The Dragon Token

by Melanie Rawn

  “No, my love.” He assisted his wife to a chair and she melted gracefully into it. “I’m sorry the noise disturbed you.”

  Rialt clenched both fists. “You have no authority over me. I am sworn to the High Prince and he alone can try and sentence me.”

  Chiana gasped. “Sentence? My lord, what is he talking about?”

  “Well, merchant?” Halian drew himself to his full height. “Do you have the courage to repeat your accusations in her grace’s presence?”

  If he did, he was a dead man.

  Chiana was all big eyes and pretty bewilderment. “Halian? What do you mean? What sort of accusations?”

  “Nothing to bother you, since he won’t be making them again. He will be tried for conspiring in the death of a Lady of Meadowlord. He—”

  “Cluthine?” she echoed, horrified. “Are you saying Cluthine is dead?”

  “Forgive me, my dearest, I’m sorry you had to hear it this way. I thought Rinhoel would have told you.”

  And Rinhoel undoubtedly had—unless Chiana had been the one to tell him. Deciding he was probably dead anyway, Rialt wondered what his chances were of skewering her with a fireplace iron. Might as well die to a good purpose. He took a step closer to the hearth.

  Then he thought of his wife. His son.

  “Not Cluthine! Oh, how terrible! What happened?”

  “She was on her way to Prince Tilal, at this filth’s orders,” Halian said, then went to the concealed door and told the guards to take Rialt back down to the cellar.

  As Rialt was bound and gagged once more, a smile flirted with the corners of Chiana’s mouth. She withdrew from the pocket of her velvet robe a small twinkling thing of silver. She held it in her open palm for Rialt to see, then fisted it quickly as Halian returned to her side to soothe her.

  • • •

  There was a thin wooden bridge half a measure below Swalekeep. Naydra and Branig had crossed it last night without incident. But this morning their horses’ hoof-beats were frighteningly loud, even with the wind shaking the nearby trees. Surely the Vellant’im would hear when hundreds of horses and troops crossed in a little while—if the bridge even survived the weight. But Tilal seemed confident of his plans. Before she left the camp at dawn, he’d explained that he would come in this direction to get at Swalekeep itself, then attack the Vellanti army.

  He said it in Branig’s hearing. He started to tell her more, but she silenced him with a smile. “I’m sure it’s a brilliant plan, my lord, but the fine points are completely wasted on me.”

  She wondered if she should have warned him about Branig. But neither Cluthine’s death nor Rialt’s imprisonment had any bearing on the coming battle. She knew the really important information was accurate. She had done what she had set out to do. If she failed to return to Swalekeep, no matter. Branig had served his purpose in getting her this far. Still, even knowing that her success had been due to his help, she could not bring herself to trust him.

  She had never trusted any man in her life except her husband and High Prince Rohan. With a father like hers, who could blame her? But now Branig was asking her to trust him and his people—whoever they were. It made no sense, for even if he had spoken the truth, she was Lallante’s daughter, and Lallante had been of the faction opposed to Branig’s in this strange, unsuspected conflict between diarmadhi factions.

  They were safely in the wood now, where sound did not carry. Naydra’s curiosity was suddenly stronger than the dull misery of aching muscles and jarred, frozen bones. “Branig? Did my father ever know?”

  He didn’t need to ask what she meant. “No. It was kept from him. Unlike Rohan, who knew what he was supposed to do.”

  “Tell me how it happened.”

  Branig turned in his saddle and smiled. “It’s a very long tale, the kind that should be saved for an evening around a fire—with lots of wine to make it sound more plausible. But since a night like that won’t be available to us for some little while, I’ll give you the short version.”

  Naydra forgot the cold as she listened, amazed by the arrogance and appalled by the ruthlessness of her forebears.

  Roelstra’s first choice of a wife had settled on either of the twin daughters of Anheld of Catha Freehold. As the name of his property suggested, Lord Anheld was sworn to no one—except, vaguely, the High Prince. Power ran in his family; Roelstra wanted a faradhi son. But Lady Milar took an instant dislike to him, and Lady Andrade—already a Sunrunner—openly loathed him. So he returned to Castle Crag furious and determined to oppose the Sunrunners for the insult dealt him.

