shore with a few tracks leading away into the trees. He’d counted three men, wondered for a bit about taking whatever they had and stealing their boat, and then thought better of it. When they came back, he gave them what he’d taken from the dead dragon-riders and their slaves, what little he’d been able to find and didn’t need for himself. They were outsiders like him, after all. Outsiders stuck together, them against the rest of the world. They told him that the dragons were flying free and that the power of the dragon-kings and their riders was shattered into shards. He’d rejoiced at that. They all had.
The next gap was a long one, or maybe there had been several with not much in between. He’d stayed with them a while, these men and their tribe. He didn’t remember much, only… memories that he couldn’t quite piece together, or maybe they were dreams. It was a hard life in the woods. They’d had nothing to look forward to. Work, eat, breed, die, that was all that most outsiders had ever had, dragons-kings or no dragon-kings. For a while, he remembered, it had been pleasant. Then later they’d been afraid of him, and then later still in awe. He could have made them do anything, and yet he had no.. use for them any more, and so he’d left one day without really knowing why, without remembering why. He’d had dreams, though. He remembered those more than he remembered the men of the forest. They’d come more and more while he lived among them, dreams of men in silver, of dragons, of power beyond imagining, beyond what he could even begin to comprehend.
At some point there had been soldiers. Not many, a dozen, perhaps. He’d found a new place to hide and there they were, already there. He’d had no chance, and yet the next thing he knew four of them were dead. He had no idea how he’d killed them, but there was no doubting that he’d been the one who’d done it. With his bare hands, by the looks of it, because there hadn’t been any blood. The rest had taken him back with them to the Pinnacles. They’d been terrified of him every step of the way, and he could have drunk that terror like the finest wine if he hadn’t been strung up just like he was now. And then in the Pinnacles the dreams and the gaps had finally stopped and he was Siff again, the person he’d grown up knowing, and nothing strange at all had happened. Shame about being thrown into a cell to slowly starve to death.
Then the alchemist had come and now it was all starting again and it was all he could do not to scream.
‘Hey, doggy!’ He had no idea what had happened. One moment he’d been talking to the alchemist, wondering whether she was an ally or an enemy and wondering what she meant to do with her doggy once they reached the forest. The next thing he knew, here he was, hog-tied by the river. If he’d been able to reach, he’d have felt his head. His face burned. He’d taken a good crack from something. Pity he had no idea what.
‘Hey, doggy!’
The Adamantine Man ignored him. He was sitting by the river with a bottle of what must have been the wine from the alchemists’ cellar. When he stood up, he was obviously drunk.
‘Hey shit-eater,’ he said, ‘you thirsty?’ He pulled down his trousers and aimed carefully at Siff’s face. Siff turned away — there wasn’t much else he could do — and felt the warm wetness of the Adamantine Man’s piss spatter his skin, soaking his hair and the clothes on his back.
‘Going to kill you for that, doggy,’ he snarled.
The Adamantine Man spat at him. ‘Nothing changed there then, eh, shit-eater? I heard what you said to her.’
Siff grunted. Pity I didn’t.
‘Saw what you had in mind for her, too.’
‘Seen what you have in mind for her, doggy.’
‘Touch her and I’ll cut your hand off, shit-eater.’
‘Really. I thought you might like to sit and watch. Closest you’re going to get.’
The Adamantine Man walked away and left him there. Maybe this was it. Maybe they were going to leave him for the next dragon to pass by. Ancestors! What did I say to the witch?
Later, the air brought the smell of smoke and cooking fish. The Adamantine Man had finally found the courage to make a fire. The smell got stronger and stronger and then, after a bit, it went away again. The sky started to lighten. Dawn was coming.
‘Doggy! Oi! Doggy!’ Dragon’s blood — they weren’t really going to leave him out here, were they? They couldn’t! If a dragon came down, it might find them too. ‘Alchemist!’
