The Dragon Token

by Melanie Rawn

  “I’d like to find him and tell him,” Hildreth muttered.

  “So would I,” Alasen agreed, surprising herself. “Hildreth, answer me honestly. If Edrel leaves, can Miyon be kept in line?”

  “He’s really not much of a danger, my lady. He’s got few troops of his own and no means of communicating with anyone to get more.”

  “Not on sunlight. Has he sent any messengers anywhere?”

  “None that we’ve heard about—and we would have. There aren’t so many people at Dragon’s Rest these days that much can be done in secret except talk. And that won’t gain him any help.”

  “There’s none to be had,” Alasen said with a sudden smile. “The Merida were stopped in the north, and the Vellant’im ran away south from Swalekeep.”

  “He’s trapped into behaving himself, isn’t he? What a lovely thought!”

  “Isn’t it? All right. Edrel can leave with a clean conscience, then. Draza and I will start for Feruche the day after tomorrow.”

  Hildreth gave an exaggerated shudder. “I don’t know how you do it. The two days through Dragon Gap to Stronghold always left me exhausted, even when I was closer to your age.”

  “You did a lifetime’s worth of traveling when you were riding the southern princedoms for Lady Andrade.”

  “Possibly. But if you’re not careful, you may catch up to me in measures spent in the saddle, my lady. To better effect, I hope.”

  “We must keep holy silence,” the priest warned as they hobbled their horses—as if the High Warlord were given to idle prating, or did not know the significance of Rivenrock Canyon. But because they were alone, with no one to overhear the insolence, he merely nodded acquiescence.

  It was a place too sacred for the common soldiers to walk. The two men approached alone, and on foot.

  The horses had grown more and more restive as they neared the canyon, nostrils flaring, ears laid back. Now, standing below the great upthrust spire of rock that guarded the entrance, the High Warlord understood why. The smell of dragons was very strong here.

  It didn’t do much for his own nose, either. An irreverent thought, not permissible in holy precincts. He tried to bear in mind the importance of this place, if not to him, then certainly to the priest and all other Vellant’im.

  Here, dragons found rebirth in Fire. Here the sires mated their females, and the females died—only to rise up again as not one dragon but many, breathing Fire.

  The Book of Dragons found partially burned at Remagev had confirmed this, and all else that the Vellant’im had ever believed. The ecstasy of it, of legends made real and of actually walking across dragon sands, transformed the priest’s face as they passed the sentinel rock. He had worn the same expression when the translation had arrived from Radzyn yesterday.

  The High Warlord was annoyed by it, even though it strengthened his warriors’ resolve. His unease came from the priest’s new authority. Nothing to challenge his own, of course. But he firmly believed that faith should come from belief in the impossible, not proof of the improbable. Faith should not question. It should be pure, uncomplicated, and absolutely obedient. Once men looked for its foundation in fact, they began to demand fact before they would believe—and reasons before they would obey.

  This was not the path to discipline. The priest was too stupid to understand this. He saw only that everything he believed was written in a book, and carved now in stone around him.

  The High Warlord’s own mistake, of course. He had underestimated the power of the written word. Black squiggles on smoke-damaged parchment were meaningless in and of themselves to the illiterate bulk of the army. Yet when rendered from the barbarian language and read aloud by the priest (at night, when campfires burned like dragon wings in the mind), the men said that it was no wonder the Azhrei had tried to keep these truths secret by burning the book. And every eye turned to the priest. Not to the High Warlord.

  Discipline, he thought, and: Obedience. He had united the fractious clans into an army, brought them across the vastness of the sea to make righteous war on their real enemies. He had done it with the power his grandfather had built and his father had taught him how to use. More, he had done it with the strength of his own brain and belly. The warriors of fifty antagonistic clans would follow him, and him alone.

  But the obedience he received was not entirely of his own making, and the righteousness was not his at all. And the priests knew it.

  The one beside him now stood staring from wall to wall of the canyon, his mouth opening a hole in his beard. He looked as if he’d been given a glimpse of the Storm God himself, all cloaked in clouds and crowned in lightning.

