The Court of the Storm God was behind them, the trail to Skybowl in front of them. It was Pol’s intent to send the wounded there and continue on with the able-bodied to Feruche. When informed of this during a rest stop, Feylin swung around from salving a blister on Meig-lan’s palm and gaped at him.
“You must be joking! Look at these people—and if you’ve no mind for them, look at their horses!”
“We should have been nearly to Feruche by now,” he argued. “Instead, we’re barely in range of Skybowl.”
“And anyone with eyes to see can understand why!” She turned to glare up at Maarken where he sat his weary stallion. “Will you please explain to him that the rest of us need foolish trifles like sleep and food every so often? And that we’re not going to get them traipsing all over the Desert?”
The Battle Commander gave a shrug. “You seem to be expressing yourself well. Have at it.”
“My lord... ?”
They turned at the sound of Meiglan’s small, hesitant voice. Pol’s eyes softened and he nodded encouragement. “What is it, Meggie?”
“I’m sorry, my lord, but—but I think Lady Feylin is right.” Her fingers clenched around cuts and bruises left by reins on her ungloved palms, and her cheeks were pale beneath her sunburn, but her voice gained in confidence as she spoke. “For the children’s sake, if no one else’s, we ought to rest at Skybowl. If you wish to ride on to Feruche, I’m sure Kazander and his people are fit enough to guard us along the way.”
‘Us?”
“Why, yes, my lord,” she answered, sounding surprised.
Maarken smiled for the first time in days. “She rode all the way from Dragon’s Rest to be at your side. Do you think she’ll let you go off without her now?”
Pol cleared his throat and cast a speculative look at his wife. “Ummm ... that won’t be necessary, my lady. We’ll do as you suggest, and stay a day or two at Skybowl.”
To Rohan, Sioned would have made some sarcastic comment about having to prop his eyelids open with tent stakes before he saw what was in front of him. Meiglan only murmured her thanks to Pol and opened her hands again so Feylin could finish her work.
Later, riding with Maarken at his side, Pol said, “Does Hollis still surprise you sometimes?” His cousin snorted by way of reply. Pol grunted irritably and muttered, “Don’t tell me, I already know. Stupid question.”
They found Walvis and told him everyone would be going to Skybowl. He nodded as if this had been obvious from the first.
“We’ll leave the wounded there, and a small force to guard the approach,” Pol said, thinking aloud. “Would you consider staying?”
“Whatever you like.” He rubbed his thigh, just re-bandaged by Chayla. “I won’t be much use for a while yet.”
“Don’t be silly,” she called from nearby, where she was checking the splints around a warrior’s broken arm. “If you’ll stay off that leg for six or seven days, it’ll be fine. Father, how’s your shoulder?”
“Healing nicely, and no, you may not examine it. Feylin does very good work.” He smiled down at her as she stood and hefted her coffer of medicines. “I’ll see what I can do about finding you a lighter box. I hate to think of you lugging that thing all the Way to Feruche.”
“But I’ll be staying at Skybowl with my patients. Oh, don’t frown at me! They need me.”
Maarken drew himself up in his saddle. “I absolutely forbid it. You’re coming with us to Feruche and that’s final.”
Chayla set her jaw, visibly preparing to do battle. Pol opened his mouth to make it an order of the High Prince—but Walvis spoke first.
“You think you have no patients here who need you? Your grandmother looks so frail she might break. And what about Sioned?”
The very name sobered everyone. Swallowing hard, Pol turned to Chayla. “How is she?”
Dusty golden hair straggled around her face as she shook her head. “Meath stays with her. He tells her when to mount her horse and when to eat and when to sleep—but she doesn’t, of that I’m sure. Jihan and Rislyn ride with her every so often, and she seems pleased to have them near. But she hasn’t spoken a word.”
“Perhaps if I spent some time with her. Told her what we’re doing, that we’re going to take back what’s ours—“
“How?” Maarken asked. “Leave her alone, Pol. She needs time to grieve.”
“What makes you think we have the time?”
“We have nothing but.” Maarken held up one gloved hand, fingers folding in as he made each point. “Arlis and his fleet are trapped by winter storms at New Raetia. Kostas is dead and two seventeen-year-old boys command the army of Syr. Chiana sits in Swalekeep supplying the enemy. Tilal and Ostvel may or may not have to fight her—and the Vellant’im at the same time. Riyan and Tallain have to finish off the Merida before they can join us. What can we do but wait and lick our wounds?”
