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Book Information:

Genre: Fantasy

Author: Stephen Deas

Title: The Adamantine Palace

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…have a great time reading the book...and if you like the book...go BUY it!!!!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prologue – Jehal

 

Prince Jehal felt the dragon take to the air. Curled up inside a saddlebag, he couldn't see a thing. But that didn't matter. He could see it in his mind, exactly and precisely. He felt every stride as the dragon accelerated. He knew exactly when the dragon would make one last bound and unfurl its wings. He felt himself grow heavier as the dragon rose up into the air.

The bag smelled slightly of rotten meat. Jehal wriggled and stretched as best he could, trying to make himself more comfortable in the tiny space. He forced himself to breathe slowly, suppressing the edge of panic that threatened to blossom inside him. Small spaces had never agreed with him, and the smell made him uneasy. It made him wonder what the bag had been used for before. Carrying dragon snacks was the obvious answer.

Is that me? Am I the snack of  the day today?

The absurdity of the thought calmed him. Queen Aliphera was as shrewd as anyone, but she was also besotted. Jehal had come to know what that looked like, even in a dragon-queen.

The dragon stopped climbing and began to glide. Officially, Jehal was indisposed. A great deal of effort had gone into his illness, every bit of it spent so that he and Queen Aliphera could be alone and unobserved. All he had to do now was stay hidden until the queen found an excuse to fly away from her riders, her dragon-knights. Months of work and then days of waiting for exactly the right weather, all for half an hour of absolute privacy.

He clenched his fists. One of his feet had cramped. He wriggled his toes. When that didn't work, he tried to rearrange himself so his feet were underneath the rest of him. That didn't work either, but by the time he gave up trying, the cramp had gone away anyway. Eventually, he fell asleep.

*

He woke up to see grey sky pouring in above him. Every muscle in his legs was shouting at him, demanding to be stretched. He yawned, stood up and grinned at what he saw. They were high in the sky, skimming the base of the clouds. Aliphera liked to do that.

Jehal looked around, scanning the horizon, but there were no other dragons in sight. Finally, he looked at Aliphera. She was still half strapped into her saddle, but she was looking back at him, grinning. Her eyes were very wide. They'd flirted with each other for months, in little ways, little stinging touches where no one else would see.

Jehal grinned back. Anticipation, that was the key. And now she had him alone at last.

'You look a little dishevelled, Prince Jehal.'

Carefully, Jehal hauled himself out of his saddlebag. He crawled the few feet towards her, mindful of the thousand or so feet of empty space between him and the ground. It would be stupid to get this far only to plunge to his death.

'I want you, here and now.'

She laughed, but he saw a flash of excitement in her face. 'You're being silly. We'd fall.'

'I don't care.' He didn't let her answer, but covered her mouth with his own. One hand went to the soft skin of her neck. He let it slide down, only an inch or two, and then stopped.

'Loosen that harness,' he said. 'I want to ride with you. Let me hold you while you find a place to land.'

'Yes.' They fumbled together at the clasps and straps that held her fast. Now and then they let their fingers stray.

Finally, the last restraint fell away. Jehal lifted her up, just enough so he could slide into the saddle behind her. He let his hands run slowly down her body and felt her shudder.

'I can't tell you just how long I've been waiting for this,' she breathed.

With a sudden jerk, he rammed his head into the small of her back. She staggered and gasped as he rose and drove forward, punching her as she tried to turn. Once, twice, knocking her

forward. Her arms flailed and then she was gone, off into the sky. Jehal sat back down and pressed himself into the saddle, gripping the dragon with his legs while he strapped himself in. A part of him couldn't believe it had been so easy.

The dragon tucked in its wings and dived after her, but that was simply what any hunting dragon was trained to do. It couldn't catch her. All it could do was land somewhere close by and then stay there, howling, pleading for help. Not that anyone could survive a fall like that.

He clung on and peered over the dragon's shoulder, listening to Queen Aliphera's screams, watching until the ground reached out and swallowed her whole.

'That's exactly what your daughter said,' he hissed.

Hatchling Gold

When a dragon-rider wishes a new dragon for his

eyrie, he will write to one of the dragon-kings or

-queens, petitioning them for their favours. If the rider

is wise, the letter will come with a gift. It is understood

that the more generous the gift, the more likely the

rider will receive a favourable response. This gift is

the first of many payments and is made long before

a suitable dragon is even born. This gift is called the

Hatchling Gold.

Naturally, as dragons are few and lords are fickle, nothing is ever certain.

 

I

Sollos

 

There were three riders. Sollos had watched them land away in the fields beyond the edge of the forest. They'd all come down on the back of a single war-dragon, and one of them had stayed behind, keeping the dragon calm. The other two had walked straight towards the trees. Their pace was brisk and full of purpose. Sollos watched as they passed his position and then padded silently after them. They were dressed from head to toe in their dragonscale armour, and Sollos began to think they might as well have let the dragon come with them. It might have made less noise.

He took careful breaths, following behind. As long as the other men who'd been waiting for the riders to arrive didn't get a sudden case of cold feet.

A few hundred yards into the trees, the ground rose into a small mound topped with a standing stone. It had been a place of worship once, back in the days of the old gods, but now the forest had all but swallowed it. The riders went straight up the mound and stopped at the top.

'This is it, isn't it?' said one, in the kind of whisper of someone to whom the whole concept of being secretive was something of a mystery.

The other one was even worse. He leaned against the stone and started fiddling with a tinderbox. Sollos couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, or rather what he was smelling. The idiot was smoking pipeweed.

'It's almost insulting, isn't it,' breathed a voice in his ear. Sollos froze for an instant, and then relaxed. Kemir. 'They're as subtle as a mace in the face.'

'I wish you wouldn't do that, cousin.' Sollos hissed the words

between his teeth, hardly daring to make a sound. He could actually feel Kemir's lips brushing his ear, that's how near he was. He found it uncomfortably distracting. How did Kemir get that close without him ever noticing?

'Don't worry. We're downwind, and the men waiting for them are on the other side of the mound. They've been there for a while now. They're getting impatient.'

'They're probably wondering why this lot didn't just crash in through the branches on the back of their dragon.'

'I was beginning to wonder the same.'

'The men on the other side of the mound. Are there still just three or are there more now?'

'Still three.'

Sollos took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He still wasn't sure what to make of all this. He'd had his orders, whispered in his ear, and they'd been quite clear. A pair of Queen Shezira's dragon-knights were going to come to the forest around these parts. They were coming to buy something, something meant to harm the queen. He and Kemir, a pair of sell-swords, were going to stop them. The gold in their pockets came from the queen's knight-marshal, but if anything went wrong they were nothings and nobodies with no ties to anyone who mattered. That was as much as Sollos knew.

'Did you see what they brought with them?'

Kemir didn't answer.

'They must have brought something.'

'Maybe they didn't. Maybe they're going to do our work for us and gut this pair of traitors for their gold. If they did, it's small. I didn't see anything.'

The whispering voice hadn't given any clues as to what the something was, either, only that trying to buy it should cost these dragon-knights their lives. Sollos was to wait until the riders met whoever was doing the selling, then discreetly kill the lot of them. The riders would be carrying gold. He could help himself to that, the whisper had said. As for the rest, he would leave the bodies alone and untouched. They'd be found in the morning, by

which time Sollos would be back in his barracks. He'd wake up as shocked as anyone else to find that two of the queen's riders had been found murdered.

Which was all very well, but there were three dragon-knights, not two.

'There's another one,' he whispered. 'A third rider came with them. He stayed with the dragon.'

There was a long pause. He could almost hear Kemir thinking. 'We have to let that one go, don't we?'

Sollos nodded. There were supposed to be two riders. From short range with the advantage of surprise, he and Kemir could be reasonably sure of taking down one apiece. A third, though, forewarned, with a dragon at his back, that was a different matter.

'What do you make of them? Not the riders, the others. The sellers.'

'Nervous. They're not swordsmen. They'll run, not fight. We'll have to take them down quickly.'

Sollos shuddered; Kemir's lips were still brushing his ear. He edged away. 'When the purse changes hands, that's when we act. I'll deal with the rider who gives over the money, you shoot the other. Whoever is holding the purse is mine too. Then we go after the rest. Closest first.' From the corner of his eye Sollos saw movement at the top of the hill. He shooed Kemir away and began to creep closer. As he did, he took a careful grip of his dragonbone longbow. It was an old weapon, taller than he was, honed from the wing of some monster of a war-dragon by the looks of it. Too long and clumsy for his liking at such close quarters, but guaranteed to punch through as much steel and dragonscale as a man could wear and still stand upright.

'Have you got what we want?' 'Have you got our money?'

'Show me you've got what we want.'

At the top of the hill three men had joined the dragon-knights. As if all the noise they'd already made hadn't been enough, now they were arguing. Sollos had a fleeting vision of simply walking into the middle of them and seeing how many he could stab before they even noticed he was there.

'Show us the gold, friend. Then you see what you get for it.'

'No. You first.'

'Oh, just show them the money. Here ...'

One of them lit a torch. Slowly, Sollos rested an arrow against the string of his bow. One of the riders was holding what looked like a purse. Any moment now ... And they were making it all so easy.

The purse changed hands. As Sollos let fly, he saw the other rider stagger. He didn't even look to see what his own arrow had done, but reached at once for a second.

Both riders were down. The man holding the purse was still exactly where he'd been a moment ago. Sollos could see his eyes, slowly tearing themselves away from the riches in his hands as the dragon-knights toppled over.

The dragon-knights' torch lay on the ground, still burning, lighting the faces of the three strangers still standing on the top of the hillock. Sollos fired again. This time his aim was a little low. The arrow hit the man with the purse in the jaw and ripped off half his face. Good enough. He could see the last two clearly. Still they didn't think to run. Sollos dropped his bow and charged at them, first one hand and then the other drawing a pair of long knives out of his belt.

The furthest pitched suddenly backwards with another of Kemir's arrows in his chest. Finally the last one turned to flee, but by then Sollos was barely yards away and coming at a sprint. A leap and a lunge and Sollos buried both knives into the man's back, one high and one low. That turned out not to be enough, so he slit the man's throat for good measure. Then got up and looked at himself. His shirt was damp and glistening.

'Shit. I'm covered in blood.'

'Better stay away from that dragon, then.' Kemir was standing by the torch, his longbow held loosely at the ready.

'Are you sure there aren't any more of them?' Sollos scurried

back to where he'd dropped his own bow. Without it, he felt naked.

Kemir shrugged. 'As sure as I can be. You never know.'

'We should leave. There's still a rider and a dragon waiting for those two to come back. The purse is there. Get it.'

He watched Kemir stoop and pick something up off the ground. Something that jingled with a very pleasant sound. Sollos smiled.

Kemir frowned. 'This is a lot, Sollos. Are you sure we're supposed to take it all?'

'That's the deal.'

That would normally have been enough for Kemir, but he was still standing there, frowning. As Sollos walked towards him, Kemir reached down and picked up something else. 'Have a look at this.'

'Put it back! Whatever it is, it's not ours.'

'Yes, yes, I will, but I want you to look at it first.'

Sollos shook his head. 'Leave it alone.' Do exactly what was asked, no more and no less. Wasn't that a simple enough rule to live by? For Kemir, apparently not, and it was this sort of thing that always got him into trouble. 'Just put it back,' he snapped as he reached him, so of course Kemir thrust it into his hands instead.

'What is it?'

'I don't know and I don't care.' What Sollos was holding was a spherical bottle made of glass, stoppered and sealed with wax at the top. It fitted nicely into the palm of his hand, and from the way its weight shifted was filled with some sort of liquid. In the darkness he couldn't quite see.

Sollos frowned. If it was a liquid, it was a very heavy one. Then he reminded himself that he really didn't want to know. Quickly, he put the bottle back down where Kemir had found it and took Kemir's arm, dragging him away.

Much later, when Sollos and Kemir were both long gone, the shadow of a woman slipped out from among the trees and stepped

carefully around the corpses. The woman bent down where Kemir and Sollos had stood. She picked up the bottle and crept silently away.

2

Kailin

 

The dragon made one circle over the eyrie and then came in to land. Kailin stopped what he was doing to watch. He squinted, trying to make out the dragon's colour, or anything else that might distinguish it. Around the featureless top of the eyrie the other Scales would be doing the same. They'd all be thinking the same question too: Is it one of mine? Is that one I raised?

Its shape made it a war-dragon, he decided. Hunting dragons had long tails and long necks and enormous wings and were, to Kailin's eyes, much more graceful. War-dragons were stockier. End to end and wing-tip to wing-tip they were the smaller breed, but they weighed twice as much and ate enough for four. Their colours tended to be drab too. Hunting dragons were brighter. Their bloodlines were more carefully recorded, their breeding more strictly managed, their diet meticulously controlled by the alchemists.

When a mount was old enough, the trainers taught them to take the saddle and the rein, and to understand their riders' commands. The rest of the work of growing a dragon was down to people like Kailin. They were the ones, if they survived, who fed the dragons, watered them, nurtured them, cared for them — the Scales, whose ruined skin, hard and flaking, marked them for life. In the end Hatchling Disease got them all, petrifying them while they were still alive. A Scales did not get to grow old.

1f it was a war-dragon, it wasn't one of his. He watched it come down anyway, a steep, hard dive that made the ground quake as it landed. It folded its wings and snorted, blowing a thin stream of lire up into the air. Kailin recognised it now. Mistral. Queen Shezira's second-favourite mount.

Mistral shook himself. He took a few steps forward and then lowered his head almost to the ground. He looked hungry, Kailin thought. Already, several of the nearest Scales were running over, ready to call Mistral away to one of the feeding paddocks. Their other job was to make sure that Mistral was kept well away from the breeding females. One mistake could ruin centuries of careful breeding, and no one in the world was insane enough to get in the way of a pair of mating dragons.

A single rider slid down from Mistral's shoulders, exchanged a few words with the Scales, and then walked straight towards Kailin. As she came closer, Kailin sank to his knees and bowed his head. Queen Shezira was a regular visitor to the eyrie. Lately, circumstances had hurled Kailin into her path.

She stopped in front of him. 'Rise, Scales.'

Shakily, Kailin got to his feet. He didn't dare raise his head.

'How is my Sabre?' Sabre was the queen's hunting dragon. A few weeks ago she'd brought him to the eyrie with a cracked rib. According to the whispers, the queen had taken Sabre hunting somewhere far away, and he'd been charged while on the ground by some beast that sounded like an armoured elephant, except with horns. Sabre, said the whispers, had bitten the creature's head off with a single snap of his jaws.

'Doing well, I understand,' said Kailin, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. 'Your Holiness knows that I am not the Scales caring for him.'

'Yes, yes. When do you think he will be ready to hunt again?'

'If he were in my care, Your Holiness, I would beg for him to be rested another three weeks.'

He could tell from the way the queen tapped her foot that this wasn't the answer she'd wanted. He heard her sigh. 'Then I shall have to ride Mistral. And how is my perfect white?'

Snow, thought Kailin. She's called Snow.

'What did you say, Scales?'

'I-I ...' Kailin stammered. 'I'm sorry, Your Holiness, I spoke out of turn.' Had he spoken at all? He wasn't sure.

'What did you say, Scales?'

He was shaking. The queen had a temper. Everyone knew what happened to those who made her angry. 'We call her Snow, Your Holiness.' Kailin screwed up his eyes and waited for the blow to come.

'Well then, Scales. Snow. How is she?'

'Still ... still perfect, Your Holiness.' He could feel her eyes on him, but he couldn't bring himself to look at her.

'You see she stays that way. And learn to mind your tongue, Scales. You and your dragon will be the property of Prince Jehal before the next full moon. He will give her whatever name takes his fancy, and he is not known for his forgiving nature.' She laughed. 'If you're unlucky, he'll decide you're a spy.'

She left him there, quivering.

