Lord Varek tilted his head back, lifting his face to the stars. They moved uneasily here, the Great Wheel spinning higher and wider across the sky. The moons came and went at unfamiliar times, like guests not quite sure of the household’s routine. He had heard all his life that this was an odd place. He could not but agree. It was a body crammed and cramped in upon its own flesh, girt by salt seas that had been squeezed from its heart, crowned in white snow. Only a few watery veins still flowed, still gave life. The rest was bony mountain, sickening marsh, or dead sand. He didn’t know how these people endured it, living ten and twenty days’ walk from the sea. He’d heard there were some who never saw more water than could be gathered in a rain bucket. He would never understand that, just as they would never understand his own people’s need for the sight of water, the sound of it, the feel of it on skin and tongue.
He turned his face from the midnight sky and turned his mind to the river. Of everything in the land, of all the differences in Earth and Air and Fire, Water was a comforting constant that he could not live without. He smiled as he listened to the river’s yearning hurry to the welcoming sea. It was the sound of a thousand wives rushing through tall grass to embrace returning warriors.
So many dead, he thought. So many who would father no more sons.
A bird cried out on the opposite shore. His gaze traced the flutter, gray as ashes in the starshine, blown through the darkness across the river to the deeper darkness of these woods. Leaves rustled as she settled, like the skirts of a single woman sinking to her knees, and her next cry was of mourning.
He descended the slope to the riverbank, where by torchlight his army was assembled. What remained of his army. Of all the warriors, only one hundred and seventy-nine; of all the clanmasters, only two. The rest were dead. The Vellant’im left no wounded.
They had built a pile of stones for him to stand on. While he had labored all day to construct the shell-skiff, they had made this so that he might stand above them all as he spoke. The rocks were as solid and silent as if mortared. Varek set his feet firmly upon them, and lifted the bronze horn on its silver chain around his neck. He wished it could have been the horn stolen from his people long ago—from his own clan, in fact—but at least the failure to recover it from the accursed faradh’im had not been his.
Swalekeep was. Supposedly, he understood war. Prince Tilal had shown him otherwise. And for his arrogance in believing himself superior, the Father of Rains and Winds had punished him with defeat.
But that his warriors had suffered too, had died in their hundreds—it was more than he could bear. And this, he knew now, was the thing he did not understand about war: how a commander could live with such loss.
The horn Varek blew was a small replica of the one that had been stolen. Its note was high, piercing the night like the wail of a newborn child. He heard his sons in it, their first grief at leaving the safe dark sea of the womb, and knew how great would be their shame at his failure. He hoped a little love would survive in secret; he cringed from the thought of his sons cursing his name in their hearts as well as aloud to the clan-kin.
He blew again, the silver mouthpiece warm against his lips this time, and now the sound was the cry of an old man’s longing for return to the sea. When his lungs were drained of breath, he took the horn from his lips and listened to the thin soaring echo. When it faded into the starshine, he listened to the music of the river. Now was the time for him to speak.
It ought to have been a priest, but he had none with him to say the words. He had as little use for the breed as the High Warlord. But unlike his master, he had the excuse of a hard campaign with no plans for seizing castles to house a luxury-loving parasite in proper style. Now he regretted it—not the lack of comforts, but the lack of an eloquent voice. Perhaps his master would have the ritual repeated, so that priestly voices could honor the dead of the Battle of Swalekeep.
“Warriors of many Clans,” he said, regretting too that he did not have the High Warlord’s deep, ringing voice. “You of the Nine-Spoked Wheel, of the Spear Tree, of the Chain, of the Scarred Island—“ He named them all, the sixteen different clans of which only a handful of kin survived. The two clanmasters he saved for the last but one, leaving his own as the final name. And as he said, “... of the Great Horn,” his eyes stung with memory. Rejecting the softness as shameful to a warrior—even one who had failed—he fixed his gaze on the hard faces around him. But the golden beads glinting by torchlight reminded him of starflowers in a sea of dark grass, and he had to pause.
“Hear me,” he said at length, hoping they had taken his brief silence as respect for the ancient, honored Names. “When the High Warlord commanded us, we became brothers of the heart to achieve our great purpose. I say to you now, this is no longer so.”
They shifted slightly, silently.
