alchemist to think. He was sworn to protect the realms from exactly this.
Think about it for a moment. There are rogues loose. Maybe all the dragon-riders in the realms could stop them, or maybe not. But we won’t get to find out, because the only way we can keep the rest of our dragons tame is to cull them. Which we’ll never be allowed to do because there’s a war on. So, are you going to die for no better reason than running away would make you look bad to your ancestors? Are they going to be happier that you stayed here like a good little alchemist and died with all the rest, honour intact? Or do you think they might secretly prefer it if you ran away while you still can, joined the Taiytakei, sold them everything you know about dragons, lived like a king and fathered about a hundred children for them. Yes, they might wag a finger or two at you for show, but let’s face it: deep down they’re positively pleading with you to go. Mull that over for a bit, and while you do have a bit of a think about how it felt at Drotan’s Top when the Red Riders brought the place crashing down on top of you.
Vioros walked back towards the riders waiting to take him back. They were supposed to be his to command, but they weren’t really. To them he was nothing more than a glorified passenger. You see, that’s the problem. Can’t do it.
Coward. You have the powers of a blood-mage. You could bend a few dragon-riders to your will easily enough.
Slippery slope, though. He smiled grimly. He was going to stay, that was what he was going to do. Stay until the bitter end, because that was what was right. When he reached the riders, he stopped. There was a group of disconsolate townsfolk sitting in the ash and rubble, kicking their heels and poking at the ruins with sticks. The sticks gave him an idea.
‘You folk!’ he barked. ‘I need your help.’
They looked up, apathy in their eyes.
‘I can pay.’ Yes, see how their backs straighten, they turn to face you and their eyes meet yours. ‘Somewhere near the stone dragon on the riverbank there is a spear. It fell out of the dragon’s mouth. It looks as though it’s made of silver. It isn’t, but when I return tomorrow I will take its weight in silver and divide it between any who have a part in finding it. There was a woman there too. A Scales. Find her.’
There. With a bit of luck, when he came back the spear would be here. He could take it to Jeiros and ask him how, in the name of all the gods, you turned a dragon into stone.
37
Hanging in the Balance
A thousand dragons. More. Jeiros shook his head in disbelief. He ought to have felt awe when he looked out over what had once been Zafir’s eyrie, but he didn’t. He didn’t feel much of anything. A thousand dragons. In a few days they will run out of potions. In a week their only food will be what we can scavenge. In a month they’re going to start waking up and they’re going to be hungry. We barely have enough riders left after the battle to ride them all, if we had a place to take them. Which we don’t. He didn’t know how many dragons had escaped. They’d found King Valmeyan’s body, apparently. Queen Zafir had fled with some small number of riders and only the ancestors knew where she’d gone. No one knew whether Prince Tichane was dead or alive either. Hyrkallan and Sirion were still out hunting down survivors, one by one, bringing back their dragons. They’d been prowling the plains all night; now that the sun was up again, they were on the chase once more. Dragons circled high in the sky; dragons whirled back and forth not far overhead. Wherever he looked, his vision filled with them. He should have been dizzy with all that power, but instead all he felt was a bemused despair. And I will do what I have to do, even if every alchemist pays for it when they realise what I’ve done.
He sighed. Part of what he had to do was to listen to Vioros. Vioros, whose errand to Valleyford had proved even more futile than either of them had expected. Vioros, who had reported that Valleyford and Arys Crossing and Hammerford were as good as dead, and yet had some absurd tale of dragons turned to stone spilling out of his mouth. ‘Tell me again. From the start.’ Vioros wasn’t one for flights of fancy, so he was probably telling him things that mattered, but still
… He tried to listen this time, but his mind simply wouldn’t sit still. A thousand dragons. And we can’t control them any more.
Vioros was keeping something back, Jeiros could tell that much. He waited patiently and then put a hand gently on his shoulder. ‘Dragons turned to stone? And how, old friend, with all that we know, is such a thing possible?’
Vioros shook the hand away. He was pacing. Fast and agitated. Not himself at all. ‘The Adamantine Men call the Speaker’s Spear the Dragonslayer. Why?’
Ah. So that’s what this is. Jeiros shook his head. Why does it have to all happen now? ‘It’s a story, Vioros. There’s no truth in it. The dragon Narammed slew was poisoned. The spear struck dead flesh. It was myth made by the likes of you and I to put Narammed on his throne.’
‘Then there are two vast statues newly built in Hammerford that I saw with my own eyes and that I cannot explain.’ Vioros took a deep breath. Jeiros watched him struggle with himself as he sat down again. ‘After I saw Valleyford, I thought for bit that I might not come back.’ He gestured at the sea of dragons scattered across the plains in the shadow of the Pinnacles. ‘There are woken dragons in the Worldspine. We can’t even control the ones we have. We’re torn apart by war. I thought I might go to Furymouth. I could sell myself to the Taiytakei. They’d pay for what I know, wouldn’t they? Or for what you know, for that matter.’
Jeiros nodded.
‘But we took an oath to protect the realms no matter what the cost. If not you and I, then who will do it? The Night Watchman? He has the courage and the will but not the means. The kings and queens of the realms? They have the means but not the will. The joke that passes for our speaker? If he has the will, I doubt he has the courage. So if not us, who? Who protects the little folk? That’s why I came back. That’s why I didn’t run away. Master, there is something in Hammerford that kills dragons. What can you do here that can’t wait another day?’
Jeiros got up. Nothing at all, that’s the honest answer. I’ve got nothing to look forward to except a day spent sitting around fretting, twiddling my thumbs. Waiting for the night to fall so that I can do what needs to be done when no one will see.
Given what he had in mind for the night, there was a good chance this would be his last day alive. One more flight on the back of a dragon might be nice. Even knowing what he did, they were still magnificent creatures, mastery of them the greatest achievement in the history of the realms. He might as well enjoy it while he still could. He let Vioros lead him out to the eyrie, where perhaps a hundred Scales were struggling to manage ten times their number of dragons and slowly failing. Jeiros could see the irritation beginning to creep into the beasts, the ones who hadn’t been fed. They could smell the slaughter in the air but there simply weren’t enough animals to feed them. No one was even bothering to try and save the city; it had been burning ever since the battle. Jeiros distantly wondered who’d set it on fire, whether it had been Hyrkallan’s dragons or Zafir’s. Zafir seemed to have been scorching the earth around her, so probably her then. To the people who lived there, he supposed, the who really didn’t matter. There were a lot of angry and homeless folk milling around the edges of the eyrie, raising their fists in mute hostility. They were probably getting hungry too. Jeiros looked down on them as he soared up into the air. Hundreds. Thousands. Half a city full of angry people congregating around a legion of hungry dragons. Stupidity like that made you want to shout at someone, but that probably meant he’d have to shout at himself.
He didn’t want to think about the other half. With luck they’d had the sense to melt away. More likely they’d burned in the fires. No, best not to think about that. He closed his eyes for a few long seconds and then looked at the sky and the sprinkled shreds of cloud. Flying could be so peaceful. Sometimes he could even forget what it was that was carrying him. It wasn’t far to Hammerford. Sixty or seventy miles in a straight line from the Pinnacles, a hundred miles by road. Half a twelvenight on foot or by cart, three or four days on the back of a horse, or a couple of hours on the back of a dragon. A couple of hours with nothing to do but savour the world, to feel what it was to be alive. He lifted his visor, then took off his helm and threw it away, let the wind tear at his hair and blow tears into his eyes. The sky was a deep blue, the sun bright and warm, the wind cold and fresh. From this height the world seemed so quiet and still, as long as he didn’t look back at the brown smudge of smoke that hung between
