The Black Mausoleum (Memory of Flames 4) (12 page)

Because I want to. Fight them, you bastard! Fight them and get yourself killed!

The Adamantine Man leapt away from the outsider and towards the nearest of the men around him. He lunged and swept, but the man darted out of the way and then the others were closing in, one or
two of them already eyeing Siff as easier prey.

Stone scratched on stone behind her, a sharp noise that didn’t belong. She turned and saw a shape, a shadow, a silhouette falling towards her, an arm, a head, a knife-glimmer in the
starlight, and when finally she started to move aside, she was much too late. Something hard slammed into the muscle between her neck and her shoulder. She felt a burning pain and then the shadow
was on top of her, a feral man, his weight pressing her against the stone wall at her back.

‘What are you? Not one of them bastard soldiers.’ The knife was up in the air again. She felt warm breath on her face. Blood ran down her back and along the curve of her collarbone.
That was warm too. She felt dizzy. ‘You’re not one of us. A woman? What do you want out here?’

She couldn’t speak; all she could to was watch the knife, waiting for it to come down. The shadow shook its head.

‘Why’d you come out? Doesn’t matter. Whoever you are. Shouldn’t have come out. Shouldn’t.’

He tensed. The knife drew back while fingers grabbed her throat, pushing her down.

. . . squeezing while the other pawed at her . . .

‘No!’ She jerked a hand to the blood on her shoulder and clawed at his face. Fingers pulled at the skin of his cheeks and his chin.

‘Shouldn’t have come.’ He was still shaking his head.

She screamed at him: ‘Burn!’ The word reached out to the blood on her fingers.
Her
blood. He stiffened. She screamed again.

‘Burn! Burn!’ Her fingers tightened, tearing at his face.

He dropped the knife and tried to pull away. She heard him gasp: ‘Mercy!’

‘No!’ The Adamantine Man’s battle rage was with her, seeping through the blood-bond. They were wearing him down, pecking at his strength while the fury grew ever more.
‘No!’ Her other hand went to the blood flowing out of her shoulder. She took a great handful of it and flung it at the man with the knife. This time he screamed.

‘Mage!’ He broke away from her, clutching at his face and staggering towards the others. ‘Blood-mage! Help me! Ancestors! Help me, please!’

With a calm she didn’t understand, Kataros picked up the fallen knife. One whole side of her was covered in her own blood. The knife was covered in it too. She looked at it, dull-edged and
notched. Her head was spinning. The one who’d attacked her was lurching as though he could barely see, shrieking and hooting. She smeared her hands with her own blood again, both of them, and
walked after him towards the fight. She’d seen a mage do this once, a true blood-mage, and he’d burned the whole front claw right off a dragon in a matter of seconds. He’d had a
darker power than any alchemist, but it was a dragon he’d burned, and men were infinitely easier.

‘Mage! Blood-mage!’

They’d started to notice, but most of them were still caught in the whirlwind around the Adamantine Man, poking and prying for a way through the blur of his axe while skittering out of its
reach. One lay dead now, split in half. Another was crouched over Siff, going through his pockets. For a moment Kataros thought that must mean the outsider was dead.

‘No!’ That one then. She ran at him, hurling a spray of her own blood from her fingers at his head. He looked up and flinched as the blood spattered his skin and then screamed as it
melted his face. Kataros staggered. For a moment the world slipped out of focus. She forgot where she was. She’d lost too much blood. She squeezed her eyes shut and pinched her arm, and when
she opened them again, everything was sliding back and forth. She ran her finger over the knife cut in her shoulder. Deep. Straight through the muscle.

Mend!

She gasped. As the man who’d been bending over Siff screamed again and ran into the night, she fell to her knees. ‘Mage! Blood-mage! Abomination!’ They were shouting.
Someone
was shouting. Louder and louder with the roaring of water rising until it filled her head and there was no space for any more.

‘Alchemist! Alchemist!’

She didn’t move. She was somewhere else, somewhere dark. A cave perhaps and her ankles hurt and her wrists too and her face and her head was filled with straw.

‘Alchemist! Wake up! Kataros!’

