Dragon Novels: Volume I, The

by Irene Radford

  Then her manner changed abruptly. Her eyes slitted and her body looked softer, rounder, more voluptuous. Her lips pouted and she leaned closer to the man who was trying to maneuver her into an alley.

  “Of course, there are some men who thrill at the chance to defy the Stargods. The risk of being outlawed by every priest in the land heightens the adventure.” Her voice was both enticement and challenge.

  A snarl rose from the throats of several of the locals, men and women alike. Respect for the institutions of the Stargods ran high among the populace of the city.

  Mica’s tune choked briefly. Brevelan suppressed her own laughter. The girl was cunning, no doubt about it. No man within hearing distance would dare touch her now. Indeed, the barkeep was fingering a cudgel with hands itching to bash a head or two.

  “Shut your mouth and come with me, woman! Come quietly or you won’t get any dinner,” the foreigner hissed. His eyes shifted uneasily about the square, while his grip on Rossemikka’s arm never loosened.

  “Merowerrrr!” Mica challenged the man as she stood up in the basket. Her back arched and the fur along her spine stiffened.

  “Hush, Mica! Get down. We don’t want to attract attention.” Brevelan tried to hold the cat back.

  “Merowerrrr!” Mica squirmed out of Brevelan’s grasp and leaped from the basket. Her claws were fully extended. Her eyes glowed a murderous red.

  “A witch! A witch and her familiar claim the girl,” the barkeep shouted and pointed at Brevelan with the cudgel.

  Half the crowd turned their attention toward Brevelan. A heavy boot lifted to kick at the leaping cat.

  “Why is that bridge down?” Darville wondered out loud. Another distraction. Rosie had been missing almost an entire day, Brevelan and Mica nearly as long. Yet he couldn’t neglect his city, and a collapsed bridge in this sector indicated something terribly wrong.

  “Dragons only know,” Jaylor replied as he bent his back and shoulders into his oar stroke.

  Darville searched both banks of Coronnan River for a clue. The pilings that secured the planks on each bank were intact. A board dragging against a piling in the water on the Marner Isle side caught his eye. The current caught the wood, swirled around the piling, then released it as unseen forces pushed the water on course toward the bay.

  “Pull over to that piling,” Darville commanded his friend.

  “Wrong direction. We want Last Isle. Our women are still lost,” Jaylor protested.

  “This might be important. If the bridge has been down for long, Brevelan and Mica couldn’t get across to Last Isle.”

  “If the bridge has been down that long, you would have heard the locals’ complaints.”

  “Don’t bet on that. The Council has been going out of its way to make sure I hear nothing of what happens outside the palace. My spies are good but not infallible.”

  Without that bridge, the residents of Last Isle would be stranded. Very few of the capital’s citizens kept boats for transportation these days. Maintenance and moorage were too expensive for the common folk. Boats for defense and escape had been unnecessary for three hundred years.

  Darville grabbed hold of the loose plank as Jaylor maneuvered the boat closer to the steep embankment. The hull scraped on more planks and handrails. Darville hauled on the rope holding the loose plank. More boards rose from the river. Beneath them, dipping deep into the river, the bridge seemed almost intact. Someone had collapsed the bridge from the Marner Isle side.

  Why? There was no other bridge to this most remote of the city’s islands. Whoever had pulled the linchpin had trapped everyone on Last Isle. But how long ago had this happened? The wooden plank was totally soaked from the river’s surging current. Not waterlogged.

  “I think we need to make haste, Jaylor. Brevelan could be in trouble.”

  “Take the oars a minute.” Jaylor thrust the sweeps into Darville’s hands without waiting for a reply. “Hold her still. I need to touch the plank. Maybe I can read who has passed across it.”

  With the ease of long practice, Darville helped his friend into position. He watched the water and the boat with only half his attention.

  Jaylor’s body went totally still as soon as his hand touched the wood. His eyes closed as his breathing deepened. For a moment, the late afternoon sunshine almost glowed through the magician’s body.

  Impatiently, Darville fought a swirl in the current. When his attention fully returned to Jaylor, every muscle in his friend’s body twitched out of control.

