The Order of the Scales (27 page)

Kataros turned around. She stood, naked, at the edge of the pool.

‘I didn’t steal. They flogged me anyway.’

‘Who.’

She laughed, the dust killing any bitterness. ‘My family. My brother and sister alchemists.’

‘For what, if you didn’t steal?’ She
was
an alchemist then. Alchemist, Scales. Same difference, wasn’t it? They all had everything they could possibly want simply given to them, didn’t they?

‘They did this because I took a man to my bed for my own pleasure and told him secrets I was not supposed to tell. They said I must stop, but I didn’t. They said I couldn’t be an alchemist after all, that I would have to be a Scales, and I still didn’t stop. So they flogged me. Dragons, that’s what a Scales serves, not men. I was stealing too, you see. Stealing secrets and a little pleasure I was not meant to have. That’s why they whipped me.’

Kemir looked her up and down. Dirt streaked her arms. Her skin was red and raw in places. Her face was pinched and hungry. Her breasts were full, though, and her belly pleasantly round. No one would ever call her beautiful, but men would hunger for her nonetheless. As Kemir looked at her he felt himself stiffening, even as he remembered her screams of the last two nights, before the river men had silenced them with dust.
I make myself sick.

‘I can live with that,’ he lied.

‘So I see.’ Kataros didn’t move. She was staring right through him, as though weighing him up. She had a slight smirk on her face.

‘Sorry. It’s been a long time, that’s all.’
Why am I apologising?

She must have read his mind. She arched her back and stretched her arms. ‘I never wanted to be a Scales. I wanted to be an alchemist.’ She licked her lips.

Kemir shrugged again. ‘Never struck me as much of a way to live.’ He couldn’t help looking her up and down, searching for any sign of Hatchling Disease. It was there, if you took the trouble to look. The beginnings. A little roughness to the elbows and to the knees. Always the joints that went first.

She took a step into the water. Kemir didn’t know what she wanted from him. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted himself. Well, that wasn’t quite true. A part of him knew exactly what he wanted.

‘I took myself to my dragon-rider lover’s bed again too, after the wounds had closed enough for me to lie on my back.’

‘Because he gave you no choice?’

‘No. There’s always a choice.’ She took another languid step closer and smiled. ‘Because I liked it.’

Dust. He could smell it on her breath even. Her eyes were enormous. It was making her this way. Kemir stood up. He had a lump in his throat and a lust like he couldn’t remember. He’d happily have forced himself on her right there and then except that was probably what she wanted. Likely as not, Snow was probably still watching them from somewhere. But that only made him want her more. ‘Look, I really don’t care. I’ve spent half my life selling my sword, and when I had money, I spent it on women and drink. Sometimes I spent it on boys. Give me money and I’ll do the same again. But you’re being this way because you’ve got a head full of dust. I’d like to fuck you, alchemist, as you clearly see, but I’m not what you’d want if your head was right. We’ll get this done and then you can find yourself a man who’ll look after you, because I won’t.’

Her eyes didn’t move from his erection. ‘I don’t want to be looked after. And I’m not an alchemist any more.’ Kemir hesitated, and in that moment he lost. Kataros took a step forward. ‘I don’t even know you, sell-sword. All I know is that dragons came when you called and they had no riders. I don’t know what you are, but they came. I just want you . . .’ She reached out towards him.

‘Listen, woman. All I want is to go out in as big a blaze of glory as possible and take as many dragon-riders with me as I can. It’s been like that for a long time, and that’ll never change. I’ll not be trading my sword for a farm and a field full of pigs, never would, never will. Those dragons you saw, they didn’t come because I called. They came because they felt like it, and they’ll be burning the realms to ashes soon enough. You know why I helped you? I was going to take you to Furymouth and sell you to the Taiytakei and use the money to buy me a ship to somewhere else before that happened. Now?’ He shook his head. ‘I still might. Either way I’m gone. Done here. Even if I have to sell myself into slavery, it’s Furymouth and a ship to somewhere far away.’

His words flew straight through her and out the other side, unheard, as if she was a ghost. She took another step. ‘Maybe that’s what I want too.’

