were you going to do that?’ Meteroa waited, watching. The soldier was clearly terrified – he knew that he was very close to death – but there was also an air of resignation about him, as though he’d been in this sort of position enough times before not to be overly bothered.
Meteroa slowly lowered his sword. ‘You are a slave, aren’t you? And they did promise you your freedom.’ He laughed. ‘You can fight for me if you like. You’ll probably die anyway, but I’ll give you a better sword and some armour and some decent food.’ And I could do with every man I can get. Where I get them doesn’t really matter. He laughed. ‘We all eat like kings in here. You can shoot scorpions at the riders who threw you in here. Bet you wouldn’t mind that at all.’
The soldier was clearly weighing up his options. Gaizal threw in another one.
‘Dragon!’
Meteroa backed quickly away from the soldier and stole a glance towards the mouth of the cave. Another war-dragon was heading straight at them with yet another cage. The dragon opened its mouth. Meteroa leapt for the scorpion, dropping his sword, snapping down his visor and diving behind the fire shield as the cave exploded in flames. The dragon roared. Men screamed, wood and stone smashed, and then the dragon was gone again.
When Meteroa lifted his visor, the soldier was gone. Or rather, what was still there was a charred smouldering shape of something vaguely man-like. Behind the fire, the dragon had tossed in another cage filled with slave-soldiers. They were screaming. The cave floor, Meteroa realised, was still scorching hot.
‘Gaizal!’ Meteroa picked up his sword and then quickly dropped it again, clutching his hand. ‘Shit.’ The hilt was blistering. Dragon-scale was too tough and too thick for the inside of a pair of gaunt-lets. ‘Gaizal!’ Slave- soldiers were pulling themselves out of the wreckage now, screaming and wild-eyed with terror. Back outside, in the blinding sky, Meteroa thought he could see more dragons clutching cages. Sheer weight of numbers would push him out of his cave eventually. Is that what they were doing everywhere? Vishmir’s cock – how many of these poor fools did Tichane have?
He turned and ran. The slaves pulling themselves out of the cage shrieked and gave chase. They didn’t even notice Gaizal, still sat in the scorpion. They were faster than him, one of the drawbacks of dragon-scale armour. But there were men-at-arms waiting somewhere at the bottom of the tunnel. Somewhere.
A slave-soldier landed on his back. He spun, flinging him off, but that merely gave the others a chance to catch up with him. They threw themselves at him like a pack of wolves.
‘Gaizal!’ he punched one in the face, smashing the man’s jaw, but toppled over backwards under the sheer weight of bodies. He could feel them already stabbing at him with their short swords, trying to find a way through his armour. He writhed and thrashed, trying to throw them off. Do you know who I am? Do you know what I did? I killed a dragon today! A fucking dragon!
He roared and managed to free one of his arms to snap the neck of the man clawing at his helmet.
‘I. Will. Not!’
But that was as far as he got before another one of the slaves grabbed hold of his head and bashed it into the stone floor over and over, and everything went black.
8
The Alchemy of Fear
‘I’m doing this for you, cousin,’ Kemir muttered to himself as he strung his bow. His bow or Sollos’s bow? He wasn’t sure any more. They both looked the same. The realisation hurt. He should know something like that. He cocked his head at Snow. ‘I want to know what the Scales told you.’
After you bring me my alchemists, Kemir.
‘After, after. You always have to get what you want first, don’t you?’ He didn’t stop, though. His feet felt springy. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought that Snow had put some kind of spell on him. Somehow he felt lighter. The rider who’d killed his cousin was still alive, could still be made to suffer. An arrow in the leg had been the start of it, but there would be more, so very much more. Yes, it was good to remember why he was here, after all this doubting. Good to have a simple answer again…
The alchemists, Kemir.
‘You’d better leave a few of them alive after you’ve done.’ He looked at the hole in the ground that Snow had cleared. There were stairs underneath the dust and the rubble. Yesterday a large stone house had stood here but there was little sign of that now. No, house wasn’t the right word. Something bigger, more like a castle but not.
They are far underground, said Snow in his head. I taste their fear.
‘I don’t suppose you can taste how many of them are down there?’
There are eight, Kemir.
Well, that’s me told. He started down the stairs. One step at a time, his feet feeling their way through the scattered debris. The light from the sky faded quickly as he went deeper.
Can you not go quicker?
‘Can you not shut up? It’s dark down here.’
I can light your way with fire, if you wish.
‘Or you could go find something better to do for a while?’
No.
Kemir picked his way onwards. In parts he had to drop onto all fours, feeling at the floor with his hands. Either the alchemists were hiding in the pitch black or else he was nowhere near them.
They are not in darkness. Your caution is unnecessary. You may go faster.
Kemir growled softly. ‘And how do you know that, dragon? Are you here?’ Down near the bottom of the stairs he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. The only light was the distant painful brightness of the sky, far behind him.
I can see the edges of their thoughts, Kemir, and they are not the thoughts of men hidden in darkness. They have light. I feel their minds and I feel yours. You are not yet close. Hasten!
Eventually the stairs stopped at a mound of rubble. Kemir felt at it and then crawled over the top, through a narrow gap beneath the ceiling. The earth smelled burned, felt powdery. When he reached the other side, though, the stones were different. It took him a moment to realise what it was. They were rough. They weren’t warm. This was how far Snow’s fire had reached.
The tunnel led further, a lot further. He could see that because he could see a light too, off in the distance, a flickering shadow hundreds of yards away.
‘Are you still there, dragon?’ he whispered.
Yes.
‘I see light.’ He crept along the tunnel, one careful step at a time. There were still stones scattered on the ground. His feet felt for them. Not a place he wanted to sprain an ankle, and he needed to be quiet too. ‘Don’t suppose you know if they’re all together?’ Gravel crunched under his boot. He winced.
They are close to each other.
‘How close is close, exactly?’ The dragon didn’t answer. Kemir shuffled slowly along. The light wasn’t flickering like a flame; it was moving as though someone was holding it, but otherwise it was steady. ‘Are there soldiers down here, or just alchemists?’
How will their minds feel different, Kemir?
‘How would I know? Am I the one who reads them?’
You little ones all feel the same.
‘Well now that’s useful to know.’
No. You are different. I have come to know your special taste. I will always know you. Always find you.
Kemir pulled out an arrow and nocked it loosely on the string of his bow. He passed a second passage, dark and lifeless, and then a third, more stairs leading back to the mountain slopes. As he came closer to the end of the tunnel, he could see that it opened out into a wider space. He started to hear voices.
‘… do you know?’
