Pandsala stood on a hillock, staring moodily at the storm clouds to the north. They were a distant threat for now, both to encamped troops and Sunrunners, but soon they would shadow and then drench the pastures of Meadowlord before slinking to Syr. She simultaneously dreaded and welcomed the anticipated downpour, first of autumn. Six winters at Goddess Keep had taught her to loathe overcast skies, but here in her comparative freedom, storms would keep the armies mired down and all faradh’im effectively caged—not just those ordered so by her father.
He paced beside her, still raging—though in merciful silence now—about the note that had flown in on an arrow from Rohan’s camp that morning. Prince Jastri was dead without a son or brother to assume his title, and only a sister, Gemma, left of his branch of the Syrene royal house. Rohan had proposed, and Andrade had agreed, that subject to the approval of the other princes, Lord Dawi of River Run was to be elevated to the princedom. His lineage was of the princely house; he was the heir. Young Gemma, at barely ten winters old, could not inherit without treaties stipulating that her assumption of the princedom had been agreed to by all the other princes and the athr’im of Syr. Of course, if Roelstra had had a son, he could have had him marry the girl at once, no matter her tender years. Of course, if Roelstra had had a son, he would not be in his present pass. The thought gave Pandsala grim amusement.
“Smiling?” her father sneered. “Is it the beautiful day that pleases you, daughter mine? Or the fact that that whore’s brother has been named Prince of Syr? I’ll have
Rohan spitted and roasted over a Sunrunner’s Fire—and his witch with him!”
Pandsala stayed wisely silent.
“Declaring him prince and putting him in High Kirat are two different things! The Syrene lords will defend their princess—just as I intend to do! And as for her dear uncle of Ossetia—Chale will send troops. Yes. He’ll want to see Gemma as ruler of Syr.”
“But will he want to make war against Rohan?” she murmured.
“He will if I tell him to!” Roelstra bellowed. “And he’ll raze Goddess Keep as well, with Andrade in it!”
Pandsala felt she ought to say something soothing. “Surely the other princes will realize how powerful this action will make Rohan. If they don’t, you can point it out to them. They can’t acclaim Dawi until they’re all met in one place, and we’re past time for the Rialla this year. Between now and whenever Rohan is able to call a convocation—“
“He won’t be alive past midwinter!” he roared.
“Of course not, Father. Forgive me.”
His glare softened. “You have your mother’s temperament. She always spoke softly, no matter what threatened. I loved her well, you know. Goddess, if only one of you had been a son!” He frowned, then shrugged. “Another three hundred troops should be here before the worst rains begin.”
“Who has such strength on short notice?”
“My greedy friend Prince Saumer of Isel, for one. And Lyell of Waes, your sister Kiele’s Chosen, will allow him to land his soldiers in Waes. He’s decided that his interests lie with his future wife, not his dead sister’s husband in Tiglath.”
She nodded. “There was a courier yesterday.”
“Yes.” Roelstra looked grim. “It seems the Cunaxans want more money. The courtiers who’ve ruled since Prince Durriken’s death find the current jingle of my gold too soft a sound, and wish to hear it ring louder. If only those stupid Merida had attacked when I planned it! They were to wait until Tiglath had emptied of troops gone to rescue the princeling. They could have walked right into the city and used it as a base when Rohan was forced to split his armies to go to Tiglath’s aid. It would have worked, too.”
“The results have been livable,” she remarked.
“Barely. But now the Cunaxans want more money to supply the Merida, who should have taken their supplies from Tiglath itself.” He flicked an imaginary spot of dirt off his cloak. “They could have moved south, captured Stronghold, and attacked the Desert army from behind.”
“Rohan will have to come to this side of the river to establish Dawi in High Kirat. And then you can kill him.”
“Oh, no. Not yet. He still has his uses.” Roelstra’s expression turned thoughtful. “You’ve been useful, too, Pandsala. You deserve a reward for warning me not to cross the Faolain with Jastri, and alerting me to Rohan’s maneuvers. I know now how his mind works in war. How would you like a castle of your own, the same as your sister lanthe?”
“Like Feruche?” She laughed. “Thank you, no. I’ve been at Goddess Keep for six years, and I’ve no desire to trade a foggy prison for a Desert one.”
“I’m told River Run is a pretty place. It was the Sunrunner witch’s childhood home, you know. It might amuse you to live there with some fine young lord as your husband.” His eyes held a gleam of cunning. “And yourself as Princess of Syr.”
She was surprised to feel eagerness compete with her suspicions. “I’d expected you’d set up one of lanthe’s sons as prince.”
“Let them earn their positions when they’ve grown,” he replied gruffly. “Do you want Syr or not?”
“I do,” she replied. “But not to be princess at River Run. I want High Kirat itself. And there’s another small condition.”
“Condition? I give you a princedom and you—“
“Just a little one.” She smiled. “I choose my own husband.”
Roelstra chose to laugh, and Pandsala relaxed. “You should have been the son,” he told her. “I’ll have you established by midwinter, my pet. But you’ll have to allow me the fun of removing Andrade from River Run first.”
The repeated reference to midwinter puzzled her, but she hid it and smiled again. “Thank you, Father,” she said demurely, bending her head to him as a sign of her submission.
Prince Lleyn had been sorely vexed that his ships had not arrived in time to assist in the battle. He made his feelings known through Meath, who kept Maarken quite busy on the sunlight one morning. Afterward, the squire made his way to the command tent, bowed, and presented his information with a wide grin on his face, shared by Tilal, to whom he had already told the news.
“He sent them to Tiglath!” Tilal cried before Maarken could speak. “Loaded down and wallowing in the water when they passed back by Graypearl!”
“Ha!” Chay clapped his hands together and rubbed the palms gleefully. “Lleyn’s never had any use for the Cunaxans since he caught them stealing from his pearl-beds. Has there been any fighting in Tiglath?”
Maarken elbowed Tilal to silence. “The Merida tried to ambush the party sent to escort the new troops—and lost.” He chuckled. “Tiglath is set for now. Lleyn’s ships will sail again to resupply at Dorval and then come here.”
Rohan shook his head. “Goddess, the concessions Lleyn will demand in the silk trade to pay for this!” But his eyes were dancing.
“We’ll let Dawi contribute,” Chay said slyly.
The new Prince of Syr bowed. “I promise faithfully to suspend any and all horse-thieving along the borders, and to make sure that all the Syrene wine that reaches the Desert is at least of the second-best quality, rather than the third.”
“Decent of you,” Rohan drawled. “What else does Meath say, Maarken?”
“Kleve is on a mission for Walvis. He’s not in Tiglath at all.” The boy shrugged. “Meath says they had to rely on a scout sloop that came down from Tiglath to inform the prince.”
“Wonderful,” Davvi muttered. “Now we have no way of knowing what happens in Tiglath.”
“Walvis must have good reasons,” Tilal said in defense of his idol.
“I wish I knew what they were,” Rohan said.
“/ wish we knew what passes on the sunlight between Stronghold and Tiglath,” Chay remarked.
“You think my sister has something to do with this?”
“Dawi, I think Sioned has something to do with nearly everything. And I thank the Goddess who made her that my Tobin can only listen on the sunlight, not ride it.” He took the sting out of his words with a smile at his son.
“But Father, you always say Mother’s more closely related to the Storm God,” Maarken replied pertly.
“That she is. And so are you.” He rose, stretched and ruffled the boy’s hair. “I’ve a tour to make of the lines, squire.”
“Yes, my lord. But when Lleyn’s ships arrive, may I please be excused from inspecting them with you?”
“More likely I’ll dump you in one and send you on a grand tour of all the princedoms to complete your education!”
“Father! How would it look for the next Lord of Radzyn to be seen puking from one end of the continent to the other?”
Chay growled affectionately at him and pushed him out of the tent. Rohan watched them go, smiling, then leaned back in his chair and addressed Dawi in all seriousness,
“This is your part of the world. When will the heavy rains come and how long will they last?”
“Soon—and perhaps until spring.” He traced the storms’ usual route on the map spread before them. “We’ll know when the river begins to rise that the bad ones have come to the Veresch and Meadowlord. Are you equipped for winter quarters?”
