The Dragon Token

by Melanie Rawn

  Pol then cauterized each stump with Sunrunner’s Fire.

  Tallain kept his spine straight and his eyes open and his stomach below his ribs. Not like this—defeat them, yes, destroy their army and their pretensions to the Desert—but not like this!

  He heard their shrieks and remembered Jahnavi’s face, still and cold as he lay dead at Tuath. And Jeren, only two years old. . . .

  Exactly like this! Make them pay for what they’ve done, for all the lives they took and the misery they caused!

  He smelled the stench of yet more blood and remembered Rohan’s face, gentle and smiling as he cradled Tallain’s firstborn in his arms. . . .

  But Pol’s right, he did this when the Merida attacked Stronghold—he had their right hands cut off and sent them to Roelstra. We are what war makes of us—what they have made of us. If we behave as barbarians, it’s only because they force us to it.

  He saw them writhing on the ground and remembered Sionell’s face, fierce and taut as she demanded he bring her back a Merida skin as a trophy of war.

  And then crumpling with despair as she realized what she’d said.

  It’s not them. It’s not even war. It’s us. This is what we are. Savages clad in silk. Naked swords in jeweled scabbards. Rohan knew that. He knew there’s no difference between us and them except—except—oh, Goddess, I knew once! There has to be a difference!

  Pol had returned, remounted. Tallain barely saw him.

  Kazander was speaking. “—to doubt your wisdom, my prince, but could I not have at least killed the scarred ones? After all they have done, it will be difficult to explain to my people why they were allowed to live.”

  “It is my order,” Pol said, “and that is reason enough. Don’t mistake me, Kazander. It’s not mercy. It’s practicality. They will return to Cunaxa and speak of what happened here. Even if they say nothing aloud, one look at them will be eloquent enough.” He sighed again, exhaustedly this time, and murmured, “Besides, I’m sick of blood today.”

  Tallain closed his eyes. It was his wife’s voice he heard in his mind, as clearly as if she stood within the circle of his arms. “Those of you who do the killing have to live with how you did the killing—and why.”

  No, my love, he thought, not “live with” why. Concentrate on it. Remember the reasons. The necessity. “Why” is the only thing that matters. Without it, what we do and how we do it become demons to claw at our minds—

  “Tallain, you look as bad as I feel,” Pol said.

  He looked at his prince. “I’m fine. We’ll start off now, by your leave.”

  “I understand.” Pol smiled, and the weariness was like another scar on his face, like the one on his cheekbone. “If I get down from this saddle again, I’ll fall down and not get up again for two days.” He glanced at the sky, his gaze blank. After a moment he nodded and said, “Birioc is headed northwest, more or less toward Tuath. He’s got twenty men with him. Don’t lose him in the canyons. Take him tomorrow or the next day and then go home, Tallain. And be sure to give Meiglan’s love to Sionell.”

  He didn’t like hearing his wife’s name on Pol’s lips. Nodding once more, he wheeled his horse around and signaled to his captain to call assembly.

  “We’re going hunting,” he told the man. “And then we’re going home.”

  Chapter Nine

  The emissary from Prince Laric of Firon rode out of Fessada at a gallop, new snow fountaining beneath her horse’s hooves. Camanto, elder prince but not Fessenden’s heir, watched from a tower window and grinned to himself. He’d had no need to be present at the recent audience; he was so certain of what had been said that he could have set it to music.

  In fact, he mused as he went back to his maps and rosters, all this would make a rather fine ballad series. He’d have to find a bard with a sense of humor when he commissioned the songs.

  Later in the morning he put himself by way of encountering his brother’s wife in the garden, where she always went when she was furious. As Arnisaya was possessed of a volatile nature, she spent quite a lot of time there.

  And so it was today. Camanto lingered in the arcade for a moment, admiring her delectable curves as she strode along swept gravel paths between snowy hillocks. She’d been rather a scrawny little thing when she’d married Edirne; motherhood had improved her figure, if not her temper.

  He strolled around the perimeter of the garden, where bare roses drooped beneath the weight of last night’s snow. Eventually she turned for another path, and saw him.

  “Camanto! Have you heard the latest idiocy?”

