Free The Order of the Scales by Stephen Deas Page B

inside of a pair of gaunt-lets. ‘Gaizal!’ Slave-soldiers were pulling themselves out of the wreckage now, screaming and wild-eyed with terror. Back outside, in the blinding sky, Meteroa thought he could see more dragons clutching cages. Sheer weight of numbers would push him out of his cave eventually. Is that what they were doing everywhere? Vishmir’s cock – how many of these poor fools did Tichane have?
    He turned and ran. The slaves pulling themselves out of the cage shrieked and gave chase. They didn’t even notice Gaizal, still sat in the scorpion. They were faster than him, one of the drawbacks of dragon-scale armour. But there were men-at-arms waiting somewhere at the bottom of the tunnel. Somewhere.
    A slave-soldier landed on his back. He spun, flinging him off, but that merely gave the others a chance to catch up with him. They threw themselves at him like a pack of wolves.
    ‘Gaizal!’ he punched one in the face, smashing the man’s jaw, but toppled over backwards under the sheer weight of bodies. He could feel them already stabbing at him with their short swords, trying to find a way through his armour. He writhed and thrashed, trying to throw them off. Do you know who I am? Do you know what I did? I killed a dragon today! A fucking dragon!
    He roared and managed to free one of his arms to snap the neck of the man clawing at his helmet.
    ‘I. Will. Not!’
    But that was as far as he got before another one of the slaves grabbed hold of his head and bashed it into the stone floor over and over, and everything went black.

The Alchemy of Fear
     
    ‘I’m doing this for you, cousin,’ Kemir muttered to himself as he strung his bow. His bow or Sollos’s bow? He wasn’t sure any more. They both looked the same. The realisation hurt. He should know something like that. He cocked his head at Snow. ‘I want to know what the Scales told you.’
    After you bring me my alchemists, Kemir.
    ‘After, after. You always have to get what you want first, don’t you?’ He didn’t stop, though. His feet felt springy. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought that Snow had put some kind of spell on him. Somehow he felt lighter. The rider who’d killed his cousin was still alive, could still be made to suffer. An arrow in the leg had been the start of it, but there would be more, so very much more. Yes, it was good to remember why he was here, after all this doubting. Good to have a simple answer again . . .
    The alchemists, Kemir.
    ‘You’d better leave a few of them alive after you’ve done.’ He looked at the hole in the ground that Snow had cleared. There were stairs underneath the dust and the rubble. Yesterday a large stone house had stood here but there was little sign of that now. No, house wasn’t the right word. Something bigger, more like a castle but not.
    They are far underground , said Snow in his head. I taste their fear.
    ‘I don’t suppose you can taste how many of them are down there?’
    There are eight, Kemir.
    Well, that’s me told. He started down the stairs. One step at a time, his feet feeling their way through the scattered debris. The light from the sky faded quickly as he went deeper.
    Can you not go quicker?
    ‘Can you not shut up? It’s dark down here.’
    I can light your way with fire, if you wish.
    ‘Or you could go find something better to do for a while?’
    No.
    Kemir picked his way onwards. In parts he had to drop onto all fours, feeling at the floor with his hands. Either the alchemists were hiding in the pitch black or else he was nowhere near them.
    They are not in darkness. Your caution is unnecessary. You may go faster.
    Kemir growled softly. ‘And how do you know that, dragon? Are you here?’ Down near the bottom of the stairs he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. The only light was the distant painful brightness of the sky, far behind him.
    I can see the edges of their thoughts, Kemir, and they are not the thoughts of men hidden in