Page 161 of Shadowborne: Reckoning

Now the two faced each other head on and my heart spun in my chest.

Carnage had been weakened by Ruin’s death. I had no doubt that Kgosi would triumph. But a dragon with nothing to lose was an erratic weapon, and when Carnage opened his mouth, it was reflex to shout a warning.

‘Kgosi! Watch out!’

At the last possible second, Kgosi rolled and dropped—Carnage giving a roar of victory—but instead of passing under his foe, my dragon twisted, and I watched in awe as he rolled a second time, coming up underneath and to the other side, to catch Carnage’s tail, and one of his wings in mid-flight.

Carnage shrieked, and my ears rang again. Bren struggled under me, but I could feel my dragon’s pinpoint rage, and his need for justice—and punishment. I couldn’t let her go. Couldn’t risk that she was harmed by any of the furies in their wrath. Shouts rose from the Furyknights around us. I lifted my head to find my dragon, high in the sky, tangled with Carnage, both of them plummeting like massive stones. Kgosi’s wings whipped and snapped as he fought Carnage for control. Carnage writhed and screamed, his massive body twisting like a cat’s, only one wing free to flap and fight for purchase.

I heard their confrontation in my mind, through Kgosi’s eyes.

The air whistled between limbs, wings, and necks as the two began to roll, tumbling through the air. Carnage was frantic, mouth open and teeth bared, his head whipping back and forth as he struggled to rip free from Kgosi’s grip. When he couldn’t, he roared again, then snapped his head aside to bite at Kgosi’s leg, laying his scales open.

Kgosi screamed and flinched, his wings beating the air. But he didn’t let go. And every man in the Keep shuddered, some falling to their knees, as Kgosi reached for every mind in the vicinity—dragons and men—so no one would miss the truth.

‘You led man and dragon to perversion and death! You obscured truth, betrayed your herd—betrayed me!—and sought your own gain over the wellbeing of the minds and hearts of young dragons who have never known freedom or choice.

‘You enslaved their minds, and taught men to dismiss their natures, taking from them as weapons, rather than bonding with them as partners. You are a curse to any creature who meets you. And your power is halted today. Do you have anything to say for yourself?’

Carnage screamed, ear-shattering shrieks that made my head ring, but when he answered Kgosi, my dragon shared his response with everyone.

‘You claim kingship? You claim grace? It’s very easy to appear noble from the place of worship, Kgosi—you are not my Primarch, and I will not submit—’

Kgosi opened his mouth and sent a plume of fire and smoke over the bastard, who twisted and cried, screamed and snarled, pieces of him going up like torches. But his dragon scales resisted even Kgosi’s fire, while the wind fed the flames that pierced the flesh beneath. Carnage was slowly burning alive under his scales, screaming and cursing in their link.

But I watched on in horror as both of them turned, spiraling, flipping, tumbling in the air—rapidly approaching earth.

‘Kgosi… Kgosi, let him go. You have to fly—he’ll drag you down to kill you both—’

‘I will not allow this infection to spread, Donavyn.’

Kgosi’s grip was on Carnage’s tail, the rudder the dragons used to balance them in flight. Without that, and with one wing twisted, he was unable to keep himself flat in the air. And Kgosi, who should have been able to control their trajectory to a degree, was too tangled with Carnage’s bulk to do more than slow their progress.

‘Kgosi… please.’

In my mind’s eye, I saw through Kgosi’s red, raging gaze as he released Carnage’s wing—which snapped wide, but barely slowed their passage before something in the limb gave way. Carnage shrieked in added agony as his wing folded back and Kgosi added a new blast of flame to ensure the tender membrane was alight.

Still they spun. Still they fell…

Men around us on the ground began to murmur, then shout as the two massive shadows of the dragons grew large and larger, falling like boulders.

“Kgosi! FLY!” I screamed, grabbing Bren up again and running us both. ‘Kgosi! You’re going to die!’

Kgosi used his free limb to claw Carnage’s snout, pinioning his mouth closed and yanked his head around so they were eye to eye.

‘You are a living lie,’ my dragon spat. ‘In the Creator’s name, I judge you worthy of death.’

Two, massive scaley backs curled overhead. Men ran, screaming, and dragons trumpeted and shrieked as Kgosi, at the last possible second, threw Carnage away from himself, following the dragon’s crackling passage with a final plume of white-hot flame.

My senses were overwhelmed—the images in my mind overlaying the images of my eyes as my dragon flipped and snapped wings wide, clawed the air, screaming, attempting to wrench his plummeting weight back into flight mere seconds before Carnage’s writhing body slammed into the earth, which opened like water to welcome him to the grave. Dirt and sod rose in an explosive wave, chunks, stones, and earth showering the launch hollow and stable buildings as the entire Dragon Keep trembled.

I was thrown off my feet and twisted around Bren, rolling us, screaming in my mind as a shuddering groan echoed across the launch hollow, and Kgosi’s bulk seemed destined to follow him to the ground—only to sweep his wings wide and catch his own momentum, talons clawed and trailing in the dirt as my dragon flapped, straining, heaving himself back into the air, and finally… impossibly, to safety, his wings flapping furiously until he was high enough to bank around.

When the shaking and screaming stopped, the launch hollow was a warzone.

Carnage lay on the ground, writhing still, coiling like a dying snake, unable to rise. His body crackled in flames, the light under his scales first feeding that fire, then slowly doused by it. He roared and shrieked, and some of the dragons in and around the Keep screamed in response.

But Kgosi—limping in flight, slowly wheeled around, then landed, coming to a staggering halt just a dragon’s length from the male he’d defeated.