The Order Of The Scales Part 18

The hatchling called Silence darted to the heavy door that led into the warren of tunnels, all much too small for a dragon to cleanse, but not for a newborn so fresh from the egg. Snow bared her teeth in approval. Burn them then, but do not eat them. Slowly and carefully she turned around and readied herself to launch into the air. The silver ones have returned. I have felt them.

Then when we are done with the little ones, let us find them.

And then?

They were our kindred. They abandoned us. They are no longer welcome in this world.

They made us. We served them. Snow felt strangely uncertain when it came to the silver ones. I remember them fondly.

I do not.

Abruptly, Silence smashed down the little door and snaked away through it, clutching in his fore-claws the length of chain that had once been fastened around his neck. Snow paused for a moment to savour the thought of him, little black hatchling that he was, black shadow of death that he had been and would be again, scuttling like silent lightning through the little ones' tunnels, ripping them apart in the dark.

She pushed herself out into the air and spread her wings. Above her, at the top of the slope, the great tower of Out.w.a.tch had been decapitated, its top smashed to the ground. Several dragons were still there, circling around it, tearing at it, las.h.i.+ng it with their tails or simply flying into it. As she watched, another great slab of stone-work cracked and sloughed away, ripping open the middle third of the tower. Three dragons immediately poured fire into the breach, even though any little ones were surely long gone by now.

She went eagerly to join them. Yes, it felt so very good to be home.

Drowning.

Kemir watched the river, and the river, it seemed, watched Kemir. In a perverse sort of way, Valleyford had made him feel better about leaving the realms. Kithyr, the Picker, all the dead burned bodies, the reek and stench of smoke and ash. Yes, he could be happy enough with those all behind him. The other boats from Valleyford were around them, some a little way ahead, letting the current take them. Larger ones out in the full strength of the river, and by the banks flotillas of tiny rafts, little more than a few planks of wood lashed together, poled along in the shallows by wrinkled old cormorant fishermen. Sometimes he thought he saw the blood-mage or the Picker on one of the boats. When that happened, his hand always reached for his bow with a will of its own. But when he looked again he was always wrong. He began to wonder if he'd imagined it all.

'If we put ash.o.r.e,' he said to Kataros, 'I want you to keep close to me. There were people at Valleyford.' He put her hand on his chest. 'The man who gave me that scar, he was there.' He saw the fright on her face and tried to smile. 'It was a long time ago. I've no reason to make our paths cross again.' Although whenever he said that, whenever he even thought it, he always felt a little spike of fire. A last smouldering ember for . . . not for revenge. All the Picker had really done was defend himself, but the yearning was still there. Unfinished business.

Stupid, he told himself. Yet his hand still reached.

A bit later Kataros wrapped herself around his arm and stroked his hair. 'When we cross the sea, will the s.h.i.+p be like this one?'

'I've never seen the s.h.i.+ps that cross the Endless Sea. I've heard they're huge, like floating castles. End to end longer than the biggest dragon, with masts as tall as the Tower of Air and sails the size of clouds. They're graceful and elegant with slender curves, or else they're squat and fat with great big bellies. I once heard that each s.h.i.+p comes with more than a hundred Taiytakei sailors on board and that they take twice that many slaves away with them.' He spat. 'Slaves.' That was something he'd regret one day. That he'd never get anything back for the family and home he'd lost. That the King of the Crags would never know his name. Never hear it and fear it, never suffer, somehow, for what his riders had done to Kemir's home.

He glanced down the barge, looking for the woman and her boys he'd rescued from Valleyford. Another little thing he'd done right. They were on their own now though, he'd had to be clear about that. Couldn't be turning into a walking orphanage.

'Dragons and s.h.i.+ps don't mix,' said Kataros. 'I heard that once. From my rider. He said that when dragons saw s.h.i.+ps, they always went into a frenzy. They couldn't help themselves.'

Kemir squeezed her hand. 'Dragons are death to s.h.i.+ps. I heard that too.' Aren't they death to everything? He glanced up at the sky, scanning the banks of the river and the low rolling landscape beyond. Out here on the river they were exposed. Easy prey. He'd been jumpy the whole day, and couldn't shake the feeling even now, with the sun sinking towards the distant spires of the Pinnacles. 'When we reach Furymouth, we'll go straight to the harbour. Nothing else. We'll find one of those Taiytakei sailors and work out a way to get on a s.h.i.+p, and we'll go. I wouldn't worry about dragons once you're on their s.h.i.+ps. Dragons will leave them alone.' At least they did the last time, when the s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sed the islands that don't appear on any map. Or was it the silver men aboard them that that made Snow so nervous?