“Well enough.” He got to his feet, paced, caught himself at it, and scowled. “What will Roelstra do? Will he withdraw for the winter? If he does, should we? We could take ship when Lleyn’s people arrive and go to the relief of Tiglath. Or we could stay and wait, and take the first chance to march and establish you at High Kirat.”
Dawi shifted uneasily. “I would rather not be beholden to you there, my lord, if you’ll take no offense. I’d like to fight that battle myself.”
Rohan smiled, pleased by the answer. “I thought you might. And I doubt you’ll get much resistance. Another season of Roelstra and the athr’im of Syr will be only too glad to have you.”
“I realize you have first claim, Rohan, but leave me just a little piece of him, won’t you? Although I think I may have to fight Chay for a place at the front of the line.”
“Ah, no. He and I have a good understanding. He’s going to hold my cloak. I’m afraid there won’t be anything left of the High Prince. I hope you’re not too disappointed,” he finished dryly. Sitting back down at the desk, he stared at the map unrolled before him. “Rain,” he murmured. “We see very little of it at Stronghold, you know. We’re on the wrong side of the Vere Hills for it. Radzyn and the other coastal holdings get a sea-squall now and then, and it’s been known to flood and even snow in the far north.”
“You’ll get more rain here than you ever wanted to see.” Davvi gave his son a playful nudge. “And you’ll have to get used to it again after the Desert.”
“Can we jo hunting? And take my lord with us?”
“We’ll show him the delights of getting soaked to the bone in pursuit of a single skinny elk!”
They laughed, obviously sharing memories. Rohan forced a smile, wondering if he would always be surrounded by loving fathers and their adoring sons, and hated himself for the petulance. He traced one finger along the map from the Faolain to Feruche, where lanthe’s son was growing within her body. His son, whom Sioned had seen in faradhi vision.
Tobin and Ostvel stop her? He had fooled himself with that only for as long as it had taken to ride here from Stronghold. But since then he had made plans. He would end the war as quickly as he could and then raze Feruche. lanthe would die and the child with her.
Could he kill his own unborn son?
Rohan sank into moody silence, and did not notice that Davvi and Tilal had left him alone.
Andrade, caged with a sly little girl, a sharp-tongued Sunrunner, and a passel of witless servants, counted off the dismal days of autumn with even less patience than she had numbered those of summer. The Storm God was having a good laugh, amusing himself with sheeting rain and endless clouds that frustrated all faradhi communication.
But at least she had accomplished one thing before the storms, she told herself one gray afternoon in Lady Wisla’s solar. Dawi was Prince of Syr in all but formal acclaim. That Roelstra controlled High Kirat and Princess Gemma within it, and that the full roster of princes had not yet affirmed Dawi, only made her shrug. She could call a convocation of princes anytime she pleased. Her predecessor had done it to ratify the Treaty of Linse that had given the Desert to Zehava’s line “for as long as the sands spawn fire.” She toyed with the notion of calling such a meeting now, at River Run, but decided that the risk of Roelstra’s armies at the gates was not worth the amusement it would give her to see the princes arrive, soaked and irritable, at her whim.
Chafing her hands together, she stood before the hearth and scowled. One small accomplishment, acknowledging Davvi as Prince of Syr, did not weigh equally against interminable days of nothing. Boredom was the worst— that, and her bitter aversion to Chiana. The girl had grown this summer in one of those startling bursts some children experience. At barely six, she looked and behaved more like a child of ten. Each sight of her reminded Andrade of her sister, and how Pandsala was serving Roelstra with all the cunning of her breed and all the skills of her three faradhi rings.
As if called up by her thoughts, Chiana came dancing into the solar, bright and blooming. She swept Andrade a mocking curtsy and sang out, “My father’s come to fetch me! Look over the walls and you’ll see hundreds of his soldiers, all of them come to rescue me!”
Andrade pressed her lips closed and left the room for the hallway, where wide windows opened onto the courtyard. Urival was down below, and as he raised his head on sensing her presence, she saw the truth written in his face. Chiana was giggling and pirouetting beside her, and it was all Andrade could do not to slap her.
“How many are there?” the child cried out eagerly. “Two hundred? Three?”
“Be silent!” Andrade hissed, and went down to meet Urival in the foyer. Chiana scampered along behind her, still laughing.
The steward’s face was bitter as he reported, “Sixty of the High Prince’s troops seem intent on setting up camp outside in the mud.”
“A little late, isn’t he? Why didn’t he try this during summer?”
“You know him better than I,” Urival snapped.
“I know him better than I want to. Sixty, you say?”
“They’ll attack and kill you and I’ll be free!” Chiana crowed. “I’ll never have to go back to that horrid keep again!”
“Silence!”
“You’ve lost! You’re nothing, and I’m a princess!”
Urival took a step toward her, eyes like thunder, but Andrade was closer and swifter. She grabbed the child’s arm roughly. “Listen to me! I helped birth you, and watched while your precious father nearly ordered your death! You want to go to him, Chiana? All he lacks is yet another daughter! Would you like to be shut up at Castle Crag with all the rest?”
“lanthe is free—and she has her own castle! Pandsala—“
“Used you,” Andrade told her. “It’s the thing your family does best. lanthe is valuable to him for her cunning, and Pandsala for her rings. But you? Of useless daughters he has more than enough! He has no use for you!”
“He’s come for me!” Chiana screamed, breaking loose to flee out into the courtyard, masses of auburn hair streaming out behind her.
Andrade and Urival followed much more slowly. Neither spoke; there was nothing to say until they had heard what the troop’s captain demanded. He had evidently been waiting for Andrade’s appearance on the walls; riding confidently forward, he saluted her with all due ceremony. His words were polite and precise: he had been ordered by the High Prince to secure River Run from possible attack by the traitorous Lord Davvi, who had forfeited all rights to this holding by his actions.
“I assume you refer to Prince Davvi of Syr,” Andrade replied pleasantly.
“The High Prince does not recognize that title. He does, however, offer you his protection. Should you wish to leave River Run, we have orders to provide escort back to Goddess Keep.”
Urival whispered, “Now, why does Roelstra want us gone from here?” F
Andrade called down from the battlements, “I find one cage very like another. And I am not partial to them.”
The captain smiled winningly. “And where else would you go, my Lady? Between you and the Desert lies the High Prince—and a rather substantial river you’d rather not cross, I’m sure. There’s nothing for you in the north, and the Catha Hills to the south are hard traveling in any weather. Your only choice is Goddess Keep, and I’m quite willing to provide escort.”
“Too kind,” Andrade sneered. “But perhaps you’ve not seen Sunrunner’s Fire kindled.”
“Should you attempt it, I will take River Run, along with River View.” He was no longer smiling. “And leave you alive.”
His meaning was clear enough, and she ground her teeth. She had only her powers to defend this place, and if she used them Lady Wisla and the people of two keeps would die. “There is the sunlight,” she bluffed.
“Of course,” he agreed readily. “And ride it as you will, my Lady, there is also me.” He bowed an end to the conversation and rode back to his camp.
“I hope he drowns in mud,” Andrade muttered.
“We could escape,” Urival said. “A circle of Fire around the keep—“
“For how long? Would he see it and ride off in terror?
Here we are and here we stay. I won’t go back to Goddess Keep and be even farther away from things.”
“Assuming, of course, you’d live long enough to get there.”
“Precisely. There has to be some way out of this.”
Urival shook his head. “All summer you’ve been able to ride away if and when you pleased. Now that there are troops outside to prevent us, you want to leave at once. My Lady, I will never understand the workings of your mind.” He paused. “But I believe Roelstra does.”
Andrade gave him a sharp look. “Do you mean he intends for me—“
“—to give him an excuse.” Urival nodded. “But there is the sunlight.”
“And to whom? Maarken, who would tell Rohan and Chay and give them one more worry? Sioned, who won’t listen? Tobin, who sits in Stronghold as helpless as we? Or maybe you had Pandsala in mind! Now, that’s a brilliant notion!”
He took her elbow and escorted her back down the stairs. “I was thinking of someone, actually. Meath.”
