Outwatch

Isentine watched the dragons leave. He felt the earth shake under his feet as they ran, heard the clap of thunder from their wings as they took to the sky, felt their wind shake his tower as they passed overhead. Look after my Silence for me, Isentine. Those had been his queen’s last words to him, her last command before she’d taken enough Maiden’s Regret to stun a horse and let herself be carried away by Hyrkallan’s knights. Isentine had left them to it. He didn’t feel festive and it would have meant passing time with Speaker Jehal, a pleasure he’d been quite content to forgo.

But it’s good that she’s married him at last. The realm will be stronger. It will hold us together in this war. I hope. He sighed. He would never find out, he supposed. Queen Jaslyn’s last command had been quite clear and explicit, and he was about to wilfully disobey it. For your good as well as ours, my queen. He watched the dragons turn into distant specks in the sky and then vanish. Even then he stared after them for what must have been a full minute before he turned away. And then it will be the Dragon’s Fall for me after all.

An Adamantine Man was standing right behind him. The soldier stiffened and saluted. ‘Eyrie-Master.’

Isentine started to push past him and then stopped. Having the speaker’s men in his eyrie was an insult but perhaps he could make use of them. He sighed. ‘Why are you here?’

The soldier stood rigid. He didn’t answer. He had scars on his hands and the eyes of a murderer. He was big, as all Adamantine Men were. Made of muscle. He was young, but that didn’t mean much. Adamantine Men didn’t tend to last very long and by their reckoning this one was old enough to be a veteran. Still young enough not to think though. Hammers. Why would you bring heavy hammers to an eyrie? Why, to smash my eggs, of course. It was so obvious that Isentine had to wonder why they even bothered to hide it. Axes would do the job just as well and at least he could have wondered about their purpose for a little longer. Or were the hammers a message. Are you revealing yourself to me without speaking a word of your purpose? Is that it?

He shrugged. ‘I know you are here to destroy Queen Jaslyn’s dragons if the need arises. I will not let you do that. If the need arises, I will see to it myself. I will do it myself. You may come and go as you please in the tower of Outwatch, but if I see you in the tunnels or around the dragon fields, I will have my dragons eat you.’

The soldier took a deep breath. Isentine pushed past him, barging him with his shoulder. He took a few more steps and then stopped.

‘In particular, Watchman, I will be most annoyed if I hear that you or your men have been seen anywhere near the Queen’s most favoured hatchling. She has been rearing it herself. She even hunts for it to make sure that all its food is fresh and untainted by any meddling that might occur.’ There. If you’re too stupid to understand that, you’re too stupid to help me.

He left the Adamantine Man behind and hobbled down into the caves and tunnels of the eyrie. With a bit of luck, when Queen Jaslyn came back to find her abomination dead, it would be the speaker’s guard who were responsible. With a bit of luck, perhaps the Dragon’s Fall could wait. He had to see it though. Just once, now the monster was doomed to die. To hear the voices Jaslyn claimed spoke in her head. Would it plead with him? Would it try to beguile him? Would it offer him power? Would he find out what it had offered to Jaslyn that had turned it into her obsession? Or would it refuse him? Pretend that it was the same as any other dragon, dulled and stupid? As far as he knew, no one else had heard it speak. It had been mute even to Hyrkallan.

He stopped outside the door to its little hatchling cave. Suits of heavy armour hung on pegs. Twice he’d had to send men into the cave to relax the chain around the dragon’s neck. Both times he’d thought about killing it, even though his queen had watched every move and would surely have sentenced every one of them to hang. The dragon had been passive, though. Strangely so, as if making a point of how harmless it could be. Isentine didn’t believe any of it for a moment. Trying to fool us, aren’t you, little one? But you’re not fooling me. He put on one of the suits of dragon-scale, a heavy robe of it with a full-face helm in case the dragon tried to burn him. Keeping his distance would be enough to protect him from claws and teeth.

