The Order of the Scales (10 page)

The alchemists got to the foot of the steps and the pile of rubble that blocked the way and stopped, milling uncertainly about. If they were going to think of stabbing him, it would be now.

There is another. You have left one behind. I sense it now.

‘Too bloody late,’ snapped Kemir. ‘I’m not going back.’ He barked and prodded at the alchemists. ‘Clear it or climb over it. I don’t care which you do, but you’d better do it quickly. My arm’s getting tired.’
Alchemists, dragon-knights. Same difference.
He thought about shooting another one to chivvy them along. It would be a mercy, after all, compared to what would happen when they went outside. Wouldn’t it?

Murdering frightened old men in the dark. Was that what he’d come to?

Leave them for me. I wish to question them.

‘You’re welcome.’ Shooting unarmed men in the back, that was more the sort of thing that a rider would do.
Dragon-riders, alchemists, same difference. Right? RIGHT?
He could feel something building up inside him. It felt like Sollos, his dead cousin. The way he’d lurk in the background when Kemir was settling down to really have some fun with some crippled dragon-knight. Always there, telling him that what he was doing was wrong without ever saying a word.

‘Piss off, cousin,’ he muttered to himself. ‘They deserve everything they’re about to get.’ The words felt empty.

But they do, Kemir. They do.

The alchemists scrabbled over the stones, moaning and groaning and grunting all the way. The last one stopped and tried to plead with him, holding back from the rest to bargain his way to safety at their expense. Kemir ignored him – he wasn’t interested – and pushed him through.
When you’re dangling upside down in front of a row of drooling dragon fangs, then we’ll see what you’re made of.

He wasn’t that surprised when, as he started to crawl through himself, someone threw a stone at him. It missed, skipping a few inches past his face. He pushed himself back behind the rubble and shouted, ‘Go on then! Run! Go on, run! Run up the steps! See how far that gets you. Do you think I’m alone here?’ He waited while that sank in.
If you were going to fight you should have done that much sooner
. ‘Run up the stairs and into the sunlight, where my comrades and I can see how sorry you are!’

‘Why do you kill alchemists?’ shouted one of them. ‘When word spreads of what you’ve done here, no one will follow you. Valmeyan will hunt you down and destroy you. Even Shezira’s daughters will reject you. They’ll declare you rogues. You’ll get no more succour from them. Everything will stop until you’re dead and your dragons are safely returned!’

‘You have until I count to three this time!’ Kemir aimed his bow through the gap. He had no idea what they were talking about. ‘One. Anyone I can see when I get to three doesn’t get to the top. Two, three!’ He fired an arrow, not bothering or caring to aim, snapped up another arrow and fired again and then again. By then, the alchemists were gone, their lamps left behind. He’d hit at least one, judging from the groans. As for the rest . . . well, chances were they got lucky.

You have killed another one of them
.
I felt his thoughts scream and fade. Three have escaped you. I am waiting for them. Three of eight. And you accuse me of waste, Kemir. I am displeased.

‘Drink my piss, dragon.’ He pulled himself across the rubble. In the cold gleam of the alchemists’ lamps, he could see the two he’d shot now, one of them with an arrow in his chest, the other one rocking back and forth, clutching the wound in his thigh. Kemir stood over him, shaking his head. He slung his bow over his shoulder and pulled out a knife.

‘Please! No! I don’t . . .’

Kemir!

He clenched a fist towards the light at the top of the stairs. ‘
You’re
telling
me
not to kill someone?’ He didn’t get any further with that thought, as a roar filled the tunnel and orange light filled the stairs. A second later a sharp blast of hot wind almost knocked Kemir off his feet, and then someone was coming, uneven hurried footsteps stumbling back down towards the bottom of the stairs. In the dim light all Kemir could see was a vague shape. He readied his bow again. ‘Stop!’

The figure stopped. ‘It’s a rogue. Oh dear ancestors! You
are
the Red Rider! You’re not one of Shezira’s riders, you’re the Flamebringer. You’re the herald of the end of the world!’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you either go back up those steps or you die where you stand.’ He pointed his bow at the shadow on the steps.

Alive! Kemir, I want one of them alive! I have questions!
Rage and fury filled his head, battering at him. Snow’s, not his.

