Dragon Blood h-2 Read online

  I laughed. "The only thing I succeeded in was making an idiot of myself."

  He smiled like a cat and shook his head. "I disagree. You convinced Tisala that you knew what you wanted, what you needed, and that she was it."

  "Do you think so?" I was skeptical. "I was more of the opinion that I sounded like a pitiful sad-story hero who languishes and dies in the final refrain, leaving everyone feeling sorry they hadn't treated him better."

  "Trust me," said Oreg lightly. "It wasn't pity I saw on her face, it was revelation."

  I stared at him and saw that he was serious.

  "If so," I replied slowly, "then I don't mind embarrassing myself in front of everyone. I'd suffer a lot worse than a little humiliation to win Tisala."

  Through the arrow-slit window in the side of the room I heard a commotion outside. It was probably only the arrival of one of the men Alizon and Haverness had summoned to Callis, but I started for the door anyway.

  I had a moment of anxiety when I stepped into the corridor and realized I didn't know which way to go.

  "Which way to the great hall?" I asked Oreg.

  "I haven't the slightest idea," he answered with a grin.

  So I turned right and, with Oreg unhelpfully following, explored the twists and turns until I found a section of keep that looked familiar. Doubtless there were several paths I could have taken that were shorter, but we made it to the great hall before the new guests were welcomed.

  Haverness was already in the room, seated by the fire where a scattering of chairs and benches made an impromptu conversational area. He was shaking his head as Alizon leaned forward and spoke with an earnest air. Garranon had draped himself against the wall, listening expressionlessly.

  My uncle was leaned back in a wooden chair, elbows braced on the chair arms and his hands folded thoughtfully under his chin. I knew that pose and wondered when he would loose his first attack in whatever conversational battle they were engaged in. Axiel stood with his back to them all, watching the fire dance. Tosten was seated a little apart with his battered harp, playing a bit to keep anyone from overhearing the discussion. I'd used him that way before—no sense making things too easy for the king's spies that doubtless infested both Hurog and Callis.

  Tisala sat on the flagstone of the floor, her shoulder resting against Haverness's knee. I met her steady gaze and saw something that made me think that Oreg might be right. Neither she nor I smiled, but some connection was made anyway. My heart picked up an exalted rhythm as I realized it was no longer a matter of if she would agree to marry me, but when.

  "How stupid do I look?" Haverness asked gently, in reply to some statement by Alizon that I'd missed while exchanging glances with Tisala. "You and I know that the stories of the Empire are greatly exaggerated. You've heard what minstrels have done to the battles of the Rebellion and it has only been a few decades since then. If the Bane ever existed, which I question, it was likely no more powerful than something our wizards could conjure up."

  "If I could level my keep with magic," I said mildly, "then why couldn't the ancients create a tool that would do the same?"

  Haverness rolled his eyes, reminding me forcefully of his daughter. "I'm just trying to convince the old fool that he'd do better not to mention the Bane to the people who are here. Tell them Jakoven's a mage if that's true—and my daughter tells me he is. But if you tell them he's got Farsonsbane, then you'll lose them."

  "He has the Bane," said Oreg quietly. "To maintain otherwise is a dangerous lie. They need to know what they face."

  Haverness shook his head. "Yesterday, after Alizon told me the tale you've concocted, I spoke to my own wizard. If he doesn't believe it, how do you expect to convince my Oranstonians?"

  "Oranstonians believe in magic," replied Oreg. "They worship Meron the Healer, who asks for sacrifices of magic."

  "Peasants worship the Lady," corrected Duraugh gently. "Haverness is right. We had trouble getting our Shavigmen to accept the Bane."

  "I heard about your convenient dragon and walking dead man," said Haverness dryly.

  "He was alive," said Garranon shortly. "He was a good man and he suffered and died because of my carelessness."

  "He died because of Jakoven," corrected my uncle. "Don't you forget it, Garranon."

  "I apologize," said Haverness. "I had only Alizon's tale to go by; I hadn't realized you knew the man. I wouldn't have spoken lightly of it if I'd thought it was anything more than an illusion like the dragon."

