The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Who is, my lord prince?” she asked, huffing as she walked.

Not many walked abroad through camp now it was dark and those who did made no attempt to stop him. Though he staggered frequently, he possessed sword and spear, even if he needed the spear’s aid to walk. Tents loomed as obstacles but proved easy to walk around although the extra distance took its toll.

After an eternity they reached the edge of camp. He surveyed the long slope ahead and wondered how any person could reach the top.

“Will you have drink?” asked the healer solicitously, holding out the sheep’s bladder.

It contained drugged wine, no doubt.

“No,” he said, although he was desperately thirsty. He glanced back to survey the camp. A group of centaurs gathered a spear’s throw away. They consulted together but made no move to come after him. One carried a lamp. Its light played over their torsos; illuminating the curve of their breasts, the drape of bead necklaces, a pair of coarse, auburn braids hanging over the shoulder of one and reaching to that place where woman hips flowed away into a mare’s body.

That long hair reminded him of Liath, the way her braids would fall over her shoulders and sway along her backside as she walked.

Where had Liath gone? Why had she barged out after those few reasonable things he had said to her? Why hadn’t she returned? No doubt she had more in common with the shaman.

Liath had changed so profoundly; she was not the person he had married. It was like meeting a stranger who wears familiar clothing—or an old companion who can no longer speak a common language.

“Where are all the male centaurs?” he asked suddenly. “Don’t they ride to war? Or do they wait in the wilderness and let the mares do battle for them?”

The healer waited, obviously expecting him to answer his own question. When Sanglant said nothing more, she spoke as if to a particularly slow child. “No male Horse people walk on Earth.”

“They’re all crippled? Dead? Gelded?”

“No males,” repeated the healer helpfully. “Only horses.” She gestured toward the distant herds, mostly lost to sight on the opposite side of the encampment.

Sanglant shook his head irritably. He hated when things made no sense, but it wasn’t worth arguing about now. He started up the slope.

They made it to the top, one exceedingly slow step after the next, before Anna had to stop to rest, and he was grateful for the break although he dared not sit down for fear he would never get up again. She knelt and set Blessing down on the grass.

“I’ll carry her,” he said to Anna, who was clearly winded, breath rasping as she bent over double, clutching her sides.

Blessing had not stirred. Her eyes remained open, but she did not see anything around her. She did not react to sound or touch. All she did was breathe.

He had failed her. He hadn’t protected her after all.

“I can carry,” said the healer.

“It would be good,” whispered Anna, sides heaving.

He knew he hadn’t the strength, and that just made him angrier.

But eventually Liath and the shaman would return to the tent, and they would come after him. He would not be hauled ignominiously back to captivity like an injured dog.

“Very well.”

The healer squatted, got arms under and around Blessing’s slender body, and lifted her easily. Maybe it was the way her shoulders flexed under the felt jacket or the way her narrow hips fell in a line with her shoulders, or maybe it was the broad splay of her hands.

Maybe he was delirious and, like madmen, saw glimpses of truth beneath the falsehoods worn by the world.

The healer was a man, but a man dressed as a woman.

Sanglant shook his head and with teeth gritted against the pain set out again. No matter. He was hallucinating, or the Kerayit were stranger than he thought. It made no difference.

“Camp is—?” he asked, because the wind shifted and he lost the scent.

“That way.” Anna rose with a hand pressed into her ribs. “I saw the smoke. I know where we’re going.”

Downhill was harder than up because each footfall jolted him from heel to skull. He plodded along grimly. He would reach the camp, and there he would rest, and he would not leave his daughter’s side until she recovered, or she died.