  He took her arm. “Succinctly—my father has refused Laric permission to cross the Ussh and march through our lands on his way to save his princedom.”

  “And do you know why?” She snorted. “Because Laric is a kinsman of the High Prince, and if the Vellant’im find out we helped him, they might attack us!”

  “Thin, I’ll admit,” Camanto said. “Actually, my father is afraid that Fessenden will become what Meadowlord always was—a convenient battleground. Yarin must know Laric’s coming. If he’s smart, he’ll already have sent troops south to watch the most likely routes.”

  “To battle his own prince? His brother-by-marriage?”

  “Of course not. Against the Vellant’im, of course.”

  She stopped walking and shook his arm. “Tell me what you’re talking about! You’re not making sense!”

  “Picture a snowstorm,” he suggested. “Just a little one. Two groups not quite sighting each other, not quite sure who the other might be. Neither has had access to a Sunrunner for Goddess knows how long, so neither knows where the Vellant’im are. A skirmish in the snow against soldiers who, for all they know, are the enemy . . . except that the one side knows very well who the other is. And then we’ll all be in mourning gray for yet another prince.”

  Arnisaya still wore that color in memory of her brother Lord Segelin and his family, dead the first day of the war at Gilad Seahold. She wore it to remind all who looked at her of what she had lost, unavenged. But in the snug little world of Fessada, girt by snow and far from the fighting, people had ceased to notice the color or remember what it meant.

  Camanto knew all this, knew how angry it made her. He wondered how much of what else he knew he ought to tell her. She was impulsive and reckless, likely to say whatever was in her head. But he needed her. With a shrug, he went on.

  “Does it make sense now, dear sister?”

  She had recovered her powers of speech. “Yarin wouldn’t dare.”

  “Whether he would or not, Laric is currently our problem. No matter what Father says, he’ll try to cross the Ussh River.”

  “With his princedom at stake, I should think he would! And he must, if what you say of Yarin is true.”

  He smiled. “You know, I was just thinking of ways to prevent him.”

  He kept a firm hold on her arm so she couldn’t strike him with it. Her other hand came up and he grabbed that, too. Her hair came loose of its pins, cascading around her crimsoned face, and he spared another moment’s admiration for a woman of immediate passions—so unsuited to his cold fish of a brother.

  “Gently, my lady!” he laughed. “Hear me out in full before you kill me!”

  “I thought you a man of honor and pride!” she snarled. “You led me to think it after Rohan died. Have you turned craven like your father and brother?”

  “You don’t much care who fights whom, do you? As long as someone does something!”

  “I care about my son,” she snapped. “And what fine examples his kinsmen are of what a prince should be! Nothing but cowardice and—”

  “Yes, yes, I know the whole list of defects in our characters,” he interrupted. “You have such a demanding standard of excellence. Will you listen for a moment, Arnisaya? I promise you’ll like what you hear. For Lenig’s sake as well as your own.”

  Sullenly, she replied, “Talk. It’s all you and your breed are good at.”

  This was the way to han
dle her, he thought: ignite her temper, then bank the fire with sweet reason that kept it smoldering against the object he intended. Life with her would not be placid, but never would it be dull.

  “I’ve notified those among the highborns who believe as we do to be ready at my summons. The household guard is mine to command as well. What do you think I’ve been doing all autumn and half the winter?”

  She caught her breath. “Riding the nearer keeps, and the river all the way to Einar. But you said it was to make sure we had defenses enough if the Vellant’im did attack.”

  “So I said. So I meant. And now my father and brother will thank me for it—for when Laric is denied crossing here, he can be persuaded south. Edirne will have no stomach for riding that far in such weather. So once he’s trotted out looking lovely on his horse and shouted a bit at Laric, he’ll return here and leave the army to me.”

  “And once you’ve persuaded Laric down to Einar? What will Lord Sabriam do?”

  She had a quick brain when she chose to use it. He smiled. “His son Isriam is in the Desert. His sister Kiera married Allun of Lower Pyrme—and their son Kierun is Pol’s squire. It’s taken direct threats from my father to keep Sabriam from outfitting his merchant ships for war and sailing against the Vellant’im in Brochwell Bay. Thus far, he hasn’t moved. A hundred troops have been at Einar since mid-autumn to make sure of it. But when I arrive with a whole army, and tell Sabriam to give Prince Laric all the ships he needs. . . .”

