Stephen Deas: The King of the Crags

Aye,' he said, too quietly for the men in the tower to hear, but the words carried to Semian well enough. 'And vengeance, if justice alone will not serve.'

They finished looting the eyrie, taking everything they could carry and use and destroying what they couldn't. When they left, the tower was still intact. Let them live. Hyrkallan had said. Let them carry my words to where they need to be heard. Semian smiled to himself. Yours. And mine.

Hyrkallan led them back to their camp in the Spur, never straying far from Semian as they flew. As soon as they landed, he and GarHannas took Semian away out of sight of the others. Semian didn't try to resist.

'We've taken another three dragons.' Hyrkallan's voice was a low growl. 'Three more for the Red Riders, three fewer for the Usurper. Another victory. I will not mar it by a hanging. I know you, Rider Semian. I know you served Queen Shezira faithfully and well. I know what you did at the redoubt. So you will merely be flogged, in front of these riders who serve our cause, and we will cut you down in the morning and you will never disobey me again. If you do, you will hang. I'll tie the noose around your neck myself. Do you hear me?'

Semian met his stare. 'Justice and Vengeance, My Lord. For the Great Flame never rests and neither shall its servants.' Hyrkallan shook his head in disbelief and walked away. GarHannas and the two riders who flew at Hyrkallan's side took hold of Semian. He let them strip him and then lead him to a tree and bind him to it. He could feel the Flame, burning triumphant in his heart. The flogging, when it came, was only pain after all, and he was a man who'd been consumed by fire.

Late in the night when everyone was asleep, when it might only have been a dream, a voice whispered in his ear. A woman's voice. Nthandra of the Vale.

'I am with you, Rider Semian. I found the alchemist again, as we were leaving.' A bloodstained knife flashed in the starlight to cut his bonds. 'Justice and Vengeance, Rider Semian. I hear the words. Justice and Vengeance.'

Good things never last. Never did, never would. After Drotan's Top, the speaker had to answer. And answer she did. With dragons in the skies and…

The last of the soldiers was on his knees, gasping. He had an arrow sticking out of his back. Hyrkallan snarled and casually kicked him over. Before the soldier could move, Hyrkallan drove the point of his sword down into the man's belly. The soldier gasped and rolled over. It would take him a good few minutes and a lot of pain to finish dying, but Hyrkallan didn't care too much about that. Sell-swords were scum. The realms would be better without them. At least that was something he could be sure of. As for everything else…

Three weeks had passed since the heady victory of Drotan's Top. Three weeks of playing cat and mouse with the speaker's dragons. Three weeks of hiding among the mountains, achieving nothing, watching everything he'd aspired to slip away. Three weeks to wonder if he was wasting his time. To think that if he'd stayed in Southwatch, Deremis would still be alive. Three weeks and he'd lost three dragons back to Zafir's patrols and not one single rider had come over to his cause. Three good dragons too. Three weeks to wish the Red Riders had never been born. Three weeks to watch Semian's madness spread a little further every day. Nthandra, Shanzir, Jostan, Riok and the rest. The young ones who thought they could set the world on fire. He closed his eyes. Shanzir hurt the most. She was almost a daughter to him. She flew with him on B'thannan. She was his spotter. She was his scorpioneer now that Deremis was gone.

Best not to think about that. He kicked the dying man in the ribs and then left him to get on with it. Over on the far side of the clearing, Rider Hahzyan and the Picker had another pair of sell-swords and were stringing them up to one of the trees. As he drew closer, he could clearly see that the sell-swords were dead. One of them had had his belly slit open and his guts were trailing all over the ground, dirt and pine needles sticking to them. The other had had his head hacked half off. Hyrkallan was about to ask Hahzyan what he thought he was doing when another figure emerged from the nearby trees. Kithyr. The blood-mage. Hyrkallan stopped. He gave the mage a long hard look and a chill ran through him. Evil. We're driven to this. No wonder they were turning away from him. Now he turned away too. Best to let the mage get on with his business. Best not to watch.

Hahzyan clearly thought the same. Only the Picker stayed. The Picker was another strange one. Not a rider, like the rest of them, but he'd shown his mettle on the Night of the Knives. Hyrkallan had seen him kill two Adamantine Men. No mean feat for a man who didn't even have a sword.

He shuddered. The Picker was one of Knight-Marshal Nastria's curiosities. So was the blood-mage, and now the old knight-marshal was gone and he was left to pick up the pieces. Both the good and the bad.

They'd all fought and fled together. The Picker was a killer and the blood-mage was an abomination, but they were his killer, his abomination, and he was in no position to be choosy, no position at all. Except… except, did it matter any more? The last news from Evenspire warned that the Usurper had called a council of kings. Zafir was putting King Valgar and Queen Shezira on trial. Hyrkallan had done what he'd done and changed nothing. He'd already failed, hadn't he?

The blood-mage set to work. Hyrkallan turned away and looked for a more comfortable face.

'Jostan!' Rider Jostan looked on the outside the way Hyrkallan felt on the inside. Disturbed. That came from spending too much time around Semian.

Jostan hurried over and gave a cursory bow. 'Knight-Marshal.'

'Take three dragons and search the area. There might be more of these shit-eaters. Take Semian and Nthandra up with you and keep your eyes peeled.' There. That would make life a little more pleasant for the next few hours. A few months ago, Semian had been one of those riders who had his head stuffed so far up his arse that he could see out of his own mouth. And how Hyrkallan missed that Semian. The last thing they needed on top of everything else was a madman. On the surface Semian had been quiet in the weeks since Drotan's Top and his flogging. Done as he was told and not spoken out of turn, but he still had the insane fire in his eyes. He had his converts now too. They gathered around when they thought Hyrkallan wasn't watching.

The Red Riders weren't doing any good. That was the long and the short of it. After the Night of the Knives they'd been heady with amazement at being still alive, flushed with the success of spiriting Queen Almiri out of the palace and back to the safety of her own eyrie. There was rage too, rage at the Usurper who wore the Speaker's Ring, her and her scheming lover Jehal. Justice needed to be done and they'd sworn, as riders of the realms, to do it. And what had they done? Nothing. Burned a few soldiers, stolen a few wagons and spent most of the time hiding. Drotan's Top, was that really such a victory? They weren't even worth the trouble of hunting down properly. Did Zafir the Usurper send riders? Did she dispatch the Adamantine Guard? No, she sent shit-eaters, and poor ones at that. That's what Hyrkallan's riders were worth. Nothing. Because that's what we've done. Nothing.

Nothing. Not because they were impotent, but because he didn't dare. Because Shezira was still alive, and he was too afraid to tip the balance of her fate.

He watched Jostan and the other two jog out of the trees towards their dragons. Semian was limping, almost hobbling. Someone had stabbed him in the leg. Quite a wound by the looks of it. He had been the only one hurt, but then, when they'd engaged the shit-eaters, he'd led the charge.