by Melanie Rawn
“. . . and says Ludhil and the mountain folk are stinging them like a swarm of insects—my scholarly son, leading an army! I never would have thought. . . .”
“. . . what that fool Cabar is doing just sitting there at Medawari. . . .”
“. . . heard yet from Tallain and Riyan up north, perhaps tomorrow. . . .”
“. . . the same about my Rohannon, taking charge of New Raetia after Volog died and before Arlis could get there. Fifteen winters old!”
“. . . be getting ready to leave River Run. I wish they had a Sunrunner with them to scout the area and give them accurate numbers. . . .”
“. . . and poor Father, knee-deep in the rain outside Swalekeep. . . .”
“. . . dragons seem to be settled in for the duration—last time I looked, all but Sioned’s Elisel were fast asleep!”
“. . . crush the Merida and the Cunaxans with them, while Miyon sits at Dragon’s Rest innocent as a—”
“Hush! Do you want Meiglan to hear you?”
“. . . what you think, Lord Kazander. Lure them from here by taking all but what seems a token force to Feruche—make them think Skybowl isn’t worth defending, so they’ll pass it by. The problem is hiding the troops we do leave here. I can’t—”
“Threadsilver Canyon,” Ruala heard herself say. Sethric looked around at the interruption, then began to nod, hazel eyes shining below a headful of thick, dark brown curls.
“The dragon caves?” Maarken asked.
Jeni elbowed her brother and he immediately vacated his own chair for their brother’s wife. Ruala smiled at him and shook her head. Dannar gave her a stern look so reminiscent of both Riyan and Ostvel that she went almost meekly to the offered seat. Her limbs turned boneless and she knew she’d been right; she would not be getting up again for quite a while.
“And stay there,” Dannar added firmly.
“Threadsilver Canyon,” Sethric murmured, then ran a hand from his forehead halfway to his nape—his fingers tangling in the mass of hair—and jumped to his feet. “Daniv, Isriam, let’s go take a look.”
They joined him at the door, Daniv saying, “It’s still twilight, we’ll only need a torch on the way back.”
Jeni rose quickly. “Take me and you won’t need a torch at all.” She held out one hand, and a tiny fingerflame rose from her palm.
“Show-off,” muttered her little brother.
“Goddess be merciful,” Maarken groaned. “If you’re determined to be so energetic—and so damned young—then do it someplace else!”
“And take a torch anyway!” Audrite called, and sighed as the door closed behind them. “Should they be out this late? It’ll be dark soon.”
“They’ll be safe enough. And it gives them something to do,” Walvis said with a shrug. “Better their young bones than my old ones. That’s a good idea about the caves, Ruala.”
At Meiglan’s silent prompting, her squire Kierun approached Ruala with a steaming cup of taze. She thanked him and drank deeply. “Sethric says you’ll leave enough soldiers here to protect us if the Vellant’im attack. I appreciate the thought, but you’re going to need everyone if you plan to fight them at Feruche. I assume that’s the idea.”
Maarken said slowly, “It would be nice if we could fool them into thinking Skybowl isn’t worth bothering to defend. But they’ve wanted every other castle in the Desert. Why should this be the exception?” He stretched wearily, a bone in his shoulder cracking. “We’ll put enough people in Threadsilver just in case. Don’t worry about us up in Feruche. After Riyan and Tallain finish the Merida, they’ll come join us there.”
“And then,” Kazander added with a wolfish grin, “we obliterate them.”
“To such victories do we all aspire.” Audrite raised her cup.
Ruala glanced across the room to Meiglan. “Is Pol feeling any better?”
“He’s sleeping now. He always does after Azhdeen talks with him.”
Maarken shook his head. “That great beast of his always leaves him staggering. Pavisel is so delicate with me, you’d think I was made of Fironese crystal. How about you, Ruala? No headache?”
“Feylin gave me something to take the edge off.”
Meiglan was frowning. “Why is it that Pol—I mean, the rest of you don’t have the same trouble, my lord.”
“Soft skull,” Walvis said with a snort, then chuckled. “No, it’s more like the meeting of two great princes—equally powerful and equally stubborn—who, though they’re friends, tend to bruise each other a bit.”
