methodically apart, sweeping fire back and forth. Mist and steam swirled around them. Further away, the snow was falling harder now. As Kemir watched, he saw one of the dragons rear up and use its tail to hurl a stone the size of a horse straight into a squat tower that bristled with scorpions. A second dragon raced across the ground, arriving only moments later, pouring fire into all its holes and then ripping it apart. Snow jogged around the ruins of what had apparently been a barracks. A group of men ran from it, screaming briefly before they burned. Your kind are too fragile.
‘You’re such a comfort.’
Snow thrust her head into a door at the far end of the building and let loose another torrent of flame. Then she reared up into the air and landed her front half on the end of it. The building groaned and creaked and then collapsed.
Where are the alchemists?
‘Try over there.’ Kemir pointed. In the flickering light of the burning barracks, looming out of the falling snow, a little cluster of buildings lay dimly outlined against the mountainside, half buried in white. Snow peered into the gloom. She stretched out her neck towards them and began to walk, slowly at first, then faster, shaking the mountain with every step.
They will not escape.
‘I wouldn’t hurry. It’s not as though there’s anywhere they can go.’
They will have tunnels. They will hide under the ground.
Kemir shrugged. Probably would though, wouldn’t they? He had no idea.
I have been looking forward to this day.
‘Revenge, Snow?’ Kemir sniggered. Snow claimed dragons didn’t understand revenge. Didn’t understand forgiveness either.
No, Kemir. Freedom.
‘Right. Do you mind if I get off before you forget I’m here again?’ Wind whipped at him, stinging his ears. The snow was easing as the day gave way to twilight.
If you must. Snow stopped and lowered her neck. Kemir could feel her impatience, her anger, her anticipation. And something else, something carefully hidden but not quite carefully enough. Pleasure? No, that wasn’t it, that was too mild a word. Joy? Still not enough. Ecstasy? A dragon-sized helping of vicious desire?
I am losing patience, Kemir.
‘You never had any in the first place.’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t blame me if someone sneaks up and shoots you with a scorpion.’ He jumped off the dragon’s back. On the ground, the snow was up to his knees. There’d be frozen feet and frostbite in the morning if he wasn’t careful, but he’d had enough of being stuck to Snow’s back. ‘Look after my stuff, dragon. I’ll take it out of your hide if you don’t. And try not to eat anyone you shouldn’t.’
One day, little one Kemir, you will test my restraint at the wrong time.
‘And how would I do that, dragon? Can’t test something that doesn’t exist, now can I?’
Snow snarled, but she still couldn’t quite hide her exhilaration. Kemir watched her go, bounding on towards the alchemists’ houses, leaping up into the air with a great shriek and then landing on top of them, plumes of snow bursting like clouds around her, smashing left and right with her tail and burning everything into a thick haze of ash and steam. Kemir left her to it. Two of the other dragons had already made their way up the peak to the castle where the eyrie-master and his riders lived and were setting fire to it. He couldn’t see much, but the bursts of orange light in the white sky told him enough. The last dragon had sought out the eyrie dragons and settled in their midst, standing guard. If Kemir strained his ears over the havoc and carnage that Snow had become, he thought he could hear them quietly calling to each other. He walked away, launching a vicious kick at a lump in the snow. That was another reason to be away from the dragons. He needed to think. Needed to think somewhere far enough away that they wouldn’t be listening in. How far away that was, he had no idea.
Think. Yes. What was he doing here? That was the nub of it. What was he doing here? What was he doing flying with these dragons?
Killing dragon-knights. That was the obvious answer. Putting an end to their tyranny.
And then what? He had no answer to that.
He trudged on through the snow. The last rays of the dying sun were still doing a decent enough job of lighting up the mountainside, that and the eerie glowing fog that surrounded where the dragons were, a mist of steam lit up from within by the remnants of their fire. In case anyone doesn’t realise that we’re here.
What am I doing here? What I’m doing is staying alive, that’s what I’m doing here.
Although frankly, he wasn’t sure why.
4
The Stone Man
He didn’t get very much further before he had to stop. In front of him was a frozen lake, presumably the place where the eyrie dragons took their water. Kemir had never been to this particular eyrie, but he’d been to others and knew how they worked. The alchemists kept the dragons pliant and dull with their potions, which they gave to the beasts either in their food or in their water, usually both. So if this was where the dragons took their water, the lake was probably laced with dragon poison. Or dragon-make-stupid potion or whatever the alchemists happened to call it.
He thought about walking across it – keep on going, never come back – but you never knew with frozen lakes whether the ice was as thick as your leg or as thick as your fingernail, and there was really no reason to go and find out. Instead, he turned to follow the edge of the ice as it arced towards the valley below. A few run-down old buildings lay ahead of him that way, perched by the edge of the lake. Thick snowdrifts sat between them, more on the roofs. Half buried and half frozen. The sort of place to put unwanted sell-swords and the like. Not a part of the eyrie where dragon-knights would live, but still, they sometimes turned up in the most unusual places…
Almost as he thought it, he caught a glimpse of something moving. Someone. He tensed, nocked an arrow to his bow and dropped to a crouch. Whoever it was, they weren’t likely to be friendly. He tried to remember what he’d seen from the air as Snow had approached the eyrie. Nothing useful. Most of the time his eyes had been screwed shut, and even when they weren’t, he’d had a snowstorm blowing in his face. He drew the arrow back a way as warmth filled him. It would be good to kill a dragon-knight again.
Somewhere behind him one of the dragons let out a mighty shriek, loud enough to make him flinch. The sharp tang of smoke was starting to taint the air. By the end of the night you’d be able to smell what had happened here right across the mountain.
Whoever was there, they’d vanished among another collection of shacks towards the edge of the mountain. Kemir peered into the gloom. He shouldered his bow and let his hands drift to the knives in his belt as he crept a little closer. Knives were better for close work.
His feet were starting to hurt. The cold.
A scuff of leather on stone and a half-imagined glimpse of movement alerted him again. He peered into the fading twilight. The sun was behind the other peaks now, the sky still lit up in purples and orange on the horizon, nothing but the dark grey snow clouds above. The air was turning bitter. His toes were starting to go numb.
‘Who’s there?’
At the voice, Kemir leapt into the air and took a step back. He still couldn’t see anyone. Not a dragon-knight though. The voice had a quiver in it. A dragon-knight wouldn’t sound like that. A dragon-knight would come out with a roar and a drawn sword. An alchemist? Now that would be precious, wouldn’t it? What would I do with an alchemist, I wonder?
‘Who’s there?’ The voice called out again, louder. ‘What’s going on? Do you know what’s happening?’ Still no movement. Kemir’s ears thought they knew where the voice was coming from, but his eyes weren’t pulling their weight.
All right. Let’s pretend I’m one of you. Let’s pretend I didn’t come gliding in on the back of those monsters. Let’s pretend I have nothing to do with this. Wouldn’t that be nice? ‘My name’s Kemir. I’m a scout. A tracker. I been helping hunt bandits in the deep valleys.’ The sort of work he’d done with Sollos for a time, before they’d grown sick
