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

"I never knew you so ruthless," Mevita said quietly. "What happens after Swalekeep falls? Who will feed these people then?"

"Depends on who gets it, doesn't it? If it's the Vellan-t'im, then the grain is denied them as well. That's the main thing. If it's Tilal and Ostvel, wagons can bring food from the warehouses back in Waes."

She nodded. "Which the enemy didn't touch for fear of meeting the armies of Ossetia and Princemarch."

"Because Chiana warned them," Rialt finished. Taking her hands, he warmed them between his own. "But it's all for nothing. They must have discovered what I did."

"No. I don't think it was you at all." A tremor coursed through herЧnot from the cold.

"Tell me."

She did, and he was too stunned for anger. He bent his head to their clasped hands, trying to think past the numbness of fear. Not that thought would avail him anything now.

"When Thina didn't come back yesterday. ..." Mevita whispered. "She swore she'd be back by nightfall. Her maid is loyal, Naydra and I told her to say she'd caught a chill on her ride so no one would wonder for at least a little whileЧoh, Goddess, if anything's happened to her I'll never forgive myself."

"Hush." He rose on legs already stiff and aching with the chill. "She's probably with Tilal right now."

"You don't believe that any more than I do."

"We have to believe it. If both our plans have come to nothingЧ"

"Чit will all have been for nothing." She was silent for a few moments. "Rialt . . . can Naydra protect Polev? She's a princess, and Chiana's sisterЧshe'll be able to keep him safe, won't she?"

"Of course she will." But he didn't tell her not to worry.

*

"That, my friends, is how Prince Zagroy did it." Pol, Tallain, and Riyan sat their weary warhorses watching what remained of the Cunaxans and Merida shuffle into ragged, sullen formation. The battle had been terrible, the victory total.

"And it's only noon," Pol added. "Not a bad morning's work."

Of the over one thousand caught in sunlight and shadow, no more than a third were still standing. Another third lay dead on blood-browned sand. The rest, the wounded, lay in tidy rows nearby. As they shifted restlessly in the bright sun, the ground seemed to crawl. Tallain's mind, using his body's memory of thrust and withdraw, attack and parry, could guess how many he had put there. But his instincts were certain that not one of them was Pol's doing. Every man and woman Pol had faced died.

Their own losses were scarce a hundred. The shock of attack from the shadows and the bedazzlement of sudden sunlight had worked as intended.

"My father had the right idea," Pol had said a little while ago, while they eased their thirst with the contents of his wineskin and waited for the captains to herd the stragglers. "Let the Desert do our killing for us. But we have to use the Desert. Kazander and I did that at the Harps. We've done it again today. The land must become one of our soldiers. That's how we'll approach battle with the Vellant'im. I want the very sand beneath their feet to fight them."

And so it had this morning, as they slipped and stumbled in their panic down the soft hill into the hollow, and were slaughtered.

Lord Kazander galloped up, saluted extravagantly, and announced, "Noble and mighty High Prince, your most grateful servant begs to bring your grace the whoresons among them who claim to be highborn of Miyon. They seem to believe this will spare them," he added, grinning beneath his black mustache.

"What will you do with them?" Tallain asked.

Pol smiled.

"You!" Kazander shouted over his shoulder. "Come forward!"

Four men, separated from the others by the korrus' order, approached with heads defiantly tilted. One of them bore the familiar ritual scar, a whiteness against dark skin and stubble. But as he neared, Tallain knew