“Brothers we remain, but now of blood—as truly as if we were all born of the same mother and the same father both. All rivalries, all debts of honor, all oaths of any kind are as if they had never been.” He put his right fist on his heart, and held out his left hand. “Naresch of the Black Hoof, ninth of that Name, I call you my brother in blood.”
There was a whispering at this, as he had expected. He had just called on a man whose kind had fought his own for seventeen generations.
Varek went on, “We were born of the same blood.
My sword is yours, my hearth, and my daughters. Will you say the same to me?”
Naresch came forward, stunned and awkward. His sword hand fisted on his chest. He couldn’t quite bring himself to extend his left hand yet; he could accept Varek as his commander in battle because the High Warlord had decreed it, but this was personal.
Again Varek wished for a priest. Useless as they were in fighting—proudly useless, with their soft scholarly hands—their authority at such times was absolute. It was the dearest wish of their scheming hearts to see all the Clans truly united, fighting when, where, whom, and as their holy guidance directed. The High Warlord was to them an unfortunate necessity; he had been able to weld the Clans together as they had not. Varek knew that after this was over and the faradh’im defeated, there would be another war, of the kind fought without swords. Priests with unlimited power did not bear thinking about.
Varek looked down into Naresch’s eyes, seeing seventeen generations struggle for his heart against this offer of belonging. He’d chosen the man not only for their traditional enmity, but because of the Black Hoof, only Naresch survived. Until he rejoined the other divisions of his clan-kin at Stronghold, he was utterly alone. And no warrior wanted to do battle with no one to protect his back.
Naresch’s solitude won. All his forefathers were dead; he was here, and alone. He reached up with his left hand and said, “We were born of the same blood. My sword is yours, my hearth, and my daughters.”
Varek clasped the callused fingers, reflecting with untimely humor that Naresch’s daughters were perfectly safe; their own looks were better protection than any sworn sword. He hoped Naresch lived to go home and see to them himself. Varek’s four wives would, in descending order of age, shriek, curse, rage, and faint at the prospect of housing those six remarkably ugly girls.
He smiled, but his impulse to amusement had fled and the curve of his lips was wistful. He imd reminded himself of his family again. That wouldn’t do.
Straightening up, he called out, “Will the rest of you do less than this?”
A moment passed. Then the oath was repeated once, twice, then too often to count. Some were spoken in grudging mutters, some with relief as men who had lost almost all their clan-kin claimed new brothers, and were no longer so alone.
Varek repressed a sigh. Once these men had joined the High Warlord’s own army in the Desert, the others of their blood kin might quietly kill them so that this oath died with them. But if they were to arrive in the Desert at all, they must weave themselves into a smooth rope, not tie impossible knots along it. Well, he had done what he could.
Naresch, as the first of them to swear, asked the inevitable question. “We are oathbound, my lord. What would you Name us now?”
“I call you by the Name of the High Warlord’s own Clan.”
There were cries of wonder at the honor and protest at the insult, depending on whose ancestors had fought whose. Varek held up a hand.
“But you must earn it with the Tears of the Dragon.”
This shocked them into silence. He very nearly smiled again.
“Yes, there is a dragon who lives at Faolain Lowland. Yes, it will be a hard thing to do. But you will fight in the name of the High Warlord and under his banner, for you will be his blood kin more surely than those who took Radzyn Keep and Remagev and Stronghold itself, where the old Azhrei died. You will be the right hand of the High Warlord when he defeats the new Azhrei, for in his right hand he will hold the Tears of the Dragon.”
Now they cheered and chanted. Varek listened for a time, his own right hand slowly closing around the dagger at his belt. None of them knew it for what it really was: the knife he’d used to mark each of his wives as his. Beside the small scar left by each girl’s father three days after her birth, he had gently traced his own claim. He was always careful not to cut the veins on the backs of their hands, careful not to nick the bones, the way some men did to make certain the scarring was deep.
But they knew what the dagger meant as he held it aloft. They fell silent again, waiting to see who would be chosen.
The enemy, for all their barbarian ways, burned the dead as was proper. Even Vellanti dead. There was at least that small grace given. But so far from the sea, so far from the sweet rage of storms—it made his soul ache every time he thought about it. Tonight, three nights after the battle, one man would die and burn in the shell-skiff as it swept down the Faolain River. One man would burn for all the others, and be given to the sea.
