The King of the Crags

by Stephen Deas

  He wouldn’t fly home though. They were all too young, these riders. They needed wisdom. If he left them and Zafir wiped them out, they’d be nothing except more souls on his conscience. So instead he watched them pack up their meager belongings and mount their dragons and then he led them as he should, between the mountains. He took them north this time, away from the majestic dead canyons of the Maze. That’s where the sell-swords would assume he was: on the south side where he could easily reach Drotan’s Top and the edges of Zafir’s realm. A dragon-knight would know better, but the sell-swords would think only of feet and boots and wagons and wheels, not of wings. Maybe that would buy him another week or two of peace and quiet. Long enough for the Usurper to have her council of kings and its aftermath. Long enough to see if anyone else would follow GarHannas. And when they didn’t, long enough to talk Hahzyan and the others into going home.

  So he took them away, a dozen dragons streaming in a line behind B’thannan, up into the high valleys where the pines grew thicker, higher still toward the snow line, skimming the treetops, keeping low to avoid the eyes of Zafir’s scouts; then the dive over the Great Cliff, the mile-high sheer walls of stone that made the northern edge of the Spur, down into the valley of the Silver River below. Hyrkallan had been flying dragons for thirty years. He’d been to every part of the realms. He’d spent half his life soaring high above the endless Desert of Stone and among the dead peaks of the far north of the Worldspine. Even so, crossing the Great Cliff still took his breath away. The sudden absence of the world below gave him vertigo and in the dive that came after, the wind roared so fast it seemed it would tear him out of his saddle. Even behind his visor, he couldn’t open his eyes but had to trust to B’thannan not to simply plow into the ground. B’thannan loved to dive, loved the speed. All dragons did.

  He almost blacked out as B’thannan pulled out of his dive and arrowed above the water of the Silver River leaving a shock of spray in his wake. And then the moment was gone, the magic and the wonder, and he was left as he’d been before. Old and bitter. He led the way down the valley, back to a place they’d been before Drotan’s Top, hardly even noticing the hills turn to mountains as they drifted past. He took them to the far end of the Purple Spur, to where it merged with the immensity of the Worldspine. Far enough away that the Adamantine Palace was a full day’s flight away. That was enough. So distant that they were hardly a danger to anyone but themselves. Then he watched them make their camps there, walked among them, helping them where he could. He’d keep them here, he decided. Waiting, watching, listening until they got bored. It was all in the hands of kings and queens now. Another week or so and he could put an end to this mistake and they could all go home.

  He hadn’t even put his tent up, hadn’t even washed the sell-sword blood off his gloves, when the revolt began.

  “Marshal.” Hyrkallan closed his eyes and wished for strength. Rider Semian.

  “Rider.” He didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to even see Semian.

  “Marshal, I think it’s time you went home.”

  Now Hyrkallan did turn around. His lips curled and he laughed bitterly. “Really, Semian? You might be right, but you’re the last person I expected to say such a thing. So what do you propose? Should we wait a little while until the others see the light, or has your little coven discussed this amongst yourselves already? Shall we all pack up and leave right now?”

  Semian shook his head. “No, Marshal. You should go home. The riders who followed you here hunger for justice and vengeance. That is what you promised them. Yet you have not led them against the speaker. We have done nothing except flap our wings. The speaker barely knows we exist. Drotan’s Top should have been a beginning and you have made it an end. Since then we’ve done nothing but wither.”

  “And you propose?” Why was he asking? Semian was as transparent as glass.

  “Princess Jaslyn needs you. She needs a knight-marshal who will guide her with caution and wisdom. These men need fire and glory and death.” His face was solemn. He believed every word.

  Hyrkallan laughed and shook his head. “And do you mean to give it to them?”

  Semian nodded. “Yes, Knight-Marshal. I will lead them to glory. I will lead them to the Adamantine Palace itself.”

  “No.” Hyrkallan wanted to slap Semian for being so stupid. “You won’t even get close. You will lead them to their deaths.”

  “Then they will be glorious deaths, Hyrkallan. Better than this.”

