In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“Let her come back! Let her!” shrieked Blessing, writhing, slamming her fists into air as Frigo twisted away from her blows. He slugged her on her jaw, and she went limp just like that.

“As I thought,” said Hugh conversationally to Anna as he bent to pour the last of the line into place, to seal the circle, “you were not deemed of sufficient interest that anyone could recall your name and birthplace, if they ever knew it. You are more likely to survive if you move away from us. Follow the horse.”

Flour streamed onto the earth. Hugh was speaking words she did not recognize or understand, and as night and monsters crashed over them, the thread of flour met itself and between one heartbeat and the next the men and horses huddled inside vanished.

She screamed, choked, wept. Moaned.

A breath of stinking cold horrible air rushed past her, soaking her in a chill that stabbed all the way to the bone. Death! Death! She wet herself, but the hot urine soaking her leg jarred her wits into life. Darkness swept down as on a gale, and she fled, running as the horse had, but tripped over her own feet and hit herself hard. Elbows bled. She scrambled forward as a dark shape skimmed over her.

The horse had run itself into a corner. Kicking, it lashed out at the creature. Her vision hazed. The horse screamed as a black pillar engulfed it.

Sparks spit golden above her. An arrow fletched with a shimmering tail pierced the creature, and it vanished with a loud snap. Bones rattled to earth where the horse had been. Its flesh had been flensed and consumed. She scrabbled forward as another thing swirled into view above her. Its cold presence burned her. She sobbed. A second arrow bloomed as a splash of brilliance in the heart of shadow. With a hiss, it snapped out of existence.

The hardest thing she had ever done was in that moment to look back over her shoulder. Better not to see what would devour her, but she had to know. A haze of mist marked the spell in which Hugh had contained his retinue. Most of the galla swarmed about it, as if confused. Bells tolled in her ears. She choked on bile. She got to her knees and crawled, thinking she might not draw their attention if she remained low to the ground.

A third hiss, followed in a steady measure by two more; nothing careless, not in Theodore’s aim. She reached the scattering of steaming bones and fell among them. The clatter resounded into the heavens. A sixth bright arrow burned, and a seventh.

“Eight. Nine,” she whispered, pressed among the bones, hoping death would shield her.

Hugh of Austra. So it murmured as it circled the sealed earth, seeking its prey but confused by the mist that concealed him. An arrow blossomed in darkness off to her right. With a snap and a roar of brilliance the tenth flicked out. A line like silver wire spun in an eddy of air before drifting to the ground.

If the galla had intelligence beyond that of hunting hounds, she could not see it in them.

Eleven. The last shadow pushed at the haze. Blessing.

The fire that bloomed within its insubstantial black form almost blinded her, like the flash of the sun.

In the silence, her ears rang with bells, and after a while she heard herself sniveling. She stank of piss. The bones in which she lay stank of hot iron. Her eyes stung as she wept. She could not stop herself. She just could not stop, not even when the spell he had raised dissolved and his soldiers broke out cheering. Not even when flame sprang from the oil lamp and they set about their encampment, each one as merry as if he had faced down his own death and laughed to escape it.

She could not stop, especially when Lord Hugh came into view, carrying the burning lamp. He paused to study the bones with more interest than he studied her, a touch of that ice-blue gaze. The kiss of a winter blizzard would have been more welcome.

He was a monster, no different than the monsters that stalked him. Hate flowered, but she lowered her eyes so as not to betray herself.

“A cup of ale in celebration, my lord?” asked scarred John. She glanced up to see the soldier arrive with a cup in each hand.

Hugh smiled. Strange to think how beautiful he was. Impossible not to be swayed by beauty, by light, by an arrogance that, softened, seems like benevolence. All of it illusion.

So might the Enemy smile, seeing a soul ripe for the Abyss.

So might the Enemy soothe with soft words and a kindly manner: Come this way. Just a little farther.

They drank.

“Here, now,” said scarred John, sounding surprised. “The girl survived! Yet see—is that the horse?” He made a retching sound. He shook with that rush which comes after the worst is over. “That would have been us! Sucked clean of flesh!” He clutched his stomach, looking queasy.

“So would we all have been,” agreed Hugh. “The Holy Mother Antonia controls many wicked creatures. She is a servant of the Enemy. Now you see why we must oppose her and Queen Adelheid, whom she holds on a tight leash.”

The others gathered where Anna lay, humiliated. She did not know what to do except let them stare at her and pick through the bones around her as though she were deaf and mute. At last, she crawled sideways to get away from them. None stopped her or offered her a hand up. Her leggings were soaked through, and a couple of the men waved hands before noses and commented on the stink.

streamed onto the earth. Hugh was speaking words she did not recognize or understand, and as night and monsters crashed over them, the thread of flour met itself and between one heartbeat and the next the men and horses huddled inside vanished.

She screamed, choked, wept. Moaned.

A breath of stinking cold horrible air rushed past her, soaking her in a chill that stabbed all the way to the bone. Death! Death! She wet herself, but the hot urine soaking her leg jarred her wits into life. Darkness swept down as on a gale, and she fled, running as the horse had, but tripped over her own feet and hit herself hard. Elbows bled. She scrambled forward as a dark shape skimmed over her.

The horse had run itself into a corner. Kicking, it lashed out at the creature. Her vision hazed. The horse screamed as a black pillar engulfed it.

Sparks spit golden above her. An arrow fletched with a shimmering tail pierced the creature, and it vanished with a loud snap. Bones rattled to earth where the horse had been. Its flesh had been flensed and consumed. She scrabbled forward as another thing swirled into view above her. Its cold presence burned her. She sobbed. A second arrow bloomed as a splash of brilliance in the heart of shadow. With a hiss, it snapped out of existence.