  After a time, Lallante was brought to his attention. Young, lovely, and intelligent, she was clever enough to let her family think she shared their ambitions for her. It was intended that she become High Princess and teach her sons in secret about the sorcery that was her legacy. But Lallante’s own intent was to be only the High Princess, and teach her sons nothing. Her family could rage as they pleased; safe and unassailable as Roelstra’s wife, she would escape all diarmadhi plots for power.

  “Hers was an intriguing character,” Branig mused. “Being of the opposing faction, we never knew her, of course. I don’t think her own family did, either. She managed to fool them long enough to get herself wed to the High Prince, and after that she did as she liked.”

  “I don’t remember her very much,” Naydra said. “My father never spoke of her to us. He never said her name, that I recall. Lady Palila made the mistake of asking for her rooms once and he hit her so hard it nearly broke her jaw.”

  Branig shrugged. “Perhaps he loved Lallante. Who can say? She may have loved him. She may have merely used him to escape her family. They waited, you know, for a son—just as your father did. I’m told that after Pandsala was born, they attempted to join the suite of servants around you princesses. None of them succeeded.”

  “Because of my mother?”

  “Because there were people like me watching for it. We couldn’t prevent the marriage, and we feared what it might produce, but at least we could try to prevent mischief. Your mother didn’t use her power. She was well-trained, we know that much—but it seems she rejected what she was. It must have shocked her family witless. Actually, they gave up on all of it, especially after your mother’s death. Until Mireva began to think seriously about Ianthe’s sons.”

  She wondered suddenly how her mother had died. In childbirth, she’d always been told. But—Branig’s side, Mireva’s side, her own family—what means would any of them scorn to achieve their desired ends? She began to understand Lallante’s withdrawal from the whole power-hungry mess of them.

  “Anyway,” Branig continued, oblivious to Naydra’s suspicions, “Mireva got the three boys out of Feruche and raised them—well, the rest you know. We didn’t see that coming, I’m ashamed to say. They’d been quiet for so long, and we thought they’d lost their will and ambition. We should have known they were only waiting.”

  “And now?”

  “Chiana,” he said succinctly.

  “But she’s not my full sister. Rinhoel isn’t diarmadhi.”

  “No. But he is your father’s grandson. Useful for the basic claim to Princemarch.”

  “So it all starts up again?” she demanded, horrified. “Some poor girl will be found to marry him, someone more biddable than my mother, and—”

  “Yes. That’s how it reads to us. We do what we can. It’s more difficult now, because diarmadh’im are known again. Before, we were barely a distant memory. Now we’re real, we exist. Lord Andry wants us destroyed and he doesn’t make distinctions.” Branig stared at the road for a long moment. “He killed my grandmother’s sister, back in 728. She was nothing but a harmless old woman living in a cottage in the Veresch. I visited her once, when I was little. He had her killed, and burned that sunburst sign on the door—that was how we knew it was him.”

  “One might think that because of this, you’d support Pol simply to oppose Andry, and for no other reason than that.”

  �
��Perhaps for some of us, that’s true,” he admitted. “But Andry’s persecutions aren’t new. We’ve survived similar things. What’s dangerous is the prospect of a High Prince loyal to Mireva’s line. They would dispose of the rest of us and the Sunrunners as well. All we want is what anyone wants: to be what we are, and live in peace.”

  Naydra heard this wistful plea and thought of what Branig was willing to brave in order to fulfill it. Not just this perilous journey through the night, but years of enduring Chiana’s court, the constant danger of discovery, the giving over of his own desires for his life to the larger plan—if plan it was. It didn’t seem so. All his people did was attempt to foil the plots of Mireva’s faction. They made no moves of their own.

  She hadn’t even done that much. She’d never needed to. She had been allowed to be what she was—Roelstra’s daughter, Narat’s wife—and live in peace.

  But now she was Diarmadh’reia. With the title came power. She had no idea how to use it. But perhaps she wouldn’t have to. Perhaps being Diarmadh’reia would be enough. . . .

