The Dragon Token

by Melanie Rawn

  Hildreth, watching her elder son swing easily up into his saddle, hid an oppressive sense of unease. Feneol would be safe enough; there was no reason he should not be safe enough. Besides, he was needed. Lord Draza, learning of the young man’s intimate familiarity with the Veresch, had asked him to join the group heading for Feruche with Princess Alasen. They would meet up with Princess Meiglan’s party, and Feneol would ride back to Dragon’s Rest with her as guide through the mountains.

  Hildreth was unsure of the wisdom of sending Meiglan home. Pol had seemed confident enough that the roads and passes were clear of Vellant’im. Her own observations last night and this morning confirmed it. But perhaps they knew enough to hide while there was light to work by, either sun or moons.

  Well, it wasn’t her decision to make. But the staying or going of her younger son was, and he didn’t much like her edict.

  “You won’t change your mind?” Aldreth asked again at her side. He was rubbing a nose red and swollen with sneezing.

  She tugged the scarf from his pocket and handed it to him with silent eloquence.

  “Master Evarin is very clever,” said Ullan when their son opened his mouth to protest again. “But no physician, Sunrunner or not, has ever cured a cold until that cold wanted to be cured. No, here you stay, my lad, to cough this out of you.”

  “And try not to give it to everyone else while you’re at it,” Hildreth added. “Get out of this wind, Aldreth. There’s snow in it before afternoon, I can taste it.”

  He looked up at his brother and pulled a face. “You’d think I was six years old. All right, all right, I’ll take my stuffy head someplace where it’s warm.”

  Feneol grinned down from horseback. “Just the other day you were telling me that the fire in Birnali’s room is—”

  “Shut up!” Aldreth exclaimed. “—and you weren’t talking about the hearth,” he finished.

  Ullan cocked an eyebrow at the younger man. “The little redhead? What happened to Romia, and Antaji, and—”

  “Men!” Hildreth snorted. “Listen. There’s the call from Lord Draza’s captain. Behave yourself, Feneol, and keep a close eye on the trails. Princess Meiglan will want to be home as quickly as she can.”

  “Mother,” he said with a patient sigh, “I’ve hunted in these mountains for years. I’ll get her here safe and sound—and bring you back an elk or two as well.”

  He rode off to join the departing company, and Aldreth took himself and his cold indoors. Ullan nudged his wife toward a nearby paddock, where other horses were being readied for travel.

  “How long do you think Birnali will last?”

  Hildreth shrugged. “As long as any of the others with our prancing young studs. Goddess, how I wish one of them would make a Choice and give us a grandchild!”

  Ullan grinned. “Speak for yourself, lady mine. Come, Edrel and Norian are about to leave. They’re the ones who’ll need wishes for a safe journey.”

  The new Lord of River Ussh and his wife, Princess of Grib, were going south at all speed to give her brother Elsen what help they could. It was Norian’s fiercest desire that they would encounter Andry along the way. She had a few choice opinions to unload on him for calling on her crippled brother to lead an army in defense of Goddess Keep.

  Finding Andry was one of Hildreth’s ambitions, too. He seemed to have vanished. She couldn’t be riding the sunlight all the time, and seeking one faradhi in all the length and breadth of the southern princedoms was insanity. If she happened to be looking while he was projecting his colors, she might have had a chance. Otherwise. . . . But she kept trying because Pol asked it of her.

  She would not be trying today. After a clear morning, clouds now brooded overhead, heavy with the snow Ullan had predicted. As Alasen and her party rode up the valley, tiny pinpoints of white drifted down in a sullen breeze. Hildreth shivered while bidding Edrel and Norian farewell, and returned inside as soon as she could.

  • • •

  Andry had no warm shelter to seek. He was out in the open with not even a tree in sight. The Storm God was sparing him not at all.

  Not that his own thoughts did, either. His body, trained to horsemanship from babyhood, took care of riding. His mind was free to follow paths even more treacherous than the snow-thickened road before him.

  The obvious starting place—Goddess, I’m freezing!—led to, This is no place for a Sunrunner to Let alone a son of the Desert to Why can’t I be going south where it only rains? to Why am I doing this crazy thing anyway?