It was an honor and a glory, and everyone held his breath so as not to miss a syllable of the name chosen as worthy. The dagger waited for one of them, and the fire, and the shell-skiff. It would not burn, being lined with the salvaged banners of the clans whose masters had fallen, material prepared by the same priestly magic as the sails of the dragon-headed ships. Varek had made the little boat himself—not because he did not trust his men to do it properly, but because a man ought to prepare his own final bed.
For it was Varek who unslung the horn from around his neck and handed it to Naresch, and stepped off the solid pile of stones into the little craft. He turned his face south, where the sea was, and dug his marriage dagger into his heart. Not because he was worthy, but because only he could explain to the Storm God his own shame and the blameless bravery of those who had died at Swalekeep.
He sank to his knees, blood slippery on his hands. The shell-skiff slid deeper into the water, rocking, rocking, mimicking the waves so far downriver. He could feel the dagger throb with his final few heartbeats. There was great pain, and great joy. From the corner of his eye he saw Naresch stride forward with a torch, and the last thing he knew was the first touch of the fire.
*
Ostvel, granted a spare moment from his morning of making Swalekeep function smoothly again, rose from the desk to stand before the roaring fire across the room. He felt a hundred winters old. Maybe two hundred.
He’d slept badly these last four nights. It wasn’t the work that kept him awake with worry. He had been Second Steward of Goddess Keep in his youth, run Stronghold for Rohan, then Skybowl, and finally Castle Crag, so even creating order out of the chaotic aftermath of battle held few challenges. He didn’t sleep because he kept dreaming about death. Not Kerluthan’s, clean and quick, nor even Aurar’s—brutal, but in the end deserved. He didn’t imagine Halian’s murder at the hand of his own son, nor the sudden horror of Rialt’s and Mevita’s dying. What he saw, time after time, was the guard who had killed them, and Princess Naydra standing nearby as Fire made of him a living torch.
In his dream, Naydra wore her sister lanthe’s face, lanthe, Pol’s birth mother, whom Ostvel had killed.
Shivering, he turned his back to the fire. He hadn’t yet wanned again after seeing Tilal off at the east gate. Early this morning the prince had declared himself ready to start south after the Vellant’im, despite the warnings of Swalekeep’s physician that he ought to rest another two days. Keeping Tilal pent this long had been difficult enough; actually, Ostvel had expected him to leave yesterday. Sore muscles and a minor though painful wound had argued otherwise. But hot soaks, poultices, and the skill of the physician had made him well enough to leave—or so he said.
Ostvel closed his eyes, wishing the same treatment could work as well on a man of sixty-four as it had on one barely forty-six. The fog this morning seemed to have grown dragon claws that dug into his shoulders for purchase and not even the heat of the fire could shake them off. In some ways it was worse than the misting rain of the day Swalekeep had fallen. This enshrouding fog grayed the windows as if Meadowlord wore mourning for its prince. Few had been honestly fond of Halian; no one Ostvel knew had respected him. How did one like or hold in esteem a man who married someone like Chi-ana? But no one deserved to die that way, his skull bashed open by his own son.
They had burned Halian two nights ago. Building separate pyres had taken a full day: one for the prince, one for Rialt and Mevita together, one for Kerluthan, and five large ones with all the dead of Waes, Castle Crag, River Ussh, Grand Veresch, and Swalekeep itself. Aurar they took out to the battlefield, to burn with her allies the Vellant’im. Andrev had done his Sunrunner duty that night, calling Fire. But the next morning an honest breeze had blown the ashes north, for the boy had no idea how to summon Air for the purpose. This lack of knowledge, added to the tongue-lashing given him by Tilal for riding into danger, had dimmed whatever of Andrev’s brightness had remained after seeing Halian’s corpse.
Ostvel tried not to think about the dead prince, though it was difficult here in the man’s own audience chamber. He sat at Halian’s desk, received Halian’s people, organized Halian’s castle and city, used Halian’s wax to set his own seal on written orders. The joke he’d made to Tilal about being given the princedom as punishment for his service to Rohan was no joke anymore. To all intents and purposes, he was the new Prince of Meadowlord.
And if Pol dared make it official, he’d take the boy over his knee, High Prince or no High Prince.
He heard the doors open, and before he could look up, a voice he hadn’t heard since autumn said, “You’re about to singe your backside, my lord. Move over and share a little of that fire with your frozen wife.”
“Alasen?”
