round behind him and clamped a hand firmly over his mouth.
‘Shhh,’ he whispered in Jasaan’s ear. ‘These lovely potions don’t make a dragon deaf, so keep your voice down. You got something to say to me, you say it. But quiet like.’
Jasaan glared. He shook his head.
‘No, I thought not.’
The soldiers fell quiet then, sitting still and alert as the sun sank and the sky darkened. They’d become night people in the last year and a half. The dragons flew in daylight and slept — or whatever it was they did — at night, and so the Adamantine Men had learned to be otherwise. At night they moved. Never too far though, never so far that they couldn’t be sure of shelter come the dawn. Sometimes that meant they travelled for hours, found nothing and went back to where they’d been the night before. On the worst part of their trip up the Sapphire valley they’d spent six nights in the same cave. And that had been trouble too. The longer you stayed in a place, the more signs you left. Dragons were good at spotting signs.
Back then they’d numbered more than twenty-five. Now they were seven. Seven was a lot easier to hide. The way back would be quicker than the way here. A month, Skjorl thought. Not three. He crossed his fingers and hugged his axe and thought a little prayer to the Great Flame.
‘Fucking dragons,’ spat Marran.
Skjorl closed his eyes. ‘Easy, lads,’ he murmured. ‘They’ll go hunting sometime. We just wait here until they do.’ He stretched. ‘Then we slip in, slow and easy and do what Adamantine Men were born to do. We kill dragons.’ He grinned and let out a little growl. ‘A month from now we’ll be back near the Spur and Jex can stop making love- eyes at the sandflies.’
‘Yeah.’ Vish laughed. ‘He can make them at the snappers instead.’
‘Snapper wants a piece of me, it’ll be a sharp one.’ Relk gripped his spear.
‘Yeah, but Jex’s got a spear that’s every bit as hard, just not quite as sharp.’ A low rumble of laughter rippled among the men. Skjorl looked about. Jasaan was gone, moved off a little while back after Skjorl had told him to shut up. It was dark now, desert dark with clear air and a bright moon and a thousand stars. Still, he wasn’t about to get up and look for him. Man wanted to be on his own, that was his privilege, especially at night when there weren’t dragons overhead. He grinned to himself. Jasaan was probably thinking about sandflies too. Or of the woman from Scarsdale. Not the old one, but the young one. The one with the soft skin and the hair like fur. How grateful she’d been for an Adamantine Man.
Sometimes men did terrible things, Skjorl had come to realise. When they knew there was no one to hold them to account, yes, sometimes men did terrible things. And sometimes they enjoyed them more than was right. And that was just the way of the world.
He sniffed, looked up, heard the slightest noise and was on his feet in a moment, sword half drawn. But it was only Jasaan. He cocked his head. ‘Feeling better? No harm meant. I know how it is.’
Jasaan shrugged. There was hate in those eyes. Skjorl didn’t even need to see it any more, he’d seen it so much. But Jasaan was a weak one. Too bothered with staying alive. He looked away and spat. Jasaan tipped his head back towards the quiet rustling waters of the Sapphire. ‘Went for a little walk. Know what I found? I found a tunnel half filled with water. Want to know where it goes?’ He pointed straight towards the distant remains of Bloodsalt and to the dragons that stood between them. ‘That’s where. Right into the city.’
3
Twenty-three days before the Black Mausoleum
Men did terrible things. The Adamantine Men were finding that out for themselves, but alchemists remembered that it had been like this before. An almost forgotten time, lost under dust and layers of brittle parchment, a time before Narammed, before the speakers, before the Empire of the Blood-Mages, before the Silver King. Before all that, when there had still been dragons and there had still been men, and in that time, men had done terrible things. They’d done them to survive.
The Adamantine Man got up from his stool. Kataros watched him. His movements were slow and weary as though everything was inevitable.
‘Hungry?’ He shrugged and showed Kataros his keys. He had one for each of them, for her and the half-dead Rat. He opened Rat’s cell and poked him. Rat groaned. The Adamantine Man shrugged again. ‘Well he’s not dead yet, but you can eat him if you want. I won’t stop you.’
Kataros shuddered. They’d come to that under the Purple Spur too, eating the dead to survive. Sooner or later they’d come to that here as well, although it was something that no alchemist would ever do. Blood was power. Blood was magic and not to be tainted.
The Adamantine Man closed Rat’s cell and locked it again. He moved slowly as though he had all the time in the world. No one would come down here for hours, not until the walls and ceilings of the Pinnacles started to shine to declare to them all that outside, in the realms now ruled by the dragons, the sun had risen once more. Kataros looked at his crippled left hand. Half of it was little more than lashed up flesh and bone. It was an old injury, long healed. Two of his fingers were useless stumps.
‘Take your time, woman.’
Time? The Adamantine Man might have had as much of it as he wanted, but not her, nor Rat either. ‘So what did you do?’ she asked.
‘Do?’ He laughed and fumbled for the keys again and slid one into her lock. ‘What did I do?’
‘Shouldn’t you be out there. Getting eaten and killing dragons.’
‘Oh I’ve killed dragons.’ He chuckled to himself as he turned the key and eased open her door. He looked her up and down, his eyes lingering between her legs. Kataros took a step away. The corners of his mouth curled into a grin. ‘You’re going to rot and starve here like him.’ He glanced at Rat. ‘I could snap your neck if you like. Make it quick. Or… we could do something else.’
She took another step back and shook her head. The Adamantine Man took a step as well, backing her against the far wall of the cell.
‘No?’ He rubbed his crotch. ‘So how hungry are you?’
She shook her head again and cringed away, biting her tongue to keep the taste of iron in her mouth. Blood, that was the key. Blood would set her free.
When the Adamantine Man moved, he moved fast. He closed the distance between them in two quick steps and then he had his good hand around her throat, almost lifting her off her feet, crushing her against the wall. The other hand, the crippled one, groped at her. He was strong. She flinched, struggling, but he had her fast, pinning her with the weight of his body. She could see the faint scars on his face clearly now, lines of pale skin. Knife cuts, not the kind of wound you got from fighting dragons.
‘I’ll kiss you,’ she stammered. There. Plant the idea.
He threw back his head. ‘Yes, witch. You will.’
There was no need to feign her fear or her revulsion. She tried to shake her head. His free hand was working on his belt. His breathing was heavy, his heart beating faster.
‘Your sort brought this on us all,’ he grunted, forcing her down. ‘You deserve everything you get. You did this. You killed us all. Now since you’re so hungry, you can eat. If you’re not a good little witch, I will snap your neck after I have you.’
A little thought came. Let him. Do it his way. Do what he wants. It’ll be easier. It’ll be more certain. The thought came and then it went and she was damned if any man, Adamantine or otherwise, was ever going to force her to anything, not now, not ever again. As his fingers gripped tight in her hair, she spat into her palms, tasted the iron, and then raked her nails down the outside of his thigh hard enough to draw blood, his blood, as hard as she could. She slapped the palm of her hand against the wound and held it tight, two droplets of blood mixing together. Please please please be quick…
He snarled, pulled her up and threw her away.
‘You don’t like it rough?’ Her voice sounded frail and thin to her, desperately fragile.
