Chapter Nineteen

Li took a while to hunt down ingredients for the recipe Sioned had in mind. Feylin gave over some of her medicines without comment, though her brows crept almost to her hairline at a few of the requests. Concoction took the better part of the morning, even with Remagev’s Sunrunner, Relnaya, helping. When Dannar came with news that everything was ready for departure, she had finished.

The squire peered into the vat of thick paste on the butcher block. “What’s that, my lady? It smells awful.”

“That’s the one drawback. Can you go find me a large amount of some very strong faerV) Try the storerooms.”

“What about pemricT’ Relnaya suggested. “That ought to do it.”

It did. Crushed seeds were added, and the resulting pungency masked the stench. Sioned spooned half the paste into a copper pot and thinned it with water until it was runny. “Dannar, please take this to Lord Walvis. He’ll know what to do with it.”

“But what is it?” the squire asked again.

“Don’t touch it!” she exclaimed as the boy extended a finger to a drop on the table. “That’s been diluted, but it’ll still bum like fire and cramp your hand. It’s something Lord Urival taught me how to brew from the Star Scroll.”

“Sorcery?”

“Yes indeed. There’s not exactly an oversupply of water here, and that or boiling oil won’t stay hot long enough to do any damage. So I made this.”

Dannar looked warily into the cauldron. “I think I know what you’re going to do with the paste—smear it on anything they’re likely to touch, right?”

“Door handles, chair arms—and the well-ropes, for when they try to wash it off. I want Remagev to burn like fire up one side and down the other.”

“I’ll take the upper floors,” Relnaya said.

“Thanks. That frees Hoilis and Beth for elsewhere. I’ll do the downstairs. We’ll wait until everyone’s out of the keep before we start. And take a pail of water along in case you get any on you.”

The squire departed, and the two Sunrunners were scooping paste into three large bowls when a muffled crash sounded. It came again, and again, and yet again. Suddenly there was accompaniment: a scandalous ballad howled at the top of two sets of healthy male lungs.

Sioned glanced up, curious but not alarmed. “Ingots, I should think. And I recognize my son’s charming voice. I believe the other is Lord Kazander.”

One crate of half-silkweight glass ingots, each about as heavy as a healthy newborn baby, was half empty by’the time they finished all twenty-four verses of “The Lord and the Swordmaker’s Daughter.” It was easier to keep rhythm to the song Pol began next—“Swalekeep’s Secret Stair”—but Kazander didn’t know that one, so he switched to “How Many Times Tonight, My Lady?” By the fourth verse they were laughing so hard they could barely lift the ingots from the second crate, let alone smash them with sledgehammers.

The first glass had been demolished in grim silence. Then Kazander started humming. Soon they were bawling out lyrics emphasized by crashing glass. Pol had never had so much good, destructive fun in his life.

The “entertainment” for the Vellant’im trapped in the hallway had met with Kazander’s gleeful approval. The korrus had pointed out that the enemy wore soft boots, not stiffened leather; glass shards would slice right through to the soles of their feet.

“This is the only exit,” Pol had explained, showing Kazander how Betheyn had fixed and oiled the springs and hinges. “It’s made so that the outer doors close only if the bolt slides all the way into the wall, past the catch. And there’s no way to open it again without resetting the spring. They could burn the outer door down, true—but the really interesting part is that the ceiling comes apart on the catch.

The wires were broken, but Beth fixed them. So we can fill the false roof with glass, too, and get them no matter what.”

“Lady Betheyn,” Kazander said thoughtfully. “Has she a husband? Would she like one?”

Pol swung the huge hammer down on another ingot, laughing even harder as Kazander pitched his voice high through his nose for “Lament of the Old Man’s Bride.” They were both half-hysterical and Pol knew that when they finished he would be utterly wrung out—but he didn’t care. Anger and tension melted from him Kke a spring frost. He took the man’s verses, changing his voice for every suitor who offered to comfort the neglected lady, played by Kazander. Soon the korrus was laughing so much he couldn’t finish the song. When he got his breath back, he demanded to know where a gently reared and tenderly sheltered prince had learned such disgraceful songs.

“You’d be surprised,” was all the reply Pol would give. Kazander laughed again, raising his hammer as if to beat a proper answer out of him.

“Don’t aim for his head,” a dry voice advised from behind them. “He’s got a skull like rock and you’d make no impression.”

Both young men whirled. Rohan stood limned by sunlight, arms folded, leaning casually against the wall. The hammer dropped from Kazander’s suddenly strengthless hands. Pol felt the back of his neck twist with renewed tension.

Rohan shook his head. “The very least you could have done was invite me to the party.” He picked his way through the shards on the floor and hefted the abandoned sledgehammer. “May I play, too?”

Kazander bowed nearly in half. Rohan selected an .ingot, tossed it onto the floor, then swung the hammer in a vicious arc. The glass shattered in all directions and he laughed aloud. Pol realized how long it had been since he’d heard his father laugh.

“Try it set sideways,” he suggested, placing another ingot on the floor.

They finished off the rest of the second crate, Kazander relaxing enough to take a smaller hammer and hack the larger pieces into splinters. The trio swung and shattered and laughed like madmen, and were exhausted when the ingots were gone, but it was a good weariness. When Rohan left them, after thanks for the fun, Pol could almost fool himself that there was peace again between them.

“Forgive me if I speak too freely, my prince,” Kazander said as they donned thick leather gloves to gather up shards for the trick ceiling, “but he’s not as old as I thought.”

Pol smiled. “I suspect he’s not as old as he thought either.”

The back of Rohan’s neck itched as if arrows—or those infuriating stones—were aimed straight at his back. He stretched cramps from his muscles, trying to regain the lightheartedness brought by the mad glass-smashing, but it was no use. It occurred to him how nice it would be to find Chay and Maarken and Walvis and get roaring drunk. But he’d learned long ago, in another war, that at such times vast amounts of wine only made him more and more sober.

A depressing thought. He rotated his left shoulder against the nagging ache in that arm and tried to look confident as he inspected the progress of arrangements for the enemy’s welcome.

There was nothing unusual for the Vellant’im outside Remagev to hear that day and evening, only the sounds of a keep making ready for siege. They camped under one flag and there were no petty arguments witnessed from Remagev’s walls, which suggested that there were no jealous factions here. Discipline and prowess had been amply demonstrated; these troops were the best the Vellant’im had. Kazander’s notion that it complimented Rohan’s reputation flattered him not at all and comforted him even less. They could have no interest in him personally. They wanted the Desert.

Tobin thought it might be because of the dragons. But the Desert wasn’t the only place dragons were found. They wintered in the Catha Hills and summered in the Veresch. They only mated here. There must be something else about his princedom that the enemy wanted. He didn’t flatter himself that it was him.

The Desert was known for three things: sand, dragons, and gold. Coveting the first was preposterous. He tended to doubt that anyone would risk so many lives and go to so much trouble for a sight of dragons. Gold was the only thing that made sense. But which gold? The legitimate mines everyone knew about—or the secret gold gleaned from dragon caves?

Had his objective been that wealth, he would have done precisely what the Vellant’im were doing. He would neutralize help from elsewhere while surging up from the south into the Desert. Radzyn had been left whole so it could be searched and used as a base. The same would probably happen at Remagev. Those mechanical arms could just as easily have thrown fire into the keep, but had not. Remagev would remain whole.

The false trails from the keep would not fool the enemy long. On realizing the tricks, they would head for Stronghold —where any idiot could walk in to Rivenrock and gather as much gold as he liked.

Only for the past three mating cycles had the dragons used Rivenrock again, after shying away from the place since 701. Their numbers had increased to levels that finally convinced Feylin they could survive even another disaster like the Plague. In memory Rohan still saw the raging flames that had cleansed the canyon, Fire called by his son in fulfillment of the Treaty of Linse: “And the Desert shall be of the House of Prince Zehava for as long as the Long Sand spawns Fire.” Ah, what it had cost Rohan’s father to wrest that from Roelstra: years of fighting the Merida, years of living with a sword in his hand. It could have cost Rohan’s life, too—at eighteen, during Zehava’s last Merida war, he’d disguised himself and marched into battle. On hearing this news, his mother had treated all of Stronghold to one of her more spectacular furies, and his father nearly had a seizure—but he’d also knighted his son on the field.

Rohan now fought another war for his princedom, but this time there was gold to protect as well, and dragons. If people climbed through the Rivenrock caves with their scent and their leavings and their fingers seizing golden sand, dragons might not return there. Without caves, unmated females would die and the population would plunge. Rivenrock was but fifty measures from Stronghold. Rohan would be leading the enemy almost into the canyon mouth. They would find it, foul it, and when the next mating year came, dragons would die.

But he had nowhere else to go.

“My prince, it’s time,” said a quiet voice at his side.

Rohan concealed a start as Walvis interrupted his thoughts.

He hadn’t realized how quickly daylight had given way to evening. The courtyard was packed now, but so nearly silent that he could hear the flutter of the few torch flames in the slight breeze.