“Pol’s not the only one who gets bruised,” Ruala observed. “I think it has to do with the sex of our dragons. My Azhly is a sire, too. So is Abisel, and it takes Hollis a while to recover. And Sadalian was a perfect brute before Riyan finally got it across that drowning him in color wasn’t the best way to communicate.”
“I never thought of it that way,” Maarken said musingly. “Elisel is very tender of Sioned, I know, and Morwenna always says—” He broke off.
“Do you think Elidi flew to Stronghold?” Meiglan asked.
“I think it quite probable. She might even be there now.”
“Not yet,” Walvis corrected with a glance at the water clock in the corner. “She didn’t stop to drink or feed. She must be exhausted.”
Kierun spoke up for the first time. “Lady Ruala, who was that man who was shouting when the lamb was killed for Princess Sioned’s dragon?”
The breath hissed through Chadric’s teeth. “Master Nemthe, I’ll take oath on it. And I’ll take his tongue from his mouth if he opens it just once more.”
The squire looked taken aback at such words from this kindly old man. “I’m sorry, your grace, I know I’m very stupid, but I don’t understand why he was so angry.”
Ruala stared at her shoes. Kierun lived at Dragon’s Rest where a flock was kept specifically for the dragons. Of course he didn’t understand.
“You’re not stupid at all, Kierun,” Audrite said. “He was angry because he thought we fed Elisel at the expense of tomorrow’s dinner.”
“But—it was for a dragon!”
Neither did the boy understand food supplies. Even after the long siege at Stronghold, it was incomprehensible to him that there might not be enough to eat. Ruala traded a glance with Audrite; what had been brought today would provide one meal, perhaps two. No more.
Maarken saw the look and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. But Kazander was the one who spoke.
“The hills are very fine hereabouts, my lady. I have a whim to go hunting tomorrow,” he said, as casually as if it was to be a morning’s pleasure instead of a dire necessity. “What do you fancy? Elk? Deer?”
“Whatever you like, my lord.” She smiled suddenly. “Only please do bring back a rabbit for Master Nemthe’s very own.”
“A skinny one,” Chadric seconded.
“With mange,” Kierun added, startling himself and them. But he grinned as they laughed.
Maarken finished the last of his taze and pushed himself to his feet. “Well, I’ve lazed about enough. Meiglan, my dear, may I borrow your squire to help me make the rounds of the wounded?”
“Chayla has already done that,” she replied. “But you’re welcome to Kierun’s assistance—as long as it’s to your bed. The orders of your lady wife,” she explained, blushing a little as he gave her a stare. “And your daughter, too.”
“My women believe they command my every movement,” he grumbled.
“Don’t they?” Walvis asked innocently.
“Hmph. Kierun, as you’re the heir to Lower Pyrme, one day you’ll have to marry. But take my advice and do as your father did—put it off until you find a quiet, meek, gentle girl like your mother.”
Kierun’s big gray eyes popped at the description. Many of the deadfalls his parents had sprung on the Vellant’im at Lower Pyrme had been of his mother’s gleeful devising.
Maarken went on, “Speaking of autocratic ladies, where are mine?”
“Hollis is weaving To
bin to sleep, and Chayla’s trying the same on Sioned,” Ruala told him.
“Trying?”
“She closes her eyes and lies there still as a stone, but she’s awake and Chayla knows it.”
“So does Elisel,” Chadric said. “She’s circling outside Sioned’s windows.”
“As if she knows something’s wrong?” Audrite tapped a fingernail against her cup. “I think I’d like to read that dragon book.”
Walvis smiled. “I think Feylin will have to revise it.”
• • •
From his camp, the top two floors of the Flametower had been visible. Here in the rocky defile that led to a natural tunnel, only the uppermost windows with their pointed arches were within his view. He reined in his restive horse—a fine Radzyn stallion captured at Whitecliff—and let his gaze roam the canyon walls. Firelight picked out the niches where archers had been, and the footpaths no wider than his spread fingers that gave access to them.
