Only rags of flesh remained of the greatest dragonrider of the age. He looked like an orange squeezed of every last drop of juice, the translucent, rent flesh lying on the cobblestones, given shape only by the bones beneath. The Daimoniac searched him and found that Gryll had not been lying: he was indeed penniless. However, his shoes fitted The Daimoniac well. The rest, The Daimoniac left to be pecked at by the crows. They were gathering in the darkness, black silhouettes blotting stars.

  The Daimoniac shuddered as new strength surged in him. He felt like a pot of hot tea filled to the very brim, bubbling as the water still boiled as it was poured, overflowing. He could not remain still with this energy. He had to move.

  He turned and vaulted the fifteen foot high iron fence in a single bound. Landing on the other side, the stone beneath him split. Such power. He felt drunk, delirious. He had never been overly fond of alcohol, for it dulled his senses and his will, and he wished to remain ever-vigilant. But now he understood a little of what kept men like Gryll coming back, time after time, to the sweet fervour of the liquid drug.

  But no alcohol had ever leant speed and alacrity and strength as well as sensation and delirium. He knew he could outrun the antelope, wrestle the bear, leap higher than any prancing pony. In this state, he was divine.

  He took off across the broad courtyard and reached the tower upon which Pandora, Gryll’s humungous dragon, easily double the size of the others, perched like a red vulture clad in sparkling jewels. A hood had been placed over its head, forcing it to sleep, which was perhaps a stroke of luck, for there was not telling what she might have done seeing her master slain and devoured, although The Daimoniac also perceived that a huge, steel manacle had been attached to her leg, preventing flight.

  He mounted the stairway which, unlike the Gorgosan towers, wound around the outside of the building. As he reached the top, he stood beneath the shadow of the dragon’s wings. Even folded close to the body, they were tremendous: sallow war-tents capable of sheltering fifty men. The bones of some tidbit lay at the dragon’s feet, blackened and stripped of all meat, smelling faintly of beef.

  The dragon’s breath was a zephyr on his face and flesh, warm and gusting. Its huge body heaved and contracted, heaved and contracted with each inhalation and exhalation, a great pulsing machine of indomitable life—somehow enslaved. For a brief, sad moment, The Warden thought of himself, thought of his own power and life, now annexed to a new master. No. We are one! the voice within him said. A symbiosis. And never forget that you were offered a choice. The gods never gave the dragons a choice.

  It was true. He had chosen this path of his own free will. And he would be dead without the healing and strength leant to him by the Daimon. Not only that, but he would have continued to live in ignorance. His perspective had been infinitely expanded. He saw the world as it truly was for the first time. That alone was worth the sacrifice.

  He stood there, unsure what to do. How do I capture this thing? he wondered. He was daunted by little, but the thought of simply clambering on the dragon and trying to ride it seemed ridiculous.

  We have the tools, the Daimon said. Climb atop its back and I shall take care of the rest.

  Uncertainly, he moved to the rope ladder that extended down the dragon’s huge flank. With a flash, he remembered how he had thrown himself from the top of a tower, clinging on with but a single hand. Telos had come down to fight him—and the two had both fallen. It should have been the end of both of us. But instead… He allowed the thought of trail off, aware always of the pressure in his skull, the presence of Another. He put his hands on the ladder and climbed. It had been such a struggle to hang on, before. But now, with his other arm restored, with his strength overbrimmed, it was child’s play.

  The dragon felt his weight, stirred. Its mighty head lifted. But the hood over its head obscured its vision. The dragon sniffed. He felt the powerful suction of its breath, the strength of its lungs, lungs that could—by some miraculous alchemy—produce flame. He wondered, then, if dragons and Daimons bore some relationship, whether the flammable nature of Daimonsblood explained the fire in the dragon’s belly.

  But he did not have time for such thoughts. Pandora could smell he was a stranger. Her head turned this way and that, agitated that she could not see. He great wings stretched and beat. The wind it created caused the bones to rattle and skid along the tower’s peak.

  He quickly slid into the rider’s saddle.

  Now, Daimon. If you would act, act now!

  The tendrils upon The Daimoniac’s back unsheathed themselves to their fullest extent. He felt an aching pull within him, accompanied by nausea, as though his guts were attached to these roaming serpents, being pulled hither and thither as the serpents writhed.

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  Then they plunged down, sinking into the dragon’s flesh. Their teeth met hard scales and they redounded, leaving merely a child’s bitemarks. The dragon let out a roar. The other dragons began to stir, lifting their cowled heads, sensing a danger all the more frightening for how it could not be obviously placed.