3

The Eyrie-Master

 

The Scales was forgotten almost before Shezira had turned her back on him. Two more days and they were due to fly, almost from one end of the realms to the other. Another two weeks and they'd be in King Tyan's palace. Prince Jehal would be there. She would give Jehal her perfect white and her youngest daughter, and in return he would give her lordship of all the realms. Or rather, he wouldn't object to her taking it.

She smiled. Lordship? Or should it be ladyship? It wouldn't be the first time that the speaker was a queen instead of a king, but it had been long enough. Too long.

The eyrie was built on an escarpment. Most of it was tunnelled underground and so, from the outside, there wasn't much to look at. Scorched rock and blasted earth and the occasional smouldering mound of dragon dung. Further away, fields full of cattle stretched out as far as the eye could see, interspersed with tiny clusters of farmhouses. And there were the dragons, of course, always a few of them out on the rocks, being groomed or trained or saddled or fed, or simply sunning themselves.

The only structure built on top of the eyrie was a massive tower, the Outwatch. As she walked towards its gates, they swung open. Soldiers poured out and formed up in ranks to salute her. In their midst was Isentine, the eyrie-master, dressed to the nines in dragonscale and gold. Shezira stopped in front of him and he fell to his knees to kiss her feet. He was getting old. She saw him wince as he struggled to rise again, which annoyed her. She'd have to replace him soon, which was a nuisance. He was competent and devoted, and it would be hard to find his equal. But if he couldn't bow properly ...

'Come on, come on, get up!' she hissed under her breath. All the soldiers were watching.

'Your Holiness.' Shezira bit her lip when she saw his face. He looked so worn out, almost defeated.

'Eyrie-Master Isentine.' She forced a smile and put a hand on each of his shoulders. 'Your eyes grow ever sharper with the years. You must have seen me coming from quite some way away.'

The eyrie-master bowed again, a little dip from the waist, which didn't seem to trouble him. 'I live to serve Your Holiness.'

'And you do it very well.' She walked on past him. 'We have another hatchling, I hear. One I should see?'

'I'm afraid not, Your Holiness.' Isentine took up his proper position, walking in step with her just behind her right shoulder. "This is another that refuses its food and wastes away.'

'Again?' A flash of irritation sounded in Shezira's voice, and that made her even more annoyed. A queen should never sound petulant.

'I am sorry, Your Holiness.'

'That's three out of the last four. It's not usually that many.' The eyrie-master could still match her pace easily enough, she noted, so maybe there was some life left in him. For now,

'It is unusual, Holiness, but the alchemists assure me it is to be expected that these things should happen from time to time. I am promised it will not last.'

'And do you believe them?' Shezira shook her head. 'Don't answer. One a month, Isentine. That's what I need from you. One good hatchling every month. But that's not really why I came here.' They were past all the soldiers now. They walked through the gates and into the maw of Outwatch in silence.

'Does Your Holiness desire something?' Isentine asked her. 'We have made all the usual preparations. Baths scented with oils, a feast of delicacies from around the realms, men and women who desire nothing more than to serve your pleasure.' He should have known her better by now, but he was old, and some habits simply wouldn't break.

'II that's what they desire, they can spend their time teaching my daughters some manners and some respect, and making them understand that above all they are required to be obedient.'

It took a long time for him to digest that, which made Shezira smile. She wasn't supposed to say such things in public, and there was no proper formal response. They walked across the grand hall, a gloomy cavern of ochre stone that accounted for most of the lower levels of Outwatch.

'You should do something about this hall. Put some windows in.' The echoes of their footsteps made it seem even emptier, dreary and lonely. 'Maybe I should send my daughters to you for a while, eh?'

They reached the far side of the hall, where a maze of intertwined staircases snaked towards the upper levels.

'The study, Your Holiness?' asked Isentine.

'Yes.' The hall wasn't as empty as Shezira had first thought. Here and there she saw soldiers standing guard, still as statues and tucked into little niches where they wouldn't easily be seen.

By the time they reached the top of the stairs to Isentine's study, he was wheezing. What was it? A hundred and twenty steps to this balcony? She shook her head and watched him as he opened the door and then stood patiently waiting for her to enter. This wouldn't do.

She sighed, went in and sat down. 'You're getting positively ancient, Master Isentine.' She watched him as she said it, and saw how much it hurt him. Which was good. He knew what was coming, and that would make it easier for both of them.

'Three score years and then some.' He looked sad.

'And then some more. You've been the master here for as long as I can remember. Twenty-five years almost to the day I came here.' She smiled, thinking back to the first time she'd landed at Outwatch. 'Fifteen years old, betrothed to King Antros, and you were the first person I saw. I thought you looked so handsome.'

The eyrie-master's throat began to bob up and down as though he was trying to say something, but the words were stuck in his throat.

'I haven't forgotten,' Shezira added. 'I haven't forgotten that it was you, more than anyone, who stood at my side when Antros died so suddenly. If you'd turned against me, I would not be queen now. You always had my gratitude in the years after that. You have it still.'

'Then ...' They both knew what he wanted to say. They both knew she couldn't consent.

'You may choose who will be the new master of Outwatch and my other eyries, Isentine. I will respect your judgement. But you cannot remain master of my dragons. Speaker Hyram's reign is almost done. I will succeed him. I can hide you away here, but when I rule the Adamantine Palace I cannot have a weak old man who can barely walk at my side. I am sorry.' She almost reached out and took his hand, because in more ways than one he was the oldest friend she had. But she was a queen, and so her hand stayed still and only the whiteness of her knuckles betrayed her.

Isentine swallowed. He took a deep breath and slowly bowed. 'I understand, Your Holiness. I will find you a man worthy to serve you as I no longer can, and I will take the Dragon's Fall.'

They sat together in silence for as long as Shezira could bear. Then she went and stood by the window. The study looked out directly over the cliffs, and the drop felt almost infinite.

'Or...'

Isentine didn't move. She could see he was holding his breath.

'My daughters are very fond of their dragons, and very fond of you. Almiri is my heir and has children of her own. Lystra is promised to Prince Jehal and still young enough to be pliable, but laslyn ... She spends a great deal of time here, or so I understand.'

Isentine looked at her. He smiled and shook his head. 'You may choose whoever you wish, my queen, but Jaslyn is too young to he mistress of any eyrie. She knows her dragons well enough, better than most I might say, but she has no experience ...'

Now at last he began to see.

'She would need a mentor.' Shezira kept her voice stern. 'You would have to live out your years here, surrounded by these beasts.

1 could not permit you to take the Dragon's Fall until you were quite sure she was worthy to succeed you.'

'Yes, Your Holiness. Thank you.'

Shezira looked away. Isentine was almost weeping with gratitude, and that was something she couldn't bear to see. 'You will not come with us to King Tyan's realm. You are too old. Instead you can stay here and think about everything you must do. It will not be an easy task for you with Jaslyn. She's wilful and proud. If I said she was plain, it would be flattery, yet she turns up her nose at every suitor I put before her. Before long you might wish you'd taken the Dragon's Fall after all.'

'I will make her a daughter to be proud of,' whispered the eyrie-master.

I already am, thought Shezira, but that too was something she could never admit. Instead, she began to pace the floor, steadfastly ignoring Isentine's gaze. 'Yes. Now, Prince Jehal. Two more days, Eyrie-Master.'

'All is prepared, Your Holiness.'

'Oh, I have no doubt of that, but still... Summon the alchemist. Haros? Huros? Whatever his name is. Let him bore me with the details of his preparations. And in case I fall asleep, please make sure he knows that my knight-marshal has something she wishes to discuss with him. It seems she has acquired a bottle of something that she requires him to understand for her.'

'At once, Your Holiness.'

Shezira watched Isentine leave. He had a spring in his step, one she hadn't seen for a long time. She could almost make herself believe that she'd done something good. A little ray of sunshine amid a much darker storm.

Two more days before I leave to buy Prince Jehal with my own daughter's flesh. Although I, above all, understand that is what we daughters are for.

4

The Speaker of the Realms

 

'How,' murmured Jehal, 'could anyone not covet it? I simply don't understand.'

Beside him he felt Zafir's skin, slick with sweat, move against his own. She turned towards him. 'Covet what, my lover?'

Jehal threw out his arms. They lay together in a carved wooden bed a thousand years old, swathed in silken sheets. In all four walls windows opened out to the sky and the vista of the Adamantine Palace and the City of Dragons below.

'This! All of this!'

Zafir pressed herself against him and began to stroke his chest.

'All of this,' she murmured. She sounded happy, Jehal thought, and well she might. She'd spent most of the night gasping, after all.

Jehal sighed and sat up. 'Yes, all of this. Wouldn't it be perfect? Ah ... I'll never forget the first time my father brought me here. I sat in his saddle with his arms around me as we soared high in the air. The sky was a brilliant blue, the sun burning and bright, the ground far, far beneath us. Dark and green and lush. I could see distant mountains, and then beside them I saw something glitter. 1 pointed and asked what it was. My father said it was a jewel, the greatest jewel I would ever see, and he was right. The Adamantine Palace, glittering in the sun, the lakes sparkling around it, the mountains of the Purple Spur at its back. That sight is burned into my mind, like dragon's breath.' He smiled and shook his head. 'Awestriker. That's what my father's dragon was called. He was an old one even then, and long gone now. Sometimes I wish my father had gone with him. After my deranged little brother murdered our mother and the rest of our siblings, he was never the same. Lingering like this, drooling and deranged, it's not fitting. A king should live forever or else die in a blaze of glory.'

Zafir draped her arms around his shoulders. 'You have me.'

'Yes. I have you. More than enough for any man. The most beautiful princess in all the realms.'

'Queen,' she whispered, nibbling at his ear. 'My mother is dead. Some wicked man threw her off a dragon, remember?'

Jehal pulled her lips to his. 'That is a dangerous thing to say, my sweet. Your mother had an accident. I'm quite certain of it. And you're still a princess, not a queen. Not until Speaker Hyram says otherwise.'

'Will it be long?'

'I would think an hour, maybe two, before he calls you.'

Zafir snorted. 'Why does it take him so long?'

'Have you seen how he shakes? He's an old man, and twilight is coming fast upon him.'

'He's so dreary. He makes time drag.'

Jehal laid her gently on her back. He gazed into her eyes, so dark and wide, and rested his hand on the curve of her belly. A faint breeze from the windows brushed his skin. 'A clever trick.' He grinned. 'But I can make it fly.'

Zafir giggled. 'When I'm a queen, and you're still only a prince, does that mean you have to do as I say?'

'I will be yours to command.'

'Then I know exactly what my first demand as queen will be.'

'And what is that, my love?'

'As soon as I'm queen, I shall summon you back here at once.' She cupped his face in her hands and pushed him slowly down on her. 'More!' she sighed. 'That'll be what I want from you. More ...'

Later, Jehal watched Zafir dress herself and leave. After she was gone, he stood naked at the window, waiting, wondering if anyone was watching him. The Tower of Air was the tallest and grandest of the palace towers, and Speaker Hyram had set it aside for Zafir as soon as he'd known her purpose in coming to the palace. The floors below were full of servants, a few of them Zafir's but most of them the speaker's. It wouldn't do for Hyram to know whom Zafir had taken to her bed, and yet he stood at the window anyway, daring fate to expose him.

Once he thought Zafir had been gone for long enough, he slipped on a plain tunic and a pair of slightly soiled trousers, and walked out carrying the chamber pot. In the confusion of unfamiliar faces, no one spared him a second glance.

In contrast to the Tower of Air, Jehal's own lodgings were somewhat more modest, almost the meanest that the palace had to offer. Hyram had probably wanted him banished to a leaky hut of mud and straw somewhere outside the city walls, Jehal thought. That would be too overt an insult, but the slight was not lost on him, and he made up for it by being late to Zafir's coronation, loudly bursting into the Glass Cathedral when Hyram was halfway through his tedious speech about dignity and service and the duties of kingship. Kingship, not queenship. Jehal made a mental note to mention that to Zafir once he had her naked again.

Hyram droned on and Jehal picked his nails. The cathedral felt immense and empty. A gaggle of dragon-priests hovered and twittered in the shadows at the back. A few lords and ladies of Hyram's household sat politely, but the only other person who mattered was the potion-maker, dutifully recording the event: Bellepheros, grand master alchemist and First Lord of the Order of the Scales. Jehal watched him and yawned. They could have done all this in ten minutes in Hyram's study with a bottle of fine wine. Oh, but then it wouldn't have been the same. Perhaps flirting with death from both boredom and hypothermia at once somehow gave the event gravitas. He should have brought a cloak, he decided. A thick, warm cloak. And a pillow. As it was, the amusement of watching Hyram shake and stutter his way through his speech would just have to do to keep him awake.

Eventually Hyram was done. Jehal slipped out and watched, waiting for Zafir, already thinking about how he would fulfil her first queenly command. But it was Speaker Hyram who came out first, and walked purposefully towards Jehal.

'G-G-Good   of  you   t-to   eventually   attend,'   he   stuttered.

Every part of him was trembling. Jehal gave him the slightest of bows.

'I'm quite aware that Queen Zafir could not be crowned without at least someone else of royal blood to bear witness, otherwise 1 would not be here at all. Are you cold, Your Highness? There's certainly a chill to the air today. I could get a cloak for you, if you like.'

Hyram spat. 'D-D-Don't play the fool with me, Prince J-Jehal.'

Jehal smiled and touched his forehead. 'Of course, Your Highness. I forgot. Your sickness. It seems to be getting worse. It will be a terrible loss to the realms. All that wisdom. Who among the dragon-kings could possibly take your place?'

'And h-how is your father, Jehal?' Hyram looked like a broken old man with his constant quivering, but there was still fire in his eyes. Jehal bit his lip. Careful, careful. He's not a fool. Not yet.

He tried to look sad. 'His mind, I think, is still as sharp as ever. It is hard to know. Most of the time he's rigid with the paralysis. When the shaking comes and he can actually open his mouth, none of us can understand what he's trying to say. It's a wonder we're still able to feed him. The sickness—'

'Sickness?' Hyram snorted. 'I think you will f-find it is almost taken for granted that you're p-poisoning him.'

Jehal clenched his teeth. 'Then I must be poisoning you as well, Your Highness, for your symptoms are the same as his were in the early days. Yes, it's hard to remember a time when he could still talk and feed himself and fuck women and do everything a dragon-prince's father should be able to do, but I would say your symptoms are exactly the same.' He spat and turned to walk away. 'It's as well your time will soon be done. How pitiful it would be to have a speaker who can't actually speak. And how's your memory, by the way? Are you starting to forget things yet?'

'Jehal.'

Jehal stopped but didn't turn back. 'Your Highness?'

'Queen Aliphera. They say she f-fell from her dragon.'

'So 1 heard.' He turned now, so he could watch Hyram's face.

'I knew Aliphera. She 1-loved the hunt. She rode her d-dragons as well as any man. This notion — it's p-preposterous.'

Jehal shrugged. 'Yes it is, isn't it. But she'd chosen to fly away from her escorts. No one saw what happened, or no one will admit to it.' He laughed. 'You could always ask the dragon.'

'I'm asking you.'

'What are you asking me, Your Highness?'

'D-Did Zafir do it?'

'If that's your question then you should ask her, not me.'

'I d-did. They were my f-first words after I put the crown on her head. D-Did you kill your mother to get this?'

Jehal smirked. 'I imagine that went down very well. If you've suddenly taken to valuing my opinion, the thought did cross my mind. I doubt Zafir murdered Queen Aliphera, though. She may have the ambition to think it, but she lacks the nerve.'

'Y-You, however, do not.'

'Me?' Jehal growled. 'Since it appears I have failed to finish poisoning my own father despite a decade of effort, perhaps I am not as able an assassin as you think. Your Highness.'

'I will send t-truth-seekers to your eyrie. T-To Zafir's as well. B-Bellepheros already has my orders. If you make a-any attempt to interfere with them, I will kn-know you are guilty.'

