The Order of the Scales

by Stephen Deas

  ‘Right.’ He rounded up the first riders he found. ‘These barrels over there. Those barrels over here.’

  It was as easy as that. Switching the barrels full of water for the barrels he’d brought with him from the Adamantine Palace. Barrels full of poison. Then he called all the alchemists at the eyrie to him. He showed them the barrels and told them that Vioros had brought more potion from the north. By the end of the day, his work was done. He didn’t rest until it was too dark to see, though, moving around the eyrie and the surrounding plains, going from one clump of dragons to the next, making sure that every Scales knew their duty. Making sure that every dragon was fed. He endured Hyrkallan’s icy greetings and King Sirion’s hearty slap on the back, and when he discovered that Jehal and nearly a hundred dragons were missing, he shrugged his weary shoulders, wished them all the best and hoped that perhaps Jehal might become the speaker he had it in him to be. And after that, when there really wasn’t anything left to do, he lay back in his tent and stared at the darkness above him and waited for someone to realise what he’d done. They’d hang him. Or they’d burn him. Maybe Jehal would be like Zafir and put him in a cage. They wouldn’t feed him to any of the dragons that happened to survive the night. He was pretty sure of that.

  Stabbing dragons with the spear would have been a spectacle. Quietly poisoning them was much more the alchemists’ way.

  40

  Legbreaker

  Zafir flew south. Away from the chaos above the Pinnacles. She’d lost. Somehow, despite everything he’d done to them, Jehal had managed to empty every eyrie in the north to join his cause. She’d stayed long enough to see that Jehal himself led the charge, to see his Wraithwing plunge into Valmeyan’s cloud of dragons. For a while she’d gone looking for him. Let tooth and claw and fire settle what was between them, but the battle was too big, too wild. She hadn’t found him.

  Jehal was probably dragon-food by now anyway. As soon as the outcome seemed hopeless, she’d left Valmeyan and Tichane to fight on as best they could. She’d fallen out of the air as though she was dead. Three other dragons had fallen with her, her most trusted riders, plunging towards the ground and then at the last minute levelling out and heading south. Jehal might be gone or he might not, but Lystra wasn’t. Valmeyan hadn’t had the spine to let her see to that. Probably Lystra or her son would end up being speaker one day because of all this. Well she couldn’t take Lystra’s memories of Jehal away from her and she couldn’t take her son, but she could take everything else. Do unto others as others have done unto you. So she flew until she found the Fury and then veered to the west, over the sea of mud and huts that called itself Farakkan, past the Yamuna River and on towards the sea. Clifftop was already in ashes. When she reached Furymouth, there were no dragons to meet her, no defenders to ward her off.

  In the space of a few minutes the four dragons burned Jehal’s glorious Veid Palace to the ground. That was a start. Jehal’s home city lay waiting for her, naked and helpless. That next.

  And then? She circled out over Furymouth Bay, out over the fleet of Taiytakei ships anchored there. When I’ve done everything I can to hurt him, what then? They’ve burned my home. She’d seen the flames behind her as she’d fled. Whoever was left to claim victory at the Pinnacles would doubtless blame her for the burning of the Silver City, but it hadn’t been her, not her dragons, not her orders. The Silver City, almost as much as the Pinnacles themselves, had been the beating heart of the realms. Hers.

  They burned my home. Where do I go?

  The ships offered the obvious answer. Come with us. Across the sea where no one will look for you. Across the sea to what, though? To become a kept woman? To become a curiosity? A courtesan to some rich ship’s captain?

  Better than being dead, wasn’t it?

  She circled the ships one more time. One of these ships carried dragon eggs, sold to the Taiytakei from Jehal’s eyrie by Valmeyan. In exchange for what, Zafir didn’t know, but she had no doubt the eggs were there. Sold in exchange for helping him to the Adamantine Throne. Fat lot of good you were. They were the ones who’d done this. The Taiytakei. She didn’t know how or why, but somehow they’d made this happen. They’d used her. Ayzalmir had had the right of it when he’d burned their ships, banished them, fed the ones who couldn’t or wouldn’t run to the snappers in his menagerie.

