Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince (70 page)

“What happened?” Maarken stammered.

“You fell over, of course. Here, sit down and drink this.” Rohan pressed a winecup to his lips.

Maarken sipped, coughed, and shook his head to clear it. “Oh, Goddess,” he breathed. “I can hardly wait until I’m a real Sunrunner—”

“You’re doing just fine,” Davvi assured him.

“I can’t control anything,” the squire complained. “It just happens to me and I don’t have any say in the matter. It’s like—like being a field somebody marches over.” He pulled a wry face and brushed ineffectually at the mud on his clothes.

Rohan bit his lips together over impatient questions. As color returned to Maarken’s cheeks and a smile began on his face, Rohan stopped worrying, an instinct confirmed by the boy’s first words.

“Walvis beat the Merida!”

Davvi whispered rapid thanks to the Goddess as Maarken went on with his report. It seemed that Cunaxan supplies had been mysteriously delayed for some time—no one knew why—and with the diminishing of their food the Merida had turned to the only source of sustenance available to them: Tiglath itself. The battle had raged for two solid days, but by its end the Merida were destroyed and Tiglath more or less intact.

“The wall between the Sea Gate and the Sand Gate collapsed after the Merida spent a whole night undermining it,” Maarken explained, “but Lord Eltanin isn’t worried about that. He even wants to leave it as it is. What was it Kleve told me he said?” he frowned. “Something about making it a reminder and a warning, and that the walls built by his prince will be better defense than mere stone ever could be.” He looked up at Rohan, puzzled. “Do you know what he means, my lord?”

“I do,” Davvi said. “And he’s quite right. Go on, Maarken.”

“Well, there was lots more. The Merida were strung around Tiglath like jewels on a necklace, Walvis said, but Kleve said they were more like insects caught in a spider-web, with lines of archers between. The wall collapsed and then they invaded, but Walvis was ready for them. Our people came out of the gates and took the battle out to the plain, and—” He paused for breath. “Walvis killed the leader and at least fifty more. Kleve and Feylin were watching but they lost count!”

“Is Walvis hurt?” Rohan asked.

“Just a scratch or two. He’s too good a warrior to be wounded. The fires to burn the Merida dead went on for three days. Walvis wants to march south now to defend Stronghold or come to us here.”

Davvi gave a muffled exclamation. “Lleyn’s ships!”

“Exactly.” Rohan nodded.

“What ships?” Maarken asked.

“Later,” Rohan ordered. “Davvi, would you see him to his tent for some rest, please? I’ll be with Chay.”

As he mounted Pashta and rode slowly along the river-bank, he thought over Eltanin’s words. Walls stronger than stone, built by Rohan. The
athri
’s faith galled him. He would have to topple fortresses more formidable than castles if his dream was to come alive again within him.
We hide behind our savagery,
he thought bitterly.
All of us. I have to destroy those walls before I can build others.
And, more to the immediate point, he would have to demolish the very real fortress of Feruche, and quickly. Midwinter was approaching. He must finish things here, play the barbarian warrior prince with Roelstra, before doing the same thing at Feruche. But after that—
Never again, I swear it,
he told himself. Barbarian he might be, but he could put down his sword. He must. He could not live this way.

Rohan had been correct about the masters’ reaction to Chay’s proposed use of their ships. But the transfer of troops, horses, and supplies to the Syrene bank of the Faolain was completed in two days, well south of the bridges where Roelstra had expected Rohan to cross. The High Prince had no opportunity to deploy his army for serious harassment of the move; there were brief skirmishes but Desert archers kept the losses minimal. A measure was marched off and a new camp established, and all was ready just before the next storm blew in from the north. Once more both sides settled in for the duration, polishing swords and keeping bow-strings dry.

Lleyn’s ships had to wait in the mouth of the Faolain for a break in the weather. It was a long time coming, ten days before the fleet commander considered it safe to put out to sea again. Rohan and Chay watched the sails rise and fill with brisk wind, and knew that with the ships went any possibility of escape back across the river. They were in Syr for good or ill. Whatever the outcome of the battle, whenever it was fought, Rohan was oddly pleased to have his actions forced this way. Diminishing choices diminished interior conflict.

