Scream of Stone

41

26 Eleint, the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR) The Canal Site

Surero’s hands shook and his hair stood on end. The black firedrake’s grip on his arm was more than firm, but it wasn’t painfulnot yet. He stood still, holding his hands away from his body as he was instructed. He tried to ignore the smell of acid that drifted from the dark-skinned guard. Surero knew that smell, and the fact that it was coming from the man’s breath was, for the alchemist, more frightening than the gleam of his razor-sharp axe.

He looked at Ivar Devorast, who stood at the edge of the trench, so far north they were only a few miles from the banks of the Nagaflow. Devorast was flanked by two of the black-clad guards. He looked back at Surero and the way he tipped his head and widened his eyes said, Just be quiet and don’t resist… until we know we have to.

It had taken a very, very long time before he was able to read Devorast that well.

Three more of the black firedrakes stood a few yards away, their vicious longaxes held at the ready, scanning the growing crowd of workers that had come to see what all the fuss was about. The men kept a respectful distance, but Surero could feel a rising tension in the air. The men liked Devorast, and everyone was suspicious of the black firedrakes.

One of the firedrakes looked up into the overcast sky and blinked a few times. Surero couldn’t tell if he was listening to something or smelling the air. After a brief moment he looked at Devorast and said, “Kneel to receive the ransar.”

Devorast didn’t have a chance to bend his knee before the two black firedrakes pushed him to the muddy ground. Surero was likewise forced down.

There was a blur of violet-blue light and a prickling in the air. Surero squinted, ready to close his eyes tightly should something explode or… he didn’t know what else.

Pristoleph stepped out of the light, emerging from the air itself, and the uncomfortable feeling was gone.

The black firedrakes stiffened to attention while the ransar walked past them in a straight line to Devorast. The moment he was within reach, Pristoleph slapped Devorast so hard across the face, he was knocked out of the grip of one of the firedrakes. There was a moment of confusion while the guards struggled to get Devorast back to his knees. Pristoleph stepped back, shaking his hand and rubbing his wrist. Blood oozed from the side of Devorast’s lip.

“Did you send it to kill me?” Pristoleph said, his voice grinding with anger. “Or did it decide on its own?”

Devorast jerked his arm away from one of the firedrakes to wipe the blood from his face. The guard was about to hit him, but Pristoleph waved him off.

“Let him up,” the ransar said.

Devorast stood and the black firedrakes didn’t hold him, but stayed close enough to kill him in the blink of an eye should the ransar order it.

“Speak,” Pristoleph demanded.

“I didn’t send anyone to kill anyone,” Devorast said.

“You said they were under control,” Pristoleph seethed.

Devorast just looked at him with a question in his eyes,

“The nagas,” Pristoleph said.

“We are the embodiments of the ideal, genasi,” a voice at once resonant and sibilant said from behind Surero.

The black firedrake that held Surero released him to hold his axe in both hands. The guards surrounded the ransar, whose strange orange hair seemed to blaze on his head like fire.

Genasi, Surero thought. That explained a lot.

“We are under no monkey’s ‘control,’” Svayyah said as she slithered just close enough to make the black firedrakes nervous, but not feel as though they had to attack. “What is the meaning of this?”

Pristoleph’s eyes widened and Surero got the unmistakable feeling that the ransar recognized the naga. “There you are.”

“Here we are,” the naga returned, raising the ridge over one eye where, if she had any hair at all, an eyebrow would have been.

“This naga,” Pristoleph said, glancing from Svayyah to Devorast, “attacked me in my home. It killed a number of my guards and nearly killed me, too.”

“This naga,” Svayyah spit back, “did no such thing.”

“I have found that Svayyah is as honest as she is direct,” Devorast said.

“It was injured…” Pristoleph said, examining the water naga with narrowed eyes. “We took its right ear.”

With a wicked little smile, Svayyah turned her head so that Pristoleph could see she was uninjured.

“It wasn’t Svayyah,” Devorast said. “Our agreement with the water nagas still stands.”

Svayyah drew herself up to her full height, her chin held even higher in the air.

“These creatures,” Pristoleph said, “all look the same.”

A dark looked passed across Svayyah’s humanlike face, but passed quickly when they could all see that Pristoleph was thinkingthat he wasn’t sure, that he was beginning to think he’d been fooled.

He looked Devorast in the eye and said, “Give me your word that the water nagas will honor their agreement. Look me in the eye and tell me it wasn’t her.”

Devorast looked him in the eye and said, “The water nagas will honor their agreement. It wasn’t her.”

Svayyah laughed and Pristoleph shot her a dangerous look.

“Release them,” the ransar said to the firedrakes, who instantly obeyed.

Surero couldn’t help but notice a strange, knowing look pass between two of the black firedrakes, one he couldn’t hope to unravel himself. He stayed on his knees until the ransar and his black firedrakes had gone back into the thin air from whence they’d come.