by Melanie Rawn
She lifted a languid hand and waved him closer, still not looking around. “Come have something to drink. You look like you can use it.”
“You heard what happened?”
“I heard.”
He went forward a few paces, then stopped. From this angle, her body no longer concealed what was on the table before her: two large crystal pitchers of near-black Gribain wine. One was empty, the other nearly so.
His mother, the High Princess Sioned, was engaged in getting very, very drunk.
She sipped slowly, staring out at the night, or at her own face amid the pinpoint candle flames in the windows.
“Haven’t you had enough?”
“Probably. If you want some, best hurry.”
Pol advanced another step. “I needed you at dinner tonight.”
“Did you?” Disinterestedly.
“Yes. I made a total fool of myself.”
“You don’t need my help for that.” She poured another cupful.
“Damn it, Mother! Don’t you understand? You’re no use to me like this!” He strode to her and grasped one shoulder, and was appalled to feel the bones starting through the silk and lace.
She looked up at him then, wide green eyes perfectly clear, perfectly sober. “Use?” she repeated almost gently. “How do you mean, my dearest?”
“I need your help,” he said, striving for calm. “I need your wits and your cunning. I need you.”
Shaking her head, the silver in her hair catching the light, she told him, “No, I don’t think so.”
“I need you,” he repeated. “As much or more than Father ever did.”
“Damn you.” Only a whisper, it shrieked her pain.
“Please. We’ve lost him. We’re going to lose everything if—”
“I’ve already lost everything!”
He drew back involuntarily from the look in her eyes. “Mother—”
She laughed. “Do you think I care? I don’t give a damn about castles or princedoms—”
“Or lives? We’ll all be just as dead as he is if we don’t use everything we’ve got!”
“And I’m one of your most useful possessions, is that it? Oh, you’re of Andrade’s blood, right enough! Everyone has a function, everyone is useful in the grand game. Why not use your wife?” She snorted. “Poor, delicate darling—she’s about as useful as a book to a blind man!”
“I don’t expect strength from her!” Pol cried. “But I expect everything from you!”
“So I’m to be strong for you and her and everyone, am I?” She gave him a small, vicious smile. “Sweet son, try to listen carefully. I don’t happen to feel like it.” She drank again, then cradled the empty cup between her hands, as if cherishing the memory of it. “Find someone else. I’ve no more strength to give.”
Pol stood over her, cold and implacable because he had to be. “Father would never have let you get away with such a lie.”
Sioned’s face crumpled for an instant before she glanced away. “Don’t ever use his name against me again.”
Kneeling swiftly, he took one of her hands. “Mother, please. You’re right, I can’t rely on Meggie. It’s not her fault. She’s never had to be strong like this. The others—they do all they can, more than I could ever ask of them. But there’s no one else like you.”
She choked softly and he pressed his lips to her clenched fist. “No,” she breathed. “No, Pol . . . I don’t have anything left—”
“I can’t do this alone. Father couldn’t. You were his strength for forty years. I’m asking for some of what you gave him. Mama, I need you.”
When she spoke, her voice shook and the great emerald trembled on her hand. “If . . . if I was his strength . . . he was mine. And he’s gone. All the Fire is gone. I’ve got nothing left, Pol. Not even for you. I can’t, not now. Perhaps later, when I—when I can think past the sight of his eyes. . . .”
Pol stood and let go of her hand. He smoothed the tousled curls at her nape, as if he was the parent and she his child.
“I’m sorry. You’re tired and I shouldn’t have said any of this.” Bending to press his lips to her cheek, he murmured, “Forgive me.”
Sioned caught at his arm with both hands. “I’m frightened—and everything that used to chase away the fear is lost to me now.”
“I know.” He gazed down into her face that was white and strained and lost, and touched the crescent scar on her cheek. “Try to get some rest.”
