Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince

by Melanie Rawn

  By the following spring, Ianthe was established in Feruche Castle. There was no proof—not that anyone expected to discover any—that she was behind the Merida attack on Tiglath that season. Young Lord Eltanin, flushed with pride in his beautiful wife and their expectations of an heir, fought off the Merida with assistance from Rohan’s armies and his father-by-marriage’s money. Faced with three hundred troops and the knowledge that Jervis of Waes would provide endless supplies to keep his daughter’s new home safe, the Merida withdrew. They marched back to their northern wastes and seethed, making occasional forays into Rohan’s territory and trusting that time, Roelstra, and Ianthe would work in their favor.

  Rohan and Sioned rejoiced when Eltanin’s gentle Antalya was delivered safely of a strong son. It was a year for childbearing, it seemed; only a few days after news came from Tiglath, Tobin gave birth to twin boys and at the beginning of summer Camigwen presented the astounded Ostvel with a son. But for the prince and princess, there was no similar happy event.

  The next year brought rumors that Ianthe had borne one son and was carrying another. The garrison below Feruche confirmed the rumors, and the procession of handsome young noblemen through Ianthe’s bed made it impossible for anyone to determine exactly who had fathered the children. Rohan made a sour comment that nothing less could be expected of Roelstra’s favorite daughter. Everyone wondered if the High Prince would name one of her sons as his heir. None of the other daughters had married, nor were they likely to.

  Word came often on the sunlight from Goddess Keep, where Chiana thrived and Pandsala gradually accepted her lot, though sullenly, to be sure. Andrade reported the startling fact of faradhi potential in the princess and theorized that Roelstra’s long-dead wife Lallante had carried the talent. Roelstra’s own line was as barren of the gift as he was of sons.

  And then it was another Rialla Year, a dragon year. The princes packed up their ancient maps and treaties in preparation for showing precedent for the lands they held—or wished to hold; Clutha and Jervis rejected a score of schemes for a Lastday banquet even more spectacular than that of the previous Rialla; Rohan and Sioned waited for the dragons to appear in the sky and nurtured the secret hope that this time she would carry their recently conceived child to term. The Merida were quiet; nothing was heard of Ianthe at Feruche; the High Prince was silent at Castle Crag.

  But with the coming of the dragons, there also came a plague. It swept across the continent, ravaging the human population, making the summer of 701 a season of death from the Long Sand to the Dark Water.

  And the dragons died by the hundreds.

  Part Three

  Vengeance

  Chapter Nineteen

  To His Highness Prince Rohan, Lord of All the Desert and Ruler of the Long Sand, loyal greetings; and to His Lady the Princess Sioned, the same.

  May it please Your Highness to know that the survey and census ordered six years ago at Your Highness’ accession has now been completed. Detailed statistics are appended for Your Grace’s further study, but presented on these pages is a brief analysis prepared in secret by my own hand and after long discussion with Lord Farid of Skybowl.

  The dragons are in danger. Normal attrition due to disease, old age, accident, and mating battle kept the population fairly constant, even considering the decimations of the Hatching Hunts. The killing of mating sires was more seriously detrimental, but the dragons managed to survive.

  But then three years ago the Plague came, and the results to the dragon population have been catastrophic.

  In the year 698, the year of Your Grace’s accession, 309 dragons were counted in flight from their Desert caves to various wintering grounds, as reported by persons assigned to count them throughout the other princedoms. There were 6 mating sires, 80 mature females, and 220 immature dragons, including the first-flight hatchlings of that year. The summer before the Plague, 234 dragons were in flight over the Veresch. But this spring, the most reliable reports place the number of dragons at 37: 5 mating sires and 32 mature females.

  The potential for disaster is obvious. Your Grace can readily deduce that neither the hunt for mating sires nor the Hatching Hunt must take place this year. The 2 or 3 sires who survive mating battle must be allowed to mate with their females, and every dragon emerging from the caves must be allowed to fly. Otherwise, Your Grace’s children, may they be born strong and wise, will never know what a dragon is.

