The Star Scroll Part 14

"Mother!"

Pol tried to hold her up as she crumpled, Walvis and Sionell right beside him to cushion her fall. Sioned gulped in several breaths, trembling all over with the shock, and managed a faint smile for her ashen-cheeked son.

"I'm fine," she whispered.

"The dragons aren't," Walvis said grimly. "Listen to them."

The wild music echoed down from the cl.u.s.ter of dark shapes in the sky. Sioned pushed herself upright and winced.

"I was too clumsy. I frightened her."

"What are you talking about?" Walvis demanded. "My lady, what did you do?"

Pol, kneeling at her side, answered. "She used the sunlight to touch a dragon."

"You did what? what?"

Rohan's eyes blazed down at the woman who sat sipping iced taze as casually as if she'd just returned from an afternoon stroll around the lake.

"Please stop scolding. You can't say anything I haven't accused myself of."

"When I asked if you could touch a dragon, I didn't mean for you to risk your life at it!"

"I'll be more careful next time."

"There isn't going to be a next time." He crossed to the windows of their chamber and looked out at the quiet water. "We heard your scream all the way from Threadsilver."

"Mine, or the dragon's?"

"Weren't they one and the same?" he countered.

That gave her pause. "You may be right," she admitted.

Rohan swung around. "You faradh'im faradh'im talk about being shadow-lost. What if you got lost inside a dragon's colors and couldn't remember your own? It would amount to the same thing, wouldn't it?" talk about being shadow-lost. What if you got lost inside a dragon's colors and couldn't remember your own? It would amount to the same thing, wouldn't it?"

"But that didn't happen."

"This time!"

She set her goblet down and folded her hands in her lap. "You're thinking about forbidding me to try again, aren't you?"

"I'm thinking about having you swear a promise," he corrected.

Sioned bit her lip. "I've never lied to you-"

"But you omit things when it serves your purposes. Oh, you're far too honest to lie-and far too clever to put yourself in a position where you'd have to. After twenty-one years of living with you, my lady, I know you very well indeed."

She said nothing.

"Sioned, there are too many ways I could lose you just in the normal course of things. I won't add another to the list just because of my stupid notion about dragons. It won't do me any good to forbid you outright, and we both know it. I won't make you promise, either. But that means I'll have to trust to your good sense-and to the fact that you want to see your son grow up."

She flinched. "That wasn't fair, Rohan!"

"No," he agreed. "But neither are your little omissions."

She glared at him. "Very well, I'll make you a promise. I won't try it again unless Maarken is with me to back me up and set my colors again if I start to lose them."

"The way you did for Tobin, the night she was caught in the Moonrunning?"

"Yes. I knew her colors and I could bring her back. I promise I won't touch a dragon again without being in the same kind of contact with Maarken. Will that content you, my lord?"

"It'll have to, I suppose." He folded his arms. "You're a dangerous woman, High Princess."

"No more so than you're a dangerous man, High Prince." She smiled a little. "That makes us very well mated, doesn't it?"

Rohan snorted.

Dragon shrieks woke everyone in the middle of the night. Rohan and Sioned threw on their clothes and hurried to the courtyard, where the entire population of Skybowl had a.s.sembled by torchlight, confused and more than a little frightened. Ostvel, sleep-rumpled and worried, shouldered through the crowd to Rohan.

"I've never heard them scream like that at this time of night! What do you think is going on?" He winced as another high-pitched howl split the air. "G.o.ddess! Listen to that! What's the matter with them?"

"I don't know," Rohan replied, glancing around. "Where's Pol? Sioned, do you see him?"

"No-and if he's run outside to watch dragons, so help me I'll blister his backside for him! Walvis!" she called out, catching sight of Remagev's lord. "Have you seen Pol?"

He mounted a few steps and scanned the crowd, then shook his head. "Nor Maarken, either."

Chay and Tobin arrived in time to hear this, and the latter asked Sioned, "You don't think they they tried to touch a dragon, do you?" tried to touch a dragon, do you?"

Sioned paled. "They couldn't be so foolish! Pol!" she called out. "Pol!"

