Stephen Deas: The adamantine palace

They left King Valgar's eyrie at the crack of dawn. Huros was expecting that, because that had been in his plan. Today was the longest stage of their journey, all the way to the Adamantine Palace. They would stay there for one day, no more and no less, to let the dragons rest. He was quietly looking forward to it. He would spend the time with the highest alchemists in the realms, perhaps even with Master Bellepheros himself. It was an opportunity to advance himself, and this had filled his thoughts until late into the night. Thus he wasn't entirely awake when someone knocked on his door. He stumbled outside while the sun was still creeping over the horizon and checked his potions were all carefully packed. Then he wrapped himself in his thick and deliciously warm flying coat, secured himself to the back of a dragon and started to count the others getting ready around him. By the time he reached twenty, his eyes had grown so heavy that he thought he might rest them for a bit. The counting was rather pointless, after all. He knew exactly which dragons were with them and exactly where they were going.

Others climbed up beside him. He felt the dragon start to run and then launch itself into the air. He had a sleepy look around, and then his eyes closed.

When he woke up two hours later, as his belly reminded him that he hadn't had any breakfast, he was in the wrong place. The mountains of the Worldspine were too close. More to the point, there should have been some thirty dragons in the skies around him. Instead, he could see the white, two other war-dragons, and that was it.

'Er… Excuse me?'

There were two men on the war-dragon with him. One was a rider, sitting up above its shoulders. The other one looked like a Scales. Huros furrowed his brow, trying to remember the man's name. Kailin. The one who looked after the white.

'Hey! Scales!'

The Scales turned around and gave Huros a blank look. The rider was too far away to hear them over the wind.

'Scales! Can you hear me?'

The Scales nodded.

'Where are we?'

The Scales shrugged.

'Um, don't you know? Where are the others then?'

The Scales shook his head and shrugged again.

'Well. Oh. Then who does know?'

The Scales tipped his head towards the dragon-knight. Huros rolled his eyes and gave up. Strictly speaking, Scales were subordinate to Huros and the other alchemists, and all belonged to the order. In reality, most Scales lived in a tiny world of their own that seemed to consist of themselves, their dragons and very little else.

His stomach began to rumble. He decided to have one more try. 'Scales! Um. Have you anything to eat?'

The Scales nodded and passed back a hunk of bread. Huros gnawed on it and quietly fumed. Under no circumstances was a squadron of dragons to split without consulting the senior alchemist present. Since Huros was the only alchemist Queen Shezira had deemed fit to bring, that was him. He would have words, he thought grimly. Words, yes. Strong and forthright ones.

They flew for hours, and with each hour, Huros clenched his lists ever tighter. Eventually it occurred to him that Queen Shezira might have changed her plans because of the news of Queen Aliphcra's tragedy. Huros wasn't sure why that should be, but then he hadn't really been paying much attention. He'd had his own plans to worry about. Besides, that didn't change anything. He should have been consulted. Ancestors! He didn't even know where he was any more, except that the peaks of the Worldspine were to the right and there were more mountains to the front. Which meant they were still flying south, away from Outwatch. He furrowed his brow. Or was that the other way round, and the mountains should be on the left?

The pressure on his bladder grew. He pressed his legs together and bit his lip, but eventually he had to give in. Dragon-knights did this all the time, he told himself, and he started to undo the straps that held him onto the dragon. Even the Scales had calmly stood up, relieved himself into a bottle and strapped himself back in again. Except when Huros stood up, the wind buffeted him and almost knocked him over, and he was so terrified that he couldn't go. The pressure turned gradually into pain, and by the time they landed, it was so excruciating that Huros was in no fit slate to have words with anyone. He didn't waste any time to see where he was, but stumbled and staggered away towards the nearest tree.

Before he was done, his dragon and its rider were already taking off again, the beast lumbering away and flapping its wings, accelerating up to a speed where it could lift itself off the ground. For one terrifying heartbeat Huros thought he'd been abandoned; then he saw the Scales and a pair of strange-looking soldiers, and when he looked up, the other dragons were there, still in the air overhead. The Scales was sitting by the edge of a wide open stretch of jumbled rocks, next to a pile of boxes and sacks that must have come from the dragon-riders. Here and there sparkling ribbons of bubbling water criss-crossed and threaded their way between the stones and among streaks and strands of silvery sand. Strips of ragged grass, perhaps a stone's throw across, lined the river's course before the forest trees took hold.

The two soldiers walked slowly towards him. They were carrying some strange contraption between them. From the way they were walking, it was awfully heavy. Huros had a moment to wonder where the queen's precious white dragon had gone, when it shot through the air straight over his head, so close that the tree beside him shook and the alchemist was almost lifted off his feet into the dragon's wake. He clung on to a branch. By the time he'd recovered, the dragon was rolling on its back in the river bed next to the Scales, flapping and splashing its wings. Its rider was standing nearby, soaking wet, waving his arms and shouting furiously at the Scales.

The two soldiers shouted something as well and shook their fists, then carried on with what they were doing. Huros waited until they were close, and then stepped out of the trees. 'You're not dragon-knights.' Both soldiers had longbows slung over their backs. The bows were white and made of dragonbone. Precious things. The alchemist wondered where they'd got them.

The soldiers looked at him. They exchanged a glance and seemed to smirk. 'Clever of you to notice,' said the taller of the two. 'Was it the fact that we're not wearing several tons of dragonscale that gave it away, or that we're not sitting around and picking our noses?'

'We're sell-swords,' said the other one.

The tall one nodded. 'That's right. Currently we've sold them to your knight-marshal.'

'They don't come cheap, either.' The shorter one gave Huros a nasty grin. 'Our swords are long and sharp and very hard.' He definitely smirked.

'Lady Nastria?' Huros frowned. The thought of her sent a jolt through him. She'd given him a bottle of something strange, and he hadn't even looked at it. He was supposed to tell her what it was.

'If that's what her name is.'

The tall one belched loudly. 'That's the one. I'm Sollos. This is my cousin, Kemir. Since you're not the Scales, you must be the alchemist.'

'Huros,' said Huros.

'Well then, Huros the alchemist, make yourself useful. There's half a ton of luggage down there by the river. We'd quite like to move it up into the trees before the heavy brigade come back.' The sell-sword made a rude gesture towards the rider who was still standing over the Scales, waving his arms and shouting. 'I don't imagine he'll be much help.'

'That was pretty good, though.' The short one grinned again. Kemir. 'The white one forgot she had a rider for a moment there. If he'd been any slower jumping clear when she rolled…' He drew his finger across his throat. 'Pity, really. I would have pissed myself. Still, we don't want all our luggage crushed, do we.'