Dragon Blood-Hurog 2 (25 page)

of us.

I was still thinking about it when I fell into a (thankfully) dreamless sleep. I awoke at first light, feeling like

myself for the first time in a long while. I breathed in Hurog air and felt the familiar currents of magic that

flowed through me, filling the terrible emptiness I'd felt away from Hurog and cleaning away the lingering

effects of the potions Jakoven's mages had fed me.

I stepped around my sleeping comrades and snuck out of the library without awaking anyone. There was a council to call and rooms that needed to be prepared. But first I needed to ride. The big paddock had four horses in it. A moon-colored mare with gentle eyes, two chestnut matrons whose years of foaling showed in their widened rib cages and loose-jointed stance, and a mud-dark, big-boned stallion who bugled and charged when I whistled at him.

"Miss me, Pansy?" I asked, opening the gate and haltering him. He shoved me with his convex nose and

ran his fluttering nostrils over me as if to check for damage.

"Nothing that shows, Pansy. Nothing that shows," I assured him as I led him to the stables where saddle and bridle awaited us.
His
scars were visible, white hairs on his ribs and flanks, and ripples in the soft skin

on the corners of his mouth.

He lent me his enthusiasm as we charged the mountain trails. In the last few years these wild rides had grown less frequent; my need of them lessened by the satisfaction of turning Hurog into a prosperous land

once more. But Pansy's memory was sharp and his feet didn't hesitate as he powered up the steep, snow-covered game trail. Hurog had
real
mountains.

Standing by the broken bronze doors on the mountainside, we stared down onto Hurog. It wasn't as impressive as it had once been. The stark black lines were softened by granite and the places where the stonework had not yet been replaced. But the air of decay that had clung to it was gone. Pansy cocked an ear back, so I turned him around to see what he'd heard. The dragon that stared at me was not Oreg. Its scales guttered green and black instead of purple, and it was less than half Oreg's size.

Pansy, conditioned by long rides with Oreg, didn't flinch when the dragon's head darted suddenly past us

so its right eye was even with mine.

"Hurogmeten," he said in a voice that could have belonged to Tosten when he was ten.

"Dragon," I said. Oreg had told me that he wasn't the only dragon around here, but I'd never seen another one until now.

He tilted his head, butting my shoulder painfully with a bony ridge. Then he pulled his head back. "It sings in you," he said. "They said it did, but I didn't think magic could sing to a human."

"This is Hurog," I said. "And I am Hurogmeten."

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"
Hurog
," he said after a moment, "means dragon."

"Yes," I agreed, smiling.

That seemed to satisfy him. After two running steps down the mountain he took awkwardly to flight.

"A fledgling," I said to Pansy, feeling lighthearted. I hadn't really believed Oreg when he told me that there were more dragons—no one had seen one in a very long time.

"Tosten is incensed," announced Ciarra's voice on the other side of my horse. "He said they almost put a

rider up behind you in the saddle yesterday—and yet this morning one of the stablemen sees you taking flight up the mountain."

I set Pansy's brush on the rack and turned toward the open door of the stable. My sister, wrapped in winter clothes and backlit by the morning sun streaming behind her, looked like the spirit her new daughter was named after. Her pale hair looked the same as it had when she was a toddler. I hugged her and lifted her gently off her feet for a spin. "How are you? I hear that you and your baby made the trip in better shape than Beckram."

She kissed my cheek and I set her down.

"Beckram fussed," she agreed, "but Leehan slept most of the way. Are you all right?" There was more concern in her eyes than a tiring ride from Estian would have called for. But she knew me as well as I knew her. She wouldn't pry unless I wanted to talk.

"I'm fine," I said. "Really. A bit stiff when I awoke. Tosten wasn't exaggerating—the last two days he and Oreg had to hoist me in the' saddle—but I felt much better once I was in Hurog."

"I heard about your triumphant entry," she said. "Did the gates really open for you? And what's this about your newest stray? Tosten says he's our father's get."

I nodded, since it sufficed for most of her questions. For a woman who had been mute for most of her life, words often cascaded from her in an effervescent flow. Her words, though, reminded me that I needed to do something with Tychis—and looking at my sister, I suddenly knew exactly what that was.

