The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

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.”

But they wouldn’t listen.

She had already lost sight of the rear guard in the forest. She had her own duty. She’d done what she could here.

She turned her horse and rode east down the now-empty road. The drizzle only made it worse because every drip, every snap of a water-logged branch, made her start round, ready for those dozen Quman who had escaped to come whistling down on her and cut her to pieces. Cut her head off and blacken it and burn it until it became one of those horrible little shriveled heads. She’d noticed that the raiders they’d met didn’t carry heads at their belts. Didn’t that mean they were young men who hadn’t made their first kill yet? Wouldn’t that make them more dangerous, because they were desperate to prove themselves?

She heard a shout, and abruptly relaxed as she came round a corner to see a dozen Lions waiting on the road, her old comrades Ingo, Folquin, Stephen, and Leo among them.

Ingo had a good grip on his spear and shield, so he used a lift of his chin to indicate the road behind her. “Alain noticed you’d fallen behind. Did you see aught?”

“Only those poor fool villagers. They’re running west to Machteburg.”

“Ai, God,” said Ingo. “No doubt they’ll run right into those raiders. Poor souls. But we can’t wait for them. Come, lads.” They turned to follow the army.

As Hanna made her way up through their ranks, knowing that she ought to ride in the vanguard, she overheard Alain speaking to Folquin.

“Poor souls,” he said softly. “I pray that God protect them until this war is over and peace returns.”

They camped that night within sight of the Salavii village. A rough palisade protected the village, which boasted more houses than that of the Wendish settlement, but while the Wendish built longhouses, the Salavii favored smaller, rounder homes with curved roofs whose low eaves made storage shelters around each house. They looked poorer, hadn’t as much livestock but seemed overflowing with little black-haired, pale-complected children who stared at the soldiers and had to be dragged inside the log palisade by their more cautious older siblings.