Dragon Blood h-2

by Patricia Briggs

  Kellen raised an eyebrow, but nodded. When he had scrubbed as well as he could, he put his head low in the water and began swimming. I kept a watchful eye on him because he was in no condition to do much, but he stopped after one lap when Rosem and Oreg, carrying clothes and toweling, entered the clearing.

  I dried quickly and dressed, leaving Kellen with his man. It looked as though they had a lot to talk about. Menogue wasn't so big that they'd have trouble finding the rest of us when they were ready.

  Late as it was, there were few people sleeping at camp. The story of what we were attempting had traveled through our men and sponsored a great deal of discussion, though no dissent. King Jakoven was not much liked among our men since Erdrick had died at his hands. My own capture, it seemed, had cemented the feeling.

  When I approached the central fire where Duraugh was holding court, Tisala brought me a cup of tea. She ran her eye over me as if to make sure I wasn't missing any parts, and then strode back to the fire without saying a word.

  Kellen and Rosem came not long after I did. Dressed and clean, Kellen looked better, but my uncle made sure that he had a wooden platter of travel bread and cheese as soon as he sat down.

  "So you think Hurog is the best place to store me?" Kellen asked. Obviously Rosem hadn't wasted any time when I'd left them.

  My uncle nodded. "Even if Jakoven knows that we're the ones who got you out, he'll expect us to take you to my own Iftahar or to one of the Oranstonian lords who are supporting your uncle."

  "I've seen to it that Alizon knows where we take you," Rosem said. "He'll probably be there before us."

  Kellen's eyebrows lowered as he stared at Rosem. "I may go to Hurog, Rosem. Indeed, it sounds as if, for the moment, that would be for the best. But if I go, it is not because I have been taken there." The frightened prisoner shaking in the water had given way to a man who had been raised as royalty.

  Forged indeed, I thought, pleased.

  "There are problems with Hurog," said Tosten. "You ought to know that the keep is in the process of being rebuilt. If the king discovers where you are, the walls will not hold him out."

  Or at least the gates won't, I thought, remembering how little time it had taken Jakoven's men to open them.

  Suddenly Kellen smiled. "I have to admit that part of the reason I'm inclined to go to Hurog is to see it for myself." He turned to me. "Rosem kept me informed about things, and I heard much of what happened when you brought the walls down on the Vorsag."

  "If we can manage it," said Duraugh slowly, "we can pull a lot of the lords of Shavig behind your standard while you are at Hurog. If the Hurogmeten follows you, they will as well."

  "You assume I want the throne, then?" Kellen said, a hint of bitterness in his voice.

  Everyone froze—even Tisala, who'd been staying out of the conversation by sipping her tea, halted mid-sip.

  "No," I replied sharply, when it appeared no one else would. "We assume that you will do as you were born to do: protect your people as Jakoven has failed to do. But if your time in the Asylum has rendered you unfit to rule, I would rather you stop now than continue what your brother has begun."

  Oreg stared into the night, smiling at nothing.

  Rosem put his hand on his sword and would have stepped between us had not Kellen put a hand on Rosem's shoulder. "Peace, old friend, he's right." Kellen nodded respectfully to me. "Locked up in a cell," he said, "it's too easy to forget what I have been fighting for. I want everyone here to understand what that means, though. Rather than injustice, there will be war. Civil war. Brother fighting against brother." He gave an elegant hand movement that asked us to include himself in his last statement. "The ties that bind us together might be ruined forever, leaving the Five Kingdoms broken before her enemy's sword. And, from what Alizon's letters and messages have told me, we probably will not win. Make certain before we start what cannot be undone that Jakoven's sins are such that they are worth the cost you will pay."

  I shrugged my shoulders and said before my uncle could speak, "Jakoven has declared war upon Hurog and we must fight. With your banner before us, we have hope of winning; otherwise we fail. I would rather fight a war for my rightful king than a war for survival. But for Lord Duraugh, Tosten, Beckram, my sister, myself, or any who have the blood of Hurog strongly in their veins, we have no choice." I opened my mouth to tell them why, but Oreg got there first. Just as well, because my slow tongue was making my audience restless.

