Away from the crowds, the boy turned a corner. Instead of running, he hunched down into a corner among the shadows. When the rider barrelled round a moment later, the boy let him pass and then stood up behind him.
It was done in an instant. The man's steps faltered as he wondered which way to go. A blade, blackened so it wouldn't catch the sun, flicked out of the boy's sleeve and into the rider's side in one fluid stroke. The boy was already running again before the man even knew he'd been stabbed.
The rider launched himself after the boy again. He took a few steps. His hand went to his side, and then he stopped. He looked at his hand and at the blood streaming out of him. Inside he was suddenly burning. He couldn't speak. The pain grew and grew, filling him up from his core to the tips of his fingers and toes, and yet he couldn't speak, couldn't move, couldn't even scream. Mercifully, when the pain reached his head, everything went white and then dark.
The boy dropped the knife and kicked it aside. He zigged through the maze of wooden pens out of caution, but no cry went up behind him. He sprinted. He'd chosen the place to murder the knight quite carefully, but now time was against him. He ran to the edge of the pens, to where another rider, this one in full dragonscale, was waiting with two horses. When Rider Semian saw the boy, he nodded and climbed into his saddle.
'Is it done?'
The boy gave a curt nod and mounted the second horse.
'What about the other one?'
'I recognised him. He's another one of Jehal's.' The boy threw off his cloak. When he took off his hat, long dark hair streamed out. He wiped the dirt off his face and suddenly wasn't a boy any more, but Lady Nastria, Knight-Marshal to the Queen of the North. 'Go! We need to be quick.'
Nastria wheeled her horse and pushed along the muddy paths between the pens, retracing her steps. As they got close to the dead dragon-knight, a couple of old women got up and ran away. They hadn't had time to steal much more than the dead man's purse, and Nastria didn't begrudge them that. The two dismounted and tied the body across the back of Nastria's horse. Together, they galloped towards the Adamantine Palace and the City of Dragons. As they drew close, Nastria dismounted again, put her peasant cloak and hat back on and led both horses up to the palace gates.
'Rider Semian, pledged to Queen Shezira,' declared the knight. The gate guards looked him up and down, took a good look at the body on the other horse, then nodded and let him pass. Nastria carefully stared at her boots. The guards barely noticed she was there at all.
They made their way to the Tower of Dusk in the western wall of the palace. There were many towers scattered through the palace, and each one had been given over to a different dragon-king or dragon-queen while the next speaker was being chosen. Queen Zafir resided in the Tower of Air. King Valgar had been given the Tower of Dawn on the eastern wall. King Tyan had the smallest of them, the Humble Tower. Kings Narghon and Silvallan had the Tower of Water and the City Tower over in the northern section of the palace. The Tower of Dusk had been given over to Queen Shezira. Nastria led the horses right up to the tower doors. Rider Semian opened them and they went in, dragging the body of the dead knight with them.
Inside, several other of Queen Shezira's riders were waiting. As soon as the doors closed behind him, Nastria threw off her disguise again. She pointed at the body. 'Get that down to the cellars. Where's the queen?'
'The queen is with the speaker.'
The riders parted as Lady Nastria pushed between them. Two reluctantly picked up the body by its arms and legs. 'Your Ladyship, this man isn't dead.'
Lady Nastria paused and frowned. 'Just get him down there. Let Master Kithyr know that he's needed.'
The knights exchanged nervous glances. Nastria shooed them down the stairs. In the wine and food cellars they cleared a heavy wooden table and laid out the body. Nastria looked him over. They were right. The man wasn't quite dead after all.
She slapped his face. 'Can you hear me, traitor?'
The man didn't move, so Nastria moved around him and jabbed a finger into the wound in his side. This time he moaned and opened his eyes.
'Hurts, does it?' She pushed her finger further in. The man wailed and screwed up his face. 'Rider Tiachas. A few months ago, you flew your dragon out of Outwatch with your two other brothers in treachery to the edge of the Barnan Woods. You took them to meet some outlaws. They went to buy something. You took them to the edge of the woods and they never came back. Do you know what happened to them? They were killed. I paid a pair of sell-swords to do it. I often wondered what went through your mind when they didn't come back. Were you afraid? And then, slowly, as the weeks turned into months and no one came for you, there must have been hope. Pointless, useless hope, Tiachas, because there's always been someone watching you. Can you hear me?' She wiggled her finger and Tiachas squealed. 'All I want to know, Tiachas, is who poisoned your soul. I was there, just now, when you bought the poison from that Taiytakei clown. I saw you with Prince Jehal's man. Was it Jehal, then?' She forced open his eyes and held out the satchel. 'What is this, Tiachas? Some sort of poison? Did Jehal pay you to murder our queen?'
Tiachas rolled his head from side to side. His tongue lolled out of his mouth. Blood was pouring freely from the wound in his side again, pooling on the floor under the table. Noises bubbled in his throat, but if he was trying to speak, the sounds made no sense.
No? Are you trying to tell me that I'm wrong?' Nastria pulled a knife out of her belt and started to toy with it. 'I don't think I believe you, Tiachas, but I don't mind. You're trying to pretend you still have some courage and honour, and that's a good thing.
So I'll humour you. All I want to know is who, Tiachas. Who bought you?'
The head-shaking intensified.
'I will torture you, Tiachas, and you will tell me. And when you have, I will parade what's left of you in front of every court in the realms before I hang you. I will destroy your family, root and branch. They will lose everything, and they will hate you because you were the traitor who brought this down on them. Do you understand?'
Tiachas lunged at her, but he was feeble and slow, and Lady Nastria moved easily out of the way. The pair of riders caught him and held him down before he could roll off the table.
Nastria turned away. 'Let him go, and leave us. Please encourage Master Kithyr to hasten himself.'
The riders released Tiachas. They seemed uneasy and left slowly. Nastria watched them go.
'You know what disturbs them so, don't you? No, perhaps you don't. Master Kithyr is not a torturer but a blood-mage. So you will tell me what I want to know. And if you were hoping to die before I found out what I wanted, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed there too.'
Nastria walked slowly around the cellar. Everything here had been laid in by Speaker Hyram's stewards for Queen Shezira and her knights. Hyram must have done the same for all the dragon-kings and -queens. How easy it would it be to poison an entire clan.
She put that thought aside. No speaker in two hundred years had murdered a guesting king or queen, and she doubted Hyram was about to start. She selected a bottle of wine, opened it and poured some for herself. Eventually she heard Kithyr padding across the stones towards her, but she didn't look round.
'Tiachas is a tool,' she said softly. 'I want to know who the craftsman was.'
It took the sorcerer an hour. There weren't even any screams, but then that was always the way with Master Kithyr. Always quiet. Throughout it all Nastria didn't look round. She stood statue-still, sipping at her wine, and by the end the bottle was empty. She didn't feel even slightly drunk. Instead she felt cold. Blood-magic. Another necessary evil. Like sell-swords.