Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince (65 page)

Another of Stronghold’s archers was lost, plummeting down like a fallen dragon with an arrow in her chest. The riders assaulted the first gates, opened one of them, gained access to the long tunnel. Maeta commanded a regrouping above the outer courtyard, where they would be out of range of Merida bows and could pick off the horsemen when they breached the inner gates.

Tobin plucked up her second quiver with a muffled curse that was half-annoyance, half-pain. An arrow had scored her thigh though she only noticed it now that she had to move. Struggling to climb down from her niche, she stumbled into the gatehouse, still cursing.

She followed the others through a narrow passage to the crenellations above the inner gates. The archers arranged themselves, grim-faced now, the atmosphere of easy victory gone. Old Myrdal was down in the courtyard yelling at servants who had armed themselves with sword, spear, and shield—anything not taken to Remagev with Ostvel and the rest of the Stronghold guard.

Maeta gave Tobin’s leg a rough inspection and an even rougher bandage that stank of herbs. “Clever me,” the commander said bitterly. “But don’t worry—we’ll get them on this side. I’ve ordered your boys to the back passage by the grotto, just in case.”

“
What
back passage by the grotto?” Tobin demanded, but Maeta was already gone.

Whatever salve had been on the bandage, it soothed away the pain and Tobin no longer limped as she found position near a man who had a similar bandage wrapped around the broken haft of an arrow in his hip. Blood seeped through and he could put no weight on his leg, but he was balanced and ready just the same as they waited for the Merida to come through the gates directly underneath. At that point the Stronghold archers would shoot the Merida in the back.

Tobin traded a smile with the man—but the daughter of a warrior prince abruptly became the mother of twin sons whose shouts of defiance echoed up from the courtyard below. As the Merida battered at the gates, Sorin and Andry battered long kitchen knives against small shields used for training, shields nearly as tall as they were.

“No!” Tobin screamed. “Andry! Sorin! Run!”

But the gates toppled and the horses clattered into the courtyard. And she had only the slender red-and-white arrows with which to defend her sons.

“It’s this way,” Sioned told Rohan, leading him to a passage through the rock hitherto unknown to him. He followed her through the cleft that was just large enough for a single horse to pass. Two people on foot negotiated the stone corridor swiftly and easily, and before Rohan knew it they were beside the grotto, panting for breath.

“Come on,” he managed when he had caught enough air to speak. “Goddess, I hope we aren’t too late—”

They ran to the deserted inner courtyard, but beyond the walls were sounds unmistakable even to Sioned, who had never heard real war: clashes of steel on steel, horses’ screams, cries of the wounded and dying. Rohan gave her a boost and then took her hands to haul himself up onto the walls. He gave the chaos a single glance, then leaped down and sprinted for the nearest fallen sword.

Sioned stayed where she was. The Merida horse had spread out in groups of three and four, tight little knots bristling with hooves and swords on all sides. She chose the nearest of them, lifted her ringless hands, and encased the group in Fire.

She did the same to a second knot and a third, creating small infernos of screaming, burning flesh. A rider broke from another trio and hurtled toward her, determined to slay this wild-eyed, fire-haired witch who called down Sunrunner’s Fire on them. She wove a net of flames around him, too, with a casual gesture of her hand. His sword clanged to the ground from burned fingers and he shrieked in pain. Sioned smiled very sweetly and wrapped another group of horses in flames.

Rohan saw the Fire spring up four times, five, six. He plunged his borrowed sword into a nearby blaze, killing men and women he could barely see. When the rest of the Merida turned and took flight back through the tunnel, he bellowed Sioned’s name. She was still on her knees on the narrow wall, rocking lightly back and forth, her hands spread out before her and her hair streaming down like a river of her own Fire.

“Sioned!” he cried again. “Enough!”

Her hands fell. Her gaze found his and her smile died. She swayed, nearly toppling. Myrdal limped over and held up her arms, helping her down from the wall. Fire had vanished; it had not burned long enough to kill, but the stench of seared flesh and hide was nauseating in the heat.

Rohan found a horse whose rider had fallen to a red-and-white arrow—and what was Tobin doing here, anyway? he asked himself as he caught sight of his sister’s slight figure in the confusion. Leaping up, he reined the terrified animal around and kicked it through the gates.