  "Oh, the dragon's quite real, Father," said Tisala without looking at Oreg. "Just like the Bane."

  "Have you seen it?" asked Haverness. "Can any of you doubt that if Jakoven decided to fabricate an ancient artifact, Farsonsbane would be the perfect one? It would inspire fear and awe."

  "The Bane is real," I said. "I have seen it and felt its power. And only an idiot would try to re-create the Bane's semblance just to impress people. Too many people would refuse to serve a man who wielded it unless they were convinced of its power and terrified of it."

  "And are you going to produce a dragon to convince the men here of that?" asked Haverness impatiently.

  "If necessary … " began Duraugh as a guard opened the doors to the hall, letting in light, fresh air, and a bedraggled woman with a toddler on her hip. She entered attended by a handful of lightly armored guardsmen who appeared no less tattered than she.

  Garranon lost his casual pose and strode rapidly across the floor toward the lady, who stood hesitantly as her eyes adjusted to the dim indoor light.

  "Allysaian of Buril," the guardsman announced at the same time that Garranon exclaimed, "Lys."

  I compared the image I held of Garranon's wife with the woman whose pale and plain face was tight with strain. I didn't recognize Garranon's wife, but I had only met her twice, and both times there had been other things taking my attention.

  "Garranon," she said with such utter relief in her voice that I knew whatever had brought her here had been very, very bad. Something, I was afraid, that had to do with Farsonsbane and the residue of its magic, which I could still taste in the air.

  Garranon walked soberly to her side and she collapsed into his arms.

  The expressions on the faces of her guardsmen showed no less relief than his wife's had. Remarkable trust, I thought, for a man who was able to spend so little time at his estates.

  Haverness moved as if to get up, but stopped abruptly. "Best wait," he said. "We'll get little information before she calms down. I hope she didn't run afoul of bandits after leaving Buril. I thought we were rid of most of them along the road between here and Garranon's estate."

  Garranon stiffened at whatever tale the armsman was telling him in quiet tones that didn't carry over Tosten's quiet music.

  Garranon bent down and said something to his wife and took the sleeping child from her arms. She nodded and stepped back, wiping her eyes. She took his arm formally and they headed toward us.

  "My lords," said Garranon, his face a blank mask I recognized from court. "Jakoven has successfully tested the Bane—I think that there will be no need for dragons and dead men to convince my fellow Oranstonians that it is a threat that needs to be fought."

  "What happened?" asked Haverness.

  "Yesterday afternoon," said Garranon, "my wife took my son and a few guardsmen to check on outlying farms. When they got back to the keep, everyone was dead."

  "Every armsman on the wall, every servant in the hall, every horse in its stall," said Allysaian in a monotone, the rhyme adding an eeriness to her quiet words. I saw her knuckles whiten on Garranon's arm. "All the plants were withered and dead."

  Alizon looked at Haverness, who was shaking his head in disbelief, though the expression on his face argued that he was reconsidering even as he shook his head.

  "Gods," said Duraugh. "I'm sorry, Garranon."

  "How much blood does he have left? Could he get power from all that death, Oreg?" I asked Oreg quietly.

  "I don't know," he replied, h
is arms wrapped around his middle as if he'd been punched in the stomach. I wondered what I'd feel right now if I'd already witnessed the Bane destroy civilization once. "I don't know how much it takes to use the stone. I would guess it would take more because the blood is impure. But he may have found someone else of Hurog blood to use. As for the other, he can't power the stone with death magic, but he certainly could gain power himself. I doubt it in this case, because it usually takes some sort of ceremony and the bodies collected. It would have taken days, not hours."

  Garranon turned to Oreg, apparently having overheard—and the eyes in his blank face were wild with rage. "How close would he have to be to use it?"

  Oreg shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't know. I was in Hurog while the world fell, but I was young and … it was not a pleasant time. My memories of the Fall of the Empire are not entirely intact."

  Alizon and Haverness turned to stare at Oreg.

  "At this rate there won't be a soul in the Five Kingdoms who doesn't know Hurog's secrets, Oreg," I said, exasperated.