‘No, it’s not.’ He took a step as well. Couldn’t help himself. He stopped in front of her and ran a rough and eager hand down from her face to her belly. ‘Don’t burn with me when I go. No need. You leave and you make your own life whenever it suits you. I won’t try to stop you. You know that.’ Words going in and out again, but then he was saying them as much to make them said as anything. As if saying them would somehow make them come true.

She touched a hand to his face. ‘You’re trembling.’

‘The air’s cold.’

She grinned. ‘Then we’d better warm you up.’ She pressed herself against him and reached between his legs.

Kemir gasped. ‘From the inside,’ he growled. He ran his hands down her back and pulled her even closer. She bit his ear.

‘I’ve seen bigger,’ she whispered. ‘Even on dragon-riders.’

‘You must be talking about those scars again.’ Kemir grunted as he pushed Kataros back to the edge of the pool and then to the ground. ‘The ones with the biggest scars are the ones who met me. The lucky ones, that is.’ She pulled him down with her, opened her legs and pulled him inside her. They clung to each other, silent but intense. There was nothing gentle about either of them, but when they were done they held each other for a long time, until Kemir finally rose and returned to the pool.

‘I think I have more scars than when we started,’ he muttered. Kataros gave a throaty laugh, but the smile that flicked across her face was a blank one. She set about building a fire, scavenging from among the dead river men, oblivious to the slaughter around her. Then she built a nest of blankets and fell asleep. Kemir, when he was done with the pool and the sun had dried him, lay beside her, sharing her warmth. He stared up at the sky, high above the canyon walls. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t feel quite as empty now. He should, should have felt even worse, but he didn’t.

Yes. That’s right
, whispered a voice.
Don’t think about it. Just drown it all in drink and whores like you always used to. Best thing really, under the circumstances.

He jumped, looked around. The voice had sounded an awful lot like his cousin. That’s certainly where the words had come from, once long ago. He half expected to see Sollos standing there. He growled, ‘Go away, ghost.’

The voice went away. Kemir sat back down by the fire. He sat there for a long time, rocking slowly back and forth. He sat there trying to remember everything he could about Sollos. Every word he’d said, every place they’d ever been together, every thing they’d ever done, every time Sollos had saved his skin. There were a lot of those. His eyes gleamed in the firelight.

Eventually Kataros’s snores drove the memories away. Eventually he fell asleep. Later, he couldn’t have said whether it had really been Sollos or if it had all been a dream.

Isentine watched the dragons leave. He felt the earth shake under his feet as they ran, heard the clap of thunder from their wings as they took to the sky, felt their wind shake his tower as they passed overhead.
Look after my Silence for me, Isentine
. Those had been his queen’s last words to him, her last command before she’d taken enough Maiden’s Regret to stun a horse and let herself be carried away by Hyrkallan’s knights. Isentine had left them to it. He didn’t feel festive and it would have meant passing time with Speaker Jehal, a pleasure he’d been quite content to forgo.

But it’s good that she’s married him at last. The realm will be stronger. It will hold us together in this war. I hope.
He sighed. He would never find out, he supposed. Queen Jaslyn’s last command had been quite clear and explicit, and he was about to wilfully disobey it.
For your good as well as ours, my queen.
He watched the dragons turn into distant specks in the sky and then vanish. Even then he stared after them for what must have been a full minute before he turned away.
And then it will be the Dragon’s Fall for me after all.

An Adamantine Man was standing right behind him. The soldier stiffened and saluted. ‘Eyrie-Master.’

Isentine started to push past him and then stopped. Having the speaker’s men in his eyrie was an insult but perhaps he could make use of them. He sighed. ‘Why are you here?’

The soldier stood rigid. He didn’t answer. He had scars on his hands and the eyes of a murderer. He was big, as all Adamantine Men were. Made of muscle. He was young, but that didn’t mean much. Adamantine Men didn’t tend to last very long and by their reckoning this one was old enough to be a veteran. Still young enough not to think though. Hammers.
Why would you bring heavy hammers to an eyrie? Why, to smash my eggs, of course.
It was so obvious that Isentine had to wonder why they even bothered to hide it. Axes would do the job just as well and at least he could have wondered about their purpose for a little longer. Or were the hammers a message.
Are you revealing yourself to me without speaking a word of your purpose? Is that it?