  To answer “Alasen” was too easy. And it wasn’t entirely true. There was his firstborn to consider. Objectively, he knew Andrev was safe enough with Tilal, who would never risk his Sunrunner in battle. Subjectively, Andry also knew his hatchling would fight him tooth and talon if he tried to take him from Tilal’s service. So, to avoid a vicious scene that would hurt them both—and probably amuse Tilal no end—Andry bowed to his son’s pride and rode north.

  But that wasn’t all of it, either. He returned to “Alasen” and hunched his shoulders into his cloak. He didn’t love her. Not anymore. Not after Brenlis. And it wasn’t as if she needed his help. She’d gathered an army at Castle Crag and sailed down the Faolain (he spared a shiver for the journey over water) to Swalekeep, then ridden in good time (considering the weather) to Dragon’s Rest seeking Chiana. He suspected that with her quarry undiscovered, she would soon either make for Feruche or return to Swalekeep. Both were folly and he intended to persuade her to stay at Dragon’s Rest where she could be safe.

  He knew he had about as much chance of that as he did of reclaiming Andrev.

  No, they didn’t need him at all. But in an odd way they were his shadowy companions on this road he was traveling now, the one that led back home to the Desert. Alasen was his past, his youth; Andrev was the future. Each guided him in a different way, but toward the same goal.

  However, between the Desert and what he must do there—whatever that might be—lay Dragon’s Rest. And Miyon of Cunaxa. Getting him to Rezeld Manor presented an interesting problem. Andry couldn’t go in as a Vellanti warrior replete with beard and beads; the guards would slaughter him on the spot. But who would Miyon trust?

  Ah, Goddess, of course. Who else?

  Andry laughed at the trick he was going to play—and coughed when he got a mouthful of snow flurry. The problem with snow was that it was so damned cold. What he wouldn’t give for a nice, warm sandstorm about now. . . .

  • • •

  During the noon meal, Walvis kept a wary eye on Audrite. Her outburst had frankly shocked the stuffing out of him. If a woman of her calm could blow up with the violence of a sudden sandstorm, then Feylin—volatile at the best of times—would bear careful watching. But as he considered further, he decided there was small danger of it. She vented her emotions in frequent squalls, unpredictably there and swiftly gone. And, bitterly, he knew that where Audrite still had two sons to worry about, the Vellant’im had already done their worst to Feylin. They had killed her only son; they had killed a son-by-marriage as dear to her as if she’d birthed him herself. She had wept a lifetime’s tears twice this winter. Knowing how empty he felt, Walvis suspected his wife didn’t have much left by way of rage or weeping, either.

  Turning his thoughts away from the pain, he gradually began to notice—with welcome amusement—that everyone else at the high table was watching Sethric and Daniv try not to watch Jeni.

  She was a pretty girl, with her father Ostvel’s deep gray eyes and her mother Alasen’s smile. A wealth of sun-streaked brown hair, knotted in braids at her nape, would look better twisted high on her head to show off a swanlike neck; clothes that fit better would have emphasized her figure. But even in plain workday garb, with hair straggling around her face, she was lovely. That she was a Sunrunner didn’t hamper her attractions; the way that responsibility rested gracefully on her would make Ostvel and Alasen proud.

  It was an interesting little dance the two young men and the girl were engaged
in, made the more entertaining by Jeni’s insistence that whatever they did, wherever they rode or explored, thirteen-year-old Alleyn and nine-year-old Audran must go with them. The addition of two children to their group neatly prevented the young men from making complete fools of themselves. It actually brought them closer together as they tried to find ways of losing the hatchlings so Jeni’s attention could be divided between them alone.

  Walvis watched the three of them—plus, inevitably, Alleyn and Audran—leave the hall to visit their horses, smiling behind his beard.

  Feylin saw it; she always saw it. “So,” she said at his side. “Do you think she’ll make herself a lord’s lady or a prince’s princess?”

  Walvis shrugged. “Depends on where she wants to start—and where she wants to get. Sethric has nothing of his own. But married to a Sunrunner, he could rise much higher than a prince’s cousin can usually hope to do. Daniv is Prince of Syr and kin to her through the Kierstian royal line, and—”

  “I think you’re rushing things a bit!” Audrite told him, smiling. “After all, Jeni’s scarcely limited in her Choice. And I heard no mention of love, Walvis. Shame on you!”

