by Melanie Rawn
On this course of action mother and son had not agreed. Rinhoel had no intention of playacting to impress Pol for the next ten or twelve years. And, he added shrewdly, did his mother really wish to spend even more of her life waiting? Far more attractive was the notion he held out to her that if the twins were disposed of, he would be the best heir to Princemarch. Pol could not ignore him then. Not him, or his mother. By the next Rialla, Rinhoel would be twenty. He could spend the next three years forging alliances with various princes, so that when the twins died and an heir must be found, he would be it.
But now had come this bloody onslaught from the south, and with it the opportunity of a lifetime.
Mirsath’s fortuitous murder of Patwin had been the first opening. Aurar, Patwin’s youngest daughter, whose birth had been her mother Rabia’s death, was currently living at Swalekeep. At the news she became a fire-breathing she-dragon. Rabia had been Chiana’s full sister, both of them daughters of Roelstra and Palila, and Chiana was pleased to see resemblances in temperament and ambition between herself and her niece. But Aurar’s demand that an army be sent to level Faolain Lowland and avenge Patwin’s death had needed redirection. The girl proved herself clever by heeding Chiana’s advice.
“My darling Aurar, I share your grief. Mirsath will be dead soon enough, I promise. But we must be cautious. What your beloved father worked so hard to gain for you can still be had. I can’t send an army, you must understand that. But I can send you and a large escort down to recover your dear father’s body for proper burning. They will allow you through as the daughter of their valued ally. And while you’re there, you will present certain propositions to them—in exchange for establishing you as Princess of Syr in your own right.”
Aurar liked the idea of being a ruling princess. She was Roelstra’s get for a fact, Chiana had told Rinhoel.
“Not that she’s going to sit her pretty bottom down at High Kirat for an instant,” she added. “Syr will go to you, of course.”
“I never doubted it, Mother. But perhaps I should go with her.”
“We can’t risk you. I mean no slight to your bravery, my heart, but you must remember that these people are barbarians.”
So Aurar had departed with a suitable escort, all attired in mourning gray. She returned with Patwin’s corpse—and answers to Chiana’s offers.
“Ostvel is gathering the levies of Princemarch. Kostas and Tilal are in the field. If Rohan wins in the Desert, his armies would land on us, too. I pointed that out as you asked. But they’ve taken most of the Faolain River, so ships can sail by night to supply them.”
“With the winter cloud cover, the Sunrunners won’t see a thing,” Chiana concluded gleefully. “Aurar, my love, you’ve done brilliantly!”
But now there was a new threat, from a portion of the enemy army not yet privy to the arrangement. Rinhoel met with his mother after dinner the night of Rialt’s arrival, and demanded to know how Chaynal could be so stupid.
“Stupidity is a thing unknown to the Lord of Radzyn, and you’d better remember it,” she snapped. “Rialt says they hope to lure forces unsuccessful on Kierst-Isel to Waes, and trap them between Ostvel and Arlis. It’s a good plan, but it puts us in danger until we get assurances of safety from these savages.”
“Aurar can act as go-between. And if she fails, I’ll wring her neck.”
“I have no interest in how she dies, but restrain yourself until we hold Syr, if you please. For now, we have these filthy Waesians to house and feed. And that impudent bitch, complaining about her room and insisting they sit at table with us! The arrogance of the woman!”
“That miserable brat of hers kicked me when I told him to shut up tonight. But we have to endure them, Mother. It’ll look suspicious if we don’t.”
“Rinhoel . . . .” Her hazel eyes brightened. “They make perfect hostages! Pol’s fond of Rialt—Goddess knows why a prince consorts with a merchant’s son who used to be his chamberlain. Desert folk have always had despicable manners. My stomach curdles every time I think of that nothing Ostvel as Lord of Castle Crag, married to a Princess of Kierst!”
“Hostages?” he prompted before she could reiterate her entire list of Rohan’s offenses.