  He turned to me, his eyes caught in the past, and said in an abject voice I'd hoped never to hear from him again, "I'm sorry, my lord."

  I shook my head. "No matter, Oreg. It's your secret to keep or not." I looked at Alizon. "I mean that. You'll have to ask him about it—later."

  Garranon swung abruptly to Alizon. "This gives you the attack you claimed you needed to pull Oranstone together. I hope that my people's deaths buy Jakoven's destruction."

  "Kellen will see to it," Alizon promised.

  The whole time we'd been talking, Allysaian had been standing beside Garranon with her arms wrapped around herself, muttering something sotto voice. When Garranon put his free arm around her and walked her past us, headed for somewhere private, I heard what she was saying.

  "The children, the children … oh gods, so many children dead."

  Bile rose to choke me.

  "Excuse me," I said, "I don't feel well." I turned abruptly and exited behind Garranon.

  15—WARDWICK

  My father taught me that vengeance is meaningless. All that matters is surviving your enemies.

  Unnoticed, I followed Garranon through the maze of halls that led to the guest rooms. Unlike me, he had no problem negotiating his way to the room he'd been given, three doors down from my own.

  I walked on to my room and closed the door behind me. Chills crept down my spine and stayed there. Not because of Buril's fate, though that was certainly part of it. Not because of fear, though what I was planning scared me spitless.

  I'd been thinking while the others had been arguing downstairs in the hall.

  Jakoven's first two attacks had been aimed at Garranon. The king had been seeking revenge, I thought, because Garranon had left him at long last. They'd also been experiments, to see what the Bane could do, successful experiments. Jakoven wouldn't have wasted his last drop of Tychis's blood on experiments, so I had to assume he had enough to power the Bane for at least one more attack—a real attack this time. Only if a weapon tested well, my aunt said, should it be used in battle.

  My father had respected Jakoven's grasp of strategy. And good strategy would send Jakoven to attack Hurog next. Jakoven, like my uncle, would have seen the power of Hurog over Shavig. If he took Hurog right now, before the first battle, Shavig would lose the united front against Jakoven. All the dragon-blooded people who lived at Hurog made it an even more inviting target, more power for his Bane. And by now, he'd know we were keeping Kellen there.

  We'd been counting on the winter to keep Hurog safe until improvements to the gate and walls could be completed, but we'd left the Bane out of our calculations. Jakoven would need no besieging army to take out Hurog with the Bane—not if he killed every person in Buril in a matter of hours.

  If I were Jakoven, I would take Hurog next. Since I was the Hurogmeten instead, I had to stop him—and Garranon had just told me how I might do it.

  Garranon had asked how far away the Bane had been from Buril. I'd come up with an interesting answer.

  Magic doesn't work well long distance. My own pain every time I left Hurog taught me that over and over again. Jakoven hadn't had to be at Hurog the night his creature had attacked—a geas had done the traveling for him. There were other ways to work magic over a distance. Runes sometimes worked—or a jewel could carry a spell almost forever until it was loosed. Oreg had once transported himself a day's ride to a place he'd never been—but, as he'd later explained, he'd only done that because the magic that had bound him to me pulled him far more strongly than his body did. So there were exceptions, but I didn't think that Buril was one of those.

  I believed Jakoven had brought Farsonsbane to Buril—and I had the means to test my theory.

  Sitting on my bed, I closed my eyes. I wouldn't look for Jakoven. Finding takes magic, and there was always a chance that a wizard might feel the magic I used to find him. So I sought Farsonsbane instead.

  I thought of the Bane as I'd last seen it, an age-darkened bronze dragon, poorly wrought and crude. It was unremarkable except for the unmistakable power that hung about it and the small jewel that hovered in the dragon's mouth.

  I found the Bane half a day's ride away to the north.

  I opened my eyes and could barely breathe over the possibilities of what I had discovered. A chance.

