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Chapter 1
Twelve Stones

Darkness was no hindrance to the rodent. It scavenged by night, its mind tracking the world around it through its long, sensitive nose and its highly tuned network of whiskers.
    The young man lying comfortably beside his campfire, high in the mountains above the foraging rat, noted the conflicting information reaching its senses as it paused to interpret what they were telling it.
    Its myopic eyes saw a shoulder of rock reflecting the night sky overhead. Its whiskers warned it of something living, a meat-eater, an enemy. Its memory recognised the dilemma, and decided there was no danger. The big creature was not hunting. Not interested.
    The rat scurried underneath the scaled foreleg and picked at the rank remains of the sleeping dragon’s last meal, which were lying beside its head.
    Not having any desire to cultivate a taste for rotting meat, the man drew back from his communion with the small scavenger, and briefly scanned the thoughts of the sleeping dragon. It was, as the rat had already ascertained, deep in a blissful stupor, its mind sated with contented dreams of easy and plentiful meat.
    Content with his reconnoitre, Kierce turned his full attention back to the spread of painted pebbles laid on the ground beside him. He knew the rat was right. Until the dragon’s stomach began to send a complaint to its brain, it would remain happily oblivious to the world around it. Dragons were not ambitious creatures.
    Neither was his opponent.
    Kierce gave a grunt of satisfaction as his companion cautiously placed three more stones on the grid marked out in the dust beside them. The firelight flickered on a picture of a sword, a crown, and a rock: truth, authority and strength. Exactly the stones he would have expected the heir to Arhaios Holding and future Chief of Oreath to play.
    “Pay attention, Caras!”
    Kierce laid a single stone in the centre of the grid, and lay back with a triumphant smirk. It bore the figure of a man, the piece in the game that turned the value of all the others on their heads.
    Caras cursed in exasperation.
    “When did you get to be this good, Kierce? I used to be able to beat you at least one time in three.”
    “Practice,” replied Kierce. He scooped up the twelve stones from the ground and tipped them into a leather pouch. “I practice winning.”
    “You cheat,” grumbled Caras.
    “Against you? Never.”
    Kierce grinned. He knew very well that Caras still couldn’t tell when he was lying and when he was joking.
    Caras got to his feet and stacked more wood onto the fire.
    “Well, my mind wasn’t on the game.”
    “Any other excuses? Could it just be that the heir to Arhaios is a crap twelve-stones player?”
    Caras shot him a baleful look.
    “If you mean I spend less time playing it than you, then I’m guilty. Idle sod.”
    “Much underrated, idleness. You should go in for it more yourself, Caras.”
    Kierce stretched contentedly on the ground by the fire and pulled the thick furs over his shoulders against the chill of the spring night. He watched the play of the flames in front of him, letting his mind drift. No predators at all to pit his wits against tonight. He didn’t need to cheat. Caras was risibly predictable.
    His gaze shifted to the friend he had grown up with, ridden the fields and forests of Shehaios with, wrestled and vied with throughout their childhood. They were the same age almost to the day, but Caras looked older. It was partly his hair, which had turned a uniform iron grey almost overnight when his parents died a few years back. It was also the worried frown that was beginning to carve a habitual furrow on his broad, blunt face.
    Kierce knew what worried him at the moment. They had both been present when the minstrel brought the message to the Holding, the two youngest among the elders gathered to hear the news from the Palace. The announcement of the King’s marriage did come as something of a shock, but Kierce still felt Caras was taking the responsibility of his position too seriously.
    Just how difficult could it be to take part in a wedding feast?
    Kierce rolled onto his back and stared up at the vast original of the faint and distorted map of stars and scudding cloud the rat had seen reflected in the dragon’s skin. The title which gave Kierce ti’ Gaeroch the right to sit among the elders of the Holding sat more lightly on his shoulders. Since the day four years ago when his father came out second best from an argument with a bear, Kierce was Arhaios’s Horsemaster, responsible for the supply and training of the Holding’s transport and power supply – the horses for which Oreath province was famous.
    He had inherited his father’s title earlier than he anticipated, but he had never expected anything else. His mother had died before he was a year old, and from his earliest memories he had lived his father’s life, out on the hills and grasslands west of Arhaios among the herds of wild horses, watching and learning their language. When he brought them back to Arhaios, Shaihens trekked for days to barter for them.
    Kierce enjoyed his life, and the company of the other creatures who shared the life of the Fair Land. He also liked to make the most of the limited time he spent among his own kind.
    He began to contemplate a new calculation. They were three days out of Arhaios; they could reach the Haven in another ten. But it would not be unreasonable to take three weeks on this journey. Possibly more. Another eighteen nights, at least; eighteen Holdings, eighteen warm and hospitable welcomes for the future Lord of Oreath and his companion.
    Or ten days camped out in the Shaihen mountains, watching for wildcat and bear. Not to mention the occasional dragon.
    He thought it was an adult female. Asleep, certainly, but it may not stay that way.
    He looked across at his stolid companion frowning into the fire, the lurid light deepening the strong lines of his face and teasing subtle echoes of its own fierce colours from the day’s growth of beard on his chin.
