him at all, chances were they’d leave him be. Taking a raft would be easy, nothing like what he’d laid out for the alchemist to sweat over. Question was though, did he stop at that? Riders here hated alchemists and so did their pretend speaker. Blamed them for everything that had gone wrong, for the end of the realms. Fair, perhaps, but killing them all was throwing away a weapon, and that was something an Adamantine Man would never do.
But still…
He ignored the rafts and ran around the edge of the vault, skirting the spray of the falling water. When he was close enough to make out the gates through the gloom, he stopped with his hands held up high, away from his sword and his axe.
‘Riders of Speaker Hyrkallan!’ Couldn’t see them but they were there. From the gates they’d see him too, at least the shape of him. They’d have a crossbow on him by now. Might shoot him just because he was there. With luck he didn’t look too much like a feral; then again, riders weren’t always that bothered about such things. Better safe than sorry.
‘I am Skjorl of the Adamantine Men. You had an alchemist imprisoned here. She has escaped. She aims for the Raksheh. For the Aardish Caves. She believes there is a weapon there. Something against the dragons. Do you hear me?’
A muffled voice shouted back: ‘Come closer!’
‘I think not.’ Tone was wrong. He jumped sideways and ran away, back towards the rafts, jinking from side to side. Maybe they took a shot at him, maybe they didn’t. Didn’t matter. He’d done what was right. They knew where he was going. If there was a prize to be had, a secret to be found, it wouldn’t die when the alchemist was eaten by a dragon. The riders, now they could do whatever they thought was right to do too, and if that was nothing at all, well then he was glad to be rid of them.
He reached the rafts and pulled one to the edge of the water. He could see it now — the reason he hadn’t killed the alchemist when he’d had the chance. The fortress was the strongest bastion against the dragons in the realms. They had food. Water. They weren’t all starving like the alchemists under the Purple Spur. And what were they doing? Nothing. Sitting there. Fading.
He pushed the raft into the water and rolled into it. The current took him at once, fast away down the tunnel. Waiting, that’s what they were doing, but waiting for what? For the dragons to get bored and go away? For the Silver King to return? But the Silver King was dead and there was nowhere else for the dragons to go and they couldn’t wait for ever.
And so he hadn’t killed her when he’d had the chance, and maybe it was better to be a slave with a glimmer of hope for freedom than to be dead and with your ancestors. Needed some thought that, but by then the alchemist was in front of him, waving madly in case he somehow didn’t see her. He rolled back off the raft and dragged it to a halt.
‘Here.’ She refused his help to climb on, so he grabbed hold of Rat instead. The outsider was more awake now. Maybe the water had done him some good. Pity they had no food. Another thing needing some thought, and maybe urgent too. Alchemist had her mind set on the Raksheh, but the getting there, that was going to be the hard part. No food, no bows to hunt with, no easy way to hide from dragons. Hard wasn’t right. A bloody miracle, that’s what it would be.
But still better than doing nothing.
The water carried them briskly down the tunnel. Dead straight as they all were, except when they split apart, and even then it was easy. Follow the water all the way.
‘You ever go to Farakkan?’ he asked when neither the alchemist or the outsider had said a word for most of half an hour. The alchemist shook her head. ‘Mud hole,’ he said. ‘Nothing there. Even before the dragons.’ He looked at her in the gloom. ‘What are you doing here, alchemist? What is this about? Why did you leave the Purple Spur?’
‘Why did you?’
‘Orders, of course.’
‘Likewise.’
‘Fine. I was sent to Bloodsalt to see whether anyone survived there. I went with a company of men. Most of us died on the way. Dragons got half and the rest went to bad food, starvation, disease, snappers, ferals, snakes and one scorpion. When we got to Bloodsalt, there was nothing left except dragons. Two of us escaped. On the way back we were separated. I got lost. When I came down from the moors, I met riders and they brought me here. And that’s that. You?’ Wasn’t sure why he wanted to know. Made no difference, after all.
‘It remains none of your concern.’ She shook her head. Skjorl spat into the water. There was nothing to see this far from the Silver City. The ferals didn’t come so deep, and whatever did come this far was quickly washed away. There was only the sloshing of the water, the faint glow of the walls and the smell of rot. He didn’t even know for sure that any of the riders really had ever come down this far. They used the rafts as far as the edge of the Silver City, but further? He’d heard talk, but never with any names. Farakkan. Easy to reach, but hard to get back with all that water flowing in your face.
Dragon blood. How, by all those who’d gone before him, was he supposed to get dragon blood?
The alchemist was tending to the outsider. Soaking a piece of cloth in the water and then squeezing dribbles into his mouth. He was so weak he could barely move.
‘I wouldn’t drink anything she offers you, shit-eater.’ Skjorl laughed. ‘She’ll make you her slave.’ Too late for that, of course.
She looked at him, a glance of pure hate. ‘I only do that to people who try to rape me.’
He laughed. ‘You’d have come round, alchemist.’
‘I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last man alive.’ Fingers scraped the back of his head on the inside. A warning of what she could do to him.
An hour passed and then another. He watched the alchemist for when she would fall asleep, but her eyes stayed wide and alert. More blood-magic perhaps, or maybe some old-fashioned fear. Eventually he gave up and let himself doze.
He woke up to find the alchemist shaking his arm. His hand was on his sword before his eyes had finished opening. She was pointing. Ferals, that was his first thought, but that wasn’t it. She was pointing because one side of the tunnel had opened out. Already, she was guiding them to the edge of the water.
Not a natural cavern. The walls were straight and threw off the same dim light as the tunnel. They weren’t smooth though. He frowned. Peered at them. Archways. The walls were decorated with arches. Like the walls inside the Fortress of Watchfulness. Odd.
‘This is…’ He frowned. ‘Where are we, alchemist?’ Trouble with dozing and floating in the dark in a place like this. Could be they’d a gone a mile or two, could be they’d gone a hundred. Could be the Silver City was barely out of sight behind them, or maybe Farakkan was just a few minutes ahead.
The alchemist ignored him. ‘What is it?’ Which told him what he needed to know — she knew as much as he did: nothing. He shook his head as the boat ground against the stone floor of the tunnel and bumped to a stop.
‘Whatever this is, it isn’t Farakkan. We should go on.’ Adamantine Men never felt fear. Never. So the feeling in the pit of his stomach had to be something else. Concern? An understanding that something was out of place, perhaps? An awareness of possible danger. Call it all of those things. He shook himself. Old stone walls, nothing else. The Pinnacles had been carved out before the Silver King had ever come to them, and if this had been made by the same hands then they were dead a thousand years and the only thing he might find alive here were ferals who’d been swept away from the Silver City; and ferals were things he could kill. He got out of the boat. There. In the middle of the far wall, a pair of doors gleamed softly in the light. Bronze, perhaps, though untouched by age. Should have been greened and dull.
The alchemist followed him out of the boat. Her fingers dug into his arm. ‘What is this place?’
He shrugged. ‘You keep asking, but I still haven’t the first idea. Never heard of it.’ He pointed at the doors. ‘You want to find out, go ahead.’
‘No. You go.’
‘I am… uneasy about this place.’ Now there was a thing. Couldn’t shake that feeling of something being wrong.
Fingers in his head again. ‘Go and open those doors and find out what lies beyond. Then I’ll tell you why I was sent from the Purple Spur.’
The hair on his arms prickled. ‘I’ll do as you ask, but I feel danger here. Take that as a warning.’ Danger from
