Since Thurvishar had placed them at the end of the east bridge, Kihrin had a reasonably unobstructed view of the city itself, rising too tall to be obscured by the bridge’s shanties and slums. As sunrise fast approached, the sky had begun to lighten in anticipation of dawn. He could now see what perched on top of the highest towers of the city—presumably the fast crumbling remnants of the duke’s palace.

“Taja save me,” he whispered.

Steel and iron, drussian and shanathá—every metal, a thousand metals, all twisted together in sharp swordlike tangles to form the dragon’s body. It resembled a porcupine warped into nightmare, formed by an insane and malevolent god. Morios’s wings seemed less like tools for flying than weapons to scour and excoriate, lash and annihilate. Nothing about the dragon spoke to any purpose other than slaughter and mayhem.

Morios raked and gnawed and chewed on the stone towers and walls, the duke’s palace’s spires, akin to a dog with a favorite bone. The ancient granite provided little resistance, crumbling and falling to ruin under his weight. His thrashing tail smashed buildings, and his claws left deep and horrifying grooves through entire neighborhoods.

The first time he’d seen the fire dragon, Sharanakal, he’d wondered how anyone had ever thought they could kill a creature like that. Sharanakal hadn’t seemed alive as much as an animated force of nature, a volcano brought to life.

Morios was worse.

Janel shoved Kihrin’s shoulder. “Snap out of it. Our priority is evacuating as many people as possible. The Atrine main gates aren’t designed to let more than a few people through at a time.” She pointed to the bridge, where panicked people were running from the slums.

Kihrin felt his gut twist. He remembered Janel’s description of Atrine—a place designed to trap and kill horses. It seemed to him it would do just as fine a job of trapping and killing people. The Marakori forced to live outside the city could run, but Joratese wouldn’t be able to escape quickly enough.

“How are we going to—?” Kihrin started to ask.

The firebloods trotted over.

“We’ll direct people to this side of the bridge.” Janel grabbed Arasgon’s saddle and pulled herself up. “Relos Var, follow us. I want you to pull down the wall when we reach the east gate, and open a portal leading to safety. We’ll herd people to you.”

Relos Var blinked and slowly smiled. “As you say.”

Arasgon turned and called out something to the rest of the crowd.

“On it,” Sir Baramon responded as he mounted Arasgon’s fireblood brother Talaras. Everyone was following suit, because this was Jorat, and of course everyone had their own horses. Brother Qown had a horse. Even Star had managed to find a horse of his own from somewhere.