Actually no. In the childish stories she remembered the frail and fragile woman never saved herself. In those stories she stayed exactly where she was until some gallant rider on the back of a dragon tore open the door to her cell with his bare hands and whisked her away to a happy-ever-after. But in this story that wasn’t going to happen, which left her back where she started. He was interested. He didn’t take much trouble to hide it either. He wasn’t ugly, at least not on the outside, despite the scars. He was an Adamantine Man, though, and so her story wasn’t going to end in love.

There weren’t many cells down here. As far as Kataros could tell, there hadn’t been any at all until recently. Whatever this place was it had served some other purpose, something more benign, probably until the Adamantine Palace had burned. There were patterns on the floor, tiles, half buried now under a layer of filth. Ornate murals and faux arches decorated the walls. They were all over the place those arches, in almost every room she’d seen as they dragged her here. At the far end, towards the door that was the only way out, hangings lined the walls, intricate pictures of Vishmir and the first Valmeyan duelling in the skies; of the body of the Silver King, carried towards his tomb by men in masks and veils; of Narammed holding the Adamantine Spear, bowing down so he looked almost as though he was almost worshipping it – she could understand that, knowing now what it did.

Yes, it had been a genteel room once, quiet and out of the way and meant for reflection until someone had slammed in a few crude rows of iron bars and called it a prison. There was no privacy. The prisoner in the cell next to hers had stared the first time she’d had to squat in a corner. The Adamantine Man, at least, had looked away.

She steeled herself to wait until the gentle sunshine glow of the walls and of the ceiling faded to starlit night. Not that waiting was difficult. She hadn’t been fed since she’d arrived and so hadn’t eaten for most of a week, and a few more hours would make no difference. The man in the cell next to her had been here longer. He’d been little more than a skeleton when she’d arrived. These days he hardly ever moved. He was dying, slowly but surely.

There weren’t any others, just the two of them and three more empty cells. Their floors were like hers, covered in filth crusted dry with time, yet the air in the prison smelled fresh and cool. That was the magic of the Pinnacles at work, the magic of the Silver King who’d come from nowhere and tamed the dragons, who’d built the world that every last one of them had come to know and then been torn down by jealous men.

Kataros spared a glance for the other man. His name was Siff, but she thought of him as something else. The Adamantine Man called him Rat, and she could see that too. He’d talked a lot when they’d first thrown her in the cell beside him; mostly he’d talked about all the things he’d like her to do for him, or the things he’d like to do to her if only he had the chance. That had been before starvation had turned its final bend and the lechery and the leering had given way to ranting and raving. Once, as the madness took him, he’d let slip his name.

He’d told her a lot of other things too, as he slipped away, more than enough to make her wish she’d heard them when he was lucid. He’d come out of the Raksheh. He’d crossed the whole Realm of the Harvest Queen and yet the dragons hadn’t eaten him. You had to admire anyone who could do that, yet here he was at death’s door, starving. A week or a day or somewhere in between, was all he had left.

She let him go and turned her eyes back to the Adamantine Man. He was watching her. There was no pretence about it – today he was simply staring. Something had changed, had it? Most likely the man who called himself King of the Pinnacles had decided there would be no reprieve. Hyrkallan, that was his name. She’d heard of him before she’d come here, but she hadn’t understood his hate for her kind until it was too late. There would be no change to his law, no clemency for any who called themselves alchemist, no matter what they might bring. And what did she bring? A hope that was no hope at all. An impossible idea. Another mouth for a starving court to feed.

She looked at the Adamantine Man as he stared at her. She bit her tongue until she tasted blood. ‘Hey.’

He didn’t move.

‘Hey!’ Half the Adamantine Men she’d ever met thought that the War of the Two Speakers had made them into gods. The other half were mad, as if there was much difference. Some managed to keep some seed of civilisation inside them, but most of the ones she’d seen were violent drunkards, brutes, rapists who thought they had a right to anything and everything. We are swords. We sate ourselves in flesh as the need comes upon us and then we move on, that was their creed and they were proud of it. Sometimes they killed dragons like they were supposed to, but usually when they tried that they just died.