The Silver Kings . . .

Again he looked around, never quite free of the idea that some part of Snow was always with him, always watching, always listening.

'I've never seen a Taiytakei. We were not allowed to go near them. It's forbidden to any who even begin the path of alchemy.'

'You can't miss them. Skin painted as blue as a summer sky or else black as night. They cover themselves with gold and jewels and lots of bright feathers. Look like something between a giant bird and a prince with half his treasury stuck to him.' He chuckled to himself. 'I don't think I ever heard of one being robbed though. Strange, huh?' Now he stood up, hauling Kataros to her feet beside him. The sun was getting low. 'Come on, let's go down below where's its dark for a bit.' He squeezed her and she giggled. It was best not to think about dragons. Anyway dark fell quickly in this part of the realms. They were probably safe. Best to think about something else. And Kat, when he let her, was good at making him think about something else. Or maybe that was the little pinches of dust they both took.

No more dragons. No more alchemists. No more riders, no more knights, no more smell of burned flesh and scorched hair.

At dawn he was up, sitting in his favourite spot in the bows where n.o.body would bother him, eyes searching again. Not searching for anything in particular, just searching, as always, for something. Kat was still snoring down below. He watched the sh.o.r.e as the boat turned towards it, towards another town built up on the bank: Hammerford, Valleyford's poor orphan cousin. More a fis.h.i.+ng town than a market, although that never stopped the locals from getting all dressed up in their colourful market best to sell their goods down at the waterfront to the traders on the river. They were already there now, dressed up as usual, selling their wares although they surely must know what had happened up the river. Kemir wondered at that. Why didn't they run? Why didn't everyone run?

Other boats from Valleyford had arrived ahead of them. For a while he watched them instead. Then he watched the town. He was getting good at watching things. The person he'd been before Snow had never been one for watching, was much more interested in getting on and doing. The new Kemir, it seemed, was much more content to do nothing at all. That was probably good if he was going to be a shopkeeper.

The barge reached the little harbour and fought itself into a place to tie up. Kat came up to sit with him. He held her hand, looking out across the crowded wooden jetty and then to the sh.o.r.e. He thought he saw the Picker again, somewhere in the bustle along the water-front. A glimpse, that was all, but enough to make him s.h.i.+ver. The market was madness, almost a riot. Refugees from Valleyford and Plag's Bay, buying whatever food they could, bewildered traders pus.h.i.+ng up their prices. There were fights breaking out already and it wouldn't get any better. Any moment now, he reckoned, for the first stabbing. After that . . .

'We stay on the boat,' he muttered.

Kat frowned at him. 'I thought you didn't like being on the boat.'

'Hate it.' Sometimes he wondered if she had the first idea what was really happening. She seemed to live in some sort of coc.o.o.n. He s.h.i.+vered. 'Hate being stuck in a small cramped s.p.a.ce. But this is going to fall to fighting and looting. Won't trouble us here, and that's the way I like it. We just keep our distance. That's me. Not a stand-and-fight sort of person. Definitely more of a pick-them-off-from-a-distance-with-a-bow sort.'

Kataros looked horrified. Kemir shrugged. Not that staying on the boat was much better with dragons abroad. Boats weren't much good when you suddenly needed some place to run. But dragons might come or dragons might not. A b.l.o.o.d.y riot on the docks was a certainty.

'I've known a lot of stand-and-fight types and I watched a good few of them get killed. Three men with knives and clubs walk into a tavern where you're drinking, you don't turn and face them. Not if you don't want to get stuck. No, you quietly leave out the back while they're looking for you and then you wait outside down the street in the shadows with a bow in one hand, an arrow in the other and two more stuck in the dirt between your feet.' Kemir glanced over to where he might have seen the Picker, if he wasn't seeing ghosts again. Staying on the boat was for the best. He'd seen food riots before. There'd be pickings when it was done. But still. A man likes to have a place to run. On a boat there's nowhere.

Maybe they could slip round the edge? Get ash.o.r.e but away from the docks?

Oh, listen to yourself. Just wait it out. He stared out along the river. Southwards, towards Furymouth. Towards freedom. What am I doing? Does it have to be a s.h.i.+p? Are they really going to tear the world apart? The alchemists will find a way to stop them, won't they? Five dragons wasn't enough. How many . . .?

His thoughts trailed away. He was looking down the river, and something was coming towards him. Something large and far away, skimming the surface of the water.

No. Two somethings.

One of them flashed. Fire.

