Stephen Deas: The Black Mausoleum

Down where there was a roof again the canal bed was dry and covered in patches of old dead prickle-grass. The air smelled different. Old dry earth-dust, fine as flour, the sort to fill your nose and your throat and make you choke. No water here, not for a long time. Likely as not the cisterns were dry and empty then; but if the tunnel went on long enough to keep them out of sight, they had a place to hide in the day. He crept back.

‘Get your scarves on, nice and wet.’ He sniffed. ‘What’s the water in here like?’ Hadn’t thought to taste it.

‘Tastes like shit,’ muttered Jex.

‘Tastes like blood,’ said someone else. ‘Salt and iron.’

‘Leave it then.’ He paused. Tried to think about how much water they were carrying. Not something he’d had to worry much about while they’d been following the river, but away from it, even out of the sun, desert heat was quick and deadly to a man who didn’t have water. Found that one out the hard way, fleeing the ruins of Outwatch when the dragons had finally left them alone.

They had enough, though. Good for a day or two before they’d have to turn back. Time to get to the city and take a good look to know that no one was still alive. Maybe the dragons would be kind and bring back a kill. He wondered for a bit if maybe he should send the others away. Bring water from the river. Hide up here at night, right up and close, just him and his axe.

They walked on through the old canal, holding on to one another in the darkness. Skjorl took the front. His company, his job, feeling his way with his feet. Here and there pushing a loose stone out of the way so no one would trip and stumble and make a noise. For the most part, the canal bed was flat and smooth and sandy. Easy going until he took a step and there suddenly wasn’t anything under his foot. He had just enough balance to let himself go and sit down hard, both feet dangling over an invisible edge. ‘Well that’ll be the cisterns then,’ he whispered, as much to himself as anyone. ‘Oi! Vish…’

Shit. He remembered where he was just a little too late. Sitting on the edge of some underground place where sound would carry like water over an oilcloth. No idea how far below him the floor was, or whether there even was one, or how big the space in front of him might be. For all he knew, there could be a clutch of dragon eggs right beside him.

He felt movement. ‘Boss?’ Vish. Short for Vishmir, the same name as probably half the soldiers in the Adamantine Guard, but it always got shortened to Vish. Back before the war every legion had had half a dozen of them or more. He’d had Tall Vish, Loud Vish, Fat Vish, Blue Vish and Vish the Hands. Tall Vish and Blue Vish had died when the dragons smashed the Adamantine Palace. Loud Vish had gone at Outwatch, done by the hatchling that had hunted them through the tunnels. Fat Vish, well he’d just vanished somewhere in the northern Blackwind Dales. Dead, or else maybe he went back to throw in his lot with the survivors at Sand. Bad choice, but it probably hadn’t seemed so bad at the time.

Vish the Hands had died at Scarsdale. No doubt about that one, since he’d died with Skjorl’s stabbing sword through his guts. Now they had just the one Vish left. Quiet Vish he’d been once, but there was no need for that now. He was the last one and just Vish would do. Skjorl had come to think of him as their lucky charm.

‘Boss?’

Skjorl shook himself. He pulled Vish down to whisper into his ear. ‘You ever come and see these cisterns when you were here?’

‘Nothing much else to do.’

‘That where we are?’

‘Canal empties right into it.’

‘How far down is it?’

‘It was full of water, boss. I got no idea.’

‘Get a rope.’ The air still smelled dry. If there had been water here once, it was long gone, same as in the tunnel. They tied a rope in a harness around him and lowered him slowly. He still couldn’t see a thing but he felt at the wall as he went. Old dry brick or stone. Big slabs with sandy mortar between them. Crumbs of it fell away under his fingers, hissing down the walls. Too small and quiet to gauge any depth. No sound of hitting water, though. No water meant no people. Maybe no eggs too.

Meant this was a waste of time.

His feet touched something hard that crunched under his weight and then he was on solid ground. He climbed out of the harness and gave a few tugs on the rope, sending it back up. They’d wait for his call now. He felt in his knapsack for the alchemists’ firebox, wrapped in an oiled piece of rabbit skin to keep it dry. A big handle on the top to hold once it was lit, a little winder to start it burning. Not like the cold smokeless lamps the alchemists made for living under the Purple Spur, this was more the sort of lamp Skjorl understood, with a wick and a warped glass screen and sweet-smelling oil.

He had it in his hand, ready to light. Instinct stopped him. Lighting a lamp in a place like this was like crossing a rising river. Once done, there was no return. He’d get to see whatever was in this chamber, but whatever was here, it would get to see him right back.

Then again it was that or stand here doing nothing.

He wound the handle. A small flare plumed between his hands. Dimmed again to almost nothing and then the wick caught and the light rose once more. There was a dragon egg right next to him. Tall as he was and as wide as a barrel. Under his feet were brittle pieces of shell. Dry, thank Vishmir. Whatever had hatched, it was weeks ago.

The fire in his hands grew stronger. He looked around. Deep shadows everywhere. Didn’t hear anything except his own slow breaths. But there were eggs everywhere. The most he’d ever seen in one place. At Outwatch, one of the biggest eyries in the realms, they’d had eighty-six. He’d counted them as his company had smashed them. This — this was something new.

He thought for a bit. They couldn’t go on, not with this here. They’d have to go back, all the way to the river where there was water, and they didn’t have time for that, not before the sun came up. So they’d be in the tunnel, quiet as mice for the whole day, praying to the Great Flame. They could do that. Or they could set to work and do what Adamantine Men were meant to do. Kill dragons.

‘Jex! Vish! Jasaan! Hammers and axes.’ He set the firebox down and swung his own axe off his back. His lady, his lover, and in his hands she felt warm and strong. ‘I serve the speaker,’ he muttered under his breath as he lifted her. ‘The Guard obeys orders. From birth to death. Nothing more, nothing less.’ Go to Bloodsalt. Look for survivors. Smash eggs. Kill dragons. Nothing about coming back again. He brought the axe down on the nearest shell. The brittle outside split and shattered, and the axe bit down into the lifeless hatchling within. He struck again and then a third time, until he’d hacked the hatchling’s head from its body. The next one was the same. They’d all be like that. Hatchlings, all grown and ready to break out of their eggs, just sitting inside their shells, quiet and still, waiting for the spark of life.

Jex was down. No questions; he just got his axe out and got on with it. The quicker the better. Needed to be done before daylight. Dragons mostly left their eggs alone, but you could never be sure. Vishmir’s cock! There were hundreds of them! You could see that, now Jex had laid his own firebox down and lit a few rags and tossed them in a circle around him. The cisterns were huge. One vast empty space held by a forest of columns. Skjorl could just about make out the vaulted roof made of hundreds of little domes. Couldn’t see the far walls though.

He paused for a moment. There had to be another way in. A dragon had come down here to lay, so there had to be another way in. A big one. Somewhere or other they must have brought the roof down.