"Up here, Mother!"

He and Maarken stood on the gatehouse balcony with several of the Skybowl guard. All eyes turned to them as Rohan shouted, "What are you doing up there? Come down at once!"

"But we're watching the dragons, Father! They're fighting on the sh.o.r.e!"

"I want to see, too!" Sionell squirmed out of Feylin's arms and raced for the gatehouse steps.

Rohan turned to Ostvel. "Get everybody indoors. They can watch if they like, but n.o.body is to set foot outside the walls until those sires have had it out with each other. They're likely to attack anything that moves."

"At once, my lord. But I've never known them to do battle at this time of night before."

The moons rode high in the sky, illuminating the lake in pale silver. From the thin windows of the gatehouse two dragons could be seen halfway around the lake, highlighted by gleaming teeth and talons. Wings were folded close to lithe shapes as the sires roared defiance, heads lashing out to rip at already bleeding hides. Adolescent dragons lined the crater's lip, watching; in three years they, too, would fight to the death for possession of females.

Pol had helped Sionell up into a window embrasure, steadying her with an arm around her waist. Neither of them noticed the entrance of their elders until Feylin plucked her daughter from her precarious position and held her firmly away from the open cas.e.m.e.nt.

"I wasn't going to fall," Sionell complained. "Pol was holding onto me."

"For which he has my thanks," Feylin replied, "but you'll stay away from the window, my girl."

Pol joined his parents, standing on a stone shelf where, in times of war, archers knelt to loose arrows through the narrow openings. "Which one do you think will win?"

Both dragons were injured now, one holding his left foreleg at an awkward angle, painful to see. They took their battle to the air then, startling the audience of three-year-olds who fluttered their wings in reaction. The fighting dragons circled each other, snapping with blood-darkened jaws and slashing with claws and tails. Grunts of effort and impact resounded across the crater as they pummeled each other. The darker dragon rose high above his rival and for a moment everyone thought he had given up the field. But then he plummeted directly down, all talons and teeth digging into his enemy's back.

The wounded sire bellowed his pain and fury, losing command of the air and his own wings as his attacker's tail slammed across the main bones of his left wing with a crack audible even in the gatehouse. Someone moaned in sympathy. The pair fell toward sh.o.r.e, where the defeated dragon would surely be crushed to death on the stony ground. Yet he retained wit and strength enough to angle his fall, and the two dragons landed with a mighty splash in the water.

The victor stroked upward, calling out his triumph as his vanquished foe rolled in the water, vainly trying to work his shattered wing. The adolescents flew off after the winner, leaving the mortally wounded sire to die.

Rohan was down the gatehouse stairs before anyone but Sioned and Pol noticed he was gone. He was panting for breath when he got to the lakesh.o.r.e. Pale moonlight shone on water stained dark with blood. The dragon's feeble swimming motions grew weaker. His efforts had nearly brought him to sh.o.r.e, but even if he reached dry ground, he was going to die. Rohan saw in the huge dark eyes that the dragon knew it. Yet he did not give up the struggle, did not cease trying. Rohan's chest ached and he felt the sting of tears in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

He heard the others running to catch up with him, felt Sioned's touch on his arm. "Can we help him?" she asked.

He shook his head. "His wing is gone, and he's lost too much blood."

"Father-please," Pol said softly. "Look at his eyes."

"Can't we at least put him out of his pain?" Sioned held his arm tighter.

The dragon moaned. The sound was echoed by dragon voices, scores of them from beyond Skybowl's rim, mourning him. The night sky was empty of wings, but dragon song swelled and shuddered as if borne on wind created by their beating.

Rohan said thickly, "Bring me a sword."

"No," Chay murmured. "You swore never again, my prince. Never another dragon dead by your hand."

He winced as the dragon groaned again. Walvis took a step forward. "I'll do it," he said softly. "Feylin, tell me where it would be quickest."

"It's not necessary," Sioned told him. "Maarken, you ought to learn this. Come with me."

