with a mixture of greed and hate. The knights glowered back. Sollos and Kemir took it in turns to snooze, but no one else got much sleep. Strangely, the alchemist seemed the most anxious of them all.
As soon as dawn broke, Curly Beard jumped to his feet and declared it was time to move on. With great reluctance, Rider Semian handed over the promised gold. Curly Beard disappeared back down the river with three of his friends and the sack of coins, leaving two of the Outsiders to guide the knights onwards.
'If we went after them, we could still catch them,' muttered Kemir.
It took barely an hour for the other two Outsiders to abandon them. The first slipped away in the woods when one of the knights fell and broke his hand. The other one, when he saw that he was the last, simply ran, trusting the sureness of his feet on the rocks, knowing the knights could never catch him. Rider Semian declared the man a traitor and ordered him shot, but by the time Sollos had his bow strung, the Outsider was too far away. He sent a couple of arrows after the man to keep Semian happy and then pretended to listen while the knight told him how poor a shot he was.
Slowly, Sollos realised that the knights didn't know what to do. He watched them dither and wondered what profit there might be from leaving them to their fate. Six riders and one alchemist, alone in the mountains…
He looked up. Sure enough, high above, he saw a speck in the sky. The knights had someone to watch over them.
'You! Sell-sword!'
Sollos looked around. He assumed it must be one of the knights, but it was the alchemist, pointing a finger at him.
'Master Huros. Enjoying yourself?'
'I, urn… Certainly not. I require your help. It is clear that the correct course of action is to proceed in the direction we were being led. Please explain this to Rider Semian.'
Sollos cocked his head. 'Why don't you explain it to him yourself, Master Huros?'
'Because Lady Nastria made it quite plain that you two had knowledge of these mountains.' The alchemist made a noise in his throat. 'Um. He will listen to you, and we must press on.'
'Must we? I thought we might go back. Burn those naughty Outsiders for being so ill-mannered.'
'No, Sword-Master Sollos, we must press on. If, uh… if those men were telling us the truth, we cannot be far from the dragon. Turning back will waste days. I repeat, we must press on, before-'
'Before what, Master Alchemist?'
'Um. None of your concern. All that matters is that we reach the dragon quickly.'
Sollos thought about that. There didn't seem much to gain from leaving the riders to fend for themselves, but in the end what made up his mind was that the alchemist had actually bothered to call him by his name. With a sigh, he hauled himself to his feet. He didn't bother telling the riders where he was going and didn't bother looking back when they shouted at him, simply gestured at them to follow. Eventually they did.
Kemir was the first to notice the smell. The rain had stopped in the middle of the day, and for the last few hours they'd walked on in glorious sunshine. Apart from his feet, Sollos was feeling almost dry when Kemir abruptly stopped and sniffed the air.
Sollos stopped as well. He wrinkled his nose. There was… something, something slightly familiar.
'Soul Dust,' muttered Kemir, keeping his voice low so the dragon-knights, a few dozen yards behind them, wouldn't hear.
Sollos shook his head. 'No. There's something right enough, but it's not Dust. Dust doesn't smell like that.'
'It does when you burn it.'
Sollos shrugged. 'It can't be. No one here burns Dust.' He swept his hand across the empty landscape. 'Do you see anyone burning Dust?'
Kemir glared at him. 'No, obviously I don't, because if I did, I'd be pointing at them. Just because you can't see the shit on the bottom of your boot doesn't mean it doesn't stink, and I'm telling you, that's the smell of burning Dust.'
Five minutes later Sollos sniffed again. This time he smelled smoke.
They looked at each other. Then Kemir started to run as best he could over the scattered rocks. The riders shouted. Sollos paused for long enough to yell at them to smell the air, and then set off after Kemir. Around the next bend of the river they skidded to a stop.
Kemir pointed to the scorched scar at the edge of the forest. 'Do you think that's the settlement we were supposed to be finding?' A few charred pieces of wood were still smouldering. The rest of whatever had been here was ash, but that wasn't what caught Sollos's eye.
'Bugger the settlement.' He pointed up the river.
At first glance it might have been a huge white boulder, but there was something too regular about it, too smooth. The boulder, when Sollos looked closely, had eyes that looked back. As he watched, the boulder slowly unfurled its legs, wings and tail and turned into a dragon.
Kemir gave a little whoop of joy. 'Finder's fee!'
Sollos touched Kemir on the arm, a gesture of caution. 'Something isn't right about this. There's no rider.'
'Of course there isn't. We were there, remember. When the other dragons attacked? Fire, shouting, running for our lives? Am I ringing any bells?'
Sollos edged sideways, out of the middle of the river bed, heading for the cover of the forest. The dragon was watching, and there was something altogether too intelligent in the way it was looking at him. 'We never found the Scales.'
'That's because he's dead.'
'Then why this?' Sollos began to step faster. 'Dragons never flamestrike unless someone tells them to.'
'Maybe it was hungry.'
'Maybe it still is.'
The dragon moved. Sollos grabbed Kemir and ran.
Tipping the Scales
For ten years, as the dragon is matured, the gifts must continue, and those whose gifts are found wanting will find their dragon,
when they take it, perhaps a little dull in its scales, not as
vigorous in its flight or as tight in its turns as they had hoped.
When his dragon has finally matured, the rider will visit the
eyrie for one last time. A final round of gifts is made, and then
rider and dragon are introduced. The dragon is his.
Before the rider leaves, it is customary for one last payment to be
made: a small gift to the Scales, the man or woman who has fed
and watered and nurtured the dragon since it was an egg. The
dragon-princes call this gift Tipping the Scales
23
Snow
A torrent of flames poured from the sky, swallowing her and the Little One beside her in its fury. The river waters steamed. Stones cracked in the heat.
She felt the presence of the other dragons in the sky long before she saw them. Different minds, different thoughts made up of different sounds and colours, but that didn't bother her at first. Other dragons came and went all the time, and the Little Ones never seemed afraid. And then she'd felt their thoughts change, the colours darken and sharpen and fill with fire. She knew what was coming.
An instant before the flames struck, she spread out her wings, tenting them over her head and over the Little One beside her. Instinctively. Protecting her eyes and the Little One. The other Little One, the one who'd been angry and shouting, the one who rode on her back and told her what to do, he was too far away for her to save.