All his weight seemed to drain from his shoulders and his arms down to his feet. His head felt suddenly fuzzy and not really attached to the rest of him. His boots were made of lead and nailed to the deck. He couldn't move. Couldn't even lift his arm to point or open his mouth to speak.

They were coming.

It couldn't be Snow. He told himself that. It couldn't be her. There was nothing here. No alchemists. She was going north. She said. Dragons didn't even understand revenge.

Right. And dragons never lie or change their minds, eh?

Alchemists. He still couldn't move. Alchemists. That's what she'd said. The potions are running out. They can't make enough any more. He'd felt her glee. Now he knew what else she'd been thinking, what he hadn't seen back at the mountainside. She knows where the alchemists go. She knows their paths and how they carry their potions. She knows because I know. Because I told her. And the river is one of them. The river and the Evenspire Road and Yinazhin's Way . . .

He swallowed hard. The dragons were already closer. From the flashes of fire, there wasn't much doubt about what they were doing, either. They were zigzagging across the Fury, burning every boat they pa.s.sed. Kemir even saw one, what must have been one of the tiny fis.h.i.+ng rafts, s.n.a.t.c.hed up and tossed into the air.

Could be this wasn't Snow. Could be these were the dragons that had razed Plag's Bay. As if that made the slightest bit of difference when you were on the ground and they were coming towards you.

He felt a tugging on his arm. Kat. She'd seen them. 'Are those . . .?'

'Yes.' He turned away, pulled her with him ready to run, but the crowd by the river was impossibly thick. Now, now they'd chosen to fall to fighting. 'Dragons!' he shouted, pus.h.i.+ng his way onto the jetty. 'Dragons!' A knot of panic threatened to burst in his stomach. He glanced over his shoulder. The monsters were still coming straight for the town. Come on, Kemir, you know how fast they fly. Running is a waste of time. So try and think of something better than standing here and looking gormless for the last thirty seconds of your life.

Someone shouted. Around him, people stopped fighting and turned to stare. Some of them screamed. Kat's fingers dug into his arm, pulling at him.

'No.' He shook her off. 'Running won't save you. Not now.' Nor will anything else. He calmly drew out his bow and strung it, his hands working quickly without needing to be told. He could probably get off two or three shots before the dragons burned him in his boots. Not even enough time to put an arrow into each of their eyes. Which would never actually happen anyway. He took out an arrow and aimed. The arrow, for some reason, was shaking. Which confused him until he realised that so was he. All of him. He didn't even notice whether his arm was still hurting.

Well, so much for shooting them both in the eye. He lowered the bow and lowered his head. Around him people were pus.h.i.+ng and shouting, barging each other out of the way. Most of them were running. A few of the sailors were jumping into their boats, trying to push out into the river, far, far too late to get away. A couple fell in, thras.h.i.+ng and splas.h.i.+ng in the water. They'll burn first, he decided. They won't have time to drown.

'Kemir!' Kat was pulling at him again. Waste of time. 'I've seen what they do,' he whispered, as much to himself as to her. 'I've seen what they do.' But I'm going to stand and face them and look them in the eye before I die. Although my ancestors know that even that's hard enough. And if I fell on my knees and wept and shat myself, exactly who would live to remember it?

Someone rammed him from the side, pus.h.i.+ng him towards the river. He took a step and then another. He shook himself, tearing his eyes away from the dragons, looking behind him. Kataros.

'What are you-'

She threw herself at him. He stumbled back, and then there was nothing under his feet any more and he was falling, past the jetty and its wooden pilings and into the river. He had enough time to open his mouth before the Fury wrapped itself around him and dragged him down. Water filled his mouth and poured into his throat. Kataros crashed into the water beside him and grabbed his arm. She was pulling him. His arms and legs thrashed, searching for purchase. Strange. A moment ago he'd been all ready to give up and die. Now suddenly he wanted to cling to life again. Presumably so he could take one last breath before he burned after all. Or perhaps some primitive part of him had decided that drowning was more painful than burning, which was odd, because he would have thought it was the other way around.

His fingers touched something. Something slimy but wonderfully solid. His fingers clawed at it. Wood. A post. He pulled himself to it, wrapped his arms and then his legs around it and hauled himself up towards the light. His face broke the surface. He gasped for air and then coughed and spluttered, throwing up half a lungful of water. He blinked. His ears and nose were full of water. He couldn't hear properly, just noise, a roaring, rus.h.i.+ng sound.

Oh. Yes. Dragons. He shook his head, trying to clear his eyes, and there they were, a few hundred yards away, enormous, filling half the sky, mouths open and filled with fire.

