The Adamantine Palace (8 page)

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. Nex 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.

Getting 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.'