'Your faith in my character is touching, Your Highness. By all means, send whoever you like, and of course Bellepheros shall have everything he needs put at his disposal. I shall demand that he is as meticulous and thorough as he can be, and when he finds nothing I shall expect you to doubt me no less than you do now. Are you done with me, old man?'

'I-I very much hope so.'

Jehal leaned towards Speaker Hyram and held his gaze. 'What if you're wrong? What if I haven't spent the last few years slowly murdering my own father? What if I've been looking for a cure instead? What if I were to tell you I'd found it?'

For an instant Hyram's eyes faltered. Only for an instant, but Jehal could almost taste the victory. 'Then I look f-forward to seeing him in the s-saddle once more.'

'So do I, Your Highness. So do I.' Jehal walked away, biting his lip, his face stony. When he was sure no one could see, he looked up to the Tower of Air.

'There,' he whispered, as if the wind might somehow carry his words to Zafir. 'Do you think that went well?' He began to giggle and then to laugh until he wept, and after that he didn't know whether it was the laughter or the tears that wouldn't stop.

5

Shezira

 

The snapper pack was already scattering. Shezira picked one of them and yelled at Mistral. Obediently, the dragon wheeled and dived, tucking in his wings and plummeting towards the ground like a falcon. The snapper was going to be too quick, though. It was going to reach the trees before Mistral was in range. Shezira growled softly to herself. This was what she got for riding a war-dragon on a hunt. They were so vast, their shoulders were so broad, their wings so large, that she couldn't even see what she was doing half the time. Unless she dived like this, in which case the wind almost blinded her instead. She squinted at the scattered trees below.

'Fire!' she shouted.

Mistral spread his wings. Shezira found herself hugging scales as the dragon almost stopped in mid-air. She quickly shut the visor on her helm. She heard the roar and felt Mistral quiver, and a wall of heat washed over her. Then Mistral shuddered and lurched as he landed heavily and stumbled. Shezira felt branches and leaves tear at her armour and heard the crack of a tree trunk. The air was hot and filled with the smell of charred wood. When she opened her visor it was to see a swathe of forest floor a hundred yards long burning. The trees around her were blackened; some were broken where Mistral had smashed into them. Shezira couldn't see whether the blast had reached the snapper. Slowly she backed Mistral out of the wreckage.

'You missed him, mother,' shouted Princess Almiri. Her dragon was already on the ground, some fifty yards away, clutching a headless snapper in its front claws.

Shezira instinctively ducked as something huge flew right over her head, so close that she felt the wind of its passing almost lift her out of the saddle. A sooty grey hunting dragon arched up and flew over the forest, so close that its tail slashed the treetops. Again and again, its head darted down and spat out a narrow lance of fire. Then the dragon climbed, turned and came back to land next to Shezira, squeezing into the space between her and Princess Almiri. Its rider took off her helm and waved an angry fist.

'That was my kill, mother!' Princess Jaslyn bellowed and threw her helm away in disgust. 'What do you think you were doing? You flew right into my path! Silence almost ploughed into you and your clumsy behemoth. You should have borrowed one of Almiri's hunters.'

'Height has precedence!' snapped Shezira. She had to shout to make herself heard. Mistral was scratching at a fallen tree, rolling it over. He could smell something.

'The chaser has precedence!' Jaslyn yelled back. Silence folded his wings and took careful steps sideways, until he and Mistral were almost touching. Mistral dropped the tree, shifted and hissed, and Silence hissed back. War-dragons didn't like being crowded. Shezira felt suddenly small. Dragons didn't actually attack riders unless they were commanded. Being accidentally crushed to death, however, was a very different matter.

'I was the chaser!' Shezira tried to calm Mistral down. Jaslyn was right. Mistral wasn't made for this sort of flying, and she should have borrowed a proper hunter.

'Only after you practically barged me out of the air!' Silence was baring his teeth at Mistral now. The difference in size didn't seem to bother him at all. At least being on a war-dragon means I can loo\ down on my daughter while we bicker.

'Did you get the snapper?' shouted Almiri. She'd shuffled her own dragon sideways too, coming close enough to distract Silence. As the eldest of Shezira's daughters and the only one married with a family of her own, Almiri had taken to the role of family peacemaker. This always made Shezira smile, because she remembered a lime when Almiri was every bit as bad as jaslyn.

'Of course I got it!'

All around them, the other dragons were landing on the open ground and the earth trembled as each one came down. At a quick count, Shezira guessed they'd got about a third of the snapper pack, which certainly wouldn't be enough to keep King Valgar happy. Snappers were a menace. Standing up on its back legs, a snapper was half as tall again as a man, twice as fast, and if it got the chance would happily bite your head off. They were cunning, ate anything and everything they could catch, hunted in groups, and weren't averse to slaughtering entire villages. Dragons were by far the best way of keeping them under control, and King Valgar had been holding back from this herd just so they could have this hunt.

Mistral took a few steps towards Silence, barging into him, and growled. Silence hissed again. The dragons were sensing the moods of their riders. Mistral was probably hungry too, and most of the other dragons were eating their first kills now. The scent of blood was in the air, mixed with the sounds of cracking bones and tearing flesh and heavy dragon breathing.

'Would you like to swap, mother?' asked Almiri, still shouting to make herself heard. 'Have a proper mount for the hunt?'

The offer was tempting, but Shezira shook her head. 'It'll be dusk before you're finished here and I need to get back to Valgar's eyrie. I should be keeping an eye on Lystra, in case she does something stupid.'

'You should have let her come.'

'A week before she's supposed to kneel before Jehal? You know what she's like, especially when she's got Jaslyn to goad her on. I want to present her the way she can be, perfect and beautiful, not the way she usually is, saddle sore and covered in bruises. No. It was nice to fly with you for a while, but I should go.'

Almiri smiled. 'It's a pity, though. I would have liked the four of us to fly together one last time.'

The words cut, although Almiri surely hadn't meant them to be cruel. It seemed only yesterday that she'd given Almiri away to King Valgar. Which had been hard, but at least their clans had been intertwined by blood for centuries and their realms were close. Besides, Almiri was the oldest. She was the heir to the Throne of Sand and Stone, and letting her go had been right and proper. And she'd still had Jaslyn and little Lystra.

Somehow, over the years, she'd lost Jaslyn to her dragons; now she was about to lose the last of her daughters to a prince she barely knew, to live in a palace more than a thousand miles away. A necessary arrangement and certainly not without its benefits, but once the marriage was made, Lystra would be a stranger to her. She was going to have to get used to the idea.

Almiri must have seen something of Shezira's thoughts in her face, for she added, 'Once you sit in the Adamantine Palace, you'll be able to summon all of us as often as you like. You can have as many hunts and tournaments as you want. Prince Jehal will have to bring Lystra with him if you tell him to.'

Which was all true, but she couldn't shake the feeling that it would never quite be the same. She sighed. 'There will be a day, Princess. One day. Would you spare Mistral half your carcass? He's restless.'

Half a snapper was little more than a snack for a monster like Mistral, but it seemed to settle his mood. With a pang of regret, Shezira left the hunters to their fun. She turned him on the ground, cumbersome and slow as he was, and then he started to run. That made the other dragons sit up and take notice, for the footfalls of a running war-dragon could shake the earth enough to shatter houses, and it took a lot for a beast like Mistral to take to the air. When he did finally spread his wings and soar into the sky, though, all his ungainliness was gone. Shezira had him circle once above them and tipped a wing to wish them luck. Then she put the mountains and forests to her back and headed out over the plains. She allowed Mistral to set his own pace, and let herself enjoy the feeling of the wind in her hair and the utter sense of being alone. It wasn't often that she had the skies to herself, and yet she had long ago come to realise that that was what she enjoyed most. That was when she was truly free, free to pretend she had no titles, no burdens, no family, no daughters to marry off, no plotting nephews to watch, no subjects to rule, no obligations, no responsibilities ...

Catching herself thinking these thoughts made her laugh. And here I am, set to become the next Speaker of the Realms. Would I really turn my back on that if someone told me I could? Would I really take Mistral and fly away across the Stone Desert to the secret valleys beyond, where no one would know me and no one would find me?

The answer, she knew, was that she wouldn't contemplate it even for a second. Which probably made her a fool, and that in turn made her laugh even more, and by the time she reached Valgar's eyrie, she felt ten years younger.

She'd hoped the feeling would last after she landed, but it didn't. It died at the exact moment that she saw her knight-marshal, Lady Nastria, walking briskly across the scorched earth towards her. Nastria was already half in her armour, as if in a rush to leave, and was waving something in her hand. She was shouting.

'Your Holiness! Queen Aliphera is dead!'

6

Huros

 

Huros knew exactly what was going on, because nothing could happen without him. He'd sat with Eyrie-Master Isentine and explained to Queen Shezira everything about the route they would take to escort Princess Lystra to her wedding. Exactly how many dragons would be flying, exactly where they would be stopping and exactly for how long.

They left King Valgar's eyrie at the crack of dawn. Huros was expecting that, because that had been in his plan. Today was the longest stage of their journey, all the way to the Adamantine Palace. They would stay there for one day, no more and no less, to let the dragons rest. He was quietly looking forward to it. He would spend the time with the highest alchemists in the realms, perhaps even with Master Bellepheros himself. It was an opportunity to advance himself, and this had filled his thoughts until late into the night. Thus he wasn't entirely awake when someone knocked on his door. He stumbled outside while the sun was still creeping over the horizon and checked his potions were all carefully packed. Then he wrapped himself in his thick and deliciously warm flying coat, secured himself to the back of a dragon and started to count the others getting ready around him. By the time he reached twenty, his eyes had grown so heavy that he thought he might rest them for a bit. The counting was rather pointless, after all. He knew exactly which dragons were with them and exactly where they were going.

Others climbed up beside him. He felt the dragon start to run and then launch itself into the air. He had a sleepy look around, and then his eyes closed.

When he woke up two hours later, as his belly reminded him

that he hadn't had any breakfast, he was in the wrong place. The mountains of the Worldspine were too close. More to the point, there should have been some thirty dragons in the skies around him. Instead, he could see the white, two other war-dragons, and that was it.

'Er ... Excuse me?'

There were two men on the war-dragon with him. One was a rider, sitting up above its shoulders. The other one looked like a Scales. Huros furrowed his brow, trying to remember the man's name. Kailin. The one who looked after the white.

'Hey! Scales!'

The Scales turned around and gave Huros a blank look. The rider was too far away to hear them over the wind.

'Scales! Can you hear me?'

The Scales nodded.

'Where are we?'

The Scales shrugged.

'Um, don't you know? Where are the others then?'

The Scales shook his head and shrugged again.

'Well. Oh. Then who does know?'

The Scales tipped his head towards the dragon-knight. Huros rolled his eyes and gave up. Strictly speaking, Scales were subordinate to Huros and the other alchemists, and all belonged to the order. In reality, most Scales lived in a tiny world of their own that seemed to consist of themselves, their dragons and very little else.

His stomach began to rumble. He decided to have one more try. 'Scales! Um. Have you anything to eat?'

The Scales nodded and passed back a hunk of bread. Huros gnawed on it and quietly fumed. Under no circumstances was a squadron of dragons to split without consulting the senior alchemist present. Since Huros was the only alchemist Queen Shezira had deemed fit to bring, that was him. He would have words, he thought grimly. Words, yes. Strong and forthright ones.

They flew for hours, and with each hour, Huros clenched his lists ever tighter. Eventually it occurred to him that Queen Shezira might have changed her plans because of the news of Queen Aliphcra's tragedy. Huros wasn't sure why that should be, but then he hadn't really been paying much attention. He'd had his own plans to worry about. Besides, that didn't change anything. He should have been consulted. Ancestors! He didn't even know where he was any more, except that the peaks of the Worldspine were to the right and there were more mountains to the front. Which meant they were still flying south, away from Outwatch. He furrowed his brow. Or was that the other way round, and the mountains should be on the left?

The pressure on his bladder grew. He pressed his legs together and bit his lip, but eventually he had to give in. Dragon-knights did this all the time, he told himself, and he started to undo the straps that held him onto the dragon. Even the Scales had calmly stood up, relieved himself into a bottle and strapped himself back in again. Except when Huros stood up, the wind buffeted him and almost knocked him over, and he was so terrified that he couldn't go. The pressure turned gradually into pain, and by the time they landed, it was so excruciating that Huros was in no fit slate to have words with anyone. He didn't waste any time to see where he was, but stumbled and staggered away towards the nearest tree.

Before he was done, his dragon and its rider were already taking off again, the beast lumbering away and flapping its wings, accelerating up to a speed where it could lift itself off the ground. For one terrifying heartbeat Huros thought he'd been abandoned; then he saw the Scales and a pair of strange-looking soldiers, and when he looked up, the other dragons were there, still in the air overhead. The Scales was sitting by the edge of a wide open stretch of jumbled rocks, next to a pile of boxes and sacks that must have come from the dragon-riders. Here and there sparkling ribbons of bubbling water criss-crossed and threaded their way between the stones and among streaks and strands of silvery sand. Strips of ragged grass, perhaps a stone's throw across, lined the river's course before the forest trees took hold.

The  two  soldiers  walked  slowly  towards  him.  They  were carrying some strange contraption between them. From the way they were walking, it was awfully heavy. Huros had a moment to wonder where the queen's precious white dragon had gone, when it shot through the air straight over his head, so close that the tree beside him shook and the alchemist was almost lifted off his feet into the dragon's wake. He clung on to a branch. By the time he'd recovered, the dragon was rolling on its back in the river bed next to the Scales, flapping and splashing its wings. Its rider was standing nearby, soaking wet, waving his arms and shouting furiously at the Scales.

The two soldiers shouted something as well and shook their fists, then carried on with what they were doing. Huros waited until they were close, and then stepped out of the trees. 'You're not dragon-knights.' Both soldiers had longbows slung over their backs. The bows were white and made of dragonbone. Precious things. The alchemist wondered where they'd got them.

The soldiers looked at him. They exchanged a glance and seemed to smirk. 'Clever of you to notice,' said the taller of the two. 'Was it the fact that we're not wearing several tons of dragonscale that gave it away, or that we're not sitting around and picking our noses?'

'We're sell-swords,' said the other one.

The tall one nodded. 'That's right. Currently we've sold them to your knight-marshal.'

'They don't come cheap, either.' The shorter one gave Huros a nasty grin. 'Our swords are long and sharp and very hard.' He definitely smirked.

'Lady Nastria?' Huros frowned. The thought of her sent a jolt through him. She'd given him a bottle of something strange, and he hadn't even looked at it. He was supposed to tell her what it was.

'If that's what her name is.'

The tall one belched loudly. 'That's the one. I'm Sollos. This is my cousin, Kemir. Since you're not the Scales, you must be the alchemist.'

'Huros,' said Huros.

'Well then, Huros the alchemist, make yourself useful. There's half a ton of luggage down there by the river. We'd quite like to move it up into the trees before the heavy brigade come back.' The sell-sword made a rude gesture towards the rider who was still standing over the Scales, waving his arms and shouting. 'I don't imagine he'll be much help.'

'That was pretty good, though.' The short one grinned again. Kemir. 'The white one forgot she had a rider for a moment there. If he'd been any slower jumping clear when she rolled ...' He drew his finger across his throat. 'Pity, really. I would have pissed myself. Still, we don't want all our luggage crushed, do we.'

Huros shook himself. Words, he reminded himself. He was going to have words with someone. And these two were very rude. And he was Master Huros, thank you very much. They looked a bit big, though. And armed. He bit his tongue. 'Um. Of course. Although ... Excuse me, but where have the rest of the dragons gone, exactly?'

'Their riders have taken them hunting,' said the tall one. Sollos. He gave Huros a pitying look and shook his head.

'For food,' added Kemir. Yes. When the knights came back, Huros would have words about these two as well. What are they even doing here?