“Remagev is yours,” he said slowly. He couldn’t give the order himself. But he had to watch. He had to stand by his athri’s side, the picture of serene confidence and sly amusement at the tricks they were about to play on the Vellant’im. In all his sixty years he had never had to work so hard to hide his emotions—not even during that long summer of pretending he had not loved Sioned from the instant he saw her face in Fire.

Still, he was good at it. He’d learned hard and young. But it never got easier. He dreaded the day it did, for it should not be easy.

Horses were brought to the main steps, and he and Walvis mounted. He felt his back twinge and a genuine smile flickered over his face as sore muscles reminded him of his afternoon game. The crowd in the courtyard broke into four groups. He would lead one to Stronghold by the quickest route—both for safety’s sake and that of the horses, which had not been fed since the previous night’s purging. They’d been well watered, but there would be nothing for them to drink until Stronghold. The other three groups—whose well-fed mounts would keep the Vellant’im following after, or so Rohan hoped—would head north, northeast, and due east before turning for Stronghold. The latter group worried him most; their mounts would go without fodder longest, probably for at least three days. But he had faith hi Chay’s horses. Only the strongest had been chosen for this group.

Last night Daniv had volunteered to go with those riding north under Pol’s leadership. Sioned informed her great-nephew that he would do no such thing. Rohan overruled her. Daniv was a mature sixteen, tall for his age and eager to prove himself.

“We won’t be gone that long—two days out, one back to Stronghold. And I’ll be careful, your grace.”

“So I’m ‘my grace’ now instead of ‘Aunt Sioned,’ eh? Very proper, very dutiful—and it doesn’t fool me at all.”

“Peace,” Rohan ordered softly. “I accept your offer. Besides, Rihani is fighting in Syr with your father’s army, and we can’t let your cousin collect all the glory, can we?”

When Daniv left them, glowing with excitement, Sioned rounded on her husband. “How could you? There’s nothing glorious about war and you know it.”

“Leave him his illusions a little longer, Sioned. They’ll shatter soon enough. Illusions always do.”

So Daniv rode forward at Pol’s side to salute the High Prince. Rohan searched his son’s eyes. Yes, he’d been right to walk in on the glass-smashing scene. He and Pol were friends again. They still didn’t agree, but at least resentment no longer smoldered in the blue-green eyes.

The pair turned smartly and joined the fifty soldiers who would take a two-day journey due north. Daniv was confident, with an easy authority that proclaimed him a prince. He did not remind Rohan of himself at the same age.

Prince Velden’s nephew, Sethric, organized his hundred before making his bow to the High Prince. Four years older than Daniv, those years were the difference of a silkweight of muscle and half a handspan of height. Remagev had toughened him, given him poise. Rohan thought what a fine athri he would make when he returned home—if there was anything left of Grib to go home to.

He hid the pessimism with a smile. Goddess, but I certainly am good at this, he thought cynically; even with so many years between wars, he hadn’t lost the knack. He could still hear his asinine little speech on the day he’d joined Chay and the southern levies to fight Roelstra. Then as now he showed them a prince certain of victory—and never let them know what he truly felt. They needed and trusted him. He owed them a calm face and straight shoulders and untroubled eyes. Sethric responded as people always did, with an answering smile and an even lower bow. Yes, he was very good at this. Always had been.

Maarken, however, knew what was behind the mask. He would be in charge of the most dangerous diversion, and his journey to Stronghold would cross the enemy line of march as they tracked Pol and Sethric. His horses would have nothing to eat and precious little water while crossing the Long Sand. Of them all, Maarken understood how perilous this whole plan was, and how necessary. As he made his bow, there was limitless compassion in his gray eyes.

Rohan guided his horse to Remagev’s main gates, watching the Isulk’im ready their mounts for an insanity planned by Kazander. The korrus smiled happily at Rohan and gave the characteristic salute. Rohan returned it, privately astounded at the delight this man took in risking his neck. His men were just like him. They had accounted for ten Vellanti dead each in the battle two days ago, and taken only minor wounds.

Glancing around to make sure everyone was ready, Rohan caught sight of Sioned, Hollis, and Tobren at the doors of the main hall. His princess lifted one hand to signal that her vicious little brew had been applied within the now empty keep. Then she vanished back inside.

“My lord korrus” he said to Kazander, “may the Mother of All Dragons keep you from harm within the shelter of her wings.”

The Isulki looked a bit startled. It was an ancient blessing, and one that few outsiders knew. Kazander bowed again and replied with an even older one.

“Most High and Honored Prince, may She be in your eyes and in your looking, in your ears and in your listening, in your hands and in your doing, in your mind and in your knowing.”

Chay would disagree with that, he told himself with a touch of whimsy. He always did say I think too much.

Walvis signaled the inner gates open. The wires had not yet been connected to the pots of Sioned’s liquid fire; Walvis would do that himself just before he rode out. Another Fire had been quenched since dawn: Sioned had summoned Air to scatter the cooling ashes of the dead. Chay had lost thirty, Walvis twenty-six. Not a high count as battles went. He remembered sitting in his father’s tent after that last terrible battle against the Merida as Chay gave the casualty report. Zehava had heard it in silence, then remarked that most people would consider five hundred dead a fair price for a princedom. Appalled at the time, it had been years before Rohan realized that his father had not included himself in “most people.” But Zehava was long dead and the apologies spoken only to the silent sky by the time Rohan finally understood. He wondered what “most people” would consider a fair price for a whole continent.

The main gates parted wide enough to let Kazander and twenty of his men ride through at a gallop. It was the korrus’ mad plan to charge around Remagev at top speed, shrieking war cries all the way. Not only would they startle and distract the enemy, but they would see whether sentries patrolled the shadows around the keep. Maarken had been of the opinion that Sunrunners could conjure Fire for a look, but Kazander grinned and said it would be more fun his way.

It certainly sounded as if the Isulk’im were enjoying themselves. Rohan could imagine them tearing around the walls as if this was Rialla race day; he didn’t have to imagine their roars of battle. Twenty-one of them, and they sounded like an army. They yelled his name and Pol’s and Kazander’s, punctuated with “Azhrei!” and bone-chilling screams. A reluctant smile came to his face as heads swiveled to follow the sounds. Yes, just like race day. Only they rode not for gold or jewels, but for lives.

One of Kazander’s men stood ready at the gates, counting to himself. Rohan felt his nerves twinge as calls went up from the Vellanti camp, rousing warriors from after-dinner indolence into battle harness. The Isulki noise grew louder and the one on duty suddenly wrenched the gate open—a split second before Kazander hurtled through alone and reined to a halt, laughing.

“Not so much as an arrow did they loose, Noble High Prince!” he exulted. “And only twenty of them scattered around the outer walls—now running to mount up and follow my men! We could leave walking and they wouldn’t catch us!”

“We’ll gallop just the same, if you don’t mind.” The young man’s cheerful enthusiasm was invigorating. Rohan began to think this might work after all.

Pol’s fifty were the first to leave. Rohan saw him give a sweeping gesture with one arm, and then lost him in the crowd thundering through the gates. At the last instant Kazander took off after them, yelling over his shoulder, “He’s lived in Princemarch too long!”

“That boy is insane,” Chay observed.

“Completely. But he’s right. It’s years since Po! spent any amount of time in the Desert. Frankly, I’m glad Kazander’s going with him—I’ve guards enough for my precious princely person, thank you very much.”

Chay made a face at him. “More fun to be had with the young dragon than the old one, anyway.” More briskly, he went on, “The quickest of the enemy will be mounted by now and following the Isulk’im to find out what the hell they think they’re doing. The next group will go after Pol when they can. Sethric, wait for her grace’s signal and take your hundred out through the main gates.”

“Yes, my lord.” He saluted again. “Until Stronghold!”

Rohan could not see Sioned on the upper walls, but he and everyone else jumped when a torch suddenly blazed nearby. Her signal. Sethric led his riders out at top speed.

Chay frowned as he glanced at Rohan. “This is the tricky part. Will they follow our diversions or wait for MS?”

“I think they’re sufficiently confused, my lord,” said Relnaya, a sly smile on his face. “Lord Kazander’s men will join Lord Maarken once they’ve outrun their escort.” He snorted. “They sit their horses like chairs.”

“They sit my grandsir’s horses,” Tobren reminded him. “It may be a closer race than you think.”

Rohan hid another smile and waited for Sioned’s next signal. It seemed a long time coming. Perhaps the Vellant’im weren’t going for it. Perhaps too many of them were staying behind. Rohan had offered temptation; what if too few succumbed? And it was such delicate timing—how long to wait for them to saddle up before signaling the next group to leave? Rohan had hoped that chaos would break down efficiency, that warriors who worked together so well would be separated by the frantic speed necessary to follow the Desert troops. Those who were ready first would set off first, with discipline in a shambles and their only thought to overtake these crazy people who thought they could escape.

And what if he’d been completely wrong, and only token forces went after Pol and Sethric and Maarken, and the bulk of the army stayed to occupy Remagev?