  A regional analysis of the dragon population is appended. It is the only copy, the original compilation of information having been burned, with Lord Farid as witness. His Lordship and I are the only ones who share knowledge of the impending disaster.

  I would add one thing further, a thought that has occurred to me but for which I have no real proof. It is only a feeling, but it is a strong one. I believe that after the Plague losses at Rivenrock Canyon three years ago, the dragons will shun that place this year and seek others without the terrible memories. Dragons avoid mountain-tops where one of their number fell to his death; there are tales in the high country of such things. If they are as intelligent as I believe them to be, and as sensitive, they will also avoid the place where so many of them died of Plague. Again, it is only a feeling, but I think that very soon we shall see the truth of it.

  Therefore, as they will not mate in Rivenrock this year, they will find some other place—perhaps far from Your Grace’s careful guardianship. May I humbly suggest that Your Grace issue an edict banning the slaying of dragons for this year—and for all years to come. The alternative is to see dragons no more in the Desert.

  Lord Farid and I respectfully submit our conclusions to Your Highness’ notice, with every faith that your wisdom will find a solution and that dragons will once again fill Desert skies.

  All homage and wishes for the continued health and happiness of Your Royal Highnesses.

  Feylin of Skybowl

  Rohan leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply. His gaze strayed from the parchments on the desk to the tall, wide-open windows of his private study. Stronghold was secure and serene in the spring twilight, its stone gentled by a rosy-gold light from the setting sun. The scents of new flowers and fresh grass drifted up from the gardens; he could even smell the grotto waterfall, swollen by spring runoff from the distant hills. The annual renewal of beauty here was justification of the peace he had worked so hard to create, and its seduction was nearly overwhelming. In the last six years there had been so few times when he could truly enjoy his home.

  Delivery of Feylin’s troublesome message had come with another stack of parchments, and Rohan eyed the pile with a grimace. The Rialla would happen this year, the first since his portrayal of imbecile prince—an option no longer available to him—and his vassals had presented their requests with almost indecent haste. He could not in good conscience “forget” about them until late summer, and he certainly could not ignore the news from Skybowl. But Goddess, how he wanted to, just for a little while.

  A wry smile crossed his face as he reflected on the truth that a prince with too much leisure was a prince who was not doing his job. Even in the good years there were a million things to be done and decided and overseen. And in the bad years, like the year of the Plague—

  So many dead. So much lost. Crushing the Merida in the plains outside Tiglath that first spring of his rule had demonstrated his strength, but there had been no fighting the silent, stealthy disease. The power of a prince with an army at his back had been impotent against the enemy that invaded the body and took away breath, sanity, and life in hopeless progression.

  It had come with the flight of dragons three years ago, and at first had been blamed on the great beasts themselves. As Plague and panic spread throughout the princedoms, demands had come for Rohan to eradicate the dragons once and for all. But then the dragons had started dying, too.

  By the time the first huge, stinking corpse had been discovered in the sand without a battle wound on it, Rohan had been too desperate to worry about dragon dea
ths. His mother had been one of the first at Stronghold to contract the Plague, and the first to die. The disease swelled the lungs and burned the flesh from agonized bones; fever raged unchecked no matter what cures were tried. Violent purging, coma, and death followed. Princess Milar’s struggles had lasted for twelve horrible days. Others had survived a little longer, but of every ten persons at Stronghold, four fell sick—and all of these died.

  Word filtered in from other courts and holdings, communicated by faradh’im who often used their last strength to weave the terrible news through the sunlight. Princes Seldeen, Durriken, and Vissarion; Lords Daar, Kuteyn, Dalinor, Bethoc, and Reze; wives and sons and daughters and countless retainers—all dead. Andrade herself sent the sorrowful news that Mardeem of the pure golden voice had succumbed at Goddess Keep along with scores of others. No castle, manor, or cottage was immune, with the exceptions of the isolated Merida in their wilderness and the islands of Dorval and Kierst-Isel. Prince Lleyn had forbidden his harbors to all ships, and Volog and Saumer had wisely followed his example. Indeed, in the latter case the Plague proved a perverse sort of blessing. Deprived of outside sustenance, the two antagonists were forced to cooperate with each other so their people did not starve.