Kemir?
But Kemir was dead. They’d hanged him for looking like a dragon-rider.

‘Please . . . help.’

The light changed. Someone was standing in the cave mouth.

‘Dust,’ shouted Kemir. ‘Take dust. It numbs the pain.’

The noises stopped. She was lying on her back. The night was still and quiet and the Adamantine Man was crouched beside her, staring at her. He had the knife she’d picked up in his
hand.

‘Alchemist?’

He was going to kill her. She reached into him through the blood-bond.
No! Back away!

He stood up and withdrew, smirking as he did, mocking her fear. ‘If I was going to do anything, alchemist, I would have done it by now. We’re not ones for hesitation. It’s not
our nature.’

There was no lying when you were blood-bound. She sat up and looked around but the feral men of the Silver City were gone.

‘You chased them off,’ he said. ‘They thought you were a demon. A blood-mage. They screamed and ran. I don’t know what they saw.’ He laughed. ‘All I saw was a
half-dead woman covered in her own blood.’

‘I burned them.’ She tried to stand up but the world started spinning again. ‘Burned them with my alchemy.’

‘Right.’ He tossed the knife up in the air, caught it by the blade and offered it to her, hilt first. ‘Whatever you did, you put the fear of the Great Flame into them.
Doesn’t mean they won’t be back in a bit. Maybe if they get some courage from somewhere.’ He poked at the wound on her shoulder, already scabbed over and half healed.
‘That’s a lot of blood from a little hole. Can you walk? Can’t carry both of you.’

‘I’ll manage.’ She took a deep breath and forced herself up. The world still wobbled but it wasn’t as bad as before. She was hungry, she realised. Ravenous. ‘So now
what?’

The Adamantine Man shrugged and laughed and bent down to throw Siff over his shoulder as easily as if the outsider was a child.

‘You’re the one who wants to be somewhere. You tell me. But if it’s to be the Raksheh then I’d go down. I’d go south to Farakkan and then make my way up the Yamuna
at night. Longer than going the straight way but safer. Not so many dragons, a lot more places to hide and not so many of these sort to deal with.’ He nodded to the bodies on the ground.
There were three of them, ripped apart by the bloody axe across his back. ‘There’s tunnels from the Silver City to most—’

‘I know.’ She shivered. The Adamantine Man was still looking at her with those hungry eyes. She didn’t know what he wanted from her, but he wanted something, something he
hadn’t taken while she’d lain out cold on the stone of the ruined city.

‘Suppose I’ll be showing you the way, then.’ He sniffed. ‘Best be under the ground before any dragons wake up. Can’t promise we won’t have more of this lot to
deal with either.’ He kicked one of the bodies. He didn’t offer her a hand; he didn’t even look back at her.

Twenty-three days before the Black Mausoleum

The alchemist they’d set him to guard had been stupid enough to leave the Purple Spur and come to the Pinnacles. Rumour said there had been others, a group of them. Some
rebel faction, or else a delegation from the speaker under the Spur. Came with a company of Adamantine Men, who either fought like demons or surrendered like lambs, depending on who was doing the
saying. They made him her watcher, but they were always going to kill her. Something brutal and pointless, full of harsh words and empty ceremony. Seemed like a waste. And he hadn’t had a
woman for far too long. And he
was
an Adamantine Man, at war with the dragons, and that gave him the right to have her.

Except then she’d reached into his head with her witchery and they’d fled the Pinnacles on Prince Lai’s wings, him with a half-dead fool over his shoulders, and here he was.
Comforting himself with steel and hard sinew instead of soft skin and writhing flesh.

Either was a pleasure. When the feral men came a second time, he saw his own death and saw that that was no bad thing. He let the fury drive him among them, sure that none would be able to stand
against him, but knowing that in the end their numbers were too many. He took that knowledge and forged it into strength and fell upon them like a storm.

‘Mage!’ Another one, lurching out of the shadows. Barely seen. Hurt and half blind. Not a threat. Skjorl ignored him.

The cry jarred the others. He saw one fall back, another beside him hesitate, and that was all he needed to leap and cut the man in two.

