by Melanie Rawn
“Yes, it’s hotter than a midsummer Desert day in here,” he said cheerfully. “And no, don’t tell me you agree with my wife that I’ve lost my wits. Just tell me where to ride, and how many you want me to kill.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Walvis growled. “Be sensible, Chadric! You—”
Then he stopped. Almost sixty years separated the prince from Zehava’s squire. But Chadric had been trained by that redoubtable warrior in all the arts, and what the body could no longer do, the intellect compensated for. Walvis, past fifty himself, understood that very well. Chadric was still secure and easy in the saddle, his wrist still strong enough to wield a sword. But even if he had been as feeble as his years might have indicated, Walvis knew he couldn’t forbid the old man. Chadric needed to fight. He had been helpless at Graypearl and at Sandeia; he had seen his own palace and his wife’s childhood home destroyed; he had watched his scholarly elder son turn soldier out of tragic necessity. There was enough angry frustration built up in him to make him explode the way Skybowl itself must have done a thousand and more years ago.
In a completely different voice, Walvis said, “I’d be honored to have you ride with me, your grace.”
Chadric nodded once, gratitude shining briefly in his eyes. His tone was wry as he said, “Yes, I imagined you’d take any sword you could get—even one as shaky as mine. Well? When do we start?”
“In just a little while, your grace,” Sethric told him, casting a quick glance at the battle flag. To Walvis he said, “The wind’s shifting, my lord.”
“So it is.”
Daniv fairly bounced in his saddle with impatience. “Why in the Name of the Goddess are we waiting?”
Walvis raised the lens to his eye again and looked northeast. “It doesn’t happen around Stronghold—the terrain is wrong and it’s too far south—so you won’t have seen it before. And I’ll admit that it’s rather early in the year. But the conditions are just about right. We’ll wait a bit longer. If it doesn’t come up soon, we’ll begin without it.”
“Without what?” Daniv demanded of Sethric.
Walvis gave a start as a dragon called out from the lakeshore behind him, and turned to watch all of them take to the western sky over the hills. It was the signal he’d been waiting for. Nodding satisfaction, he tucked the wooden tube in his saddle quiver.
“That,” he said succinctly, and pointed to a faint white-gold smudge on the horizon. And smiled.
• • •
“Twenty days? Here?” Chiana hissed to her son as he closed the chamber door behind him.
It was not her usual sort of room. Rezeld Manor was a pleasant enough place, adequately if not luxuriously appointed, with room to house Chiana and Rinhoel and their scanty retinue in comfort. But they had not arrived as the Prince of Meadowlord and his lady mother. The steward was Pol’s creature and would welcome Rinhoel with a sword. Isolated Rezeld might be; stupid, Pol’s servants were not.
So instead of the best chambers in the manor, Chiana was given a hole overlooking the stables, where the noise was unbearable and the stench worse. Suitable for a woman widowed in the war, with her young son attending her—but insulting and well nigh insupportable for Roelstra’s daughter.
“Eighteen days,” Rinhoel corrected, tossing his gloves and cloak on a rickety wooden table. “Why didn’t Avaly recognize you? She must have seen you nine years ago when you were here.”
“Oh, she recognized me.” Chiana sank onto one of the two beds, wincing in distaste as she discovered the mattress was stuffed with straw instead of feathers. “But she’s no fool. You gave her and that nasty-faced steward false names, and she accepted them because she knows we’re up to something. She hates Pol as much as she hated Rohan for taking away her rank. She’ll help us.”
“She’d better.” Rinhoel paced for a few moments, an unrewarding occupation in a room as small as this one. Window to table to door to window again, at last closing the latter to shut out some of the racket from down below.
“Thank you,” his mother said feelingly. “Now, how do we get rid of the steward before the diarmadh’im get here? We need control of Rezeld—and I simply must have a warm, dry, decent room! There are undoubtedly bugs, and I’m sure the roof leaks. I can’t stay here very long, Rinhoel, I just can’t.”
