Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“You march toward war. Even if it is peace that you seek, you must use the sword to achieve it. Fail me, and you fail those you wish to save.”

“So you believe.” He whistles. Rage and Sorrow come to attention behind him, ready to move.

She laughs, a bright sound that rings up into the heavens to join that clamor heard from afar. “Challenge me, if you will. Now you will see my power.”

The fog takes her. Between one breath and the next, it swallows her, leaving him on the narrow deer trail hemmed in by scraping branches and damp leaves. The meadow has vanished, the rain has stopped, but the black clouds and the rising wind remain.

Almost, Stronghand dropped his battle standard, woven by the shamans of the Eika tribes so its magic shields from the touch of sorcery all who walk under the shield of his power. Its limits had been tested today, and it had protected them from a terrible threat. The thought roused him. His chin jerked sideways as he started like an animal waking from a doze and grabbed the tumbling standard before it could strike the ground.

“She is coming!” His voice cracked. His attendants shifted from watchful alertness to coiled readiness as a man standing casually rolls to the balls of his feet, preparing to sprint. “Swiftly! Now we move!”

His gaze caught on the cleric. “Stand by your agreement, and I will stand by mine. Yeshu, see that the shaman and her attendant come with us. Bring also this holy mother who speaks for the company.”

He strode into the ranks of his army, which swallowed him. As quickly as water washes off rocks on an outgoing wave, his soldiers dispersed west down the Hellweg or into the forest. The plan was long since set into motion. The noise of their passage crackled, and as if by sorcery a wind rose out of the north to trouble the woodland. Branches cracked and fell. The clouds—what he could see of them above the treetops—had turned a sullen gray color, presaging rain.

Battle was coming, and so was Alain. Yet another scent teased his nostrils, a touch of the forge. It puzzled him, because although a lingering taste of sorcery shifted on the wind, that distant presence was not in itself magical.

A scout jogged into view from the west and fell into step beside him. “Lord Stronghand. All is ready as you have commanded on the western flank. A report has come in that a patrol to the north has fallen into a skirmish with a party of outriders, and retreated. Sharptongue of Moels Tribe has sent up another troop to push into that region, to make sure our eastern flank is not attacked unawares.”

“Good. What of Duke Conrad and Lady Sabella’s army?”

“Taking up arms. There is movement in Kassel. It seems the battle is about to start between the besieged and their enemy. It seems the princess on the eastern slope has been alerted to our presence.”

“Good.”

“Further orders, Lord Stronghand?”

He considered his troops in their thousands, a mixed Eika and human force raised from the northern tribes and the eager Alban recruits, the largest army to march through these lands since the armies of the Dariyan Empire. He considered his lines of communication and supply, stretched thin, and his imperfect knowledge of the disputes that had destabilized the Wendish and Varren realms. He considered Alain, and the last words of the WiseMothers, now forever lost to their children.

Repay this debt.

He nodded, a human gesture, but in these days he sensed in himself a fine balance between the cold ruthlessness of dragons, the hidden strength of stone, and the quicksilver emotion that rules humankind. Once, long ago, the part of him that derived from human ancestry had lain quiescent, barely acknowledged, but his chance encounter with Alain Henrisson had changed him and, in the long run, altered him utterly.

“No,” he said to the waiting scout who, like all the Eika, had the patience of stone. “All is going as I have planned.”

“Up on the cart, most honored one,” said the Hessi youth sweetly as he walked up to Rosvita and Fortunatus without the least sign of nervousness. Of course, he had a hundred silent Eika soldiers guarding his back. He had no need to feel anxious. “There is room for you to ride with the driver, I think, holy one.”

The color of the sky was changing, in accordance with her mood. The once light haze of clouds was darkening quickly as a storm blew in.

“Brother Fortunatus! You must go back to the main party and tell them what happened. Let the Lions remain watchful, but on no account unless they hear word from me or from King Sanglant himself are they to attack a superior force.”

He grasped her hands. “I would not leave you, Sister!”

“Haste,” said the Hessi interpreter kindly, but he smiled wryly to show he must enforce his orders. “I will go with the good brother, back to your company. I have a message to give them.”

With a flash of his old smile, Fortunatus released Rosvita’s hands. He had tears in his eyes, but he faced the youth with a cheerful expression that did not blind Rosvita to his true feeling. “Will you teach me the letters of your secret cipher?”

The lad laughed outright, the most pleasing sound Rosvita had heard all day, something to make the heavens a little brighter, although the storm boiled ever closer, sweeping down from the north. “It is forbidden, yet there is one letter I might teach you. That which came first of all sounds on the day of Creation.”

He drew Fortunatus away, walking toward the rest of the company. From deep in the ranks, back by the wagons, a wailing rose toward the heavens, shouts of dismay and grief.

“What happened?” asked Rosvita in a low voice. “Did someone die?”

Breschius shrugged. “It’s possible. But I was walking in front of Princess Sorgatani. I saw nothing of what might have happened behind me.”

She took a step in the direction of the cries, but the Eika soldiers closed in around her and the wagon. The horses shied, fearful of that faint dry smell like stone baking under a hot sun. Breschius spoke softly to them, and they laid back their ears and began to walk with heads tossing anxiously.

Ai, God. She had called forth Sorgatani to vanquish the Eika, but instead some of her own people had died—and for nothing. They had accomplished nothing except to become prisoners of an invading army.