A warrior’s discipline was a valuable thing. Not because it made his commanders grovel before him (though it did) and not because it kept the many diverse clan-kin factions of his armies from each other’s throats (though it mostly did).
Discipline’s purest expression meant that he was obeyed without question.
Occasionally he wished in a secret portion of his mind for a dissenting voice, an intelligent objection—a whetstone against which he might hone his ideas. It was a vain hope. No one ever gainsaid him. Practically speaking, he would be compelled to slit the throat of any who did. In the absence of intellectual equals, he had learned to appreciate the subservience of smaller men with smaller minds. It was efficient. He was obeyed, even if at times he felt strangely lonely.
His father had taught him early to make certain no one approached him on a level more intimate than that of servant to master. There were distinctions of manner and bearing; he knew how to use the physical accoutrements of power and wealth. His clothing, though plainly cut, was of rich material and fine stitchery. The earring that swung close to his jaw was an uncut diamond the size of his thumbnail, bound in gold, with three faceted pendant rubies below. The wristlets reaching halfway to each elbow were no more elaborate in design than those of his senior commanders, but they were unmistakably made of gold, not mere brass kept well-polished.
His one deviation from his father’s teachings was in his sword. His position should have been indicated by a jewel-encrusted hilt and scabbard. But such a weapon would have been impractical in battle, and he was if nothing else an accomplished warrior. His blade was a plain one, and flawless.
He should also have worn a distinguishing badge at his shoulder and decorations on his helm to distinguish his lineage. But the first of his wives—a fiercely beautiful woman who bore him five sons before dying in childbed of the sixth—had told him that he must wear no clan-kin sign at all. “If you claim none, you may claim all,” she said, and he agreed.
This notion had impressed him. After she died, scant days before he sailed to war, he had acted on her wisdom. If he claimed none, he would claim all. And to claim everything—from leadership of his people to their very lives—was his right and intention.
So he did a simple thing. For any warrior, it was desecration; for the High Warlord of All Vellant’im, sacrilege. But the day before the priest begged for and received the Storm Father’s permission to sail, he had stood before his assembled armies and with his own sword in a steady hand committed the outrage.
Thus it was that alone of the entire Vellanti host, he wore no beard.
If he claimed no specific kills, he could claim them all. Unfortunately, it worked the same way with battles. Present at none, he was responsible for all. Fortunately, his warriors didn’t see it that way.
The failure to secure Kierst-Isel was the fault of the commander there. The humiliations of Remagev and Lower Pyrme—both keeps rife with lethal deadfalls— were not laid to his account. The rout at Goddess Keep was blamed, quite rightly, on the evil spells of the Sunrunners. And as for Faolain Lowland, and the Fire-dragon that had scattered brave warriors like rice chaff before the wind...
Ah, that one rankled. He must do something about that, and quickly. Dragons who appeared and vanished at command were more dangerous to discipline than the combined armies of all the princedoms.
His mind worked at the problem during the days and nights spent waiting for the flames at Stronghold to burn out. Mildly irked at first that he would not be able to quarter his men there and move his headquarters from Radzyn, he grew more and more angry after days of no perceptible change in the intensity of the blaze.
His commanders were growing nervous. He marveled in contempt that it had taken them this long to recognize that it was no ordinary fire, to consume every wooden rafter and tapestry cloth and seemingly even the mortar between the stones, and yet burn still.
Those ordered to brave the flames came back singed and terrified. They told of vines like scorched fingers scrabbling up walls, of gardens that grew food and gardens meant for pleasure that were seas of waist-high flame. They told of window glass that had shattered long since and melted to molten puddles. The furniture was nothing but blackened sticks. The very tiles on the floor of the Great Hall were awash in fire.
With great fear in their eyes, they told of the body lying near the stream, and how it, too, was shrouded in flame long after skin and flesh and even the larger bones had charred down to ash. Stronghold burned, though logic asserted that there was nothing left to burn.
He thought he detected a certain delicate hand— though his commanders would have gaped had he mentioned his belief that the Fire was hers. For the length of his life he had heard tales brought back by those who traveled to this wide land of Sunrunners and princes. Her beauty was praised, her intelligence respected—and her power feared. The sight of her castle burning day after day didn’t surprise him. Indeed, he found it elegantly appropriate. There was a terrible beauty in the flames; their creation was the act of a highly intelligent mind; their power, even after five long days, was unabated.