  Another irreverent thought. Discipline, he told himself with wry irony, and gestured to a path up the canyon wall.

  They climbed to one of the caves. Neither went inside. It was enough for the priest to know what lay within as told by the legends and confirmed by the book. The High Warlord was tempted, but he had thought it through on the ride here. Faith that had found its factual source was dangerous enough; if anything was found that did not match legend to reality, he would be in trouble. His own faith had nothing to do with priests or dragons or even the Father of Storms. He believed in himself and his vengeance.

  But the belief of others gave him righteousness, and that extra portion of obedience, and so he would risk nothing that might threaten that belief.

  The priest’s lips were moving in a soundless invocation. The High Warlord waited it out. When it was done, he led the way back down the path. At the guardian spire, he paused to contemplate the canyon. A place of violence and power, of death and rebirth. He could imagine what it must be like in the Spring of a Dragon Year. It was said that the old Azhrei, Rohan’s father, had died here at the mouth of Rivenrock, gored by a dragon. And then Rohan had returned to kill the dragon that had killed his father—and on the very same day had seen her for the first time.

  But her Fire no longer burned.

  He swung around suddenly, hearing hoofbeats at the gallop. Nothing short of imminent attack should have brought anyone to him here. But the rider was not one of his own.

  The priest blurted in surprise and anger—and fear, as he took a step back to hide behind the High Warlord. The horse was tall, deep-chested, a prime Radzyn stallion that filled the heart to see even when ridden by an enemy. The man was swinging a large leather sack over his head, and suddenly gave a tremendous bellow that echoed through Rivenrock Canyon.

  “Azhrei!”

  The satchel was let fly, and rolled to the ground right at the High Warlord’s feet.

  He had to admire the precision of the throw, and the delicacy that disguised strength as the horse stopped, pivoted on its hind legs, and galloped off again. By the Father’s Beard, these people could ride.

  The priest had recovered his courage. He bent and with shaking hands undid the thongs tying the sack closed. A head rolled out onto the sand.

  “May he find Hell in his own house!” the priest exclaimed. “He has killed a Brother of the Sacred Glass!”

  The High Warlord glanced down, distracted from the rider’s flight into the hills. The chin-scar, the beads, the beard—it was not a Vellanti face, but after so many polluted generations it could not be expected to be.

  “The Azhrei has killed a servant of the Storm God!” the priest went on, straightening to his full height. “We march on Feruche tonight!”

  “I think not.”

  “We must!” the priest cried.

  The High Warlord shook his head. “We must wait, and do all as planned.”

  “But this is an outrage! From times past the beginning of time the Brothers of the Sacred Glass have been the chosen ones of God!”

  No, he did not say, they were the chosen of the priests, to do the killings you soft-handed cowards have no stomach for.

  The priest was ranting—practice, no doubt, for later on in front of the army. “To touch them is a sin! To obstruct them in their holy work is a sin! To protest their pur
pose or their deeds is a sin! But to kill one—”

  “Payment will be exacted. But we are not yet ready. The vision is not yet complete.”

  “This ‘vision’ did not show us the losses at Swalekeep and at Goddess Keep and—”

  The High Warlord eyed him calmly. “With respect, if you will recall, Goddess Keep was the demand of you and your brethren. And Swalekeep was never essential. None of these places are.”

  “Every death, every stone taken from stone in their accursed castles, every cottage burned is a victory!”

  “Yes. But we will wait, just the same, and act as we must at the proper time.”

  “This cannot wait, not any longer! They have butchered a Brother of the Sacred Glass! I demand that you order Feruche taken and the Azhrei killed for his sin!”

  “We will take Feruche when we are ready. And the Azhrei will die all the more slowly for adding this sin to all the others.” He caught and held the priest’s gaze. “I have said it. And so it shall be done.”

  And so it was not done. He knew it would happen, had known it from the instant the priest questioned the vision. Fact was dangerous to faith. Better that those who believed more in the priest than in him should go. Those who remained would be his entirely, and those who left . . . well, he would soon enough replace them.

