War

As weddings went, Jehal decided, it could have been worse. He’d had enough wine to take down a horse and no one had murdered him. Hadn’t even had much of a hangover, somehow. Two pleasant surprises in the same day. So yes, as weddings went, it could have been worse.

The morning came, the sunlight unkindly bright. They flew south. No reason to wait.

And now the Adamantine Eyries were bursting. Hyrkallan’s dragons, Sirion’s dragons, Almiri’s dragons, his own, a few from Narghon that had escaped Valmeyan in the south. Some of Zafir’s, the ones she’d lost at Evenspire. Six or seven hundred, and that wasn’t counting the dragons that weren’t fully grown. You had to laugh at that, Jehal thought, not counting the dragons that weren’t fully grown. Give it a second or two to work out that it wasn’t an egg any more and even a hatchling could kill any man that crossed its path with ease. No sucking at its mother’s tit, no blind helpless mewling. They started as they meant to go on. Vicious, mean and hungry.

Which is why we wrap chains around their necks before they’re even out of their shells and fill them with potions at their first meal. Jehal had watched a hatching once. His father hadn’t wanted him to. Didn’t want to take the chance of Hatchling Disease. Just look at Jaslyn to see he was right about that one. But he’d never taken very well to doing as he was told. He’d probably gone to watch it just because he’d been told not to. And what I saw made me forget why I’d gone. The egg cracking, splitting open, a head shooting out like an arrow, black and glittering, jaws already open, clamping on the armoured arm of the nearest handler. He was a big man, but you flung him back and forth like a doll. Practically tore his arm out of its socket before the rest of them jumped on you. Six men and you were still half in your egg, only born seconds ago. And you shook them off. You let go of the first man and bit the hand clean off another one instead. I remember you knocked two of them over with a slash of your tail. The first one was the lucky one. You broke both his legs but at least his helmet stayed on. The second one lost his. I’ll never forget that, the gleam in your eye when you saw his face, the terror in his. There was nothing anyone could do to stop you. Jaws and claws and fire all at once. You ripped his head clean off. What was left of it. I remember the smell, the stink as he emptied his bowels, the reek of burnt skin and hair. You could have had the rest of them, I have to believe that because I was there and I saw what you did. But you paused then to admire what you’d done and that was when they got the chain around your neck. Jehal stroked Wraithwing’s neck. After that I had to have you. And do you want to know something funny? When I first saw Zafir, I thought of you at that moment. How perfect you were. How singularly and perfectly designed you were for what you were destined to become. He smiled grimly. That was just the first thought, of course. Second thoughts followed rather different paths.

‘Three days,’ Jeiros had told him as the hordes of the north had landed around the palace. ‘We have enough potion here for three days and then we have nothing and I will poison any and every dragon here.’

‘I don’t suppose they brought any of their own with them?’ They hadn’t. Of course they hadn’t. Jeiros was strangling them all, and so they in turn hoarded what little they had for themselves. Poor man, do you think that when the potions run out and the dragons threaten to run amok, we’ll all stop and see the madness of our ways? I can promise you we will not. We’ll all wring our hands and say how terrible it is and agree with you that others should put their dragons down for the good of all the realms, but will we do it ourselves? No, we will not. It will always happen to someone else. Another king will find his dragons turning before ours do. We’ll all watch each other, all hold for another to act first, all look at you to relent, and so we will all lose. The Night Watchman has the right of it. Sending men to our eyries with hammers. Yes, I know you meant to do it in secret, but really, do you think I wouldn’t notice a score of men piled on to the back of my own dragons as we flew north? Don’t worry though; I’ll not tell anyone what you’re up to. Why should I when I don’t even have an eyrie of my own any more? No, if you’d have asked me, Vale, I’d have told you to send a legion to every eyrie in the realms. Have your way. Put them all down, the lot of them. All except my Wraithwing. That’s what you plan, isn’t it? As soon as this war is done? A cull. A slaughter. The dragons will come back, but you have potion enough for eyries filled with little hatchlings, is that it? Hatchlings and a choice few, carefully chosen and carefully saved. Do you care into whose hands they fall, those few? No. But I do.