  “Jaylor! Come out of your trance,” he commanded with a frightened wobble in his voice. Somehow, he hadn’t quite believed Brevelan’s report of how Jaylor’s magic had warped. If every spell, even this simple one, sent him into convulsions, his magic was totally unreliable.

  Jaylor didn’t respond to the verbal command. Under his grasp, the plank shattered into a thousand pieces. Sharp splinters pierced Jaylor’s hand. Blood welled up from several wounds, dripping down the hand and arm that jumped with increasing spasms.

  “Jaylor!” Darville released one oar long enough to shake Jaylor’s shoulder. No response.

  The river surged again, stole the loose oar, and swung the boat around. The current grabbed the streamlined little craft and eagerly propelled it toward the sea.

  Chapter 20

  The Cat! Darville’s CAT. The evil little beast stalked across the market square toward Rosie. That must mean the prince was nearby.

  Rosie froze in her tracks. Her abductor yanked on her arm to draw her away from the crowd. She couldn’t respond. Her heels dug into the dirt of their path.

  Air knifed into Rosie’s lungs. Once trapped inside her, she couldn’t release it. Her head lightened and threatened to disengage from her neck. White spots crackled before her eyes.

  Like magic, the cat stopped her attack on Rosie in mid-leap. Hissing and spitting her annoyance, the creature dropped to the ground but came no closer.

  The drunken man’s hand tightened around Rosie’s upper arm. “Quickly, we can escape that vicious cat this way,” he urged. He took two more steps toward the alley, forcing her to follow. She stumbled and threw her weight back, away from him, not certain who to fear most, the man or the cat. Still he dragged her farther away from the protection of the crowd in the market square.

  She raked his arm and wrist with her long fingernails and drew blood.

  “S’murghing harpy!” he snarled. In retaliation he clamped both of her hands in one crushing fist.

  “You’re hurting me!” Rosie screamed, as she bent her knees and dropped to the ground, heedless of her gown. Janataea was going to be very angry when she mended the dirty rips.

  He yanked hard on her arms. Her shoulders wanted to separate from her arms. She fought the pain, fought the man. All the while, the cat spat and cried as she paced an arc in front of Rosie.

  Her mind raced to Janataea, the governess who had intervened with Uncle Rumbelly sometimes when she was troubled back home. She would be no help today. Rosie had run away. This was her punishment.

  Something snapped in the back of Rosie’s mind. Today she wouldn’t calmly accept her fate. Baamin had told her punishment was not a normal path in life.

  In desperation, she sought the faces of the crowd for help. The old woman who had been reading palms for coins appeared beside her.

  “Help me!” she called to the old woman, taking a chance, her only chance.

  The crowd moved closer, murmuring curses in all directions.

  “You have only to wish to come with me.” The old woman’s voice was surprisingly crisp and young, yet seemed to contain the wisdom of the ages.

  Rosie’s eyes riveted on the woman and her garishly colored clothing. The crowd seemed to drop behind the woman. Their movements slowed to unreality. Their angry protests fell to murmuring.

  No one but the old woman was close enough to rescue her from square-beard.

  “If you really want to come with me, nothing will stop you. No one will impede you.” The
woman spoke again in the same tones Janataea used when she put a compulsion on Rosie.

  “I want . . . I want. . . .” What did she really want? She wanted to be safe, on familiar ground, with familiar people who smelled the same, day after day. Could the old woman give her that?

  “Enough!” Darville’s voice arrested the entire market square. Water dripped from his unrestrained hair and his wet clothing outlined and clung to his powerful muscles. Strong scents of the river masked all other traces of the tall figure moving through the crowd. If he smelled of the river, then he must intend to drown her for her disobedience.

  Darville merely glared at Rosie as he stalked through the crowd. He paused a moment to touch the shoulder of a small, insignificant-looking woman who carried a basket, then pushed forward to confront square-beard, who still had not released Rosie’s arm.

  “Release the Princess Rossemikka,” he commanded in a tone that would tolerate no disobedience.