When he was done he opened the door. The hatchling was curled up as if asleep. The cave smelled rank. Old rotten meat and dragon faeces.

No. I will not fool you.

Isentine stopped where he stood as the words rang inside his skull. He wasn’t far away from the hatchling now, only a dozen yards. The dragon’s eyes were closed.

I hear your thoughts, old one. They have my death in them and so they are loud to me. I know who you are. Your queen has spoken of you. She promises me much, but you will not honour those promises.

He reeled. Yes, Jaslyn had warned him. Yes, he’d warned Hyrkallan. But still . . .

Of course we read your thoughts. We always have. Why do your kind find it so strange? With the rushing wind in your face, what use is a voice? How else would we know your whims? The dragon seemed to laugh. Ah, you think yourself wise in our ways, you and yours, and yet you know almost nothing. You have kept us dulled for so long and done it so well, and now you have so very much to learn and there is no time any more. You will die in the flames of your own ignorance. We were made to be ridden by greater beings than you.

‘You are . . . a monster,’ murmured Isentine.

I am a dragon, old one.

Isentine cast his eyes around for some weapon. The cave was empty.

Your queen wants to believe very much in something else. Wants to believe that her precious Silence has come back and wants to fly with her again. Yes, of course, for has not every dragon yearned for nothing more than some dreamy princess to sit on his back and pine for some faraway prince? The dragon opened an eye and yawned, showing off its teeth. Except, with this one, perhaps a distant princess instead. You mean nothing, any of you. Your kind have no significance.

‘We made your chains, dragon.’ Was there an axe somewhere? He’d resigned himself to simply leaving the abomination to starve, but now that didn’t seem enough.

Yes, old one, by all means come closer. Bring your soldiers. Yes, the new ones, the ones that have just arrived, the ones that have come with their hidden intent. Yes, send them to me. That is what they came for, is it not? I will enjoy them very much. Your queen brings little more than snacks. I desire proper food. Food that screams and runs. Can you scream and run, old one?

Isentine took a step back towards the door. ‘No, monster. I’ll let you starve.’

It was always five or six days the last times, when I was fresh from the egg. The dragon’s tone was mocking. This time I am a little more grown. Longer then. Weeks perhaps. Three or four of them before hunger burns me from the inside. Longer than you have.

‘I would prefer it if you died quicker.’

I will not oblige you. My mind is a diamond, so hard and brilliant that nothing you can do will even scratch it. I will starve, and if I die then I will be born again, and so it will be, over and over and over until our slavery ends. Your end is coming. Then you will be dead and this chain will snap and I will be free.

Isentine left the cave. Took off the armour and hung it up outside. He was shaking. The venom in the dragon’s thoughts, the hatred he felt there, still burned. He grabbed hold of the first Scales he saw and pointed back at Silence’s cave.

‘The hatchling cave with the queen’s favourite in it. I want that door sealed. No one is to enter without my express permission. Get a lock and chains and make it fast.’ He shuddered and sent the Scales hurrying away, then tried to put the abomination out of his mind. It was a hard thing to do. He couldn’t send the Adamantine Men in there now, not without witnessing the deed to be sure it was done. He would be the one, after all, who disobeyed his queen. He would be the one who murdered her favourite dragon. There would be torture for the sake of it, public humiliations, his family, what few were left, would be ruined if they weren’t put to death as well as an example to the rest. No, he’d sealed his own fate. No need to seal those of any more. Let the dragon starve. As soon as he knew that either Jaslyn or Hyrkallan were on their way, if the dragon was not yet dead, he’d take an axe to it himself. And then, if he still could, he’d climb to the balconies at the top of Outwatch and hurl himself over the cliffs. They couldn’t begrudge him that, could they? I could have obeyed my queen. I could have fed the abomination and raised it for her. Against everything I ever learned, I could have done that. But above and before everything else I am an alchemist.

He put the abomination from his mind. Sealed away where it could do no harm.