Andrade gaped at him. “Sweet Goddess! Of course!” So enchanted was she by the idea that she didn’t even mind the lecture he gave her about thinking everyone but herself a fool when she was the biggest fool of them all.
Rohan fought the impulse to pace as he watched Maarken. The boy sat on a folding stool, thin winter sunlight woven all around him. His eyes were closed, brow furrowed in concentration. Chay stood nearby, his back turned to the sight of his son in communication with another faradhi. Rohan had little patience for Chay’s uneasiness with his son’s abilities’, though he understood its cause. But what had happened to Tobin six years ago had occurred only because she was untrained. Maarken would become an accomplished faradhi—as would Andry. Chay had better get used to the idea.
Six years, he thought, since he had watched Sunrunners call the wind to disperse the ashes of his father and the dragon out over the Desert. Would Zehava approve of what he was doing now? Probably. Zehava had never had any illusions about the world or the people who lived in it, unlike his son, who was only now discovering that all his pretty plans and notions were useless. Yet some impulse toward them stirred again as he watched Maarken. New generations should not have to fight the same battles their fathers had. There should be something more for the children, he told himself, something better for Maarken and Sorin and Andry—and his own son.
Hiding a wince, he turned as Tilal and Dawi approached calling his name. He held up a hand for quiet and went to them.
“My lord—wonderful news! The ships are here!”
Dawi hushed his son with a glance. “They’ve sailed as far as they can up the Faolain, and are now off-loading troops and supplies. They sent a rider ahead to inform you, my lord.”
Chay turned, a broad smile on his face. “Not ships— bridges!”
“Huh?” Rohan stared at him.
“Think about it,” he advised. Putting a hand on Tilal’s shoulder, he went on, “Take me there. We have plans to make.”
Dawi looked to Rohan for an explanation the prince was rapidly reasoning out. Bridges? Roelstra had drawn his troops back across the river in obvious mimicry of Rohan’s summer tactic, and was camped on a large plain suitable for pitched battle. Rohan might have succumbed to the temptation but for one thing: Maarken had left the two bridges usable, after a few repairs, and Roelstra would be expecting the Desert host to cross in exactly those places. If Rohan had learned nothing else about war from Zehava and Chay, he knew that behaving as the enemy expected was the surest path to defeat. Thus he had declined to accept Roelstra’s invitation to cross the Faolain and be slaughtered.
But now Lleyn’s ships had arrived, a’nd Chay seemed to have ideas for them. In Dawi’s face he saw the same conclusion appear, and shrugged. “I very much doubt that the masters of those ships are going to appreciate demotion to captains of ferryboats.”
Dawi snorted. “They’ll live.”
Rohan smiled slightly and began another comment, but from behind him he heard the squelch of something falling into the mud. He turned quickly to find Maarken pushing himself up from the ground, dazed of expression and glazed of eye. Rohan and Dawi helped the young man up.
“What happened?” Maarken stammered.
“You fell over, of course. Here, sit down and drink this.” Rohan pressed a winecup to his lips.
Maarken sipped, coughed, and shook his head to clear it. “Oh, Goddess,” he breathed. “I can hardly wait until I’m a real Sunrunner—“
“You’re doing just fine,” Dawi assured him.
“I can’t control anything,” the squire complained. “It just happens to me and I don’t have any say in the matter. It’s like—like being a field somebody marches over.” He pulled a wry face and brushed ineffectually at the mud on his clothes.
Rohan bit his lips together over impatient questions. As color returned to Maarken’s cheeks and a smile began on his face, Rohan stopped worrying, an instinct confirmed by the boy’s first words.
“Walvis beat the Merida!”
Dawi whispered rapid thanks to the Goddess as Maarken went on with his report. It seemed that Cunaxan supplies had been mysteriously delayed for some time—no one knew why—and with the diminishing of their food the Merida had turned to the only source of sustenance available to them: Tiglath itself. The battle had raged for two solid days, but by its end the Merida were destroyed and Tiglath more or less intact.
“The wall between the Sea Gate and the Sand Gate collapsed after the Merida spent a whole night undermining it,” Maarken explained, “but Lord Eltanin isn’t worried about that. He even wants to leave it as it is. What was it Kleve told me he said?” he frowned. “Something about making it a reminder and a warning, and that the walls built by his prince will be better defense than mere stone ever could be.” He looked up at Rohan, puzzled. “Do you know what he means, my lord?”
“I do,” Dawi said. “And he’s quite right. Go on, Maarken.”
“Well, there was lots more. The Merida were strung around Tiglath like jewels on a necklace, Walvis said, but Kleve said they were more like insects caught in a spider-web, with lines of archers between. The wall collapsed and then they invaded, but Walvis was ready for them. Our people came out of the gates and took the battle out to the plain, and—“ He paused for breath. “Walvis killed the leader and at least fifty more. Kleve and Feylin were watching but they lost count!”
“Is Walvis hurt?” Rohan asked.
“Just a scratch or two. He’s too good a warrior to be wounded. The fires to burn the Merida dead went on for three days. Walvis wants to march south now to defend Stronghold or come to us here.”
Dawi gave a muffled exclamation. “Lleyn’s ships!”
“Exactly.” Rohan nodded.
“What ships?” Maarken asked.
“Later,” Rohan ordered. “Dawi, would you see him to his tent for some rest, please? I’ll be with Chay.”
As he mounted Pashta and rode slowly along the river-bank, he thought over Eltanin’s words. Walls stronger than stone, built by Rohan. The athri’s faith galled him. He would have to topple fortresses more formidable than castles if his dream was to come alive again within him. We hide behind our savagery, he thought bitterly. All of us. I have to destroy those walls before I can build others. And, more to the immediate point, he would have to demolish the very real fortress of Feruche, and quickly. Midwinter was approaching. He must finish things here, play the barbarian warrior prince with Roelstra, before doing the same thing at Feruche. But after that— Never again, I swear it, he told himself. Barbarian he might be, but he could put down his sword. He must. He could not live this way.
Rohan had been correct about the masters’ reaction to Chay’s proposed use of their ships. But the transfer of troops, horses, and supplies to the Syrene bank of the Faolain was completed in two days, well south of the bridges where Roelstra had expected Rohan to cross.
The High Prince had no opportunity to deploy his army for serious harassment of the move; there were brief skirmishes but Desert archers kept the losses minimal. A measure was marched off and a new camp established, and all was ready just before the next storm blew in from the north. Once more both sides settled in for the duration, polishing swords and keeping bowstrings dry.
Lleyn’s ships had to wait in the mouth of the Faolain for a break in the weather. It was a long time coming, ten days before the fleet commander considered it safe to put out to sea again. Rohan and Chay watched the sails rise and fill with brisk wind, and knew that with the ships went any possibility of escape back across the river. They were in Syr for good or ill. Whatever the outcome of the battle, whenever it was fought, Rohan was oddly pleased to have his actions forced this way. Diminishing choices diminished interior conflict.
He and Chay and Dawi formulated endless plans, fighting battles on maps to explore tactics, arguing placement and timing. It was all they could do until their scouts reported back, and when they did, the news was bad. In the brief two-day stretch of sun that had allowed the ships to set sail, Roelstra’s army had moved back yet again and in doing so seemed to have multiplied twofold.
The morning brought a freezing mist as the trio rode out with their squires and captains to investigate for themselves. Rohan shivered beneath a heavy cloak, cursing the clouds that hung rain-heavy in the north. But what he saw from the top of a hill chilled him more thoroughly than the wind.
The whole of the pastureland that had lately been the High Prince’s camp was awash in thigh-deep water. Trenches had been dug from tributaries of the Faolain. When added to the already saturated earth, the river water had turned a two-measure-wide plain into a lake. Crossing was impossible; the bottom was thick, viscous mud like that around the lake’s edges. Drainage ditches and a whole summer’s heat would be required to bake the land dry again. But there was something more, something only Roelstra in his cunning would have thought of, something that had ruined this rich land forever.
“Do you smell it?” Rohan asked softly. “Salt.” He heard Dawi’s despairing curse, Chay’s sharp intake of breath. Rohan breathed deeply of the distinctive bite on the wind. “I suppose the trees were too wet for burning, or he would have done that, too,” he commented. Then he turned Pashta and rode back to his tent, and did not admit anyone until nightfall.