  No. Being a slave wasn’t better than being dead. She skimmed across the sea towards one of the Taiytakei ships, the biggest one with the most flags flying from it, and told her dragon to burn it. Dragons liked burning ships. One thing she’d learned from those few of Meteroa’s riders she’d taken alive in the Pinnacles.

  The dragon gleefully veered to obey. It opened its mouth. She felt a sense of exultation . . .

  And then nothing. The dragon spasmed once, twisted and fell out of the sky. Its head hit the waves and it somersaulted, spinning the world around Zafir. A wall of salt water crashed into her, thumped into her back, crushing her against her dragon’s neck, and then she was flying again. For a moment it seemed as though she wasn’t strapped to the dragon at all; then they crashed together back into the sea. For a second time she was flung forward, all the breath smashed out of her lungs. She fell limp, almost snapped in two. The dragon ploughed through the waves and slid to a stop. The Taiytakei ship loomed before them. The dragon’s head hung under the waves while its wings spread out over the surface. It wasn’t moving. Somehow, it was dead.

  Zafir tried to lift her head, but the effort was too much. She could barely breathe. She lay still, arms wrapped around the dragon’s neck, making little gasping noises as one wing slowly slipped under the water and the dragon began to tip and sink. The straps and webbing dug into her legs and her waist, holding her fast to the monster’s back as it started to slide under the water. Movement was beyond her. Of all things, she was going to drown.

  Live. She had no idea where the thought came from. Someone who cared whether she lived or died. There couldn’t be too many of them left. Must have been her own then. Live.

  The water reached her legs and then her waist. Slowly, slowly sinking. A shock of cold against her skin as it found the joins in her armour. She tried to move. It might have been the hardest thing she’d ever done, but she did it, lifting her face away from the dragon’s neck. That was almost as much as she could manage, but she forced her hands to move to the knot of pain in her belly where the main harness was jammed into her flesh. Her fingers fumbled. Water lapped at her fingers, then at her arms. With one last monumental effort of will, she pushed herself back into the saddle, gave herself the finger-width of space she needed, and pulled the buckle apart.

  And now the other one.

  The other one was easy. One strong jerk on a knot and she was free. As the dragon slipped under the waves, she threw off her helm. Panic snapped at her fingers, making them clumsy as she tried to find the buckles that would get rid of her armour. Gauntlets first. One shoulder plate. The other. Elbows.

  One arm free.

  As she sank, the shadow of the Taiytakei ship fell across her, but there was something else. A figure in silver, standing nearby. Which couldn’t be right because that meant he was standing on the water.

  Other arm. Breast plates. Back plates. The sea was up to her neck. Lapping at her face. Frantic now, cutting straps where they wouldn’t give.

  She felt her herself come loose from the saddle. Felt the water lift her. Kicked, kicked as hard as she could until she was free. Free! Her arms thrashed, struggling to keep her head above the water.

  The silver ghost came closer until he was standing right over her. She couldn’t see his face. Everything about him glittered.

  Speaker Zafir, it said. She would have nodded, if she could, but since she couldn’t, a blank assent would have to suffice. The knight or whatever it was bent over her; behind his silver mask, his skin was white and his eyes were blood-red lanterns. Haven’t you forgotten something? it seemed to ask.

  The legbreaker around her ankle wen
t taut, and suddenly the entire weight of her dead dragon was dragging her beneath the waves. Her arms flailed for a moment, until the sky disappeared and the black water sucked her in.

  41

  The Dead and the Dying

  The heat in the fields around the eyrie was blistering. Hundreds of dragons lay dead, roasting, cooking from the inside. Jeiros felt a pang of satisfaction. Short-lived perhaps, as the northern riders dragged him to where Hyrkallan and Sirion would tell him how he was going to die. But satisfaction nonetheless. He’d got more than half the realm’s dragons in a stroke. Two thirds, probably. There must have been nearly a thousand of them here after the battle. Less than a hundred were still alive. Probably more like fifty. They’d come back, of course. All over the realms, in the weeks to come, eggs that had been dormant for years would hatch. By then he’d be dead and that would be somebody else’s problem. While he was dying he could console himself with how easy he’d made it for them. Hatchlings were manageable. Hatchlings needed far less potion to keep them tame. A man could kill a hatchling if he set his mind to it with care. If Vioros had taken his message and Vale had understood it, the Night Watchman would be seeing to that right away. Soldiers would be sent. Riders on horseback, riders on dragons if there were any left. All across the realms the Adamantine Men would roam, and they’d be carrying hammers with their spears. Even if they didn’t, what he’d done here was probably enough. Probably.