He and Chay and Davvi formulated endless plans, fighting battles on maps to explore tactics, arguing placement and timing. It was all they could do until their scouts reported back, and when they did, the news was bad. In the brief two-day stretch of sun that had allowed the ships to set sail, Roelstra’s army had moved back yet again and in doing so seemed to have multiplied twofold.

The morning brought a freezing mist as the trio rode out with their squires and captains to investigate for themselves. Rohan shivered beneath a heavy cloak, cursing the clouds that hung rain-heavy in the north. But what he saw from the top of a hill chilled him more thoroughly than the wind.

The whole of the pastureland that had lately been the High Prince’s camp was awash in thigh-deep water. Trenches had been dug from tributaries of the Faolain. When added to the already saturated earth, the river water had turned a two-measure-wide plain into a lake. Crossing was impossible; the bottom was thick, viscous mud like that around the lake’s edges. Drainage ditches and a whole summer’s heat would be required to bake the land dry again. But there was something more, something only Roelstra in his cunning would have thought of, something that had ruined this rich land forever.

“Do you smell it?” Rohan asked softly. “Salt.” He heard Davvi’s despairing curse, Chay’s sharp intake of breath. Rohan breathed deeply of the distinctive bite on the wind. “I suppose the trees were too wet for burning, or he would have done that, too,” he commented. Then he turned Pashta and rode back to his tent, and did not admit anyone until nightfall.

When Chay was at last told that Prince Rohan wished to speak with him, he entered the tent in the liveliest apprehension of what he would find. Rohan sat on his cot, round-shouldered, an empty bottle overturned on the carpet and a half-empty one between his boots. There was a goblet in his hands and he turned it around and around in some private ritual before each swallow, five times before drinking. Chay watched this for a while, wondering if the remedy of liquor applied to Rohan’s wounds would dull them for at least a little while. But when the blue eyes finally lifted to his, he knew the pain was as piercing as ever.

“Sit down,” Rohan said, and it was not an invitation. “This time I have to talk. And this time you’ll listen to me.”

Chay sat. He was not offered a cup and would not have accepted one. Rohan stared at him for the time it took to rotate the goblet again, five times before taking another sip. His voice and his eyes were stone cold sober.

“I’ve told myself I’m clever and civilized. I’ve said that my goal is the rule of law, not that of the sword. And look what I’ve done. I was raised a prince to protect and nurture the land and my people.” Another sip, sensitive fingers turning the goblet round and round. “I’m no better than any man who’s gone before me. I’ve told myself I’m only doing what I have to do. But I’ve got a real talent for this, Chay. I’m proficient in all the barbarian arts—war, rape—”

Rohan drank and leaned over to refill the goblet with alarmingly steady hands. “
Azhrei.
They’ve never called anyone that before, not even my father. Eltanin is going to leave the wall in rubble—and do you know why? He thinks the walls I’ll build to protect the Desert will be better than any stone. I’m not worthy of that kind of trust. I’m not worthy of anything except to die with a sword in my guts, the way I’ve killed others. The way I’ll kill again.”

Not analytical by nature, still Chay could discern the vast difference between these weary, nearly emotionless musings and the anger of Rohan’s arrival that summer. Then he had seethed with fury and guilt, seeking refuge in words and begging Chay for the negation of them that would signal forgiveness. But now he was merely resigned, a man looking at himself from outside himself, knowing there was no excuse—and not seeking any.

“I enjoyed slaughtering Jastri’s army. I enjoyed raping Ianthe. I’m going to
love
destroying Roelstra. Look what that makes of me.”

“It makes you a man like all the rest of us,” Chay said quietly.

A tiny smile touched Rohan’s lips. “Do you know how galling that is for someone like me?”

“You don’t understand,” Chay said, struggling to find the words. It was so important that they be the right ones. “You’re like us, but unlike. Rohan, you’ve
tried.
You have the courage of your dreams—when most of us don’t even know
how
to dream. You know this isn’t the way to live, always at each other’s throats. Your people trust you because they know the sword goes against your nature. It takes greater courage to—”

“To live by it when it’s not of my choosing? Oh, but I chose it, you know. I’m doing a very good job of living with my sword in hand.”