  “What right you got to deprive me o’ my doxie?” The decisive man suddenly dissolved into a slurring drunkard with a country accent that didn’t fit the other voices in the market. His square-cut beard and short hair were also out of place.

  “I said, release the princess, foreigner.” The last word became an insult as the prince reached for the dagger at his hip.

  “Foreigner!”

  “Stranger?”

  The crowd’s whisperings surged louder, angrier, yet still they held back, as if barricaded from the focus of the action.

  “Do not interfere!” the old woman warned as she tried to elbow Darville aside. “By her own wish, the girl belongs to me!”

  Rosie continued to search the eyes of the old woman for help. The punishments Janataea meted out were nothing compared to the fate she knew awaited her at Darville’s hands. Drowning in the river! Almost any fate was preferable to that.

  “Do you know who I am?” Darville glared at the individuals in the crowd who dared defy him.

  “Doesn’t make much difference, unless you’re a priest,” the barkeep with his cudgel remarked. “The girl’s pledged to a convent. Said so herself. That means no man takes her away from this island. She goes alone, or she goes with a priest.” He slapped the end of his club into his upraised palm in a menacing rhythm, as if testing its weight.

  “She is betrothed to me unless she has managed to find a priest and make other vows since sunrise.” Darville looked as if he hated making explanations.

  “I never agreed to the betrothal,” Rosie spoke to the barkeep. He seemed to be the only one truly listening to her. “My uncle signed all the papers without even asking me. Darville, here, insists. . . .”

  “Darville!” The crowd gasped, inching forward to see their prince closer, or tear him limb from limb. Rosie couldn’t be sure which.

  “And I will take her back to Rossemeyer.” Square-beard, suddenly sober, reasserted his grip on Rosie’s arm. She tried to yank it back, ignoring the increased pressure on her muscles and bones. “I have been sent by the royal government to retrieve the princess.”

  “Not unless you aim to get to Rossemeyer by way of King Simeon’s court in SeLenicca.” A dark-eyed youth stood behind the drunk. He held a long staff across the alley retreat.

  More protests from the crowd.

  “Enough!” Darville shouted over the noise. “The princess will return to Palace Isle with me. We will sort out this mess there.”

  “No. I’d rather face King Simeon’s magicians than marry you.” Rosie knew the crowd was on her side. She tried to squeeze closer to the barkeep for protection. But the small woman with the basket stood in her way.

  “Just be quiet, Princess Rossemikka. For once in your life, keep your likes and dislikes to yourself, or, so help me, I will drown you in the river myself!” Darville glared at her.

  Rosie had no doubt he meant every word of it.

  Outside the mental armor Brevelan had thrown around herself and Mica, the emotions of the market crowd pressed with increasing urgency. Mica paced the edge of the wide barrier yowling her displeasure.

  I must protect her. He must not contaminate her, Mica told Brevelan. The cat’s anxious pacing also spoke of her need to break through and claw at the eyes of the man who held Princess Rossemikka with such volatile possessiveness.

  Brevelan edged closer to Darville in case she had to extend her armor to protect him. She didn’t know how she would help the girl while keeping Mica away from square-beard.

  A wall of impenetrable magic stopped her in her tracks. Eyes wide with alarm, she searched the crowd with every sense available to her for the source of the spell.

  No one. Nowhere could she smell magic. Again and again she searched for this new threat. Then she counted the people around her with her own special empathy.

  The Rover woman was missing. Was she truly missing, or just so heavily armored that no one could see her?

  Brevelan searched again with that knowledge. There was a hole in the crowd that her senses slid around or over, but never through. She refocused her eyes. The hole began to shimmer with shifting light and undulating magic. Mica stalked from Brevelan’s side into that other armor, and back again.

  The Rover woman must be there. But why would her armor admit Mica, a cat with potentially dangerous emotions running rampant?

  Garlic, tons of it, comprised the main ingredient in the magic of armor.

  Brevelan edged around the wall of magic and found herself on the other side of Darville. Stargods! The Rover was throwing her armor around Rosie and the knot of verbal combatants, as well as herself.

  “Meww?” Mica questioned Brevelan’s unease. She was content with the presence of the Rover woman.