It was just about here that the Azhrei had waited for the battle to come to him, calling out curses and fearsome threats. Or so the soldiers had said. He didn’t believe it. A man like that wouldn’t waste his breath. No, he would sit his saddle in silent dignity like the prince he was, secure in the protection of his Sunrunner witch of a princess—until iron defeated her.
The stallion shifted between his thighs, nostrils flaring. There was no smoke; there was nothing left to burn. Yet Fire lit the defile, and beckoned teasingly from the darkness of the tunnel. Defeated? Not she.
He was used to horses that required a hard hand and harder heels. He kept forgetting that the mount he now rode was used to a far gentler touch—and was abruptly reminded as the Radzyn stud reared in protest, ears flattening and teeth bared. Easing the pressure, he guided the horse up the sloping road.
The tunnel was high enough to ride through without stooping. It bent slightly to the left, sometimes wider and sometimes narrower, but always adequate for at least three riders abreast. About fifty paces in, he saw the source of the light—a trickle of flames like a tiny stream that ended quite suddenly, as if draining into a hole. The horse shied and snorted. This time when he dug his heels in, he was more careful. He wondered if this marked the boundary of her Fire. No—he could smell a faint wisp of smoke here, oil smoke. Peering down, he nodded as he saw the shine below the flames. These, at least, burned honestly, and would burn themselves out.
The Fire in the outer courtyard, bright as sunlight, was another matter. No trickle this, but a red-gold flood that flowed over the walls from the inner ward, cascaded down the stone keep from the very top of the Flametower. And it would go on burning, called to a Sunrunner’s work, answering to her will.
The stallion, oddly enough, had no fear of this Fire. Trained to recognize it by the faradhi lord who had owned him? Interesting thought, and one he would have to remember. Should such flames be used against them in battle, he would make sure the only horses that encountered them were Radzyn- and Whitecliff-bred.
The middle of the courtyard was the limit of the Fire, then. He skirted around it, past the outbuildings and stables that had burned to charcoal by other means. The gatehouse behind him was the exception; cut out of the stone above the tunnel, no kind of fire had reached it. Stone access stairs were littered with collapsed and blackened wood railings, but the gatehouse itself had not burned.
This pleased him; that it had not been reported and the place investigated did not. His commanders would have much to answer for when he returned. Fear was a useful thing, even healthy on occasion, but it must be fear of him, not of the enemy.
There had been a wooden gate in the wall near the stables. All that was left of it was an interlocking iron framework. He rode near to inspect it. The hinges were particularly fine, cast in the shape of outspread dragon wings. But they groaned like dead spirits denied fire and the sea as he hauled the gate open, and the horse gathered his muscles to rear again.
In the inner ward, Fire poured from the open doors of the castle to cover the cobbles like a shallow lake. Still the horse showed no fear, but after a moment’s thought the man dismounted anyway and tethered the reins to the iron hinges. He wanted to cross the courtyard, and there was no sense risking the stallion’s hooves. His own boots would withstand Fire—for a little while, anyway. He smiled slightly, recalling that the faradh’im had tried to burn his sails at Radzyn and his long-arms at Remagev. They gave up so easily; the sign of a weak people who did not understand war.
Even with the protection of treated leather, he made haste crossing to the garden gates. He chucked softly at the thought of what his warriors would think if they saw him. Not a dignified picture of their High Warlord. He lost his smile as he pushed open the gate where roses had lately climbed the walls, and saw the rest of Stronghold.
Leaves brittle with autumn had crisped to ash around the trees. The branches still burned. So did the charred grasses and the gravel pathways and even the water itself, though the footbridges had collapsed. Over to his right, what had been a willow tree dripped Fire into the blazing stream.
An exclamation left his lips, the sound of his own voice startling him. Even knowing what he’d see here, it was a shock to see it with his own eyes.
All at once the Fire flared, as if it knew somehow that its enemy had come. He could not keep himself from jumping back, but there was nowhere to go. New flames plunged down from the castle windows, a deluge of crimson and gold that rose to his boot tops, past his knees to the vulnerable material of his clothes. A cry clotted in his throat as heat engulfed him. He forced the sound back until he could control it and his fear, then shaped all the air in his lungs into a curse against the one whose Fire this was.