    “I think you’re making me work unreasonably hard, Caras. Why are we sleeping out here tonight when there’s a Holding a few miles north we could have got to before dusk? I could have played against someone capable of giving me a decent game. We could have found … all sorts of entertainment. It’s not often I get to see the beauties of our more distant Holdings.” He grinned, leaving Caras to interpret “beauties” in whatever way he chose.
    “It took us out of our way,” said Caras. “I want to get to the Haven. I want to know what’s behind this announcement of Rainur’s. It makes no sense to me.”
    “I thought that’s why you wanted to visit as many Holdings as you could on the way. Find out what they think here on the borders.” Kierce paused reflectively. “Not that they seem to be doing much thinking. They’re losing stock to Caiivorian raiders, they’ve seen hunters who are not Shaihen hunters. But they still think the mountains will protect them. Their strategy makes about as much sense as your twelve-stones tactics, Caras. I suspect you can trust Rainur to be more subtle, at least.”
    “But now of all times, when we’ve got Caiivorians raiding our borders as never before, why has Rainur decided to marry one?”
    Kierce thought he definitely could detect a subtle stirring in the dragon’s dreams.
    He dropped his voice into a passable imitation of Brynnen the Minstrel’s sonorous tones.
    “The great eagle brought tales of the peerless beauty of the Princess Cathva from far across the mountains. The King heard the tales, and could know no peace until he had seen such beauty for himself. So he journeyed to the fabled Imperial City— .” He broke off and looked up. “How much do you want to know about the fabled Imperial City?”
    Caras just threw him an exasperated glance.
    “Quite right. Let’s get on with the voluptuous beauties of the Princess. Like the sun rising upon the mountains was the face of the Princess Cathva to the King—.” He frowned. “Her face. Why does the man look at her face?”
    Caras smiled grudgingly.
    “It does go on to mention breasts like golden fruit, I think.”
    “Ripe and perfect, no blemish on her skin. Breasts are all very well. Legs lead in a much more interesting direction. Did he mention her legs?”
    “It’s not a partnership between a man and a woman, it’s an alliance with the Caiivorians,” Caras cut in impatiently. “You know it is.”
    “You mean you’ve got me to come on this journey on false pretences? The fair Princess Cathva is not more beautiful than the morning sun?”
    “By all accounts she is, but it wouldn’t really matter if she had a face like the rear end of a dragon. She’s a daughter of the Imperial family.”
    “And there you have it, Caras,” said Kierce with a yawn. “He’s not marrying a Caiivorian, he’s marrying the Caiivorian Emperor’s daughter. There’s a difference.”
    “She’s still not of the Spirit. She’s still a Caiivorian.”
    Kierce sighed. Caras would not stop gnawing this bone. The image teased him as he let Caras’s troubled thoughts ripple over his own mind without touching him.
    There was something very dog-like about Caras. It always made him smile. He liked dogs. But he didn’t want to be pack leader himself. The weight of responsibility Caras felt resting on his shoulders made Kierce shudder.
    He knew very well the real reason they were not enjoying the hospitality of a Holding tonight.
    “And you might still be good company,” he said lazily. “On the other hand, you might be just the heir to Arhaios.”
    Caras scowled at him.
    “Time we got some sleep,” he said, abruptly. “We’ve a long way to go yet.”
    Kierce paused, still contemplating the night sky. Further than you think, Caras.
    Caras thought he already lived in the land of the Spirit; the Fair Land, the Whole Land, the Home of the Free. Kierce could see what went on inside peoples’ heads.
    “Your duty is to go there, Caras. There’s nothing to stop you enjoying yourself on the way.”
    “That’s very easy for you to say,” retorted Caras. “Since you don’t give a damn.”
    “I can give a damn without having to worry at it every minute of the day. Worry about it when we reach the Haven. It might look different by then.”
    “Yes, well. I’m not sure we agree what enjoying ourselves involves, these days, anyway.”
    “Not sure we ever did.” Kierce grinned at his companion. “Stop being such a pompous ass, Caras. Tomorrow we stop at a Holding, agreed?”
    “Not if you’re going to abuse their hospitality.”
    “I don’t abuse anyone’s hospitality. I haven’t fought anyone, I haven’t insulted anyone, and if I’ve cheated anyone they haven’t found out before we left.”
    “You know perfectly well what I mean.”
    “No idea what you’re talking about. Fair Elani not satisfying you, Caras?”
    “My marriage to Elani is fine,” snapped Caras. “It’s an arrangement you should try.”
    Kierce looked mildly surprised.
    “Well, I’m always happy to oblige a friend, and you know how much I’ve always admired Elani—.”
    “I was referring to marriage. Partnership. Something that lasts longer than one night.”
    “A fine institution,” said Kierce. “You are without doubt a fine institution, Caras.”
    “Go to sleep,” muttered Caras, throwing his furs over himself in disgust.
    Kierce smiled. Tomorrow, he would need to determine exactly how close that dragon was. The need to mate was the only desire other than food that could awaken her, and one appetite was much like another to a creature with no imagination. A hungry dragon was a dangerous dragon.

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