'The Viper.' Even hearing his name was like being stabbed. 'W-What arrangement have y-you reached, my lady?'

'One that suits me, my lord.'

'There have been w-w-whispers, Zafir.'

'Whispers, my lord?' She stopped and looked up at him, as innocent as a child. For a moment Hyram wondered what he was doing. He had everything, didn't he? Everything he wanted. Why sully it with baseless suspicion?

But it was the Viper, and so he had to know, even if it ruined everything. 'Yes, my lady. Whispers. About you and J-Jehal.'

'The Jehal who murdered my mother?' Her eyes held him fast.

'I-I had not forgotten, my lady.'

'Drink your potion, my lord. Recover your strength a little.' She smiled, stood up and came towards him. 'It is true I have an arrangement with Jehal. If you want to know, I will tell you everything about it.' She briefly touched his hand, then went to stand behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. Hyram sighed and drank deeply as her fingers kneaded his muscles. 'You must be exhausted.'

'Yes.' Hyram put the cup to his lips and drained it. He could feel the potion coursing through him almost at once, hot and fierce.

'So here is the arrangement I have with Jehal. There will be no more potions for you. Not ever.' Her hands stayed at their work. 'Your sickness will take its course, just like King Tyan's has. I will be speaker; Jehal will be my lover. In time he will follow me. And you, my lord, will be kept perfectly alive, trapped in the prison of your own body, to watch it all unfold.'

A numbness filled Hyram's head. He had to run the words through his mind two or three times before he understood that there hadn't been a mistake, and that she'd meant every word. He lurched out of his chair and staggered forward. Something was desperately wrong. The room was spinning. He could hardly feel his arms and legs. As though… He reached for her and she sprang away from him, snarling and spitting like an angry cat.

'Don't touch me! Never touch me!'

'T-The s-sickness…'

'Is getting worse, is it? Yes, my lord, this potion is a little different. It'll happen much more quickly now. I pray that the Ancestors leave you as useless as King Tyan, and quickly.'

He had a dagger on his belt. Somewhere. He had to reach for it three times before his hands closed on the hilt. 'Y-You… y-you…' he gasped, 'vile… w-wicked…' There was a chair between them, but he had the dagger in his hand now. A huge pressure was building in his head.

'Me? And what about you, my lord?' she hissed and darted away behind a table. 'You betrayed Queen Shezira, the most powerful friend you had. You've broken your clan's pact. And for what? Who do you think I am? You take me in my own bed and then you moan my mother's name in your sleep. I was never anything more to you than some thing to keep your memories burning. Oh, and the potions, let's not forget the potions.'

Hyram stumbled around the table and lunged. Zafir jumped nimbly out of the way. 'I-I… l-loved-'

She sneered at him, dripping scorn: 'You loved yourself, my lord.'

'I l-loved A-A-Aliphera.' He felt obscenely drunk and his head was about to explode. Zafir's face swam in and out of focus. He wanted to reach out and grab it and destroy it, to smash her into bloody pulp, but his arms and legs felt as though they were made of lead. Sometimes it didn't seem to be Zafir's face at all that he saw, but Jehal's, laughing at him. He took another few steps and slashed the air with the dagger; Zafir was too quick for him.

'Well she never loved you, my lord. She despised you. You made her sick.' She darted forward and spat in his face at the same moment as he launched himself at her. He felt the dagger snag on her clothes and she gave a little yelp. He staggered a few steps forward as Zafir twisted away. She cursed and he heard the crash of something falling over. The pressure inside his head was crushing. The world was slowly losing its colour. He turned around. Zafir was scrabbling on the floor, trying to get up, clutching her side.

'You cut me,' she hissed.

Til do… more th-than c-cut you, y-you w-whore.' He was made of stone, but inside was pure fire. His vision seemed to compress as he stepped over her, until all he could see was her face and everything else had dissolved away. He was splitting, falling away into elemental pieces. He raised the dagger to plunge into her flesh and brought it down, and then something crashed into him and everything went dark. He couldn't move and he couldn't see, but for some reason he could hear voices. He could hear Zafir shouting for her guards. And he could hear the Viper.

62

River Treasure

Kemir watched from a distance. Men were emerging from the river, clutching their enormous shields and struggling to pull their ridiculous crossbows from the water. They weren't wearing any armour. In fact, when he squinted he could see they weren't wearing anything at all. They were painted, however, covered in swirling patterns that had somehow resisted the water.

He frowned and idly strung his bow. They were mad. He wondered, for a second or two, whether the patterns painted onto them were some kind of blood-magic so that dragon fire wouldn't hurt them. Only for a second or two, though, before Snow felled a dozen of them with a single blast.

Then Ash was among them, and Snow backed away and left him to it. The other three dragons, the ones they'd found at the eyrie, stopped what they were doing and watched. Even as Ash was finishing off the soldiers one of them scuttled forward and snatched one of the bodies, gulping it down. Ash turned and roared. For a moment the last few Guardsmen were forgotten as the dragons squared up. Then the other dragon lowered its head and backed away.

In the space of a minute the soldiers all died. They didn't manage to erect a single one of their crossbows; Kemir wasn't even sure they'd tried. It was almost as though they knew they were doomed, and preferred to die quickly in battle than slowly choke to death. He stretched and ambled towards the aftermath in case any of them had had anything worth looting. Not likely, since they were all naked, but there might be a ring or a talisman on a chain. Pointless really, robbing the dead out here. Even if he did find anything, then what? He stared at the river, as bodies and shields floated past. So futile…

One of the shields moved. At first Kemir thought his eyes had played a trick on him, but when he stopped and watched carefully, he could see feet sticking out from underneath. They were kicking.

Slowly he pulled an arrow from his quiver and drew back his bowstring. He fired the arrow into the middle of the shield. Even at such a short range, it didn't go in very far, but it went in far enough. The water thrashed and splashed, and suddenly there was a man scrambling to his feet on the far bank. Kemir drew out another arrow and then stared in amazement.

'You! Murderer!'

Rider Semian stared back at him. He was naked apart from a long thick shirt that reached his knees and a sword belt. He still held his shield and had a bottle hanging around his neck on a piece of string. Kemir held an arrow in one hand and his bow in the other. Semian was only a few yards away but the river was too wide to jump. Kemir grinned.

'You're a dead man.' Without looking away, he put the arrow to his bowstring. 'You can't reach me, and you need to be a lot further away before I'm going to miss. So what's the matter with you? Too much of a coward to die like the rest? Or is that what they were for? Were they all supposed to die, all the little soldiers, so that you, a rider, could live?' He drew back the bowstring.

Semian didn't move except to shift behind his shield so that Kemir could only see his head. 'Who are you working for, sell-sword. Who bought you?'