dragons, told them they were useless, that they were cowards to be scared of a few scorpions. Always got a rise out of them, that one, particularly Snow. He didn’t know why he taunted them. Because that was who he was. Because, perhaps, deep down he hoped they would tire of him. Would eat him and send him on his way.
They didn’t, though.
Your drear is tiresome. The dragons had settled along a ridge of black rock, steep and sharp and speckled with snow. Either side and all around, white-capped mountains rose around them. A thick blanket of cloud lay across the eastern edge of the Worldspine and it was snowing. Not heavily, but enough to blur everything more than a valley away into a featureless white.
Around Kemir, steam rose from the scales of the dragons. The snow melted as soon as it touched them, water running in tiny little rivers and pooling in the hollows of their neck and shoulders. The ridge looked down over a typical mountain valley, steep and damp and lush and green, or it would have been if it hadn’t vanished into a haze of grey and falling snow. Behind him, on another day when it wasn’t smeared away, he would have seen the northern edge of the Raksheh, the great forest of the western realms.
Across the valley lay another mountain, dark blotches of stone barely visible through the thickness of the air. A mountain much taller than the ridge where they sat. The dragons had finally reached their destination. An eyrie.
‘Bite me.’ They’d picked the northernmost eyrie of the Mountain King’s realm. Something to do with the king moving his dragons to the south. Kemir had no idea how they knew what Valmeyan was up to, but they did. From what he could tell, they could sense the other dragons heading south. Sensed them from dozens of miles away. Maybe hundreds.
The temptation grows ever stronger, little one. Snow sat back on her hind legs and pointed a front claw into the whiteness across the valley. It had taken three weeks to meander their way this far without being seen and now they were where the dragons wanted to be, at the little mark on the map that Kemir carried and read for them, the map that was perhaps the only reason they tolerated him. They were waiting for twilight. Their impatience was a tangible thing, crackling the air between them. They endured it, though. They knew they would not have long to wait.
Three weeks in the company of four impatient and bloodthirsty dragons.
‘What’s stopping you?’
Your nest-mate who wanted to die.
Nadira. Yes, Kemir remembered her well enough. ‘That’s what you said after you ate her. Convenient that she wasn’t around to disagree, eh?’ An old wound between them, that. One that would never go away. ‘What about her? Guilty conscience?’ A dragon with a conscience? What was he saying?
I have eaten many of your kind, Kemir. Many have died between my teeth and in my claws. I am curious to know where you go. I try to follow your spirits as they flee, but I cannot. Your journey through the realms of the dead is more fleeting than ours, yet your destination is somewhere other, somewhere I cannot reach. Is it not unsettling to have such uncertainty before you? For our kind it is simple. Death, rebirth, death, rebirth, over and over and over again. But for you? You have such a mystery to face. Fear comes to your kind so easily, yet rather than fear this, you yearn for it. Why do you wish to die, Kemir?
The finality of Snow’s question punctured Kemir’s apathy. For a moment he did feel afraid. For a moment, until he realised that no, she didn’t meant to eat him there and then. She was still pointing to the eyrie.
We go.
Kemir snorted. Smirked. Almost laughed. ‘Sun’s not set yet. Got bored of waiting, did you?’
She sounded almost embarrassed now. The snowfall will hide us. Kemir?
‘Dragon?’
If this is your time to die, what is it that awaits you? ‘My ancestors, I suppose.’ He shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
And yet you go without fear. She spoke with wonder in her thoughts. It is… surprising.
‘Disappointment is it, knowing you’ll just come back and try again, eh? Not exciting enough for you? Think you’re missing out, eh?’
If I die, my destiny is certain. I will return as a hatchling. I will be bound and I will have the choice to starve or take the potions your alchemists place into my food. There is no mystery to my fate. Yours, though, it is… It is a curiosity. Come. We are here. The beginning and the end. She lowered herself to let him climb onto her back. I will not die today.
‘That’s good to know, dragon, because I don’t plan to either.’ Kemir paused for a moment before climbing onto the dragon’s back. He could refuse. Just say no. Then maybe she’d eat him despite what she said and they’d be finished. Was that better or worse than flying into battle with her? He was her slave, when all was said and done.
But then slavery was still life and life meant being not dead, and anyway they were about to bring down a whole skyful of pain on some dragon-knights, and he hated dragon-knights. It was a dull hate, shorn of its old sharpness, but it was still there. He settled on Snow’s back. For a moment he thought he caught a flash of some other thought from her, something far more laden with purpose than vague musings on what might happen if they failed. Only a flash, though; then Snow lunged forward and spread her wings, and the other dragons were moving beside her, kicking themselves off the mountainside, gliding across the open space of the valley, straight towards the eyrie with the setting sun somewhere behind the cloud. For a moment, suspended high over the valley, Kemir could see nothing at all. Nothing except whiteness, everywhere. Snow powered through the sky as fast as she could fly, the wind howling in Kemir’s face. Then he caught a glimpse of a dark shape and then another. If anyone from the eyrie had seen them coming, Kemir wouldn’t have known anything about it. He supposed they must have though, since he felt the familiar sharp spike of Snow’s anger that came as a scorpion bolt found its mark. She’d taken enough of those with Kemir on her back that he knew the sensation exactly. The flash of fury, the desire to turn at once and lash towards whatever it was that had caused the pain.
He pressed himself down and clung on, gripping even tighter, turning his head away from the wind and closing his eyes as he felt the familiar tension in her shoulders. He was used to that now, a shudder just a moment before the flames would come. He hunched into himself and let the scorching air flood over him. At least this time he had proper dragon-scale armour and a helm to protect his face. Then Snow landed. She lurched and and staggered and shrieked and spat fire over and over again. Pieces of something – loose stones – showered down around them.
Slowly Kemir opened his eyes. They were on the burning roof of some building. Beams cracked and split and stones crumbled with Snow’s every move. She lunged forward, jumping down, lumbering across the ground. Clouds of snow flew up from the wind of her wings while Kemir bounced up and down like a rag doll on a string. He caught a fleeting glimpse of panicked men before Snow lashed her tail and smashed one end of the building to bits. He wrapped his arms around his head and cringed as pieces of stone, burning wood and charred tiles rained around him. They bounced and thumped off his armour, stolen from knights Snow had killed weeks ago. That would be a thing to do when they were done here, he decided. Look for some better armour. Preferably a suit that fitted properly. Preferably a suit that didn’t have any parts missing. It would be nice too if it didn’t have any gaping holes that were an exact match for Snow’s teeth.
The dragon lunged forward into the guts of the building and doused its innards with fire. More stonework clattered around Kemir’s head.
‘Do you mind?’
You have metal and dragon-scale to protect you.
‘Not much bloody good if the whole roof falls on top of me, is it? Even you might notice that. Some of these beams are bigger than I am.’ Bugger this. I could be down in some valley somewhere, cosy and warm. Why did I stay with these monsters? Right now we could have been… It was a ritual now, thinking these things. They both knew it. He flew with the dragons because he had nowhere else to go. Because everyone else was dead. Because of… Oh, what was the point? Nadira, Sollos, they were pricks on his conscience, faces to remind him of what happened to those who trusted themselves to him. He put his mind elsewhere. To the eyrie outside, to the mountain, covered in a thick coat of soft white snow, glowing gently in the fading light and about to be set on fire.
Snow backed out of the wreckage. The other three dragons had come in behind her, smashing their way into the buildings of the eyrie, shaking the mountain as they landed. As soon as they were down they began to move
