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

pain was a thing of the heart and bowels. If, as Maarken had told him, this was characteristic of true princes, then he wasn't sure he wanted to be a prince anymore. It hurt too much.

During the night, he'd kept glancing back over his shoulder to the eerie glow that was Stronghold. He knew he shouldn't, but was unable to stop himself. It was Sunrunner's Fire, unmistakably so. But why? At dawn he could not look with his other sight, for an uncertain haze drifted over the sun.

Part of the ache was seeing Maarken, riding beside him. The straight spine was curved now, not as a branch bends under a weight too heavy to bear, but in the manner of a bow drawn taut and ready to release deadly tension in arrow flight. But there was no enemy before him now, only hundreds of warriors to lead to safety, and without target for the strain Maarken would soon snap. Pol rode closer to him, not knowing what comfort he might offer or receive, but needing the closeness.

Both men suddenly sat straight, instinctively drawing rein. The army around them was too numbed with defeat to notice—until the dragon's shriek snapped every head up and all eyes turned to the milk-pale sky.

Recognizing the dragon's voice, Pol kicked his weary horse to a trot. A rush of wings nearly enveloped him. The horse was too familiar with dragons to shy away, but when Azhdeen howled once more the animal quivered and dug his hooves deep into the sand.

The dragonsire landed, folded his wings, and paced forward. He squinted as he inspected Pol, as if to make certain his human was unhurt. Pol slid from the saddle and approached, hands held out. Andrade's moonstone and the dark amethyst of Princemarch winked dully as he touched Azhdeen. The dragon's head craned around, supple neck half-encircling Pol.

"I heard you last night, my friend," he murmured.

"Why are you all the way up here in the north? Aren't

your ladies lonely for you? Or did you feel something,

and get worried about me?"

The dragon growled, the sound rippling from his chest

all the way up his throat to his jaws. Pol was held in a firm embrace now: not captive, but supported with amazing gentleness. Above the sand nearby, like a shimmer-vision on a brutal summer day, an image formed. Stronghold by night as seen from the air, dripping with flames—not brought by flint on stone, but Sunrunner's Fire. The castle, the stables, the outbuildings, even the slopes of the rocky hollow where Pol's ancestors had found water and refuge—all of it was ablaze.

It was Sunrunner's Fire—but not the sort that burned without burning. It might take days, but Stronghold would char down to ashes. Pol cried out. The dragon arched more closely around him, humming low in his throat with sympathy. What he had seen continued to play out before Pol's anguished eyes.

Two bodies burned in the courtyard. Morwenna and Relnaya, dead of sorcery—dead saving the lives of other Sunrunners. He blinked away tears and vowed that when there was time to mourn, to stand in silence with a candle flame in hand as a reminder that fire was everyone's destiny, he himself would speak the words to honor their lives.

Azhdeen showed him the gardens. His grandmother's fountain and the grotto cascade splashed Fire, not Water. He shuddered, knowing which faradhi had gestured all this into being, powerful enough to let it continue on its own. He knew the touch of those elegant and ruthless fingers.

The images continued. Beside the stream he saw a man lying on the dry grass: slimly made, pale-haired, eyes closed as if in sleep. From his unmoving chest sprang flames that had not yet touched him, and would not— nor the masses of silken hair that spilled red-gold across his body. Only when the other Fire reached him would he be consumed.

A low rumble vibrated through Azhdeen's body as he was caught in Pol's grief; he unfolded one wing and cloaked it protectively around his human. Pol huddled against the dragon's shoulder, too stricken even to weep.



CHAPTER TWO



The playful predawn breeze that had awakened Tal-lain by sifting sand onto his face now seemed determined to snatch the map from across his knees. He spared an inner sigh for his desk back at Tiglath — and the clay impressions of his children's handprints that he used as parchmentweights — and shifted around on his rock, back to the wind. Riyan stood at his shoulder, intent on the drawing of the Northern Desert.

"They're taking their ease on the plain below Tuath," Tallain mused. "If we cut around and approach from Cunaxa, we can cut off any reinforcements."

"Yes, but if we should happen upon those reinforcements, we'll be trapped between. There's nothing left of Tuath for them to live off or in, so they'll be looking for those other troops with their supplies. " Riyan studied the map. "Instead of drawing them north to fight us, why not coax them south?" "To Tiglath?" Tallain growled. "Of course not! I should've said southwest. To Stony Thorns."

After a moment's thought, Tallain smiled. "Riyan, I think we're going to have a quarrel. Yes, and the louder the better. Then you're going to march off in a huff, and I'm going to come after you — because it's obvious that I don't have enough troops to face the combined Merida and Cunaxan hosts. You'll head for Stony Thorns, I'll follow — "

" — and we'll stage a lovely brawl!" Riyan clapped him on the shoulder. "But what if they don't come to see what's going on?"