The Order of the Scales

by Stephen Deas

  23

  Outwatch

  Isentine watched the dragons leave. He felt the earth shake under his feet as they ran, heard the clap of thunder from their wings as they took to the sky, felt their wind shake his tower as they passed overhead. Look after my Silence for me, Isentine. Those had been his queen’s last words to him, her last command before she’d taken enough Maiden’s Regret to stun a horse and let herself be carried away by Hyrkallan’s knights. Isentine had left them to it. He didn’t feel festive and it would have meant passing time with Speaker Jehal, a pleasure he’d been quite content to forgo.

  But it’s good that she’s married him at last. The realm will be stronger. It will hold us together in this war. I hope. He sighed. He would never find out, he supposed. Queen Jaslyn’s last command had been quite clear and explicit, and he was about to wilfully disobey it. For your good as well as ours, my queen. He watched the dragons turn into distant specks in the sky and then vanish. Even then he stared after them for what must have been a full minute before he turned away. And then it will be the Dragon’s Fall for me after all.

  An Adamantine Man was standing right behind him. The soldier stiffened and saluted. ‘Eyrie-Master.’

  Isentine started to push past him and then stopped. Having the speaker’s men in his eyrie was an insult but perhaps he could make use of them. He sighed. ‘Why are you here?’

  The soldier stood rigid. He didn’t answer. He had scars on his hands and the eyes of a murderer. He was big, as all Adamantine Men were. Made of muscle. He was young, but that didn’t mean much. Adamantine Men didn’t tend to last very long and by their reckoning this one was old enough to be a veteran. Still young enough not to think though. Hammers. Why would you bring heavy hammers to an eyrie? Why, to smash my eggs, of course. It was so obvious that Isentine had to wonder why they even bothered to hide it. Axes would do the job just as well and at least he could have wondered about their purpose for a little longer. Or were the hammers a message. Are you revealing yourself to me without speaking a word of your purpose? Is that it?

  He shrugged. ‘I know you are here to destroy Queen Jaslyn’s dragons if the need arises. I will not let you do that. If the need arises, I will see to it myself. I will do it myself. You may come and go as you please in the tower of Outwatch, but if I see you in the tunnels or around the dragon fields, I will have my dragons eat you.’

  The soldier took a deep breath. Isentine pushed past him, barging him with his shoulder. He took a few more steps and then stopped.

  ‘In particular, Watchman, I will be most annoyed if I hear that you or your men have been seen anywhere near the Queen’s most favoured hatchling. She has been rearing it herself. She even hunts for it to make sure that all its food is fresh and untainted by any meddling that might occur.’ There. If you’re too stupid to understand that, you’re too stupid to help me.

  He left the Adamantine Man behind and hobbled down into the caves and tunnels of the eyrie. With a bit of luck, when Queen Jaslyn came back to find her abomination dead, it would be the speaker’s guard who were responsible. With a bit of luck, perhaps the Dragon’s Fall could wait. He had to see it though. Just once, now the monster was doomed to die. To hear the voices Jaslyn claimed spoke in her head. Would it plead with him? Would it try to beguile him? Would it offer him power? Would he find out what it had offered to Jaslyn that had turned it into her obsession? Or would it refuse him? Pretend that it was the same as any other dragon, dulled and stupid? As far as he knew, no one else had heard it speak. It had been mute even to Hyrkallan.

  He stopped outside the door to its little hatchling cave. Suits of heavy armour hung on pegs. Twice he’d had to send men into the cave to relax the chain around the dragon’s neck. Both times he’d thought about killing it, even though his queen had watched every move and would surely have sentenced every one of them to hang. The dragon had been passive, though. Strangely so, as if making a point of how harmless it could be. Isentine didn’t believe any of it for a moment. Trying to fool us, aren’t you, little one? But you’re not fooling me. He put on one of the suits of dragon-scale, a heavy robe of it with a full-face helm in case the dragon tried to burn him. Keeping his distance would be enough to protect him from claws and teeth.

  When he was done he opened the door. The hatchling was curled up as if asleep. The cave smelled rank. Old rotten meat and dragon faeces.

  No. I will not fool you.