When Chay was at last told that Prince Rohan wished to speak with him, he entered the tent in the liveliest apprehension of what he would find. Rohan sat on his cot, round-shouldered, an empty bottle overturned on the carpet and a half-empty one between his boots. There was a goblet in his hands and he turned it around and around in some private ritual before each swallow, five times before drinking. Chay watched this for a while, wondering if the remedy of liquor applied to Rohan’s wounds would dull them for at least a little while. But when the blue eyes finally lifted to his, he knew the pain was as piercing as ever.
“Sit down,” Rohan said, and it was not an invitation. “This time I have to talk. And this time you’ll listen to me.”
Chay sat. He was not offered a cup and would not have accepted one. Rohan stared at him for the time it took to rotate the goblet again, five times before taking another sip. His voice and his eyes were stone cold sober.
“I’ve told myself I’m clever and civilized. I’ve said that my goal is the rule of law, not that of the sword. And look what I’ve done. I was raised a prince to protect and nurture the land and my people.” Another sip, sensitive fingers turning the goblet round and round. “I’m no better than any man who’s gone before me. I’ve told myself I’m only doing what I have to do. But I’ve got a real talent for this, Chay. I’m proficient in all the barbarian arts—war, rape—“
Rohan drank and leaned over to refill the goblet with alarmingly steady hands. “Azhrei. They’ve never called anyone that before, not even my father. Eltanin is going to leave the wall in rubble—and do you know why? He thinks the walls I’ll build to protect the Desert will be better than any stone. I’m not worthy of that kind of trust. I’m not worthy of anything except to die with a sword in my guts, the way I’ve killed others. The way I’ll kill again.”
Not analytical by nature, still Chay could discern the vast difference between these weary, nearly emotionless musings and the anger of Rohan’s arrival that summer. Then he had seethed with fury and guilt, seeking refuge in words and begging Chay for the negation of them that would signal forgiveness. But now he was merely resigned, a man looking at himself from outside himself, knowing there was no excuse—and not seeking any.
“I enjoyed slaughtering Jastri’s army. I enjoyed raping lanthe. I’m going to love destroying Roelstra. Look what that makes of me.”
“It makes you a man like all the rest of us,” Chay said quietly.
A tiny smile touched Rohan’s lips. “Do you know how galling that is for someone like me?”
“You don’t understand,” Chay said, struggling to find the words. It was so important that they be the right ones. “You’re like us, but unlike. Rohan, you’ve tried. You have the courage of your dreams—when most of us don’t even know how to dream. You know this isn’t the way to live, always at each other’s throats. Your people trust you because they know the sword goes against your nature. It takes greater courage to—“
“To live by it when it’s not of my choosing? Oh, but I chose it, you know. I’m doing a very good job of living with my sword in hand.”
“But when this is over, there’s something more for you—and for everyone else.”
“Yes, of course. I can force everyone to do things my way, and that will make me into another Roelstra. Nothing better than he, in spite of my pretensions. I’d do anything to butcher him and his army, and I’ve done everything to secure myself a son. But there’s one thing I have that he tried to get and failed. I have my very own Sunrunner, and I can use her without first binding her to me with dranath. She’s all mine, Chay, just as Andrade planned she’d be.” He lifted the goblet again, but this time did not drink. “What gives me the right?”
Chay heard emotions battling to break through the calm facade, and sent up a small whisper of thanks. A Rohan pretending detachment from himself was a Rohan who had nearly lost himself. “Power frightens you,” Chay murmured. “You use it, but you don’t feed off it the way Roelstra always has.”
“And that gives me the right? The fact that I’m a coward?”
“You’re not listening to me.” Chay leaned forward in bis chair, speaking quickly so Rohan would not be able to withdraw again into the unfeeling shell. “With you, we’ve got a chance for life. You’re our only hope. Do you think I enjoy seeing my son at war? Gentle Goddess, he just turned twelve! What makes you different is that you hate all this! You fear power and you’re scared you won’t use it wisely—Sioned’s power, too, and she’s just like you! That makes you the prince and princess we need! Do you think she’s not frightened by her power?”
Rohan flinched. “I saw my son in her Fire. I can’t deny him—no matter who his mother is.”
“If Sioned has courage enough to take him, can’t you find enough to accept him as yours and hers, and not lanthe’s?”
“Make believe he wasn’t born of rape?” Rohan shook his head bitterly, blond hair lank and dull in the lamplight. “It’s not just lanthe. I’d be raising the grandson of the High Prince.”
“Rohan, it’s a babyl What fault can there be in an innocent child?”
“His birth!” Rohan threw the goblet across the tent and the wine made a crimson splash against the fabric, dripping down onto the carpet. “He should have been Sioned’s!”
“What makes you think he won’t be? Maarken is as much Lleyn’s now as he is Tobin’s and mine. Rohan, there’s no two people in the world who are solely responsible for what a child becomes. lanthe may have the bearing of him, but he’ll be yours and Sioned’s to raise.”
Rohan lay back on the cot and stared up at the tent roof, silent for a long time. At last he sighed quietly and said, “You’re right about power. It terrifies me. Not the everyday kind princes have—deciding who has the better claim to grazing lands, ordering a new keep built or an old one replenished. It’s this kind of power, Chay—an army around me, power at my disposal just because I’m a prince and I decide who’s going to die. I’ll accept it as a responsibility, but I won’t believe that there’s anything about me that gives me the right. I’m not wise. I’m not clever.” He put an arm across his forehead. “All I am is scared.”
For the first time since Zehava’s death, Chay stopped comparing father and son to Rohan’s lack. Zehava would have chosen a path and marched down it without any further thought. But the son differed from the father in constant examination for the right of things. Rohan questioned and doubted, sought deeper truths and hidden motivations. It would be the same when the High Prince’s death opened paths of even greater power to him. Rohan would never stride arrogantly down them, blind to all else, never questioning his right to do as he pleased. He would always question—and this was what would make him wise. At that moment Chay ceased regretting that the son was not more like the father. He would have followed either wherever they cared to lead, but with Rohan, he knew that the path would always be the right one.
Chapter Twenty-nine ris time Sioned did not go to Feruche alone. As lanthe’s time neared, Tobin and Maeta made quiet plans which they discussed with the reluctant Ostvel only when all was arranged and he could make no real objection. If he had hoped for an ending different from the one understood and unspoken all this time, that hope was now gone. Rohan and Chay were bogged down in the south, and though Tiglath’s fighters were now free to make an assault on Feruche, Sioned had ordered Walvis to stay in the city. The child must be taken in secret if she was to have any chance of presenting him as her own.
That lanthe would die was something equally understood, equally unspoken. One night in early winter, Tobin and Maeta described to Sioned plans for the infiltration of the castle. She merely nodded. No one mentioned lanthe’s name.
During the clearer days of autumn lanthe had often strolled the battlements of Feruche, almost as if she knew Sioned would be watching. Her sons were usually with her and Sioned wondered bitterly why the Goddess had seen fit to give such wealth to such a woman. As lanthe’s pregnancy advanced, the envy was sometimes more than Sioned could stand. But now lanthe’s burden was too heavy to permit much walking. She slept uneasily in the huge bed with its dragon tapestries, for Rohan’s son rode restlessly in her womb. Envy turned to hate when Sioned caught sight of the great emerald sparkling from her finger. lanthe was in possession of things not rightfully her own, and Sioned’s need to claim what was hers became a demand that threatened to destroy her hard-won balance.
For some days after plans were confirmed for the journey to Feruche, Sioned lapsed into a strange, waiting silence. Tobin understood; as her own birthing-times had neared, she had grown detached, all thoughts and feelings directed inward. Sioned’s womb might be empty, but she was going through pregnancy as surely as lanthe.
One early winter night at moonrise, as clouds brushed the northern horizon, the alarm Sioned had been waiting for flushed servants out of bed at Feruche. Lingering long enough on moonlight to be sure this was no false labor, she smiled with an odd mixture of envy and satisfaction as lanthe’s body arched in agonized spasms. Then she returned to Stronghold and sent for Tobin and Ostvel.
