Narammed’s Bridge

Jehal peered over the dragon’s shoulder as Wraithwing circled what was left of the landing fields. Jeiros had described the place well. Most of it was blackened soil, the grass just beginning to regrow. There had been buildings once, but they’d been smashed and weeds were growing up among them. A mile to the west and a mile high, the cliffs of the Purple Spur threw long afternoon shadows out across the northern edge of the Hungry Mountain Plain. A thousand trickles of meltwater ran down from the sheer stone walls and merged into a maze of creeks and streams, everything converging into the steep-sided scar that ran across the land. The valley of the Sapphire River. The last water before the deserts of the north.

The bridge itself was still in one piece. You could see why Vishmir had built another one further to the east where the Sapphire valley flattened out. Narammed’s was nothing more than a lot of planks suspended high above the rushing waters by some ropes, all swaying gently in the wind. Jehal felt somehow let down. He’d expected something grand. This was where Narammed had forged the Speaker’s Peace?

Let down by the bridge, perhaps, but not by the dragons waiting beside it. Hyrkallan’s outriders had seen him coming from miles away. Counted his dragons and then flown back to their master to say that the speaker and the Lesser Council had come to honour their truce. Waiting on the ground on the north side of the bridge were two of the biggest dragons in the realms. Hyrkallan’s B’thannan and Sirion’s Valediction. Almost as big as the monster that Prince Tichane brought to Zafir’s council when she condemned Shezira. Almost. Beside them were a motley collection of hunters and war-dragons, all of them made small by the two monsters. He spared a lingering glance for the hunters, but none of them had any colours that he hadn’t seen before. Nothing here to add to his eyries.

Meteroa’s eyries. His uncle had been the one with the passion for breeds.

He landed Wraithwing on the south side, walked him up close to the bridge. The dragon stared out across the chasm. His muscles were tense. He tossed his head and snarled. That was dragons for you. Always looking for a fight.

You had to wonder who’d gone to the trouble of building a bridge out here and why they’d bothered. Most likely some nameless company of Adamantine Men had done it simply because they could. All he knew was what Jeiros had told him, that Narammed had come here in his later years, when his power was almost secure, to broker a final peace with the northern kings after he’d betrayed their trust and made a peace with the south. Rather like this. Except when Narammed met them in the middle of the bridge, he’d had the strength to force them to their knees. Can’t see Hyrkallan bending much of anything this time. My neck, maybe, if he can get his hands on it.

The sight of Meteroa’s severed finger haunted him.

‘No one else knows,’ Jeiros had said up in the Spur where no one could possibly overhear. ‘Valmeyan has come out of the mountains. Zafir lives. They have taken the Pinnacles and doubtless Furymouth as well. They send you this gift.’ Valmeyan had sent his message with one of Meteroa’s riders on one of Meteroa’s dragons, and yet somehow the alchemist had intercepted both before they could reach Jehal. Just as the Night Watchman had intercepted the message from the north. They might as well have told him to his face that he was superfluous.

Jehal dismounted. His bad leg was playing up again, making it difficult to keep his footing on the soft blackened earth. Armoured figures were already standing on the far side of the bridge, waiting for him. Or waiting for someone. He limped towards them.

Zafir. Never mind his uncle – he’d be the first to say there were far worse things than losing a finger. Valmeyan was a dragon-king. He’d treat his prisoners well enough. Jehal might have to part with a small fortune to get his eyrie-master back, but he’d come back fat and well fed. No, that wasn’t the fear that gnawed at him. What mattered was that Valmeyan had Lystra and Zafir. Were they both his prisoners now? Jeiros seemed to think not. Zafir alive. Was that a feeling of hope or dread? He’d gone to Evenspire to murder her and then wept when someone else had beaten him to it.

Lystra, Zafir. Zafir, Lystra. He reached the middle of the bridge. Cursed thing swayed so much he felt like he was trying to balance on the back of a horse. Hyrkallan and two other riders were coming out to meet him. When he looked down, the empty space and the churning water below made his head spin, but if he didn’t look down, he was quite sure he’d fall. Damn stupid place to make a peace. One good gust of wind and we’ll all be tossed in the river and half the realms will be looking for new kings. Maybe Hyrkallan had had the same thought. Maybe he and Sirion would simply push him into the river and get on with the serious business of talking to men whose opinions actually mattered. Ironic, really, after what had happened to Hyram.