“What? Oh, yes—well, they’re bound to find out we’re helping the enemy eventually. When they do, we’ll have Rialt and his odious little wife and brat. We must keep them here at all costs.”
“And give them better chambers?” he asked sarcastically.
“In a few days. Perhaps.” She shrugged her annoyance. “But we can’t let them go to Dragon’s Rest. They’re too valuable here.”
• • •
This was Rohan’s view, as well—though for different reasons. Rialt met his Sunrunner at an inn the next afternoon, and once the woman had finished conversing with Hollis on the sunlight, it was all decided. He and Mevita and Polev would stay at Swalekeep and observe Chiana. News of Aurar’s journey to recover her father’s body had intrigued the High Prince greatly. Rialt suspected he was right, and some sort of bargain had been struck. He would wait, watch, foul Chiana’s plans in small ways if possible, and report everything to Rohan and Pol through his Sunrunner.
When he returned to the castle Rialt apologized to his wife for not having credited what she had known instinctively: that Chiana saw a chance to gain Princemarch, and didn’t mind bedding down with the barbarian enemy to do it.
Chapter Seventeen
On the fifty-eighth day of Autumn—twenty-six since Graypearl, Gilad Seahold, and Faolain Riverport had been attacked, twenty-three since the fall of Radzyn—they found out what the wooden contraptions were for.
A score of them snaked across the Long Sand on huge, spoked wooden wheels, drawn by Radzyn horses broken through Goddess only knew what cruelty to the unfamiliar work. Heavy bits dragged at their mouths, secured by wide straps across forehead and nose; thick leather harness bound them breast and rib; reins threaded through brass guide rings to the men driving the horses.
“Do they actually plan to fight that way?” Walvis marveled as the bizarre frameworks pulled into what they assumed was a planned formation on the flat plain where battle would be fought. “Are those barriers?”
“How should I know?” Maarken rubbed his sore right wrist absently, scowling into the distance. “I don’t like this at all.”
Chay leaned his elbows on the low wall between crenellations, hands clasped before him and shoulders hunkered down. “I suppose they might be obstructions of some sort, to stop our mounted soldiers . . . .”
“Or for their troops to hide behind during our charge,” Pol contributed. A moment later he shook his head in frustration. “What in all Hells are those things? And why are so many of their men racing around gathering up the biggest rocks they can find?”
“I think we’re meant to be frightened,” Rohan mused. “Or at least extremely nervous.”
“It’s working.” Walvis spoke dryly, but his eyes were shadowed with worry. “How do we plan a battle against something we don’t understand?”
As high, thin clouds burned away above them, they watched the unwieldy frames become something terribly logical. Wheels were blocked with large boulders while ropes were attached in various places. From the middle of each rose an armlike pole ending in a broad hollow like a cupped palm. Ropes leading from these bowls were wound laboriously into a section of the frame, much as chains were wound to lift a drawbridge.
A tall, massively muscled warrior whose beard seemed made entirely of gold beads stood a few paces in front of the array, one arm upraised. When he swept his hand down, there was a mighty rush of air and a simultaneous thwanng from all twenty machines as the ropes’ tension was released and the empty hands flew upward.
Rohan gulped hard. “Now we know.”
Pol had already thought beyond the effect to neutralizing it. “How many would it take to swarm one of those things and topple it?”
Chay nodded slowly and turned his head to look at Rohan. “My princ
e?”
In a colorless voice he replied, “We are their equals in conventional war. These tip the balance in their favor. Therefore, we must find some way of canceling the threat. It would cost too many lives to use foot soldiers against them.”
“In other words, you’re open to suggestions,” Walvis murmured.
“Always.”
Before anyone else could speak, Pol said, “There’s only one way. Fire.”
It was the first time he had addressed his father since the night he’d refused to swear the Sunrunner’s oath against killing. It was not lost on either that this was really the same discussion. Blue eyes met blue-green, each man knowing that it would come up again and again—until one of them relented. And neither of them would relent.
“Not from me,” Maarken said quietly, but there was anguish in his voice.
