Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince (68 page)

Feeling Davvi’s gaze on him, he knew his brother-by-marriage was wondering if mercy was a part of his character. He hesitated, knowing that he could order Jastri sectioned off from his troops and spared. But as he glanced at the older man he saw Sioned’s green eyes, remembered her ravaged face. Rohan lifted his sword.

Jastri’s force broke utterly. Some soldiers laid down their arms; others fought to preserve their own lives without thought of winning a larger battle already lost. Rohan had to admire the courage of these latter people, as he admired Jastri’s, even though such bravery in these circumstances was folly. He tried to fight through to the young prince, deciding that he would offer honorable treatment as befitted princes. But he was too busy defending himself and Tilal from ambitious stripling lords who wanted his head. He never saw who killed Prince Jastri.

The banks of the Faolain had long since been secured by Davvi’s contingent, so when the battle cooled at last Rohan led the way back there, Pashta snorting at the stench of death as he picked his way delicately around the corpses. Rohan’s gaze fastened on the empty bridges. Roelstra was too smart to have committed more than a handful of his own troops; he had probably ordered them back across the Faolain this morning. Neither had he risked his own precious person. Pity. Rohan would have liked to end it all here.

Chay rode up with Jastri’s ripped and bloodied turquoise standard furled across his saddle. Rohan held out his hand and Chay dropped into his palm two rings, one gold and one silver, both set with deep garnets, the gem of Syrene princes.

“I had them take him from the field,” Chay murmured.

“Thank you.” Rohan turned, called a group of archers forward, and bid them ready their arrows.

“What are you doing?” Chay hissed as flint was struck and a small fire made in the sand. “We need those bridges!”

“If we cross them now, we’ll be slaughtered. Roelstra’s troops are fresh, and we’re exhausted. If we leave the bridges, he’ll either use them or burn them himself to keep us from crossing. I would rather they went up with
our
fire, not his. Do you agree?”

The question was for form’s sake only, but Chay’s reaction surprised him. A small, hard smile touched his sweat-streaked face as he said, “It’s something Zehava would have done, you know. The grand gesture—and the warning.”

Clenching his fist around the two rings, Rohan glanced over at the archers. But before he could give the order, a cry went up from across the river, soon taken up by his own troops. Fire had spouted up from the bridges in fountains of flame.

Maarken, cheeks white beneath the dirt and sweat of battle, stood at the water’s edge, his arms held up and his hands balled into trembling fists. He called down Fire and it fed on the wooden bridges, sent dancing sparks into the reflecting water. As the sun dipped lower and shadows touched the river, the Fire blazed higher and the Desert cheered its young Sunrunner lord.

Chay whispered his son’s name, anguished. Rohan sat his horse in silence, feeling the heat of battle drain out of him, making him aware of his sore shoulder and weary muscles. There were other small hurts, shallow slices of sword and knife, insignificant in themselves. But they merged into the whole, augmented by a real grief for another foolish young princeling, and as the Fire flared he winced.

Maarken finished his work and with visible effort climbed the rise to where his prince and his father waited. “I killed no one, my lord,” he told Chay.

Seeing that the father was incapable of speech, the prince said, “You have our gratitude, and you’ve gained us Roelstra’s fear.

Look.” He pointed to the opposite shore, where atop the embankment the enemy had gathered to watch as Sunrunner’s Fire licked hungrily through the wood, glowing red-gold to create two blazing rivers of light across the cool one of dark water. He could easily pick out the figures he wished most to see: Roelstra in a deep violet robe, his head bare, black hair ruffling in the Fire-born breeze, and Pandsala, her eyes dark hollows.

“Archer,” he said softly, and a girl ran up. He gave her the gold-and-garnet ring. “For the High Prince, with my compliments.”

She grinned up at him, and beneath the bruises and the dirt he recognized the sentry he had scolded here along this same riverbank. “I’ll plant it right at his feet, your grace!”

She very nearly did. Rohan admired the consummate skill that adjusted the arrow’s flight for the weight attached to it and calculated to a nicety the desired distance. Blue-and-white fletching came to rest ten paces away from Roelstra. Pandsala darted forward. Drawing the arrow from the ground, she handed her father the ring.