The clever thing would be to step aside right now. Let Hyrkallan and Valmeyan destroy each other and then swoop back to pick up the pieces when they were done.

And then King Sirion was in front of him, with Hyrkallan at his side almost spitting in Jehal’s face. Ancestors, but the man was big!

‘Viper!’ Hyrkallan spat from where he stood on Sirion’s right; Queen Almiri was on Sirion’s left. She looked twice as old as he remembered, the paleness of her skin setting off the dark rings under her eyes. Hard to get a good night’s sleep when your realm’s been burned to ash, eh?

She hissed at him as though she’d read his mind. ‘Son of a whore.’ She turned to Sirion. ‘What’s he doing here?’

Jehal met her gaze. All the contempt she threw in his face, well, he’d just throw it right back. ‘I am the speaker, Your Holiness.’ Jeiros and the Night Watchman were behind him. The old priest, Aruch, was sat on the blasted earth among the dragons, too old and unsteady to come out onto the bridge.

Almiri took a quick step forward and shouted in his face. ‘You are a traitor and a murderer! Evenspire burned because of you!’

‘Really?’ He didn’t let himself flinch but met her assault with a faint smile. ‘Because I thought it was Zafir who burned your castle. I seem to remember fighting against her on that particular occasion. Perhaps I am mistaken, or perhaps you and yours had already fled the skies by then and were too far away to see.’

If Sirion hadn’t gripped her shoulder, Jehal thought she might have flung herself at him to rip him to pieces with her bare hands while they tumbled into the rushing waters below. ‘You lying, cess-born stain on the floor of a—’

‘Enough.’ Sirion didn’t even raise his voice and Almiri stopped at once. Fascinating. Good to know who pulls her strings. Not her sister, then. And speaking of sisters, I wonder where little Jaslyn might be. Not here, it seems.

Sirion’s voice was cold. ‘We are here to request a council of kings and queens so that a new speaker may be chosen.’ He gave Jehal a hard look. ‘It’s a pity there are only four of us. Five and we could have have held it here and now.’

Jehal smirked in his face. ‘Four? Lord Hyrkallan has helped himself to the last of Shezira’s daughters, has he?’ Well that answers that, then. He turned to Hyrkallan. ‘Congratulations, brother. Although I still think I got the best of them.’

Hyrkallan growled through his teeth. ‘Queen Jaslyn is a true queen of the north.’

Jehal cocked his head. ‘Really? The impression I got was of a woman who hadn’t quite grown up yet, cold and hard and far more interested in her dragons than her people.’ His brow furrowed. ‘Although now I think about it, maybe you are right and she is her mother’s daughter.’ He forced a smile. ‘Your Holiness. I’m sure the alchemists will post a notice in the Glass Cathedral shortly. Did you bring the sealed bands with you? I’m sure the other realms will be aching to know that the north has a new king.’

‘We are betrothed, King Viper, not yet wed.’

‘Oh. Then we are three kings, not four.’ Jehal put on his disappointed face. ‘And I had so looked forward to comparing sisters with you, Lord Hyrkallan. Lystra turned out to be quite a surprise when it came to our conjugal duties. Quite enthusiastic, if a little crude. I wondered whether her big sister had similar appetites. Or perhaps some different hidden desires. She strikes me as the sort, after all.’ He watched as Hyrkallan’s face turned storm-cloud purple. It’s always so easy with your type. ‘Queen Lystra and Queen Jaslyn are very close, after all. I heard a rumour from my eyrie-master that they might be’ – he pursed his lips – ‘very close indeed. Perhaps, if an alliance is to be agreed between our realms, we might seal it in a very particular way.’ He glanced at Sirion. ‘Hyram acquired some very large beds in his time as speaker. I’d been wondering what to do with them.’

He didn’t get any further. Hyrkallan let out a roar and lunged. Jehal tried to dance out of reach but his injured leg betrayed him and buckled. He staggered and then fell back. The bridge twisted, rolling him to one edge until it caught him with its ropes. Hyrkallan had his sword out by now, every intention of using it, and neither Sirion or Queen Almiri showed any sign of stopping him. In fact, if anything, they looked positively pleased. A cripple baiting an armoured knight? I really need to have words with my mouth. Jehal closed his eyes, but the blow never came. Instead, he heard steel clash on steel. When he opened his eyes again, Vale was standing over him. He had Hyrkallan’s blade caught on his own. The Night Watchman was shaking his head.

