by Stephen Deas
“Do you think you could, Rider?”
“I think I could try.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that. You might hold me long enough for King Sirion to get away. Or you might not.” A flash of rage crossed Hyrkallan’s face. Vale held up his hands. “You don’t need to try, Rider. I was never here. You may go. I have nothing to say to either of you.” There. I have betrayed my speaker. I have nowhere further to fall. He half turned and then stopped. “No, I do have something to say to you. I have known you both through the reigns of two speakers. You are men of courage and of honor. Although at the moment it does not, I hope that the Adamantine Palace will one day welcome such men again. But I will say this to you. Fight your wars in the skies if you must, but do not bring them here. If you do, you will find that I have another name, one I wear for war.”
Hyrkallan almost grinned. “If Zafir brings her dragons across the Spur then I will meet them, no matter what my queen has to say. But I give you my word, I will not bring them here without your leave, Scorpion King.”
Vale smiled back. “I hope your queen agrees with you, Rider.” He took a step away and then gave a final nod. “Your Holiness. Your Highness. I will pray to all our ancestors. Let there be peace.” He glanced at King Sirion. “Queen Shezira did not kill Hyram. I have very good reason to believe that now, Your Holiness.”
He turned and walked away. There. And now a thousand people have seen the captain of the Adamantine Men openly conspiring with enemies of the speaker. As far as I know, Zafir’s still offering her own weight in gold for Hyrkallan’s head. Sadly I don’t have much use for gold. He walked back across the circus and got back on his horse. I could still tell her though. Would there be second thoughts? Would it make any difference if she knew that both Sirion and Hyrkallan will be waiting for her across the mountains?
He mulled that over on his way back up the hill. By the time he reached the top, he knew the answer. No, it wouldn’t make any difference at all.
And that being the case, what would be the point in even mentioning it? He led his horse back into the stables, stripped off its saddle and started to brush it down. Working with horses always calmed him down. And when I’m done here, I suppose I’ d better hurry and make another cage. I won’t fit in the one we made for Princess Lystra.
But first, there was the little matter of a war.
45
VIPER VIPER
Evenspire. Jehal slammed down his visor and plunged down through the air toward the city. The wind made it almost impossible to think and he clung on, pressing himself against Wraithwing, hugging the dragon’s scales, trying to make sure there was no part of him that a hunter might catch hold of with its tail. Six of Almiri’s hunting dragons had come after him. Four had lost their riders and were spiraling aimlessly toward the ground behind him. The other two were right behind him. He felt the first blast of fire wash over him. His dragon-scale armor kept the flames and the heat at bay. With his visor down he could barely see. For all he knew, Almiri had more dragons hidden in the city waiting for him. That’s what I’ d do. Outnumbered as she is, I’ d try to kill me and I’ d try to kill Zafir. And then I’ d probably run away. But where had they come from?
“Back up!” he hissed. The words were lost to the rush of air but that didn’t matter. The dragon would hear them even if he spoke in silence. “Up! Up to the rest of the dragons!” Wraithwing is a war-dragon. He’s faster than they are. They’ve lost their advantage. All I have to do is fly straight and level. Of course, that depends on how close they are, which I can’t see . . .
Wraithwing pulled sharply up and turned. Something wrenched at Jehal’s harness, some irresistible force. He felt straps and ropes tauten and snap. Nothing had a grip on him though. He wasn’t dead and he wasn’t flying through the air. Some of the bindings that held him and Wraithwing together had broken. Some, but not all. He clung on even tighter.
“Faster!” He had mounted two men on the dragon behind him. Their job was to keep watch above and below and behind. If he’d been from the north, they would have had scorpions as well. And will I be thinking how noble and pure we are to fly without them when a six-foot shaft tears me in two?The riders behind him had had another job too. Jehal didn’t dare lift his head to turn round in case the wind tore him out of his ruined harness. At a guess though, they’d served that other purpose. At a guess they weren’t there anymore.
Where had Almiri’s riders come from?
