The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

He let his warriors clear the way before him. He had no illusions about his prowess in battle; he was not a great warrior, nor had he ever wanted to be.

He wanted to be king over all the RockChildren. Not even Bloodheart had gained that much power.

“Kill them all but Nokvi,” he cried, and his good strong Rikin brothers made quick work of the last of Nokvi’s fine Moerin host until only Nokvi stood, lashing out with a dagger while spears prodded him back.

Stepping up between his troops, Stronghand thrust with his spear at Nokvi’s chest with all his might. The thrust pinned Nokvi’s good arm to the rudder, and he roared furiously, helplessly, as Stronghand took an ax from one of his brothers and cut off Nokvi’s other hand.

His warriors cheered, and from the afterdeck he saw the battle die, as the wind died.

He wrenched the spear out of the rudder, and swiftly, with the haft, upended the spitting and flailing Nokvi until he lay helpless, bent backward over the railing. The sea boiled at the aft of the ship where the merfolk gathered, slick backs churning the bloody waters.

“Let none of the clans stand against me,” he cried, “or they shall serve me as Moerin’s chief serves me today!”

He flipped Nokvi over the side.

Yet as Nokvi struggled against the grip of the merfolk, and as abruptly sank, as the wind died and the rain let up so abruptly that he knew no natural weather could account for it, he sprang to the stern of the ship and clambered as high as he could, searching for the boats of the Alban tree sorcerers. A fog shrouded the northern entrance to the bay, as though the clouds that had swept up from the south had passed over the battle only to sink into the ocean. He saw a glimpse of a green, flowering mast vanishing into the mist.

Had the Alban tree sorcerers betrayed Nokvi as a way to destroy Nokvi, or had they only deserted him when it became obvious he would lose?

He ran back to his own ship, which rested on the waves free of the hawsers that bound the other ships together, and with Tenth Son of the Fifth Litter steering he set himself to the oars with his brothers as they chased the Alban boats into the fog.

Truly, they had speed and strength that would allow them to catch the Alban boats, but despite his standard fixed at the stem of the ship just below the dragon’s prow, they were lost almost at once in the dense fog. He left the oars to stand at the stem so he could peer into the mist that fell silent around them until he wondered if they had left Earth entirely. Yet he could still smell the remains of battle. He smelled a colony of petrels on an offshore cliff, and heard the shrill cries of a flock of fulmars gathering by the now-distant ships to feed on the scraps left by the merfolk. The oars beat the water. The sea soughed against an unseen shoreline.

He leaned forward into the fog. Was that a flash of light? Was that movement? Mist streamed against his face, chilling and moist, and it became so oddly silent that he thought he could hear the clash of another battle down such a distance that he knew he was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming of Alain, even as he felt the sea foam spit on his hands and the clammy touch of fog curl around his throat.

The Lions stay on the hill. Below, Prince Bayan has arrayed the cavalry to face the winged Quman riders, a host so numerous that they seem more like a flood overtaking the eastern hills. Like a flood, they charge into the Wendish and Ungrian line. He thinks he has never heard anything as horrible as the sound of their wings. Nothing, at least, since Tallia repudiated him.

Below, battle is joined on the flanks. A bolt of lightning strikes in the midst of the Quman archers, but after a swirl of confusion, they right themselves and fight on.

He can only wait and watch: soon the wounded and unhorsed cavalry will seek safety among the Lions’, and although he stands in safety now, he knows it is illusion: safety is ephemeral. Lady Fortune only waits to spin her wheel.

He wonders at his own bitterness.

“There!” cries Folquin. “There’s their standard, but is that their commander? Why does the rest of their host proudly wear wings and yet he wears none?”

“Pride,” suggests Ingo.

“Humility?” Stephen is youngest among them, still hesitant to speak his mind.

Leo laughs. “Nay, princes are not humble, Stephen. Haven’t you learned that yet?”

Then they look at him, and he sees by their expression that they are remembering what he once was. They are remembering the argument he had with Captain Thiadbold when the captain ordered him to chain his hounds to the baggage train so that they wouldn’t follow him into the battle; they are remembering, perhaps, the moment during that argument that he forgot himself and acted like a count, not a common Lion whose mother was a whore and whose fate lay in the hands of the king.

The hounds went with the baggage wagons.

“Look,” he says now. The clouds race in out of the east like seagulls flocking to shore before a storm. “There’ll be rain soon.”

“God help them,” says Ingo. They know what rain will do to a field churned by horses.

Alain can see no pattern to the battle, only movement boiling in eddies and tides that swell and ebb across the shifting line of melee. Banners jerk from one spot to another, like a boat in choppy seas. Sometimes they fall. Sometimes they rise again in another man’s hands.

Folquin gasps and points again. “He’s moving.”

Prince Bulkezu’s standard raises high. A howl rises with it, the first voiced sound he has heard from the Quman, who ride silent into war and into death except for their wings. As the wingless prince rides into the battle, horns ring out from the Wendish side.

Prince Bulkezu leads his charge at the center of the Wendish line, straight at the banner of Austra and Olsatia. Margrave Judith and her troops lurch forward to meet the enemy charge. So numerous are they that Alain feels the rumble of hooves shuddering the earth itself. Or perhaps that is only the distant roll of thunder as black clouds sweep in over the hills and the eastern horizon is sheeted in rain.

o;Let none of the clans stand against me,” he cried, “or they shall serve me as Moerin’s chief serves me today!”