The Dragon Token

by Melanie Rawn

  Up on the hill, Ostvel’s head snapped around when Andrev let out a gasp. He knew better than to interrupt the boy during his Sunrunning, but the wait was interminable. At last Andrev’s eyes cleared and he blurted out his news.

  “They got too far too fast! Whoever’s leading their troops set a quicker pace than we thought, and they’re almost a measure closer than they should be!”

  “How very uncooperative of them. And Kerluthan?”

  “Leading the charge, my lord.”

  “Following orders,” Ostvel muttered. “No imagination to delay until the right time. Damn! All we can do is warn Tilal.” A second courier was soon riding south for the main army. Ostvel glanced at the sky, noting a few thin rain clouds sneaking up from the horizon. “Be careful your next time out,” he warned Andrev. “I don’t want you caught in the shadows.”

  “No, my lord. But I’d better have a good look now, while I still can.”

  Ostvel watched him, this faradhi child of barely thirteen who might have been Alasen’s son. He wondered if Andry ever thought the same thing.

  Soon Andrev was saying, “Lord Draza has things well in hand at Swalekeep. The guard still hasn’t left the residence grounds. I think they’re probably scared to,” he added frankly. “But I saw something I don’t understand. Someone else is riding to the Vellanti camp, and on Prince Tilal’s own horse.”

  “One of our people?”

  “Not wearing any colors, my lord, but it would have to be, wouldn’t it? The saddle is plain, but I’d recognize that Kadari brute anywhere.”

  “Hmm.” Ostvel chewed his lip. “What in Hells is he doing?”

  Tilal had, in fact, been using his imagination.

  • • •

  Kerluthan led his cavalry in the charge required of him, right into the middle of the Vellanti host. They fell like stalks bowing to the scythe. When he reached the rear lines, he yelled a command and swung his sword high over his head. The split into two wings wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t have to be. They weren’t showing off fancy maneuvers to sell horses at the Rialla. At least most of the riders remembered which direction they’d been assigned.

  He dug his heels into his stallion and turned to the left. The enemy had their weapons at the ready now, but it was a rare being who could stand fast with forty horses galloping straight for him. Still, some of them did, and were trampled by hooves or mown down by swords.

  “With luck, their lines will fall apart,” Tilal had said. “From all I’ve heard, they’re disciplined and methodical. You have to break their order. But remember that this is an experienced army. They’ll form up again quickly unless you engage them at once. Don’t let them draw you into their confusion. It could be a trick, making things seem disorganized when they’re not. Come at them in a steady assault, supporting whatever foot soldiers join you from Swalekeep. But don’t try a third charge. Whatever their state as an army, as individuals they’ll be ready for you.”

  But it had all been so easy. Kerluthan led the charge, and the enemy scattered. The one problem was the thinness of the blood on his sword. The duty of a mounted knight was to break enemy lines, create fear, and kill as many as possible before the foot soldiers arrived to initiate close combat. It was Kerluthan’s opinion that he had not yet killed enough.

  The shadows wavered and vanished as clouds shaded the sun. A thin mist drifted across his face a few moments later. Too bad young Andrev couldn’t go Sunrunning anymore, and would miss this. Kerluthan grinned and shouted for his forty riders to begin a third charge that would return them to the rear of the enemy lines. From there he intended to cut off any retreat while shoving the Vellant’im forward to be harvested by the swords of Waes and Swalekeep.

  It might have worked, too. But someone was indeed ready for him, just as Tilal had warned him.

  • • •

  Draza leaned down to accept a huge cup of wine and settled back in his saddle to enjoy it. An excellent morning’s work—not many of his own wounded, none killed, and Swalekeep open and welcoming. There was the difficulty of the residence remaining, but he would wait until his people were rested and orders came from Ostvel.

  After finishing the cup, he returned it to the girl who’d given it to him—redheaded, perhaps eighteen winters old, and wide-eyed with awe at the presence of a warrior athri. Draza smiled down at her, reminding himself that he was a happily married man. But it was heady stuff, to be a victorious young leader admired by a pretty girl.

