The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

What are “skrolin”? The word hangs in his memory, but he can make no image, can only remember the sound of clawed feet scuffling on stone. After all, he is blind.

The merchant’s hands run down his flanks and prod his buttocks. Once he had clothing, but it has been stolen or sold. He wears only a loincloth and a frayed, stinking blanket thrown over his shoulders. The wind chills him, but it also brings to him a panoply of noise wrapping him around and drowning him.

“Oysters! Oysters!”

“Have ye heard the news? Two Salian ducs have each claimed the throne. It’s said their armies are marching.”

“Are we safe here?”

A cart rumbles past. Chickens cluck. He smells the dusty aroma of unmilled wheat, tinged with decay—the last gleanings from a winter storehouse. He hears the steady, careful blows of a workman chiseling stone, the rasp of an adze dressing wood.

Two women laugh, but their voices fade as they walk on; like everyone else they take no notice of the interchange in progress. He is beneath notice, submerged into the background, just another commodity at the market town waiting to be sold.

A pig squeals as its throat is cut, an awful noise that goes on and on before, between one breath and the next, cutting off:

He shudders all over.

“Well, he can’t likely escape if he’s blind,” agrees the merchant in answer to an unheard question. “I think I know who could take a lad like this, dumb and witless and blind but otherwise hale. Thirty sceattas. Take it, or go elsewhere.”

“Done.”

The last root parted under his ax. He thrust up with his legs and burst out of the water, gasping for air, hollow with rage. From the other ships, men cried out in horror. Planks creaked as plants lashing up from the depths tried to pull apart planks and drag down keels. He sputtered and grasped the side of the listing ship. Tenth Son was first to reach him, hauling him up and over the side. He fell to his knees, grabbed the standard, which was lying untouched on the deck, and with his lungs on fire and his body shedding water and mud he struck the haft to the deck three times.

Roots withered and fell back into the muck. The churning waters stilled.

Next to him, a dog growled.

Still coughing, he surveyed the fleet. He had no time to dwell on the vision that had almost drowned him. One ship had capsized, its warriors and dogs lost to the swamp since RockChildren did not swim. Yet men would be lost to battle nevertheless. This battle had already begun as the magic of the tree sorcerers retreated before his talisman.

He lifted the standard. Drums sounded the advance as oars stroked to a beat. They closed with the shore. Flaming arrows shot by the Albans lit arcs through the sky and fell against shields held in place by warriors clustered on the foredeck of each ship. Before them the three islands rose out of the swamp. A hastily constructed earthen dike ringed the land, topped with a crude stockade neither stout nor tall. The enemy had scoured the island clean of vegetation for building, for fire, for fodder, and the stink of their overcrowded encampment drifted over the waters. Rising above all, at the height of the tallest island, the stone crown dominated the scene.

His ship scraped through reeds and grounded on the muddy shoreline. A second ship, and a third, slid up beside it. Dogs poured over the railing, eager for blood. His warriors leaped over the side and assailed the rampart. Unused masts were carried as rams, and soon they breached the stockade in a dozen places. Yet a hedge of Alban spears and shields filled every gap as soon as it was opened, and Alban archers darted to and fro behind the shield line, releasing shafts at deadly close range as they targeted the mass of dogs. With each push over the rampart, a countercharge drove the RockChildren back, but never all the way back into the water, never all the way back to their ships. More poured up on shore to support those in the vanguard.

The queen of Alba rose above the fray, her wolf’s head helm shining and her banner held high behind her. A rank of tall shield-men as brawny as bears protected her, all armed with great axes.

“Tenth Son! Hold the standard and do not leave the ship. I’m leading a countercharge.”

Against the queen, Stronghand himself must be seen to prevail, just as he had at Kjalmarsfjord been the one to throw his challenger Nokvi overboard to the merfolk.

The sun rose high in the morning sky. Its light made the stones atop the hill seem to glow. From the other side of the island he heard the flanking ships engage. Shouts and cries rose up into the sky like startled birds.

“Now!”

He pushed into the front line, half a head shorter than most of his brothers. They struggled up over the rampart, clawed feet digging into the dirt to keep their purchase as spears thrust against their shields in an effort to drive them back. Arrows poured in on their flanks, and many of his warriors staggered back or fell, but the rest held their line as others filled in. The Alban line stretched and thinned under the onslaught. Here and there an inward bulge formed as the RockChildren pressed hard down off the ramparts. The toll was grim on both sides, but he had a larger army and one final surprise to unveil.

Once again the queen appeared. She drove headlong into the flank of one of those bulges, cutting the forward forces off from reinforcement. With a score of Hakonin warriors, Flint charged to meet the Albans, but these queen’s men had such unusual size and girth that they could each one meet the charge of an Eika and hold their ground. With shield pressed against shield, the struggle became a stalemate.

Stronghand was caught behind his own shield line as a dozen men filled the breach and another dozen pushed against the Eika, straining, grunting, while all about them axes cleaved shields, spears thrust, and arrows whistled. One huge man stalked into view, looming above the battling line. The queen gave way to let him through.

He was massive, like a tree trunk animated and molded into the form of a man. His helm was closed over his face and only his beard could be seen; curly and green like moss. His ax crashed down onto the head of the warrior standing just to the right of Flint; the hapless soldier’s skull split in two and blood poured out as the corpse collapsed, leaving a gap.

Three men sprang forward to meet the giant, but he swept them aside with a sideswipe of his shield as easily as a man dusts chaff from a table.

The earth beneath their feet trembled.

Again the ax rose and came down. Flint parried the blow with his shield, but the metal rim and wood body splintered and snapped and he dropped down like a stone under the weight of that awesome blow. Again the ground shook as if it would heave and buckle under the strain. The line shifted; the Eika, impossibly, lost heart in the face of such impenetrable strength.

The giant’s ax rose again, poised to strike and break the line.