This one still didn’t answer. His eyes didn’t flicker. He was making it hard for her, harder than it already was. The blood in her mouth sharpened her mind. She could see the knowledge in his eye. They both knew what was coming.

‘Hey.’ She made her voice softer this time. He moved a little now, tilted his chin slightly and looked at her some more, silent as the still air. She forced herself to get up and walk towards him until she was almost against the bars. If he’d wanted to, he could have reached through and touched her.

For a long time they looked at each other.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said. Each day he brought them water. Water, water, always water, the one thing the Pinnacles never lacked. He never brought food. He never ate in front of them either, but she could smell it on his breath. Food. The answer was in his eyes. Everyone is hungry.

(read Chapter Two here)

Thing is, though, Siff knows something. He knows something that might just change the fate of the world and right now, any change at all is looking like a good thing. So Kataros has to get him out, so he can show her what he’s found, and never mind that he’s likely going to stab her in the back the first chance he gets. To get him out, she needs Skjorl, even if the Adamantine Man would rather stab himself than help someone like Siff, and that’s only the start of what he’d do to her.

And then there’s the dragon. The dragon doesn’t hate any of them. It’s a dragon. It simply wants to eat them.

The Black Mausoleum. Someone’s going to die.

Chapters 1 and 2 are available online

Actually, it’s probably that guy on the cover, isn’t it.

Review from the British Fantasy Society: “a cracking pace throughout … Well told, nippy, and chock full of twists and turns.”

Review from the Falcatta Times: “characters that step from the page into the readers mind with such a vivid presence that you’ll form attachments with them all whether you love or loath them”

Review from A Fantasy Reader: “…if you like action and character driven plot with scorching fire around the corner, you’ll be satisfied.”

Review from Pauline’s Fantasy Reviews: “…a tautly-plotted action-packed story, with perfect pacing and a terrific blend of character-driven incident and convincing world-building, a totally enjoyable read that I raced through in a couple of days because I just didn’t want to put it down. A good four stars.”

Review from the Ranting Dragon: “Deas has a knack for writing dark and morally ambiguous characters that even George R.R. Martin should envy. Most of all, though, his novels are pure, high-speed whirls of action, suspense, and drama, written with formidable, horrifyingly vivid prose.”

Being a seson of not doing much real work, this is one of those times of year when I think about what comes next. So on the cards at the moment, we have:

• Heroic fantasy in which a soldier and a scholar chase a demon across the ruins of a once-great empire.
• Time-travelling teenagers
• Minoan steampunk
• A thirties-noir style fantasy in which wizards are madmen locked up in cages and the dead rise from old battlefields.
• A vaguely sensible attempt at some Martian SF
• Something I can’t even begin to describe but involves a magical parakeet from Belgium who speaks deathless wisdom and can defy time.

I’d say let me know here who you fancy, but it’s the parrot, isn’t it…

Now he lay on the top of a low hill, squeezed between two rocks and half hidden beneath a thorn bush, old and dead and dried. The river had found its way through the dragon dam in time, but not until everyone here was long dead. Nonetheless he kept absolutely still. There was one other thing at Bloodsalt. There were dragons.

His fingers tightened around the haft of his axe, closer to him and cared for with more tenderness than any lover. He squinted. Two adults. The same two adults he’d seen every day for more than a week now as he and what was left of his company of men eased their way along the Sapphire River valley towards the lake and the ruins of the old city. Two adults and perhaps a score of hatchlings. More dragons than any of them had ever seen in the year since the Adamantine Palace had burned.

The Adamantine Men had done their duty when the dragons first awoke. To eyrie after eyrie, the word had come before the dragons did. Quietly and without fuss, the alchemists had slipped poison into the potions they fed to the dragons, adults and hatchlings alike. Quietly and without fuss, the dragons had burned from the inside and died. And while they were burning, the Adamantine Men had taken their hammers and their axes. They’d marched into the hatcheries and the egg rooms, and they’d done what needed to be done. In some places, there had been fighting between the Adamantine Men and soldiers loyal to the eyrie masters or the dragon-king or queen who owned him. Always and without exception, they were fights that the Adamantine Men won. Across the realms, eggs had been smashed, dragons poisoned.

