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

Or of escaping.

The Scales was following him. He wondered briefly whether he should just put a knife between the man’s shoulder blades and keep on walking. Be done with it. Get back to being on his own, wandering, wondering what in the name of all his ancestors he was doing here. Didn’t seem fair really, though. The only other Scales he’d really come to know had been nice enough. Not that that had saved him from being eaten by his own dragon.

He reached another cluster of sheds, sandwiched between the slope up to the lake and a sheer drop into the valley far below. The snow between the huts came up past his knees. Kemir waded through it; the drop down to the valley was every bit as sharp as it had looked.

‘It goes down there, Scales. Gets steep by the looks of it. Go easy on the running. Won’t do you any good if you go over the edge.’ He stopped as he came to a bridge, so small he barely noticed it, half buried in the snow and covered in ice. ‘Did you say a sluice?’

There it was, right beneath his feet. A channel for the water to run off and down the rock. Little more than a ditch really, frozen and covered in snow, with a metal gate set into the base of the embankment, almost lost in the darkness and shadows of the twilight. A sluice. Which meant that… There. That was what he was looking for. A crank to lift the gate, tied in place by a very old and thick piece of rope, bound in a knot that probably hadn’t been touched for years. He scrambled off the bridge, floundering through the snow. He didn’t even bother trying to undo it, but set to work with a knife.

‘What are you doing?’ asked the Scales.

‘Opening this. What does it look like.’

‘No!’ The Scales came at him, arms flailing, floundering in the snow. Kemir swatted him away, knocking him to the ground. The Scales sat where he fell, face full of shock and disbelief. ‘The dragons will have nothing to drink!’

Kemir burst out laughing. ‘The dragons will have nothing to drink? This is the Worldspine, you idiot! What isn’t rocks is either trees or water. Close your eyes for a minute or two, walk in any direction and you’ll wind up wet. And probably fall off a cliff. That’s a little joke we used to have among ourselves, us outsiders.’

‘You’re an outsider?’ Even through the slabs of hard dead skin, the look of horror on the Scales’ face was obvious. Kemir rolled his eyes.

‘What? What is it they tell you about us? We’re the ones your dragon-lord masters harvest for slaves to sell to their Taiytakei friends in Furymouth. Or else they burn us for the simple pleasure of it. I can believe that now. I always used to think they must have a reason, some cause I simply didn’t understand, but I realise now that no, they do it simply because they can.’ The Scales was still looking at him aghast. Kemir stopped and then sneered. ‘What? Have I grown horns?’

‘They’ll die!’

‘What?’ It took a moment for Kemir to understand what on earth the Scales could possibly mean. ‘The dragons?’

‘Yes!’ The Scales was almost in tears.

Kemir stared at him in disbelief. ‘Die?’ he burst out. He laughed again, then held up a finger. ‘Do you want to know how to kill a dragon? You kill a dragon the same way you kill a man. You take away all his freedom, and then if that’s not good enough you can feed him full of poison. For dragons that means those lovely poisons that the alchemists have hidden away in their houses. For us outsiders it’s a little easier. Dust and cheap spirits usually do the trick. Then you just stand back and watch us burn until everything inside is dead and all we are is a hollow shell. Kill a dragon?’ He shrugged, laughing to himself. ‘I saw some soldiers shoot one with oversized crossbows once. I think that probably hurt it at least a little. Certainly annoyed it. Now get up!’

Without any protest, the Scales got to his feet. His movements were clumsy and difficult, as though he was an old man. Hatchling Disease did that. In the deep snow he was pathetic, almost comical.

Kemir finished cutting the rope that held the sluice handle. ‘You can still run off if you want. I won’t try to stop you. Not sure where all this water’s going to end up though. Probably worth thinking about that before you scarper down the mountain.’ He started to turn the crank. For a moment it wouldn’t move. Ice cracked and groaned but nothing happened. Wood began to creak and metal moaned.

‘Don’t!’ The Scales voice was a whisper. ‘The dragons…’

‘Yes. The dragons.’ Kemir smiled grimly as he turned the handle again. There were some more grinding sounds, a loud crack from down by the metal gate, and a trickle of water began to run past the Scales’ feet, melting away the snow. Kemir’s grin grew wider. He turned the crank some more. It moved freely now. The trickle of water turned into a surge; he gave it another few turns. Water sprayed out of the sluice in a torrent. There were more groaning noises from the gate.

‘Right.’ Kemir danced away from the spraying water as a part of the bridge shook and then collapsed under the force of the rushing water. ‘I think now we’d better start running after all. It’s going to get a bit wet.’

When you had a big empty hole inside, there was nothing quite like smashing stuff up.

He ran, slipping and sliding in the deep snow on the embankment, the Scales floundering in his wake. He heard a crash as the sluice and then the bridge finally gave way, the rush of the water tearing them both apart. The lake was emptying itself in its own way, sending everything that had held it cartwheeling down the mountainside in pieces. A part of Kemir still thought he should have sent the Scales down there too. Slit his throat and kicked the body into the torrent of water. Would probably have been kinder than taking him back to Snow. But the man was making his own choice. The Scales could run away any time he liked.

And then there was the dragon, who probably wouldn’t manage to keep any of her precious alchemists alive for long enough to ask any interesting questions. A Scales was better than nothing. The dragon would be grateful… He laughed at himself for that. Grateful? Snow? No. Now he thought about it, he wasn’t even sure why he’d emptied the lake. Because he could. Because alchemists did to dragons what riders did to outsiders. Because, even at their worst, he’d rather have dragons than dragon-riders…

Really? And if it had been a dragon without a rider who’d come to our little village, would the end really have been any different?

He was almost grateful for the errant piece of building that tripped him up and sent him sprawling in the mud. The twilight was fading now, the mist-shrouded blaze of the burning eyrie the only real light. Made it hard to see where a man was putting his feet, but then there was so much snow on everything out here that maybe that didn’t make any difference either. Up above, the castle was burning properly now. Flames reached out of the windows to lick the night.

He picked himself up and hauled the Scales after him, back towards Snow and whatever was left of the alchemists she’d found. They passed the barracks where the dragon had landed, smashed to pieces now. Parts were still burning inside. Around it, the ground was bare and black and soaking wet, the snow all melted in the heat. The air stank of woodsmoke and burned flesh and damp. Further on, where the alchemists had lived, Snow was where he’d left her, pacing up and down over the ruins of what had once been some stone building, raking the ground with her claws.

Tunnels. They have fled under the ground.

Behind Kemir the Scales let out a scream. It went on and on and on. For a few seconds Kemir thought it might never stop. Then the Scales took a deep breath. He looked as though he might be about to start again, so Kemir punched him in the stomach. The Scales went down. Kemir clutched his fist and swore. Either the Scales was wearing armour or he truly was well on his way to turning into stone.