The Black Mausoleum (Memory of Flames 4) (40 page)

Little ones came. It felt their thoughts. And the water worm, blind, dumb and dull, a tiny creature, made at the beginning of the half-gods’ path towards their final creations.

Us.

It peered at the little ones. It was hungry. Always hungry.

And then, in among the mindless noise, it saw what it was searching for, faint, half-hidden, as if wrapped in a fading mist.

The one that had killed its mate. The little one had come at last.

It tucked in its wings and fell towards the earth and the tiny little sliver of silver that was the old forest river.

He followed the alchemist’s trail. When he lost it, he followed the river into the forest. If you knew where someone was going, tracking them wasn’t hard, and so he
found her again, this time with a whole band of outsiders, walking to a handful of boats on the river. He watched for a while, wondering whether he should kill them all here and now or whether to
wait until later. They were many, too many to be sure he’d win. He could see, as he watched, that the shit-eaters meant to take her where she wanted to go.

She’d be safer surrounded by so many. They’d do his work for him. Quicker and easier if he only had to fend for himself.

As the days of following them up the river passed, he began to realise he was following someone else as well. Little signs at first. A footprint in the mud. The freshly cut stump of a branch.
Then a fire pit. When he saw the fire pit and saw how it was made, he knew he was following another Adamantine Man. Made him pay attention that, and he watched out for the signs more closely.

Three men. One Guardsman and two others. It was the Guardsman who interested him. He found each one of their camps, stopped and looked it over. There was something familiar about the way they
were made. More than just another Adamantine Man. Someone he knew.

Jasaan?

Impossible. They’d gone their separate ways up on the moors, many months and a thousand miles away. Chances of either of them getting back somewhere safe hadn’t been good. He’d
always assumed Jasaan was dead.

He kept pace with the boats on the river, letting them stay a mile or so ahead but never too far. In the mornings he woke early and ran until he caught sight of them. Then he let them pull away
and caught them again in the afternoon. Never close enough to be seen, never so far away that he might lose them if they left the river.

He knew for sure when he caught up with the Adamantine Man and his companions. He watched them unseen. It
was
Jasaan. Of all people. With two riders who were just slowing him down. By the
state of them, Jasaan should have abandoned them days ago.

Jasaan. He almost went up and asked him what in the name of Vishmir’s cock he was doing out here. But then he saw. When the alchemists had come to the Pinnacles, they’d had
Adamantine Men with them. Jasaan must have been one of them. Sent with the alchemist, and now she’d gone missing and so he’d come looking for her. Sort of thing he’d do. The
amazing thing was that Jasaan had got back to the Purple Spur in the first place.

Why he had riders with him, now that was another matter. And why were they
still
with him when they were in such a bad way? Skjorl crept close and watched and listened as they talked. The
riders seemed to know something about these caves the alchemist wanted to find. They were close too. They’d seen the outsiders on the river and now they meant to get ahead and set an ambush.
All well and good if you had half a dozen Adamantine Men armed with bows. A pair of half-dead riders, well, that would be a valiant effort but there were far too many shit-eaters. Jasaan ought to
know better.

He kept himself hidden and followed their forced march to the waterfall. He let Jasaan go ahead with his riders, gone from half-dead to well past three quarters by now, and watched them climb.
Jasaan would set his ambush along the path among the rocks. Two riders with bows. He’d put them high up to fire down at the shit-eaters as they reached the beach. Then Jasaan would be
waiting. He’d take them down one by one as they tried to climb, keeping them from reaching his archers. It was a good place for an ambush and it might even work. A determined handful could
hold back a lot of men at a place like this.

Would work even better, Skjorl thought, with a second Adamantine Man waiting to take the shit-eaters from behind.

When the boats finally came, he watched it all unfold. Waited for the arrows to start but they never did, and then Jasaan was running at six shit-eaters at once while the rider who could barely
walk any more was standing to face a round dozen. The rider was going to die – most of the shit-eaters would just go right on past him – and then Jasaan would die too. A perfectly good
place for an ambush and Jasaan had pissed it away. Bloody typical, but by then Skjorl was already on his feet, already running.