He stood just outside his tent at dusk, watching Fire that consumed but did not die, and told himself it had to stop sometime. But when?
Summoning a guard with a flick of one finger, he ordered a mount saddled.
“I obey, my lord.” The man hesitated. “Does my lord wish a particular—“
“Any horse, and be quick about it.”
“I obey, my lord.”
He signed. Immediately as his commands were carried out, he did grow weary of having to do all the thinking. Even when questions were ventured, they were always stupid ones. What did it matter which horse he rode?
Even so, he knew very well that had the guard asked an intelligent question—where he planned to go, or why—the presumption would have cost him his tongue. The guard knew it, too. They all did.
*
In a way, Ruala was glad that every chair in her solar was occupied. If for one instant she allowed something other than her own legs to support her, she wouldn’t stand up again for three days. Possibly four.
The highborns of eight princedoms had gathered here. Maarken and Walvis and Kazander of the Desert; Cha-dric and Audrite of Dorval; Daniv, so recently become ruling Prince of Syr; Sethric, who was Velden of Grib’s nephew; Dannar and Jeni of Castle Crag, her husband Riyan’s half-siblings; Isriam, heir to Fessenden’s great port of Einar; Kierun of Lower Pyrme in Gilad; and Meiglan, daughter of Miyon of Cunaxa. Skybowl had never seen so much distinguished company. Watching from the doorway as the squires served taze and the last of the fresh fruit, Ruala could have sworn they were all simply guesting here, not sheltering from an invading army.
But as their conversations took on meaning in her tired mind, she heard things that meant war and danger and strategy, things alien to this quiet, pleasant room.
“... and says Ludhil and the mountain folk are stinging them like a swarm of insects—my scholarly son, leading an army! I never would have thought...”
“... what that fool Cabar is doing just sitting there at Medawari...”
“... heard yet from Tallain and Riyan up north, perhaps tomorrow...”
“... the same about my Rohannon, taking charge of New Raetia after Volog died and before Arlis could get there. Fifteen winters old!”
“... be getting ready to leave River Run. I wish they had a Sunrunner with them to scout the area and give them accurate numbers...”
“... and poor Father, knee-deep in the rain outside Swalekeep...”
“... dragons seem to be settled in for the duration— last time I looked, all but Sioned’s Elisel were fast asleep!”
“... crush the Merida and the Cunaxans with them, while Miyon sits at Dragon’s Rest innocent as a—“
“Hush! Do you want Meiglan to hear you?”
“... what you think, Lord Kazander. Lure them from here by taking all but what seems a token force to Fer-uche—make them think Skybowl isn’t worth defending, so they’ll pass it by. The problem is hiding the troops we do leave here. I can’t—“
“Threadsilver Canyon,” Ruala heard herself say. Sethric looked around at the interruption, then began to nod, hazel eyes shining below a headful of thick, dark brown curls.
“The dragon caves?” Maarken asked.
Jeni elbowed her brother and he immediately vacated his own chair for their brother’s wife. Ruala smiled at him and shook her head. Dannar gave her a stern look so reminiscent of both Riyan and Ostvel that she went almost meekly to the offered seat. Her limbs turned boneless and she knew she’d been right; she would not be getting up again for quite a while.
“And stay there,” Dannar added firmly.
“Threadsilver Canyon,” Sethric murmured, then ran a hand from his forehead halfway to his nape—his fingers tangling in the mass of hair—and jumped to his feet. “Daniv, Isriam, let’s go take a look.”
They joined him at the door, Daniv saying, “It’s still twilight, we’ll only need a torch on the way back.”
Jeni rose quickly. “Take me and you won’t need a torch at all.” She held out one hand, and a tiny fin-gerflame rose from her palm.
“Show-off,” muttered her little brother. “Goddess be merciful,” Maarken groaned. “If you’re determined to be so energetic—and so damned young— then do it someplace else!”
“And take a torch anyway!” Audrite called, and sighed as the door closed behind them. “Should they be out this late? It’ll be dark soon.”
“They’ll be safe enough. And it gives them something to do,” Walvis said with a shrug. “Better their young bones than my old ones. That’s a good idea about the caves, Ruala.”
