The Order of the Scales Read Free

that led out onto the eyrie rocks when the first flame strikes came in and a plume of fire erupted down the passage towards him. He had just enough time to slam shut the visor on his helm and spread out his arms, as if he could somehow catch the flames and stop them from reaching Queen Lystra behind him. Whatever happens to her happens to you . Jehal’s words. Meteroa was quite sure that Jehal meant every one of them.
    The fire swallowed him up, weak and at the end of its reach, not enough to even stagger him. His dragon-scale shrugged off the heat. He whipped around for Lystra, his heart in his mouth for an instant, but she was still there, reeling slightly, open-mouthed, maybe a little red-faced and singed at the edges, but otherwise unhurt. The baby, wrapped in its blankets, started to cry again. Meteroa pushed her back down the hallway.
    ‘Wait here out of sight! If I shout at you to come, then run !’ If we manage to get out of here, a red face and scorched hair will be a small price to pay.
    He reached the outside of the eyrie, cowering in the grand doorway, blinking in the sudden sunlight. The sky was bright blue, the air filled with fire and dragon-cries. Circling the Pinnacles were the dragons themselves. Hundreds of them. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.
    Vishmir’s cock! He ducked back inside as another dragon strafed the eyrie-top and then another.
    So much for getting out.
    Two riders cowered beside him. He cast his eyes about, looking for something – anything – that might inspire him. Low battlements surrounded the top of the fortress, carefully designed to give cover from dragon-fire. Tall spikes littered the place. They looked like decoration, but Meteroa knew better: under clay tiles were solid iron prongs embedded deep into the mountain, there to deter dragon-landings. Most of the rest of the flat top of the peak was taken up by the Reflecting Garden, a bizarre relic of the Silver King, with its fountain that conjured water from the air, its channels and pools where water flowed upwards and wouldn’t lie flat. The handful of ornate little buildings between the garden and the tiny eyrie that made up the rest of the fortress were no more than a glorified entrance hall into the labyrinth beneath.
    Or a place to hide when dragons were burning the shit out of everything. He crouched down and squinted, looking for a dragon he recognised, Prince Hyrkallan’s B’thannan or King Sirion’s Redemption. He didn’t know what dragon Queen Jaslyn rode any more. He didn’t see either of those, though. What he did see was Prince Tichane’s colossal Unmaker, heading straight towards the eyrie-top. The dragon was clutching a cage in his fore-claws, the sort of cage that the Mountain King used for carrying slaves. And soldiers. Meteroa ducked as another flight of dragons flew overhead, raking the top of the fortress with fire again. Clearing the ground for a landing.
    The King of the Crags. Ancestors! If they knew how few men he had here . . .
    He bolted back down the entrance stair and ran through the huge hall below. The High Hall, where Queen Zafir and Queen Aliphera before her had welcomed kings and queens and even speakers. One wall was open to the sky, letting the sun sweep in through a row of ornate carved columns while the rest lay in thick shadow, littered with paintings and statues, layered with exquisite rugs and tapestries – or at least that’s the way it had been before Valmeyan’s dragons had filled it with fire. All that was left now were blackened statues, a few charred shards and a haze of smoke. Meteroa hugged the far wall, away from the light in case one of the dragons came back for another go. His riders and his men-at-arms were waiting for him in a second hall lit by shafts of sunlight from above. Milling about, scared, uncertain. Useless.
    ‘Down!’ he shouted. He paused. Valmeyan could bring as many men as he wanted. The tunnels and halls of the Pinnacles were the perfect place for