JL here was a monotonous rhythm about the day, like the dripping of a water clock. Booted feet marched in precise meter from one dwelling to the next; boards were secured across doors and windows with steady beats of hammers on nails; even the shrieks of the dying had a certain cadence.
Along the strip of coast between the Pyrme and Faolain rivers, few survived to wonder who commanded the dragon ships. Gilad Seahold, signaled an easy prize by the torch flung over its walls, was gutted by fire, and all its people perished. Manors and cottages burned with their living occupants inside. The destruction was absolute. All that was taken were the horses. Plow-elk had their throats slit; food animals—swine, geese, goats, cattle—were burned in their pens or killed with a sword thrust and left to rot. The bounty of autumn harvest, stored in barns and sheds crammed with fruit, grapes, grain, and vegetables, was fired as well. The invaders brought no carts and took none to transport food for future use. They had no interest in salvaging what might feed their army; they were interested in horses and fire, and that was all.
There were no battles. The people in the holdings might not have existed, except for the slight trouble it took to kill them. There were no rapes, no maimings, no tortures. Simply death. Men, women, and children were of as little account as farm animals and food stores. Horses and fire; that was all.
The first village to burn was twelve measures in from the coast, a pretty place overlooking the river, where white flowers carpeted the hill in spring. By noon of that first day the hill and its village were black, but for the stark white bones of its ninety-six inhabitants.
The first substantial manor to burn was twenty measures up the Pyrme, a rich place with ten horses in a small paddock. An altercation broke out when two men claimed the same gelding. This provided the youngest son of the house a chance to run. The man who slew him was mounted on his father’s favorite mare.
The first castle to burn after Gilad Seahold was thirty-eight measures from the sea, a minor holding of little importance to anyone other than those who lived there. Rising smoke had warned the athri, and he ordered his two grown sons, his daughter, her husband, and the castlefolk to prepare for war. His had once been a strategic keep, but a hundred years and more had passed since the last siege. There were weak places in the walls, and the moat had not been dredged in anyone’s memory, and the great iron bars binding the wooden gate had grown rusty. The castle was ablaze before noon.
Again the yield was horses—only six this time, but of prime quality, the stocky Kadar Water breed characterized by white feathery tufts at ears and hooves. Neither as swift nor as elegant as Radzyn horses, still they were well-suited to carrying riders over long distances. Of the hundred men who had marched up the Pyrme River that dawn, over half were now mounted.
The sun rose with majestic unconcern, lavish with the light that was a Sunrunner’s life, but Meath was in no state to use it. He knew he had crossed water; there was no mistaking the searing ache in his skull, the flashes of pain behind his eyes, the sore muscles of his stomach. He knew he had spent much of the night and half the morning lying rigid with misery in the bottom of a sailboat. He remembered the stars overhead quite clearly, mocking pinpricks of light that hurt his eyes. But the rest of his memory was confused by odd impressions of a long ride, ships, fire, arguing with Chadric—and seeing Audrite’s birthplace, Sandeia, in flames. He understood none of it. A faradhi’s ultimate irony: his only certain memory was of that insane sail in the middle of the night, the sea crossing that had addled the rest of his brain. He could relive it in helpless detail from his first step into the boat to the time he was carried onto dry land. He must have fainted then, and wondered with dull resentment why the Goddess had not allowed him oblivion long before.
Currently he lay prone in a thicket of berry bushes. He dared not raise his head—not yet, anyway, not until he was sure he could do so without losing consciousness again. So he concentrated on rearranging his memories into coherent order.
Graypearl was the start—and with that single word everything rushed in on him and he nearly groaned aloud. He had called down Fire on the strange, square sails while the ships were still in the channel, the effort and the distance so great that he sagged with exhaustion. No energy left even to rage that his work was so feeble, that not one ship had burned. But the town did, and he had joined Ludhil in persuading Chadric that there was no hope. The palace was indefensible. It had been lost the instant the invaders swarmed up from the beaches to the port.
“If this was a castle, we could bring everyone inside and wait for help from Radzyn or Riverport. But the hill and these walls are no fit protection.”
Hurtful enough to remember the heartbreak in Chadric’s eyes as he gave the bitter command to flee. Worse to think of topping the last hill after a frantic ride and finding Sandeia in flames. Sudden hope when Ludhil remembered the family’s sailboats in the nearby cove; nightmare descent down the cliffs, already sick with what he knew would happen once he was on the water. And Chadric’s anger when Ludhil thwarted his intention to stay and fight.
“Going into the hills, are you, and lead the resistance? You’ve got two choices, Father. One, you climb in that boat without a fuss. Second, I put you in myself. Which will it be?”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
The younger man gave his father stare for stare.
Ludhil tricked them into thinking he would jump into the last boat as it breasted incoming waves. Instead he waded back onshore to join those for whom there had been no place on the tiny craft. They would meet up with shepherds and silk-farmers and pearl-fishers and fight the invading enemy. The scholar’s slump gone from his shoulders, Ludhil had raised his hand in silent farewell to wife, children, parents, friends, before turning to command his pitiable beginnings of an army.