'Can't have them getting hungry. Never know, they might set their minds to snacking on alchemists.' The two sell-swords were leering and shaking their heads. Every day Huros spent at least some of his time with ravenous monsters who could swallow him in a blink, kept only in check by their training and by the subtle potions that he dripped into their drinking troughs. These two, though, made him far more nervous that any dragon ever had.

'Um. Clearly. I meant the other ones. The rest of them. Where's the queen?'

The sell-swords looked at each other and shrugged. 'Keep an eye on the Scales,' said Sollos. 'That's what we were told. We keep an eye on the riders too. In case any of them get any bad ideas about stealing the queen's dragons.' He grinned and stuck out his bottom lip. 'Where the rest of them went...' He shrugged. 'Don't know, don't care. A clever man might hazard a guess that they flew off to the Adamantine Palace, just like they were supposed to. But you're an alchemist, so I suppose that must mean you're a clever man, and you'd already thought of that.'

'Well... But why ... why didn't we?'

The tall one sniggered. 'I don't know. Maybe some unsettling news came of late. Maybe your queen doesn't trust your speaker further than she could throw him. I hear he's grown quite large of late. Or maybe we don't know shit.' The sell-swords looked at each other again.

'Did anyone say anything about keeping an eye on alchemists?' asked the short one. The tall one shook his head. Sollos, Huros reminded himself again. His name was Sollos. He seemed to be the one in charge.

'I don't think so.'

'No, I didn't think so either.'

Sollos smiled what was possibly the most menacing smile Huros had ever seen. 'We're just sell-swords. We do as we're told and go where we're sent. No one gives us reasons, and we don't ask for them. Why don't you bother that rider over there, once he's finished laying into your Scales. I'm sure he'll know more than us. As long as you don't expect him to help with the luggage. In the meantime do you think you might help us? I believe some of it could be yours.'

The short one nodded sagely. 'It's the stuff at the bottom, I think. It might have been a bit squashed. Crushed even.' He looked at the other sell-sword. 'Come to think of it, did you see something leaking out of one of those boxes?'

His potions!

Huros ran towards the river as fast as his legs would carry him. He didn't need to look back to know that the sell-swords were laughing at him.

A shadow crossed the sun. Huros stopped and looked up. There were dragons in the sky, diving towards the river. Four of them, which was at least one dragon more than there should have been. And they were hunting dragons, not war-dragons, which meant...

The lead dragon opened its mouth, and the river exploded in fire.

7

The Glass Cathedral

 

Being alone on Mistral's back was one of the nice things about being queen. All the dragon-knights had to share their mounts with the gaggle of courtiers from her palace, the mob of extra hedge-knights that Lady Nastria insisted on bringing and of course the alchemists and the Scales from the eyrie. Not to mention all the luggage.

Shezira sighed. Everything seemed so small from up in the sky. Over her shoulder, to the west of the realms, the volcanic Worldspine mountains ran from the sea to the desert and, as far as Shezira knew, on to the ends of the world. North of Shezira's eyrie, the dragon lands faded into the trackless Deserts of Sand, Stone and Salt. At the opposite end of the realms, King Tyan's capital was built on the shore of the endless Sea of Storms. When she stood among the mountains or in the emptiness of the desert, everything seemed so unimaginably vast. Yet from up here it was all nothing.

'I hear whispers of lands across the seas,' she whispered to Mistral. 'So do you suppose those are King Tyan's secrets, just like the mystery of what lies beyond the Desert of Stone is ours, eh?'

She sighed again and tried to peer around Mistral's enormous head. Somewhere down there ...

South of King Valgar's eyrie the peaks of the Purple Spur reached out into the heart of the dragon realms. Nestled in their far foothills, surrounded by the waters of the Mirror Lakes, lay the Adamantine Palace. Shezira had landed among its ramparts often enough; still, even now, the first sight of it, gleaming and sparkling like distant treasure in the summer sun, was enough to make her heart skip a beat whenever she saw it.

There! A twinkle, right at the foot of the last mountain. And sure enough a thrill ran through her, as though she was twenty years younger.

Sparkle it might, she thought to herself. For it was a treasure. It was a prize, a symbol of power. It was a place where marriages were brokered and alliances sealed, where kings and queens plotted their paths to greatness. It was the centre, the beating heart of the realms.

Above all, it would be hers. Soon.

She led her flight to circle around the palace eyrie, waiting for the signal to land. She'd forgotten how immense it all was.

'Do you like it?' She patted Mistral on the neck.

A gout of fire from below told her they were ready. She let Mistral plunge through the air. Like most dragons, he seemed to like that, dropping like a stone from among the clouds. Every time, she was sure he'd misjudge and they'd smash into the stone, but always, just as she screwed up her face and closed her eyes, there would be a clap of thunder as he spread his wings. The force crushed the air out of her lungs and made the ground quiver. She loved it.

As she slid from Mistral's shoulder, Hyram was there to greet her. His shaking, she noticed, had become much worse over the months since she'd last seen him.

'Y-You're going to h-have an accident one d-day.'

It was hard not to grin, but the business of being queen was a serious one, and moments of levity were strictly out of the question. In public at least. She bowed. Hyram held out a trembling hand and Shezira kissed the ring on his middle finger. Her ring, soon.

'Speaker Hyram. It is a delight to be in your presence again.'

He nodded brusquely and waved over some of his attendants. He and Shezira walked in silence away from the eyrie, the attendants following. Mouth-watering words gushed from their lips, describing the pleasures of the mind and of the flesh that awaited her, but Shezira barely heard them. It should be Hyram telling me these things, not his courtiers. Has the sickness become so bad that it s robbing him of his speech? How long before he can t even walk any more?

Carriages were waiting to take them to the palace. Then they had to wait for Jaslyn and Lystra and Lady Nastria and the other riders Shezira had brought with her, and after that there were endless rituals and formalities to observe, and then the obligatory feast to honour guests, none of which interested Shezira at all. At least Hyram had put some effort into it. Tiny alchemical lamps festooned the vast spaces of the Chamber of Audience. There were hundreds of them, thousands, strung out on lines like little glow-worms, hundreds more studding the vaults of the ceiling like stars so that it seemed they were feasting outside under the sky. Statues surrounded them, larger than life, silent guardians carved in granite. All the speakers who had ever ruled the realms, watching over them. Above them, marble dragon heads reached out from the walls, peering down from the shadows, sullen and brooding. Little lamps were hidden in their mouths to make them glow. As they entered, voices hushed to whispers or stopped altogether, awed by the Speaker's hall. Then the feast began, the noise resumed and the hall filled with servants running to and fro with cups of wine, platters of roasted meat, huge pies and colourful glazed pastries twisted into the shapes of dragons and men.

An adequate effort.

She sat or stood next to Hyram for the entire time, yet she couldn't talk to him. At least not about what she wanted. At the end of the feast, when Hyram stood up and wobbled and declared that he was retiring to his bed, Shezira watched him go, then slipped away to follow him. The Hyram she remembered would almost always slip away to bed early after a feast, it was simply a question of whose bed. This time, though, as she watched, he staggered and meandered his way towards the Glass Cathedral. She followed him inside, half expecting to find him locked in an embrace with some dragon-priestess. Instead, she found him prostrate at prayer.

She knelt beside him at the altar and looked up at the face of the dragon glaring down at them. Hyram stank of wine.

'I should thank you for your hospitality,' she said. Hyram didn't seem to hear her. She shivered. Somehow, the Glass Cathedral was always cold.

'This p-place is a lie,' said Hyram suddenly.

'What?'

'The G-Glass Cathedral. It's a lie.' He turned to look at her. His face was flushed and he was either about to burst out laughing or fall about weeping.

'Are you drunk?'

'It makes the t-tremors better. Three bottles of wine and I c-can almost believe I am well again.'

Shezira raised an eyebrow. It was true that Hyram didn't seem to be shaking as badly now, but he couldn't keep his eyes focused on her while he was talking, either. 'Are you sure that's not the wine, lying to you?'

'Does it matter?'

'I suppose not.'

Hyram nodded, as though that was the end of their conversation. He lifted his face towards the stone dragon above them, closed his eyes and sighed. 'Please ...'

Shezira shifted uncomfortably. This wasn't the Hyram she remembered at all, and she wasn't quite sure what to do with him, except maybe help him up and show him to his bed.

He started to climb unsteadily to his feet. Instinct made her offer a hand to help him, but he shied away from her as though she'd offered him a snake by mistake.

'I wouldn't even be here i-if my brother ... if Antros hadn't died. It should have been Antros who got this place. You and him. H-He was supposed to be the new speaker, not me. That was the arrangement. I-I would have inherited my father's throne, not my cousin Sirion. I would have been a king. I was going to m-marry Aliphera. Did you know that?'

Aliphera? Shezira shook herself. She hadn't the first idea what Hyram was talking about. Did he even know what he was saying? She got up. 'You are drunk. Let us talk in the morning instead.'

'It had to be one of us, but everyone liked  A Antros better, didn't they. Except you. And Aliphera.' He looked at her suddenly. 'I never quite worked out whether y-you had Antros killed or whether it really was an accident.'

She slapped him. He staggered back and fell over. 'You are too drunk, Hyram. You forget yourself.'

Hyram wiped his face and picked himself slowly to his feet. 'You liked Aliphera too.'

'I respected her.'

'Well I l-liked her. I was going to marry her once. But then ...' His face grew distant. For a moment Shezira thought Hyram was simply going to fall asleep in front of her. 'Things happened. It would have b-been a good match, though. She was always the sensible one from that lot in the south. If I had married her, I'd have to have made her s-speaker after me, though, wouldn't I? And that wasn't the arrangement. S-So I did what I was supposed to do. I will honour the p-pact. That's what you c-came here to ask, isn't it?'

Shezira sighed. 'I came here to pay my respects to the Speaker of the Realms. I did not expect to find myself in a midnight tryst with a drunkard.'

Hyram peered at her. 'Promise m-me something.'

'Promise you what?'

'Promise m-me the truth. Tell me one thing, and I will p-promise that you will have this palace after me.'

'I am not, by habit, a liar, Hyram.'

'When Antros died, w-was it you who cut his harness?'

Shezira clenched her fists. 'Everyone who was there saw what happened. We were hunting snappers, as we often do. When we saw the pack, several of the dragons dived. His went with them. He always wore his harness too loose, and on that day, he wore it much too loose. He fell. He shouldn't have, but he did, and it wasn't the first time either. For some reason, his legbreaker rope was too long. It caught him all right, but he ended up hanging underneath his dragon. He was dragged along the ground and through the trees for about a mile before we could make his mount come to ground. I've never seen a dragon so agitated. Antros was

dead when we reached him. It all happened in front of a dozen witnesses. No one pushed him and no one cut his harness.'

Hyram gave her a reproachful look. 'You n-never liked him, though.'

'Oh, I was young and he was well into his middle years!' Shezira stamped her foot. 'He was going to be the next speaker one day. He'd already had one wife and she hadn't given him any children. That's what he wanted me for. Heirs. I was a dutiful wife, Hyram, and he was a dutiful husband. I was in awe of him. I didn't have time to like him.' She sighed. 'It might have been a little different if I'd given him a son, but all I gave him were daughters, one after another. He never even saw Lystra.'

'Hmmm.' Hyram suddenly sat down. He sounded sad. 'No sons for Antros, no s-sons for me. The end of our line.'

'You can still sire sons.'

The speaker looked up at her, shaking. Shezira couldn't tell whether he was laughing or sobbing. 'L-Look at me, woman. Who would have me? Would you have me? You should have done. By rights, you sh-should have. After Antros was gone, you should have married me in his p-place.'

Shezira sighed. 'Yes. But my childbearing ended with Lystra, as you were so keen to point out.' She looked down at Hyram and shook her head. Not the man she remembered. Not the man she wanted to remember. The old Hyram had reminded her of her dead husband. This one ... She didn't know whether to despise him or pity him. She turned away. 'Besides, you blamed me for Antros. You still do. Somewhere in your heart, you think I had a hand in it.'

When Hyram spoke again, his words were so quiet that Shezira almost didn't hear them. ' Aliphera f-fell off her dragon too.'

She laughed. 'That's ridiculous.'

'If Antros could f-fall off, why not her?'

'Antros was arrogant. Aliphera was always meticulously careful.'

'I've sent B-Bellepheros to King T-Tyan's eyrie to find out.' He grimaced. 'Yes, th-that's where it happened, and that's where

you're g-going. So I think I should w-warn you to have a care. P-People die around the Viper.'

'The Viper?'

'Prince Jehal. H-He's a snake, you see. A p-poisonous snake. A Viper.'

'Then I will be very careful. Some people seem to think he's poisoning his own father. Could that be true, do you think?'

'W-Why don't you find out? Because I'd very much 1-like to know. A g-gift for me.' He stood up and spread out his arms. 'In exchange for all this.'

'It's cold in here,' said Shezira. She was tired, and seeing Hyram like this had killed all the joy that the palace had given her. 'I shall retire. I will think on what you've said.'

'I-I remember the first time I came here. I thought the Glass Cathedral would be a palace of light and colour. But it isn't. It's old, cold dead stone, its skin burned glassy by dragon fire so long ago that no one can even remember how it happened.'

Shezira turned slowly away. 'Go to bed, Hyram. Get some sleep.' She walked away.

Hyram stayed where he was, staring up at the stone face of the dragon altar.

'Th-This place is a lie,' he said again.

8

The Attack

 

A torrent of flames poured from the sky, swallowing the white dragon and her Scales in its fury. The river waters steamed. Stones cracked in the heat. Huros stood stock still. He was fifty, sixty, maybe seventy yards away. A little part of him that wasn't paralysed with fear noted that this was too close. At the last instant he turned his face away, as a wall of hot air and steam seared his skin and slapped him back towards the woods. He caught a glimpse, as he did, of the stranded rider, the one who'd been shouting at the Scales, catapulted into the air, snatched from the ground by the dragon's tail. Of the Scales himself, there was no sign.

'Run! Get under the trees.'

The first of the attacking dragons was wheeling away. As Huros watched, it flipped the rider held in its tail high into the sky. Huros didn't stop to see where the man came down; a second dragon was already diving in. He caught a glimpse of the white, curled up amid the steaming stones, its wings spread over its head like a tent, shielding itself from the fire. When he looked at his hands, the skin on the back of them was bright red. It was already starting to sting. He could smell singed hair. His hair.

The second dragon opened its mouth. Huros didn't stay to watch, but turned and ran, hunching his shoulders, trying to shrink into his coat. Another blast of heat punched him in the back. Where his skin was already burned, his nerves shrieked with agony. Up in the sky, when he spared a glance that way, several more dragons were fighting.

'Come on! Come on!' The two sell-swords were waiting for him at the edge of the trees.

'What? What?' gasped Huros. The pain was coming now. He'd

had burns before. Every alchemist had had burns. The backs of his hands, the side of his face and neck. He tried to tell himself they weren't deep, and that was what mattered. The skin would blister and peel, but it would heal ...

It didn't work. The pain was excruciating. His hands were the worst. They felt as though they were still on fire.

The sell-swords took hold of him by his arms and ran, almost carrying him away into the trees. A minute ago they'd been so cocksure. Now they were white with fear. Seeing that made Huros's own terror recede, just enough that he could start to think for himself again.

We're being attacked by dragon-riders. Why on earth ... ? Who? Who would do this?

This was war. When the queen found out, there would be war. Irredeemable, irrevocable. Unless ... Unless there were no witnesses to testify to the attack.

He shook the sell-swords off and started to really run, deeper and deeper into the forest. Another blast of hot air caught him from behind, weaker this time. He caught a whiff of smoke. We're going to die! They're going to burn us!

'Stop! Stop!'

One of the sell-swords grabbed him by the arm.

Huros shook him off. 'Why? We have to run. They're going to kill us!' Oh gods, oh gods, it hurts ...

'Look behind you.'

Huros looked. Back towards the river the forest was full of smoke. He could see flames flickering.

