As boldly as he could, given the rope binding his wrists, the condition of his hair and face, and the rips and stains in his clothing, Prince Ekkehard stepped forward. “I am Ekkehard, son of King Henry, royal prince of the realm of Wendar and Varre. I wear the gold torque to mark my kinship to the royal house. Spare our lives, and I vouch that my father will pay a worthy ransom for us.”
The interpreter stopped listening after the words “gold torque,” and spoke quickly to his master.
The Quman prince listened intently. He seemed to have forgotten Hanna, or else he was the kind of man who only did one thing at a time. Cautiously, she ventured to sit all the way up.
The Quman camp consisted of one large round tent imperfectly camouflaged by a coating of snow and about a dozen smaller round tents, each one big enough for four men to sleep in. A long and slender standard dangled from the center post of each tent, white cloth marked with three raking stripes. After a moment, she recognized what it must be: the claw’s rake, mark of the Pechanek clan. Lady Fortune was surely laughing at Hanna today: she had fallen in with a raiding party from the tribe of Bulkezu himself, leader of the Quman army.
The prince stepped forward to unpin Ekkehard’s cloak, pull down the front of his tunic, and run a finger along the twisted gold braids of Ekkehard’s torque. For an instant, Hanna expected him to rip the torque right off Ekkehard’s neck, because surely that’s what savages did in their lust for gold. But he only grunted and stepped back without further molesting Ekkehard. With a grand gesture, he spoke, then waited for the interpreter’s translation.
“His Magnificence says these words: ‘You escaped my sister’s son on the battlefield, but now I have your life in my hands, as I was meant to, Brother.’”
“He’s the one you fought?” exclaimed Benedict. “He almost killed you!”
“Nay, it’s some other one of them with those damned iron wings who fought me,” said Ekkehard, looking increasingly nervous. “He just said so himself. Why does he call me ‘Brother’?”
It was just hard to remain calm with all those nasty shrunken heads dangling from every belt. Hanna eased up to her knees. Strange that they had no campfires. How did they mean to cook the three skinned deer strung up on branches? And what was that seen beyond the trees that edged the other side of the clearing? Chalk cliffs? A ridge of snow? She couldn’t make it out.
“Princes are brothers, are they not?” replied the translator sarcastically. “Unlike us poor bondsmen, who suffer at the whims of princes and pray only that we may live to see the next sunrise.”
“Are you always so insolent?” demanded Frithuric “Don’t you fear your master’s anger?”
The interpreter’s smile appeared sincere, but he had a way of thrusting his chin forward that betrayed his resentment. “Only a fool wouldn’t fear Prince Bulkezu’s anger, for he almost never loses his temper, which makes him the worst kind of tyrant.” He nattered on, a petty tyrant himself glad of the chance to lord it over folk more helpless than he was, but Hanna reeled and Ekkehard and his comrades swayed fearfully and changed color.
Bulkezu.
Ai, God, this glorious man was Bulkezu? She’d thought their luck couldn’t get any worse.
But it had.
“Anyway,” the interpreter continued, “none of these miserable Quman understand our tongue, so I can say what I wish. I could tell His Arrogance right now that you’ve insulted his mother, and then you’d be seeing something you’d rather wished you hadn’t, like your guts spilled out on the ground before you’re too dead to notice.” Gleefully, he turned to Bulkezu and said several sharp sentences.
Ekkehard gasped out loud, but got control of himself as though he’d just remembered that, in the epics, the hero always died nobly. Straightening up, he composed his face sternly to meet his doom.
Bulkezu laughed again. He clapped Ekkehard on the shoulder and gestured toward the large tent.
The interpreter spoke mockingly. “Prince Bulkezu wishes to share wine with his Wendish brother, in token of their kinship.”
“Is he going to poison me?” whispered Ekkehard, trying to look courageous and cool.
“Nay, my lord prince, he’s going to do just as he says, share a cup of wine with you that he’s taken off some poor God-fearing decent folk who are now dead and lying unburied, food for the ravens. I hope you enjoy it.”
It seemed to Hanna that not one man there was paying attention to her. There were no obvious sentries anywhere. Most of the two dozen men in the small clearing stood around watching with various expressions of amusement the interplay between their prince and his prisoners. Off to the right, beyond the tents, seven men moved among the horses. These stocky creatures looked awkward compared to the bigger, prettier mounts captured with Ekkehard. One older man with a tattooed face and wearing a strange costume composed of dozens of scraps of cloth sewn into a patchwork stood off to one side, where he fingered the elfshot gashes torn into the roan’s rump. With an absent, almost crazy smile, he smeared a yellowish paste onto the wounds, letting another man hold the horse’s head so it wouldn’t bolt.
She shifted sideways on her knees as Ekkehard made up his mind to approach the princely tent with as much dignity as his tied hands allowed. With everyone watching that little procession, she might have a chance to make a break for it.
But to what end? Would abandoning Ekkehard result in his execution? Could she really expect to escape when they had horses and she was on foot? Were the shadow elves still lurking in the forest?
Yet no matter what, no matter the risk or the consequences, she had to try to reach the king. He had to be made to understand that Quman raiding parties were overrunning the eastern borders of his kingdom.
Hanna got a foot under her, pushed up—
—and saw a needle-thin arrow skate across the snow right in front of her. It dissolved into smoke, melting down into the snow. A cloud of air, puffing out from nose and mouth, shrouded her vision briefly, but the shadow forms of the Lost Ones were unmistakable once you knew them, old enemies returned to haunt her. She sucked in air, and the mist cleared. A dozen bows aimed down at the camp as the shadow elves gathered at the forest’s edge.
At whose hands would death be worse?
Like firebrands being quenched in water, arrows hissed and smoked through the brittle air. Two struck into the snow, first at one side of her and then, as she rolled away, to the other. Tiny trails of smoke rose where the arrows melted into the snow.
It seemed impossible for such delicate threads to be so deadly.