But Iliena did something then that nothing in anyone’s experience of her prepared them for. She stripped off her heavy cloak, broke the laces of the woolen skirt around her waist, and with a flash of long bare legs dove into the water. Shouts alerted Ludhil; he met his wife in chest-deep surf and carried her onshore.
Their sails were seen from Sandeia, but the wind cooperated and took them swiftly out to sea. Not that anyone attempted to follow—four small pleasure boats against the night sea? They would founder before reaching safety. One of them did, overloaded with panic-stricken servants. Meath had vague memory of sopping-wet forms crowding in beside him, weeping at the loss of others who were not strong swimmers. Someone sobbed hysterically that they would all be drowned; there was a sharp crack of palm against cheek, and silence but for a few whimpers.
That the other three boats came through safely was due to the skills of Chadric, Audrite, and the young woman who had taken command of the boat that would have been Ludhil’s. But it had been a near thing just the same. Now they were on one of the Small Islands, it was full daylight, and they were only waiting for Meath to weave sun in the direction of Radzyn Keep and help.
He wished he could oblige. The only ships he’d ever been on were the sleek cargo vessels that took silk and pearls to the continent. He had never been sick like this in his life. His head felt ready to burst and every muscle in his body had twisted. He squinted into the warm sun dappling his face and beseeched the Goddess for strength. No Sunrunners ever died crossing water—they only wished they could.
Every breath hurt. He managed to get one elbow beneath him and lift his head. There was a girl nearby sitting watch over him. The sun shining on her hair turned it almost red-gold.
“Sioned?” he tried to say. But the sun exploded and he knew nothing more.
Evarin studied Andry’s face carefully. “No, not yet, my Lord,” he said with regret. “The eyes are still yours, and the chin is all wrong.”
“Do you spend that much time staring in the mirror?” Andry grinned at him. “I never thought you so vain.”
“Or pretty enough to gaze at myself in awestruck wonder,” the young physician retorted lightly. “But it’s the face I shave every morning, and, though ill-favored, my own. Now, narrower through the jaw, and concentrate harder on the eyes.”
Riding was so instinctive that Andry didn’t even have to think about controlling his horse, especially through the soft hills of Ossetia that rose in green-gold radiance beneath his mount’s hooves. If only he could find the same effortless control over the spell he was attempting, he would count the day almost perfect. It was a fine, breezy autumn morning and they had made good time from Goddess Keep, using shortcuts that often bypassed the main road. A brief foray on the early sun had shown Andry that his mother was awake, sitting up, and glaring at Rohan, who had evidently taken it into his head to feed her her breakfast. The stubborn determination on both faces and the knowledge that she was recovering had made Andry laugh aloud. It was with a lighter heart and a smile on his face that he had set out today, and the ease of mind had prompted him to have Evarin teach him the shape-changing trick.
He was not a success. His features stayed his own. The Master Physician corrected and encouraged, but the likeness was not a good one. At last Evarin sighed and shook his head. “It’s as if I’m looking into a mirror cast with a spell that will show only you—trying to match up the faces.”
Andry relaxed his efforts and rubbed his forehead. The strain had begun to give him a headache. “I wonder if this trick would fool that mirror of mine. We’ll have to try it one of these days.”
“I don’t think it would be confused. It identifies a person’s colors, after all, not faces. And if you’ll forgive my saying so, my Lord, this isn’t a ‘trick.’ It has vast potential.”
“True. But I don’t know any woman I’d like to fool into thinking I’m her husband in order to charm my way into her bed.”
Evarin laughed. “To which I’m supposed to reply, ‘You’d never need to!’ “
“Always tender of my conceit!” Andry grinned. “But admit it, this is just a trick for now, like my mirror. I’ve yet to figure out a use for the thing.”
Evarin ducked a branch as they turned into a small wood. “It’s a pity no more were found.”
“I could still throttle Chiana for shattering the one Mireva used on her. But I suppose it wasn’t her fault.”
“There’s nothing in any of the scrolls that mentions mirrors?”
“Not a single word. It’s as if Lady Merisel didn’t know they existed. I’d give a lot to find out how they work—but most of all how to make them.”
“It makes me nervous even to think about it,” Evarin admitted frankly. “But I know what kind of mirror I’d make—one to show exactly what was wrong with someone before the first hint of a complaint.” He paused to let Andry precede him through a narrow passage between trees. “Imagine it, my Lord—knowing in advance about a canker or a rotting tooth before it began to hurt, when I could do something about it. I wouldn’t have to rely on a faraway Sunrunner’s observations and then make my judgment. I’d just say the name of the patient and see for myself.”
Andry smiled at him. “Your idea of power is very simple, isn’t it? A mirror of benefit to all. It wouldn’t be that way with others. Which leads me to think that perhaps Merisei did know about mirrors, and deliberately suppressed the knowledge. She seems to have done that quite a lot.”
“What sort of mirror would you make, my Lord?”
He considered. “I don’t know. Perhaps—“
He never finished the thought, reining in so abruptly that his startled horse went back on its haunches. Down below, in a fold of the hills where the Pyrme River marked the border with Syr, a farmhouse roof was burning.
“Gentle Goddess! Quickly, my Lord, there may be someone who needs help—“
“No,” Andry breathed. “Look at the doors and windows.”
