The Price
Twice a day the door to their hut opened and half a dozen Outsiders armed with spears and knives would be clustered outside. One of them would very gingerly place a bucket of water on the floor, together with some dried fish and half-rotten fruit. On the first day, Sollos told them that they had six days before the dragon-riders came. Every morning he reminded them that they had one fewer day to let him go. It took until he was down to two before the Outsiders made up their minds. In the middle of the day the door opened again, and this time there were nearly a score of them. One stepped forward, a heavyset man in his middle years with a thick curly black beard.
'What do you want?'
'Some food that doesn't give me the runs would be nice,' muttered Kemir. Sollos shushed him.
'First of all to thank you for your hospitality.' Sollos smiled. 'Second, I'd like my bow and my knives and my armour back. Then I'd like to know about the white dragon.'
'And what then?'
'We find the dragon, we go away and leave you in peace.'
'We've seen dragons every day since you came.' Curly Beard looked tired. He was frightened.
'We're all looking for the white dragon. You weren't very friendly when they came by, so they sent us instead. When they find what they want, they'll go away. They don't fly for the King of the Crags and neither do we.'
Kemir spat. 'Doesn't mean they won't burn you out if they don't find what they want.'
'What if we help you find the white dragon. What's in it for us?'
'Not being burned?'
Sollos glared at his partner. 'What do you want?'
'Money.' Curly Beard set his face hard. 'A hundred gold dragons.'
'So you've seen one then.'
Curly Beard nodded. 'Could be. Could be we know of someone who's seen one.'
'All right. A hundred gold dragons. That had better buy me a lot of help.' Sollos could feel Kemir behind him, almost unable to contain himself.
'Up front.'
Sollos snorted. 'You must think I'm an idiot.'
'There's been a white dragon seen a few times in these valleys. Not here but somewhere else. I can take you to where they've seen it. And that's all you're getting until I see gold.'
'If you're lying, you know you're going to get burned.'
'Could be that might be coming anyway. So I'll take the gold first if you please.'
Sollos shrugged. 'All right. Not my gold anyway.'
Ten minutes later they were free. Another half an hour and they were in a boat, rowing across the lake with Curly Beard and two of his friends. They were a bedraggled lot, these Outsiders, thought Sollos. Their clothes were ragged and crude, a mixture of animal pelts and cheap cloth that had gone rotten in the permanent damp. Everything they had looked worn and well used, the handles of their knives shiny and smooth and moulded to the shapes of their hands. A few had belts, the leather hard and cracked, the buckles tarnished and bent. Others made do with string. Most of them, Sollos realised, were scarred or damaged; some were missing fingers, others had whole limbs or even faces that had broken and then healed out of shape. Apparently, life was hard as an Outsider. Harder than he remembered.
Sollos had been born and raised somewhere out here. He ought to sympathise, and yet he didn't, because he didn't want to. What was the point, when it was all long gone and burned away?
Curly Beard rowed them to the gravel flats a little way from the settlement, the place where Sollos and Kemir had first landed. They waited for half the morning, patiently standing in the steady rain, until around noon Curly Beard pointed. There was a dragon skimming across the lake towards them. A moment later the three Outsiders were off, fleeing into the safety of the trees. Sollos stood and watched the dragon. He waved.
'I hope that's one of ours,' muttered Kemir with a glance towards where the Outsiders had gone. 'Now would be a fine time to run into whoever started all this.'
The dragon circled over them once, close enough that Sollos could recognise it, and then landed, the wind from its wings spraying a cloud of gravel into the air. Rider Semian beckoned them over. He didn't bother to dismount.
'I almost gave up on you,' he shouted through the rain. The dragon, Sollos saw, was steaming very slightly.
'Well we're very glad you didn't,' shouted Sollos back. Belatedly, he remembered to bow.
'And? What news?'
'They claim to have seen her. They claim they know where she is.'
'Where?'
'Not here, but they claim they can take us to her.' Sollos hesitated. 'They want gold.'
'How much?'
'Two hundred dragons.'
Rider Semian didn't flinch, but his dragon suddenly snorted and snapped at Sollos, who fell over in his haste to get out of the way. The dragon glared at him.
'You ask a lot, sell-sword.'
'I don't ask for anything, Rider,' yelled Sollos, picking himself up and warily watching the dragon. 'That's the price the people who live here are asking.'
'Tell them no.'
'Then you'll never find the queen's dragon, Rider Semian.'
The dragon bared its teeth. Its tail was up in the air, flexing and flicking back and forth like a whip. Among their own kind, dragons usually lashed out with their tails when they were annoyed. It was meant as a warning. But when they did it to humans… Sollos closed his eyes and tried not to think about it.
'Tomorrow,' shouted Semian. 'Meet me back here tomorrow.' Abruptly, the dragon turned and began to run, launching itself across the flats. The stones hissed and danced with each colossal stride, and Sollos fancied he could see the whole lake ripple. Then the monster unfurled its wings and with a clap of thunder hurled itself into the air and was away. He watched it go. He could actually see it rise through the air with each beat of its wings, he realised, and then dip again between them.
'You should have asked for a thousand,' said Kemir, suddenly standing beside him.
'Apparently so.' Sollos shrugged. 'I suppose it's not his money either.'