He’d gotten away once. To do so again would be a slap in the enemy’s face. He reasoned that pride would send large numbers of Vellant’im into the Long Sand to foil this second escape. If this happened against their leaders’ wishes, so much the better. But he couldn’t be sure, despite his experience in dealing with barbarians.

Another torch flared to life, and Maarken dug his heels into his stallion’s ribs. The gates were flung open and hauled closed behind the last of Maarken’s group in an impossibly short time. Rohan let out a long breath and rubbed his arm absently.

Myrdal’s secret exit from Radzyn was back where the keep abutted natural stone. It was just horse-high and wide enough for only a single cart to pass through. Chay would lead, Rohan bring up the rear—over vehement protests— with Walvis leaving last of all after wiring the gatehouse and arcade. The first two torches were abruptly extinguished and the courtyard was plunged into near-total darkness. It was time.

Feylin ran up, breathless with exertion and excitement. “You should see them scrambling out there!” she cried. “Almost all the men who still have mounts and are capable of riding them are saddling up to follow! It worked!”

Not until we’re all safe at Stronghold, Rohan thought. But he didn’t say it aloud. He glanced at the line of people filing slowly through to the hidden passage—they moved in smooth order, without panic or delay, but it was going to take a long time. Those who could ride must mount; the wounded who were too unsteady to sit a horse alone must take a second rider up; carts carrying supplies and the seriously hurt had to be protected by the uninjured warriors Rohan was taking with him. When they met up with the groups who had spent the day in shelter, there would be more defenders—at about the same time as the Vellant’im caught up with them, or so Rohan was gambling. But he wasn’t sure it was a bet his wife would take; she liked better odds.

The by now familiar twang of stressed wood and ropes warned them an instant before stones hurtled down. Rohan cursed and tightened his grip on his horse. The chaos he’d so carefully planned against began to invade the courtyard, borne on screams of fright. Many people went down; everyone else ran for cover.

“Damn! We’ll have to move even faster than—“ Rohan suddenly stood in his stirrups and yelled Chayla’s name. She had run out into the courtyard to help the wounded. More rocks pelted from the night sky; Chayla and those trying to retrieve the injured huddled with arms over their heads until the rain stopped.

Relnaya darted out to where Chayla was staunching blood from a child’s head wound. The Sunrunner picked up the little boy in one arm and hauled Chayla to safety with the other.

All at once an almighty crash hit the main gates. Rohan yelled a warning up at Walvis, wincing as iron-reinforced wood shuddered again.

“I heard!” came the shout from within the gatehouse. “Close the inner gates—I’m almost done!”

He called Dannar over and told him to speed things up at the passage. The squire jumped at the next shock and darted through the tense crowd. Rohan willed everyone to stay calm, to keep from shoving each other and turning this into an enemy victory.

He caught sight of Hoilis taking the stairs two at a time, long tawny braids flying. She was supposed to have left with Chay and Tobin, but it was a little late to yell at her for it now. She disappeared into the gatehouse and a few moments later the battering at the gates stopped. Just visible over the walls was a yellow-white glow. Sunrunner’s Fire.

He reined his horse around and rode up and down the line of nervous people, hoping his presence would be enough to settle them down again. Thus far they had not panicked— but he knew how quickly it could happen.

So he smiled and told them, “They’re busy running after the others and running away from Lady Hoilis’ hospitality. I can’t understand that, personally—don’t they know how cold it gets here at night? She’s only seeing to their comfort. Just move along and watch your heads, you tall ones, once you’re mounted up—or make sure you get a very short horse!”

They laughed up at him and he grinned back. No, he hadn’t lost his touch.

Sioned finally arrived, gasping for breath and with a wicked gleam in her eyes. “I would’ve been here sooner, but it took me a long time to get the knack of breaking the bowls right”

“Would you care to explain that?” he asked as Dannar led her horse up and she swung into the saddle.

She laughed, well aware of the people around them who listened. “When it became clear they weren’t going to wait until morning to invite themselves in, I put the leftover paste to excellent use. Beth and I left pots of it over hot coals. By the time the pottery breaks from the heat, we’ll be gone—and the Vellant’im will be breathing the most horrible stuff you could imagine. Beth is putting the last bowls in the glass furnaces now.”

“You are the most cheerfully vicious woman I ever met!”

“I do try not to disappoint you,” she said with a sweet smile.

Sioned had finished the spell that eased fear. Rohan leaned precariously over to kiss her in gratitude. Whistles and applause made his cheeks burn, but panic laughed away would not threaten again. Not for a little while, not until they were beyond the walls and had to rely on other protection.

“Damn it, Hoilis, come on!” Walvis’ voice came from within the gatehouse.

Dannar grabbed two horses and led them to the wall. Walvis was down first, and jumped into the saddle from the steps. Hoilis was close behind him. The glow of her Fire was gone outside. It wouldn’t be long before the Vellant’im began battering the gates again. But Walvis’ fierce grin told the story as he rode up. The Vellant’im would walk into a Remagev rife with deadfalls—if they had the courage to explore past the gatehouse ceiling’s burning rain.

There were sounds of battle outside now, steel on steel. “They’ve found where we’re getting out,” Hoilis said. “Let me go up and help.”

“Not necessary,” Rohan told her as another glow crept over the walls. “Look. And listen.”

The ringing of metal stopped. Scant moments later the whispers came back from the front of the line: Princess Tobin and her granddaughter were at work with Fire.

“Tobren?” Sioned exclaimed. “When did she learn—and why am I complaining?” she interrupted herself in disgust.

“Is the arcade rigged?” Rohan asked, and Walvis nodded. “Then let’s go.”

The diversions had worked, for the most part. The enemy was divided and riding in four different directions; Fire would keep them at bay while Rohan’s group escaped; Remagev itself would take plenty of casualties as it collapsed and smoked and rained glass shards. He was protecting his people while giving the enemy ample opportunity to destroy itself, both here and out in the Desert.

But in spite of knowing he had done all he could, in spite of a lifetime of keeping peace with laws instead of a sword in his hand, a part of him still had fierce, proud memories of battle. It had ignited his blood at Radzyn and now stung him again. To kill those who were killing his people, the world he had created, his life’s work—Goddess, how he wanted to be Pol’s age with a sword in his hand.

Sioned wrapped her dark cloak more closely around her and rode outside the walls to take over the Fire conjuring. She would lecture them later on the folly of what they’d done. Or perhaps not—for arrows were flying through her wall of flames, shot blind, and if one of them struck her...

She spared a puzzled frown for the fact that the iron did not stab as it had with the ros’salath. But this was no weaving. It held none of her essence. She was not bound into it as she had been into the complex working. But it was hard work just the same, and she was grateful when hands took her reins and led her horse along for her.

The hands were Tobren’s. She shared a saddle with her grandmother, who had not yet regained enough strength in her hands to guide a horse. The admiration in the child’s eyes for Sioned’s easy skill was born of intimate knowledge of faradhi ways. Still, Tobren was wary of her. Goddess only knew what Andry told his children about the Sunrunner High Princess. When Hollis joined them and said, “I’ll take the Fire. You’re the only one who can weave starlight,” Tobren’s face clenched like a fist.

Sioned spun cool white light and surveyed the turmoil in the Vellanti camp. Their numbers had been substantially reduced by chasing after the other groups. She ranged a little farther, counted pursuers, and by the time her lord rode up had a heartening report for him.

“About forty are after Pol, fifty after Sethric, and Maarken takes the prize with nearly seventy.”

Rohan’s eyes reflected Hollis’ Fire. “Then Pol’s about evenly matched, Sethric outnumbers them—and I pity anyone who crosses Maarken’s path.”

“I don’t feel sorry for them at all,” Tobren stated as she yielded Sioned’s reins. “I wish I was a real Sunrunner —I’d do like Papa and kill them!”

Tobin’s eyes closed briefly; Sioned glanced away. It was Rohan who answered the girl.

“Your father is a very brave and clever man, Tobren. But it must grieve him to use his gifts in so terrible a thing as war.”

“The Goddess chose Papa and made him Lord of her Keep. If she didn’t want him to use his gifts, she wouldn’t have given them.”

The logic was inarguable—but that didn’t make it any less wrong. Rohan knew there was no way to convey that to this proud child, even though his sister’s eyes pleaded with him to say something—anything. He drew breath to make a try, but all at once was incapable of saying anything at all. The rush of wings was in his head, the tingle along his bones, the strange instinctive sureness that a dragon was near.

The roar of an enraged sire was unmistakable. Hollis was so stunned that her Fire sputtered down to a mere trickle of hip-high flames. But there was light enough to see the dragon by—and the Vellant’im. To a man they leaped from their horses and prostrated themselves on the sand.

“I don’t believe it,” Sioned breathed.

“It’s Azhdeen—he must be looking for Pol.” Rohan shook himself. “Take the Fire from Hollis and get these people moving! We may not have long.” He kicked his horse to the line of Sunrunner’s Fire. Standing in his stirrups, he lifted his arms high and in a terrible voice bellowed, “Azhrei!”