Rails torn from a nearby fence had been nailed across the entrance; the shutters were similarly barred. Smoke slithered from the sills, and as fire ate wood from the inside the gray-black tendrils grew to billowing clouds. Andry had been present at enough funeral rites to know the smell of scorching flesh. And this had no herbs or oils to disguise it.
“There’s no one alive down there,” he whispered, caught by horrified fascination. “They were deliberately trapped within and the house torched.”
“But by whom? To what purpose? Prince Kostas can have no quarrel with Prince Tilal! They’re brothers!” Then Evarin gasped. “My Lord! Look!”
Moving north along the river was a group of armed men, their swords and shields and spears dancing with sunlight. Andry counted a hundred, over half on horseback. The colors carried on a pole before them were unknown to Andry—deep greenish blue like the sea, crossed with two vertical stripes of blood red. But the faces were familiar enough to stop the breath in his throat: dark faces wearing beards decorated with small golden beads. One for each kill, he thought dully. One for each enemy slain.
And how great a prize would be the Lord of Goddess Keep.
Outrun them? Tibaza was one of his father’s stallions, quick and canny, and they had only Kadar breed. But their mounts were fresh; Tibaza had several days of hard travel behind him. And the carnage down below told him something extremely important: no one was being left alive. If they caught sight of him and gave chase, he trusted his horse’s great heart and speed—but they would not rest until they found him. Better to escape notice, hide, and give warning. His eyes ached with the memory of Radzyn in flames.
Reining his horse around, he plunged back into the shadowy depths of the wood. Evarin followed. Andry hoped the enemy was far enough away not to hear—every twig that cracked beneath the horses’ hooves seemed horribly loud to him. The words of Man’s evening song came to him, an urgent plea to the Goddess now, not a pretty ceremony: Lady, protect us from the dark time of night.
What would my father have done?
The question haunted Chadric. Fortunately for his ability to function—not his peace of mind, he would never have that again and he knew it—his father’s spirit did not haunt him. There was no gruff voice on the morning wind, no glimpse of aged eyes, faded but sharp, to pass scathing judgment. If there had been, he was certain he would have put his head in his hands and wept.
Meath had spoken of the old prince back at Graypearl. “Your father was never one to belabor the obvious, my prince. Stop castigating yourself. Lleyn would have agreed that this is the only course open to us.”
Chadric had hoped his self-loathing was more or less concealed. But Meath had been a student of Lady Andrade, she who had taught her faradh’im to read faces as easily as the pages of a manuscript.
Chadric sat apart from the others on the narrow beach, waiting for the sun to dry his salt-stiff garments, hoping that no one, not even his wife, would approach him. There was a certain solace in solitude right now. But it also left him alone with his thoughts.
The huge ships had birthed scores of smaller boats. From these the invaders swarmed up to the port and Graypearl itself. His lovely jewel box of a palace was not made for defense; it had never had need of defending. Knowing that if the port fell, the palace would be next, he sent his guards down to join the townfolk in fighting for their homes. Had he been even ten years younger, he would have joined them. He would have stayed, would have fought beside his people. But there was no place from which to fight. He had been a squire under Prince Zehava, a warlord who had forgotten more about armed conflict than anyone else had ever learned. Zehava had taught him how to take and how to defend, but not even he could have held this palace that was not built for war. Chadric had gallant people and brave guards and not enough of either to make a victory. Besides, he was too old. It had been fifty years since he’d raised a sword beside Zehava in battle against the Merida. Only a fool would stay.
It was Audrite who proposed Sandeia, snuggled in a cove on the southwestern coast of the island. There they could be safe, she said. They could take as many with them as there were horses in the stables. They could wait there for help to come, make a place for their people to rally.
So they mounted horses half-crazed with the smell of smoke drifting up from the port, and fled. The road to Sandeia was a familiar one to Chadric, even at night; it took him back to the rainy spring he’d spent convincing Audrite to marry him. Each morning he’d ridden to Sandeia, painfully aware of her father’s decision that at the Rialla she would Choose her husband. Every bend in the road, every view of the sea between hills held memory of some persuasive speech formed during the day, some curse hurled against himself that evening for not saying it right. But one afternoon she accepted him, and the next morning they rode back to Graypearl together.
They would never ride this way again, he thought as the measures lengthened behind him. He looked back only once. Graypearl was hidden, but the glow of fire was not.
“Don’t, love,” she had murmured beside him. “It will only hurt worse.”
“It can’t hurt any worse,” he answered, and they rode on.
He had spoken too quickly. Sandeia offered no refuge. It was ablaze from granary to manor house. The anguish in his wife’s eyes as her childhood home went up in flames hurt Chadric even more than the loss of Graypearl.
But the nearby cove and its sailboats had not been discovered. On the steep climb down the cliff Chadric fought a private battle with himself. It was the duty of a prince to protect and lead his people. He had failed miserably at the former—through no fault of his own, others would say. But he could still lead them to safety or against the enemy. He knew his people; never would they submit. Since the long-ago days when faradh’im had dwelled exclusively on the island, giving it a protection even more potent than that of the princes who ruled later, the proud and independent Dorvali had considered themselves above the petty conflicts regularly suffered elsewhere. None would meekly bend the knee to a conqueror. They would fight—not in the kind of battle Chadric had learned in his youth, but with stealth and cunning. He was too old to fight beside them, but he could be their symbol, their rallying point.