  He rode a casual tour of Swalekeep’s streets, through each square and past each tidy little park, not getting lost only because one could never lose sight of the residence’s tall towers. He kept a careful distance. What did Chiana think she was about, anyway? Once Tilal marched in, it would be all over for her. Her best hope was to try an escape now, when only Draza’s people and her own held the streets. But she must be convinced her Vellanti allies would win. Failing that, Draza supposed she would weep for mercy.

  Not that Tilal would show any.

  Draza was receiving the profuse thanks of a wealthy merchant near the open east gates when a man on a frothing horse rode through yelling his name. A moment later, Draza learned that Lord Kerluthan was dead, and the battle near to being lost.

  • • •

  “I’m sorry, my lord. I can’t do anything more.”

  Ostvel shook his head. “The rain is hardly your fault, Andrev. You’ve done exactly what was needed. I’m very proud of you.” He hesitated, then added, “And so will your father be.”

  “Do you think so?” the boy asked quickly, then turned his face to hide a blush. “He said I was too young. But Prince Tilal was my age when he fought beside Rohan, wasn’t he? And Pol’s squires are even younger than I am.”

  “Yes, but none of them are Sunrunners. And that’s how you’re needed. You’re too valuable to risk in the field.” He paused again to wipe the mist from his cheeks. Andrev had cut it fine. Ostvel had seen a faradhi shadow-lost once, in his long-ago youth at Goddess Keep. Timing was indeed everything. And it was time he went down to Swalekeep and dealt with Chiana.

  Not a pleasant prospect. He anticipated wading hip-deep in lies all afternoon—assuming he could get past her household guard. If not, he’d have to listen from the street while she excused herself while accusing him. But he would not order an attack on the residence. Like Kerluthan, he would waste no lives on her.

  Shortly before noon he and Andrev rode through the western gates, as quietly as if they’d come to have a drink in a tavern. Which wasn’t a bad idea, Ostvel reminded himself. But it would have to wait until he’d found Draza.

  He found Camina instead, sitting on a bench beside a tree with a tankard in her hand and a young man crouching at her side. The wine was fortification against the pain of having her broken leg set. She looked up and greeted him a trifle drunkenly.

  “Goddess blessing, m’lord—ow! Careful, you idiot!”

  “Nothing serious, I hope?” Ostvel asked.

  “No, my lord,” the young man said, not looking up from his work. “A clean break. It should be healed by the New Year.”

  Camina winced and took a long pull at the wine. “The foot went one way and the leg didn’t agree. If you’re looking for—damn it, man, I’m not made of wood!—if you want Lord Draza, he’s out fighting.”

  “Where he’s not supposed to be.” Ostvel frowned. “What went wrong?”

  She drank again. “When Kerluthan was killed, Draza took as many as he could scrape up and rode out. That was a bit of a while ago. Dunno what’s happened since.”

  His first impulse was to go have a look for himself. Sheer folly, with his responsibilities. He turned to Andrev. “Find someone wearing my colors. If Draza is winning, have the courier come back here to me. If he’s losing, tell him to ride for Prince Tilal at all speed to warn him. But not be seen by the Vellant’im if he can help it.”

  “At once, my lord.”

  Only much later did he realize he hadn’t forbidden Andrev to go
himself.

  • • •

  As the last of his troops vanished into an orchard, Tilal glanced back over his shoulder at the bridge. Halian had built it using stone from Princemarch and techniques from the construction of Faolain Riverport—but it was Rohan’s work. “So my Sunrunners may cross as they please,” he’d grinned during a Rialla twelve years ago, with a wink at Sioned. Merchants had called Goddess blessings on his name for it and a dozen other broad stone spans over the Kadar, the Pyrme, the Catha, and the Ussh that eased travel and trade. No more would lives and goods be entrusted to the mercies of the currents. All part of the greater plan, Tilal mused, all meant to weave the princedoms more tightly together. He gave a mental salute to his prince and rode into the shelter of the trees, reviewing his own plans for a little mending stitchery.