Sioned had a dangerous urge to laugh. It grew stronger as Chay started singing as loud as he could. The song was taken up by hundreds of voices—a ballad over thirty years old, fulsome in its praise of Rohan’s virtue, strength, and cunning. She knew at once why Chay had chosen it: azhrei figured prominently in the chorus, the one word they could be certain the Vellant’im understood.

So, under cover of Sunrunner’s Fire and a self-serving song and the angry howls of a dragon anxious about his human possession, they escaped Remagev.

Chapter Twenty oo they got away,” Rinhoel said. “Too bad.”

His mother cast a quick, nervous glance at the door that had just closed behind Rialt. “Hush! We’re on shaky enough ground without his overhearing remarks like that!”

“Oh, come now, Mother! It’s all legal. The treaties say that whenever one princedom attacks another, the rest must go to the victim’s defense. There’s nothing anywhere about being attacked by outsiders.” Rinhoel snorted. “Trust Pirro to think up something like that, anyway, to justify his cowardice.”

“But it works just as well for Cunaxa and Firon as it does for Fessenden—and us. Only we’re not cowards.” Chiana paced the glass and velvet audience chamber, the mourning gray she wore for Patwin billowing in stiff silk folds around her. “If Rohan wins, we lose everything. He’s always won before.”

“It’s time he lost for a change. Do you want Princemarch or not?”

The blunt question went to the heart of ambition and resentment and fury nurtured for a lifetime. All of it spurted forth like poison from a lanced wound. “Yes. By the Goddess—yes!”

“Then act like it. We have allies now. What they want for themselves coincides nicely with what we want for us. If we work together, we can have everything. Pirro gave us a legal excuse to withhold active support—as if we needed it, with our own borders threatened!” He laughed softly. “Not even dear Aunt Naydra dares scold us for not sending our armies to Syr or the Desert. And everyone understands why we’ve called up the levies. No one needs to know they’re meant to seize, not defend.”

Chiana subsided into a velvet chair. “You’re right, my treasure. You’re right. Forgive me. But the only times I ever tasted victory were when I married your father and when I gave birth to you. I can’t help my nerves.”

“Mother, this time it won’t be just a taste. We’ll both be drunk on it for the rest of our lives.”

She smiled. “I count marriage as a victory only because it gave me you.”

“I didn’t think it was because you adored the Parchment Prince.”

“Rinhoel!” She giggled at the nickname bestowed on Halian for his uselessness. Before she’d married him, he had chafed against his father Clutha’s iron rule that kept him powerless. For a time after the old man finally died, she’d thought Halian would actually rule Meadowlord. But the habit of idleness was too ingrained by then. Chiana had spent about half a year regretting it while she nearly foundered in unaccustomed statecraft, until one day she realized she was more of a prince than he would ever be. Thus she encouraged his pursuit of pleasant diversions—and ruled Meadowlord as she liked. And she liked it very much. For fifteen years now Halian had signed what she gave him to sign and read aloud what she gave him to read during law courts. The Parchment Prince.

Rinhoel dismissed his father with a wave of his hand. “Discussing dear Papa is a waste of time. We have other things to talk about. Rohan’s on his way back to Stronghold. Tilal and Kostas will soon be bogged down in winter mud. Storms have sent Arlis back to New Raetia after only one skirmish in Brochwell Bay. But there is a place where fighting is not impossible in winter. Do you remember that miserable summer I spent at Remagev two years ago?”

“Not as vividly as you do.”

“Well, yes,” he admitted with a grimace. “A killing climate, all of us dumped into a barracks without thought of rank or position or birth—but that wasn’t as bad as the so-called training. Free labor for Lord Walvis, more likely, cleaning that ancient pile and mucking out stalls.” He shrugged off the memory. “But I did make an interesting acquaintance there. And he showed up here a few days ago. I let him cool his heels and then met him in town last night. But today our friends from the south arrive, and I thought Bvrioc might make a useful addition to out conversation.”

Chiana frowned. “I don’t recall your mentioning him. Who is he?”

“Nobody, really,” was the casual reply. “Just one of Miyon’s bastard sons—by a Merida woman.”

She choked. “A Cunaxan prince? Merida? How did he ever get into Remagev?”

“By lying, of course. Cunaxans are all liars, and the Merida are worse than Cunaxans. He got in claiming to be the heir of some minor holding on the Desert border. That played right into Walvis’ pretty idea about making us all one big happy continent.”

“The notion of a peasant,” Chiana observed.

“Actually, it wasn’t that big a lie about the holding— Miyon gives crown properties to his mistresses to provide his bastards with a name.”

Chiana nodded. “Meiglan’s mother held Gracine Manor until she died.”

“Birioc’s mother got a place called Catchwater. But she didn’t live to see it. It’s all rather pathetic. He says his mother was a princess of the Merida, but that’s probably another lie. Her people sent her to Miyon to get themselves a royal heir. He didn’t know what she was or he wouldn’t have touched her—not even Miyon is that stupid, to give the Merida a claim on him. But the child was born, the mother died, and the servant who raised Birioc was Merida, too.”

“Quite an indoctrination, I should think,” Chiana remarked. “I trust he sacrificed honor to survival and did not receive the chin-scar.”

“What do you think?” he snorted.

“I see where this leads. Miyon still doesn’t know his son’s real heritage, does he?”

“Not a whisper of it. He’s younger than our dear future High Princess—about twenty-one now, I think. He stayed the whole year at Remagev because his father ordered him to. Miyon wanted to know exactly what goes on there. What the ass doesn’t realize is that his half-Merida son got an education in warfare and leadership that won’t be to his father’s advantage.”

Chiana thought all this over, then bit her lip. “Rinhoel ... I agree this Birioc could be of use. But the Merida were the sorcerers’ trained assassins.”

“I know that,” he replied impatiently. “But when the

Vellant’im finally march on Stronghold, Birioc’s people can keep Tallain and Jahnavi too busy to come to Rohan’s aid. The Desert is the only place you can fight a war in winter. A Merida attack on Tuath and then Tiglath would serve our purposes—and Miyon’s. And the Merida’s.”

Admiration shone in her eyes, but still she wavered. “The reasoning is flawless, my love, but ... sorcery?”

“If the Merida could work spells, do you think Rohan would be High Prince? Do you think he’d even be alive?”

“But the Vellanti battle cry—“

“They haven’t done any sorcery either. I’m convinced that they can’t. Why use up so many lives in war if you could weave a spell and kill the way Andry did at Goddess Keep? The Vellant’im aren’t here to soften us up for death by sorcery, Mother. If diarmadh’im were going to do anything, they’d have done it. Personally, I think that wherever these people come from, the sorcerers are all dead. It’s just something they shout to remind them of past victories and inspire them to new ones.”

“You may be right. But it’s puzzling just the same.” She pushed it aside and spoke more briskly. “Very well. I’ll see Birioc. What should I call him?”

“He’s hungry. A ‘my lord’ here and there will feed him.”

“No, make it ‘Prince Birioc’—for his mother’s sake, if not his father’s.”

Rinhoel went to her side and kissed her cheek. “You’re the wisest woman in the world—as well as the most beautiful.”

“You’re not a bad liar, yourself.” But she smiled fondly up at him, adding, “High Prince Rinhoel.”

High Prince Rohan escaped Remagev but not pursuit. Pol’s dragon abandoned the area soon after everyone was out, and shortly thereafter the Vellant’im dared lift their faces from the sand. It took them a while to recapture their horses—Radzyn animals familiar with dragons on the hunt ran like fire through a hayloft—and this gained Rohan a little more time. But pursue the enemy did, though not in great numbers. It was Sioned’s opinion that his “mighty azhrei” performance had scared most of them witless.

“I’m surprised Azhdeen stayed as long as he did, after he was unable to find Pol,” she mused. Tobin’s black eyes sparkled with laughter. “Liked the music.

“Do you think so?” Rohan asked, then shrugged. “It’s as good an explanation as any, I suppose.”

Tobin leaned over in her saddle behind Tobren and poked her brother with a cane. “Feylin’s legends!”

They stared at her until Betheyn chuckled softly. “None of you has gotten that far, but we were reading it the other day. There’s a very old story about a virgin princess who saved herself from becoming a dragon’s dinner by singing \nm to s\eep.”

Rohan looked blank for a moment, then chuckled. Beth went on, “There’s another one about rallying dragons to the defense of a castle by a bard who stood on the battlements howling some song or other.”

“I’m organizing a choir the instant we get home,” Sioned stated. “It probably won’t work on dragons, but it might scare the Vellant’im.”

“I prefer to trust Stronghold’s walls, thanks all the same,” Rohan said.

A pack of about thirty Vellanti warriors was met and discouraged from further pursuit by the remains of the Radzyn guard. Rohan was beside himself when he found out Chay had actually led the assault.

