Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

He managed to open his eyes just as the slender Eika princeling who wore the wooden Circle crouched beside him. The Eika’s movements had the easy arrogance of a creature who has the confidence of perfect health.

“Are you going to kill me now?” asked Sanglant. He was surprised to hear his voice, faint and hoarse. He struggled to lift a hand, to shift his shoulders beneath him, and felt the merest tick in his neck. One hand flicked up, the one with the unbroken wrist.

But the Eika princeling only blinked. His copper-melded face wore no human expression. He had eyes as sharp as obsidian blades, thin nostrils, and a narrow chin. His ice-white hair was itself as bright as the sun that glanced in through the cathedral windows. His thin lips remained set, considering. “No. You are my father’s challenge, not mine. I only want to know why you are still alive. You are not like the other Soft Ones. They would be dead by now of such wounds. Why aren’t you dead?”

Sanglant grunted. The pain was bitter and would remain with him for some time, but he was used to pain. He got an elbow to move and, with a second grunt, heaved himself up onto the elbow. He stared down the Eika, who merely appeared … curious? Sanglant was himself curious.

“What was it?” he whispered. “The thing in the chest.”

The Eika glanced toward the dogs, but they still munched on the bones. One raised its head to growl at him, but as no violence seemed imminent, it turned its attention back to scrounging for the last scraps of meat. “Don’t all the leaders of your people carry the trophy of their first kill with them?” He lifted a copper-scaled hand, turning it slowly to display the tufts of bone claw, filed and sharpened to points, that sprouted from his knuckles. “That is the mark of the strength of their hands.”

“That was his first kill?” Disgust swamped him, and he briefly forgot the pain under a spasm of nausea.

or all her beauty and fine grace, she works patiently toward a brutal goal: with a curved bone tool, she is shaving stout lengths of wood into spear hafts. Obsidian points lie on a reed mat nearby with rope heaped beside them.

Does he make a noise? She looks up as if she has heard him and in that instant as a sudden lance of sun cuts down through trees to pierce across her shoulders, flashing on her necklaces, she sees him.

“Sharatanga protect me!” she exclaims. “The child!” She flinches away from the sight, drops wood haft and bone tool, and gropes for the stone points lying on the mat.

“It is not yet time for him to die,” she mutters to herself, although he can hear every word clearly in a language he ought not to know yet understands perfectly. Grabbing one of the thin blades, she lifts it and raises it high above her and cries in a clear, strong voice. “Take this offering, She-Who-Will-Not-Have-A-Husband. Give life back into his limbs.”

She drags the blade across her palm. Blood wells, dripping down the length of the cut to spill into the air and she shakes the hand out, blood spitting toward him. Behind her, a voice calls a sudden frantic question. A touch of moisture spatters his lips, dissolving there, and as the harsh taste spreads to the back of his throat, the veil closes in a swirling pattern of grays and sparkling stars.

“I know you,” he whispers.

But his voice was lost in the snuffling of dogs, and the touch of familiarity drifted away on the last tendril of mist. Stillness hung like the weight of stone in the vast nave of the cathedral.

Terror hit with sudden force. Had he died? Had he seen, beyond the veil of the living, one of his own kinfolk or only a soulless shade caught forever in the memory of life?

He had always thought his mother’s curse protected him from death. Ai, Lord, it wasn’t true. It had never been true. He had only been lucky.

If this could be called luck.

He strained, listening, but heard nothing except the dogs. Had everyone gone away? Had they deserted the city, leaving to raid downriver into the heart of Wendar? How long had he lain here, dying and living again?

The footsteps that neared him came as soft as a breeze sliding through dead leaves scattered on the forest floor.

Never let it be said that he did not fight until his last breath.

He twitched but could not move his hands. His dogs growled, menacing their visitor. The smell of rancid meat hit him hard, gagging him, and he swallowed convulsively. He heard the damp slap of meat thrown to the floor and suddenly all the dogs skittered off, nails scraping the floor, and they fought over the remains. The footsteps eased closer. He lay there, paralyzed and unprotected, working his throat as if the movement would spread to his numb hands and allow him to defend himself.

He managed to open his eyes just as the slender Eika princeling who wore the wooden Circle crouched beside him. The Eika’s movements had the easy arrogance of a creature who has the confidence of perfect health.

“Are you going to kill me now?” asked Sanglant. He was surprised to hear his voice, faint and hoarse. He struggled to lift a hand, to shift his shoulders beneath him, and felt the merest tick in his neck. One hand flicked up, the one with the unbroken wrist.

But the Eika princeling only blinked. His copper-melded face wore no human expression. He had eyes as sharp as obsidian blades, thin nostrils, and a narrow chin. His ice-white hair was itself as bright as the sun that glanced in through the cathedral windows. His thin lips remained set, considering. “No. You are my father’s challenge, not mine. I only want to know why you are still alive. You are not like the other Soft Ones. They would be dead by now of such wounds. Why aren’t you dead?”

Sanglant grunted. The pain was bitter and would remain with him for some time, but he was used to pain. He got an elbow to move and, with a second grunt, heaved himself up onto the elbow. He stared down the Eika, who merely appeared … curious? Sanglant was himself curious.

“What was it?” he whispered. “The thing in the chest.”

The Eika glanced toward the dogs, but they still munched on the bones. One raised its head to growl at him, but as no violence seemed imminent, it turned its attention back to scrounging for the last scraps of meat. “Don’t all the leaders of your people carry the trophy of their first kill with them?” He lifted a copper-scaled hand, turning it slowly to display the tufts of bone claw, filed and sharpened to points, that sprouted from his knuckles. “That is the mark of the strength of their hands.”

“That was his first kill?” Disgust swamped him, and he briefly forgot the pain under a spasm of nausea.

“So it is with all of us. Those destined to mature into men must prove their manhood by killing one of their nest-brothers. Don’t you do the same?”

“It wasn’t dead. It ran.”