‘The way you ask questions I should have kept all eight of them alive.’ He gritted his teeth.

Yes. You should.

‘No.’ The alchemist was shaking his head. ‘I’m not going up there. Not with a rogue. I know what that means. Kill me then. Be quick. I’ll not . . .’

Kemir sighed and shot the alchemist in the belly. ‘Maybe it comes from hanging around dragons for so long, but I don’t have the patience any more, I really don’t.’ He put his bow away and then walked over to where the man had fallen. The arrow had been placed to pass through his stomach. Men always died from that, but it was slow. Painful and slow. ‘Four rogues actually,’ he said. ‘A whole eyrie of them in a few weeks, I dare say.’ He wrinkled his face. ‘You stink. You’ve soiled yourself, haven’t you. Great. Now I’m going to have that smell on my clothes.’ He hefted the alchemist up over his back. His hand settled on something wet. ‘Ah. Is that blood? I hope that’s blood.’ He let rip a deep-throated growl and started the long climb up the stairs and back into the light. ‘Dragon, this had better be worth it. You’d better give me the rider who murdered Sollos after this, you really better had.’

Slung across his shoulders, the dying alchemist was sobbing.

‘Hurts, does it?’

The alchemist didn’t say anything, but Snow did.
Not pain, Kemir. Understanding. This one is wiser than you. This one knows what is coming.

After he’d taken the first alchemist to the top, he went back down for the one with the arrow in his leg. With a bit of luck and care, a man with a wound like that could live. Recover, even.
Ah well.

He brought out the bodies next, one at a time. Snow sat, patiently waiting, watching over the quivering alchemists, still as a statue, until he was done. Then, with slow and deliberate precision, she picked up a dead alchemist and ate him. Slowly, biting off one limb at a time, then ripping open the torso and shaking guts and organs down her throat. When she was done, she tossed what was left high into the air and caught it with a snap of her teeth. First one body, then another, with precise and deliberate care. When she was done, she turned to the two who were still alive.

You may stay or you may go, Kemir,
she thought with such glee and anticipation that Kemir felt his own heart jump in sympathy.

‘Well then, I reckon I’ll stay.’ He sighed, found a place where he could make himself comfortable, sat back and settled down to watch. It wasn’t as though he had anything else to do.

He was covered in blood. From the alchemist he’d carried, no doubt. He’d have to clean himself off before long, but for now it would have to wait.

The Red Rider. Justice and Vengeance.

For some reason, Meteroa wasn’t dead. He felt his consciousness begin to fade and his struggles lose their strength. There was a sharp stabbing pain in his shoulder, a bad, deep pain. He should have been dead, but he wasn’t; the pack of slave-soldiers was suddenly flung aside and he was being dragged. Away from the light. Deeper into the tunnel. There were other men, other voices. His men, the ones he’d sent to wait at the end of the tunnel. A wave of relief washed through him and he must have passed out then, because the next thing he knew he was in one of the rooms with the softly glowing ceilings. There were a good few riders with him. He tried to sit up, but that turned out to be a mistake. His head spun so much that he almost fainted.

‘Ancestors,’ he groaned. His shoulder hurt, a deep hard stabbing, aching pain. He couldn’t move his left arm. At least, when he tried, his shoulder lit up as though someone had poured molten iron into the middle of it.

They’d stabbed him. The slave-soldiers. They’d stabbed him though through the pit of his arm where there was no dragon-scale to protect him, only soft leather.

He groaned again and gave up on sitting. ‘Is it bad?’ he whispered.

The rider beside him turned out not to be a rider at all, but Queen Lystra. ‘You killed a dragon,’ she said, breathing softly in his ear. The tenderness in her voice gave him the answer he didn’t want.
Yes. It’s bad then.

‘Rider Gaizal told us,’ she said. ‘They’re all talking about it. No one’s killed a dragon since . . . I don’t think anyone knows. Since the first Night Watchman.’

Balls. I’m going to die
. ‘How much blood is there?’
If I can still think then it can’t be too much. Not yet. Who dies of an arm wound?