He gaped at her as she crossed the room to him, taking off her gloves. She smiled as casually as if she’d just come into their own chambers at Castle Crag after a morning’s ride.
“What are you doing here?”
“I just told you—freezing. And ready to hear your apology for not waiting to take Swalekeep until we ar- rived to help. Don’t put all the blame on Tilal, either, when he’s not here to defend—“
She never finished the teasing. Ostvel caught her in his arms and kissed her, lifting her right off her feet. Setting her down again, he scowled down at her smiling green eyes.
“You should be at Castle Crag.”
“I should be right here.” She leaned comfortably against him, arms around his waist. “Mmm, you’re warm. I’ve already heard all about everything from Cam-ina and that young Medri—Gerwen? Yes, that’s his name. So let’s sit down and I’ll tell you my side of things.”
“Fine,” he agreed. “And tomorrow morning you can get right back on your horse and ride home to Castle Crag.”
Tilting her head back, she said, “But I didn’t come on a horse—not until this morning.”
“Alasen,” he breathed, “tell me you didn’t sail down the Faolain. Not in winter.”
“Oh, that wasn’t much bother. We didn’t lose a single boat. There are twelve of them, by the way, with thirty soldiers in each, but that can wait to be told in order. No, the problem was something else.” She was actually smiling as she said it, as she admitted what she was. “Namely, me. Your Sunrunner wife had her head in a bucket for eight days. Could you possibly have them bring me something to eat? I’m starving.”
*
Rohannon had expected to be discovered almost at once. The circumstance that allowed his deception, however, forced him to reveal it. A simple thing to most people, but of monumental importance to faradh’im: he was on board ship and he wasn’t sick.
Son of Lord Maarken and Lady Hollis he might be, cousin to the new High Prince, and nephew of the Lord of Goddess Keep himself, but New Raetia’s court Sunrunner flatly refused to teach him anything but a bunch of useless chanting songs honoring the Goddess. Rohannon knew something frightening about power, though. And while he was more wary of it than most—he had cause to be—caution had not been equal to frustration.
Rialt’s daughter, Tessalar, had taken on the management of medical supplies, which included everything from purification of steel knives to the gathering and storage of herbs. Five days ago, Rohannon had volunteered to help her assemble the basic kits for each of Prince Arlis’ ships, soon expected to sail in an attempt to rid Broch-well Bay of the Vellanti fleet. Tess never saw him take a handful of little parchment twists from a box labeled dranath.
Long years ago, Rohannon’s mother had very nearly been fatally addicted to the drug. But it augmented power, and in the absence of additional learning Rohannon chose additional strength.
It worked very well indeed. Two nights ago, when the wind that had brought today’s storm had first cleared the sky of clouds, he had used the first of the packets. Instantly he had understood the lure, but the exhilaration was stronger, and only scared him afterward.
Not fool enough to attempt the stars, he used what he knew about sunlight and applied it to the moons. He was rewarded with the sight of dragon-headed ships making for Einar to the north.
Arlis now knew where to sail. He scolded Rohannon for daring the moons when he was still a bit shaky with sunlight, but the information was too important for the prince to argue much about how it was obtained. New Raetia’s Sunrunner was absent in any case. She was traveling the far-flung manors and keeps of Kierst-Isel, sending back word to Rohannon on how many were coming from each. This was faradhi’s only duty during wartime, and Arlis had sent her out to it with relief that she was gone. She was Andry’s to her fingertips.
But Arlis could not wait for the rest of the levies to march to New Raetia. As long as the Vellant’im merely patrolled the bay and threatened no coast, he could afford patience—even if he wasn’t very good at it. Now the dragon-headed ships were heading in on a strong wind for Einar. If they took the city, they would have a perfect base: north into Princemarch and Fessenden, or west-southwest to Isel. So this morning Prince Arlis’ fleet would sail, and sail quickly.
The prince hadn’t wasted his breath forbidding Rohan-non to come along. Everyone knew that no Sunrunner in his right mind would set foot on a ship unless compelled by dire necessity.
But Rohannon weighed his inherited weakness against his sworn duty as a squire, and decided this was indeed a dire necessity. Besides, eventually they would land at Einar, and he could be of use again.