"What?" she said, no doubt seeing the sudden satisfaction I felt on my face.

"A new mother needs help," I said. "I believe I'll give you someone to fetch and carry for you and Leehan."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh please, not you, too. You'd think that I just got off my deathbed. Not that birthing is easy, mind you, but I don't need any more coddling."

"Perhaps not," I said, smiling at her. "But we have a newly discovered brother who was raised on the streets of Estian, and he needs to coddle someone. I think I'm going to give you and your baby to him."
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12—WARDWICK

I'd have thought that persuading people to do what they wanted to do would have been easier. It took us two weeks to organize a meeting of most of the Shavig Council. Two weeks of lightening my purse to hire every laborer and idle farmer in the area to work on Hurog had given us three more usable rooms and seen the great hall finished to the extent that our meeting was unlikely to be interrupted by wandering horses.

My uncle's people worked hard as well. Some of them stayed in the keep, but most sheltered in the holding's farms so there would be room for the Council when they came, which they did, despite the snowstorm that preceded them. Shavigmen knew how to travel in winter. The councilmen, mostly nobles with an odd wealthy farmer or guild master thrown in, all came bearing gifts for my new niece, but the carefully worded invitations had been carried by messengers instructed to

tell the recipient of Kellen's escape and Jakoven's seizure of Iftahar—Beckram told me that they'd left only hours ahead of Jakoven's troops.

Though they knew that even to be at Hurog was likely to invite Jakoven's wrath, almost everyone came,

and the few who didn't were ill or snowed in. We feasted and hunted and listened while Tosten provided

bardic entertainment, and no one mentioned Kellen's escape or Jakoven's attempt to imprison me in the Asylum. Kellen and Rosem stayed secreted in my rooms, waiting for the most politic moment to present

them to the Council.

On the evening of the second day, when the night's meal had been taken away, I stood on the dais (newly built along with most of the tables and benches in the hall) and waited for the after-dinner talk to

quiet down. Everything—down to the clothing I wore—had been carefully orchestrated by my uncle. I wore formal Shavig dress as had been out of fashion for a number of decades. Close-fit breeches, loose-sleeved shirt covered with a knee-length tunic split down the sides—all of several shades of brown. Over my left shoulder a Hurog-blue dragon crawled.

"My lords, tradesmen, farmers all, we've welcomed you to Hurog, and given thanks for the gifts you brought. It is time now to speak on more serious matters." I took a deep breath. I'd protested that the speech Duraugh and Rosem had put together was too wordy. The original one would have taken me an hour to get through. Duraugh cut it down, but it was still long. I hoped they'd all

stay awake through my speech to hear Kellen's.

"You all know the reasons why I have stayed here at Hurog these years past. You probably all know that Jakoven recently called me to Estian. He claimed I was incapable of ruling Hurog and intended that I

should prove him right and open a way for him to claim Hurog for the Tallvenish crown." I paused to let the growl of several of the nobles be heard. Hurog was Shavig, and belonged in Shavig hands, never should it be held by Flatlanders—things like that. I continued before the tide of indignation

had a chance to fall.

"It didn't work out as he had planned," I said, and my voice carried over the other men talking in the room.

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Colwick, one of the eastern Shavig holders and the only Shavig lord younger than I, laughed, jumped up

from his seat, and said, "I was there. Jakoven sat waiting complacently for his men to bring a stupid lunatic in to display before the court. Ward came in dripping guards off him, leaving them lying about like

plucked flowers. He bowed like a courtier and thanked the king for his hospitality." Colwick had something of a case of hero-worship for me; I think he listened to too many hero-songs as a young man.

The smile left his face. He looked around the room, then at me and said, "It was obvious that the king thought he was presenting an idiot before the court. Why was that? What did he do to you?" The anger in his voice was hot. I pictured in my head what would have happened to Colwick if matters had proceeded as Jakoven had planned. I wondered how many other Shavig lords had been in that crowd, slated to become traitors and die.

