Vengeance wanted more, wanted to turn and strike and burn and strike and burn until everything was crushed, but Semian checked him. No.
He looked over his shoulder as they flew away. At least four of his riders were dead, their dragons pulled to the ground by the weight of the training they were given as hatchlings, conditioned to defend their fallen riders no matter how broken they became. He had no idea how many Adamantine Men he'd slain. Not many, probably. But most of the wagons were smashed and ablaze, that was what mattered. The wagons carried potions. He knew that from the way they were guarded, knew that from his days at the alchemists' redoubt, the place where he'd been reborn.
No more potions for the speaker. That would do very nicely. He led his dragons away.
But it wasn't perfect. He hadn't counted the wagons. There had been perhaps as many as a dozen. A few had likely survived. Even one, it suddenly struck him, was too many.
So after half an hour had passed, as the sun drooped across the horizon, he led his dragons back across the desert and they did it all again. As things turned out, he did want to watch things burn after all.
Three
24
The deeper they flew into the Worldspine, the taller the mountains became. Jagged spikes and streaks of rock stuck out, black and brutal, from the monotony of snow below. The trees fell away, then the lakes, and then everything except the glacial ice and stone. They had nothing to eat and only melted snow and ice to drink. Each day they flew higher, until the air grew so thin that Kemir could barely lift an arm before he was out of breath. If he hadn't had Snow to keep him warm, the cold would have frozen him hard in an hour. After the first day, the wind of Snow's flight was so biting that he could hardly raise his face to see where they were going; when he did, even through the dragon-rider's visor he wore, he felt as though the skin was being flayed from his flesh by a thousand razors dipped in acid. After the first day he had cramps from clenching his muscles, from hugging Snow so tightly. By the end of the second he could barely move. And then there were the nights. If the days were cold, what were the nights?
'Dragon, do you even know where are you going?' he slurred, when he decided for the hundredth time that he'd had enough. The roar of the wind whipped his words away but the dragon heard him. He wasn't sure quite how it worked, but as far as Kemir could tell, Snow could hear him think.
To the other side, Kemir. Snow's thoughts were far away, lost in distant memories that she kept carefully to herself. She wasn't really paying attention and Kemir was slowly starting to recognise the difference.
'I know the realms backwards and forwards, top to bottom. I've never heard of an other side to the Worldspine.'
Whatever you have heard, Kemir, that is where we are going. Everywhere has an other side.
'And what if it doesn't, eh?' he grumbled. 'What if it goes on like this for ever, getting taller and taller?'
Then you will die of hunger and I will eventually follow. But nothing goes on for ever, Kemir.
That made him laugh. 'Except you. You go on for ever. And it's all very well you talking about dying. Even when you die, don't you just come back again?'
That is true.
'Well I don't. You might live for ever, but I've just got what I've got, and I'd quite like to make the most of it.'
How are you so sure, Kemir? He could feel Snow's thoughts moving back to him, growing warmer and closer. When she tried, she could almost pretend that she wasn't a monster.
We are different, that is all. And we are not eternal. We were made, long ago, by sorcerers as old as the world. When that world ends, we will end with it, just as everything else.
'It doesn't look like it's ending any time soon to me.'
Between our lives in flesh and bone we walk the realms of the dead. I have seen things there. Things that should not be. They have broken loose of the sorcery that held them still. There is a hole where one of the four pillars of creation once stood. Tell me, Kemir, would you know the end of the world if you saw it?
'I don't know, but all I see right now is white down and blue up, with some more white and blue coming up in the middle distance, and far, far away, probably a hundred miles from here, guess what I can see? Can you guess? Yes! More of exactly the same. How far have we flown since that lake, eh?' He had to hiss the words out between clenched teeth, not daring to breathe too deep lest the cold strip the flesh from his lungs.
Not far enough to have reached the other side.
Kemir gave a frustrated groan and shifted to press himself face down onto the dragon's scales, trying to keep warm. 'That's a dragon answer, not a real answer. Whether there's another side or not, I definitely won't go on for ever if we keep going like this much further.' There was no getting off though. He was stuck here, for better or for worse. Which means there's really not much left to do but grumble and gripe about it, is there?
You are right, I am getting hungry again.
There was a pause, and then Kemir snarled 'Was that a joke, dragon? Was that humour? Because if it was, it was a long way from being funny.' It had only been two days, but the ever-present driving freezing wind had almost pushed Nadira from his mind.
It is the answer as you would have given it.
'Yes.' Now Kemir chuckled. 'I suppose it is. Well that's me told then.' His anger faded. 'I hope you're right, dragon. I hope there is an end to this. It would really piss me off to have saved you only to have you starve to death.' And Nadira deserves better than that too. That would make her death about as pointless as it's possible to be.
You did not save me, Kemir.
'No? So everything would have been just dandy if you'd done what you wanted to do and stayed to watch Ash and the others burn from the inside? You, for some reason, would have been spared?' For a brief moment he risked a glance down. The wind tore at his face and froze his tears to his cheeks and all he could see was an endless featureless white.
No. But you did not save me, Kemir. The ice-water of the lake did that.
'And who dragged you to the lake, dragon?'
I have said I am grateful for your advice, Kemir.
'You don't sound it.' Every conversation eventually came to this, mainly because Kemir couldn't stay away from it. He'd saved the dragon's life. He knew it; the dragon knew it; Nadira knew it-had known it; probably even the alchemists knew it, but the dragon was damned if she was going to admit it. Even gratitude came with grudging reluctance. The whole idea that she might have been even a bit helped by a mere 'little one' seemed to be a severe embarrassment. Did dragons feel embarrassed? Did dragons feel anything? He didn't know, but this one certainly acted like she did. Stupid, really. What am I going to do? Run to all the other dragons, point my finger at her and laugh?
Very hungry indeed, Kemir.
Oh. Yes. Reading thoughts. Well then you know I'm still terrified of you, dragon. In my own strange little way. And I still despise you for what you did.
Snow, Kemir. The name your kind gave me is Snow. It is not my true name, but it will suffice.
'Just don't waste me, Snow. You need me. Don't waste me like you wasted Nadira. You need what I know.' Yes, and I'll keep telling myself that. Eventually at least one of us might believe it. Ancestors! What am I doing here?