The foolish delusions of an old man, he realized now, narrowing his eyes to stare out across the channel. By daylight he could not see the flames he knew must still be burning. There was smoke, though, a grayish haze carried by the wind. He could do nothing but wait for Meath to recover and spin sunlight. Wait for Chay to send a ship from Radzyn. Wait for the blow to fall there—if it hadn’t already.
I’m too old, he thought. It galls me to admit it, but it’s true. What’s worse, I’m not the only one who’ll realize that in the next days. Chay, Rohan, Volog—we’re all of us too old. It’s our sons who’ll do the fighting.
He watched the island until his eyes burned, as if to catch sight of his own son. Ludhil was a student of the world around him, not of war. He knew the meaning of the wind and the currents in the sea and the ring-patterns in a felled pine; his careful, scholarly books were in the scriptorium on Kierst and in Rohan’s own library. Chadric and Audrite had not raised him to be a warrior. But that was what events would make of him. He had only his long-ago squire’s training to guide him, and he would have to use it well—or die. / knew he’d stay, and his Iliena with him. From the moment he forbade it to me, I knew he’d do it himself. As a prince should. Fight well, my son. And forgive me for being too old to fight alongside you.
Every instinct screamed for movement, action, flight. Andry forced himself to sit motionless, willing the enemy to look anyplace but where he huddled in the sparse cover of a glade. The soldiers along the Pyrme River had been only the first of the patrols he and Evarin saw that morning.
They had managed to avoid detection thus far. But they had not gained open sun long enough to weave light. The one time Andry had risked it, Evarin shook his arm to bring him back before he was halfway to Radzyn. Troops had come over a rise, and they were forced to melt back among the trees.
Andry had decided to head south, where the enemy had already been—a tactic that appalled his companion.
“I beg your pardon, my Lord, truly I do, but is this wise?”
“How long have you known me, Evarin?” Andry had asked.
“Three years, my Lord. But what has that to do—“
“One thing you must learn about me is that I loathe doing the expected thing. I get it from both sides: Andrade and my grandsire Zehava were exactly alike in that, if in nothing else. Anyone fleeing would logically go north, trying to outrun these vermin. Therefore we will head south.” Evarin gaped. Andry gave him a tight smile. “It’s not as insane as it sounds. They seem intent on obliteration, so I’m assuming they’ve left absolutely nothing behind them.”
Suddenly the young physician’s face showed both comprehension and horror. “Why should they stay to guard what’s not there anymore—“
“It’ll make grim viewing.”
He was right about that—but wrong about the rest of it. In retrospect, he cursed himself for not slipping past the first group and riding east for all he was worth; the countryside was thick with patrols. They rode horses blanketed in the colors of Gilad Seahold—horses he could not outrun. Lord Segelin’s liking for the Radzyn breed had provided the enemy with splendid mounts. Andry evaded them by riding through long measures of safe, deep forest. The sun taunted him, speckling the foliage with dancing gold he dared not use. He needed full sunlight.
Almost as great as his need was his fear of what he would see when his weavings took him to his childhood home. A ruined castle already in flames? A battle in progress, that he was too late to warn about? And what of the coast between Radzyn and Gilad Seahold, obviously fallen? Brenlis’ family lived at the mouth of the Faolain. Was that farmhouse a smoldering husk, too?
At last, only a little while ago, he had gained a few free moments. The woods thinned as they descended a little hill, and below was a scene exactly like a dozen glimpsed along their way. Flames rose from the burnt-out shells of a home and outbuildings nestled in a fold of the hills. A plow-elk had escaped the barn. It was elderly, thin-shouldered, undoubtedly a family pet that fondness had kept from the slaughter now that it was too old to work. The silvered hide was singed and oozing, but the elk limped across a stubbled field as if in harness. For some reason this moved Andry as nothing else that day. He bit his lip until he could convince himself that the tears in his eyes were due only to the blood salting his tongue.
“My Lord!” Evarin hissed suddenly.
They had come within heartbeats of riding straight into an enemy patrol as it descended the opposite hill.
So now they sat their weary horses, helpless for the foreseeable future, and watched as the elk was carved up in laughing sword practice. They dared not slink back into the wood; any movement might alert those below. Andry wanted nothing more than to use the sunlight and slaughter them, toy with them as cruelly as they sliced into that pathetic animal.
“I can’t kill them,” he murmured. “Goddess knows I want to. But if I missed even one, the others would ride after us and we’d die. And of all people, I’m the one who cannot be lost.” He spoke without arrogance, without anything but knowledge of the simple fact of it.
Evarin kept his voice low. “We may be able to get some clear sunlight soon, my Lord.”
“I just hope there’s someone left at Radzyn to answer.” He shivered. “Even now it may be too late.”
“You! Tree-hidden!” The harsh voice shouted from behind him, deeper in the forest. Andry nearly fell out of his saddle. “Stay!”