Pol gazed at Maarken’s fist, closed as if around a sword. But not yet. Not for a long while yet. “I keep having to admit that you’re right,” he said ruefully. “And you’re ordered to remind me of that whenever I start talking nonsense again. But I do know one thing, Maarken. We have only a few battles left in us. Start thinking about how we can bring all the Vellant’im to one place and destroy them. We don’t have the resources left to wage a long war.”
“I agree,” Walvis replied. “A place and a time of our choosing.”
“With all our powers secure and to hand,” Maarken added.
He couldn’t help it. He said. “And how is Andry these days?”
Andry’s brother looked him straight in the eye.”I haven’t the vaguest idea. Why don’t you go Sunrunning and find out for yourself?”
Pol shrugged gracelessly. “No, thanks all the same.”
“You may have to,” Walvis said. “We might need his help.”
“You might,” Pol snapped. “I don’t.” Turning to Maarken again, he said, “When you see Hollis, tell her that I want her and Meath to figure out what happened at Stronghold during the working, and why, and what we can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“There’s a lot we’ll have to ask Sioned. She was in the primary position.”
“There’s a name for it in the Star Scroll—didn’t she tell you? Ruskuvel.”
Tired gray eyes narrowed as he translated it silently: leader, mind, sword. Walvis and Chayla didn’t ask.
“I don’t think you ought to bother her with it,” Maarken said at last.
“Let her be,” Chayla added. “Don’t trouble her with things that have no meaning for her.”
“No meaning?” Pol asked sharply.
“None. She’s in shock, you see—as if she’d lost a limb. Something I’ve noticed since Remagev is that sometimes the wounded believe that an arm or leg is still there. When they look and find it gone, the pain begins anew— in what is no longer there. I think that’s how it is with Sioned. As long as she doesn’t look...” She finished with a helpless shrug.
“Fifteen winters old,” Maarken murmured, shaking his head.
“Coming up on sixteen,” she reminded him with a little smile.
“Yes, and too fast to suit me. Very well, heartling, we’ll wait. But there are things about what happened that only Sioned can say for certain.”
*
Lady Ruala was the mistress of Skybowl and of Fer-uche, her husband Riyan’s castles, and of Elktrap Manor in her own right. None of her residences had a population over two hundred. The influx of refugees from Dor-val, sent across the Long Sand to Skybowl after landing near Tiglath, had strained her resources to their limits. And now Pol had just told her on sunlight that he would be arriving with the combined survivors of Radzyn, Whitecliff, Remagev, and Stronghold.
Ruala didn’t bother asking where she was going to put them all. She bade him be welcome and said she would be ready for him. But when he had left her and she opened her eyes again, she gripped the balustrade stones and wondered what in the Goddess’ Name she was going to do.
“Ruala?” asked a soft voice. “Are you all right, my dear?”
She barely heard Princess Audrite’s question. She was too busy measuring the distance from the crater’s lip to the water with her gaze, trying to calculate whether or not adequate shelters could be erected for—Goddess help her—over a thousand more people. “Ruala?”
She turned to Audrite, her rising panic soothed by the older woman’s calm presence. “They’re coming here. All of them.”
“All?” Brown eyes, beautiful still for all her sixty-seven winters, blinked in startlement. Recovery was instantaneous. “Just so. See to your own people as you need to, and leave the Dorvali to me. We can meet with your steward at midday and begin building something along the shore—“ Suddenly she broke off and made a little gesture of apology. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m behaving as if this were my castle.”
“Without your help thus far, I would have gone quite mad,” Ruala assured her. Graypearl and its port town, ten times the size of all of Ruala’s holdings together, had taught Audrite how to manage vast numbers of people. Besides, it was useful to have the authority of their princess ready when Ruala needed it to deal with the fractious Dorvali merchants.
But near the end of that short and frantic winter day, Ruala found that not even Audrite could move Master Nemthe. Literally. The richest and most influential of the silk merchants, he flatly refused to see his family turned out of the chamber allotted them.
“He says, my lady,” reported Ruala’s steward in a voice shaking with anger, “that he sees no reason why he ought to give way for soldiers who failed in their duty to protect Stronghold.”
Audrite’s fine eyes narrowed dangerously. “It was a mistake to give him so large a chamber, but I thought it might make him less vocal in his complaints. I’ll talk to him, Ruala.”