  “Jeni’s much too young to know what or who she wants,” Feylin agreed.

  Walvis grinned at her. “Shame on you! War shows a woman what a man really is. It’s how you fell in love with me.” He gave a wistful sigh. “Ah, that sweet and lovely time at Tiglath—”

  Feylin interrupted, “—when the only time I spoke to you was to tell you what an idiot you were. You do choose the strangest things to get sentimental about, my lord.”

  Chadric, seated next to Feylin, began to chuckle softly.

  “My lady,” Walvis replied serenely, “your words only confirmed your growing adoration.”

  “My—!”

  “Nothing like a bit of danger to help a woman realize she wants a man to stay in one piece with all useful parts intact and functional.”

  “Perhaps,” Chadric murmured, “I ought to have had my father arrange something. A skirmish with bandits would have done it—and saved me the saddle sores. All those measures back and forth to Sandeia. Goddess, the things we do when we’re young!”

  “There haven’t been any bandits on Dorval in a hundred years,” Audrite scoffed.

  “There are now—and their leader happens to be our son!”

  “Oh, I agree that war is a charming way to Choose one’s lifemate,” Feylin remarked. “Let’s remember to tell Ostvel that when this one is over, he’ll have to hold lots of little ones so his daughter can make a really informed decision, based on circumstances that, please the Goddess in her mercy, won’t occur ever again in their lives!”

  But it seemed that the circumstances were upon them once more. Daniv came running into the hall to report that a large force of Vellant’im was fifteen measures from Sky bowl and would arrive before midafternoon.

  “Sethric is already seeing to our preparations, my lord,” the young prince finished. “Horses, troops, archers—”

  “What about the dragons?” Feylin asked.

  Daniv blinked, his eyes darkened by worry from their usual bright turquoise. “The dragons?” Then he blinked again. “Oh. I see. If they fly away, it had better be now, while the enemy can’t get at them.”

  “You’re the expert,” Walvis told his wife. “How do you chase off a half-dozen dragons? Yell really loud?”

  “Very funny,” she retorted. “If only we had someone here who could talk to them. Well, we don’t.” Briskly rising to her feet, she went on, “Maybe they’ll just stay where they are. They must know what happened to Elidi at Stronghold. They’ll have the sense to stay out of arrowshot.”

  “Unless one of them decides to take vengeance,” Chadric said.

  “One of the males, no doubt,” Feylin commented. “Come on, let’s have at these lice-ridden whoresons.”

  “My dainty, delicate darling,” Walvis muttered, mostly for Audrite’s benefit. If he could help her keep fear at bay a little while longer, he’d gladly make jokes until he rode out the gates. After this morning’s outburst, he wasn’t sure how she’d react. Yet she was not frightened; the same battle-spirit that glinted in Feylin’s gray eyes sparked in Audrite’s as well.

  “Yes,” she was saying, “let’s get started. Those people are beginning to annoy me.”

  By the time Walvis mounted his horse, Daniv and Sethric had gathered their soldiers into formation—no more than a hundred men and women, and not more than half of them knowing more about fighting than to stay in the saddle and hack away as best they could. Still, for what Walvis had in mind, that would do. Though Jeni could listen to other faradh’im, she could not yet go Sunrunning herself. But Pol or one of the others had surely seen the enemy advance, and even now they would be marching south from Feruche. All that was required of Walvis was to slow the enemy down.

  They had all agreed that Skybowl was the best place to meet and defeat the Vellant’im. The terrain was right—the hills and the crater held by the Desert forces, and nothing but sand for the enemy to retreat to, with a good flat plain to fight on. Daniv and Sethric had fought several map battles for him and Chadric recently, honing ideas as Rohan and Chay used to. The young men had plotted out lightning raids, so beloved of the Isulk’im, against anything up to three hundred Vellant’im. Sethric, victim of Kazander’s techniques at Remagev, looked forward to applying them to someone who would really benefit by them.

  But no one had thought the Vellant’im would send so many so soon. More than four hundred bearded warriors marched in close order onto the plain below Skybowl, settled into battle ranks, and waited.