At Meiglan’s silent prompting, her squire Kierun approached Ruala with a steaming cup of taze. She thanked him and drank deeply. “Sethric says you’ll leave enough soldiers here to protect us if the Vellant’im attack. I appreciate the thought, but you’re going to need everyone if you plan to fight them at Feruche. I assume that’s the idea.”
Maarken said slowly, “It would be nice if we could fool them into thinking Skybowl isn’t worth bothering to defend. But they’ve wanted every other castle in the Desert. Why should this be the exception?” He stretched wearily, a bone in his shoulder cracking. “We’ll put enough people in Threadsilver just in case. Don’t worry about us up in Feruche. After Riyan and Tallain finish the Merida, they’ll come join us there.”
“And then,” Kazander added with a wolfish grin, “we obliterate them.”
“To such victories do we all aspire.” Audrite raised her cup.
Ruala glanced across the room to Meiglan. “Is Pol feeling any better?”
“He’s sleeping now. He always does after Azhdeen talks with him.”
Maarken shook his head. “That great beast of his always leaves him staggering. Pavisel is so delicate with me, you’d think I was made of Fironese crystal. How about you, Ruala? No headache?”
“Feylin gave me something to take the edge off.”
Meiglan was frowning. “Why is it that Pol—I mean, the rest of you don’t have the same trouble, my lord.”
“Soft skull,” Walvis said with a snort, then chuckled. “No, it’s more like the meeting of two great princes— equally powerful and equally stubborn—who, though they’re friends, tend to bruise each other a bit.”
“Pol’s not the only one who gets bruised,” Ruala observed. “I think it has to do with the sex of our dragons. My Azhly is a sire, too. So is Abisel, and it takes Hollis a while to recover. And Sadalian was a perfect brute before Riyan finally got it across that drowning him in color wasn’t the best way to communicate.”
“I never thought of it that way,” Maarken said musingly. “Elisel is very tender of Sioned, I know, and Mor-wenna always says—“ He broke off.
“Do you think Elidi flew to Stronghold?” Meiglan asked.
“I think it quite probable. She might even be there now.”
“Not yet,” Walvis corrected with a glance at the water clock in the corner. “She didn’t stop to drink or feed. She must be exhausted.”
Kierun spoke up for the first time. “Lady Ruala, who was that man who was shouting when the lamb was killed for Princess Sioned’s dragon?”
The breath hissed through Chadric’s teeth. “Master Nemthe, I’ll take oath on it. And I’ll take his tongue from his mouth if he opens it just once more.”
The squire looked taken aback at such words from this kindly old man. “I’m sorry, your grace, I know I’m very stupid, but I don’t understand why he was so angry.”
Ruala stared at her shoes. Kierun lived at Dragon’s Rest where a flock was kept specifically for the dragons. Of course he didn’t understand.
“You’re not stupid at all, Kierun,” Audrite said. “He was angry because he thought we fed Elisel at the expense of tomorrow’s dinner.”
“But—it was for a dragon!”
Neither did the boy understand food supplies. Even after the long siege at Stronghold, it was incomprehensible to him that there might not be enough to eat. Ruala traded a glance with Audrite; what had been brought today would provide one meal, perhaps two. No more.
Maarken saw the look and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. But Kazander was the one who spoke.
“The hills are very fine hereabouts, my lady. I have a whim to go hunting tomorrow,” he said, as casually as if it was to be a morning’s pleasure instead of a dire necessity. “What do you fancy? Elk? Deer?”
“Whatever you like, my lord.” She smiled suddenly. “Only please do bring back a rabbit for Master Nemthe’s very own.”
“A skinny one,” Chadric seconded.
“With mange,” Kierun added, startling himself and them. But he grinned as they laughed.
Maarken finished the last of his taze and pushed himself to his feet. “Well, I’ve lazed about enough. Meiglan, my dear, may I borrow your squire to help me make the rounds of the wounded?”
“Chayla has already done that,” she replied. “But you’re welcome to Kierun’s assistance—as long as it’s to your bed. The orders of your lady wife,” she explained, blushing a little as he gave her a stare. “And your daughter, too.”
“My women believe they command my every movement,” he grumbled.
“Don’t they?” Walvis asked innocently.
“Hmph. Kierun, as you’re the heir to Lower Pyrme, one day you’ll have to marry. But take my advice and do as your father did—put it off until you find a quiet, meek, gentle girl like your mother.”