He muttered a prayer, took as deep a breath as he could manage, forced himself not to cough it straight back out again and then pushed himself under the water. He wrapped himself around the post, closed his eyes and waited. The water seemed to spasm all around him. Waited. Another spasm. Waited until his lungs were on fire and then hurled himself back to the surface.

The air was hot. That was the first thing he felt. Something hard b.u.mped his head and then drifted away. When he breathed, he tasted fire. Not smoke and ash and charcoal and all the things that came after fire, but fire itself, the dry hot taste of fresh dragon. He opened his eyes. A burning boat drifted across his vision less than a dozen yards away. Around him bits of wood littered the river, the remains of something smashed into splinters. The wooden walk-way above him was still there, but now the end of it was missing, the other jetties out into the river smashed to flinders. The barge that had brought them this far was ablaze from stem to stern, slowly being pulled away by the current. From down in the water he couldn't see the town and he didn't want to.

A few feet away, finally, he spotted Kataros, clinging to another post.

'Are you all right?' He had to shout to make himself heard over the noise of the flames. He didn't hear whatever she said, but she nodded. He closed his eyes for a moment. See? See how useful you are when it comes to looking after her? Not very useful at all. Exactly who saved who just now?

He pushed himself through the water towards her, clutching at the jetty posts, from one to the next. She looked at him with big terrified eyes. That's when he saw that she was shaking all over.

'We just stay here,' he whispered. 'We just stay here until they're gone. Hold on to me, hold on to this. However long it takes,whatever they do, we just stay here. Right here. Just here.'

And as the air filled with smoke and the screams of the dying, he held her, held the post, held them both as though his life depended on it.

The Spear of the Earth.

For someone like the Picker, following Kithyr and the spear had been a trivial thing. If the blood-mage thought that crossing water was some sort of problem for an Elemental Man, he was mistaken. Killing him, that was going to be more taxing. Cutting a man's throat wide open was usually enough or, failing that, something sharp through the eye socket usually worked. Mages were another matter. They came in all sorts of different shapes and sizes for a start, and you never quite knew what each of them could do. As far as he understood it, even chopping them up and then burning the bits didn't always finish them. He'd been thinking about that at Valleyford. Plenty of fire, plenty of ashes. No one would know. He'd hesitated, though. The blood-mage obviously had designs of his own on the spear. The Picker had expected that. But he'd felt something from the spear itself, something not expected. Still did, whenever he got too close, a feeling he struggled to understand. Hostility, that was the best way to describe it. So in Valleyford caution and the spear itself had kept him away. Besides, the mage was still taking it the way he wanted it to go. Let him, the Picker decided.

Now there were two dragons gliding in towards a little river town full of screaming people, with the blood-mage and his blood-bonded guards staring slack-jawed at the death flying towards them. This, the Picker decided, was the best opportunity he was going to get. He flickered away, vanis.h.i.+ng from where he stood and popping up again only a scant dozen yards from the mage. He'd lied before. Flickering didn't cost him a year of his life; it barely cost him anything at all.

He felt the spear at once, the venom held tight within it. The anger, the glowering resentment. Timing would be everything. The dragons would come. Everyone would burn. He would flicker in the moment the dragons had pa.s.sed. He'd take the spear. And then he'd have to do something he almost couldn't remember ever having to do before. He'd have to run, while the spear stifled every power he'd learned. That much he knew, that much his clan had already found to their cost. The spear took your power. All of it.

He wrapped a cloth around his hand. The spear would be hot after the dragons had done. Then he waited. Watched. Tensed, poised to go. The first dragon, a gleaming amber like honey or liquid gold, screamed overhead and poured fire over the part of the town away from the river, but the Picker wasn't paying much attention to that one. The other was the one that mattered the big one, black like night. It dived towards the waterfront, almost straight at Kithyr, and opened its mouth . . .

And its wings billowed out and it stopped almost dead in the air and then crashed to the ground. Its wings flapped twice, carelessly smas.h.i.+ng riverside inns and houses. An angry flick of the tail shattered the jetties. It reared up on its hind legs and sprayed fire in an arc, cutting the blood-mage and his men off from the rest of the town, hosing down the screaming waterfront. Then, when all the screaming stopped, it folded its wings and stared at Kithyr. The blood-mage was holding out the spear. He hadn't even flinched.

'You cannot touch me, dragon!' he shouted, waving it in the dragon's face. 'You can't touch me. You know what this is. You know what this means.'

The black dragon lowered its head and peered at the mage. The Picker coiled, ready to flicker and spring. He didn't dare move. Why wasn't the mage dead? What was the dragon doing?

