The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

At this instant, Alain became aware of two things: the tense murmur of men gathering to fight in the brush behind him, and the silence of the hounds, who sat alert but unmoving at his feet.

“I do not kill you only because the sacred ones attend you,” said the prince. Alain recognized him now, but it was not at all clear that this prince of a lost people recognized Alain. “Move off the road. Let us pass.”

From behind, Alain heard Thiadbold’s strong voice. “Roll away, Alain, and we’ll loose a volley. There are more behind him, a host of them. My God.”

Was it starlight alone that lit them, or an unnatural light that flowed with them like witchfire? Cautiously, Alain straightened until he knelt, upright, before the prince. His knees pressed hard into paving stone. Behind the prince, the procession trailed off down the path into the forest, a host he could not count because he could not see them all. They all had that wonderful, disturbing consistency to them, more shade than real and yet real enough. Their weapons looked as deadly as his own spear, which lay as a dark spar in the grass. They looked deadly enough to kill, these shades, bows and spears held ready by grim-faced soldiers, both female and male and yet manifestly not human men and women. Light rose from them in the same way that steam rises from a boiling pot. The old track gleamed as well, a silvery thread piercing the land east to west.

ead hatchling shows no change as the venom dissolves into its lifeless body.

“You carry the curse,” says Grimstroke suddenly, claw still extruded, a lingering threat or something simply forgotten.

“I do not,” says Stronghand, and he pitches his voice so that it carries to all of the gathered chieftains: eight tribes have sent representatives, have come, as the humans say, when he called. He is not sure it will be enough.

“I do not carry the curse,” he repeats. “I did not weave the death magic spell when I took Rikin’s standard for my own hand. Any of my rivals who is strong enough and cunning enough to kill me is welcome to his victory.”

Grimstroke laughs. He is beholden to Stronghand for his chieftainship, and because he knows it and resents it, his gratitude, like old fish, stinks a little. “I will gladly walk behind you until your shoulders bow under the weight of your arrogance. Then I’ll kill you and take your place.”

Stronghand grins, baring his teeth as humans do to show fellow-feeling. “Then we understand each other,” he says, although the words are meant for all of them.

The priest croaks out a garbled phrase and shrinks back from the altar. Like all priests, who prolong their lives by unnatural means, he fears anything that smells of death.

The chest of keeping is brought and opened beside the dead-white hatchling that still lies limp on the altar. The late summer sun spills in through the western doorway, pouring light down the central aisle and veining the dark wood altar with its amber glow.

The little corpse shudders, stirs, and comes to life, out of death, for that is the other legacy of the ice-wyrm’s venom, that it can bring life out of death or death out of life, the horror that is both and neither.

Priest-words are spoken that seal it, the dead hand, to the life of its killer, and Grimstroke claps shut the lid and shuts the corpse inside the box that will hold it now and until he dies.

*   *   *

Alain screamed, trapped in darkness.

But it wasn’t his voice he heard.

He heard the scream again, a shriek, a frantic call for help. A horn stuttered, wavered, and sputtered out. From the camp, he heard answering shouts made faint by a wind rushing in his ears like a tempest, and as he came fully to himself he found himself kneeling on the ground, braced on his hands. Water gurgled past his fingers, and as he stared at the water, he realized that he had shifted forward during his lapse until his hands fetched up in the stream, pressing against the moss-covered stone track.

The stream was running the wrong way.

Sandaled feet stopped in mid-stream right in front of him. From this vantage, all Alain could see was leather winding up muscular calves. An obsidian spearpoint slid into view, drifting in front of his nose. Although there was no moon, there was light enough to see clearly the man standing before him: as Alain looked up from calf to thigh to a torso fitted with a cuirass ornamented with strange, curling beasts, he knew with a chill that it was no man.

A white half cloak was clasped at the figure’s shoulders.

He looked up into a beardless face more bronze than pale, with deep, old eyes under a sweep of black hair tied up in a topknot and adorned with an owl feather. The spearpoint remained fixed before Alain’s nose.

At this instant, Alain became aware of two things: the tense murmur of men gathering to fight in the brush behind him, and the silence of the hounds, who sat alert but unmoving at his feet.

“I do not kill you only because the sacred ones attend you,” said the prince. Alain recognized him now, but it was not at all clear that this prince of a lost people recognized Alain. “Move off the road. Let us pass.”

From behind, Alain heard Thiadbold’s strong voice. “Roll away, Alain, and we’ll loose a volley. There are more behind him, a host of them. My God.”

Was it starlight alone that lit them, or an unnatural light that flowed with them like witchfire? Cautiously, Alain straightened until he knelt, upright, before the prince. His knees pressed hard into paving stone. Behind the prince, the procession trailed off down the path into the forest, a host he could not count because he could not see them all. They all had that wonderful, disturbing consistency to them, more shade than real and yet real enough. Their weapons looked as deadly as his own spear, which lay as a dark spar in the grass. They looked deadly enough to kill, these shades, bows and spears held ready by grim-faced soldiers, both female and male and yet manifestly not human men and women. Light rose from them in the same way that steam rises from a boiling pot. The old track gleamed as well, a silvery thread piercing the land east to west.

“What are you?” asked Alain. “Are you Dariyan?”

“I know not this tribe,” answered the prince. “Stand aside.”

“If we stand aside, will you go on your way without harming us?” asked Alain, not moving from the path.

“Let us shoot, Alain! Move aside!” cried Captain Thiadbold, and by the stillness of the prince’s face and the unblinking regard of those soldiers closest to him, Alain realized that the prince and his followers could not hear Thiadbold’s voice.