  "The cost of doing nothing may be higher yet. Jakoven seeks to bring upon us a cataclysm as bad or worse than the one that destroyed the first empire." Oreg's voice was full of the mysteries of the ages. He could do that when he wanted to, pull the cloak of his years around him until the weight of time beat upon his audience like a mallet. "He has been trying to pull the secrets of the Imperial mages out, and he dabbles in things he knows nothing about. Farsonsbane destroyed civilization on this continent until the people deserted their cities for the wastelands. For nine and a half centuries the Bane was hidden, but Jakoven has found it again. If he lives long enough to unlock its secrets, we'll wish the Vorsag had invaded and sold us all as slaves."

  Oh good, I thought, glancing around at the faces reflected in the firelight They really needed something more to be frightened of.

  "He doesn't know how to use it yet," I said. "But he's convinced that the answer lies in the blood of Hurog. So you see that it is not some notion that you are the rightful king that sways Hurog to your support. Nothing so tenuous as honor or the belief in a cause. Hurog fights for survival—which makes us your staunchest supporters."

  Kellen smiled at me. "Your sword will cut my enemies as well as any zealot's. I just wish I had a hundred more lords with cause to fear Jakoven."

  "Ward can bring you most of Shavig and a fair portion of Oranstone," offered my uncle with unfounded confidence.

  Kellen looked at Duraugh with interest. I looked at him with disbelief.

  "Shavigmen have long memories," Duraugh said. "They fought against Oranstone in the Rebellion because Fen, Ward's father, fought. Most of them will fight shoulder to shoulder with Ward because he is the Hurogmeten—and because no Shavigman worth his salt ever turned down a good fight."

  "Myth," I contradicted Duraugh flatly. It was dangerous to allow Kellen to believe that. "Shavigmen are men like anyone else. They fight when they have to and are not about to follow a callow boy blindly. You've been to the same Shavig council meetings I have."

  Tosten smiled blindingly and laughed. "When you hear respectful tones from a Shavig lord, it's time to run," he quoted smugly. "Ward, don't you know you've given Shavig a hero for the first time since old Seleg died and the dragons died with him."

  "Hero?" I choked. "If Orviden calls me a puppy one more time, I just might bite him."

  Kellen stared at me for a moment. "The council meets, I believe, next month. Can you get them all together sooner?"

  "You are well-informed," said my uncle approvingly. "But my son Beckram and Ward's sister, Ciarra, just had a new baby girl, the first of her generation. Reason enough to hold an informal celebration at Hurog."

  "Fine," I said. "To celebrate my niece's birth I'll see to it that the lords of Shavig attend. If they understand what Jakoven holds, they'll see that they have no choice."

  Rosem said, "Alizon has the support of most of Oranstone—but they are tired of warfare there. Things are better since the Vorsag were driven out, but there are still many Oranstonian lords who have very little power over their own lands."

  "Avinhelle is behind Jakoven," said Tisala. "But there are a few men I believe will support Kellen where they haven't supported Alizon." She turned to Kellen. "Remember, we haven't told them that we intend to put you on the throne rather than Alizon, yet. Seaford will split, I think, from what my people have overheard. And there are several powerful Oranstonian lords who are making noises of support for Alizon, but may not support Kellen."

  Kellen raised his cup to me and said, "May we all
outlive this year." Soberly cups were raised and drunk.

  I dreamt I was back at the Asylum that night, but fortunately I woke up before I woke anyone else. The camp was quiet when I got up and went for a walk.

  When I got to the broken wall that looked out over Estian, Tisala was already there.

  "What keeps you up so late?" I asked, careful to keep my face in the deeper shadow so she couldn't see the remnants of my nightmare there.

  She glanced at me, and then returned her gaze to the city below us. She shook her head. "Have you ever felt like you've stepped into someone else's story?"

  "No," I said, intrigued. "Whose story have you stumbled into?"

  "I'm not sure right now. Kellen's? Oreg's? Yours?" She looked at her hands where they lay on a broken stone block, capable hands that could wield a sword with rare skill.

