The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Are they newly built?” asked Stronghand.

“They’re old.”

Stronghand gestured. Word was passed down to the thirtieth rank, where Alban volunteers marched.

“You trust these turncoats?” asked the Hakonin scout. By the markings on the scout’s shoulder, Stronghand identified him as First Son of a Thirteenth Litter.

“These are not turncoats, First Son. They had no coats to turn. They were slaves. Now they seek honor and position in my army because they had none before nor any chance to try.”

“Yet they are soft.” First Son bared his teeth to show the flash of jewels, earned in Stronghand’s battles. He was sharp, and bold, and independent. Worth watching, for good or for ill.

“They may be,” agreed Stronghand. “They have yet to prove themselves.”

A pair of men, one young and one gray, trotted up. Both had knowledge of this country, so they claimed.

“What are you called?” asked Stronghand, because he knew that with humankind, names give power and knowing the name of another brings power to the one who names.

The older man spoke with an odd accent. “I am named Ediki. That is my true name, though my master called me Wulf in the manner of his people. I was born in the fen country. When I was a lad, the Alban lord of Weorod captured me and sold me as a slave into the great city. We’re close by the manor and lands of Weorod now. This lad goes by the name Erling. His mother was my kinswoman. She was taken away even before I was, but he was born and raised in the city. From her, he knows a bit of lore.”

“I will call you the name you were born with, Ediki. Tell him of the fortifications.”

Ediki listened intently, nodding all the while, as First Son spoke and Yeshu translated. “Yes, that’s right where the lord of Weorod makes his home. The earthworks are called Grim’s Dike and the Imps. Built in my grandmother’s grandmother’s time by the winter queen of Lindale, called Aelfroth. Her brothers warred against her out of the western highlands. She built earth walls to hold them back.”

Erling scratched the slave brand that scarred his cheek, whether because it itched or because he was nervous, Stronghand could not tell. Unlike Ediki, he wasn’t small and dark but had the height and fairness common among the tall, blond Albans. “My mam said that Grim’s Dike was built by the old southerns, the iron soldiers, them who called themselves Dariyans and once ruled this land before the Albans came. She said it was built to stop the Albans who was then invading.”

Ediki shrugged. “If it were, it didn’t hold them back, did it? Maybe the lad’s right. Maybe I am.”

“When the Albans invaded? You are not an Alban?”

“The fair ones? No. They are latecomers, those. We are the true people. This is our land from the first days. The Albans are no friends of ours.” He looked up at Stronghand. With his broad chest and burly shoulders and coal black hair, tied back with a strip of leather, Ediki looked more like a bog spirit than a man, but his gaze was keen and his hands steady. If he feared the RockChildren, he knew how to hide it. “Lord, only the queen’s uncle has the right to fly the sigil of the boar. If this high lord and his army reach Grim and the Imps first, we’ll fight hard and ugly to get past them, I’m thinking. The lord of Weorod will have fighting men as well, to support him. If the high lord reinforces the queen—then she’ll be as strong as she can be.”

Stronghand nodded. “Therefore we must reach the fortifications first and set our own positions.”

“There’s a small force holding them already,” added First Son. “This lord of Weorod the slave speaks of.”

Stronghand grinned, baring his teeth in a challenge. “‘The slave’ is a slave no more but a soldier in my army. Speed is what matters now. We’ll march at double time, hit them in force front on while First Son leads his Hakonin brothers around through the forest to flank them. If he can.”

First Son grinned in response, accepting the challenge.

The two Imps were smaller ramparts placed to hold the low ground between the forest, their angle and position buttressed by the tangle of streams that interlaced this country, but whatever band was holding Grim’s Dike hadn’t the manpower to hold these westerly ramparts as well, so it was an easy task to swarm over them and march east as the afternoon progressed.

“Will we leave men to hold the lesser dikes?” asked Tenth Brother. Stronghand shook his head. “No. We’ll see the Worth of our Alban allies proved today. Let everyone advance.”

The sun lay behind them. Their shadows drew long and longer as they spread into battle order and advanced at a trot on the last great rampart. Grim’s Dike was grim indeed, the ramparts cunningly positioned to stretch across grassy heath with, according to Ediki, one end thrust into thick oak and ash woods and the other dabbling its toes in lowland marsh. From the vantage afforded by their approach, however, Grim’s Dike stretched out to either side far beyond what a man could see, a formidable obstacle with the great ditch gaping before them and the embankment rising high above. Ediki reckoned it at least two leagues in length. Behind it lay Weorod, where Ediki had been captured as a young man and sold into slavery in the distant city. Threads of smoke curled up from fires in that manor—hearth fires, perhaps, or forges as the Albans prepared for war.

First Son and his strike troop had already vanished into the forest as Stronghand raised his standard to signal the attack, nothing more complicated than a straightforward assault against massively inferior forces. He allowed Vitningsey to lead the charge and placed himself in the second rank. In silence they bent low and ran with the dogs loping beside them. These soldiers were limber and strong, so it was easy for them to leap down into the ditch and no difficult feat to scramble up the steep-sided embankment; they raised their shields to cover their heads as arrows and javelins rained down on them, but even such weapons as got through did little damage to their tough skin. The Albans guarding the rampart boasted bronze and stone weapons but evidently no steel, and while steel or iron could cleave the hide of one of his warriors, not much else would.

o;What are you called?” asked Stronghand, because he knew that with humankind, names give power and knowing the name of another brings power to the one who names.

The older man spoke with an odd accent. “I am named Ediki. That is my true name, though my master called me Wulf in the manner of his people. I was born in the fen country. When I was a lad, the Alban lord of Weorod captured me and sold me as a slave into the great city. We’re close by the manor and lands of Weorod now. This lad goes by the name Erling. His mother was my kinswoman. She was taken away even before I was, but he was born and raised in the city. From her, he knows a bit of lore.”

“I will call you the name you were born with, Ediki. Tell him of the fortifications.”

Ediki listened intently, nodding all the while, as First Son spoke and Yeshu translated. “Yes, that’s right where the lord of Weorod makes his home. The earthworks are called Grim’s Dike and the Imps. Built in my grandmother’s grandmother’s time by the winter queen of Lindale, called Aelfroth. Her brothers warred against her out of the western highlands. She built earth walls to hold them back.”

Erling scratched the slave brand that scarred his cheek, whether because it itched or because he was nervous, Stronghand could not tell. Unlike Ediki, he wasn’t small and dark but had the height and fairness common among the tall, blond Albans. “My mam said that Grim’s Dike was built by the old southerns, the iron soldiers, them who called themselves Dariyans and once ruled this land before the Albans came. She said it was built to stop the Albans who was then invading.”

Ediki shrugged. “If it were, it didn’t hold them back, did it? Maybe the lad’s right. Maybe I am.”