Except here. Here and Outwatch. Had Bloodsalt had any warning? They’d had seconds at Outwatch. Seconds and that had still very nearly been enough.

“Any kills boss?” whispered a voice in the thorns beside him. “I don’t see any kills.”

“No.” Skjorl shook his head. There was nothing to eat near Bloodsalt for anything larger than a sand-lizard, much less a dragon. The adults probably flew out up into the Oordish Moors to feed, hundreds of miles away, but they always came back. The hatchlings? He didn’t know if they’d go so far. He was hoping not, otherwise they were all wasting their time.

“Bollocks.” The thorns rustled angrily. Skjorl stayed silent. No kills. No kills meant nothing to poison. Until there was something to poison, they’d stay where they were, hiding in the dust and the salt, drinking brackish water, eating their own boots and being bitten to death by sand flies. He could live with that if it meant taking down a dragon. Skjorl had his own cask of dragon-poison, more than enough for a full-grown adult. He had his axe, too, in case they got as far as the eggs. Yes, he could wait right enough.

They’d had a hatchling in a cave at Outwatch. A rogue the Mad Queen had made. The old greybeard who ran the eyrie had let slip what it was and that had been good enough for Skjorl, good enough to kit up in dragonscale armour, dismantle a scorpion and carry it down to the hatchling caves. The dragon had strained at its chains and spat fire at them but the chains had held. They’d carried the scorpion in pieces to the far end of its cave, to the hole in the cliff-face where the sunlight and the open air poured in. They’d carefully built it back together while the hatchling watched them like a hawk. Somehow the first shot had missed. Then he’d looked outside and he’d seen the white horror gliding through the sky towards them. Riderless. Coming home. The greybeard had taken the scorpion for himself. Skjorl hadn’t waited. He’d run, shoving his men out in front of him, last one out, slamming the door as he went. Didn’t pause to see what became of the eyrie master. Death walked beside every Adamantine Man. When it came, it came quickly and you went one of two ways, crispy or crunchy. They’d run and run, all through the tunnels under Outwatch as the citadel came smashing down. They’d taken their hammers and their axes. Eggs smashed. Hatchlings murdered, the little ones butchered, the bigger ones fed poison. He’d taken servants and slaves and Scales and battered them and strapped skins of poison to them, then thrown them to the howling monsters to be devoured. They’d have been dead anyway if he hadn’t. And amid the screaming and the blood and the fire that came after, an unexpected smile had stretched across his face. The dragons had awoken. The end of the world had begun. It was what he’d been made for.

The same smile was still there. Crispy. The eyrie master had gone the crispy way. For ordinary men there was a third way, the starving to death under the ground way. That was something that would never happen to him, but he didn’t mind a bit of waiting, not if there was a reason for it. He’d have gone face to face with the dragons of Outwatch if there’d been a purpose to it, but there hadn’t. So he’d waited them out, and they’d left. Left him and his company, what remained of them, stranded in the middle of the desert, a hundred miles from anywhere, surrounded by ash and ruin.

It had been a lot like this.

The sun slipped below the horizon and darkness wrapped the salt plains. Skjorl eased himself out from under his thorn bush and crept back down the hill and into the chaos of rock-heaps where the other Adamantine Men were waiting, still and quiet. There were seven of them left, a poor shadow of the fifty-odd that had left the Purple Spur three months ago. There was Jex, who’d been with him in Outwatch and ever since. Vish, too. Jasaan he’d picked up on his way south, in what was left of Sand after the dragons had finished with it. Kasern, Relk and Marran, they’d come later when he’d trekked his way from Sand all through the dead Blackwind Dales as far as the Silver River and finally found what passed for the remains of civilisation, hiding out in the caves and chasms that reached from one side of the Spur to the other. Jex and Vish, they were his squad. They’d spent the best part of a year together, struggling every day not to be dead. The rest, they were all Adamantine Men and three months creeping up the length of the Sapphire River had told him everything he needed to know. They were alive while everyone else wasn’t. They were survivors. The best.