  Outriders had encountered no enemy scouts. It hadn’t surprised him as much as it might have; they didn’t expect him from the south, after all. Ostvel’s courier had reported the departure of three hundred Vellant’im to Swalekeep and the arming of the rest, but none of the latter appeared to be in any hurry. So Tilal considered himself as yet undiscovered.

  But though he’d distracted a third of the enemy, they were still two to his one. They had relied thus far on their superior numbers, showing little grasp of tactics that secured victory with the fewest casualties possible. They simply threw soldiers against an objective until it fell from the sheer weight. Tilal was fairly certain he could outthink them—he hoped so, at any rate. But he had a problem. The Vellant’im had chosen their ground distressingly well. If he attacked, all advantage of position would be theirs. He’d wondered what he might do about that. Fingering Naydra’s little dragon, gradually an idea had occurred to him.

  He had parted with the token and with Rondeg, the stallion given him at Kadar Water—Goddess, only a season ago? Only in autumn? It seemed ten years.

  “Gerwen, I want you to look as scared as a Sunrunner who knows he’s about to be caught in a cloud. The token will take you into the enemy camp. A mention of Lady Aurar should get you to the commander himself.”

  “And if he asks why I rode in from the south?”

  “Oh, Goddess. I hadn’t thought of that. Wait—you had to take a roundabout route because of the fighting. That will do, I hope. But don’t tell him that unless he asks. After you’ve talked with him—stammer a bit, if you can manage it—tell him you’ve been ordered to return to Swalekeep. Say anything you have to, but get out of there. And keep your eyes open. You’re Medr’im, Walvis trained you to size up an enemy. You can give me information no one else can.”

  Tilal now had only to wait, and keep his army still and silent in the bare orchard. It wasn’t much cover, but it would be enough if no one came looking.

  Finally, someone did: Gerwen, clinging to Rondeg’s powerful neck as the stallion took the muddy fields and fences at an all-out gallop. Tilal rode a little out of the trees to meet him.

  “My lord!” he gasped. “It was perfect. He’s leaving his camp—”

  With the essential information given, Tilal lifted a hand to stop him—which gesture also signaled everyone else to make ready to march. “No, Gerwen, wait a moment and catch your breath.” When he no longer gulped for air, Tilal smiled. “That’s right. Now you can tell me what happened.”

  “My lord, he never asked anything! Once he saw the dragon, he couldn’t do enough for me! Do you know who it belonged to?”

  “He recognized it as Prince Rinhoel’s, did he? Excellent.”

  Gerwen nodded vigorously, dark hair straggling around his face. “He said, ‘So you come straight from the prince himself—of course, I didn’t tell him which one,” he grinned. “He was calling the march almost before I finished talking. I thought he had me, though, when he offered a fresh horse. I nearly died trying to think up a reason to keep Rondeg. But then somebody ran up with some kind of problem that distracted him, so I got away.”

  Tilal sighed complete satisfaction. “Gerwen, Rondeg is now yours. And not a word of refusal, either. My uncle Rohan always said the fun of being a prince is rewarding people with the things they deserve. And you’ll need Rondeg after all this is over and you’re back riding the princedoms with your fellow Medr’im.”

  “Thank you, my lord!”

  “You can tell me what else you saw while we march.” He smiled to himself, for he was about to give some other people exactly what they deserved.

  • • •

  Draza’s arrival angered the clanmasters even more than Kerluthan’s successful charges. The insult of being directly attacked—a first in their experience of these cringing barbarians—was compounded by an incomprehensible refusal to surrender once the leader had fallen. When more troops from Swalekeep pelted toward the battle, yelling their lungs out and waving swords, spears, and even scythes, the clanmasters suddenly saw themselves evenly matched in the field.

  Varek had selected these particular men for one reason only: they had been at Faolain Lowland. More to the point, they had fled shrieking from Faolain Lowland. Half of those who’d failed to take the keep had marched east to swell the High Warlord’s forces, but these seven clanmasters, leading forty-five men each, had come under Varek’s command.

