The King of the Crags mof-2

by Stephen Deas

  Justice and Vengeance. Justice and Vengeance…

  The priest's words echoed for an eternity, yet even they decayed. Other voices, other words rose up, drowning the priest in mindless chatter. Familiar voices. People.

  Friends?

  Semian listened to them as best he could, but his mind was adrift and nothing made any sense. Nothing until three words pierced him like a lance.

  The Red Riders.

  2

  Torchlight

  'A rider without a dragon is a like a one-armed swordsman.' Jostan was drunk. He was slumped in the darkest corner he could find of the worst drinking hole within walking distance of Southwatch. His words were slurred. He glowered at the table in front of him. The wood was stained and on the stains there were more stains. Where there weren't stains there were letters or, more often, crude pictograms badly hacked into the wood by a hundred years of drunken knights determined to leave their mark. 'No. It's worse. It's like a no-armed swordsman. With no legs.'

  Beside him a rider was weeping. He didn't even know her name. She'd found him there, glaring in the gloom, and simply sat beside him. She obviously knew the place well since she barely had to lift her eyes towards the tavern-keeper to summon another flagon of ale. She was already drunk when she'd sat down beside him and she showed no signs of slowing down.

  'I've got a dragon,' she said suddenly. 'I didn't used to have a dragon, but I've got one now.'

  'I used to have one.' Jostan sighed. 'Then the Embers poisoned it. Now I haven't got one any more. Princess Jaslyn was supposed to give me another one. But she's gone away.' Gone away having virtually dismissed Semian from her service. And, Jostan discovered, him as well, almost as an afterthought. Whatever Semian had said, apparently, had been spoken for them both.

  Stupid little girl. That's what she was, after all. Almost a girl. To think he'd held a torch for her not long ago. And there was another thing. What was he thinking? A rider from a nothing family and a dragon-princess? I must have been wearing my stupid-cap.

  'She used to look at me, though,' he mumbled. Little looks that made him wonder; and then Knight-Marshal Nastria had sent him with her to the alchemists and the dragons had come and burned everything and he'd held her in his arms, stopping her from running into the flames, and she'd liked it. For a moment at least, she'd liked it.

  Or that's what he'd thought. Maybe he was fooling himself. Deluded. She was made of the same heartless flint as her mother. 'No dragon. Thrown away. Semian's no better. Spent days sitting with him trying to make him not die and now that he's come back, he's gone crazy. Had some stupid vision while he was in his coma and now all he talks about is the Great Flame and the Red Riders.'

  The rider beside him lifted her head and turned towards him. 'Red Riders? You know where they are?' Jostan shook his head. 'No. No idea.'

  The other rider slumped and promptly lost interest in him again.

  'Semian says we have to find them and join them. Says that's where he's meant to be. Not that he's got a dragon either. Fat lot of use either of us would be. Justice and Vengeance without any dragons.' He spat on the floor. 'I suppose we could tend the camp fires while the real riders fly. I've done that before.'

  'Hyrkallan leads the Red Riders,' slurred the other rider. 'He's the greatest there is. Was there too. He was.' Her head lolled sideways and she looked at him. 'Who flies with the Red Riders?'

  Jostan shrugged. 'I don't know their names. The riders who fought their way out of the Adamantine Palace on the Night of the Knives. Knights who served Hyram or Queen Shezira. Who see through the speaker's lies. Her and Jehal. We could have… We could…' The thought petered out in disarray. We could have what? Stopped Lady Nastria from trying to kill Queen Zafir? Stopped Queen Shezira from pushing Hyram off a balcony?

  The other rider slowly slid sideways, slumping against him like a sack of potatoes. Her head lolled on his shoulder. Jostan sighed. That's all I need.

  'Can I come too?' She sounded ready to pass out. Jostan pushed her away. She grumbled and groaned but managed to stay upright.

  'Leave me alone.'

  'But I want to come with you.'

  'I don't even know you.' Jostan started to get up, but now the other rider grabbed hold of him and pulled him back down with all the fierce strength of the very drunk.

  'Nthandra of the Vale.'

