The tone of the queen's words told Nastria that she was dismissed. She bit her lip. At the door she hesitated. 'I could stay, if you wish, Your Holiness. We have a few hours yet.'

Shezira shook her head. 'No, Knight-Marshal. Let me alone a while. I like it here. It reminds me of flying, with all this space around me; and I want to be the first to see my white coming in. Besides, don't you have a hundred and one things to do?'

'Only one, Your Holiness.' Nastria smiled sadly as she left. 'Only to serve my queen.'

The Ash Dragon

Sollos spent the night snuggled up inside a huge hollow log. He'd covered himself in leaf mould to keep warm, and in the end he'd slept surprisingly well, even after it started to rain. No one had come after him, and when he woke up, it didn't take him long to convince himself that all the dragons were gone. He made his way cautiously back to the river in case any of Queen Shezira's riders had survived, but all he found were the charred remains of the luggage. The white was gone, no one else was there, even the body of the Scales was missing. Washed away in the river? he wondered. But while the river was wide, the water was only a few inches deep, and peppered with sandbars and stones.

Maybe the Scales didn't die after all.

He shrugged, washed and drank, and then, more in hope than expectation, rummaged through what was left of their supplies in case something edible had survived.

'Gotcha!'

Sollos almost jumped out of his skin. Kemir was standing right behind him.

'Anything that looks like breakfast left in there?'

'No.' Sollos gave Kemir a glare. 'Burned to the core.'

'They really went for that white dragon, didn't they?'

'Whoever they were.'

Kemir shrugged. 'Some other bunch of lords on dragons. Can't tell them apart myself

'It matters.' Sollos sighed. 'We're supposed to notice that sort of thing.'

'Well I didn't see any colours, if that helps.'

Sollos gave him a sour look. 'Not really. Did you see what happened to the white dragon?'

'I saw it take to the air after the first couple of flamestrikes. I didn't hang around to see where it went.'

'South. It went south.'

'Took what was left of its Scales with it too.'

'Did it?' Sollos blinked in surprise.

'Hanging from one of its claws. Maybe it was hungry. It hadn't fed, after all. He must have been dead. He was right in the middle of that first blast.'

Sollos sighed. That explained why he hadn't found the remains of the Scales here. 'We shouldn't stay out here. If they come back, this is the first place they'll look.'

'It's the first place Queen Shezira will look too.'

Sollos thought about this, trying to work out how soon the queen would realise that her precious white dragon was missing. 'It'll be tomorrow before anyone comes looking for us. Anyone friendly, that is. Anyway, we ought to try and find that alchemist.'

Kemir looked truly surprised. 'Really? Do you actually think he's still alive?'

Sollos shrugged. 'He might be. You have something better to do?'

They walked in silence up the valley, staying close to the treeline and scanning the skies, until Sollos decided they'd covered a mile. For most of the morning he wandered up and down, calling out as loudly as he dared. The alchemist never appeared. In the end he gave up. For a brief moment he wondered whether it had been right to let the alchemist go off on his own. No one had come in pursuit, despite his fears. They could have stayed together. The man had been wounded too.

No, he decided. Kemir would tell him that when dragons came, it was every man for himself, and the best thing they could have done was to scatter. Kemir would tell him exactly that, and Kemir would be right. He put the alchemist out of his mind.

When he came back, he found Kemir sat against a tree. Nex to him was something large and furry, something shaped vaguely like a rat, except it was the size of a small deer.

Kemir grinned. 'Lunch,' he said. 'Do you think we could start a fire?'

'Absolutely not.' On a clear day like this a plume of smoke would be visible for miles.

'Well you're no fun at all today. They're not coming back. You never know, your alchemist might see it. He's probably only lost.'

Sollos shook his head. 'Tomorrow. By then the queen might be looking for us. Then we'll have a fire.'

Kemir shrugged and started to hack at the carcass. Raw meat was better than no meat at all. They had the river for drinking water. All in all Sollos thought he could come to like being out here, if he didn't have to constantly scan the skies.

Yes. And there's the rub, remember?

He got up and found things to do to fill the time, and eventually he splashed back down the river to the remains of their supplies, in case he'd missed something.

He had. The boxes and bags piled up by the river were all still ruined, and there wasn't a thing he could see to salvage, but when he turned away and let his eyes scan high up the sloping sides of the valley he saw what he'd missed. A great black scar, scratched through the trees. Before, in the light of the early morning, that side of the valley had been in shadow. Now the sun was high overhead, the wound in the forest was obvious.

He blinked and stared, and then looked again, and when he was quite sure, he raced back to Kemir and dragged him to come and look as well.

'There!'

Kemir sucked in air between his teeth. 'Is that what I think it is?'

'That's not a flamestrike.'

Kemir shook his head. 'No. Too big.'

'Much too big.'

'You think there's a dead dragon up there, don't you?'

Very slowly, Sollos nodded. 'Only one way to find out.' 'We've got about four hours of daylight left. Do you think we can get up there in time?'

'No. But we can get a lot closer than we are now.' They looked at each other and shared a grin. A dead dragon meant dragonscale. Dragonscale meant gold, buckets of it, far more than Queen Shezira's knight-marshal had ever put in their pockets. Suddenly they were simple soldiers again. Simple soldiers out to make their fortune.

Getting there took them the rest of that day and most of the following morning. The smell led them too it in the end, the stink of burned wood laced with something else, something sweet and fleshy. The dragon was there, tangled among the trees it had shattered in its fall. Its wings were twisted and broken, but most of it was intact and still so warm that Sollos could feel the heat of it pushing at him through the air. Here and there its scales were black with soot. Its eyes had already turned to charcoal. Tiny swirls of steam or smoke still curled out of its mouth and nose.

Kcmir pulled out a knife, ran up to its flanks, touched the scales and then jumped away yelping.

'Bugger me! Ow! It's hot! Really hot.'

There was the slightest sound from underneath one of the dragon's broken wings. Instantly, Sollos had his bow and an arrow at the ready.

'Who's there?'

Slowly, a streaky black figure emerged. For several seconds Sollos stared. Then the man wiped some of the soot off his face, and Sollos breathed out. The alchemist.

'Lady Nastria's sell-swords.' The alchemist slumped to his knees. 'Thank the flames. I got… Um. I got lost, you see. And then it started to rain, and I was cold and I couldn't sleep, so I started to climb up, looking for somewhere dry. I saw the flicker of the flames up the mountain through the trees. Well, I knew it must have been a dragon come down during the battle to still be burning. Which meant it would be warm and there would be shelter, you see, so when the sun came up I came here instead of going to the river. Um. Sorry if I caused you any trouble. How did you find me?'