“You senile, old—are you in your dotage? Do you think you’re twenty-two again? What in all Hells possessed you to risk your damnfool neck like that?”

Chay was unimpressed. He flexed his sword arm and commented, “It’s not what it once was, but it still works.”

With an incoherent growl, Rohan rode away to the front of the column. He didn’t know if he was angrier at Chay’s imbecile action or the fact that he could not go and do likewise.

Sioned ventured out on starlight once more, and returned smiling. “Sethric is outdistancing the enemy, Maarken has a good lead—and as for Pol, Azhdeen is flying escort with predictable results!”

Had this been spring or summer, Desert skies would have been thick with dragons. Rohan cursed enemy timing and urged his people to hurry. The carts moved along, filled with wounded and supplies, but who could tell when the Vellant’im would recover from abject terror of dragons and follow at speed?

At dawn Hollis wove sunlight. “Perfect,” she sighed at last, her tired eyes regaining focus. “They seem much more interested in Rernagev than in us. But it’s cost them.” She smiled. “Smoke rises from the glassworks and the kitchen. Also from the west entry — but I counted close to a hundred limping back to camp on bloodied feet.”

“So my ingots weren’t destroyed in vain.” Walvis stroked his beard and slanted a sly look at Rohan. “Let’s see — at the price arranged at the Rialla this summer, multiplied by two crates, you owe me — “

I had to teach how to count above ten without using his toes?”

“Your glass can wait,” Chay declared. “He’ll pay for my horses first.”

“Not at your prices,” Sioned retorted.

“But what about my ingots?” Walvis asked plaintively.

“And my horses?” Chay demanded.

Dannar and Tobren stared slack-jawed, never having heard such exalted highborns squabble so. It took a few moments for them to notice that the people around them were following the exchange with expectant grins.

“Enough!” Rohan exclaimed. “Or I’ll rewrite your charters, take my castles back, and you can go beg a tent from the Isulk’im!”

“If they’ll have you, which I doubt,” Sioned finished.

It was the signal for everyone to laugh and move on, spreading the tale along the column. Rohan blessed his people for making it so easy for him. Remagev and Radzyn lay abandoned behind them; ahead lay a hard forced march to Stronghold with the enemy in pursuit. Anyone in his right ^iind would have been terrified. But his people could still laugh. He watched them walk past him with tenderness and pride nearly overflowing his eyes. Sentimental — even foolish, perhaps — but how he loved their refusal to despair.

Their belief in him was harder to observe. Clever, crafty, unning High Prince. Live up to your reputation, azhrei. It ---fans lives,

At midmorning Birioc was at last admitted into Princess hiana’s presence. He came in frowning and prepared to be insulted. Bastard get though she was, still she looked down on others of her kind from her secure position as true ruler of Meadowlord. But she called him “prince” and clasped his hand in both of hers, and sat him beside her on a spindly-legged velvet couch, and poured wine for him with her own hands. He was young enough to be flattered, but old enough to be suspicious. Her hazel eyes were entirely too eager.

Rinhoel, equally welcoming, left them after a few moments to escort in another visitor. While he was gone, Birioc took the opportunity to make his position clear.

“We are totally uninterested in defending other princedoms, your grace. We want back what is ours, and this is our chance.”

“Your aims coincide perfectly with ours, Prince Birioc.” She dimpled charmingly, “We want certain things as well— and the key to obtaining them is the defeat of High Prince Rohan.”

“I’m glad we agree. What do you propose our part to be? Before you answer, I must warn you that even if we were inclined to fight for land not our own, we haven’t enough troops to do so.”

“I appreciate your candor. I will answer with equal honesty. All you must do is to keep Rohan’s northern army occupied. The southern levies have assembled at Stronghold and the Vellant’im will keep them there. You see, what you desire and what we desire is the same thing.”

“Not entirely. We want Tuath and Tiglath back. We want Skybowl and Stronghold.”

“And Feruche?” Her smile grew a trifle fixed.

“And Feruche,” he returned firmly.

“It is part of Princemarch.”

He smiled thinly; his father had told him she would be intractable on the subject of any handspan of Princemarch soil. “It is not negotiable.”

Chiana’s brows quirked down and her lips tightened. Then she smoothed her expression and asked silkily, “I expect you want Radzyn as well? Do you truly expect to hold it?”

“Until it falls into the sea,” he assured her.

“What of Riverport and Lowland?”

Birioc smiled. “You get to the point, don’t you, your grace?”

“There’s very little to be gained by dancing around it, my lord.”

“Riverport and Lowland are negotiable.” He didn’t add that his father had told him to concede everything south of the Long Sand if necessary. Miyon wanted Stronghold as devoutly as Chiana wanted Castle Crag. When one engaged in reshaping princedoms, one could say what one liked. Possession when the dust cleared was what counted.

“We will discuss it further,” Chiana said.

“Oh, yes, we certainly will,” he agreed.

Another tiny frown, another hasty clearing of her expression into amiable lines. “There will be plenty of time once Rohan is gone, after all. We can settle all the little details once he’s dead and Pol with him.”

Birioc nodded.

“Ah,” she said suddenly, rising. “Our other guest has arrived.”

The bronze doors of the presence chamber opened to admit Rinhoel and a man who could have been one of Birioc’s Merida uncles. He felt his jaw drop a little and hastily closed his mouth. The man was tall, with a warrior’s heavy shoulders and lean belly. A lush black beard threaded with dozens of little golden beads covered most of his face, but the sharp nose, wide mouth, and long, dark eyes were Merida. Birioc knew he was staring and couldn’t help it.

“Brother!” the man exclaimed, his accent harsh, the word thick on his tongue. He embraced the startled Birioc so forcefully that the young man was sure his bones would crack.

Chiana and Rinhoel were just as astounded. The big man laughed deep in his chest, his dark eyes gleaming.

“Lost to us generation on generation ago—and now found. Those of the Sacred Glass remember nothing of us. But we remember them.”

“I’m fascinated,” Rinhoel murmured. “Please go on, my lord.”

“Later. Another time.” He made a belated bow to Chiana, raking her appreciatively with his eyes. She blushed. “You barbarians breed fine women. My wives would kill to possess such eyes.”

Flustered, Chiana turned helplessly to her son. “Rinhoel ... ?”

‘Your pardon, Mother. I present to your grace Lord Varek, second battle lord to the High Warlord of the

Vellant’im. My lord, you have the honor of being in the presence of the Princess Chiana of Meadowlord.”

Lord Varek bowed again, than glanced at Birioc, who was having trouble swallowing. “You have heard my name, my brother,” he said shrewdly.

“I__” He gulped. It had been his grandfather’s name. He stammered out as much and Lord Varek nodded.

“And did he die bravely, with his sword in his hand?”

“Y-yes. Against Prince Zehava.”

“Father of this Rohan High Prince. I see. He will die for it,” Varek said with casual certainty. “We are indeed brothers. If my name was your grandfather’s, then one of his sons must have been Beliaev, like my own eldest son.” He frowned in concentration as Birioc gaped. “And his sons—“

“My uncle had no children. He died in battle at Tiglath.”

“Who killed him?”

“Lord Walvis of Remagev.”

Dark brown eyes turned black. “Remagev of the dragon! This Walvis will die, too.”

“My lord,” Rinhoel said, trying to gain control of this bizarre conversation, “this is Prince Birioc, son of Miyon of Cunaxa by a Merida princess.”

“Birioc is the name I would have guessed.” Varek embraced him again. “Tir’deem, our people will have revenge.”

He recognized the word—old language for “my brother.” But how were they brothers? What connected the Merida with these savages?

They all sat down at Chiana’s invitation and she poured wine. The princess grew rapidly more annoyed as Varek ignored her and spoke directly with the men. Birioc found it amusing that Roelstra’s arrogant bastard daughter could not get a word in edgewise.

“The High Warlord says to you, many thanks for food and wine,” Varek began. “The High Warlord says to you, swords and horses would be better.”

“We need them for our own aims,” Rinhoel pointed out.

“Your aims are ours.”

“Not necessarily,” Chiana began, but Varek went on as if she had not spoken.

“Death to Prince Rohan. Death to faradh’im. We want the same.”

Chiana tried again. “Of course, my lord, but—“

“The High Warlord says to you, we will kill Rohan and faradh’im for you if you kill Rohan’s armies in the north.”

“That’s exactly why Prince Birioc is here,” Rinhoel put in. “His father, Prince Miyon, rules Cunaxa. He—“

“I speak for myself, my lord,” Birioc said sharply. “We will take care of the north for certain considerations.”

“And arms? Fine Cunaxan steel?”

Birioc was betrayed into blurting out, “How do you know about—“

Lord Varek gave him a serene smile. “It is a great fool who sails a strange sea without a map.”

“You’ve been here before,” Rinhoel breathed.

“Not I. Others.”

Birioc exchanged an appalled glance with Rinhoel. Chiana cleared her throat and leaned forward.

“Then you know how difficult it will be for you to take Stronghold.”