• • •
“It’s no use. Absolutely no use at all.” Chayla sat and brought one fist lightly down on the table before her, frustrated by Sioned’s resistance. She glanced up at Meath. His face was haggard and old by the light of the candle branch. “I even drugged her taze earlier on. It’s not working any more than the sleep-weave is.”
“But why is she fighting so hard?” he murmured. “She pretends, she drifts off, she seems to be asleep. . . .”
“She’s not. I don’t know why. Perhaps I’m just no good at it.”
“You know better—and so do your patients.”
Meath was gazing at the large coffer of medicines on the table. A gift from Chayla’s grandparents, it was a lovely thing made of fruitwood with brass fittings. Enameled plaques on the sides and bottom insulated the medicines inside. Some of the decoration showed various plants from which cures were made; the one surrounding the hasp bore Radzyn’s cipher and colors.
“What’s in that box of yours?”
“The usual—specialized for war since Remagev, of course. Why?”
“Surgical instruments?”
She flinched as Elisel whimpered from outside the open windows. The dragon was still out there, swooping down again and again to cry out to Sioned—who didn’t even hear her.
“Knives and so forth?” Meath asked impatiently.
“Yes, of course, but—”
“Give me one.”
“Meath, I don’t underst—”
He rummaged inside the coffer himself, careless of the neatly arranged pots and jars, and came up with a horn-handled blade, fine and delicate. Then he crossed the crimson-patterned carpet to the bed. Taking one of Sioned’s elbows, he pushed up the sleeve and dragged the blade across her forearm. Slowly. Deliberately. Watching the blood well up. Hearing her scream in agony—echoed by the dragon outside.
“Stop it!” Meath yelled at Sioned. “Stop it now!”
“Meath! No!” Chayla leapt for him, knowing it was foolish to pit herself against his great size and strength. He shouldered her away and she fell onto the rug. More stunned than hurt, she watched, horrified, as he held the stained blade up to Sioned’s face, before her open eyes.
“Sioned! Do you hear me? Stop it or I’ll cut you again!”
Wings be
at so near that the bed curtains and even the heavy wall tapestries fluttered. In the mirror opposite the windows, Chayla saw a brief glimpse of a dragon’s face, jaws open in a moan that trembled through the room.
She heard a muffled exclamation and turned, sobbing with relief at seeing her father. “Papa! Make him stop!”
“No! Stay away!” Meath warned, still holding the blood-damp knife in front of Sioned. “I’ll do it!” he snarled. “Unless you stop right now, I’ll cut you again, I swear it!”
“Papa!” Clutching at her father’s arm, she begged, “Please, please—”
“No. Wait.”
Sioned was glaring at Meath as he brought the knife down once more, scraping another thin line parallel to the first. The cry that tore from her throat was of pain, but also of despair. She buried her face in her hands and wept as if her heart had broken.
Outside in the night, a dragon cried out one last time.
Meath flung the knife down and cradled Sioned in his arms. Meeting Maarken’s eyes, he said a single word.
“Steel.”
• • •
By the time he got through the gates to the inner ward, the Fire was dead.
The darkness was so abrupt and so total that his guts churned within him. Shame stiffened his spine. He drew a deep breath and waited for his eyes to adjust. Humiliation stung him anew when he remembered the tinderbox in his pocket, and yet again when his hands shook so badly that he dropped it. At last a tiny flame lit the night, and he told himself it was a very good thing that he had come here alone. No one seeing the High Warlord in this state could be allowed to live.
But as he looked around, he discovered that not even the stallion had seen him. Amusement and chagrin lifted a corner of his mouth as he inspected the knotted ends of the reins, still attached to the iron hinge and neatly bitten through. Truly those Radzyn horses were the spawn of Wind Devils.
The hem of his tunic was smoldering. He took off the garment and rolled it around his sword to make a crude torch. It wouldn’t last long, but perhaps he would find something within Stronghold to light his way. His trousers were singed, too, and very nearly to the groin. He managed a weak smile for his wives’ relief at his escape, and started for the castle steps.