The shit-eaters weren’t in the hurry they ought to have been. Three stopped to take down the rider. The rest raced after Jasaan. Skjorl sprinted. He ran silently up behind one of the three
facing the rider and swung Dragon-blooded, cutting his first man clean in two. Left the others for the rider. He screamed now, roared and yelled to make the others look round, to make them see him
and quail and pause and run away, but the waterfall was so loud they didn’t even hear him. Either that or they thought he was one of their own.

The alchemist and the shit-eaters carrying her were scrambling up the path through the rocks. Jasaan hit the men barring his way like the whip of a dragon’s tail, smashing his way between
them with sheer force, swinging his axe so that none of them dared go near. Straight through them, but that wasn’t enough. They’d cut him down from behind if he tried to climb the
rocks. He had to make himself some space.

Or
someone
did.

Jasaan turned. He had a dozen shit-eaters fanned out around him now, watching the whirl of his axe, all too scared to get close. The first one to charge died, that was what Jasaan was telling
them. Eventually they might realise that they didn’t have to, but Skjorl slammed into them before they’d even got over that first fear. Took a man’s head off with one swing,
chopped another one in half and then sheared straight through a third man’s face before they knew he was there.

‘Hello, Jasaan!’ The look on his face was something he’d cherish. Bewilderment. Amazement. Joy. Fear. Hate. All thrown in together. He was quite sure he’d never get to
see a look like that again. The shit-eaters backed away. He bared his teeth. Two Adamantine Men with axes, side by side, their backs to a wall. No one in their right mind would come close.

‘Skjorl?’ Jasaan made it sound like a question.

‘Been following you for days. Or more rightly I been following this lot.’

Across the beach the rider who could barely walk and the two shit-eaters trying to kill him were still circling each other. It was like watching cripples dance. Pathetic.

‘Go!’ he bellowed. ‘Go and get my alchemist! But you take care of her, Jasaan, or I’ll break your balls.’

He jumped away from the rocks, screaming his lungs out at the shit-eaters, scaring the life out of them. If the looks on their faces were anything to go by, he wouldn’t even have to touch
them with his axe.

Yes. Leave the killing to me.

She opened her eyes. The roaring that had been the sound of her drowning was still there. The waterfall. She was bobbing up and down, but not in the water any more. She was
hanging over some man’s shoulder. Looking down from among the rocks beneath the Moonlight Garden. ‘You two! Hold here. Stop him. Or at least slow him down.’ Siff. ‘You!
Bring her! Follow me! Run, damn you!’

Siff and the man carrying her climbed higher, over the top of the waterfall, then started picking their way along a ledge overlooking the river. She lurched up and down. Her hands and her feet
were still tied. She had no strength, no energy, and struggling seemed futile when all she could do was cough now and then and bring up another mouthful of river water, yet a strange excitement had
her. They were here. She couldn’t see it, even when she turned her head and tried to look up, but the Moonlight Garden was somewhere above her. No one had ever understood what the Moonlight
Garden was. Not the first idea.

Stupid thing to think, really, but it gave her a focus. Stopped her being too sick and helpless and terrified.

At the end of the ledge they were among rocks again, picking their way down a steep slope. She felt the man who was carrying her slip. He was cursing with almost every other step until they
reached the bottom and were beside the river again, out in the open on a flat overgrown field. The cave mouths drew her eye.

‘They’re getting closer!’ The man was breathing hard. She was slowing him. And then everything fell into shadow and he screamed. She hit the ground like a sack of turnips,
winded and too weak and bruised to move, and that might have been what saved her. A huge shape blotted out the sun and snatched the man who’d been carrying her into the sky; and then the sun
was back, and with it a wind like a hurricane that picked her up and threw her across the ground as though she was a leaf.

Dragon. She couldn’t bring herself to move.
Stay still. Don’t struggle and above all don’t run. Dragons can’t resist it if you run, and no one who runs ever gets away.
Ever.