'See. We're far enough into the trees. The dragon fire can't reach us now.'

Huros shook his head. Every instinct he had said run, run and keep running until he dropped.

The sell-swords looked at each other. We should scatter,' said Kemir. 'Harder for them to hunt down three of us if we scatter.' Somewhere far overhead, lost behind the canopy of leaves, dragons shrieked and screamed.

Sollos nodded. 'Fire from above. That's how they flush their prey out into the open. Did you see how many of them there were?'

Kemir shrugged. 'Do you think they'll send men into the trees to track us?'

'Doubt it. But they might.'

Huros felt himself start to panic again. Both of the sell-swords were looking at him. What did he know about hunting on dragon-back? Not much. Did snappers always run in a straight line when they reached the trees? Was that how the hunters caught them? 'But, but... It'll be dark soon.'

'Yes. Be thankful. It makes us harder to find.'

'Dragons see heat,' blurted Huros. He screwed up his face. His hands, they were the worst. He'd have given anything to run back to the river and drench them in blissful cold running water.

The sell-swords looked at each other again. 'Mud,' said Kemir. 'Good for burns.' He pointed higher up the valley. 'I'll go that way. See if I can't lay a false trail or two.'

Sollos nodded. He looked at Huros. 'You make your way deeper into the trees. I'll go downriver. Keep yourself hidden, that's the important thing. Anyone comes after us on foot, we can deal with them. Once it's dark, they won't be able to find you if you keep still and you keep quiet. We'll find you tomorrow, after they're gone. A mile up the river. The way Kemir's going.'

Huros opened his mouth to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. No, no! Don't! Let me come with you! But the sell-swords were already turning away. He watched, struck dumb, as they left him standing there. He wanted to cry. His hands, his beautiful hands ...

It's only pain, he told himself. There's no lasting damage.

Still ...

He began to run. He had no idea whether he was going in the right direction, only that it wasn't the same way as either of the sell-swords. Kemir was right. Mud. Thick cool slimy mud. That's what he should think about. Mud was good for burns. How did the sell-sword know that? Stupid question — there were dragons in his life, so of course he knew.

He tried not to think about the dragons who might be circling overhead, or the riders who might be racing through the trees in pursuit. When he was out of breath, he stopped running and rested against a tree, careful not to scrape his burns on its bark. The forest was silent. He thought about that for a while, and decided it was a good thing. He had no idea where he was, but with a bit of luck neither did anyone else. It was getting dark too. He tried not to think about wolves and snappers and other monsters that might sniff him out. Shelter, that was what he needed. Shelter and water. Food as well, but that was probably too much to ask for.

Huros made himself think about all these things until his head spun, and then he made himself think about them some more. They were a fragile and uncertain armour, but they just about kept the horror at bay. When they failed, he dug his fingernails into the burned skin of his hands until the pain became so excruciating that it overwhelmed everything.

Stay alive ...

By the time the light failed and it became too dark for him to see, he'd found himself a place to shelter, nestled into the hollow of a giant tree. He tried to sleep. When that didn't work, he tried telling himself that it was summer, that the nights were short and warm, even here in the foothills of the Worldspine, that the sun would rise before long. He'd make his way back to the river, the sell-swords would be there, the queen and her riders would return, and everything would be fine.

Halfway through the night, it started to rain.

9

The Knight-Marshal

 

Lady Nastria, knight-marshal and mistress of Queen Shezira's dragon-riders, glanced up and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She saw what she always saw. A short, mouse-haired, nondescript rider who shouldn't have amounted to anything much but who found herself knight-marshal to the most powerful queen in the realms. An enigma. Sometimes even she didn't know who she truly was.

Today, though, if she was an enigma, she was an irritated one. She was having trouble with her boots. However much she stamped her feet, they were never quite comfortable. It was as if, overnight, they didn't fit any more.

'So? Did he or didn't he?' Queen Shezira sat lounging in a corner of the knight-marshal's robing room. She looked distant, Nastria thought. Distracted.

'Short answer: I don't know.' There. Finally one heel slipped into place. One down, one to go. 'If he did, he was keeping it well hidden.'

'We might have been wrong about Speaker Hyram. He's not himself any more. Perhaps we should have brought the white with us for him to see before Jehal gets her.'

Lady Nastria snorted. 'Holiness, Hyram hates Prince Jehal. He's also petty-minded and vindictive. You sent the white across the Purple Spur because if you'd brought her to the Adamantine Eyrie, he'd have found a way to ruin her, just out of spite.'

'I don't think Lystra or Jaslyn thought much of our speaker either.' No. They were both too busy making eyes at Valmeyan's ambassador,  Prince Tichane.   When they weren't giggling at that

vacuous Prince Tyrin and his brothers. Who, ancestors help us, will doubtless be waiting for us in Furymouth in a few days.

'There's not much to think, Your Holiness, not any more. He was a strong man once. Not exactly a good one, not even a fair one or a just one, but strong enough to exert his will. He's not even that any more. The realms will breathe a sigh of relief when you take his place.'

Shezira got up and started to pace. 'The Hyram I remember, back when we were all a lot younger, he would have mated one of his males to my white while we were sleeping. Oh, he'd have apologised and made some gesture of penitence, but he'd claim the eggs, if there were any, you can be sure of that. But he's not that man any more. If you had seen him last night, you would know that.'

'From the sound of things it's as well I didn't. I might have been compelled to put him out of his misery there and then. Got it!' Nastria took a deep breath and sighed, as the second riding boot finally slipped around her foot. 'No, I think you were wise, my queen, not to bring Jehal's gift here. I didn't uncover anything in Hyram's eyrie to damn him, but still ... I dare say Prince Jehal would have been extremely put out if his wedding present had been spoiled.' She wrinkled her nose and smirked. 'All I found were whispers that Hyram's acquired a fondness for little boys of late. They say that no one's seen him with a woman for months and that his pot-boys keep going missing.'

The queen sighed, and Nastria frowned. Shezira wasn't herself this morning. She was pensive and troubled, and all because Speaker Hyram might actually be dying at last.

'Do you think I should have married again, after Antros?'

'No!' Nastria turned away quickly before the queen could look at her and fumbled with a buckle.

No. I suppose not. Pointless really.' Then Shezira laughed and pointed to the door, and the two of them walked, and then rode in silence to Speaker Hyram's eyrie.

'It's a good eyrie, this one,' muttered the queen as they dismounted. 'I'll enjoy having it for my time.'

'I prefer Outwatch, Your Holiness,' said Nastria, but Shezira was already walking away, seeking out Mistral and her daughters, leaving Nastria on her own.

Which hardly bothered her at all. Being alone was what she did best.

Later, when they were all high in the sky, riding their dragons with the Adamantine Palace behind them, soaring with the thermals rising over the Purple Spur peaks on their way to rendezvous with Jehal's white and her little escort, Nastria wondered about a certain pair of sell-swords, and how well they took to being alone. Probably not so well at all, she thought.

A few hours flight was enough to take them around the south side of the Purple Spur peaks to Drotan's Top, a dome-shaped hill with a flat crest big enough to land a whole eyrie full of dragons. Drotan's Top marked the end of the Adamantine Palace's domain. To the west the land grew ever more rugged, rising up into the Worldspine and the rule of Valmeyan, the King of the Crags. To the south stretched the realm of the Harvest Throne, of Queen Aliphera.

No, Nastria reminded herself. Queen Zafir now.

Drotan's Top wasn't exactly an eyrie, but Speaker Hyram had built a small stronghold there with some animal pens. The hunting was supposed to be superb in these parts. As soon as Nastria had seen her mount was well cared for, she went looking for the queen. She knew exactly where to go. Hyram had built a lookout tower on the north side of the Top, where the landscape swept sharply down into the cavernous basin of the Fury River valley, and then up again to the Purple Spur peaks, a dozen or more miles away. Shezira was there, looking out over the valley, eyes fixed firmly to the north.

'I knew I'd find you here.' Nastria stood beside her queen. 'Looking for your white, Your Holiness?'

'Of course.'

'They have to fly up over the mountains. They have a much harder day of it than us today.'

'I know. And yes, I know they probably won't be here for

hours. But still I want to look. I'm afraid I shall be poor company until I see my precious white, safe and sound.'

Nastria allowed herself a secret smile while the queen couldn't see her face. 'I'm a little surprised you're not on Mistral's back and flying out to meet them.'

Shezira snorted. 'We both know where that leads. The sky is immense; we fly along different valleys, around different mountains, never seeing one another. Everyone gets lost. No. I'll bear the waiting. Badly, mind you, but I'll bear it.'

'Your Holiness, may I speak with you about Queen Aliphera?'

'If you must. I had invited her to come here and hunt with us before we flew on to be guests at The Pinnacles.' She frowned. 'It's a shame she's gone. I wondered if her daughter might come instead. The new queen. Which one is the older?'

'Zafir, Your Holiness.'

'Yes.' Shezira smiled. 'Another queen who could only make daughters. All those kings out there must have thought we had a secret conspiracy between us. This Zafir. I've met her, but that was years ago. She and her sister seemed rather bland. What do you know about her?'

'No more than you do, Your Holiness.'

'Really, Knight-Marshal?' Shezira raised an eyebrow. 'That's very unusual for you.'

Nastria felt herself redden. 'We should send a rider, Your Holiness, to the new queen's eyrie. We should ask them for her blessing for our journey. If we send a dragon right away, it will delay us here another day. If we wait until the morning, it will be two days before we hear a reply.'

The queen nodded. 'Make it so. Send Hyrkallan. He's suitable, and he's been chafing at the bit to let his hunting dragon off its reins. Mistral doesn't fly fast enough for his liking.'

The tone of the queen's words told Nastria that she was dismissed. She bit her lip. At the door she hesitated. 'I could stay, if you wish, Your Holiness. We have a few hours yet.'

Shezira shook her head. 'No, Knight-Marshal. Let me alone a while. I like it here. It reminds me of flying, with all this space around me; and I want to be the first to see my white coming in. Besides, don't you have a hundred and one things to do?'

'Only one, Your Holiness.' Nastria smiled sadly as she left. 'Only to serve my queen.'

10

The Ash Dragon

 

Sollos spent the night snuggled up inside a huge hollow log. He'd covered himself in leaf mould to keep warm, and in the end he'd slept surprisingly well, even after it started to rain. No one had come after him, and when he woke up, it didn't take him long to convince himself that all the dragons were gone. He made his way cautiously back to the river in case any of Queen Shezira's riders had survived, but all he found were the charred remains of the luggage. The white was gone, no one else was there, even the body of the Scales was missing. Washed away in the river? he wondered. But while the river was wide, the water was only a few inches deep, and peppered with sandbars and stones.

Maybe the Scales didn't die after all.

He shrugged, washed and drank, and then, more in hope than expectation, rummaged through what was left of their supplies in case something edible had survived.

'Gotcha!'

Sollos almost jumped out of his skin. Kemir was standing right behind him.

'Anything that looks like breakfast left in there?'

'No.' Sollos gave Kemir a glare. 'Burned to the core.'

'They really went for that white dragon, didn't they?'

'Whoever they were.'

Kemir shrugged. 'Some other bunch of lords on dragons. Can't tell them apart myself

'It matters.' Sollos sighed. 'We're supposed to notice that sort of thing.'

'Well I didn't see any colours, if that helps.'

Sollos gave him a sour look. 'Not really. Did you see what happened to the white dragon?'

'I saw it take to the air after the first couple of flamestrikes. I didn't hang around to see where it went.'

'South. It went south.'

'Took what was left of its Scales with it too.'

'Did it?' Sollos blinked in surprise.

'Hanging from one of its claws. Maybe it was hungry. It hadn't fed, after all. He must have been dead. He was right in the middle of that first blast.'

Sollos sighed. That explained why he hadn't found the remains of the Scales here. 'We shouldn't stay out here. If they come back, this is the first place they'll look.'

'It's the first place Queen Shezira will look too.'

Sollos thought about this, trying to work out how soon the queen would realise that her precious white dragon was missing. 'It'll be tomorrow before anyone comes looking for us. Anyone friendly, that is. Anyway, we ought to try and find that alchemist.'

Kemir looked truly surprised. 'Really? Do you actually think he's still alive?'

Sollos shrugged. 'He might be. You have something better to do?'

They walked in silence up the valley, staying close to the treeline and scanning the skies, until Sollos decided they'd covered a mile. For most of the morning he wandered up and down, calling out as loudly as he dared. The alchemist never appeared. In the end he gave up. For a brief moment he wondered whether it had been right to let the alchemist go off on his own. No one had come in pursuit, despite his fears. They could have stayed together. The man had been wounded too.

No, he decided. Kemir would tell him that when dragons came, it was every man for himself, and the best thing they could have done was to scatter. Kemir would tell him exactly that, and Kemir would be right. He put the alchemist out of his mind.

When he came back, he found Kemir sat against a tree. Next

to him was something large and furry, something shaped vaguely like a rat, except it was the size of a small deer.

Kemir grinned. 'Lunch,' he said. 'Do you think we could start a fire?'

'Absolutely not.' On a clear day like this a plume of smoke would be visible for miles.

'Well you're no fun at all today. They're not coming back. You never know, your alchemist might see it. He's probably only lost.'

Sollos shook his head. 'Tomorrow. By then the queen might be looking for us. Then we'll have a fire.'

Kemir shrugged and started to hack at the carcass. Raw meat was better than no meat at all. They had the river for drinking water. All in all Sollos thought he could come to like being out here, if he didn't have to constantly scan the skies.

Yes. And there's the rub, remember?

He got up and found things to do to fill the time, and eventually he splashed back down the river to the remains of their supplies, in case he'd missed something.

He had. The boxes and bags piled up by the river were all still ruined, and there wasn't a thing he could see to salvage, but when he turned away and let his eyes scan high up the sloping sides of the valley he saw what he'd missed. A great black scar, scratched through the trees. Before, in the light of the early morning, that side of the valley had been in shadow. Now the sun was high overhead, the wound in the forest was obvious.

He blinked and stared, and then looked again, and when he was quite sure, he raced back to Kemir and dragged him to come and look as well.

'There!'

Kemir sucked in air between his teeth. 'Is that what I think it is?'

'That's not a flamestrike.'

Kemir shook his head. 'No. Too big.'

'Much too big.'

'You think there's a dead dragon up there, don't you?'

Very slowly, Sollos nodded. 'Only one way to find out.' 'We've got about four hours of daylight left. Do you think we can get up there in time?'

'No. But we can get a lot closer than we are now.' They looked at each other and shared a grin. A dead dragon meant dragonscale. Dragonscale meant gold, buckets of it, far more than Queen Shezira's knight-marshal had ever put in their pockets. Suddenly they were simple soldiers again. Simple soldiers out to make their fortune.

(letting there took them the rest of that day and most of the following morning. The smell led them too it in the end, the stink of burned wood laced with something else, something sweet and fleshy. The dragon was there, tangled among the trees it had shattered in its fall. Its wings were twisted and broken, but most of it was intact and still so warm that Sollos could feel the heat of it pushing at him through the air. Here and there its scales were black with soot. Its eyes had already turned to charcoal. Tiny swirls of steam or smoke still curled out of its mouth and nose.

Kcmir pulled out a knife, ran up to its flanks, touched the scales and then jumped away yelping.

'Bugger me! Ow! It's hot! Really hot.'

There was the slightest sound from underneath one of the dragon's broken wings. Instantly, Sollos had his bow and an arrow at the ready.

'Who's there?'

Slowly, a streaky black figure emerged. For several seconds Sollos stared. Then the man wiped some of the soot off his face, and Sollos breathed out. The alchemist.

'Lady Nastria's sell-swords.' The alchemist slumped to his knees. 'Thank the flames. I got ... Um. I got lost, you see. And then it started to rain, and I was cold and I couldn't sleep, so I started to climb up, looking for somewhere dry. I saw the flicker of the flames up the mountain through the trees. Well, I knew it must have been a dragon come down during the battle to still be burning. Which meant it would be warm and there would be

shelter, you see, so when the sun came up I came here instead of going to the river. Um. Sorry if I caused you any trouble. How did you find me ?'

