Dragon Blood-Hurog 2 (19 page)

"All right, Ward," he said. "Time to wake up and face the day." I took a deep breath and pulled the covers down. "Good morning," I said, trying to sound normal. Oreg sat on the foot of the bed. "How did you sleep?"

I opened my mouth to lie and tell him I was well-rested when I remembered that at least one of the nightmares I'd had was important. "The Tamerlain was here—I don't know if I told you her part in all of

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this. Yesterday is a bit of a blur."

Oreg nodded. "You told all of us that she cleared your head so you could think and throw Jakoven's plans to the wolves. It was a near thing, though. I talked to the guardsman who was watching so he could

summon your uncle's men if they were needed. Even as it was, he said that but for your uncle's hold on Tosten, he'd have gone for the king right there and then."

"Well," I said, not wanting to think how close I had come to getting my entire family beheaded for treason. "She visited me last night and told me that Aethervon had a gift of true dreaming for me—out of

gratitude for cleansing the land, I think she said. I dreamt the king was looking for a boy, my father's son

out of a Hurog-bred whore. The boy's mother is dead, but the boy would be Hurog-born from both parents."

"Can you
find
him?" Oreg asked.

I shook my head. "I just saw the king's part in this. I need to see the boy before I can
find
him with magic." An increasingly familiar feeling of weakness crept over me. "Ah, gods," I whispered before my body began to try to shake itself apart.

An extremely unpleasant interval followed. Oreg held me until it was over, then efficiently removed me to

the chair, burned my clothes and the sheets, and cleaned the room. He stepped out and returned—in clean clothes, as I had managed to dirty him, too—with sheets and clothes for me. He made the bed as I dressed.

"Efficient," I said, sitting stiffly on the bed.

"You think you are the only Hurog whose body rebelled from the poisons pumped through it?" he said.

"If I weren't efficient after all these years, it would be a shame. Most of them even chose to indulge in vice. Go to sleep, Ward. Duraugh has to write orders for Beckram to take to Iftahar's seneschal, so we're not leaving until later this morning. I'll have a talk with Tisala about your newest foundling. As it happens, she has a lot of contacts in Estian. If there's a young Hurog out in the streets, she'll find him." He left and I lay back in the bed, feeling even worse than I had when I awoke. As I stared at the ceiling, Tosten opened the door, his battered lap harp in one hand.

He gave me a measuring glance. "You look worse than you did yesterday. Oreg told me you needed cheering up—and I was to come and make myself useful."

I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing.

"I see he was right." Tosten nodded. "You need to hear
The Ballad of Hurog's Dragon
, which is even now making itself popular in the taverns of Estian."

He pulled up Tisala's chair, settled himself in it, and began to play a song that purported itself to be a story a Shavig armsman was telling to a Tallvenish audience at an inn. That it was one of Tosten's own compositions was obvious to me. I knew my brother's music.

About halfway through I surged to my feet in disbelief. "He did what?" Tosten stopped playing. "Oreg was really worried about you, Ward. It wasn't his fault. None of the horses got hurt, and he did that thing that makes people look away from him. I bet there weren't half a
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dozen of the men who really got a good look at him."

"And you're singing about this in the taverns? No one is supposed to know about our dragon."

"Oh," he said. "We've done something about that. It was Tisala's suggestion, actually, and I've refined upon it a bit. Listen to the rest."

The pair of Shavigmen used their tale to lure a Tallvenish nobleman (who sounded a lot like several of Jakoven's cronies) away from his fellows and out into the woods. Whereupon the Shavigmen stripped and bound him. They gathered his possessions and clothing and took them back to the inn with a note warning him to leave a certain Shavig heiress alone or they'd spread the story of his humiliation far and wide.

I sank back onto the bed with a laugh. "Catchy tune."

Tosten looked pleased. "I thought so. I've heard several other minstrels play it—or a version of it."

"No one will ever admit to believing there are dragons at Hurog after hearing that," I said.

"That was mostly the point," agreed Tosten. "Feeling better?"

