Part 25 (2/2)

He started to laugh. Once he'd started, he couldn't stop.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a single dragon, pale as a ghost in the moonlight, take to the skies and fly away.

The Morning After Jehal couldn't put his finger on when the battle ended. The noise, the rumbles and thunder as the dragons smashed down the Adamantine Palace went on most of the night. He sat awake in bed, listening to it. Eventually it faded away and stopped. He might have dozed after that. He wasn't sure. Lystra slept, and he watched her. Looked at her by the light of a single tiny candle. He stroked her face and her hair, gently so as not to wake her. After a while, after the noises had stopped and everything was still, he very carefully climbed out of their bed and dressed.

'I'm sorry, my love,' he whispered in her ear, 'but these particular caves don't agree with me.'

The caves under the Gla.s.s Cathedral were still and quiet. There were no guards on his door, none to keep him safe and none to keep him from leaving either. He hopped and hobbled through the silent tunnels. Frightened faces glanced at him and turned away. Servants, scared witless, knowing they were doomed to die down here. But starving is better than burning, isn't it? Or is it?

He didn't find any soldiers until he reached the stairway to the Gla.s.s Cathedral itself. Until he climbed them, one excruciating step at a time. And at the top there's going to be a dragon waiting for me. And then what? He didn't know. What he knew was that kings didn't hide in cellars while their kingdoms burned around them. Kings faced their enemies. Even if they couldn't win. Kings died in daylight. In the open.

He reached the top of the steps. He'd expected bodies, but the cathedral was almost empty. The wreckage of a dozen scorpions lay scattered around the door. The air stank of smoke, of burned wood and scorched flesh. No bodies though. None alive, none dead.

He heard voices. Men, calling to each other. Outside. Not screaming and dying calling, but the matter-of-fact shouts of men busy at work. He hobbled to the door, blinking. No dragons? Was that possible?

A grey glimmer of dawn lit the horizon. Not much light, and at first he couldn't see the damage. The Tower of Air was a stump. The Speaker's Tower was still there, although it seemed to be missing several large pieces. He scanned the silhouette of the palace, looking for anything else that was familiar and finding little. The Tower of Dusk, the Tower of Dawn, the Humble Tower, the Azure Tower . . . all gone.

'h.e.l.lo?' he called. 'Did we win then?' There were dim figures moving in the darkness where the walls ought to be. They had bits missing, he began to see. Quite a lot of bits missing. It was warm outside too, strangely and almost uncomfortably so.

In the half-light a shape took form nearby. Jehal swore and jumped back, lost his footing and fell back through the cathedral door. 's.h.i.+t! c.r.a.p c.r.a.p c.r.a.p!' He was staring at a dragon only a dozen yards away. Rather, he was staring at a dragon's head. Lying on the ground. Still. Not moving. The size of a carriage.

He squinted, tracing the outline of the shape back into the gloom. Definitely a dragon. Dead.

An armoured hand reached down towards him. Held out to help him up. Jehal took it without thinking.

'You should be underground.' The voice was Vale's, ground flat with fatigue.

'Did you actually win?'

'Bluntly? I don't know. I don't think so. We drove them off. That's all.'

'There's a dead dragon in my palace.'

'There are more than twenty.' In his other hand, the one that wasn't helping Jehal to his feet, Vale was holding something strangely familiar. The Speaker's Spear.

'You won, Vale. You actually won.'

The Night Watchman laughed in bitter choking hacks. 'No. We didn't get them all. And even then . . .' He shook his head. 'Do you want to see what victory looks like? I will show you. Come!'

Jehal pursed his lips. 'Is this the part where you throw me off the top of a tall tower and then say I slipped?'

Vale slapped him so hard it made his head spin. The next thing he knew there were arms around his waist and he was picked up and thrown over the Night Watchman's shoulder like a sack of corn. 'All a joke to you, is it?'

'Let me go!' Panic and angry affront fought each other for Jehal's attention.

'No. Come and see your realms. Come and see what's left.'

Jehal supposed he ought to be afraid, but he wasn't. He was tired. Tired of fighting all the time. And he's not going to do it. He's not going to kill me. He can't. However much he wants to, he can't. It's not in him. 'Put me down, Vale. If you're going to murder me, at least give me the dignity of walking to my doom, eh?' Although, shameful to admit as it is, this is considerably less painful than walking would be.

