The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Ivar! Ivar! Can you speak?”

“Ai! Don’t pull my arm off! I’m fine. I think I took the worst of it on my behind.” He hitched up his light chain mail coat and rubbed himself there, wincing.

“Udo’s dead,” said Baldwin as the others assessed the damage and a heavy line of sentries were posted along the forest verge. A party emerged from the shadow of the palisade and hurried toward them. Ivar allowed Baldwin to drag him over to poor Udo, who lay dead as dead on the ground. A lance had passed through the neck of his horse and then through his un-armored belly. The sight made Ivar queasy.

Prince Ekkehard knelt beside Udo, shedding a few noble tears. “Take his ring, Milo. We’ll return it to his sister.”

“He doesn’t have a sister,” hissed Milo, struggling to get the ring off Udo’s limp hand.

Ekkehard shook himself, glancing ’round quickly as if to make sure that his mistake hadn’t been noticed. His gaze flicked over Ivar, who wasn’t important enough to count. “Well, we’ll return it to his kin, as is proper.”

“My lord prince.” The Lion captain approached, prudently going down on one knee. “I did not know you were marching east to the war—” He was an experienced man, clearly, and obviously one who knew the king’s court well. Ivar could almost watch him think, sorting information and deciding that it might be wiser not to mention that he, perhaps, knew that Prince Ekkehard had been sent to Gent to become a monk. “I pray you, my lord prince. If you will lead our army, then we will all march in more safety until we reach your sister’s host.”

Ekkehard rose with dignity. “That would be well,” he agreed. “But what are these creatures who have attacked us? Are they monsters, or men?”

They had leisure to examine the dead while the rest of the army fell into marching order and a hasty burial was arranged for Udo. Apparently at least three men, out foraging with their horses, had not returned, and a party of twenty men went out searching for them.

The flat, demon faces and terrible wings and scaly bodies of the Quman were only ornament. The wings, crushed where the men had fallen in death, looked pathetic now; the feathers that had whistled so frighteningly were shredded, fragile. The flat expressionless faces were only bronze masks attached to helms. The Quman wore a strange kind of armor, leather scales reinforced by metal scales, each one about the width and length of three fingers held together. Yet underneath they were almost as human as he was: young men’s faces, olive-skinned, with narrow eyes and yellowing teeth. One was still alive, thrashing a little. A Lion cut his throat, and his blood was as red as any blood Ivar had ever seen.

Thank God it wasn’t his own blood. He had survived.

“Ivar! What are you doing here? Why aren’t you with Margrave Judith?” Hanna stared down at him from her mount. She wore her Eagle’s cape jauntily, and the kind of daunting frown that comes right before a scolding.

Ai, God! Would he never be found worthy? “God has called us to a greater destiny!” he retorted, and he would have gone on, but Ermanrich rushed up and grabbed him by the arm.

“My lord prince will happily leave you standing here like an idiot, Ivar. Get moving!”

Hanna watched him go and then rode off to her own place in the host. His was in the train of the prince, but their trials weren’t done because they arrived at the head of the host to find Ekkehard and Baldwin engaged in a quiet but fierce argument.

“I won’t go!” cried Baldwin.

“You will go!”

“I won’t go! Did you hear what they said? Margrave Judith is just a few days ahead of us. She’ll be at your sister’s camp. It won’t just be me she’ll be mad at, you know.”

“I’m not afraid of Margrave Judith!”

“You should be! After she’s whipped me and killed me, she might ask for you for her next husband!”

“Ride on your own way, then!” cried Ekkehard, flinging an arm wide to display the empty roads that departed these crossroads and vanished into silent woodland. “You won’t fare so well against the Quman raiders by yourself, will you?”

Ivar pressed his horse forward through the throng and fetched up at Baldwin’s side. “Baldwin,” he said in a low voice, “Prince Ekkehard is right. It’s death to us to remain behind.”

“I’d rather be dead than return to her bed,” muttered Baldwin, pouting a little. But even when he pouted, he did it beautifully.

“Anything could happen,” said Ivar. “We’re armed, and we’re all at war. We haven’t met up with Margrave Judith yet, it’s true, and things might go ill if she discovers us. But after what I’ve just seen, I’m not leaving this army!”

For the first time, Ekkehard nodded at him in approval. Baldwin, still pouting, sighed heavily and shrugged, to show that he gave in. “But we’ll regret it,” he said ominously. “You’ll see.”

Hanna hung back in the rear guard as the army marched out. She had never expected to see Ivar again, and yet here he was, with Prince Ekkehard instead of Margrave Judith.

This whole day seemed tainted. She shivered, although it wasn’t really cold despite the intermittent drizzle. The baggage train lurched down the road that arrowed east into woodland, and just behind the baggage wagons walked those last stubborn dozen souls, the camp followers, and their two laden carts, which they took turns pulling. Half of the first cohort marched in good order at the rear, and for once they did not let the camp followers straggle behind. She saw Alain in that final rank, but he didn’t notice her. He was watching the woods, and she wondered if he had struck a blow in the fight or if he, like most of the Lions, had simply witnessed that brief skirmish. He was a lord, wasn’t he? Had been a lord, at least, and she had heard much of his victory at Gent when, with a small force, he’d held a lightly fortified hill against a swarm of Eika. He knew how to fight already. No wonder King Henry had offered him service in the Lions, although in truth she was surprised that the king hadn’t offered to fit him out more nobly, perhaps even to offer him service in the Dragons. But Henry’s mind was closed to her. She couldn’t understand why he did what he did. Meanwhile, they still had uncounted days to march before they met up with Sapientia. Did more Quman roam these woodlands, waiting to strike at any passing retinue? Her back prickled, and she swung her horse into step with the rear guard so that she would not be the last person in line.

As they came to a bend in the road that cut off their view of the village, she glanced back, and perhaps it was only the darkening clouds or perhaps it was a shadow over her eyes, sowing fear and doubt and premonition.

Carts and wagons emerged from the palisade, laden with hastily packed clothing and chests and barrels, overflowing with crates of chickens and baskets of turnips. The villagers had panicked. As the Lions marched east on the trail of Margrave Judith and the host of Princess Sapientia, Hanna stared as the villagers began their flight westward toward the fortress of Machteburg, all strung out with their crying, clinging children and such weapons as villagers had: pitchforks, spears, shovels. They only paused to spit on the corpses of the dead Quman.

She rode toward them, shouting: “Stay in your village. You’ll be attacked on your way west. Don’t go.”