“She’s early by forty days,” Sioned told them when they came to her rooms, sleep-rumpled and apprehensive. “I felt she might be. We leave tonight.”
Soon thereafter three riders on Chay’s best horses were galloping north. Pale figures on pale horses, they rode in silence and made swift progress through the night made dazzling by three full moons. Sioned alone showed no fear. Tobin, schooled over the summer and autumn by Sioned in certain faradhi techniques, kept her mind busy reviewing what she had been taught but could not banish the intermittent quivers that ran through her body. Ostvel clenched and unclenched his fingers around his sword hilt, unable to protest and unable to stay behind. Neither of them dared speak to the woman who rode between them with her body straining eagerly forward, her green eyes blazing.
Sioned took the lead during the day through hills where, earlier in the year, dragons had basked and battled and mated. She had used this back approach to Feruche before, but this time was sure of the path. In spring she had mistaken the way. The dark nightmare of that lonely journey had merged into the horror of Feruche and the return to Stronghold. But though this trip also had something dreamlike about it; everything seemed outlined in bright Fire like a conjure, with all the singing colors of her gifts making her lightheaded.
Ten measures from Feruche they stopped, just beyond the first sentries, to rest for a little while after the long day’s fast ride. After dismounting and securing the horses, they walked the last of the road as night gathered behind them. The castle came within sight above the rocky hills, bathed in winter sun, its towers crowned by a golden glow that seeped down the walls like honey. Sioned paused for a moment to contemplate the beauty of Feruche, recalling that Rohan had promised it would be hers one day. And so it would, she told herself. This day.
Sounds of revelry came from within the keep, drunken celebration of the princess’ safe delivery of her son. Sioned listened, a tiny smile touching her mouth from time to time. She was aware of Tobin and Ostvel standing behind her, waiting nervously. In her own mind she conjured up Maeta’s instructions of that spring, seeing her as surely as if the warrior was with her now.
“There’s not a castle in the Desert I don’t know inside and out—and more to the point, how to get inside from out. There are more secrets here at Stronghold than just this grotto passage, but we’ll talk about them another time. Let me tell you about Feruche.”
Sioned closed her eyes, visualizing the hidden entry, the corridors carved out of the rock, the twists and turns she had memorized but had not yet used. At their end was the upper hallway leading to lanthe’s chamber. A shudder ran through her, but she was not afraid. She felt nothing.
“Sioned. ...”
Tobin’s whisper turned her head, and she nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s time I finished my work here.”
She led them forward in the shadows below the sunlight, out of sight of the guardpost where she had been captured before. She had no worries about that this time; all of Feruche celebrated lanthe’s fourth son, and the stones outside the castle were silent. She moved around the curtain wall to the place where castle and cliff joined. A chink in the stone. A thin knife blade inserted to work the invisible catch. A moment when Ostvel’s breath quickened with fear that the mechanism was too old and too long unused to function.
The slab of rough-hewn rock slid soundlessly aside. Sioned slipped through first, concentrated for an instant, and produced a finger of Fire to see by. As Tobin and Ostvel moved into the narrow passage beside her, she inspected the workings of the entry. They had not been touched in Goddess alone knew how long, but the builders’ skill had been such that the system of weights and catches still functioned perfectly.
The miniscule flame lit their way through the shoulder-wide passage, glanced off long-empty sconces rusting on the walls. The floor sloped up, turned sharply, then descended, and in places rotting planks had been set over water seeping in from the underground spring that allowed Feruche to live. But there were no rats, no webs, not the slightest sign or whisper of life here.
At last there was another weighted stone door, and they emerged cautiously into a place Sioned recognized only too well. She had been held in a cell here, away from the light. A quiver chased down her backbone as the nightmare of colorlessness flickered through her memory, and she coaxed the fingerflame a little higher, a little brighter.
“Who’s there?”
Tobin caught back a gasp and exchanged a wild glance with Ostvel, who drew his sword with a sharp hiss of steel. Sioned seemed not to notice. She walked forward as the guard appeared from around a corner.
He choked and blanched in the glow of Sunrunner’s Fire. “You!”
“Yes,” she murmured. “I remember you, too.” She pointed ‘one long, ringless finger at him, and a new Fire sprouted a handspan from his chest. He flattened himself against the wall, eyes huge and staring, mouth open in a soundless scream.
“Sioned—“ Ostvel put a hand on her arm. She shrugged him off, smiling; there was that in her eyes that made him swallow hard. But he stepped forward and sunk his blade into the man’s throat. The guard slid down the wall, still staring, dead.
Sioned whirled on Ostvel, fury in her face. He wiped his blade and met her gaze without flinching. “No one can know we’ve been here—not if this is to work. Any- one who sees us must die—and I won’t let you do the killing, faradhi.”
The look in her eyes frightened Tobin. She had seen it in Chay’s eyes this spring, that dark glitter that meant death. She gripped Sioned’s hand and would not let her pull free. “Ostvel is right. Sioned, we must hurry.”
The fire-gold head nodded once. She said nothing as she drew her fingers from Tobin’s, let the Fire flicker out, and started for the stairs. Tobin traded another worried glance with Ostvel—who had not put up his sword.
Feruche’s reputation as a castle that could not be taken had made its guards careless. The few not partaking of the wine-soaked celebrations were easy to avoid; Tobin created soft breaths of Air that distracted attention by ruffling a tapestry or rattling a window. Sioned paid no attention, confident that the guards Tobin did not distract, Ostvel would silence permanently. But the sword tasted no new blood on the way to lanthe’s chambers.
Sioned paused at a high window overlooking the courtyard, light from the central bonfire down below blazing across her face. Tobin grabbed Ostvel’s arm as Sioned’s hands lifted slightly.
“Sioned—no!” Tobin exclaimed.
An unnatural light appeared beyond the windows, the gold and crimson of Sunrunner’s Fire. Tobin stared in horror at the outbuilding directly below, its wooden roof alight. Sparks blew onto ‘the next roof and the next, leaping with terrible hunger. Ordinary fire would not have caught so swiftly, but Sunrunner’s Fire flared and grew. The screams of alarm began, the panic. Sioned smiled slightly.
“Damn you!” Ostvel cried. “The balconies will catch! Sioned, you fool!”
“There has to be Fire,” she said softly, and turned from the conflagration and the screams of drunken panic in the courtyard, heading unerringly for lanthe’s chambers.
Roelstra’s daughter lay in her dragon-tapestried bed, weak from the birthing, sobbing for help. A cradle rocked silently in a corner, but the woman who tended the child was gone—and with reason, for the flames were clearly visible at the windows now, even so high in the tower. Stairs leading up the inner walls had caught, and a wooden balcony three floors below was now afire. As smoke filtered into the chamber, the baby began to cry. lanthe’s pleas for help became screams of rage. Sioned ignored her. She went to the cradle where the infant lay, blond as sunlight. “Sweet Goddess,” she breathed, almost afraid to touch him. One finger, hesitant and shy, across his cheek. “Shh,” she whispered. “I’m here now, little one.” lanthe pushed herself upright and shrieked, “Get away from my son!”
“My son,” Sioned answered softly. She lifted the boy and held him to her heart, lips caressing the golden down covering his head. He stopped whimpering and snuggled close. “My son, now and forever.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” lanthe struggled to rise, moaned, fell back onto her pillows. “Take your hands off him! You wouldn’t dare steal him from me!”
“It was you who stole this child from my husband’s body.” Sioned faced the princess, holding the baby closer, tucking the blanket around him. “I’m returning to him what’s his—and mine.”
“I’ll have you burned in your own Fire! Guards!” she screamed in a voice already hoarse from earlier cries. “Guards*.”
“Be quiet,” Sioned murmured absently, stroking the child’s plump cheek with one finger.
Tobin came to her side, staring at the boy as if not quite able to comprehend his reality. “Oh, Sioned,” she whispered. “He’s beautiful. ...”
“And mine.” Sioned held him so Ostvel could see.
“Give him to me,” Ostvel said.
