The Dragon Token

by Melanie Rawn

  “And Ludhil’s wife’s brother, too,” Arlis reminded him. “If Yarin gains power in Firon, Dorval isn’t safe either. He stands in the same position to your brother’s children as to yours—uncle and heir.”

  “Not for long.” Laric slammed both hands flat on the table, making the cups and pitcher rattle. “Whatever condition your ships are in at dawn, we sail in them for Snowcoves.”

  “And face sorcery when we get to Balarat.”

  Rohannon jumped out of his chair. “That’s it! Sorcery and the Star Scroll!”

  “The what?”

  “It’s something very old, my lord,” he told Arlis hastily. No need to explain to Laric; he’d been at Graypearl when Meath had discovered it. “A book of encoded recipes and spells. My mother helped Uncle Andry with them years and years ago. And she—”

  “I’ve heard rumors of it,” Arlis said. “But it’s a diarmadhi book, isn’t it? Do you mean to say it’s real?”

  “Very,” said Laric. “Go on, Rohannon.”

  “It was something my mother used, for a colt that kept chewing the wood of his bin. Nothing else worked, none of the usual things you put onto what you don’t want a horse to gnaw at. So she asked Sioned for a recipe from the Star Scroll, and diluted it so it would only burn the colt’s mouth a little, not really hurt him. And that’s what I smelled around Prince Camanto!”

  “Good Goddess,” Laric breathed. “The man was murdered.”

  “Yes, my lord. Not pushed, but so crazed with the pain he’d try to un from it the way a mountain cat would if its back was on fire. Trying to escape the pain. But he couldn’t, and tripped, and fell.”

  All three were silent for a time. Then Laric spoke, his voice weighted down with despair.

  “There has been sorcery at work here. We will meet it again in Firon. Arlis, it’s not your fight. You can change your mind now and I wouldn’t blame you in the least.”

  The young prince shook his head. “We sail at dawn. And I’ll hear no more about leaving you to face them alone.”

  “But how can we fight them?” Laric cried. “What can we use against diarmadh’im?”

  “What can they use against us?” Arlis countered. “Only what any army uses—swords and arrows and bravery. They’re allied with the Vellant’im, aren’t they? Have you heard of any spells being woven in battle?”

  Rohannon hesitated, then said, “There is a weakness that prevents it, my lord. Or at least makes it dangerous. They feel great pain when iron pierces their flesh while they’re at work.”

  “And Sunrunners? What about them?” Arlis asked sharply.

  “We . . . are vulnerable, too.”

  Laric lifted an admonitory finger. “Tell him the truth, Rohannon.”

  Shrugging, he admitted, “It hurts them. But it can kill us.” He lifted the wine pitcher and got to his feet. “I’ll go refill this,” he said, and hurried from the room before either prince could stop him.

  On his way down the hall, his bare feet almost numb against the cold tile floor, he heard someone speaking in Lady Isaura’s solar. The dranath sharpened his hearing only so far; he crept closer, recognizing Sabriam’s voice.

  “. . . never knew, did you? I don’t care who you rut with, my dear, but a man’s son must be his own.”

  “You’re fantasizing. Your jealousy has addled your wits.”

  “Deny it all you like. Isriam will never have Einar. My brother Bosaia has a fine son—of my blood, if not my breeding!”

  “Anheld is a bastard. Isriam—”

  “Is Camanto’s bastard. I can choose whom I please to hold Einar after me!”

  “You wouldn’t dare! You’d be laughed at all the way to the Sunrise Water!”

  “Isaura, sweet wife, my friends from the mountains still owe me one more favor. Would you like me to have them kill you, too, to spare you the shame?”

  Rohannon backed away, sickened. So it wasn’t a diarmadhi who’d wanted Camanto dead, it was Sabriam—whom the diarmadh’im were helping as they helped Yarin. Another thing fell into place, too: the Lord of Einar’s highly selective hearing.

  Clutching the empty pitcher to his chest, he ran back to Laric’s rooms. They must leave Einar. Now. Tonight. The princes could say whatever they had to, but if they waited until dawn, the diarmadh’im might kill them, too.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The Azhrei—that was how he thought of himself now—spent the rest of that night at the lakeshore, watching his dragon sleep.