He sneaked on board with the contingent from Port Adni. He chose them because as the troops from the most important of Arlis’ holdings, these soldiers would travel on the prince’s own ship. He owned a red tunic that was almost the same crimson they wore, and with black trousers and a black shirt Port Adni’s colors were complete. Technically, they should have worn the combined yellow and scarlet of Kierst-Isel, since with Lord Narat’s death the keep was now a crown holding. But as long as his wife Naydra lived, Port Adni was still hers. So they wore her colors, and their commander took formal oath of Prince Arlis in her name.
Rohannon figured that the only drawback to so brilliantly colored a tunic was that when he succumbed to the inevitable, he would be noticed. He slid away the moment the oath was finished, finding a nice, out-of-the-way spot to be sick in.
But the inevitable did not happen.
He used the unforeseen respite to find himself a pail, certain that the instant the anchor weighed, he would need it. The ship moved away from the docks, surging as more sail was raised and the current caught the hull.
Nothing happened.
Rohannon crouched behind a crate of food the whole of the morning. Around noon he succumbed to the growing knowledge that he was a complete fool, abandoned his hiding place and his unused pail, and went to find Prince Arlis.
To his lord’s startled exclamation on recognizing him, and the angry demand to be told what in all Hells he thought he was doing, Rohannon replied simply, “I’m a Sunrunner. And I feel perfectly fine.”
Arlis had the Kierstian green eyes Rohannon knew so well in Sioned. They narrowed, then glanced out at the choppy sea before returning to regard him with fierce curiosity. “How?”
“I don’t know, my lord.”
Arlis drew him over to the railing. “You mean to tell me that looking out at that doesn’t bring a single twinge?”
“Not a suggestion of a quiver, my lord.” From up here on the captain’s deck he could see the distant dots of white Vellanti sails. “Will we catch up to them in time?”
“Yes,” the prince replied with absolute assurance. “Do you know why? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. A Sunrunner’s only interest in the sea is how to avoid it. We’ll catch them because our sails can swing around to catch any wind—and theirs can’t.”
“Oh,” said Rohannon, glancing up at the three great triangles of sail.
“I still want to know why you aren’t puking your guts out, the way you did when I brought you to Kierst-Isel two years ago.”
“If I knew, I’d tell you,” the boy answered a bit desperately. “The only thing I can think of is that maybe I’m not a Sunrunner anymore, but how could that be? One is or one isn’t—it’s not something you can change!”
“Find Zaldivar for me. Tell me what my wife is doing.”
Rohannon closed his eyes. A few moments later he opened them again. “She’s outside in the walled garden, holding your newborn son while Roric and Hanella play with the castle children.”
“So you’re still a Sunrunner.”
“Yes, my lord,” he said, and with relief. But his head ached a little after the effort, and he rubbed ab- sently at the center of his forehead. It had been so easy to check the progress of the Vellant’im last night on the light of the moons.
“Then tell me the exact configuration of enemy ships out there, so I don’t have to guess at my tactics.”
Rohannon’s jaw dropped. “You’re going to fight them at sea?”
“If I can manage it.” Arlis smiled tightly. “Every one of those ships that I can kill means fewer soldiers to land.”
“But—but I’ve never even heard of a battle at sea among so many ships!”
“Neither have I,” the prince admitted almost cheerfully. “But I’ve got an idea or three. Come, Rohannon, help me make a name for myself. I’ll make sure you feature prominently in all the ballads.”
*
Alasen paced a slow, speechless circle around the vast chamber. She had been born a princess and lived in fine rooms all her life. Never had she seen anything like this. Not in all the castles and manors she had visited in six princedoms, not even in the grand new palace at Dragon’s Rest, had anyone committed such a display.
And all it was was a bathroom.
The tiles under her bare feet, a riot of every color of green ever imagined and some she swore were impossible, were pleasantly warmed from below. Gleaming gilt braziers radiated heat from all six corners of the room. Silver shelves heid all manner of soaps, lotions, unguents, creams, and salts. Thick moss-green towels hung on golden racks above the white marble bathtub—which was sunken into the floor and put her in mind of a small lake. Daintily screening the toilet was a tall tapestry panel; its pattern of ferns and fantastic multicolored flowers was repeated everywhere from the painted walls and ceiling to the tiles behind the tub. Potted ferns flourished everywhere in the steamy warmth. There were even two small trees in huge silver buckets. Their foliage evidently had not been considered sufficient decoration, for gigantic silk flowers to match the others had been wired to the branches. Absolutely nothing had been left unpainted, unglazed, or ungilded, except for the mirrors lining the room to a point halfway up every wall. In these the whole jungle was endlessly, dizzyingly repeated.
