by Melanie Rawn
By the Father of Water, so much stone! He stood in the vast entry chamber, mouth agape in genuine awe. He hadn’t realized what it would feel like, to be in the middle of it. His own keep boasted more stone than any other in all the Islands, as was fitting, but every handspan of it would not have built even this staircase.
He walked to the huge open doors of the Great Hall and looked within. The windows had blown out and the blue-and-green tiles had splintered in the heat. The hundreds of lamps set high on the walls had melted to shapeless lumps of metal. The lack of wood ash on the floor puzzled him for a moment until he realized that this room must have been used as a sleeping chamber; probably the tables and benches had been stacked elsewhere.
What a magnificent place this had been—truly a place for princes. Not even Radzyn, mighty as it was, had affected him this way. But his makeshift torch was burning too quickly, and he must find some other light soon. There were many things he wished to see.
The kitchens would be convenient to the Great Hall. Perhaps there was some grease or oil to soak the cloth. He started across the cracked tiles that crunched beneath his boots. Suddenly he stopped, hearing a sound that warned him out. Made of solid stone Stronghold was, but massive rafters held up the ceiling here—and what was left of the wood groaned in an agony of effort beneath the weight of the floor above.
He returned to the stairs, brushing his fingers against sooty walls where tapestries had hung, listening now for the keep’s death rattles. But most of it was stone on stone, though everything within had burned down to nothing.
Upstairs, room after room showed him only what metal it had contained—a candlebranch, chair frames, table legs, rods for hanging curtains. He heard himself muttering under his breath in the barbarian’s tongue, and did not wonder why he used it in this, their most precious castle that she had burned rather than see him take. His own language should not be spoken in this place that had belonged to her and would never belong to him.
There was too much here that was strange to his people and their ways. Too much evidence of luxury. Their language reflected it, full of unnecessary words. His own tongue was simple and direct: subject, verb, object. The actor, the act—and the acted upon, he told himself with a grim smile that died when he recognized that the room he was in had been the library.
This was the reason his sire had forced him to learn the enemy’s language. “To know an enemy’s words is to know how he speaks of himself. His words give you his mind, his thoughts, how he looks upon the world.” So he had learned to speak it, read it, even write it. But all that hard schooling would avail him nothing here. At Remagev, some books and scrolls remained despite the efforts to destroy them—especially that book on dragons that made the priests tremble as they translated it at Radzyn. Here, in the library that was the prize of all the princedoms, there was nothing.
He went back downstairs, down into the cellars to confirm another dismal suspicion. Of course he’d been right; the great wooden cisterns were only ash floating atop a flood—but of water here, not Fire. The grotto spring would have to suffice, he told himself.
Skirting the danger of the Great Hall, he guessed his way to the kitchens. And there he was rewarded—not with oil to make his torch last, but with a half-burned log beneath the ash of the huge open hearth. Ironic indeed, that the only thing other than steel pots and copper pans that had not burned was something meant to burn.
Another patient search yielded a stoppered glass jar of oil. He soaked the end of the log in it, set it afire with the last sparks of the tunic wrapped around his sword, and took his search back outside.
The night was even darker now. He turned to look up at the shadowy castle, the windows dripping black where her Fire had scorched the stone. Ah, to have the taming of a woman like that! Even advanced in years, it was said she was beautiful still.
And dangerous—for her dragonmate was gone.
That was what he had really come to see. He wanted to look at the face of his enemy—or at least upon his ashes.
He came to the place his warriors had described. Nothing was left. Not even the ashes. He held the torch high, searching for anything that would confirm who had lain here, and caught sight of a dull glitter in dark soil. Crouching, he picked it up and rubbed it clean. A man’s earring, small and plain, set with a topaz the color of Desert sands. It must be his; the jewel was his symbol, worn in a ring with her emerald. But though he searched, holding the light close to the ground, he could not find the ring.
