but much… well, not as big. Not finished. Like it had hardly been started.’ He shrugged.
‘Bazim Crag,’ said Kataros softly. ‘Up on the moors. It’s the only place.’
‘Weren’t any flying castles up on Yinazhin’s Way a few months back. Reckon I would have noticed.’
‘No, no. You’re right! The deserts of Sand and Stone. Hejel’s Bridge! There are other things up there, buried in the sand. I know it!’
‘Or maybe it’s dead Zafir come back to claim her throne.’
The alchemist snorted. ‘With her army of vengeful spirits?’
Skjorl leaned forward. ‘Or maybe the heap of bollocks your shit-eater in there is trying to feed you isn’t such a heap of bollocks after all. Maybe it’s the Silver King.’ He let that hang for a moment, relishing the look on the alchemist’s face and wondering at his own feeling of unease. ‘Or maybe it’s something the dragons found. Maybe they’ve learned to tie knots after all. Maybe they plan to throw it at one of the Pinnacles to knock it down and that’s why they’re dragging it after them.’ He enjoyed the look he got for that too. ‘Thing is, you don’t know. I don’t know. Chances are there are people in there. Chances are they’ll want to know about your shit-eater’s story. Might even want to help. Might give us food and water and shelter. Might might might. Or might not. We’ve got to eat, and so we go, but we still take our caution with us.’
He sat back, savouring the heat of the sun on his skin, a rare treat. He’d said enough. More than enough. More than an Adamantine Man was supposed to say. It was her wild idea to save the realms, not his.
After a bit the alchemist went back into the cave. Skjorl watched, half hoping she’d fall and break her neck as she picked her way down between the rocks to the edge of the falls. And half hoping not. When she was gone he stayed where he was. Safe enough, he reckoned. Dragons were dragons. Any of them saw something like this, they’d have eyes for nothing else. Just wouldn’t want to be too close when they came to take a look, that was all.
The sun set and the alchemist came out again. She had the shit-eater now, leaning against her. Skjorl watched with bored interest. Maybe they’d both go over.
‘You could help,’ she snapped at him. He shrugged.
‘No. Can’t. Can’t touch.’
‘You could throw us a rope.’
‘What rope’s that then?’
She paused for a moment, then went back inside the cave leaving the shit-eater sitting on his own halfway up the the slope. Skjorl thought about rolling rocks down on him. Wouldn’t be touching, after all.
The alchemist returned with the rope from the raft. All twenty feet of it. Skjorl rolled his eyes. He made his way down to them, picked the shit-eater up and threw him over his shoulder.
‘Didn’t say anything about not touching his clothes,’ he said, and laughed at the look on her. Scared as a rabbit. She took a step away and pointed.
‘You don’t hurt him! We need him.’
‘Oh, I won’t.’ He gave the outsider a little shake, made sure he had a good view of the broken rocks fifty feet below. ‘Long way down, though. Hope I don’t slip.’ But the shit-eater was in a world of his own, too feverish for taunts to be any fun. Skjorl carried him up to the top of the hill and set him down.
‘Woof,’ he said, and grinned in the shit-eater’s pasty face.
31
Twenty-one days before the Black Mausoleum
Little ones, little ones, hordes and hordes of them.
Blackscar flew in closer, pulling the thoughts out of their minds. They weren’t afraid. Not afraid at all. Where had they come from?
Dragons answered him. Not the adults who flew in chains, but hatchlings. Young ones still at the start of lives not dulled by alchemists and potions. Dragons who had hatched awake.
Across the sea, they said. Across the sea and across the worlds.
Awakened dragons who served willingly.
As you will too.
No.
They are returning, Black Scar of Sorrow Upon the Earth.
The silver half-gods? No, they meant something else.
The seals are broken.
That Which Came Before is bound no more.
The Black Moon.
And then the end.
When Blackscar looked into their minds and saw what had been done to them, it found a new fury, a rage that surpassed any it could remember. Something had touched them and changed them for ever, in this life and all those to come. A piece had been taken out of them. They were no longer whole. They were less than they had once been and they didn’t even know.
No!
It dived towards the fortress, towards the nearest of the chained dragons to set it free, but the dragon turned away.
Join us! it said. Come!
No!
Something flashed from the fortress below. A boom like a thunderclap and then a ball of iron the size of a little one’s head whizzed past the dragon’s nose.
A stink of something in the air.
Then a scent of magic. A ringing in its head. A tension like a thousand thunderstorms. The sky exploded. Sound and light filled the world.
Join us!
Come!
The dragon screamed. No! It forced its eyes open. It was falling, wings useless behind it, soft earth rushing up towards it. Falling, falling…
It felt the thoughts of the little ones, the ones who had done this, down in the fortress below. Lightning. They were throwing lightning in the wind.
It turned its head and opened its mouth. Even the wind could burn.
The lightning veered away, crackled uselessly around the dragon’s flames. The dragon’s wings began to move again. It spread them wide and caught its fall and powered away, shooting like an arrow, faster than the wind could follow, off and gone.
Others. It would find others.
Lots of others.
32
Twenty days before the Black Mausoleum
There were easier ways down from the hills than following the Ghostwater and its haunted valley, but Skjorl didn’t break anything and neither did the alchemist, and after an hour they were down on the plains towards Farakkan. Easy walking except for the mud. No cover, but then there was no one to hide from. The people who lived
