"03 - Sunrunner's Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

High on the walls were torch sconces rather than the branches of white candles Rohan had made popular at Stronghold, and the sconces were made of plain bronze, not silver or gold. Those at Skybowl lived in comfort but not luxury, and nowhere was there any indication of the wealth of dragon gold taken from nearby caves and cached in the lowest levels of the keep.

Jahnavi made swift, efficient work of the bread, then poured out wine and stood at the end of the high table, alert to the needs of those seated there. His parents treated him as they would any other squire; no one teased him or attempted to engage him in conversation. Everyone knew how important this first duty at table was to him. But not even his solemn dedication to his new status could survive when Alasen made her announcement.

It came about when Sionell leaned slightly forward and asked, "Lord Ostvel, we've been talking about how men react when their wives tell them they're going to be fathers. How did Prince Rohan take the news about Pol?"

To Riyan's astonishment, his father's face went stone still. The smile that appeared soon thereafter was a trifle strained around the edges for a moment, as if it was a bad fit.

"I don't really know, Sionell. I was at Stronghold, and they were all down in Syr with the army, fighting High Prince Roelstra."

The girl looked disappointed. Alasen set down her goblet and smiled. "My dear, listen and watch carefully. You're about to witness a man making a fool of himself." To her husband she said, "My lord, I have the honor to inform you that you will become a father once more before the New Year Holiday."

Ostvel performed according to expectation: his soup spoon clattered from his fingers into his bowl, overbalanced, and flipped onto the table, sending a splash onto his tunic. Jahnavi forgot himself and gave a whoop, quickly silenced by Walvis' attempt at a stern glare. But the Lord of Remagev was soon grinning along with the rest of them as Ostvel struggled valiantly to recover his dignity, forfeit to a soup stain on his clothes.

"Alasen!" he finally bellowed, and silence erupted into laughing congratulations.

Riyan signaled to Jahnavi to refill all the wine cups. The castle folk down the hall, seeing the merriment at the high table, were attentively quiet as Riyan got to his feet and raised his goblet.

"The Princess Alasen!" he announced. "And my father the Lord Regent, who's to be a father again!"

The echo rang out from more than seventy throats, and cups were emptied down those throats an instant later. Skybowl's people had been, until three years ago, Ostvel's people; Riyan knew that in many ways they still were. He saluted his father with his goblet and grinned.

Wearing a You'll pay for this, boy look, Ostvel cleared his throat, blotted ineffectually at his tunic with his napkin, and rose to make the required response to his son's toast.

But he had barely drawn breath when a rush of wings filled the hall and the sky trembled with a hundred trumpeting calls. A stunned instant later, everyone scurried for the windows or to get outdoors. The dragons had come to Skybowl.

Sionell and Jahnavi's mother, Feylin, was the first of those at the high table to escape the hall. Riyan saw her dark red head in the crowded foyer, but she did not join the rush out into the courtyard. She nudged her way clear of the surging throng and turned for the stairs, bounding up them three at a time.

Sionell grabbed Riyan's hand. Her round cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes brilliant with excitement. "Hurry!" she cried, and pulled him forward.

They found Feylin where Riyan had suspected, in the uppermost chamber of the main tower. She was leaning precariously out an open window. Sionell let go of Riyan's fingers and joined her mother. He shook his head, smiling, and put an arm around each to keep them from falling.

"Mother, just look at them all!"

"Hush! I'm counting!" Feylin responded almost frantically.

The dragons were swooping in over the lake for a drink. Some plunged directly into the water for playful baths, while others landed almost daintily on shore. Still more flew lazy circles over the bowl of liquid sky from which the keep had taken its name. A few dragonsires

drank their fill, then perched on the rocky heights of the ancient crater to guard their flight of hatchlings, females, and dozens of three-year-old immature dragons.

Riyan watched, enchanted. He told himself that even if not for the honor of holding Skybowl and mining dragon gold for his prince, with all the trust this implied, he would gladly have taken the keep for the sheer delight of watching dragons. As bathers left the water, green-bronze and gold and black and russet hides glistening in the sunlight, wings were spread to flick showers of droplets and reveal contrasting underwings. No, Skybowl could have been as barren and rough as those who had never seen it believed it to be, and Riyan would still have counted it a privilege to live here.

The dragons seemed inclined to linger, and Feylin gradually relaxed as she was given time to do a second count and a third. Sionell and Riyan faithfully repeated the numbers she gave them.

"Three memories are better than one," she said, "especially when one of them is a Sunrunner memory trained by Lady Andrade." Stepping back from the window, she sighed. "Just the population I expected from prior statistics. But unless they find more caves, the extra females will die at the next mating the way they did this year, and three years ago, andЧdamn it, we need more caves!"

"There's Rivenrock," Sionell said.

"Which they won't go near, after so many of them died of Plague there. Oh, they fly over it, it's on their path through the Desert. But if they'd only use the caves, their numbers would increase to a safe level. I won't feel confident until we see upwards of eight hundred after hatching." She paused, then pointed and exclaimed, "See that one over there, the russet one with gold underwings? That's Sioned's dragon, Elisel!"