"Mostly," I said. "Thanks, Tosten."

I had one more shaking fit that afternoon, though it wasn't nearly as bad. Or wouldn't have been if I hadn't been on top of Feather halfway up the steep trail to Menogue. I didn't stay on top, and for a moment I thought someone was going to force poor Feather to fall on me as they tried to move her away

on the precipitous slope and she slipped.

So I recovered lying directly under Feather's belly.

"Damn," I said with feeling as I rolled carefully out from under my horse. "Good girl, that's a love. Not your fault." When I was through soothing her abused pride, I remounted with Tosten's help and didn't protest as Oreg and Tosten left their mounts for others to lead and walked on either side of me. As Feather labored up the trail, I thought that if the king's army wanted to chase us up the steep-sided, flat-topped hill (that the flatlander Tallvenish called a mountain), he was welcome to do so. Any army that

climbed up to the top wasn't going to be in fighting shape when they got there. As the Tamerlain had told me, there were a few of Aethervon's followers camped on the site of the old ruined temple. They welcomed us as we arrived on the top as if they had expected our coming. I slept most of rest of the day. Oreg discovered several reasons he couldn't possibly rescue Kellen until the following night. Unsaid was his conviction that I needed to rest at least another day before setting off

for Hurog.

When the sun rose after the first night we spent on Menogue, I ate breakfast with the two young men and the old woman who were the new followers of Aethervon, and set out exploring. There was nothing

else to do until darkness fell, and lying about gave me too much time to dwell upon the Asylum. My feet took me toward the ruins of the old temple grounds. It was a path I'd walked before, and I could see the differences that the new priests had wrought in the landscape. Grass had been trimmed and

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flowers planted, but the wooden hut that served Menogue as its new temple was overshadowed still by the ruined walls that rose up to hide it from the sun. The crude wood structure paled in contrast to the ancient artisans' skillful carving. Some of the fallen blocks had been cleared away, leaving patches of raw

earth where the stone had lain since they fell two centuries before. Strange how Oreg made me think of two centuries as recent.

I sat down in the shade of the old ruins and shivered. It would probably be snowing in the mountains of Shavig by now. Closing my eyes, I felt outward as Oreg had taught me at Hurog. I wanted to see if the magic here was as I remembered it. I reached out, touched the morning-cold walls of the old temple, and

found what I sought.

It was ancient, this magic, and, unlike Hurog's, it held memories. I saw things for which I had no explanation, battles and great victories or defeats, but many more small memories, a man holding a black

stone in his hand and flinging it to crack against the bark of a tree, a woman laughing as she ate a ripe fruit. My mouth salivated and I knew the fruit was tart and juicy. Tattoos bisected my wrists and I hated them bitterly for the symbol of thievery that they were—though part of me was certain that I'd never heard of anywhere that tattooed thieves. These were the memories of the people who tended this temple in times past and shaped the magic here with the help of Aethervon, binding the magic until it would protect His temple unless Aethervon himself restrained it—as he had when it had been overrun. It was this part of the magic of Menogue that reminded me of the oily black magic that had oozed out of Farsonsbane. It had been magic without direction, yet strong and aware. I pulled my hand away from the wall and realized that the shadow I'd sat in was gone—as was the darkness the Asylum had laid upon me. For the first time since I left Hurog, I felt at peace.

"Oreg was by a while ago," Tisala said. She was reclining on one of the massive stones that had formed the arch of the dome. Close enough to keep watch, I thought, but not so close that she'd disturb me. "He said you were 'daydreaming,' and to get him if you didn't wake up by noon." She glanced at the sun straight over our heads. "He also told me to ask you if you learned anything." I nodded my head slowly. "I learned that sitting still all morning is not a good idea—give me a hand, would you?"

She grinned and came over to pull me to my feet. I let her work at it a while before I stood, groaning as my joints protested.

"Getting old," she pronounced with a shake of her head. "I could hear your back pop." I laughed, and it felt good. Kissing her felt better. When I pulled back, her eyes were dark and her breathing quick.

