Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

PROLOGUE

OFF to the southeast, thunder rolled on and on. But in the broad ditch where three youths and two gravely injured soldiers had taken refuge from the battle, the rain had, mercifully, slackened. A wind out of the north blew the clouds away, revealing the waxy light of a full moon.

Ivar listened to the sounds of battle carried by the breeze. They’d scrambled down into the ditch from an embankment above, hoping to escape the notice of their enemies. They hadn’t found safety, only a moment’s respite, caught as they were behind the enemy’s line. The Quman warriors would sweep down from the earthen dike and slaughter them, then cut off their heads to use as belt ornaments. Or, at least, that’s what Baldwin seemed to think as he babbled confusedly about Quman soldiers searching the huge tumulus and its twisting embankments, lighting their way with torches.

From his place down in the slippery mud at the bottom of the ditch, Ivar didn’t see torches. There was a lambent glow emanating from the crown of the hill, but it didn’t look like any torchlight he had ever seen.

Sometimes, when a situation was really bad and there was nothing you could do about it, it was just better not to know.

“Careful,” whispered Ermanrich. “This whole end is filled with water. God’s mercy! It’s like ice.”

“Come on, Dedi, come on, lad,” coaxed the older of the two wounded Lions to his young companion, but the other man didn’t rouse. Probably he was already dead.

Ivar found the water’s edge, cupped his hands, and drank. The cold cleared his head for the first time since he had lost his fingers, and finally he could sit back and survey just how bad their predicament was.

Moonlight cast a glamour over the scene. The pool of water had formed up against a steep precipice, the face of the hillside. Over the course of uncounted years a trickling cataract had worn away the cliff face to expose two boulders capped by a lintel stone. Starlight caught and glimmered in one of the stones, revealing a carving half concealed behind tendrils of moss. Ivar negotiated the pool’s edge so as not to get his feet wet—not that he wasn’t already slopping filthy with mud—and traced the ancient lines: they formed a human figure wearing the antlers of a stag.

“Look!” Baldwin pushed aside the thick curtain of moss draping down over the stones to unveil a tunnel that cut into the hillside.

Their side had lost the battle anyway, and they were cut off from Prince Bayan’s retreating army and all their comrades, those who had survived. How could an ancient tumulus be worse than the Quman? Ivar squeezed past the opening, wading in. Cold water poured down into his boots, soaking his leggings and making his toes throb painfully. He couldn’t see a thing.

A body brushed against him. “Ivar! Is that you, Ivar?”

“Of course it’s me! I heard a rumor that the Quman fear water. Maybe we can hide here, unless this pool gets too deep.” The ground seemed firm enough, and the water wasn’t deeper than his knees. Plunging his arm into the freezing water, he groped for and found a stone, tossed it. The plop rang hollow. Water dripped steadily ahead of them.

Something living scuffled, deep in the heart of the tumulus.

“What was that?” hissed Baldwin, grabbing Ivar’s arm.

“Ow! You’re pinching me!”

It was too late. Their voices had already woken the restless dead. A wordless groan echoed through the pitch-black tunnel.

“Oh, God.” Ivar clutched at Baldwin’s arm. “It’s a barrow. We’ve walked into a burial pit and now we’ll be cursed.”

But the voice made words they recognized, however distorted they might be by the stone and the drip of water. “Iss i-it you? Iss i-it Ermanrich’ss friendss?”

“L-Lady Hathumod?” stammered Baldwin.

“Ai, t-thank the Lady!” Her relief was evident despite the blurs and echoes. “Poor Ssigfrid wass wounded in the arm and we got losst, and—and I prayed to God to show me a ssign. And then we fell in here. But it’ss dry here where we are, and I think the tunnel goess farther into the hill, but I wass too afraid to go on by ourselvess.”

“Now what do we do?” whined Baldwin softly.

“Let’s get the others and we’ll go as deep as we can into the hill.

The Quman will never dare follow us through this water. After a day or two they’ll go away, and we can come out.”

“Just like that?” demanded Baldwin.

“Just like that. You’ll see.”

They trudged back to the mossy entrance, where they found Ermanrich shuddering and coughing as he clawed at the moss. GUE

OFF to the southeast, thunder rolled on and on. But in the broad ditch where three youths and two gravely injured soldiers had taken refuge from the battle, the rain had, mercifully, slackened. A wind out of the north blew the clouds away, revealing the waxy light of a full moon.

Ivar listened to the sounds of battle carried by the breeze. They’d scrambled down into the ditch from an embankment above, hoping to escape the notice of their enemies. They hadn’t found safety, only a moment’s respite, caught as they were behind the enemy’s line. The Quman warriors would sweep down from the earthen dike and slaughter them, then cut off their heads to use as belt ornaments. Or, at least, that’s what Baldwin seemed to think as he babbled confusedly about Quman soldiers searching the huge tumulus and its twisting embankments, lighting their way with torches.

From his place down in the slippery mud at the bottom of the ditch, Ivar didn’t see torches. There was a lambent glow emanating from the crown of the hill, but it didn’t look like any torchlight he had ever seen.