  “No, they will not, Rider Semian; they will be ignoble and barely remembered. You will all be gone and then you will be forgotten.” And maybe the realms would be all the better for it. He turned away from Semian and tried to put the man out of his mind. Madness. Madness and death. That should be his mantra, not justice and vengeance. That was the way of the dragon-priests. If someone set them on fire, they’d probably rejoice.

  For a moment he smiled. Now there was a thought.

  7

  THE PRICE OF ASKING

  Jostan helped Semian out of his armor. Inside, his left leg was bloody down to his foot.

  “It doesn’t look too bad.” Jostan scratched his chin. The cut was ragged but didn’t seem too deep and the bleeding had already stopped. Jostan pressed a wad of cloth over the wound and started to strap it to Semian’s leg. “It shouldn’t give you any trouble when it heals. Not like the arrow that sell-sword left for you.”

  That spawned a moment of tense silence. Semian still limped from that and Jostan knew it pained him sometimes too. Maybe that’s why he’d been so keen for a taste of sell-sword blood.

  Semian spat. “This is absurd.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. He’d be pacing as soon as Jostan was finished. “We should have burned those sell-swords. We could have burned them from the air or from the ground. Why did we have to fight them?”

  “It felt good to do something at last.”

  “Maybe so, but we should have been fighting Zafir’s riders, not shit-eaters. We should have been fighting them weeks ago.” Jostan tied off the bandage and sure enough, Semian shot to his feet and started to pace. “We have a calling, Jostan. We must answer it.”

  “You know there’s going to be a council of kings and queens. You know he’s waiting for that.”

  “Which is wrong.” Semian stamped his foot and then winced. “We should be burning the speaker’s eyries. All of them. We should be showing the kings and queens of the realms who we are. They should fear us. Hyrkallan has to go.”

  Jostan looked down. “Even the Syuss have more dragons than we do,” he said quietly. “What’s to fear?”

  “Hyrkallan needs to go,” said Semian again. He pulled on a light riding shirt. “Princess Jaslyn will need him for the war. I told him that. I need to find Kithyr. Wait here for me.”

  Semian didn’t wait for Jostan to say anything. He pushed his way out of their tent and limped into the twilight. Jostan watched him go. Hyrkallan won’t listen to you. He knows you’re mad. He knows you don’t give a fig about what happens to Queen Shezira anymore. This is something else for you now. You and all the others who’ve forgotten why we fly together. He could have said it too, and it wouldn’t have made a jot of difference.

  Nthandra ducked into the tent. At least Jostan could understand why she followed Semian. He’d given her a new family, something to fill the hole.

  “Where’s Semian?”

  “Gone looking for the blood-mage.” Even the word left a sour taste in his mouth.

  “He was hurt.”

  “Nothing serious. The wound’s already closed.” Shanzir and Riok followed her in, and then Leistar and Mallizan and Joen. Semian’s coven. No, they were the blood-mage’s coven. Semian just gave him a voice.

  “Is he here? Is he all right?”

  “Yes, yes,” Jostan mumbled and watched them sit down. They were all here for Semian, not for him. But why? What do you see in him? Why do you believe in him so? Shanzir still looked pale from the wound she’d taken when Deremis
had died. She was lucky. If a scorpion hit you, you were dead, and that was that. Almost no one ever got injured by a scorpion. Jostan had seen the wound in her leg, and it was huge, even though Deremis had taken the worst of the impact for her.

  The Picker and Kithyr came in last. They were at the heart of this, but Jostan didn’t have time to think about that before Semian followed them in.

  Kithyr cocked his head. “So?”

  “I told him we should be burning the speaker’s palace instead of her filthy hirelings. He said we wouldn’t get close. You will lead them to their deaths, ignoble and barely remembered. That’s what he said.” Semian spat. “He’s too old and too cautious. He doesn’t belong here anymore.”

  “Is that what you would do, Semian, if you led us?” asked Shanzir. “Would you lead us against the palace itself?”

  “Yes!” Semian’s eyes flared for a moment. “Yes! Yes, we’d burn her on her own throne.”