“You bitch!” lanthe howled. “I’ll kill you myself, with my own hands—“
Sioned backed away as Ostvel reached for the child. “No! He’s mine!”
“Did you think I’d give him back to her?” he snapped, taking the baby. Firmly and quickly he stripped off the velvet blanket. It fell to the carpet in a splash of gold-shot violet. “No son of Rohan’s wears Roelstra’s colors.”
The smoke was thicker now. lanthe found strength in panic, rising naked from the bed. Her fingers dug into the curtains, features contorted into a mask of fury as she clung to a post for support. “You’ll die for this, all of you!”
Sioned walked slowly to her, pried the clawing fingers from the hangings. “You have something else that belongs to me, lanthe.” The princess tried to slap her, but Sioned was swifter and stronger. She caught a wrist and twisted it. lanthe groaned and collapsed onto the bed, cursing as Sioned wrenched the emerald from her finger and returned it to its rightful place on her own hand. lanthe surged up again, her eyes slits of rage. “You dare take my son? You whore! I’ll butcher him while you and Rohan watch!”
“A mother’s love,” Ostvel said. lanthe swayed to her feet. “Did Rohan tell you how it was?” she shouted at Sioned. “Did he tell you how he made love to me here in this bed? He’s mine now, and his son with him! The way it should have been from the first!”
Sioned suddenly backhanded her, and the emerald tore a gash across the perfect cheek. lanthe fell back onto the pillows, fear in her eyes now. Sioned spent a moment enjoying it, then turned. Tobin had taken the baby and wrapped him in her tunic. The child whimpered fretfully, smoke stinging his nose.
“Hush, little one,” Tobin soothed, rocking him. “Little prince.”
“Sioned, we’ve got to hurry,” Ostvel warned. “The Fire—“
“Yes,” she said, looking at lanthe again. “The Fire.”
The princess spat defiantly, “You couldn’t kill me before, Sunrunner, and you won’t now! You’re—“
“I am what I have to be. Did you stay to watch your father ignite his mistress’ bed, lanthe?” Sioned slapped her again as she lurched up from the bed. “My Fire is of a different kind.”
She held her hands out so lanthe could watch them, the emerald a seething reflection of the flames outside the windows. Sioned smiled at the terror in lanthe’s dark eyes. Hate was a wonderful, living thing in her guts, giving her power beyond anything she had ever felt. Sweet and hot and potent, the hate wove its magic through her with threads of blackened sunlight, stitching together her need to kill and her delight in lanthe’s mortal fear.
But all at once the princess drew herself straight and looked to the child Tobin held. Sioned saw triumph in her face, laughter in her eyes. Sioned longed to strike her again, but there were better ways of killing her and the emerald blazed in response as Sioned sought the Fire within it. She gathered herself to wrap flames around the smirking, victorious princess.
A lean flash of fire-shrouded steel suddenly quenched itself in lanthe’s breast. She grasped it with a cry that was more surprise than pain. A flicker of comprehension lit her eyes before all light fled them forever, and she sank back, taking the sword with her, hands clasped feebly around its hilt.
Ostvel slid his sword from the dead woman and wiped the blade on a fistful of bed hangings. He met Sioned’s rage without apology, his face set in stone.
“It’s over, Sunrunner,” he said.
She wanted to claw his face until the blood ran. “She was mine to kill, mine!”
“No. Not to kill.” He sheathed the sword. “You have what you came here for, Sioned. Do you want to stay and watch the Fire take her? It’s over!”
She made a harsh, animal sound and whirled, setting the bed ablaze with a single thought. lanthe’s long hair caught, and the hangings, and the tapestry dragons writhed in obscene mating dances with Fire spewing from their teeth and talons. Sioned hauled at one of the bedposts and it split apart at its joining, the burning weave cascading down onto lanthe’s corpse. Curtain rods fell and Sioned screamed as one of them cracked across her shoulder, spat flames across her face, seared her cheekbone a finger-width from her eye.
Ostvel hauled her away and she shrieked at him, tears streaming down her face. “Sioned! Stop it! Do you hear me? Stop it!” His open palm cracked across her injured cheek, snapping her head around. Through the haze of smoke she saw the empty doorway and screamed.
“My son! Where is he? Where?”
“Tobin fook him downstairs, and if we don’t follow we’re going to die here! Sioned, it’s over! lanthe’s dead!”
She gasped for breath, struggling against his grip. Sanity was returning and she dreaded the loss of the hate that had given her such power. “Let me go! Damn you for killing her, Ostvel—she was mine to kill!”
“And how did you plan to tell him that when he grows up?” he asked bitterly, pulling her from the room where the stench of lanthe’s burning flesh swirled up into the thickening smoke.
They ran down the hallway, coughing and stumbling down the stairs. Fire had invaded the lower hall, taken hold; tapestries in flaming tatters flung sparks on the fireborne wind. They could not leave Feruche the way they had come in; the whole castle was on fire.
Outside on the steps Sioned searched frantically for Tobin’s small, white-shirted figure, saw her running through the crowd toward the gates. The child was bundled close and safe against her breast. The courtyard was ablaze, outbuildings collapsing. Smoke billowed from the lower windows of the keep. By morning Feruche would be nothing but stark, blackened stone.
Someone reeled into Sioned, his clothes on fire. Her Fire. She would have killed lanthe with it, laughing, but this man was not her enemy. The inferno would take Feruche, and she could do nothing about those who might be trapped within, but this man she could save from death. Save herself from having killed him. She knocked him to the cobbles, flung herself atop him to stifle the flames. Boot heels crushed her leg, smashed the tip of one finger, and she sobbed her pain into the man’s nape, begging his forgiveness, smelling his burnt flesh and her own singed hair. But he stirred beneath her, moaned, tried feebly to push her off his back. Strong hands helped her up, steadied her.
“Sioned! Hurry! He’ll be all right. I promise you he’ll be all right.”
She couldn’t seem to stop crying. Even as she hauled the man to his feet and gave him a push in the direction of the gates, saw him stagger his way to and through them, the breath sobbed in her lungs and she kept repeating, “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—“
“I know,” came OstvePs deep, sorrowing voice. His arms were around her in a hard embrace for just an instant. Then he said, “Come on, or we’ll lose Tobin and the baby.”
She clung to him as he shoved a path for them through this furnace of her making. The main gates were a hollow ring of Fire through which terrified people leaped for their lives. Sioned sucked in a shallow breath of smoke-heavy air and followed Ostvel, then looked over her shoulder. Flames fountained from the castle now, fierce and deadly. Feruche was dying because of her; perhaps people would die because of her.
She dragged a sleeve across her sweaty forehead; her tearing eyes, and whimpered as the material scraped her burned cheek. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this, she thought, panic tightening her chest. The mark of her own Fire set into her shoulder—that she had known would happen. But in the vision she had seen scars across her brow. Not one on her cheek.
“Ostvel, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way! Not like this!”
“What in the name of the Goddess did you think would happen?” he rasped, pulling her along with him away from the burning castle walls.
“Not like this!” She flung away from him and stared wide-eyed at the flames, one hand to her cheek to feel the salt sting that brought fresh tears to her eyes. “There was supposed to be Fire—but not this way! Ostvel, how many did I kill?”
He turned her around by the shoulders and then gripped her head between his hands. “Don’t start,” he ordered roughly. “I won’t let you take any of these deaths onto yourself. Do you hear me, Sioned?”
“It was my Fire! Mine! Goddess, what have I done?”
“Ask yourself that once we’re safe! Sioned, I’ll knock you out and carry you if I have to! Now move!”
It was a long way to where they had tethered the horses. Someone had stolen them. Tobin waited for them there, walking back and forth in the shadows, trying to quiet the fretful baby. Sioned took her son into her arms, shaking with silent tears.
It was Tobin who suggested the empty garrison below Feruche as shelter. Most of the other refugees continued along the main road, through the Veresch into Princemarch. The blazing castle lit up the night and the people around her, showing Sioned injuries more serious than her own. Ostvel asked a servant if anyone had been caught in the flames, and received a dull shrug in reply.
