failed never saw another full year, dragon-scale or no.
Skjorl’s test had lasted three days. The shit-eater here grew bored after a couple of hours. When he stopped Skjorl laughed at him. He spat out a tooth.
‘I am an Adamantine Man, shit-eater,’ he said, as if that was enough.
They left him for a while. He didn’t bother struggling or trying to break free. Concentrated instead on recovering his strength. When they came back, they picked him up, chair and everything, and turned him round so he couldn’t see the door.
‘I know about you,’ said a new voice. Heavy accent again, but the words were careful, shaped with thought and spoken slowly so they could be heard. ‘Adamantine Men. They raise you from the cradle to fight dragons.’
Skjorl said nothing. He was what he was. An Adamantine Man never broke.
‘I’ve led soldiers in three worlds now. I would take your kind over any other. You have my profound respect. I’m sorry for the beating. Pointless, I realise, and if my captain had been here, it wouldn’t have happened. He’d have known better, because he’s one of you. I’m also sorry that I have to take this from you in such a way, but time is pressing.’
Skjorl waited for the blow. He didn’t flinch, didn’t tense his muscles, just waited for whatever would come.
What came was a tickle in his head, that was all. Like the alchemist’s fingers but infinitely lighter and defter. The faintest sense of something taken away, cut with an expert scalpel. For a moment Skjorl thought he saw the flicker of a knife with a golden hilt reflected in the polished armour of the soldiers around him.
‘Now,’ said the voice again. ‘Tell me why you are here. Tell me everything.’
Skjorl told him everything. Afterwards, when they took him back to his cell, he sat down and wondered why he’d done that, because it wasn’t like they’d ripped it from him, piece by piece, fighting for every word. More like he’d decided it was right to tell what he knew, and just didn’t know why, that was all. He watched, strangely detached, as the same soldiers dragged the alchemist away and closed the door behind her. He listened to her shout, heard the scrape of wood on stone. That would be the chair. Voices. The man who had asked him questions, then the alchemist, then another one, a woman, one he’d heard once before, a long time ago only now he couldn’t place her. She sounded sharp and angry. There was something about a garden. Something about moonlight.
His brow furrowed. He was sure he ought to care about these things.
A tiny tremor ran through the walls. The shit-eater was still on the floor, unconscious or asleep or pretending, one or the other. Down the hall the voices stopped. When they started again they were fast and urgent, words buried once more under strange accents. He caught one clear enough though. Over and over, shouted like an alarm.
‘Dragons!’
37
Nineteen days before the Black Mausoleum
Finding others took time. Not long, but time nonetheless. A sun passed and then another. The open ground around the great river had little to offer. Everything that once roamed here had been eaten. Burned. Chased away, even after the dragons who had come were bloated. No food for the little ones. Let their animals roam far away. Let them starve in their holes if they cannot be burned.
There were always dragons to be found near the old towers, though. The place the little ones called the Pinnacles but the dragons knew by a far older name, a place where the silver-skinned makers had once lived and worked and wrought their sorceries. Sorceries like the one that had come to visit the plains of the great river.
It found three dragons, all young and small, all hatched since the Awakening. It shared what it had seen. Four would not be enough, not when three were small.
What brings it back?
Little ones, teeming with them.
Not afraid?
What is this Black Moon?
We have seen the hole in the realm of the dead. You have not, Black Scar of Sorrow Upon the Earth.
They flew towards the setting sun, to the dark forests where even a dragon could not pass, and then to the hills and the mountains of the great Worldspine beyond. High among the glaciers and the snow, it found more of its kind, young and old.
A scent powerful and old.
Something of the silver ones and something even greater.
What can be greater?
The Earthspear.
The Earthspear is buried under mountains.
No. A thing that speaks of the stars. And something other.
The little ones will burn.
Their sorceries will be devoured.
Chains?
Pulled through the sky?
Made into a toy?
Joy. Fear, as much as a dragon could feel such a thing. Amazement. Wonder. Alarm. All those things it felt in the thoughts of its kin. Then, one by one, they found their true natures and all turned to fury.
Come! it cried, and the other dragons were eager.
Dragons do not serve men.
38
Nineteen days before the Black Mausoleum
They opened the door, threw Skjorl inside and took her instead. The Adamantine Man looked wrong. His face was distant and she couldn’t tell whether he’d seen something truly wonderful or whether he’d simply been broken.
‘What did you do to him?’
The soldiers pulled her down the passage a short way and shoved her into another room. A chair sat in the middle, waiting for her. Dressed in finery with her back to the doorway was a woman, a man standing next to her looking every bit as fine, as though they were a king and queen. Their clothes were like those of the Taiytakei, but their skin was too pale. What caught her eye, though, was the knife that the man held. It was a strange thing: the blade shone like polished silver and patterns seemed to swirl inside it. The shape was odd too, more like a cleaver than a knife, while the golden hilt was carved into a pattern of stars that, it seemed to her, made an eye. An eye that watched her as she was tied down to the chair.
‘Where is it?’ asked the man. He spoke slowly and carefully, but it was hard to make out what he was saying because of the way he twisted his words in his mouth. The accent was a strange one. Unfamiliar.
‘Where is what?’ Blood. If she dug her fingernails into her palms, maybe she could make herself bleed and then she’d have a weapon. ‘Who are you?’
‘The Silver King’s Tomb,’ said the woman. From her accent, she might have been raised in the Adamantine Palace itself. ‘That’s what you’re looking for. Where is it?’
Kataros thought about the answer to that for one long second. She could lie. She could pretend she didn’t