  Feylin had completed her rounds at midnight. Pol told her there was yet one more patient, led her to the gates, and pointed at the dragon.

  “You’re—”

  “No. I’m not joking.”

  “But how do I know that what works on people will work on a dragon?”

  “You don’t know that it won’t. Just do it, Feylin, please. Help him.”

  Azhdeen eyed her narrowly as they approached. But he trusted Pol, if not Feylin, and when encouraged to stretch out the hurt wing, obeyed with what in a human would have been a fatalistic shrug.

  Trembling a little at first, gradually she forgot the rest of the dragon’s huge body—and his talons and teeth—and became the physician intent on a cure. Pol assisted, handing her what she needed from her kit and directing a fingerflame as she asked.

  Finally she glanced up. “Put him to sleep. I’ve seen your mother do it to a dragon. Go on. This next bit is going to hurt him, and I’d like to survive it. You’re the one he likes, not me.”

  He sat with Azhdeen’s great drowsing head across his knees as Feylin worked. When she was done, she tiptoed near and crouched down. Pol moved the fingerflame back a little so it lit her face but not his.

  “Getting the arrow out and washing the wound were the best things you could have done. But he flew for a time with the arrow in, and it tore up the muscle. Some of the bones were out of alignment, too. I did some stitching, manipulated everything back into place, but—Hells, I don’t know. I suppose it’ll heal all right if he stays on the ground for a few days.”

  He stroked Azhdeen’s nose, seeing the sensitive nostrils twitch. “Thanks, Feylin. I know how you feel about dragons.”

  “It’s not dragons I mind, it’s getting close to them.” But her fingers ventured toward Azhdeen’s neck, careful of the spines. She touched, then stroked the tough hide. “Doesn’t bother you at all, does it?”

  “He’d never hurt me. But protecting me hurt him. He began the battle tonight. Did you see? Even after what happened to Elidi, even though they’re not scared of dragons anymore, he attacked half an army.”

  “Yes, and I also saw you stand between him and a hundred Vellant’im with nothing but a sword.”

  Pol shrugged. “I owed it to him.” He watched her scratch the angle of the dragon’s jaw. “Not so frightened of him now, are you?” he asked with a faint smile. “You’ll ruin your reputation.”

  “Once he’s awake, you won’t get me within arrowshot of him again.” She rolled her head on her neck, rubbing with one hand at sore muscles. “Well, you’ve won. What are you going to do now?”

  He shook his head. “The rest of them are still outside Stronghold. I didn’t win anything. I failed again.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” she snapped. “They’re half what they were.”

  “So are we,” he replied bluntly. “We don’t have enough left for another battle like this one, Feylin. I won’t use up more lives this way. So that means I must be clever. The next fight must be the final one, between me and him.”

  “Him?”

  “The High Warlord.”

  Feylin mulled this over for a time. “Assuming you can arrange it somehow, you’ll have to get past a lot of people who’d rather do it for you. Including my husband.”

  “Is he faradhi?” Pol asked.

  “Pol, you can’t do it that way.”

  “I have to. My father was right. We have to use everything we’ve got. Up at Zagroy’s Pillar I used the Desert. Tonight I used dragons, Godde
ss help me. Yesterday Walvis used the sandstorm. But they’re still here, Feylin. All I’ve got left to try is myself.”

  “And your other Sunrunners.”

  “And are they diarmadh’im?” He said it very softly.

  By the tiny golden Fire, her face went very still.

  “You knew. Walvis must have told you at Remagev, when he found out.”

  “Yes. But the Vellant’im are fighting on behalf of—”

  “—the diarmadh’im? There’s no proof of it. We’ve just assumed it. And I’m beginning to think we were wrong.” He raked a handful of hair back from his eyes. “Hildreth told me something very interesting the other day. Princess Naydra—Goddess, after all this time I still can’t get used to thinking of her as my aunt, the way Tobin is—” He shrugged and returned to the subject. “Anyway, she told Alasen that there are two sorts of diarmadh’im. One kind, we met nine years ago. Mireva and my half-brothers. But there’s Ruala’s kind, too, who have nothing to do with these others.”

