The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

He glanced back to the wagon trundling along, Liath riding guard beside it together with Anna, Matto, Thiemo, Heribert, the Kerayit healer, and a pair of soldiers.

Li’at’dano had freshened the paint on her torso. The green-and-gold stripes made a stark contrast to her silver-gray coat. She carried a bow, with a quiver slung across her back, and her attendants were armed in a similar fashion, although a few held wicked-looking spears, half tipped with obsidian and the rest with cruel steel points. They had striped their torsos as well and decorated their faces with chalky lines and ocher dots. He could imagine them, in their thousands, in a wild rampage through the streets of ancient Dariya, burning, pillaging, and killing.

Li’at’dano looked him over as she might a wild dog that has crept into camp hoping for scraps, and she waited with obvious indifference to his presence until Liath reined her horse up beside his. Only then did she stamp one foreleg to acknowledge their arrival. The other centaurs repeated the gesture and whistled softly.

Behind him, the two Quman who had agreed to come with him echoed that whistle. A partridge burst out of the grass, flying low over the ground, wings whirring as if in reply, and as it disappeared from view all the noise of their movements and voices faded until the only sound was that of the wind muttering through the long grass. Bugs chimed. Otherwise, it was silent.

Liath rode out into the gap between their two parties. She lifted a hand to gain their attention.

“We have little time, and few enough to undertake a dangerous task. This is what I know. Two thousand seven hundred and two years and some seven months ago the Ashioi were cast out of this world by human sorcerers working in concert through the stone crowns and under the guidance of a powerful shaman.”

She did not turn to look at Li’at’dano, but Sanglant did. The old centaur merely watched. Did she feel emotion in the same way humankind did? He doubted it.

“That spell caused untold destruction throughout the lands, and it did not work in the manner they had hoped it would. It did not cast the land of the Ashioi into the void forever. Even now the land of the Ashioi follows a path twisted back on itself that brings it home again to Earth. According to Brother Breschius and Brother Heribert, who have kept track of the passing of days, today is the nineteenth day of Yanu, in the year seven hundred and thirty-four after the Ekstasis of the blessed Daisan. When the crown of stars crowns the heaven, on the tenth day of the month of Octumbre in the year seven hundred and thirty-five, the spell will be complete. The land inhabited by the Ashioi will return to the roots from which it was torn free. According to the workings of the universe, all things must return to their rightful place.”

As she spoke in Wendish, certain centaurs murmured a running translation to their comrades as did Gyasi to the Pechanek Quman—one man and one woman—who had braved the displeasure of their tribes’ mothers to follow him. Now and again Liath would pause to let them catch up, but always, inexorably, she went on in that same calm voice, detailing the approaching storm.

“In nineteen months there will come death and there will come destruction. We have no way to escape the consequences of what was put into motion so long ago.”

She let them consider as she herself glanced over at Sanglant. He didn’t smile at her. He didn’t need to. He knew what he needed most to know of her: that she had changed and that she had not, the familiar weaving of her shot through with new threads.

That didn’t make what he had to do today any easier.

“The mathematicus known as Sister Anne intends to weave this ancient spell again, to banish the Ashioi and their land from Earth a second time. Of a certainty I know it will condemn the Ashioi. Their land has been cut off from Earth for so long that it dies. They are few, and they are weak. There are almost no children.”

Here she hesitated and, with an effort obvious to her husband although others might think she merely paused for breath, she did not look toward the wagon where Blessing lay dying.

“Perhaps there are those among you who care nothing for the fate of the Ashioi. Let me argue, then, in this manner. What effect Anne’s weaving will have on Earth itself I do not know, but I believe it will condemn many, many more people to die, countless people, and bring about wholesale destruction on a scale we cannot fathom. I have seen—”

She faltered as she was overwhelmed by memory, but she swallowed firmly and began again.

“I have glimpsed the past. I know what immense destruction the spell caused then. I believe that if it is woven a second time, it will cause a terrible disruption in the fabric of Earth far greater than if the ancient spell, the first spell, simply ran its course. Many will die regardless; no one can change that now. But what Anne intends is not only wrong but will bring upon us all ruin arid desolation.

“I cannot command any of you. I only command myself. I have seen Taillefer’s crown spread across the land. I have a good idea of where each stone circle lies that Anne must control to weave the spell. Yet since the spell needs seven crowns to function, it may be possible for us to disrupt it by halting the weaving at one or two or half of the crowns. I will travel as quickly as I can to the central crown, where Anne will lead the weaving. I will stop her. Or I will die.”

Resuelto flicked his ears back as Sanglant’s hands tightened on the reins.

“Aid me if you wish. If you will not aid me, then I beg you, stand aside and do nothing to hinder me.”

She let out a great breath and lifted her chin. She was so bright as the sun’s light cast its brilliance over her. She was so beautiful. As much as Sanglant simply lusted after her, he gazed at her now with much more complicated emotions: desire, love, anger still stirring in its dark pit, but respect as well and pride in her strength. A little awe, perhaps, for the dazzling promise of the power she had unlocked within herself.

It was true she could not command men, but she would go where she meant to go and by having the courage to take that path, others would follow the trail she blazed. He could not battle Anne on any sorcerous plane, but without the strength of an army to back her up, Liath might never reach Anne, and certainly she could never control the chaos and dissolution that would inevitably erupt across Wendar and the other countries in the wake of the cataclysm.

Maybe God had a hand in bringing them together—for surely without each other they could not succeed.

“I have spoken as clearly as I am able,” she finished. “I have told you what I know, as simply as I can. I must set forth soon, and quickly. Today if I can; tomorrow if I must.”

She looked toward the wagon where Blessing lay surrounded by her faithful attendants, but she set her lips together in a thin line and lowered her hand. “That is all I have to say.”

Silence followed her speech except for the ever-present drag of the wind through the grass. It was not warm, but today’s strong blow did not make his bones ache with cold. Clouds gathered along the eastern crags, breaking up into smaller clots as the peaks tore them apart. Nothing else moved.

“You know I am with you.” Sanglant let Resuelto take two steps forward before reining him in. His voice carried easily. “I will do what is necessary to stop Sister Anne.”

“What role do we play?” demanded Wichman, behind him. “I don’t like all this talk of sorcery.”

“Sorcery will not protect us from an arrow in the back. Anne will protect herself with soldiers as well as magic. That is why we need both griffin feathers and sorcerers. Without soldiers of our own, we are too vulnerable to those who possess Henry’s army.”

Wichman grunted, and there was murmuring among those assembled to listen.