"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 2 - Dragon Token" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

Pol chuckled low in his throat. "Just so we understand each other."

Visian shyly returned his smile. "Besides, great Azh-rei, you're bigger than I am. How could I stop you?"

Pol turned to watch for Vellant'im. The word caught at him. Rohan had been the Azhrei, the dragon prince. Pol had inherited everything, it seemed—from the Desert to the title of High Prince to the name bestowed on Rohan in affection and awe. And none of it fit, not the words or the concepts. Maarken had told him that he'd never be the man or the prince his father was until he knew what it was to hurt so much he thought he'd die of it. Maarken had been wrong. He ached as if his heart was being crushed within his chest, but he knew it to be a selfish pain. I want my father back! something young and frightened cried, and the hurt grew all the worse when only silence answered.

Visian's fingertips on his arm alerted him. Several mo-

ments later he heard it, too: the dull clop of hoofbeats, discernible even through the groaning sound of the Harps. No conversation, no jingle of bridles. The Vellant'im were being cautious, or perhaps they were intimidated by the bizarre music. Thinking that over, Pol decided not; the only thing that seemed to affect these savages was the sight of a dragon. He considered conjuring one from the mouth of the cave on the opposite wall. No. This battle he would fight with the strength of his hands, not the power of his mind. Not that he'd had much luck with the latter, he thought bitterly.

He wondered all at once why he hadn't used that power to go Sunrunning, to give Kazander the exact location and number of the enemy. Surely he could have done that much. Why hadn't he thought of it?

Simple enough. He'd failed. Over and over again, the combined strengths of faradhi and diarmadhi blood had proved impotent. At Radzyn, at Remagev, at Stronghold—the memory of Azhdeen showing him Fire bleeding down the castle walls made him cringe.

Visian was looking at him, dark eyes worried. Pol smoothed his expression. The youth gestured to the gully below. The enemy was within reach, and in the next instant the music of wind through cactus spines was nearly drowned by the screams of dying men.

Pol dug his heels into his stallion's ribs and ducked his head as he burst from beneath the balancing stone. His sword—Rohan's sword—was in his hand without his having to think about it. With the memory of Stronghold and his father's lifeless body and his mother's lightless eyes before him, he blanked all portions of his brain that thought beyond the next sword stroke and all portions of his heart that felt anything but rage.

And as he began to kill, he did indeed begin to laugh.

*

In Firon, the sun was no match for snow clouds that had blown in overnight. The only difference between dawn and noon was a shift in the gray pallor surrounding

the castle at Balarat, and it took a glance at the water clock to tell that it was nearing dusk. Even the most powerful Sunrunner would have been helpless in such gloom. But Firon's court Sunrunner was dead, and for all the contact with the world beyond its walls, Balarat might as well have been built on one of the three moons.

Even had there been news, Prince Tirel would not have been privy to it. Since the Sunrunner Arpali's death, he had been confined to his chambers, ostensibly to keep him from contracting the illness that had supposedly killed her. His constant companion and only servant was his father's squire, Idalian. For a willful seven-year-old, heir to the princedom and accustomed to being treated as such, being isolated and ignored was intolerable. But worse was happening, and he knew it.

His uncle, Lord Yarin, was availing himself of opportunities opened by the absence of Tirel's parents in Princemarch. That the nobles and ministers had not rescued Tirel from what amounted to imprisonment scared him. Though Idalian said that they must think the threat of disease a real one, Tirel believed they were either aiding Yarin or too frightened of him to object.

Idalian—whose home at Faolain Riverport the Vellant-'im had destroyed the first day of the war—did not insult Tirel by patronizing him. They spent their days in quiet study and games, alert to the presence of Yarin's servants outside. But at night, when the squire judged it safe, he discussed matters with the boy. Their talks produced no solutions but at least helped them both clarify what was happening, what might be happening, and why.

That day, however, there was nothing Idalian could say to calm the fretful child. Denied exercise and fresh air, the natural energy of a healthy young boy had turned in on itself. A rough-and-tumble game of tag amid the furniture hadn't tired him, only made him more restless. He wouldn't settle to his books, begging Idalian to talk to him instead. So the squire decided to occupy Tirel's mind with a history lesson.

"You have to know what happened in the past," he said, trying to match his voice to his memories of his

own tutor at her most pedantic. "The truth, that is, not what gets prettied up for the scrolls. Old Prince Ajit had half a dozen wives but no heirs—"

"I know that," Tirel said impatiently. "The High Prince gave Firon to Papa because he was the closest heir with Fironese royal blood. But what does that have to do with Uncle Yarin?"

"I'll get to that."

"Do it faster," Tirel demanded. He flopped down across his bed, unsettling the chessboard and pieces spread out for the benefit of anyone who might open the door.

"Ajit never left Balarat except to attend Riall'im. Everybody did pretty much as they liked for all the years he ruled. He wasn't allied with anybody, the way Firon's a close ally of the High Prince now. As for your uncle . . . back in Ajit's day, Yarin was a young man and he always did as he liked. When Ajit got really old, Yarin of Snowcoves ruled in all but name. When the old prince died, he felt he should've had the name as well."

"Oh." The child's voice was very small. "He must hate my papa."

"Prince Laric has what Lord Yarin wants," Idalian replied with a shrug.