The man spoke the old tongue—strangely accented, slurred where Andry would have given crisp pronunciation, but understandable and even familiar. He was fascinated by the changes wrought by centuries, but scholarly curiosity would cost him his life right now. He kept himself from turning to face the men who spoke a language outlawed on the continent for more than three hundred years.
The language of sorcerers.
Evarin tore off his riding gloves and began wrenching the eight rings from his fingers. “Quickly, my Lord!’ he whispered. “All of them—the armbands too! You know enough to work the spell—hurry!”
Dark hair, dark eyes, and a beard with a dozen small golden beads worked in—Evarin’s face was already changing. Andry slid rings and cuffs in a pocket and replaced his leather gauntlets. “Put your gloves back on—they’ll see the paler circles on your fingers otherwise.”
Evarin caught his breath, and jammed his trembling fingers into the gloves. “I’ll talk you through it,” he whispered. “Just as we practiced earlier. Black hair, dark brown eyes—see it in your mind, make the illusion real—“
Branches snapped like brittle bones under approaching hoofbeats. Maddening distraction. If he failed, perhaps Evarin could claim him as a prisoner. The younger man’s illusion was perfect, almost effortless. Andry struggled, his heart pounding. As Rusina had said, it was much like weaving the guise of the Goddess around himself for a maiden’s first-night. But this was no vague, concealing haze. This had to be precise. He had no mirror, only Evarin—but when the physician nodded quickly, Andry knew he had done it.
Together they turned to confront the ten mounted soldiers. One of them saluted by slapping his open left palm to the center of his chest. His beard was blue-black in the dappled sunlight. Andry counted ten gold beads. The others wore no more than five, and two of them were beardless— not from youth but from application of a razor. Andry suddenly guessed that only with a kill could a man grow his beard and weave into it tokens of prowess. The relatively low rank displayed by these men at once eased his mind and worried him; his own habit of command might impress them so that he might get away with this, but they would also be eager to earn those gold beads. He wondered suddenly how many illusory tokens he had woven into his own illusory beard, and for a frantic instant could not remember. A slightly hysterical thought crossed his mind that his conceit had better be operating at full tilt. He had to outrank the leader or all was lost.
“My lord, we report.” The man’s right hand stayed on his sword.
Goddess in glory, Andry thought, / really do understand him! The man had said tir’ri: the personal possessive combined with the word for “lord” that survived in athri. He hastily returned the salute, noting that use of the left hand created freedom to strike a blow with the sword gripped in the right even while gesturing respect and friendship. And, oh, Goddess—what about his own sword? As if hearing his thought, the warrior glanced at the fine blade sheathed at Andry’s side. As a highborn, he wore it as a token of his rank, and it had too many jewels. It was a ceremonial piece only, for who would dare assault a Sunrunner—whose rings were protection enough—let alone the Lord of Goddess Keep? Andry barely knew how to use the thing and for the first time in his life cursed himself for not completing the training for knighthood.
He shoved that thought aside, too, and concentrated on translating the man’s fractured speech. There were little tricks of the tongue to it that grated on his nerves even more than on his ears—but he caught the gist of it.
“A beauty, my lord,” the soldier said, nodding at the sword. “Spoil of Seahold? Wish we there!”
Andry replied with a nod, trying not to look relieved at the ease of his escape from what could have been a tricky explanation. And he had been recognized as someone of high rank, even a lord; that was excellent. He thanked the Goddess for his luck and beseeched her for inspiration.
It came in the form of a respectful question. “War sights good, my lord?”
“Very. Your report.” Andry adjusted his accent to match what he had thus far heard. From the lack of reaction, he was a success.
“Thirty-seven kills, my lord, witnessed.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the beardless men. “Warriors at last.”
Numbers were easy; deg’im gave him pause and he purposely relaxed so the word would come as automatically as when he listened to the sung rituals. Of course: plural of “kill.” Simple, too, were the words for “witness” and “warriors”—vaman and ros’im. Absurd to congratulate himself on his linguistic skills. He had to get himself and Evarin out of here. Choosing his words from ones read in the scrolls, and with care to the slurring required, he said, “Fey tiel, paliros’im.” Bold victory, clever warriors.
The man looked pleased. “Gracious my lord. Our duty. Woods watch until night. My honor is yours, my lord, if escapes.”
So these butchers valued their honor, did they? Andry’s guts churned as he remembered farms in ashes. What honor was there in such slaughter? Why are these people here? But he knew. Their speech, their dark Merida-like faces—they had come to destroy the continent they had lost so long ago.
But warriors respected strength and a commanding presence. It was time he displayed a little of both. “Excuse for challenging me?” Andry snapped.
The man blanched satisfyingly and his troops looked nervous. “Bad woods light, my lord.”
“Truth, my lord,” Evarin pointed out in a bad imitation of Andry’s accent. “Be anyone, this light.”
“Warrior speaks truth, my lord.”
Andry shrugged, pretending to be mollified, hoping he was hiding near heart failure at hearing Evarin speak in the old language. “Caution good. Maybe spies—evenfaradh’im.”
To a man they spat on the ground. To a man their eyes grew narrow and fierce with hate. Andry nodded slowly. So. I’m right. The vision was true.
“Know to kill them, my lord! Any seen? Reason secret watch?”
