Read The Order of the Scales for Free Online

what’s happening?’ Still no movement. Kemir’s ears thought they knew where the voice was coming from, but his eyes weren’t pulling their weight.
    All right. Let’s pretend I’m one of you. Let’s pretend I didn’t come gliding in on the back of those monsters. Let’s pretend I have nothing to do with this. Wouldn’t that be nice? ‘My name’s Kemir. I’m a scout. A tracker. I been helping hunt bandits in the deep valleys.’ The sort of work he’d done with Sollos for a time, before they’d grown sick of it. ‘Ancestors! What is happening?’
    Movement. He saw the man again now, closer, coming towards him ‘I thought you might . . .’ The man took a deep breath and blew it out. ‘Are we being attacked?’
    They both glanced up to the castle. Two dragons were still up there, merrily setting it alight. You couldn’t see them, but you could see the flames against the darkening sky. ‘Are we being attacked ?’ Kemir arched an eyebrow. How stupid, exactly, did you have to be?
    ‘But that’s . . . that’s not possible.’ The man finished quietly, shaking his head. ‘Not possible.’
    Kemir let him come closer. He couldn’t help glancing at the man’s feet as he crunched through the snow. Good boots. Warm boots. He quietly slipped one of his long knives out of its sheath. ‘Yeah. Who’d do a thing like that?’
    ‘The Red Riders, I suppose. They say they kill even alchemists and Scales.’
    ‘Never heard of them.’ Kemir held the knife so the man could see it now. ‘That’s close enough, thanks. What’s your name and what are you doing out here?’
    ‘I . . . I was looking for some heavy rope. For the new hatchling. It needs rebinding.’
    Kemir lowered the knife. It was hard to feel particularly threatened by someone who seemed so completely unaware that he might have his throat cut at any moment. ‘All right. Come closer so I can see you.’ Whatever rebinding is.
    The man came obediently closer. Kemir could see him more clearly now. The man’s face was lumpy and hard, the skin cracked and weeping in places. A Scales.
    ‘Look at you,’ grunted Kemir. ‘You’re almost a statue.’ Ancestors! The world outside was ending and this idiot was out looking for a piece of rope? Why aren’t you running away?
    The Scales bowed awkwardly. ‘It’s the new hatchling.’ He looked out across the flat shoulder of the mountain where the bulk of the eyrie was now ablaze. ‘Did you see them come?’ He cringed as two huge gouts of fire lit up the night. The snow had stopped now, clearing the air so you might have been able to see properly, except that everything was now shrouded in warm mist instead. Everywhere buildings were burning. The Scales wrung his hands but he still seemed to be more confused than anything else. As if none of this actually mattered . ‘Whose riders are they? Are they from the speaker?’
    Kemir licked his lips. By the look of things, the worst that this Scales was going to do to him was give him a dose of Statue Plague. And if he lived long enough to die of that , well then that would be a lot longer than he’d been expecting. ‘Do you really want to know?’ He shrugged. ‘No one’s riding them, Scales. There are no dragon-knights giving the orders here. The dragons are doing it themselves.’ It was hard to read the expression on the Scales’ face. Hatchling Disease had him well enough in its grip that he almost didn’t have one at all, just a hard mask of skin like stone. ‘I think after this they have some ambition to destroy the world or something like that.’ He shrugged and stepped closer so he could look the Scales in the eyes. ‘If you’re wondering what you should do, I recommend running away. Not that it’ll do you much good. Or you could wait until it’s all over and then hope the dragons aren’t hungry any more. Which is pretty much just as futile, since, as far as I can make out, dragons are always hungry. So what’s in all these huts