Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

The poor man did die, a little before dawn. Hanna paced all night, wrapped in her cloak, too cold and nervous to sleep, while the moon set and the forest sank into a deeper slumber. As Ekkehard’s company drifted in and out of their fitful sleep, interrupted now and again by Lord Lothar’s hacking coughs, she wondered if she would have been better off if the deserters had invited her to join them.

They found their bodies the next day.

They had saddled up their remaining eight horses in the morning and started down the road, following the tracks left by the others. The cold had frozen a crust over the snow heavy enough to take a man’s weight for a few moments before he broke through, and while that made the traveling easier for the men, it doubled the effort for the horses. Hanna quickly dismounted to lead her horse, and after a few more struggling steps, the young lords did so as well. They weren’t fools about horseflesh. Hanna had long since observed that many noble folk had more concern for their hounds, horses, and hawks than for the common people bound into their service.

“Look here,” said Frithuric, who had taken the lead as usual.

“There’s a set of tracks leading off the path, into the forest. Back toward the abandoned village. Should we follow them? Maybe one of these damned deserters had a change of heart and came back to look for us.”

“Nay,” said Ekkehard impatiently, “we’ll want shelter tonight and I’ve no intention of wasting time on them, since they’re the ones who left us behind.”

They went on, breath steaming in the cold air. The exercise made Hanna sweat, but her feet stayed cold and her toes ached incessantly. They had followed the path for less than half a league when Lord Frithuric, still ranging ahead, gave a strangled cry. Hurrying forward, they saw him beside a wayside shelter, chasing away crows.

Lord Dietrich’s cousins and their seven fellow deserters had made their final stand at the wayside shelter, vainly attempting to use its walls as protection. Three of the men were missing their heads; the rest were simply dead, stripped of their weapons, any decent armor, and, of course, the three horses. Blood soaked the snow. Fire had scorched the thatch before burning itself out harmlessly. Singed straw lay scattered downwind along the snowy ground as far as Hanna could see. By the evidence of hoofprints, the deserters had been attacked by at least a dozen horsemen. A few stray feathers trampled in the snow or caught beneath the corpses left no doubt that their assailants had been a Quman raiding party.

No one dared speak for fear their voices would carry on the still winter air across the sea of snow and blanketed forest to the waiting Quman. Surely they were still out there.

They hadn’t the time or the energy to dig graves in the frozen ground, so they just left them for the wolves, not even building a cairn of rocks over them as they had for the man who’d died during the night. What else could they do?

As the others made ready to go, Hanna grimly followed the tracks of the raiding party a short way, just to get an idea what direction they were heading. That was the eeriest thing of all: the Quman riders had obviously ridden back down the trail toward the abandoned village. One man had been bleeding enough to leave a faint trail of blood in his wake, quickly churned away by the passage of his fellows. It seemed possible, in retrospect, that the solitary hoofprints veering off from the trail a stone’s throw from the abandoned village had been those of a Quman scout rather than one of the deserters. Had it only been a dream that she’d seen pale wings moving among the trees last night?

Of course it had. If the Quman had spotted them, they would have attacked. They hadn’t spotted them, and they hadn’t attacked.

Never argue with Lady Fortune, her mother would say.

Nervous every time a branch creaked or cracked under the weight of snow, she returned to the others. They were eager to be gone from the scene of carnage.

“Didn’t they kill even one?” demanded Lord Frithuric. “I thought Lord Dietrich’s cousins were strong fighters.”

“Maybe they were taken unawares,” said Hanna, which shut them up.

Maybe she had ridden under worse conditions in her time as an Eagle, but she couldn’t think of any. The silence became excruciating. Little arguments flared up over nothing, tempers goaded into flame by anxiety. They slogged on and on and on along the path that led them deeper into the forest, far past the woodland fringes where they had traveled thus far, on into the old uncut heart, a vast tract of trees and silence. They saw no living creatures except themselves. The path was their only landmark. They waded knee-deep through snow along a narrow track bounded by trees. Except for a detour here and there to cut around an escarpment or dip down to a ford in a stream, the path took a fairly straight course through the old forest. Luckily for their feet, the streams had all frozen over, making every crossing easy.

The worst part of the whole long, cold, nerve-racking, miserable day was that it got dark so early, leaving them caught in twilight deep in the forest without shelter.

Fortunately, the old sergeant, Gotfrid, knew woodcraft. He spotted a dense stand of fir trees off to the right of the path. In their center, under overhanging branches, they discovered a living cathedral blanketed with needles and almost free of snow. The air lay close and quiet underneath the overarching branches. In an odd way, Hanna felt protected here, as though they had stumbled upon an ancient refuge. Eighteen people and the eight horses could all crowd in, as long as two men were posted as sentries at the fringes to peer out into the darkening forest. Clouds hung low, seeming to brush the tops of trees, and snow skirled down, spinning and drifting.

“It’s really beautiful,” she murmured to old Gotfrid. She had come up beside his sentry post to survey their situation. “Or would be, anyway, if we had a fire and mead.”

“And no Quman lurking like wolves to feed on us,” he agreed. He was a good man, stable, shrewd, and steady, who had spent most of his adult life as a Lion.

“There’s something I don’t understand, though, Gotfrid.” She glanced back to make sure the others couldn’t hear them. Several ranks of trees, each taller and broader than the last, separated them from the hidden center. “Why would a practical man like you throw away everything for a heresy?”

He chuckled, taking no offense at the question, as she’d guessed he wouldn’t. He was old enough to have white in his hair and a few age spots on his face. “You’re thinking that those young lords might be taking to a heresy just because they’re young and rash and fools, aren’t you? That’s because you’re a practical young woman, as I’ve seen.” He spoke the words approvingly, and it was a measure of the respect she’d gained for him on this desperate journey that she smiled, pleased with the compliment. “But it isn’t a whim, friend.” He faltered, growing suddenly serious.

Snow fell softly throughout the vista beyond, a mantle of white over everything. It was almost too dark to see.

“Have you ever seen a rose?” he asked finally.

“Truly, I have seen one or two in my time. I saw the king’s rose garden at Autun.”

e dared speak for fear their voices would carry on the still winter air across the sea of snow and blanketed forest to the waiting Quman. Surely they were still out there.

They hadn’t the time or the energy to dig graves in the frozen ground, so they just left them for the wolves, not even building a cairn of rocks over them as they had for the man who’d died during the night. What else could they do?

As the others made ready to go, Hanna grimly followed the tracks of the raiding party a short way, just to get an idea what direction they were heading. That was the eeriest thing of all: the Quman riders had obviously ridden back down the trail toward the abandoned village. One man had been bleeding enough to leave a faint trail of blood in his wake, quickly churned away by the passage of his fellows. It seemed possible, in retrospect, that the solitary hoofprints veering off from the trail a stone’s throw from the abandoned village had been those of a Quman scout rather than one of the deserters. Had it only been a dream that she’d seen pale wings moving among the trees last night?

Of course it had. If the Quman had spotted them, they would have attacked. They hadn’t spotted them, and they hadn’t attacked.