‘A lot,’ she said with that irritating trace of sadness that said he wasn’t going to be getting better.
And how does she know? What is she? How does a queen who’s not much more than a girl and who’s spent her life living in a library know when a wound is mortal? Eh? And if you don’t know, then I’d appreciate you not being so bloody condescending about it.
He tried to sit up again, but that was clearly going to be beyond him for a while.

‘Who’s leading the defence?’

‘Rider Jubeyan.’ She paused, and he could almost feel her fidgeting, trying to decide whether to tell him something. Then she sighed. ‘They took Princess Kiam. They were going to tie her to one of the scorpions, where every rider could see. There are soldiers in some of the caves now too. They were fighting in the tunnels.’

‘Right. So we’re losing then.’ That didn’t seem possible. Was Tichane really going to win by throwing cages full of barely trained slave-soldiers at him? That hardly seemed decent.
Not that I’m one to complain about a lack of decency. Too many bad habits of my own when it comes to that.

‘No, we cleared the scorpion caves, but it’s getting hard. I don’t know how long we’re going to last.’

‘You know it’s Zafir, out there, don’t you? You should hide. Take Hyaz. Dress yourselves as servants. That sort of thing. Keep Zafir away from Jehal’s heir. Hyaz was supposed to find the secret way out.’

‘No one knows a secret way out.’ Lystra mopped his brow. ‘And I don’t think I would stay hidden for very long.’

‘No.’
Although you don’t seem all that bothered for someone who’s best option is probably to take poison while you still can.
But the words stumbled over each other in his mouth, which somehow wasn’t working again.
No. You sound like a little girl who’s trying desperately hard to be brave. Well you’re right to be scared.
And then he was fading again, perhaps for the last time . . .

No. I’m not having that. I’m not dying now. Especially not if that means my whole life has to flash before my eyes. I’m not ready for that. I need another few months or years before I can look you all in the eye, you ghosts, and tell you it was all worth it. Show you what I’ve done for us. Calzarin, you were so beautiful, too beautiful for me to resist. The sun to Jehal’s moon. But don’t pretend that you gave yourself to me unwillingly, or that you took me, as you did, under duress. Don’t you dare blame me that your own father put you to death. He killed you because of what you did to him, not what you did with me. Do you say it was the sweet nothings I whispered in your ear that put such a bloody knife in your hand? Tell it to the gods, ghost. Maybe it was, but it was your hand that held the knife nonetheless, and I do not believe your heart was so frail.

Or Tyan? Do you have something to say to me, big brother? You point your wagging finger at me and accuse me of murder, do you? I would point out that it was Jehal who killed you in the end, not me, but we both know that would be splitting hairs. Do you think I somehow regret that I poisoned you? Do you think that I wish I had not watched you suffer for all those years, mad, useless and drooling. Do you think that it was not an endless pleasure to me to watch you like that, after what you did to me? Yes, I had your wife in my bed and I had your son there too. But you never knew it. Their loss pained me more than it pained you, and yet you were allowed to stand there, the grief-stricken king, while I stood beside you and held your hand and murmured ‘There there’ in your ear while all the while my heart was bleeding. I fucked lots of other people as well until you denied me that pleasure for ever. And you did what you did because of what? Whispers in your ear. Murmured half-truths and lies and conjecture. If you’d caught me with my prick stuck in Calzarin’s arse or between Mizhta’s legs then I would have understood, I really would. But on hearsay and rumour? To your own brother? You should have finished the job and had me killed with your son. No, I don’t regret what I did to you, not one second of it. So bring it on, ghost. Let us spend the rest of eternity locked in our anguished embrace . . .

On and on, over and over it went, fading in and fading out. Mostly the ghost was Tyan. Sometimes it was Mizhta or Calzarin, sometimes even Jalista or the other Tyan, the little boy Calzarin had disembowelled through his arse. Once or twice it was Jehal, and then, perhaps, Meteroa felt a twinge of guilt for all the things the cleverest of the princes had never even begun to deduce.
I could tell you the truth. But why? What would good would it do you?

Mostly though it was Tyan, and Meteroa faced him down with salt and iron, as any good ghost-hunter would do. They fought and it seemed to be for ever. In the distance sometimes he heard screams and wondered if they were his own. He felt pain too. Pain was good. Pain was life, even if the pain got worse and worse until he seemed to be bathing in fire.