'We didn't,' said Kemir, and he pointed to the dead dragon. 'We found this. You just happened to be here, but since you are, maybe you'd like to be helpful. You see, I'd quite like to take some of the scales off this dragon. Think of it as a bonus for rescuing the queen's alchemist.'

Huros shook his head. 'You can't. Not yet. It's not hot enough yet.'

Sollos watched Kemir frown. 'It's blistering. You could cook food on it.'

'Um. Yes. Actually, do you have any? I'm a bit ... Well, I haven't eaten anything since ... Since you know.'

Kemir moved sharply towards the alchemist. He still held his knife. 'Listen, you! I want some of these scales. You can have some too. Plenty for everyone. You know about dragons, so you tell me how to get them. I know about knives, and I'm going to use this one. It can be on you or it can be on the dragon.'

Which was as bald a threat as they came, Sollos thought, but the alchemist didn't seem to get it. 'You can't,' he said. 'You simply can t.

'Why the fuck not?'

'It's not hot enough. It's only been dead for a day and a half. It's started to burn up from the inside now, but it takes days for the skin to char. Come back in a couple of weeks with a heavy hammer. You'll be able to smash the poor thing up into pieces then. Underneath the scales it'll be nothing but ash. If you've got a cleaver that's sharp enough and heavy enough, you could have a go at getting the bones out of the wings, I suppose. I don't think you'll get very far with a knife, though.'

'A couple of weeks?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'But the knight-marshal and all her riders will be back by then.'

The  alchemist  nodded, and  suddenly  Sollos  found  himself wondering whether the man was quite so stupid after all. 'Yes. I sincerely hope so.'

11

An Act of War

 

When it became clear that the white and her escort weren't coming to Drotan's Top, Shezira tried to sleep. When dawn broke, she finally gave up trying. The search parties left before the sun had finished clearing the mountains. In the middle of the afternoon the first hunter spotted a column of smoke rising from a river valley close by. Dragon cries echoed through the mountain valleys, and by the early hours of the evening Queen Shezira was sitting by the side of the river yards away from where her riders had been attacked. A dozen hunters circled overhead, keeping watch. She'd already seen one of her war-dragons, Orcus, dead amid the craggy forest. Lady Nastria reported that the hunters had found another. Which left one more still missing, and of course it was the white.

Snow.

Her hands were trembling, she realised. That was how angry she was. Nastria was questioning the survivors. Dragons were shambling about the place, clumsily cracking boulders and trees alike, unattended, swishing their tails and stretching their wings, either one of which could kill man in a blink if they happened to be in the way. It wasn't good enough. No one was talking to her. No one was telling her who had done this to her dragons, who was responsible, who had dared...

She stood up. 'Marshal!'

Her call cracked through the air like a whip, and Lady Nastria jerked as though she'd been stung.

That's right. Come running when your queen calls you ...

Nastria bowed, deep and low, careful to observe every protocol and display of respect, and then dropped to one knee. Shezira

wanted to hit her for being so cautious. Or maybe she simply wanted to hit someone, anyone, whoever happened to be in her way.

'Who survived, Knight-Marshal?'

Nastria kept her eyes to the ground. 'Your alchemist and a pair of sell-swords, Your Holiness. They were on the ground with the Scales and your white dragon when the attack came.'

'Did they see who did it?'

Nastria shook her head. 'No, Your Holiness.'

A savage impulse gripped Shezira. She drew a knife and put its edge against the bare skin at the back of Lady Nastria's neck.

'Have you asked them how they dare still to be alive when my dragons are dead?'

'Your Holiness, there is little—'

'Have you asked?' she roared.

'No, Your Holiness.' Nastria shook her head very slightly. Shezira felt the hand that gripped the knife urging her to bite into flesh.

'Who chose the dragon-riders to escort my white, Knight-Marshal?'

'I did, Your Holiness.'

'Who brought in those sell-swords?'

'I did, Your Holiness.'

'Who chose the route? Who chose the numbers of dragons that would fly? Who said that I should not fly my white to the palace for fear of what Hyram might do to her?'

There was a pause. 'I chose the route, Your Holiness.'

'Who said I should not take my white to Speaker Hyram's eyrie?'

Nastria didn't reply.

'Answer me, Knight-Marshal, or I will have your head here and now.'

'Then have it, Your Holiness, for that idea was yours, not mine.'

Shezira froze. For a second she seemed to go numb. Then she withdrew the knife. 'Yes. It was, wasn't it? And you chose the riders, but I would have chosen the same. I wouldn't have sent sell-swords, but I don't suppose they stole my dragon. Very well. Someone has betrayed me, Knight-Marshal, and they will die for this. Get up.'

Nastria rose. She was shaking, Shezira saw. Good. You should be.

'I will find them, Your Holiness.'

'Yes. You will. Now where is my daughter?'

'Lystra is at Drotan's Top under guard.' Nastria frowned, confused for a moment. 'As you ordered. With the supplies and as many riders as we could spare.'

'Not her. Jaslyn.'

'Flying guard, Your Holiness.' They both looked up at the dragons circling overhead.

'Get her down. I wish to speak with her.'

Shezira looked blankly around her as her knight-marshal stumbled off. They were in the middle of nowhere, in some piece of wilderness that could have been claimed by any one of three kings, but in reality wasn't claimed by any. The steep sides of the valley were covered in trees with nowhere for dragons to land except the river. No one lived out here.

Two kings and a speaker. Valgar, Valmeyan and Hyram. Any one of them could have flown dragons here and no one would have known. I should add Aliphera's heir as well. All she'd have to do is skirt Drotan's Top, which is hardly a difficult thing to do. But which one of them did this?

She dismissed Valgar at once, since there was no way he'd be able to hide a white dragon without either her or Almiri finding out about it. Hyram then? She'd mistrusted him enough that she hadn't brought the white to the Adamantine Palace. The old Hyram, he might have done something like this...

But...

She shook her head, trying not to think of the broken and pathetic thing that had masqueraded as Speaker of the Realms. Maybe not Hyram. This new Queen Zafir? Audacious, perhaps, to start a war within days of gaining your crown, but she wouldn't be the first. Or Valmeyan, the King of the Crags?

She paced back and forth. Valmeyan. Yes. Easy to hurl the blame at a reclusive king who hadn't left his mountain strongholds for more than twenty years and showed no interest in the affairs of the other realms. Not so easy to prove, though, and not so easy to exact retribution against a king who has more dragons than any other two of us put together. Shezira snorted. She didn't even know where Valmeyan's eyrie was. One rumour said far to the south, close to the sea and King Tyan's realm. Another rumour said it was much closer, near the source of the Fury River, only a day from Drotan's Top. Other rumours said other things. She would have to find out.

'Mother!'

Shezira shook herself back to the present. Jaslyn was standing rigid in front of her, looking as angry as ever.

'Jaslyn.'

'You called Silence down. What do you want, mother?'

Shezira glared. 'Go back to the eyrie,' she snapped. 'Go now, and do not stop until you get there. Tell them that Orcus is dead, and most likely Titan and Thorn as well. Do not tell them anything else. Then bring every hunting dragon I have back with you. Jehal can take his pick as a wedding gift, and I do not care which one it is or who it belongs to. The rest I will send back here and they will scour these mountains. We will need another alchemist as well, and supplies to keep a dozen dragons and their riders out here in the wilds for as long as it takes.'

Jaslyn shook her head. 'Send your knight-marshal. I shall stay here until all our dragons are found.'

You will not! I am your queen, daughter, and you will not forget it! You will do as I say now, and when you return from Outwatch, you will fly with me to watch your sister wed! You will have no part of this search.'

They stared at each other, mother and daughter, anger burning the air between them. Finally Jaslyn cast her eyes to the ground. 'If you find who did this to Orcus, I want them to burn,' she hissed. '1 want to see them burn.'

Shezira nodded. 'At last something on which we agree. Obey my command and I'll grant you that wish.'

Jaslyn marched back to her mount, and Shezira watched her go. You got all that was worthwhile out of Antros but without his stupidity. Such a pity you insist on spending all your time with dragons. You could have made someone a good queen. You could have had my throne when I take Hyram's ring. You'd do better than Almiri will.

She sighed and clenched her fists. All around, her riders were about the business of setting up a camp. At other times she liked these nights with the stars over her head, with no maids waiting on her hand and foot. Not tonight, though. Tonight her dragon-knights would circle grimly overhead while she slept — if she slept — on watch for a mysterious enemy who would, likely as not, never appear.

The sun set and Shezira retired to her tent. She tossed and turned and snatched a few meagre hours of fitful rest. When she rose, she almost sent them all back to Drotan's Top. Staying out here, so exposed, was dangerous. It's what Antros would have done, though. Perhaps that was why she stayed. She didn't know.

They found Thorn two days later, riderless but unharmed. The day after that they found Titan. The white, though, had vanished, and by the time Jaslyn returned with a dozen more dragons Shezira was resigned. The white was gone. By now she could be anywhere. One day she would find who had done this and there would be blood and fire and pain, but for now her perfect white was lost.

One little thing troubled her, as they turned their faces back towards the south, towards King Tyan and Prince Jehal, towards Furymouth and the sea. They never found the body of the Scales.

12

Lystra

 

'At last!'

Jehal yawned and stretched. He'd taken to sleeping through part of the afternoons, simply as a way to make the time pass. Queen Shezira and her flight had been expected five days ago. Dutifully, albeit at the last possible minute, he'd left behind the pleasures of his father's palace in Furymouth and ridden to the eyrie at Clifftop to greet her. Except she hadn't come, and the eyrie was a full day on horseback from the city, and there was absolutely nothing to do except look at his dragons and listen to the noise of the waves crashing against the cliffs.

He'd been on the point of going back, but now the Queen of the North had finally arrived. Either that, or someone else was flying thirty-odd dragons towards his eyrie.

Maybe it was more alchemists. As he dressed himself, he smiled. Hyram had sent twelve of them, including the old sorcerer himself, Bellepheros. They were crawling all over his eyrie, dragging in his men, his riders, his soldiers, his servants, his Scales, even their own kind, the alchemists who served King Tyan's dragons. Every day Jehal made a point of going to watch them at their work. Every day they took a few dozen of his people and filled their lungs with truth-smoke. They asked their questions: What do you know about Queen Aliphera's death? Do you know how she died? Did you have any part in it? Every day they got the same answers. They were so sure of themselves, and yet, in the days since they'd arrived, they'd found out nothing. When he was watching them, Jehal would smile a lot and ask how else he might be of help, and try to not to laugh at the frustration on their faces. In a few more days they'd be done with the eyrie and would move on to the palace at Furymouth. It was an intolerable imposition, of course, but one that was almost worth bearing simply to watch them fail.

The speaker's alchemists had almost unlimited power, but there were a few things they weren't permitted to do. Inflict their potions on someone of royal blood, for example. Which was a pity for them, since unless they were going to conjure up Aliphera's ghost and question her, that was the only way they were going to find out what had happened. Jehal had put a great deal of thought and effort into Aliphera's death, and so there was a certain pleasure to be had in watching the alchemists flounder.

But only to a point. Having them here was also a humiliation, an insult that couldn't be ignored and for which Hyram would have to pay.

Jehal pulled on his boots and looked at himself in a mirror, carefully adjusting his clothes to make sure everything was exactly as it should be. He couldn't really complain, he thought. This business with the alchemists would just make him feel that bit more justified in doing what he'd been going to do anyway.

There. He was shrewd enough to see through his own vanity, and he could cut a dashing figure when he wanted to. He nodded to himself in the mirror and walked briskly away, to the stairs that would take him down to the landing fields. It wasn't going to be enough to simply murder Hyram, he decided. Something more was called for. Some sort of vivisection, that would be more like it.

He marched out through the gaping doors of Clifftop and into the open air. Hundreds of soldiers were running to their positions, forming up into wedge-shaped phalanxes. Jehal wasn't sure whether this was supposed to be a show of strength or a display of respect. He ignored them, as he was sure Queen Shezira would do, and looked up. Dozens of dragons were circling overhead. Four were already coming in to land, plummeting towards the landing fields in near-vertical dives. Jehal put Hyram out of his mind; for now he had an entirely more delicious problem to deal with.

The four dragons unfurled their wings, three slender and elegant hunting dragons and one brutish war-beast. They hit the edge of the landing field hard and at exactly the same time; even at that distance the air shook and the earth trembled under Jehal's feet. All four stood exactly where they had landed without taking a single pace forward. Which, he supposed, was meant to show him how skilled the riders were. Well it doesn't. That's the dragon doing the work, not you. All you're showing me is that your trainers and your Scales are as competent as they ought to be.

He almost expected to see the four riders slide out of their saddles and march towards him in perfect synchronisation; instead, if anything, they seemed to be arguing.

Then one of them — it had to be Queen Shezira — took the lead and the others fell in behind. Jehal and his eyrie-master, Lord Meteroa, walked out to meet them. In the periphery of Jehal's mind he noted all the other things that were happening: the guards of honour carefully formed up, marching to exactly where they were meant to be, the Scales taking the visiting dragons to the feeding paddocks while the best of his own were lined up for inspection, harnesses and saddles polished and gleaming. None of this mattered at all unless someone made a mistake, and since Meteroa never made mistakes, Jehal largely ignored it. He needed his attention for the queen whose daughter he was about to marry.

Shezira stopped an instant before Jehal. She met his gaze with a stare of her own. Her eyes weren't exactly cold, he thought, but certainly not warm. And relentless. Above all, that was his impression of her.

Good. I could do with a decent challenge. He smiled and took one further step. Queen Shezira held out her hand, and Jehal bowed to kiss the ring on her middle finger. As he did, he was already looking past her, at the three woman behind her, who were presumably her daughters. One with a plain flat face, beady little eyes and an angry look, one rather more delicious, clearly the youngest, shy and nervous but not too shy and nervous, peeking back at him through her eyelashes. And the one at the back, who looked the oldest, plain and unassuming, with her eyes cast to the ground and much darker skin than the others. There was something kinetic about that one, as though any at moment she would burst into violent motion. She set Jehal on edge.

Oh gods and dragons, I hope it's the young one she's here to give me.

'Queen Shezira.' Jehal bowed again, deeper this time. 'Welcome to Clifftop.'

He watched her look around. She didn't say anything, but her face told him all he needed to know. Adequate, she was thinking. Adequate. He felt Lord Meteroa bristle behind him. Apparently her face was telling him the same thing.

He waited. This was where Queen Shezira was supposed to introduce her daughters and he got to find out which one would be sharing his bed before the month was out. And then she was supposed to explain what had taken her so long, and why he'd had to spend days out here when he could have been back in Furymouth, slipping into Queen Zafir's bedchamber every other night and helping himself to an occasional cousin in between.

Finally, Queen Shezira nodded.

'We met,' she said, 'a long time ago. When Hyram was made speaker. Do you remember? Your father was showing you off.'

Jehal smiled and bowed and gritted his teeth. As if I could possibly forget. 'Yes, Your Holiness, I remember very well.'

Shezira stepped to one side 'This is my middle daughter, Jaslyn.' She was pointing at the plain one. Jehal breathed a small sigh of relief. 'You won't remember her, because she only wanted to stay with the dragons and spent all her time hiding in the palace eyrie.'

Jaslyn's face tightened a notch. Jehal bowed to her. 'Grown into a most beautiful princess. Dragons are our life, Princess Jaslyn. They are what sets us apart, and without them we are nothing. You are welcome to spend as much time at Clifftop as you wish. We will set aside rooms for your exclusive use while you are here.'

Jaslyn seemed to soften, although only a fraction. Shezira's face didn't change at all. 'The lady at the rear is my knight-marshal, Lady Nastria.'