“No, but thank you,” Ruala said. She folded a parchment diagram detailing the placement of shelters around the lake and handed it to the steward. “I’ve relied on you too much. And there’s more than one way to hood a hawk.”
She had a good idea of where Nemthe would be: in his assigned chamber, once more adding up and moaning over what he had lost. Because Ruala and her husband were close to Pol, she had thus far been treated to seven recitations of Nemthe’s woes. Each estimate of loss increased until she was beginning to realize that his claim to reparations would eventually total the yearly incomes of the Desert and Princemarch combined.
But Ruala did not immediately climb the stairs to Nemthe’s room. She went instead to the inner garden, where many Dorvali exiles could be found every afternoon sighing over their plight. Ruala didn’t blame them; they’d lost everything but their lives, and she supposed they found some comfort in communal misery. At least the daily gathering had the advantage of keeping them and their complaints in one place and out of everyone else’s way.
She made her way through knots of children playing with toys her steward had found in an old coffer upstairs. Eventually she spotted her quarry, who sat in the shade of an awning with his fellow silk merchants. Master Tor-michin’s pure white hair wreathed a face of grandfatherly benevolence and a mind of singular ambition. No fool, Ruala intended to use the former to engage the latter— for his ambition was to outwit his rival Nemthe at every possible turn.
Not all the men rose when she approached. Ruala wasn’t offended. Unlike most highborns living in remote castles, her experience of commoners was not limited to her servants. All her life she had known the proud and independent folk who lived in the Great Veresch and came sometimes to spend a few days at Elktrap Manor with her grandfather, Lord Garic. The merchants of Dor-val, though independent due to wealth and not isolation, were akin to the people of the Veresch in spirit if not tradition.
She distributed a polite smile among them, then made her green eyes their widest and sweetest. Trying this trick at the age of thirty-seven—really, you’re getting too old for it, she chided herself. It doesn’t work anymore on men under sixty. Thank the Goddess that Tormichin is nearly eighty!
“Have you any idea where Master Nemthe is?” she asked the old man. “I’ve been trying to find him and I just can’t. It’s most vexing.”
Mention of his rival took some of the charm from his face. “I don’t keep track of him, my lady. Have you tried his chamber?”
“Oh, of course he’d be there! My thanks, Master Tormichin—I’m just not thinking straight these days.”
“And small wonder, dear Lady Ruala,” he said kindly. “You’ve done the work of fifty ever since we descended on you.”
“It’s the least I can do. I—“ She broke off and swayed a little on her feet as if exhaustion had finally overcome her.
“My lady!” Master Tormichin exclaimed, and rose to lend her a large, square hand in support. She righted herself, leaning on his arm. “There, better now? You’ve been doing much too much,” he scolded. “Let someone else worry about that idiot Nemthe for you.”
“I must speak to him right away.” She drew away from him, leaving one hand delicately on his arm. “I haven’t time for a silly faint—“
“Then allow me to accompany you, my lady,” he offered.
“Would you?” Turning the full force of her eyes on him, she made a mental note to tell Chay that whenever he had dealings with this man in the future, he should send a pretty woman.
Tormichin gallantly escorted her inside, past the ornately framed mirror that had belonged to Riyan’s mother, and to the stairs. He chatted about this and that, working in a compliment or two for the color of her eyes—“Green as the pearl coves at twilight, and concealing even sweeter treasure.” When they reached Nemthe’s chamber, Tormichin pounded a fist on the door.
“Open up! The Lady Ruala is honoring you with a visit!”
Nemthe appeared at once, scowling, ink stains on his fingers confirming her guess about his obsession. Dark eyes glared suspiciously at Tormichin, though he bowed politely enough to Ruala.
“My lady. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She walked into the room—this was her castle, after all—and turned to face him, hands clasped before her. “I’ve come to ask you to reconsider, Master Nemthe. There are so many people coming from Stronghold—“
“Impossible, my lady. Look at this—this closet!” He waved an arm to indicate the accommodations—two beds, four rolled-up pallets on the floor, a table, two chairs, and three narrow windows overlooking the lake. “It’s outrage enough that my wife and daughters have no privacy, but to have my apprentices in here with us— apprentices, mind you, who used to sleep in the kitchen—“ He snorted. “As if I was no better than an apprentice myself, crammed in here and compelled to eat from the common stewpot!”
