Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince

by Melanie Rawn

  “Mine with it, my prince,” Chay responded quietly.

  Rohan glanced at him, surprised at such words from his warrior friend. “Truly?”

  A slight, almost wistful smile curved Chay’s lips. “Truly. Lord Eltanin was right, you know, about the walls.”

  “But no one recognized us!” Tobin exclaimed again. “And even if some die, who’ll take the word of those who deserted their mistress and forfeited their honor thereby? Especially when their stories are pitted against the word of two princesses!”

  Sioned bent her head to the baby’s and tried not to listen to the argument being waged behind her. She concentrated on moving, her exhausted body crying out for rest, water, food.

  Ostvel’s voice was harsh, raspy with weariness. “You’d base the boy’s life on a lie? What about when he’s older and people whisper about what happened at Feruche?”

  “Who would dare?”

  “So no one’s going to tell him at all? Ever?”

  “Who’d be the one to tell him? You?” Tobin challenged.

  Sioned stopped, swung around. “The child is mine,” she said very clearly. “I waited for his coming, I’m the one who’ll raise him, and I’m the one who will give him his name. Only a mother may Name her child. This baby is mine.” She looked at both of them in turn, then resumed walking.

  There were no more arguments.

  As they passed through the rock sculptures of the Court of the Storm God, Sioned saw nothing of its stark majesty. There were only weird, frightening shadows cast by the winter sun. The climb out of the canyon was slow work, and when she could go no farther she sank down in the shade, closing her eyes. The infant nuzzled feebly at her breast, but she had no milk to give him. Old Myrdal knew of herbs the helped bring a new mother’s milk and they had both reasoned that these might help Sioned. She had grasped eagerly at the possibility of feeding the child with her own substance, of being the source of life for him. But the birth had come too soon, and she was unprepared. They would have to reach Skybowl soon, or he might die.

  “Poor little one,” Tobin murmured, sitting beside Sioned, one finger stroking the baby’s downy golden hair. “If only we hadn’t lost the horses.”

  Sioned nodded. “He’ll feed tonight at Skybowl. And then I’ll Name him. I need you to be there with me, Tobin.”

  “Shouldn’t you wait? Rohan—”

  “Will just have to forgive me one thing more,” she answered quietly. Then she looked up at Ostvel. “Sooner than I’ll forgive you for stealing Ianthe’s death from me.”

  He shrugged, his voice cold as he said, “Easier to never forgive me than to never forgive yourself.” He glanced at the sun. “If you’re rested, we should start off again.”

  She walked beside Tobin as Ostvel took the lead, and tried not to think. Her mind did not oblige.

  She had killed. Intentionally or not, she had used her power and people had died—at the Rialla years ago, at Feruche. But it was not Andrade whose forgiveness she needed, or Ostvel’s, or Rohan’s, or even her own. She gazed down at her sleeping son and pleaded with the Goddess that she would never find condemnation in his eyes.

  “Davvi! Behind you!” Rohan wheeled his horse around to defend his brother-by-marriage, and in doing so left his back unguarded. He hacked off a wrist and the spear it carried fell just before it would have pierced Davvi’s spine. A quick-eyed soldier wearing Roelstra’s violet lunged up and sliced through Rohan’s leather tunic, reopening the old wound in his right shoulder. He cursed and twisted around in his saddle, signaling Pashta with his heels. Rear hooves lashed out and caught the swordsman in the belly.

  Tilal, blood streaming down his cheek from a slice above his eye, cried out in alarm as Rohan swayed, Davvi yelled at him to get the prince out of the line. Rohan wobbled, unable to defend himself with a right arm growing numb, and Tilal leaned precariously over to grab Pashta’s reins. He kicked his own horse into a gallop and ignored Rohan’s luridly phrased opinion of the retreat.

  When they were safe on the hill beneath some trees, Tilal flung himself down from his horse and shouted for a physician. Rohan glared down at him, and the boy stammered, “My lord, you’re injured—it’s my duty—”

  “Damn your duty!”

  “Shut up,” came a familiar growl, and Chay, his forearm bound with white cloth, reached with his good hand and hauled Rohan out of the saddle. “You’ll have that tended or I’ll tie you up myself.”