BURNING THE TAIYTAKEI SHIPS IN the harbor was one of the most satisfying things Meteroa had done in a very long time. It had an uncomplicated joy to it, the satisfaction of doing something with extreme thoroughness and yet without effort. He burned them to the waterline and stayed to watch them sink. The dragons had enjoyed it too. Something about ships rubbed dragons the wrong way. They’d liked playing with the sailors too, scooping the survivors out of the water, tossing them into the air and eating them. That’s what you get for trying to murder our queen. What were you thinking?
That was the only fly left in the ointment but to Meteroa’s mind it was a rather fat and ugly one. Why had the Taiytakei done what they’d done? This wasn’t the first time dragons had flown out of Furymouth and burned the Taiytakei into the sea. They’d done it once before when the Taiytakei had tried to destroy the silk factories on Tyan’s Peninsula, but that had been a couple of hundred years ago. When the Taiytakei had finally returned, it was to throw their lot in with King Tyan and his clan. They’d supplied the poison that Jehal had used to derange Hyram. They’d given him the magical dragons that he’d mostly used to spy on his lover. It was a tense arrangement at best, since everyone knew that what the Taiytakei really wanted were dragons and would do almost anything to get some, but it had served them well enough during Ayzalmir’s purges.
But why try to kill Lystra? To frame Zafir and drive them apart? Even the Taiytakei must realize how unnecessary that was. Did they think it would somehow help Jehal to the throne? And even then, what did that achieve? No. No, there had to be another reason, something to do with getting hold of dragons. Dragons, hatchlings, eggs, everything. Someone had made them a promise. Someone they believed.
So he burned their ships, taking pleasure in it. For good measure he burned the harbor and the Taiytakei quarter of Furymouth while he was at it, and then when he landed, he sent the palace soldiers out to finish the job. A crime, really, to destroy part of his own city, but necessary. Whatever they were up to, he’d killed it; and that, for now, would have to do. Until this stupid business with Zafir was finished at least.
The next day, with smoke still rising from the blackened patch of Furymouth closest to the sea, Meteroa, Prince of Furymouth, flew north and then west. Taking the last few dragons away from his beloved city felt like undressing her and leaving her naked. Exposed. Vulnerable. It left a bad feeling in his gut which even destroying the Taiytakei hadn’t cured. Narghon’s as good as family, he reminded himself. We’re already going to war with Zafir and Silvallan. The Taiytakei are gone. Who else is there? Even so, the feeling was still with him when he reached the Pinnacles. Valmeyan. Sirion. The Syuss, even. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d never see his city again, not like she was.
Which was all the encouragement he needed to be on with his business quickly. It was dark when he reached the Pinnacles and circled the three immense spires of stone that ringed Zafir’s city. A fortress was built on the top of each monolith, lit by fires. Battlements and caves riddled their sheer sides, little pinpricks of light. They were the oldest places in the realms. This was where the Silver King had come and where he’d died; where the dragons had been broken, where the blood-mages had risen to power and fallen again, where the Order of the Dragon had followed inexorably in their path. Narammed had lived here, and the first King of the Crags too. Legend said that the three mountains were filled with tunnels, stocked with enough food and with enough rooms keep the entire city safe for a year, that they were filled with ancient and arcane workings that even the alchemists were un
able to fathom. This was where the Reflecting Garden stood, with its fountains that never ran dry and its pool of water whose surface wasn’t flat. Far more than the City of Dragons or even the Adamantine Palace or even the Glass Cathedral, the Pinnacles were the old heart of the realms, and only kings and their personal escorts were allowed to land on them; even then it was considered polite to ask first. Protocol.
Meteroa led his dragons toward them. Protocol could fuck itself.
ANOTHER WALL OF HEAT WASHED over him and then another. Jehal glanced up. The visor made him almost blind and so he took a chance and raised it for a moment. He was in the wrong place, separated from the bulk of his riders. At least they weren’t in front of him, which meant either they were behind him or something very bad had happened. He didn’t dare look back . . .