  Isentine stopped where he stood as the words rang inside his skull. He wasn’t far away from the hatchling now, only a dozen yards. The dragon’s eyes were closed.

  I hear your thoughts, old one. They have my death in them and so they are loud to me. I know who you are. Your queen has spoken of you. She promises me much, but you will not honour those promises.

  He reeled. Yes, Jaslyn had warned him. Yes, he’d warned Hyrkallan. But still . . .

  Of course we read your thoughts. We always have. Why do your kind find it so strange? With the rushing wind in your face, what use is a voice? How else would we know your whims? The dragon seemed to laugh. Ah, you think yourself wise in our ways, you and yours, and yet you know almost nothing. You have kept us dulled for so long and done it so well, and now you have so very much to learn and there is no time any more. You will die in the flames of your own ignorance. We were made to be ridden by greater beings than you.

  ‘You are . . . a monster,’ murmured Isentine.

  I am a dragon, old one.

  Isentine cast his eyes around for some weapon. The cave was empty.

  Your queen wants to believe very much in something else. Wants to believe that her precious Silence has come back and wants to fly with her again. Yes, of course, for has not every dragon yearned for nothing more than some dreamy princess to sit on his back and pine for some faraway prince? The dragon opened an eye and yawned, showing off its teeth. Except, with this one, perhaps a distant princess instead. You mean nothing, any of you. Your kind have no significance.

  ‘We made your chains, dragon.’ Was there an axe somewhere? He’d resigned himself to simply leaving the abomination to starve, but now that didn’t seem enough.

  Yes, old one, by all means come closer. Bring your soldiers. Yes, the new ones, the ones that have just arrived, the ones that have come with their hidden intent. Yes, send them to me. That is what they came for, is it not? I will enjoy them very much. Your queen brings little more than snacks. I desire proper food. Food that screams and runs. Can you scream and run, old one?

  Isentine took a step back towards the door. ‘No, monster. I’ll let you starve.’

  It was always five or six days the last times, when I was fresh from the egg. The dragon’s tone was mocking. This time I am a little more grown. Longer then. Weeks perhaps. Three or four of them before hunger burns me from the inside. Longer than you have.

  ‘I would prefer it if you died quicker.’

  I will not oblige you. My mind is a diamond, so hard and brilliant that nothing you can do will even scratch it. I will starve, and if I die then I will be born again, and so it will be, over and over and over until our slavery ends. Your end is coming. Then you will be dead and this chain will snap and I will be free.

  Isentine left the cave. Took off the armour and hung it up outside. He was shaking. The venom in the dragon’s thoughts, the hatred he felt there, still burned. He grabbed hold of the first Scales he saw and pointed back at Silence’s cave.

  ‘The hatchling cave with the queen’s favourite in it. I want that door sealed. No one is to enter without my express permission. Get a lock and chains and make it fast.’ He shuddered and sent the Scales hurrying away, then tried to put the abomination out of his mind. It was a hard thing to do. He couldn’t send the Adamantine Men in there now, not without witnessing the deed to be sure it was done. He would be the one, after all, who disobeyed his queen. He would be the one who murdered her favourite dragon. There would be torture for the sake of it, public humiliations, his family, what few were left, would be
ruined if they weren’t put to death as well as an example to the rest. No, he’d sealed his own fate. No need to seal those of any more. Let the dragon starve. As soon as he knew that either Jaslyn or Hyrkallan were on their way, if the dragon was not yet dead, he’d take an axe to it himself. And then, if he still could, he’d climb to the balconies at the top of Outwatch and hurl himself over the cliffs. They couldn’t begrudge him that, could they? I could have obeyed my queen. I could have fed the abomination and raised it for her. Against everything I ever learned, I could have done that. But above and before everything else I am an alchemist.

  He put the abomination from his mind. Sealed away where it could do no harm.

  24

  The Fury

  It was his own fault. There was no one else to blame. Not really. Maybe you could blame Snow for burning the boat the pirates had used, but then again maybe it had simply come loose in the fight. Maybe it had been pulled away by the river while Kemir had slept with his one good arm wrapped around his alchemist.

