Jehal looked up and smiled. Queen Fyon, but she was going now, turning away. Hadn't he been about to say something? Whatever it was, it was gone.
It seemed that he blinked, and his knights were gone too. That's right. Maiden's Regret fools with your sense of time. You haven't got long before it takes you now. Not long at all.
There was a door. That's what he was supposed to do. Go through the door. And before he'd even finished thinking it, it was done, and up another spiral of stairs, and the stupid wedding shift was already falling off, and then he was naked and standing in a room with eight sides, with windows in all the walls, every one open, with a floor strewn with pillows and blankets and mattresses stuffed with everything from down to straw, and Lystra was standing in front of him. She was far gone with the Maiden, swaying slightly from side to side, and her eyes were black and immense.
A little droplet of fire seemed to fall inside him and gently explode. Princess Lystra opened her mouth and reached for him. He swayed towards her.
Not yet not yet not yet!
He had seconds before he lost any idea of what he was doing. With all that was left of his will he started counting windows. Second on the left from the door. Faces east. That one…
He pushed Princess Lystra towards that window. 'Stars,' he murmured. 'Look up at the stars.' He stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her, and peered through the air to another tower and another window. The window was still dark. Queen Shezira wouldn't have had time to get back to her rooms yet. A pity, because he'd wanted her to see him take her daughter. A sort of prelude to everything else he was going to take, and she wasn't even there.
But then the Maiden came, and Lystra was grinding herself against him, and there could be no more waiting.
22
Scorched Earth
It took the rest of that day and most of the next to reach their destination, picking their tortuous way along the floor of a valley, among hundreds of rivulets that bubbled and splashed among a sea of strewn rocks and streaks of sand and gravel. On either side of them forested slopes rose sharply towards rocky peaks. It rained relentlessly. Every now and then one or other of the riders missed his footing and slipped. By the end of the first day all of them were limping.
Which serves them right for trying to hike in heavy armour, Sollos thought.
In the evening Curly Beard and the other Outsiders sat sullenly silent, huddled under the thickest of the trees, seeking what shelter they could get from the rain. When they looked at the dragon-knights, their eyes glittered with a mixture of greed and hate. The knights glowered back. Sollos and Kemir took it in turns to snooze, but no one else got much sleep. Strangely, the alchemist seemed the most anxious of them all.
As soon as dawn broke, Curly Beard jumped to his feet and declared it was time to move on. With great reluctance, Rider Semian handed over the promised gold. Curly Beard disappeared back down the river with three of his friends and the sack of coins, leaving two of the Outsiders to guide the knights onwards.
'If we went after them, we could still catch them,' muttered Kemir.
It took barely an hour for the other two Outsiders to abandon them. The first slipped away in the woods when one of the knights fell and broke his hand. The other one, when he saw that he was the last, simply ran, trusting the sureness of his feet on the rocks, knowing the knights could never catch him. Rider Semian declared the man a traitor and ordered him shot, but by the time Sollos had his bow strung, the Outsider was too far away. He sent a couple of arrows after the man to keep Semian happy and then pretended to listen while the knight told him how poor a shot he was.
Slowly, Sollos realised that the knights didn't know what to do. He watched them dither and wondered what profit there might be from leaving them to their fate. Six riders and one alchemist, alone in the mountains…
He looked up. Sure enough, high above, he saw a speck in the sky. The knights had someone to watch over them.
'You! Sell-sword!'
Sollos looked around. He assumed it must be one of the knights, but it was the alchemist, pointing a finger at him.
'Master Huros. Enjoying yourself?'
'I, urn… Certainly not. I require your help. It is clear that the correct course of action is to proceed in the direction we were being led. Please explain this to Rider Semian.'
Sollos cocked his head. 'Why don't you explain it to him yourself, Master Huros?'
'Because Lady Nastria made it quite plain that you two had knowledge of these mountains.' The alchemist made a noise in his throat. 'Um. He will listen to you, and we must press on.'
'Must we? I thought we might go back. Burn those naughty Outsiders for being so ill-mannered.'
'No, Sword-Master Sollos, we must press on. If, uh… if those men were telling us the truth, we cannot be far from the dragon. Turning back will waste days. I repeat, we must press on, before-'
'Before what, Master Alchemist?'
'Um. None of your concern. All that matters is that we reach the dragon quickly.'
Sollos thought about that. There didn't seem much to gain from leaving the riders to fend for themselves, but in the end what made up his mind was that the alchemist had actually bothered to call him by his name. With a sigh, he hauled himself to his feet. He didn't bother telling the riders where he was going and didn't bother looking back when they shouted at him, simply gestured at them to follow. Eventually they did.
Kemir was the first to notice the smell. The rain had stopped in the middle of the day, and for the last few hours they'd walked on in glorious sunshine. Apart from his feet, Sollos was feeling almost dry when Kemir abruptly stopped and sniffed the air.
Sollos stopped as well. He wrinkled his nose. There was… something, something slightly familiar.
'Soul Dust,' muttered Kemir, keeping his voice low so the dragon-knights, a few dozen yards behind them, wouldn't hear.
Sollos shook his head. 'No. There's something right enough, but it's not Dust. Dust doesn't smell like that.'
'It does when you burn it.'
Sollos shrugged. 'It can't be. No one here burns Dust.' He swept his hand across the empty landscape. 'Do you see anyone burning Dust?'
Kemir glared at him. 'No, obviously I don't, because if I did, I'd be pointing at them. Just because you can't see the shit on the bottom of your boot doesn't mean it doesn't stink, and I'm telling you, that's the smell of burning Dust.'
Five minutes later Sollos sniffed again. This time he smelled smoke.
They looked at each other. Then Kemir started to run as best he could over the scattered rocks. The riders shouted. Sollos paused for long enough to yell at them to smell the air, and then set off after Kemir. Around the next bend of the river they skidded to a stop.
Kemir pointed to the scorched scar at the edge of the forest. 'Do you think that's the settlement we were supposed to be finding?' A few charred pieces of wood were still smouldering. The rest of whatever had been here was ash, but that wasn't what caught Sollos's eye.
'Bugger the settlement.' He pointed up the river.
At first glance it might have been a huge white boulder, but there was something too regular about it, too smooth. The boulder, when Sollos looked closely, had eyes that looked back. As he watched, the boulder slowly unfurled its legs, wings and tail and turned into a dragon.
Kemir gave a little whoop of joy. 'Finder's fee!'
Sollos touched Kemir on the arm, a gesture of caution. 'Something isn't right about this. There's no rider.'
'Of course there isn't. We were there, remember. When the other dragons attacked? Fire, shouting, running for our lives? Am I ringing any bells?'