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

Ah, that one rankled. He must do something about that, and quickly. Dragons who appeared and vanished at command were more dangerous to discipline than the combined armies of all the princedoms.

His mind worked at the problem during the days and nights spent waiting for the flames at Stronghold to burn out. Mildly irked at first that he would not be able to quarter his men there and move his headquarters from Radzyn, he grew more and more angry after days of no perceptible change in the intensity of the blaze.

His commanders were growing nervous. He marveled in contempt that it had taken them this long to recognize that it was no ordinary fire, to consume every wooden rafter and tapestry cloth and seemingly even the mortar between the stones, and yet burn still.

Those ordered to brave the flames came back singed and terrified. They told of vines like scorched fingers scrabbling up walls, of gardens that grew food and gardens meant for pleasure that were seas of waist-high flame. They told of window glass that had shattered long since and melted to molten puddles. The furniture was nothing but blackened sticks. The very tiles on the floor of the Great Hall were awash in fire.

With great fear in their eyes, they told of the body lying near the stream, and how it, too, was shrouded in flame long after skin and flesh and even the larger bones had charred down to ash. Stronghold burned, though logic asserted that there was nothing left to burn.

He thought he detected a certain delicate handЧ though his commanders would have gaped had he mentioned his belief that the Fire was hers. For the length of his life he had heard tales brought back by those who traveled to this wide land of Sunrunners and princes. Her beauty was praised, her intelligence respectedЧand her power feared. The sight of her castle burning day after day didn't surprise him. Indeed, he found it elegantly appropriate. There was a terrible beauty in the flames; their creation was the act of a highly intelligent mind; their power, even after five long days, was unabated.

He stood just outside his tent at dusk, watching Fire that consumed but did not die, and told himself it had to stop sometime. But when?

Summoning a guard with a flick of one finger, he ordered a mount saddled.

"I obey, my lord." The man hesitated. "Does my lord wish a particularЧ"

"Any horse, and be quick about it."

"I obey, my lord."

He signed. Immediately as his commands were carried out, he did grow weary of having to do all the thinking. Even when questions were ventured, they were always stupid ones. What did it matter which horse he rode?

Even so, he knew very well that had the guard asked an intelligent questionЧwhere he planned to go, or whyЧthe presumption would have cost him his tongue. The guard knew it, too. They all did.

*

In a way, Ruala was glad that every chair in her solar was occupied. If for one instant she allowed something other than her own legs to support her, she wouldn't stand up again for three days. Possibly four.

The highborns of eight princedoms had gathered here. Maarken and Walvis and Kazander of the Desert; Cha-dric and Audrite of Dorval; Daniv, so recently become ruling Prince of Syr; Sethric, who was Velden of Grib's nephew; Dannar and Jeni of Castle Crag, her husband Riyan's half-siblings; Isriam, heir to Fessenden's great port of Einar; Kierun of Lower Pyrme in Gilad; and Meiglan, daughter of Miyon of Cunaxa. Skybowl had never seen so much distinguished company. Watching from the doorway as the squires served taze and the last of the fresh fruit, Ruala could have sworn they were all simply guesting here, not sheltering from an invading army.

But as their conversations took on meaning in her tired mind, she heard things that meant war and danger and strategy, things alien to this quiet, pleasant room.

"... and says Ludhil and the mountain folk are stinging them like a swarm of insectsЧmy scholarly son, leading an army! I never would have thought. ..."

"... what that fool Cabar is doing just sitting there at Medawari. . . ."

". . . heard yet from Tallain and Riyan up north, perhaps tomorrow. ..."

". . . the same about my Rohannon, taking charge of New Raetia after Volog died and before Arlis could get there. Fifteen winters old!"

". . . be getting ready to leave River Run. I wish they had a Sunrunner with them to scout the area and give them accurate numbers. ..."

". . . and poor Father, knee-deep in the rain outside Swalekeep. ..."

"... dragons seem to be settled in for the durationЧ last time I looked, all but Sioned's Elisel were fast asleep!"

". . . crush the Merida and the Cunaxans with them, while Miyon sits at Dragon's Rest innocent as aЧ"