Stephen Deas - The King of the Crags

Isentine grimaced. 'No.'

'Must I look among my own knights?'

'No.' The old man shook his head. 'I would know.'

'Dyalt's dragons were killed. Not taken, kjlled. How do you kill a dragon, Eyrie-Master?' She thought of Silence and the other dragons she'd seen slowly burning from the inside after they'd tried to burn the alchemists of the Worldspine out of their caves.

'Poison.'

Steaming in the rain. Hotter and hotter, until you couldn't even stand close to them. Until the grass around them burst into flames, and trees too. Until their eyes burst and turned to charcoal. Until even their bones turned to ash. Was there no other way? 'How else?'

Isentine shrugged and clucked. 'There is no how else. Dragons can be taught to fight each other. You've seen how they are when they mate. I suppose they might fight to the death, if trained that way. I've not heard of such a thing. Dragons have fought in the air and fallen and died from that. There are stories that Prince Lai once built a machine to throw a boulder the size of three men. They say that when his engineers were showing it off to him, one of its boulders struck his favourite dragon on the head and killed it. The engineers followed swiftly after, and the machine is forgotten now.'

'When Ayzalmir flew against the awakened dragons of the Syuss, he killed them with scorpions.'

'Which were poisoned. Ayzalmir flew with three hundred dragons and lost two hundred riders that day.' Isentine shook his head. 'Had you a true sorcerer, you might crush them with mountains, but the only way that I know is with poison. Or you can wait. They don't live all that long.' He laughed again.

'And where would one acquire such poison, Eyrie-Master?'

Isentine met her stare. 'From an eyrie, Your Holiness. Or from the master alchemists.' She could see the question made him nervous. Yes, because you know how my Silence died. 'The alchemists have sent plenty of venom out to all of the great eyries. They still fear your missing white.' He shook his head. 'No. Dyalt's dragons were not killed with scorpions. They were poisoned by someone who knew their path and knew the secret places in the desert where they would stop for water. It would be possible. Difficult, yes, but possible.'

'Or else there was a battle, their riders killed, the dragons taken and poisoned afterwards. You wouldn't need three hundred dragons for that.'

Isentine's brow furrowed. 'I suppose… That too is possible.'

'They're still out there in the sand, burning from the inside. Twenty of them. Send someone to go and have a look. Bring back water from where they would have stopped and have an alchemist tell me if it is poisoned. And then dam the Last River somewhere after Lake Eyevan. Let the Lake of Ghosts evaporate into nothing and the Syuss with it.' She stopped. She was sounding like a queen.

Like her mother. Shezira.

Abruptly Jaslyn turned and walked back to the doorway. She stood on the threshold, looking out at the flat barren ground of Outwatch, her eyes reaching further and further across the distant desert until they began to climb the distant foothills of the Worldspine, almost lost to the haze in the air. Dozens of dragons lay scattered around, most of them dozing, a few of them cleaning themselves. Some half-grown ones were chasing each other about, shrieking, flying, jumping at each other and dodging the occasional swish of a tail from an annoyed adult. She had more at Sand, as many again at Southwatch and dozens in the air watching the borders of her realm. Watching Almiri at Evenspire. Watching the speaker and her impending war. Even here, in the quietest place she had, the war wouldn't let her go. And it hasn't even started. Not properly. But it's just a matter of time before Zafir comes to burn Evenspire. Jehal will come with her, and Almiri is my sister, but so is Lystra, and I promised her we would not become enemies. Am I really so sure that Mother didn't deserve to die?

'And what of my dragons, Eyrie-Master.'

'It cannot happen.'

She bit her thumb, chewing on the nail. 'Jehal, Zafir. Now Sirion perhaps. My own riders, who think I am too young, too inexperienced, too… too unmanly to sit on the throne of Sand and Stone.' And they're right, and I would gladly hand it over to them, except to which one do I give it? Hyrkallan perhaps? He's the glue that holds them together. I don't know how… 'They bicker and squabble and argue behind my back as though I'm already gone.'

'I remember your mother. She was younger than your little sister when she first came here to be Antros' bride. She was about as old as Almiri is now when Antros died. Antros had a good enough claim to the throne, but he'd been raised in the east with Hyram. He wasn't one of us but we accepted him because he was going to be the speaker one day. Your mother had Syuss blood in her and the Syuss had murdered our last king. She wasn't well liked but we tolerated her too. Then Antros died and Shezira became queen. There were a lot of riders who didn't like that at all. She didn't belong here. She wasn't a true rider of the north.'

Jaslyn started to tap her foot, waiting for Isentine to reach some sort of conclusion. 'You helped her.'

'I did and she was a good queen. A strong queen. You are very much like her.'

'No I'm not.' Nor do I want to be.

'Yes you are, Your Holiness. The Shezira you remember is not the Shezira who first sat on the throne of Sand and Stone, still fat with your little sister, and stared out at a court filled with dragon-riders who wanted her dead and gone. Lystra probably saved your mother's life. They loved Antros. We told them that Shezira might be carrying a son. An heir. That we could look after him and make him king when he was old enough. Of course what came out was Lystra, but by then Shezira had had six months to make herself strong. There are still riders who look at you and see your mother, for better or for worse. Some of them will remember her for her courage and her strength and her wisdom. Others will just remember that they never wanted her in the first place.'

'And what do I do about it?' Jaslyn snapped, out of patience.

'You marry.'

'Marry?'

'And quickly. Prince Dyalt would have made you seem strong. An alliance with our nearest neighbours, your sister sitting on the throne in Evenspire. No one in your court would raise a word against you. Not to your face. Now you've lost that you look weak, Your Holiness. Sirion has unwed nephews. They're young but they might suffice.'

'They are children.'

'Then marry Hyrkallan.'

'Absolutely not.'

Isentine rolled his eyes. 'You do not have the luxury of being picky, Your Holiness.'

'Picky? He could be my grandfather!'

The eyrie-master grinned, the first time she'd seen him smile in a long time. 'When your mother first came here and said you were going to be my apprentice, I thought she'd come to tell me that I was too old, that it was time for me to take the Dragon's Fall.' He chuckled. 'She did come to tell me that I was too old. She told me you were wilful and proud and turned away every suitor she brought to your door. She told me I might wish I'd taken the Dragon's Fall after all Well I most certainly do not.' He put a hand on each of Jaslyn's shoulders and looked her in the eye, something he almost never did. 'As a mentor to his student for a moment, pick one of your riders, Jaslyn. One who takes your fancy and who comes from a strong family. I will make a list of names for you if you wish, with Hyrkallan at the top of it. Pick one and marry him and let him rule with you. Do it soon. Someone who's a good leader. Then take the rest of them to war. You need a man in your bed before then. We need an heir, Your Holiness.'

'Perhaps I don't want a man in my bed.' She glared at Isentine, but for once he didn't wilt away.