They went to the water's edge. The dragon cried out, a whimper of pain as his failing body reached the sandy shallows, cool water lapping around him. Sioned crooned to him in a low voice, barely two arm-lengths from the lolling head. With Maarken as her loom, she wove threads of moonlight into a pallid silver weave across the dragon's eyes. The huge body shivered; she and Maarken trembled, too. The dragon's eyes closed. After a time the rigidity of pain left muscles and torn flesh. His face relaxed, the great lungs heaved in a long sigh, and he slept.

Sioned turned. "He's at peace now, I think."

"Mother-did you touch him?" Pol breathed.

"No. I only helped him to sleep."

Tobin nodded slowly. "Andrade used to do the same thing, Rohan-do you remember? When we were little."

Sioned nodded confirmation. "It's something learned with the eighth ring."

"But you-" Chay stopped, frowned, and shrugged. "I'm not going to ask. I've seen you do too many things you shouldn't be able to."

"And some of them things Andrade doesn't know about," Sioned finished. "Did you learn how, Maarken? And did you feel his colors?"

"I understood the weaving sequence," he answered. "I saw a whole rainbow of color. Fading. It can be done, Sioned. It's only a question of when, and which dragon."

Rohan went to the animal's head, stroked the long neck where life beat slower and slower. He had never touched a live dragon before, never been so close to one. The hide was smooth and cool, dark green shading to brown in the moonlight. His fingertips traced the proud lines of brow and nose and angle of jaw. Very lightly he touched the eyelids, feeling how silky-soft they were. Beautiful, even in death.

He looked over his shoulder at his wife and murmured, "Thank you."

Two days later, Pol leaned over a map spread out on the carpet, desultorily tracing the route his father, Chay, Ostvel, and Walvis were now following to Tiglath in the north. He made a glum face, still disappointed that he had not been allowed to go with them. The reason given had been Tiglath's proximity to possible Merida haunts-but Pol suspected that they all thought him too young. He would be fifteen before winter's end, but they still considered him a child. It was galling.

But he had had been permitted to attend the planning sessions, as fascinated by the debate on tactics as he had been by the changes in people familiar to him since infancy. Father, aunt, uncle, cousin, and friends vanished. They became the High Prince, a warrior princess, and the been permitted to attend the planning sessions, as fascinated by the debate on tactics as he had been by the changes in people familiar to him since infancy. Father, aunt, uncle, cousin, and friends vanished. They became the High Prince, a warrior princess, and the athr'im athr'im of Radzyn, Whitecliff, Skybowl, and Remagev. Even his mother had shed her role of co-sovereign, becoming nothing more than Sunrunner to the High Prince. Enlightening as the military talk had been, Pol had found the a.s.sumption of formal roles even more educational. He would have to learn how to do that, he decided-how to submerge his own personality into the responsibilities of his position. of Radzyn, Whitecliff, Skybowl, and Remagev. Even his mother had shed her role of co-sovereign, becoming nothing more than Sunrunner to the High Prince. Enlightening as the military talk had been, Pol had found the a.s.sumption of formal roles even more educational. He would have to learn how to do that, he decided-how to submerge his own personality into the responsibilities of his position.

In some ways, Tobin's had been the most startling transformation. Pol's laughing, warm-voiced aunt had spoken with real relish about the possibilities of conquering Cunaxa should that princedom be so foolish as to invade Firon. Lines of advance, probable body-counts, razing the Cunaxan seat of Castle Pine, slaughtering every Merida in existence-Tobin was intimately familiar with all the ways of war. Her cheerful ruthlessness had amused him at first, then scared him when he realized she meant every last word of it. But it finally struck him as being her perfect role in the debate. She was dedicated to the advancement of the Desert's interests-even though her ideas for that advancement were more than a trifle bloodthirsty. She represented her father's point of view; Prince Zehava had liked nothing so much as a good, clean battle that won him added lands as well as added glory.