“Not that I’m knowing. Most everybody was out in the court, drinking to the princess and her new little one.” The woman’s face suddenly crumpled. “And now she’s gone, and the baby, and the three other boys with her—“
A man walking beside her said, “When the High Prince hears of this,. I wouldn’t put the price of a day on the life of anyone who was there. I don’t recognize you, so you must be with the Cunaxan lord that rode in a few days ago. Give my advice to )our master—disappear. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Sioned, who had hung back slightly, listening, reached for Ostvel’s arm. “Leave it be,” she whispered. “I’ll never know for certain.” She trod along in silence for a moment, then added bitterly, “With lanthe, at least I would’ve known I’d killed deliberately, .and taken the consequences.” She held the child tighter. “I wouldn’t have the luxury of pretending it was an accident.”
They separated from the crowd soon after that, melting into the rocks at the side of the road. When the last stragglers had gone past, they emerged again and headed down the stony trail to the garrison. It was nearly dawn before they reached it. Sheltering alone within, they stood at the empty windows and watched as Feruche burned high on the cliff. Sioned rocked the frightened baby close and would not give him up to Tobin or Ostvel, not even when the princess would have tended the wounds on her shoulder and cheek.
“No. It doesn’t hurt. Let me alone.”
Tobin was wise enough not to press her. Sioned sat cross-legged in the doorway, holding her son in her arms as he slept at last, and watched the castle burn. She could not think past the holding of her child. Let Tobin and Ostvel worry about getting back to Stronghold. She could not.
She glanced down at the emerald, back where it belonged on her hand. The clifftop flames plunged into its depths, gave it a life and fire of its own. Andrade had told her long ago that she could work to make a vision real if she wanted it enough. Well, she had wanted, and had worked, and now the child was here in her arms and there was a welt across her shoulder that would leave a deep, wide scar.
But there was another on her cheek that should not have been there, and it throbbed a stinging reminder that the power to make visions real did not necessarily include the wisdom to make them just.
Dawn was nearly as soft as spring over River Run, and as Urival wove its strands together he paused to let its gentleness caress his senses. There were tender colors to the morning, rose-gray and muted greenish gold, the blue of sky as fragile as Fironese crystal. He traveled across Syr and Meadowlord and the Vere Hills, the colors intensifying with the stronger light of day. Yet there was still a misted, almost tentative quality about them, beautiful and shy.
But the colors rising from a Desert cliffside were harsh: stark spirals of gray-black smoke stained the sky. He saw the smoldering ruin that had been the castle and his delicate weave of winter dawn nearly snapped with the violence of his shock. Casting about for signs of life, he found none. Here and there small flames fingered a few remaining timbers, but all else was charred and dead. Ranging outside the keep, he saw groups of hollow-eyed people trudging into the western mountains. Ahead of them by some measures were others on horseback. Three of those horses caught his eye, for there was no mistaking the points of Lord Chaynal’s breed. How would lanthe come upon such animals? he asked himself—and then saw the distinctive blue saddle blankets of the Desert. Shock again threatened his control and he calmed himself, only to give a silent exclamation as he looked closer and found that the three horses were ridden by large, muscular guards, each one holding a sleeping child across his saddle.
Urival drew back, hovering in the morning stillness to quiet the turmoil of his mind. Then he returned to Feruche. He knew who those children must be, and was equally certain that their mother must be dead. lanthe would never give over possession of her sons to anyone while she lived.
Urival again surveyed the blackened husk of the keep, circling around it. A flicker of movement caught his attention. Pale figures against pale golden sand, the trio walked in the direction of the road to Skybowl. The man was tall, broad-shouldered, his dark head left bare to the morning sun. One of the women was coiling her heavy black hair at her nape. The other woman was taller, her hooded cloak drawn close, arms crooked to carry something against her chest. Urival did not need to see her hair to know who she was. And he was afraid he knew what she had done.
He wove the sunlight south, over the Faolain and the salt marsh of Roelstra’s cruel making, and saw Rohan’s encampment well into its day’s work for all that it was only a little after dawn. He was tempted to find young Maarken and tell him about Feruche, but restrained himself. Andrade would have to know first, and she was busy at the moment observing Roelstra’s arrangements for the battle that everyone knew must come soon. The skies had cleared over the Veresch where the Father of Storms usually did his work, and for many measures out over the South Water the air was free of clouds. Pandsala would be reporting the same thing to her father that Andrade would soon tell Maarken: days of good weather lay ahead, and it was time to attack.
Returning to River Run, he opened his eyes to the silent walled garden and rested for a time before walking slowly to the bench where he had left Andrade. She sat with eyes closed and hands tightly clasped in intense concentration, the spun sunlight glowing very faintly around her as sometimes happened with powerful Master Sun- runners. Urival kept a respectful silence, considering how he would phrase the news about Feruche, remembering the cant of Sioned’s body around the small burden she carried.
All at once Andrade’s eyes opened, sparkling with mirth, and she laughed. “Urival! Come with me quickly or you’ll miss it!”
He obeyed, bewildered by her merriment that spilled over into her colors and danced around his own threads of light as she guided him. Some forty measures from River Run, well south of Roelstra’s main camp, about two hundred of his soldiers had established an outpost. But strict military discipline had utterly collapsed, for the fools had chosen a dragon hunting-ground, and the infuriated hatchlings were on the attack.
Horses stampeded in every direction as they fled sharp talons; men and women raced about with frantic speed or huddled on the ground with their cloaks pulled over them while the small dragons soared, wheeled, and darted down to chase the invaders from their territory. The plummeting green-bronze and dark gold and russet shapes were considerably grown since summer, but most of them retained the ability to spew fire enough to singe a few backsides.
It was absolute chaos, a total rout. A little gray dragon with blue underwings flailed angrily above a huge cauldron, and when the cook fled he perched daintily on its rim and helped himself to a free breakfast. After slurping up most of the stew, he lifted his head and let out a great fire-tinged belch. Two hatchlings, one nearly black and the other a dappled brown, were fighting over a violet cloak; it evidently retained enough scent from the sheep that had originally worn the wool to be of interest to dragons. Some of the little beasts had latched onto horses in the wildest rides of their lives; the horses seemed to have sprouted wings, about to fly. One dragon came up with a saddle, girth straps dangling, and let out a happy shriek, but when he craned his head down to take a bite of the cured leather, he spat in distaste and dropped the saddle right on the head of a soldier who staggered, clutched at her skull, and went over like a felled tree.
The detachment’s commander, wearing a violet cloak with a huge rent in its embroidered back, lunged desperately for a fleeing horse and scrambled up to rally his troops. He waved a hand high in the air—and nearly lost several fingers to a fierce little blue-green hatchling. Giving it up as useless, the man let the horse have its head and streaked away from the battlefield in frantic retreat, leaving the dragons in firm possession.
Back again at River Run, Urival and Andrade laughed themselves completely out of breath. “Perfect!” Andrade chortled. “Oh, the little darlings! Did you see the green-%h one go for that man in his underwear?”
Urival sat on the bench beside her and wiped his streaming eyes. “That’s the best laugh I’ve had in years!”
“It’ll get better,” Andrade assured him. “We have to get word to Rohan about this. It’s an omen he can’t afford to pass up! I’ll send to Maarken and describe the whole thing while you get us ready to move. It seems our Dragon Prince has allies he never even dreamed of!”
It was only when Urival was nearing the gates that he remembered he had not told her about Feruche. After a moment’s hesitation, he shrugged and decided not to ruin her mood. She would find out soon enough. He pushed the gates open and walked across the field to where men wearing Roelstra’s regimentals lolled about in the sunshine. One of them rose to greet him, smiling.
“A fine day, my lord!”
“That it is, Cahl. And we’ll be on the move at last.”
“Out to sea?” he asked eagerly, then laughed when Urival shuddered. “Ah, I forgot—you Sunrunners! Well, it’ll be a relief to get out of the High Prince’s clothes, anyway.” Cahl plucked at the gold-embroidered tunic, freckled face screwed up in comical disgust.
“How’s our good friend the captain? Recovered yet from all those lies he’s told Roelstra’s messengers?”
“Oh, he’s become very philosophical, even about his losses at dice. Will you want him locked up with the rest of his men before we leave?”