This time he deigned to hear her. “The High Warlord says to you, give us horses and steel and we will take Stronghold and kill Rohan and hisfamdhi son.”

“If you want faradh’im, why not take Goddess Keep?” Rinhoel asked.

“They are unimportant.” Varek dismissed them with a wave of a battle-scarred hand.

“I think I understand,” Birioc said slowly. “All the other attacks—they’re designed to keep everyone busy, just as we’re supposed to do in the north. Your real goal is Rohan.”

“Tir’deem, you are wise.” Varek inclined his head and placed both hands to his brow.

“But why?” Chiana demanded. “There’s nothing I’d like to see more, but why the High Prince? What’s so important about him?”

Varek fixed her with a forbidding ice-and-fire gaze. “It is enough that the High Warlord wishes it. Do your servants question you?”

She sucked in a breath, “/am not one of his servants, and I insist upon knowing why you think Rohan is so valuable!”

He flat out ignored her again. Birioc had difficulty restraining laughter as Chiana made the mistake of losing her temper and swept from the room with what he supposed she considered an impressive show of infuriated insult.

Rinhoel seemed torn between outrage that his mother had been slighted and a natural desire to keep vital negotia- tions going. Birioc was interested to note that the latter won. So, he thought, the whelp is practical, at least.

To Lord Varek he said, “If we come from the north and you from the south, the Desert is ours.”

“There are many other things to consider,” Rinhoel said quellingly. “The Lord of Castle Crag and the Princes of Ossetia and Syr are on the march. My grandsire, Prince Clutha. was right in that Meadowlord is forever the battleground. This time it won’t be. I don’t intend to inherit a ruined princedom.”

“Is Meadowlord what you intend to inherit?” Varek asked, all innocence.

Birioc smiled. This unexpected kinsman was someone he understood, someone he could work with. They would use Chiana and Rinhoel the way Chiana and Rinhoel obviously planned to use them. Neither he nor Varek cared for anything but the deaths of Rohan and Pol. And when it was over, the Vellant’im could have the southern Desert, and welcome. It would be all one, anyway—with the Merida ruling at last. All that remained was for Birioc to force Miyon into naming him heir to Cunaxa. A few battles around Tuath and Tiglath would provide ample opportunity to eliminate his half-brothers. Easy as sliding down a sand dune. He met Varek’s dark eyes, saw them glint above the luxuriant gold-studded beard. Perhaps, Birioc thought, he ought to grow one, too.

It began to snow in Firon long before the official beginning of winter, drifts piling high and white around Balarat. On the Cunaxan side of the Veresch there was bitter cold and dry frost but only occasional snow, but on the Fironese, horse-high and sometimes even dragon-high drifts numbed and paralyzed the land from late autumn to late spring. People sometimes observed that it was no wonder the Fironese created such marvels in glass. What else had they to do half the year, and what other warmth than their kiln fires?

Idalian of Faolain Riverport regarded this year’s snow as his sworn enemy. The preceding six winters at Balarat as Prince Lane’s squire had seen him at first astounded, then delighted, by the white mantling that offered chilly reminiscence of Desert sand dunes. But this year all of young

Prince Tirel’s pleas to come outside and play fell on ears deafened by grief and anger. If not for the snow, he could be traveling south now, to help in the defense of Faolain Lowland and what remained of his family.

Idalian had no idea how long he stayed in his rooms, trying not to remember, trying not to weep, failing miserably at both. Parents, aunt, uncle, cousin, all of them but his brother Mirsath and their cousin Karanaya gone—it was more than he could comprehend. He’d last seen them all six years ago, at his farewell banquet. The hall had glowed with candles and resounded with laughter; minstrels had played, and if Idalian at thirteen had been too young to appreciate the opportunity to dance until midnight, there had been jugglers and mimes enough to occupy a boy’s attention. His father had been near to bursting with pride that his younger son would be squire to a prince—and at the honor of having the High Princess herself present at their table. She had come to add her congratulations on her way home from a visit to Syr.

Sioned had not forgotten him. She had found time in between her heavy responsibilities to send him a message of sympathy and comfort through Balarat’s court Sunrunner. Idalian was grateful, but he could not relate such words to himself. Surely, surely it was impossible that almost his whole family had been wiped out.

Prince Tirel was miserable at his friend’s grief, but he was still just a seven-year-old boy. When his uncle Yarin arrived from Snowcoves, Tirel mostly forgot Idalian’s sorrow in the excitement of showing his cousin Natham all his toys. But one day he came up to the squire’s rooms, just down the hall from his own, and begged to be let in for a talk.

Idalian, who had been sitting by the windows hating the falling snow, was puzzled by a word the boy used. “Conference? What do you mean, my lord?”

“Isn’t that what they call it when Papa and Mama talk to their ministers?”

“Yes, but I’m only a squire.”

Tirel set his jaw. “When my father is away, I am Prince of Firon. And I can make you my minister if I like.”

Idalian settled the boy into a chair near the fireplace. ‘This sounds serious. What need do you have of a minister?”

After a quick glance around the empty room, Tirel whispered, “I don’t like my uncle Yarin.”

“Because he makes you keep at your schooling, and won’t let you play with Natham all the time?” He smiled.

The child leaped up, crimson-cheeked, gray eyes flashing. “I’m not joking, Idalian! When I told him that I’m prince when my father isn’t here, he said to go play with the toys he brought me from Snowcoves!”

“You’re very young, Tirel,” Idalian began.

“I thought you were my friend! You sound just like Uncle!”

The boy’s betrayed expression—and the unwelcome comparison to Lord Yarin, whom Idalian didn’t much like either— startled him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Tirel stated. “And anyway, I’m not too young to know that Arpali isn’t really sick, like my uncle says!”

“What?”

“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” Tirel said in peevish tones. “You don’t know what’s going on here. I wanted Arpali to send a message to Dragon’s Rest to let Mama know I’m all right. First Uncle said there were too many clouds for a Sunrunner to work. Well, there were, that day,” he admitted. “But the next day the sky was blue, and I asked again—but Uncle said she was sick.”

“How do you know she’s not?”

“I went to her room. One of Uncle’s men was outside, like a guard!”

Idalian tried to appear properly shocked. “Perhaps he was just there to keep people from bothering Arpali’s rest.”

“Or to keep her from getting out!”

“My lord, I can’t think of any reason why your uncle would—“

“You are just like him! You don’t believe me! You think I’m a stupid little boy who should go play!” Tirel ran headlong from the room before imminent tears of frustration could humiliate him.

Idalian gnawed the inside of his cheek, knowing he ought to go after the boy and soothe him somehow. But Tirel had always liked Lord Yarin before; the man had insulted the child’s self-importance, but that was no reason to suspect him of anything sinister.

Still, the child’s hurt weighed on his mind. In a way he was grateful to Tirel for giving him something else to think about besides his family. It reminded him that it was time he resumed his duties, offer his services to Lord Yarin. He still wanted to go home—even if there was no home to go to. He might have helped at Lowland, but snow made travel impossible. It was fortunate for Yarin that he had come early from Snowcoves; this was no time of year to be on the road.

Idalian resolved to set his grief aside and resume his duties. First he would have to make himself presentable. He felt filthy and a mirror showed him a substantial growth of beard. Servants brought buckets of hot water and a tub up to his room, and when he had washed, shaved, and dressed he went down to the kitchen for something to eat.

“How’s Arpali?” he asked the cook as he broke the crust of a new loaf to sop up the last of his soup.

She shrugged plump shoulders. “I don’t know, I’m sure. The meals come back half-eaten.”

“Our Sunrunner must really be sick, then, to turn down your cooking.”

“Pretty words from a young man who hasn’t eaten a thing!”

“Sorry. No insult intended, Nolly.”

“I know, child.” She patted his hand. “It’s a hard thing. I lost my parents in a gale blown straight from the cold, cruel mouth of the Storm God himself in all his fury. You think of your duty to the High Prince, and to our own lord, and especially the youngling who depends on you while his parents are away. I know you want to go home, but you can’t. Not while Prince Tirel is all alone.”

Idalian pushed away the empty bowl and stood. “I don’t have a home, Nolly. Riverport is gone.”

“As long as two stones stand atop each other, your holding is your holding. Think of that, and what your family would want of you. You can’t bring back their lives, but you can live your own to honor them.”

He studied her face for a moment—dark as taze, round as i moon, plain as an old boot—and leaned over to kiss her rheek.

“Do that again, boy, and you won’t get out of this kitchen clothed.”

He laughed, backing away as if terrified. She snorted and ladled more soup into a bowl.

“Take this to Arpali with my compliments, and word that if it doesn’t come back empty, I’ll come pour it down her throat.”

The man outside the Sunrunner’s chamber was definitely there to guard her. No other interpretation could be put on someone who stood duty bearing a sheathed sword and a knife in his belt. Idalian asked to go inside. He was told Arpali was asleep. He tried to insist. He was strongly discouraged by a steady, cold gaze and the hand that shifted slightly but meaningfully toward the knife.