Chapter Eight
Those who had never seen the Desert thought it to be nothing but sand from the foothills of the Veresch to the Sunrise Water. And mostly they were right. But in the north there rose from the dunes tall spires of stone that wind had not eroded away. Some were grouped into massive fortresses, bastions of rust-colored rock where the Father of Storms was said to take his ease of an evening. Some were spindle-thin, and some were jagged as dragon claws, and some had been worn away to the last stubborn shaft of bedrock. They were called Goddess’ Needlebasket and Stony Thorns and Zagroy’s Pillar, where Rohan’s great-grandfather had won a decisive victory over the Merida. And it was there, on the southern side of a tremendous column that could have balanced Feruche on its flat top, that Tallain and Riyan hid their army.
But not quite all of it. Eighty soldiers were about a half measure away, creating a camp that appeared to hold the entirety of the Northern Desert army. Blankets bad been cut in half to double the numbers of bedrolls; fires enough to cook for an army were lit. The problem was horses, which could not be spared from the main host. Tallain worried about that, but Riyan only shrugged.
“They’ll see what they expect to see. And that’s what we’re showing them. Besides, no moons tonight.”
“But they won’t hear what they’ll expect to hear. Horses and their tack make noise.”
“Know any good songs? Failing that, any loud songs?”
Tallain rolled his eyes skyward in mute appeal for patience—and sent two of his Tiglathi over to the false encampment.
Well past midnight, they were still singing.
“Don’t they ever get tired?” Riyan complained in a whisper. Sound carried in the cold, clean winter air—from the camp to Zagroy’s Pillar and from the stone out to the Desert. The Merida and Cunaxans were five measures off, camped just beyond a sand-rippled hill. But with the decoy troops still warbling away, Riyan knew that the sentries suspected scouts were nearby.
Their original scheme—leading the Merida and Cunaxans to Stony Thorns for an ambush—had been discarded. Stony Thorns was on the road to Feruche, where Pol had taken refuge, and Feruche must not become a temptation. So they lured the enemy with the planned argument instead, split up while shouting invectives at the top of their lungs, and met by night behind Zagroy’s Pillar.
Riyan and Tallain were hunched beside a boulder that sheltered them on two sides. But the Storm God sent wind swirling through the spaces between the stones, and both men were shivering.
“They’re the son and daughter of my favorite tavern keeper,” Tallain murmured. “I’ve heard them go on until the sun comes up.”
“Speaking of which, I wish it would. I’m freezing.”
“Somehow, I don’t think there’s much chance of hurrying it,” the other man said dryly.
They listened to a succession of drinking ballads audible even at this distance, the sound sliding around the bulk of the Pillar. Tricks of the wind sometimes carried the songs far away, and sometimes brought them close enough to mask the quiet nearby noises of horses, clinking bridles, and the rare whispers of soldiers.
Riyan spoke again, with more breath than voice. “I hope we posted the sentries out far enough. If the Merida get too close, they might—”
“You said it yourself—they’ll see what they’ll expect to. If it’s one thing you can count on, it’s Merida stupidity.”
“If they’re so stupid, how’d they get to be a guild of assassins?”
Tallain shrugged. “They worked alone. If they did well in p
acks, they’d have held the Desert. This is where Prince Zagroy smashed them, you know.”
“Question is, do the Merida know it? And if they do, why do they let us lead them here?”
“A chance to make the battle come out right this time.”
“They’re in for a disappointment.” Riyan flexed stiff fingers inside his riding gauntlets. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep? I’ll take the watch, and you can spell me later.”
“Who could sleep with all that racket? Maybe once they shut up.” Tallain chuckled softly. “I’d prefer not to yawn in the face of the enemy. So damaging to one’s dignity.”
Suddenly both men sat up straight as the changing wind brought them another sound: the hoofbeats of several horses at a walk. No one who had not spent a lifetime in the Desert would have taken the noise for anything more than the random shifting of pebbles in the nearby gulch.
“Three?” Riyan whispered.
“I think so.”
