by Melanie Rawn
The shaken “attackers” had recovered their voices. Andry listened to scraps of conversation and once more had to keep his lips from curving in a grim smile.
“—dragon-sized wolf with eyes of flame and claws bigger than my fingers—”
“—came right at me, I tell you—”
“—one of those rock lizards like the ones on Dorval, only with teeth—”
“Wolf? Lizard? I saw dragons, all black and breathing fire—”
“Dragons I’ll grant you, but blood-red, and dripping it from talons and jaws—”
“My Lord?”
Andry looked around. Oclel stood there, expressionless. A wave of sympathy nearly swamped Andry’s glee over how well his ploy had worked. “Rough, hmm?”
“Indescribable.”
“It had to be done this way the first time.”
“I understand, my Lord. May I tell the others that?”
“It should be common knowledge by dinner tonight.”
Oclel nodded. “As you wish. I think—”
What he thought would have to wait. Maarken strode up, coldly furious.
“Andry,” was all he said.
“In a moment, Maarken—”
“Now.”
Oclel bristled; no one spoke to the Lord of Goddess Keep in that tone, not even the Lord’s own brother. Andry gave brief consideration to asserting rank over a man who was, after all, a Sunrunner, then discarded the notion. He wanted understanding and cooperation, not resentment. And Maarken, though in general even-tempered and gently-spoken, was proud as a dragon—and the son of their fiery mother.
“Very well. Let’s go upstairs to the gatehouse. We can be private there.” He sent a caustic message with his eyes that acknowledged Maarken’s need to express his rage. A gaze like gray winter ice met his, and for the first time he wondered if he’d miscalculated.
Hollis followed them. She shut the door and leaned on it, trembling a little. Before Maarken could say anything she gave a choked gasp. “Andry! The wine—you didn’t—”
He went to the table and picked up the piece of folded parchment Sioned had given Andrade eight years earlier. “I did. And I’d like you to ask Pol if he’d send some more. This is the last.”
She flattened her spine against the door, eyes wide. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you know the risk?”
“Calm yourself,” he said, biting back impatience. “There’s no danger in small amounts, rarely taken. Besides, it’s necessary.”
Maarken’s voice was silk-soft now. “You can’t work a diarmadhi spell without it?”
“It works better with the added power. We’re not here to discuss dranath.”
“No.”
The brothers squared off with the table between them. Andry knew he should stay silent until he could judge what form Maarken’s fury would take, but he had to make him see, had to convince him.
“Everything I said was true. You know how helpless we’d be here if it came to war. I’m kin to the High Prince and his heir—and I’m the Lord of Radzyn’s son. Somebody like Miyon or Chiana or even Pimantal of Fessenden would know exactly how to paralyze you in the field with a threat to Goddess Keep.”
“Go on.”
Andry realized abruptly that he’d been wrong about Maarken’s anger. It wasn’t Tobin’s—volatile, incandescent. This was Chay at his cold, hard, implacable worst.
“We must be able to defend ourselves. Not just against the threats we can anticipate, but—” He broke off and eased his stance, taking his hands from the table and extending them palms up to his brother. “I’ve seen things, Maarken—”
“Oh, yes.” Dismissively. “Sorin says you have odd dreams.”
Andry felt his own temper begin to ignite. “Not just dreams—visions. Of a future that terrifies me. Maarken, you don’t have any idea of the blood—”
“I saw none today,” the older man said quietly. “What I saw was terror. And what I would have seen was madness, if that wall hadn’t collapsed.”
“That was the damned idea!” Andry exclaimed, frustrated. “The ros’salath doesn’t kill—not in this form, anyway—”
Hollis caught her breath. “ ‘In this form’? Andry, what have you done?”
“Broken more rules,” Maarken snapped. “Taken the traditions and laws of Goddess Keep and thrown them into the middens!”
He made a last try. “Andrade saw things. Sweet Goddess, Maarken, you and I exist because of what she saw—and what she did about it! I’m telling you that what I’ve seen is destruction you can’t imagine! I can’t let it happen—and the only weapon I have against it—”
“Is Sunrunners learning the ways of sorcerers! Why haven’t you said anything about these visions before, Andry? Why keep them such a secret? You have an uncle and a cousin who are princes with armies to command—why do you need an army of your own?”