A thousand feet above the dark mounds of the Blackwind Dales, a thin blanket of morning cloud smothered the sky. Jehal and Zafir and the dragons had come to Evenspire from above it, from high out of the emptiness of the Desert of Stones. He’d been one of the first to punch through the cloud, falling toward the ground like an arrow. Wraithwing had pulled up and Jehal had watched the other dragons go. The sky was thick with them even now. Five hundred, mostly his and Zafir’s. They were like a plague. Wherever they went they ate everything. The palace eyries had been stripped bare in a matter of days, their potions drunk dry and their herds of cattle gone. The plague had crossed the Purple Spur into the dry plains that sat between the Spur and Evenspire. There the dragons had spread out. They made their way foraging in little clusters, falling out of the sky onto the tiny scattered bands of outsiders who eked out their lives on the fringes of the desert. As far as Jehal knew, no one had had any particular desire to lay waste to the southern half of Almiri’s realm, but that’s what they’d done, more by accident than by design. Sated dragons fought harder than hungry ones.
No sign of Almiri. He’d held his position just below the cloud and signaled to his other riders to do the same. Almiri’s dragons hadn’t been waiting for them above the cloud and they weren’t waiting here either. Let Zafir burn the citadel. Whoever won today, the city and the eyrie around it would burn to the ground, that was inevitable. He wondered briefly if Almiri had abandoned her stronghold and run off to hide with her sister. That would have been the best thing she could have done for her people. Then the first of Zafir’s riders had been greeted by a volley of scorpions as they approached the walls. Jehal had watched as a single dragon spiraled toward the ground. A lucky shot on a hunter with only one rider.
Or maybe she hadn’t, but where were her dragons? He’d looked around him, and it had occurred to him then that even if he saw them, how would he know? He didn’t even know all his own beasts. And then there was Prince Loatan with sixty of King Narghon’s dragons, and every single monster from Zafir’s eyries. Silvallan had sent some seventy dragons under Princess Kalista and he knew none of them. There were so many. He’d sat there on Wraithwing’s back, watching the palace below him burn, and wondered : How would I know if I saw Almiri and her riders? He’d watched as the last half-dozen dragons drifted lazily out of the cloud and veered toward him. I don’t have the first idea who they are. For all I know, those could be Almiri’s riders. Prince Lai will be turning on his pyre.
The riders had signaled, telling him to go down to join the attack on the ground. Zafir’s dragons were almost there, converging on the cascading curtains of stone that were the Palace of Paths. As he’d watched, the first blasts of fire bloomed in front of them. He’d been so busy wondering how he’d know Almiri’s dragons when he saw them that he didn’t realize he was looking right at them until much too late. The six hunters. Still signaling, still coming toward him. Coming much too fast. He’d winced as he’d shouted at Wraithwing to dive and dive hard. And so it had begun . . .
Behind him he heard one of the hunters let out a series of shrieks and he suddenly knew exactly where Almiri’s dragons had been. They’re not below the cloud and they’re not above the cloud. They’re in the cloud.
On cue, three shapes dropped out of it in front of him.
Oh, very clever.
METEROA LANDED WITH THREE DRAGONS and a dozen riders on the largest of the three Pinnacles, the Fortress of Watchfulness. The people he was looking for might be here or they might be at the Palace of Pleasure on the second Pinnacle. He rather doubted that he’d find them on the third, in the Temple of Tranquillity. Soldiers came running out dragging scorpions behind them, rather too late to do any good.
If I’ d planned to burn everything from the skies, that is. He snapped his fingers and his dragon lowered its head as any well-trained dragon should do. More dragons circled above, almost invisible in the night sky, little more than the occasional black silhouette blotting out a star. Meteroa climbed down from the dragon’s back. He stroked its scales. You don’t like the dark, do you? But you’ ll still fly if I tell you to. Once we’re done with you, you’re not much different from dogs and horses, are you? Don’t think I don’t know what you’ d be like if we didn’t keep you docile. The alchemists are right to be afraid of you.
He looked at the soldiers and the Scales and the pathetic collection of riders that had emerged to greet him. He didn’t recognize a single face. Zafir had taken every rider who could fight away with her to Evenspire. Which is going to make my life so much easier.
“I am Prince Meteroa, brother to the late King Tyan. I am King Jehal’s eyrie-master. We ride to war at the speaker’s call. I require food and sustenance for my dragons and my riders and an audience with Prince Kazalain.”