  But she wasn't seeing what I did. She was looking at her left hand. The scarring was bad—even in the dim light of stars and moon I could see that.

  I took her hand in mine; it was damp and tasted salty when I kissed it. I didn't think she'd been sitting in the dark sweating.

  "It took something away, didn't it," I said to her tear-wet hand. "I didn't really understand before."

  "What did? What didn't you understand?" she asked, trying to get her hand back.

  I held on tighter. "Being strapped down while someone hurts you. Being helpless. Even out of the walls of that cell, I'm not free of the Asylum—any more than the torturer's death freed you of his tormenting."

  She stopped struggling and stared at my face. Finally she reached up and touched my cheek, tracing the path of my tears, invisible in the darkness.

  After a moment she turned back to look at the lights.

  "It makes you feel filthy and small," I said, then laughed painfully. "I'm not used to feeling small."

  "And guilty," she whispered. "As if you should have been able to stop it like the hero in one of Tosten's songs."

  Her damaged hand gripped mine and the strength of that grasp was a testimony to Oreg's healing skills. Together we watched the night and felt a little better for each other's company.

  When I slept at last, I dreamt I was small with dirty hands and ragged clothes. Hunger spurred me to dig through the trash that covered the cobbled alleyway, hoping that there was some scrap of dry bread that the rats and wild dogs had left behind. I was so intent on my quest that I didn't hear them until a large hand grasped the back of my neck.

  They dragged me kicking and screaming before a harsh-faced man who said, "Purple eyes. This is the one."

  I awoke in the early hours of the morning and used the dream to find my brother.

  10—GARRANON IN ESTIAN

  Only as adults do we understand our childhood.

  The sky was yet dark when Garranon arose from his temporary quarters, walked the corridors of the castle, and entered the rooms that had been his since he first came to Estian. His things had been moved out yesterday at the king's orders—Jakoven thought they'd been placed in a different suite, but Garranon had sent them home to Oranstone.

  The malachite floors gleamed in the light of the torch he carried from the corridor. The floor was older than the walls, one of the few things Jakoven had left when he rebuilt the castle. Green, thought Garranon, green for the king's favorite, the color of Oranstonian whores plying their trade. Appropriate.

  The king had dismissed him from these rooms, the rooms that belonged to the king's whore.

  All alone in the suite that had been his, Garranon closed his eyes. He was so tired. For two decades Garranon had been hostage for his brother, for his homeland, and now he'd outlived his usefulness. When the time was right he would retreat to his home like Haverness had, and not return to court. Surely the king would allow him that, after all these years.

  He felt hollow and useless. All of the sacrifices he'd made had ended at nothing. He was no longer of importance to the king, and because of it he was no longer of importance to Oranstone.

  The suite where he'd lived for the past two decades felt curiously abandoned without his things. Garranon supposed he ought to open drawers and wardrobes to make sure the castle servants had gotten everything, but instead he wandered from one room to the next watching the flickering torchlight reflect in the polished floors.

  The king had found a new favorite. Someone more important to him than Jade Eyes—who had been as much a weapon to be used against Garranon as he had been a serious rival for the position of king's favorite. The king had been very angry with Garranon for choosing to fight for Oranstone after Jakoven had determined that Oranstone should fall to the Vorsag before he mounted a defense. That Haverness's Hundred had managed to throw back the invasion had rubbed the king's wounded pride with salt.

  Jade Eyes had been a punishment for Garranon and a warning. This new favorite was something else—Jade Eyes had not been triumphant when he'd delivered the message for Garranon to vacate his apartment.

  Garranon's reign as the king's favorite was ended, and with it any hope he held to help his people. Not that he'd been able to do much these past few years. It was time to go home and leave Jakoven to his new plaything.

  Why did that hurt?

  He touched an embroidered couch absently and a memory came to him. He'd been in the garden chatting quietly with the queen, so it must have been before the young Hurog's death a few years ago had driven her to living in solitude on her family estates.