  “The palace is defended by the Adamantine Guard,” Jostan heard himself say. “With so few dragons we’d never get close enough. They would shoot us down.”

  The blood-mage closed his eyes. “Not if they didn’t see you.”

  “And how could they . . .” How could they not see us? But no one was listening to Jostan. He wasn’t one of them and they all knew it. They were all looking at the mage.

  “How?”

  “Is it possible?”

  “Could it be done?”

  Ripples of wonder spread among them.

  Kithyr pursed his lips. Jostan felt a sickening smugness radiate out from the magician, but none of the others seemed to notice. “Do you know,” he asked, “how the dragons were tamed?”

  “By potions brewed by the alchemists,” snapped Semian. “Could it be done or not?”

  “You are wrong about that,” said Kithyr softly. “The alchemists came later. When the dragons were tamed, there was only blood-magic. In the stories I was taught there were other magics once, but they went when the dragons came. After that there was blood or there was nothing. There were no cities of men, no great armies, not even towns. All that existed among what we called the realms were frightened bands of wild men who were little more than animals, hiding in the fringes of the world, in the caves and the hills and the mountains and the forests where the dragons didn’t find them. And there were lost places, places left behind by the sorcerers who had once taught us our craft before they abandoned the world. The greatest among them were the three fortresses of the Pinnacles. And that is where the dragons were tamed.”

  “The Pinnacles?” Kithyr had their rapt attention now. The Pinnacles were Zafir’s palace now.

  “That was the greatest of our strongholds. Encased within the stone, the dragons could not reach us. We labored always, day and night, to find a way to tame them. For as long as we could remember, we had failed, and yet we labored anyway and always to no avail. Until the white sorcerer came to us, that is. He had no name that we could understand, for he was the last of his kind. He wore armor of quicksilver. He carried the Adamantine Spear. Where he walked, the dragons obeyed him. He did not ask our consent to rule us. He simply did. His commands were few, but if they were not carried out above all other things, he would turn a hundred men to dust with a flick of his finger. We called him the Silver King. It was the Silver King, not any mortal human, who tamed the dragons.”

  Kithyr paused. He fixed his gaze on Rider Semian. “There is always a way. In time, the Silver King took us to a place, to what has become the alchemists’ redoubt. To the caves there.” He smiled. “What do you know of the alchemists’ secrets? There are certain molds and mosses and lichens that grow in the caves there, yes. The sorcerer showed us how to make potions from those that would tame the dragons. But there was more to it than that. It needed a sacrifice, you see. Blood. Death. A soul.” He smiled again, this time at Jostan. “You’ve been there, Rider. Perhaps you know. The alchemists don’t need blood anymore. Do you know why?”

  Jostan, despite himself, shook his head.

  “No. Because that is where the Silver King taught us his greatest secret, that anything and everything was possible if the sacrifice was right. Because we blood-mages learned that lesson well and there and then made a pact. We all gave of our blood and we bound the demon-sorcerer to our will and took his blood instead. We held him down and split open his skull and took out his spirit, which was like a luminous silver snake. I imagine he’s still there, still bound by our blood-magic, still pouring his life energies into the potions the alchemists make to keep the likes of you in the skies. It was hard, the hardest thing we ever did. It cost us a great deal of our power, all of us. Look at us. Reviled and hated while our little brothers the alchemists, who were once our apprentices, rule over everything.” He grinned. “I suppose you think that it is the speaker who wields the power . . .”

  Semian stood up and loomed over the mage. “Can. It. Be. Done?”

  Kithyr didn’t flinch. He met Semian’s eye with a lazy gaze. “My point, Rider Semian, if you must have it so soon, is this: If blood-magic can be made to tame dragons and to enslave gods, why, then yes, it can do a little thing such as make men blind. Yes, it can be done. But there would have to be a . . .” Kithyr pursed his lips. “There would have to be a sacrifice.”

  And here it comes. Jostan sat back to see what would happen. How many of you are actually ready to die for whatever this is? Because it’s certainly not going to be me.