He sat in the room’s only chair, sprawling long legs. “I left our troops outside for a reason, Mother. Once I’ve talked with Avaly and let her know what’s going to happen, she and I can arrange to leave the gates open one night. She’ll let me know which of the retainers are hers and which are Pol’s. When our people come in, they’ll seize and kill—” He broke off as she bit her lip. “What’s wrong?”
After a brief hesitation, she said, “You’ll have this place and all Princemarch under your rule one day soon.”
“So?”
“Do you intend to kill everyone who ever served Pol?”
He went very still—then abruptly kicked at a table leg. The furniture skittered, catching in a warped floorboard. The next instant he was smiling.
“It’s not a bad idea, but I take your point. You’ve thought about this much longer than I have. I forget that sometimes.”
“Thought and planned and dreamed,” she agreed. “We’ll have to keep an eye on such persons, of course. But we can’t kill all of them. And killing these would be a bad way to start. You must be seen as the strong alternative to Pol. They must flock to you because they have faith in you.”
“And because they fear the diarmadh’im.”
“Yes, but you can keep yourself a step or two removed from them. Blame any blood on them—”
“—and keep my own hands clean,” he finished. “Yes, I see. All right, then, how about this? I’ll have Avaly suggest that Ostvel needs fighters down south more than Rezeld needs them here. I’ve called myself a farmer, so I can humbly offer to oversee the land. That way, all the ones who’re most loyal to Pol and Ostvel will leave.”
“Good. Better yet, mention that a call has gone out from Ostvel for anyone who can use a sword or a bow.”
He frowned slightly. “How do I explain why I didn’t heed that call myself?”
“I begged you not to.”
“I don’t like playing the craven, clinging to my mother’s skirts.”
Chiana knew better than to ridicule his pride for the childish thing it was. “But, dearest,” she said reasonably, “your duty is to protect your defenseless, widowed mother. No one will wonder at it. Indeed, they’ll think all the more of you for your care of me. Especially after you prove your wisdom and courage in battle, and enter Castle Crag as High Prince.”
She had used the magical term. He relented with a nod. She found more personal enchantment in the name of her father’s keep, but Rinhoel didn’t share her need. It didn’t bother her; fulfilling his ambition would fulfill her own.
“Go talk to Avaly,” she said. “Be sure to treat her as you would a younger and prettier woman. I’ll stay here and rest. You don’t need me to help.”
Rinhoel’s lip curled. “She’s twice my age! Are you telling me I have to seduce her?”
“Use your own judgment. If she seems to want it, take it a few steps and then back away. Leave her wanting you.” She looked her son over thoughtfully. “You’re a beautiful young man. That’s a valuable thing to be when dealing with a woman of a certain age—especially one who once tried to attract Pol.”
“She did? When?”
“Oh, he was only fifteen at the time. That summer before the Rialla of 719, when he and Rohan toured Princemarch. I suppose Lord Morlen was hoping that a young and impressionable boy would make the girl his first love. Marriage was out of the question, but remembered tenderness would work to their advantage. It didn’t happen, of course, but I would imagine it still stings her a bit.”
“So if I do what Pol did not—”
“Exactly. Don’t forget that your grandmother was the mistress of a High Prince. Avaly can be encouraged to th
ink she could hold the same position.”
Rinhoel came to her, bowing over her hands to kiss them. “You are as clever as you are beautiful. Lie down and rest, Mother. I promise that in two days you’ll be sleeping on silk sheets in the best bed Rezeld can offer.”
“I do hope so,” she answered, glancing around the tiny, dusty room. “This isn’t a place to receive diarmadhi lords in, you know. I’d die of shame.”
• • •
The problem with sand was that it was always where one didn’t want it to be. No matter how vigilant the servants were, a little sand always sifted onto the floors and beneath the rugs, between book pages and into the toes of one’s socks, and occasionally—to the mortification of the cooks—into the food. Sand was rather like the Isulk’im that way: it appeared unexpectedly, just to let one know it was still there.