  A large goblet of strong wine and some rough ministrations later, Rohan grudgingly admitted that Tilal and Chay had been right. His surly tone made Chay grin tightly.

  “Our gracious, generous prince,” he told the young squire. “Don’t worry about that cut, Tilal. There won’t be any scar, and you’ll not lose a whit of those good looks.”

  The boy blushed and picked at the bandage across his forehead. “It doesn’t even hurt.”

  “Well, mine does,” Chay said, flicking a finger at his arm. “Serves me right for not anticipating Roelstra’s move north. Let that be a lesson to you, Tilal.” He stretched and shook his head. “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. But it’s a good fight just the same. A pity you’ll miss the rest of it, Rohan.”

  “The hell I will!” He flexed his shoulder and held back a flinch. “Once the salve gets to work and I can hold my sword again—”

  “Oh, really? Here—catch!” Chay threw an empty goblet at him and blinked in surprise as Rohan caught it neatly. “All right, you win,” he muttered.

  “Not yet, but it won’t be long now.” Rohan hid the pain the catch had cost him and went on, “We’re doing well to the north, in spite of Roelstra’s charge. Davvi’s got the regrouping in hand, and we’ll close around them like dragon claws. But they’re not falling back through the center as fast as I’d like. What now, tactician?”

  “I’ll order the south to pull back a little at a time, and that should confuse them some. We’ll swing around and attack from the rear.” He glanced around, picked up a long stick, and sketched the action in the dirt. “Like this. See?”

  Rohan committed the plan to memory and nodded. “Right. Tilal, my horse.”

  “But your wound, my lord—”

  “Can’t feel a thing,” Rohan lied cheerfully. “Let’s go. It’s late afternoon and I still haven’t had sight of Roelstra.”

  “Signal me when you find him,” Chay remind him.

  “I will. Goddess knows, you’re easy enough to spot.”

  “Tobin finds me irresistible in this,” Chay informed him, eyes dancing.

  “She’d better find you in one piece at the end of the day!” He rose and gripped Chay’s hand briefly. “Luck to you, and Goddess blessing.”

  “And to you, my prince.”

  As the light began to fail, Roelstra’s defenses failed with it. Maarken had set Sunrunner’s Fire atop a hill that lit the near portion of the battlefield like an arena. By the eerie light Rohan fought and killed and was fiercely glad that circumstances had compelled him into battle himself. Had he been forced to sit watching much longer, he would have gone mad. But now his fever was of use to his soldiers, and their cheers welcoming him into the fray still rang in his ears. If this was to be the last time his sword tasted blood, then let it drink deep.

  Every free instant he swept his gaze in a furious search for Roelstra. Had the coward quit the field early? Was he hiding? Where in all hells was he? And Pandsala—what of her? Did she scan the fight on the waning sun, directing her father’s armies? He would find them if it took all night and morning.

  All at once Tilal cried out. Rohan saw a cluster of riders thundering up from the south, about fifty of them, skirting Desert lines. Too far away in the twilight for him to identify, he hacked his way clear of troops wearing Saumer of Isel’s colors and snarled as his sword caught in a leather strap. Yanking it free, he bellowed Tilal’s name.

  “Find Chay! That might be Roelstra!”

  “At once, my lord!”

  The salve had long s
ince ceased to numb his wound, and his shoulder ached abominably. He could feel sticky warmth on his back, could even smell his own blood over the stench of death around him. Rohan fought with one eye on the approaching riders, frantic lest someone else kill the High Prince before he could do it himself.

  And then he was free of enemy swords and spears, and Chay was at his side, and they kicked their tired horses to speed across the heaped and mangled bodies. But it was not Roelstra who rode to meet them in the growing gloom. It was Andrade.

  Her silver-blonde hair had come loose, blowing out behind her and tangling around her shoulders. She drew rein only when she was almost upon him, her eyes wild.

  “You’ve lost him!” she screamed. “He escaped past us, to the south! Damn you, Rohan, you’ve lost him!”

  “Not yet, by the Goddess!” he shouted back. “Chay!”

  “At once, my prince.”

  “I ride with you,” Andrade stated grimly.

