[Hurog 01] - Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs Page A

that?” Duraugh asked.
    â€œWhat?” I asked blinking at him.
    â€œHow to catch the stallion?”
    I snorted. “Have you ever tried outrunning a horse? I have. Took me most of the day to decide that he was faster than I was.” I leaned closer to him and continued conspiratorially, “Horses are stronger and faster, but I’m smarter.” His face went blank at this assertion, and I laughed inwardly.
    Penrod had climbed through the fence and come around as I said the last.
    I nodded at the stable master and said more prosaically, “Besides, that’s how Penrod caught old Warmonger whenever he got out of his pen—which he did about once a day, eh? Food never worked, but lead a mare in season by him, and he was her slave.” Warmonger, the last of mygrandfather’s mounts, had been almost human in his intelligence and mischief.
    Penrod nodded and grinned. “Damned horse could open any fastening we ever concocted. And quick, he was. Only way we ever caught him was with a mare. Finally, we nailed his door shut behind him.”
    I returned his grin. “Then he just jumped his way out.”
    So my father’d killed him. I could still see the satisfaction on his face when the last evidence of his father’s reign lay dying on the ground. Penrod’s humor quickly faded back into his professional mask. No doubt he was remembering the same thing I was.
    My uncle hadn’t followed our thoughts; his smile didn’t fade. “I’d forgotten Warmonger. He was a grand old campaigner. My own stallion is from his line.”
    Would it be so stupid to tell Duraugh the charade I’d been playing? Maybe if he knew me, really knew me, he would like me. Perhaps my uncle could guide me in the task of ruling Hurog. Despite the midnight raids to the library and the unobtrusive, obsessive attention I’d paid to my father’s method of governance, I felt ignorant. My uncle had been ruling his own lands successfully for the last two decades.
    I opened my mouth, but he spoke first.
    â€œThe burial is this afternoon. I told Axiel to find you something appropriate to wear from your father’s wardrobe. I noticed yesterday that you’ve outgrown your court clothes, and Axiel told me that you’ve nothing else suitable. I would appreciate it if you would go in and change. I don’t suppose there’s any way to get Tosten home in time for the funeral, but tell me where I can find him, and I’ll send for him today.”
    He slipped it in oh so casually, that mention of my brother.
    â€œAxiel’s my father’s man,” I said.
    Tosten and I were all that stood between my uncle and Hurog.
    â€œHe’s agreed to look after you,” explained Duraugh with obvious impatience. “Ward, where is your brother?”
    Iftahar, my uncle’s Tallvenish estate, was larger and richer than Hurog, but it wasn’t Hurog. No dragon claws had gouged the stone of the watchtowers. I thought that even a man who owned a rich estate might hunger after Hurog.
    â€œWard?”
    â€œI dunno,” I said.
    â€œBut you told Fen . . .”
    â€œOh, he’s safe,” I said. “I just don’t know where.”
    Â 
    MY FATHER ’ S BODY SERVANT , Axiel, awaited me in my room, wearing the Hurog colors of blue and gold. He was a small man, tough as boiled leather. My mother, when I asked her, said that the Hurogmeten had brought him back from some battle or another.
    When he drank enough, Axiel claimed to be the son of the dwarven king, and no one was foolhardy enough to gainsay it, because Axiel was as tough as my father.
    Axiel’s olive skin and dark hair had, as far as I could remember, looked the same as when I was a young child. Most of Hurog’s people, including me, wore our hair after the style of the Tallvens who ruled us, shoulder length and loose. Axiel, who was not a Shavigman at all, wore his hair in the old