That afternoon at Skybowl was no exception. Sun-warmed air rose as it met the hills, creating thermals on which dragons loved to glide. More air swept in off the Desert—and brought sand with it. Small storms of this type were usually predictable in strength and duration by the temperature and time of day. When they met cooler air sliding down the crater at Skybowl and the surrounding hills, they stalled and stuttered around themselves for a little while, then usually subsided.
“Usually” was, of course, the salient word. Walvis was all for Rohan’s idea of letting the Desert do much of their work for them. But the Desert usually cooperated only so far, and no farther.
He and Daniv and Sethric had led their little groups in quick attacks worthy of Isulki horse-borrowing expeditions at Radzyn. Gallop in, slash and cut, wheel, and gallop away—only they sliced not halters but throats, and when they fled it was for their lives. Walvis had counted on the sandstorm hovering in one place for a little while, downdrafts from Skybowl fighting its westward progress until it gave up and turned away like a rejected suitor. The Vellant’im would be nearly paralyzed, unable to retreat and unable to advance against the lightning raids of Skybowl’s defenders.
It didn’t work that way, of course. What he hadn’t counted on was being caught in the damned thing himself.
Riders appeared and vanished in a blink as battling winds blew sand every which way. Not thick enough to choke on, still the grit clogged breath and played tricks on eyes and ears. A shout would make Walvis turn to find no one; another would be carried away in a whisper even though he was looking straight at the person who had yelled. The skirmish—such confusion didn’t deserve to be called a battle—was chaos cast in yellow and brown shadows with the occasional colored silk pennant flapping in his face. His sole consolation was that if this mess rattled him, it must be driving the Vellant’im utterly mad.
Only the horses seemed unperturbed. Radzyn-bred, all of them on both sides of the fight—if only he could figure out which side was where. Use the Desert, Rohan had said. Clever me, Walvis thought sourly, cursing the storm that had fooled him, hacking his way through a knot of enemy who at any moment might or might not become invisible.
Skybowl could have been any distance in any direction, and the wind had changed so many times that even if he managed to gather his people for a retreat, he could just as easily be leading them into the storm as out of it.
And he’d lost Chadric someplace, too, damn it.
A thunderous roar overhead nearly toppled him from his saddle. An inspired yell went up: “Azhrei!” He recognized the voice as Chadric’s, and kneed his horse to where he thought the prince might be. No, not quite—another shout, and as he turned half around to follow it, a bearded warrior made a fair attempt to deprive him of his left arm. It was no time for pretty maneuvers; he slammed his boot into the man’s chin and yanked his stallion’s head around. Large white teeth sank into the exposed neck. That’s another one Pol won’t have to fuss with, he told himself, patting the horse’s neck in apology for the foul taste of the Vellanti. He looked around for Chadric again. Very suddenly, like the parting of a dark golden curtain, the sand swept aside to show him the old man in borrowed armor, waving his sword high over his head and bellowing Rohan’s title—Pol’s title now, Walvis reminded himself automatically—at the top of his lungs, answering the dragon every time it howled.
Others heard, too. The men and women of Skybowl and Remagev rode toward Chadric through the swirling grit. Walvis decided that direction no longer mattered, as long as they escaped enemy swords. He saw Sethric, then lost him, then saw him again; Daniv appeared a few moments later, breathing hard and wincing every time the dragon cried out above them. Walvis was just about to call the order to return to Skybowl when he saw Jeni.
“What in all Hells are you doing here?” he shouted. She opened her mouth to reply and choked on sand. “Never mind! Come on! We’re getting out of here!”
They bunched together, and the Vellant’im who had sneaked—or stumbled—among them were quickly dispatched. Jeni maneuvered her horse near and cried, “It’s that way!”
“How can you tell?”
“I just know!” She wiped tears from her eyes, coughing. “Walvis—I think I killed one of them!”
“Well, what do you think war is, you little idiot? If you know where you’re going, then get us there fast!”