“Why I watch, my business. Continue work.” He gathered the reins, suddenly needing to be far away from here. Disguised or not, he was a Sunrunner and not insensible to the death of his kind promised in these men’s eyes.
“My lord,” the man said, bowing. “Honor to ride with us?”
Horrible question. To refuse without good answer would give them away. To go along would be an impossible strain. Andry didn’t know how long he could support this spell; already he felt his muscles drawing tighter and tighter with tension. Think! he ordered himself. These warriors probably wanted a witness of high rank to attest to their kills. The idea of watching while they immolated another family—or, worse, being forced to participate in it—nearly made him vomit. How I’d love to kill you, he thought with longing as he pretended to consider the request. But I can’t. Not yet. Someone sent you out, and while you wouldn’t be missed until nightfall, I can’t take the chance.
And he was taking too long to reply.
“We ride on,” Evarin said.
The warrior’s brow furrowed, but just as quickly he smiled. “Outer Isles speech! Talkmusic no more yours, my lord,” he added generously to Andry.
Taikmusic—? Accent, the man was complimenting him on losing his Outer Isles accent. Andry’s head was beginning to spin.
“Deep respect aprus when my lord returns Azhchay.”
For an instant Andry thought he’d used Rohan’s other title—azhrei. But then he heard the difference, the final syllable that was his father’s name. “Dragonhawk”—had they renamed their conquests already?
Then he recognized the other word: leader of a ship. Lady Merisel had used it in her histories. The visions swirled in his mind. Bearded men with bloodied swords, captives chained together on the beach below Radzyn—and dragon-headed ships. Azhchay was one of those ships. He could see them, smell salt and death, hear the screams—
Evarin’s horse suddenly shied to the left, drawing all eyes, startling Andry from his trance. He got hold of himself and said, “Beautiful horse, but trouble! Home different, eh?”
“Father-thanks for spirit! Swift, strong—wind-mated! Victory horses, no matter bone-breaks!” He grinned and slapped the sleek neck of his Radzyn-bred mare. If his sword had been in his hand, Andry would have run him through.
He made himself ask, “Radzyn word today?”
The soldier acquired the look worn by people who have just heard a superior make an uncharacteristic mistake—too respectful to show surprise openly, yet surprised just the same. “No, my lord,” he said carefully, gaze flickering from Andry to Evarin. “Tomorrow.”
Had he been standing instead of in the saddle, his weakened knees would have given him away. Radzyn was safe— for now. But the man’s suspicion had been roused.
“Oh, my lord, Rathvin meant,” Evarin said. “Names confused.”
Andry grabbed the desperate cue and growled, “I know no difference?”
The physician made just the right face of frightened apology, which seemed to satisfy the enemy. Andry could not afford to linger and make another mistake. He grunted and gathered the reins. “All soon know success here.” He saluted and guided Tibaza from the clearing. Evarin followed. It was too quick; they both knew it was too quick. They should have stayed longer. The similarity of names was a flimsy story—no warrior who had planned this invasion for years would confuse Radzyn, gem of the Desert, with any other holding. He felt eyes on his back like the pricking of knives as they rode from the forest into the open.
“I thought we were dead,” Evarin muttered.
“So did I. I think we still might be.” He flexed his hands; the palms of his gauntlets were soaked with sweat. “That was fast, Evarin. Where’s Rathwin?”
“Rathviw. About thirty measures up the Catha, my Lord. I’m from these parts, remember.”
“Thank the Goddess for whoever named it Rathvin!” Andry resisted the impulse to glance over his shoulder. “I started to lose it, didn’t I?” He gestured to his face.
“Yes. That’s why I had to dig a heel into my friend here.” He stroked the gelding’s flank. “Sorry, old son.”
“Is it holding? Yours hasn’t slipped at all.”
“You’re fine. But neither of us can keep at it much longer. Not without dranath.”
“We become safer with every pace down this hill. I wish I dared a gallop.”
“After all this picking through the trees, the horses would welcome it.”
“hulk, andraa—gev’im iseni.” Andry softly quoted the warrior’s praise of his father’s beloved horses, captive between the thighs of these twice-damned enemies—Merida and sorcerer-sent. “Horses are why they’ll attack Radzyn.
I’ve got to be able to work, Evarin. I’ve got to warn them.’ His hands ached for his rings.
The physician turned and waved. “The others are still ir sight, my Lord. Damn! One of them’s riding down to us!”
Four beads decorated the soldier’s straggly young beard. He saluted smartly and said, “My lord, escort accept, I beg. Enemy hides.”
Andry was sure then that he was suspect. But it hardly mattered. He forced himself to laugh. “Enemy? Peasants in hovels?”
“Lord’s safety, my honor. Father-forbid anyfaradh’im—“ He spat on the ground; a real ritual with these folk, Andry noted sourly. He knew that he should copy it. He could not.
Instead he demanded angrily, “Am I child, needing your sword? Return!”
“My lord, cannot. Orders—“
Evarin gave him a glance that said, We’re stuck with him. Andry was compelled to agree.
“Ride ahead.” So that if I slip again, you won’t see it. But / suffer your presence only until the first convenient place to kill you. They won’t miss one in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, they’ve landed here.