I bent back down until my forehead rested against her hair, warm from the sun, and sweet-smelling. When I stepped back, she stared at me fiercely, as a falcon measures its prey.

"I am older than you," she said. "I am too tall, too strong, too used to having my own way. I am Oranstonian, born and bred to secretly despise Northlanders as much as we fear the Vorsag. I am scarred and plain. My nose is too big."

I waited, but that seemed to be all she had to say. "My father tried to kill me off and on until he died—that makes a person old before his time. I am taller than you, stronger, and used to getting my own

way. But the trees are taller yet, and in strengths that surpass that of thew and bone, we are
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well-matched, I think. I'm Shavig born and bred, which makes me arrogant enough to laugh when Oranstonians try to make fun of my big horses and yellow hair. I'll match you scar for scar with some left

over." I hesitated for effect, fighting to hide my exultant feelings because if I laughed I wouldn't get said

the things I needed to. "So, let's see"—I ran a finger lightly over her lips—"that leaves only your last two

complaints. Tisala, don't you know that there is such beauty in you that leaves men trembling? It is not the

beauty of a flower in the king's gardens, but that of a tigress with sharp fangs and—" She laughed suddenly. "Whiskers?"

I smiled. "If your nose were any smaller, it would be too small." Then I kissed her sharp, arrogant nose.

"Will you marry me?"

I pulled away to look into her eyes, but she kept them closed.

She shook her head slowly. "No. You rescue people, Ward." She opened her eyes hoping, I think, to convince me of her earnestness. "You rescued me. It's natural for us to feel this connection—but it's not real. One day you'll look up and see me, and wonder where the woman who needed your protection went. Men don't marry women like me, Ward."

I started to open my mouth to argue with her, when several things occurred to me. The first was that words were not going to convince her that what I felt was real. Only time would do that. The second was

that she felt something, too—both her words and her response to my kiss told me that much. Knowing she cared gave me the hope to be patient

So I smiled at her and started back for camp. Unless she told me to leave her alone, I would pursue her unto the ends of the earth.

Kellen's man Rosem had the look of a soldier about him. Something in the way that he stood spoke of long hours in ranks and parade rests. Stala wasn't big on fancy marching, but I knew what the results looked like. He was wary of me, and unhappy at having to trust someone else to rescue Kellen: very unhappy at how we were going about it.

"Why does he have to go off alone—why can't he work the magic here?" I shrugged, not about to tell him that Oreg intended to fly to the Asylum under the cover of night and take a good look at what spells were put on Kellen's cell. "For," as he'd said to me, "Kellen is too rich a prize to leave out with the common discards. They'll have other safeguards about him even though he's not in the wizard's wing."

"Oreg knows what he's doing, Rosem," said Tisala patiently for the third or fourth time. "Trust him."

"Do I have a choice?" he said finally. The edge of desperation clung to his tones.

"No," said Duraugh. "But Hurogs pay their debts."

"The Hurogmeten got himself out," replied Rosem.

Duraugh shrugged. "Maybe so, but you risked a lot to help us—we can do no less." The atmosphere of Menogue after dark didn't help, I thought. If we'd been back at camp with the men, the familiar noise and bustle would have drowned out Rosem's realization that he was standing on a place

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reputed to be haunted. No good Tallven would have been caught dead on Menogue after dark—unless he was awaiting the rescue of his liege lord by a pack of wild-eyed Northmen. It affected everyone. Duraugh had been careful to lean up against a tree so that nothing could sneak up behind him. Tosten stared off into the darkness of the woods as if he expected to see something there. Tisala played with the hilt of her sword.

I closed my eyes and took up a more comfortable perch on the waist-high boulder I'd found to sit on. If something out there meant harm to us, the Tamerlain who was curled up, unseen, behind me would give

warning.

A wind came suddenly out of nowhere, strong enough to make the aspen saplings clatter together. Tosten half drew his sword and turned to face the wind, but when I put my hand on his elbow, he slid the