The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

Hathui and several of the men were sick; he himself could scarcely stand to look. It was one thing to kill in battle against an armed opponent. This was murder, plain and simple.

They returned to the army in a grimmer state of mind than they had left it, rejoining them at midday. Captain Fulk had the ranks set in marching order, and as soon as the prince arrived, he made his report.

The guide and his pretty granddaughter had vanished, but more than one man reported having seen them running north with their packs bouncing on their backs. All but forty-eight men were accounted for, yet the bones they had collected on the hillside and along the road where the galla had attacked seemed to add up to no more than nineteen men. Most likely some had lost heart and run for home. Still, not one among the Quman, or the centaurs, deserted him. Of his own men, Den and Johannes were missing and presumed among the dead.

“My people took the brunt of it!” Lord Wichman complained. “Twelve men posted on sentry duty in the van, and only poor Thruster is left of them. Look at him!”

Lord Eddo had a bad reputation and was not liked even by Wichman and his cronies, but Sanglant had to pity the man now. He was a wreck, babbling and weeping without end about demons and fearful whispers and the claws of the Enemy raking into his guts until a potion got down his throat made him sleep.

“This may be the least of the losses we’ll suffer,” said Sanglant, looking at each of his commanders in turn. “If there are any without the heart to go on, now is the time to leave, without shame.”

His captains looked beyond him to the two griffins, who lounged up on the rocks, taking the sun, sated and satisfied. Unbound and unrestrained, they had not flown off.

Captain Fulk laughed. “If such creatures follow you of their own volition, why would we poor frail humans turn away? Your army is ready to march, my lord prince.”

3

UNCLE pushed the handcart and its precious container of grain plus a beautifully carved bench for trade along the windy path that led out of the valley. The Brat padded alongside, chattering nonstop about each least sight; she had never left the valley before, not in her entire life. The trail rose, crested a ridge, and descended out of the hills into open country beyond. That journey took them all morning and into the afternoon. Treu followed at his heels the entire time and now and again licked his hands.

“Look at how wide open everything is! Look, there’s a hamlet! Look, I’ve never seen those people before! Hey, there! Hello, there! We’ve come walking all the way from Shaden! What’s this place called? Obstgarten?” In a lower voice. “Isn’t that a peculiar name, Uncle? Just calling themselves ‘orchard’? Look! I’ve never seen an oak tree so big! We could live inside that trunk if it was hollow! Is it much farther to the miller?”

His stomach hurt. Although the others had taken cheese and baked eggs for the journey, he was so hungry he couldn’t wait for midday so he had eaten another half a loaf of old bread that morning, the last of the hoard stored in the deacon’s cupboard, too precious to waste although it had become so desiccated that it tasted like rocks and gritted between his teeth.

This countryside seemed vaguely familiar to him, although he wasn’t sure why, but every time they came around a curve in the path the sight of that particularly unmistakable oak tree whose broad, leafy crown seemed to hide half the sky, or an apple orchard, or a hollow lush with alder made his eyes hurt and his head throb until he thought he would go blind again. His fingers were cold, although it was a late summer day so hot that the heavens had a tendency to shimmer.

“Storm,” said Uncle, pausing to rest while he wiped sweat off his brow. He pointed southeast where the land was most open. “Coming up that way.”

Thunderheads piled up to form a huge wall of cloud, white at the top and an ominous green-gray color along the base.

“We’d best take cover,” added Uncle.

“Can’t we make it to the miller?” asked Brat anxiously, biting on a grimy finger.

“We’ll go a bit farther. I don’t see any likely place here and we passed that village too long ago. I don’t feel rain yet.”

“I’m hungry.”

“We’ll eat when we’ve reached shelter.”

The leaves danced on the trees, spinning and whirling until he thought he saw daimones at play in the rising wind, laughing and teasing as they sported in the branches of the broken woodland through which they traveled. Meadows and fallow fields cut the woods into clumps and strips where humankind had hacked out a place for themselves; they could never leave well enough alone. They delved deeply where they weren’t wanted and chopped down the forest because it made them fearful, and in time they would flatten and consume everything like rats set loose in a storehouse of grain.

He walked behind Uncle and Brat and the cart, wondering why his fingers, which had been so cold, were now beginning to burn as if he had thrust them into flames and yet here he just walked and there wasn’t a fire anywhere except maybe the one in his head because his head was burning, too, a conflagration so fierce that although he could see, it wasn’t like true seeing where a man touches an object with his vision and notes and measures that it is there and thinks about it and makes a judgment or a decision of what to do regarding what he has seen, only there were objects before him moving or not moving and he wasn’t sure what they were any more only that he had to avoid smashing into things which was getting more and more difficult.

“What’s he babbling about, Uncle?”

“Hush, child. He’s a holy man. Don’t offend him.”

“He’s scaring me, Uncle! He’s a crazy man! Fire and judgment and the world burning. Is he seeing the end of the world?”

“Hush, Brat. Hush. Look there! Thank the Lady. It’s the miller.”

A little river glimmered in front of them, but it was the turning wheel that made his head spin so badly that he staggered sideways until he stumbled up against a fence, which he hadn’t noticed. Two white clouds moved in the field: a pair of sheep running away from something.

“Why are they building that wall, Uncle?”

“I don’t know, Brat. Best you keep quiet and let me do the talking.”

Rain spattered, flecking the dirt road. The wind tossed the boughs in a stand of apple and walnut trees lining the path. A pair of ripening apples fell and bounced on the ground. A branch heavy with walnut fruit whirled past on a gust, sank as the wind dropped off abruptly, and landed on the earth with a thump and crackle.