Something else glinted by firelight, snagging his gaze to the water. He pocketed the earring to free his other hand. A long, waving lock of hair had been caught by a stone in the water. He plucked it up. Protected by the Storm Father’s blood, not even the Goddess’ Fire had been able to touch it.
And it was hers. The red and gold had darkened with water, but he knew it was hers. It was strangely disturbing to see the silver so thick in it. A woman like that should not grow old like everyone else.
But perhaps she would grow no older. Perhaps the dying of the Fire had been at her death. Who knew, with Sunrunners?
He tied the strand of hair around itself—no easy task one-handed—and put that in his pocket, too. Then he rose, intending to go judge the fall of water in the grotto. But at that moment he heard a piercing cry, and although he had cured himself long ago of his people’s one true terror, it was hard—in this place that had belonged to the Azhrei—not to shiver with dread at the sound of a dragon.
• • •
With Sioned sleeping an honest sleep at last, Meath explained himself quite calmly. “She called Fire at Stronghold. And maintained it, probably without even realizing it. Iron piercing her flesh during a working threatened her life. So she stopped.”
Chayla was shaking her head in wonder. “I should have heard it. There was too much pain in her voice for the shallowness of those scrapes on her arm. I’m sorry, Meath. I should have trusted you.”
“I must’ve seemed utterly mad.” Pausing, he bit his lip and said, “I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly fine.”
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he insisted. “I’m sorry, my lady.”
Maarken put a hand on Meath’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. She only looks made of crystal and silk.” He slanted a look at his daughter. “Best not let your Lord Kazander hear of this, however. He’d skewer poor Meath and roast him for a dragon’s dinner.”
“He’s not my Lord Kazander,” she began hotly.
The pair of them were smiling at her, and she realized what her father had done in making a joke of it. Still, it was irksome to be the target of his humor, even if Meath was the beneficiary.
So she returned them to the real subject. “How did you guess what she was doing? Nobody else had any idea.”
“It was something I saw at Stronghold tonight. I used the last sunlight to take a look. It was still burning as if the Fire had only just started. I ought to have put it all together before this.”
“How could you have known? How could any of us? None of us sensed what she was doing. Not even you, Meath.”
“Elisel did,” Chayla murmured. “She knew something was wrong.”
“Sioned didn’t greet her, didn’t talk to her,” Meath said. “The faradhi part of her was—elsewhere. But how did she do it?”
“I think I know,” Chayla answered. “She was in shock. Calling Fire was the last thing she did at Stronghold, and possibly the last thing she clearly remembers. I’ve been hearing stories about her all my life. I just never knew how powerful she is before now.”
“We know something much more important, my lady,” Meath said softly. “She wants to live after all.”
Startled for a moment, Chayla could only stare at him. But her father was nodding agreement.
“I see what you mean. She could have let you continue, knowing what it would do to her.”
“Yes. She could have chosen to die.”
“Oh, Meath,” Chayla said, putting a hand on his arm. “It would’ve killed you long before it killed her.”
He shrugged and glanced away. Maarken spared him the awkward silence. “Will she sleep now?”
“The longer the better,” Chayla said, back on familiar ground. “And you, too—both of you. Consider it an order from your physician.”
A tiny smile quirked the older man’s mouth. “Crystal and silk, you say? Maarken, this one was birthed from a dragon’s shell.”
• • •
It was difficult to see the dragon, now that Stronghold no longer burned to illumine the night sky. But he could hear the terrible keening wails as the beast flew above the castle, and kept track of it that way as he mounted the gatehouse’s stone steps. Within, he was rewarded once more: though not a princely weapon, the bow was a fine one.
Two quivers of arrows slung over his shoulders, he hesitated only a moment at the top of the stairs. It would be tricky, and if he failed in the full sight of his army all would be lost. But he had been waiting for just such a chance. The Father of Wind and Rain had provided it. He would not fail.