  The Daimonic serpents attacked again, again. They gnawed and dug. It was repulsive and yet mesmeric to watch. With their needle-fangs, they levered off one of the dragon’s scales. Then another. Now, Pandora was bucking. She swung her huge body this way and that, although her movement was limited by the chain about her ankle. The Daimoniac saw—with his sharpened night-eyes—men gathering below, staggering from their rooms in the dragonport, alarmed by the racket the dragons were making.

  Now, now!

  The serpents reared and dug once more, this time finding more tender flesh in the gap they had made. The dragon shrieked—and the sound was more dreadful, more terrifying than any roar. He heard pain, confusion, and fear in that note. No creature so immense should display such emotions.

  But such was the power of a Daimon.

  The serpents began to burrow. The Daimoniac himself let out a cry as they pulled more and more out of him, and into the dragon. He felt something being emptied, some vital force. It was as though he were an olive being crushed to produce oil.

  The serpents pulsed, and his whole body seemed to pulse with them. And then there was a moment when something snapped into place, as though a missing bone had been re-inserted into his skull. Just as he had felt the colony of Daimons, their wills and minds and thoughts, suddenly impressing upon his own, now he felt the dragon’s mind, its strength and aggression and desire. Surprisingly complex, surprisingly human. Feelings flashed like gemstones beneath the murky river of animal instinct. Gryll, it knew and loved Gryll… The thought made bile rise in his mouth and he vomited, a black bile that scoured his throat and lips.

  No time for weakness! The Daimon roared.

  The Warden nearly swooned. The rush of memories and feelings was too much. He felt the joy of flight, the power of flame. He felt the need to protect his eggs. The agony, like a cleaver through the heart, of being rent from them. All my young, all my young, taken from me!

  The scope of its dizzied him, that this rough beast could think and feel. Perhaps not as articulately, but with just as much depth.

  Take control! the Daimon roared. It is mere flesh when all is said and done!

  The Daimoniac blinked.

  Guards and officials had obtained the stairs, were rushing towards the peak of the tower with crossbows and weapons. They thought a mere thief had come to steal the dragon. Little did they know the true extent of the horror unfolding.

  “Break your chain!” the Warden gurgled.

  The dragon responded as though it were a part of him. And in many ways, it was. Twisting about itself—and with no need for eyes, for the Warden could see clearly—it turned its draconian flame on the stairwell. The men who were first up the steps were met by geysers of fire. Armour melted. Flesh and bones evapourated. The weapons they held were heated to white-orange splendour and men dropped them, screaming. The dragon continued to pour flame from her seemingly inexhaustible gullet and turned it upon the chains. The steel was Qi’shathian, hard to melt or break.

  “More!” the Warden cried.

  The dragon drew breath and vomited fire again. Now he saw the chain warming, discolouring, the metal bending.

  But a second wave of guards were coming, along with the few who had survived the first.

  “Rise!” The Daimoniac roared.

  The dragon abandoned the fire, lifted its head skyward, and pushed off with its mighty legs. Its wings caught the air and beat. The chain pulled to its maximum tautness, still clinging on, although now individual rings were straining, bending.

  A flurry of crossbow bolts flew into the sky. A few clattered off Pandora’s scales but one or two found their mark in her softer belly. The Warden screamed, feeling the pain as his own. But he also knew that so long as he lived, the dragon’s body would function. It was as the Daimon had said: mere flesh now. A puppet to be animated by him and then discarded.

  “Rise, rise!” he shrieked.

  The men below reloaded. Pandora beat her wings with mindless ferocity. The chain, weakened by fire and strain, at last snapped. The Warden hurtled upward into the sky.

  A moment, he gained the cool and peaceful air, and resided in the cold stillness. He felt the power of the dragon’s muscles at his fingertips. He felt the depth of his control as the Daimonic worms burrowed deeper and deeper, invading the dragon’s nervous system, taking the reins of its will. He felt the air beneath his wings, the moonlight across his scales. All was a silent beauty without equal.

  Then he saw the filth of humanity below, readying crossbows once again. He saw the city of Daimonpolis, belching black smog and fading dreams into the sky, burning up the past, burning up the heart and soul of Erethia itself. Rage filled him. Ruin stoked the fires of his being.

  “Obliterate,” he hissed. “Oliterate them all!”

  The dragon opened its mouth and spewed death across the city.

  And the Daimon rejoiced.