Could it feel her thoughts? She wasn’t sure. She’d taken her last dose of potion back before the outsider settlement. Two weeks, give or take a couple of days. Yes, it could probably
feel her then, and dragons hated alchemists with a fury. She sighed and closed her eyes and waited to die.

‘Get up!’ Hands were shaking her. Siff. ‘Get! Up!’ He was cutting the ropes around her feet, wrapping another one around her hands. ‘Get up, alchemist! We’re
nearly there.’ He hauled her up, pulling her by her wrists. The dragon was in the air past the waterfall. Turning.

For a moment she caught a glimpse of movement in the rocks up the slope behind her. There was a man, his head and shoulders popping up. He had a bow. Was aiming at . . .

Her?

Skjorl?

No. Couldn’t be.

‘Come
on
!’ Siff pulled her hard enough to tear the skin of her wrists. She cried out. The man with the bow was out in the open now, running down the slope towards them, little
streams of stones clattering in rivers around him as he came. And yes, it
was
Skjorl. He had his axe. She’d know him anywhere. Great Flame, did she laugh or did she cry? And he had
someone else with him too. Another Adamantine Man.

‘Run, you stupid witch!’ Siff screamed and pulled at her. ‘Not from them! From the
dragon
!’

The dragon was coming back. You learned, when you worked with them for as long as she had, to read their flight. It was going for the Adamantine Men. She dropped back to the ground, squealing at
the pain in her wrists, but she wasn’t going to run. ‘No! Stay
still
!’ It would burn them if they ran.

The Adamantine Men knew it too. They were fifty yards away, right at the bottom of the slope at the start of the open empty space that had once been a landing field. They were seconds away from
her but now they veered away, diving for cover as the dragon swooped down on them, strafing them with fire. The earth shook, the very air quivered in shock, and then a wall of heat and wind and the
stink of scorched earth picked her up and roared and rolled her across the grass.

The dragon turned again and landed where the Adamantine Men had been, hard enough that Kataros was almost thrown up into the air. The rocks on the slope to the path and the Moonlight Garden
shuddered and shifted. A boulder the size of a horse tumbled down, bouncing past the dragon and into the river amid a hail of smaller stones.

Halfway up the slope a massive chunk of rock shifted very slightly. It was as big as a barn. Kataros held her breath, waiting for it to slide and bring the whole slope down on all of them, but
it only shifted the once and then held still.

The dragon’s tail slashed the air, the tip hissing like a whip past her head, so close she could almost touch it. It
had
to feel her, didn’t it?
Don’t think!
Don’t think!
But it had its mind elsewhere. The dragon took two quick steps away and lunged towards wherever the Adamantine Men had gone. A hot wind rushed over the ground as it tried to
burn them out.

‘Can we run
now
?’ Siff’s eyes were wild. This time she let him pull her away. The dragon was tearing at the hillside, digging after the Adamantine Men at the foot of the
high stone bluffs below the Moonlight Garden. It roared. Frustration. Kataros ran faster. Blood. A drop of blood was all she needed. Whatever Siff had inside him, it stopped her from mastering his
will, but she could still burn him and there were other things too. If she could find anything that was alive, she could make it hers. Snakes, spiders, scorpions. Snappers even. Let the forest give
her a weapon, any weapon . . .

Siff pulled her in among more tumbled boulders, behind an enormous rock towards an opening in the ground, too regular to be a cave. Her steps faltered. Even in the sunlight she could see how it
glowed. It was a tunnel, like the passages, of all places, within the flying castle!

‘Move!’ Siff hauled at the ropes around her wrists. Kataros winced. Yet the alchemist in her wanted to see now, had to, no matter what happened afterwards.

‘It’s like the castle,’ she said. ‘It’s the same. Look at it. You didn’t know, did you?’ There. That made him stop. In the castle he hadn’t been
himself.

‘Is it? I don’t remember.’

‘What’s inside, Siff?’

‘Come and see.’

The earth trembled. Siff dragged her deeper. The light here was soft and soothing and came from everywhere, just like in the castle over Farakkan. ‘What’s inside you, Siff? What did
you find?’