  Which left it down to Jehal, to Vale and his Adamantine Men and to the rogue dragons. When they came out from wherever they were hiding, probably the best anyone could hope for was to hide long enough for them to get bored and go somewhere else. Eggs and hatchlings would call to them. Jeiros didn’t know how that worked exactly, but that was the history he knew. That was how they’d lured the dragons in the first place. Eggs and hatchlings and other dragons. Get rid of those and wait for the rogues to die out. Maybe turn a few into stone. That, as far as Jeiros could see, was the best chance any of them had. Except me, of course. I don’t get to watch. I’m not sure, but I think I’m glad.

  The riders stopped dragging him when they reached some of the few dragons left alive. There they tied Jeiros’ hands and feet. He didn’t bother to resist. They hauled him onto the back of a dragon and flew him to the top of the the Fortress of Watchfulness, where Hyrkallan and Sirion had set up their court. There wasn’t much ceremony there either. Hyrkallan hadn’t had time to make a cage but that was clearly what was on his mind. They broke his ankles and his wrists with a bored and sullen rage and then tied him to a wheel. Hyrkallan must have hauled that up on the back of one of the few dragons left that same morning. They tied the wheel to one of the cranes that lined the battlements of the fortress and swung him over the edge to hang there, face down, staring at the eyrie far below. The height didn’t bother him. Even the pain in his ankles and his wrists wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Mostly he just felt tired. As deaths go, this could be worse, I suppose. At least I get to see my handiwork. We can see who lasts longest.

  ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ shouted Hyrkallan from the fortress wall. ‘Stupid alchemist! Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve given it all to Jehal.’

  There wasn’t much to say to that. Yes. I’ve given him the world so he can watch it burn. I’ve given him ash. I’ve given him the duty of staying alive, of keeping tame the few dragons we have left. Of fighting the awakened ones. And why did I do that? Because none of you will stop the fire when it comes, but Jehal might just have the cunning and the guile to survive it. Unlike you. Is he going to thank me, do you think? He laughed bitterly. No. Not very likely, is it.

  ‘Don’t think the rest of your kind will escape! You were all in this together. You must have been. I’ll have you all broken on the wheel!’

  He had to answer that, at least. ‘They knew nothing.’

  ‘Liar! Give me names, alchemist, and I will spare the rest. Otherwise they all die.’

  ‘There are no names, Lord Hyrkallan.’

  ‘Am I suppose to believe you did this alone?’

  Yes, you are, and actually I did, but don’t suppose you will. What am I supposed to do about it? They know their duty. I tried to spare them any complicity, but I don’t imagine you care about that one way or the other. They did nothing wrong, but then neither did I. I did what was needed.

  ‘You have ruined us all! Do you imagine Jehal will spare any of us?’

  Do you imagine I care?

  ‘How much did he pay you, alchemist? What did he promise you?’

  Jeiros’ patience broke. ‘Don’t you think that if he’d paid me I might have run away?’ he shouted back in fury. Think, dragon-lord. Use your head. Oh, but you already are, and you still can’t see beyond who gets to sit on the Speaker’s Throne. You don’t see what’s coming. You can thank my ghost later, Vioros, that I sent you back when I did.

  Hyrkallan came as close to the edge as he could. ‘Names, alchemist. Tell me who else or I swear I will take your order apart limb by limb.’