  Then the miracle happened. In midsummer, word flashed on the sunlight that a cure had been found. An infusion of a little-known herb, combined with more standard remedies, reduced the fever and stopped the purging, which gave the victims a chance at life.

  Rohan’s fingers clenched around the arms of his chair and he consciously relaxed them. Memory of that time could still send fury pounding through his blood. The herb had been dranath. Roelstra, controlling its source in the Veresch, controlled its dispersal. Not openly, of course, for that would have brought all the other princes raging across his borders, High Prince or no High Prince. He had doled out the precious herb through his merchants, and made a colossal profit trading on desperation.

  Rohan’s gaze went to the tapestry map hanging from gold rods on the far wall. A bitter smile lifted the corner of his mouth. Roelstra’s slowness in providing the drug had rid the High Prince of several opponents and weakened many princedoms. The map was a chilling reminder of how many rulers had died and how vulnerable their lands now were. Rohan knew in his bones that Roelstra had purposely held back shipments of dranath to Gilad, which had lost its most powerful athri as well as its ruling prince. In the cities of Einar and Waes, the holdings of Snowcoves, Kadar Water, and Catha Heights, death had claimed lords who had not been sympathetic to the High Prince.

  Weakening the structure of power had been an unexpected bonus for Roelstra; all he needed to do was delay providing dranath until word came that those he wanted dead were dead. To the obscene amounts of money in his treasury he had added opportunities for mischief in too many places. It afforded Rohan little pleasure that the scheme had not worked in the Desert—but only through the Goddess’ gracious blessing.

  Rohan had emptied his coffers and the drug had seeped through to Radzyn port, where Chaynal had sent out riders on his swiftest horses to distribute the life-saving dranath. Too late to keep death from claiming Milar, Camigwen, and Chay’s son Jahni, still it had come in time to spare countless others.

  And then the dragons had started dying, and there was no more money left to buy dranath, and who would be fool enough to want to save the dragons?

  Lord Farid had sent word from Skybowl that healthy dragons had been sighted in his hills. Rohan journeyed there. Together he and Farid had come up with the idea of lacing the bittersweet plants on the cliffs with dranath as a preventative. It was the only hope they had. Yet there was no drug to spare, and large amounts were necessary if even these few dragons were to be saved. Rohan had faced the unsavory choice of either demanding every coin his vassals possessed or striking a bargain with Roelstra.

  A soft knock at the door turned the prince’s head. “Yes, come in,” he called, and a moment later was looking at Walvis’ disapproving face. “I know, I know,” Rohan said before his former squire could speak. “I missed the noon meal and I’m about to be late for dinner, and my lady wife will have me roasted with her own Fire.” He smiled and pushed himself to his feet, gathering up the loose pages of Feylin’s report.

  “She wouldn’t waste her energy, my lord,” Walvis said severely. “There’s not enough flesh on you to interest even a starving dragon.”

  Rohan shrugged and locked the report away in a coffer. Replacing the key on a long chain around his neck, he stretched widely and went over to the windows. Walvis joined him. At the age of seventeen, Walvis’ freckles now competed for notice with a proud stubble of beard. Elevated last winter from squire to knight, he had begged to be allowed to stay on at Stronghold and serve Rohan in whatever capacity the prince desired. Rohan had been more than glad to keep him. Walvis was learning the ins and outs of stewardship from Ostvel these days, and the routine duties of squire had been delegated to another boy, Sioned’s nephew Tilal. Lord Dawi had been only too happy to claim blood-bond with the powerful prince his sister had so unexpectedly married, and several times his wife had attempted to invite herself to Stronghold. Sioned had resisted the invasion, knowing Lady Wisla would ask favors that Rohan, loving and honoring Sioned, would not refuse. At last she had come up with the perfect solution: she would take her youngest nephew into her household. It was part of a squire’s training to be completely separated from his family until he was knighted, and Sioned was thus neatly freed from any further importunities. Her sister-by-marriage had been faint with the honor of having her son educated in a prince’s suite, and stayed happily at River Run, boasting to everyone she knew.