He shrugged. ‘I know you are here to destroy Queen Jaslyn’s dragons if the need arises. I will not let you do that.
If
the need arises, I will see to it myself. I will do it myself. You may come and go as you please in the tower of Outwatch, but if I see you in the tunnels or around the dragon fields, I will have my dragons eat you.’

The soldier took a deep breath. Isentine pushed past him, barging him with his shoulder. He took a few more steps and then stopped.

‘In particular, Watchman, I will be most annoyed if I hear that you or your men have been seen anywhere near the Queen’s most favoured hatchling. She has been rearing it herself. She even hunts for it to make sure that all its food is fresh and
untainted
by any meddling that might occur.’
There. If you’re too stupid to understand that, you’re too stupid to help me.

He left the Adamantine Man behind and hobbled down into the caves and tunnels of the eyrie. With a bit of luck, when Queen Jaslyn came back to find her abomination dead, it would be the speaker’s guard who were responsible. With a bit of luck, perhaps the Dragon’s Fall could wait. He had to see it though. Just once, now the monster was doomed to die. To hear the voices Jaslyn claimed spoke in her head. Would it plead with him? Would it try to beguile him? Would it offer him power? Would he find out what it had offered to Jaslyn that had turned it into her obsession? Or would it refuse him? Pretend that it was the same as any other dragon, dulled and stupid? As far as he knew, no one else had heard it speak. It had been mute even to Hyrkallan.

He stopped outside the door to its little hatchling cave. Suits of heavy armour hung on pegs. Twice he’d had to send men into the cave to relax the chain around the dragon’s neck. Both times he’d thought about killing it, even though his queen had watched every move and would surely have sentenced every one of them to hang. The dragon had been passive, though. Strangely so, as if making a point of how harmless it could be. Isentine didn’t believe any of it for a moment.
Trying to fool us, aren’t you, little one? But you’re not fooling me.
He put on one of the suits of dragon-scale, a heavy robe of it with a full-face helm in case the dragon tried to burn him. Keeping his distance would be enough to protect him from claws and teeth.

When he was done he opened the door. The hatchling was curled up as if asleep. The cave smelled rank. Old rotten meat and dragon faeces.

No. I will not fool you.

Isentine stopped where he stood as the words rang inside his skull. He wasn’t far away from the hatchling now, only a dozen yards. The dragon’s eyes were closed.

I hear your thoughts, old one. They have my death in them and so they are loud to me. I know who you are. Your queen has spoken of you. She promises me much, but you will not honour those promises.

He reeled. Yes, Jaslyn had warned him. Yes, he’d warned Hyrkallan. But still . . .

Of course we read your thoughts. We always have. Why do your kind find it so strange? With the rushing wind in your face, what use is a voice? How else would we know your whims?
The dragon seemed to laugh.
Ah, you think yourself wise in our ways, you and yours, and yet you know almost nothing. You have kept us dulled for so long and done it so well, and now you have so very much to learn and there is no time any more. You will die in the flames of your own ignorance. We were made to be ridden by greater beings than you.

‘You are . . . a monster,’ murmured Isentine.

I am a dragon, old one.

Isentine cast his eyes around for some weapon. The cave was empty.

Your queen wants to believe very much in something else. Wants to believe that her precious Silence has come back and wants to fly with her again. Yes, of course, for has not every dragon yearned for nothing more than some dreamy princess to sit on his back and pine for some faraway prince?
The dragon opened an eye and yawned, showing off its teeth.
Except, with this one, perhaps a distant princess instead. You mean nothing, any of you. Your kind have no significance.

‘We made your chains, dragon.’ Was there an axe somewhere? He’d resigned himself to simply leaving the abomination to starve, but now that didn’t seem enough.

Yes, old one, by all means come closer. Bring your soldiers. Yes, the new ones, the ones that have just arrived, the ones that have come with their hidden intent. Yes, send them to me. That is what they came for, is it not? I will enjoy them very much. Your queen brings little more than snacks. I desire proper food. Food that screams and runs. Can you scream and run, old one?