  As I'd tried to explain to Haverness, no man would want to announce he was using Farsonsbane—not in the position Jakoven found himself. He wanted a world to rule, not a barren wasteland. So he had to keep the Bane secret until people were so cowed by it, and him, they would not fight against it—say after he laid waste to Hurog, for instance, something more spectacular than the mere death he'd left behind him at Buril. But for now he had to keep it secret or his own men would turn against him.

  If Jakoven had brought an army with him, they'd have turned on him the moment he brought out the Bane and used it. If he'd brought an army, his use of the Bane to destroy Buril would not be a secret. I knew with absolute certainty that Jakoven wasn't stupid enough to have brought an army with him.

  He'd come in secret, and was leaving the same way. And I knew that Jade Eyes would be with him.

  The chill in my spine was anticipation. A part of me salivated at the thought of sinking ax or blade into Jade Eyes's flesh. Blood lust was a portion of the legacy of my father, and not something I was proud of. But I preferred the hunger for Jade Eyes's death to the bone-deep fear the rest of me felt.

  If I were to go after Jakoven, I couldn't let Kellen or the Oranstonians know what I intended. The Kellen who'd fought to engage the poor geas-driven thing Jakoven had sent after Garranon in my hall would never stay behind given a chance to face Jakoven one on one. That was something I wouldn't allow to happen. If the attempt to wrest the Bane from Jakoven failed, Kellen would be Shavig's only hope.

  Jakoven had the Bane. With it he could slay any army sent against him if he had sufficient warning—warning that the sounds of an approaching army would bring. A stealth attack could work, though. If Jakoven were a half-day's ride away from Callis, traveling to Estian, it would take us at least two hard days to catch him.

  I couldn't go alone. Jakoven couldn't have an army, but I had no doubt he'd brought his core of wizards and guardsmen he trusted. I'd bring Axiel …

  There was a soft tap at my door.

  "Who is it?" I called, still wrestling with whom to take and how to contact them.

  "Tisala," she said. "Are you all right, Ward?"

  "Come in." Part of me would have left her behind, given the choice, but the rest of me was smarter than that. Our love would never survive if I tried too hard to keep her safe. Either I'd cripple her spirit until she wasn't my Tisala, or she'd leave me. So I was glad she'd come to my room, because I might not have asked her otherwise.

  But I had a few things to say before I told her about Jakoven.

  "You didn't look well," she said. "But I see you're doing better now. My father isn't expecting to hav
e all the nobles here until the day after tomorrow—so I thought you might like to ride with me. It's better than waiting around."

  She didn't meet my eyes as she said the last, pretending to look out the window. As if I didn't have far better reasons to ride with her than as an escape from boredom.

  "I'm glad you came here," I said. "I need to tell you some things."

  She turned back to me, her face carefully neutral.

  I had never been a man of easy words, and the look on her face all but locked my throat.

  "Look," I managed. "I've been trying to give you time, but I don't think I can do so any longer."

  It somehow didn't seem fair that I should have to declare how I felt when she was standing across the room from me. I thought longingly about how much easier this would be if she had said it first, or if she were holding me as tightly as I wanted to hold her. But things were never easy around Tisala.

  "I love you," I said, careful to keep my eyes on her face. She deserved to see the truth in my face. When she would have spoken, I held up my hand. "I am not saying that because I expect something from you. Unless you are a lot stupider than I think, you already knew how I felt—but I needed to give you the words. I intend to ask you to marry me, and if we survive until next week, I'll do that. Again, I don't need an answer. But I did need to tell you that."

  Silence hung over my final words. I couldn't tell anything from her face, and when she finally spoke, it wasn't, directly, about what I'd told her.

  "What's happening?" she asked.

  I told her about Jakoven, the Bane, and what I intended to do. She heard me out and then said, "Who else will you take?"

  "You know the country better than I," I said. "How many do you think I could take and not risk alerting the king's party?"

  "Just how many people do you think Jakoven has?" she asked.

  I shrugged. "Not many, I'd guess. At least ten, but not more than twenty, probably fewer than that. His wizards and a few guardsmen he'd trust to keep his secrets. Maybe a few more guards that he could eliminate before they have a chance to tell anyone what they've seen."