I smiled sunnily and said, "Oh, the king has his methods, I'm sure. But I was trained by my father and I've had a lot of years of making people believe I'm something I'm not." Telling them the details would have made them pity me. Let them fill in what they would.

"So you decided to get a little of your own back, Pup?" suggested Orvidin from the back of the room. His voice was a soft thrum that penetrated the shadows of the hall, and everyone turned to him. The aging warrior leaned heavily on a cane. His snow white hair fell unbraided to his waist, a sharp contrast to

the iron gray of his short beard. Orvidin was a contemporary of my grandfather's.

"So you took the king's brother home with you to worry Jakoven and lost Iftahar for your uncle," he said.

I nodded my head slowly. "I suppose you could say that Kellen's rescue had something to do with my uncle's loss—yes," I agreed. The tension in the room was taut enough to sing. "Or perhaps after several people had risked everything to help me, the only repayment they asked was to spirit Kellen out of the Asylum where he never should have been in the first place. When they asked this of me, I felt ashamed because I had never thought to demand his release before, even though I knew as well as you that he did

not belong there."

Silence echoed in the room. How many of them had given thought to Kellen over the years? Kellen, who

had been a quiet, good-natured boy, sentenced to life in a small, dark cell. Had they lied to convince themselves that the fit of
illness
that Jakoven used to justify his imprisonment of Kellen had been real?

When I felt they'd had time to feel such guilt as they would, I continued. "Both reasons for rescuing Kellen are true. But it is also true that I know Jakoven will not let me or mine hide in peace again. I no longer have the luxury of hiding here in Hurog and hoping the king will forget me again."

"Alizon's rebellion is doomed," I said. I let my gaze sweep across the room and saw agreement in some faces and repressed anger in others. "Or so I thought. But as it turns out, it has never been Alizon's rebellion—it is Kellen's."

I let the murmur of conversation swell for a beat or two, then continued. "So by helping Kellen out of that hellish place—" Someone smiled and I stopped.

"Don't any of you believe the fictions that Jakoven spouts about luxury and good treatment in the Asylum," I said. "I've been there and I wouldn't leave a dog I cared about in the 'gentle' keeping of the men who run the King's Asylum for Noble Embarrassments and Inconveniences."
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I'd put too much feeling in it. I would rather have left them believing that all that Jakoven's wizards had done was question me while I played stupid.

I swallowed and continued on in deadly seriousness, my carefully memorized speech forgotten. "So as Orvidin has already speculated, it was entirely self-interest that led me to help Kellen and join in his rebellion. But I believe that it is a self-interest that all Shavigmen share." I took my tankard off the table and let the sweet water pour down my throat. My uncle gave me a small smile of encouragement that would have been invisible to anyone farther away. I set the empty tankard down, and turned back, trying not to notice the way the sound of the metal tankard hitting the table echoed in the silence of the room.

They want to be convinced, my uncle had said. They'll listen as long as it takes you to do it.

"Let me tell you why it is imperative to your survival that you help us here," I said. "It is the reason that Jakoven will not let my family alone."

I took a deep breath and plunged on. "While I was in the Asylum, I saw Jakoven produce an artifact he found while renovating his castle at Estian: a staff head bearing a dragon with a black gem."

"Are you telling us you think Jakoven found Farsonsbane, Pup?" asked Orvidin.

"I'm telling what I saw," I said. "And I'll tell you that Jakoven told me he found Farsonsbane and I, a wizard, believed him."

"Even so," said someone else. He sat near the eastern Shavig group, but the room was shadowed and I couldn't tell for sure who it was that spoke. "There are no dragons left to activate it."

"Jakoven managed to get the Bane to do something with my blood while he held me," I said. "As soon as I left, he went after one of my half brothers—whom Garranon spirited here."

"You're claiming to be a dragon?" asked Orvidin incredulously, standing up again with such force that the

bench he'd sat upon rocked back. "You don't expect us to believe that. I tell you, Pup, I came here ready to throw my support behind Kellen—but I will not abide following a man stupid enough to try to make me swallow a story about a mythological artifact and then compound it by seriously declaring that