“Yes. Lady Wisla will get a shock when she comes home.” Urival grinned. “We’ll take all the horses with us, so even if they do manage to escape, they woet be able to warn Roelstra in time.”
Urival gave his instructions and returned to the cowl-yard, chuckling at the memory that teased his thougha. Roelstra’s captain had received quite a shock one winter morning when the gates of River Run had opened to him and Lady Andrade had signaled her readiness to be escorted back to Goddess Keep. Lleyn’s sailors, their agility in climbing ship’s riggings put to good use in scaling the back walls of the keep one night, had deprived the captain and ten of his men of their weapons, their clothes, and their ability to warn their fellows. Others had come to investigate and been treated in like fashion. A minimum of blood had been shed before Roelstra’s men had been incarcerated with fine thoughtfulness in River Run’s wine cellar. Andrade had reasoned that Dawi wouldn’t begrudge the loss of a few casks, and she hadn’t wanted Roelstra’s men to complain of mistreatment, after all. Only the captain had been allowed back outside with several sharp-eyed sailors watching him at all times. When Roelstra’s couriers came, he had said all the right things— motivated by a knife held unobtrusively to his spine.
Thus Andrade had waited on her terms, not Roelstra’s. One cage was indeed very like another, except when the guards were on one’s own side and one could walk out whenever one pleased.
There had been only one sour thing about the whole satisfying proceeding: Chiana. She had been locked in her room to keep her quiet during the maneuver, but had subsided only when tied to a chair with a towel stuffed halfway down her throat. It had not been a pleasant experience for anyone, and daily Urival had expected some act of revenge. If the girl did not behave herself today, he was quite willing to tie her to her saddle with the gag back in her mouth.
But he forgot about her as he directed the preparations for departure. By midmorning all was ready—and Chiana had not been seen. Urival had the keep searched, and emerged puzzled and impatient into the courtyard to report his lack of success to Andrade.
She was stalking across the cobbles, practically spitting fire. “Do you know what Chiana’s done? Cozened one of those fool grooms into giving her a horse early! And now she’s gone!”
“Good riddance,” Urival muttered. “I hope she gets lost and falls in the river.” And then, because Andrade’s excellent humor had already been spoiled, he told her the bad news about Feruche.
High Prince Roelstra received three increasingly nasty shocks that day, and his daughter Pandsala was in a position to observe them all.
The first came when he had finished his breakfast and was taking a morning stroll through his camp. He had risen late, and Pandsala was kept waiting for some time outside his tent, for he liked to have her accompany him so the soldiers could see that they had their very own Sunrunner. Father and daughter had begun the rounds, exchanging remarks about the clear weather and the possibility of a battle soon, when a rider crested the low hill to the south and thundered down into camp. Stragglers followed in bad order behind him. He leaped from his horse, made frantic obeisance to his prince, and started babbling about dragons.
“More than ever before in the world—all of them after us! We fought them but it was no use, your grace. That wizard Prince Rohan has them under his spell, him or his Sunrunner witch of a wife! There were hundreds of them, your grace—with claws like swords and breathing fire—we had to retreat or all would have been lost! It’s surely Prince Rohan’s work!”
Pandsala watched her father gape speechlessly at the commander, who was now sucking on three bleeding fingers, having completed his story. The rest of the ragtag group that had once been the High Price’s finest mounted detachment galloped up in the interval and shouted out the same tale to their appalled compatriots. From them it was learned that most of the horses had fled beyond hope of recovery, and the other troops were walking back to camp. Pandsala made a quick count of the survivors, keeping stern control of her expression.
Her father, not having had hard training at Keep, turned all the colors of the rainbow.
“Thirty-five!” he roared. “Out of two hundred, you bring me back thirty-five, and praise your own wisdom in the loss! You credulous idiot! Dragons! As if Rohan could order them into battle!”
The- commander flung himself to his knees. “I beg forgiveness, your grace—but the others will tell you—the fierceness of the attack—had we stayed, there would not even be thirty-five left—“
“Moron!” Roelstra swung around and pointed a finger at Pandsala. “You! This is your doing!”
“Mine?” She countered, incensed. “Is it my fault he’s a fool? I advised you to send a detachment of horse against those Rohan is hiding in the woods to the south. I didn’t advise this imbecile to camp in a dragon feeding-ground, which is what it seems he did! How can this be my fault?”
The High Prince Sashed out a booted foot and caught the prostrate commander in the ribs. “Get out of my sight,” he snarled. “And be grateful that I need everyone who can sit a horse!” He stormed off and Pandsala hurried along after him, keeping her distance but curious to see what he would do next.
He circled the perimeter of the camp, much more quickly than at his usual regal pace. He slowed as he reached the horse pickets, but she did not catch up, wisely assuming that he was counting the mounts available to him, an exercise that could only renew his fury.
Then he received his second shock of the morning.
It came in the form of a small, auburn-haired girl clinging to the neck of a sweating gray pony whose lungs were heaving like bellows. Soldiers tried to snatch the girl down, but she kicked and spat in a rage no less impressive for the fact that she was so young. A real royal tantrum, Pandsala told herself, a sick feeling in her stomach, for she knew her half-sister’s rampages of old.
“I want to see my father!” Chiana shrieked. “You don’t dare touch me! I’m the daughter of the High Prince!”
Roelstra turned on his heel and swore. Pandsala hur- ried to his side and he turned a killing look on her, green eyes like a frozen sea.
“Father,” she began.
“Where did that brat come from?” he grated.
“She was with me and Andrade and Urival—“
“What is that whore’s spawn doing here?” he shouted.
Chiana turned, gaze unerringly finding the sire she had never before seen. She leaped from the pony, eluded the soldiers, and flung her arms around Roelstra’s legs, lifting a pale, dirt-streaked face.
“You have to listen to me, Father, please! Andrade is coming, with soldiers—she can’t be very far behind me! I came to warn you!”
Roelstra stared down at this replica of himself and his dead mistress. Then he pried Chiana from his legs, took her by the shoulders, and raised her so he could inspect her face. She flinched slightly with pain but did not cry out.
“You’ve the look of your mother,” he said softly, dangerously. “My daughter, Treason—who’s spent her whole life in Andrade’s keeping.”
“I hate her! I hate her even more than Pandsala does!”
“Come, Treason, tell me how much.” Abruptly he loosened his grip and Chiana tumbled to the ground. She was up instantly, proud and straight.
“I’ve always hated her! And now I’m going to get back at her! She tricked your soldiers, Father, she’s coming here with Prince Lleyn’s troops and—“
“Lleyn?”
“They climbed the wall at night and Urival tied me up so I couldn’t scream and warn—“
“His ships were reported off the coast,” Roelstra mused. “I wouldn’t put it past Andrade, even to the reports that came back from River Run saying all was well.” He looked down at his youngest daughter and a thin smile curved his lips. “Very well, Treason. I’ll choose to believe you, but only because it doesn’t matter. Our dear Lady Andrade is helpless and powerless, even in her freedom. She can do nothing against me, but it’s interesting to know she’s loose. You were right to come to me, Treason.”
The child stared him directly in the eye. ‘ M> Chiana,” she said flatly. “And I am a princess.”
Roelstra’s eyes narrowed for an instant, and then he burst out laughing. “By the Father of Storms—so it is, and so you are! You must have given Andrade a time! I always knew Palila and I should have produced a wildcat instead of those mewling kittens at Castle Crag! Very well, Princess Chiana, go with your sister and make yourself presentable.” He pinched the girl’s chin. “My daughters do not appear in rags and dirt.”
Pandsala concealed her chagrin at hearing the child so openly acknowledged. She took Chiana away to her own small tent and gave the girl water, soap, and orders to scrub herself head to heels. A servant was dispatched to find something Chiana could put on in place of her filthy dress. Then Pandsala set off in search of her father again, needing to be at his side to hear his revised plans.
She had just glimpsed him leaving his tent when the third—but not the final—shock of the day appeared. A scout, arrow still in his shoulder and blood staining his tunic, fell to his knees in the grass and looked up at the High Prince.
“Your grace, the Desert attacks! Now!”