‘I cannot allow that, My Lord.’

‘You cannot deny the realms would be better for it,’ growled Hyrkallan through gritted teeth.

Vale didn’t move. ‘I cannot allow that, My Lord,’ he said again. He spoke slowly and carefully. Jehal took a deep breath and muttered a prayer to thank whatever ancestors had made the Night Watchman so blindly committed to his duty.

‘Night Watchman, Lord Hyrkallan has raised a blade against the speaker,’ he gasped when he’d recovered enough composure to speak. ‘I believe that makes his life forfeit, does it not?’

‘No injury has been done,’ snapped Vale.

Jehal snorted. ‘I am flat on my back. I have bruises from my fall.’ Ah well. Not as blindly committed as you could be then.

‘You fell because you are a cripple.’

And whose fault is that? Fury helped Jehal find the strength to get back to his feet. ‘His intent was clear, Night Watchman.’ He could see Hyrkallan’s blood was up. The fool actually wanted to fight. With a bit of luck Vale would have to kill him if it came to blows. ‘See his face. He thinks he can beat you.’

‘No.’ Jeiros. ‘There will be no fighting here.’

Hyrkallan sneered. ‘Hyram named you Viper, but I am reminded more of our desert lizards whose bite is slow poison. They strike and then they must cower and hide for days as they track their prey to its death.’ He leaned a little closer.

Vale didn’t budge. ‘Where there is a crown there must be someone to wear it, My Lord. We can all think what we wish of King Jehal, but until a council of kings decrees otherwise, or until Speaker Zafir returns from the dead, he wears that crown. It is the crown I am sworn to defend, not whoever may wear it.’

Until Speaker Zafir returns from the dead . . . That was why Jeiros was being so secretive. He doesn’t want Vale to know! Oh my! How delicious!

Jehal’s head was spinning. For some reason, he had an ally. Why Jeiros was helping him was another matter entirely. He spat on the bridge in front of Hyrkallan’s feet. ‘Shall we have our dragons roar and shriek at each other until we are deaf as well as stupid, or are we done with waving swords and threats? If we are, then perhaps we should get on with what we all came here to do. Otherwise . . .’ He turned to face King Sirion. ‘You have been quiet, Your Holiness. Do you have anything you wish to add? I will be quite pleased to stand on this bridge and trade insults with anyone who cares to play for as long as you wish. I imagine I will quite enjoy it.’

‘Enough!’ Jeiros banged his staff on the bridge. Jehal froze, mid-thought. Even Hyrkallan flinched, if only with surprise because the alchemist usually spoke so quietly. Only Vale seemed unmoved.

Jeiros stood between Vale and Hyrkallan. Gingerly, he pushed both of their swords away. ‘I have words for you all. You will all listen to me now, because I am the Master of the Order of the Scales. We are the ones who tame your dragons. We are the ones who make them and we are the ones who, if we wish, can break them. What are you, any of you, My Lords, without your dragons?’ He looked at Jehal ‘What becomes of you, Your Holiness? What do you become without your dragons? Nothing.’ He spun to face Hyrkallan and Sirion before Jehal could answer. ‘What of you, my noble kings? How long will you rule with no dragons at your backs? There are rogue dragons loose in the realms again. My order lies crippled at their talons already. And all you can do is war among yourselves. Madness! You will doom us all. And so you will stop.’

Sirion snorted. ‘One rogue, barely even full grown, if she’s even still alive . . .’

‘One?’ Jeiros almost screamed in his face. ‘One rogue dragon, is it? I shudder at where Zafir has brought us. One became four more than two months ago, Sirion! You would know this if you ever attended council, even what passed for council under Zafir! Six weeks have passed since King Jehal broke the Red Riders, yet they were not completely destroyed. Where are the ones who survived?’ He pointed at Queen Almiri. ‘Did they return to you, Your Holiness, you whose greed for power and lust for revenge succoured them?’ He whirled towards Jehal. ‘Or you. Do you have them in your care, after betraying your lover and your speaker at Evenspire?’ Now Hyrkallan. ‘Does Queen Jaslyn have them in her eyries, the mad queen who awakens dragons for fun? Must I remind you of how the Syuss fell? You are all kings and queens. We have told you all there is to know of dragons. Yet you do not listen.’ He growled. ‘So I will tell you this: you will find a way to make a peace between you. There will be no more war. If you cannot do this, I will kill your dragons. All of them.’