Kierun’s big gray eyes popped at the description. Many of the deadfalls his parents had sprung on the Vellant’im at Lower Pyrme had been of his mother’s gleeful devising.
Maarken went on, “Speaking of autocratic ladies, where are mine?”
“Hollis is weaving Tobin to sleep, and Chayla’s trying the same on Sioned,” Ruala told him.
“Trying?”
“She closes her eyes and lies there still as a stone, but she’s awake and Chayla knows it.”
“So does Elisel,” Chadric said. “She’s circling outside Sioned’s windows.”
“As if she knows something’s wrong?” Audrite tapped a fingernail against her cup. “I think I’d like to read that dragon book.”
Walvis smiled. “I think Feylin will have to revise it.”
*
From his camp, the top two floors of the Flame tower had been visible. Here in the rocky defile that led to a natural tunnel, only the uppermost windows with their pointed arches were within his view. He reined in his restive horse—a fine Radzyn stallion captured at Whitecliff—and let his gaze roam the canyon walls. Firelight picked out the niches where archers had been, and the footpaths no wider than his spread fingers that gave access to them.
It was just about here that the Azhrei had waited for the battle to come to him, calling out curses and fearsome threats. Or so the soldiers had said. He didn’t believe it. A man like that wouldn’t waste his breath. No, he would sit his saddle in silent dignity like the prince he was, secure in the protection of his Sunrunner witch of a princess—until iron defeated her.
The stallion shifted between his thighs, nostrils flaring. There was no smoke; there was nothing left to burn. Yet Fire lit the defile, and beckoned teasingly from the darkness of the tunnel. Defeated? Not she.
He was used to horses that required a hard hand and harder heels. He kept forgetting that the mount he now rode was used to a far gentler touch—and was abruptly reminded as the Radzyn stud reared in protest, ears flattening and teeth bared. Easing the pressure, he guided the horse up the sloping road.
The tunnel was high enough to ride through without stooping. It bent slightly to the left, sometimes wider and sometimes narrower, but always adequate for at least three riders abreast. About fifty paces in, he saw the source of the light—a trickle of flames like a tiny stream that ended quite suddenly, as if draining into a hole. The horse shied and snorted. This time when he dug his heels in, he was more careful. He wondered if this marked the boundary of her Fire. No—he could smell a faint wisp of smoke here, oil smoke. Peering down, he nodded as he saw the shine below the flames. These, at least, burned honestly, and would burn themselves out.
The Fire in the outer courtyard, bright as sunlight, was another matter. No trickle this, but a red-gold flood that flowed over the walls from the inner ward, cascaded down the stone keep from the very top of the Flame-tower. And it would go on burning, called to a Sunrunner’s work, answering to her will.
The stallion, oddly enough, had no fear of this Fire. Trained to recognize it by the faradhi lord who had owned him? Interesting thought, and one he would have to remember. Should such flames be used against them in battle, he would make sure the only horses that encountered them were Radzyn- and Whitecliff-bred.
The middle of the courtyard was the limit of the Fire, then. He skirted around it, past the outbuildings and stables that had burned to charcoal by other means. The gatehouse behind him was the exception; cut out of the stone above the tunnel, no kind of fire had reached it. Stone access stairs were littered with collapsed and blackened wood railings, but the gatehouse itself had not burned.
This pleased him; that it had not been reported and the place investigated did not. His commanders would have much to answer for when he returned. Fear was a useful thing, even healthy on occasion, but it must be fear of him, not of the enemy.
There had been a wooden gate in the wall near the stables. All that was left of it was an interlocking iron framework. He rode near to inspect it. The hinges were particularly fine, cast in the shape of outspread dragon wings. But they groaned like dead spirits denied fire and the sea as he hauled the gate open, and the horse gathered his muscles to rear again.
In the inner ward, Fire poured from the open doors of the castle to cover the cobbles like a shallow lake. Still the horse showed no fear, but after a moment’s thought the man dismounted anyway and tethered the reins to the iron hinges. He wanted to cross the courtyard, and there was no sense risking the stallion’s hooves. His own boots would withstand Fire—for a little while, anyway. He smiled slightly, recalling that the faradh’im had tried to burn his sails at Radzyn and his long-arms at Remagev. They gave up so easily; the sign of a weak people who did not understand war.
