Legbreaker

Zafir flew south. Away from the chaos above the Pinnacles. She’d lost. Somehow, despite everything he’d done to them, Jehal had managed to empty every eyrie in the north to join his cause. She’d stayed long enough to see that Jehal himself led the charge, to see his Wraithwing plunge into Valmeyan’s cloud of dragons. For a while she’d gone looking for him. Let tooth and claw and fire settle what was between them, but the battle was too big, too wild. She hadn’t found him.

Jehal was probably dragon-food by now anyway. As soon as the outcome seemed hopeless, she’d left Valmeyan and Tichane to fight on as best they could. She’d fallen out of the air as though she was dead. Three other dragons had fallen with her, her most trusted riders, plunging towards the ground and then at the last minute levelling out and heading south. Jehal might be gone or he might not, but Lystra wasn’t. Valmeyan hadn’t had the spine to let her see to that. Probably Lystra or her son would end up being speaker one day because of all this. Well she couldn’t take Lystra’s memories of Jehal away from her and she couldn’t take her son, but she could take everything else. Do unto others as others have done unto you. So she flew until she found the Fury and then veered to the west, over the sea of mud and huts that called itself Farakkan, past the Yamuna River and on towards the sea. Clifftop was already in ashes. When she reached Furymouth, there were no dragons to meet her, no defenders to ward her off.

In the space of a few minutes the four dragons burned Jehal’s glorious Veid Palace to the ground. That was a start. Jehal’s home city lay waiting for her, naked and helpless. That next.

And then? She circled out over Furymouth Bay, out over the fleet of Taiytakei ships anchored there. When I’ve done everything I can to hurt him, what then? They’ve burned my home. She’d seen the flames behind her as she’d fled. Whoever was left to claim victory at the Pinnacles would doubtless blame her for the burning of the Silver City, but it hadn’t been her, not her dragons, not her orders. The Silver City, almost as much as the Pinnacles themselves, had been the beating heart of the realms. Hers.

They burned my home. Where do I go?

The ships offered the obvious answer. Come with us. Across the sea where no one will look for you. Across the sea to what, though? To become a kept woman? To become a curiosity? A courtesan to some rich ship’s captain?

Better than being dead, wasn’t it?

She circled the ships one more time. One of these ships carried dragon eggs, sold to the Taiytakei from Jehal’s eyrie by Valmeyan. In exchange for what, Zafir didn’t know, but she had no doubt the eggs were there. Sold in exchange for helping him to the Adamantine Throne. Fat lot of good you were. They were the ones who’d done this. The Taiytakei. She didn’t know how or why, but somehow they’d made this happen. They’d used her. Ayzalmir had had the right of it when he’d burned their ships, banished them, fed the ones who couldn’t or wouldn’t run to the snappers in his menagerie.

No. Being a slave wasn’t better than being dead. She skimmed across the sea towards one of the Taiytakei ships, the biggest one with the most flags flying from it, and told her dragon to burn it. Dragons liked burning ships. One thing she’d learned from those few of Meteroa’s riders she’d taken alive in the Pinnacles.

The dragon gleefully veered to obey. It opened its mouth. She felt a sense of exultation . . .

And then nothing. The dragon spasmed once, twisted and fell out of the sky. Its head hit the waves and it somersaulted, spinning the world around Zafir. A wall of salt water crashed into her, thumped into her back, crushing her against her dragon’s neck, and then she was flying again. For a moment it seemed as though she wasn’t strapped to the dragon at all; then they crashed together back into the sea. For a second time she was flung forward, all the breath smashed out of her lungs. She fell limp, almost snapped in two. The dragon ploughed through the waves and slid to a stop. The Taiytakei ship loomed before them. The dragon’s head hung under the waves while its wings spread out over the surface. It wasn’t moving. Somehow, it was dead.

Zafir tried to lift her head, but the effort was too much. She could barely breathe. She lay still, arms wrapped around the dragon’s neck, making little gasping noises as one wing slowly slipped under the water and the dragon began to tip and sink. The straps and webbing dug into her legs and her waist, holding her fast to the monster’s back as it started to slide under the water. Movement was beyond her. Of all things, she was going to drown.

Live. She had no idea where the thought came from. Someone who cared whether she lived or died. There couldn’t be too many of them left. Must have been her own then. Live.

The water reached her legs and then her waist. Slowly, slowly sinking. A shock of cold against her skin as it found the joins in her armour. She tried to move. It might have been the hardest thing she’d ever done, but she did it, lifting her face away from the dragon’s neck. That was almost as much as she could manage, but she forced her hands to move to the knot of pain in her belly where the main harness was jammed into her flesh. Her fingers fumbled. Water lapped at her fingers, then at her arms. With one last monumental effort of will, she pushed herself back into the saddle, gave herself the finger-width of space she needed, and pulled the buckle apart.

And now the other one.

The other one was easy. One strong jerk on a knot and she was free. As the dragon slipped under the waves, she threw off her helm. Panic snapped at her fingers, making them clumsy as she tried to find the buckles that would get rid of her armour. Gauntlets first. One shoulder plate. The other. Elbows.

One arm free.

As she sank, the shadow of the Taiytakei ship fell across her, but there was something else. A figure in silver, standing nearby. Which couldn’t be right because that meant he was standing on the water.

Other arm. Breast plates. Back plates. The sea was up to her neck. Lapping at her face. Frantic now, cutting straps where they wouldn’t give.

She felt her herself come loose from the saddle. Felt the water lift her. Kicked, kicked as hard as she could until she was free. Free! Her arms thrashed, struggling to keep her head above the water.

The silver ghost came closer until he was standing right over her. She couldn’t see his face. Everything about him glittered.

Speaker Zafir, it said. She would have nodded, if she could, but since she couldn’t, a blank assent would have to suffice. The knight or whatever it was bent over her; behind his silver mask, his skin was white and his eyes were blood-red lanterns. Haven’t you forgotten something? it seemed to ask.

The legbreaker around her ankle went taut, and suddenly the entire weight of her dead dragon was dragging her beneath the waves. Her arms flailed for a moment, until the sky disappeared and the black water sucked her in.