The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

They make it to the hilltop. Weather and time have worn the ramparts down to hummocks. In the center of the central ring of earth lies a jumble of fallen stones, and Thiadbold pulls the last cohort into the stones just as Quman riders find their way through the maze of ramparts and burst onto the summit. Spear thrusts thunk on shields. Swords chip at metal rims. But the wall holds.

They retreat through the stones. Alain sees nothing but riders pressing before him. He simply hangs on. His only prayer now is that he hold his place in line, that he not slip at the wrong moment, that his is not the shield that offers the first, and killing, gap. The others strike when a strike is offered. He can only grip his shield and pray. He is useless, but he strives to do his part as best he can so as not to break faith with his comrades.

He has already broken an oath to the family who raised him. He has already lied to a dying man and, by breaking trust with him, lost the very thing that man had given him in trust. He has already lost the only woman he has ever loved.

At least here and now, he can serve the Lady of Battles as he once swore to do.

Then he sees her, a woman of middle age in a coat of mail patched with newer rings of iron. Her sword is nothing fancy, only hard, good metal, made for killing. She wears no helm because she needs no helm.

The Lady of Battles has come to him at last.

But she is still fighting for the other side.

“Hold your line!” cries Thiadbold, striking with his hooked spear at the Quman just to the right of the Lady. With an effortless swing, she drives his spear away from the warrior beside her. Yet still no Quman sword or spear can shatter the shield wall.

She sees Alain.

She raises her sword and then it falls, cleaving his shield into two parts that hang together by only splinters of wood. The shield wall is breached. Now everyone will die.

But not if he sacrifices himself.

He plunges forward so that they can close ranks behind him. Faintly, he hears his name called, but they are not fools. Thiadbold’s voice rings out again: “Close the gap! Hold your line!”

For a moment, he knows triumph. Then she stabs him through, just below the ribs. His mail parts like butter before her sword. Blood seeps through his tabard as he collapses, stunned, and falls.

“But I swore to serve you,” he whispers, astonished, because he really never thought that this of all things would happen to him. He never thought that he would be the one to die on the battlefield.

“So you have.” Her voice, low and deep as a church bell, rings in his head. “Many serve me by dealing death. The rest serve me by suffering death. This is the heart of war.”

She rides on as the battle flows forward, abandoning him.

A hoof crushes his left hand as a Quman warrior rides over him; he is kicked in the cheek by the trailing leg of another horse. His helmet, strap severed, rolls off.

The tide of battle passes over him. A man moans in agony nearby. Rain spits gently on his exposed cheek. Everything seems much darker now, and for a while he thinks his vision is fading, but then he realizes that the sun is setting; it really is getting darker. A fire has been lit under his ribs, and he thinks maybe it will burn him clean out from the inside. He understands now why it is easy for some men to lie down and die. But he still hears that poor man crying in agony. Reaching, he drags himself over the wings of a fallen Quman rider. He slides over the bloodied body and falls, facedown, in the mud, but with a grunt he pushes up again to his hands and knees, and the misting rain washes his vision clear. There, eye-to-eye, face-to-face, he stares at a dead Lion. He knows the man, but he can’t remember his name. It doesn’t really seem to matter now because what is a body without a soul? What animated the dead man once is now fled. As his own soul soon will fly. Yet he crawls on because he just can’t bear to hear that other man suffering.

He finds a Quman rider writhing on the ground with little swipes and pumps of his limbs, all he can manage as he whimpers, poor soul. A deep cut through his abdomen has spilled his intestines over the ground, and he has been trampled as well.

Ai, God, why does suffering plague humankind? When will it end?

Distantly, he hears the ring of battle, lost over the northern slope of the hill fort. Isn’t this the heart of war?

The Quman sees him, then, sees him staring. Their gazes meet. Maybe on the field of battle every soldier shares an undemanding. A dagger lies between them. The man moans words. It is a plea, surely. It is a prayer.

Alain grasps the dagger and with all his strength lunges forward to cut the unresisting man’s throat so that he can have a merciful death, if this can be called mercy. Then he falls back, exhausted.

Now he has dealt death. Now he will suffer death. In this way, he has served the Lady of Battles. He gropes at his chest but hasn’t the strength to pull out the little pouch that hides the rose. He hasn’t anything anymore, nothing that counts, no family, no comrades, no promises that bind him. He is alone now in death as he came alone into life, torn out of a dying woman.

The misting rain turns heavier, soaking the ground. Dusk veils them, but the moon has risen. Yet how can he see the moon when clouds cover the sky? In the tumble of fallen stones, a pale light glows steadily brighter.

Probably he should just lie down now and accept death, but something nags him, pushing him onward. He struggles toward the source of the light. He thinks that when he fought up here before that the stones all lay fallen in, torn down by human hands long ago or simply by the tidal forces of time and weather. Yet one stone stands now at the center of the ruin. It casts a faint bluish light, a ripple like water up and down its length. When he reaches it, he claws his way up its rough surface, bracing himself so that he can stand and see.

Below, the last knot of Lions has made it to the ford. He recognizes Thiadbold’s red hair; somehow the captain has lost his helm. Prince Bayan and his cavalry cross the river. Farther to the north, Alain sees the army retreating in good order. At the ford, where some fifty Lions, all that remains of the first cohort, hold their position, the Quman close in.

Upriver, a lower wave crests the bank and slides out onto the plain like a probing finger. Prince Bayan calls out, and the Lions retreat step by step into the shallow ford: There is rash and sentimental Folquin, quiet Stephen, brawny Leo, and fair-minded Ingo. The boldest of the Quman riders press their horses to the shore and even forward a few steps into the water.

The river is rising. A swell of water spills into the Quman line, scattering their horses, and they pull back superstitiously as the Lions retreat in good order across the current and, at last, make it safely to the far shore. As soon as their unit clears the water, a flood roars downstream, borne out of the eastern hills. The river becomes impassable. He thinks maybe he sees creatures in the waves, spinning and twirling as they ride the foam, but he knows any visions he has now can’t be trusted.

ot if he sacrifices himself.