  A servant had dropped a tray of food, distracting him from his conversation. When he'd looked up his eye caught the face of one of the lesser nobles, a man he'd seen any number of times over the years, and for an instant Garranon was once again a terrified young boy being raped in the remains of his mother's gardens and the insignificant Avinhellish nobleman was holding his wrists.

  Unable to deal with the unexpected memory, Garranon had turned without a word and retreated to this embroidered couch. He hadn't noticed the king in the garden, but Jakoven had followed him only a few moments later.

  At the king's insistence, Garranon had, haltingly, told him what happened that long ago day while the king held him until he was finished. Their lovemaking that night had been sweet and gentle.

  Garranon jerked his hand away from the couch as if it had burned him.

  Garranon hated Jakoven. He knew he did. Had hated Jakoven secretly since he'd been brought to the king's bedroom as a terrified boy. Hated him more every time he went home to Oranstone and then was forced to leave his wife, his child, and his lands again to serve in the king's bedchamber.

  Garranon lay on the bed, which was made up with unfamiliar ticks and bedcovers, and stared at the painted ceiling two stories above the floor.

  It was only pride, he told himself. Oranstone would survive without him to soften the king's orders, but it was natural to fret that it could not survive without him. He would not miss Jakoven. His hands clenched in fists.

  When the bed sank underneath the weight of another occupant, he put out his hand to pet the soft pelt of the Tamerlain without looking away from the star-and-moon-covered ceiling.

  "Thank you for helping Ward," he said. "He was magnificent—I thought Jade Eyes would drop dead of flouted spite."

  She purred and rubbed her broad face against his shoulder before settling against him. "What troubles you?"

  He laughed without humor. "I do." He rubbed his hand over the unfamiliar coverlet. To her he could say what he could not admit to himself. "I hate him, so why does leaving him hurt so much?"

  She was quiet for a minute and then said, "You've been Jakoven's lover for twenty years."

  "Nineteen."

  "More than half your life. It should feel strange to leave it behind."

  He smiled at her.

  "Perhaps," she said slowly, "you need to find out who he is putting in these rooms. It might help you either way. Yes, I think that might be a good idea."

  The Tamerlain rolled off the bed and said, "Come."

  She led him through the fa
miliar passage between his rooms and the king's, stopping before the panels of wood that opened into the king's chambers.

  "Shh—they won't see us, but noise is harder to mask," she said, and huffed at the panel, which shimmered and then dissolved before her. When she stepped forward, Garranon followed.

  The passage opened into the king's receiving room. The only furniture it contained was the king's chair, which sat on a dais so the king, when he was seated, was the same height as a standing man.

  Jakoven sat in his chair, while Jade Eyes, wearing only a sea-blue night wrap, leaned against it. On the strip of carpet in front of the dais, a guardsman held a struggling boy. All were apparently unaware that Garranon and the Tamerlain were watching them.

  The child was tidy, but there was only so much soap and water could do to the dirt of years. His skin was gray and his hair was so neatly trimmed it had to have just been done. It was cut almost to his scalp—most likely to get rid of the pests that infested the lower population of Estian. Hunger gave him the face of a much older person, though Garranon reckoned his age to be around ten or twelve.

  He hadn't felt as young as this boy looked when he was twelve, and one of the king's soldiers had presented him and his younger brother to the king in a scene very similar to this one.

  "Hold him still," ordered Jakoven. The excited tremolo in his voice brought Garranon to alert as the guardsman wrapped an arm around the boy and gripped his jaw, forcing the boy to stare at the king.

  "Hurog blue," said the king, satisfaction in his tone. "Your lord will be rewarded as I promised. Jade Eyes, take the boy for me."

  The king's mage took the boy ungently by the arm and the guardsman left. The boy jerked once, then cried out and went still when Jade Eyes shifted his grip.

  "A little scrawny, isn't he?" said Jade Eyes distastefully.

  "We'll feed him up," said Jakoven, leaving his chair.

  "Boy," he said in a velvet tone as familiar to Garranon as his own voice. "Give me your name."

  "Won't," said the boy, spitting on the floor.