Have they already landed at Radzyn?
Gentle Lady, protect us from this dark time of night.
Tobin kept her eyes closed, drifting with Betheyn’s soft, soothing voice as the young woman read to her. The autumn sun was soft on her cheeks and brow, reassurance of life. Until Sioned had come and she was taken into the sunlight, she had been afraid she would spend the rest of her life trapped and helpless within her own skull, a million things left undone—and, worse, unsaid.
She quelled panic and concentrated on the warmth suffusing her face and body. Chay had ordered the bed moved near the windows so that she might use light whenever she wished. Last night he’d caught her staying awake too late, and she’d been unable to tell him she’d been waiting for him to come to her so she could listen to his voice and watch the moons’ silvery radiance on his face. Listening and watching were two of the three activities permitted her in convalescence. The third was sleeping—and she was still afraid of that. Afraid she might not wake up again. But she would never have told him that, not even if she had been able.
Tobin had never been sick a day in her life. The Plague had spared her; childbirth had been absurdly easy considering her delicate frame; not even the wound in her thigh, that had left her with a limp as souvenir of the long-ago siege of Stronghold, had confined her to bed for more than a day. Sioned had warned her that speech and strength would be slow in returning, and she ought not push herself. But enforced inactivity was shredding her nerves.
Yesterday afternoon Rohan had read to her from a stultifying text on botany. Unlike their mother, who had created the gardens at Stronghold, Tobin cared nothing about plants. Neither did Rohan. His design had been to bore her to sleep; he succeeded only in irritating her. Glancing up at last from an interminable passage on rose roots to find her glaring silently at him, he had looked so naughty and guilty and silly that laughter had happened to her for the first time since her illness. More of a croak than a giggle, still her brother had greeted it with a delighted grin.
Today Betheyn was reading something infinitely more interesting: one of five gorgeous illuminated copies of Feylin’s masterwork On Dragons, a present from Prince Volog. The author had one, and Rohan, and Pol, and one had been kept for the scriptorium. Ten more existed, but with simple line drawings instead of colored pictures. Tobin was proud that Maarken’s sketches of dragon anatomy had been used extensively for the book. Tilal’s daughter Sioneva had contributed drawings, too, showing a talent completely new in the Kierstian royal family. Sioned, wide-eyed at her namesake’s skill, had remarked that nobody else of her blood had ever been able to draw a straight line with a ruler.
Tobin had looked through the book to admire the paintings, but had not had time since the Rialla to study the text. Betheyn would much rather have been reading an architectural treatise—an interest they shared—but knew how eager Tobin was to hear the contents of this extraordinary book. Feylin’s lifelong fascination with dragons, even though she was cordially terrified of them, had produced the first scientific discussion of everything known about the creatures, with particular attention given to scoffing at foolish legends.
The first fallacy about dragons is that they are fond of human flesh. Put a human in with a cow, a deer, an elk, a sheep, and a goat, and the dragon will invariably choose the sheep for dinner. Second choice appears to be deer or cattle. Elk and goats are favored only by very hungry dragons. There are tales of capture and feasting off humans, but all these can be explained (see chapters on Mating; Hatching Hunt; Famine).
Betheyn looked up. “I wonder who she volunteered for that experiment! Do you want me to continue with this, instead of looking up those chapters?”
They had devised a system of yes and no: Tobin’s closed left hand indicated the latter, and an open palm meant the former. Today she managed a nod as well. Betheyn smiled.
“Good—this is the most interesting part. I can’t wait until she tells why dragon’s teeth are supposed to be magic. One story says if they’re planted, trees will spring up. Another substitutes warriors for trees, and a third says the ground will be poisoned by them. My father once told me never to trust any superstition that isn’t consistent.”
Tobin felt a grin lift half her face. It still frightened her to sense it, and she knew there was good reason she had not been allowed a mirror. But it seemed that every time she used the muscles to smile or frown or try to form a word, she had a little more control over them. It was the same with wiggling her fingers and toes, moving her knee, raising her arm. She was still numb in many places, and recovery would be slow, but, by the Goddess, she would recover.
Betheyn resumed reading, the smile hovering around her lips.
As for the notion that princesses and/or virgins are a dragon’s preferred meal, I suspect this to be a “warning” that takes on added significance when a dragon is said to be involved. Probably the disappearance of some young girl—virgin, princess, or both—was attributed to dragons. Popular lore is fraught with examples of ordinary, if tragic, occurrences blamed without reason on dragons. I have known several princesses and many virgins, most of them having had much to do with dragons in everyday life, and none have ever been accosted, let alone devoured.
“Am I to understand that no hungry dragons hovered outside your windows before you married?” Beth gave a sigh of comical disappointment.
A princess Tobin had been all her life; she had disqualified herself for the virgin part of it not long after she’d first set eyes on Chay. The memory brought another smile to her face.
It is further said that an angry dragon may be soothed by the sacrifice of a virgin, or a princess, or a princess who is a virgin. Happily, this legend has not been acted upon in many hundreds of years, probably due to this uncertainty about the nature of the offering. Dragons grow angry for two reasons: when their caves are fouled and when their hatcklings are killed. We would not much like it, either, if our dwellings were ransacked or our children butchered. Princesses, virgins, and/or virgin princesses would seem to be safe as long as we accord dragons the courtesy of leaving their homes and their offspring alone.