Clouds draped most of the stars in thin gray-black silk, but there was enough light to discern three riders on dun-colored horses approaching from the south. Two were dark-headed, but the fair hair of the other drew even the feeble starshine and made of it a silver-gilt beacon.
“Gentle Goddess,” Tallain breathed. “It’s Pol.”
Wincing as a wind-dislodged rock clattered from high up the Pillar, and not daring to descend the short slope and cause more noise, Riyan lifted one hand in greeting. Pol slid from his saddle and handed his reins to one of the other men, who rode quietly to where the other horses were picketed.
Whispers passed amid the soldiers, quick as a wayward breeze and just as soon gone. Pol carefully ascended to where Riyan and Tallain stood, distant singing covering the sound of his footfalls.
“Your grace,” Tallain murmured, bending his head.
Remembering with a jolt that he was looking at the High Prince, Riyan said and did the same. In the dimness, he had the impression that Pol barely held himself from a flinch.
“My lords,” he replied, low-voiced. “To answer the obvious—this morning, from Feruche at a full gallop, with Lord Kazander of the Isulk’im and his kinsman. At nightfall I saw what you’re planning. We avoided their patrols, but even if they saw us, they’ll think us your outriders.”
Tallain was frowning. “There are no moons tonight. How could you have—”
“There are stars.”
Riyan felt his stomach turn over. Tallain could never understand what it meant when a Sunrunner spun the light of the stars. But then, Tallain didn’t know that Pol was also a sorcerer.
They sat beside the sheltering rocks. Pol brought out a small wineskin and took a swallow.
“To Prince Zagroy. I understand you’re about to emulate him.” Handing the skin to Riyan, he conjured the faintest of fingerflames to see by and went on, “Let’s see if I remember it correctly. The other camp breaks at dawn and marches beyond the rise. When the Merida and Cunaxans come looking, you attack from ambush.”
Riyan nodded. “To Prince Zagroy,” he echoed, drank, and passed the wine to Tallain.
“But that’s not how he did it, you know,” Pol said.
Tallain gave a start—and not because the singing had finally stopped. Riyan couldn’t even feel much relief at knowing the danger of observation was judged to be past.
“We’re in roughly the same position he was,” Tallain was saying, “in numbers as well as geography. It’s about the same time of year, too. And he overwhelmed a force twice the size of his own.”
“Desert history belongs to all three of us—but my family’s history belongs to me.” The High Prince stretched his right shoulder under the dark wool of his cloak, as if already feeling his sword in his hand. Rohan’s sword, Riyan thought with a sharp ache in his heart as he recognized the tooling on the hilt and scabbard. He’d seen that sword hanging in the Great Hall at Stronghold since he was five years old.
“Then tell us what happened,” Tallain invited.
“My grandfather’s grandfather believed as much in the power of shadow as he did in the power of light. What he really did here was make use of both.”
• • •
Prince Birioe—for so he termed himself now, making no pretense about either his leadership of the Cunaxans or his birthright as a Merida—was roused from sound sleep by his uncle.
“It’s the middle of the night!” Birioc grumbled, squinting at the candle glow that cast weird shadows as Urstra moved around the tent. “Why is everyone arming outside? Have Tallain and Riyan attacked?”
“No, vanished,” Urstra informed him tautly, and tossed his trousers at him.
“Impossible. My brother Ezanto came back with the patrols just after midnight and said they were camped near the Pillar, singing their fool heads off. Why did they pack up and leave so early?”
“That’s what needs discovering.” He set his candle on a wooden camp stool and handed Birioc his boots. “There was more noise from them earlier, and when I sent scouts to look, they were gone.”
“Well, they won’t get far.” Birioc yawned behind his hand and scratched his beard. It was still new enough on his face to itch.
“We’ve lagged behind them too far, waiting for reinforcements to arrive. We can’t wait any longer.”
“You’re the one who said to keep well back so our troops could catch up!”
