Stephen Deas - The adamantine palace

He's right, though. It's a question that demands an answer, and I don't have one.

The last thing he did, before he left, was take the black and white silks from under his pillow and tie them around his wrists. Southern knights often tied strips of cloth to their arms; worn on the left they were signs of conquests, on the right they signalled obligation, which made it an easy way to keep the Taiytakei silks innocently to hand. Generally, Jehal wore the black one on the left and the white one on the right. It seemed right, somehow.

Almost as an afterthought he took the black silk off again and put it across his eyes. The little golden dragon was still in Lystra's room, buzzing madly about the place, looking for a way out.

Jehal smiled. As he left, he started to whistle.

Arts of War

Jaslyn called Silence into a tight turn and dived. Five of Queen Shezira's riders, flying in a tight line alongside her, suddenly scattered, seemingly at random. The ground was straight ahead now, rushing to meet her. In the centre of her vision a cluster of soldiers raised their dragonscale shields. Silence belched fire at them and then spread out his wings, pulling out of the dive. An immense hand pressed Jaslyn into the dragon's neck, knocking the breath out of her. She didn't have a chance to see whether the fire had done anything useful, but she doubted it. The soldiers were a half-legion of the Adamantine Guard and they'd had plenty of time to lock their shields together. Then again, the point of the dive hadn't been to burn them; the point had been to distract them, to give her knights a chance, to lead them into battle in such a way that she didn't get herself killed.

Behind her, the five knights strafed the soldiers from five different angles at once, wheeled and flew away. They'd spent years perfecting that manoeuvre, all for this one day.

When she was safely away from the soldiers on the ground and their vicious scorpions, Jaslyn let Silence pick up a little height and turned to look for her riders. Three of them were following her; the other two were already on the ground. Which meant that, after they'd sprayed their fire and turned away, the soldiers had managed to hit them. Which meant that, had this been a real fight, they'd be dead.

'Two?' Jaslyn patted Silence on the neck. 'They got two. Did you see that? Do you think mother's going to be angry?' She smiled to herself as she flew Silence over the soldiers, tipping them a salute. 'So much for our clever plan, eh? Do you suppose we got any of them?' From up in the air it was hard to tell whether any of the soldiers had been burned. Even if their shield wall failed them, their dragonscale armour would deflect the worst of the flames.

Scattered around the Hungry Mountain Plains, other legions of the Guard were under attack, as each of the dragon-kings and -queens put them to the test. Jaslyn circled for a while, watching in case any of the attackers had come up with something original, but as far as she could see, none of them had. In the distance she saw one group of knights try exactly the same ploy she'd used herself. They didn't get the timing right. When the first knight unleashed his fire and pulled up his dragon, the other five should have been right there and they weren't. They weren't out by very much, only a few seconds, but it was enough for the legion to adjust its wall of shields and scatter the flamestrikes. A hundred and sixty years ago, when Master of War Prince Lai first demonstrated the technique, he'd left a hundred men dead or injured behind him.

Jaslyn sighed. For every pattern of offence, the legions had a counter. Nothing ever changed. It was almost like a ritual dance where everyone knew all the moves by heart. Supposedly, Prince Lai had invented four of the fifteen recognised tactics. The other eleven were even older.

She turned Silence away from the battlefield and spiralled down. In the middle of the legions Speaker Hyram had his tower, where he and the dragon-kings and -queens who weren't participating in the mocks fights could stand and watch. Her mother was there, and Almiri too. Lystra had stayed in the south, slowly getting fat with Prince Jehal's heir. As she flew past, she searched the tower for Prince Tichane but she couldn't see if he was there. The thought of the Crag King's ambassador left a strange sensation inside her, one that she usually reserved for her dragons.

She pushed all that away, landed Silence at the foot of the tower and handed him over to the alchemists and Scales who'd set Up a makeshift eyrie around the tower. Then she bounded up the steps. out over the plains, most of the other dragons were circling now, waiting to come back, watching the few who were still sparring with the legions.

'You lost two of my riders,' said Shezira as soon as Jaslyn reached the top of the tower.

'Prince Lai's pattern of Autumn Leaves.' Speaker Hyram smiled at her. 'Ambitious. Difficult to execute properly.'

'Which you didn't,' added Shezira.

Jaslyn clenched her teeth. 'What do you mean?'

'Your timing was wrong. The knights behind you were too slow. The legion had time to adjust.' She shook her head. 'Don't feel too bad. Someone else tried the same pattern and made the same mess of it.'

'Prince Jehal.' Hyram spat out the name. 'Your execution of the pattern was better.'

Shezira shook her head. 'I disagree. They were both equally poor.'

Jaslyn looked around, taking in all the faces. There were two men she'd never met who were Speaker Hyram's cousins, and a cluster of advisers around him. Next to her mother, Knight-Marshal Nastria was staring out across the plains, seemingly oblivious. Behind her, King Tyan sat in a chair with his tongue hanging out, his head lolling and his eyes staring up at the sky, constantly quivering. She recognised a few others from Lystra's wedding too. Queen Fyon, who smiled at her while her eyes filled with daggers. And Valgar and Almiri, of course.

Almiri caught her arm. 'The signallers on the field flagged seven injured from your attack. Their shield wall wasn't quite perfect.'

'And Prince Jehal?'

'Four.'

For some reason that made everything better. 'It feels strange, burning men I don't know for no better reason than entertainment. I hope they weren't killed.'

'The signaller indicated injuries only.'

'Who's winning?' Jaslyn tried to sound like she didn't care.

Almiri laughed, 'Not you. Queen Zafir. Six dead, thirty injured.'

'What?'

'She lost all her five riders doing it. She charged them. On the ground.'

'She did what?'

'She put her five knights on their dragons on the ground, and they charged the legion as though they were cavalry. Ran straight into it. Scattered men everywhere. Broke their shield wall completely. Then she flew in behind and burned them. They got all the men on the ground but they didn't get her.'

'But that's cheating.'

'Not according to Speaker Hyram. He let it stand.'

Jaslyn clenched her fists and ground her teeth. 'There are traditions! No contact. No one would land their dragons to attack a real enemy. They'd be killed at once! They're not supposed to do that.'

'The riders who charged across the ground would all have been dead. Speaker Hyram has ruled that, since it was Queen Zafir's dragon who did all the damage, and since she escaped unscathed, the score stands.' Almiri put an arm around Jaslyn's shoulder and led her towards the far corner of the tower roof, away from twitching ears. 'If you want my advice, you don't say any-thing.'

'It's cheating,' Jaslyn hissed again.

Almiri forced her to sit down. 'It's only cheating if the speaker says so, and the speaker doesn't. When was the last time you saw Speaker Hyram? Before this, I mean.'

Jaslyn spat over the edge of the tower. 'On the way to Lystra's wedding. When mother practically invited someone to steal our white dragon.' She frowned. 'If Prince Jehal can get King Tyan onto the back of a dragon to come here, why can't he bring Lystra with him too? That's not fair.'