The riders shuffled uneasily. One of them stepped forward. Meteroa peered at him. The face wasn’t familiar but his eyes were sharp. He was old and walked awkwardly, which was presumably why Zafir had left him behind. “In Queen Zafir’s absence, Princess Kiam rules here,” said the rider. He bowed as he spoke, but his eyes never left Meteroa’s face.
“And will I find her here or in the Palace of Pleasure?”
The rider bowed again. “I do not know where you will find her, Your Highness, but it will not be here.”
Meteroa threw up his hands in exaggerated exasperation. “Shall I spend the night searching for your errant princess? I have better things to do and my men are soldiers not errand boys. Is Prince Kazalain here?” He’ d better be. “My words are for him, not some little girl.”
“He’s here, Your Highness,” said the rider. He sounded reluctant.
“Well, then go and get him.”
THERE WASN’T ANYWHERE ELSE FOR him to go. Jehal plunged down again, the force of Wraithwing’s turn pitching him back with such force that he was surprised it didn’t snap his spine. He screamed as something ripped and his injured leg was suddenly stabbing burning agony. He gestured frantically, hoping some of his riders would see and follow him toward the ground. Principles said that he should keep his riders high and simply sit there and take it from the dragons hidden in the clouds. We need to be low enough to see them coming. Then we can fight them. He brought the visor down again and trusted Wraithwing to level out safely above the city instead of smashing into the ground. Jehal was still gasping from the pain in his leg when Wraithwing spread out his wings again and he pitched forward. His eyes bulged and the world went red for a moment as his ribs were pushed flat. Then the feeling went. Dazed, he leaned forward and urged the dragon on, over the column of smoke and flames that had been the Palace of Paths. The wind battered at him. Whatever would burn was burning. The scorpions on the walls were gone, smashed to bits or sitting limp and idle, surrounded by the charred husks of the soldiers who had manned them. Most of Almiri’s men would have fled down into the tunnels under the citadel; that was to be expected. Zafir wouldn’t worry about that. Two thousand of the Adamantine Men were on the march to mop up the survivors and hold the citadel once Almiri had been burned out of it. Once we’re done with you. But the soldiers wouldn’t get here for days. Until then dragons would have to do.
He glimpsed Onyx,
Zafir’s war-dragon, circling low along the walls. Jehal could almost taste her delight as she swept arcs of fire about her as she went. He drove Wraithwing toward her and then into the plumes of smoke and into a cloud of a hundred circling dragons. With a bit of luck that would shake Almiri’s riders off his tail. After he’d passed through, he started to climb back toward his own dragons. He took a deep breath, sat up, opened his visor and looked behind him. He was breathing hard. Everything hurt. He was ready to be sick. But at least he was still alive.
The hunters who’d been chasing him were gone. For a moment he was alone. He took a few breaths to let his racing heart slow. He was sweating, exhausted, and he hadn’t even done anything yet except run away. Below him the rest of Zafir’s dragons, the ones that weren’t destroying the citadel, were loose over the city. There wasn’t any pattern or order to what they were doing. They were hunters mostly, looking for any sign of Almiri and her soldiers. So far they hadn’t set the city hopelessly ablaze, but that was surely only a matter of time. Jehal wondered for a fraction of a second whether the people who lived there had had any warning of what was to come. Probably not, he supposed.
He looked up again, turning Wraithwing back toward his own riders. And ducked as a dragon tail sliced the air barely yards away from his face.
“Vishmir’s cock! What does it take?” He swore some more but these dragons weren’t coming for him. They rained past him, another cluster of Almiri’s hunters from the clouds, arrowing down toward the citadel. For a few seconds he was too stunned that he was still alive to think. Then he saw where they were going. They were aiming straight for Onyx.
Jehal watched in stupefied disbelief. Without thinking what he was doing, he turned Wraithwing and dived after them. He felt something that was almost panic. He wasn’t going to catch them in time. And all the time a part of him was screaming, Why are you chasing them? They’re only doing exactly what you were going to do! Let them do it! Except that wasn’t what he wanted. He’d come to the battle with every intention of betraying Zafir and smashing her dragons to the ground as soon as the battle was won. And now Almiri’s doing it for me, and I’m trying to save her. What sort of idiot does that make me?