In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

Feather Cloak studied the girl. In truth, thought Secha, her disinterest in her only grandchild was no more unnatural than the pale sun hair’s disavowal of his kin. “I thought you hated this one called ‘Lord Hugh.”’

“I hate him! He’s a very bad man. He’ll cheat you if he can. He’ll kill you.”

Feather Cloak smiled, amused, perhaps, by the piping voice and passionate expression of the girl. “A fair warning, Little Beast. He may try. He is not as strong or as clever as he thinks he is. What of the raid, Uncle?”

He indicated everything they had captured. “We walked between this crown and one that Sun Hair told us was far in the north. He called the place Thersa. We took the villagers by surprise. They could not fight us. It may be true that the Pale Dogs are many, that they have multitudes, and that we are few. But I tell you, it will be difficult for them to protect themselves against this manner of warfare.”

She raised both hands.

The wind came up just then, as though she had called it, and possibly she had. Or maybe it was just the night wind rising off the cooling ground. There was a hint of salt in that air, a fine hissing spray carried in from the sea. And another scent as well, a witching smell that made her ears itch.

The prisoners fell silent. The blood knives covered their faces and prayed. With a puzzled frown, Feather Cloak lowered her hands.

The Pale Sun Dog opened his eyes and, without letting his gaze rest even for an instant on the other Pale Dogs, he scanned the heavens and then the surrounding slopes, the tender grass in its pale splendor and the thorny shrubs that lay along the slopes as strands of darkness. A nightjar whirred. An owl who-whooed.

The night breeze was cool, teasing her hair, kissing her cheeks. That salt breath of the sea faded, and now after all it was only a common night, cloudy, cool, and filled with the crickling of nocturnal insects.

Feather Cloak spoke. “Among the Wendish there is a saying: ‘the luck of the king.’ If the king’s fortunes fail him, then no warrior will follow him. ‘A prince without a retinue is no prince,’ which means that without followers, he cannot rule. If we are not strong enough to defeat Sanglant and shatter his army, then we need only cause such devastation in his country that his people cry for a new feathered cloak—a new regnant—to save them. There are others who claim the right to lead. It matters not which one leads, or which one claims. Best if they fight among themselves, because that will weaken them. Destroy Sanglant’s support, destroy the trust his people have in him, and you have destroyed him even if you have not killed him.”

“He is your son,” said Zuangua, looking a little disgusted.

“He turned his back on his mother’s kinfolk. He swore allegiance to the Pale Dogs. He can’t be trusted.”

Zuangua shrugged. “No one distrusts the Pale Dogs more than I do. Yet if your son can’t be trusted, then neither can this one. For it seems to me that he has done worse by turning his back on his kin and his kind, all and together. At least your son keeps faith with those he has sworn community with. This one is no kind of trustworthy ally.”

“I did not say I trusted him. But what he offers, we can use. We will learn as much as we can from him, and after we are done, we will kill him. We will let the blood knives have him, if they can bind him. We will kill all of the human sorcerers, those who know the secret of the crowns. Then the sorcery of the looms can never again be used against us. For this reason, I will accept his alliance.”

The blood knives nodded eagerly. The mask warriors stamped their feet and barked and howled and shrieked approval. The prisoners huddled close to the priest-woman in her long robes, and even she with her words of power looked afraid. The flickering light made a golden mask of Feather Cloak’s face.

Zuangua nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. We must kill all the human sorcerers. They are the most dangerous of all.”

Feather Cloak raised both hands, palms facing heaven, to allow the gods a glimpse into her soul. “I accept his offer of alliance. I offer him in turn the woman called Liathano.”

“What of a powerful offering for the gods?” demanded the blood knives. “What of your promise to us?”

“You can have her afterward,” said Feather Cloak, and she smiled mockingly at them. “If you can bind her.”

“This is a bad thing,” muttered Secha.

“To protect ourselves is a bad thing?”

“To seal an agreement on a lie is a bad thing.”

But Kansi-a-lari, The Impatient One, was Feather Cloak now.

“I have spoken,” she said irritably.

She beckoned to Sun Hair. She let him approach her. The prisoners watched in dread and anger, and her company watched with an intense excitement so palpable that it seemed to Secha that the ground trembled beneath the soles of her feet, shaken by their eagerness.

These were the tokens they exchanged: He gave to Feather Cloak an iron feather whose essence was so pure that it gleamed with a light all its own. She gave to him a folded mantle, a humble item, to be sure, but he pressed the cloth to his face as though it were the end of his desire.

Thus was the bargain sealed, and their path chosen.

9

MIDNIGHT—or as close to midnight as they could estimate, since no stars were visible to measure out time. They measured by psalms instead, and when they finished singing “Vindicate me, God, for I have walked without blame,” all quieted.

Because the church in Novomo had been built in the waning years of the Dariyan Empire, it boasted an impressive processional frieze worked into both walls of the nave above the twin rows of columns that separated the nave from the aisles on either side. In those shadowed aisles waited courtiers and servants, their faces unseen except as pale washes marked by the dark stones that were their eyes and the occasional flash of a ring or gold necklace catching candlelight. Above the waiting masses, the frieze marked the ascent of saints and martyrs toward the Hearth. Each held a saint’s crown to place before God. The colored stones in the mosaic shimmered to mark their holy robes and their holy crowns. Even their eyes shone; in this way the saints differ from the guilty who live and suffer on Earth, whose eyes are only pits in whose depths the righteous can discern the black stain of the Enemy.