The Search Party
Sollos poked at the fire with a stick and glanced up the side of the valley towards the black scar among the trees where the dead dragon lay. Sometimes it would smoke. Sometimes, at night, he saw the flicker of flames. Then it would rain and the smoke and the fire would go away, and when the rain stopped the wound in the forest would steam instead. Today, though, it was quiet. Still and dull.
'You're looking again,' grunted Kemir.
'I know, I know.' The queen had been gone for six days now. Which made it twelve days since the attack. Two weeks, the alchemist had said. Two weeks and a big hammer. Well, he had the big hammer now.
'Hoy! You two! Get that fire going and boil up some water!'
'Aye, milord.' What he also had was the company of a dozen dragon-knights, seven hunting dragons and the alchemist. Sollos poked the fire again and threw on another couple of logs. As the dragon-knight turned away, he muttered an obscenity at the man's back. The dragons probably didn't mind what happened to their dead brother, but the riders and the alchemist certainly would. And while half of them were away searching each day, the other half had nothing better to do than sit around, stuck with guarding the camp.
'Are you sure we couldn't murder them all in their sleep?' muttered Kemir. 'Maybe we could poison them.'
Before Sollos could think of a reply, a piercing rumbling cry echoed along the valley. The first of the dragons was coming back. Every day six went out searching for the queen's white while the seventh circled high overhead, keeping lookout. Since the attack they'd not seen any dragons other than their own, and Sollos was quite sure that they were wasting their time. By now the queen's white was far away.
Still, if it meant waiting here until the dead dragon up the slope cooled down and there was a chance of looting some dragon-scale…
'He's a bit early.' Kemir was watching the arrival glide down towards the river. Sollos tore his eyes away from the forest and watched the dragon descend. Before it had even come to a stop, the rider on its back was standing up, unstrapping himself from his harness and sliding out of his saddle.
Kemir belched and threw a stone towards the river. 'You don't suppose they actually found something do you?' he said. 'They're not usually back for hours yet.'
Sollos shook his head. 'And there I was looking forward to another peaceful afternoon sucking on grass stalks and scratching my arse.'
'Yeah, and staring up at that dead mound of dragonscale and charcoal up there.'
'We're not going to get our hands on it. You know that, don't you?'
'A part of me knows that. We could buy land, you know. Our own little village with our own little subjects. Our own little manor house. With a brewery.'
'And a brothel.'
'Aye, and that.' Kemir sighed. 'Like I said, are you sure we couldn't poison them?'
'Even if we did buy ourselves a title, we'd still answer to the queen.'
'Oh bollocks to her! We could set up somewhere out here, in the mountain valleys.'
'And serve King Valmeyan instead?' Sollos snorted. 'I don't think so. Not him.'
Kemir's voice dropped to a growl. 'No. Not him. Not him at all. Do you think…'
The rider from the dragon was running towards them. A couple of the sentries were close on his heels.
'Uh oh.' Sollos let his hands drop to his sides and unconsciously fingered the knives at his belt. Kemir stooped down and picked up his bow.
'You two!' The rider from the dragon stopped a little short of them. 'Sell-swords!'
'Sell-swords with names,' muttered Kemir. Sollos took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and bowed.
'Rider Semian. How may we serve?' Semian was the third or fourth son of Duke Semian. Sollos could never remember which, nor did he particularly care. There were some sisters too. They all lived in the vast tract of arid wasteland known as the Stone Desert and the duke served Queen Shezira as Guardian of the North. Sollos wasn't quite sure exactly what the duke was supposed to be keeping at bay up there, other than perhaps the use of first names. This particular Semian was about twenty, skinny and buck-toothed. If he'd been born with a different name, Sollos thought it most likely that he'd have grown up as the village idiot somewhere. As it was he was a Semian, so he'd grown up as an idiot who rode a dragon.
'We have found a town, of sorts. Hidden in the mountain valleys.'
Sollos exchanged a glance with Kemir. 'Then it most likely falls under the dominion of King Valmeyan, Rider Semian.' It's obvious why Queen Shezira didn't take you south with her. Rider Semian's helmet was slightly too big for his head, Sollos noticed. It kept slipping forward. Less obvious why she thought you fit to be part of the search for her precious white. Unless she already knows this is a waste of time.
Now there was a thought. What if the queen herself had been the architect of the attack?
'It is built on the edge of a lake. There is nowhere for a dragon to land. When I passed low over the place, they shot at me.'
'And what did you do, Rider Semian?' asked Kemir. 'Did you burn them, Rider Semian?'
The dragon-knight took a step back, clearly unsettled by the edge in Kemir's voice. 'Certainly not, sell-sword.'
'Rider, there are, here and there, settlements among the Worldspine that claim freedom from the dragon kings and queens.' Sollos spoke carefully. 'They are home to hunters, trappers and others who live off what the mountain forests provide. They are, to a large degree, harmless.'
'I would have to disagree with you, sell-sword. I am quite aware that such places exist, and that they are dens of vice and corruption. They do not survive off the forest at all. They survive by polluting the realms with Soul Dust, sucking the life out of their hapless victims.'
'Rider, it is true that Soul Dust comes from these mountains, but it is not made in places like the one you have seen. It is made in secret camps that you would not see, flying overhead.'
'Perchance you are right, sell-sword, but how does it permeate out into the realms at large? Through places such as the one I have seen today, that is how.'
Sollos decided he would have to revise his opinion of Rider Semian. Maybe he only looked like an idiot. He bowed his head. 'That may be true of a few, Rider, but not of most. And if something is to be done about them, it is King Valmeyan's place to do so.'
'The queen tasked us to find her white, and that is what we will do. These outlaws may have seen something. They may have heard something. News travels, does it not, among these places?'
Sollos nodded, slowly. 'I see where this is going, Rider. King Valmeyan burns such places now and then, and whether they're filled with honest men or villains seems not to bother him. They see a dragon and they run deep into the trees. They see a knight and they hide. But perhaps a sell-sword…'
Rider Semian nodded. Sollos heard Kemir give an exasperated sigh.
'Sollos, you know they won't-'
Sollos held up a hand to silence him. 'Rider Semian, we are servants of the queen. We understand our duty.'
'Knight-Marshal Nastria was quite explicit. You know these mountains and these settlements.'
Again, Sollos nodded. 'Yes.' Now how did she know that?
'There will be a reward, if you find the white.'
This time Sollos grinned. 'Yes,' he said. 'I'm sure there will.' And it took every ounce of willpower that he had not to glance up the valley to where the dead dragon lay waiting for him.