In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

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.

“Is it safe now?” they asked Hugh, kicking the remains of the horse. “Can we sleep?”

“It is safe. Before we left, I instructed Brother Petrus to scatter skulls and bones in the woodland a day’s ride south of Novomo. After some fruitless searching, a loyal soldier will by seeming happenstance lead the searchers to these bones, and Mother Antonia will believe we are all dead, killed by those black demons, her galla.”

They all stared at him.

He nodded to acknowledge their amazement. “I knew the plan would work because Antonia remains ignorant of the extent of my knowledge. I know a shield—this spell I called—that would hide us from the sight of the galla. I had in my possession griffin feathers to send them back to their foul pit.”

“How did you come by such things, my lord?” asked scarred John, always curious. “It was said of the Wendish prince, the one who killed Emperor Henry, it was said he led a pair of griffins around like horses hitched to a wagon. But I never believed it.”

Captain Frigo stood with Princess Blessing draped over his shoulders like a lumpy sack of wheat, but she was breathing. “Hush! It is not our part to question Lord Hugh.”

Hugh’s smile was the most beautiful thing on Earth, no doubt. If only he had been flensed instead of the poor horse.

“Questions betray a thoughtful mind, Captain. Do not scold him.” He nodded toward John, who beamed in the light offered by the lamp’s flame, content in his master’s praise. Above, no stars shone. In the gray darkness, men settled restlessly into camp, still unnerved by their brush with death and sorcery. “I was brought up in the manner of clerics, John, to love God and to read those things written down by the holy church folk who have come before us. I had a book … I have it still, since I copied it out both on paper and in my mind. In it are told many secrets. As for the griffin feathers. Well.”

Anna clamped her mouth shut over the words she wanted to speak. Prince Sanglant had captured griffins. Had Lord Hugh done so as well? Had he, like Bulkezu, stalked and killed one of the beasts?

He twitched his head sideways, as at an amusing thought known only to himself. “Does it not say in the Holy Verses: ‘He who lays in stores in the summer is a capable son?’ I took what I found when the harvest was upon me.”

“And in the morning, my lord?” asked scarred John.

“At dawn,” he said, “we ride east.”