Behind his own dull outrage at such an idea, Jehal amused himself watching Hyrkallan’s face. He almost choked. Sirion wasn’t any less shocked.

‘You will do no such thing,’ growled Sirion.

‘I can and I will, Your Holiness, if I am given no choice. And if the alternative is for dragons to awaken across the realms, you will all help me, and willingly too unless you are fools.’

‘They don’t look very willing.’ Jehal smirked.

‘Would you rather lose half your dragons or lose them all and everything else as well?’ Jeiros shrugged. ‘None of you are that blind.’

‘The duty of your order is to tame these dragons, alchemist,’ snapped Almiri.

‘No. The duty of my order is to preserve the realms. If I must slay dragons, that is what I will do.’

‘No!’

‘Yes,’ said Vale very softly. ‘Your Holinesses, if Jeiros commands it done and you do not obey, I will send my men by stealth into your eyries. We may not understand potions, but we will bring hammers and we will smash every egg you own and any who stand in our way.’

Jeiros shook his head in frustration. ‘Enough, Night Watchman! Enough threats.’ He turned back to Sirion and Hyrkallan. ‘The damage done by the white rogue was bad enough. The Order lost many alchemists and much more besides. The caves where we make our potions were damaged by the smoke from their fires. We can barely make enough; our considerable stockpile was completely destroyed, and now from every eyrie in the realms my alchemists complain that they are slowly running out. Weeks of it were destroyed by the Red Riders. More was destroyed at Evenspire.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought we were finished with this madness, but now King Valmeyan has come out of the mountains and taken the Pinnacles. It must stop and it must stop now.’ The glint of murder in Hyrkallan’s face was a delight, but Jeiros met it with steel of his own. ‘Do what you will, but the order is already given. There will be no more sent to any of your eyries until this ends.’

Beside him, Vale grinned. ‘There’s always hammers,’ he said.

Jehal looked from one face to the next to the next. Almiri showed only outrage and violence. Hyrkallan’s jaw was set tight. Sirion’s face was pinched. Jehal smiled at them. ‘As speaker,’ he said with careful slowness, ‘I will agree to whatever our grand master suggests. If you will do so too.’

‘And who—’ Hyrkallan started to take a step forward, but Sirion put a hand on his shoulder.

‘You have given us a lot to think about, Grand Master – dragons roaming free, the Mountain King out from his crags. Does Valmeyan know you plan to murder his dragons? Does he acquiesce to this? I see from your face the answer is no. So. Here is what I will offer you. We have been here for three days and a fourth won’t trouble us. We will retire to consider what you’ve said. Go back to your palace. Return in two days. You will have our answer then.’ He looked at Jehal. ‘Since you call yourself speaker, you can act like one. Send this word to the other realms and call them to council. We will see this matter to its end.’

Sirion, Hyrkallan and Almiri turned and walked away towards their dragons. Jehal was left with Jeiros and Vale to watch them go.

‘Well,’ said Jehal, once they were gone. ‘That went well, don’t you think? In that they didn’t murder me out of hand. I suppose I’m quite surprised that you’re still alive too after that outburst. You don’t think they’re actually going to let you kill their dragons, do you?’ I’m the speaker of the nine realms, and I have to resort to being the court jester to be heard. Thank the Great Flame that Meteroa’s not here. I’d never hear the last of it.

Carefully, trying not to look at the water roaring beneath his feet, he hobbled back across the bridge. Slowly, one plank at a time. Getting back onto the solid ground, where Aruch and the dragons were waiting, he leaned against the charred trunk of a dead tree and caught his breath. His head was already filling with plots and schemes, with trajectories of possibilities. Not that he particularly wanted them; what he particularly wanted was to lie down somewhere in a dark room and chew on Dreamleaf until the pains running up and down the inside of his thigh went away.

He took a deep breath. ‘When I was little and my father used to tell me stories about Vishmir and Narammed and of the first of the alchemists and the last of the blood mages, there was one story about Narammed’s spear. The spear used to belong to a wizard-king made of quicksilver . . .’

Jeiros looked at him. He seemed sad and drained. ‘The Silver King. A long time ago, when there were no alchemists and no mages and no kings and no queens, when all the world was just men and dragons, and the men lived in fear, and the dragons ate the men and burned their homes. Did your stories start like that?’