“Stay alive?” Vish tossed over a skin half full of water from the river. It tasted warm and foul. Everything out here was too hot. He drank, though. The taste was something he’d come to know. The bitterness and nausea and blood-iron tang of the powders the alchemists had given them. Mix with water and drink at least once a day so the dragons don’t find you. Skjorl had no idea what that meant or how it worked, but it was true that dragons usually had a way of knowing where you were, no matter how well you hid. They’d found that out the hard way crossing the Blackwind Dales.

He tossed the skin to Jex. It was also true that on their trip up the Sapphire River, the dragons had seemed not to notice them. Maybe they’d been lucky, although seven left from more than half a hundred was an odd kind of luck. But he took his potion, however bad it tasted, and he’d keep taking it. Given how many of them were left, there wasn’t much chance they’d be running out any time soon.

“Waiting, is it?”

Skjorl nodded. Waiting. Three months it had taken them to get this far. They could do waiting. And then they’d be done and then maybe they’d spend three months getting back home again, and if that’s how it was, that’s how it was.
Jex tipped the skin and poured water into his mouth. He tossed it back towards Vish but Kasern snatched it out of the air. He picked up another one and held them out in one hand, dangling half-empty next to each other. “What’s that then?”

Relk shook his head and turned away. Jex and Vish were laughing.

“Tits,” Marran spat. “That’s what that is. I could murder for a good pair of tits.”

“That’s not just any tits.” Jex rubbed his crotch and nudged Skjorl. “That woman from Scarsdale, she had tits like that, eh? Old and saggy and wrinkled and yet oddly firm.” He chuckled to himself.

“More like two giant balls in a giant ball-sac, they were.” Vish wrinkled his nose.

“Didn’t see you minding at the time.”

“Didn’t see anyone minding at the time,” grunted Skjorl. Four months they’d been when they’d reached Scarsdale. Four months from Outwatch. Past Sand, black and smashed to bits. Past Evenspire, which just wasn’t there any more except the Palace of Paths, so big and so massive that even dragons couldn’t knock it flat. Four months and mostly all they’d seen were blackened corpses. Everything in the Blackwind Dales was dead even before the dragons. And then they’d got to Scarsdale. Twelve people they’d found there, hiding in the copper mines, creeping out at night for water from the Dragon River, eating fish and fresh-water crabs and whatever roots and leaves would grow by the river.

“Shit-eaters, all of you,” grumbled Jasaan. “And what about the other one? You remember her?”
Shit. This again. Skjorl tensed.

“Sweet Vishmir but she was ripe. If she was here now . . .” Vish leered.

“If she was here now you’d tie her up and show her your adamantine cock.” Jex licked his lips.

“Damn right.”

“Not before I showed her mine. Except I wouldn’t be needing any rope. She’d be begging for it.”

Skjorl punched Jex in the arm. “Old soldiers first, boy.” He scowled. “Marran, put them away. We’ve none of us had a woman for months. My balls are full to bursting.”

“Any more of this and I’m going to start wanting to fuck the sand flies!”

“Lai’s dick!” Jasaan waved his arms. His voice rode over the others. “You . . .” He had words to say. Anyone could see that, but they were old words and had been said before and no one else gave a shit about Scarsdale and all the things that had happened there, no one except Jasaan. “You’re . . .” But by then, Skjorl had slipped like an eel round behind him and clamped a hand firmly over his mouth.

“Shhh,” he whispered in Jasaan’s ear. “These lovely potions don’t make a dragon deaf, so keep your voice down. You got something to say to me, you say it. But quiet like.”

Jasaan glared at him. He shook his head.

“No, I thought not.”

The soldiers fell quiet, sitting still and alert as the sun sank and the sky darkened. They’d become night people in the last year and a half. The dragons flew in daylight and slept – or whatever it was they did – at night, and so the Adamantine Men learned to be otherwise. At night they moved. Never too far though, never so far that they couldn’t be sure of shelter come the dawn. Sometimes that meant they travelled for hours, found nothing and went back to where they’d been the night before. On the worst part of their trip up the Sapphire River they’d spent six nights in the same cave. And that had been trouble too. The longer you stayed in a place, the more signs you left. Dragons were good at spotting signs.