“You mean the uncle who trusts me so much he sent his faradhi son to me for training? The cousin who sees me as a threat to his own Sunrunner powers? Is that who you’re talking about, Maarken?”
“Andry—” Hollis came forward, still trembling. “Andry, please, you don’t see what you’re doing. Will they trust you more when they learn of this?”
“I’ve seen death,” he snapped. “What’s more important, Hollis? Pol’s conceit or hundreds and hundreds of people? Rohan’s trust or R—” He choked off the name of his birthplace, the ravaged waste of it swirling in his mind.
Maarken slammed his hands flat on the table. “What’s more important, Andry—your might-be vision or the reality of Sunrunners learning how to kill?”
There would be no understanding. He had been a fool to expect it. His brother belonged to Rohan. To Pol.
Andry pulled his clenched fists in to his sides. “I ought to have known. You’re a Sunrunner, trained at Goddess Keep, owing duty to Goddess Keep—and to me. But you’re also an athri, loyal to your prince. One day they might not live so comfortably together within you. One day you might have to choose.”
The skin around those gray eyes tightened just a little, and he knew he’d struck home.
“But not today,” Andry finished softly. “Not today, my brother. Go back to the Desert. Tell Rohan what you like. It won’t make any difference. If war comes—any war—then it will come. But I’ll be ready for it, Maarken. Tell Rohan that, too.”
“Andry, wait—”
He left the room feeling incredibly old, incredibly tired. Not even the lingering dranath could warm his blood.
Torien waited for him outside near the well, dark Fironese face creased with worry. Andry summoned up a tiny smile.
“Order my brother’s horses made ready for him tomorrow morning.”
The Chief Steward was rubbing his fingers absently, as if a chill had seeped into them. “I thought they’d be staying another eight or ten days.”
“No. And I don’t think they’ll be staying here again.”
Part Two
Year 728
Chapter Eight
Near Elktrap Manor: 3 Spring
The dragon was dying.
He lay on his belly, wings nailed to enormous trees felled for the purpose, spread like a skin left to dry in the sun. Spikes of the kind used for mountain climbing in the Veresch had been driven through the bones of his wings. Blood had crusted around these wounds and where his talons had been gouged out. There were a few sword slashes on his blue-gray hide, but not deep enough to let him bleed his life out quickly. Whoever was responsible for this intended a slow, slow death: the great amber eyes were dulled with long agony.
The sword dropped from Sorin’s shaking hand. He gulped back nausea and glanced at Riyan’s stricken face. A short time ago their horses had refused to go any farther, shying and rearing when the two young men urged them on. So they had left their mounts tied in the forest, unsheathed their swords, and warily proceeded. To find this.
“Sweet Goddess,” Sorin whispered, or tried to. His mouth was dry and tasted of the foulnes
s of this deed; his throat was too tight for speech. Who had done this? Through his shock he felt a savage anger beginning, an incoherent vow to give the murderer a death that matched the cruelty done to this dragon.
Riyan put a hand on his arm. He had to clear his throat several times before he managed, “Sorin, we have to do something—”
He nodded. But he knew how helpless they were. “Water. That’s all we can do for him.”
Riyan let his own sword fall to the grass. “I’ll get the extra from my pack.”
While he was gone, Sorin moved a little closer to the dying dragon. Amber eyes saw him, sparked faintly with rage, then glazed over again. A man had done this to him, but he lacked the strength even to glare his hatred for long. Sorin circled the huge, pain-rigid body, fists clenched. The spikes were new steel, shining in the morning sun above the bloody wounds they had inflicted; they marched in a perfectly straight line down the felled trees, stretching the dragon’s broken wings to their full span. Sorin fought back mind-numbing fury and took careful note of the circumstances of the dragon’s agony. Whoever had done this had taken all the time in the world to make his crime a grisly work of art.
Riyan came back as Sorin knelt beside the dragon’s head. “Careful,” he warned as neck muscles rippled and the head shifted sluggishly.
“He’s got strength to swallow, and that’s all,” Sorin replied. He shifted the great head onto his knees and stroked the smooth hide between the eyes. “I’ll hold his head. Try to get some water down him.”