Even with the protection of treated leather, he made haste crossing to the garden gates. He chucked softly at the thought of what his warriors would think if they saw him. Not a dignified picture of their High Warlord. He lost his smile as he pushed open the gate where roses had lately climbed the walls, and saw the rest of Stronghold.
Leaves brittle with autumn had crisped to ash around the trees. The branches still burned. So did the charred grasses and the gravel pathways and even the water itself, though the footbridges had collapsed. Over to his right, what had been a willow tree dripped Fire into the blazing stream.
An exclamation left his lips, the sound of his own voice startling him. Even knowing what he’d see here, it was a shock to see it with his own eyes.
All at once the Fire flared, as if it knew somehow that its enemy had come. He could not keep himself from jumping back, but there was nowhere to go. New flames plunged down from the castle windows, a deluge of crimson and gold that rose to his boot tops, past his knees to the vulnerable material of his clothes. A cry clotted in his throat as heat engulfed him. He forced the sound back until he could control it and his fear, then shaped all the air in his lungs into a curse against the one whose Fire this was.
*
“It’s no use. Absolutely no use at all.” Chayla sat and brought one fist lightly down on the table before her, frustrated by Sioned’s resistance. She glanced up at Meath. His face was haggard and old by the light of the candle branch. “I even drugged her taze earlier on. It’s not working any more than the sleep-weave is.”
“But why is she fighting so hard?” he murmured. “She pretends, she drifts off, she seems to be asleep...”
“She’s not. I don’t know why. Perhaps I’m just no good at it.”
“You know better—and so do your patients.” Meath was gazing at the large coffer of medicines on the table. A gift from Chayla’s grandparents, it was a lovely thing made of fruitwood with brass fittings. Enameled plaques on the sides and bottom insulated the medicines inside. Some of the decoration showed various plants from which cures were made; the one surrounding the hasp bore Radzyn’s cipher and colors. “What’s in that box of yours?”
“The usual—specialized for war since Remagev, of course. Why?”
“Surgical instruments?”
She flinched as Elisel whimpered from outside the open windows. The dragon was still out there, swooping down again and again to cry out to Sioned—who didn’t even hear her.
“Knives and so forth?” Meath asked impatiently. “Yes, of course, but—”
“Give me one.”
“Meath, I don’t underst—“
He rummaged inside the coffer himself, careless of the neatly arranged pots and jars, and came up with a horn-handled blade, fine and delicate. Then he crossed the crimson-patterned carpet to the bed. Taking one of Sioned’s elbows, he pushed up the sleeve and dragged the blade across her forearm. Slowly. Deliberately. Watching the blood well up. Hearing her scream in agony—echoed by the dragon outside.
“Stop it?” Meath yelled at Sioned. “Stop it nowr
“Meath! No!” Chayla leapt for him, knowing it was foolish to pit herself against his great size and strength. He shouldered her away and she fell onto the rug. More stunned than hurt, she watched, horrified, as he held the stained blade up to Sioned’s face, before her open eyes.
“Sioned! Do you hear me? Stop it or I’ll cut you again!”
Wings beat so near that the bed curtains and even the heavy wall tapestries fluttered. In the mirror opposite the windows, Chayla saw a brief glimpse of a dragon’s face, jaws open in a moan that trembled through the room.
She heard a muffled exclamation and turned, sobbing with relief at seeing her father. “Papa! Make him stop!”
“No! Stay away!” Meath warned, still holding the blood-damp knife in front of Sioned. “I’ll do it!” he snarled. “Unless you stop right now, I’ll cut you again, I swear it!”
“Papa!” Clutching at her father’s arm, she begged, “Please, please—“
“No. Wait.”
Sioned was glaring at Meath as he brought the knife down once more, scraping another thin line parallel to the first. The cry that tore from her throat was of pain, but also of despair. She buried her face in her hands and wept as if her heart had broken.
Outside in the night, a dragon cried out one last time.
Meath flung the knife down and cradled Sioned in his arms. Meeting Maarken’s eyes, he said a single word.
“Steel.”
*
By the time he got through the gates to the inner ward, the Fire was dead.
The darkness was so abrupt and so total that his guts churned within him. Shame stiffened his spine. He drew a deep breath and waited for his eyes to adjust. Humiliation stung him anew when he remembered the tinderbox in his pocket, and yet again when his hands shook so badly that he dropped it. At last a tiny flame lit the night, and he told himself it was a very good thing that he had come here alone. No one seeing the High Warlord in this state could be allowed to live.