He climbed onto Wraithwing’s back. Vale and Jeiros could do whatever they liked. Meteroa was dead. Lystra and his baby son were lost too. Hard to accept, but Zafir would never let them go, never. Even if they were the last things in the world that could save her own skin, she’d kill them before she let them go. There was only one thing that mattered now, and that was killing Zafir, preferably in a nice quick clean war that would wipe her out so thoroughly and in such a way that he could afford to let Jeiros have the cull he so desperately wanted. Most likely she’ll insist on burning Furymouth. Anything to make my victory as bitter as it can be. Well you can burn that if you want to. It’s a bit of a mess in places, rather smelly, and I’d been thinking about having a new palace soon anyway. But I’d give up this crown, give it back to you and go into exile if it would get me back my Lystra and my son.

Something Meteroa had said to him once: ‘Don’t fall in love, Jehal. Have a queen for the allies she gives you. If she’s barren so much the better. Take as many mistresses as you can get and make as many bastards as you can, then pick the best of them to follow you.’

He’d laughed. ‘And how are you finding that works for you, uncle?’ It was a long time ago, before Calzarin’s madness and all that followed, and for some reason he’d thought Meteroa was virtually celibate. He’d been very wrong about that. Which just went to show . . .

Oh just goes to show what, exactly? Stop feeling so sorry for yourself. You made this mess. It didn’t work out the way you thought and now you have to lie in it. Start being a king.

And after the stain of Zafir was wiped away, then what? There would be another council, another choice of speaker. Hyrkallan, most likely. Certainly not me. Even I wouldn’t vote for me after all this. So back home then, to a city probably reduced to ash. To the memories of a family that used to think they were so fucking clever. At least I can still make heirs, even it’s blinding screaming burning agony. Thank you, Shezira, for that last little twist.

Everything was rushed. He’d turned Hyrkallan into a king and Queen Jaslyn into a wife. On the hard flight south he’d landed by Evenspire, or what was left of it. Blackened fields and gutted stone towers. He’d been surprised to see how much of the city had been lost. Nearly all of it. I don’t remember doing that. If anything I thought we tried not to burn it down. He’d taken his dragons and flown a hundred miles further on and stopped for the night in the desert near the Silver River. People had memories and bad attitudes when it came to being burned out of their homes.

Another day to the City of Dragons, another and now he was about to fly to war. Even without Jeiros fretting about his potions, Jehal wouldn’t have waited. Hyrkallan had had the Scales in the Adamantine Eyrie up all night, painting the bellies of their dragons white again. The palace servants and half the city had been roused and set to tearing and stitching bedsheets, making a thousand long white streamers for their dragons to fly around their necks.

‘Won’t that get in the way?’ Jehal had scoffed, thinking of flying on the back of Wraithwing with one of these flapping in his face.

‘Tie them to his tail if you prefer, or his claws. See how long they last there in a fight. Then think about what will happen after they’re torn or burned away.’ Hyrkallan grinned and showed his teeth. ‘Come to think of it, Viper, why not? Yes, mark your dragon apart from the rest of them. I’ll get you a special red streamer all of your own if you prefer. In the height of battle, perhaps you’d prefer it if everyone was quite certain which dragon was yours.’

He’d chosen to be white, like all the rest. Thought about going with red and then flying a different dragon entirely, like Zafir must have done at Evenspire, but that wasn’t what a speaker should do. A speaker didn’t hide.

And now, finally, they were ready to go, and every eye was turned to look at him. For the first and last time most likely. Bit of a joke, really. Here I am, Speaker of the Realms, symbol of our unity. Meteroa must be looking down on this and laughing himself back to life again. And Vishmir will be weeping and asking how we came to this. Well, I don’t need to ask that. I know exactly how we came to this. I did most of it, after all. And now I’m going to finish it.

Except he didn’t even get that little pleasure. They were almost ready to fly when the shout rang through the makeshift eyries around the Mirror Lakes. Valmeyan’s dragons had crossed the Fury. The King of the Crags was coming.

Jehal raised a hand, held it there for a moment, then let it drop and screamed at Wraithwing to fly.