The dragon proved angry enough still to take a feeble snap at Riyan. But when cool water slid down his throat from the goatskin carrier, his eyes closed and tension seeped from some of his muscles. Sorin went on rubbing the dragon’s face and neck. Riyan gave him as much water as he would take, then stoppered the skin and sat back on his heels.
“This can’t be the one that brought us up here,” he said slowly. “Word came twenty days ago. Not even a dragon could survive this for twenty days. This must be the whoreson’s second kill.”
“And his last,” Sorin answered grimly.
“We’ll catch him.” Riyan settled onto the grass, kneeling by the dragon’s head. “Sorin, I’ve never tried this, but I know how it’s supposed to work. Sioned let me watch when her Elisel came flying by Stronghold last year. But I’ve never actually done it.” He gave a brief grimace of a smile. “Catch me if I fall over, all right?”
Before Sorin had time to protest, Riyan had closed his eyes and begun the mysterious—to Sorin—work that would allow him to touch the dragon’s colors. Even though his twin brother had explained the feeling and a little of the technique many times, Sorin despaired of ever understanding what happened when a Sunrunner used light. Andry had likened it to master weavers gathering threads for a multicolored tapestry, master glasscrafters selecting stained glass for a window. But to touch sunlight or moonlight, or to perceive a person in terms of the hues of the mind—it was like asking Sorin to imagine drinking music.
Riyan’s spine snapped straight as a sword blade and a groan escaped him. His eyes opened, the dark brown lit by strange bronze and gold and greenish flecks, the pupils pinpoints like black stars. He dug his fingers into the ground as if they were talons, shock and fury swirling in his eyes. Sorin held his breath as an expression of mortal anguish twisted his friend’s face. Then Riyan cried out and slumped.
Sorin placed the dragon’s heavy head onto the grass, sparing a look at the amber eyes. They glowed faintly, then faded once more.
“Riyan!” He shook a shoulder. “Come on, wake up!”
It seemed to take forever. Finally a long shudder coursed through him and he braced himself on one arm, head raising slowly. “Sorin?”
“Have some water.” He unhooked the water skin from his belt and made Riyan drink. A few moments later he steadied and sucked in a deep breath. “What happened?” Sorin asked.
“I—I touched him. Goddess, the colors! But all lit in black. I can’t describe it.” He shook himself and reached for the water skin. More firmly, he went on, “He’s furious enough to have nearly killed me with his emotions. Sioned explained that. They don’t communicate in words, but in pictures and feelings. And this one, if he had any strength, would be feeding off our entrails right now. The only reason he didn’t kill me is because we gave him water—and you were soothing him by rubbing his face.”
Sorin glanced over his shoulder at the dragon. Could dragons kill with a thought? In the half-closed eyes was only pain, none of the fierce intelligence he had so often seen in the creatures. “What else?” Sorin asked.
“I tried to ask who did this to him. That’s when he remembered and—I felt it,” he ended in a whisper.
Sorin took him by the shoulders. “What did you feel?”
A shake of the dark head. “It was—something grabbed hold of him, something he couldn’t see, only sense. Then he crashed to the ground from full flight, as if he’d been slammed in the head with a club. But nothing touched him! Nothing! Just this—something—pulling him down out of the sky.”
“Grandfather Zehava killed quite a few dragons in his day,” Sorin mused. “But not even he could pull them down out of the sky.”
“That’s what happened to this one.” Riyan stared at the dragon, whose breathing was shallow but regular now. “Somebody more powerful than he got to him, and he couldn’t even struggle. It wasn’t a battle at all.”
Sorin pointed out what he had noticed earlier. “Riyan, look at the spikes. They’re new and made of fine steel. Like rock-climbing spikes, but thicker. As if they’d been made for this. And they’re hammered in as if at leisure, straight as nails in the floorboards of Feruche.” He rose and began trying to prize one out of the dragon’s wing. A low, keening moan quivered the creature’s throat; Sorin stopped.
“Evidence?” Riyan asked.
“Exactly. We’re going to find the filth who did this, and use his own spikes on him.”