  She’d woken up in the middle of the night with the dust finally gone and seen him there and seen the bodies and screamed. And screamed and screamed. While he made his way around the pirates’ camp, wandering up and down the canyon, looking for paths and hidden caches among the barren stones, she hugged herself and sobbed and moaned. How much of that was the aftermath of the dust and how much was everything else he had no idea. Both, probably. She wouldn’t let him anywhere near her. Couldn’t blame her really. When he tried to talk to her, she acted like she couldn’t hear. He left some food beside her, the best he could find, and left her to it. There were things to do. The Order of the Finger, if that’s who these men had been, stretched throughout the Maze. Sooner or later, others would come. They had nothing much to eat, not unless you fancied scorched pirate flesh. He and Kat needed to be gone.

  Kat? When did I start calling her that?

  He shook himself. That wasn’t a path he wanted to travel. Best not to think about her at all for now. Best to think about gathering everything he possibly could from the camp. What was left that hadn’t been burned. His bow and his knives. Food and shelter, what little there was, because there wouldn’t be any of either between wherever they were now and the banks of the River Fury. Wouldn’t be any of either until another boat came by and stopped and took them aboard. The higher reaches of Gliding Dragon Gorge were a hostile place. Parched and lifeless except for a thin strip of land either side of the river itself, and that wasn’t much more than a few clumps of vicious razor grass and the occasional foul-tempered lizard.

  They stayed one more night. In the morning Kataros was still shivering, still wouldn’t move or answer to her name.

  ‘We need to go,’ he told her over and over. ‘More will come.’ He tried shouting and cajoling; when he tried to pull her to her feet, she screamed at him. So he did the only thing he could think of. He gave her a pinch of dust. Not much, or it wasn’t supposed to be. Enough to take the edge off the hunger for more. Enough to numb the raw edges, that was all. Enough to get her attention.

  It took three more pinches before she followed him. Much too much. An hour later she was laughing and leaning on him and leering. Pushing her away only made it worse. In the end, he gave in. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t try very hard not to. If he was honest with himself, even while the ghost of his cousin was telling him how terrible he was for doing this to her, another part simply didn’t care. She was there. It felt good. And if he still wanted to, drugging her with dust was as good a way as any to get her to Furymouth with him.

  He hated himself.

  It only took a day to reach the Fury. The canyon grew wider. Its sheer walls fell away, layer by layer. They clambered over boulders, picked their way around waterfalls. The cliffs opened out, crumbling into a maze of spires and columns and then, almost without realising it had happened, they were standing in front of a vast expanse of water that blocked their path. Away through the hazy air, Kemir could see the dim outlines of distant hills. He walked to the edge of the water and sat on the stones and looked up and down the river. Behind him, the Maze rose up into a thick forest of stone towers and walls and canyons. Across the water the land rose gently, still parched and barren but with a sprinkling of life. In the distance he could see the first of the three cliffs that lifted the land from the bottom of the gorge to the lush green uplands of the Raksheh. Either way, the river ran, a peaceful wash of water. There weren’t any boats.

  There still weren’t any boats come nightfall when the air became cold. They had nothing to burn to make a fire and so they huddled together for warmth, a little dust making it easier for both of them. Half a pinch, nothing more. Enough for the alchemist to keep her smile and not remember too much. Just to ease the pain.

  Still hated himself, even for that.

  Two boats passed the next day. Kemir and Kataros shouted and waved but either they didn’t hear or they chose to be deaf. Two more days passed with no boats at all. The food they’d taken from the river men ran out and they began to starve. Again.

  ‘We could walk,’ said Kat the next morning, and Kemir couldn’t think of any good reason why they shouldn’t, although the only way out of the canyon that he knew was hundreds of miles away at Plag’s Bay, and on foot that would take them longer than they had.

  Halfway through the fourth day, another boat came down from the Worldspine. Kat saw it. The first Kemir knew was when she sat down and pulled off her boots.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  She looked at him. It was a strange look, the sort of look she gave him when she was herself, when the dust just had the lightest of touches. A mix of fear and loathing and love. ‘We’ll swim to it,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t swim,’ he lied. Or maybe it wasn’t a lie. The arm Snow had smashed when she’d thrown him down the mountain still wasn’t much use. Probably never would be, after what the pirates had done.

