The first five floors were clear. Only two more remained.

The levin on the sixth knew what was happening, of course. They had heard the commotion and the dying screams of their families below. They were trapped and defenceless.

When Venn and Guff barged through their barricade, the old grey-fur by the table in the corner only stood before the younglings and raised his paws. “There is still time to take a different life. You can still choose peace. This meaningless slaughter does not have to go on.” He spoke in their tongue, as if that could change things.

The skern chose death for them instead. Guff saw to the children. Venn tore the throat from the old timer and leant over his fading eyes. “There can be no other life. Only the hunt.” He spoke in levinese, better that the dying teacher’s last understanding be that they could never do something their rightful hunters could not.

When they reached the seventh floor, they were disappointed to find it abandoned. “Where are the shelled ones?” Venn demanded. He stomped over to the turret of the balcony and looked out over the lake. The summoning smokes were burning over the stone bridge across the river, twin plumes announcing the fall of Jiharu. “It is not our aim to kill every levin in the world. The hunt must go on past today. We merely wish to break them, and for that, we need their masters.”

Guff joined him at the turret beneath the raised roof. If he twisted his head out over the side, he could just make out the abandoned street down to the shore he had almost charged before Venn had chosen the element of surprise. They had not pillaged that place, and yet crumpled bodies lined the path regardless. He swelled with pride. “Look. They fear us so much they kill each other in their struggle to escape.”

“I see,” said Venn after a long pause. “Perhaps we needn’t find individuals. We are marking our territory right now. But I still wish we could put an end to some of the perpetrators of this nonsense before they all flee to build another city.”

It was then that the dragon swooped down towards them from high off over the shore. At first, Venn thought it was Alguan, but surely he couldn’t have overcome all his enemies to rule the skies already. It was almost upon them before he made out the crimson lustre to its hide. “Run!” he cried, pounding for the door.

But Guff waited and waited, staring straight ahead. Only at the very last, as the jet of flame burst outwards to meet him, did he twist away and roll into the room. His scales all up his right side were singed and blackened. Venn hastened to pull the burning bark from his spines with awkward teeth. “You fool!” he screamed in Guff’s face. “Do you wish to die?”

Guff righted himself, brushed away the cinders, and indicated the balcony. Black smoke was filling the room. The crackle of flame endured beyond the dragon’s breath. Venn parted his jaws in amazement. “Now we use their own kind against them!” he hissed. “Burn this evil tower to the ground, never to be remembered!”

Guff prodded him in the side. “But let us not be here when it does. Time to move on.”

They had meant to continue the attack straight away, but the fire was moving slowly, and youngling levin were a delicacy rarely seen upon the open plains of the Endless Meadow, or so the elders had told them. They paused down the spiral ramp to try it. As they chewed, Venn’s mind was already turning to the next steps. “That dragon reminds me of our promise,” he said light-heartedly. “We have Jiharu in our grasp, but do the dragons have this ‘Season’ in theirs? Let us not forget our search. We have two hunts now.”

But they partook too long of the flesh to press their advantage. The celebration had begun, and yet, as they exited the smouldering keep, this time by its real door, they heard whisperings and the clinking of rocks in the streets and houses all around. They crept silently along the edge of the shadowy courtyard they found themselves in, until they found a passage northwards that seemed empty of life.

The oversight was but one more mistake of a species that had grown too pompous and complacent for its own ambition. The skern emerged into a row of berry silos blocked by a platoon of spear-levin at its far end, but the guards were looking outwards, back towards the keep, and their exposed flanks were tantalisingly close. A short charge, a great snapping of bones, and the street was cleared. But even as they tore the last shreds of life from their sobbing foes, the skern heard the pattering of many feet upon the cobbles beyond, and the flapping of monstrous wings above. The dragons dare not sacrifice the city yet for the invaders’ lives, but they were watching from afar, and directing their ground troops to ensnare them.

“We need to find cover,” Venn urged, retreating to the courtyard. “We cannot yet risk this calculated battle. We need panic.”