  Arnisaya clutched his arm excitedly. “Who’s to say it’s not your father’s will? But why do all this for Laric? Firon and Fessenden have ever contended over their borders. Even when Laric was made prince in 719, and so much was settled—”

  “—and so much land was handed over to us to gain our support for Laric’s claim,” he broke in. “I know all that. But Laric wants nothing but Firon. There’s been no trouble since he came to Balarat. Peace is a very good thing, Arnisaya.”

  “Yarin is of the old line, and would start it up all over again,” she said, nodding. “Yes, I see. But you’re not doing this for Edirne’s ease as the next Prince of Fessenden. You’re doing it for me, and for Lenig.”

  He made an abashed shrug and let her think what she liked. As he returned indoors, he reflected that it was easier than telling her the truth.

  He’d learned it himself from his uncle. Almost two years ago, after his wife’s death in a hunting accident, Milosh had fled into the hills on his swiftest horse. Some said he wanted to escape his sorrow, others that he wanted to find death, still others that he wanted to find and kill the stag whose chase had caused her fall from the saddle. Instead, a diarmadhi found him. The sorcerer had died and Milosh had come home, and had not left his holding since.

  Camanto, who was friend as well as nephew, had been the only one to whom Milosh confided that he’d had no hand in destroying the man who captured him. “I was trussed in a chair. He went outside for more wood, I heard him scream, and when I finally got myself loose I found him in the clearing, charred to a crisp. Another sorcerer, Sunrunners, I’ve no idea—but he was dead by someone’s fire, with no one around but me.”

  It was something else about the incident that motivated Camanto now. The sorcerer had said almost nothing to Milosh, not even why he’d been taken or what was planned for him. On his way back to Fessada after making sure his uncle was recovering from the ordeal, Camanto had ridden alone up to the cottage. There he had found three interesting things: a crystal goblet, a small sack of coins, and a coverlet on the bed. The money was undoubtedly payment for Milosh’s abduction. The goblet and quilt, however, made little sense until he noted the colors: the ice white and winter-sun yellow of Snowcoves.

  The quilt was new, silk on one side, velvet on the other. The goblet was as fine a piece of work as any Camanto had ever seen, with the hallmark of Snowcoves’ court glassmaster on the bottom. How would someone living in a hillside hovel, and so far from Firon as well, acquire such expensive items?

  He’d worked his mind around it all the way back to Fessada. Payment and tokens of favor; they had to be. To a sorcerer, from someone rich and important enough in Snowcoves to buy from Lord Yarin’s own personal crystaller. If Yarin himself wasn’t diarmadhi, then someone close to him must be.

  Camanto had burned the quilt and shattered the goblet in the hearth. He told no one. Who would believe it? Stirring up the old troubles between Fessenden and Firon with only a suspicion would avail nothing—and might injure Milosh, for Camanto’s suspicions included him. He would never willingly join in treason, but no one knew what sorcerers could do to a man. Revenge for some petty personal grudge was the accepted reason for the abduction. Coins, goblet, and quilt said otherwise. Sunrunners could use eyes and ears other than their own; why not sorcerers? Princess Chiana been suborned by a diarmadhi witch. It was possible. Milosh had been held for almost two days. Who knew but that he had been made a creature of the diarmadh’im without his knowledge? It was much better that he stayed at his own holding and away from Fessada.

  When rumor and then Fessada’s court Sunrunner established Lord Yarin at Balarat, Camanto knew that just as the sorcerers had tried to take Princemarch by killing Pol and using Chiana, now they were attempting to claim Firon. Whether or not Yarin himself was diarmadhi made little difference. Surely they were his allies. It all made too much sense; in ages past they had retreated to the Veresch in the face of faradhi supremacy. There could be thousands of them in the mountains, ready to come at Yarin’s call once Balarat was secured. And where would they go next but Fessenden on their way to Princemarch?

