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

He raced between the legs of a young hunter that tried to bite him and missed. The more they burn, the more our poison will grip them. A tail slashed across the ground, throwing up a cloud of black ash, of stone and armour. Of blackened arms and legs and torsos and heads. Vale ran under the belly of another dragon, which didn’t even seem to notice he was there. He’d lost track of where the spear was, but it must be buried in bodies and rubble by now. He’d done what he could. If there were any working scorpions left on the walls, they were too few to matter now and he couldn’t tell them from the mangled remains of their cousins. Most of the Adamantine Men were dead. They’d never know whether they’d died in glorious victory or in defeat.

He reached the doors of the Glass Cathedral. Walls thick enough to stand even dragons welcomed him. As he ran, the doors flew open. Behind him, a dragon turned and lunged. Vale threw himself to the ground, sliding the last yard on his belly across stones sticky with cooked blood. Behind the doors, a dozen scorpions all packed together spat out a final volley.

‘Run!’ he shouted. No time to load and fire again. No point in losing more men. Tomorrow’s Night Watchman would need them. He tried to get back to his feet, but for once his strength failed him. He stumbled and fell in the doorway. Someone else would take the fight to the dragons after today. He’d done the best he could.

He rolled onto his back. ‘Come and get me!’ There were sacs of poison strapped to his armour. Too much for a man to drink and survive. Enough, perhaps, to kill a dragon. And there it was, the dragon that had taken a face full of scorpion bolts, towering over him, eyes ablaze, flames licking out between its teeth, insane with fire and fury. ‘Come on!’ he screamed at it. ‘Eat me!’

Its head swayed from side to side, almost mocking him, as though it could read his mind. And then, very slowly, it toppled over and crashed to the ground. Fire sputtered around it. Flames flickered on its tongue. Even through his armour Vale could feel the heat. He lay there and stared.

And I thought we were going to lose.

He started to laugh. Once he’d started, he couldn’t stop.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a single dragon, pale as a ghost in the moonlight, take to the skies and fly away.

Jehal couldn’t put his finger on when the battle ended. The noise, the rumbles and thunder as the dragons smashed down the Adamantine Palace went on most of the night. He sat awake in bed, listening to it. Eventually it faded away and stopped. He might have dozed after that. He wasn’t sure. Lystra slept, and he watched her. Looked at her by the light of a single tiny candle. He stroked her face and her hair, gently so as not to wake her. After a while, after the noises had stopped and everything was still, he very carefully climbed out of their bed and dressed.

‘I’m sorry, my love,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘but these particular caves don’t agree with me.’

The caves under the Glass Cathedral were still and quiet. There were no guards on his door, none to keep him safe and none to keep him from leaving either. He hopped and hobbled through the silent tunnels. Frightened faces glanced at him and turned away. Servants, scared witless, knowing they were doomed to die down here. But starving is better than burning, isn’t it? Or is it?

He didn’t find any soldiers until he reached the stairway to the Glass Cathedral itself. Until he climbed them, one excruciating step at a time. And at the top there’s going to be a dragon waiting for me. And then what? He didn’t know. What he knew was that kings didn’t hide in cellars while their kingdoms burned around them. Kings faced their enemies. Even if they couldn’t win. Kings died in daylight. In the open.

He reached the top of the steps. He’d expected bodies, but the cathedral was almost empty. The wreckage of a dozen scorpions lay scattered around the door. The air stank of smoke, of burned wood and scorched flesh. No bodies though. None alive, none dead.

He heard voices. Men, calling to each other. Outside. Not screaming and dying calling, but the matter-of-fact shouts of men busy at work. He hobbled to the door, blinking. No dragons? Was that possible?

A grey glimmer of dawn lit the horizon. Not much light, and at first he couldn’t see the damage. The Tower of Air was a stump. The Speaker’s Tower was still there, although it seemed to be missing several large pieces. He scanned the silhouette of the palace, looking for anything else that was familiar and finding little. The Tower of Dusk, the Tower of Dawn, the Humble Tower, the Azure Tower… all gone.

‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Did we win then?’ There were dim figures moving in the darkness where the walls ought to be. They had bits missing, he began to see. Quite a lot of bits missing. It was warm outside too, strangely and almost uncomfortably so.

In the half-light a shape took form nearby. Jehal swore and jumped back, lost his footing and fell back through the cathedral door. ‘Shit! Crap crap crap!’ He was staring at a dragon only a dozen yards away. Rather, he was staring at a dragon’s head. Lying on the ground. Still. Not moving. The size of a carriage.

He squinted, tracing the outline of the shape back into the gloom. Definitely a dragon. Dead.

An armoured hand reached down towards him. Held out to help him up. Jehal took it without thinking.

‘You should be underground.’ The voice was Vale’s, ground flat with fatigue.

‘Did you actually win?’

‘Bluntly? I don’t know. I don’t think so. We drove them off. That’s all.’

‘There’s a dead dragon in my palace.’

‘There are more than twenty.’ In his other hand, the one that wasn’t helping Jehal to his feet, Vale was holding something strangely familiar. The Speaker’s Spear.

‘You won, Vale. You actually won.’

The Night Watchman laughed in bitter choking hacks. ‘No. We didn’t get them all. And even then…’ He shook his head. ‘Do you want to see what victory looks like? I will show you. Come!’

Jehal pursed his lips. ‘Is this the part where you throw me off the top of a tall tower and then say I slipped?’

Vale slapped him so hard it made his head spin. The next thing he knew there were arms around his waist and he was picked up and thrown over the Night Watchman’s shoulder like a sack of corn. ‘All a joke to you, is it?’

‘Let me go!’ Panic and angry affront fought each other for Jehal’s attention.

‘No. Come and see your realms. Come and see what’s left.’

Jehal supposed he ought to be afraid, but he wasn’t. He was tired. Tired of fighting all the time. And he’s not going to do it. He’s not going to kill me. He can’t. However much he wants to, he can’t. It’s not in him. ‘Put me down, Vale. If you’re going to murder me, at least give me the dignity of walking to my doom, eh?’ Although, shameful to admit as it is, this is considerably less painful than walking would be.

‘You did this, Speaker Jehal. You and all your kind.’ Vale started to clamber over a heap of rubble that had once been part of the palace wall. In the half-light, draped over his shoulder, Jehal still couldn’t see much. What he could see looked a mess. ‘You don’t get to die. You haven’t earned that yet. I want you to see.’ Reaching the top of the wall, a section that was still intact, Vale dropped Jehal on the ground next to a shattered scorpion.

‘Ouch.’

Vale crouched beside him, gripped him by the throat and hauled him to his feet. ‘Do you see?’

‘Do I see what?’ All he could see were ruined walls. The jagged remains of charred wood and steel that had lined them. Smashed towers. When he peered, he could see men moving among the rubble. Now and then he heard a shout. They were clearing the walls of debris, he realised. Very slowly, but they were clearing the walls and putting new scorpions in place. ‘You never give up, do you? I’m impressed.’