“I was wrong,” Urstra said with a shrug. “Those dragon-spawn have led us along like a virgin taunting a lovesick boy. Put your shirt on, I’ll arm you.”
“So we fight them today?”
“If at all possible. This has gone on long enough.”
“I disagree. The outlying levies can’t be more than a half-day’s march from us now. We can track Tallain and Riyan—”
“Who are in the process of luring us toward Tiglath, where Tallain knows the surrounding land blindfolded! We should never have let him pull us away from Tuath.” He shook his head. “We can’t let him choose where to give battle. So today we shall follow, overtake, and destroy.”
Birioc grunted as he lifted both arms so Urstra could fasten his bejeweled breastplate. “This thing may date back to my great-great-great grandfather’s day, but it’s damned uncomfortable and I feel like an idiot wearing it.”
“Wear it you shall. Our ancestor who wore it last into battle defeated the combined forces of the Desert and Syr.” He paused, running a finger over the polished lumps of uncut dark topaz and emerald that studded the heavy leather. “I would have given it to Beliaev. . . .”
“Who would have lost it when he was killed by Walvis at Tiglath,” Birioc said impatiently. “He was a fool to ally himself with Ianthe and Roelstra.”
Urstra lifted a hand menacingly. “And who are your allies? Chiana? Rinhoel? The same get!”
Birioc crushed the fist in his own. “Dare to threaten your prince again, and your bones will rot with Beliaev’s in the sands below Tiglath!”
“It is necessary to take Tiglath first,” the old man snarled. “I see no troops from Meadowlord here to help! And none of your precious Vellant’im!”
“With the Northern Desert ours, and Stronghold theirs—”
“Burned to blackened walls!”
“—and only Skybowl and Feruche between, we’ll meet at one or the other and that will be the end of Zehava’s accursed line in our land!”
Releasing his uncle’s hand, he took up comb and mirror and tidied his thick hair. Then he slipped over his head the little dragon he’d hung on a chain. His safe-passage from Swalekeep, given him there by Varek who was second battlelord to the High Warlord of the Vellant’im, its gold matched the beads woven into his beard. Thirty-four tokens of men dead by his hand at Tuath, glistening so brightly in the candlelight that one almost didn’t notice the break in his beard where the scar on his chin had finally been given. Twice a man, he thought, smiling. And twice a prince. I wonder how my father would prefer to die. . . .
Urstra saw his smile. “Admiring yourself?” h
e asked angrily. “Which are you? Merida or Vellanti? For whom do you fight?”
“For myself, Uncle. In me flows the blood of all three: Cunaxa, Vellant’im, and Merida. I am the cause all our people will believe in.”
At the doorflap of his tent, someone began to applaud. “Brilliant! Truly inspirational! Birioc, dear Brother, you have won my heart!”
Duroth ambled inside, long-limbed and sharp-featured like their father. “If you’re interested,” he went on, “everybody’s ready to go except you.”
“Hold your tongue or you’ll stay behind to strike my tent, and miss watching me kill Tallain.”
“What, not Riyan, too? And both in a single sword stroke? Oh, I beg pardon, Brother. A perfect, masterful thrust from one of your sacred glass knives.”
“Would you care for a demonstration?” Birioc caressed the weapon at his belt—a ceremonial piece only, with no poison inside.
“Save your energy for the battle, both of you!” Urstra snapped. “It’s time to mount and be quick about it.”
They rode through the chill gloom toward Zagroy’s Pillar. Gradually the sky lightened from cloud-shrouded night to a thin, milky pallor. Birioc ordered a pause on the rise overlooking the enemy camp and sent Duroth and Ezanto down to judge how long it had been abandoned. As he waited, the wind in his face, shadows suddenly darkened the sand westward before the Pillar. The sun had cleared the cloudless horizon, hidden from Birioc’s army by towering stones.
His brothers returned to him. “They’re playing with us,” Duroth growled. “No more than fifty or sixty spent the night here.”