Sirion, Hyrkallan and Almiri turned and walked away towards their dragons. Jehal was left with Jeiros and Vale to watch them go.
‘Well,’ said Jehal, once they were gone. ‘That went well, don’t you think? In that they didn’t murder me out of hand. I suppose I’m quite surprised that you’re still alive too after that outburst. You don’t think they’re actually going to let you kill their dragons, do you?’ I’m the speaker of the nine realms, and I have to resort to being the court jester to be heard. Thank the Great Flame that Meteroa’s not here. I’d never hear the last of it.
Carefully, trying not to look at the water roaring beneath his feet, he hobbled back across the bridge. Slowly, one plank at a time. Getting back onto the solid ground, where Aruch and the dragons were waiting, he leaned against the charred trunk of a dead tree and caught his breath. His head was already filling with plots and schemes, with trajectories of possibilities. Not that he particularly wanted them; what he particularly wanted was to lie down somewhere in a dark room and chew on Dreamleaf until the pains running up and down the inside of his thigh went away.
He took a deep breath. ‘When I was little and my father used to tell me stories about Vishmir and Narammed and of the first of the alchemists and the last of the blood mages, there was one story about Narammed’s spear. The spear used to belong to a wizard-king made of quicksilver…’
Jeiros looked at him. He seemed sad and drained. ‘The Silver King. A long time ago, when there were no alchemists and no mages and no kings and no queens, when all the world was just men and dragons, and the men lived in fear, and the dragons ate the men and burned their homes. Did your stories start like that?’
‘Yes.’ Despite himself, Jehal smiled at the memory. ‘Something like that. And then the silver wizard-king comes and promises to make everything right and save the men from the dragons. He says he has a magic potion that will make the dragons obey the commands of the men, if only the dragons can be made to drink it. The men ask the wizard how he will make the dragons come so that they can drink his magic spell, and the wizard shows them his spear, Narammed’s spear, the Adamantine Spear, and he bangs the end of it three times on the ground. All across the world every dragon hears him call and stops at once what it was doing and takes to wing to answer.’ He clapped his hands. ‘You have to admit that would make finding your rogues a lot easier, master Jeiros, if it happened to be true.’
The alchemist sighed. ‘And Narammed slew a dragon with a single blow from that same spear, they say, at Dragondale. Yes, if those stories were all true, that would a fine way to solve all our problems at once. A very handy spear that would be. Jehal, do you think we haven’t tried? Of course we have. Sadly, no one of the Order has ever wrung any magic from the Speaker’s Spear, not one little drop of it. If it was ever more than unusually sharp, those days are gone.’
‘And yet it’s gone missing. That makes me uneasy. You hadn’t forgotten, had you?’
‘Which is more likely, Jehal? That the spear was stolen from under our noses or that Zafir took it with her to war?’
‘I went down to where it should have been. I found a candle dropped on the floor.’
Jeiros shook his head. ‘Doubtless Zafir holds it even now.’ He walked away, back towards Wraithwing and the other dragons. Jehal watched him go.
I don’t think so. But I’ve told you who took it. And if it’s just a spear… There was no reason to think that Jeiros would be wrong about something like that. Yet a blood-mage had saved his life to bargain for the spear, and the life of a dragon-king was surely worth more than a piece of mere metal…
‘You missed a bit,’ said Vale at Jehal’s shoulder. ‘The men ask the wizard how he will make the dragons drink his potions. And the wizard tells them that he won’t. And then he throws up his arms and makes his spell and tells the men that it’s them who get to drink, so the magic will get into their blood. And all they have to do is wait until the dragons come, and then let the dragons eat them and the spell will became a part of the dragons for ever. That’s all. And if enough of them say yes and are willing to die, then the dragons will be enslaved, but if there’s not enough, it’s men who will be slaves. And the men who did say yes to that, Your Holiness, they were my ancestors.’
Jehal nodded. He pushed himself away from his tree. His hands came away black from the charred bark. Wherever he went, wherever he looked, the signs of dragons were never far away. He hobbled after Jeiros. Maybe the alchemist was right. A cull. Of all the dragons of his enemies. That would do nicely. ‘That doesn’t seem very likely, Night Watchman. What seems much more likely is that your ancestors weren’t daft enough to drink dragon poison or whatever it was and then get themselves eaten. Tricky, I imagine, to father a child after you’ve been eaten.’
Vale didn’t seem offended. He simply shook his head. ‘No. But I would not expect you to understand.’
Maybe he was right, though. After all, there was an old and mostly forgotten law that an Adamantine Man could help himself to any woman he could get hold of before he went into battle. Maybe that was how they survived. Or maybe there wasn’t a law, just an old drinking song. He whistled to himself as he limped across the black earth. As he did, he heard the Night Watchman singing quietly along.
‘I fight dragons, I have no name, but I’m a warrior so there’s no shame
Off to battle I’ll soon be dead, but while I live I’ll share my bed
Wife or daughter, maiden, crone, lie with me, I’ll make you moan
My spear is huge, its shaft is hard, its point is savage and battle-scarr’d
Squirm and scream and shout out loud, I’ll give you sons to make you proud.’
They fell to silence. For a second Jehal paused. He turned back and stared at Vale. The Night Watchman was miles away, lost in thought. When he saw Jehal looking at him, he bowed. Jehal shrugged and shook his head. As perks went, that didn’t sound bad at all. At least not until you considered the almost certain fiery death that followed.
‘I did not see Zafir carry the spear to war, Your Holiness,’ said Vale quietly.
‘Then perhaps you should look for it.’ Jehal climbed laboriously up the ladder onto Wraithwing’s back. ‘A blood-mage, Vale. Look for a blood-mage who calls himself Kithyr.’
He saw the Night Watchman’s eyes, saw that the name meant something. Typical. Everyone knows more than me.
He closed his eyes to doze as the dragon took him home. Where a second messenger from the Pinnacles was waiting.
18
Needs Must
A lesser man might have reached the top panting and gasping for breath, or else taken the hundred-odd steps at a more gentle pace. Vale Tassan, Night Watchman, commander of the Adamantine Men, took them briskly and arrived at the top pleasantly refreshed. Even before he reached the roof, the smells came down to greet him. Wet stone, hot steel, oil. On the flat space on top of the Gatehouse tower a score of scorpions stood to attention in the rain. He looked up at the grey iron sky, a habit all Adamantine Men learned. Always look up. Always look out for dragons. In this weather he could barely even see the City of Dragons at the bottom of the hill, but he looked up anyway. A perfect day for war.
The top of the tower was large enough that a dragon could have stood there and spread its wings, if the roof had had the strength to bear the weight. Dozens of his soldiers stood, still and stoic in the rain, close to their weapons. He cast his eyes across the scorpions, across the men around them. They were ready. As ready as you could be for dragons. He would have preferred a heavy stone roof, but the dragon-scale canopies erected over the weapons would have to do. When it came to tooth and claw and tail, they might as well have been made of paper, but they’d keep the fire at bay.
Satisfied with what he saw, the Night Watchman ambled across the roof to the observatory in the corner, a slender and ornate stone dome amid the machines of war. He knocked sharply and pushed open the door without waiting for an answer. This side of the tower belonged to the alchemists. On another day he might have paused, perhaps shown a little more respect. On another day he might have stopped inside the door and taken a moment to look around at the maps, the charts of the stars, the Taiytakei farscopes and other strange instruments he didn’t
