The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

IN the distant haze where sky met sea, islands rose out of the sound like teeth marking the horizon. The water gleamed, as still and smooth as burnished metal; seen from the height of the ridge, the swells were lost under the glare of the sun. The carter and the guardsmen paused on the path to wipe their brows against the terrible heat.

He had no shelter and no water to slake his thirst, and anyway over the numberless days of his captivity he had grown accustomed to the sun’s hammer. Today was especially hot and humid although he had an idea that it ought to be cooler, but he couldn’t remember why, and there was no wind at all, only the expectation of wind and a pressure in his ears as though someone were squeezing the air all around them. The heavens to the west and north were hazy along the ocean but clear above, while thunderous clouds had piled up and up in a black mass to the east and south.

“Don’t like the look of that,” said Heric to his fellows, nodding to the east. “Must be a mighty tempest. Hsst! I’ve never seen clouds like those, not in all my life.”

“Let’s get on,” said Ulf the carter. “I don’t like being exposed up on this ridge.”

“Dragonback, the townsfolk call it!” snickered Heric. “No doubt some girl or other does creep up here on a dark night with her lover to make dragonback! I’d do it!”

Ulf sighed. “The folk in Osna village weren’t too friendly, neither. I didn’t see no girls making eyes at us. I wish we was going back to Lavas Holding and rid of this stinking creature.”

“Soon enough,” said Heric. “We’ve a few holdings and villages yet to ride through before we’re safe home.”

Ulf snorted, scratching his nose, then spat on the dirt. He was not an unkind man, but he clung to his superstitions. “If we get safe home! Those clouds look ugly to me. These locals aren’t any too happy to see us, neither. They’re too worried about bad weather and a poor harvest to mind that foul creature.”

“It’s him what ruined their harvests with untimely rain and cold snaps! Brought about by his sin!”

“Maybe so.” Ulf shrugged. The other three guardsmen yawned; they followed Heric’s orders and ate their food but otherwise hadn’t any enthusiasm for the job. “But enough’s enough, that’s what I say.”

“Get on!” said Heric irritably. He had a willow switch and with this he slapped his mount’s croup to get it moving.

Ulf had a softer hand on the oxen. The cart lurched forward and they creaked down the path at a steady clop. A scatter of buildings lay beyond the tail of the ridge, arranged around a roofless church and a stone tower, which was still intact. For a bit they lost sight of the ruins as the path reached the base of the ridge, wound through a tumble of boulders and then, turning to loam, struck through a quiet forest, but soon they emerged into overgrown fields and trudged up past broken gates to take shelter for the night in the tower. Ulf watered the oxen at a stream and set them to graze, and the horses were given their oats and let wander within what remained of the fence that had once kept livestock within the compound.

Before building a fire for their supper, they rolled the wagon up along one side of the church, offering a bit of shelter if it stormed. From here he could stare at the curving ridgeline or out over a stony beach onto the sound. The water was so still that it seemed like solid ground, where a man might walk for leagues and leagues on its surface out into the wild lands beyond the guardian islands. Out there, strange creatures traveled and wept, or so he remembered. There were fish with the faces of men and men with claws in their hands who raced across the sea on ships as sleek and effortless as dragons.

Memory came in flashes as sharp and as brief as lightning.

That window, half obscured by a rosebush run wild, opened into the scriptorium. The monastery boasted a precious Book of Unities bound between covers plated with gold and encrusted with jewels.

“I know this place,” he whispered. He saw in his mind’s eye an old man leaning on a stick, dressed in monk’s robes. But he was dead, wasn’t he? Hadn’t they all died? The storm had come in off the sea and slaughtered them all and burned and destroyed their home as it would sweep in again.

“Shut him up, will you?” demanded Heric. “All that babbling about dead dead dead makes me want to hit him across the face, and I will!”

“Poor mad soul,” muttered Ulf, but the carter brought him a crust of bread to gnaw on and, quite unexpectedly, a skin of ale so rich that he had to sip at it and not gulp it down lest he spew it all back up. At first it unsettled his stomach, but then it warmed him enough that he could curl onto the hard bed of the wagon amidst the remains of dirty straw, shut his eyes, and doze as the guardsmen gossiped by their fire in the shelter of the deserted tower.

He heard their voices.

“Don’t like the look of the sky.”

“What, them clouds? Not enough wind to blow them over us.”

“Nay, look at the color of that sky. It’s not natural. There’s some terrible nasty storm coming, mark my word.”

“What bitch’s tits did you suckle from? You’ve been harkening to the madman’s voice.”

“Oh, shut up, Heric. What have you got against him anyway?”

“He stole my girl!”

“A filthy beast like that? Not likely.”

“He was all cleaned up in a lord’s tunic and bright jewels. Of course he stole her! Thief and cheat—”

Thief and cheat, he slipped into darkness and he dreamed.

A noble youth sleeps in the midst of a heap of gold and gems with six companions surrounding him, but out of the shadows creep gnarled figures whose skin gleams like pewter, whispering and tapping, seeking.

Seeking, rivers of fire forge new paths deep within the Earth, and the world trembles.