'You did this, Speaker Jehal. You and all your kind.' Vale started to clamber over a heap of rubble that had once been part of the palace wall. In the half-light, draped over his shoulder, Jehal still couldn't see much. What he could see looked a mess. 'You don't get to die. You haven't earned that yet. I want you to see.' Reaching the top of the wall, a section that was still intact, Vale dropped Jehal on the ground next to a shattered scorpion.

'Ouch.'

Vale crouched beside him, gripped him by the throat and hauled him to his feet. 'Do you see?'

'Do I see what?' All he could see were ruined walls. The jagged remains of charred wood and steel that had lined them. Smashed towers. When he peered, he could see men moving among the rubble. Now and then he heard a shout. They were clearing the walls of debris, he realised. Very slowly, but they were clearing the walls and putting new scorpions in place. 'You never give up, do you? I'm impressed.'

Vale wrenched Jehal's head around to the glowing embers that had once been the City of Dragons. 'Are you impressed by that?' he hissed.

Jehal pulled himself away. His leg gave way again and he stumbled towards the battlements. Vale caught him.

'You don't get away that easily, Jehal.'

For a few moments he didn't know what to say. The city was gone. Totally gone. Torn to pieces and then set on fire. What hadn't been smashed, burned. 'Zafir,' he whispered. 'Zafir did this.'

'No. You did.'

'No.' Get a hold of yourself. 'No, I didn't do this, and now I think of it, neither did Zafir. You can blame us for a lot of things, Night Watchman, but we never woke any dragons. It's gone. So what? We'll build another.'

Vale's fingers tightened on his arm, gripping painfully. 'Build another?'

'Yes.' Jehal shook himself free a second time, careful not to fall over. 'That's what we do. Build another. You won, Night Watchman. You have fulfilled your purpose. Your name will go down in history. You have averted catastrophe. Well done. Now p.i.s.s off because I have a lot of work to do.'

For a moment the Night Watchman seemed lost in thought. He was staring at the Adamantine Spear. 'I slew six dragons in the night. There.' He pointed at something that looked like a dragon turned to stone and broken into pieces. 'There.' Another, much the same. 'There.' The third was largely intact. The look in Vale's eye was of a man in deep thought. Which wasn't what Jehal wanted at all.

'Go find some builders who can clear up this mess.'

Vale didn't move. His face didn't flicker, but there was a tear in the corner of his eye. 'The sun is coming up,' he murmured.

'Yes. Valuable working time is about to go to waste, eh?' And there I was, thinking for a moment of keeping you alive. Letting you see me have my victory, day after day after day. Letting that be my revenge. But no. You're too dangerous for that. He turned away.

'Jehal.'

'I am your speaker, Night Watchman. Address me properly or I'll have your tongue cut out.'

'Your Holiness.' Vale sneered. 'How many dragons went missing, Your Holiness?'

'Oh, I don't know. I was too busy putting down Zafir. Ask the alchemists.'

'The alchemists are largely dead, Your Holiness. The Adamantine Eyrie is gone. Look.'

Jehal squinted. All he could see was a thin haze of smoke that smothered everything. 'I see nothing.'

'I know. You were ever thus. The eyrie is gone. Your dragons are gone. Your palace is gone. Legions of my men are gone. Six hundred scorpions lined these walls last night. Perhaps a dozen have survived. We have more, of course. But we won't get them ready in time to make a difference. Go back to your tunnels, Jehal. Live in the filth and the darkness where you belong. For what little time you can.' He sighed. 'No, Jehal, I did not win.' He was staring at something behind Jehal's shoulder.

Jehal spun to face him, furious. 'That is the last . . .' The words died in his mouth. Instinct made him follow the Night Watchman's gaze. On the furthest corner of the palace, away towards the Mirror Lakes, a white dragon sat staring back at them, barely visible in the haze of smoke but clear nonetheless. Another smaller shape sat beside it. Dark. A young one. And then he saw another adult, and then another, squatting on the walls. As he watched, a fifth and then a sixth dragon glided silently out of the gloom and settled to watch. Then a seventh and an eighth. Three were hatchlings, barely out of the egg.

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