on the table. ‘Yet, these are yours, and by their wear, you have argued many times, master.’