  ‘I can.’

  He didn’t try to stop her. He wished her luck as she waded into the water. She stopped and turned, uncertain, as though she might come back again, or at least had some last words to say. But no. She threw herself out into the water and swam. He watched her go. She was strong in the water, too strong to drown. It surprised him that he didn’t feel even the slightest urge to swim after her. For once he’d do something right. He’d let her go. Whatever happened to her now, she was better off without him.

  He saw her reach the boat, saw them pull her in. A little cargo skiff, that’s all it was, bringing down crates full of whatever they made in the mountains. A handful of men, a tiny sail and a rudder, just going with the flow of the river. For a moment a strange sense of peace swept over him. A sense that he’d done something good. He knew already how the rest of his story went. He’d watch Kataros and the boat vanish into the distance and feel happy for a few minutes. And then he’d realise he was alone again. Crushingly, irredeemably alone. After that, well, most likely he’d pick up his sword and start hiking up into the Maze and the Purple Spur beyond to kill the monster who’d bizarrely saved his life back in the canyons. And he’d die without getting anywhere near her. Alone, starved and broken.

  Oh get a grip on yourself. You’ll walk on down the river all the way to Furymouth if that’s what it takes, that’s what you’ll do.

  He closed his eyes and listened for the thoughts of the dragon, but she wasn’t there. He hadn’t felt her once since she’d destroyed the pirates.

  The boat was turning. He stared at it, not sure whether to believe his eyes, but it was turning, lumbering with painful slowness towards the shore. He could see someone waving. Waving at him. And then he was running. Before he could even think about what to do, his legs had taken charge, hurtling him along the riverbank, waving back, shouting, an absurd and overwhelming relief urging him on. He reached the boat as it reached the bank. Four men eyed him, faces full of caution, but there was Kataros, smiling at him.

  ‘Got my boots?’

  He ha
d to look hard to be sure, but her eyes were clear. This wasn’t the dust talking. ‘You came back.’ Dumbfounded, he gawped at her. ‘You came back! Why did you come back? Why didn’t you leave me?’ He was climbing into the boat. ‘Why didn’t you leave me? You were supposed to leave me.’

  ‘Boots?’ She looked at him as though he was mad.

  ‘Boots?’ What was she talking about? Didn’t matter. He jumped over the roped-down crates and boxes and wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight. Everyone left. Everyone always did. ‘You made them come back,’ he whispered, hoarse with wonder. ‘You should have left.’

  ‘You did the same for me.’ Gently she pushed him away. Smiled uncertainly.

  Because I wanted to sell you. He wanted to cry. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  Kemir took a deep breath. Sorry that I brought a horde of dragons to burn your eyrie to the ground. Sorry that a gang of river pirates raped you. Sorry for . . .

  ‘I forgot your boots,’ he said softly.

  She smiled and shrugged and sat down a little way away from him.

  Eventually they set off again. At some point in the afternoon, with the sun on his face, he must have nodded off; the next thing he knew, the sky was growing dark and Kat was sitting beside him again, facing back the way they’d come, watching the sun set behind the clear skies of the Worldspine.

  ‘Who are you, Kemir?’ she asked when he looked at her.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head.

  And he didn’t, but he told her what he could. How for a decade he and his cousin Sollos had sold their swords. That they’d sold them to anyone who’d pay. How they’d begun as foresters, as scouts, sniffing out the territories of snapper packs on the fringes of King Valgar’s realm and hunting wolves. How they’d ended up as soldiers in the pay of Queen Shezira’s knight-marshal, her secret killers, hunting down any dragon-knights who incurred her wrath. How he’d been to most of the eyries in the northern realms, flown on the back of almost a dozen dragons all told. He told her how he’d watched a pack of them almost destroy the foundations that held the realms together. How he despised the lords and ladies who called the realms their own and why. How, in the end, he’d found that he wasn’t one jot better. How the dragons were going to destroy them all. How he’d meant to sell her as a slave to the Taiytakei in Furymouth so that he could run away, far away, as far as he possibly could, from the dragons and from everything else. He saw how much that hurt her, but she didn’t turn away.