Incredibly, she did. Sunrunner, he told himself, grinding his teeth. She deserved to have more than her ears blistered for this, but the look in her eyes told him to go easy. Some people killed in battle without thinking; some without caring; others without remorse. It had nothing to do with male or female; thirty years ago, he’d seen Feylin lop off a Merida’s arm, leave him to bleed to death, and not bat an eyelash as she turned for another target. Some killed with brisk efficiency and shook until midnight in reaction; some were as sick as faradh’im crossing water before the fighting but feasted with perfect cheer once the fighting was over. And some people weren’t bothered by it at all. Killing was something that hit people in different ways.
But by the look in her eyes, Jeni was not someone who would kill again.
She led them from the sandstorm, up the side of the crater against a downdraft that gradually won its battle against the sand. Halfway up, the sky was abruptly clear. Walvis looked back over his shoulder to the storm, as if he were high in the Veresch gazing down at a cloud. He reined in while his people urged their horses up the hill. He identified them all, counting them, nodding encouragement as they passed. Thirty or so wounded; twelve missing, whom he must assume were dead. They might be found once the storm had abated; then again, sand might have buried them forever.
He waited a little while after the last of them went by, hoping the twelve would show up. When he was sure they would not, he rode the rest of the way to the lip of the crater. Chadric, Daniv, and Sethric were there—as were Feylin and Audrite. The latter railed at her husband as he dismounted stiffly, and yelled some more while she unbuckled his armor. He swayed a bit against his horse’s flank when the layers of tunics and shirts were pulled away from a deep graze at his ribs where the oversized armor had been no protection at all.
“You moldering old fool!” she exclaimed, daubing the wound with wine. “How dare you? Of all the stupid, lack-witted, scatter-shelled—”
“Didn’t do too badly for an old fool,” he said, his voice rough from all that shouting. “I got quite a few of them—at least six.”
“One for each rib you broke? Serves you right, you ass! I ought to break another one for giving me heart failure like that!”
Walvis had never heard the calm, elegant Princess of Dorval so much as raise her voice. But for the second time that day she was fairly shrieking at Chadric, utterly beside herself with fury.
The prince, however, was quite content. He smiled at Walvis and winked. Nothing was broken. The padding beneath the overlarge armor had seen to that. He was only bruised and winded. He had finally struck his blow against the enemy who had destroyed so much of what he loved.
Daniv was not as happy. Feylin, having directed the wounded back to the keep, had fixed a steely glare o
n the young man and ordered him off his horse. He was resisting. Walvis unslung his waterskin, had a drink, and slouched in his saddle prepared to enjoy the show.
“It’s only a scratch—”
“It’s only bled right through your shirt and down your arm! Get off that horse now, or when you fall off it from loss of blood I’ll take you over my knee, Prince of Syr or not!”
“There are others more seriously hurt than I,” Daniv began with dignity.
“And plenty of people to take care of them. Down!”
“It doesn’t look too bad, really,” Sethric said, peering at his friend’s shoulder. “How’d you get it?”
“When I made sure that white tunic was good and bloodied as Lord Walvis ordered.”
“Nice work!” Sethric leaned over to clap him on the shoulder. Daniv winced.
Unimpressed, Feylin put her hands on her hips. “Every moment you keep me here is one more moment I’m not tending the others. Now, do you want to play the brave unflinching hero for Jeni’s benefit, or are you going to behave like the prince you’re supposed to be?”
Daniv’s face turned even redder beneath the wind-burn. He slid down off his horse and submitted with poor grace to Feylin’s ungentle ministrations.
“Did you kill him?” Sethric asked eagerly.
“No, damn it.” He winced as the gouge in his shoulder was cleansed. “You should’ve gone after him, Seth, you’ve got a longer reach and a stronger arm.”
“Yes, but you’re quicker.”
Walvis grinned to himself. If they were busy complimenting each other to prove that Feylin was wrong about their desire to impress Jeni, they were doomed to disappointment. The girl was nowhere to be seen.
He turned his head at the sound of hooves crunching loose ash. “Sweet Goddess!” he exclaimed, recognizing Radzyn’s huntmaster, who led a ragged group up the slope toward him. Eight, ten, eleven—all twelve were accounted for. “Don’t hear this wrong, but what in Hells are you doing here?”