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

Other boats from Valleyford had arrived ahead of them. For a while he watched them instead. Then he watched the town. He was getting good at watching things. The person he’d been before Snow had never been one for watching, was much more interested in getting on and doing. The new Kemir, it seemed, was much more content to do nothing at all. That was probably good if he was going to be a shopkeeper.

The barge reached the little harbour and fought itself into a place to tie up. Kat came up to sit with him. He held her hand, looking out across the crowded wooden jetty and then to the shore. He thought he saw the Picker again, somewhere in the bustle along the water-front. A glimpse, that was all, but enough to make him shiver. The market was madness, almost a riot. Refugees from Valleyford and Plag’s Bay, buying whatever food they could, bewildered traders pushing up their prices. There were fights breaking out already and it wouldn’t get any better. Any moment now, he reckoned, for the first stabbing. After that…

‘We stay on the boat,’ he muttered.

Kat frowned at him. ‘I thought you didn’t like being on the boat.’

‘Hate it.’ Sometimes he wondered if she had the first idea what was really happening. She seemed to live in some sort of cocoon. He shivered. ‘Hate being stuck in a small cramped space. But this is going to fall to fighting and looting. Won’t trouble us here, and that’s the way I like it. We just keep our distance. That’s me. Not a stand-and-fight sort of person. Definitely more of a pick-them-off-from-a-distance-with-a-bow sort.’

Kataros looked horrified. Kemir shrugged. Not that staying on the boat was much better with dragons abroad. Boats weren’t much good when you suddenly needed some place to run. But dragons might come or dragons might not. A bloody riot on the docks was a certainty.

‘I’ve known a lot of stand-and-fight types and I watched a good few of them get killed. Three men with knives and clubs walk into a tavern where you’re drinking, you don’t turn and face them. Not if you don’t want to get stuck. No, you quietly leave out the back while they’re looking for you and then you wait outside down the street in the shadows with a bow in one hand, an arrow in the other and two more stuck in the dirt between your feet.’ Kemir glanced over to where he might have seen the Picker, if he wasn’t seeing ghosts again. Staying on the boat was for the best. He’d seen food riots before. There’d be pickings when it was done. But still. A man likes to have a place to run. On a boat there’s nowhere.

Maybe they could slip round the edge? Get ashore but away from the docks?

Oh, listen to yourself. Just wait it out. He stared out along the river. Southwards, towards Furymouth. Towards freedom. What am I doing? Does it have to be a ship? Are they really going to tear the world apart? The alchemists will find a way to stop them, won’t they? Five dragons wasn’t enough. How many…?

His thoughts trailed away. He was looking down the river, and something was coming towards him. Something large and far away, skimming the surface of the water.

No. Two somethings.

One of them flashed. Fire.

All his weight seemed to drain from his shoulders and his arms down to his feet. His head felt suddenly fuzzy and not really attached to the rest of him. His boots were made of lead and nailed to the deck. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t even lift his arm to point or open his mouth to speak.

They were coming.

It couldn’t be Snow. He told himself that. It couldn’t be her. There was nothing here. No alchemists. She was going north. She said. Dragons didn’t even understand revenge.

Right. And dragons never lie or change their minds, eh?

Alchemists. He still couldn’t move. Alchemists. That’s what she’d said. The potions are running out. They can’t make enough any more. He’d felt her glee. Now he knew what else she’d been thinking, what he hadn’t seen back at the mountainside. She knows where the alchemists go. She knows their paths and how they carry their potions. She knows because I know. Because I told her. And the river is one of them. The river and the Evenspire Road and Yinazhin’s Way…

He swallowed hard. The dragons were already closer. From the flashes of fire, there wasn’t much doubt about what they were doing, either. They were zigzagging across the Fury, burning every boat they passed. Kemir even saw one, what must have been one of the tiny fishing rafts, snatched up and tossed into the air.

Could be this wasn’t Snow. Could be these were the dragons that had razed Plag’s Bay. As if that made the slightest bit of difference when you were on the ground and they were coming towards you.

He felt a tugging on his arm. Kat. She’d seen them. ‘Are those.. .?’

‘Yes.’ He turned away, pulled her with him ready to run, but the crowd by the river was impossibly thick. Now, now they’d chosen to fall to fighting. ‘Dragons!’ he shouted, pushing his way onto the jetty. ‘Dragons!’ A knot of panic threatened to burst in his stomach. He glanced over his shoulder. The monsters were still coming straight for the town. Come on, Kemir, you know how fast they fly. Running is a waste of time. So try and think of something better than standing here and looking gormless for the last thirty seconds of your life.

Someone shouted. Around him, people stopped fighting and turned to stare. Some of them screamed. Kat’s fingers dug into his arm, pulling at him.

‘No.’ He shook her off. ‘Running won’t save you. Not now.’ Nor will anything else. He calmly drew out his bow and strung it, his hands working quickly without needing to be told. He could probably get off two or three shots before the dragons burned him in his boots. Not even enough time to put an arrow into each of their eyes. Which would never actually happen anyway. He took out an arrow and aimed. The arrow, for some reason, was shaking. Which confused him until he realised that so was he. All of him. He didn’t even notice whether his arm was still hurting.

Well, so much for shooting them both in the eye. He lowered the bow and lowered his head. Around him people were pushing and shouting, barging each other out of the way. Most of them were running. A few of the sailors were jumping into their boats, trying to push out into the river, far, far too late to get away. A couple fell in, thrashing and splashing in the water. They’ll burn first, he decided. They won’t have time to drown.

‘Kemir!’ Kat was pulling at him again. Waste of time. ‘I’ve seen what they do,’ he whispered, as much to himself as to her. ‘I’ve seen what they do.’ But I’m going to stand and face them and look them in the eye before I die. Although my ancestors know that even that’s hard enough. And if I fell on my knees and wept and shat myself, exactly who would live to remember it?

Someone rammed him from the side, pushing him towards the river. He took a step and then another. He shook himself, tearing his eyes away from the dragons, looking behind him. Kataros.

‘What are you-’

She threw herself at him. He stumbled back, and then there was nothing under his feet any more and he was falling, past the jetty and its wooden pilings and into the river. He had enough time to open his mouth before the Fury wrapped itself around him and dragged him down. Water filled his mouth and poured into his throat. Kataros crashed into the water beside him and grabbed his arm. She was pulling him. His arms and legs thrashed, searching for purchase. Strange. A moment ago he’d been all ready to give up and die. Now suddenly he wanted to cling to life again. Presumably so he could take one last breath before he burned after all. Or perhaps some primitive part of him had decided that drowning was more painful than burning, which was odd, because he would have thought it was the other way around.