In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

John and Theodore found a campsite that suited the nervous men. They planted their backs against the broken wall of a merchant’s compound with a long storehouse along one side and a stable along another. The courtyard gave them space to set up a couple of lean-tos for shelter without having to camp right within the ruins where scorpions might scuttle and ghosts poke their knuckles into a man’s ribs while he slept.

Scarred John unfolded a leather-and-wood tripod stool. Lord Hugh unrolled a map on top of the small traveling chest. He pinned the corners with an oil lamp, a heavy silver chain mounded up over a silver Circle of Unity, his knife, and his left hand. He studied the map, twisting a wick between thumb and middle finger but not yet lighting it.

“We escape tonight,” Blessing whispered to Anna as the girl trotted past in Captain Frigo’s wake. The big man glanced at her. Anna wasn’t sure how much Wendish he understood, but she guessed he couldn’t follow her conversations with the princess as well as she could follow the Dariyan spoken between soldiers and master.

Under the shelter of sloped canvas, she unrolled the blankets she and Blessing shared, and there she sat to watch Lord Hugh as he stared at the parchment. The canvas ceiling rose and fell as a twilight wind gusted out of the east.

The men chatted companionably as they got the horses settled in the stables and sentries up onto the walls. Liudbold and scarred John set to work splitting wood from the abandoned houses to fuel the fire. Frigo sat on his saddle and, with Blessing trussed tight beside him, set to work dressing a sapling trunk with an adze.

Lord Hugh had that ability to build trust between himself and those who served him. In this same manner, Prince Sanglant led his men, knowing all their names, their home villages, their sense of humor, and which man needed a coarse joke or which a kind word to keep his spirits up. In this wilderness, Hugh’s entourage was nervous and watchful but not terrified, because they trusted him.

In her mind’s eye, she saw Elene’s blood leaking over the chessboard and pooling around Berthold’s slack fingers. She could not shake off the memory.

He glanced up, noted her regard, and dismissed it. Scarred John brought him a cup of ale. He thanked him, drained it, and handed back the empty cup. Bringing out flint and tinder, he made ready to light the wick.

A strange sound rang over the ordinary moan of the wind along the deserted walls. Every man quieted and froze in position, as though spelled. She saw their shapes like pillars, arranged out of all symmetry. For ten breaths at least, no one spoke or moved. The wind turned abruptly, and grew cold as winter’s blast, swelling out of the northwest. The sound rang down on that wind.

“Sounds like bells,” said Theodore in a low voice.

A horse snorted and sidestepped.

A man yelped and cursed. “Ah! Ah! Right on my foot!”

“More fool you for standing there!” retorted his companion.

Lord Hugh moved his right foot to the ground, set the oil lamp beside it, and slipped the Circle and chain over his head. As he rolled up the map and stowed it in the chest, he spoke.

“All must retreat within the circle I draw. Bring the horses, too.”

He took a bulging pouch out of the chest, closed it, and secured the hasp. His hands were steady as he spilled a line of flour in a circle big enough to contain men and horses together. A stench like the breath of the forge swept over them. Horses shied. Men shouted in alarm, and the three who had not yet crowded into the circle raced out of the dusk to join them. At their backs a dark storm advanced out of the heavens.

One skittish gelding broke and bolted.

“Let it go!” Lord Hugh shouted. “Come. Come. Are all within?” His gaze caught Anna, and as if struck she gasped and covered her mouth with a hand. “Not you. You must take your chances outside.”

Scarred John drew his sword.

Blessing screamed and began to kick and pummel Captain Frigo. “No! No! No! I’ll hurt you! Let her stay!”

He slapped her, but the pain meant nothing.

John’s sword poked Anna’s hip. She edged sideways, seeing one curve in the circle not yet sealed by flour. He poked her again. The edge bit into her flesh, and she sobbed and skipped out beyond the sword’s reach.

“No! No!”

“Stop it!” warned the captain.

“Won’t! Let her come back!” Blessing squirmed. She kicked him again, almost got her knee into his groin.

Frigo took out his horsewhip and, swearing, slashed the girl across the chest, but the pain did not daunt her.

Anna started to cry with terror as a stinging wind poured over them. It was not quite utterly dark; they had not yet crossed the boundary into night past which there is no returning. But what fell out of the heavens was blacker than night, towers of darkness that stank of iron and muttered like bells heard down a vast distance. She heard them speaking. She heard names.

Hugh of Austra. John of Vennaci. Frigo of Darre. Theodore of Darre. Liudbold of Tivura. Each of them named and marked.

Blessing of Wendar and Varre, daughter of Sanglant.

The only name that was missing was Anna’s.