Rohan held up the other one. “As I presented Princess Sioned with a token of my gratitude before she became my princess, thus I now give recognition to my beloved nephew of Radzyn.” Maarken’s eyes went wide before he bent his head and extended his left hand. “No,” Rohan said clearly. “The other hand, and the middle finger. This is the first of your
faradhi
rings.”

Filthy and exhausted as he was, yet Maarken’s face was shining as he raised his eyes to Rohan, man’s pride competing with boy’s excitement. Radzyn troops cheered their lord, and Maarken suddenly turned scarlet.

Rohan smiled, but as he counted up the survivors he knew how much this victory had cost him. A quarter and more of their strength had been spent in taking what they had owned to begin with. In doing so they had halved Roelstra’s forces, but they were essentially back where they had started. Chay had specified two battles, and the first was over.

A sudden instinct made him tense as a strange, familiar sensation fluttered in his chest. He looked up, breath strangling in his throat. Soaring through the sky were dragons, more than a hundred of them. The sires and she-dragons Feylin had so carefully counted had produced hatchlings, none of which had been slaughtered by a hunt. No bigger than young children, they beat their wings powerfully, keeping up with their watchful elders on the journey from the caves around Skybowl and Feruche to the cool heights of the Catha Hills in the south.

Rohan felt his throat tighten, his eyes sting. His dragons, more than he had ever seen before in his life, free and proud and alive. His dragons.

As they flew from the Desert across the Faolain, the chant began again. But it was not his name that rumbled along the riverbank, growing louder, following the dragons over Roelstra’s camp as hundreds of wings cast shadows on the violet tents. Someone knowing the old tongue had renamed Rohan, given him the single powerful word that would be his for the rest of his life.

P
andsala stood on a hillock, staring moodily at the storm clouds to the north. They were a distant threat for now, both to encamped troops and Sunrunners, but soon they would shadow and then drench the pastures of Meadowlord before slinking to Syr. She simultaneously dreaded and welcomed the anticipated downpour, first of autumn. Six winters at Goddess Keep had taught her to loathe overcast skies, but here in her comparative freedom, storms would keep the armies mired down and all
faradh’im
effectively caged—not just those ordered so by her father.

He paced beside her, still raging—though in merciful silence now—about the note that had flown in on an arrow from Rohan’s camp that morning. Prince Jastri was dead without a son or brother to assume his title, and only a sister, Gemma, left of his branch of the Syrene royal house. Rohan had proposed, and Andrade had agreed, that subject to the approval of the other princes, Lord Davvi of River Run was to be elevated to the princedom. His lineage was of the princely house; he was the heir. Young Gemma, at barely ten winters old, could not inherit without treaties stipulating that her assumption of the princedom had been agreed to by all the other princes and the
athr’im
of Syr. Of course, if Roelstra had had a son, he could have had him marry the girl at once, no matter her tender years. Of course, if Roelstra had had a son, he would not be in his present pass. The thought gave Pandsala grim amusement.

“Smiling?” her father sneered. “Is it the beautiful day that pleases you, daughter mine? Or the fact that that whore’s brother has been named Prince of Syr? I’ll have Rohan spitted and roasted over a Sunrunner’s Fire—and his witch with him!”

Pandsala stayed wisely silent.

“Declaring him prince and putting him in High Kirat are two different things! The Syrene lords will defend their princess—just as I intend to do! And as for her dear uncle of Ossetia—Chale will send troops. Yes. He’ll want to see Gemma as ruler of Syr.”

“But will he want to make war against Rohan?” she murmured.

“He will if I tell him to!” Roelstra bellowed. “And he’ll raze Goddess Keep as well, with Andrade in it!”

Pandsala felt she ought to say something soothing. “Surely the other princes will realize how powerful this action will make Rohan. If they don’t, you can point it out to them. They can’t acclaim Davvi until they’re all met in one place, and we’re past time for the
Rialla
this year. Between now and whenever Rohan is able to call a convocation—”

“He won’t be alive past midwinter!” he roared.

“Of course not, Father. Forgive me.”

His glare softened. “You have your mother’s temperament. She always spoke softly, no matter what threatened. I loved her well, you know. Goddess, if only one of you had been a son!” He frowned, then shrugged. “Another three hundred troops should be here before the worst rains begin.”