  “If she even knows they exist.” Feylin traced the pattern of inlaid wood on her coffer of medicines. “I think there’s quite a bit that Ruala doesn’t even know that she knows. The coincidence of her grandfather’s name and this Lord Gerik of Lady Merisel’s. . . .”

  “I don’t think it’s a coincidence, either. He was born around here, you know. And he had a title long before he ruled Goddess Keep with Merisel. They called him azhrei.” He paused as the dragon’s heavy head shifted in his lap. “It’s me they’re after, Feylin. My father, at first, because he was the Azhrei. But now it’s me. And I’m going to have to use that somehow.”

  Again she was quiet for a long time. Then, frowning, she said, “Sioned left a lot for them to think about in that half-burned book at Remagev. Take that into account while you plan whatever crazy thing you think the rest of us will let you do.”

  “Don’t try to stop me, Feylin.”

  “I won’t have to. Plenty of others to do it for me.” She squeezed his shoulder, then rose to her feet and stretched her spine until it gave a muffled crack. “Goddess, I feel a million years old.”

  Pol smiled tiredly up at her. “Don’t worry. You only look a hundred.”

  “You’re too kind. There’s something else you should consider about this, Pol. Riyan understood a few words of what that leader of their was yelling. He told me while I was with Maarken. The Fire was quick work, by the way. He hardly lost any blood at all.”

  Pol said nothing.

  “Anyway, Riyan’s translation goes something like, ‘Kill the demon dragon and his master for their evil’—or ‘wrong,’ he wasn’t sure which. He says it was two or three words mushed together and the only one he recognized was the one the Isulk’im use for a poisoned well.”

  “I know the word,” Pol murmured. “Andry calls it ‘sin.’ A fault against the Goddess, a breaking of her law.”

  Feylin sucked in a breath. “And we all know who gets to punish such faults.”

  “And what the punishment is,” Pol agreed. “How very shocked my cousin will be when he finds he has something in common with the Vellant’im. It’s more than the word, you see. What you’ve said fits. They keep coming after the Azhrei, and now they’ve called me the evil master of dragons. So somehow I must have done a sin against whatever they believe in.”

  “But they bowed down to Azhdeen at Remagev. They ran away in terror at Lowland from Sioned’s conjuring.”

  “And they killed Elidi over Stronghold, and shot Goddess knows how many arrows at Azhdeen tonight.”

  “And that means?”

  “If I knew, I’d use it. Like I’m going to use myself, and whatever your book told them.” He glanced up at the starry sky. “Go on back now, Feylin. It’s getting cold.”

  “Don’t you stay out here all night. Azhdeen’s not a horse, to curl up near you and keep you warm. A dragon’s temperature tends to drop—”

  He called Fire beside him on the sand. She cut short her lecture and gave a little grimace before walking back to the keep.

  When dawn came Azhdeen stirred awake and lifted his head. Pol used the small Fire to conjure an image of the dragon resting at Skybowl, along with the emotional command: Don’t fly. A snort, a toss of the head, and a scornful rebuttal. Pol grasped the dragon’s muzzle between his hands and stared into dark eyes. Azhdeen looked completely astonished at the presumption. Pol turned him to look at the Fire.

  If you fly, you won’t heal. And what then? Could you hunt? Could you win your ladies at the next mating? Could you even survive challenge for them? With each group of words that the dragon could never understand, Pol gave him a picture: an attempt at flight that brought him crashing to the ground, a herd of succulent sheep plodding past him in perfect unconcern, a score of females following another sire, a strong young male roaring derision at a dragon with a useless wing.

  Pol had touched him where he lived: his pride. He grumbled with anger and rose on his hind legs, shaking himself all over. Communication was broken so abruptly that Pol was blinded by pain—but not before he tasted fear in the dragon’s colors.

  Thoroughly exhausted, Pol climbed to his feet. The castle seemed very far away. During the long night he had resolved nothing, planned nothing, and made only one decision.

  There would be only one more battle. And he alone would fight it.

