Some two years before the Black Mausoleum
The path down the side of the valley was steep and stony and hard to follow. When they reached the bottom, Siff’s head still felt as though it wasn’t quite a part of the rest of him. The first he knew that they were close was the taint in the air, the old familiar smell of smoke and charcoal and burned skin. Memories stabbed at him, dulled a little by the dust but still sharp enough to bite. This is the last one, he promised them. Then I’m out of these mountains. No more dragons, no more burning. Silk sheets and soft women for me.
They took their time coming down, and the riders had finished their work when they arrived. Flames flickered among the skeletons of what had once been huts and shacks. The village was gone. In another day there would only be a black scar on the landscape. That and the inevitable pile of charred corpses where the riders had butchered anyone too old or too young or too crippled to be sold as a slave. Scavenger food. Siff tried not to let his eyes find that, but Sashi found it for him.
‘Look.’
He didn’t want to but he couldn’t stop his eyes turning. The riders had put the body pile close to the trail. Men and women who were dead because of him, even if they were shits, even if they raped and tortured their own sons and daughters, even if he wasn’t supposed to care one whit about what happened to them. At least it was a small pile this time.
‘Looks like they took a lot of slaves then,’ he said. Unless the dragons were hungry and had simply eaten everyone. There was always that.
‘Pity.’
She meant it too. A lifetime chained to the oars of a Taiytakei slave ship for the men, being playthings for the women and the boys, and that wasn’t punishment enough? Siff shook his head. Although in a way she was right. If they’d killed everyone, that would have been better. If they’d taken slaves, they’d be held in pens back at the eyrie. He’d need to keep away from those. People might recognise him.
Sashi hissed, ‘I wanted them all to burn.’
‘Some of them did and the rest are slaves. Let that be enough.’ He stared at the blackened bodies and shuddered. He’d keep away until the dragons made their next flight to the slave auctions in Furymouth. That would be best. He ought to hate himself but he didn’t. He didn’t feel much of anything at all these days.
Most of the riders were gone. Only a pair remained, their dragons resting by the far edge of the settlement. The riders had stripped off most of their armour. They looked bored — no, not bored. They’d taken dust. Ancestors! That was why Sashi was keeping close to him, keeping small and insignificant behind his back.
Half the riders at the eyrie took dust, which he got here, where it was made. These were supposed to be the other half, the self-righteous pricks who burned outsiders because some of them made dust and dust destroyed people. Yet here they were, the same self-righteous pricks, fuzzy-faced and dark-eyed from exactly what they’d come here to wipe out. Hypocrites, the lot of them. He’d yet to meet a dragon-rider worth the spit out of an honest man’s mouth.
Might say the same for myself.
He fingered his knives and wondered how easy it would be to gut them and steal their dragons. How much would he get for a pair of monsters? More than he’d ever get for trading dust, that was for sure. Yes, and then a thank you from some eyrie master in the shape of a knife in the back. Only riders sat on the backs of dragons.
The two riders finally noticed him. Siff let his knives be. He was, at heart, a man who preferred not to take risks if he didn’t have to.
‘Enjoying the harvest?’ He forced a grin.
‘There’s nothing! Nothing here!’ The first rider rested a hand on his sword as he strode closer. Siff shrugged.
‘I expect that’s because you let your dragons burn everything.’ Behind their riders, the two dragons glared. Dragons terrified the shit out of Siff, terrified the shit out of everyone with any sense, he liked to think. They’d squash you with a careless step, squash you flat. Damn things always looked angry too. Angry and hungry with their baleful eyes the size of dinner plates and teeth like a forest of swords. He shuddered. Did their riders ever get used to how big they were? ‘Took a good enough haul of slaves though, eh?’ He glanced back towards the pile of bodies. ‘Or did you feed them all to your dragons?’
The rider’s hand clenched the pommel of his sword so tight that Siff could see his knuckles turn white. He didn’t draw it though. ‘There’s no dust, you fool.’