  He hadn’t laughed at the tale of the Dragon Carved in Fire. He didn’t doubt that the accursed faradh’im had done something of the sort. He was rather dubious, however, when the clanmasters asserted that the apparition spewed poisonous flames, screamed the individual names of every man there, had a wingspan wide enough to enwrap a castle, and stood as tall as the Storm Father’s earlobe.

  Other clanmasters and their warriors did laugh. Fist-fights and a murder or three occurred over questions of bravery, let alone veracity. Violence was not limited to those who had been there facing challenges from those who had not; the seven groups of clan-kin knifed each other as well, accusing hated rivals of running first, or running faster.

  Varek had punished the offenders, well pleased. These were men half-crazed to prove their courage and prowess. Swalekeep was their chance, and Varek was gracious enough to allow it. They would win or have their beards hacked off and their wives given to worthier men—for what good was a wife to a castrate?

  So they fought like madmen, which was precisely what Draza thought them. The invigorating exercise of the morning turned into an afternoon of fighting for his life.

  He knew what Tilal had ordered Kerluthan to do: keep these forces from the main battle. This was now his responsibility. But they kept coming at him, bearded men with swords who wanted him dead. If he had ever known why, he had forgotten.

  His horse had been gutted early on. The pride and power of a mounted warrior so admired by that redheaded girl in Swalekeep was lost. He was only one more foot soldier stabbing and hacking with a blade that grew heavier by the moment, all the while trying to keep those other blades from his neck, his back, his vitals.

  The part of his thoughts that did not babble with terror sputtered instead with outrage. He was Lord of Grand Veresch, an important athri sworn to the High Prince himself. No one had ever dared raise a hand to him since childhood pranks earned him a slap on the backside. Even in the practice yard when he learned to use a sword, care was taken of his precious highborn person.

  Now these savages assaulted him on all sides. They didn’t care who he was, what he ruled, or that he had a wife and son and daughter waiting for his safe return. These men wanted him dead.

  That day, Draza found within himself two things. The first was a ferocious stubbornness that the enemy would have not a handbreadth of this ground. That it was not his ground made no difference to him anymore. It was here, and he stood upon it, and that made it his. And he would keep it.

  The other was a simple determination born of recognizing a simple equation: If he killed enough Vellant’im, the killing could end.

  Those who did not risk their lives in battle could speak of the causes of war, the conduct of it, the casualties and the consequences and the co
st. But to the soldier in the field, war had only two truths, immediate and fundamental. Keep and kill.

  So Draza kept this ground that had become his, and he killed those who tried to take it from him. And when he looked around in sudden bewilderment for more to kill, he realized there were no more. It appeared that he had won.

  It felt very strange.

  • • •

  Tilal rode into the deserted Vellanti camp, resisting the urge to laugh. The Goddess had turned a shining face on him today. They had left everything behind in their haste to get to where they had been told he would be. Later he would have it all packed and taken to Swale-keep for study. He hadn’t forgotten the tantalizing clues gathered from the few Vellant’im killed in autumn. There must be something here to give him reasons for the invasion.

  But for now, he had a battle to prepare.

  The enemy had indeed selected their site well. The nearby pasture was awash in thick winter grasses that made a cushion against the mud beneath. It made slippery footing, but at least one would not be sucked down into viscous mire. The nearest wooded cover was half a measure away. Best of all, a road arced around the southeast field, with a ditch and fence on one side. This would slow down any advance.

  It had all been meant for him, Tilal knew. A chuckle escaped as he anticipated the welcome he would give the Vellant’im back to their own chosen battlefield. He had done them a favor; he was finally where they wanted him to be.

  His troops were forming lines according to plan—a frighteningly small army of not quite four hundred—bows in front, swords just behind. Mindful of the training Gerwen and his two fellow Medr’im had received from Walvis, he had given each the command of twenty horse and told them to make life difficult for the enemy as they saw fit. The remaining cavalry he would lead himself, once the archers had softened the Vellanti lines.