  Rohan laughed in her face. “Can’t miss out on your vengeance, can you, Andrade? If you think you can keep up with me, then come. But don’t interfere!” He turned to Tilal. “Go to your father—don’t argue with me! Tell him where I’ve gone, and that he has the honor of cleaning up this battle on his home soil, just as he wanted. You and Maarken stay with him. That’s an order, squire!”

  Tilal unhappily obeyed. Chay had assembled thirty riders, men and women with new determination in their battle-weary faces. The Lord of Radzyn narrowed his eyes as he scanned Andrade’s escort.

  “Lleyn’s sailors. Go claim a piece of Roelstra’s armies for your prince!”

  Their leader glowed with eagerness, then glanced guiltily at Andrade. She nodded. “Stay and fight, Cahl,” she told him.

  He bowed his gratitude for the release from her service, then addressed Rohan. “One favor, my lord. If it comes to it, burn our ships before Roelstra can board them.”

  “He won’t get that far, I promise you.”

  Urival said quietly, “I’ll ride with you, my lord. You’ll need Sunrunner’s Fire to see by.” He was staring at Andrade as if daring her to object. Rohan laughed again.

  “Scruples? You cast your lot with me the moment you brought me Sioned. Come along, Aunt. Come savor the outcome of your work.”

  Sioned knelt on the rim of Skybowl’s crater as the last shadows faded into night unlit by moons. The baby lay quiet and sleepy-eyed on a blue-and-gold blanket, his stomach full of goat’s milk, blissfully unaware of the commotion he had caused.

  Skybowl was nearly as empty as Stronghold. Those who had gone to fight at Tiglath had not yet returned, and those few who remained accepted without murmur that the child was Sioned’s own. Tobin had expected nothing less. Having kept silent about the gold for so long, they were not likely to reveal this new secret.

  Tobin knelt to Sioned’s left, Ostvel to her right. The fourth position that should have been Rohan’s was left open to the Desert below the cliff. The child murmured drowsily, his body pale and perfect in the dimness, so small compared to the vastness of the Desert and the infinity of the emerging stars.

  “Child,” Sioned whispered at last, beginning the ritual, “you are a part of this world. Water will quench your thirst, Air will fill your lungs. Earth will guide your steps, and Fire will warm you in winter’s chill. All these are yours by right of birth, the right of every son and daughter born.”

  As Sioned paused, Tobin remembered other Namings, when the gentle ritual had been spoken over Maarken and Jahni, Andry and Sorin. Ostvel’s fingers were clenched on his knees, and she knew he was remembering, too, the night when Sioned had presided and Rohan had been with them as Camigwen Named young Riyan.

  “But you are a prince,” Sioned continued softly, and Ostvel looked up, as startled as Tobin at this departure from the time-honored formula. “Born of a long line of princes, sire to generations more. For you this world holds more—and will demand more.”

  Sioned lifted her hands, emerald ring glittering, and a soft breeze swept up from the lake behind her. With the Air came a mist of Water and tiny motes of Earth. Tobin sensed, as Ostvel could not, the careful gathering of delicate threads of starlight, fine and thin as spider-spinnings, the weaving of its pale Fire into the breeze. The slow swirl surrounded them, gradually centering at arm’s length above the baby in a tight, glistening spiral.

  Tobin was torn between amazement and fear. The faradh’im used the glow of sun and moons, but never that of the stars. Yet Sioned did exactly that now, pulling down skeins of almost invisible brilliance to create this unique Naming for her son.

  “Child, by the name of your kinswoman Tobin, daughter of Zehava and Milar, wife to Chaynal, mother of sons, I give you Air that is the sigh of the Father of Storms in the Goddess’ arms. May it rise and give flight to your wings, as strong as the woman in whose name it is given.”

  The starglow was directed toward Tobin and the baby’s head turned, eyes huge as he stared up at his aunt. Tobin saw her own colors sparkle in the whirling mist, amber and amethyst and sapphire, and caught her breath.

  Sioned spoke again. “Child, by the name of this man Ostvel, son of Ostlach and Avina, husband to Camigwen, father of a son, I give you Water to cleanse your soul—for his soul is the purest I have ever known.”

  Again she gestured the spinning light, this time to shine on Ostvel’s tense features, and more colors were added—deep garnet, bright ruby, black onyx he could not see. Or perhaps he could, for he met Sioned’s gaze, awed, caught in the spell she had woven of forbidden starlight.

