crossroads punctured the gloom, bright flashes of sunlight as the carriages trotted past. These other streets fell away, sloping down towards the sea, and with each one Shezira caught glimpses of the harbour, of masts and rippling waves, and the sun glinting on the water. Shielded from the winds by the curves of the bay, the sea here was still and calm. Lystra still couldn't tear her eyes away.
'Now it's just like the Mirror Lakes!'
Shezira nodded. The view from King Tyan's palace, built at the summit of the hill that overlooked the city, was better. She dimly remembered peering over his walls, sitting on someone's shoulders, gawping at the strangeness of it all. The ships with their flags and their masts and their sails had seemed like weird water monsters, and all the cranes around the harbour walls were like a forest of strange trees with no leaves. And the smell, the smell of the sea, reaching out over the ubiquitous stink of the city… She'd been five, maybe six years old.
'You'll see many strange and different sights here, Lystra. Keep your sense of wonder, but keep it to yourself or people will take you for a fool.'
Jaslyn tutted and rolled her eyes, but Shezira could see that Lystra understood.
'Let your eyes sparkle at everything you see, but say nothing.
Do that and Prince Jehal will be yours to command.' She laughed, thinking of Antros. 'And he won't even know it.'
'As long as you spread your legs whenever he asks and give him plenty of sons,' muttered Jaslyn, which made Shezira want to slap her. She didn't, though, because the carriage was slowing to a halt. A moment later the door opened, and Prince Jehal was standing there.
'Your Holiness.' He bowed and offered his hand. 'Welcome to Furymouth.'
They were at the foot of King Tyan's palace now, and the view out over the sea was unbroken. Close into the harbour, dozens of small fishing boats bobbed in the water. Further out, three much larger ships sat in a line.
'There should be dragons, Your Holiness' said Jehal. 'I told the Taiytakei that the next Speaker of the Realms was coming to give her daughter away to be married, and there should be dragons filling the air with their fire. In recompense the Taiytakei offer you this, Queen Shezira, in your honour. A sight never seen before in any realm.'
As Shezira stared out over the sea, tiny streaks of fire shot up into the air from the three ships. High in the sky, they burst into dazzling showers and swirls of colour. Shezira couldn't help but stop and stare. She'd never seen anything like it. She'd never even heard of anything like it.
It lasted for a minute, perhaps. When it was done, Jehal bowed to Lystra. 'A pale, ephemeral reflection of your beauty, my Princess. You will light up my father's palace as the Taiytakei light up the sky.'
'I trust we will have the opportunity to thank your guests for their most novel and inspiring welcome?' Shezira slipped carefully between Lystra and Prince Jehal.
Jehal smiled. 'Of course. An ambassador of the Taiytakei will be at the wedding. I'm quite sure he'll wish to speak with you, if you will grant him an audience.' He sidled closer, and his voice dropped until he was almost whispering. 'You should know, Your Holiness, that they have only one desire. They have been coming to our shores for more than a hundred years. We sell them slaves and dragonscale, but that is not why they come. They will flatter you and shower you with gifts, just as they did with Speaker Hyram and my father, but they only want one thing.'
'A dragon's egg, perhaps?'
'Most eggs fail, and they know this. A living dragon, Your Holiness. A hatchling. That's what they want, what they've always wanted, and they will do anything to get it. Anything at all. Why is Clifftop so far from the harbour? To keep our dragons away from the Taiytakei ships?' He laughed. 'No, Your Holiness, it is to keep the Taiytakei away from our dragons.'
14
The Search Party
Sollos poked at the fire with a stick and glanced up the side of the valley towards the black scar among the trees where the dead dragon lay. Sometimes it would smoke. Sometimes, at night, he saw the flicker of flames. Then it would rain and the smoke and the fire would go away, and when the rain stopped the wound in the forest would steam instead. Today, though, it was quiet. Still and dull.
'You're looking again,' grunted Kemir.
'I know, I know.' The queen had been gone for six days now. Which made it twelve days since the attack. Two weeks, the alchemist had said. Two weeks and a big hammer. Well, he had the big hammer now.
'Hoy! You two! Get that fire going and boil up some water!'
'Aye, milord.' What he also had was the company of a dozen dragon-knights, seven hunting dragons and the alchemist. Sollos poked the fire again and threw on another couple of logs. As the dragon-knight turned away, he muttered an obscenity at the man's back. The dragons probably didn't mind what happened to their dead brother, but the riders and the alchemist certainly would. And while half of them were away searching each day, the other half had nothing better to do than sit around, stuck with guarding the camp.
'Are you sure we couldn't murder them all in their sleep?' muttered Kemir. 'Maybe we could poison them.'
Before Sollos could think of a reply, a piercing rumbling cry echoed along the valley. The first of the dragons was coming back. Every day six went out searching for the queen's white while the seventh circled high overhead, keeping lookout. Since the attack they'd not seen any dragons other than their own, and Sollos was quite sure that they were wasting their time. By now the queen's white was far away.
Still, if it meant waiting here until the dead dragon up the slope cooled down and there was a chance of looting some dragon-scale…
'He's a bit early.' Kemir was watching the arrival glide down towards the river. Sollos tore his eyes away from the forest and watched the dragon descend. Before it had even come to a stop, the rider on its back was standing up, unstrapping himself from his harness and sliding out of his saddle.
Kemir belched and threw a stone towards the river. 'You don't suppose they actually found something do you?' he said. 'They're not usually back for hours yet.'
Sollos shook his head. 'And there I was looking forward to another peaceful afternoon sucking on grass stalks and scratching my arse.'
'Yeah, and staring up at that dead mound of dragonscale and charcoal up there.'
'We're not going to get our hands on it. You know that, don't you?'
'A part of me knows that. We could buy land, you know. Our own little village with our own little subjects. Our own little manor house. With a brewery.'
'And a brothel.'
'Aye, and that.' Kemir sighed. 'Like I said, are you sure we couldn't poison them?'
'Even if we did buy ourselves a title, we'd still answer to the queen.'
'Oh bollocks to her! We could set up somewhere out here, in the mountain valleys.'
'And serve King Valmeyan instead?' Sollos snorted. 'I don't think so. Not him.'
Kemir's voice dropped to a growl. 'No. Not him. Not him at all. Do you think…'
The rider from the dragon was running towards them. A couple of the sentries were close on his heels.
'Uh oh.' Sollos let his hands drop to his sides and unconsciously fingered the knives at his belt. Kemir stooped down and picked up his bow.
'You two!' The rider from the dragon stopped a little short of them. 'Sell-swords!'
'Sell-swords with names,' muttered Kemir. Sollos took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and bowed.
'Rider Semian. How may we serve?' Semian was the third or fourth son of Duke Semian. Sollos could never remember which, nor did he particularly care. There were some sisters too. They all lived in the vast tract of arid wasteland known as the Stone Desert and the duke served Queen Shezira as Guardian of the North. Sollos wasn't quite sure exactly what the duke was supposed to be keeping at bay up there, other than perhaps the use of first names. This particular Semian was about twenty, skinny and buck-toothed. If he'd been born with a different name, Sollos thought it most likely that he'd have grown up as the village idiot somewhere. As it was he was a
