The King of the Crags Page 19

No. He smiled to himself as he realized what he must do, what he now knew he had come here to do. He ordered his riders into the air at dawn, but he didn’t take them west and back toward the sanctuary of the Worldspine. He took them north, out over the Great Cliff at the Emerald Cascade and high over the arid plains beyond, into the Stone Desert and Queen Almiri’s lands and to the Evenspire Road. They flew all day, closer to the sky than the earth, or so it seemed. The Great Flame watched over them and none of Zafir’s riders happened their way. As the sun sank, he dipped low, so the tiny dots and lines on the land below grew into monstrous outcrops of dark red stone in the dusty earth and the shadows that stretched for miles behind them. And there, on the Evenspire Road, he saw what he was looking for. A great column of soldiers and wagons. Lots and lots of wagons.

  He led his riders in with the sun at their backs against a full legion of the Adamantine Men. Enough, if Prince Lai was right, to defeat more dragons than he had; but then Prince Lai had been talking about a pitched battle, a fight to take and hold ground where one side either fled or was destroyed. Semian had no interest in land. He didn’t want the wagons or their precious cargo. All he wanted was to watch them burn.

  No, that wasn’t right either. As he skimmed the flat and lifeless earth, as the beating of Vengeance’s wings threw up great clouds of dust behind him, as the soldiers bellowed their alarms and ran to form their shield walls, he no longer cared. The wagons could burn unwatched as long as they burned. What he wanted was to fly, to fight, to rain fire from the sky. Nothing, nothing felt like this, to sit on the back of a monster whose wings reached out a hundred feet on either side yet who could turn like a swallow. Whose claws and teeth could crush men like eggs, whose tail could smash castles and swat horses as though they were flies. And yet who could pick up their shattered riders when they fell and then guard them with gentle patience.

  A scorpion bolt hissed over Vengeance’s shoulder. A second hit the dragon in the chest, and Semian felt a surge of anger, anger that bloomed into exultation as he closed on his enemy. More bolts arrowed past him. Another pierced Vengeance’s wing, more struck the riders behind him, but none came for him. He was charmed. Blessed. Shielded by the Great Flame.

  Teeth and claws and tail, but above and beyond all that . . .

  He flicked down the visor on his helm at the last second. He felt Vengeance tremble and heard the roar of fire. He tasted the air turn hot and scorched and he breathed deeply, sucking in the smell of war, of charred wood and seared flesh. He pressed himself flat on Vengeance’s neck, closed his eyes and savored it while Vengeance passed close over the heads of the soldiers, lashing them with his tail. As the dragon rose, Semian lifted his visor again. Vengeance wanted more, wanted to turn and strike and burn and strike and burn until everything was crushed, but Semian checked him. No.

  He looked over his shoulder as they flew away. At least four of his riders were dead, their dragons pulled to the ground by the weight of the training they were given as hatchlings, conditioned to defend their fallen riders no matter how broken they became. He had no idea how many Adamantine Men he’d slain. Not many, probably. But most of the wagons were smashed and ablaze, that was what mattered. The wagons carried potions. He knew that from the way they were guarded, knew that from his days at the alchemists’ redoubt, the place where he’d been reborn.

  No more potions for the speaker. That would do very nicely. He led his dragons away.

  But it wasn’t perfect. He hadn’t counted the wagons. There had been perhaps as many as a dozen. A few had likely survived. Even one, it suddenly struck him, was too many.

  So after half an hour had passed, as the sun drooped across the horizon, he led his dragons back across the desert and they did it all again. As things turned out, he did want to watch things burn after all.

