Melanie Rawn - Dragon Prince (Book 1)

Dragon Prince

Book 1 of the Dragon Prince series

Melanie Rawn

Contents

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 princes 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 Ive sever been able to deny my daughter anything. He pressed his heels to the horses 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 hell be at the mouth of Rivenrock like High Prince Roelstra at Castle Crag. Chaynals 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 Rohana 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. Rohans taste for books and learned discussion was utterly beyond Zehavas 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 Zehavas own. Part of Chaynals marriage contract stipulated that she was forbidden to bring a dagger into their bedchamber. Chays idea of a joke, of course, which had brought howls of laughter from everyoneincluding Tobinbut 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 hadnt 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.

Zehavas 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, arent 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 Zehavas castle of Stronghold. The dragon clung to the stone with claws thick as a mans 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 dragons 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 preliminaries 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 Zehavas family, Princess Milar sat with her sister Lady