As Pol listened, it had become clear that his own father was surrounded by people of differing viewpoints who never hesitated to speak their minds. Pol hoped that when it came his turn, he would hear the same advice as freely given. Moreover, Rohan was in complete control of the debate, though he rarely spoke and then only to steer the conversation back to its major concerns. The decisions would be his alone, and everyone knew it. They would argue their own points of view, but it never occurred to any of these powerful people to question Rohan's authority. Pol was awed by this quiet proof of his father's power.

The calling-up of the Desert levies and selected troops from Princemarch had been deliberately casual, designed to alarm no one. Chay explained it as an exercise that would acquaint soldiers from both princedoms with each other's techniques. He proposed that the following year a similar exercise might take place in the mountains so that troops accustomed to the Desert could get a feel for what another kind of warfare might be like.

Skybowl was not equipped to support a large influx of troops, and thus an a.s.sembly point had been established at the old garrison below the ruins of Feruche Castle. Pol looked on the map at each Desert holding and the places from which the soldiers of Princemarch would be called, and whistled under his breath at the total of three hundred foot, half that number of archers, and two hundred horse. "Enough to be impressive, but not quite enough to provoke," had been Maarken's conclusion.

Pol could imagine the camp that would soon be set upon the rocky plain outside Tiglath's walls. Tents, cook-fires, the spears and swords of the foot soldiers leaning outside the tents in deadly array; horses picketed within easy reach of their riders; bows unstrung and arrows kept carefully in leather quivers. The double-tailed battle flags of all the Desert holdings would be presided over by Walvis' blue-and-white banner with a golden dragon atop the staff that signified his status as the High Prince's commander in the north. Princemarch's violet would be in evidence, too, with the Desert blue atop it. There would be marching and swordplay, compet.i.tions between archers, riders practicing the charges and maneuvers necessary in war. All of it called out to a boy's restless imagination, making him yearn to go and watch even if he could not really be a part of it as a working soldier.

Pol sighed. Almost everyone had ridden out with Walvis and Skybowl's levy. Rohan and Chay would return in ten days or so after showing support for Walvis and meeting with some of the people from Princemarch. Ostvel would be gone longer on a visit to Lord Abidias of Tuath, then swing back by Tiglath and bring word of the camp to Rohan at Skybowl. Only a fraction of the troops available from the Desert and Princemarch would take the field for maneuvers, but Pol desperately wanted just a glimpse of what was going on.

A rebellious part of him said that if he wanted to look, he could. He was a Sunrunner-not trained yet, of course, but he knew he could weave the light if he tried, glide along its pathways to Tiglath. And oh, how he wanted to-but he didn't let himself think about it too much. He had responsibilities. He could not do it. But he wanted to.

His finger drew little circles on the map as he vowed that once he was older, no one would be able to make him stay put when he wanted to be somewhere else. At least if he was denied the fun and excitement of the summer's encampment, he would be doing something almost as interesting. His finger left Tiglath and touched the little symbol indicating the location of Castle Crag, high in the Veresch on the Faolain River.

There was no definite route planned for the progress. They would wander as fancy took them. The only certainty on their itinerary was that Princess Pandsala expected them at Castle Crag in time for a long visit before going to Waes and the Rialla. Rialla. Pol had seen the Veresch Mountains from a great distance, faraway purple peaks crowned in white snow-an element he wasn't entirely sure he believed in. Dorval's mountainous region never saw snow. He had almost decided that seeing such marvels as pine forests, lakes, meadows, wide rivers, and especially snow was as good as spending the summer soldiering. Pol had seen the Veresch Mountains from a great distance, faraway purple peaks crowned in white snow-an element he wasn't entirely sure he believed in. Dorval's mountainous region never saw snow. He had almost decided that seeing such marvels as pine forests, lakes, meadows, wide rivers, and especially snow was as good as spending the summer soldiering.

"Here you are!"

Pol looked up. Sionell had a positively uncanny knack for finding him. "Good afternoon," he said politely.

"Jahnavi and I are going riding. Do you want to come?"

"No, but thank you for asking."

Sionell gave a shrug and sat in a nearby chair. "Why is Riyan a Sunrunner if his father isn't?"

"For the same reason Maarken is and his his father isn't." father isn't."