But as he looked around, he discovered that not even the stallion had seen him. Amusement and chagrin lifted a corner of his mouth as he inspected the knotted ends of the reins, still attached to the iron hinge and neatly bitten through. Truly those Radzyn horses were the spawn of Wind Devils.
The hem of his tunic was smoldering. He took off the garment and rolled it around his sword to make a crude torch. It wouldn’t last long, but perhaps he would find something within Stronghold to light his way. His trousers were singed, too, and very nearly to the groin. He managed a weak smile for his wives’ relief at his escape, and started for the castle steps.
By the Father of Water, so much stone! He stood in the vast entry chamber, mouth agape in genuine awe. He hadn’t realized what it would feel like, to be in the middle of it. His own keep boasted more stone than any other in all the Islands, as was fitting, but every hand-span of it would not have built even this staircase.
He walked to the huge open doors of the Great Hall and looked within. The windows had blown out and the blue-and-green tiles had splintered in the heat. The hundreds of lamps set high on the walls had melted to shapeless lumps of metal. The lack of wood ash on the floor puzzled him for a moment until he realized that this room must have been used as a sleeping chamber; probably the tables and benches had been stacked elsewhere.
What a magnificent place this had been—truly a place for princes. Not even Radzyn, mighty as it was, had affected him this way. But his makeshift torch was burning too quickly, and he must find some other light soon. There were many things he wished to see.
The kitchens would be convenient to the Great Hall. Perhaps there was some grease or oil to soak the cloth. He started across the cracked tiles that crunched beneath his boots. Suddenly he stopped, hearing a sound that warned him out. Made of solid stone Stronghold was, but massive rafters held up the ceiling here—and what was left of the wood groaned in an agony of effort beneath the weight of the floor above.
He returned to the stairs, brushing his fingers against sooty walls where tapestries had hung, listening now for the keep’s death rattles. But most of it was stone on stone, though everything within had burned down to nothing.
Upstairs, room after room showed him only what metal it had contained—a candlebranch, chair frames, table legs, rods for hanging curtains. He heard himself muttering under his breath in the barbarian’s tongue, and did not wonder why he used it in this, their most precious castle that she had burned rather than see him take. His own language should not be spoken in this place that had belonged to her and would never belong to him.
There was too much here that was strange to his people and their ways. Too much evidence of luxury. Their language reflected it, full of unnecessary words. His own tongue was simple and direct: subject, verb, object. The actor, the act—and the acted upon, he told himself with a grim smile that died when he recognized that the room he was in had been the library.
This was the reason his sire had forced him to learn the enemy’s language. “To know an enemy’s words is to know how he speaks of himself. His words give you his mind, his thoughts, how he looks upon the world.” So he had learned to speak it, read it, even write it. But all that hard schooling would avail him nothing here. At Remagev, some books and scrolls remained despite the efforts to destroy them—especially that book on dragons that made the priests tremble as they translated it at Radzyn. Here, in the library that was the prize of all the princedoms, there was nothing.
He went back downstairs, down into the cellars to confirm another dismal suspicion. Of course he’d been right; the great wooden cisterns were only ash floating atop a flood—but of water here, not Fire. The grotto spring would have to suffice, he told himself.
Skirting the danger of the Great Hall, he guessed his way to the kitchens. And there he was rewarded—not with oil to make his torch last, but with a half-burned log beneath the ash of the huge open hearth. Ironic indeed, that the only thing other than steel pots and copper pans that had not burned was something meant to burn.
Another patient search yielded a stoppered glass jar of oil. He soaked the end of the log in it, set it afire with the last sparks of the tunic wrapped around his sword, and took his search back outside.
The night was even darker now. He turned to look up at the shadowy castle, the windows dripping black where her Fire had scorched the stone. Ah, to have the taming of a woman like that! Even advanced in years, it was said she was beautiful still.
And dangerous—for her dragonmate was gone.
That was what he had really come to see. He wanted to look at the face of his enemy—or at least upon his ashes.
