White light closed in all around him and sucked the air from his lungs. Swept off his feet, Kheda was chilled to the marrow of his bones. He opened his mouth and his teeth ached with the cold. His lips and tongue were numbed and useless before he could attempt to speak. Then the white fire vanished and he fell hard onto the deck of the Zaise. He barely felt the impact on his frozen hands and knees.
'Risala?' he grated.
'Here,' she gasped.
Kheda sat back on his heels, rubbing frantically at his eyes. He found frost crystals riming his brows. Risala's dark hair was misted with icy vapour as she lay sprawled on the planks.
'The egg?' Velindre's frozen tunic crackled as she whirled around.
'In the stern cabin.' Naldeth was already tugging at the door. The warped joints in his metal leg split, the brittle steel fracturing. He cursed and clutched at his thigh. Ruddy magic flowed from his fingers, mending the metal with ugly bulbous seams.
'You two watch for the dragons.' Kheda ran, Risala close behind him. Throwing open the door, they seized the sacking and dragged the ruby out onto the deck. Sunlight sparkled in the cracks patterning the dulled surface.
The fire dragon came gliding across the burning grassland on massive wings, maroon bones dark against the red-gold membranes. It had barely taken flight, simply springing into the air to cross the scorched expanse. It roared, first with rage and then with challenge as it landed, throwing up a cloud of ash and cinders. The embers brightened with new fire and spun upwards. As the dragon swept its head around, the incandescent storm shot through the air towards the Zaise.
Naldeth threw up a commanding hand and the fiery cloud stopped dead. Velindre added sapphire skeins of magelight winding all around it. Her magic flared white before turning scarlet and evaporating into nothing. The crimson dragon roared with triumph. The burning hail edged over the river between the Zaise and the bank. The water all around the ship steamed and fled, leaving moist brown mud that instantly parched to cracked earth.
'I can't hold it much longer,' Naldeth warned, uncannily calm.
'Let's see if this works.' The magewoman narrowed her eyes and azure magelight dripped from her hands to flow across the ship's deck and drip through the scuppers.
With a bubbling rush, the muddy waters returned from upstream and down. Meeting in a surge of dirty foam, the river leapt up to slap at the burning cloud. The fire glowed with jade light and exploded. Blazing embers flew in all directions to hiss and die in the river or clatter dull and devoid of magic against the Zaise's deck and sides.
Kheda dodged the searing fragments as the crimson dragon spread its awesome wings and sprang. A wall of emerald magelight shot upwards from the river to surround the boat, reaching as high as the top of the masts. The dragon bellowed and soared more steeply upwards, clawed feet abruptly drawn tight to its underside where before it had been reaching out with its lethal talons. The ridged spike that tipped its broad tail brushed against the curtain of green wizardry. The dragon roared with pain and anger as it rolled backwards through the air, a dark stain marring its tail.
Kheda felt the planking rise and fall beneath his feet as the whole river shivered. A bulge of water swept down from upstream and his heart missed a beat. 'Naldeth!'
'Wait.' The wizard was standing over the ruby egg, bent with both hands pressed to its sides. Scarlet fire suffused it. The sacking and ropes were crumbling to ash and a scorch mark was spreading across the deck. Naldeth gazed into the gemstone, utterly absorbed in the spark building at its heart.
Are we going to lose him the same way we lost Dev? Where do I hide now? Where do any of us run to? We should never have come here. We should never have stayed.
'Naldeth, look in the water!' Kheda yelled desperately.
The black dragon's head broached the silty surface. Muddy ooze outlined the scales of its back as the rest of the beast emerged. It crouched in the middle of the river channel, the opaque water lapping around its belly, hiding
its legs and feet. It thrashed its long tail and dark magic boiled up from the depths, threading steely radiance through the water. Tendrils reached for the Zaise, knotting and swelling, brightening to a putrid grey-green. The first touched the hull and the planking cracked. The dragon hissed with malicious satisfaction.
Velindre grabbed the ship's rail with both hands. The curtain of emerald magic slid down through the air to soak into the wood, making the ship shine as brightly as new leaves. The river gurgled protestingly. The Zaise lurched and tilted.
'Are we sinking?' demanded Kheda.
'Not if I can help it,' Velindre grunted through gritted teeth.
The red dragon landed back on the bank with a resounding thud. It roared with fiery rage and flames sprang up from the dead ashes all along the grasslands. Like a shower of spears, flames appeared in the air, flung straight at the Zaise's masts. Ropes flared into lines of scarlet fire. The spars smouldered and molten pitch dripped onto the decking. The fire dragon took a pace forwards, the undercut edge of the bank crumbling beneath its weight. It stretched out its massive head and breathed a snapping coil of fire towards the ship.
'Oh no you don't.' Naldeth's head jerked up from his rapt contemplation of the ruby egg. Unseen wind tousled his brown hair before sweeping across the river to blow the red dragon's fire back into its face. The creature recoiled, spitting furiously. Naldeth raised a hand and a golden haze floated up from his fingers towards the Zaise's masts where scarlet flames crackled gleefully as they gnawed on blackened wood. The foggy yellow magelight glowed and smothered the dragon's fires.
'Kheda! Remember the cargo!' Risala had found a bucket somewhere and hurried to toss it over the rail.
Kheda saw that the sailcloth covers held down by the battens nailed over the deck hatches were burning.
Before he could move, Risala screamed and tried to let go of her rope. It struck back like a snake, tying itself around her wrists and wrenching her forward.
Kheda ran to her, drawing his dagger to cut the rope. The blade struck the cable with a dull thud and the steel dented. Catching Risala around the waist, he braced his feet against the side of the ship and hacked at the rope. Every stroke notched the edge of his knife but the transmuted hemp began splintering. Risala's face twisted with pain, her hands bloodless, the vicious binding biting deep into her forearms. Just when Kheda thought the ruined dagger was going to break clean in two, the rope snapped and they both fell backwards. The bucket plummeted downwards to strike the water with an odd clunk instead of a splash.
'Are you all right?' Kheda cut the snare from Risala's wrists, thankfully now no more than braided hemp once again.
She nodded, muddy-faced and biting her lip against the pain. 'Kheda, the fire!'
All the young wizard's attention was on the ship's masts where the charred spars now writhed like living things. Swinging this way and that, they were fighting to escape the stifling haze so that the greedy flames could blossom anew. Ominous splintering sounds filled the air above Kheda's head.
'Naldeth!' he shouted urgently.
Naldeth glanced down for a moment and the ruby egg at his feet glowed brilliantly. A billow of golden vapour rolled along the deck. The flames burning insidious holes in the canvas-covered deck hatches died as the magic swept over them, but they sprang to life once again as soon as it had passed. Naldeth spat some unintelligible
Tormalin oath and the cloud of magelight bounced back from the upswept timbers of the blunt prow to snuff the fires a second time. This time they stayed dead.