He didn’t argue. Leaving the soup with the guard, he went to find Lord Yarin, intending to offer his assistance wherever and however required. The rebuff he received would have stung him to a fury matching Tirel’s, had he been just a little younger. But at nineteen winters he was old enough to recognize that his help was scorned in deliberately insulting terms—an unnecessary thing, calculated to make him stalk off in a sulk. Part of him wanted to inform his lordship in no uncertain terms that he was the sworn man of the High Prince himself, and therefore not to be trifled with. He hushed the voice and bowed himself from Lord Yarin’s presence. Then he sought the oratory, where he could find some privacy to think.

Over the next days he observed Yarin’s people carefully. There were quite a few guards present, surely more than were needed for escorting their lord and his lady and heir to his sister’s castle. Also in the party were Yarin’s steward, chamberlain, and several other functionaries whose attendance was not strictly necessary. Idaiian supposed they could be explained away with the excuse that everyone tried to wrangle a trip to Balarat whenever possible, even in winter; it was a beautiful and comfortable castle, commanding a hill overlooking a deep valley. But somehow Idalian had the feeling that all these people had not come to appreciate the icy splendor of a keep crystaled by snow. Yarin’s stated purpose for coming to Balarat was to protect his sister’s son from rampaging invaders. Idalian suspected he had fled Snowcoves in case of attack from the sea. But as the days passed he reconsidered. The barbarians had shown not the slightest interest in any land north of Princemarch. And who would be fool enough to try sailing through ice-crusted waters, anyway? Winter was a strong defense, and winter had walled up all Firon tighter than a dragon’s hatching cave. So why was Yarin here?

There was no word of Arpali other than that she continued weak and ill. Idalian attempted again to see her, and again was denied entry. By this time it was clear that the servants were taking their orders from Yarin’s people, supervised by his wife, Vallaina. The more Idalian saw, the less he liked it.

A fine day came, bitterly cold but with an irresistible glisten to the snow. Idalian thought that Tirel—who hadn’t spoken to him since their “conference”—would enjoy a romp outside. Vallaina gave permission, but sent along two guards and her son Natham. Thus Idaiian’s chance to make it up with Tirel was ruined.

But he had another idea, and acted on it once Natham was thoroughly soaked from a snowball skirmish. He suggested a wanning visit to the glassworks. Natham cared nothing for the craft that was the wealth of Firon; he and the guards returned to the castle.

By the fierce glow of hearths where ingots from the Desert were fashioned into everything from wine bottles to windowpanes, Idalian apologized and told Tirel that he, too, was suspicious. It was all the opening the boy needed.

“My schoolroom is right above Arpali’s chamber. I’ve been sneaking in at night and thumping on the floor—and last night she stopped thumping back. Do you think she’s been hurt?”

“Nobody would dare harm a Sunrunner!”

“Uncle Yarin would,” Tirel said, and the name was laced with loathing.

“Don’t be silly. You just don’t like him,” Idalian said, but his heart was racing. “You’re being treated all right, aren’t

YOU?”

He shrugged. “I have my lessons, and I play with Natham— he’s such a pain, and he can’t throw a snowball for spit!”

Idalian grinned. “I saw. But I thought you used to be mends.”

“He’s different. He says he gets to choose what to play because he’s older than me. But I’m the prince, not him.”

“He’s your guest. You should be gracious, Tirel.”

“That’s not what I meant! He’s acting like he’s a prince. You know how, since Papa and Mama went away last spring, the steward comes to tell me things? It’s boring, but I guess I have to learn to like it. Well, now she doesn’t come talk to me anymore. Natham says it’s because I’m too little. But I wasn’t even seven last spring when she talked to me and now she doesn’t! / think it’s because I’m not supposed to know what’s going on.”

Only a fool would fail to see the signs now. But how could Yarin think he could take Firon, when Laric was kin and friend and ally to Prince Pol?

Simple, he realized suddenly. Everyone had problems more urgent than making sure Firon stayed in the hands of its lightM praKs. There were battles being fought in the south that no one here knew about. Not that they could do anything, with snow blocking all routes out of the princedom and the harbors frozen. But at least Arpali could have kept them informed.

And could have told others what was happening at Balarat.

She was not sick. She was being held captive so she couldn’t use the sunlight. If no news could get out, then none could come in, either. Doubtless with the war so far away and nothing to do with him, Yarin considered the trade more than even.

And how a sweet, pretty lady like Princess Lisiel could have such a- snake for a brother was beyond Idalian’s understanding.

“I think you’re right,” he said abruptly. “But there’s not much we can do about it for now. No, don’t argue,” he warned as Tirel’s face clenched up. “You’re smart and you’re a prince, but you’re still only seven years old. And I may be the brother of an important Desert lord, but I’m still just a squire.”

“We need Arpali,” Tirel asserted. “When Lord Andry finds out about this — “

“I’ll work on it,” he promised, but was thinking, What can even he do from Goddess Keep? The last he’d heard, it had been attacked. Unsuccessfully, to be sure, but it was still in danger. Everyone was occupied with the war. There would be no help from anyone.

Tirel hunkered in on himself, shivering despite the blazing heat of glass kilns. “Idalian — what’re we going to do?” he asked in a small voice.

“I don’t know.” He put an arm around the child. “We’re not alone, my lord. There are plenty of people loyal to your father, and Arpali — “

“But she’s a prisoner. We’re prisoners, too, aren’t we?” he asked forlornly. But just when Idalian thought tears were imminent, Tirel straightened up and scowled. “Firon doesn’t belong to Uncle Yarin. High Prince Rohan gave it to us and nobody’s going to take it away.”

For the first time he envisioned Riverport in the present— not as it had been six years ago when he left it, not as it must have been when his family was butchered, but now. What his father had built was in enemy hands and under enemy bootheels. But it was his, just as Nolly had said it was. Just as Firon belonged to Tkel and his family. These unknown savages had taken it away, but they weren’t going to keep it.

He gave the young prince a grim smile. “Your Uncle Yarin may make a try at it, but we’ll stop him. See if we don’t.”

Ostvel shook rain off his cloak as if to rid himself of amazement as well. He stood in the silent gray streets of Waes, staring at empty windows. Tilal was beside him, their personal guard waited nearby, and all of them were as unbelieving as he.

“I know you said that Rialt managed to clear everybody out—but this is crazy!” Tilal said at last. “It hasn’t been touched!”

“Just the places they themselves burned,” Ostvel agreed.

“Can it be that the Vellant’im landed and left?”

“I don’t think so. There are foodstuffs in some of the houses. Even the Vellant’im have to eat. They can’t have brought enough to last all winter. Waes as it stands is an open invitation to walk in and resupply. But there’s no sign they even sent a scouting party.”

“So they didn’t take the bait.” Ostvel resisted the need to rub some warmth back into hands that ached from the cold and damp. “It’s unnatural, Tilal. It makes no sense.”

“Do you think we dare camp where they did not?”

“Are they waiting for us in corners, do you mean?” He shook his head. “I doubt it. But have the whole city turned inside out just the same before we let the rest of our troops in. We might as well spend a night in real beds beside real hearths if we can.” His sore joints felt better just at the thought of it. What was truly crazy was a man of his years traipsing around the countryside leading the armies of

Princemarch. He deserved a placid old age in his own keep with his beautiful wife to keep him warm.

Tilal gave the order to inspect every building, then glanced up at the lowering sky. “It’ll rain for the next three days, looks like. No chance to tell Sioned about this.”

“Damned gold-beards knew exactly what our weakness is, to start a war just as the rains came. It’ll fret Sunrunners more than it does us, though. When I was at Goddess Keep, everyone walked on tiptoe around Andrade all winter long.”

Tilal laughed briefly. “Everyone walked on tiptoe around her anyway. I hope the innkeepers didn’t take all their wine with them. I could do with a nice mulled Syrene red about now.”

“That’s the first thing they’ll have loaded into their carts. But maybe Rialt left something interesting at the residence. Come on.”

Waes was confirmed to be exactly what it seemed: empty as a broken dragon egg. Tilal gave strict orders for watchfulness and sobriety, however safe the city seemed and however many casks of wine were found to warm the night chill. He did not intend to be trapped here as they had hoped to trap the Vellant’im.

Ostvel’s army consisted of soldiers from Castle Crag, the levies he’d gathered to him on the way down the Faolain, and forces led by two young lords who had chosen to accompany their troops. Draza of Grand Veresch was twenty-eight, grandson of old Lord Dreslav by one of his many mistresses. That the youth was illegitimate had never mattered; his only competiton for the inheritance had been a fair-bom uncle who wanted only to spend his life in the high mountains hunting wolves. Draza had a wife and two small children; it was the first time he had ever been separated from them and admitted bashfully how much he missed them. But the need for revenge was stronger; his half-sister Pelida had been married to Gevnaya of Faolain Lowland, and had died with him at Riverport. Usually the quietest and most gentle of men, Draza wanted blood.

