Dragon Blood

11—WARDWICK

Home heals the heart.

I watched Garranon closely as he looked at the packed camp, glanced through the faces, and drew in a shocked breath when he saw Jakoven's brother. "Kellen?"

As I dismounted I watched expressions run across Kellen's face too fast for me to interpret, but the one that stayed was sheer pleasure.

Garranon's eyebrows rose and he turned to me and said with mock awe, "And I thought Jakoven was going to come after me with branding irons and ski

Kellen had taken a few steps forward, but stopped cautiously at Garranon's words.

Garranon shook his head and gri

I looked down into my half brother's sleeping face and wished I'd known about him sooner—and that the only reason to keep him at Hurog was that he was my brother. It would have made his absorption into the Hurog household easier on everyone. I noticed also that there was a bandage around his wrist, and I worried about how much blood Jakoven had already taken from him.

Kellen said, "I plan on dethroning Jakoven and becoming king in his stead."

Garranon stretched his neck, first one way, then the other. I was standing close enough to hear the cracking of his spine. Then he stepped forward and fell to his knees before Kellen in a graceful, humble gesture.

"I am your man," he said.

Kellen looked momentarily taken aback, glancing at Rosem, then Tisala before pulling a regal air out from somewhere and cloaking himself in it.

"Arise, I ask no one to humble himself so before me until I hold the throne."

Garranon stood and took a good look at Kellen. "You could use a few hundred meals, my friend. But you still look much better than the last time I saw you."

Kellen glanced about. "Garranon comes—came once a week to visit me, in spite of Jakoven's disapproval. We played chess."

I remembered that all-important chessboard Oreg had destroyed, and smiled as I laid the boy on the ground. I caught Oreg's eye and he came over to check on the sleeping child. I'd begun to worry about what Tychis had been given to make him sleep this deeply. Whatever they'd done to him, I hoped Oreg could rectify it.

"Allow me," said the Tamerlain, appearing on the other side of the boy. "I know what was laid upon him, so it'll be easier for me to break it."

I felt her power rise and cover the boy, but I couldn't tell exactly what she did. The results, however, were obvious. The boy rolled to his feet, the whites of his eyes showing as he looked around them. Then, sprouting appalling Tallvenish gutterspeak that effectively stopped Kellen and Garranon's conversation and directed the attention of most of the people in the vicinity toward him, he reached down and grabbed a chunk of rock in his hand.

"Impressive," I said dryly in Tallvenish—which we'd been speaking out of courtesy to Kellen anyway. As I remembered from before his imprisonment, he could get by in the Shavig tongue, but was more comfortable in Tallvenish. "What do you think happens after you've hit one of us with the rock—assuming you can throw it hard enough to matter?"

He stopped swearing and glanced fearfully from me to Oreg and on to the rest of the men (Tisala was some distance away saddling a horse) who were watching him. A couple of them stepped forward, hands on their swords.

I shooed them with a wave of my hand. "Finish packing camp. I need a little time to explain matters to my brother here." I said it first in Shavig, for the men, and then again in Tallvenish for the boy.

Turning back to Tychis, I nodded my head in greeting. "I am Ward of Hurog—your half brother. Next to me is my mage, Oreg—also a relative of sort. Your uncle Duraugh and Tosten—another of your half brothers—are over there. Tosten is the one over by that oak with his hand on his sword. Duraugh is that one," I said, pointing behind Kellen, "the one frowning at me."

"I'm not your brother," Tychis said fiercely in broken Shavig. Then he repeated it, with a few more filthy words, mostly adjectival, in Tallvenish.

I shook my head sadly and settled myself on the ground where I was on more of a level with him, not so threatening. "I'm sorry if it pains you—but your father was Fenwick of Hurog, as was mine. You've half a dozen other half siblings in Hurog. Some of them, I'm sure, won't be all that you could wish for, either."

The rock was getting heavier; I could see his hand droop. Neither Oreg nor I gave him reason to throw. I was safely distanced by being on the ground, Oreg leaned negligently against a trio of sapling aspens. Everyone else was farther away. The Tamerlain, I noticed, had disappeared somewhere.

"You might as well drop the rock," said Oreg. "He'll sit here all day until you do." He caught the boy's eyes. "If you don't believe in futility, you might as well give up the hostility, too. It's as easy to stay angry with a puppy as it is to be angry at Ward. Ask Tosten someday if you don't believe me."

The rock dropped at last, and the tough front cracked a bit as tears welled in the boy's eyes. "What do you want with me?

I sat up and pi

"I'm a bastard. The son of a whore and your father," he spat, then added the bit he certainly seemed to think damning. "And the whore was your father's cousin."

Oreg made tsking sounds with his tongue. "The Tallvens have certainly done a job on you, haven't they. In Shavig, cousins marry all the time." That was overstating matters, but for a good cause. "Duraugh's son is married to Ward's sister—your sister, too—and no one thought a thing about it."

Tychis begun to look faintly alarmed—which was better than the fearful defiance he'd displayed before.

"No one says you have to marry a cousin," I soothed. "But you do have to be polite around Beckram and Ciarra—that I will insist upon." Since politeness was the last thing he was worried about, it succeeded in distracting him.

"Do you know how to ride a horse?" I asked, changing the ground under him.

He shook his head. I stood up and held out a hand. "Well then, come and meet your mount and I'll get you started. By the end of this trip, no one will ever know you weren't born in the saddle."

The bait was too great. Soon he was sitting on a bay gelding, newly named Death-Bringer. I'd given Tychis several choices of names. From the size of the horse's barrel I'd have called him Hay-Mower. But Death-Bringer pleased the boy, and the height of the horse gave him the illusion of safety.

As I was coaching Tychis in the proper ma

"Garranon says it's possible that Jakoven will launch an attack on Hurog immediately," said Duraugh. "Is it really safe to bring Kellen there? The gate was off the curtain wall when we overnighted in Hurog on our way to rescue you."

"Right," I agreed. "I've two good men working on the ironwork for Hurog—I suspect that the gate and a gatehouse or at least a portcullis will have climbed to the top of their list of things to do. Stala was left expecting the worst. I trust she'll have something devised by the time we arrive. Were this summer we'd be in trouble, but by now the snow is knee deep there. With your men from Iftahar, we can hold off a besieging army for a week—and southern-bred men in tents won't survive a week at Hurog."