  “We could just let them sit, you know,” he murmured, more to himself than to Sethric as they watched from the crest of the crater. “We’re the ones with water and shelter. We could just wait for them to give up and go away.”

  “My lord?”

  “But Pol’s coming, I can feel it,” he went on. “We owe it to him to do whatever damage we can. It’s a good plan. I can think of only one improvement.” Even as he spoke he was listening to the dragons. They were shifting nervously along the lakeshore behind him, but whether from the smell of the Vellant’im or something else, he wasn’t sure.

  He made note of the ten different groups into which the enemy was divided, and especially of the man in stark white who rode before them. Viewed through a long-lens borrowed from Feylin—who used it to inspect dragons at a respectful distance—Walvis saw that the man wore not a single golden token in his beard. Not the High Warlord, then. Pity. But an interesting target just the same.

  “Improvement, my lord?” Daniv prompted when the silence went on for too long.

  “Hmm? Oh. Yes.” He took the wooden tube from his eye to polish the lens at the larger end. “Daniv, do you see the one in white?”

  The young prince peered into the distance. “Yes, my lord.”

  “I think Lord Andry would be mortally offended by that man’s wearing Goddess Keep’s color. Bloody it up for him, please.”

  “With pleasure, my lord!”

  “But not yet,” Walvis added as Daniv shifted in his saddle, preparing to gallop down the rocky slope all alone.

  Sethric, on his other side, looked puzzled. It amused Walvis to see that he didn’t resent that Daniv had been given so important a task—though he was protective enough of his status as a warrior and determined enough to impress a certain young lady that he asked, “And me, my lord? I’ll lead the attack as planned?”

  “Yes, you’ll have plenty to do. In fact, if you do it as well as I believe, Lord Kazander will make you an honorary Isulki and offer you one of his cousins for your first wife. Maybe even a sister.”

  “Not if she talks as much as he does!” Sethric’s laugh was a deep rumble, like gravel in a velvet glove.

  Daniv laughed, too, softer and more excited. “Whenever you’re ready, my lord.”

  “Oh, it has nothing to do with me,” Walvis replied, with a casual flick of a glance to his
own banner. The blue-and-white of Remagev floated on the breeze like a single graceful dragon wing.

  Sethric gave him a long, frowning look. A few moments later he sat back in his saddle, hooked a lazy knee over the pommel, and grinned.

  Daniv looked from one to the other of them, What did I miss? scrawled all over his face. After a while he could stand it no longer and asked, “Would somebody please tell me what we’re waiting for?”

  “You’ll know when you see it,” Walvis said, and would tell him no more.

  Ten Vellanti warriors carrying their battle flags rode forward to shout up at the troops poised atop the mountain. Most of their invective was wasted, being in the old language, but they had learned enough civilized speech to insult one’s ancestry, bravery, and certain habits of the Azhrei.

  Seeing Daniv flush with rage at a particularly foul insinuation about his kinsman the High Prince, Walvis commented, “Their accents really are vile.”

  “Kind of makes you wonder what their women are like, though,” Sethric drawled. “Personally, I’m flattered to be compared in courage to some of the ladies I know.”

  Belatedly catching the spirit of the exchange, Daniv said, “It also makes you wonder what they do in their spare time. I mean, you can’t accuse somebody of rutting with—what was it, goats and sheep?—with all the nasty details, unless you’ve had some experience of it yourself.”

  Walvis laughed his approval. “Careful with your language! I know your mother well, and if the lovely and gentle Princess Danladi ever heard you say such things, she’d tear out your tongue and send it to the launderers!”

  “And stitch it back in upside down,” Daniv agreed.

  Neither young man realized what the laughter accomplished, but Walvis did. He’d watched it done and done it himself often enough to know how and why it must be done. What worked on Daniv and Sethric worked just as well on the people around them. Appalled by the size of the Vellanti force, they had seen and heard their commanders laughing. Tension had been released in humor; the half-paralyzing fear was gone. They were ready to fight.

  So was Prince Chadric. He rode up the slope, arrayed in battle armor too big for him. It had been padded out with several heavy shirts and a wool tunic.