  “Child, by the name of your father Rohan, son of Zehava and Milar, I give you Earth—this sand and stone around you, this Desert you will rule as wisely as he who gave it to you. This is his flesh, as it is your own.” And colors Tobin had never before sensed spun into the light—the pure white of diamonds, the intense sapphire of Rohan’s eyes, the golden amber of his sunlit hair. This was her brother, she told herself, these colors dancing and gleaming in the night.

  “Child. . . .” Sioned drew all the soft spinning starlight into her hands and held it above the infant. “My child, I give you Fire to light your way. Sunrunner’s Fire from the mother who also gives you your name.”

  The baby’s hands groped up toward the threaded colors and Sioned allowed him to touch it for an instant. Then she lifted the Air and Water and Earth all spun together with Fire from the stars, and flung it out to the Desert below. The weave spread out like an unfurled tapestry, strands of color augmented now by Sioned’s own, and she spoke her child’s name for the first time.

  “Pol,” she whispered. “Born of starfire. That is your name, my son, and it is your mother who gives you all these things.”

  Lifting him in her arms, she turned him to face the expanding fabric of light over the Desert, vibrating now like sparks from a windswept hearth or a carpet of multicolored flowers shimmering in the breeze. It slid along the curves and hollows of the dunes below, wrapped around the rocks, glowed blue and crimson and green and gold, all shot through with glittering points like diamonds. At last the weaving sank slowly into the sand, and all was starlit silence once more.

  After a moment Sioned murmured the traditional ending of the Naming ritual. “It is the duty of a mother to Name her child. So I have done. His name is Pol.”

  The familiarity of the final words did not release Tobin from the enchantment. She knew she had witnessed something never before seen, never even dreamed of. Yet there was something else familiar here, the feeling that spread through her head and heart. She had felt it on the night of her father’s ritual, when the faradh’im had ridden the moonlight and taken her with them. Yet no sun or moons shone, no light to weave into pathways through the sky—nothing except the stars and their delicate Fire. Fragile, almost transparent lanes of light trembled around her, routes opened by Sioned, who knelt beside her clutching the child, her eyes glazed over. Tobin knew she was no longer here, but traveling on those ribbons of starfire. And Tobin, closing her eyes, followed.


  She had no consciousness of the flight, swift and sure as it took her to the battlefield. By the glow of Fire she saw the dead being gathered and the wounded being tended, and shivered. Where were her husband, her son, her brother? She could feel Sioned’s colors ahead of her, searching as frantically as she. And then they were together, gliding down a single filament of starlight now, beyond the silent field and over small hills that cradled shadowy valleys between them like the slight hollows between the muscles of a powerful man’s back.

  She saw then, and knew the two groups of riders who faced each other in a broad valley. She saw her husband, tall and tense as he sat his horse in perfect stillness, more carving of warrior’s beauty than living man. She saw her brother, golden hair turned to silver, poised, waiting, as motionless as Chay. She saw Andrade, pale hair streaming down her back, strangely helpless as she spoke urgent words that Rohan and Chay ignored. There were others, but Tobin did not look at them—for the star-thread drew her across the emptiness between to Roelstra.

  The High Prince gestured sharply, and a slender young woman rode forward. Chay went to meet her. They exchanged words Tobin could not hear, wore expressions the shadows did not allow her to read. But she saw her husband nod slowly, and when the woman straightened from her slight bow of acceptance, Tobin saw that it was Pandsala. The pair returned to their princes, and Rohan and Roelstra each dismounted.

  Confused and frightened, Tobin quivered in the grip of the starlight. Andrade held up both hands, rings shining, her mouth contorted as she cried out words that would forbid, her face terrible as she flung her head back. Roelstra shouted, Rohan shook his head. Not even Andrade could stop this now.

  The two princes stripped off battle harness and clothes until they were down to trousers and boots, nothing more. There was a bandage wrapped around Rohan’s right shoulder, blood seeping through in an ominous stain. Chay spoke with swift urgency, gesturing, warning; Rohan nodded absently and unsheathed his sword. Tobin heard in imagination its angry hiss from the scabbard, the blade a long gleam of steel in the night, lean and pale as its owner.