Back then they’d numbered more than twenty-five. Now they were seven. Seven was a lot easier to hide. The way back would be quicker than the way here. A month, Skjorl thought. Not three. He crossed his fingers and hugged his axe and thought a little prayer to the Great Flame.

“Fucking dragons,” spat Marran.

Skjorl closed his eyes. “Easy lads,” he murmured. “They’ll go hunting sometime. We just wait here until they do.” He stretched. “Then we slip in, slow and easy and do what Adamantine Men were born to do. We kill dragons.” He grinned and let out a little growl. “A month from now we’ll be back in the Sapphire Valley and Jex can stop making love-eyes at the sand flies.”

“Yeah.” Vish laughed. “He can make them at the snappers instead.”

“Snapper wants a piece of me, it’ll be a sharp one.” Relk gripped his spear.

“Yeah, but Jex’s got a spear that’s every bit as hard, just not quite as sharp.” A low rumble of laughter rippled among the men. Skjorl looked about. Jasaan was gone, moved off a little while back after Skjorl had told him to shut up. It was dark now, desert dark with clear air and a bright moon and a thousand stars. Still, he wasn’t about to get up and look. Man wanted to be on his own, that was his privilege, especially at night when there weren’t dragons overhead. He grinned to himself. Jasaan was probably thinking about sand flies too. Or of the woman from Scarsdale. Not the old one, but the young one. The one with the soft skin and the hair like fur. How grateful she’d been for an Adamantine Man.

Sometimes men did terrible things, Skjorl had come to realise. When they knew there was no one to hold them to account, yes, sometimes men did terrible things. And sometimes they enjoyed them, more than was right. And that was just the way of the world.

He sniffed, looked up, heard the slightest noise and was on his feet in a moment, sword half-drawn. But it was only Jasaan. He cocked his head.

“Feeling better? No harm meant. I know how it is.”

Jasaan shrugged. There was hate in those eyes. Skjorl didn’t even need to see it any more, he’d seen it so much. But Jasaan was a weak one. Too bothered with staying alive.

Jasaan looked away and spat. He tipped his head back towards the quiet rustling waters of the Sapphire river. “Went for a little walk. Know what I found? I found a tunnel half-filled with water. Want to know where it goes?” He pointed straight towards the distant remains of Bloodsalt, and to the dragons that stood between them. “That’s where. Right into the city.”

This month’s competition prize is an opportunity to be an Adamantine Man in The Black Mausoleum. Possibly several opportunities. A fiery death is guaranteed, but you’ll appear for at least a few chapters. As usual with these things, I get to veto names that don’t fit. To win one of these cameos, you have to find typos in The Order of the Scales. The prize is nominally for whoever finds the most. Someone on Goodreads claims to have found eight. There may be further prizes for effort if I get several replies.

You can either reply to this post or mail me. Happy hunting.

Note – the UK cover art.

After another long had day at the office, Skjorl was disheartened, upon leaving, to discover that Blackscar had not forgotten their altercation of the night before.

Thing is, though, Siff knows something. He knows something that might just change the fate of the world and right now, any change at all is looking like a good thing. So Kataros has to get him out, so he can show her what he’s found, and never mind that he’s likely going to stab her in the back the first chance he gets. To get him out, she needs Skjorl, even if the Adamantine Man would rather stab himself than help someone like Siff, and that’s only the start of what he’d do to her, given the chance.

And then there’s the dragon. The dragon doesn’t hate any of them. It’s a dragon. It simply wants to eat them.

The Black Mausoleum. Someone’s going to die.

Submitted this week.

The Black Mausoleum revolves around a smaller number of characters than the previous books in The Memory of Flames, arguably five, depending on whether you count the dragon or not. However, there are a handful of very minor supporting characters kicking about, in particular a couple of hapless dragon-riders and a band of dragon-hunters to whom bad things happen. These are the red-shirts, the spear-carriers, utterly two-dimensional and more akin to part of the scenery than an actual character. They’re speaking parts, but only just, and in some cases, their speaking is limited to saying “Argh!” Right now, they need some names. Currently they’re called Lenk, Logan, Nico (short for Nicodemus) and, er… Dave[1]. It’s possible my editor may have some issues with this selection.