“I wasn’t going to ask. It’ll be my responsibility.” But Pol couldn’t quite keep the tinge of scorn from his voice.
His cousin glared at him. “I’ve done it before—that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? I called Fire to a wooden bridge. But that was cold Fire, Pol. Not the kind you intend to use. It didn’t kill.”
“Only strongly discouraged people from crossing that bridge, or venturing onto it to put the Fire out,” Pol snapped. “What’s the damned difference? And how do you know I won’t use the same kind of Fire?”
“Because I know you. Here’s your chance to demonstrate you’re just as powerful as Andry! How can you be a ruling prince, a husband, a father, nearly thirty-three winters old—and still such a child?” He stalked off, limping on his wounded leg and shouting for his wife and a squire.
Pol gritted his teeth. Maarken had been closer to the truth than he liked to admit, even to himself. What Andry had done still infuriated him. But the insult from a man he worshiped stuck in his throat like a knife.
“I suppose you agree with him about me,” he said to his father.
“Do you?”
Pol felt every muscle in his body tense. “Perhaps you think I should ride back to my princedom, my wife, my children, my next birthday, and my toys.”
“Don’t be a horse’s ass,” Chay said tiredly. “You don’t understand Maarken. I can condemn what Andry did. I’m his father. But Maarken’s his brother—and swore the same vow. What Andry did violated everything Sunrunners are, but by the Goddess, it worked. Don’t you see how much Maarken’s tempted to do the same?”
Rohan said softly, “The means of Andry’s victory may be justified in its end—to Andry. But not to Maarken. And it’s tearing him apart, not just for himself but for his brother.”
“It seems to me,” Pol said in equally low tones, “that those of you who are not Sunrunners do a great deal of philosophizing about those who are.”
His father’s brows knotted over narrowed eyes. “And what about those of you who are diarmadhi?”
A muted gasp from Walvis reminded them of his presence, and Pol froze. He doesn’t know about me—
But he did now.
Pol looked down at his father. “You tell him how it happened,” he said curtly. “It’s not a story I have the stomach to repeat right now.”
As he strode away, he heard Walvis mumble something about not wishing to know, that it was not his right to know, that he had no need to know. Rohan said, “It is your right, and there is need.” Pol hurtled down the stairs before he could hear any more.
• • •
The battle was brief and vicious. Pol, standing on Remagev’s walls, called down Fire on the wooden arms that flung their huge handfuls of stone at the keep. Like the sails and the dragon ships, they did not burn.
Some of the machines spewed colossal boulders against the walls, while others used smaller stones to terrify Remagev’s inhabitants. No one had even heard of a battle fought this way. It was as if the sky itself assaulted them.
Failure turned Pol into a madman. He armed himself in a frenzy and tore the reins of a war stallion from a Radzyn soldier’s hands and pelted out the gates roaring “Azhrei!” at the top of his lungs. Rohan saw him go, and wanted to cover his face with his hands. But he watched his son’s slaughters resolutely, telling himself it was not a prince or a Sunrunner their people needed, but a warrior. A barbarian. Pol was living up to a heritage older than Rohan’s rule of law.
Fighting was a nightmare. The initial charge was too fast, horses and soldiers frantic to escape the heavy stones showering down from the sky. For a time Maarken lost control of the cavalry through no fault of his own. And there was no way to regroup, for the machines could be adjusted to direct stone at any target.
Kazander’s horsemen dealt death enough; Chay’s and Walvis’ people did the same, mounted and afoot. Maarken had given the heartbreaking order that whatever horses could be killed should be. So not just enemy soldiers but Radzyn horses were butchered, a sword through the heart or the brain once their riders were unseated. Some were taken and hauled back to the keep, but the primary object was to deprive the Vellant’im of their stolen, essential mounts.
But it was the Desert force that was finally compelled to withdraw behind Remagev’s massive gates as the machines—untouched in the battle—continued their fire against and into the keep. This seemed likely to last all night.
