"01 - Dragon Prince" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

PART ONE

Faces in Fire

Chapter One

Prince Zehava squinted into the sunlight and smiled his satisfaction. All the signs were good for the hunt today: claw marks on the cliffs, wing marks on the sand, and the close cropping of bittersweet plants along the canyon ridges. But the prince's perceptions were more subtle and had no need of these obvious signs. He could feel the presence of his prey all along his skin, scent it in the air, sense it in every nerve. His admirers said he could tell when the time was ripe for the hunt simply by glancing at the sky. His enemies said it was not surprising that he could sense such things, for he himself had been dragon-spawned.
In truth, he seemed a human version of the dragon he hunted today. A long, proud nose reared out of a lean and predatory face, saved from ruthlessness by the humor lurking at the corners of his mouth. Nearly sixty winters had framed his eyes with deep lines, but his body was still tough and supple, his pose in the saddle easy, his back straight as his sword. The proudest of old dragons was Zehava, a cloak as black as his eyes billowing out behind him like wings as he rode a tall black war-horse into the Desert he had ruled for thirty-four winters.
"We advance, my prince?"
Zehava glanced at his son-by-marriage. "We advance," he replied in the time-honored formula, then grinned. "We most certainly advance, Chay, unless your sword arm is already growing tired."
The young man grinned back. "The only time it ever did was when we fought the Merida, and then only a little, and only because you kept tossing so many in my direction!"
"Tobin wanted to boast of your prowess, and I've sever been able to deny my daughter anything." He pressed his heels to the horse's ribs and the troop advanced into the Desert behind him, bridles muffled and saddles devoid of the usual trappings that might clatter a warning to the dragon.
"Another ten measures, I make it," Chaynal said. "Five."
"Ten! That son of the Storm Devil will be holed up in the hills and strike from there."
"Five," Zehava said again. "And he'll be at the mouth of Rivenrock like High Prince Roelstra at Castle Crag." Chaynal's handsome face pulled into a grimace. "And here I was enjoying myself. Why did you have to mention him?"
Zehava laughed. Inwardly, however, he was wishing that this fine young man was truly the son of his body, his heir. He felt much closer to Chay than he did to his blood son, Prince RohanЧa slight, quiet youth given to study and thoughtfulness rather than devotion to the manly arts. Rohan was a credible swordsman, an excellent hunter of everything but dragons, and a cunning whirlwind in a knife fight, but Zehava found his son incomprehensible in that these things were not the end and aim of life to him. Rohan's taste for books and learned discussion was utterly beyond Zehava's understanding. Honesty compelled him to admit that Chaynal had interests other than the hunt and the skirmish, but at least he did not prefer those other things to all else. Yet when Zehava attempted to press Rohan into other activities, his own wife and daughter flew at him like furious she-dragons.
Zehava grinned to himself as he rode through the scorching heat toward Rivenrock Canyon. Tobin should have been born the male child. As a young girl she had been able to out-ride and out-knife any boy her age. Marriage and motherhood had calmed her, but she was still capable of black-eyed rages to match Zehava's own. Part of Chaynal's marriage contract stipulated that she was forbidden to bring a dagger into their bedchamber. Chay's idea of a joke, of course, which had brought
howls of laughter from everyoneЧincluding TobinЧbut it added to the family legend, which was something Zehava despaired of Rohan ever doing.
Not that Tobin was lacking in femininity, he mused, glancing at Chaynal again. Only a completely enchanting woman could have captured and held the fiery young Lord of Radzyn Keep. After six years of marriage and the birth of twin sons, the princess and her lord were as besotted with each other as ever. A pity Rohan hadn't yet found himself a girl to stiffen his spine and his manhood. There was nothing like the desire to impress a pretty girl to turn boy into man.
Zehava's prediction proved accurate: the dragon had chosen the lookout spire at the canyon mouth for his perch. The hunt paused a full measure away to admire the beast, dark gold as the sands that had hatched him, with a wingspan greater than the height of three tall men. His malignant glare could be felt even at this distance.
"A real grandsire of a beast," Chay murmured appreciatively. "Have a care, my prince."
Zehava took the caution as it had been intended, not as a warning that he might lose this contest, but as a reminder not to damage himself during it. If he came home with more than a few scratches, his wife would alternately coddle his injuries and rage at his clumsiness in acquiring them. Princess Milar was as legendary for her temper as for the golden looks, so rare here in the Desert, that she had passed on to her son.
The twenty riders fanned out, taking up positions according to the etiquette of the game, and Zehava rode forward alone. The dragon eyed him balefully, and the prince smiled. This was a profoundly angry beast. The stench of oil was rank in the hot air, oozing from glands at the base of the long, spiked tail. He was ready to mate the females hidden in their caves, and anyone who distracted him from his purpose was marked for a painful death,
"Hot for it, aren't you, Devil-jaws?" Zehava crooned low in his throat. He rode at a steady pace, his cloak blowing back from his shoulders, and stopped half a measure in front of the rocky spire. Striated sandstone in
a dozen shades of amber and garnet rose like the Flametower at Zehava's castle of Stronghold. The dragon clung to the stone with claws thick as a man's wrist, balance easily kept despite the repeated lashings of the gold-and-black patterned tail. The two rulers of the Desert sized each other up. On the surface it was a ludicrously unequal contest: the massive, dagger-toothed dragon against one man on horseback. But Zehava had an advantage that had made him the champion in such encounters nine times before, more than any man living and part of the family legend. Zehava understood dragons.
