the huge wild open sky.
They will come back , she thought.
Yes.
She scanned the skies, the cloud below, the old instincts of a dragon-rider driven into her before she was ten years old. Scattered specks moving in the far distance. To the south where the clouds broke she could see the distant sea and the line across the land that was Tyan’s Dyke. To the east the Fury river wound away towards Purkan and all the valley towns that once dotted its shores, Hammerford and Valleyford and Arys Crossing, all burned and gone. To the west the Yamuna wound into the endless dark wrinkles of the Raksheh, wrapped in perpetual mist and cloud. Perhaps in the very distance, groping through a white sea that faded to the far horizon, was a slight dark stain. The mountains of the Worldspine.
To the north …
She could see them. The three solitary mountain tops, distant protrusions punching dark through the raincloud. The Pinnacles. So far away they were almost lost in the haze, but they were there. Unmistakable.
Home.
Yes.
Her thoughts were a shoal of fragments. Diamond Eye’s were deep and ancient. He was remembering from a thousand years ago.
Yes?
A surge of something ancient burst from the eyrie below. It echoed across the plains and faded and died. Diamond Eye felt it. Saw it. Saw the emerald dragon shattered from its fall, one of his own kind he had known for fifty lifetimes lying crippled and broken in the folds of the eyrie’s womb. Saw the dragon cut by the Black Moon’s knife and die at the touch of an old goddess who always took something away.
Yes, they will come back , Diamond Eye answered, distracted by the death below them. Yes, home. Yes to both of those things and more . His thoughts were far away. He was thinking of the Black Moon. Remembering, and Zafir knew how it troubled him.
They circled downward. The gold dragon Blackscar was keeping his distance but hadn’t withdrawn like the rest. He was watching. Zafir nudged Diamond Eye closer, but as soon as she did, the gold turned and flew away, hard and fast.
That one carries a rage that has strength even among dragons.
She swooped low again. The emerald lay smashed across the dragon yard, wings broken, its spirit dead and gone. The handful of Adamantine Men they’d rescued from Furymouth swarmed over it now. There were no special rituals for killing a dragon. You took your chances as they came. Mostly you died trying, and even if you managed to kill one you died at the claws of another moments later, or else you burned; and that was the way of being an Adamantine Man.
They cut off its head. There was no need, but they did it anyway. The corpse would burn from the inside now, getting hotter and hotter for days if not weeks, until flesh and bone crumbled to ash and all that was left were scales and a few scorched bones from its wings. Scales for armour, bones for bows. No one had been able to harvest a dead dragon since the Adamantine Palace had burned, but these men would, and Bellepheros would show them how.
She roamed Diamond Eye’s memories, rode among his distant thoughts, looking for bitterness or anger or resentment, but as he watched this dead dragon, he felt nothing.
Sorrow is not for us , he told her. There is no loss. We come again. Always and for ever.
It troubled him though, that knife, as it troubled her and Tuuran and Bellepheros too. Their journey would be wreathed in bloody fire – that was always going to be true – but Diamond Eye had met the Black Moon’s knife and with furious hostility submitted to its cut. Dragons and men alike, shaped to the Black Moon’s will. He used it over and over without thought, on anyone and everyone who crossed his path. It would have to stop.
Yes.
They landed on the rim. Zafir’s armour was starting to chafe where she hadn’t taken the time to bandage herself under the dragonscale. She dismounted from the war harness, the top half of her cased in gold and glass, dragonscale underneath, bare feet and
They will come back , she thought.
Yes.
She scanned the skies, the cloud below, the old instincts of a dragon-rider driven into her before she was ten years old. Scattered specks moving in the far distance. To the south where the clouds broke she could see the distant sea and the line across the land that was Tyan’s Dyke. To the east the Fury river wound away towards Purkan and all the valley towns that once dotted its shores, Hammerford and Valleyford and Arys Crossing, all burned and gone. To the west the Yamuna wound into the endless dark wrinkles of the Raksheh, wrapped in perpetual mist and cloud. Perhaps in the very distance, groping through a white sea that faded to the far horizon, was a slight dark stain. The mountains of the Worldspine.
To the north …
She could see them. The three solitary mountain tops, distant protrusions punching dark through the raincloud. The Pinnacles. So far away they were almost lost in the haze, but they were there. Unmistakable.
Home.
Yes.
Her thoughts were a shoal of fragments. Diamond Eye’s were deep and ancient. He was remembering from a thousand years ago.
Yes?
A surge of something ancient burst from the eyrie below. It echoed across the plains and faded and died. Diamond Eye felt it. Saw it. Saw the emerald dragon shattered from its fall, one of his own kind he had known for fifty lifetimes lying crippled and broken in the folds of the eyrie’s womb. Saw the dragon cut by the Black Moon’s knife and die at the touch of an old goddess who always took something away.
Yes, they will come back , Diamond Eye answered, distracted by the death below them. Yes, home. Yes to both of those things and more . His thoughts were far away. He was thinking of the Black Moon. Remembering, and Zafir knew how it troubled him.
They circled downward. The gold dragon Blackscar was keeping his distance but hadn’t withdrawn like the rest. He was watching. Zafir nudged Diamond Eye closer, but as soon as she did, the gold turned and flew away, hard and fast.
That one carries a rage that has strength even among dragons.
She swooped low again. The emerald lay smashed across the dragon yard, wings broken, its spirit dead and gone. The handful of Adamantine Men they’d rescued from Furymouth swarmed over it now. There were no special rituals for killing a dragon. You took your chances as they came. Mostly you died trying, and even if you managed to kill one you died at the claws of another moments later, or else you burned; and that was the way of being an Adamantine Man.
They cut off its head. There was no need, but they did it anyway. The corpse would burn from the inside now, getting hotter and hotter for days if not weeks, until flesh and bone crumbled to ash and all that was left were scales and a few scorched bones from its wings. Scales for armour, bones for bows. No one had been able to harvest a dead dragon since the Adamantine Palace had burned, but these men would, and Bellepheros would show them how.
She roamed Diamond Eye’s memories, rode among his distant thoughts, looking for bitterness or anger or resentment, but as he watched this dead dragon, he felt nothing.
Sorrow is not for us , he told her. There is no loss. We come again. Always and for ever.
It troubled him though, that knife, as it troubled her and Tuuran and Bellepheros too. Their journey would be wreathed in bloody fire – that was always going to be true – but Diamond Eye had met the Black Moon’s knife and with furious hostility submitted to its cut. Dragons and men alike, shaped to the Black Moon’s will. He used it over and over without thought, on anyone and everyone who crossed his path. It would have to stop.
Yes.
They landed on the rim. Zafir’s armour was starting to chafe where she hadn’t taken the time to bandage herself under the dragonscale. She dismounted from the war harness, the top half of her cased in gold and glass, dragonscale underneath, bare feet and
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