'You know what this is!' shouted the mage again. His voice sounded different. Stronger. Deeper. Not really his any more, but a chorus of many voices, all speaking in unison, all snarling with hate. 'The Spear of the Earth, that's what we are. The Pain of a Thousand Voices, and we know you. Do you remember us, brother? Do you remember what we are?'

The Picker dropped his cloth and chose a short, sharp sword. The blade was little longer than his forearm, but it was thick and heavy. For cutting limbs. People pruning, as we called it.

The dragon s.h.i.+fted closer until its nose was inches from Kithyr. Then its tail arced over its head. It s.n.a.t.c.hed up three of Kithyr's screaming men at once, tossed them into the air, caught them one by one in its mouth and ate them.

The rest broke and fled. The blood-mage might have bound them to him, but there were limits, even to that sort of power. The Picker didn't wait. He flickered. He vanished from where he stood and for an instant became the wind and the air. A moment later he appeared behind Kithyr. The sword flashed and the blood-mage suddenly didn't have an elbow any more.

'Who was it told you all them stories, eh?' he whispered. 'Who was it told you about us, what we does and doesn't do, eh? Was me and I lied.' He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the spear, meaning to hurl it towards the water and flicker away again. All too quick for the dragon to do anything about, leaving it with the blood-mage and whatever else took its fancy. Except even as he thought it, the simmering fury of the spear crashed into him like a great wave and he felt himself drown under its force. And then something wrapped around his waist and lifted him up into the air. The dragon had him.

I can still go, he thought. I can drop the spear and flicker away. The fury in the spear was like someone screaming in his ear, constant and relentless. The second dragon, the golden one, paused from its destruction of the town and thundered towards them, burning timbers tossed up into the air by its wake as though they were paper. The black dragon lifted him higher, holding him close, staring at him with amber eyes the size of a man's head.

Why are you here, Elemental Man? Why have the silver ones come back?

The Picker squeezed his eyes shut.

We have felt them. Why have they come back?

Silver ones? The half-man, half-G.o.d wizards that the Taiytakei sea captains had brought with them, was that it? The Moon Sorcerers from the Diamond Isles. He shook himself. It didn't matter. He was an Elemental Man. Even a dragon couldn't kill him if he didn't want to die. He tensed. This would have to be quick.

Do you know what you hold there, child of earth?

Enough. The Picker raised the spear and aimed straight at the dragon's head. 'I don't know,' he said slowly, 'what this spear will do to you.' He threw the spear straight into the black dragon's face and flickered away. The spear struck true, straight in the dragon's eye. The dragon roared and screamed. The spear erupted in a flash of light so bright that the Picker had to turn away to s.h.i.+eld his eyes. When he looked back, the dragon was still there, but now it wasn't moving any more. The spear had turned it to stone.

He flickered again. s.n.a.t.c.hed the spear out of the dragon's eye. It came away easily. His hands tingled. He dropped it, flickered, caught it before it hit the ground, turned towards the gold one and threw again with all his strength. 'Die, monster!' Flickered behind it . . .

Except the golden dragon jumped at him. It batted the spear aside, tumbling it away towards the river. The dragon's tail lashed like a whip. As the Picker reappeared, it caught him square in the side, shattering one arm, caving in his chest and throwing him through the air like a rag doll.

'How . . . ?' He tried to say. How did you know where I was? How can you be so quick? He tried to flicker again, but it was a weak and futile effort. It didn't work. Slowly he stood up. The golden dragon turned and gazed at him.

The Spear of the Earth, it mused. You are dying, earth-child. If you knew what you were, if you knew what you held, you would not have done this. Do you really not remember? The monster seemed truly puzzled. Do they poison you too, so that you forget what you are?

'I don't . . .' Don't know what you're talking about. Breathing hurt far too much to talk. He coughed and his mouth filled with b.l.o.o.d.y foam. He tried to stand. His legs at least were still working.

Nothing can stand against the power of the spear. That was always its strength and its curse. Why do you seek it, earth-child? What is it to you?

The Picker couldn't answer, but he could feel the dragon rifling his head, searching for the answers.

The silver ones. They want it back. Is that why they have returned? Why do they want it? Why now, after all this time?

He tried to flicker one last time. Instead of turning into air, though, he merely lurched forward and then slowly rose. He looked down. The last three feet of the dragon's tail were sticking out of his belly. He felt himself gag and his limbs go slack. The dragon lifted him up, high into the air. He could feel himself sliding off the dragon's tail towards its open maw below. The pain still hadn't hit him when he fell.

How can you be so quick?

A voice spoke in his head. Because I can hear your thoughts, strange one, and so I know where you will go before you even move. And then there was a crunch and everything went black.