  Jostan sat slowly back down. He looked the woman carefully up and down, wondering if she was lying. Nthandra of the Vale. Everyone in Southwatch knew the name. Nthandra of the Vale, whose father was King Valgar's knight-marshal, whose brothers and sisters were his honour guard, whose betrothed was his adjutant. Nthandra of the Vale, whose entire family had died at King Valgar's side on the Night of the Knives. Nthandra of the Vale, who was said to roam Southwatch like a ghost.

  'Nthandra…?'

  She fell across the table and then turned her head to leer at him. 'You know what they say about me?'

  'Your brothers… your father… your husband… They all died.'

  'All dead, all dead, all dead. So what else do they say about me?' She reached out a languid arm and stroked his cheek. Jostan swallowed hard.

  'I don't… I don't know.'

  'Don't they say that I gave myself to the man I was to marry before we were wed?' 'I…'

  'Don't they say that I'm carrying his child inside me?' 'Urn…'

  'Don't they say I'm a drunk who'll give herself to any man who takes her fancy as freely as the autumn wind plucks leaves from the trees?'

  A strange feeling crept over Jostan, starting from his feet and rising slowly. A numb sort of paralysis. 'I haven't heard such things…' He couldn't take his eyes off her. That was the drunk inside him, throwing care and caution to the wind.

  'Don't they say that I lay with three riders in one night on the day that I learned my betrothed was dead?'

  'I…' Jostan didn't know what to say, but that didn't seem to matter. Nthandra's face screwed up and she started to sob.

  'When I'm alone, all I think of are the dead.' The hand on his cheek moved to his shoulder and gripped his shirt. 'Don't leave me alone. I can't be alone. Use me like a whore or hold me like a baby, I don't mind, but please, please don't let me be alone.'

  Jostan's tongue seemed to have swollen so it didn't fit in his mouth any more. He had to work hard to make words come out. He took hold of her hand. 'There's a place we can go.'

  The sobs went away and her eyes gleamed. 'There are lots of places we can go.'

  'No. There's a place for forgetting.' He staggered to his feet and pulled her up after him. She could barely walk so he put one of her arms around his shoulders and half dragged her away to the door. Eyes watched him go. Other riders. He didn't care what they thought. All the time he'd spent serving one mistress and then another. He'd nearly died, back in the caves with Jaslyn. Yes, could easily have died. And what does she do? She throws me away. Whatever Semian said or did, I didn't do anything. I just held her when she needed to be held. When that mask of stone cracked for a moment. And the thanks I get?

  He looked at Nthandra of the Vale, glassy-eyed, head flopping from side to side, barely even conscious. She didn't look much like a princess, but somehow he saw Jaslyn's face anyway.

  'I'm not just going to hold you,' he muttered.

  'I don't care.'

  You should. So should I. But he didn't. He took her to the door of another place. A place where drunkards lay sprawled in the street and two heavy men in thick leather coats lounged by the door. A place where he knew, from the smell of the air, that they could both forget.

  One of the men stepped away from the wall and blocked his path. 'Rider.' He nodded. Jostan nodded back, not knowing what he was supposed to say. The other one was standing straighter now, only pretending to be bored.

  'Got gold?' asked the first. Jostan nodded. He leaned forward and fumbled in his boot, where he kept a few gold dragons. Nthandra slipped off his shoulder and fell gracelessly into the dirt. The men in the leather coats bo
th laughed.

  'You sure you need to go in?' asked the second one. Jostan shot him a filthy look and gave the first one a coin. That wasn't enough, so he felt around and fished out a second one.

  'Gold,' he said. The man nodded again and went back to propping up his wall. Jostan hauled Nthandra to her feet. She was gone now, completely gone. He took her in anyway. As soon as he walked through the door, the smell of Souldust hit him like a brick in the face. Souldust fresh from Evenspire where men freely offered it in the streets. Semian would never speak to him again if he found out, but as much as anything that was why Jostan was doing this. You can all screw yourselves. I don't have to do anything for any of you any more.