Tobin snatched her sons into her arms. They were mercifully whole, though Sorin’s tunic was ripped and Andry had a long, shallow cut on one arm. She embraced the pair fiercely, then let them go and dealt each a resounding blow on the backside that put tears into their eyes.

“How dare you disobey me!” she raved. “Don’t you ever do such a thing again! Get out of my sight before I have you horsewhipped!” She pulled them close for another breathless hug, then pushed them toward the keep. “Move!”

They did. Tobin straightened up, near to fainting with anger and relief. And then she caught sight of Sioned. Myrdal was supporting her, for Sioned was only half-conscious. Tobin forgot her own dizziness and hurried over, wedging her shoulder beneath Sioned’s other arm.

“Get her inside,” Myrdal said. “Can you manage by yourself?”

“I can walk,” Sioned whispered with no voice at all.

Tobin looked her over. Sioned’s face, neck, and bare arms were blistered and bloodied. Even her hands, ringless now and without even white circles where those rings should have been, were sun-ravaged. And the body Tobin circled with her arm was nothing but bones.

“I can manage,” she told Myrdal. “She can’t weigh any more than I do. Sioned, come with me now, dearest. It’s all right. You’re home.”

“Tobin?”

“Yes, it’s me. You’re safe. You’re at Stronghold. Hang on to me.” She kept up the soothing words as they made their slow way into the castle. The coolness within revived Sioned a little, and she was able to support herself as Tobin helped her up the stairs.

“Where’s Rohan?”

“Gone to join Ostvel and the other troops come from Remagev.” She hoped so, at any rate, but there was no use worrying about that now.

Sioned nodded slowly. “I told him Maeta’s plan. Fool. He’ll want to lead the battle.”

“We’re, almost there. Just down this hallway and then you can rest.”

Tobin got her onto the great bed and stripped the torn clothes from her. The shirt had once been a beautiful garment, made of fine material and laced through with tiny violet ribbons. The color made Tobin’s jaw clench. Drawing a basin of water from the next room, she took up a soft towel and began washing Sioned’s feet.

“We had to walk, you see,” the younger woman said, her voice clear and colorless. “The dragons bolted the horses that first day. We couldn’t stop at Skybowl. The Merida left men there to watch for us. Oh, Tobin, that feels so good. Thank you.”

She ripped a pillowcase into strips and bound Sioned’s blistered feet. “Hush now. You just rest.”

“I wonder if I killed any of them with Fire,” Sioned went on in that strange voice. “Andrade would not approve. But it wouldn’t be the first time—or the last.” She stared up at Tobin, her green eyes hazy. “I’m a
faradhi
and a princess. What else did she expect of me?”

“She’s ordered the Sunrunners to support us against Roelstra.”

A thin smile curved the cracked lips. “Tobin, she did that the instant she ordered me to come to Stronghold.”

Tobin finished washing her. Later she would salve that burned, parched skin, wrap her in sheets soaked with herbs. But at this moment sleep was more important. She stroked back tangled red hair and placed a tender kiss on Sioned’s forehead. “Sleep now, my dear. You’re home.”

“Tobin. . . .” Her voice was dreamy, her eyelids drifting closed. “You must tell everyone . . . there’s going to be a son.”

The Merida, galloping back down the canyon, ran smack into the middle of another battle. Ostvel’s forces had come from Remagev, marching all night after riders hidden in the hills around Stronghold had reported the Merida arrival. Ostvel’s force fanned out into a half-circle and was engaged in closing it tight when Rohan and a few others who’d jumped on Merida horses rode into view. The sight of the prince brought two groups from either side of the arc to join in a rear assault. By noonday it was over.

The ten who were still in their saddles were relieved of their horses and armor, but not their lives. Rohan sat his horse with his borrowed sword across his thighs, watching the ten Merida haul their dead and wounded into the sand. He was sick with exhaustion and the battle just concluded, and he had no idea what was keeping him upright. But upright he stayed, with Ostvel silently at his side. When all the Merida had been accounted for, Rohan had the survivors line up before him.

“I will spare your lives,” he told them. “For I have a message for you to deliver. It requires that you sever the right hand of each of your comrades—dead or not.”