“Goddess in glory,” Alasen breathed at last, truly awed.
“I thought you might find it interesting,” Naydra remarked.
“ ‘Incredible’ and ‘appalling’ also come to mind. I begin to think Chiana ought to be executed for sheer bad taste if nothing else.”
The older princess smiled. “At least it’s warm. In fact, I’d wager it’s impossible to catch a chill in here stark naked in the dead of winter. I’ll wait outside until you’ve finished.” She turned for the fern-strewn door, sidestepping a tree. “By the way, Prince Tilal had the servants scrub it down from ceiling to floor. Something about a promise he made your husband.”
“I can imagine. Oh, one other thing. When do the live birds start flapping around?”
Naydra glanced back over her shoulder, eyes dancing. “I think they flew south for the winter. Have fun.”
Alasen turned on the spigots and proceeded to enjoy a delightfully decadent bath. She was so tired and sore that she would have settled for a basin of hot water in a private corner of the kitchen. But this was a haven of luxury, even if every time she looked at the garish flowers she giggled.
When she had soaked until her toes wrinkled, she dried and wrapped herself in a heavy velvet robe. It was too short for her, and the velvet slippers were a little too small, but she’d brought almost nothing of her own with her and all of it had been drenched in yesterday’s rain. Little as she liked wearing Chiana’s things, she was grateful for their warmth.
After twisting her hair atop her head in a towel, she took a last look around, shook her head with amazement, and joined Naydra. Not in Chiana’s bedchamber, but in the dressing room. This was starkly white and completely undecorated so as not to compete with Chiana herself, who would have seen her reflected splendor multiplied a thousandfold in mirrors attached to the closet doors. A few of these were open. Alasen stared anew. She loved pretty clothes, and at times her extravagance provoked even her adoring husband. But Chiana’s wardrobe was an education.
Naydra was seated on one of a pair of white velvet chairs, calmly pouring taze. “I know,” she said before Alasen could think up adequate means of expressing herself. “I keep asking myself when she had occasion to wear even half of this.”
“It warms my heart to think she left here with only the clothes on her back.” Alasen sat down and accepted a cup of taze.
“And her jewels.”
“Even better,” Alasen declared. “Can you imagine her agony? Forced to part with a diamond for dinner, a sapphire necklet for a night’s lodging in a loft!”
“And a cold one, at that!” Naydra smiled back, but her eyes were lightless.
Alasen snuggled into the chair and stretched out her legs. “Goddess, but it’s good to be clean again! And on solid ground.”
“I never feel a water journey, myself. But then, I’m not a Sunrunner.”
The opening having been presented and used, Alasen spoke freely. “I denied it for a very long time. I can’t anymore. We need everything we have against the Vellant’im.”
“And so you brought your husband an army.”
“Half an army. But he’ll make it seem two when he joins Tilal.”
“Which is why you brought them, knowing he would sooner or later follow.”
“He says he’s too old for this sort of thing, but like most men he’s a very bad liar.” She paused to select a slice of nutcake that had been sent with the taze. “How did you find out, Naydra?”
She did not pretend to misunderstand. “Branig told me. Lord Ostvel will have told you of him?” When Alasen nodded, she went on, “He was diarmadhi. They are not all the same. One faction sent Mireva and Ruval to the Desert nine years ago to challenge Prince Pol. The other is loyal to him. They sent Branig to guard against Chiana’s ambitions being used again to their purposes. He told me many things, but each of his answers brought new questions. He died before I had time to ask them all.”
Alasen found she was chewing her thumbnail, a childish habit long since broken. She drank more taze, frowning into her cup, then set it down and put her hands in the robe’s silk-lined pockets. At length she said, “Do you know of any way to find Branig’s people?”
“I’m of the side who sent my mother to marry Roelstra and bear a diarmadhi High Prince. Even if I knew how to find Branig’s faction, they would suspect me because of my mother.”
“Your own loyalties have never been in doubt,” Alasen reminded her. “They would know that.”
“Perhaps. It doesn’t matter, in any case. I don’t know how to reach them.”
“Then they’ll have to be persuaded to find you.” She held Naydra’s gaze. “If, that is, you wish to be found.”
The princess recoiled slightly.