“The walls will hold,” Walvis told Chay. “It’ll take more than a few rocks to—” He ducked instinctively as a clatter sounded in the empty courtyard outside. “—to break through.”
“If they don’t drive us mad first with their stony rain,” Chay growled. “Go get your arm bound up. It’s bleeding.”
Despite the brevity of the battle, there were many casualties to be attended. Sioned, Feylin, Chayla, and the others who knew enough medicine worked until long after dusk, while the pounding at the walls continued.
“We killed many,” Kazander said as Chayla bound up a cut on his arm. “So did they. But they have more people to lose.”
She tied off the bandage, inspected it quickly, and said, “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“No, my lady.” He rallied briefly, giving her a tired smile through the dirt and sweat caking his face. “But if I were, the sweet healing touch of your hands would cure me instantly.”
“Fool,” she snorted. But as she moved on to the other wounded, her bloodied fingers brushed lightly over the back of his hand.
Chayla’s beauty had made her the favorite among the young men who came to Remagev, though her scant sympathy for the scrapes and bruses taken in training kept most from falling headlong in love with her. But these wounds were real, and their fighting skills were the only reason her patients had survived to become her patients.
That evening she found in herself what the finest physicians must have and must hide: compassion. Its discovery turned her from efficient crafter to genuine master. She had studied medicine because she had a talent for it, because the workings of the human body fascinated her. But the girl who memorized texts for their intellectual challenge that night became a Healer. She felt each wound as if it was her own—and learned to conceal the pain. For if these people could bear their hurts in proud silence, who was she to weep?
Just the same, her father came upon her late that night in Sionell’s little cactus garden, hunched over and gasping as she tried not to cry.
Maarken had not fought long that day—his wrist was still painful and his thigh had not healed sufficiently to permit it—and thus there was no physical exhaustion to take him to his bed where his wife insisted he belonged. So he limped downstairs, not wishing to be up on the battlements where his father and Rohan stared at enemy campfires. He could feel the Vellanti presence all along his skin; he didn’t need to look at them to know they were there.
The dim golden beacon of his daughter’s hair snagged his attention long before he heard her muffled sobs. A father’s first instinct rose up in him: Who has hurt her? I’ll kill him for it—But no one was to blame. His heart ached and he wished she was still a little girl who could be shelter
ed, protected, spared all ugliness. He thought of that other bright blond head, twin to Chayla’s, those other young shoulders bending under a weight too heavy. Rohannon didn’t even have his family around him. He was alone. Maarken resolved that if there was enough sun tomorrow, he would find his son and give what comfort he could.
But Chayla he could help now.
He was sitting beside her with his arm around her before she fully realized he was there. “Hush, little one,” he whispered, rocking her. “Ah, love, it breaks my heart to see you cry.”
“I’m not c-crying,” she managed, hiding her face against his shoulder.
“Of course you’re not. Forgive me.”
“It’s just—I couldn’t help!” she burst out. “Not enough. I worked and worked and I did it right and they’ll heal and they’re not in any more pain but it isn’t enough!”
“You did all you could,” he said, feeling helpless, wishing again she was still a child with simple hurts to soothe.
“I know,” she said impatiently. “If not for me, some of them would lose an arm or a leg, or their wounds would fester, and more would die—but it was as if my skills were there to serve the war, Papa. Do you understand? I want more than anything to be a physician and help people—but I don’t want it to be this kind of help!”
He stroked her silky hair, understanding better than she could ever know. He loved being a Sunrunner, loved the feel and taste and scent of colors on light. He took pride and pleasure in his skills. But he didn’t want to be forced to use them in war any more than his daughter did.
Had Andry been forced into it, or had he grabbed at the chance? It didn’t bear thinking about. If the reality of it tore at him the way the very idea of it tore at Maarken, then he was going through all Hells right now.
But Chayla could endure using her skills in the service of war, and Andry was doing the same. Could Maarken do any less? Was Pol right? Had the time passed for pretty notions of honor and oaths and Sunrunner ethics?