Of course there’s not. That’s because they hide it out in the forest and only I know where. He frowned and peered at the rider. Dilated pupils and the man was swaying slightly, as though drunk. ‘By the looks of you, you must have found some. ’ He could have stabbed himself. That wasn’t supposed to come out. You didn’t provoke a dragon-rider. Just didn’t, not if you wanted to keep your skin.
The rider looked flustered. For a moment the devil in Siff took over his mouth. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.’ Shut up!
The rider growled. He pulled his sword half out of its scabbard. Siff jumped away and whipped out a knife. The dragons eyed him with interest. You could feel their attention. You could feel them waking up, sensing the possibility of blood, and feel their remorseless hunger. But then the rider frowned and stared and seemed to lose his thread, caught in the flip-flop of emotion that came with too much dust. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He slid his sword back where it belonged.
Siff smiled and put his knife away too. ‘Then let’s forget all about it,’ he said. And thank Vishmir for that. ‘Got a purse for me?’
The rider shook his head. ‘Not here, sell-sword. You come back with us.’
‘What?’ It took a moment to realise that he meant it, that they wanted him up on the back of a dragon, and there was no way in the nine realms he was doing that. ‘Why?’
The rider spat at his feet. ‘Because I tell you to, sell-sword.’
‘I don’t think so.’ He tried not to look around for places to run to. If they were going to kill him right here, not a thing in the world would stop them; and the trouble was, the more Siff put himself in their boots, the more he could see how they’d do exactly that.
‘Then you and your purse can both crawl off and rot under the earth. We’ll keep our whore though.’ The rider turned away. Behind him, the other one had almost finished putting his armour back on.
‘Wait!’ Wait? Damn fool.
‘What?’ The rider didn’t turn around. He was already doing up the straps on his dragon-scale.
‘I come back with you and then I get paid, right?’
The rider shrugged. ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Maybe my eyrie master wants to stick a spike up your arse and hang you in a cage.’
You couldn’t help but look at the dragons. Siff shook his head. They were just too big even this far away, out of reach of their fire-breath. But to get closer, close enough to touch… No. No, he wasn’t doing that. It made him want to scream.
The dead men he’d betrayed were laughing at him. ‘I’ll walk,’ he spat. ‘You lot owe me.’ He started to back away and put a hand on Sashi’s arm. ‘Come on, lover. Leave these gentlemen to their pleasure.’ It would take him a week or more to get back to the eyrie on foot. With a bit of luck the slaves would be gone by then and that was a thing to be happy about. Maybe it hadn’t worked out too bad after all.
‘You’re not taking her.’ The rider looked past Siff and leered at Sashi. ‘No. She can ride with me. She knows what I like.’
I bet she does. ‘Best let her stay with me, rider. Otherwise she might just bite it off.’
‘No.’ Sashi pushed past him and looked the rider up and down. ‘I’ll go with him. It’s fine.’
‘It’s bloody not fine.’
She half-smiled, half-leered at him. ‘I’ll wait. You won’t be long, right?’
Siff backed away from the riders and their monsters. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the looks that went between the rider and Sashi. That was where she’d got her dust then. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Betrayed mostly, but with a bit of pity for her too. They’d burn her, more likely than not, once they were bored with her. That’s what happened when you played with dragons. ‘Suit yourself then.’
He turned away, an itch between his shoulders until he’d walked the first mile or two and saw the dragons up in the air at last, flying home. Empty cages hung beneath them, a few wooden bars lashed together with crude ropes. That was how the dragon-knights carried their slaves. Sometimes the cages fell apart in mid-air, but what did that matter? They were only slaves, right? Plenty more out there. Bastards.
He stood still, watching them go, higher and higher off to the south until the sky swallowed them, and then, only then, did he give a deep sigh and turn round, heading back for all those hidden stashes of dust.
He was shaking.