“I understand,” Alasen murmured. “I didn’t want to be found, either. You remember that Riallla. You were there. The way Andrade died, what Andry did with his power—it still frightens me, Naydra. But I can’t afford fear anymore.”
“It was different for you. You watched what others did. I killed.” She shuddered. “It was so easy ... the Fire so simple a thing...”
Alasen backed down, knowing how difficult it was— but not, thank the Goddess, exactly the-way Naydra was experiencing it. Besides, if the idea hovering just out of reach proved to be what she thought it might, she wouldn’t need Naydra’s cooperation at all. It was a re- grettable cruelty, but compassion was another thing she couldn’t afford.
So she said, “You did what you felt was necessary at the time. I only hope my husband doesn’t feel it necessary to leave for the south at once. I’d like to get to know his face again after all this time.” She smiled and stretched, and inside the pocket of Chiana’s robe felt something small and hard and sharp. Before she could take it out to look at it, Naydra had roused enough to speak again, distracting her.
“Does Ostvel intend to find the army of Syr as Prince Tilal plans to do?”
“I think so.” Alasen watched the other woman’s face, alert to something elusive in Naydra’s dark eyes.
“Perhaps he ought to consider going north.”
“Chiana wouldn’t dare approach Castle Crag!” Alasen exclaimed.
“No. Dragon’s Rest. The palace of the High Prince is where Rinhoel would want to go. It’s only a two-day ride through Dragon Gap to Stronghold, where the main Vellanti army is.”
“Rinhoel’s not that big a fool. Edrel isn’t likely to welcome them, no matter what lies they tell. He was Pol’s squire, and—“
Naydra poured into her cup with a steady hand. “Miyon is also there. And, unlike most men, he is truly an excellant liar.”
*
“It follows,” Ostvel said slowly, speaking to the fire-thrown shadows on the ceiling above the bed. “They’d seek their natural ally. But they’ve got to know at Dragon’s Rest what’s happened here. Damn! If I had Andrev, I could send to Hollis and get her to contact Hildreth.”
Alasen’s reply was subdued. “I’m sorry. I should have learned Sunrunning long ago.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he told her contritely. “And don’t get any ideas about trying it, either. I’ll just send somebody on a very fast horse.”
The shadows shifted as she turned from drying her hair by the hearth. “You won’t go there with the army?”
“Until I get definite word that Chiana and Rinhoel are at Dragon’s Rest, no.” He scratched his bare chest idly and rubbed his feet over the wrapped hot brick at the bottom of the bed. Goddess, he was tired. He must be getting older than he’d thought. War was a young man’s work, but all this conferring and deciding and writing of orders left him as spent as if he’d fought a battle.
“I think Naydra’s right,” he went on, “but I want to be sure. We need everyone we have to clean up Syr and then march for the Desert. I don’t want to waste time on a needless trip to Dragon’s Rest.”
She came nearer to the bed, still combing her waist-length hair. “Bat you’d be halfway to Feruche.”
“And Tilal would still be fighting it out down south with an exhausted army, trying to find Saumer—who’s busy looking for Vellant’im to kill.” He shook his head and tugged the quilt closer around him. “Pol’s been taking care of himself fairly well so far. Besides, how could we get through the snow? In the end, it’ll be faster and easier on everyone to go through Syr.
“Then send me to Dragon’s Rest,” she said. “Give me an escort equal to the number who went with Chiana and Rinhoel. That way, with the troops still at Dragon’s Rest, there’ll be two of us for every one of them.”
“They’ve had four days’ head start,” he warned.
“Have you ever seen Chiana on a horse?”
“Alasen, this is nothing to joke about! The Goddess alone knows how many of those whoresons are running around loose—“
“Oh, that won’t matter much.” And she held up the small silver dragon.
Ostvel squinted at it, frowning. “Where did you find that?”
“Right here.” She patted the pocket of Chiana’s velvet robe. “You know what it looks like?”
“Yes—like a chess piece, not a token of safe passage. It might even be the one that got Cluthine killed.”
“Nobody knows for certain how or why she died. It might not have been this at all. And Tilal fooled them perfectly with his.”
“It was RinhoeFs, a gift from the Vellant’im. This one—“
“Well, it’s worth a try, isn’t it? And who’s to say I’ll even need to use it?” She set down brush and dragon and knelt beside him on the bed. “Come, love—you know I’m right.”