“I’m sorry for that,” Ruala murmured, meaning it— though not in the way Nemthe interpreted. Skybowl’s cook was increasingly distraught as his stores dwindled with so many mouths to feed and more coming. She had sent to Elktrap, but it would be days before supplies arrived.
“Our friends from Dorval are very important to us—“ she went on, then stopped as if fearing she’d said something offensive. Nothing could have been further from the truth. These silk merchants knew full well the value of their goods and their good will. Ruala bit back an untimely giggle as Nemthe almost preened, and added hastily, “For friendship’s sake alone, my lord husband and I are pleased to offer our keep for your comfort— even though it’s so small...”
“Yes,” Nethme said frankly. “It is.” Tormichin’s jaw had dropped long since. Now he picked it up and drew breath to do battle. Ruala gave a helpless sigh and sank down in the nearest chair, preparing to watch the old man do the rest of her work for her. “Do you mean to tell me, you ungrateful swine, that you refuse to move your lazy carcass out of this room? How dare you! After the gracious kindness shown you by this sweet lady, the welcome she gave us—“
“What could she do—turn us away?” Nemthe asked bluntly. “Here I am and here I remain! I won’t give over to a passel of common soldiers who lost a fight they should have won! Do you expect my wife and daughters to sleep in the stables or the caves at Threadsilver? They’ve suffered enough!” Ruala made note of the cave idea. Tormichin was so angry his fringe of white hair seemed to bristle. “You selfish, thieving—what do you know about suffering? And how dare you try to cheat those brave, wounded—”
“Give up your own snug tower room, then! And how dare you accuse me of theft! Feeble-minded old whoreson—“
Ruala almost shook her head in amazement. How either of them could imagine the wounded climbing up all these stairs was beyond her.
Present animosity had been forgotten in favor of old grievances. Tormichin snarled, “Thief! I know damned well you switched that figured blue silk of mine for your own inferior goods in 722, and then passed off mine as your own!”
“A lie! And don’t think I don’t know who was responsible for that leak in my warehouse roof in 728! A hundred bolts of my finest, ruined beyond—“
“Oh, please!” Ruala exclaimed, jumping to her feet. Belatedly recalling her chosen role, she gripped the back of the chair as if to keep herself upright and said, “Master Nemthe, Master Tormichin, they’ll be here by tomorrow morning! What am I to do?”
“With this room, nothing,” Nemthe snapped, then remembered to whom he spoke and tacked on a quick, “—my lady.”
Tormichin advanced on him, looking nothing like a grandfather now. Ruala considered him a splendid model for a stained glass of the Storm God.
“You conniving filth, you’ll leave this room if I have to carry you out of it myself! And your whining wife and three ugly daughters along with you!”
Nemthe sucked in a breath. Ruala said swiftly, “I’m sure Lord Maarken will be most grateful if you would give up your room to him, Master Nemthe.”
It was a name only slightly less momentous than Chay’s as far as these men were concerned. And it had nothing to do with Maarken’s position as Battle Commander; he was the heir to Radzyn, and Radzyn controlled the silk trade.
Nemthe’s throat worked convulsively, as if trying to swallow a large lump of something exceedingly vile. Through gritted teeth he managed, “I would be— happy—to vacate this chamber for Lord Maarken, my lady.” It was clear that no one else would be acceptable.
“And I mine, for Lord Chaynal,” Tormichin added smoothly, and Nemthe’s expression positively curdled.
“Oh, thank you,” Ruala said in a rush, and made her exit. Quickly.
Rohan’s law! she told herself as she hurried to her own chambers where she could laugh herself silly. Never do yourself what you can get someone else to do for you!
By early evening the tale of Nemthe’s recalcitrance had spread. Not wishing to be seen in the same shameful light, the others were falling all over themselves vying for which highborn would get their chambers. Ruala’s steward had promised Walvis and Feylin four times, and young Prince Daniv at least six.
“Lovely,” Audrite sighed happily as they sat over taze that night. “I admit I wondered why you bothered with that old fool Tormichin. You gained something else, too, I think. Nemthe only said what they’re all thinking about why Stronghold was lost. But after the way he said it, none of the others will mention it for fear of sounding like him.”
