The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

A murmur arises among the soldiers, who kneel with that particular combination of patience and tension that mark them as wary of his reign. He has yet to prove himself before them. But they also do not truly understand—not yet—what he intends.

’ jaws snapped shut over it.

The other four hounds stopped barking instantaneously and formed a circle around Bliss, who swallowed. Then he slewed his great black head up to look at Alain. He pressed a dry nose into Alain’s hand, snuffled there for one moment, and as suddenly turned away and broke into a ground-eating lope toward the woodland that lay beyond the fields.

Alain chased him, but the other hounds got in his way, mobbing him. Their weight threw him to the ground, and there he lay with Sorrow draped over on his chest, and Fear and Rage sitting on his legs. Steadfast trotted after Bliss but stopped at the wood’s edge, like a watchman. The geese had clustered at the distant end of the field and, settling now, they waggled off to glean between rows of barley and spelt.

“What is going on, Alain?” Lavastine arrived, sword in hand Four men-at-arms bearing torches and armed with spears at tended him.

But when Alain tried to describe what he had seen, none of it made sense.

“Come,” said Lavastine to the men-at-arms. “I’ve had enough of curses and superstition. Get a dozen more of your fellows and we’ll search for the hound.”

“But, Father—”

“Peace!” snapped Lavastine. Alain knew better than to protest.

He walked with Lavastine into the forest, never leaving his side. The good sisters of St. Genovefa Convent had long since cleared out most of the underbrush and dead wood for kindling and charcoal. The open woodland gave sparse cover. There was enough of a moon to guide their feet, and the torches gave Alain heart, as if he could thrust the flame into any curse that tried to fly at him out of the darkness.

But the five hounds padded quietly along, content to let them search, which they did for half the night at least. They found no sign of Bliss.

When he stumbled at last into the chamber set aside for himself, Tallia, and their servants, he had to pick his way carefully over their sleeping attendants. It was black in the chamber, and he was too tired to undress, so he simply lay down in his clothes With a hand, he searched the bed, careful not to wake her. But like Bliss, she was gone.

Faintly, he heard voices singing Vigils, the night office. She had hidden herself away beyond the cloister walls. If only he could heave himself up off this bed and go in search of her who was everything and the only thing he had ever wanted.

He slept.

He weaves his standard himself. From two spear hafts bound into a cross-shaft he strings up the bones of his dead brothers—those that can be recovered—and when the wind blows, they make a pleasant sound: the music of victory. Certain items—five hand bells, an ivory-hafted knife made of bronze, needles, a gold cup, iron fishhooks, and a thin rod of iron—he laces in among the bones to give variety to their song. He binds the five braids of his dead rivals at the top, ties strips of silk and linen torn from the bodies of Bloodheart’s enemies below them to make streamers, and weights each dangling line of bone and metal with a pierced round of baked clay.

The entire tribe has assembled to watch this ceremony on the dancing ground of the SwiftDaughters. He stands facing the long slope that leads down to the beach where the ships are drawn up. Behind him stand the dwellings of his brothers and uncles, marching up the long valley toward the fjall. On his left lie the storehouses held in common by the tribe, and on his right the longhall that belongs to OldMother, built entirely of stone and thatched with sod. The doorway gapes open, but he sees nothing stirring within its depths. SwiftDaughters stand in a semicircle in front of OldMother’s hall. They have finished the long dance whose measures tell the story of Rikin’s tribe all the way back to the dawning of the world.

That song has been sung, and his victory acknowledged: Fifth Son of the Fifth Litter will become chieftain of Rikin tribe.

He binds off the last strand of his standard and jams its sharpened base into the dirt so that it stands upright. From the ground he picks up a stone scraper and with it scrapes the residue of paint off his chest—the paint that marked his kinship to Bloodheart, who is now dead. With his fingers, dabbing in tiny pots of ocher and woad, he paints a new pattern on this chest, his pattern: a circle with two lines crossed inside so that they touch four points on the circle, one for each of the winds; north, west, east, and south.

“On these winds my ships will sail,” he cries. They all listen. They are his tribe now, his to mold and use as a weapon. “On four winds to the far shores of the world, all the regions of the earth that are known to the WiseMothers.”

A murmur arises among the soldiers, who kneel with that particular combination of patience and tension that mark them as wary of his reign. He has yet to prove himself before them. But they also do not truly understand—not yet—what he intends.

The chieftain’s chair—which he alone had the foresight to salvage from the disaster at Gent—is brought forward, and he seats himself in it. “Come forward, each one, and bare your throat before me.”

He extends his claws, and they come forward one by one. First the soldiers who followed him even through his disgrace stride up, confident, proud, ready to serve his will. They believe in his strength. After them the others come forward, some with reluctance, some with curiosity. A few he smells fear on, and those he kills at once. But Rikin’s tribe is a strong one, and few among his uncles, cousins, and brothers have survived Bloodheart’s campaigns by showing weakness.

It takes most of the day for each soldier to submit, but he minds it not; this is not a ceremony which should be hurried.

The sun sinks in preparation for a longer night than last night, each night waxing, each day waning, toward the midpoint that Alain Henrisson calls the autumn equinox and the Wise-Mothers call The-Dragon-Has-Turned-Her-Back-On-The-Sun. From the shore he hears the lap of waters stirred by creatures out in the depths. Have the merfolk come to witness? Have they come to pledge themselves to his rule?

He cannot yet leave his chair. There is other business to transact.

“Where is the priest?” he asks, and the priest shuffles forward, mumbling and chanting and humming in his reedy flute voice. “Do you have what I need, priest?”

“Do you hold safe what I most hold dear?” retorts the priest.

He smiles. “It lies safe in a place you will never find, Uncle. Do you have that which I demand in return for its safekeeping?”

“Must I not now walk many journeys?” the priest complains. “Must I not now trek on many fell paths? Do you think it will bind itself easily into my power and thus yours?”

“I will be patient a while longer,” he answers.