She opened her mouth to protest as the three young lords and Rialt hurried to the door, Pol shouting for Edrel. Her grandfather clamped both strong hands around her shoulders from behind to keep her from following. She twisted to glare up at him. “Don’t even think of it,” he told her. Ruala shook him off. She went to the windows that overlooked the courtyard, where nearly every servant at Elktrap had joined in the frantic scramble to saddle and bridle fresh horses. Pol was mounted first, then Riyan and Sorin, and finally Rialt. They clattered out the gates, the squire and three guards galloping behind. “I’ll be going with them soon, though, Grandsir,” she said thoughtfully. “After all, one of those young men is going to be my husband.”
“Ruala!” He grasped her shoulders again and turned her to face him. “Which one?”
Her answer was an innocent smile and absolutely nothing else.
“Hmph,” he replied.
Controlling a fast horse in a headlong race up a mountainside while at the same time weaving sunlight to find a downed dragon were not recommended for the easily distracted. Pol shifted precariously between his body’s consciousnesss of the mare moving beneath him and his mind’s consciousness of the terrain moving beneath his fabric of plaited light far above. The doubled sensation should have made him as motion sick as crossing water, but all he felt was a vague dizziness. Thanking the Goddess for her mercies, he split his concentration in two neat, separate parts and didn’t have time to think about anything else.
But Riyan did, and as they began the descent down into a ravine he deliberately slammed his horse into Pol’s to gain the prince’s attention. Reining in, Pol shook himself free of the weaving and glowered at Riyan. “What in all Hells did you do that for?” he shouted. “I nearly fell!”
“You would’ve been worse off than that if you’d kept on Sunrunning. Have a look.” As the others pulled up, he gestured to the trail ahead which led into shadowy trees.
Pol felt his stomach turn over. If his body had left the sunlight while his mind and gifts were tangled in it—Urival’s lectures on the Star Scroll gave him the ancient word for the most hideous death a Sunrunner could imagine: daltiya. Shadow-lost. An empty mind in a body that functioned for a few days and then died.
“I’m sorry. It was careless of me,” Pol murmured. “Thank you, Riyan.”
“Did you catch sight of the dragon?”
“Not yet. Anybody hear anything?” Heads were shaken in the negative all around. “She can’t be that far from us. Riyan, will you take the south for about a measure? I’ll range north.”
Only a few moments later Riyan gave a guttural cry. Instantly Pol was back on the slope, shocked by his friend’s expression of horror.
“Can’t fly—afraid—kill him! Kill them! Can’t fly, wing broken—hurts hurts hurts—”
Sorin kicked his horse over to Riyan’s. Shaking his friend hard with one hand, he shouted his name several times. At last sense returned to Riyan’s dark eyes. “Are you all right?” Sorin asked worriedly.
A gulp, a curt nod. “Her pain . . . reached out to me. We must hurry, Pol. Just over that rise is a little box canyon with a waterfall at the east end. That’s where she is.”
Pol frowned. “You said ‘them.’ ”
“I did?” Riyan seemed to review memory of what he’d said—or seen, or felt, Pol wasn’t sure. “Yes. Another man—red hair is the only impression I got, along with her fear and pain. Pol, how did she do that? Catch me up in her feelings that way? For an instant, she and I almost ... it was as if we touched minds, not just colors on sunlight. As if we were almost one being.”
“We’ll get Feylin and my mother to speculate about it some other time. Though it’s killing me that you can do this and I can’t.” He turned to Rialt. “A box canyon presents interesting possibilities. You and Damayan ride up this ridge. If they try to escape this way—”
“They shall be strongly discouraged, my lord,” Rialt replied at once. “But I hope you remember that whereas you taught me how to look as if I know how to use a swerd, I’m really rather hopeless at it.”
“I’m sure only the appearance will be needed,” Pol soothed. “Besides, Damayan has given me lessons in swordsmanship. If it comes to it, just protect yourself and don’t worry about attack. He’ll take care of that part of it.”
“Of course, my lord,” Damayan said, never one for false modesty, glowing at his prince’s praise.
“Anto, Zel,” he said to the remaining guards, “you’ll swing around to the other side and cut off any possible escape over those hills. Riyan and Sorin will come with me. If you see us getting in trouble, you have my full permission to come to our rescue.” He grinned tightly.
“And me, my lord?” Edrel piped up. “Shall I come with you?”
Pol was responsible to Lord Cladon for the boy’s safety. He also remembered what it was like to be thirteen. “You shall. A squire’s place is with his prince, as you so often point out to me.” As the boy’s face lit, Pol flicked a glance at Riyan, then at Anto. Both gave almost imperceptible nods. Edrel would be whisked out of danger by whoever was closest to him when and if danger threatened. Even if Anto had to gallop headlong down from the hilltop, or Riyan had to leave off battling the dragon killer, Edrel would be looked after. Pol had the distinct feeling that his companions had all made a similar and equally silent pact regarding Pol’s own safety. Yes, he remembered very well what it was like to be thirteen. It was very much like being twenty-four. “Off with you now. We’ll wait for you to get in position. And keep your eyes open. We don’t know if there’s anyone else waiting for us.”
“For you,” Rialt corrected grimly. He and Damayan galloped away, followed by Anto and Zel. Pol turned to Sorin.
“Sorcery is undoubtedly being used on this dragon, too, just like the one you found the other day. Sunrunners can’t work more than one spell at a time. And I’ve never read or heard anything to indicate that the diarmadh’im are capable of it. If he looses his hold on the dragon to deal with us, I want you to free the poor beast if she’s in the same state as the other one. Riyan, you and I will probably be rather busy.” The other Sunrunner arched his brows at the understatement. “But don’t kill him. My father will want him alive.”
“I trust you won’t object if I singe him a little,” Riyan said.
“Lightly browned around the edges and blood-rare in the middle. Let’s go.”
Pol had been thinking up something princely and righteously wrathful to say on confronting “Aliadim.” But the words flew right out of his mind when he left the trees bunched at the canyon mouth and saw the dragon. She was still standing, hind claws dug into the grassy soil, one wind unfurled like a gleaming bronze-and-black sail.
But the other wing hung limp. Awkward angles at the shoulder and halfway down the main wingbone confirmed what Riyan had said earlier: broken in two places, rendering not only the wing but the forearm useless. She hissed her fury of pain and fear, but did not move. She couldn’t; the tall, dark-haired man who stood within easy reach of her talons held her in terrible thrall. And he was laughing.
The horses had flatly refused to go farther than the trees, and so Pol, Riyan, Sorin, and Edrel approached on foot. Unnoticed by the dark-haired man and his redheaded companion, whose backs were turned, they paused only long enough to make sure of their reinforcements’ positions on the hillsides. Then they advanced, and Pol’s glance at the others showed him rage to match his own.
The dark-haired man taunted the dragon, striding up to poke the tip of his sword into her useless wing, drawing more pinpricks of blood. He could just reach her limp, wounded forearm, and abandoned sword for dagger in slicing out one talon. The other man, a bit shorter and built more heavily, kept a respectful distance, obviously not trusting even in diarmadhi spells. His companion turned to laugh derisively—and found Pol’s sword point an arm’s length from his throat.