  THREE

  THE WHITE DRAGON

  24

  THE WORLDSPINE AND THE HILLS BEYOND

  The deeper they flew into the Worldspine, the taller the mountains became. Jagged spikes and streaks of rock stuck out, black and brutal, from the monotony of snow below. The trees fell away, then the lakes, and then everything except the glacial ice and stone. They had nothing to eat and only melted snow and ice to drink. Each day they flew higher, until the air grew so thin that Kemir could barely lift an arm before he was out of breath. If he hadn’t had Snow to keep him warm, the cold would have frozen him hard in an hour. After the first day, the wind of Snow’s flight was so biting that he could hardly raise his face to see where they were going; when he did, even through the dragon-rider’s visor he wore, he felt as though the skin was being flayed from his flesh by a thousand razors dipped in acid. After the first day he had cramps from clenching his muscles, from hugging Snow so tightly. By the end of the second he could barely move. And then there were the nights. If the days were cold, what were the nights?

  “Dragon, do you even know where are you going?” he slurred, when he decided for the hundredth time that he’d had enough. The roar of the wind whipped his words away but the dragon heard him. He wasn’t sure quite how it worked, but as far as Kemir could tell, Snow could hear him think.

  To the other side, Kemir. Snow’s thoughts were far away, lost in distant memories that she kept carefully to herself. She wasn’t really paying attention and Kemir was slowly starting to recognize the difference.

  “I know the realms backward and forward, top to bottom. I’ve never heard of an other side to the Worldspine.”

  Whatever you have heard, Kemir, that is where we are going. Everywhere has an other side.

  “And what if it doesn’t, eh?” he grumbled. “What if it goes on like this forever, getting taller and taller?”

  Then you will die of hunger and I will eventually follow. But nothing goes on forever, Kemir.

  That made him laugh. “Except you. You go on forever. And it’s all very well you talking about dying. Even when you die, don’t you just come back again?”

  That is true.

  “Well I don’t. You might live forever, but I’ve just got what I’ve got, and I’d quite like to make the most of it.”

  How are you so sure, Kemir? He could feel Snow’s thoughts moving back to him, growing warmer and closer. When she tried, she could almost pretend that she wasn’t a monster.

  We are different, that is all. And we are not eternal. We were made, long ago, by sorcerers as old as the world. When that world ends, we will end with it, just as everything else.

  “It doesn’t look like it’s ending anytime soon to me.”

  Between our lives in flesh and bone we walk the realms of the dead. I have seen things there. Things that should not be. They have broken loose of the sorcery that held them still. There is a hole where one of the four pillars of creation once stood. Tell me, Kemir, would you know the end of the world if you saw it?

  “I don’t know, but all I see right now is white down and blue up, with some more white and blue coming up in the middle distance, and far, far away, probably a hundred miles from here, guess what I can see? Can you guess? Yes! More of exactly the same. How far have we flown since that lake, eh?” He had to hiss the words out between clenched teeth, not daring to breathe too deep lest the cold strip the flesh from his lungs.

  Not far enough to have reached the other side.

  Kemir gave a frustrated groan and shifted to press himself face down onto the dragon’s scales, trying to keep warm. “That’s a dragon answer, not a real answer. Whether there’s another side or not, I definitely won’t go on forever if we keep going like this much further.” There was no getting off though. He was stuck here, for better or for worse. Which means there’s really not much left to do but grumble and gripe about it, is there?

  You are right, I am getting hungry again.

  There was a pause, and then Kemir snarled, “Was that a joke, dragon? Was that humor? Because if it was, it was a long way from being funny.” It had only been two days, but the ever-present driving freezing wind had almost pushed Na
dira from his mind.

  It is the answer as you would have given it.

  “Yes.” Now Kemir chuckled. “I suppose it is. Well that’s me told then.” His anger faded. “I hope you’re right, dragon. I hope there is an end to this. It would really piss me off to have saved you only to have you starve to death.” And Nadira deserves better than that too. That would make her death about as pointless as it’s possible to be.

  You did not save me, Kemir.

  “No? So everything would have been just dandy if you’d done what you wanted to do and stayed to watch Ash and the others burn from the inside? You, for some reason, would have been spared?” For a brief moment he risked a glance down. The wind tore at his face and froze his tears to his cheeks and all he could see was an endless featureless white.

  No. But you did not save me, Kemir. The ice water of the lake did that.

  “And who dragged you to the lake, dragon?”

  I have said I am grateful for your advice, Kemir.

