Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

“Here, child,” said one, beckoning to her. “Stack these neatly.” He left without ado, and she hurried to carefully place the arrows in a line, pausing once to lean into the slit and peer out.

Her view gave her a vantage of the ground just beyond the gates. There, in a melee more like the frenzy of market square on the busiest autumn day in Gent, Lord Wichman, Lord Henry, and their riders battled Eika, cutting about themselves, parrying ax blows. A line of men-at-arms struggled forward, shields held high against the press. Eika swarmed everywhere. The huge Eika dogs darted through the swirling fight, ripping and rending. Of the horrible Dragons there was no sign, nor any remains.

sparked from the hooves of the Dragons’ horses as they pounded through the empty camp. There, by the stream, fire leaped into the scatter of buildings that marked the tanning works. Anna screamed, pointing, but it was useless. No one could hear her. No one would hear her.

They weren’t Dragons at all. She saw now the gaping holes in the tabards, the gleam of bone where ragged mail parted to reveal a skeletal jaw or flesh scored deep from a putrefying wound. Empty eyes stared from beneath nasals. Skin peeled away from bone where the morning wind whipped them clean. They made no sound.

Yet they came on.

Months ago she had seen them lying dead in the cathedral crypt at Gent. They were not Dragons at all, only the remains of them, only the memory of that force that had fought against the Eika. What terrible magic had raised them from the dead?

The gates yawned open, and out from Steleshame rode young Lord Wichman and his retinue. They shone as bright as their enemy, and they charged with abandon.

“Anna!”

She fell, caught herself on the lip of the walk, and half slid down the ladder.

“Anna!” Fright made Master Helvidius able to walk without his staff. “Child! Child! Come in! The Eika are attacking! Come to shelter!”

“Where’s Helen?”

“In the hall. Still asleep.” The old poet wept with fear. “Go get her and then come to the keep, but make haste, Anna! Hurry! There’s not enough room—”

“Matthias—!”

“There’s nothing we can do for him! Go!”

She ran across the yard. A spinning ball of flame hurtled past and smacked into the dirt: a torch cast from outside. It guttered and failed, but she heard more torches thunk onto the roofs. Most slid down the slope of roofs, plummeted to earth, and were stamped out, but a few caught and began to burn.

As she came to the great doors that opened into the long hall, she saw Mistress Gisela’s niece slap a ladder against the side of the house. Climbing to the top, with another woman halfway up behind her, she took buckets of water drawn from the well and threw water onto the roof, wetting it down. To the left, half hidden by the bulk of the hall, Anna saw other people struggling to save the old longhouse whose thatch roof had caught fire.

She had to shove and elbow to get inside, for people ran every which way, some in, some out, some no place at all but frozen in terror or dithering in circles. A table had been knocked over; dogs gulped down the remains of food, lapped at puddles of ale.

Helen had retreated to a corner beyond the great hearth and there she sat, utterly silent, thumb stuck in her mouth. Anna hoisted her up to her hips. She was such a tiny thing that she was no burden.

But it was harder to get out than in. The mayor and certain of his servants crowded the door, seeking shelter, and Anna could not fight past them. Their press against her caused her to stumble and fall to one knee, and for a horrible instant she thought she and Helen would be trampled.

Smoke stung her nostrils, and suddenly the cry arose: “Fire! Fire!”

She found a wedge through which to shove herself, got herself to the wall, and hurried down the hall’s length past the open hearth to the far wall where stood the single window, now shut against winter. She set Helen down, dragged a chest over and, getting up on it, pounded the shutters open. Tugging the little girl up behind her, she swung a leg over the sill, and dangled there. Together they dropped, hitting the ground hard just as a shower of embers floated down from above. The little girl began to cry. Anna scuttled backward, jumped up, and lifted Helen to her back.

In this way, with Helen fairly choking her with thin arms vised round her neck, Anna threaded her way through the chaos of the yard up the rise to the stone keep. Inside, the storerooms were pungent with barrels of salted meat, with ale and wine, with baskets of apples and unground oats and moldering rye. Master Helvidius cowered behind a chest, weeping softly. Anna thrust Helen onto his lap and climbed the ladder to the second level. There she found six grim-faced men laying arrows, point down, against the wall on either side of the six arrow slits.

“Here, child,” said one, beckoning to her. “Stack these neatly.” He left without ado, and she hurried to carefully place the arrows in a line, pausing once to lean into the slit and peer out.

Her view gave her a vantage of the ground just beyond the gates. There, in a melee more like the frenzy of market square on the busiest autumn day in Gent, Lord Wichman, Lord Henry, and their riders battled Eika, cutting about themselves, parrying ax blows. A line of men-at-arms struggled forward, shields held high against the press. Eika swarmed everywhere. The huge Eika dogs darted through the swirling fight, ripping and rending. Of the horrible Dragons there was no sign, nor any remains.

An ax hooked over Lord Wichman’s shield, dragged, tugged, and there was a sudden titanic struggle as the young lord grappled with an Eika soldier braced at his horse’s shoulder. Then—sliding, gripped, tugged—he fell from his horse and vanished under a hail of flailing arms.

Anna gasped out loud and jerked back, bumping into the careful rack of arrows. With a clatter, they fell, but the sound was drowned out by a howl sent up from outside—the young lord’s riders had gone mad with fury.

Anna began to cry.

A man shoved her away roughly and began to set up arrows again. A woman called up from below.

“The longhouse is burning! We’re getting a flood of people in here. What shall I do?”

“Squeeze in as many of the young and weak as you can!” shouted the man next to Anna. “But any who are able-bodied must take to the walls. It’ll be slaughter if the Eika get through those gates. Anything they can fling down—anyone who can lift a hoe or spade or shoot a bow or stab with a spear—” He spun round. “Girl! Don’t be hamhanded again. Now set these arrows upright for those who will need them later!”