“Be patient! Try not to move.”
She grabbed for the first arm that came within her reach, which happened to be that of Lord Berthold, whoever he was—the name sounded familiar, but she didn’t have time to figure it out.
“My lord! A team of men, I pray you, to set this wagon upright.” When he hesitated, looking at her in confusion, she added in the tone she had learned from her mother, “Now!”
They were all addled by the cascade of events. He reeled back, beckoned to his companions, and started giving orders. The Quman youth dragged the corpse of the Kerayit woman aside so it could be readied for burial, and the other youth hailed passing soldiers and set them to work.
She trembled, running hot to cold and cold to hot. She had seen Breschius consumed by the galla. Ai, God! Who would serve Sorgatani now? She must find allies quickly if she meant to save the shaman’s life.
So many voices crowded her, men wailing, women shouting commands, the tramp of feet, and a chaos of loose horses and dogs. So many smells assailed her, but death’s perfume smote her hardest of all.
Tears veiled her sight. Mist spun out of the mountains of storm clouds that surrounded the valley, and the bright blue blaze of the sky overhead was starting to bleed to white as the cloud cover crept back in. The wind shifted west to east, and east to north, and north to south, whipping her braid in gusts that made her eyes tear. Men surrounded the wagon and got their shoulders and boots and hands around it and under where there were cracks and hollows in the roadbed to accommodate such levers as spars of wood and spans of iron.
As they shouted, heaved, and lifted, her gaze was drawn to the top of the ramp, far above. The Eika soldiers gathered at the height formed columns along either side of the road as wagons cleared the line of that foreshortened horizon and began a cautious and controlled descent.
There walked Brother Fortunatus. Safe! She wept to see him, to see others she knew. Behind them flew the proud standard of the Lions.
“Hanna! Hanna!”
But it was not their voices calling her. Their gazes, as all gazes, were pulled to the center of the whirlpool. To the dead man.
She looked west, and saw a figure hobbling at an awkward canter, waving to catch her attention.
He was filthy, as though dragged through the mud, and sopping wet with bits of vegetal matter and slops and drips of slime shaking off him as he ran. But despite the muck, anyone could see the startling flame red of his hair as he lunged up onto the roadbed, grabbed her elbows, and stared at her in disbelief. He had grown taller, his shoulders had gotten broader, and altogether he was a different person in stature and expression, but he was still the same rash, stupid boy she had grown up with.
The one she had always loved.
“Hanna!” He gaped at her as if the sight of her baffled him.
To her surprise—and manifestly to his, for he still looked dazed—he pulled her close and kissed her for a very long time.
“I pray you, excuse me.”
They stumbled apart, Ivar blushing and Hanna reeling. The weather had changed, or the world had. She wasn’t sure which, but it had gotten hot all of a sudden.
There was a man standing beside them with two huge black hounds, although in truth the hounds were cringing as they gazed at the approaching wagons. One whined, and the other whimpered, tail and hindquarters tucked tight like a dog that fears it is about to receive a whipping. The man knuckled their heads affectionately with one hand, but regarded Hanna and Ivar apologetically as he brushed the back of his other hand along his chin, the gesture a man makes when he feels a little sheepish.
“I pray you, forgive me,” he said. “But are you not an Eagle, called Hanna? The one who knows Liathano?”
She blinked. She knew she was gaping. Her lips were warm.
Ivar was still staring at her like a madman, with wide eyes and slack mouth. He appeared not to have heard the question at all. Only he said, without looking at the other man, “You’re the one who was named heir to Lavas.”
“So I was. I’m called Alain.”
“Liath is lost,” Hanna cried. “She’s missing.”
“She lives.” He said it so calmly that she believed him. “I have a favor to ask of you, Eagle. Ride west along the path that leads from here to Hersford Monastery.”
“I know it,” said Ivar.
“Why?” said Hanna. “What of the Eika?”
“An Eika staff will grant you safe passage. Although I think with that hair you’ll have no trouble with the Eika, for they will believe you to be kin to them.”
“What do you want?” she said.
“Liath is coming to Hersford. It seems likely she will ride this way afterward.”