Ruala propped a foot on her chair, rubbing at a scuff on her boot. “That’s just it. They are all thinking it— and at some point Pol’s going to hear it. Will the Vellant-‘im march on Skybowl next? Can he keep us safe?” Hesitating a moment, she darted a glance at the older woman and said, “I hope Nemthe does say something to Pol.”
Chadric, who had been listening in silence, turned from the windows. “You want us to leave,” he said softly.
“No! Not you.” Ruala shook her head firmly. “You’re not afraid. But they are—and there’s no room for their kind of fear in this war.”
“It’s not their fault. They feel helpless.” He shrugged tired shoulders. “I understand that.”
“So do I,” she admitted. “They’ve lost what they had. I’m still in possession of what’s mine—and I intend to keep it. But I can’t concentrate on that if I’m worried with feeding them and keeping them from each other’s throats. It sounds cold, but there it is.”
“It’s only practical, my dear,” Chadric told her.
“They’ll be safer elsewhere, anyway. Let Nemthe offend with his accusations and demands. If I know Pol, he’ll make it impossible for Nemthe to do anything but leave, and make him think it was all his own doing.”
“I think you misjudge Pol’s subtlety,” Audrite cautioned. “Dearly as I love him, he’s not his father.”
“Then we’ll have to do it for him.” She stretched the knotted muscles of her neck and sighed. “Oh, by the way, I do owe Master Nemthe for what might be a good idea. What about using some of the caves at Thread-silver? They’re not convenient to the keep, but they’re snug and can hold quite a few people.”
Chadric exchanged a smile with his wife. When Ruala looked puzzled, he said, “You’ve never read Lady Meri-sel’s histories? During their less successful years, the Sunrunners hid out with the Isulk’im in dragon caves all through these hills.”
“Put Lord Kazander and his people in Threadsilver,” Audrite suggested. “They’ll feel right at home!”
*
Rihani knew he must have fallen off his horse in the middle of battle; he could think of no other reason why he was flat on his back when there was work to be done. Killing to be done. His cloak wrapped him in soggy folds—damn the Vellant’im for attacking in the rain— and he struggled against it, trying to rise. His wounded thigh ached, but not too badly. What defeated him was a terrible weariness that made him fear he’d received some other hurt. What was it he’d heard at Catha Heights about head injuries? They could make one sleepy, and one must not sleep or one might never waken again—
He forced his eyes open. Light hurt, dim and faraway as it was. It must be nearing dusk. When had he fallen? Turning his head, he froze at the sight of a dark face, brown of hair and eye, and with a straggly beard. With a cry of fear and hate he flailed out at the man, the enemy, the murderer of his father’s brother.
The man saw the blow coming a measure off and evaded it easily. “Rihani! Come on now, your fever’s gone. I thought you’d given up hitting anything you could reach.”
“Saumer?” he breathed, then collapsed back into the pillows. The face above him was as familiar as his own, but for the one alteration. “When did you grow that?”
“What? Oh, this.” Saumer grinned and stroked his upper lip. “There hasn’t been time to shave. Besides, you should see your own. Can you sit up? They tell me you ought to eat something.”
The thought made him queasy. “No—not just yet.” But he did push himself upright, and was exhausted by the effort. When his vision cleared of tiny black dots, he looked around. He lay in an ironwork bed set in the corner of a wide, tapestried chamber. A candle branch burned on a far table where a servant girl sat sewing. It was all very placid and pretty, but he had no idea where he was.
Saumer saw his confusion in his face. “River Run. You don’t remember?”
Rihani shook his head. Lank brown hair fell into his eyes and he pushed it away, suddenly aware of how filthy and sweaty he was. “You said I’d had a fever. How long?”
“Since yesterday morning, when Prince Kostas’ ashes blew into the river. Don’t you remember that, either?”
“I think so.” He frowned. “You wanted me to take fire to him myself—“
“Kinsman, and senior prince present,” Saumer agreed. “But you dragged me with you anyway. We stood with him all night, the army all around us, and his people here and from the keep at River View. I thought for a while that it was going to rain—it wouldn’t have mattered if we’d had Sunrunner’s Fire for the burning, but—anyway, in the morning the wind came up and blew you over.”
Rihani remembered some of it now, mostly the early part of the night. When he’d lit the four corners of Kos-tas’ shroud, it had been as if fire had ignited in him, too. He remembered locking every joint in his body to keep standing—and how the fire had seeped through him all during the night until by dawn it burned his bones to ashes, too.