So yes, they need some names. I have a back-catalogue of other people’s annoying RPG characters that I’d happily use and then gain vicarious pleasure from watching them die in various burny squishy ways, but before I do that, here’s an open invitation to all you readers out there: send me a name for someone you’d like to see stomped on by a dragon/crushed under a falling temple/burned/eaten/eaten by canibals. They kind of have to be fantasy-ish and not either obviously copyright infringements or likely to get me thumped by another author at some future con, but other than that, I’ll pick and choose as I fancy from whatever I’m offered and there might be a note on the source in the acknowledgements…

[1] Because they’re Extras and I have a mate called Dave who looks exactly like… oh never mind.

OK, it’s not the final cover, which won’t have the quote from Joe on it. But I’m an impatient man and bored of waiting for the final cover art (pokes editor gently with a stick. But only gently because I’ve just missed a deadline…)

WHAT? MISSED A DEADLINE? WHAT KIND OF AUTHOR DOES THAT?

A very shame-faced one in this case, because it’s all my own fault. All I can say to anyone else out there who might one day find themselves in the same position is DON’T assume the manuscript you wrote six months ago is ‘fine and just needs a bit of touching up’ and leave looking at it again until a month before it’s due for submission.

The good(ish) news is that The Warlock’s Shadow will only be about two weeks late on my editor’s desk, at which point I can go back to poking him with a large stick instead. About things like THE FINISHED COVER ART FOR ORDER OF THE SCALES,DAMMIT! (although actually, we should all feel a little sorry for the man, as he’s had to pick up a load of extra authors on top of the too much work he already had, and I dare say a lot of them are every bit as annoying as I am).

In more dragony news, the rewrites for Order of the Scales are going fine and the first complete draft for The Black Mausoleum is now sitting on my laptop. Hmmm. Won’t put off those rewrites quite as long with this one.

There are some other changes coming for 2011. I’m thinking of some slightly different content. I’ll try not to be boring, but, tempting as it is to go into detail as to whether the VAT is or isn’t a regressive tax, frankly I’m not that interested, and I suspect that goes the same for most of the people who actually read this. And it would be a huge piece of work. And then we’d get into arguments that would drag on for ages, and I’ll disagree with you about stuff you believe in passionately because the foundations of almost every argument made either way are built on the sand of dodgy statistics, and if there’s one thing that really gets my goat, it’s dodgy statistics… There, see, ranting already!

<Runs off. Has cold shower. Comes back>

No. Expect the occasional post about Star Wars, gaming, and how five-year-old children absolutely understand Munchkin in a way it takes a mature adult years to learn.

Finally, 2010 ended with a couple of rather nice reviews for King of the Crags, anticipating (perhaps) its forthcoming US release.

“Stephen Deas has combined all that’s good in fantasy and spun it around in a thriller-paced tale that will leave you breathless.” The Ranting Dragon.

“Prince Jehal … is brilliant. One of the most complex, twisted and ultimately human characters I’ve read … When I think back over what I’ve read this year … I’m hard pressed to find one I enjoyed more than this one.” SF Crowsnest

Happy New Year!

“Though you will immediately notice the depth of this world, it has not been given the attentions it deserves yet. However, that is what gives The Adamantine Palace its tempo, and I’m unsure if that’s such a bad thing.” Ranting Dragon. Interesting comment. Haven’t seen anyone say anything quite like that before, but that’s definitely the choise I was making when I wrote it.

Also, what amounts to a ’suitability for its target audience’ review for Thief-Taker from Readplus in Australia: The novel does contain positive messages and meaningful themes for teenagers about growing-up too fast and wanting to live in an adult world before they are fully prepared to deal with the full consequences.

There’s an interview up at Literary Musings, in which you can find out one or two little snippets about where the dragon books are going, although I should point out that nothing is certain until it’s published. In a possibly more interesting interview (in that it involves monsters and eating people), Sarah Pinborough interviews Alex Milway on her blog today. In theory.

Have finally started writing again after what’s been month off altogether now. The Black Mausoleum rumbles onwards once more. And yes, I’ll put up an page for it in the bibliography at some point. Maybe when it’s done.