Stephen Deas - The adamantine palace

'Pity. I'd been hoping to have you for rather longer.'

'I'm sure you had.' Zafir whistled. Her dragon looked up from where it was splashing in the river with Wraithwing. 'But we can't risk anyone seeing us together now. You need to be gone before that dragon gets high enough to see Wraithwing and Emerald Mirror together.'

Reluctantly, Jehal got to his feet. He was going to have to explain to Wraithwing that he couldn't simply throw himself over the precipice and spread his wings, that he'd have to take to the air the hard way. He sighed, and then to his surprise Queen Zafir launched herself into his arms, pressing herself against him.

'I wish we had longer too,' she murmured.

Jehal stroked her hair away from her face and purred, 'I thought looking at me made you think of Hyram.'

Zafir made a face. 'It did until I got up here. Now it just makes me think of you without your clothes on.'

He kissed her and let his hands begin to wander. 'It won't be for much longer, my lover.'

'Give me the strength not to murder him in his bed, Jehal.'

'Give me the patience to wait for you.'

'I have to lie with that crippled oaf. All I think of is you with your starling-bride, and then all I want to do is slit his throat and then hers and be done with all this.'

With a great effort Jehal let her go. 'You keep that thought close to your heart, my Queen, and keep your mind on Hyram.'

She snorted. 'No fear there. For as long as I can bear it, he'll think of nothing but your potions, my mother's face and the hole between my legs.'

Jehal reached out to stroke her face one last time, then turned towards Wraithwing. He waved over his shoulder. 'Once he marries you and makes you speaker, you can cut as many throats as you like.'

'I'll hold you to that, Jehal,' she called after him. 'He'll be first. You can choose who comes second, you or your starling.'

38 The Ravine

The dragon was hurt. Kemir hadn't noticed that when they'd taken to the air in the middle of the night. In fact, he hadn't noticed much, clutched in the dragon's claws and hurtling through the night air at speed. The ground flashed past in the moonlight, not far beneath him but quite far enough to smash him to pieces if the dragon let go. The monster's wingbeats rippled through the air like thunder. For the second time in his life, he prayed.

In the dragon's other foreclaws the Scales held on tight to the woman, whoever she was, while she in turn screamed and shrieked herself hoarse.

The air got colder. Finally the dragon landed in a field of snow, tumbling in a spray of powder, while Kemir thought for the umpteenth time that night that he was going to die. The beast took them to the edge of a narrow ravine and jumped in, gliding down into total darkness. When it landed at the bottom it let them go and fell asleep almost at once. Kemir huddled up against the dragon's warmth and fell asleep as well, drained beyond exhaustion.

When he woke up, he knew something was wrong. The dragon's breathing was laboured, and the Scales was sitting by its muzzle, stroking its nose. This close, in the daylight, the dragon seemed even larger than it had the night before. Its head dwarfed the Scales; its amber eyes were larger then an open hand; its teeth…

Kemir didn't want to think about its teeth. Instead he looked up. The ravine was steep and narrow, so narrow he was surprised that a dragon could fly into it at all. He wasn't sure how any of them were going to get out again, and he was hungry. And if it wasn't for the dragon, they were all going to get very cold very quickly. The Scales didn't have any flying furs, while the woman, it seemed, didn't have anything else.

'I've seen you before,' he said to the Scales. 'What's your name?'

'Kailin.' The Scales didn't look up.

'What about her?'

'Her name's Nadira.'

'What's the matter with her?' When she wasn't screaming, she looked dull and vacant. She was sweating and shivering.

The Scales didn't answer.

'Who is she?' The Scales didn't answer that either. Kemir shrugged. 'What's up with your dragon then?'

'Her name is Snow. She's hurt.'

'Is it bad?'

'I don't know. She must have damaged herself when she fell into the river with Tempest. It looked like she broke Tempest's wing.' Kailin shook his head sadly and looked nervously at Snow. 'If she did, they'll have to put Tempest down, poor thing.'

'Poor thing?' Kemir scratched his head. 'How do you put a dragon down?'

The Scales flashed him a warning glance. 'Be careful. She's sleeping, but you saw what happened in the river. I don't know for sure, but I've heard stories that the alchemists give them something in their food. They go to sleep and then they burn from the inside.'

'I've seen that.' Kemir nodded. 'That's what happens when they die.'

'I wouldn't know. I've never seen a dragon die.'

'Well if it happens with this one, we won't have to worry about staying warm for a while.' He looked up at the walls of the ravine. No. Just staying fed. 'I don't suppose you have any idea where we are?'

The Scales shook his head. It didn't take long to discover that the Scales didn't have any food, water, shelter, spare clothing or any of the basic necessities for surviving out in the wilderness. He'd had a dragon, though. Apparently that was enough.

He left them to it and set off down the ravine, following the trickle of water that bubbled along the bottom. As he pressed on, the ravine grew gradually steeper and narrower. He passed countless caves. That's the Worldspine for you. Riddled with holes like a honeycomb. Yawning caverns big enough for an army and tiny holes barely enough for a man to crawl into. He began to see overhanging trees above, casting everything into shadow. The sides pressed in closer and closer; the trickle of water grew into a rushing stream that ran faster and deeper around every bend. Abruptly the cliffs on either side fell away and he emerged into the middle of a steeply sloping forest. He circled around to the top of the ravine and sat on the edge, looking out through the gap in the trees. He was high up in the side of a mountain valley. One that looked exactly the same as every other mountain valley.

Great. Nice one. That really helped. Shall we walk all the way back now?

He sat there for a long time, staring, until finally he muttered something and Sollos didn't reply, and it hit him, hard, that his cousin was gone forever. They'd spent a good part of their lives with only each other for company, although it hadn't always been that way. They'd roamed the realms, selling their sword arms, but this was where they'd been born, here in the Worldspine. They'd killed perhaps a dozen dragon-knights between them, but only because other dragon-knights had paid them to do it.

And now Sollos was gone. Their contract with Knight-Marshal Lady Nastria was finished and he was back where it had all started. He had his bow, his knives and his wits, which ought to be enough to survive out in these valleys. He didn't owe anything to the poor fools he'd left in the ravine. He was entirely free to do whatever he wanted.

And entirely trapped. He couldn't walk away from what he and Sollos had been. Not on his own. Not while Rider Rod was still alive. And then there was the dragon, and the glimmer of a possibility that he couldn't ignore no matter how unlikely it was to bear fruit. Trapped. Utterly trapped. Revenge was what he wanted. Revenge, not just for Sollos but for all the others, for every Outsider who'd ever burned. Which meant staying with the dragon and the Scales and the woman, whoever she was.

Which meant keeping them alive.

'Bollocks!'

The shout echoed around the valley and faded, lonely and unanswered. He sighed, clambered down from his rocky perch and strung his bow. It took him a couple of hours to track down a decent meal and another hour to skin and fillet it. Hiking back up the ravine took twice as long as walking down it. By the time he got back, he was exhausted and hungry. As far he could tell, he'd been gone for about ten hours and none of the others had even moved. Maybe the woman had rearranged her legs. He threw himself down and closed his eyes.