Stephen Deas - The adamantine palace

And waited.

He was on the point of reaching for the silk again when the messenger boy finally appeared, creeping silently down the path, Jehal tensed, ready to spring.

The boy must have had a sixth sense. As Jehal and his men launched themselves, he was already spinning around, jumping away with a knife in his hand. He lashed out and one of Jehal's men grunted and staggered. Then Jehal had the sack over the boy's head.

'It's a woman!'

'I know that. Pin her down? Jehal hissed. She was deadly quick but no match for three strong men. 'Get her hands. And get that bloody knife off her!' For a few seconds the four of them wrestled in grim silence, and then Jehal punched at where he guessed the woman's face would be and the struggling stopped. Together they wrapped another sack around her waist, pinning her arms.

'Shit.' The wounded man was looking at himself, at his hands. His shirt was soaked in blood. He stood for another second and then slumped to the earth, lost among the bracken.

'Stay here,' growled Jehal. 'Deal with him.'

'He's dead, Your Highness.'

'Yes. Unfortunate. And he's a rider of Furymouth. We can hardly leave his body here, can we? Deal with him and then come back to me.' He searched the woman carefully for more knives, made sure her arms were properly pinned and tied a rope around her neck. Then he dragged her away through the trees. Whenever she seemed to be coming to her senses, he pulled on the rope and made her fall. I don't need you looking pretty, not that you ever were. Just alive and able to run, that's all.

He'd come to the woods the day before, looking to see how far he'd have to go. There was a long-abandoned forge not far from where the dragon race ended. With a cellar. At the time it had seemed perfect. It had also seemed a lot closer to the place he'd chosen for the ambush.

Finally, after it seemed he'd been dragging the woman for an hour or more, he reached it. He pulled her inside and threw her down the stairs to the cellar, then closed the door behind them. Finally he pulled the sack off her head and threw a bucket of water over her. He smiled and gave a little ironic bow.

'Lady Nastria. Queen Shezira's knight-marshal. What a pleasure to have your company at last. Shame about the circumstances.'

She looked at him. Her lips were broken, her face bloody and bruised. One of her eyes was already so swollen she could barely open it. She spat out a tooth and opened her mouth.

'Scream if you want, but no one will hear you. That's what all women do in the end, isn't it? Scream for help?'

Nastria closed her mouth. 'Traitor,' she slurred.

'Traitor? Me? Because I gave your queen my word and then didn't keep it? Just like Hyram, eh?' He laughed. 'Traitor? You don't know me, Knight-Marshal. Not at all. No, no treachery here. All I'm doing is righting a very old wrong.' He shook his head and sighed. 'I've been watching you. Would you like to see how?' Without waiting for an answer he took out the white silk and pressed it to her eyes. 'Look. Look hard. A little bit of sorcery that someone gave me. And don't pretend to be shocked. Does Queen Shezira know about your blood-mage?' He took the silk away. 'You understand, don't you, that I wouldn't have shown you that unless I was going to kill you?'

She looked at him, defiant and sullen at once. 'What do you want, Jehal?'

'Here.' He held out a cup of water. 'Water. I thought you might be a bit of a mess by the time I got you back. You know you killed one of my riders back there.'

Nastria looked at the cup and turned her face away.

'Lady, you and I both know that good poison is expensive and nowhere near as easy to come by as others may think. When I kill you, it'll be with steel.' He picked up a sword from the corner of the cellar and drew it from its scabbard. 'This was my father's, back when he could hold it.'

'Then get on and use it, Jehal. Your fate is already sealed and you can't change it.'

'I'd sooner destroy the palace itself than murder an artist such as yourself. But as I cannot have you following me… A lady knight-marshal. I've often wondered what it must be like for you, surrounded by riders who are all so much stronger. In full armour I imagine you can barely stand up. But you're quick, I'll give you that. And you can do something that almost no other rider could ever do: dress like a serving boy and slip through the palace, and no one gives you a second glance. Sometimes you're Lady Nastria, knight-marshal. Sometimes you're a pot-boy, a scullion, a maid, I admire you, I really do. You and I are alike.' He smiled. 'If you want to be sure that something is done properly, there's nothing like doing it yourself.'

'How long?'

'How long what?'

'You and Zafir.'

Jehal laughed. 'A long time, Knight-Marshal. Long enough that we glance at one another in a way that only lovers do, no matter how much we try not to. It pleases me that you're the one to see through it. I suppose you've already told Hyram.'

Nastria shrugged.

'Well I'm going to feel very silly if you haven't.' He held out the cup again. 'Please.'

She spat and looked at him with scorn.

'No, you have told Hyram, and I know you have. "Your wife and the Viper, Lord Hyram. Watch them closely." That's what you said. He didn't take it very well. It's all falling apart for him, isn't it? He's ill again. The potions aren't working any more. Zafir is young and he's old. And then there was the vote. I wish, I really do, that I could have read his mind just that once. Just to know what went through it right then.'

'I know things, Prince Jehal. Things about the Taiytakei. Things you don't. They're not the friends you think they are.'

Jehal laughed. 'Poor Knight-Marshal.' He held out the cup one more time. 'Are you going to drink this or not?'

'Not.'

He nodded. 'It would have been a disappointment if you had. I don't suppose there's anything I could offer you that would make you betray your queen and bow your knee to me. To have someone of your abilities I would give a great deal. I'd have to know you meant it of course.'

Nastria simply stared at him. He knew that look. It was hatred.

He sighed. It would have to be the hard way then, and yet, in a way, that made him feel better. As he forced open her mouth and tipped the cup down her throat, he knew that he'd have felt dissatisfied somehow, if she'd crumbled.

She fought and spat, but she couldn't stop herself swallowing at least a little of the water, and slowly her struggles subsided. Her head lolled onto her chest. Jehal waited until she started to snore, and then tipped the rest of the cup on the floor and put his father's sword away.

'I told you it wasn't poison, Knight-Marshal. Although you're going to wish it was.'

60 The Embers

Tears streamed down Jaslyn's face. However much she wiped her eyes, it never helped because the smoke was always there. Semian had shown her how to breathe through a damp cloth like the others, and yet she was still constantly coughing. Even in the vast space of the central cavern, the air was becoming unbearable. Unpleasantly warm too, despite the river of ice-cold water running though the caves. Sooner or later the dragons were going to work out how to foul that as well.

'Turn back, Your Highness,' rasped Rider Jostan. 'There really is no need for this. Go back to the higher caves. Stay there with the alchemists. This is soldiers' work.'

She knew he was right. She didn't even have most of her armour any more. Yet, watching the figures moving through the smoke around her, she knew she had to go. 'Do you want to die slowly in this smoke, Rider Jostan? I, if I must die, will do so quickly and with clean air in my lungs.'

'The Embers will defeat the dragons, Your Highness,' said Semian quietly. 'One way or another.' That's what they called themselves, these soldiers of the Adamantine Guard. Jaslyn had never heard of them before, but she recognised their weapons. No swords or axes or daggers, only huge shields as tall as a man and giant crossbows that fired bolts as long as her leg and needed three soldiers at a time to move them through the caves. Scorpions.