Stephen Deas - The Black Mausoleum

When she was free, she stood up. In front of her was the Golden Temple, what was left of it, its broken dome a silhouette against the night stars. She’d never seen it in all its glory before it had burned in the death throes of the realms. Now, lit up by the moon and the ten thousand constellations of the night, all she could see were shapes and greys. On this side were a series of flying buttresses, looping out of the stonework down to the wide space where she stood — what had once been a gathering place running the entire length of the temple. Behind her, the dark waters of one of the city’s canals whispered quietly in the night.

The pain in her ribs was something she could live with if she walked carefully. The shoulder was getting worse though. Under the Purple Spur with her potions and half a hundred herbs, roots and powders, the injury wouldn’t have mattered. They weren’t the sort of things that could mend a fracture, if that’s what it was, but she could have done something about the swelling and the pain. Here she had nothing, not even a knife, or a pestle and a mortar. All she had was her blood.

She hadn’t given much thought to what came next. The Adamantine Man and his tunnels under the city. She had to find him. They needed to reach shelter before dawn, and now that she was hurt, she was still going to need his help. More than the pain, that was what irritated her.

She reached through the blood-bond, searching for him. It was harder than before, the distance between them making it more difficult to reach him. She hadn’t expected that.

There!

He was raging, fury surging through him. One of them was on his back, scrabbling at his neck. Another one was hissing and dancing around in front of him. Two more were dragging off the body of the outsider. He hurled himself backwards, slamming into a wall to shake loose the one grabbing at his shoulders…

Kataros reeled. The emotion of the fight surged through her, almost making her trip over her own feet. Her fists clenched. She had a vague sense of where he was, somewhere back towards the black tower that was the mountain from which she’d come, the Fortress of Watchfulness.

He had the one off his back by the arm now. Wrenched it over his shoulder and crashed it down onto the ground. Didn’t have a sword but he was used to that. No hesitation. Stamped down twice. First stamp the feral man’s head hit the stone ground. Stunned. Second stamp crushed his throat. Dead.

He’d done what she needed of him. Maybe, on her own, she could survive out here without him. Adamantine Men had their ways and tricks but so did alchemists… but she wasn’t on her own. There was the outsider, Siff. Without the outsider and what he knew, she might as well have stayed in her cell and let them starve her to death, and there was no way she could drag him or carry him, not with a damaged shoulder.

Damn it! She still needed him. There was no getting away from it.

The one doing the dancing and hissing was backing away. Scared. Three of them and one of him and they were the fearful ones. That was how it was to be an Adamantine Man. Three against one. No fear!

Don’t let him take Siff! But the Adamantine Man was already roaring and bounding on, head filled with blood and murder.

The fight was making her head spin. She let the blood-bond go and started to walk towards him. Running would have been better, but that hurt too much, and either way the fight would be over before she got there. Calm and steady, that was the alchemists’ way, and so she let her mind wander to the emptiness of the Silver City around her, what was left of it. A hundred years ago it had been the hub of the world, home to tens of thousands. It had been a fading glory even then, its power already being leached away by Furymouth and the City of Dragons, but it had been a glory nonetheless. Out here on the esplanade beside the temple, with the gardens on one side and the canal on the other, there should have been people. She could almost see them, moving in little knots and clusters in the moonlight, even in the middle of the night. Now the gardens were overgrown, the canal choked with rubble and weeds, the temple dome tumbled and its marvels in ruins.

It was easy, she thought, with the skies filled with fire and angry monsters, to imagine the death of the Silver City was the work of the dragons, but that was wrong. The ruin wrought here had come when men still rode on their backs.

Seven months before the Black Mausoleum

Dragons were quickly bored. No patience. That was the way of it as far as Skjorl knew. A dragon sniffed you out in some cave somewhere; you curled up deep and waited and waited and eventually it found something better to do than sit outside wanting to eat you. Skjorl couldn’t say for sure because most of the dragons he’d ever seen had got in plenty of eating, thank you very much, but that was the way he’d heard it.

Apparently the dragon from Bloodsalt had heard different.

He’d seen it enough times to recognise it before they even left, while he and Jasaan were still hiding, nursing their aches and pains and their stomach cramps and eating dried and salted bits of Relk and washing him down with brackish river water. He’d seen it lots of times, flying out of the salt desert every day, gliding off, away along the Sapphire, coming back again in the twilight. Hadn’t occurred to Skjorl that the dragon was looking for him though, not then. Time passed. The dragon flew away for longer. Didn’t come back for days sometimes, but it still came back. Never got to see what colour it was beyond a black shape up in the sky, but there was the size of it, the sound of it, the shape and the beat of its wings. Always the same dragon.

When they moved, they moved at night. Jasaan wasn’t going to be winning any prizes for his running or his climbing, that was for sure, but at least he could walk and keep walking for hours. There was still pain there, Skjorl could see that, but still some bits of Jasaan were made of adamantine and he kept his hurt to himself. Skjorl’s hand wasn’t much use for anything any more except gripping a shield or his axe — Dragon-blooded, he’d settled on calling her — but that was all he had ever asked of it anyway. Besides, the first days were easy enough. They’d come this way before, when there had been more of them. Knew places they could shelter in the day, deep out of sight of the sky. No shortage of potions to keep their thoughts hidden. Wasn’t much food to be had out in this part of the world, but there was enough. They’d already found out the hard way which roots and berries they could eat and which they couldn’t, back when they’d had Vish and Jex and Kasern and Marran, and the others who hadn’t even made it as far as Bloodsalt.

As the days and the nights wore on, they started to pass the places where the last few of their company had fallen. Vellas, stung by a scorpion that had taken a shine to the shade inside his boot for the day. Goyan, who’d eaten something he shouldn’t have and become too weak to march. Him they’d put out of his misery. Couldn’t leave him to die on his own. Couldn’t take the risk some dragon might fly past and see him either, that he might not be careful enough, that he might give them away; but he was an Adamantine Man, so he took his fate like he should have when they bled him out into the river. They’d weighted him down with stones like they had with all the others and given him to the water. Dragons wouldn’t see them under the glint and glimmer of the Sapphire. Or so they thought.

The fourth day was when Skjorl saw the vultures. Shouldn’t have been out of cover, but he was bored with listening to Jasaan snore and in desperate need of a piss. Came out all careful, but there wasn’t a sign of anything in the sky until he looked to the south and saw specks. First thought was dragons because that’s what the first thought always was, but he could see right away he was wrong about that. Half a dozen specks, maybe more, and they were circling, which dragons never did. Dragon saw something it wanted, it went right down and helped itself. Either that or it flew on about its business. Maybe swooped down for a closer look, but never circled.