Ah, the dangerous one. Good. I don't have to be nice to her.

'And this is my youngest daughter, Princess Lystra.'

Princess Lystra bowed to him, but her eyes still never quite left his own. Jehal tried to hide a smirk. Sweet, with a hint of spice. Now, is that the way you really are, or have you simply taken the trouble to find out what I like?

'Princess Lystra.' Jehal made a point of not bowing in return for a second or two. 'I ... I ... am overwhelmed. I have heard of the beauty and elegance of the ladies of the north, but you must surely be the most delightful, the most sublime, the most radiant ... Why, I'm not sure I can marry you, for if I do, you will be the fairest of my father's subjects, and every lady in Furymouth will seethe with jealousy.'

Princess Lystra blushed prettily. So... she might be clever enough to recognise flattery when she hears it, but she still likes it. Good.

'Would that not be the case whoever Your Highness marries?'

Jehal blinked. Queen Shezira clearly didn't approve of her daughter being so forward, but Jehal found that he rather did. Apparently I like a little flattery too. Well who would have guessed?

'You are too kind, Your Highness.' He smiled and gave a little sigh, and then gestured to the walls of Clifftop. 'Shall we clear the landing field, Your Holiness?' He spoke to Queen Shezira now, who gave a little nod of her head. The best bit, Jehal thought, of being a prince, was that you only had to do the interesting things. The tiresome logistics of dealing with all these dragons, all the riders that Queen Shezira had brought with her, servants, alchemists and so on and so forth, all that was entirely Lord Meteroa's problem.

As they walked, Jehal stole a glance at the skies, looking for Shezira's fabled perfect white. He was wasting his time, though. The other dragons were all still too high to make out any colouring, all circling silhouettes and shadows. He was itching to ask, but that would have been crass.

They paused for a moment at the doors to Clifftop. Queen Shezira was obliged to survey his men, all dressed up in their gleaming dragonscale. For a moment, all was still and silent except for the distant waves crashing against the base of the cliffs.

'Your riders are a credit to your father, Prince Jehal,' said Queen Shezira, and Jehal couldn't decide whether she meant it, or whether she was simply saying what she was supposed to say.

Either way, there was only one correct response. He bowed. 'You're too kind, Your Holiness. My father will be delighted to hear your compliments. Your own are known throughout the realms for their strength and their splendour.' Which was rubbish, of course. If anything, the riders of the northern realms were known for quite the opposite.

Queen Shezira's face didn't flinch, but Jehal caught a flicker of disdain from Princess Jaslyn. Full of fire and fury this one. All austerity and determination and not even a flicker of fun. I can than\ my ancestors that she's not the one I'm marrying. A real joy she's going to be at the wedding feast. The thought made him shudder. There were certain duties that fell to elder sisters at these times. Poor Princess Lystra ...

'Excuse me, Your Highness, but may I ask what's making that sound ?'

Jehal's thoughts fell into disarray. 'Pardon me?'

Lystra was looking straight at him again. 'What is making that sound, Your Highness?'

Jehal cocked his head. 'I'm sorry, Princess Lystra, but I don't hear anything.'

'She means the sea,' muttered Shezira.

For a moment Jehal almost forgot himself. 'Have you not... ?' Never seen the sea?

Lystra bowed her head, looking abashed. 'I have seen the Sea of Sand and the Sea of Salt, Your Highness.'

Jehal smiled. 'And I have seen neither, and they are doubtless mighty and magnificent. We have a different sea here, and I will show it to you at once.' He glanced at Queen Shezira. 'If Your Holiness will permit.'

Shezira gave a curt  nod. Lord Meteroa and the stewards of

Clifftop would doubtless start pulling their hair out at this diversion from the precise script of the day, but Jehal couldn't help himself. Never seen the sea?

He led the way around Clifftop towards the edge, where the land fell away, sheered and shattered by some unimaginable violence.

'Have a care, Your Highnesses. The edge is treacherous. It's a long way down, and many people have fallen over the years. The sea pulls them down, somehow.' He stopped a couple of feet from the edge and offered Princess Lystra his hand. 'The sea, Your Highness. The endless Sea of Storms.'

Lystra took his hand, and so he gave it a gentle squeeze and hoped that Queen Shezira wouldn't notice.

'It's ... breathtaking.' The cliffs dropped a hundred feet to the roaring crashing waves. The sea went on forever, a churning maze of white-capped waves stretched as far as the eye could see, fading into the grey haze of the far horizon, a mighty monster that could sometimes make even a dragon seem small and tame, jehal smiled at Lystra. Up here on the edge you could feel the spray and even taste the salt in the air. Lystra was staring, mouth agape. 'It goes on and on and doesn't stop! Like the Sea of Sand, except made of water!'

Jehal gave her an indulgent smile. 'The Taiytakei say that if you sail far enough, and can navigate the storms, there are other lands across the waters, so distant that you would have to cross from one end of the realms to the other to even begin to understand how far away they are.' Mentally he congratulated himself. There. That didn't sound patronising at all.

'All that water ...' Lystra took a step closer to the edge. Jehal tightened his grip on her hand and she stopped. The cliffs plunged vertically down into the sea.

'There is a path, from the back of Clifftop, that runs down to the sea,' he said. 'The steps are worn and slippery and the way is treacherous, but there is a cave there that can only be reached by those steps. To truly see the waves crash on the rocks and send their plumes of spray up into the air, there is no better place than that cave. I will take you there one day.'

Jaslyn suddenly walked right up to the edge and looked down. For a moment it seemed to Jehal that she swayed in the wind that whipped and swirled up the face of the cliff. If she did, though, she quickly caught herself, and the next thing he knew Lystra had slipped her hand out of his and was standing next to her elder sister, laughing.

13

 Furymouth

 

Shezira had little choice but to bite her tongue and hold her anger. As soon as they entered Clifftop, the rituals began in earnest. First the breaking of bread with Prince Jehal and his lords to assuage the hunger that came after a day on dragonback. Then there were scented baths and massages to ease sore muscles. After that she had to dress, and then came the formal feast, which ran from dusk until the middle of the night and beyond. Parts of it might still have been running when Shezira rose again at dawn.

Then she had to dress for the journey to Furymouth. That was the trouble with being a queen. She always had to be somewhere or do something, which meant there was no time left to keep an eye on her daughters, and it was up to Lady Nastria to make sure they looked the way they were supposed to look, and that they appeared in the right places at the right times. Without Nastria, Shezira was quite sure that Jaslyn, at least, would have sought out Prince Jehal's secret steps and spent the whole time in his cave. Likely as not, Lystra would have followed her.

Finally, the carriages to Furymouth were ready to go. All her riders were mounted up as escort, there was nothing left for her to do and she had her daughters to herself again.

'What do you think you're doing?' she snapped as soon as the carriage wheels were rolling. 'Both of you! Talking back at him? Holding his hand?'

Lystra bowed her head and peered back through her eyelashes, but it was Jaslyn who answered.

'He offered it. It is him you should take issue with.'

'And 1 will.' Shezira glared back. 'But that does not excuse the taking of it. And besides, Lystra should be speaking in her defence, not leaving it to you, as always. You will not be here a month from now.'

Jaslyn's eyes flashed. 'No, and I shouldn't be here now. I should be in the mountains, hunting down whoever killed Orcus and stole our Snow.'

Snow. That was the name the Scales had given it, wasn't it? Shezira growled. 'You are a royal princess, whether you like it or not. You go where your duty takes you. And you do not dance about like some farmyard peasant.'

'They are more ... forward in these parts of the realms,' said Lystra softly.

Jaslyn and Shezira both looked at her. 'What did you say?'

'Since I was forbidden to go to Outwatch for months and months before we left, I spent some of my time in the library. I thought I'd try to find out a bit more about where I was going.' She leaned towards Shezira and her voice dropped. The carriage picked up speed. 'I think they are more, uh ... Mother, do you know what a southern wedding is like? Have you been to one?'

Shezira shook her head. 'Knight-Marshal Nastria assures me that their customs are no different to our own.'

'Did Lady Nastria mention what you have to do on the night of the wedding?'

'Me?' Shezira blinked.

'Yes, mother. You. And Jaslyn.'

A smirk died on Jaslyn's lips. 'What are you talking about, little sister?'

Lystra leaned forward even more, until all three of them were huddled into the centre of the carriage. She whispered: 'It's about the consummation.'

'Lystra!' Shezira's feet began to fidget. She reminded herself that she was supposed to be angry with her daughters.

'Mother, I do know what happens on a wedding night. I've been watching dragons mate since I was five.'

Inside, Shezira squirmed. This was not the conversation she'd been meaning to have. 'Utile Princess, it's not quite the same ...'

'Oh don't be silly, of course I know that. There are lots of books in our library.'

Antros. Antros and his library ...

'Picture books, mother.'

'Lystra!'

'Well that's what you get for not letting me fly dragons with Jaslyn.' She smiled like the sun for a moment and then glanced at her sister. 'And you can stop laughing, big sister, because you and mother are going to have to strip Prince Jehal naked and take him to my bridal chamber, and before you let him in you are obliged to make certain that he's quite definitely ready to fulfil his nuptial duty.' She giggled.

'Lystra! How dare you! That's preposterous.' Shezira clenched her fists and sat back, half filled with fury. The other half of her had gone numb with horror.

'That's what the books in the library say. With pictures.'

'Ridiculous.' The queen glared at her daughters, one after the other. Bloody Antros. It can't be true though. Can it? Are they that different from us here? 'You should not believe everything you read in books. Whatever they may do in this part of the world, you are my daughters, and you will behave as I have taught you. If Jehal wants to parade you like a whore after he marries you, that's his business. But until then, by all the ancestors, you will deport yourselves as princesses should or you will never fly from my eyries again. Do you understand me?'

After that there wasn't much to say, and a sullen silence filled the carriage. At midday they stopped for a while beside a tranquil rocky bay. A small army of servants was already there, clearly having camped the night to be ready for them. Course after course of cold meats and breads and a hundred varieties of strange vegetables marinated in oils were passed in front of them, until Shezira though she would burst. At least this time her daughters behaved themselves impeccably. Prince Jehal remained flawless, flirting effortlessly on the edges of decorum without ever quite crossing the line. If she was honest with herself for a moment,

Shezira could see exactly why Lystra was so taken with him. He was both handsome and charming, after all.

Just a pity he's poisoning his father, eh? Oh, my precious girl, what have I brought you to?

'I spoke to our knight-marshal,' said Shezira when they set off again in the afternoon. 'It seems little Lystra is partially right. Fortunately we are merely invited to take part in this ritual, not obliged. So we can all thank our ancestors for that.'

Lystra giggled, and Shezira couldn't help but smile, and even Jaslyn was grinning and laughing, and the air in the carriage was much better after that.

'What else did your books tell you?' asked Jaslyn.

'Preferably the ones without pictures,' added Shezira.

'I know that King Tyan's realm is the richest.'

'You don't need a library to tell you that.'

'Their eyrie is so far away from Furymouth.'

'Another thing I can see for myself. Did they tell you why?'

She frowned. 'Ships. Dragons don't like them. A pair of ships belonging to the Taiytakei traders was burned by dragons in the time of King Tyan's great-great-great-grandfather. The survivors said that the Taiytakei would never come back unless the dragons were moved away from the city, and so that's what the king did.'

'He moved his eyrie?' Jaslyn looked shocked.

Even Shezira raised an eyebrow.

'Hard to believe,' she said, 'and a story I've never heard before. What of the Taiytakei, then? What did your books say of them?'

Lystra shrugged. 'I think they might be some sort of wizards.'

There wasn't anything Shezira could think of to say to that. Antros had filled his library with all kinds of rubbish. Shezira had never quite understood why, since as far as she knew, he'd never read a book in his life. She'd been the same, far too busy raising daughters and flying dragons and then ruling her realm when Antros was gone.

Maybe I should have gone in there sometimes. Then I'd /{now about southern wedding-night rituals. The thought made her smile. Maybe when I'm too old to ride any more ...

Outside, the countryside rolled past — sandy beaches, little farming villages, fields filled with cattle and corn; wagons and ox-carts, men leaning on staves, gawping as the carriages passed by. Hot, Shezira mused, as her eyelids grew heavy. I'd forgotten how hot it is in the south.

She dozed. When she woke up again, the sun was darker and the sound of the carriage wheels on the road had changed. Cobbles.

She snapped awake, sat up and looked out of the window. They were driving between houses packed together so tightly that they were piled on top of each other. They leaned into the street, reaching out towards each other ever closer, until rooftops almost touched and the sky was pushed out of sight. Now and then crossroads punctured the gloom, bright flashes of sunlight as the carriages trotted past. These other streets fell away, sloping down towards the sea, and with each one Shezira caught glimpses of the harbour, of masts and rippling waves, and the sun glinting on the water. Shielded from the winds by the curves of the bay, the sea here was still and calm. Lystra still couldn't tear her eyes away.

'Now it's just like the Mirror Lakes!'

Shezira nodded. The view from King Tyan's palace, built at the summit of the hill that overlooked the city, was better. She dimly remembered peering over his walls, sitting on someone's shoulders, gawping at the strangeness of it all. The ships with their flags and their masts and their sails had seemed like weird water monsters, and all the cranes around the harbour walls were like a forest of strange trees with no leaves. And the smell, the smell of the sea, reaching out over the ubiquitous stink of the city ... She'd been five, maybe six years old.

'You'll see many strange and different sights here, Lystra. Keep your sense of wonder, but keep it to yourself or people will take you for a fool.'

Jaslyn tutted and rolled her eyes, but Shezira could see that Lystra understood.

'Let your eyes sparkle at everything you see, but say nothing.

Do that and Prince Jehal will be yours to command.' She laughed, thinking of Antros. 'And he won't even know it.'

'As long as you spread your legs whenever he asks and give him plenty of sons,' muttered Jaslyn, which made Shezira want to slap her. She didn't, though, because the carriage was slowing to a halt. A moment later the door opened, and Prince Jehal was standing there.

'Your Holiness.' He bowed and offered his hand. 'Welcome to Furymouth.'

They were at the foot of King Tyan's palace now, and the view out over the sea was unbroken. Close into the harbour, dozens of small fishing boats bobbed in the water. Further out, three much larger ships sat in a line.

'There should be dragons, Your Holiness' said Jehal. 'I told the Taiytakei that the next Speaker of the Realms was coming to give her daughter away to be married, and there should be dragons filling the air with their fire. In recompense the Taiytakei offer you this, Queen Shezira, in your honour. A sight never seen before in any realm.'

As Shezira stared out over the sea, tiny streaks of fire shot up into the air from the three ships. High in the sky, they burst into dazzling showers and swirls of colour. Shezira couldn't help but stop and stare. She'd never seen anything like it. She'd never even heard of anything like it.

It lasted for a minute, perhaps. When it was done, Jehal bowed to Lystra. 'A pale, ephemeral reflection of your beauty, my Princess. You will light up my father's palace as the Taiytakei light up the sky.'

'I trust we will have the opportunity to thank your guests for their most novel and inspiring welcome?' Shezira slipped carefully between Lystra and Prince Jehal.

Jehal smiled. 'Of course. An ambassador of the Taiytakei will be at the wedding. I'm quite sure he'll wish to speak with you, if you will grant him an audience.' He sidled closer, and his voice dropped until he was almost whispering. 'You should know, Your Holiness, that they have only one desire. They have been coming

K

to our shores for more than a hundred years. We sell them slaves and dragonscale, but that is not why they come. They will flatter you and shower you with gifts, just as they did with Speaker Hyram and my father, but they only want one thing.'

'A dragon's egg, perhaps?'

'Most eggs fail, and they know this. A living dragon, Your Holiness. A hatchling. That's what they want, what they've always wanted, and they will do anything to get it. Anything at all. Why is Clifftop so far from the harbour? To keep our dragons away from the Taiytakei ships?' He laughed. 'No, Your Holiness, it is to keep the Taiytakei away from our dragons.'

