‘You know how I can tell? It’s the skin. Different colour, you see. You’re a long way from home. Lie down.’
The rider lay back. Blood ran out of the hole in his ribs in a slow but steady pulse.
‘I was in Sand when the dragons came.’ Nezak probably didn’t want to hear about that, but it would keep his mind off what Jasaan was doing to the hole where the arrow had been. ‘They flew in circles around the city, pouring their fire over everything until even the stones of the monastery cracked in the heat and they still didn’t stop. Places like Sand and Bloodsalt, out in the open, there’s nowhere to run. People hid as best they could. They hid in their cellars where they thought the fire wouldn’t reach them, but the dragons made the city burn for days. The ones who went underground died anyway. Cooked. After that the dragons smashed it flat. I was in the caves under the monastery. Those and the tunnels under the eyrie were the only places deep enough.’
There. That had rider Nezak’s attention. Nothing like telling a man that his whole family was dead to focus his mind. While he had it, he pushed the pinch of dark powder into Nezak’s wound. The rider yelped.
‘The powder will stop the wound from going bad.’
‘Vishmir’s cock! It burns!’
‘Yes, it does.’ Jasaan smeared on some of Nezak’s mud. ‘This will help it heal. We killed every dragon in Sand before they came. We poisoned them and smashed their eggs with our axes and our hammers. There wasn’t a single monster left in the eyrie by the time the rogues reached us. We did what we could.’ They’d killed a good few riders too to get to those dragons and those eggs, but there didn’t seem much need to be mentioning that.
‘It wasn’t enough.’
‘No.’ Bandages now. A wad of cloth to keep the mud in place, that was all he needed. ‘Sit up while I wrap this around you. I’m sorry for your family. My family were the Guard. Most of them are dead too.’ He looked at Nezak carefully. ‘Not everyone died. A lot of riders survived under the eyrie. I remember one who looked a lot like you. Older though.’
‘My brother perhaps.’ Nezak grasped Jasaan’s shoulder. ‘Was his beard thicker than mine, and black? Was he still limping? What was his name?’
Jasaan shrugged. ‘I don’t remember a limp and I didn’t speak to him so I have no name to give you. The beard though, yes. Thick and black.’ It wasn’t likely, was it, that Nezak would ever get back to Sand and discover he’d been lied to? Hope was a healer. He’d learned that from the very alchemist he was hunting. ‘The riders stayed to see what could be done. I left with the other Adamantine Men.’ Each to their own duties. ‘I met a man in Sand,’ he said quietly as he worked. ‘An Adamantine Man. They came from Outwatch. They walked. Across the desert. I don’t know how far that is.’
Nezak shook his head. He smiled over a grimace of pain. ‘It’s a half-day ride even on the back of a dragon. On the back of a horse, four or five. To walk?’ He shook his head. ‘The road from Outwatch to Sand is not one for walking. The heat kills. There’s no water.’
‘Still, walk is what they did. They were Adamantine Men who had fought dragons and lost. They’d smashed the eggs and they were burned in their turn. Hatchlings scoured the tunnels. When the dragons were gone, there were a dozen of them left. They walked all the way to Sand and found us at the monastery. The dragons had learned by the time they came to us. They’d learned to be thorough. They lingered to make sure they finished us all, but they couldn’t burn us out from the tunnels. When we came out there was nothing left. Nothing at all except these dozen men who’d simply watched from afar for day after day, dying of thirst, waiting for the dragons to leave. There.’ Jasaan tied the bandage off. ‘Shouldn’t slow you down much. It’ll hurt, though.’
Rider Nezak closed his eyes. ‘Sand.’ He held his head in his hands.
‘Everywhere is gone, rider. All across the realms, everything is destroyed.’ Jasaan stepped back. He’d done what he could. The rider would live. Whether he had the strength to cross half a realm to the Aardish Caves was another matter, but Hellas could worry about that. ‘The Adamantine Man who is with the alchemist we hunt. Hellas says his name is Skjorl. It was a Skjorl who led the survivors out of Outwatch, on foot and across the desert. After Sand, the Skjorl I knew led his company to Evenspire, to Scarsdale and all the way to the Silver River. Across half the realms, the barren half, on foot. If it’s the same man, then he’s been up the Sapphire River to Bloodsalt and back again across the moors. He’s the perfect Adamantine Guardsman, strong, remorseless, untiring, fearless and brutal. If this Skjorl is the same man then I will wager you that your alchemist is still alive.’
48
Thirteen days before the Black Mausoleum
Pain. Pain and hardship. You learned to live with them. Sometimes they were friends, telling you things you needed to know. More often they were adversaries, but they were old foes and known ones. They were comfortable companions if not welcome ones.
Took him a while when he woke up to realise where he was. For a bit he thought he was back in the catacombs under Bloodsalt, that the dragon throwing rocks at him had finally hit him. He could even see someone lying beside him. Vish. Or maybe not.
After that he thought he must be dying. Certainly felt like it.
Bits of memory landed like snowflakes. Bloodsalt, that had been a long time ago, hadn’t it? Or was the time he’d spent in the Pinnacles somehow before?
There was an alchemist. That was after.
That man on the floor there wasn’t Vish.
He saw a bottle. Wine. Yes, he remembered. There had been wine.
He let out a low groan. He’d drunk himself stupid enough times. It had never been like this. Wine must have had something in it. Where was he?
He rolled onto his front, crawled into a corner and was sick. Stale fish. Ancestors but that was bad.
When his stomach stopped heaving, he took a few breaths then sat up. He rubbed his eyes. There were steps. Wooden slats above. Bright sunlight streaming between them. A trapdoor. A cellar then. Yes, slowly it was coming back, where he was and why and where he was going. He was in Scarsdale and everything had burned and they were running from the dragons. Always. Running home, even if they all knew they were never going to get there.
Carelessly he rubbed his head. Almost screamed, the pain was that blinding. Touched more softly now. There was blood crusted through his hair. A lump the size of an egg.
That explained the pain then. Vishmir’s cock!
Fishing. He remembered fishing. Remembered coming back. Cooking. He’d been reeling by the time he was done. Then…
Something about an alchemist. Alchemists. That’s why they were going home.
Ancestors! His head felt like someone had taken an axe to it. He must have fallen. Must have. Couldn’t remember…
He was fading again. Sleep creeping over him like blanket. He was still drunk. Probably a good thing that. Probably eased the pain. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, forced himself to look into the little pouch he still carried with him, the one he’d had ever since he left the Adamantine Palace. All the things the alchemists made for the Adamantine Men before they went to die. Most of them had got used up on the way to Bloodsalt, but not this.
Bloodsalt? Why was he in Bloodsalt? That wasn’t the way home? Was that where here was?
There was a dragon in Bloodsalt. It had killed Vish.
His eyes wouldn’t focus. Couldn’t see what he was doing in the half-dark anyway. He let his nose do the working, sifting through the little waxed paper packets of this and that until he found what he was looking for. Dreamleaf, mixed with just a touch of Petrios venom. Whatever that was. Something to take the edge off the pain. Something to keep a man going. A pinch, that was supposed to be enough.
He took two. Dropped them in a water skin. Forced himself to drink the lot. Just about managed that before his eyes closed and he slumped back to the floor. When it was sunset and they were getting ready to move again, someone would tell him how he’d hurt his head.
