The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

He closed, and he met Liutgard’s defiant gaze.

She is my favorite cousin.

The thought fled, and in its passing he hesitated. Then he struck, but the eagle banner swept down over him before his blow landed, blinding him, trapping him in the cloth. She had caught him. His blade rang against hers as she parried, all the while pressing the banner against him that he might not escape it or bat it aside.

“To the Duchess!”

“Get him!”

“For Fesse!”

A spear slammed against his breastplate but did not penetrate; a sword glanced off his greave. The ululations of the centaurs guided him as he cut into the banner pole’s shaft. The cloth slithered down off him, falling to the ground and clearing his sight.

The press of men around him forced him back together with the centaurs who had come to his rescue. They formed a small phalanx and he shouted, calling others to join up with them. Liutgard fell back. Her ripped banner, its broken haft grasped by a sergeant, rose to shouts of triumph.

From up on the bluff a horn rang out three times. She had only to hang on until Henry reached her.

“Mark her! Mark her!” he cried to the centaurs at his back. If Bayan could die with an arrow in his throat, so could Liutgard. Fesse arrows struck his shield and one stuck, quivering there. Fest veered and stumbled as a spear grazed his withers.

Two centaurs fell; the others ululated and first Liutgard’s horse and then the others around her went crazy, and she could not run or fight. He closed.

A horn sounded to his left. Out of the woodland to the north swarmed many more men, some on horseback, some running. They wore the colors of Avaria.

“For Henry!” they cried. “Murderer! You murdered our lady! Traitor! Deceiver!”

In another ten breaths they would be upon him. A glance told him what took his breath away: These were Wendilgard’s men.

Avaria’s heir had betrayed him.

He had no choice but to retreat or else sacrifice what remained of his strike force. They lost three centaurs pulling out, but with the enemy fighting their own mounts and using the cover of the trees they were able to pull back out of range where he found Capi’ra bleeding from a dozen shallow wounds.

He caught his breath while she tallied her forces. His mouth was parched and his neck and back soaked through with sweat. The pursuit came close behind; they had to move on, and quickly. He had to decide what to do. If he stopped even for a moment to think, to consider that he had been so close to murdering his own kinswoman, he would lose all.

“No worse than I expected,” Capi’ra said in such a stolid and unemotional voice that her calmness struck him like a slap in the face. “No more than twenty dead. Yet we cannot take on such a large force, even broken up as they are within the woods.”

“No,” he agreed. The truth hurt, but he had to face it. “No. Henry closes in. Wendilgard has moved against us. Adelheid will attack our rear. We must pull the entire army back west and north through the woods before we are surrounded. We’ve lost the battle.”

XXXII

WORSE YET TO COME

1

IN Alba, at twilight, Stronghand strolled up to the stone crown and stared out over the fens. The horizon on all sides and most of the flat waters and half-drowned hillocks were hidden by a thick haze shrouding the land, but the sky above was so clear that it seemed stretched and thin, almost white. The sun was sliding into that haze, drowning. Soon the stars would come out.

He ruled Eika and human alike; his ships roamed the seas and struck the coast at will; all of Eikaland lay under his rule, and most of Alba had capitulated and was falling into line. But when OldMother commanded, he must obey. He had reached Alba three days ago. Thoughts of Alain chafed him, always, but he had been given a task to complete.

“Father Reginar,” he said, greeting the young churchman who waited eagerly and anxiously beside the stone crown together with five other clerics.

ard’s voice carried above the fray.

“Sanglant! Give up this rebellion! Throw down your arms and your father will show you mercy!”

He could not answer. He broke through and with a dozen or more centaurs behind him galloped along the path, bearing down on Liutgard. She was easy to mark: she wore a surcoat of white and gold, royal colors, although her banner was furled for the ride through the trees. She had loosened the straps of her helmet and pushed it back the better for her voice to be heard.

As Sanglant closed, she pulled her helmet down and braced. Five men stood between him and the duchess, and he fought furiously to reach her. He took the arm off an ax man and punched another aside with his shield, kicked a third man in the face who was attempting to rise after being bowled over by Fest.

He closed, and he met Liutgard’s defiant gaze.