Stephen Deas - The King of the Crags

At the doors to the Tower of Dusk, Vale stopped. His head was filled with all the little details; underneath, something much bigger was stirring. He was old enough and wise enough to know what that meant. Doubts. He had doubts about what he was doing. And since Adamantine Men never had doubts, he was trying to hide them.

Come on then, doubts. Speak your piece and be done. There will be war, is that it? Shezira's daughters will fly out of the north on wings of fire. And out of the south too, perhaps. What of it? Many will die, but what of it? Is it my doing? Have I gone to their eyries and commanded their riders to fly against the speaker, who is their law? No, I have not. Or do I doubt that we will win? Well, doubts, if that's the case, I've seen enough of these kings and queens over the years to know that Zafir is safe. If any of them truly have the spine to take up arms against us, as likely as not they will be stabbed in the back by their own sons and daughters, hungry for a throne of their own. So be gone, doubts. My conscience is clear.

His doubts didn't seem convinced but they knew their place. They slid beneath the surface of his thoughts to lurk in the depths of his dreams. He ordered the door to the Tower of Dusk to be opened and entered with a dozen men behind him. He went in with care because Queen Shezira did have a crossbow, after all, and there was just a chance she hadn't done what he'd hoped and used it on Jehal. But he soon saw that he needn't have worried. The floor was stained by a big pool of blood, still sticky to the touch. Jehal, assuming that's from whom the blood had come, had obviously survived for long enough to drag himself away.

Not very far though. Thick brown streaks led away from the blood to a second pool. Jehal looked dead at first, curled up, both hands pressed between his legs. The Viper was still breathing, though. The breaths might have been ragged and shallow, but if he'd lived this long then he probably wasn't going to bleed to death.

Pity. This was meant to wound. If Shezira had meant to finish him, she had ample means. He stooped to look closer. The crossbow bolt he'd given Shezira was gone. Shezira was still dangerous then. Then a huge grin spread across Vale's face as he understood what the Queen of Stone had done to the Viper. He glanced around him, the sudden thought of finishing Jehal off running wild in his head, but there was no way to do it without being seen. Too many of his own men.

His grin faded. He kicked Jehal in the face and moved on. Shezira was waiting for him, calm and peaceful, holding the crossbow he'd given her, casually pointing it in his direction.

'What's it to be?' she asked. Vale didn't answer, didn't break stride. He saw the tension in her face, saw her finger on the trigger straining. He saw the moment she understood that he'd come to taker her to her death. He saw her pull the trigger and stepped sideways exactly at the same moment. The bolt struck one of the men behind him, who grunted. He saw the fright in her face, a momentary fleeting thing, and then he reached her. He tore the crossbow out of her hands with a casual force and threw it away. Doubtless she held some idea of walking with calm dignity to her death, but Vale was having none of that. You murdered Hyram. Murdered a speaker. For that he had her dragged out of the tower by her hair. By the time he got back to the executioner's block, Valgar was already there, pushed down, held over the basket that would hold his head after his body no longer had any need of it. A few dozen of the Adamantine Guard stood around. Several dozen more were running into the Chamber of Audience. The council of kings and queens, it seemed, had spiralled out of hand. As expected.

Do it now! That's what the speaker had said, and so Vale didn't wait. He lifted the headsman's sword, a strange weapon with its weight and balance all wrong for fighting, but perfect for this one specific duty.

Hold her head and make her watch,' he said of Shezira. 'Those were the speaker's order s. She has to watch.' At least Shezira wasn't begging or pleading or shouting. She was as calm as anyone could reasonably be. She was afraid though, badly afraid, and that made her less than the men holding her. She kept trying to tell Vale something about Hyram and the night he'd died, but he wasn't listening. Whatever she had to say, he had no wish to hear it.

He turned back to Valgar and lifted the sword. 'Whatever you have to say, there's little point. No one is here to hear it and no one will remember it. No one has come to witness your end, either of you.'

The sword sang as it swung through the air. It cut through King Valgar's flesh as though his neck was made of cheese – a slight resistance but nothing more. Soldiers dragged the body away. Vale left the head and the basket where they were. Let the last thing Shezira saw be the severed head of her greatest ally.

In a blink she was on the block, held still, ready for him. He lifted the sword.

'I didn't push Hyram, Night Watchman.' That's what she'd been telling him for weeks. Months. He wasn't interested. Her voice was ragged. I ought to be silent. Whatever she says, it changes nothing.

'That is not my concern. The council has spoken.'

'He would have died without me, Night Watchman.'

'But he didn't, Your Holiness. He died with you.'

Her voice broke. Was she sobbing? Whatever her last words were, Vale didn't hear them. Something about alchemists and Jeiros and Hyram and poison, all spilling out of her mouth in a garbled mess.

He brought down the sword, and after that Shezira had nothing more to say.

They slipped between the mountains of the Purple Spur in twilight. They were safe then, Semian thought, in the few short hours either side of darkness. In the daylight hours they hid from Zafir's dragons flying overhead, losing themselves among the cavernous valley forests, between trees that made even their dragons seem small. Mostly they slept. At night they loitered near streams, drinking and feeding, never staying in one place for long. They could move about at night. The speaker's riders would be in their cups, their dragons safely tucked up in their eyries when the sun went down. Only the day belonged to the enemy.

When they were close to the eastern end of the Spur, the palace end, they slipped out only in the dark, flying down through the valleys, skimming the earth, a few miles every day, no more. The dragons hated it, flying low in the dark. Their restless anxiety suffused their riders but Semian drove them on. They forayed out to the plains and left the Picker and the blood-mage a day's walk from the City of Dragons. They could do that now, for the blood-mage had served his purpose. Then they slipped away again, back into the safety of the peaks. The speaker never knew how close they were.

And there they waited. Semian sat quietly while his new acolytes fretted around him. The Great Flame had brought him here, he knew that. He could feel it. Taking the Picker and Kithyr to the city to be their spies was an excuse, a cloak of shadows obscuring something greater. In truth, he was sorry to be rid of the blood-mage. A strange understanding had grown between them as the magician had worked to save his leg. The man served the Flame with a deep and strange passion, and Semian felt stronger when he was around.

The Flame had called him though. Called him here. His leg was far from healed, would probably never heal, but there was no poison in the wound any more. The magician had done what was needed, and so, with regrets, Semian had let him go. We both have a greater purpose. That's what the mage had said, and Semian understood him perfectly. In his dreams, the priest with the burned hands came to him night after night, always the same. Wait. Be strong. There is a thing you have to do.