“But when this is over, there’s something more for you—and for everyone else.”

“Yes, of course. I can force everyone to do things my way, and that will make me into another Roelstra. Nothing better than he, in spite of my pretensions. I’d do anything to butcher him and his army, and I’ve done everything to secure myself a son. But there’s one thing I have that he tried to get and failed. I have my very own Sunrunner, and I can use her without first binding her to me with
dranath.
She’s all mine, Chay, just as Andrade planned she’d be.” He lifted the goblet again, but this time did not drink. “What gives me the
right
?”

Chay heard emotions battling to break through the calm facade, and sent up a small whisper of thanks. A Rohan pretending detachment from himself was a Rohan who had nearly lost himself. “Power frightens you,” Chay murmured. “You use it, but you don’t feed off it the way Roelstra always has.”

“And
that
gives me the right? The fact that I’m a coward?”

“You’re not listening to me.” Chay leaned forward in his chair, speaking quickly so Rohan would not be able to withdraw again into the unfeeling shell. “With you, we’ve got a chance for life. You’re our only hope. Do you think I enjoy seeing my son at war? Gentle Goddess, he just turned twelve! What makes you different is that you hate all this! You fear power and you’re scared you won’t use it wisely—Sioned’s power, too, and she’s just like you! That makes you the prince and princess we need! Do you think she’s not frightened by her power?”

Rohan flinched. “I saw my son in her Fire. I can’t deny him—no matter who his mother is.”

“If Sioned has courage enough to take him, can’t you find enough to accept him as yours and hers, and not Ianthe’s?”

“Make believe he wasn’t born of rape?” Rohan shook his head bitterly, blond hair lank and dull in the lamplight. “It’s not just Ianthe. I’d be raising the grandson of the High Prince.”

“Rohan, it’s a
baby!
What fault can there be in an innocent child?”

“His birth!” Rohan threw the goblet across the tent and the wine made a crimson splash against the fabric, dripping down onto the carpet. “He should have been Sioned’s!”

“What makes you think he won’t be? Maarken is as much Lleyn’s now as he is Tobin’s and mine. Rohan, there’s no two people in the world who are solely responsible for what a child becomes. Ianthe may have the bearing of him, but he’ll be yours and Sioned’s to raise.”

Rohan lay back on the cot and stared up at the tent roof, silent for a long time. At last he sighed quietly and said, “You’re right about power. It terrifies me. Not the everyday kind princes have—deciding who has the better claim to grazing lands, ordering a new keep built or an old one replenished. It’s
this
kind of power, Chay—an army around me, power at my disposal just because I’m a prince and I decide who’s going to die. I’ll accept it as a responsibility, but I won’t believe that there’s anything about me that gives me the
right.
I’m not wise. I’m not clever.” He put an arm across his forehead. “All I am is scared.”

For the first time since Zehava’s death, Chay stopped comparing father and son to Rohan’s lack. Zehava would have chosen a path and marched down it without any further thought. But the son differed from the father in constant examination for the right of things. Rohan questioned and doubted, sought deeper truths and hidden motivations. It would be the same when the High Prince’s death opened paths of even greater power to him. Rohan would never stride arrogantly down them, blind to all else, never questioning his right to do as he pleased. He would always question—and this was what would make him wise. At that moment Chay ceased regretting that the son was not more like the father. He would have followed either wherever they cared to lead, but with Rohan, he knew that the path would always be the right one.

T
his time Sioned did not go to Feruche alone.

As Ianthe’s time neared, Tobin and Maeta made quiet plans which they discussed with the reluctant Ostvel only when all was arranged and he could make no real objection. If he had hoped for an ending different from the one understood and unspoken all this time, that hope was now gone. Rohan and Chay were bogged down in the south, and though Tiglath’s fighters were now free to make an assault on Feruche, Sioned had ordered Walvis to stay in the city. The child must be taken in secret if she was to have any chance of presenting him as her own.

That Ianthe would die was something equally understood, equally unspoken. One night in early winter, Tobin and Maeta described to Sioned plans for the infiltration of the castle. She merely nodded. No one mentioned Ianthe’s name.