  To accomplish what?

  Branig was talking again, and his words were an eerie echo of her own thoughts. “What we’ve always done is wait. All of us, no matter which side. We’ve hidden in the shadows of faradhi making. We can’t anymore. We have no princely powers, it’s true. But we do have our magic. If the faradh’im would allow us to use it, then perhaps we might help in this war. These are our lands too, your grace,” he finished with simple dignity.

  “It’s all very convoluted, isn’t it?” she said, just for something to say.

  “Isn’t it just? Balances shifting this way and that, back and forth, over and over again until nobody’s sure of anything. I like order, my lady, and nice, neat patterns to things. Perhaps that’s why I teach mathematics,” he ended with a smile.

  Naydra didn’t respond to the humor. “Three kinds of power, all mixed up,” she said. “Can they be untangled, Branig?”

  “Is there a nice, neat equation to solve it, you mean? I don’t know,” he said, but from the way his gaze met hers without wavering, she knew he was lying. Some people couldn’t look one in the face when they lied; others—her sister Ianthe came immediately to mind—lied plain-faced, straight-eyed, and without a single flinch. Branig was one of these.

  “You’re diarmadhi,” she pressed. “Even if you’re not of Lallante’s faction, surely you don’t want to see the Sunrunners in such power as they now have. Pol is a Sunrunner, and High Prince. You say you trust him. But what if he decides that you’re all the same, you and those you oppose? The fact remains that these Vellant’im do have something to do with the sorcerers.”

  “I don’t know that this is fact at all, my lady.”

  “I’m not a fool, Branig!” she exclaimed. “The Merida are their allies—and the Merida were your trained assassins!”

  He reined in his horse at the edge of the woods and stared across the flat fields to the bulk of Swalekeep. “Your pardon for being blunt, my lady, but if we are all to be held accountable for what our ancestors did, then you have more to worry about than most.”

  Either she was more exhausted than she thought or the cold was affecting her mind, because all at once she laughed. He frowned, then smiled uncertainly as she said, “You’ve got me there, Branig! If I forgive you the Merida, will you forgive me my father?”

  “For siring you? Never,” he replied, grinning.

  “I’d like to hear about your family, and how they broke off from the other sorcerers. What happened to cause the disagreement?”

  “Another long story, and one I think I’ll save for that hearthfire and wine. We ought to hurry down this last stretch, my lady. Swalekeep is quiet for now, but soon it won’t be. I don’t want you caught in the fighting.”

  • • •

  “I still don’t think it’s fair,” Andrev muttered.

  Ostvel cast him an amused sidelong glance. “I quite agree. But at least you can be of some use. All I am is a skinful of old bones on horseback.”

  They were riding together with a pair of guards and several couriers to a hill overlooking the Faolain and Swalekeep. They wouldn’t be crossing the river until Tilal had won the battle. He’d been tediously adamant about keeping them out of harm’s way.

  “And no protests from you, either, Andrev,” he’d said. “You’re more valuable to me as my Sunrunner than as my squire right now. When you tell Lord Ostvel what you’re seeing, he’ll analyze it and send me word.”

  Which was the reason for the couriers on swift Radzyn mares. Ostvel’s brawny, feather-footed Kadar Water gelding snapped occasionally as the others danced their impatience for a run. There was no soothing the big brute; all Ostvel could hope was that the Radzyn horses sidestepped fast enough.

  Chiana expected an attack from the west. That was just what she’d get. But Draza’s contingent would come from the north and east as well. And Kerluthan would lead a flanking charge to the south, wedging himself between the Vellant’im and Swalekeep. Attack everybody, indeed! Ostvel thought with a mental snort.

  It was the enemy’s mistake, and Chiana’s, that they had not occupied the town or gotten close enough to defend it. Chiana had insisted that they stay back to make things look legitimate. So there was a nice chunk of land between the Vellanti army and Swalekeep, and once Kerluthan was on it, Draza would join him and help him push the enemy into Tilal’s waiting army.

