King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

“Are the Dragons not here?” Wolfhere called back.

o;I’m strong enough.” Liath did not want to stay on at Steleshame while the others rode to Gent. She wanted to see the Dragons, to see the soldiers whom Ivar had dreamed of fighting with—not that he ever would now. She wanted to meet Da’s cousin’s son. A kinsman.

And anyway, she couldn’t leave Hanna or Wolfhere. They were all that protected her from Hugh. If she stayed in one place, vulnerable, Hugh would catch up with her. He would know.

“I think Liath is strong enough,” said Wolfhere mildly, “though she has recovered even more quickly than I expected. Now.” He crossed to them and, with a sign, showed them that he expected them to stand still. With a bronze clasp he closed the new cloak about Hanna’s shoulder, then did the same for Liath. His hands were firm and decisive.

“This cloak marks you as riding under the protection of the Eagles,” he said, then gestured to them that they should mount and be ready to ride.

“The Eagles also carry the King’s seal as a badge,” said Hanna, who like her mother always pointed out these essential details.

“You have not yet earned the right to carry this badge.” He touched a hand to the brass badge he wore pinned to his tunic, at his throat. “You must learn the precepts which govern the conduct of an Eagle. And you must swear to abide by them.” He paused, glancing toward Hathui and Manfred. Both of them carried the seal, stamped into circular badges. But though they were younger and obviously newer to the service of the Eagles than Wolfhere, the badges they wore did not look newly made, not like Hanna and Liath’s new cloaks.

From out in the fields, Liath heard singing. The: gate stood open, and now two boys drove two squealing and grunting young pigs in toward the small hut by the far corner of the compound, where they would be slaughtered for the night’s feast. Hathui, unable to wait any longer, urged her horse forward, heading out the gate.

“And lastly,” Wolfhere said, “no man or woman is given the Eagle’s badge until she has seen a comrade die. Death is ever at hand. We do not truly become Eagles until we accept and understand that we are willing to pay that price for our service and our king.”

2

TEN days after leaving Steleshame, Liath rode with Wolfhere and the small party of Eagles down into the bottomlands to the west of Gent pushing against a tide of refugees. They came on carts, on foot, leading donkeys and cows or carrying crates that confined chickens and geese. They hauled children and chests and sacks of withered turnips and jars cushioned by baskets of rye and barley. The old road was littered with their cast-off baggage, those who had managed to leave their homes with any of their possessions and not merely their lives. The damp ground was churned to mud by their passage. Where the forest retreated from the road, trails beaten down through grass appeared as the refugees made new paths in their haste to flee.

Wolfhere spotted a lord astride a horse, dressed in a good linen tunic and attended by two wagons, five servants, and ten fine cows. He left the others and drew the lord aside. Their conversation was brief, and the lord and his party left at once, continuing west. When Wolfhere returned, he looked graver than ever.

“Are these the townsfolk of Gent?” Liath asked, staring. There were not hordes of people, but the flow was steady: She had never seen so many people on the move before. Always, she and Da, the occasional merchant who plied his wares between one town and the next, and the fraters, clerics, and messengers about their business for church and king were the only travelers on the roads.

Thinking of fraters she thought of Hugh, shut her eyes against the thought of him. Felt sick, for an instant, and stopped herself from looking behind to see if he was dogging their trail. Somehow, somewhere, he knew where she was; she could feel it.

“Nay, child. These are the farming folk from the estates and villages surrounding the city. Gent has walls.” Wolfhere’s voice steadied her.

“Then why haven’t these people fled inside the city?”

Wolfhere shook his head. “That I can’t say. But if they have not, then I fear it bodes ill for those inside Gent.”

On they rode, and people walking west called out to them:

“Do you bring word from the King?”

“What of Count Hildegard? Has she come yet? They say she has gathered her kinsmen together and rides to save the city.”

“When will the Eika leave? When will it be safe to return to my farm?”

“Is King Henry coming himself with an army?” This from an old woman, her skirts spattered with fresh mud.

“Are the Dragons not here?” Wolfhere called back.

“They are so few, and the Eika so many.”

“How many?” he asked, but she dragged her cart onward and her six children ran behind, faces pinched with fear.

After midday there was no one except stragglers. They came finally upon a deacon, walking like any common woman, her white robe and tabard flecked with mud and grit. Her servants led two mules, one laden with the massive silver Circle which had once adorned the Hearth, the other with a hastily folded altar cloth embroidered with gold thread and with the chalice and holy books, all saved from the church she had abandoned.

“Go no farther, honored ones,” she said to Wolfhere, signaling her servants to halt. “Turn back while you are still safe. Tell the king that Gent is besieged.”

“Why have you not fled into Gent?” Wolfhere asked.

“They are laying waste to the countryside all around.”

She was, Liath thought, impossibly calm in the face of such disaster. “They are everywhere, good messenger. Gent is surrounded. I minister to the lands and estates west of Gent, so I was able to flee once I saw all my parishioners safely gone. East of the city and the river I cannot say, except that smoke has risen for twenty days, as if many fires are burning.”