The Black Mausoleum (Memory of Flames 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

solid as it had looked. Or maybe it had been done on purpose. Maybe the dragons that destroyed Bloodsalt had come here. Crushed the veins that fed the blood-water to the city
after they’d smashed and burned it to ashes, in case their dam didn’t work. That was a thing you learned about dragons, if you watched them. Yes, they got bored, but until they did,
they were nothing if not thorough.
    Down where there was a roof again the canal bed was dry and covered in patches of old dead prickle-grass. The air smelled different. Old dry earth-dust, fine as flour, the sort to fill your nose
and your throat and make you choke. No water here, not for a long time. Likely as not the cisterns were dry and empty then; but if the tunnel went on long enough to keep them out of sight, they had
a place to hide in the day. He crept back.
    ‘Get your scarves on, nice and wet.’ He sniffed. ‘What’s the water in here like?’ Hadn’t thought to taste it.
    ‘Tastes like shit,’ muttered Jex.
    ‘Tastes like blood,’ said someone else. ‘Salt and iron.’
    ‘Leave it then.’ He paused. Tried to think about how much water they were carrying. Not something he’d had to worry much about while they’d been following the river, but
away from it, even out of the sun, desert heat was quick and deadly to a man who didn’t have water. Found that one out the hard way, fleeing the ruins of Outwatch when the dragons had finally
left them alone.
    They had enough, though. Good for a day or two before they’d have to turn back. Time to get to the city and take a good look to know that no one was still alive. Maybe the dragons would be
kind and bring back a kill. He wondered for a bit if maybe he should send the others away. Bring water from the river. Hide up here at night, right up and close, just him and his axe.
    They walked on through the old canal, holding on to one another in the darkness. Skjorl took the front. His company, his job, feeling his way with his feet. Here and there pushing a loose stone
out of the way so no one would trip and stumble and make a noise. For the most part, the canal bed was flat and smooth and sandy. Easy going until he took a step and there suddenly wasn’t
anything under his foot. He had just enough balance to let himself go and sit down hard, both feet dangling over an invisible edge. ‘Well that’ll be the cisterns then,’ he
whispered, as much to himself as anyone. ‘Oi! Vish . . .’
    Shit.
He remembered where he was just a little too late. Sitting on the edge of some underground place where sound would carry like water over an oilcloth. No idea how far below him the
floor was, or whether there even was one, or how big the space in front of him might be. For all he knew, there could be a clutch of dragon eggs right beside him.
    He felt movement. ‘Boss?’ Vish. Short for Vishmir, the same name as probably half the soldiers in the Adamantine Guard, but it always got shortened to Vish. Back before the war every
legion had had half a dozen of them or more. He’d had Tall Vish, Loud Vish, Fat Vish, Blue Vish and Vish the Hands. Tall Vish and Blue Vish had died when the dragons smashed the Adamantine
Palace. Loud Vish had gone at Outwatch, done by the hatchling that had hunted them through the tunnels. Fat Vish, well he’d just vanished somewhere in the northern Blackwind Dales. Dead, or
else maybe he went back to throw in his lot with the survivors at Sand. Bad choice, but it probably hadn’t seemed so bad at the time.
    Vish the Hands had died at Scarsdale. No doubt about that one, since he’d died with Skjorl’s stabbing sword through his guts. Now they had just the one Vish left. Quiet Vish
he’d been once, but there was no need for that now. He was the last one and just Vish would do. Skjorl had come to think of him as their lucky charm.
    ‘Boss?’
    Skjorl shook himself. He pulled Vish down to whisper into his ear. ‘You ever come and see these cisterns when you were