  Does that please you, Father? he said to the new sunlight. It’s what you would have done if you could. If you’d been what I am. I’ve been trying to be what you were. I can’t. Mother was right.

  You and she made me a Sunrunner, Ianthe made me a sorcerer. Last night, Azhdeen made me the Azhrei. Taken together, all those things make a High Prince the like of which has never been seen before. But what I make of what you’ve all made of me . . . that’s mine to decide. I think I understand that now.

  Is this what Lady Andrade wanted? And Roelstra? You and Mother?

  It’s not what Andry has in mind, that’s certain. Perhaps he’ll call it a “sin.”

  And wouldn’t Andrade have a screaming fit over that?

  • • •

  Amiel of Gilad was four days and ninety measures out of Medawari when, on an after-dinner stroll into the trees to relieve himself, he stumbled into a soldier returning from the same errand. He nodded at her, took two steps, and whirled around again.

  “Oh, damn,” said his wife.

  The subsequent discussion was conducted in full voice for all the troops and physicians to hear. Amiel demanded to know what she thought she was doing. Nyr told him to take a good guess. He ordered her to go home. She gave him a choice: let her stay or get himself divorced. He informed her that marching with an army was no way to look after herself and the child she carried. She inquired what danger he perceived when half that army was comprised of physicians.

  At length, they came to an understanding, spurred by muffled laughter from the people who had gathered in the forest darkness to hear their prince and princess have at each other. Nyr would come with Amiel as far as Catha Heights. Along the way, at the first sign of danger a guard and a physician would whisk her from any potential battle.

  Fourteen days out of Medawari, they still had not seen a single live Vellanti warrior. The dead of Gilad and Syr—left to rot where they had been killed that Autumn—had been Amiel’s major concern, and the physicians’. Everyone knew that disease attended on unburned corpses. They had been careful, and done for the dead what little could be done by way of ritual burning. But Amiel kept Nyr far away from scenes such as the one encountered a few days ago along the Catha delta. Outside a blackened husk of a farmhouse, what had been a girl-child of no more than six winters lay half-burned—and half-picked over by scavenging animals.

  Though Catha Heights was behind him, Nyr was still with him. They had rested there for a few days, made welcome by those of Prince Kostas’ army who had stayed to keep it secure after the battle. Amiel decided it would make a good base for some of the physicians. Goddess knew their skills were need
ed, for many of the wounded were in a bad way, with only the most rudimentary medicines available to them. He left behind fifteen physicians with orders to take a like number of Syrene troops with them up to River Run and be of what help they could to whoever had survived in between. Then he started down the Catha River to the sea.

  But there were no Vellant’im, only the marks of their passing during those terrible Autumn days. It was as if they had blown through in a storm of death and fire, then vanished.

  On the fifteenth day, his luck changed.

  He was just returning from a quick hunt through the forest, pleased with himself and his three companions for having brought down a deer to augment the usual camp stew. A lone rider galloped toward him across a meadow, waving her arm wildly.

  “Your grace! Your grace!”

  His heart turned over in his chest, his immediate thought being his wife. But back at their camp, Nyr was seated quite calmly on a folding stool provided for her at Catha Heights. At her feet was a thin, dirty, bearded man in no need of ropes to bind him, although whoever had found him had tied his wrists and ankles anyway. Fevered dark eyes rolled restlessly in hollow sockets; he didn’t look capable of standing, let alone attacking.

  “Where did this come from?” Amiel asked.

  “The last farm we passed wasn’t entirely burned, my lord,” his wife replied. “Master Chegry here thought there might be something useful inside. I think he expected copper pots and spoons, though. Not a Vellanti.”

  “He’s been there all this time? Ever since Autumn?” Amiel prodded the man’s ribs with a boot toe. With a groan and a flinch, he rolled onto his stomach, revealing a blood-crusted hole on the left side of his tunic.

  “Looks as if he was wounded and left to die, your grace,” one of the older physicians remarked. “I’ll be more than happy to finish the job.”

  Master Chegry, a stocky youth from Meadowlord who didn’t look old enough to have mastered shaving, swung around angrily. “That’s not what we’re sworn to do!”