'See.' Kemir shrugged. 'Gone.'
'Go and get the alchemist. He might be able to do something.'
'You go and get the alchemist.'
'Get the alchemist!' Sollos pushed Kemir away and crouched beside the dying man. 'We saw the dragon. A white dragon. It left when we arrived. Did it do this?'
'No, it was a careless bloke with a pipe,' muttered Kemir. 'Daft bugger.'
Sollos stood up. This time he shoved Kemir towards the river, screaming at him. 'Go and get the fucking alchemist!'
Kemir jogged off grumbling. Sollos sat down beside the man again.
'We're getting help. Did the white dragon do this?'
The man nodded. He whispered something, too quietly for Sollos to hear, until Sollos bent over and almost pressed his ear to the burned man's lips. 'It spoke. I heard it speak.'
'Who was riding it?'
The man shook his head.
'Was it a dragon-knight?'
The man shook his head again. 'No rider,' he breathed.
'A man then. Not a knight but a man.' The Scales. We never found the body.
Another shake of the head. 'No… rider… just… dragon… on… its… own.'
Sollos had never heard of such a thing. Maybe Kemir was right. The man had to be in unbelievable pain judging from his burns. Maybe his mind had already gone.
'It spoke.' The man sighed and closed his eyes, and for a moment Sollos thought he was gone. Then his lips moved again. 'It spoke in my head. I heard it. It came for Maryk.'
'Maryk? Who's Maryk?'
The man didn't answer. His chest was still rising and falling, but his breaths were fast and shallow and ragged. Sollos stood up. 'Kemir!' Where's that cursed alchemist?
The alchemist was too late, of course. Sollos watched the man's chest heave one last time and then he was still. He'd been gone a few minutes by the time Kemir returned with the alchemist and the dragon-knights.
'He's dead,' said Sollos. He looked at Kemir. 'You told them what we saw?'
'I told them they owe us a bag of gold.'
Semian sneered. 'All we've seen is the aftermath of a fire. For all I know you're lying and the white was never here.'
'If you'd been a bit quicker,' snapped Sollos, 'this man might have told you the same story.'
Kemir pointed up through the trees. 'If your dragon-riders up there didn't see it, they need new eyes.'
'Urn… how long has this man been dead?' asked the alchemist.
'Our dragon-riders are elsewhere, as I'm sure you noticed. And as for this man, perhaps I should look him over for wounds, in case you slid a knife into him to make sure he couldn't contradict you.' Rider Semian cocked his head.
'So there's no one watching to see what happens to you?' Kemir looked ready to hit him. The alchemist was kneeling down beside the burned man now.
'Tread very carefully, sell-sword. Before you raise your hand against me, I would remind you that there are six of us and only two of you.'
Kemir gave him a nasty look. 'I wouldn't dream of sullying my sword with you, Rider. Why would I, when all I need to do is nothing at all?'
The alchemist picked up the dead man's hand by the wrist and held it to his cheek.
'You're a long way from your eyrie here, rider. All I need to do is watch and laugh from a distance while you-'
Sollos tugged sharply on Kemir's arm. 'Enough. Leave them.'
Kemir snorted. 'I'd like nothing better.'
'I require an, um, assistant,' said the alchemist. He was squatting by the dead man now, and was pulling things out of his pack.
'You would, would you?' sneered Rider Semian. 'Then let us part ways. You clearly have nothing to contribute after all. We will simply return to our search from the air. It'll be us watching you.'
'Your, um, help, sell-sword.'
The alchemist was offering Sollos a short curved knife, the sort he might have used for paring fruit. Sollos took it. 'What do you want?'
The alchemist tore open a square of waxed paper. Inside was some black powder, which he sprinkled into small clay cup. He held it out to Sollos. 'Knife.'
Sollos took the cup and gave him the knife. With a grimace the alchemist drew the edge along the flesh of his arm.
'Hold the cup so that it catches the blood.' The alchemist clenched his fist. Blood ran down his arm to his elbow. When it dripped into the cup, the powder hissed.
'What is this?' Sollos frowned.
'None of, um, your concern, sell-sword, that's what.'
'Looks like witchcraft to me,' muttered Kemir. He took a step away. Even the dragon-knights had fallen silent.
'He's dead,' said Sollos. 'Potions can't help him. If you'd come sooner…'
The alchemist glared at him. 'Where did you get your name, sell-sword? Sollos. It's an, er, alchemist's name, not a soldier's. Clearly a, ah, mistake. Or did you choose it yourself?' Inside the cup the powder and the blood had mixed into a paste. The alchemist lifted his arm and wrapped a strip of white linen tightly around his wound. 'Um. You're right that it's too late to help him live. But not too late to help him talk.'
'Master Huros?' Semian sounded edgy. 'I am not easy with this. Blood magic is-'
'Is what?'
'The queen does not favour such practices. They are outlawed.'
'In, er, her realm perhaps. Not here.' The alchemist gave a little sigh. 'If I smear this on his tongue, he will speak. Um… if my means don't please you, rider, I am sorry.' He tugged the cup from Sollos's fingers. 'Take this and burn it, if you prefer.'
Semian fidgeted. After a few seconds, when he didn't take the cup, the alchemist shrugged. He dipped his finger into the paste and, before anyone could stop him, smeared it in the dead man's mouth.
25
Awakening
Day by day, Kailin watched Snow change. Dragons, he'd been told, were like little children. If that was so then Snow was growing up fast right in front of him. She was frightening, and yet he felt a strange pride and a sense of wonder watching her. There had never been a dragon like her, not with her purity of colour. She was sleek and perfect, and now she was becoming something else as well. Often she terrified him, but at the same time he was her Scales. He'd been waiting for her since she first started tapping her way out of her egg and into the world, and he'd been with her for nearly ten years now. Slowly he understood. Their roles had changed. He'd cared for her, nurtured her, fed her, and now she was doing the same for him.
They developed a routine. Each morning as the sun rose over the mountains, Snow uncurled and launched herself into the air. Kailin watched her go, peering into the sky long after she'd vanished. Then he sat by his fire, drank some warm water and ate some leftover meat. After that there really wasn't much to do but wait for Snow and wonder if today was the day when she wouldn't come back. Usually he made his way across the mountain, through the snows, to the nearest stand of trees and collected some more wood. When the wind blew, cold enough to flay the skin off his flesh, he huddled up in the lee of some nearby rocks and simply waited. When Snow came back, she always knew where to find him. She would be almost too hot to touch, and her warmth melted the snows, dried his clothes and the firewood, and slopped him from freezing in the night. Each day she brought him