This one burned to fill his dozen or more females, but he was growing old and knew it. There were battle scars on the dark golden hide, and one talon hung at an unnatural angle, damaged in some earlier combat. As the great wings unfurled threateningly, showing the velvety black undersides, badly healed tears were visible as well as crooked wingbones that had not remeshed properly after breaking. This might be the dragon's last mating, and Zehava suspected that the beast knew it.
Nevertheless, he was capable of giving the prince a good long battle. But Zehava understood something else about dragons. Though notoriously cunning, they were entirely single-minded. This one wanted to mate. His fighting style would thus be direct and unsubtle, without the tricks a dragon used once mating was over for another three years. He had already been inhaling the stench of his own sexuality for days during the preliminariesЧ the sand-dance and the cliff-dance that had attracted his females to him. His brain was drugged now and his fighting wits would be dulled, for his one purpose was to seed his females and this made him at once more vicious and more vulnerable. Though Zehava had a healthy respect for those talons and teeth, he could also grin in his anticipation of a tenth triumph. He was going to out-think this grandsire dragon, and have a rousing good time doing it.
Fifty measures distant, in a fortress that had been carved out of solid rock by successive generations of Zehava's family, Princess Milar sat with her sister Lady
Andrade. The two were silent for the present; the entrance of a servant into the solar with cool drinks and fruit had interrupted a stormy passage between the twin sisters on the subject of Prince Rohan.
When the servant had bowed and departed, Lady Andrade flicked her long blonde braid back over her shoulder and glared at her sister. "Stop fussing the boy! Things are brewing in Roelstra's court that Zehava can't hope to understand, but Rohan will!"
"Are you calling my husband a fool?" Milar snapped.
"Save your theatrics, Mila. He's a brilliant soldier and a fine man, but if you think the coming conflict will be one of arms, think again. The Storm God alone knows what Roelstra's planning, but it won't be something to march an army against." She reached over and plucked a bunch of grapes from a bowl, subjecting their ruby gloss to a critical inspection. "You may think your princedom too rich and powerful to be threatened. But the High Prince is constitutionally incapable of abiding anyone richer than he. And Zehava hasn't been exactly subtle about his wealth. I heard about the birthday present he sent Roelstra."
"It was entirely in keeping withЧ"
"With Zehava's conceit! Two horses or even four, nicely caparisoned, would have been fine. But twenty! And all in silver! He's flaunting his riches, Mila, and that's dangerousЧlike this imbecile dragon hunt today. He's killed nine of the monsters, why does he need a tenth?"
Princess Milar wore an expression before which scores of highborns had quailed; her face was none the less lovely for its icy hauteur. "It's his duty to rid the Desert of dragons. It also demonstrates the cunning and strength which are so important in war. That's politics."
"That's stupidity. Better he should have sent Rohan out to kill this dragon, so his heir's cunning and strength are made clear." Andrade popped a grape into her mouth and split the skin with her teeth, drawing off the sweet juices before spitting out the remains into a silver bowl provided for the purpose.
"Rohan has no heart for fighting dragons," Milar admitted unhappily.
"But he's warrior enough with heart enough," Andrade pointed out. "Dressing in common trooper's uniform that last campaign against the Merida when you'd forbidden him to leave StrongholdЧ"
"We've never worried about his spirit. But you know he spends too much time at his books and talking with the most unlikely people. I've defended him in the past, but now I'm beginning to agree with Zehava. Rohan ought to learn how to be the kind of prince his forefathers were."
"That's precisely what he doesn't need to learn! Building a princedom is fine work for a soldier, and Zehava's done very well. He consolidated what his grandfather began, strengthened his hold on what his father grabbed from the Merida, and enlarged the whole through his own efforts. Actually," Andrade said in thoughtful tones, "one can't blame him for wanting to show off. He's worked wonders, especially against the Merida."
"If I required a history lesson, I would send for my bard," Milar snapped.
Andrade ignored her remark. "Zehava's problem is that he's run out of things to do. All he can think of is to spend money on you and Tobin and this pile of rock we're sitting inЧand to waste his time killing dragons. Believe me, sister dear, Roelstra can think of many occupations for his own time, and none of them healthy as far as you're concerned."
"I fail to seeЧ"
"You usually do," Andrade interrupted. "Let Rohan read his books and talk with the ambassadorsЧyes, and even with the servants of the ambassadors! He'll learn things that Zehava could never teach him."
"Why don't you go back to your duties in that moldy old keep of yours, and leave the work of the world to the people who can do it?"
"What do you think I do in my moldy old keepЧ knit?" Andrade snorted and picked out another fat grape. "While I'm training silly boys and girls to be good faradh'im, I listen to them. And what I hear these days
isn't pleasant, Mila." She began ticking off points on her long, slender fingers, each one circled by a gold or silver nng with a different gemstone. The rings were linked by tiny chains across the backs of her palms to the bracelets of her office as Lady of Goddess Keep. "One, Roelstra doesn't plan to make war against anyone, so Zehava's show of strength and skill in hunting dragons counts for nothing. Two, the High Prince has agents in every courtЧ including yours."
"Impossible!" Milar scoffed.
"Your wine steward has a nasty look about him, and I wouldn't vouch for your assistant stablemaster, either. Three, the High Prince has seventeen daughters, some of them legitimate off poor, dead Lallante. All of them need husbands. Where will Roelstra find eligible men for them? I'll tell you where: from the most important courts, even for the bastard girls."