14

The Search Party

 

Sollos poked at the fire with a stick and glanced up the side of the valley towards the black scar among the trees where the dead dragon lay. Sometimes it would smoke. Sometimes, at night, he saw the flicker of flames. Then it would rain and the smoke and the fire would go away, and when the rain stopped the wound in the forest would steam instead. Today, though, it was quiet. Still and dull.

'You're looking again,' grunted Kemir.

'I know, I know.' The queen had been gone for six days now. Which made it twelve days since the attack. Two weeks, the alchemist had said. Two weeks and a big hammer. Well, he had the big hammer now.

'Hoy! You two! Get that fire going and boil up some water!'

'Aye, milord.' What he also had was the company of a dozen dragon-knights, seven hunting dragons and the alchemist. Sollos poked the fire again and threw on another couple of logs. As the dragon-knight turned away, he muttered an obscenity at the man's back. The dragons probably didn't mind what happened to their dead brother, but the riders and the alchemist certainly would. And while half of them were away searching each day, the other half had nothing better to do than sit around, stuck with guarding the camp.

Are you sure we couldn't murder them all in their sleep?' muttered Kemir. 'Maybe we could poison them.'

Before Sollos could think of a reply, a piercing rumbling cry echoed along the valley. The first of the dragons was coming back. Every day six went out searching for the queen's white while the seventh circled high overhead, keeping lookout. Since the attack they'd not seen any dragons other than their own, and Sollos was quite sure that they were wasting their time. By now the queen's white was far away.

Still, if it meant waiting here until the dead dragon up the slope cooled down and there was a chance of looting some dragon-scale ...

'He's a bit early.' Kemir was watching the arrival glide down towards the river. Sollos tore his eyes away from the forest and watched the dragon descend. Before it had even come to a stop, the rider on its back was standing up, unstrapping himself from his harness and sliding out of his saddle.

Kemir belched and threw a stone towards the river. 'You don't suppose they actually found something do you?' he said. 'They're not usually back for hours yet.'

Sollos shook his head. 'And there I was looking forward to another peaceful afternoon sucking on grass stalks and scratching my arse.'

'Yeah, and staring up at that dead mound of dragonscale and charcoal up there.'

'We're not going to get our hands on it. You know that, don't you?'

'A part of me knows that. We could buy land, you know. Our own little village with our own little subjects. Our own little manor house. With a brewery.'

'And a brothel.'

'Aye, and that.' Kemir sighed. 'Like I said, are you sure we couldn't poison them?'

'Even if we did buy ourselves a title, we'd still answer to the queen.'

'Oh bollocks to her! We could set up somewhere out here, in the mountain valleys.'

'And serve King Valmeyan instead?' Sollos snorted. 'I don't think so. Not him.'

Kemir's voice dropped to a growl. 'No. Not him. Not him at all. Do you think ...'

The rider from the dragon was running towards them. A couple of the sentries were close on his heels.

'Uh oh.' Sollos let his hands drop to his sides and unconsciously fingered the knives at his belt. Kemir stooped down and picked up his bow.

'You two!' The rider from the dragon stopped a little short of them. 'Sell-swords!'

'Sell-swords with names,' muttered Kemir. Sollos took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and bowed.

'Rider Semian. How may we serve?' Semian was the third or fourth son of Duke Semian. Sollos could never remember which, nor did he particularly care. There were some sisters too. They all lived in the vast tract of arid wasteland known as the Stone Desert and the duke served Queen Shezira as Guardian of the North. Sollos wasn't quite sure exactly what the duke was supposed to be keeping at bay up there, other than perhaps the use of first names. This particular Semian was about twenty, skinny and buck-toothed. If he'd been born with a different name, Sollos thought it most likely that he'd have grown up as the village idiot somewhere. As it was he was a Semian, so he'd grown up as an idiot who rode a dragon.

'We have found a town, of sorts. Hidden in the mountain valleys.'

Sollos exchanged a glance with Kemir. 'Then it most likely falls under the dominion of King Valmeyan, Rider Semian.' It's obvious why Queen Shezira didn't take you south with her. Rider Semian's helmet was slightly too big for his head, Sollos noticed. It kept slipping forward. Less obvious why she thought you fit to be part of the search for her precious white. Unless she already knows this is a waste of time.

Now there was a thought. What if the queen herself had been the architect of the attack?

'It is built on the edge of a lake. There is nowhere for a dragon to land. When I passed low over the place, they shot at me.'

'And what did you do, Rider Semian?' asked Kemir. 'Did you burn them, Rider Semian?'

The dragon-knight took a step back, clearly unsettled by the edge in Kemir's voice. 'Certainly not, sell-sword.'

'Rider, there are, here and there, settlements among the Worldspine that claim freedom from the dragon kings and queens.' Sollos spoke carefully. 'They are home to hunters, trappers and others who live off what the mountain forests provide. They are, to a large degree, harmless.'

'I would have to disagree with you, sell-sword. I am quite aware that such places exist, and that they are dens of vice and corruption. They do not survive off the forest at all. They survive by polluting the realms with Soul Dust, sucking the life out of their hapless victims.'

'Rider, it is true that Soul Dust comes from these mountains, but it is not made in places like the one you have seen. It is made in secret camps that you would not see, flying overhead.'

'Perchance you are right, sell-sword, but how does it permeate out into the realms at large? Through places such as the one I have seen today, that is how.'

Sollos decided he would have to revise his opinion of Rider Semian. Maybe he only looked like an idiot. He bowed his head. 'That may be true of a few, Rider, but not of most. And if something is to be done about them, it is King Valmeyan's place to do so.'

'The queen tasked us to find her white, and that is what we will do. These outlaws may have seen something. They may have heard something. News travels, does it not, among these places?'

Sollos nodded, slowly. 'I see where this is going, Rider. King Valmeyan burns such places now and then, and whether they're filled with honest men or villains seems not to bother him. They see a dragon and they run deep into the trees. They see a knight and they hide. But perhaps a sell-sword ...'

Rider Semian nodded. Sollos heard Kemir give an exasperated sigh.

'Sollos, you know they won't—'

Sollos held up a hand to silence him. 'Rider Semian, we are servants of the queen. We understand our duty.'

'Knight-Marshal Nastria was quite explicit. You know these mountains and these settlements.'

Again, Sollos nodded. 'Yes.' Now how did she know that?

'There will be a reward, if you find the white.'

This time Sollos grinned. 'Yes,' he said. 'I'm sure there will.' And it took every ounce of willpower that he had not to glance up the valley to where the dead dragon lay waiting for him.

15

Gifts

 

Zafir ran her fingers down Jehal's chest. 'So what's she like, this girl you have to marry?'

Jehal smiled. They lay naked together, side by side under the sun, in one of the solars. Over the years Jehal had made a few nests like this around the palace. Private places where he and others who knew of them could come and go unobserved through hidden passages. Small places, but with tall windows to let in the light and the air. Most of this solar was filled by a large sumptuous bed. Others served more delicate purposes.

'A girl, as you say.' He began idly stroking Zafir's thigh. The solar was thick with the smell of incense. 'Naive. Full of wonder at the world, and almost completely lacking in any experience of it, I would say.'

'Stupid, then.'

Not at all. 'Yes. I think she very probably is. Of course, she was barely allowed to open her mouth.'

'Queen Shezira would not want you to know you were marrying an idiot. You might change your mind.'

Jehal laughed. 'Were it possible to avoid this marriage, it wouldn't matter if she was the most clever princess in all the realms. She would still not be the most desirable.' He turned to face Zafir and cupped her cheeks. 'She did speak, though clumsy and out of turn. I dare say she earned herself quite a rebuke as soon as Queen Shezira was able to give her one in private.'

'Is she pretty?'

Yes. 'Not particularly. She was dressed up nicely enough, but she didn't wear it particularly well.' Which was true, he thought. Although unfortunately rather intriguing.

'Tell me she's ugly and deformed.'

'I'm afraid I could only say that about her sister.'

'Then I wish it was the sister that you were marrying. Why can't you marry her instead?'

'It was all arranged, my love, long ago, when my father was still well. My family has given a pledge, and I must honour it.'

'You could still marry her sister.'

'I will ask, if that pleases you, if I might have the choice. I doubt that Queen Shezira would agree.'

'You like her, don't you?'

Jehal's face didn't flicker for a second. 'I hardly know her, my love. She is a doll. All dressed up to look as pleasing as she can, but still a doll.' Still, I would have to admit to being interested.

'And you can't wait to unwrap her, can you?' For a moment Jehal was quite sure that Zafir was about to sit up and pout and become unbearably tedious. Instead she pulled him closer. 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to spoil your wedding night. If you have to fuck your doll then so be it, but you'll be thinking of me while you do it.'

Jehal growled contentedly. For a moment, though, he hesitated. 'I should go. Lord Meteroa will already be waiting for me with whatever news there is from the eyrie.'

'Which do you want more? Me or Queen Shezira's white dragon?'

'You, my love. Always you.'

'Then let him wait.'

'He's not stupid. He'll find out about us if we're not very careful.'

'But he's your man, is he not?'

Yes.' Said with only the slightest hesitation.

'Then let him wait.'

Jehal let him wait, and then wait some more. The secret passage out of this particular solar led him right through the palace and back to his own bedchamber. Still he ran, and by the time he reached his own room he was out of breath.

He burst through the doors into his private anteroom. 'Lord Meteroa! I was resting. I do apologise for keeping you waiting. You should have knocked.' He couldn't help glancing at the floor to see whether Lord Meteroa had worn a groove in it with his pacing back and forth.

Meteroa wrinkled his nose. He didn't bother to bow. 'Resting? You stink of a woman, Your Highness. Should I wonder who you've got in there?'

'See for yourself if you wish.'

Meteroa met his gaze. There was something unnerving about the eyrie-master's eyes. They were somewhere between blue and grey, watery and incredibly pale, and the man never seemed to blink. It was like locking stares with a snake. 'Ah. In one of the solars were you? Which have you got up there? A princess or a queen ?'

Jehal pursed his lips. 'Perhaps I had both at once.' He picked up a plum and tossed it through the air. 'Try something sweet to take that sharpness off your tongue.'

Meteroa caught it and tossed it back. 'Thank you, Your Highness, but I had my fill some time ago.'

'Tell me, uncle, since you're so insightful this morning, how is it that, when their lover's thoughts begin to stray, even a blind woman can see through the most finely crafted lies as though they were glass?'

The eyrie-master gave a harsh bark of bitter laughter. 'You are asking me?'

'I learned from a master.'

Meteroa's face became unreadable, the way it always did when he was remembering things from a long time ago. 'That's women,' he said. 'Shower them with pretty words and they'll be insensible to almost anything. Why's that? Because all their capacity to think is occupied with watching every movement of your eyes and listening to every nuance of your voice, searching for the infidelity that they secretly know must be there. Treat them like dogs and they'll fawn at your feet. Throw them a bone now and then and they'll show you far more gratitude.'

Jehal grinned. 'Your advice is as uncompromising as ever. Now tell me about the alchemists. Are they done yet? No!' Jehal clasped his hands together. 'But first tell me about my white dragon. Is she as beautiful as she should be? Is she perfect?'

'So far, Your Highness, she is invisible.'

'She's what?'

'There is no white dragon, Your Highness.'

'What?'

Meteroa raised an eyebrow and a faint smile played around his lips. 'Queen Shezira hasn't told you?'

'Told me what?'

'Apparently the wedding gift you were hoping for has not arrived. Queen Shezira has quite a few hunting dragons resting at Clifftop, but none of them is remotely white.' Meteroa cocked his head and raised his other eyebrow. For a moment Jehal felt an almost overwhelming urge to punch him. He carefully unclenched his fists.

'The best dragon in her eyrie. That is what I was promised.'

The eyrie-master bowed. 'I have made some enquiries. As always, it is the alchemists who have been most pliable. It would seem that some sort of incident occurred on the way. As best I can make out, Queen Shezira came here by way of the Adamantine Palace, but the white did not, and someone took advantage of the opportunity to seize it while it was poorly guarded. However, although there were survivors, including the original alchemist who set out with Her Holiness, none of them has come here. A first-hand account is sorely lacking. You are agape, Your Highness.'

Jehal closed his mouth. 'And so I should be, Lord Eyrie-Master, for what you're telling me is preposterous.'

Meteroa snorted. 'If I didn't know that none of your dragons has been away, Your Highness, my first thought would have been that this was our handiwork.'

'Yes, but since you know that it wasn't, that leaves a rather intriguing mystery, doesn't it? I hope you can solve it swiftly, Eyrie-Master. That white is mine.' He frowned. 'Besides, why would I steal my own present?'

'Why indeed? Shall we move on to the alchemists, Your Highness? I understand they've nearly finished.'

Jehal spat. 'Forget the alchemists! I want to know what happened to my dragon. Unless ...' He grinned. 'Unless Queen Shezira stole it from herself, just so that she didn't have to part with it.'

Meteroa shook her head. 'She isn't you, Your Highness. I think it unlikely.'

'Then who?'

Jehal scratched his head. To look after a dragon you needed an eyrie, and no one could be stupid enough to imagine that a pure white dragon would remain a secret for long, wherever it was hidden. So most likely the dragon would return before long. Meteroa was probably right about Shezira, so what was the point? Attacking Queen Shezira? Wasn't that incredibly dangerous? A huge risk to take, and for what? What could be worth such a gamble? What could anyone possibly gain?

A sudden chill seemed to fill the room. What might he do, confronted with this news? Why, someone who didn't know him too well might wonder if he'd call the wedding off...

No. No, she couldn't...

He turned his back on Lord Meteroa, waving him away.

'The alchemists, Your Highness? Grand Master Bellepheros wishes a discreet audience.'

'Yes, yes, yes. Let him come. Now go. I need to think.'

'Yes, Your Highness.' Jehal felt Meteroa bow and begin to back away. 'Once you have finished thinking, Your Highness, I trust you will share whatever wisdom you have found?'

16

The Outsiders

 

Sollos squelched through the mud with Kemir behind him. To his right, it grew deeper and stickier until it slipped beneath the waters of a mountain lake. To his left, the mud didn't seem to get any better at all, but the forest was thicker and there were even more roots and dead branches in the way. The sun had already dropped behind one of the peaks surrounding the lake, and in another half an hour it was going to be dark. At which point, Sollos thought grimly, we're buggered.

A couple of hours ago it had seemed a reasonable idea. Rider Semian had flown them deeper into the mountains. Sollos guessed they were about fifty miles south-west of their own camp when Semian had started to descend, and then banked in a half-circle around the shore of a lake. The settlement had been obvious enough, and Semian had found a place to land only a mile or so further around the shore. The day was nearly done, but the distance was short, and Sollos had been confident that they'd easily reach the settlement before nightfall.

Then they'd hit the mud.

'What we need are some boards,' grumbled Kemir. 'A pair of long wide boards. Our own mobile path. With a couple of eyes bolted into them to thread a bit of rope through so you can pull them back up out of the mud again. Do you remember that?'

'Aye. Going back a bit, though.'

'Yes. Being out here does that. I can't wait to get out of these shitty mountains. I really don't know why you were so keen to come back here.'

Sollos shrugged. In a way, it went against his own better judgement as well,

'Not that it matters now, I suppose.'

They trudged on. The sun sank lower, the sky darkened, and the mud didn't get any better. The settlement couldn't have been more than a quarter of a mile away. Sollos's legs were starting to burn with the exertion.

'My boot's stuck. Can I hate you yet?'

Sollos only half heard Kemir's complaint. He stopped. He had the distinct feeling he was being watched.

'Oh ...' Among the trees, he saw a slight movement. Something was watching him. A snapper. Very slowly Sollos slipped the dragonbone bow off his shoulder. He began to string it.

The snapper advanced slowly. One of its feet sank into the mud. It took a step back and returned to watching.