He jumped into the gap and raised his sword as the clearing lit again, casting a pallor over the melee. A rank of shades stared at him, many wearing the bodies of men but the faces of animals. They paused as he called out once more.
“Cousin! I am the son of Uapeani-kazonkansi-a-lari. Heed me! We are cousins. Kinsmen. Why do we fight?”
The shades drew back to let the shadow prince approach. He and Sanglant stood among the corpses of Wendilgard’s troop and a few fresh Wendish ones, facing each other with their soldiers at their back, all of his living and solid and all of the Ashioi insubstantial shades.
“You stand in our sacred ground, a fortress once dedicated to She Who Will Not Have A Husband. These others camped here, so we slew as many as we could and drove off the rest. Now we must hasten.”
“I pray you, aid me, and I will aid you. I am pursued by an army of humankind who seek my destruction and who seek yours as well. Listen!”
A bolt of lighting scorched the sky, hanging in the air for three breaths before it flicked out, leaving behind an afterimage that cut a blazing line across the rank of shadow elves who stood listening. Waiting. He saw trees through the outline of their bodies. Far back, he heard a horn call ring out and the sound of clashing weapons, and a horse’s screams.
“Why do you fight your own kinsmen?” asked the shadow prince.
“We fight those who are weaving a spell to cast your exiled land back into the aether. I am not a sorcerer. I do not understand by what means such a spell can be woven into being.”
The other one laughed. “No more so am I a mage’s apprentice, although my brother was. I prefer to hold a weapon in my hand. A spear is something I can comprehend. What is your name, Cousin?”
“I am called Sanglant, prince of Wendar and Varre, son of Henry and Uapeani-kazonkansi-a-lari. Who are you?”
“I am called many things. That is the custom among my people. Some called me Younger Brother, while others called me Gets-Into-Trouble. But you may call me Zuanguanu-kazonkiu-a-laru. Or Zuangua, for I know that humankind has difficulty with our names.”
Sanglant laughed. “I not least among them. So, Zuangua. Will you aid us against our enemy? I have no wish to harm them, only to drive them off so that I do not lose more of my men. The king I must capture alive. He has been made a prisoner by the sorcerers who also wish to harm your people. I carry two griffin feathers with me that will cut the threads of magic. Once he is free of the spell that binds him, he will no longer fight us.”
The prince grinned, and Sanglant recognized that grin for he had felt it on his own face many times, born of a reckless and bold impulsiveness, the willingness to throw oneself forward into an unknown battle where the outcome was in doubt. “Will he not? What if I desire battle? I have waited a long time to kill humans in revenge for what they did to my people. But very well. The time is near. If aiding you will aid my people, then I will aid you. If it does not, then I can kill you as easily as any other mortal man.”
Zuangua lifted his sword. Lightning flashed, making his white cloak blaze before night returned. A woman standing beside him fitted out in warrior’s armor and wearing a hawk’s mask pushed up on her head brought a jewel-encrusted conch, bigger than her hands, up to her lips. She blew. The sound arched up just as thunder cracked, but where the thunder splintered and rolled away into silence the mournful note held on and on. The Ashioi warriors scattered into the woods, quickly lost in the darkness.
When the call faded, Zuangua gestured toward the ancient walls on the height. “Find refuge there for your wounded. The rest, range below. Together, we will fight.”
“My lord prince!” cried Fulk as lightning shot white fire through the air. His anxious expression lit, and vanished, as blackness crashed down.
Sanglant shouted as thunder pealed right on top of them. “Go! Form a shield wall with those who are strong, and put the injured up in the fortress. Do not touch any of the Lost Ones who bide there. Go! Go!”
He himself turned back to Zuangua. “Will you hunt with me, Cousin? I seek my father, and I mean to free him.”
2
ON the afternoon of that day—the tenth of Octumbre—when Hugh led them up through the maze of ruins that surrounded the tumulus to wait beside the stone crown, Zacharias was ready. The high grass had been scythed for fodder. They waded through its stubble single-file with Hugh in the lead and Zacharias walking behind him, head high. He would make Hathui proud, although she would never know it.
The waxing crescent moon rode high in the heavens as the company spread out around the stones. There were two score guardsmen, Deacon Adalwif, a pair of Hugh’s servants, and himself. Zacharias knew well the sandy patch of ground from which the threads were woven; he and Hugh had practiced here many nights in preparation. As the sun sank westward, Hugh nudged Zacharias to this patch and placed the weaving staff into his hands, then stood behind him. The light faded and the first stars winked into view in the darkening sky: the Diamond, Citrine, and Sapphire that graced the Queen’s Sword, Staff, and Cup, with the Diamond so close to zenith it made him dizzy to stare up at it. It was cold, and bitterly clear; with a cloak Zacharias felt the fingers of winter clutching at his bones, but such trifles meant little to him this night.
No rain had fallen for two months and the river that ran below the tumulus was no more than a trickle over its stony bed, while livestock and villagers alike suffered from thirst. The young wheat, recently planted, had not yet sprouted, and the deacon and her villagers despaired, fearing it might never do so without autumn rains to germinate it. Obviously Holy Mother Anne and her tempestari had done their work well, keeping the heavens clear for the weaving across so vast a span of land. Just as obviously they cared nothing for the consequences that fell hardest of all on the common folk. His folk. His kind.
Before his birth a King’s Eagle had ridden through the Wasrau River Valley, where farming families crowded the arable land cheek by jowl, all paying heavy taxes and yearly service to one lady or the next in return for protection, right of way, and a pittance of grain during lean years, not always delivered.
o;Why do you fight your own kinsmen?” asked the shadow prince.
“We fight those who are weaving a spell to cast your exiled land back into the aether. I am not a sorcerer. I do not understand by what means such a spell can be woven into being.”
The other one laughed. “No more so am I a mage’s apprentice, although my brother was. I prefer to hold a weapon in my hand. A spear is something I can comprehend. What is your name, Cousin?”
“I am called Sanglant, prince of Wendar and Varre, son of Henry and Uapeani-kazonkansi-a-lari. Who are you?”
“I am called many things. That is the custom among my people. Some called me Younger Brother, while others called me Gets-Into-Trouble. But you may call me Zuanguanu-kazonkiu-a-laru. Or Zuangua, for I know that humankind has difficulty with our names.”
Sanglant laughed. “I not least among them. So, Zuangua. Will you aid us against our enemy? I have no wish to harm them, only to drive them off so that I do not lose more of my men. The king I must capture alive. He has been made a prisoner by the sorcerers who also wish to harm your people. I carry two griffin feathers with me that will cut the threads of magic. Once he is free of the spell that binds him, he will no longer fight us.”
The prince grinned, and Sanglant recognized that grin for he had felt it on his own face many times, born of a reckless and bold impulsiveness, the willingness to throw oneself forward into an unknown battle where the outcome was in doubt. “Will he not? What if I desire battle? I have waited a long time to kill humans in revenge for what they did to my people. But very well. The time is near. If aiding you will aid my people, then I will aid you. If it does not, then I can kill you as easily as any other mortal man.”