Kerluthan of River Ussh, three winters Draza’s senior, was the elder brother of Pol’s former squire, Edrel. Their sister Paveol had died with her husband and son at Gilad Seahold. No matter how much Kerluthan might miss his own wife, he had vowed not to return to her until he had the deaths of half the Vellanti army to his credit.

The emptiness of Waes infuriated him. “Where are the whoresons?” he demanded as he stalked into the residence, violent gestures spraying the carpet with raindrops. The late Lady of Waes, Roelstra’s daughter Kiele, had chosen the Cunaxan rug. Ostvel felt a sudden twinge at being in her house.

Tilal’s shrewd green eyes noted the emotion flitting across Ostvel’s face, but he addressed himself to Kerluthan. “We’ll find them. Now that your troops and horses are decently quartered and fed, my lord, why don’t you do yourself the same service?”

“I’d feed better and sleep happier after some worthwhile exercise,” Kerluthan grumbled, but went away with Draza to see what the squires had found in the kitchens.

Tilal regarded Ostvel pensively. “What were you thinking just now?”

“You’ve got Sioned’s eyes, all right.” Ostvel shrugged. “I was thinking of Kiele, if you can believe it. She lived here, after all.” Settling into a soft chair, he added, “I was remembering ... how she died.”

“Ah. Not a pleasant Rialla, that. Except that I won my Gemma there.”

“And I, my Alasen.” He would never understand how or why. Neither would he ever know what had made him throw a knife to Lyell so he could kill Kiele and himself before Sunrunner’s Fire got them. Well, that was a lie. It hadn’t beee the first time he’d taken responsibility for a death so that it wouldn’t burden someone else. As he had killed lanthe to spare Sioned her blood, so he had provided Lyell with the knife to spare Andry. Not that the Lord of Goddess Keep had been any more grateful for it than Sioned. But at least she had come to understand why he had done it. Andry had never forgiven him—and not just for stealing Lyell and Kiele’s deaths from him. Ostvel had won Alasen. That was what Andry would never forgive.

Andry’s eldest son came in, carrying a tray loaded with cheese, soup, and wine. “The cheese is a bit smelly,” he apologized. “We had to carve a lot of it off that had gone bad. And there’s no bread to go with it, though Chaltyn has put some people to work baking for tomorrow morning. But the soup’s good and hot, and the wine is from Catha Freehold.”

Tilal exchanged an amused glance with Ostvel. In the scant days since he had become a squire, he had thrown himself into his duties with a dedication bordering on fanaticism. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Andrev was precisely where he wanted to be, doing precisely what he wanted to do. On first recognizing TilaFs new squire, Ostvel had been appalled. After a little thought and a brief conversation with Tilal, he had agreed with the prince’s reasoning: Andry couldn’t hold himself aloof from the war if he had so personal a stake in it. Though he had done just that so far, Ostvel knew it wouldn’t last. Faults Andry had, but paternal indifference was not one of them.

As Andrev served them their meal, Ostvel glanced again around the room. The eccentricities of the residence did not extend to its individual chambers. Three houses had been made into one by knocking down a few walls, building others, adding staircases to connect different levels, and otherwise attempting to make coherent a structure that balked at every turn. But the separate rooms were graceful and well-appointed. The residence had not been so long empty that the polish had gone off silver and brass fixtures, although a thin layer of dust had accumulated on the table-tops. There was even wood enough for a night’s fire left in a decorated bin beside the hearth. Andrev piled some onto the blaze he’d made earlier, called Fire to the new wood, and bowed his way out.

“He’s very casual about his gifts,” Ostvel remarked as he spooned up the thick soup.

“You would be, too, if you were Andry’s son.” Tilal bit into a slice of cheese. “Not bad—this type’s always better for aging. I just hope Sioneva’s introduction to her talents hasn’t left her frightened or bewildered. Andry was careful, and for that I’ll thank him—“

“If you ever decide to speak to him again,” Ostvel interrupted with a knowing smile.

Tilal grunted inelegantly around a mouthful of soup, swallowed, and said, “I suppose I’ll have to, one of these years. Next summer maybe, at Dragon’s Rest, when Rohan calls everyone together to sort things out.”

“The last time he did, I got Skybowl,” the older man drawled. “Something of a surprise. I hope he doesn’t decide to give me Meadowlord this time.”

The prince choked on his wine. “What?”

“It’d be just like him, you know,” Ostvel went on, enjoy- ing the effect of his statement. There was little else to enjoy about this situation. “In trust for my son Dannar, of course, since he’s the one with royal blood in him, not I. But I have a very uneasy feeling I’m going to be changing residences again. Ah, well. At least it’ll be to a castle that doesn’t turn to ice every year.”

“Turn around and go back to the beginning,” Tilal pleaded.

“Isn’t it obvious? Why aren’t the Vellant’im in Waes? It’s wide open. Even if they suspected a trap, at least they should have foraged for supplies, as you mentioned earlier. But they’ve shunned it as if it oozed poison. Why?”

“They outthought Chay—which has to be a first.”

Ostvel shook his head and poured himself more wine. “No. Not that Chay is infallible—and don’t ever tell him I said so. The truth is that the Vellant’im were warned.” He smiled mirthlessly as the green eyes rounded.

“But they couldn’t have known we’d—“

“Couldn’t they? There’s nothing to stop them coming here and taking what they want—lolling here all winter in these very rooms, if they pleased. You and I couldn’t have gotten here any faster than we did—which means they had ample time to strip the place. But it hasn’t even been touched. They were told not to come here at all.”

“Chiana.” The name was a hiss.

“Chiana,” Ostvel agreed. “Rialt suspected her—or rather his very perceptive lady did—almost the instant they got to Swalekeep. Chiana threw a fit when she learned that Waes was open to invasion, supposedly because nothing lay between her and attack from the west. But she also knew that you were coming from the south and I from the north. We are the millstones, Tilal—but the grain is missing.”

The prince looked as if he would throw his wineglass into the fireplace. “She saw the trap and warned them. She’s working with the enemy.”

“She wants Princemarch. More to the point, she wants to enter Castle Crag as its owner. My castle, that my prince gave me and that my son will hold when I’m gone.” He heard the fierceness and made his voice lighter. “So you see that Chiana and Rinhoel will die for high treason, and Meadowlord will be forfeit, and our cherished, sadistic Rohan will probably give the damned place to me next summer.”

Tilal snorted. “Alasen would laugh herself into a seizure if she could hear you complaining!”

“I’ve been surrounded all my life by women who find me hilariously funny,” he replied in an aggrieved tone. “Alasen, Sioned, Tobin, my daughters—you never met my first wife, did you?”

“No, but I’ll bet she’s laughing at you, too, on the night wind.”

“I have every faith that she is.”

They stayed silent until Andrev appeared with a pitcher of hot taze and cups. Tilal roused himself to ask if the boy had eaten and found himself a bed.

“Yes, my lord. Your chambers are ready for you upstairs. We aired them as best we could, but with all this rain...”

“I’m sure they’re fine. Go to bed, Andrev. It’s been a long day.”

“Yes, my lord. I’ll just build up the fire a little.” Again he stooped to put wood on the hearth, and urged the flames higher with famdhi arts.

When he bowed his way out, Tilal said, “No, not shy about it at all, is he? I’m told he knows his sister Tobren’s colors and can speak with her on sunlight. If we ever see any again, I’ll have him report to her and she can tell Rohan all this.”

Ostvel nodded and sipped at his steaming mug. “When Sioned first came to Goddess Keep, she was wary of her gifts. I remember the night she and Cami had to call their first Fire for Andrade. We talked afterward, the three of us—and for Sioned it was in the way of a confession. ‘I always thought I was odd, strange, not like other people,’ she said. ‘But until I came here, I didn’t know it was because I was special.’ “

“My father told me that one night, when she was sitting with him and my mother in the solar at River Run and the fire needed stirring, Sioned lifted a finger and it blazed up. Sunrunner’s Fire, without even thinking about it.” Tilal sighed. “My mother didn’t much like that, or her. She was always ‘your father’s Sunrunner sister’ that we didn’t talk about. I was—oh, six, I suppose—when she married Rohan. Mother was more inclined to mention her after that! Then I went to Stronghold as a squire and saw for myself.”

“The Sunrunner witch,” Ostvel supplied, smiling.

“I’m surprised Mother never used that name.”

“I’ll bet Andry does.”

“Reluctantly,” Tilal reached for the pitcher of taze. “When do you think he’il emerge from Goddess Keep?”

“Sometime after the first battle Andrev is in, I should imagine.”

“Stubborn son of a—“ Tilal laughed suddenly. “Yes, he is a son of a she-dragon, isn’t he?”

“Down to his toes. Tobin’s the only one he still speaks to. I hope she can make him see sense.”

“Well, it’s still my opinion that we don’t need him. We can beat these savages on our own. Andry can either sulk and lose all respect, or he can forgo his conditions and fight beside us and take what credit he can get for it. But either way, we’re going to win.”

Ostvel nodded, though he was thinking, But how much and how many are we going to lose along the way?