The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

Each afternoon when they stopped to set up camp, a Quman boy strung up a rope between the two camps in case of blizzard. Because the ground was frozen, they could not drive in a post on which to fasten their end of the rope, so Gyasi and his nephews had volunteered to act as post wardens and gatekeepers. They strung the rope from the small felt tent in which they sheltered each night. Sanglant ducked under the awning that protected the entrance of their tent, slung at an angle to cut off the prevailing wind. The old shaman crouched at the threshold, eyes closed. Behind him, glimpsed through a slitlike opening, Sanglant saw the twisting flame of a lamp and dark shapes clustered around it. An owl hooted nearby, calling out of the night, and Gyasi raised hands to his mouth and answered it.

“Great lord,” he said without opening his eyes. “Be warned. Storm comes.”

“Worse than this? Is there any threat to my people?”

“I am still listening.”

Captain Fulk followed him under the awning.

“Captain, send word along the line for the men to make sure everything is secure.”

“Yes, my lord prince. Do you desire an escort?”

Sanglant glanced back toward the slave, who was, he gauged, out of earshot. He spoke quietly. “We still have Bulkezu. If I show weakness or anything they interpret as fear, the Pechanek may feel free to attack.”

o;Hush now, you men.” Captain Fulk emerged from the tent, having heard voices. “You lot go in, you’ve been out long enough.”

With groans of relief, the four men hurried inside. Ice splintered off the tent flap as they jostled it, raining down on the snow-covered ground in a crystalline spray.

“How do the men fare, Captain?”

“Well enough.”

“Provisions?”

Fulk frowned at four soldiers moaning and chafing their gloved hands as they edged outside to replace the ones just come off watch. The men greeted the prince warmly and, stamping feet and rubbing arms, squinted into the darkness toward the fires that marked the Quman encampment, an arrow’s flight from theirs. Over in the nomad camp a man was singing, voice rising and falling in a nasal whine; despite the skirl of the wind, Sanglant was able to pick out a few words—man, woman, river, ice, drowning, death. If the Pechanek Quman knew any happy songs, he had yet to hear them.

“We’re down to the last two barrels of salted fish eggs, my lord prince.”

“Thank God.”

“I can’t stand the taste of it either. Poor man’s food, as Brother Breschius told us, but it will go hard on us unless we reach a place we can obtain food in greater quantities than what we have available to us now. We’ll have to start eating horse every day, slaughter the weak ones.”

“Or drink their blood, as the Quman do.”

“I pray we never do such a barbaric thing, my lord. Their milk wine is bad enough.”

“Do you think so? It isn’t so bad.”

Breschius moved up beside him to stare out at the gap of land between the two encampments. Snow dusted down, swirling on the ever-present wind, but Breschius squinted into the darkness as though seeking something that lay beyond Sanglant’s sight. Briefly the prince heard the tinkle of delicate chimes, fading and vanishing below the whine of the wind.

“Do you know where we are, Brother, or when we can expect to find better shelter and a good supply of food?”

Breschius shook his head, looking distressed.

“Do you know?” Sanglant asked the slave.

She shrugged, looking away from him. “These are not questions I can answer, my lord prince.”

“Have you remembered your name yet?” he demanded, irritated by her placidity. At least Zacharias had hated and reviled his captors.

“You may call me what you wish, my lord prince. Whatever you require, I am bound to agree to, so the mothers have said.”

Her lips were so red, full and shapely. Was she hinting that he might ask her into his bed? Or pleading with him in the only way she had, short of outright defiance of her masters, to beware what he asked of her? Was she begging for freedom?

“The wind would be worse,” said Breschius suddenly “but you can see how the slope protects us from the brunt of it.”

“It’s difficult to imagine it being wrose,” said Hathus.