  So when ten clanmasters—each hating the others and determined to prove that his faith was stronger than the next man’s—followed the priest that night from the camp outside Stronghold, the High Warlord did nothing. And all he said was, “We all must act as we have faith in our actions.”

  He had to let them go, or deal with an army at odds with itself. He had to let them go, or see rebuke in the priest’s eyes and torn loyalty in the eyes of his warriors. His power against my power—and mine must be the stronger. All the discipline and all the obedience must be mine.

  It was a terrible risk. If they won Feruche, he would have to die. Death didn’t concern him overmuch, but the manner of it did. If the priest was right and it was time for the battle they had come for, then he would die by a priest’s hand. Not a warrior’s. A priest’s soft, clean, craven hand.

  But they would not win. He knew his enemy. The young Azhrei was less cunning and more vicious than the old. He would descend on the priest’s army with everything he had. And he would win.

  Still, the Azhrei would win only a little, and only for that day. He would lose soldiers, which suited the High Warlord very well. Those of his own who came scuttling back would know that his was the true righteousness.

  And with a little luck, even considering the powerful urge for self-preservation that seemed inherent in his kind, maybe the priest wouldn’t come back at all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Karanaya wanted the pearl back, of course.

  So did the Vellant’im. All the pearls.

  Used as part of Sioned’s wild conjuring at Faolain Lowland, a single Tear of the Dragon now nested in the mud at the bottom of the moat. The other five were still in Karanaya’s possession. That she had them at all was a miscalculation on the part of the Vellant’im, who had had every expectation of retrieving them the night they’d attacked Faolain Riverport. How were they to know Karanaya would leap onto a horse and escape, the precious Tears in a silken bag around her neck?

  The Vellant’im wanted the pearls back. All of them.

  Johlarian, Sunrunner at Faolain Lowland for many years, had an idea of what to look for. The Tears glowed oddly when one looked with faradhi eyes, almost with an aura of their own. Still—one black pearl stuck in black mud beneath murky water deep enough to cover a horse’s ears?

  He advised Karanaya to be content with the five she still had. She informed him that as the enemy had fled, not to return lest the Fire Dragon rise again, he might as well locate it for her. She would then drain the moat if it would help.

  The day after this operation began, the Vellant’im returned—Fire Dragon or no Fire Dragon.

  The people of Faolain Lowland, out sorrowing over their ruined fields and charred cottages, barely gained the keep ahead of the enemy. Mirsath, its young lord and Karanaya’s cousin, spared exactly one livid curse for her folly before joining his archers at the walls. Johlarian immediately took to the sunlight and begged help from Pol. The High Prince followed him back in time to see the Vellanti advance.

  And stop.

  No Fire Dragon appeared to terrify them. The torrential rain of arrows was only a minor inconvenience to be shrugged aside in contempt. They had come for the Tears of the Dragon, and by the Father of All Winds, they were going to get them.

  Ninety warriors, fully half their army, surged forth with shields upraised. Ninety warriors, yelling “Diarmadh’im!” at the top of their lungs, charged across the turf in a brave assault that would surely end with their scaling Lowland’s gates and walls.

  Ninety warriors took three running steps into the shallow moat—and began a strange, desperate little dance.

  Just beneath the lazy water was a layer of knee-deep mud. The ninety didn’t know they were in it until they were in it to their boot-tops.

  Shields flew as arms windmilled frantically for balance. Knees pumped wildly, hands tugged at boots, and bodies toppled with a splash. Ninety cursing warriors, dancing madly in the mud, were felled by arrows from above and sucking ooze from below.

  The few Vellant’im lucky enough to have gained the causeway fled in very bad order.

  It took a while to shoot them all down, despite the ease of the exercise. Like everyone else, Mirsath’s aim was a little off; Karanaya kept dropping the arrows she was supposed to be handing him. They were all laughing too hard.

