Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

He clutched her mane, head ducked low as she trotted along at a jarring rate, negotiating barrels of water and cider, stores of grain, shelters, and four wounded men who had crawled away from the palisade. At last she broke free of chaos and opened up to a gallop. The sounds of battle roared around them, shouts echoing behind and before. She knew her way well through the maze of the ramparts, blind alleys, and earthen mounds that made up the hill’s defenses. Fighters manned the palisade walkway, thrusting with spears or heaving rocks over the side. Now and again they passed a zone of unexpected calm, where nervous guards waited, craning their necks to get a look down the palisade to knots of fighting.

He had heard these sounds before. Memory dizzied him.

The Lions hold the hill as Bayan’s army retreats across the river. The first cohort stands the rear guard, and Alain keeps step with his comrades as they retreat up the hill with their fellows. The ramparts lie in a maze around them, ancient embankments curling around the hill’s slopes.

He remembered these embankments, but when he had seen them last they had been so old that they had fallen in ruin and were half washed away under the brunt of time and wind and rain. He had fought in this place before. Yet the earthworks around him now were newly raised; any fool could see that.

He had fought here before in the time yet to come. This is where the Lady of Battles had killed him.

The curve of the ramparts brought them into sight of a ferocious fight. Cursed Ones had gotten over the palisade, and now Sos’ka’s centaurs and a score of White Deer warriors grappled hand to hand, pounding with clubs, thrusting with knives. A roan centaur parried a spear thrust with her staff, flipped her opponent to the ground, and stove in his head with a well placed kick. Fire licked up the palisade. A shout rose from the enemy, unseen on the other side as they pushed forward.

A woman with her animal mask torn free slid over the posts, dropping to the walkway. She braced herself, met the charge of a man with the cut of her bronze sword, then dropped to one knee as she lifted her other arm high and spun a sling briskly around her head. Let fly.

“Down!” cried Sos’ka.

He ducked. A kiss of air brushed an ear as the stone shot past his hair. The second bounced off his skrolin armband with a snap. But the third slammed into his temple without warning.

Pain stabbed through his head as he tumbled off Sos’ka’s back. The ground hit harder even than the stone.

“But 1 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 served me.” The voice of the Lady of Battles, as 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.”

“Adica!” He bolted up, straggling to sit, gaze blurring as the sun glared in his face. Familiar hands pressed him back.

“Hush, my love. Lie down.” Her tears fell on his face. “I feared for you.” She kissed him. For a moment, he saw two of her, his dear Adica sitting next to the Hallowed One in her antlered garb, haughty and aloof as she knelt before him.

Why wasn’t the sun rising beyond the stones? He saw it, swollen and hazy, riding low over the indistinct palisade in a blaze of vivid red-gold. Smoke drifted in streamers among the distant trees.

Nauseated, he lay back, and after a moment, beyond the agonized throbbing in his head, he heard the clash of battle. “What happened?”

“You were hit in the head by a stone.”

It was a struggle to recall what had happened. “They’ve broken through on the east slope, by the sacred threshold!” He got up to his feet before she could stop him and staggered, catching himself on one of the hounds before he could fall. It was hard to tell which one; he couldn’t quite focus.

“Adica?” He turned, and saw her.

She had bound on her gold antlers and bronze waistband, the regalia of a Holy One, a woman of power. He could still hear the battle, but the sun now set in the west.

“How long?” he demanded hoarsely. Where once had lain the birch shelter where they had slept, and made love, now lay smoldering coals and white ashes lifting on the dusk breeze.

“All day,” she said. “We’ve held them off all day.”

At what cost?

He saw, then, that what he had first thought was the setting sun was in truth the village in flames, all of it burning or fallen in. The palisade had been breached in a dozen spots; in some places fire had eaten it away. Bodies filled the ditches, pinned on stakes or simply broken. He could not see what had happened to the villagers, but what remained of the Cursed Ones still fought desperately along the tumulus, trying to break through. Yet as desperately as they fought, the White Deer people fought more desperately still. He caught a glimpse of Sos’ka down by the cleft. Streaked with blood, she vanished in a hail of spears. The other hound ghosted in just as he sagged forward, and he caught himself on that strong shoulder.

“Are they all dead? Did I lie here all day, while they died?”

Behind him, she spoke. “Beor and the other fighters broke out of the village in the afternoon to try to reach this place. When the attack came, Weiwara led the children and old people into the forest. I made a prayer for them. I burned pine leaves, to grant them invisibility. I hope some made it. It will be safer for them there.”

“Kel? Tosti? Urtan? Beor?”

“I don’t know what became of them.” Her tone sounded so distant, too calm, as though Adica had gone and the Hallowed One, a detached, unapproachable woman he didn’t really know, had kidnapped her form and now walked the Earth in his beloved Adica’s body.

The sun’s lower rim touched the horizon.

“Alain.” Her voice, so sweet to his ears.