“Who has such strength on short notice?”

“My greedy friend Prince Saumer of Isel, for one. And Lyell of Waes, your sister Kiele’s Chosen, will allow him to land his soldiers in Waes. He’s decided that his interests lie with his future wife, not his dead sister’s husband in Tiglath.”

She nodded. “There was a courier yesterday.”

“Yes.” Roelstra looked grim. “It seems the Cunaxans want more money. The courtiers who’ve ruled since Prince Durriken’s death find the current jingle of my gold too soft a sound, and wish to hear it ring louder. If only those stupid Merida had attacked when I planned it! They were to wait until Tiglath had emptied of troops gone to rescue the princeling. They could have walked right into the city and used it as a base when Rohan was forced to split his armies to go to Tiglath’s aid. It would have worked, too.”

“The results have been livable,” she remarked.

“Barely. But now the Cunaxans want more money to supply the Merida, who should have taken their supplies from Tiglath itself.” He flicked an imaginary spot of dirt off his cloak. “They could have moved south, captured Stronghold, and attacked the Desert army from behind.”

“Rohan will have to come to this side of the river to establish Davvi in High Kirat. And then you can kill him.”

“Oh, no. Not yet. He still has his uses.” Roelstra’s expression turned thoughtful. “You’ve been useful, too, Pandsala. You deserve a reward for warning me not to cross the Faolain with Jastri, and alerting me to Rohan’s maneuvers. I know now how his mind works in war. How would you like a castle of your own, the same as your sister Ianthe?”

“Like Feruche?” She laughed. “Thank you, no. I’ve been at Goddess Keep for six years, and I’ve no desire to trade a foggy prison for a Desert one.”

“I’m told River Run is a pretty place. It was the Sunrunner witch’s childhood home, you know. It might amuse you to live there with some fine young lord as your husband.” His eyes held a gleam of cunning. “And yourself as Princess of Syr.”

She was surprised to feel eagerness compete with her suspicions. “I’d expected you’d set up one of Ianthe’s sons as prince.”

“Let them earn their positions when they’ve grown,” he replied gruffly. “Do you want Syr or not?”

“I do,” she replied. “But not to be princess at River Run. I want High Kirat itself. And there’s another small condition.”

“Condition? I give you a princedom and you—”

“Just a little one.” She smiled. “I choose my own husband.” Roelstra chose to laugh, and Pandsala relaxed. “
You
should have been the son,” he told her. “I’ll have you established by midwinter, my pet. But you’ll have to allow me the fun of removing Andrade from River Run first.”

The repeated reference to midwinter puzzled her, but she hid it and smiled again. “Thank you, Father,” she said demurely, bending her head to him as a sign of her submission.

Prince Lleyn had been sorely vexed that his ships had not arrived in time to assist in the battle. He made his feelings known through Meath, who kept Maarken quite busy on the sunlight one morning. Afterward, the squire made his way to the command tent, bowed, and presented his information with a wide grin on his face, shared by Tilal, to whom he had already told the news.

“He sent them to Tiglath!” Tilal cried before Maarken could speak. “Loaded down and wallowing in the water when they passed back by Graypearl!”

“Ha!” Chay clapped his hands together and rubbed the palms gleefully. “Lleyn’s never had any use for the Cunaxans since he caught them stealing from his pearl-beds. Has there been any fighting in Tiglath?”

Maarken elbowed Tilal to silence. “The Merida tried to ambush the party sent to escort the new troops—and lost.” He chuckled. “Tiglath is set for now. Lleyn’s ships will sail again to resupply at Dorval and then come here.”

Rohan shook his head. “Goddess, the concessions Lleyn will demand in the silk trade to pay for this!” But his eyes were dancing.

“We’ll let Davvi contribute,” Chay said slyly.

The new Prince of Syr bowed. “I promise faithfully to suspend any and all horse-thieving along the borders, and to make sure that all the Syrene wine that reaches the Desert is at least of the second-best quality, rather than the third.”

“Decent of you,” Rohan drawled. “What else does Meath say, Maarken?”

“Kleve is on a mission for Walvis. He’s not in Tiglath at all.” The boy shrugged. “Meath says they had to rely on a scout sloop that came down from Tiglath to inform the prince.”