Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

“I’ll never leave you, beloved.” His voice broke over the familiar words, spoken so often. Had they been meaningless all along? He hated the fixed, almost remote expression that now molded her features into the mask of a queen far removed from her subjects. “I’ll walk with you into death if I have to. I won’t let it happen. I won’t. I won’t lose you!”

“Hush,” she said, comforting him, embracing him. “No need to talk about what is already ordained.”

But he would not give it up. He had stood by while Lavastine had died. He hated the grip of helplessness, a claw digging ever deeper into his throat. “No,” he said. “No.” But he remembered the words of Li’at’dano, that dawn when he had fallen, bloody, dying, and lost, at the foot of the cauldron. That morning when the shaman had healed his injuries and given him a new life in a place he did not know. He remembered what Adica had said, the first words he ever heard her speak.

“Will he stay with me until my death, Holy One?”

Li’at’dano had answered: “Yes, Adica, he will stay with you until your death.”

“Hush,” she whispered. “I love you, Alain. How could I wish for anything more than the time we were given together?”

“I won’t let it happen!” he cried, anger bursting like a storm.

Was that thunder in the distance, rolling and booming? There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The shelter roared as flames ate it away. Smoke from the village, from their house, billowed up into the clear sky. The shrill cry of a horn cut the phantom calm lying over the scene. The adults stationed up on the palisade walkway, along the rampart, all began crying out, pointing and hollering. Rage, down at the cleft, began barking, and first Sorrow and then all the other dogs joined in until cacophony reigned.

“The Cursed Ones!” cried the people, clamoring and frightened. “They have come to kill our Hallowed One!”

Alain ran down through the upper ramparts and clambered up onto the walkway to see for himself. The Cursed Ones had come on horseback, more than he could count. He recognized their feather headdresses, short cloaks, and beaded arm and shinguards flashing where the sun’s rays glinted off them. Many wore hammered bronze breastplates. Each warrior wore a war mask, so that animal faces hid their true features. He saw only lizards and guivres, snarling panthers and proud hawks. With shouts and signals, they spread out to make a loose ring first around the village and also around the tumulus; he quickly lost sight of two dozen outriders who swung around to the east. The largest group, perhaps ten score, formed up on the stretch of land lying between the village and the hill. The sun’s light crept down the western slope of the tumulus as the sun rose over the stones.

Adica, puffing slightly, clambered up beside him. Her expression had altered completely from only a few moments before. She no longer had any comfort left to give him. She no longer had any thought except for the task she had to complete when evening came. “They’ll have to attack. Their only hope is to stop me from weaving my part of the working. They’ll be trying to strike at all seven of us, each in our own place.” She glanced up at the sky. “With the gods’ blessing you and the others released the Holy One from the Cursed Ones’ bondage so she could work her weather magic. The skies are clear. We have only to survive the day, and then we will be free of their curse forever.”

He stared, trying to measure the force gathering in the village, where Beor, Urtan, Kel, and the others sheltered. Here, along the ramparts, even children armed themselves with clubs and staves. Hooves sounded below him as Sos’ka and her companions came up underneath the walkway. They had no way to get up the ladder to see over the palisade.

“What is the Hallowed One’s wish?” Sos’ka cried. “We are here to protect her.”

They had prepared for many things, but not for an army of hundreds. He faltered. How easy it was to be reckless with other people’s lives! But centaurs and human fighters watched him intently. They would not falter, no matter the cost. They had walked a harder road than he had, and for many more years. Determination would carry them forward.

Yet he had seen the Cursed Ones close up as well, and surely the Cursed Ones held determination close to their hearts, too.

No wonder war was a curse.

One of the Cursed Ones rode within a bow’s shot of the village and loosed a burning arrow. It sailed over the palisade to land, sputtering, in the dirt. Another arrow flew, and a third and a fourth, then a shower. Children ran toward the safety of the houses, only to be driven back when the thatched roof of the men’s house caught and began to burn, twin to the fire that consumed Adica’s house, another funeral pyre.

Sorrow and Rage panted below, gazing loyally up at him. It was easy to think now that his heart had died of sorrow yet again. It was easy to act because he knew he, too, would die. It was simply not possible to go on living without her.

“Adica, you must go up to the stone loom. Their arrows can’t reach you there. I want ten adults to attend her. Make sure she’s covered and safe. You’ll have to lie low all day, beloved. Can you do that?”

She nodded.

“What shall we do?” asked the woman called Ulfrega, war leader of the Four Houses warriors.

“We’ll need fighters all along the palisade. That’s our weakness.”

“Not the cleft and the ditch?”

“The planks are pulled back, so the Cursed Ones can’t charge through. Set a force with spears there, behind shields, and the best archers up along the palisade. That’s the first place they’ll try to break through. If somehow riders break through, you must brace the hafts of your spears in the dirt and hold them steady. Then they’ll drive their horses into the points.”

She nodded. An arrow sailed lazily overhead and skittered along the opposite embankment, rolling downslope to end up at one of the centaur’s hooves. “What of the villagers?” she asked.

“Beor can lead them well enough. He’ll let their archers use up their arrows as long as he can. It will help us that the Cursed Ones are caught between two pincers. They have to protect themselves from both sides. And we have a few tricks planned, things they can’t expect. Just pass the word along the palisade that none of you are to shoot arrows unless you come under direct attack. Have children pick up any arrow that falls in to us. We can shoot it back at them.”

In the village, a third house had caught on fire.

“Sos’ka, you and your comrades must keep a perimeter watch all around the hill. If any place on the embankment is weakened, send one to alert me, and we’ll send reinforcements. If they break in behind us, we are lost. Ulfrega, you must remain here to command if I’m called away. Adica!”

She still watched the movements of the Cursed Ones and, farther, the smoke pouring up from the burning houses. A fourth house in the village caught fire, but people hurried to soak the thatch of the adjoining council house roof with water.

A line of Cursed Ones rode closer to examine the tumulus. One rash soldier with a fox mask rode in and, whooping, twirled a sling around his head. Stones peppered the palisade. A dozen archers rode close enough to shoot.