“He’s got strength to swallow, and that’s all,” Sorin replied. He shifted the great head onto his knees and stroked the smooth hide between the eyes. “I’ll hold his head. Try to get some water down him.”
The dragon proved angry enough still to take a feeble snap at Riyan. But when cool water slid down his throat from the goatskin carrier, his eyes closed and tension seeped from some of his muscles. Sorin went on rubbing the dragon’s face and neck. Riyan gave him as much water as he would take, then stoppered the skin and sat back on his heels.
“This can’t be the one that brought us up here,” he said slowly. “Word came twenty days ago. Not even a dragon could survive this for twenty days. This must be the whoreson’s second kill.”
“And his last,” Sorin answered grimly.
“We’ll catch him.” Riyan settled onto the grass, kneeling by the dragon’s head. “Sorin, I’ve never tried this, but I know how it’s supposed to work. Sioned let me watch when her Elisel came flying by Stronghold last year. But I’ve never actually done it.” He gave a brief grimace of a smile. “Catch me if I fall over, all right?”
Before Sorin had time to protest, Riyan had closed his eyes and begun the mysterious—to Sorin—work that would allow him to touch the dragon’s colors. Even though his twin brother had explained the feeling and a little of the technique many times, Sorin despaired of ever understanding what happened when a Sunrunner used light. Andry had likened it to master weavers gathering threads for a multicolored tapestry, master glasscrafters selecting stained glass for a window. But to touch sunlight or moonlight, or to perceive a person in terms of the hues of the mind—it was like asking Sorin to imagine drinking music.
Riyan’s spine snapped straight as a sword blade and a groan escaped him. His eyes, opened, the dark brown lit by strange bronze and gold and greenish flecks, the pupils pinpoints like black stars. He dug his fingers into the ground as if they were talons, shock and fury swirling in his eyes. Sorin held his breath as an expression of mortal anguish twisted his friend’s face. Then Riyan cried out and slumped.
Sorin placed the dragon’s heavy head onto the grass, sparing a look at the amber eyes. They glowed faintly, then faded once more.
“Riyan!” He shook a shoulder. “Come on, wake up!”
It seemed to take forever. Finally a long shudder coursed through him and he braced himself on one arm, head raising slowly. “Sorin?”
“Have some water.” He unhooked the water skin from his belt and made Riyan drink. A few moments later he steadied and sucked in a deep breath. “What happened?” Sorin asked.
“I—I touched him. Goddess, the colors! But all lit in black. I can’t describe it.” He shook himself and reached for the water skin. More firmly, he went on, “He’s furious enough to have nearly killed me with his emotions. Sioned explained that. They don’t communicate in words, but in pictures and feelings. And this one, if he had any strength, would be feeding off our entrails right now. The only reason he didn’t kill me is because we gave him water—and you were soothing him by rubbing his face.”
Sorin glanced over his shoulder at the dragon. Could dragons kill with a thought? In the half-closed eyes was only pain, none of the fierce intelligence he had so often seen in the creatures. “What else?” Sorin asked.
“I tried to ask who did this to him. That’s when he remembered and—I felt it,” he ended in a whisper.
Sorin took him by the shoulders. “What did you feel?”
A shake of the dark head. “It was—something grabbed hold of him, something he couldn’t see, only sense. Then he crashed to the ground from full flight, as if he’d been slammed in the head with a club. But nothing touched him! Nothing! Just this—something—pulling him down out of the sky.”
“Grandfather Zehava killed quite a few dragons in his day,” Sorin mused. “But not even he could pull them down out of the sky.”
“That’s what happened to this one.” Riyan stared at the dragon, whose breathing was shallow but regular now. “Somebody more powerful than he got to him, and he couldn’t even struggle. It wasn’t a battle at all.”
Sorin pointed out what he had noticed earlier. “Riyan, look at the spikes. They’re new and made of fine steel. Like rock-climbing spikes, but thicker. As if they’d been made for this. And they’re hammered in as if at leisure, straight as nails in the floorboards of Feruche.” He rose and began trying to prize one out of the dragon’s wing. A low, keening moan quivered the creature’s throat; Sorin stopped.
“Evidence?” Riyan asked.
“Exactly. We’re going to find the filth who did this, and use his own spikes on him.”
“We’ll have to track him down first. Sorin, I want to talk to Sioned. She may know how to get the image from the dragon. And there has to be something we can do to ease his pain.”
“Are you strong enough for a Sunrunning? The dragon’s colors must’ve hit you pretty hard.”
“I’m all right.”
Sorin eyed him, then shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do for the dragon.”
While Riyan wove sunlight in the direction of Stronghold, Sorin used the rest of the water to cool the worst wounds. By the time Riyan spoke again, the dragon’s breathing was stronger and some of the pain had left his eyes.
“She says I can do it, if the dragon trusts me.” He rubbed his palms on his thighs.
Sorin saw reluctance in the dark face. “Riyan ... all we really have to do is ask around for someone who’s been flaunting a dragon kill. No one does this kind of thing unless he wants it found. He’ll be bragging about it,” he added bitterly.
“No. I mean, yes, I agree with you about that. But it might take all spring to find him in these mountains. Whatever he meant by this, I doubt he wants to be caught for punishment.” He eyed the dragon. “If I can get a picture, it’ll be that much easier to find him.” He gave a quick smile. “Besides, Sioned’s a good teacher, even at a distance. She showed me how to weave sleep, too.”
Sorin glanced at Riyan’s six rings. Four had been given by Lady Andrade; he had made a special journey to Goddess Keep last year to request that the fifth and sixth be given. But the skills he had demonstrated to earn them had been taught by Urival and Sioned, not Andry. And sleep-weaving was known only by those with eight or more rings. “You’re not supposed to know things like that.”
“Andry wouldn’t approve,” Riyan agreed somewhat sharply. “But then, I don’t entirely approve of him, either.” An instant later he shrugged an apology. “I’m sorry.”
Sorin shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. “Do what you have to.”
Riyan gestured him back and pulled in a deep breath. A moment later the dragon quivered delicately. Riyan gasped, fists clenching, tension again making a ramrod of his spine. One hand came up as if to ward off a blow; the dragon’s right wing trembled at the same time. Both throats growled simultaneously—deep, threatening, raising the hairs on Sorin’s nape. All at once the dragon hummed, and Riyan’s drawn face responded with a smile at once feral and triumphant. As if, Sorin thought suddenly, as if he had the murderer pinioned by his sword—or his talons.
Dragon and Sunrunner continued their bewildering communion for some moments longer. At last Riyan’s eyes opened and he sighed his satisfaction.
“Got it,” he said, the strange smile still on his face.
Sorin wordlessly handed over the water skin again, and after a long drink Riyan looked more like himself. The dragon had totally relaxed. Sorin thought the sleep-weave must be responsible until he saw that the amber eyes were open, lucid, and gleaming through the pain.
Riyan spoke before he could ask. “He’s tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, very good-looking if one favors arrogance. Dressed expensively, silk and good Cunaxan wool, that light stuff that slips through the fingers like velvet. But what’s really interesting is the color he wore.” That fierce smile flickered across his face again. “Violet.”