Free The Order of the Scales by Stephen Deas

lurched and spun. For a moment he had no idea what had happened, then he was lying flat on the cave floor. Not falling the several thousand feet to the Silver City far below. That was good.
    Gaizal was lying on top of him.
    ‘What the . . .’ What in the name of your unholy ancestors were you doing? That’s what he’d been going to say, right up until he saw a hunting-dragon’s wing arc past the cave. ‘Tail?’ he asked, shaken. Gaizal nodded. They both scrabbled away from the edge. At the back of the cave Meteroa stopped and looked over his shoulder. ‘There’s still one scorpion working here,’ he said. He looked at the mangled ruins of the others. The riders who’d manned them lay about like broken dolls. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened to them, except that they hadn’t been quick enough to retreat from the cave mouth when the dragon crashed in.
    Gaizal didn’t say anything. Meteroa weighed up his options and then shrugged. Killing Tichane’s riders and even his dragons was all well and good, but the point , he had to remind himself, was to defend the fortress. The only way in, as far as Meteroa could see, was either up through the tunnels or down from above. And if even Zafir didn’t know the way in from below and the only way in from the Grand Stair was barred, then that left getting in through the scorpion caves. Meteroa couldn’t quite see how they would do such a thing. Presumably on very long ropes, except most of the caves had overhanging roofs which would make attackers ridiculously easy to pick off one by one as they tried to swing inside. So far, no one had even tried.
    I killed a dragon. The thought echoed in his head over and over, filling him with energy and purpose. He felt dangerously invincible. He turned back to the cave mouth in time to see another three dragons flying straight towards it. Two of them were carrying large cages in their back claws. The sky behind them was blue and clear and filled with sunlight. He suppressed a laugh. It was a nice day outside. Or would have been, if it wasn’t filled with dragons,
    ‘Bolt!’ shouted Gaizal. Meteroa found himself jumping onto the scorpion in reflex. He had a bolt in his hands and Gaizal was already at the cocking crank. They weren’t going to be able to move the scorpion up to the front of the cave any more. He could see that now. The rail was buckled from the impact of the dragon. Not that it mattered, since the dragons were coming straight in again. He couldn’t help but wonder what the cages were for. They looked like slave cages, but he couldn’t fathom what Tichane might be doing with his slave-soldiers up here.
    ‘Ready!’ Gaizal sat down into the firing seat and started to turn the scorpion. They had a few seconds, Meteroa decided, before the first dragon was close enough to burn them. The reach of a drag-on’s fire – another thing you learned by not dying. Most people didn’t understand what it took to be a dragon-knight. How many accidents there were. A careless flick of a tail and a lord’s son was dead, just like that. And as for fire, well, there was simply no way to learn about dragon-fire except to feel it. It always amazed Meteroa how many knights didn’t check that every part of their armour was locked together properly. Half the riders who came through his eyries were cripples before he was done training them.
    The front dragon had several riders on its back. They weren’t even trying to use the dragon to shield themselves. Because they think we’re all dead? Meteroa permitted himself a vicious little grin as Gaizal fired the scorpion, neatly skewering the lead rider. He deserved it. Yes. When you spend most of your life working around dragons, you learn not to take chances. He pulled the fire shield down and waited as the flames washed around him. When he lifted the shield and peeked past it, the first dragon was gone. The second, though, was heading right for the cave mouth. He slammed down the