Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

“Forward,” said Lavastine behind her. “Let our pace be swift. Keep some distance between you—but not too much—so if we are attacked, we are not caught up the one upon the other.”

She went cautiously at first, but the way lay silent and pitch-black before her, a weight of still air stirred and lightened by their passing but by no other breath of life. All lay around her in the flickering gaze of the torches as she recalled it: the smooth walls, the beaten earth floor as though thousands had passed this way in some long ago time, the ceiling a hand’s reach above. Now and again she heard the scrape of a metal spear point on the rock, and a low curse from its bearer, shifting it down. Her bow and quiver rode easily on her back. She held the torch in her left hand and her good friend Lucien’s sword in her right. The torch burned without flagging, as did all the others. Erkanwulf walked on her left so the torch illuminated the way evenly between them. But after a while she began to forge ahead of him, sure of her path. Behind her, Lavastine strode swiftly, and his troops kept up by sheer force of his will if nothing else.

“Ai, Lord,” whispered Erkanwulf. “It’s sorely dark down here, Eagle. What if all that rock caves in on us?”

But she smelled only the metallic tang of earth, a distant whiff of the forge, and the dank moisture of a place long hidden from the sun. “Why should it fall now? If it’s lain here for so long?”

“The torches burn so strongly,” added Erkanwulf. “It’s uncanny, it is.”

“Hush,” said Lavastine from behind, although the tramp of so many armed men through the tunnel could not be hidden—or at least not by any gift she possessed.

They walked steadily and, like the torches, without flagging. She realized now that the journey out of Gent had taken so long for the most part because they had gone so slowly, and because the refugees had been mostly frightened children or the weak and the wounded. With forty robust soldiers behind her, she could lead at a brisk pace.

“What’s there?” muttered Erkanwulf even as she realized that in the far distance ahead she could see a dull lightening cast of fire. And as they neared she saw that, indeed, it was fire: A wall of it stretched from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, leaping and burning in the tunnel with all the frenzy of a gleeful pack of fire daimones at their dance.

“Defended!” said Lavastine angrily.

Liath stared. Defended. But why, then, had the Eika not used the tunnel as a way to ambush Lavastine’s army when it first arrived?

“Stay back,” she said to Erkanwulf. She strode forward with her torch outthrust to make a barrier, but as she neared the wall of flame, it faded in her sight to become a whisper, a haze, a memory of fire, nothing more.

“Eagle!” She felt Erkanwulf dart forward to grab at her as she stepped into the blaze. He screamed. She stopped and turned round to order him back only to see the look on their faces, as much as she could see expressions in the torchlight. Only Lavastine watched impassively. Erkanwulf staggered back, a hand thrown up to shield his face from the heat. The rest murmured or cried out, or covered their eyes to hide them from the horrible sight of a young woman burned alive.

“It’s an illusion,” she said.

Erkanwulf fell to his knees, gasping and coughing.

Lavastine stepped up beside him. What courage it took him to do so she could not imagine. Would she do the same, if she had only another’s word to go by? Around her, the ghost fire shimmered and leaped, burning rock no less than air.

“If Bloodheart has guarded this tunnel with illusion,” asked the count, “doesn’t that mean he must know of it?”

“Perhaps. But then why wouldn’t he have used it for an ambush? Nay, Count Lavastine, I think there is fire above, on the plain, and his illusion is all of one seam. Have you ever seen an orrery? A model of the heavenly spheres?”

“Go on,” said Lavastine curtly.

“As above, so below. His illusion may be one seamless part, and thus exists below the ground as well as above it. It’s possible that these illusions would be seen by anyone attempting to approach the city, that Bloodheart cast them without knowing they would extend here, too.”

“Or perhaps his soldiers wait for us, beyond.”

In answer, she stepped through. A man shrieked, was brusquely ordered to be silent. Beyond the wall of fire lay the silent tunnel, dark and quiet. She turned and could not see the fire from this direction at all, only a misty haze and the men waiting on the other side.

“Nothing,” she said. “Unless Bloodheart ordered his men to wait for us on the stairs. It would be very hard to fight up those stairs and win.”

“Making it a better place to set an ambush, then,” said Lavastine. “But what choice do we have but to go forward?” He nudged poor frightened Erkanwulf with the toe of a boot. “Come. She has the true sight. We must trust in her.”

“We must trust in St. Kristine,” she said suddenly, “for without her intercession we would never have found the tunnel. The heat will not burn you.”

“I can’t go through,” sobbed Erkanwulf, still with a hand flung up to protect his eyes.

“Nay, boy!” said Ulric from the back of the group. “Think of Lord Wichman and his stories. They saw illusions at Steleshame, but that was all they were.”

“I will lead.” Lavastine gripped his sword more tightly and walked forward into the fire.

Even so, Liath felt him trembling slightly as he halted beside her. One by one, with increasing confidence, his troops came along after. Only a few shut their eyes as they passed through the illusion.

o;Ai, Lord,” whispered Erkanwulf. “It’s sorely dark down here, Eagle. What if all that rock caves in on us?”

But she smelled only the metallic tang of earth, a distant whiff of the forge, and the dank moisture of a place long hidden from the sun. “Why should it fall now? If it’s lain here for so long?”