  Shouts came from the gardens below, and Rohan saw Tilal come running along a path, tripping over a cloak much too large for him. Racing after him with a wooden sword in his hand was Ostvel’s boy, Riyan. Tilal went down with a realistic flutter of wings as Riyan wielded his sword against the “dragon.” Both boys rolled on the grass, laughing uproariously.

  Rohan smiled, but his heart was aching as he recalled other boys, just five years old like Riyan, who’d crowed with delight while slaying another dragon. Maarken alone had gone last year to Prince Lleyn for his training as a squire, for Jahni had died of the Plague.

  “Tilal’s turning into a fine lad,” Walvis observed. “When I think of what a beast he was when he came here—! I never would have believed that one of my lady’s blood could be so awful!”

  It had taken time, and the back of Walvis’ hand on more than one occasion, to cure Tilal of a tendency to lord it over the other squires. By now he knew his duties and his place, and no longer traded on his relationship to Sioned. That they were close kin was obvious; they had the same green eyes and fair skin, though Tilal had his mother’s dark hair. The combination was striking, and even at ten winters old he had been well on the way to an obnoxious conceit. Walvis had cured him of that, too, over the last two years.

  “Getting him away from his mother was the making of him,” Walvis continued. “Is it true she’ll be at the Rialla this year?”

  “To catch sight of her precious darling? I’ve heard it rumored.”

  “My lady isn’t going to be happy about that.”

  Rohan hid sudden laughter. Much of Walvis’ conversation for the last six years had revolved around Sioned, and it had never been very difficult to discern why. Rohan could appreciate the feeling. He himself had loved her from the first moment he saw her. The squire-turned-knight fondly believed his worship of her to be a secret, and Sioned was perfection in her dealings with him. She was playful at times in the manner of a woman with a younger brother, and in public treated him with grave courtesy as a full-grown man, never as a little boy. When Rohan teased her about her adoring young champion, she replied serenely that she was only making sure that the woman Walvis truly fell in love with had a wonderful husband. Had she made mock of his feelings or tried to change them, he might have come to resent women. He was entirely content to adore and serve his prin
ce’s lady. “He’ll grow out of it the minute he sees some pretty girl his own age,” she had told Rohan. “I must confess I’ll miss my squire, but—what do you want to bet the girl will be a redhead? And that he’ll name his first daughter after me?”

  Rohan was wise enough not to take the bet.

  Tilal and Riyan had picked themselves up by now, still giggling. Sensing that they were being watched, they waved up at Rohan and Walvis. Riyan, dark like his mother and with her remarkable eyes, jumped up and down and called excitedly, “Play dragons again, prince!”

  “Again? I was your dragon the other day all afternoon long, and you killed me at least ten times! Even a dragon needs some rest. And you seem to have found another who’s much better at it than I am.”

  “Prince!” the child demanded, certain of indulgence. “Come down and play dragons!”

  Walvis drew breath to call down a reprimand, but Rohan placed a restraining hand on his arm. “I’d much rather play dragons than read all those reports,” he murmured wistfully.

  “You haven’t had your dinner yet, my lord. And my lady won’t thank me for letting you exhaust yourself with those two whirl-winds again.”

  “Walvis,” he said in exasperation, “if you and my wife don’t stop behaving like she-dragons with a single egg—do I look sickly and delicate to you? Or do you think I’m getting old? Decrepit and drooling at twenty-seven?” He snorted. Leaning out the window, he told the boys, “I have to play prince tonight. We’ll save dragons for tomorrow!”

  Another voice came from down below, and Rohan grinned as Ostvel hurried into the gardens. “Riyan! Tilal! You know better than to make so much noise and trouble for your prince!” He shaded his eyes against the setting sun with one hand, squinting up at the window where Rohan stood. “I’m sorry, my lord. If there aren’t fifty eyes on them both, they disappear.” Ostvel clamped a hand on Tilal’s shoulder as the boy began edging toward the gates.