  Inside, he could barely see a thing. A single dim candle lit each room. Bodies lay strewn about, some of them sleeping, some of them sitting, eyes glittering in the candle flame, open-mouthed and motionless. Some of them seemed to be naked, but in the darkness he couldn't be sure. From a few rooms deeper in came the grunts and moans of some couple. Here and there, as he stepped over legs and arms, faces glanced up at him. They were all empty. Empty, yes, and he wanted to be exactly like them.

  He eventually found a room that was a bit less crowded than the rest, where there was space to sit down. This was where the sounds of the man and the woman were coming from, growing louder as they slowly approached their climax. The air smelled of sweat and musk. Only, as he realised after a few minutes, it wasn't a man and a woman but a man and another man. They ignored him, lost in their own world, and Jostan did the same. He propped Nthandra up beside him and held her tight, sucking in deep breaths of the dust-laden air. It didn't take long before the drug and the gallon of ale he had inside him took him away, far away.

  Sometime in the night he became aware of something moving, and then a sensation of exquisite pleasure. He wasn't sure when he opened his eyes, for the candles had long gone out and the room was as black as pitch. Filled with snores too. Something soft brushed his lips. His skin was tingling, his heart thumping. He was intensely, painfully aroused. As he shifted, he realised that someone had their hand in his trousers.

  He jumped, thinking of the two men who'd been there when they'd come in earlier.

  'Shhh.'

  Nthandra pressed her lips to his, while her hand continued to work. Jostan moaned.

  'Did you mean what you said?' she whispered. 'About the Red Riders?'

  His hand reached out and touched skin. As he explored her, he found she was almost naked, her clothes hanging loosely, every button and fastening open. He reached between her legs, but she batted him away.

  'Did you mean what you said?'

  'Yes,' he said. 'But I don't have a dragon.'

  'But you can find them.'

  'Yes.' He had no idea how, but it was the answer she wanted and that was enough.

  'I have a dragon,' she breathed.

  3

  What a Dragon Costs

  Deep among the dry pine valleys that edged up to the Worldspine north of the Purple Spur, Hyrkallan watched two dragons land. One of them he knew because it was his own: B'thannan, an immense war-dragon who could make the earth shake merely by looking at it. The other one was a stranger, a long slender hunter. An unexpected stranger at that. Hyrkallan watched from a distance, always cautious until he was sure there was no trick. He sniffed the air, sweet with resin and fallen needles. Then he crept cautiously out from the undergrowth. As he came closer, his back straightened, his strides grew longer and he lowered the heavy crossbow he had gripped to his chest.

  'Knight-Marshal!' One of the riders on the back of B'thannan had spotted him. Hyrkallan squinted. There were two up on B'thannan's back, one tall, one short, and it was the short one who was waving at him. Shanzir. She always had sharp eyes.

  He waved back. 'Shan! Did the queen give us everything we need?' B'thannan was loaded up with sacks and barrels that hadn't been there when he'd flown off the afternoon before. Obviously Queen Almiri had agreed to his offer. He wasn't surprised. She had little to lose and a great deal to gain.

  'Food. Weapons. Blankets. Everything,' shouted the other rider. Deremis, his brother.

  Hyrkallan peered up. Even though B'thannan was crouched on all fours, Deremis was still twenty feet up in the air. 'I don't see any alchemists.'

  'Oh, they won't help us.' Deremis slid down from B'thannan's back and ran over to embrace Hyrkallan. 'Not their business, they say. In fact they wish us naught but ill and would have nothing to do with us.' He grinned. 'Good to see you, brother. I know it's only been a day, but it seemed it might be a very long one.'

  Hyrkallan let his little brother go. 'These dragons have been more than a week away from any eyrie.' He tried to smile. 'I swear B'thannan has started talking in his sleep. Much longer and we have to go back. Almiri must know that. If we cannot shelter in any eyrie and we have no alchemists of our own…' As if on cue, B'thannan lowered his head and swung it towards them. His head alone was as big as a horse, with teeth the size of shortswords. The dragon gave them a baleful look and then stared at its feet. The war-dragon's claws had already sunk a good foot into the soft earth. If it carelessly flicked its tail, trees would come crashing down.