“And here you’ve been ever since, flat on your back in bed,” Saumer concluded. “Sure you don’t want something to eat? It’s good soup.”
“Goddess, no!” Rihani exclaimed, which made his friend laugh.
“If you’re strong enough to yell, you must be getting better. Which is a good thing, because I’m going to have to leave soon.”
“Where to? And why just you and not me?”
“Because you’re going to High Kirat and tell your aunt Danladi exactly what happened. I sent another messenger to tell her about the burning, but I think you ought to go stay with her for a little while. Let her ask the things she can’t ask of a stranger.” Saumer’s broad-boned, pleasant face had hardened past his seventeen winters; with the beard on his cheeks and the experience of battle in his eyes, he looked twice his true age. Rihani suddenly knew what he was thinking—that there had been no one to answer Saumer’s own questions about his parents’ murder on Kierst-Isel.
Still... “I’m not going. If you can’t wait until I’m well enough to ride, then I’ll catch up with you later. My uncle left both of us in charge of his armies, and—“
“And nothing. I’m leaving, you’re staying—and then you’re riding to High Kirat, not back into war. Like as not, you’d open that wound again.”
“You’re not the senior prince here—as you pointed out! I am. And—“
“Don’t wave your heir-to-Ossetia banner at me!” Saumer warned. “I may be the lowly younger brother of the ruling Prince of Kierst-Isel, but I’m a damned sight better at war than you are!”
There; it was out in the open at last. Rihani had to steel himself from a cringe of shame. There had been a skirmish on the way to River Run. When a Vellanti raiding party had appeared a measure away, Rihani froze— but Saumer had instantly organized a force to meet them. Although he’d participated in the fight—had been terrified not to—he’d hated every moment of it, every drop of enemy blood that he later cleaned from his sword.
He had tried to communicate some of this to Saumer late that night. They had sat alone over a small fire, sharing confidences as they’d done for years now as Kos-tas’ squires, as friends. Though Saumer had tried to understand, he was neither ashamed of his warrior’s skills nor of enjoying the use of them in battle.
“It’s a good occupation for an extra prince,” he’d explained with a shrug. “Leading his elder brother’s armies, if necessary—and if they trust each other! I’d planned to ask Arlis if I could go to Remagev after my knighting, to learn about this Medr’im idea and adapt it to Kierst-Isel. Goddess knows we still have people along the old border who need watching.”
“I wonder if my little brother Sorin will turn out like you,” Rihani had mused, absently rubbing his bandaged thigh. “It sounds like a good partnership you’ve got with Arlis. I hope Sorin and I can work together the same way.”
“My brother and I wrote back and forth about it quite a bit. I wish I knew how he’s doing...” Saumer gave another shrug. “Don’t worry too much about what happened today. It’s not your future role, leading armies.”
“Goddess, I hope not.”
“You could do it if you had to. You’ve shown that. But it’s not what you were meant for.” Saumer poked at the fire with a twig. “The guts of it is that I don’t particularly want to risk my life and my troops, but I do it, and try not to think too much about it. Thinking is the duty of a ruling prince, not his little brother.”
Arlis’ little brother was very good at war. They both knew it; now Saumer had just said so aloud.
He leaned over the bed and put a hand on Rihani’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“But it’s true,” he rasped. “I’m no good at this. I never will be.”
“No good? You’ve killed at least as many Vellant’im as I have, and probably more that you don’t even remember with the heat of battle-blood in you.”
“So what?” Rihani asked wearily. “I’m frightened when it begins, I’m frightened while it happens, I’m frightened when it’s over. I know you’re scared, too. Everybody is. But the fire doesn’t strengthen me the way it does you, Saumer. It burns me alive. I do what I have to, I kill very nicely, thank you — but when it’s all over, all I want to do is curl in a corner somewhere and throw up.”
“I did,” Saumer admitted frankly. “The first battle after we left High Kirat. I thought my stomach would turn inside out.”
“Has it happened since?” Rihani shook his head. “You’re used to it by now. I’m not.” He hesitated, and decided against adding, And I don’t ever want to be. Sliding down into sheets damp with fever-sweat, he closed his eyes. “I’ll do as you say. I’ll go to Aunt Danladi and give what comfort I can. Lead Syr’s armies. Much better you than I.”
*
Skybowl, though not exactly transformed overnight, was not the quiet and well-ordered keep Pol remembered. A small village of makeshift tents and shelters had been erected along the lakeshore.