  Camanto was well aware that the mere thought of facing a whole army of sorcerers would destroy the fighting will of any force raised against them. Better that they not know. He knew, and it scared him more than the Vellant’im ever could.

  By all reports, the Vellant’im shouted “Diarmadh’im!” as their battle cry. Yarin could also be receiving support from them. No dragon-headed ships had been sighted sailing north to Snowcoves, but that might only be because of the miserable weather. They might be waiting for spring, until after the south was theirs, to assist Yarin and his diarmadhi confederates in the north.

  Camanto knew how vulnerable his homeland was. Einar could be seized in a day, the lower Ussh River taken in a four-day march. Fessada would be the work of an afternoon. Ensuring that the enemy did not get past Einar was his duty as a Prince of Fessenden. And once he accomplished it, there would be no question of his brother Edirne’s continuing as their father’s heir.

  All autumn he had debated the merits of asking Lord Andry’s help. The Lord of Goddess Keep and his Sunrunners had done—something—to kill the sorcerer. More, they had done it from an incredible distance, even greater than that bridged by Sioned in building her dome of starfire around the battle between Rohan and Roelstra. They might perform the same service for Camanto now. They might give his army an edge if it came to fighting sorcery.

  Andry’s own actions—or lack of them—kept Camanto from contacting Goddess Keep. No one, no matter the need, had been helped at any distance by Andry. What did it matter that Rohan had restricted use of faradhi arts to the defense of Goddess Keep? Andry’s duty was to protect the princedoms. He hadn’t. And Pol would never ask for his help. A man would have to be monumentally witless not to know how things stood between Andry and Pol. Camanto despised Edirne, but the emotion was grounded in contempt. He didn’t fear his brother the way those two feared each other’s power. Andry had let Radzyn, his own birthplace, be taken; what did he care about all of Fessenden?

  No, Camanto would not ask help from the Lord of Goddess Keep. And once Pirro was dead and he was Prince of Fessenden, both Andry and Pol could rot for all the support he would ever give them in anything.

  And he would be Prince of Fessenden. Totally honest with himself, if not with those around him, he knew his actions were motivated by equal parts ambition for his future, loathing for his brother, and love for his princedom. Desire for Arnisa
ya was purely secondary, but made things more amusing.

  So that night he had a little talk with his father and brother. Two mornings later—as Pol started for Feruche, Tallain for Tiglath, and the maimed Cunaxans and Merida for their homes—Camanto stood once again in his tower chamber, watching his brother ride a beautiful black horse out into the snow. A measure away at the river, as many troops as could be gathered in so brief a time had assembled for Edirne’s inspection—and Camanto’s eventual use.

  • • •

  For the first thirty-two years of her life, Princess Naydra had been a daughter of High Prince Roelstra. For the next thirty-two, she was the wife of Lord Narat of Port Adni. The former had been an accident of birth; the latter was a blessing for which she thanked the Goddess every day of her life.

  Her father was long dead. Now her husband was dead too, having succumbed to a chronic weakness of the lungs early in autumn at Waes. Neither father nor husband was alive to give name, definition, meaning to her life. Had she borne a son, she would have devoted herself entirely to him and been content. Daughter to a father, wife to a husband, mother to a son: a gentle womanly circle, a perfect life. But completion of it was denied her, for she had no son, and no means of defining herself.

  She was still a princess, still Lady of Port Adni. But the titles were empty as blown eggshells without the men who had given them. People said “your grace” and “my lady” and the words meant nothing.

  The day after Cluthine left for Tilal’s camp and did not return, Princess Palila’s tutor came to Naydra’s chambers, bowed low, and gave her a new title.

  “I beg a few moments, Diarmadh’reia.”

  Distracted by her concern for Cluthine, Naydra did not immediately understand the strange word. When she did, her knees buckled and she stumbled to a chair.

  The man leaned back against the door into the anteroom. It snicked shut. He had the temerity to lock it.

  “You knew, your grace,” he said quietly. “Your sister Pandsala knew at the last. Ianthe did not—and thank the Goddess for it. Lenala died of Plague before she could find out. Your mother was Lallante of the Mountain—a line of so-called ‘stone burners’ old before the time of Lady Merisel.”