Ostvel caught his breath. Rohan cared not at all. When the grisly task was accomplished and the dying had been given a swift knife to the heart, he ordered the hands placed in saddlebags, one for each soldier still alive.

“These you will carry north to your masters. You—” He pointed his sword at the man wearing the finest clothing. “A captain of some sort? I thought so.
You
will have the privilege of going south, not north. You will deliver that as a gift from me to High Prince Roelstra and inform him of what occurred here. Be sure to impress upon him that it will not be his hand I will deprive him of when next we meet, but his head.” He paused, then finished mildly. “I suggest you leave Skybowl alone, incidentally. Before you reach it on foot, my troops will have slaughtered your compatriots there.”

“On foot!” the captain burst out. “But we’ve no water!”

Rohan gave him a quiet smile. “Neither had I and my lady wife during the days we walked here from Feruche. You have the longer path to tread, my friend. Start now, before I change my mind and have all of you killed where you stand.”

He turned his horse and rode back up to Stronghold, dismounting in the inner courtyard. No one dared approach him. As he climbed slowly to his chambers, he met his sister hurrying down. She was limping, and there was a bandage wrapped around her thigh, and through his monumental fatigue he felt a pang of concern.

“Rohan! Is it true?” She grasped his bare arm, the coolness of her fingers on his sun-blistered skin acutely painful.

“Not now, Tobin.” He pulled away from her and continued climbing.

“Answer me! Is it true you’re to have a child?”

He stopped dead.

“Rohan! She told me you were going to have a son! Is it true?”

“She told you that, did she?” He turned and looked into his sister’s black eyes, heard the bitter hollowness of his voice as he replied, “Yes. It’s true. I’m going to have a son.”

He walked away from her bewilderment and closed the door of his chambers behind him. He stood for a long time beside the bed, gazing down at his wife. They lived, as he had promised. He had not been raised in the Desert for nothing. Such food and moisture as the sand and cliffs provided, they had partaken of, and survived.

He traced the fine lines of her gaunt face that was so oddly at peace. Suffering aged most people, but Sioned’s face was a miracle of childlike purity as she slept, lips curved in a tiny smile, the fine sweet bones in sharp relief.

He had promised her life. She had promised him a son. Could she hold Ianthe’s bastard to her breast, even considering that she could wrest him from his mother in the first place? And could he ever look at the child and not see the woman who had borne him?

If Sioned could, then he must. Goddess help him.

He lay beside her, staring at the high ceiling painted blue to match Desert skies. It was a vague surprise to find there was still water enough in his body for tears.

Tobin and Ostvel found them like that at dusk, sleeping. She had come to tend their hurts, he to bring them food. They exchanged glances and the princess spoke.

“She said nothing about a child to you before she left?”

“Nothing. Do you think I would have let her go?” He shook his head. “And do I really think anyone could have stopped her? But why did Ianthe release them?”

“Perhaps they escaped.”

“From Feruche? The only way to leave is to be allowed to leave.”

They watched the pair for a time: Sioned peaceful in sleep, Rohan haggard. Tobin saw that youth had fled her brother’s face, and mourned its loss.

“Doubtless we’ll learn as much of it as they care to tell,” she said.

“Doubtless,” Ostvel agreed. “We’d better let them sleep.”

L
ate in the day the cool scents of water and trees around the Faolain gave way to the warm smells of food cooking in the great firepits of the Desert camp. A sentry could be forgiven a certain drowsiness after a long, uneventful watch, especially if her duty was nearly over and dinner enticed on the breeze. In the ten days since the battle, nothing had happened and nothing was likely to before sunset; she shrugged to herself and found a more comfortable position with her back against a tree, eyes closed.

“Were I the High Prince, you’d be dead right now.”

The clear incisive voice snapped her upright, arrow nocked and bow drawn with admirable speed. But she lowered her arms at once and bent her head. “My l-lord prince!” she gasped.

Eyes of wintry blue gazed down at her when she dared lift her face again. She had seen the old prince once or twice on his visits to the small coastal holding she called home, and this young man was suddenly very like him—not in coloring or size, but in the expression that chilled his thin face.