The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“You are a great lord, in truth,” added Gyasi, “to humble Bulkezu. But you wear no griffin wings. How can you defeat the man who killed two griffins? Bulkezu is still greater than you.”

“We shall see. I march east to hunt griffins.”

The shaman’s eyes widened. He tapped his forehead twice on a clenched hand, touched both shoulders, and patted his chest over his breastbone, across a tattoo depicting a bareheaded man copulating with a crested griffin. “That is a fearsome path, great lord. You may die.”

Sanglant smiled, although he had long since ceased to find his mother’s curse amusing. “No creature male nor female may kill me. I do not fear the griffins. Can you guide me across the grasslands to the nesting grounds of the griffins?”

“Nay, great lord. Mine is the power of the wolf, to stalk the ibex and the deer. I am not a griffin fighter. The secrets of the nesting grounds have been lost to our people. No warrior in three generations among the Kirshat tribe has worn griffin wings. We are a weak clan now. Our mothers die young. Our beghs have forgotten how to listen to the wisdom of old women. That is why the war council did not refuse when Bulkezu demanded soldiers for his army.”

A shout rose from the guard on watch, followed by the call of the horn, three Mats, signifying that an enemy approached. Soldiers hurried out of the shade where they had been resting, lifting shields, hoisting bows or spears, and headed for the vulnerable gate. The slaves looked up, but did not rise. Sanglant jogged over to the guard tower that flanked the gate. Up on the walls facing northeast, men gestured and pointed. Fulk and Hathui followed him while Sergeant Cobbo herded the remaining slaves back to the cell where Blessing broke her silence and began to cry out again.

“Let me out! Let me out! Anna! I want you! Daddy!”

Sanglant clambered up on the wall to the crumbling guard tower with Fulk and Hathui beside him. The pair of guards on duty—Sibold and Fremen—muttered to each other as they watched. They had marked the riders because of dust, although the troop was still too far away to make out numbers and identifying marks.

Below, in the gate, a dozen men were pulling back the bridge of planks thrown over the pit. Shadow concealed the depths of that steep-sided ditch where Bulkezu was imprisoned. Was Bulkezu moving along the base of the pit, alert to the new development? Already Sanglant heard the unmistakable flutter and whir of wings, faint but distinctive. He shaded his eyes as he squinted westward at the riders approaching the fort through rolling grasslands that stretched out north and west to the horizon.

“Quman,” he said to Fulk.

Fulk shouted down into the courtyard. “Get Lewenhardt up here!” He shaded his eyes, peering at the cloud of dust. “Are you sure, my lord prince? I can’t see well enough.”

“I hear wings.”

“Sibold,” ordered Fulk, “sound the horn again. I want every man along the wall and a barrier thrown up at the gate to reinforce the ditch. Quman.”

Sibold swore merrily before blowing three sharp bats on the horn. Half the men had assembled and the rest came running, buckling on helmets or fastening leather brigandines around their torsos. Above the clatter and shouting Sanglant heard his daughter’s muffled shrieks from the cell where he had ordered her shut in.

“My lord prince!” Lewenhardt scrambled up the ladder to the watchtower platform and leaned out as far as he dared over the railing. He wore a ridiculous floppy-brimmed hat that shaded his eyes better than a hand could.

Sanglant set fists on the wall, rubbing the coarse bricks until all thought of Blessing was rubbed out of his mind and he could concentrate on the distant sound that he alone, so far, could hear. He blocked out all other distractions, the sound of planks being dragged across dirt, boots scraping on steps and ladders as men climbed into position along the walls, the sobs of Blessing, a bell ringing in the town… as he listened for the sough of wind through grass, the beat of the sun on earth, the rumble of distant hooves, and the whistle of wings. He listened to their pitch and intensity.

“Griffin wings.” He braced himself to get a better look.

Was that a thin shriek caught on the wind, a man crying out in fear and pain? It happened too fast, cut short. He could not be sure.

The wings sang, not in a great chorus and yet more than a few individual voices.

“Not much more than fifty,” he said. “Certainly less than one hundred.”

“That’s a fair lot of dust they’re kicking up,” commented Fulk. “Can they be so few?”

“More than one hundred,” said Lewenhardt. “Perhaps as many as two hundred. They don’t all have wings.”

“How can they not have wings?” demanded Fulk.

“Where is Brother Breschius?” asked Sanglant.

“Fremen,” said Fulk, “fetch the good brother.”

Sanglant looked back toward town, visible from here as a jumble of walls and roofs broken by the high tower of the governor’s palace and the pale dome marking the Jinna temple. The steady slope of the ground toward the sea caused the land to melt into a shimmering dark flat, the expanse of peaceful waters. Ships were cutting loose from the quay, oars beating as they moved away from the port to escape a possible attack on the town. The ship Wolfhere had escaped on was already out of sight; according to Robert of Salia, who had found Blessing and her new retinue and escorted them back to the camp, that ship had left the harbor before Sanglant had even got the message that Blessing had vanished.

Ai, God, what was he to do with his unnatural daughter?

How had he been so stupid as to trust Wolfhere?

“I see their wings!” cried Sibold triumphantly.

“God Above!” swore Lewenhardt as other men along the wall got a better look at the riders. The restless glimmer of wings flashed in the light drawn out across grass, sun caught in white and gray feathers.