“We’ll have to track him down first. Sorin, I want to talk to Sioned. She may know how to get the image from the dragon. And there has to be something we can do to ease his pain.”
“Are you strong enough for a Sunrunning? The dragon’s colors must’ve hit you pretty hard.”
“I’m all right.”
Sorin eyed him, then shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do for the dragon.”
While Riyan wove sunlight in the direction of Stronghold, Sorin used the rest of the water to cool the worst wounds. By the time Riyan spoke again, the dragon’s breathing was stronger and some of the pain had left his eyes.
“She says I can do it, if the dragon trusts me.” He rubbed his palms on his thighs.
Sorin saw reluctance in the dark face. “Riyan . . . all we really have to do is ask around for someone who’s been flaunting a dragon kill. No one does this kind of thing unless he wants it found. He’ll be bragging about it,” he added bitterly.
“No. I mean, yes, I agree with you about that. But it might take all spring to find him in these mountains, whatever he meant by this, I doubt he wants to be caught for punishment.” He eyed the dragon. “If I can get a picture, it’ll be that much easier to find him.” He gave a quick smile. “Besides, Sioned’s a good teacher, even at a distance. She showed me how to weave sleep, too.”
Sorin glanced at Riyan’s six rings. Four had been given by Lady Andrade; he had made a special journey to Goddess Keep last year to request that the fifth and sixth be given. But the skills he had demonstrated to earn them had been taught by Urival and Sioned, not Andry. And sleep-weaving was known only by those with eight or more rings. “You’re not supposed to know things like that.”
“Andry wouldn’t approve,” Riyan agreed somewhat sharply. “But then, I don’t entirely approve of him, either.” An instant later he shrugged an apology. “I’m sorry.”
Sorin shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. “Do what you have to.”
Riyan gestured him back and pulled in a deep breath. A moment later the dr
agon quivered delicately. Riyan gasped, fists clenching, tension again making a ramrod of his spine. One hand came up as if to ward off a blow; the dragon’s right wing trembled at the same time. Both throats growled simultaneously—deep, threatening, raising the hairs on Sorin’s nape. All at once the dragon hummed, and Riyan’s drawn face responded with a smile at once feral and triumphant. As if, Sorin thought suddenly, as if he had the murderer pinioned by his sword—or his talons.
Dragon and Sunrunner continued their bewildering communion for some moments longer. At last Riyan’s eyes opened and he sighed his satisfaction.
“Got it,” he said, the strange smile still on his face.
Sorin wordlessly handed over the water skin again, and after a long drink Riyan looked more like himself. The dragon had totally relaxed. Sorin thought the sleep-weave must be responsible until he saw that the amber eyes were open, lucid, and gleaming through the pain.
Riyan spoke before he could ask. “He’s tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, very good-looking if one favors arrogance. Dressed expensively, silk and good Cunaxan wool, that light stuff that slips through the fingers like velvet. But what’s really interesting is the color he wore.” That fierce smile flickered across his face again. “Violet.”
Sorin’s brows shot up toward his hairline. “Princemarch? Pol’s color? But why?”
“I couldn’t say. But the dragon was most emphatic—they think in colors even more than faradh’im do.”
“So we know who to look for.” Sorin crouched beside the dragon’s head again. “We’ll get him for you,” he promised, stroking the soft hide around the eyes and forehead. “Riyan, can’t you put him to sleep now? He’s in terrible pain.”
“Move away from him. I don’t want to catch you up in it, too.”
A few moments later lids drifted shut over sleep-hazed eyes. A long sigh coursed through the dragon’s body, and then he lay still. When he was certain the dragon was oblivious to all physical sensation, Sorin began removing one of the spikes from the wings. Riyan helped. It took all their strength to work the steel from the wood. At last it was free, stained with blood that superstition said was poisonous to the touch. Untrue, of course, just as the legends about dragons having a taste for virgin girls or being able to kill with a glance were untrue. Dragons were dangerous only when their food supply was threatened or when they were directly attacked. The wolves of the Veresch were the same—but wolves did not inspire the same fear dragons did. Wolves were, like men, creatures of the ground and could be fought more or less as equals. But wings made dragons terrifying.