“They look comfortable enough,” he observed to Ka-zander as they paused on the crater’s crest.
“More so if they’d built on the leeside, my prince,” the young man replied.
“There isn’t one. Wind circles here like wine swirled in a cup, and in any direction it pleases.” He looked over his shoulder at the Desert spread out below, then back down to the perfect roundness of the lake. Here, the night after his birth, he had been Named—the night
Roelstra died beneath Sioned’s woven dome of starfire, Rohan’s sword in his throat. The sword Pol now carried.
Abruptly his head lifted, at the same instant as Maarken’s. A familiar quiver stroked the edge of his senses, skittered around his mind.
Dragons.
They darkened the sky a moment later, nine of them, casting shadows with their wings. Azhdeen flew point, bellowing what amounted to an announcement of his royal presence and a summons into it. Pol slid from the saddle, knees nearly buckling with weariness, and scrambled across the rough stones. His dragon landed neatly on an outcropping of rock and growled his usual permission to come closer.
“Come to make sure I’m still in one piece?” Pol asked, starting forward. “I see you’ve brought company this time.”
In fact, six human-owning dragons had come to Skybowl this afternoon. Abisel poised nearby, humming a welcome at Hollis. She dismounted quickly and ran toward the dragon, her tawny gold hair shining like a beacon against outspread wings. Maarken had withdrawn a little way, waiting politely for the gorgeous black-and-silver Pavisel to refresh herself at the lake. Pol recognized Sadalian, Riyan’s dragon, by his black underwings as he rose on an updraft; red-gold Azhly flew over the castle, calling out to Ruala. Pol’s heart ached a little as he saw Morwenna’s Elidi turn abruptly on a wingtip and start back along the line of people trudging up the road to the crater’s lip. The one she looked for, she would not find.
The three other dragons—a young blue-black female and two reddish males—circled overhead, bleating for notice. Azhdeen lifted his head and roared. They beat nervous wings, then landed on the shore a respectful distance from their elders to assuage the thirst of the long flight from the Catha Hills.
“Who are your friends? Did you bring them for a reason, or were they just curious?” Pol rubbed the delicate hide around the dragon’s nostrils, and was rewarded with a gusting sigh of pleasure. “Should I be flattered that you’re so worried about me, or is it just that you’ve come to guard your property?” He stroked the sinuous neck, smiling. “Ah, I know—you’ve come in the hope that I’ll provide you with an army of humans to bow down to you again.”
A new voice called out from high overhead. Pol glanced up and saw a little russet dragon glide over the crater to settle not fifty paces from Sioned. Elisel was twenty-one winters old, slow now on easily wearied wings. Her hide had lost some of its suppleness, and her gold underwings some of their luster, her eyes some of their sharpness. Pol watched, hardly breathing, as Elisel stretched out her long neck and crooned. Perhaps the dragon could do what humans could not. Perhaps Sioned would respond to her.
Azhdeen rumbled impatiently, drawing Pol’s full attention again. “What is it, my friend? If there’s something you want to tell me, please do it gently. I’m not as young as I was a few days ago.”
He felt the gathering of colors that flickered just out of his reach. Dragons were usually very careful after the first time of contact that left their fragile humans stunned unconscious by their power. Pol relaxed into the beginnings of communion—only to be thrust out of it by the cry of another dragon.
His head spun and he leaned heavily against Azhdeen’s neck. “Goddess,” he choked, “what happened?” The support was suddenly gone, and he stumbled into a thick shoulder, then down onto the ground.
Elidi was back, wings spread and talons extended as if she were another sire challenging Azhdeen to combat. Her tail lashed and she reached out to cuff the larger dragon, snarling at him. Azhdeen bore it with amazing aplomb; he neither hit back nor snapped, nor so much as growled. Elidi cried out again, with a pleading note in her voice this time. And all at once Pol understood. She had looked for Morwenna and had not found her. Now she was demanding that Azhdeen explain.
The implications throttled thought. All he could do was push himself to his feet and stand there gaping at the two dragons. When Azhdeen surrounded him in color and picture and emotion, he responded helplessly.
Morwenna. Stronghold. Fear. Sorrow. Rage. Fire. Death-Each word called into his mind brought a flashing picture with it. Azhdeen released him and again he lost his footing. Blind and mute, he dug his fingers into gritty ash and cringed as Elidi screamed, mourning her dead. “My lord? Can you hear?”