He’d about shouted himself hoarse when the Adamantine Man finally came back. He didn’t say a word, just dragged him back up the hill and tipped him down into the alchemists’ cellar. The idiot was almost too drunk to stand.
‘Hungry, shit-eater?’ he asked. And then he carefully placed a little pile of fish guts right in front of Siff’s face. ‘Eat, then. Heh.’ He reeled away.
‘You’re drunk.’ The alchemist shook her head in disgust. ‘Is that how it is to be an Adamantine Man?’
‘Oh we used to drink all right.’ He laughed. ‘Now and then. Drink until we fell over in our own piss. All that’s long gone. We were the Adamantine Men. Greatest soldiers…’ He staggered towards the alchemist. ‘There’s nothing like us. We’re the biggest. Best. Hardest.’ He reached out a hand. The alchemist didn’t move.
‘You can’t touch me, Skjorl. Go to sleep.’
The Adamantine Man shook himself. He grabbed the alchemist by her shoulders. The look of shock on her face was precious.
‘Should have listened to me,’ sang Siff. Whatever I said.
The Adamantine Man’s brow furrowed as though he was thinking hard. He clawed at the back of his head, then pushed the alchemist up against a wall. His other hand went to her face. He grinned. ‘My spear is huge, its shaft is hard, its point is savage and battle-scarr’d. Best lovers in the realms, the Guard. You look good.’ He started to fumble at her. The alchemist pushed him away.
‘Get off! Get off me!’
Skjorl was drunk enough to almost lose his balance. He staggered. ‘You’ll not find better.’ He glanced down at Siff and laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you want that one?’
‘You may not touch me!’
‘I’ll make you moan, woman. You haven’t had it if you haven’t had it from an Adamantine Man.’ He stumbled towards her again. The alchemist dodged out of the way, picked up an empty bottle and smashed it over his head. Siff almost burst out laughing. The Adamantine Man swayed, but he didn’t go down.
The alchemist kicked Skjorl between the legs, hard enough that Siff couldn’t help but wince, even as he watched with glee. Skjorl doubled up, clutching himself, gasping while the alchemist stood over him, screaming in his ear. ‘You don’t touch me! Never! You never, ever touch me, you hear? You think after what you tried to do to me that I’d feel anything but loathing for you? You pig! You thuggish witless pig!’
Skjorl growled. The pain on his face was delicious. Siff reckoned that anyone ordinary would be on the floor, rolling in agony, but the Adamantine Man was beginning to straighten up.
The alchemist brought a second bottle down on his head. This time the Adamantine Man fell as though it had been an axe. Siff grinned.
‘And you!’ She rounded on Siff. ‘You’re no better! Filth, both of you.’ She went off into the furthest corner she could find and curled up on the floor. Up above, the first rays of daylight were creeping in past the trapdoor.
‘Maybe so, alchemist, but this filth is the one you need. You don’t need that one. Not once we get to the Raksheh.’
‘You don’t even know what you are!’ she spat back at Siff. ‘What are you?’
‘A man trying to stay alive in a world that doesn’t like him much,’ he said. He didn’t get an answer to that.
The Adamantine Man started to snore, as if going out of his way to prove that he really wasn’t dead. He was going to be in the king of all foul moods when he woke up. Siff sighed. He listened carefully to the alchemist’s breathing through the racket the Adamantine Man was making, waiting until she was asleep. Then he started at the ropes holding him fast. Most days, if he’d ever managed to free himself, he’d have had Skjorl to deal with — the oversized bastard slept with one eye open and woke up if Siff as much as moved. Not today though. Today he probably wouldn’t even wake up if a dragon landed on him.
An hour later he gave up. As it turned out, the Adamantine Man knew what he was doing with a rope even when he was roaring drunk. Pity. Siff closed his eyes and let himself drift off. Sooner or later the big man would slip up. Besides, he had a surprise waiting for him in the Raksheh. They all did.