  Deremis punched Hyrkallan in the arm. 'And the gracious Queen Almiri does indeed know this, and so behold!' He waved at the crates and barrels. 'Enough of their potions to calm a dozen dragons for a month, taken in secret from the eyries of Evenspire!'

  Smiling came easier now. Hyrkallan embraced his brother again. Then he looked at the other dragon and the three riders on her back. 'And these?'

  'Nthandra of the Vale and her mount. She lost many of her family on the Night of the Knives.'

  Hyrkallan nodded. 'She's too young, but I won't say np to another dragon. The other two?'

  'You know them. Rider Jostan and Rider Semian. They were in South watch until about a week ago, and then they seem to have decided they should come here.. I found them prowling the eyries of Evenspire. They were with Princess Jaslyn at the battle of the alchemists' redoubt.'

  'Yes.' Hyrkallan cocked his head. 'I thought Semian was dead. What are they doing here?'

  'Been cast out.' Deremis chuckled. 'Said something they shouldn't to Princess Jaslyn and she threw them out.'

  'Riders without dragons and one of them a stiff prick to boot. Still, I suppose they can make themselves useful. Right.' Hyrkallan hauled himself up onto B'thannan. 'I'll take us to today's camp then.'

  'Is it far?'

  Hyrkallan grinned. 'You'll have to wait and see…' His words fell into silence. Shanzir was pointing up at the sky. Hyrkallan couldn't see what she was pointing at, but it could only be other dragons. 'How many?'

  'One, I think.'

  'Then we'll take it.' A lone dragon out here meant one thing. The Usurper, sending out her scouts. And still stupid enough to think she can send them out one at a time. Well I'll thank you later for the opportunity to bloody your nose. 'Are you sure there's only one.'

  Shanzir shrugged. 'No. It's coming towards us though.'

  'Right.' Hyrkallan nodded. 'Deremis, get the scorpion ready as soon as we're in the air. Shan, watch in case there are others. Hey!' he shouted across to the other dragon. Underneath all their dragon-scale armour, he had no idea which rider was which. Presumably the one sitting at the front was Nthandra of the Vale, if the dragon was truly hers.

  The riders turned. They didn't seem to have much with them. Certainly no scorpion. Hyrkallan didn't bother shouting at them, but made a series of sweeping gestures, signs that any dragon-knight would understand. Up. Fight. You follow, we lead.

  The rider at the front signed back. Understood. They must have seen the interloper too. Am I the only one who can't? Am I going blind? Best not to think about things like that or all the other fears of age, though, lest he start worrying about how long it would be before he couldn't climb onto B'thannan's back without taking his armour off first and having it handed up to him, piece by piece. He shouted at the war-dragon instead. B'thannan tur
ned on surly feet and lumbered into a run, rattling the trees with each step until he launched himself into the reluctant air.

  There! He could see it now. A war-dragon. A big one, still coming towards him. Someone either brave enough and stupid enough to fight outnumbered, or else someone with a friend lurking. He wondered if he should have let the hunter make its own choices, let it fly low beneath him and take the enemy from a different angle.

  No. I haven't seen their faces. I don't even know who they are. It might be Nthandra of the Vale under that helm or it might be one of the Usurper's spies. No no, you stay close where I can see you. He shouted to Deremis: 'Keep an eye on Nthandra's hunter too.' B'thannan was in his prime, though, one of the best dragons in the realms. Hyrkallan was one of the best riders and Deremis was one of the best scorpioncers. He shouldn't worry. The Usurper's riders, they were the ones who should be afraid.

  They came closer and closer. Abruptly, the unknown war-dragon turned and started to climb. Hyrkallan made as if to follow it up. B'thannan's nose came up…

  'Hunter!' shouted Shanzir. Hyrkallan still didn't see it but he wasn't surprised. The Usurper's war-dragon did have a friend after all.

  … and dived down again. Shanzir was wrong; there wasn't just one hunter with the war-dragon, there were two, both shooting up from the trees. An ambush, exactly as Prince Lai laid out in his Principles of War, Except Hyrkallan was supposed to be flying up right now, blissfully unaware of what was coming from below, instead of down, straight towards the ambushers.