One dragon was dead. Now it was time to kill another. Not the son—not yet. He could wait. But this one, with wings and talons and teeth like daggers, this one would die tonight.
The little rivulet of fire was still burning in the tunnel. He strode directly onto it, smashing the weak flames with his boots. In the defile he paused once more, listening for the dragon. The cries echoed through the tunnel, distorting his perception. The creature must be lured to the open sand so that all could watch it die.
Wing-wind blew suddenly at his back, startling him and dousing the makeshift torch. He dropped it at once and fumbled for an arrow, infuriated that his treacherous hands still shook in obedience to foolish terror. Commanding them to his mind’s will and not his emotions, he nocked and drew and let fly at a darker darkness overhead.
A shriek of pain shattered the air, sent pebbles shivering down the canyon walls. He laughed aloud, all fear gone now, and ran to follow the sound. The Desert spread out before him, tents and cookfires dotting what had been a battlefield. To a man, his warriors cowered on their knees before the Devil Dragon whose single glance could rip their spirits out through their eyes. They would learn otherwise tonight.
The fires, hundreds of them, lit the dragon’s pale gray underwings. He pulled the bowstring once more, missed, shot another arrow and yet another. Only a female, he realized with a pang of disappointment. But she would do, she would do. Favoring one wing, she circled, seeking an updraft to carry her. He loosed another arrow. It found her hide next to the first, near the juncture of shoulder and rib, and she screamed again.
He hurried forward, stopping only to aim and shoot again and again until there were no more arrows and the dragon had plummeted to the sand, unable to fly. Casting aside the bow and shrugging out of the encumbering quivers, he drew his sword and advanced on her, taking his time. She was down and would not rise again; all must see him, all must watch as he killed her.
Nine of his arrows had found her; he counted them as he neared, pleased by the potency of the number. Two in her shoulder, three in her belly, one in her left thigh—a lucky shot, that, guided by the Wind Father’s breath—and the remaining three straight through her wings. She would bleed and she would limp and she would not fly. But she was still very much alive, armed with jaws that could snap him in half, two good forelegs that could tear his head from his neck, and a spiked tail that could spit him like a lamb for roasting.
His men had added their cries to hers. He approached the dragon head on, scorning to sneak around her back like a coward. She balanced on her good leg and her tail, snarling, but did not lash out at him. He nodded; she was cunning enough not to waste her strength when he was out of reach. Her wings were awkwardly folded as close to her body as the arrows would allow. She snapped at him and worried at one of the shafts with her teeth, finally broke it off and flung it away. But her talons could not dislodge the two arrows embedded in her shoulder—and the three planted in her belly oozed thick blood.
He had hunted many creatures in his life for food and for sport. This was for pride and power. And he had no idea how to bring her down.
Suddenly one of the wings unfurled and swept toward him. He flattened himself in the sand, rolling to his back. Thrusting upward with his sword, he let her catch her wing on the blade. There was a ripping noise like a wind split sail. The dragon howled and stumbled back. Over-balancing, she pitched forward nearly on top of him, smothering him in her wing.
Panic clawed his vitals as he struggled against the weight of her wing. But through the huge rent he found escape, ears ringing with the thud of her body and the sound of her shrieks. Slick with her blood, he jumped onto the main wingbone. It cracked beneath his weight, a broken piece of it jutting up through the blue-gray hide.
The fall had driven the arrows deeper into her chest and belly. She would not rise. Could not. He clambered atop her heaving back, years of sailing rough seas serving him well until she convulsed from head to tail. He lost his footing then, landing hard with the base of her neck between his legs. His groan matched hers in pain—but he was the one with the sword. He made himself raise it, lean far to the side, and hack off her head.
They were bellowing their triumph and devotion. They were coming closer. They must not see him stunned and still in agony. He slid from the dragon’s neck onto his knees in the gore-wet sand. The great head lay near him, teeth shining in gaping jaws. He pushed himself to his feet and closed his fist around the handful of spines above one eye, hoisting the heavy weight aloft. It nearly overbalanced him, but he planted both feet in the sand and stayed upright.
