took with you. Dragons.
He stopped and had his lunch while the riders above rounded up all the slaves that hadn’t been maimed or killed in the crash. It happened all the time. Sickening really, if you stopped to think about it, and so on the whole he didn’t. He waited and ate and drank and dozed and smoked his pipe. When he was sure the riders were finished, he packed his bag and wound the rest of his way up to the eyrie.
Since he wasn’t a rider, no one was remotely interested in him or anything he had to say once he got there. The first time he’d been left to wander an eyrie, he couldn’t believe that people just let him by, minding their own business when he could have been anyone. He could have been a spy, an assassin, a madman, anyone, but he’d grown used to it, and he understood now. Their arrogance made them stupid — they simply couldn’t believe that anyone worth bothering with came to a mountain eyrie on foot.
It took him an afternoon and then an evening of waiting around, while everyone else had their supper, before he finally got to talking to someone who mattered. This one was wearing a fancy gold cloak, which Siff had never seen before. Gold cloaks probably meant something so he bowed a lot. Outsiders were supposed to do that anyway, and this one had a nice fat purse.
‘You’re the scout,’ said Gold Cloak.
Siff nodded. Gold Cloak held out the purse.
‘Then this is yours.’ He frowned. ‘My riders tell me there was no dust.’
My riders? Siff tried to keep a straight face. He shrugged.
‘Maybe they moved it. Maybe they hid it. They usually do. I’m not surprised your riders didn’t find it. The slaves you took might know where to look.’
‘Yes. They did. We went back. Everything was gone.’
Siff shifted uncomfortably. Hadn’t expected that. That would be because I went round and took it all myself. He shrugged again. ‘Must have missed a few of them in the woods then. Easily done. I suppose they must have taken it after your riders left. Have you asked the woman?’
Gold Cloak frowned. He snapped his fingers and a door opened behind him. Two riders came out pushing Sashi in front of them. ‘You mean this one?’
‘Yes.’ Shit.
‘She was no use. Did she do as she was told?’
Siff nodded. Time to be a little rude, to be what they’d expect from an outsider. Push back, just enough to earn some disdain.
‘Yes, she did, and that’s my woman now, remember. Part of our deal. You tell your riders that, remind them that she’s mine. They seem to think they can help themselves to her whenever they want. Well they can, if they’re that desperate, but they pay now I’m here. They pay me.’ Gold Cloak seemed to struggle with this and Siff had to work to keep his face looking angry. He’d met dragon-knights like Gold Cloak before, the ones who thought that all the riders around them were as pure as mountain snow.
Gold Cloak sneered and took a step back and away. ‘We’re done. Take you money and your whore and get out of my eyrie.’
Right answer. Siff bowed, which was as good a way as any to hide his smile. Gold Cloak threw the purse at his feet and walked away; his riders let Sashi loose and left as well. Siff looked her over. Then he picked up the purse and counted the silver dragons inside to be sure they hadn’t cheated him.
‘Come on,’ he took Sashi’s hand. Take her with him or did he leave her somewhere? And if he left her, did he get rid of her at the bottom of a cliff so she couldn’t tell the riders all about who he really was and what he really did. She knew more than enough to get him stuffed into a slave cage.
‘Where we going?’
‘Leaving.’
‘It’s nearly dark.’
‘ Get out of my eyrie. You heard the man.’
Siff kept his head bowed as they walked past a group of Scales. Their skin was hard and cracked, flaking and covered in weeping sores. That was something to do with the dragons, some sort of disease they carried. Most people averted their eyes from a Scales and so Siff did the same, pretending he was afraid. In furtive glances he saw a dozen other dragons, scattered around the mountainside. He saw the hollow filled with water for them to drink and, further up, little streams and a system of ponds and dams. Several low stone buildings sat above them, while alchemists moved to and fro. Strange soldiers he’d never seen before slouched in groups as though they owned the place, drawing angry glares from all who passed them. Something was happening. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said they were getting ready for a war.
He found a hut at the bottom of the eyrie. It looked as though it hadn’t been used for years. There were holes in the roof, gaps in the walls and the hearth hadn’t been lit for a long time. There wasn’t any wood to burn, no bed, no blankets, no furs, nothing. The floor was damp and the place stank but it would do. In the morning he’d be gone. Away down the path and vanished into the mountain valleys, north, following the water to the Fury at Gnashing Snapper Gorge and Hanzen’s Camp, and then a boat and Furymouth and a new life awash with the wealth and the dust he’d stashed over the years. Maybe Sashi could come with him some of the way. The company would be nice.
‘I used to live in a hut like this,’ he said. ‘A long time ago. Before riders came and burned it down.’
Sashi wrinkled her nose. ‘So did I. Before I knew better.’ She shivered and huddled close to him. ‘Why do we have to stay here? You said you’d take me away.’
He closed the remains of the door behind them. ‘I did. But like you said, it’s nearly dark and I don’t fancy that path at night.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘So how much dust did you get while I was gone?’ She showed him and he screwed up his face. ‘Hardly worth it. You’ll not buy much with that.’
‘It’s not for selling.’ She shivered. ‘I don’t like it here. Have you got more?’
‘Lots.’
‘Where? Where is it?’
‘Safe.’ Like I’m going to tell you.
‘Is it far?’
‘A bit.’
‘ How far?’ She pushed him, hard.
‘Ancestors! As far as it is!’ He pushed her back, enough that she stumbled. It was getting cold and so he went back out into the eyrie to look for something to burn. Past the lake where the dragons drank a dry channel snaked away down the mountainside. It was steep here, a good place to lose a body.
He gathered an armful of firewood. There were more soldiers around the landing grounds, but not many. The stone bastions with their scorpions seemed largely unattended. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe they weren’t going to war. Back in the hut he made a fire. Before he could stop her, Sashi threw a handful of dust into the flames.
‘What did you do that for?’
She shivered. ‘I won’t sleep without it. Not here.’ Then she grinned and looked at him sideways and stroked a finger across her lips. ‘Besides, it would be a shame to waste it.’
‘The last thing I need is to be muddy-headed in the morning. I might have had a better use for it.’ He could smell it in the air already, worming its way into his system. Another few minutes and he wouldn’t care any more. ‘Don’t expect any sympathy when you run out, when you’re shivering and crying and desperate for more.’
Sashi huddled up against him. ‘It’s cold.’
‘Mountains usually are.’ Maybe he should go in the night after all. Leave without her. He supposed he still could.
Sashi’s huddling was starting to change into something else. That was the dust taking hold, one of the reasons it was so desired. He’d never been into a dust house, but he’d heard stories of people going inside and not coming out again for months. Some houses simply took their patrons’ clothes from them at the door and gave them back when they left. Stories had it that people literally fucked themselves to death in dust houses. Siff had done his fair share of that sort of thing and he wasn’t at all sure it was possible, but the stories persisted nonetheless.
The dust sank deeper into his blood. A haze drifted over his thinking. Yes, he might as well stay. And he only had one blanket and it was as good a way as any to keep warm, wasn’t it? In the morning there would be no turning back.
When he awoke he was stiff and half frozen. He stoked the fire and brought it to life. Sashi was still snoring.