  And you probably would too, if you have the chance. Jeiros sighed and reeled off a few names, alchemists that the order might survive without. Names given so that others might be spared. Not men and women against whom he bore any particular grudge, just the ones that maybe mattered a little less. There. And that’s me damned. Are we done now? ‘You want to know why I gave Jehal the Adamantine Throne? Because he’s cleverer than you, Hyrkallan. Whatever his faults, he’s sharper than the rest of you.’ Which might have been true or might not. But then Hyrkallan and even Sirion weren’t about to understand that this had nothing to do with them, nothing to do with Jehal, nothing to do with who wore what title and sat in which throne.

  Hyrkallan shouted some more. Jeiros didn’t listen and eventually the dragon-lord went away. King Sirion never even came out to look. Jeiros was left there, hanging thousands of feet up in the air over a sea of dead dragons.

  He probably lost consciousness at some point. It became hard to tell. His mind wandered over all the things he hadn’t managed to do, all the things left incomplete, the tasks undone. Thinking distracted him from the pain of his mangled hands and feet. Was there anything more he could have given of himself? Could he somehow have stopped the rogue dragons from waking? He couldn’t think how, but the nagging voice was there anyway. Bellepheros would have done better. But Bellepheros was dead. Best to face that. Dead as in not coming back. Not riding out of the sunset with barges loaded with potions and some clever way of drawing all the rogue dragons towards him and turning them into stone.

  Turning them into stone with the Adamantine Spear. Absurd story, and not one that he or any other alchemist for a hundred years had believed. And yet there it was. Evidence. It had been right in front of him. Seen with his own eyes, heard with his own ears. What else could it do? Why didn’t I know? The Silver King was said to be able to summon dragons from the skies, but was that him or the spear? Not much point in that if we can’t kill more than one at a time. Maybe someone could call them and then run away to some other place and call them again. Maybe we could keep them penned up in one corner of the realms. Or maybe we could take the spear deep underground and keep calling them to a place they could never reach. Or out to sea, perhaps. Take it away on one of the Taiytakei ships and then summon them away?

  Children’s stories. Which ones were real? Too late now, though. He’d never know. Not his problem. Vioros would have to find out for himself. Quickly too.

  At some point it was dark. Not long after that it was light again. There weren’t any dragons moving about down on the plains any more. He saw a couple flying away from the Palace of Pleasure, and that was all.

  The sun moved across the sky. No sign of any live dragons at all. There were fires though. The eyrie was on fire. And distant sounds, whispering up from the ground below. Shouting, fighting sounds. All too far away to see.

  ‘Master.’ Evening now. He heard the voice clearly enough, but he had no idea who it was and was in no pos
ition to turn and look. ‘Master,’ it called again.

  ‘I’m here,’ he croaked. His throat, he realised, was very dry. He wasn’t hungry yet, but then he’d been here not much more than a day. Thirsty, though. Yes, definitely thirsty. The realisation hit home, right then. Yes. You really are going to die up here.

  ‘Master, the last dragons here are all gone. We followed your orders.’

  Orders? What orders? I didn’t give any orders. I just got potion and poison mixed up. Easy enough thing to do. Just muddle a letter or two. Jeiros chuckled. The movement jarred his wrists and ankles and turned his laugh into a cry of pain.

  ‘They took some of the others and hung them. They wouldn’t let the rest of us near the dragons, but we found a way. And now the people who stayed on in the ruins of the Silver City have turned on the riders. I heard most of them are dead. Some of them got into the fortress. There was fighting. There’s no food out there. I have to go. The riders will hang us all now if they find us. But it’s done, master. I thought you should know. It’s finished.’

  ‘Finished?’ He wanted to laugh. ‘It’s never finished with dragons.’

  The voice didn’t say anything else. Jeiros assumed the alchemist had gone, vanished to hide from the wrath of the dragon-lords. They’ll have to call themselves something else now. Or maybe the alchemist was still there, watching. Jeiros had no way of telling.

  ‘Good luck,’ he rasped. Too late for me, but the rest of you will be needing it. The spear, Vioros. Take it under the ground. Or take it out to sea. He had to laugh at his own optimism. As though if he thought hard enough of the spear and all the things he want to try with it, Vioros would somehow hear him.

  Dragons. They hear our thoughts. That’s how they know what their riders want them to do.