that he'd always thought that his knowledge was enough. Sometimes, when she was angry with him, she was terrifying. It was hard to live with a creature that could extinguish him so easily, over which he had no power.
Because of your alchemists, it is my kind who have no power, she'd replied.
He'd gone into a couple of Outsider settlements with some of the weapons and money they'd stolen from Queen Shezira's dragon-knights. The first village had given him a cautious welcome and taken his gifts, but they hadn't known any more about the alchemists. The second had taken him captive. They probably would have killed him if Snow hadn't crashed in first. She'd destroyed the village and anyone who wasn't quick enough to run away into the trees. She was pitiless. Man, woman or child, if it moved, if it thought, it burned. Some of them got away, and Kemir almost had to beg her not to hunt them down. Snow had given him a curious look, an expression he'd come to recognise as a mixture of incomprehension and indifference. She'd let the survivors go in the end, but the memories made him shiver. They'd been Outsiders, which sort of made them his people. Snow didn't care. She'd squashed them with all the compassion of a child crushing ants.
They'd flown south again, deep into the Worldspine, still searching. There, Snow had spotted a lone dragon in the far distance. Kemir couldn't even see it at first but then made out a tiny black speck in the sky, miles away.
There is another dragon, Kemir. Alone.
'Where there's a dragon, there's a rider. Maybe he knows where the alchemists hide away.'
Snow climbed higher and surged through the air. The dragon-knight saw them coming but didn't seem particularly bothered until Snow swooped down and almost landed on his dragon's back. She ripped the knight out of his saddle. The other dragon shrieked and did what they always did – it dived for the ground. Snow banked into a steep spiral, following it down. This new one was shorter than Snow, but heavier, squat and compact. A war- dragon, Kemir decided. A poor one too, since its scales were a dull dark grey, almost black in places, and barely gleamed at all.
Alchemists! Where are the alchemists?
It took Kemir a moment to realise that Snow wasn't thinking to him, but to the rider she'd seized. The two dragons whirled towards the ground. Kemir's fingers gripped into Snow's scales. Riding behind him, Nadira's arms around his waist were like a vice, crushing the air out of him. The wind took his breath away. Nadira might have been screaming, but he didn't hear it so much as feel it reverberating through him.
Where?
His heart almost stopped as the ground hurtled towards him – he could almost believe that Snow was so set on having an answer to her question that she hadn't noticed – but, as always, at the last moment she spread her wings and he nearly fell off her back, and then they were suddenly down on the ground.
The near-black dragon was eyeing them mournfully. Snow hurled the rider at it. The beast sniffed the body and then curled up around it, head held erect and alert. It never blinked, Kemir noticed.
Your kind are too fragile, grumbled Snow.
'Did you get an answer?' Kemir was shaking and Nadira was sobbing. He badly wanted to get off Snow's back and feel the solid ground beneath his feet, but the sight of the other dragon made him stay where he was. For all he knew, Snow might simply fly off and leave him there.
I might, conceded Snow. You have been little use to me.
Kemir tried not to think about that. 'Well, did he tell you anything or not?'
No. He was in pain and fear and then he died. I saw a place in his mind, very briefly. It is somewhere in the realm of one of your kind called Valgar.
'King Valgar.'
You know this man?
Kemir couldn't help but laugh. 'He's a king, dragon. He wouldn't spit on my corpse, much less know me. I know where to find him. It's north again. Where we've already looked.'
Then we will look again.
He sighed, ready for Snow to take to the air straight away expecting to find the alchemists before the sun set. And then when she didn't, she'd fly into a rage, and he and Nadira would cower and pray to whatever gods might hold sway over a vengeful dragon, and he'd wish that Sollos was here because somehow Sollos had always known what to do.
'I should run off and leave you,' he muttered.
I would not let you, Kemir. Not now.
But Snow didn't take off; she cautiously stepped closer to the other dragon.
Get down and hide among the trees for a while. This one has a deeper rage than mine inside it.
They didn't fly away to continue the search that day, nor the next, nor the one after that. Instead, Snow stopped looking for the alchemists and stayed with the dark dragon for a month. Sometimes she ignored him for days at a time. She hunted alone and brought back food for the other dragon. Kemir, in his turn, hunted with his bow. He kept himself and Nadira alive. The mountain valleys were cold and wet and treacherous. Ordinary men died in places like this, but there was always food and water, and shelter as well, if you knew where to look for it.
Finally Kemir decided he'd had enough. He'd barely even seen Snow for four days, and the two dragons were flying together now.
'They don't need us any more,' he said to Nadira. 'They've forgotten us. When they remember, they'll eat us.'
They packed what little they had and left, striking west. He didn't know where they were, but the Worldspine ran from north to south, so heading west was bound to take them back into the realms sooner or later.
Snow caught them three days later. She landed as close as she could, while the other dragon circled over their heads.
There are two of us now. Her thoughts didn't seem angry, but Kemir felt the conviction behind them.
'Is that one of you for each of us?' he asked. He couldn't help himself.
There is one harness for your kind. It is of no consequence to me to wear it.
'And what if I don't want to ride you.'
Ash will burn you where you stand.
'Ash?' Kemir glanced up. From below, the war-dragon simply looked black.
Ash. That is the name your kind gave him, and now that he has awoken, he hungers for the same vengeance. So, Kemir, will you ride with us?
'Do I have a choice?'
You always have the choice to die.
Wearily, Kemir climbed up the ropes onto Snow's back. It took him a good part of the day to adjust Ash's harness so that it fitted her properly and didn't threaten to tip them out every time Snow launched herself into the air. They turned north once more, Ash flying alongside them. The black dragon made Kemir's skin crawl. Snow's indifference was bad enough – but to Ash, Kemir and Nadira simply didn't exist. His thoughts, when he spoke to Snow, were clear enough. Men and women were food, nothing more.
They resumed their search. One fruitless day passed and then another, and then, in the middle of the wilderness, Snow spied a cluster of wagons driving along a hidden track.
Amid the burning wreckage Snow rose onto her hind legs. In her foreclaws she was holding a body. Alive! Kemir, this one is alive. Ask it! Make it tell us where the alchemists are to be found!
Kemir shouted, 'Then put it down before you break it!' As he walked towards her, Ash swooped low over the track.
Hungry!
Snow looped her tail around one of the bodies and hurled it into the air. Ash caught it on the fly.
You should have waited, Ash thought reproachfully. The smell of them burning has given me an appetite, yet you've left me nothing to sate it. At least, nothing still breathing that I can chase.
Kemir shivered.
Soon. Snow cocked her head as Kemir came closer, and gently lowered the twitching soldier onto the ground in front of him.
'I said don't break him,' Kemir growled. 'When you want to know something, all you have to do is pick someone up and shout inside their head. When they've stopped screaming in terror, the next thing they'll do is tell