  And so ends the Second Battle of Faolain Lowland! Pol told Johlarian on sunlight. They’re not bad dancers, are they? Let me know the moment they look like trying it again. I could use another laugh like that!

  But as he returned to Feruche to tell the tale, he knew that Mirsath was going to need help. The supply of arrows was not endless. The Vellant’im would not be hindered by the moat once it dried—and there was no way to open the sluices from the Faolain again without sacrificing lives.

  What did the Vellant’im want with the pearls, though? Was it something to do with dragons? Nothing about their reactions to the great beasts made any sense to Pol.

  They had bowed down at Remagev when Azhdeen flew by, as if in worship. They had fled from Sioned’s Fire Dragon at Lowland, utterly terrified. And yet their High Warlord had killed Elidi. And they were willing to die to retrieve a bunch of black pearls they called the Tears of the Dragon.

  Pol was damned tired of questions without answers.

  • • •

  Rihani was cold again, after a long time of being very, very hot.

  He was riding through Syr again with Kostas and Saumer. The cold was the rain, the heat had been the hard exercise of fighting a skirmish. The fire had been in his blood as he killed. The chill was what always came after.

  He tugged his cloak tighter around him, coughing a little with the damp. There was a weight in his chest and he knew it was his fear and his guilt. “I’m sorry, my lord,” he said to Kostas, who rode beside him in the night.

  “Why? You did your duty as a man, as a prince, and as my kinsman.”

  “But I was afraid. I hate this. I hate myself for—”

  “Hush. You did what you must, Rihani. You did what was necessary. You killed the Merida who killed me.”

  But if Kostas was dead—and he remembered now that this was so—why could Rihani hear his uncle’s voice?

  He turned, and for just an instant Kostas was there, and nodding proud approval of his courage. He knew he didn’t deserve it, but before he could speak, his uncle vanished. The pressure in his chest got worse.

  He took a deep breath. It hurt. He kept trying, but the cough was bad and each time left him more exhausted. The air around him was sweet, fragrant with flowers. Spring flowers. He and Saumer had gathered them that morning, setting them in vases and bowls and i
n a garland over the hearth as a surprise for his gentle aunt.

  But it was not Danladi’s touch he recognized now as fingers cradled his head. It was his mother, and he was a little boy who must drink all of the medicine, that’s right, dearest, just a little more, and it tasted strange and sticky-sweet but not too unpleasant.

  He tried breathing again, and this time the coughing lasted only a little while. But he was so cold.

  Saumer was calling his name, trying to wake him from a sound sleep. They’d been up half the night polishing their new armor for the trip to Dragon’s Rest and the Rialla, and he was so tired. But it wasn’t their own armor they worked on, it belonged to Kostas, and tomorrow (today?) they would buckle it into place for the last time and begin the journey from Catha Heights where he had died to River Run where he had been born.

  “Rihani? Please, my son, open your eyes and look at me.”

  Oh. Not Saumer. His father. But what was he doing at Catha Heights? Had Waes been taken, or Swalekeep? Who was protecting Mother and Sioneva and Sorin at Athmyr?

  “Hush now. No, lie still, it’s all right. Everyone is safe, everyone’s fine,” his father said. “You mustn’t worry about them, Rihani. Just please, dearest, please look at me. Please open your eyes.”

  He tried. He tried so hard. His eyelids felt swollen, the lashes heavy. After a long time he saw something pale framed in darkness and all crisscrossed by black spidery lines. He forced his eyes open a little more, and the lines went away.

  “That’s it. Look at me, my son. I’m here. It’s all right now.”

  He looked harder, and soon enough recognized his father’s face. He felt his lips curve in a smile to answer Tilal’s own, and drew a cautious breath.

  And coughed until sparks exploded behind his eyes.

  “Rihani!”

  More of the pungent sweet medicine. He drank between coughing spasms, held safe in the curve of his father’s strong arm. Slitting his eyes open again, he saw that Tilal had taken one of his hands. He couldn’t feel it. He was cold almost everywhere now, except where his father held him.