“Pol! Look at me!”
“Pol—oh, my lord, please—“
Somebody helped him upright; somebody else wrapped damp cold cloths around his hands. His knees wilted for a moment before he consciously locked them. “Open your mouth and drink this.” He recognized Feylin’s voice—Feylin, who was scared of dragons. He didn’t know whether to be amused that she’d conquered her fear to come to him—so close to a dragon—or alarmed that she’d felt it necessary.
Strong wine spilled down his throat, burning a path to his empty belly. He coughed and shook his head, staggering against the strong arm gripping his shoulders.
“There, that’s better,” Feylin said. Pol saw her then, a hazy outline that swiftly solidified in the late afternoon sun. “Talk to me,” she ordered.
“You’d like a speech?” he rasped. “Goddess! What in all Hells was that?”
“If you mean the wine, it’s a little something Kazand-er’s people brew from cactus juice. If you mean about the dragons—“
Turning his head, he saw that it was Kazander holding him steady. “My thanks to you—I think.” He ran his tongue around his teeth; his whole mouth felt burned.
A grin appeared below the black mustache. “Cures everything from battle wounds to a broken heart. Are you sound now, my lord? Can you walk?”
“Let’s not be too hasty.” He looked down at his hands. They had been bound in soft blue lace, for all the world like that of a lady’s undertunic.
“You cut your hands up pretty badly,” Feylin remarked, stoppering the wineskin and handing it back to Kazander.
“Ah—yes, I remember. What happened to the dragons?”
“After Azhdeen backed up enough for us to get near and take care of you, he led them all off into the hills. Gone hunting, I suspect. They didn’t drink much, which means they didn’t want to get too water-heavy to fly. It’s a long way from the Catha Hills and they looked hungry.”
“I meant what happened with Elidi.”
“Morwenna’s little blue-gray? She flew south.”
“To Stronghold,” Pol murmured.
“Sioned’s dragon is still here.”
He followed her gesture to a most incredible sight. Sioned and Meath were walking slowly around the lake toward the keep, alone but for the dragon that kept quiet pace with them.
“Your Azhdeen called to her several times, but she wouldn’t leave Sioned’s side.” Feylin shrugged. “I hope the others bring something back for her. She looks exhausted, poor thing.”
“My lord? Pol?”
He glanced around and for the first time noticed his wife. If Feylin was afraid of dragons, Meiglan was terrified of them. Yet she too had come to him, and near Azhdeen. His heart turned over and he felt his throat tighten. She was pale and big-eyed and looked perhaps fifteen years old, her clothes rumpled where she had pulled the shirt from her belt. Belatedly he recognized the color and pattern of the lace that bandaged his hands.
“I’m perfectly all right, my darling,” he told her, and put his arms around her. “Don’t worry.”
“Azhdeen wouldn’t let us near you until Meiglan came with us,” Feylin said.
“One mighty dragon recognized the mate of the other,” Kazander added with a little bow. “Of course, her grace’s beauty is famed throughout the princedoms— why should not the dragons know of it, too?”
Pol laughed—and regretted it as the top of his head nearly came off.
“And there’s your dragon headache, right on schedule.” Feylin grinned. “Can you make it to the keep, or shall we carry you?”
“I’ll walk,” he said firmly. Meiglan got her shoulder under his arm and they started for the keep.
“Do you really think Azhdeen knows me?” she whispered.
“I’ve shown you to him often enough as my mate,” he teased, brushing a kiss to her hair. “You could probably pet him, next time we see him.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” she confessed. “Besides, he’s your dragon, Pol.”
“Not at all. I’m his human. And I have a suspicion that he includes you and the girls among his possessions. You’re my mate and they’re my hatchlings.” He saw Ruala coming toward them and lifted his free hand in greeting.
“Welcome, Princess Meiglan,” she said with a smile. Then, to Pol: “You certainly do know how to make an entrance, my lord. The Azhrei, complete with an escort of dragons.”
His vision began to blur again, and the pounding in his head took on a rhythm and intensity that reminded him of smashing glass ingots at Remagev. “Ruala,” he managed, “please—don’t call me that...”
“Kazander!” Feylin’s voice came from very far away. “Catch him, he’s going to fall over!”
“No, I’m not,” Pol said, and then did just that.