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

The thought made him queasy. "NoЧnot just yet." But he did push himself upright, and was exhausted by the effort. When his vision cleared of tiny black dots, he looked around. He lay in an ironwork bed set in the corner of a wide, tapestried chamber. A candle branch burned on a far table where a servant girl sat sewing. It was all very placid and pretty, but he had no idea where he was.

Saumer saw his confusion in his face. "River Run. You don't remember?"

Rihani shook his head. Lank brown hair fell into his eyes and he pushed it away, suddenly aware of how filthy and sweaty he was. "You said I'd had a fever. How long?"

"Since yesterday morning, when Prince Kostas' ashes blew into the river. Don't you remember that, either?"

"I think so." He frowned. "You wanted me to take fire to him myselfЧ"

"Kinsman, and senior prince present," Saumer agreed. "But you dragged me with you anyway. We stood with him all night, the army all around us, and his people here and from the keep at River View. I thought for a while that it was going to rainЧit wouldn't have mattered if we'd had Sunrunner's Fire for the burning, butЧanyway, in the morning the wind came up and blew you over."

Rihani remembered some of it now, mostly the early

part of the night. When he'd lit the four corners of Kos-tas' shroud, it had been as if fire had ignited in him, too. He remembered locking every joint in his body to keep standingЧand how the fire had seeped through him all during the night until by dawn it burned his bones to ashes, too.

"And here you've been ever since, flat on your back in bed," Saumer concluded. "Sure you don't want something to eat? It's good soup."

"Goddess, no!" Rihani exclaimed, which made his friend laugh.

"If you're strong enough to yell, you must be getting better. Which is a good thing, because I'm going to have to leave soon."

"Where to? And why just you and not me?"

"Because you're going to High Kirat and tell your aunt Danladi exactly what happened. I sent another messenger to tell her about the burning, but I think you ought to go stay with her for a little while. Let her ask the things she can't ask of a stranger." Saumer's broad-boned, pleasant face had hardened past his seventeen winters; with the beard on his cheeks and the experience of battle in his eyes, he looked twice his true age. Rihani suddenly knew what he was thinkingЧthat there had been no one to answer Saumer's own questions about his parents' murder on Kierst-Isel.

Still. . . . "I'm not going. If you can't wait until I'm well enough to ride, then I'll catch up with you later. My uncle left both of us in charge of his armies, andЧ"

"And nothing. I'm leaving, you're stayingЧand then you're riding to High Kirat, not back into war. Like as not, you'd open that wound again."

"You're not the senior prince hereЧas you pointed out! I am. AndЧ"

"Don't wave your heir-to-Ossetia banner at me!" Saumer warned. "I may be the lowly younger brother of the ruling Prince of Kierst-Isel, but I'm a damned sight better at war than you are!"

There; it was out in the open at last. Rihani had to steel himself from a cringe of shame. There had been a

skirmish on the way to River Run. When a Vellanti raiding party had appeared a measure away, Rihani frozeЧ but Saumer had instantly organized a force to meet them. Although he'd participated in the fightЧhad been terrified not toЧhe'd hated every moment of it, every drop of enemy blood that he later cleaned from his sword.

He had tried to communicate some of this to Saumer late that night. They had sat alone over a small fire, sharing confidences as they'd done for years now as Kos-tas' squires, as friends. Though Saumer had tried to understand, he was neither ashamed of his warrior's skills nor of enjoying the use of them in battle.

"It's a good occupation for an extra prince," he'd explained with a shrug. "Leading his elder brother's armies, if necessaryЧand if they trust each other! I'd planned to ask Arlis if I could go to Remagev after my knighting, to learn about this Medr'im idea and adapt it to Kierst-Isel. Goddess knows we still have people along the old border who need watching."

"I wonder if my little brother Sorin will turn out like you," Rihani had mused, absently rubbing his bandaged thigh. "It sounds like a good partnership you've got with Arlis. I hope Sorin and I can work together the same way."

"My brother and I wrote back and forth about it quite a bit. I wish I knew how he's doing. . . ." Saumer gave another shrug. "Don't worry too much about what happened today. It's not your future role, leading armies."

"Goddess, I hope not."

"You could do it if you had to. You've shown that. But it's not what you were meant for." Saumer poked at the fire with a twig. "The guts of it is that I don't particularly want to risk my life and my troops, but I do it, and try not to think too much about it. Thinking is the duty of a ruling prince, not his little brother."