He came to the place his warriors had described. Nothing was left. Not even the ashes. He held the torch high, searching for anything that would confirm who had lain here, and caught sight of a dull glitter in dark soil. Crouching, he picked it up and rubbed it clean. A man’s earring, small and plain, set with a topaz the color of Desert sands. It must be his; the jewel was his symbol, worn in a ring with her emerald. But though he searched, holding the light close to the ground, he could not find the ring.
Something else glinted by firelight, snagging his gaze to the water. He pocketed the earring to free his other hand. A long, waving lock of hair had been caught by a stone in the water. He plucked it up. Protected by the Storm Father’s blood, not even the Goddess’ Fire had been able to touch it.
And it was hers. The red and gold had darkened with water, but he knew it was hers. It was strangely disturbing to see the silver so thick in it. A woman like that should not grow old like everyone else.
But perhaps she would grow no older. Perhaps the dying of the Fire had been at her death. Who knew, with Sunrunners?
He tied the strand of hair around itself—no easy task one-handed—and put that in his pocket, too. Then he rose, intending to go judge the fall of water in the grotto. But at that moment he heard a piercing cry, and although he had cured himself long ago of his people’s one true terror, it was hard—in this place that had belonged to the Azhrei—not to shiver with dread at the sound of a dragon.
*
With Sioned sleeping an honest sleep at last, Meath explained himself quite calmly. “She called Fire at Stronghold. And maintained it, probably without even realizing it. Iron piercing her flesh during a working threatened her life. So she stopped.”
Chayla was shaking her head in wonder. “I should have heard it. There was too much pain in her voice for the shallowness of those scrapes on her arm. I’m sorry, Meath. I should have trusted you.”
“I must’ve seemed utterly mad.” Pausing, he bit his lip and said, “I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly fine.”
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he insisted. “I’m sorry, my lady.”
Maarken put a hand on Meath’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. She only looks made of crystal and silk.” He slanted a look at his daughter. “Best not let your Lord Kazander hear of this, however. He’d skewer poor Meath and roast him for a dragon’s dinner.”
“He’s not my Lord Kazander,” she began hotly.
The pair of them were smiling at her, and she realized what her father had done in making a joke of it. Still, it was irksome to be the target of his humor, even if Meath was the beneficiary.
So she returned them to the real subject. “How did you guess what she was doing? Nobody else had any idea.”
“It was something I saw at Stronghold tonight. I used the last sunlight to take a look. It was still burning as if the Fire had only just started. I ought to have put it all together before this.”
“How could you have known? How could any of us? None of us sensed what she was doing. Not even you, Meath.”
“Elisel did,” Chayla murmured. “She knew something was wrong.”
“Sioned didn’t greet her, didn’t talk to her,” Meath said.”The faradhi part of her was—elsewhere. But how did she do it?”
“I think I know,” Chayla answered. “She was in shock. Calling Fire was the last thing she did at Stronghold, and possibly the last thing she clearly remembers. I’ve been hearing stories about her all my life. I just never knew how powerful she is before now.”
“We know something much more important, my lady,” Meath said softly. “She wants to live after all.”
Startled for a moment, Chayla could only stare at him. But her father was nodding agreement.
“I see what you mean. She could have let you continue, knowing what it would do to her.”
“Yes. She could have chosen to die.”
“Oh, Meath,” Chayla said, putting a hand on his arm. “It would’ve killed you long before it killed her.”
He shrugged and glanced away. Maarken spared him the awkward silence. “Will she sleep now?”
“The longer the better,” Chayla said, back on familiar ground. “And you, too—both of you. Consider it an order from your physician.”
A tiny smile quirked the older man’s mouth. “Crystal and silk, you say? Maarken, this one was birthed from a dragon’s shell.”
*
It was difficult to see the dragon, now that Stronghold no longer burned to illumine the night sky. But he could hear the terrible keening wails as the beast flew above the castle, and kept track of it that way as he mounted the gatehouse’s stone steps. Within, he was rewarded once more: though not a princely weapon, the bow was a fine one.
Two quivers of arrows slung over his shoulders, he hesitated only a moment at the top of the stairs. It would be tricky, and if he failed in the full sight of his army all would be lost. But he had been waiting for just such a chance. The Father of Wind and Rain had provided it. He would not fail.
One dragon was dead. Now it was time to kill another. Not the son—not yet. He could wait. But this one, with wings and talons and teeth like daggers, this one would die tonight.