He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’ll have plenty of soldiers with me. I won’t come to any harm.”
“Alasen—“
“And if I leave soon I might even be able to catch up before they work any mischief.”
Gazing up into her wide green eyes, he suddenly heard his own plaintive voice say, “But you just got here.”
His wife laughed low in her throat and leaned over him. Tendrils of her damp hair tickled his bare chest. “Are you finally trying to tell me you’ve missed me?”
Ostvel blinked. “You knew that! Of course I’ve missed you!”
“Then act like it.”
Much to his surprise, and despite his weariness and his years, he did. And for the first time slept soundly within the walls of Swalekeep.
*
Whatever prodigy had produced Rohannon’s initial immunity to the sea, it was entirely gone by the time Arlis’ fleet caught up with the Vellant’im. All he could do was wedge himself into a corner of the captain’s deck with his pail between his knees, beyond even a simple wish to be dead.
It had come upon him gradually, like the power lent by the dranath, but with the opposite effect. He’d hidden his growing discomfort as long as he could, but then Arlis had come upon him clinging to a rope rail as he sagged half overboard in the process of losing his breakfast.
“Poor Sunrunner! Starting to feel it, are you?”
Rohannon could still talk. He knew from experience that this wouldn’t last. As Arlis settled him in a corner, he complained, “Whoever said that when you’re at sea, you feel the rhythm of the world itself wasn’t a Sunrunner. The only rhythm I feel is in my stomach.” And then he threw up again, right on schedule. When he was finished, the prince was gone and the battle had begun.
Not that Rohannon knew much about it. His concerns narrowed to the pail and the waterskin someone had been kind enough to put beside him, so that when his belly emptied itself he could drink a little in preparation for the next time. By late afternoon he’d stopped lamenting that he’d been born a Sunrunner, and was wondering why he’d ever been born.
So he missed the brilliance of Arlis’ maneuvers that split the Vellanti fleet in two. He missed the thrilling speed of the attack, the wind that seemed to turn when and where Arlis wanted, the volleys of deadly arrows exchanged ship-to-ship, and the sight of the dragon-prowed vessels running for all they were worth back toward Brochwell Bay in a sudden gale. What Rohannon missed most of all, however, was his own bed.
He lifted his head Wearily when someone picked him up and said, “No weight at all, my lord. He’s but a lad, getting taller but still skinny with it.”
A painful amount of thought later, he decided they were at Einar. He couldn’t have sworn to it, as the motion of being carried was nauseatingly akin to the sway of the ship. But then all motion stopped, and he was lying flat on his back on some soft, fragrant surface that stayed blessedly still. He closed his eyes and plummeted into sleep.
When he woke, he felt dimly better. He raised himself on one elbow and squinted. A room. A real room, with stone walls and tapestries over them to ease their chill. A fire in the hearth near the bed he lay on; a window full of driving rain; a chair with Prince Arlis seated in it, calmly paring an apple.
“M-my lord,” Rohannon managed, and Arlis glanced at him.
“Good morning, and Goddess blessing to you, Sunrunner,” he said with a happy smile. “I won’t insult your stomach with an offer of food, but you really ought to get some liquid into you. Wine, taze, or plain water?”
He knew he had turned green. Arlis chuckled.
“Forgive me. It’s not funny to you, I know, but the rest of us find a certain wicked relief in the proof that faradh’im have weaknesses we don’t. Go back to sleep.”
“Is this Einar?”
“It is. We arrived yesterday evening.”
“Yesterday?” Rohannon repeated blankly.
The prince grinned. “Yesterday. By the way, we won. I’ll save the details for a time when you’re able to comprehend how truly magnificent it was,” he went on wryly. “In fact, I’m amazed I’m alive to boast of it. If the wind hadn’t shifted that last time and driven one of our ships into one of theirs instead of the other way around, and if the storm had caught us just a little sooner—“ He paused. “You don’t remember any of it, do you?”
“I remember being wet and miserable, and then much wetter and much more miserable. That was the storm?”
“Yes, and seven of their ships braved it to escape us. Three of them we sank, and one smashed on Guardian Rock. By the Goddess, though, they can sail!”
“Welcome to it,” Rohannon mumbled, easing himself back onto the pillows.
Arlis laughed. “Sleep,” he repeated, and as it was the best idea Rohannon had heard in days, he did.