  As Draza had observed, timing was everything. And to ensure that people were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there, Andrev would ride the winter sunlight and Ostvel would dispatch couriers.

  Andrev had suggested signal fires. The terrain was such that there were no direct lines of sight available; he would have had to light them at strategic locations chosen beforehand. But he was nowhere near fully trained, as Ostvel gently reminded him. Sunrunning he could do; lighting torches a measure or two away he could not.

  “Do you have enough light to take a look?” Ostvel asked, and Andrev nodded. He watched the wind tousle the boy’s silky blond hair, blowing it back from glazed blue eyes. How many times had he seen a Sunrunner work? Thousands, probably. He still wondered what it must be like to weave oneself into the sunshine, to taste and touch and smell colors as well as see them.

  “It’s all going very well, my lord,” Andrev reported a few moments later. “Lord Draza and Lord Kerluthan are over the northern bridge and approaching Swalekeep. No alarms have gone up yet. Prince Tilal’s troops are halfway to the southern bridge. They should cross about the same time the walls are attacked.”

  Draza’s soldiers were mounted double, with an archer behind each rider on thirty big Kadari horses. One of each couple was female; less weight. There had been much laughter when, once they were mounted, Ostvel had called them to attention and told them to keep their hands polite during the ride. “Unless, of course, you’ve ridden with your saddle-mate before—and not on horseback. Remember that, Camina, or I’ll tell your husband on you!”

  They were all his own people, from Castle Crag and environs. He hated sending them out under another man’s banner, with another man leading them. But Tilal was right. He was too old for combat.

  Kerluthan had taken only Radzyn mounts, for his would be lightning raids—“Like the Storm God snapping his fingers,” he’d said with a grin—before he left Swalekeep to Draza. Ostvel went over the plan once again in his head, hoping that both young men would recall that Swalekeep was fully five measures around, awash in mud, and inhabited by people who didn’t know that the object wasn’t to kill them but to secure their safety.

  Draza was finding out about the mud. The double-mounted horses sank fetlock-deep in it. The road was a mire and the fields were worse. But at least he could spread his people out in a broad line so they wouldn’t be scraping hoof-thrown muck from their faces. Kerluthan’s people had to stay in tight formation at a hard gallop. It would be a wonder if they weren’t all blinded within the first half-measure
.

  He signaled his fellow athri with a raised hand as they came within sight of Swalekeep. “Goddess blessing, my lord!” he called. Kerluthan waved back, grinned, and ordered his riders to the charge.

  It was perfectly done, and lovely to watch if one had a taste for such things. But nobody in Swalekeep saw it. They were either still abed, yawning over the first cups of taze and wine, or on their way to their daily tasks. The first anyone knew of an attack was the sound of odd thunder from three different directions at once. But there were no clouds in the sky.

  Draza was a little put out that nobody seemed interested. His ten groups of six reached the walls without anyone’s even peeking through the breaches to see what was going on. The archers jumped down and strung their bows while slipping through the mud before a single shout rose from inside Swalekeep.

  “Get those carts out of the way!” Draza ordered. “No, don’t bother with your arrows, not yet! Once we’re all inside, then we can start fighting!”

  “If they put up any fight!” someone yelled, shoving a shoulder against piled crates.

  Draza had thought people would rush outside with swords and spears, and give him some exercise while clearing the openings in the walls for him. Instead, his archers were doing the work while the mounted soldiers milled about with nothing to do but wait.

  Up on the hill, Andrev was fretting. “It’s taking too long, my lord. If their archers get up onto the walls, Lord Draza’s people will be vulnerable.”

  “But this way he’ll lose fewer. I hope,” Ostvel added under his breath. “The only ones who’ll have trouble are the ones on the western side, where the bulk of the arms are hidden. What’s Kerluthan doing?”

  “Waking up Swalekeep, my lord.”

  • • •

  “Have the walls been breached?” Chiana cried. “Are they inside?”

  “Not yet, your grace.” The guards commander buckled the last strap on his breastplate. “We have people hurrying to resist their advance, but they seem to be everywhere at once. The household guard is saddling up to ride against Lord Kerluthan—”