The little rivulet of fire was still burning in the tunnel. He strode directly onto it, smashing the weak flames with his boots. In the defile he paused once more, listening for the dragon. The cries echoed through the tunnel, distorting his perception. The creature must be lured to the open sand so that all could watch it die.
Wing-wind blew suddenly at his back, startling him and dousing the makeshift torch. He dropped it at once and fumbled for an arrow, infuriated that his treacherous hands still shook in obedience to foolish terror. Commanding them to his mind’s will and not his emotions, he nocked and drew and let fly at a darker darkness overhead.
A shriek of pain shattered the air, sent pebbles shivering down the canyon walls. He laughed aloud, all fear gone now, and ran to follow the sound. The Desert spread out before him, tents and cookfires dotting what had been a battlefield. To a man, his warriors cowered on their knees before the Devil Dragon whose single glance could rip their spirits out through their eyes. They would learn otherwise tonight.
The fires, hundreds of them, lit the dragon’s pale gray underwings. He pulled the bowstring once more, missed, shot another arrow and yet another. Only a female, he realized with a pang of disappointment. But she would do, she would do. Favoring one wing, she circled, seek- ing an updraft to carry her. He loosed another arrow. It found her hide next to the first, near the juncture of shoulder and rib, and she screamed again.
He hurried forward, stopping only to aim and shoot again and again until there were no more arrows and the dragon had plummeted to the sand, unable to fly. Casting aside the bow and shrugging out of the encumbering quivers, he drew his sword and advanced on her, taking his time. She was down and would not rise again; all must see him, all must watch as he killed her.
Nine of his arrows had found her; he counted them as he neared, pleased by the potency of the number. Two in her shoulder, three in her belly, one in her left thigh— a lucky shot, that, guided by the Wind Father’s breath— and the remaining three straight through her wings. She would bleed and she would limp and she would not fly. But she was still very much alive, armed with jaws that could snap him in half, two good forelegs that could tear his head from his neck, and a spiked tail that could spit him like a lamb for roasting.
His men had added their cries to hers. He approached the dragon head on, scorning to sneak around her back like a coward. She balanced on her good leg and her tail, snarling, but did not lash out at him. He nodded; she was cunning enough not to waste her strength when he was out of reach. Her wings were awkwardly folded as close to her body as the arrows would allow. She snapped at him and worried at one of the shafts with her teeth, finally broke it off and flung it away. But her talons could not dislodge the two arrows embedded in her shoulder— and the three planted in her belly oozed thick blood.
He had hunted many creatures in his life for food and for sport. This was for pride and power. And he had no idea how to bring her down.
Suddenly one of the wings unfurled and swept toward him. He flattened himself in the sand, rolling to his back. Thrusting upward with his sword, he let her catch her wing on the blade. There was a ripping noise like a wind split sail. The dragon howled and stumbled back. Over- balancing, she pitched forward nearly on top of him, smothering him in her wing.
Panic clawed his vitals as he struggled against the weight of her wing. But through the huge rent he found escape, ears ringing with the thud of her body and the sound of her shrieks. Slick with her blood, he jumped onto the main wingbone. It cracked beneath his weight, a broken piece of it jutting up through the blue-gray hide.
The fall had driven the arrows deeper into her chest and belly. She would not rise. Could not. He clambered atop her heaving back, years of sailing rough seas serving him well until she convulsed from head to tail. He lost his footing then, landing hard with the base of her neck between his legs. His groan matched hers in pain—but he was the one with the sword. He made himself raise it, lean far to the side, and hack off her head.
They were bellowing their triumph and devotion. They were coming closer. They must not see him stunned and still in agony. He slid from the dragon’s neck onto his knees in the gore-wet sand. The great head lay near him, teeth shining in gaping jaws. He pushed himself to his feet and closed his fist around the handful of spines above one eye, hoisting the heavy weight aloft. It nearly overbalanced him, but he planted both feet in the sand and stayed upright.
“Here!” he shouted with all the breath in his lungs. “Here is the Dragon, dead by my sword!”
His warriors went mad with joy.
“See the Monster, the Hellspawn! Dead! Dead! Dead!”
They chanted, and he laughed. Obedient to his commands? Now they would cut off their own balls at his whim.
“Hear them, new young Azhrei?” he whispered to the starlight. “Thus I will hold your head. I, High Warlord of all Vellant’im, swear it.”