48
The Eyrie of the Alchemists
Princess Jaslyn was the first to see the smoke. It hung, a slight haze staining the air, a mile or two ahead of them. When she waved at him and pointed, Semian saw it too. As they got closer, he made out the remains of the wagons on the ground, and the gleam, here and there, of shattered swords and armour.
The three dragons split smoothly. Semian and Jostan dived low, one to the left and one to the right. Silence and Princess Jaslyn powered up. While she circled overhead, the two knights swooped over the battle site from opposite angles. They made a second pass and then climbed back to Princess Jaslyn.
'Wagons and soldiers. All dead,' shouted Rider Semian at the top of his voice. 'Dragon attack.' He had no way of knowing whether Princess Jaslyn had heard him. There was a crude sign language that all dragon-riders learned, but it didn't cover things like this. The best he could do was: Friends. Dead. Dragon spoor.
He heard Jaslyn shout something back, but all her words were stolen by the wind. She signed: How long?
One hour. Two hours. 'Recent. Not long ago.'
Danger?
No. 'Whoever did this, they've gone.' Or at least he hoped so. There wasn't any sign of anything alive and moving on the ground, and whoever had burned these men could be miles away by now.
She told him to land and followed him down while Jostan circled overhead. They dismounted and picked their way through the wreckage. Parts of the wagons were recognisable – scorched axles and wheels. Most of the rest was charcoal and ashes, some of it still too hot to touch. There were a lot of bodies. No. Bits of bodies. Soldiers.
'These were the speaker's soldiers,' said Princess Jaslyn. With a start Semian realised she was right. Adamantine Guardsmen. Most had been eaten, and all that was left were hands and arms and legs and pieces of crushed armour chewed and spat out. The few bodies still in one piece had been burned and crushed. There was one impaled to the ground by one of the Guards' own scorpion bolts.
'They're all dead, Princess,' he said, and she nodded. 'Do we search for who did this? They cannot have long gone. They may be resting their dragons or letting them hunt.'
'Or they may be gone.' Jaslyn shook her head. 'We go on as we were. We'll tell the alchemists when we reach them. Once my mother is speaker, she'll put an end to these outrages.' She walked back to Silence and climbed onto his back. 'We fly at three levels now.'
Semian nodded. Three levels meant that one of them would fly close to the ground and the other two much higher, separated by thousands of feet and impossible to surprise all at once. Which was Jaslyn's way of saying she thought they were in some danger. They took to the air once more. Jostan stayed high, so Semian flew low, with Princess Jaslyn somewhere between them. Flying in the middle put her in the safest part of the formation, but also meant that they were relying on her eyes to spot any danger. Semian tried not to think about that and concentrated on following the rutted track leading to the alchemists' stronghold. In a lot of places it was almost invisible. It vanished into wooded vales, twisted over flat slabs of rock and skulked under overhangs, almost as if it had been designed to be difficult to find and almost impossible to follow.
Late in the afternoon the track led Semian over a high pass and down into a lush green valley. A village lay spread out beneath him nestled against a rushing river and surrounded by fields and cattle. The track followed the river, past the village and through a stretch of woodland. The sides of the valley grew steeper and closer together until he was flying between two sheer walls of rock hundreds of yards apart. The cliffs were pitted with fissures stained with streaks of black and dark green. Tiny trickles of frothing water bubbled over the cliff edge and dissolved into clouds of spray. In every possible crack stunted trees and bushes struggled to grow.
The cliffs came steadily closer together. Semian could feel Matanizkan's unease. She didn't like flying in such a confined place.
Abruptly, the cliffs closed completely. At the base where they joined, a loose collection of stone buildings hugged the rocks. Among them Semian could see the mouths of several caves, shafts of darkness disappearing into the earth. The river vanished into one of them; beside it was an eyrie, small but unmistakeable. There were no dragons.
Matanizkan pulled up. There was nowhere left for her to fly. The walls of rock spun wildly as she pitched over. For a moment, Semian was hanging upside down; and then she'd turned and was diving towards the valley floor. Semian gritted his teeth and gripped his harness. Somehow she found the space to spread her wings and levelled out, her claws skimming the ground.
'Down,' he told her, and she seemed almost grateful to land and catch her breath. He stayed in the saddle and walked her slowly back to the head of the valley, to the eyrie. By the time he got there, several alchemists were waiting for him. There were soldiers too, and several scorpions pointed in his direction. Cautiously he dismounted. He glanced up for Jostan and Princess Jaslyn but couldn't see either of them. Sandwiched between the walls of rock, he couldn't see much of the sky at all.
'Rider Semian in the service of Queen Shezira,' he called. The soldiers relaxed as he walked away from the dragon, and one of the alchemists approached.
'Keitos, senior alchemist.' He bowed. 'Apologies, Rider. We had no warning you were coming, and these are troubled times.'
Semian wasn't sure what Keitos meant by that but kept his silence. They walked away from Matanizkan. 'I'm riding escort to Princess Jaslyn. There is one other dragon-knight as well. Rider Jostan. They'll be arriving shortly.' He forced a grin. 'Interesting landing.'
Keitos nodded gravely. 'It was certainly an unusual approach. You haven't been here before, then. This is place is difficult for dragons. That's one of the reasons it became a stronghold for us in the old times, before our order mastered them.'
Back when you were blood-mages. But reminding the alchemist of his order's sordid origins would have been poor behaviour for a guest, so Semian held his tongue. They waited at the edge of the eyrie as Matanizkan was lured out of the way. Eventually, he saw Jaslyn and Jostan flying down the valley towards them. They'd clearly seen him almost crash into the cliff and even Jaslyn was coming in low and slow. They landed gracefully, one behind the other, and dismounted. Keitos left Semian and went to greet them. When the alchemist returned with Jostan and Princess Jaslyn, he looked grim. Jaslyn was telling him what they'd passed on their way.
'Everyone was dead,' she was saying, 'and it was clearly a dragon attack.' She looked at Semian. 'Would you not agree?'
Semian nodded. Keitos bowed his head. 'And the wagons, Your Highness?'
'Everything was destroyed. You know, I imagine, that several of my mother's knights were attacked some months ago.'
'We are aware, Your Highness. One of your dragons was never found.'
'A perfect white. We're still searching for her.'
Keitos nodded vigorously. He led them into a crumbling stone longhouse. Semian noticed that the roof leaked. Everything here was damp.
'We don't have much by way of lodgings, Your Highness. There are a few rooms but…'
Jaslyn waved him away. 'We won't be staying long, Master Keitos. I have something of a mystery to show you. When you can tell me what it is, we'll be on our way. I hope to leave at first light tomorrow.'
'A mystery?' Keitos paused and his eyes lit up. 'How unusual. I'm sure Your Highness will be most well received. Forgive me, Your Highness, but since many of our elder masters are now guests of the speaker for Queen Shezira's accession, might I ask why you came here? I'm sure their knowledge of potions would have sufficed.'
'It's not a potion, Master Keitos. It is something more like liquid metal.'
Keitos bowed. 'We shall do our best, Your Highness.'
'Good. And you will do it today, and then I will leave in the morning with all the proof I need to destroy Prince Jehal forever.'
For the first time since they'd left the palace Semian saw something like a smile flicker across Princess Jaslyn's face.