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They found it. They ascended a wide ramp from the courtyard, into a low deserted building opposite the burning keep. At its far end, they came to a viewpoint overlooking the eastern shore of the island. There, beyond a tangle of twisting platforms and shelters, a huge crowd of levin had gathered. There was a little promenade of wood sticking out into the lake from there, and those tiny rafts were lining up to bear the crowds away to the mainland. Even as they watched, a raft approached, and those animals squeezed onto the pier began to push and bicker for priority. Venn laughed as two lost themselves in the fight and dropped into the water with a great flapping splash. “They make up this so-called union to pretend to cooperate, but when it comes to it, they fight to preserve themselves just the same.” He plotted out the path from the ramp descending into the next street, through another courtyard thronged with upturned tubs, to the roadways bordering the pier. Everything was too big, too grand for such a pathetic kind. “Shall we go? We can trample the last of their hunters under their own people, and then...” he pointed to the soaring tower close to thee northern tip of the island, “we remove their heads, for surely that is where they dwell. If they weren’t the first upon those pieces of driftwood.”

Guff hesitated. Then, they jerked upwards, spines bristling.

Something big was creeping up the passage from behind. “Dragon,” Guff breathed in Venn’s ear.

“Only a tiny one, but still too much for us,” whispered Venn. He plucked meat from his claws and sized up the path. “We deal with them by removing the levin. Our way has been shown to us. Let’s go.”

Quickly, they jumped from the ramp and scraped by the broken tubs in the courtyard. Two whimpering mouse-men lay propped against the middle one, but the skern paid them no attention. Already, they could feel the exultation of death, the rush of murder, coiling their forelegs like springs. How they longed to pounce.

When they got to the very edge of the alley closest to the rafts, they let themselves go. There was no need to think, no need for control. The glory of the hunter was all they needed.

The great crowd of levin saw them coming and screamed. They turned and the rear half of the group, those that had not seen the danger, collapsed beneath the unbearable weight of those already fleeing. The lucky ones found a clean end by the slashing claws of the predators as they dived headlong into the mass. Others fought for air and watched their loved ones fall in steaming flurries of blood.

Venn and Guff snarled with delight as they tore into the helpless creatures closest. Then, they pressed forward over the roiling bodies and drove those that had found their feet away down the road. Again, those powerless soldiers had been looking the wrong way, but now they advanced, parting to allow wailing citizens to pass.

They weathered the forerunners well. Then, they were swept away in the current of terror and the bravest fell into the jaws of their enemy. But there were more behind.

The skern halted uncertainly. Ahead, a line of levin awaited them. Twig spears, smoothed and polished, sat poised in paws. The survivors of the stampede were buffeting through them, but the line held.

Thirty feet of open ground stood between them. The street echoed with cries, but the skern were silent.

Guff had taken a nasty cut to his shoulder. Venn was panting and pawing at the blood-soaked cobbles. There was something wrong with his left leg. It hurt when it took his weight. He was exhausted.

“These ones aren’t running,” said Guff.

But Venn knew what to do. He saw that rocky valley of the first hunt again, and that ragged line of levin brave enough to stand against them and let the others go on with their precious lives. There were more in this unnatural stone path before them now, but this time, the young skern didn’t have just their ancestors to guide them. They had the glory and experience of true hunters now.

Yet, as before, there was just one thing to do. They were deep in the open.

“Charge!” yelled Venn. They scrabbled on the slippery stones and slowly built speed.

As one, the levin threw back their paws and a volley of points sailed their way. A sharpened twig gouged deep into Guff’s snout, perfectly between the eyes, and he pulled back with a grunt of agony. The paws drew back again. More spears appeared. Venn had to break them. He dug deeper and pushed on, but the spears were already in the air.

He saw one coming straight for him, and then his left eye saw no more. He howled with pain, but he didn’t stop. The hunt depended on it.

“Mikrin! Mikrin!” something was screeching.

He broke through. Levin fur floated about him in wiry clumps as he ripped and clenched. The blood mixed with his own and he felt nothing but pleasure as he tore them to pieces.

They were all dead when a huge bulk unfolded from a side-street and pressed its mountainous right foot into Venn’s back. He collapsed to the ground, scrapping and scrabbling to be free. Then, the claws that held him, pierced him, yanked him over onto his back.

From his one remaining eye, he looked straight into a line of glistening yellow teeth.

“I told you not to disobey me!” boomed Master Skrenn.