  “You don’t sound it.” Every conversation eventually came to this, mainly because Kemir couldn’t stay away from it. He’d saved the dragon’s life. He knew it; the dragon knew it; Nadira knew it—had known it; probably even the alchemists knew it, but the dragon was damned if she was going to admit it. Even gratitude came with grudging reluctance. The whole idea that she might have been even a bit helped by a mere “little one” seemed to be a severe embarrassment. Did dragons feel embarrassed? Did dragons feel anything? He didn’t know, but this one certainly acted like she did. Stupid, really. What am I going to do? Run to all the other dragons, point my finger at her and laugh?

  Very hungry indeed, Kemir.

  Oh. Yes. Reading thoughts. Well then you know I’m still terrified of you, dragon. In my own strange little way. And I still despise you for what you did.

  Snow, Kemir. The name your kind gave me is Snow. It is not my true name, but it will suffice.

  “Just don’t waste me, Snow. You need me. Don’t waste me like you wasted Nadira. You need what I know.” Yes, and I’ ll keep telling myself that. Eventually at least one of us might believe it. Ancestors! What am I doing here?

  Staying alive. That’s what he was doing, even if he had to remind himself from time to time. Not taking his choice of either freezing or starving beside a glacier lake somewhere in the depths of the Worldspine, that’s what he was doing. Living and breathing. Desperately existing. Just like he’d always done. Waiting for his first chance to get off and run away.

  You know I cannot let you go.

  He had no idea how far they flew. They might have been in the air for three days and nights, or else he might have missed one in the general numbness of cold and hunger and it might have been four. He was dizzy with fatigue by the time he noticed that the air was warmer again. When he next bothered to look, he saw that the mountains were shrinking. There were lakes and rivers below them again, dark little lines in the shadows of their valleys, bright flashes of light where they caught the sun. As the dragon let herself glide ever lower, gleaming white snowfields rose up to either side of them. They flew between tufts of cloud snagged on jagged black peaks that fell away into gray stone slopes and black valleys filled with trees. Snow flew on and the mountains shrank still more, fading into crumpled hills and then into an endless sea of rolling forest. Kemir, too exhausted and ravenous to think, felt the dragon’s hunger mingling with his own. As the trees spread out further below them, he felt an irritation growing inside him, too. Snow again.

  Do you see anything for me to eat, Kemir?

  Kemir peered down over Snow’s shoulder. “All I see is trees.” His eyes were too tired to focus, so all he saw most of the time was a great big dark blob that was the ground.

  I do not like trees. It is hard to find prey.

  Kemir digested that. “That’s why we outsiders build our villages deep in the valley forests,” he told her. “So you and your dragon-riders won’t find us. And up on stilts so that the snappers won’t eat us while we’re sleeping.”

  They found a river. Snow dropped to follow it, still far above the treetops but close enough that Kemir could make out the individual trees. He looked wistfully to either side, out across the misty green expanse. Not just trees but a great forest like the Raksheh Forest of the realms. He saw deer too, coming out to drink at the edge of the water. Too small for Snow, but perfect for a man with a bow. He closed his eyes. I could live here. I could hunt and build a shelter and stay out in the wilderness. Just let me off here and leave me be. I don’t mind being alone. Just let me rest and sleep and have something to eat. Leave me be with my ghosts.

  No. Snow flew on until the green hills petered away and the river drained into a lake.

  Look.

  Kemir leaned forward and peered down at the water. He could see the ripples of a tiny boat and, as Snow dropped closer, he made out a single person sitting in it. Excitement gripped him. “Land!”

  Why? There is only one of them and they are small and skinny. Barely a mouthful.

  “It’s a boat, dragon. And a person. Where there is one of us there will be more, and where you find people you’ll find cattle.”

  Is that so? Your kind have changed then, for that is not how I remember the world.

