The Order of the Scales Deas - The Order of the Scales

He saw her reach the boat, saw them pull her in. A little cargo skiff, that’s all it was, bringing down crates full of whatever they made in the mountains. A handful of men, a tiny sail and a rudder, just going with the flow of the river. For a moment a strange sense of peace swept over him. A sense that he’d done something good. He knew already how the rest of his story went. He’d watch Kataros and the boat vanish into the distance and feel happy for a few minutes. And then he’d realise he was alone again. Crushingly, irredeemably alone. After that, well, most likely he’d pick up his sword and start hiking up into the Maze and the Purple Spur beyond to kill the monster who’d bizarrely saved his life back in the canyons. And he’d die without getting anywhere near her. Alone, starved and broken.

Oh get a grip on yourself. You’ll walk on down the river all the way to Furymouth if that’s what it takes, that’s what you’ll do.

He closed his eyes and listened for the thoughts of the dragon, but she wasn’t there. He hadn’t felt her once since she’d destroyed the pirates.

The boat was turning. He stared at it, not sure whether to believe his eyes, but it was turning, lumbering with painful slowness towards the shore. He could see someone waving. Waving at him. And then he was running. Before he could even think about what to do, his legs had taken charge, hurtling him along the riverbank, waving back, shouting, an absurd and overwhelming relief urging him on. He reached the boat as it reached the bank. Four men eyed him, faces full of caution, but there was Kataros, smiling at him.

‘Got my boots?’

He had to look hard to be sure, but her eyes were clear. This wasn’t the dust talking. ‘You came back.’ Dumbfounded, he gawped at her. ‘You came back! Why did you come back? Why didn’t you leave me?’ He was climbing into the boat. ‘Why didn’t you leave me? You were supposed to leave me.’

‘Boots?’ She looked at him as though he was mad.

‘Boots?’ What was she talking about? Didn’t matter. He jumped over the roped-down crates and boxes and wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight. Everyone left. Everyone always did. ‘You made them come back,’ he whispered, hoarse with wonder. ‘You should have left.’

‘You did the same for me.’ Gently she pushed him away. Smiled uncertainly.

Because I wanted to sell you. He wanted to cry. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Sorry for what?’

Kemir took a deep breath. Sorry that I brought a horde of dragons to burn your eyrie to the ground. Sorry that a gang of river pirates raped you. Sorry for…

‘I forgot your boots,’ he said softly.

She smiled and shrugged and sat down a little way away from him.

Eventually they set off again. At some point in the afternoon, with the sun on his face, he must have nodded off; the next thing he knew, the sky was growing dark and Kat was sitting beside him again, facing back the way they’d come, watching the sun set behind the clear skies of the Worldspine.

‘Who are you, Kemir?’ she asked when he looked at her.

‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head.

And he didn’t, but he told her what he could. How for a decade he and his cousin Sollos had sold their swords. That they’d sold them to anyone who’d pay. How they’d begun as foresters, as scouts, sniffing out the territories of snapper packs on the fringes of King Valgar’s realm and hunting wolves. How they’d ended up as soldiers in the pay of Queen Shezira’s knight-marshal, her secret killers, hunting down any dragon-knights who incurred her wrath. How he’d been to most of the eyries in the northern realms, flown on the back of almost a dozen dragons all told. He told her how he’d watched a pack of them almost destroy the foundations that held the realms together. How he despised the lords and ladies who called the realms their own and why. How, in the end, he’d found that he wasn’t one jot better. How the dragons were going to destroy them all. How he’d meant to sell her as a slave to the Taiytakei in Furymouth so that he could run away, far away, as far as he possibly could, from the dragons and from everything else. He saw how much that hurt her, but she didn’t turn away.

‘Is that what you meant when you said I should have left you?’

He nodded, unable for a moment to speak. Watching the water and filled with a crippling sadness.

‘Everything I know is gone,’ he said once he found his voice again. ‘Even if I found a ship, even if the Taiytakei took the gold dragons in my pockets and sailed me somewhere far away, what then? More of the same? Another land ruled by men who care nothing for the people who serve them? I’m a sell-sword. A shit-eater. A nothing.’ He spat into the water.

‘You called dragons from the sky.’

‘What?’

‘You called dragons from the sky to burn the filth from the river.’

That made him laugh. ‘They were probably bored. Or hungry. Or both. Believe me, next time it’ll be us they eat. I’ve seen houses smashed to splinters by a careless flick of a tail. I’ve seen men crushed to death underfoot. I’ve seen them sent flying through the air, shattered and broken by an idle flap of a wing. And those were the dragons we call tame.’ The dragons hadn’t eaten the river men, though. They’d been left, broken and burned. Why?

‘I never wanted to be a Scales. I was meant to be an alchemist.’

For some reason, despite everything, she was still there, still beside him, still listening. Why? Because I was nice to you once? You were a means to an end, that’s all.

‘You saved me,’ she said so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

‘Saved you?’ That was rich. ‘No. But I will.’ He took her hand and squeezed. ‘I’m yours now. I will guard you to the end of the world.’ And why, by all that burns, did you go and say a thing like that? No, best not to answer. In that moment, though, he meant it. Every word. ‘If the only person I was trying to save was me, I’m not sure I’d find the will to bother.’

Either Kataros didn’t hear him or she didn’t have an answer. She sat, mute, and held his hand.

Alone in its cave, the dragon called.

Old man…

Silence, they had called him, but that was a new name, not the one he remembered.

Old man…

He whispered, on and off. Usually when the little one who ruled this place came closest. But more and more at other times. Even up in the tower, as he slept, the dragon tried to reach him.

Old man…

The more the old man tried to ignore the dragon, the more the dragon reached out, straining to push further. Until, by chance, it found something wonderful.

Who are you?

Crisp Cold Shaft of Winter Sunlight. Who are you?

A pause. Then: I am Snow.

For hours each day Kemir sat at the front of the boat and watched the river. Sometimes Kat sat with him, sometimes not. Her mood waxed and waned with the dust he still gave her. Gave her because she asked him for it. Gave her so she could sleep without waking screaming from the nightmares that came in the night. She’d come and sit beside him, not saying anything, shivering in the breeze even though it wasn’t that cold. He always knew what she wanted when she shivered, and in the end he always gave in. He’d give her the pouch he’d stolen, she’d take a little and give it back, her mood would lighten, and then they’d talk. Always about him, never about her. Usually about the old days. The times he liked to remember. The dust was running out, would be gone before long – she was taking more and more – but it would last long enough to see them to Furymouth or the City of Dragons or wherever she chose to lead him. And then…