Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

She did not turn, knowing better, but naturally Anna did, taken by surprise when, after all, they had decided ahead of time to leave the Ashioi in hiding.

The prior smiled crookedly as he glanced at the stockade. When he nodded, shovels and staves and fists were raised and shaken defiantly.

“So we were warned,” he said, turning back to face her. “Go on your way. This monastery is a place of refuge. It goes against God’s holiest law to abandon one who has begged for Her sanctuary.”

The wind shifted, skating in out of the north. Although it was summer, this wind blew chill, and Liath shivered. Far away, thunder growled.

“The girl he holds captive is my daughter, Brother Ratbold. I will come in and fetch her, whatever you say. I would rather do so peaceably.”

“That child he saved from the Cursed Ones? Painted like a savage and dressed in scraps? Growling and biting like a dog? He saved her from the clutch of the Enemy!”

“So you believe. He has told you lies and woven them to appear as truths. Let me pass. Once I have my daughter, I will leave you in peace.”

The prior had the tenacious look of a dog bred to go after vermin, and he had also the broad shoulders of a man once accustomed to wielding a stave or spear in defense of the innocent. He did not back down. “Every person who can bear arms has risen to the defense of this monastery today. All these were driven from their homes by the creatures of the Enemy. Many are dead, many more are missing, and worse still, what crops were sown are left unattended. Famine will stalk us in the seasons to come.”

“He could be sneaking out the back right now,” muttered Liath to Anna.

The girl shook her head. “Lord Zuangua sent his masks to circle the cloister. We’d have heard their signal by now if there was fighting back there. What will you do, my lady?”

Prior Ratbold had ceased speaking, seeing them talk between themselves. “What will you do?” he asked, in an echo of Anna’s soft words.

Liath took one step toward him, and he took one step back. “I am not your enemy. Whatever Hugh of Austra has told you is a lie.”

“You are a sorcerer. Is that a lie?”

“So is he.”

“You have killed men by burning them alive with fire called from your very hands. Is that a lie?”

“It’s true. God help me. Yet he has killed. The trail of death that follows him goes back many years.”

“Why should I believe you? You are excommunicated, are you not? Is that a lie?”

Sanglant would have fought this battle of words better than she could. Now that she had Hugh trapped, and knowing he had Blessing in his grasp, she lost hold of what little patience she had mustered. She lifted her left hand, thumb and forefinger raised.

She did not turn. She did not need to. She saw that her allies answered her signal by the expression of fear that fixed itself on Prior Ratbold’s face. He backed up slowly, like a man easing away from a rabid dog. Along the stockade, some folk screamed in terror while others shouted in anger; a child bawled; one man cried, “God help us!”

“Hold fast!” called the prior. He reached the gate but, instead of retreating inside, grabbed a stout staff handed out to him by another monk, hefted it in two hands, then twirled it to get his balance and grip. “The Lady will protect us.”

The mask warriors loped up to fall in on either side of Liath. All wore masks lowered, presenting a fierce array of animal faces: eagles and ravens, dogs and spotted cats, foxes and vultures and lizards and sharp-tongued ferrets. Zuangua had led a reserve force in a circuit of the stockade. He had given Liath a bone whistle, hanging from a leather cord around her neck, and she put this to her lips and blasted it three times—shree shree shree. An answer shrilled out of the eastern edge of the forest.

“They think you are allied with the Enemy,” whispered Anna.

Liath ignored her. All this was merely a skirmish distracting from what really mattered. She walked forward, alert to any movement along the stockade that would mark the release of an arrow. Arrows were the only weapon she really feared, beyond the galla. She guessed that one or more men accustomed to hunting in the wild wood stood among this group, and as she neared the stockade, she swept her gaze along the length of the palisade. She looked at every pale face in turn, no longer than it took to blink one’s eyes, and they shifted uneasily and betrayed by the cant and leveling of their shoulders what manner of weapon they hid.

There.

She sought with her mind’s eye the precise vision that saw into the essence of things and found those substances most thirsty for fire. She had learned over time how these textures and shapes felt from a distance: the cold slumber of iron, the sluggish whisper of stone, the eagerness of wood clasped in a warm embrace of flesh. There, a bow curved, the breath of flame quivering in its layers. With all her concentration fixed to the finest point of control, she called fire in a line along its length.

A shriek. A clatter as a person dropped it. Shouts and consternation broke out about twenty paces to the right of the gate. A man began sobbing hysterically. Someone was slapped.

She reached Prior Ratbold. He did not move, but his eyes were wide. His fear reminded her of Lady Theucinda, only he was a brave man ready to lay down his life to protect those who lay under his charge.

“I do not intend harm to anyone,” she said. He stared at her as he would at an adder and—as with an adder—he did not move, fearing perhaps that he might provoke a strike. “I want my daughter, and I mean to get her. If I am touched by any manner of weapon wielded by your people, this place will go up in flames.”

“It is wrong to surrender!” he gasped. “We must fight the Enemy. Better to die than to stand aside and do nothing while innocents perish.”

“I do not intend to harm any person within these walls, unless Hugh of Austra defies me. Let me retrieve my daughter, and you and all those with you will be left untouched. I promise you, on God’s holy Name.”