  Without warning, Snow tucked in her wings. They plunged out of the sky and Kemir was suddenly too busy holding on to see what she was doing. He might have been strapped into a dragon-knight’s saddle, but he still couldn’t quite bring himself to trust the thing. He gripped Snow’s scales, fingers rigid as they leveled out and skimmed across the lake. He caught a glimpse of the boat again, straight in front of them, then Snow suddenly started to climb. Kemir pitched forward, smacking his face into the dragon’s back. He thought he heard a scream, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Ah! Useless! Your kind are too fragile. Snow tossed something up into the air in front of them. Kemir was sure he saw flailing arms and legs before she snatched it into her jaws.

  “That was the person from the boat, wasn’t it?” No, no. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to think about it.

  I did not mean to break him.

  “You didn’t have to eat him!”

  I am hungry, Kemir. I have barely eaten in close to ten passings of the sun. Ahh . . .

  The taste of Snow’s thoughts changed. Kemir felt a satisfaction, an anticipation. She changed her course, arrowing across the lake. Kemir tried to see what she’d spotted.

  A house. He saw a house at the edge of the lake. More of a hut than a house. With people, standing and staring at them . . .

  He saw them for an instant, saw their faces, their mouths open, their eyes wide, their feet frozen to the spot in terror, too stupefied to run away; and then Snow opened her mouth and spat fire. A wall of burning air erupted in front of them. Snow slammed through it. Kemir screamed. Snow screamed. There might have been other screams too, but if there were then Kemir didn’t hear them. He covered his face with his hands and wrapped his arms around his head, all far too late. He could smell scorched hair. His hair.

  The next moment Snow crashed into the ground. Wood split and splintered. Kemir pitched forward, thrown helplessly back and forth and only kept on Snow’s back by the saddle. Her head and neck lunged forward and she spat fire again. Kemir cowered, pressing himself into her, covering his face as best he could, but there was no burning wall of air this time. She lunged a second time and then a third, and then she stopped.

  “What have you done?” he whispered. His hands and arms and face were agony. His clothes were still hot to the touch and smelled burned. Snow, he realized, was eating. Behind the hut had been a tiny fenced field with perhaps half a dozen pigs in it. They were all burned now. The smell of them made his mouth water, made him remember how long he too had been without food. The dragon was picking them off the ground with her claws, tossing them into the air and catching them in her mouth. The way his cousin Sollos used to eat grapes.

  I am still hungry. This is not enough.

>   He didn’t want to think about the people he’d seen. Maybe Snow had eaten them already. Maybe she was saving them for later. They were certainly dead. Burned to a crisp.

  “I’ d like to get down.”

  Are you sure? You are far safer where you are.

  He ignored her. Slowly and painfully, he undid the straps and harnesses that held him in the saddle. He half slid, half fell to the ground. When he looked at his hands they were bright red. They were sore and getting worse. Burnt. Add that to the fact that every joint and muscle already hurt from their flight across the mountains and there was nothing left.

  “Was that necessary, dragon?”

  When he didn’t get an answer, he moved gingerly through the smoldering wreckage to the shore of the lake. He lay down on the edge of the land with his face half in the water, his arms stretched out in front of him. The water was deliciously cool. The pain eased. He drank a little. It tasted good.

  Behind him he heard the dragon shift, scattering more wreckage, and then a thin wailing shriek. When he looked around, Snow was holding a boy in her claws. She was going to eat him.

  “No!” Kemir jumped to his feet waving his arms. “No, Snow! Don’t! Don’t you dare!”

  Her mouth was already open. She looked at him and cocked her head. But I am hungry, Kemir. Why should I not eat?

  “Why? Why? Because that’s a person, that’s why! A boy! Like me!”

  It is food, Kemir.

  “It’s a boy, you stupid dragon. Half grown. Hardly even worth eating. You can’t . . .” How did you reason with a dragon? “Am I food? Is that all I am?”

  Snow’s expression didn’t change. He was food. Now he had time to think about it, yes, that was what she thought of him. Nadira had been food.

  You have also been useful, Kemir. Perhaps you will be useful again.

  “Useful food.” He sat down and started to laugh, or to cry, or perhaps a bit of both. He wasn’t sure and he certainly didn’t care. “Useful food. Is that what I am?”