Lystra threw Meteroa a glance. Meteroa closed his eyes. Don’t fall for it… But he could see in her face that something had crumbled, as if, deep down, she’d always known she was second-best for Jehal. Don’t believe it. Not now! Evenspire…
Evenspire. They’d only ever had Jehal’s word for what had happened at Evenspire.
Lystra’s jaw set. She advanced on Zafir a third time, now with measured purpose. ‘Is that why he snubbed you at your own councils?’ She swatted at the tip of Zafir’s sword, batting it away. Zafir was barely moving, her injured foot almost useless. ‘Is that why he left you and came back home? He told us that he was bored. If he was sharing your bed then I suppose that must have been why.’
Zafir’s jaw tightened. Meteroa coughed a hacking laugh. ‘She’s got you there, Zafir.’ He was starting to have trouble keeping his eyes open.
‘If you lose, I will take your life. If you win then I have to spare it. So you’ll just have to watch while I strangle your baby and then hang Jehal in a cage. I suppose your sisters can wait. I had your mother put down for the murderous bitch that she was and neither of them seemed to mind all that much.’
Lystra sprang. This time Zafir was ready. Sword met sword. Lystra swung her axe at Zafir’s chest; Zafir didn’t even bother to try and block it. She jumped away on a foot that wasn’t nearly as hurt as she’d let it seem. Lystra’s axe hit her in the ribs, hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to trouble her armour, and then Zafir’s axe was coming straight back, ready to cut Lystra in two and there was nowhere for Lystra to go.
Meteroa closed his eyes and sighed, but the sound of Lystra being cut in half didn’t come. His eyes snapped open again.
She’d twisted inside the blow. The swinging shaft caught her in the midriff and knocked her sideways. Zafir dropped her sword and took the axe in a double grip, hop-stepped after Lystra and caught her a blow around the head with the pommel. Lystra staggered away, dazed, and dropped her weapons. Zafir leapt after her, pressing her advantage, swinging the axe in both hands. The fight was hers. But Lystra kicked, smashing Zafir’s injured foot. Her ankle collapsed under her and she sprawled to the floor, cursing.
‘Oops,’ murmured Meteroa as loudly as he could. The pain was going away. He didn’t feel much of anything any more, except a strong urge to fall asleep. Even the Mandras still held under his nose had lost its sting. His eyes were blurred, but he could see well enough to watch Lystra snatch up her sword and jump, blade first, onto Zafir. Zafir rolled and the sword missed and then Zafir kicked Lystra’s legs out from under her and Lystra was down too, sprawled atop Zafir. He saw Lystra’s fist rise and punch Zafir in the face and then watched her fly back from a foot in the belly. Zafir struggled to her one good foot. Her face was bloody. Lystra had broken her nose as well as her ankle. Zafir picked up her axe and hopped towards Lystra, slow and heavy in her dragon-scale. The room was wobbling up and down. It took an age for Meteroa to realise that that was because he was laughing.
‘She’s a girl,’ he groaned. How long ago did she give birth? She’s still milking her brat. She’s in no state to fight. What do you think she can do? He couldn’t stop himself from shaking. The whole sorry business was too absurdly funny.
Zafir tried to lift her axe with both hands, staggered, dropped it and nearly fell over. Meteroa made strange sounds, thin merry hoots. He was weeping now. ‘She’s a girl,’ he gasped. ‘A nothing.’
Zafir hobbled away. ‘Enough. Someone give me a crossbow.’
No one moved. Lystra was still bent double on the floor, but Meteroa’s laughter grew. You can’t do that. Everyone will know. Sword and axe. That’s what you agreed to. You lose. Look at you.
‘Crossbow.’ Zafir didn’t ask a third time. She hobbled over to one of her riders who held one and snatched it. She took her time to load it.
‘Are you… so outclassed… that… you have… to cheat?’ That took all the breath he had. He wasn’t sure he was going to have any more. Lystra was on her hands and knees now, but Zafir wasn’t watching her any more. She was looking at him.
‘Enough. Of you.’
Come on, you fickle northern shit. Get up, get up! Get up and stab her in the back! I can’t keep- Meteroa never finished the thought. Zafir brought up the crossbow and fired. Meteroa’s head snapped back as the bolt hit him between the eyes and nailed him a second time to Zafir’s throne.
‘Go piss with your ancestors,’ she hissed; and that was all he heard before they came rushing to meet him, to haul him kicking and screaming into the realms of the beyond.
10
Potions and Food
Once you got past the horror of it, watching Snow torment the last two alchemists turned out to be almost boring. Once you got past the reek of blood and offal and the screaming that went on and on in Kemir’s head even when the alchemists themselves fell silent. They didn’t actually say anything very much except for a lot of squeaks and squeals, a few ‘Please-don’t-kill-me’s and, when Snow picked one up in her claws and dangled him over her mouth, a great deal of terrified shrieking. But they didn’t say anything. Snow was battering her thoughts into their heads and then picking over whatever bubbled to the surface.
Kemir caught snippets, when he tried. Mostly Snow seemed to be demanding to know where the other alchemists could be found, where other eyries were, where there were dragons and, above all, where and how the alchemists made their potions. She certainly wasn’t asking about Rider Semian.
They’re no better then dragon-riders. They’re no better than dragon-riders. He ran the mantra over and over in his head, trying to believe it. Trying to think of them as something other than scared old men. Eventually, when he’d finished picking his fingernails clean and was on to scraping at the little flecks of blood that still stained his dragon-scale, he got up. Enough. There was only so much of this he could watch.
‘Bored now.’ Snow ignored him. Judging from the way she was acting, the answers weren’t much to her liking. Which meant the alchemists probably wouldn’t survive for long enough to tell Kemir anything that he wanted to hear.
‘Oi, dragon.’ He got up and kicked her foot. She slowly turned to look at him.
You become ever more wearing, little one. What?
‘What do you want me to do? Sit on my arse and scratch myself while you eat this lot?’
If it comforts you. Now be silent.
Kemir’s face darkened. ‘Look, I winkled them out for you. Me. So this is where you take a break from mangling them and you tell me about the man who killed my cousin. You tell me what the Scales knew.’
He knew nothing.
‘What?’
He knew nothing. These know nothing.
‘What? You said they knew!’
In a sudden flash of motion, Snow’s tailed flicked out. The tip wrapped around Kemir’s waist and he found himself being lifted up into the air. The dragon lunged and snatched up the two alchemists in her front talons. Their wailing beat at the emptiness of the mountain air. Then she launched herself into a run on her massive hind legs, claws shredding the earth, shaking the mountainside, wings beating like thunder until she lifted up into the air and powered up towards the remains of the castle. You wanted dragon-knights, Kemir, did you not? Perhaps you thought there might be a fight? You thought they might resist? Look, Kemir! Look, all of you, at how your mighty fortresses will fall. By now she’d almost reached it, a climb that would take Kemir more than an hour on foot. Look at it!
There wasn’t much left but a big pile of broken stone. Charred pieces of wood smouldered in tumbled heaps, the last glowing embers slowly fading out. Here and there, pieces of stone carried some feature that marked them. A crenellation here, half a window there, broken pieces of archways, maybe a part of a door, sticking out from under the rubble. If Kemir tried, he could picture the castle as it had been before the dragons arrived, and then, just maybe, he could see how one pile of stones had once been a tower, how another had been the keep, another the gatehouse.
Just about.