  Semian gave a decisive nod. “Whatever it takes.” He looked at Nthandra, who nodded, and then the others. They nodded as well. Then he clasped Kithyr’s hand. “Whatever it takes, Kithyr, we will do. We will bring the speaker to her knees and burn her on her throne.”

  One by one they got up and left for their beds. Jostan watched them go in disbelief. Maybe the ease of today’s victory had gone to their heads. Maybe that was it. Maybe that’s why they weren’t thinking. The speaker’s palace was guarded by two hundred dragons and ten thousand Adamantine Men. In times of war, the walls and towers could be be lined with five score scorpions on every side, exactly according to the rules of Prince Lai’s Principles. Even a hundred dragons wouldn’t be enough, and the Red Riders had what? Twenty?

  “Jostan, walk with me.” Semian was offering Jostan his hand. Jostan stood up. He glanced uneasily at Nthandra and Kithyr, the last left in the tent. He never felt comfortable leaving them alone. The blood-mage had had a sickening interest in Nthandra from the very day they’d arrived.

  Semian was tugging him away. “Leave them, Jostan. I know you mean well but she doesn’t need your protection.”

  “She’s not even old enough to be called a rider, not really.” But he didn’t resist. He let Semian push him gently outside.

  “That’s war for you.”

  “Are we at war?”

  “Yes.” Semian put an arm around Jostan’s shoulder, something the old Semian would never have done. “We all loved Queen Shezira, but there’s nothing we can do for her. We have to look past that. Zafir will execute her and nothing we do will change that.”

  As if you cared. “Rider Hyrkallan doesn’t agree.”

  “Hyrkallan should go home. Jaslyn will need riders like him for the war. She needs riders like you too. And there will be a war, Jostan. The Great Flame has shown it to me.”

  Jostan felt something inside him break. “Are you sending me away, Semian? Are you telling me you don’t want me here with you?”

  Semian shrugged. “You only came because Jaslyn sent us both away. I know how you used to look at her. I felt the same way for a while. And yes, she’s a princess, soon to be a queen, but in war who knows what could happen? The Red Riders don’t mean anything to you, Jostan. You came because you had no dragon and nowhere else to go. Well now you have a dragon, and if you go with Hyrkallan then I’m sure Jaslyn will have you back. She will need every rider she can get. Please understand: I don’t want you to go if your heart is here, but it isn’t, and I don’t want you to stay while your heart
is elsewhere.”

  Jostan looked back. Semian was walking them steadily away from the tent.

  “Don’t tell me you want to be with Nthandra.” Semian shook his head. “She’s not right for you, Jostan. She’s one of us. She’s given herself to the Great Flame. She embraces the fire and the fire brings her joy. Have you given yourself to the Flame?”

  Jostan shook his head. “I don’t even begin to understand it.”

  “You see. You belong with Hyrkallan and Princess Jaslyn and the riders of the north. What we’re doing here is . . .” He frowned, reaching for something. “It’s something special. You were a good friend, Jostan, almost a brother to me, but do you see how our paths must move apart? And Nthandra has chosen too. I’m sorry for you that she didn’t choose you.”

  Jostan closed his eyes. “She’s a girl, Semian.” Even more than Princess Jaslyn was. He wasn’t sure which one he feared for the most.

  “Yes. And I will look after her.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean that’s not why I’m going to stay, Semian. I’m not going back to the north, and I doubt you’ll rid yourself of Hyrkallan so easily either. But even if you do, I’m staying with you because I remember who you are and because of what we endured together. Because you are almost a brother. Because I don’t trust your new friend the blood-mage and I think someone should stay to look after you. Besides, who knows, maybe the Great Flame will touch even me given time, eh?”

  Semian stopped. He shook his head and looked Jostan up and down, and for a moment Jostan thought he was going to get a rebuke, but then Semian smiled. “Then you’re as good a friend as I’m likely to find and I shall be proud to fly with you. There may come a time when you wish to change your mind. You know you can leave whenever you want. We’ll give you everything you need to get back to one of our queen’s eyries. I’ll even give you a dragon.”

  Jostan laughed too. He couldn’t help himself. “You realize you’re talking as though the Red Riders are already yours.”