Betheyn chuckled. “I can just hear Feylin now, with that dry voice of hers! She must have had a fabulous time writing this—she sounds like a schoolmaster rapping knuckles for believing such nonsense.”
Tobin wished that Betheyn was gifted in the Sunrunner way; they could have had a lively discussion of Feyiin’s sense of humor. It was infuriating not to be able to indulge in the pleasures of conversation, but she had to be patient. Speech would come back.
Another wickedness attributed to dragons is that their blood is poisonous. Experiments conducted on several animals have proved this to be entirely false.
“The difficulty being, of course, trying to get a goat to drink the stuff,” Betheyn commented. “Remember when she told us about it? I laughed so hard I thought I’d suffocate!”
Recalling the hilarious account of Walvis’ flat refusal to quaff a little dragon blood in the name of science, Tobin laughed. She winced at the sound. Beth looked startled for a moment, then hastily smoothed her expression. Tobin closed her eyes once again as Feyiin’s tart refutations of dragon legends were read to her, slowly losing track of them as Beth’s soft voice and the warm sunlight lulled her nearly to sleep.
Goddess greeting, my lady.
She thought for a moment that it was a dream. Recognizing Meath, she wove golden skeins and replied courteously to his salute. With her eyes closed she could almost see his face, formed of the glowing colors of his mind. But there was darkness shading them, and for all the habitual gentleness of his approach, she sensed urgency.
Then there was another voice, more powerful, the shades of amber and amethyst and ruby burning like flames. Mother!
She certainly was popular today with Sunrunners, she thought. First Meath, now Andry...
Mother, listen to me!
There seemed to be some sort of argument going on between them. It was very confusing. They both seemed to need her with a bleak desperation that she must be imagining. In her present state, how could she possibly help them? She hovered away from the pair, trying to analyze the tenor of their colors as they grew more intense, both patterns now ablaze, painful even though she was removed from them.
“Tobin?”
Betheyn was touching her arm and the contact broke her concentration. She opened her eyes and tried to speak, but all that emerged from her lips was a meaningless grunt. But even as she looked up into the young woman’s face, Andry took hold of her so forcefully that she cried out.
Mother—forgive me. You must listen. Riverport and Seahold and Graypearl are destroyed.
This made no sense. Invasion, fire, blood, destruction on a scale unimaginable—and death everywhere. Scenes of rich farms in flames were hazed about with Andry’s fierce colors; Graypearl and Sandeia in ruins were tinged by the green-blue-gold that was Meath. She saw what they had seen, filtered through their identities. Her rnind simply could not accept it.
It’s all true, it’s real—and Radzyn is next! You must get Sioned or Maarken or Hollis—they’re none of them in the sunlight. Mother, hurry!
“Tobin!”
Beth’s voice and touch again pulled her away. She heard her own gasping breaths. A wine cup was held to her lips; she smelled herbs in it that would bring sleep and turned her head away.
“Sioned,” she tried to say. She ordered her mouth to form the name. Could not. Furious at her body’s weakness, she gripped Betheyn’s hand with her left hand and glared up into worried eyes. “Pol,” she said, and the single syllable was recognizable at last.
“I’ll find him,” Betheyn said, and hurried away, calling for Tobren to keep watch while she was gone.
Andry—Meath—what is this, who are they, why is this happening? The questions tumbled over and over in her mind, but there was no answer. Andry! Tell me what this means!
Her granddaughter Tobren appeared beside the bed, white-faced and frightened. She tried to offer the drugged wine; in a sudden access of strength she could not control, Tobin flung out her hand and slapped it away, staining the coverlet blood-red.
“Grandmother?” Tobren whispered. “Oh, Grandmother, please—“
She saw her namesake through a haze of angry, frustrated tears. Damn her traitorous body, damn damn damn—
Pol ran into the room, Rohan and Chay just behind him. Tobin groped for her nephew’s hand, tried to pull him farther into the sunlight. When it was shining on his fair head, she saw his face go blank and blind.
Sobbing with relief, she sank back into the pillows, scarcely noticing as husband and brother fussed helplessly over her. Pol’s colors shimmered about his head, eclipsing even Andry’s until she marveled that neither Chay nor Rohan could see them.
The sightless blue-green eyes suddenly widened. “No,” he whispered, and his fingers tightened around hers until she nearly cried out.
He told the others, swift words that cut deep and left behind stunned horror. Chay was on the move at once, racing from the bedchamber, shouting orders. Rohan stood still, staring at his son. Tobin’s gaze flickered from face to face, seeing their hearts in their eyes. Pol was angry with a killing rage. But Rohan—Rohan was in pain. The wounds done to his people and to the land were wounds to his own flesh. She had seen this in him before, years ago, seen him lead an army while he bled inside. Sioned had told her once that Rohan swallowed Fire, his own mind and heart a battleground, and it was only his terrible strength that prevented his being consumed. But Pol was different. He met Fire with a blaze of his own, the fury that now ignited his eyes and set his colors burning all around him. Pol became Fire.