‘Yes.’ Despite himself, Jehal smiled at the memory. ‘Something like that. And then the silver wizard-king comes and promises to make everything right and save the men from the dragons. He says he has a magic potion that will make the dragons obey the commands of the men, if only the dragons can be made to drink it. The men ask the wizard how he will make the dragons come so that they can drink his magic spell, and the wizard shows them his spear, Narammed’s spear, the Adamantine Spear, and he bangs the end of it three times on the ground. All across the world every dragon hears him call and stops at once what it was doing and takes to wing to answer.’ He clapped his hands. ‘You have to admit that would make finding your rogues a lot easier, master Jeiros, if it happened to be true.’

The alchemist sighed. ‘And Narammed slew a dragon with a single blow from that same spear, they say, at Dragondale. Yes, if those stories were all true, that would a fine way to solve all our problems at once. A very handy spear that would be. Jehal, do you think we haven’t tried? Of course we have. Sadly, no one of the Order has ever wrung any magic from the Speaker’s Spear, not one little drop of it. If it was ever more than unusually sharp, those days are gone.’

‘And yet it’s gone missing. That makes me uneasy. You hadn’t forgotten, had you?’

‘Which is more likely, Jehal? That the spear was stolen from under our noses or that Zafir took it with her to war?’

‘I went down to where it should have been. I found a candle dropped on the floor.’

Jeiros shook his head. ‘Doubtless Zafir holds it even now.’ He walked away, back towards Wraithwing and the other dragons. Jehal watched him go.

I don’t think so. But I’ve told you who took it. And if it’s just a spear . . . There was no reason to think that Jeiros would be wrong about something like that. Yet a blood-mage had saved his life to bargain for the spear, and the life of a dragon-king was surely worth more than a piece of mere metal . . .

‘You missed a bit,’ said Vale at Jehal’s shoulder. ‘The men ask the wizard how he will make the dragons drink his potions. And the wizard tells them that he won’t. And then he throws up his arms and makes his spell and tells the men that it’s them who get to drink, so the magic will get into their blood. And all they have to do is wait until the dragons come, and then let the dragons eat them and the spell will became a part of the dragons for ever. That’s all. And if enough of them say yes and are willing to die, then the dragons will be enslaved, but if there’s not enough, it’s men who will be slaves. And the men who did say yes to that, Your Holiness, they were my ancestors.’

Jehal nodded. He pushed himself away from his tree. His hands came away black from the charred bark. Wherever he went, wherever he looked, the signs of dragons were never far away. He hobbled after Jeiros. Maybe the alchemist was right. A cull. Of all the dragons of his enemies. That would do nicely. ‘That doesn’t seem very likely, Night Watchman. What seems much more likely is that your ancestors weren’t daft enough to drink dragon poison or whatever it was and then get themselves eaten. Tricky, I imagine, to father a child after you’ve been eaten.’

Vale didn’t seem offended. He simply shook his head. ‘No. But I would not expect you to understand.’

Maybe he was right, though. After all, there was an old and mostly forgotten law that an Adamantine Man could help himself to any woman he could get hold of before he went into battle. Maybe that was how they survived. Or maybe there wasn’t a law, just an old drinking song. He whistled to himself as he limped across the black earth. As he did, he heard the Night Watchman singing quietly along.

‘I fight dragons, I have no name, but I’m a warrior so there’s no shame

Off to battle I’ll soon be dead, but while I live I’ll share my bed

Wife or daughter, maiden, crone, lie with me, I’ll make you moan

My spear is huge, its shaft is hard, its point is savage and battle-scarr’d

Squirm and scream and shout out loud, I’ll give you sons to make you proud.’

They fell to silence. For a second Jehal paused. He turned back and stared at Vale. The Night Watchman was miles away, lost in thought. When he saw Jehal looking at him, he bowed. Jehal shrugged and shook his head. As perks went, that didn’t sound bad at all. At least not until you considered the almost certain fiery death that followed.

‘I did not see Zafir carry the spear to war, Your Holiness,’ said Vale quietly.

‘Then perhaps you should look for it.’ Jehal climbed laboriously up the ladder onto Wraithwing’s back. ‘A blood-mage, Vale. Look for a blood-mage who calls himself Kithyr.’

He saw the Night Watchman’s eyes, saw that the name meant something. Typical. Everyone knows more than me.

He closed his eyes to doze as the dragon took him home. Where a second messenger from the Pinnacles was waiting.