‘No!’ That was the alchemist. He felt her cry more than heard it, twisting inside him through whatever tether she’d made to him. Blood and anger and pain, all to feed his
own.

‘Mage! Blood-mage! Abomination!’ Someone unseen in the shadows, back where he’d left the outsider. The feral men around him fell away, and when he lunged and rushed them, they
turned and fled and he was still alive, and this wasn’t going to be his death after all.

He let them go. Took an effort of will to do that. When he was sure they were gone, he shouldered Dragon-blooded and went straight to the outsider. Keep him alive. That was what he had to do.
Didn’t want to, but the alchemist demanded it. He was compelled.

A few steps later and he almost trod on her in the dark, stretched out at his feet. Might be dead, but he knew straight away that she wasn’t, before he even touched her. He could feel her,
tied to him, could feel the faint flicker of her life, heart still strong. Could feel all that inside him.

Covered in her own blood, when he took a closer look. He crouched beside her and took the knife out of her hand

‘What have you done to me?’ he asked but she couldn’t answer. He thought about touching her. Finishing what he’d started back in her cell. Thought about it, but did
nothing, because another thought crushed it: he could kill her. Would that end what she’d done to him? Surely it would.

Kill her. Leave her body. Leave the other one too. Go down to the tunnels, fight his way to the underground gates of the Pinnacles. That would be easy. Go back to the fortress of no hope and
take what punishment would come for stealing Prince Lai’s wings.

Kill her and be free. Tempting, but his hand didn’t move.

She stirred.

‘Alchemist?’
Now! Now or not at all!
And still his hand didn’t move, and then her eyes flickered open and he felt something slam inside him, hurling him away from
her.

No! Back away!

He stumbled, silently cursing. ‘If I was going to do anything, alchemist, I would have done it by now.’

Begged the question why he hadn’t, though.

‘You chased them off. They thought you were a demon.’ He gave her back her knife. Blood-magic. Wasn’t that supposed to be against everything an alchemist stood for? He poked at
the wound on her shoulder. Small for so much blood. Looked like an old wound, one that had closed days ago, but it hadn’t been there when she’d been in her cell, he was quite sure of
that. Was that something that alchemists could do?

‘So now what?’ she asked.

He laughed. Now there was a question. To go with
Why didn’t I kill you when I could?
He shrugged and picked up the outsider. Now what? Down, that was what. Down into the tunnels to
Farakkan. At least that far they’d be safe from dragons.

She shivered. She looked so weak most of the time. He should have killed her. A part of him knew that with a stone-cold certainty. Should have killed her and set himself free while she’d
lain flat out on the stone.

‘Suppose I’ll be showing you the way then. Best be under the ground before any dragons wake up. Can’t promise we won’t have more of this lot to deal with either.’
He kicked one of the bodies. He didn’t offer her a hand; he didn’t even look back at her.

Twenty-two days before the Black Mausoleum

They took alchemists to the City of Dragons before they could walk or say their names, when they were little more than babies. She could have come from anywhere. The alchemists
had tested her and declared her promising. Someone had been paid ten golden dragons, the same for every child no matter who they were. The alchemists had given her a new name. Kataros, and for the
next ten years of her life she’d never left the shores of the Mirror Lakes. Her head had become filled with words and dragons and a very particular understanding of the world.

When she was fourteen they took most of her friends away, declared their minds too dull for alchemy and named them Scales instead. She hadn’t understood, back then, what that would mean,
until they were gone and scattered across the realms to the great dragon eyries where they would fall in love with monsters and slowly lose their humanity from the inside while Hatchling Disease
turned their skin to stone.

They didn’t send
her
. She’d passed the first test, and now they kept her close for five more years. They taught her the true nature of dragons. She learned how they were kept
subdued, of the terrible things that the alchemists did and would do again to preserve the nine realms. They taught her the first scratchings of blood-magic too, dressed up in lessons on herbs and
potions.

She passed the second test. This time the ones that failed were set free, released into the wide world to be teachers or traders or whatever took their fancy, although they would always and for
ever belong to the Order of the Scales to be called upon when there was a need.