“Here!” he shouted with all the breath in his lungs. “Here is the Dragon, dead by my sword!”
His warriors went mad with joy.
“See the Monster, the Hellspawn! Dead! Dead! Dead!”
They chanted, and he laughed. Obedient to his commands? Now they would cut off their own balls at his whim.
“Hear them, new young Azhrei?” he whispered to the starlight. “Thus I will hold your head. I, High Warlord of all Vellant’im, swear it.”
Chapter Six
There had been much debate at Goddess Keep over a signal. Jolan had wanted a great sonorous bell, but the extra iron was not to be had and the work of casting took a long time. (And how disturbing it was that neither materials nor time were available; it was a first in Andry’s life.) Torien suggested drums, but the sound would not reach to the far pastures. It had been Nialdan who pointed out the solution.
It hung over the entrance to the main hall. Everyone saw it every day, which meant that no one ever really looked at it. But Nialdan remembered wanting to take it down and polish it long ago, and being forbidden by Lady Andrade herself. “It hasn’t been touched for fifty years that I know of, and not since Lady Merisel’s day for all anyone else knows. There she put it, and there it stays.”
But as Nialdan reverently detached it from its mountings and climbed down the ladder, he said, “It’s been silent long enough.”
Cleaned of several hundred years of spider-weavings, dust, and grime, the horn shone like dawn. It was as long as a horse and Nialdan was probably the only one among them who could lift it. Half its length was made of bone sections riveted with silver; the rest, solid gold. The massive bell was incised with fifty distinct markings, each stained black, each presented within an open palm, none of them bearing any resemblance to the written form of either language Andry knew.
“Clan identification?” Jolan guessed, running a finger over the carvings.
“Whatever,” Nialdan replied with a shrug. He braced the horn in Deniker’s cradling arm and glanced around the ramparts. “If this does what I think it will, hold your ears.”
The horn’s note was deep, resonant, and deafening. Torien, out in the pastures on his duties as chief steward, swore later that the sheep and goats turned to stone and t
he plow-elk stopped in their tracks.
“And I didn’t even put much breath into it,” Nialdan reported proudly. “Can you imagine what it will do when I really—”
“Spare us, please!” Deniker begged.
A few days later, standing on the balustrade above the main gate, Andry heard the horn and winced. Nialdan had taken it to the top of Goddess Keep and pointed it out to sea, and still his ears were numbed by the sound. But it worked. The people in the camp below came to an abrupt halt, frozen even as the last echoes died away.
“Well, it certainly does get their attention,” Valeda remarked at his side. “How’s your leg?”
“Fine.” He resisted the urge to shift his weight.
“You shouldn’t be on it too long.”
“I’m fine,” he repeated impatiently.
She gave a snort. “You couldn’t bear to miss this, could you?”
“I’ve got to find out if they’ll obey the signal.”
“And obey Lady Jayachin—excuse me, Master Jayachin,” she corrected sweetly.
Twenty strong young men, all wearing white tunics hastily donned at the horn’s signal, were moving among the tents now, urging everyone to proceed in an orderly fashion into Goddess Keep. Jayachin was nowhere to be seen. Andry supposed she was testing the efficiency of her little band of helpers, or waiting to see if an appearance was needed. He was amused by the notion that she had learned the trick of strengthening one’s authority until one’s actual presence was unnecessary for one to be obeyed.
But the refugees hadn’t yet completely accepted her rule. They resisted herding. Her white-clad functionaries did their best, but everyone tried to make for their own tents and possessions.
“A trifle lacking in discipline, I’d say,” Valeda observed.
“This is only the first practice. They’ll learn. Besides, if the shepherds come running with news of Vellant’im marching over the hills, they’ll do what they’re supposed to right enough.”