  Brevelan looked a little closer, trying to penetrate the redolent miasma. Her tongue flicked out to taste it. With the flavor embedded in her tongue, her ears opened to hear a strange incantation from the center of the protected bubble. The Rover woman’s magic was triggered by Song and by herbs, just as Brevelan’s was.

  “That smell makes me hungry enough to eat one of your meatless stews,” Yaakke remarked behind Brevelan. He and a staff that was already beginning to twist blocked the foreigner’s exit into the alley.

  “How did you get here?” Brevelan asked. Too many strange emotions flooding her system left her only mildly startled at the boy’s appearance.

  His hunger radiated from him, engulfing her. Her stomach growled in sympathy. The baby kicked and squirmed in protest. He, too, was as hungry as the apprentice.

  “Same way you and Jaylor got to the University.” Yaakke shrugged and winked.

  Then Brevelan looked at the boy, really looked at him. His eyes were blank with fatigue and his cheeks hollow, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. The first time she had seen Jaylor, he’d been in the same condition.

  “We’ve got to get out of here. All of us.” Brevelan didn’t realize she had spoken until she heard the words.

  “How?” Darville asked her without taking his eyes or his dagger away from the square-bearded foreigner. “The bridge is down and Jaylor’s on the next island with our boat. The currents swept us away from every landing. I had to swim the last channel.”

  “I can tell Brevelan how to transport us,” Yaakke volunteered. At least he hadn’t offered to throw the spells himself. As exhausted as he was, such a stunt would end in disaster.

  “No!” Darville protested. “Brevelan can’t endanger herself or the baby by working any more magic than necessary.”

  The baby kicked in agreement.

  A pair of blacker than black eyes peered out from behind the garlic armor. “What you thinking, throwing magic while baby yours grows within?” The accent and syntax were pure Rover. The garlic-flavored armor shifted to include Brevelan and Yaakke. Brevelan’s spell dissolved.

  “What? Who are you?” Brevelan and Darville asked in unison.

  “Healer I be. Baby asks my help. Curious he. Wants out to come and see what do we.” The old woman reached a gnarled and trembling han
d to the swell of Brevelan’s stomach. “Almost time.”

  “Not yet, not for two more moons.” Brevelan tried to back away from the strange woman’s touch and her own fears left over from the premature labor triggered by Shayla. The circle of magic and Yaakke’s young body stopped her.

  “She only means to help, Brevelan. She won’t hurt you.” Yaakke held her shoulders with comforting confidence.

  “Boat have I. To safety you I take.”

  “Her name is Erda,” Yaakke interpreted. “But we won’t all fit into her boat. She wants to take the princess with her, too. His Grace and I can take my boat.”

  “How do you know all this?” Darville asked.

  “Just listening . . . sir.”

  Respect for any elder, other than Baamin, had always been difficult for Yaakke. Brevelan allowed a moment of surprise that the boy had used any title at all in addressing his prince.

  “I won’t go anywhere with you, Darville,” Rosie finally spoke.

  “Nor will I,” square-beard added. He raised a fist and smashed it against the unbreakable wall of magic. He continued to beat at it with increasingly frantic blows. “I can’t stay here. I’ve got to get the girl away from the capital. He’ll send me to the mines if I fail!” he wailed.

  The old woman looked up from her examination of Brevelan to glare at the foreigner. “Choices, none you have, minion of the sorcerer king,” Erda spat. “In boats, my men take all. Zolltarn likes not intrusion in territory his.”

  “Zolltarn!” Brevelan and Darville gasped together. The last time they had run into the king of the Rovers, he had attacked them and deliberately shattered Jaylor’s staff at the behest of Lord Krej.

  Suddenly, the crowd in the market square swelled in numbers. All of the newcomers wore black trews and vests, red or purple shirts, and multicolored scarves tied closely about their heads, the uniform of Zolltarn’s clan. The tall, black-haired chieftain strode forward, sliding through Erda’s armor as if it were nonexistent.

  Zolltarn fingered the tiny metal earring Darville wore. “A pretty trinket, Prince of Wolves.”