Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

Fear for her made tears burn hot in his eyes. It gnawed at his gut, but he forced it to keep still, to crawl into his aching arms and legs and feed them with its dark energy. He would catch up to her in Shu-Sha’s camp. By believing it, he would make it happen.

He turned toward his new companions, who eyed him with interest. Two of them looked so alike that for an instant he thought he was seeing double. They wore, like him, neatly trimmed beards, but they had coarse, wiry black hair.

“We should take water. The hounds will be thirsty. I am called Alain.”

The man wearing the jet beads looked him up and down. He had silver in his beard and a swarthy complexion. “I am called Agalleos. These two are my brother’s sons, born together, Maklos and Shevros. Be quick.”

The twins parted the bushes, stationing themselves up and downstream from Alain as he filled all four waterskins. “How did you come to stumble upon us?” he asked.

“The queen saw you in a vision. She sent us. The Cursed Ones have a fort here. She feared they would capture you. Then that would be the end. You would have been sent to walk the spheres. Skau!” He hissed the word, making a sharp gesture at his throat like a knife cutting into the skin.

“What does this mean, to walk the spheres?” The phrase niggled at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t place where he had heard it.

“Hurry,” said Agalleos. “We must get these spirit guides and be gone before dawn.”

They waded back up the creek. Alain smelled death before he saw it. Luckily, the tumble of corpses was mostly hidden in the darkness, five soldiers lying dead under a sycamore tree where Agalleos’ party had caught them. They had been only a few hundred paces behind Alain and Laoina when they had been struck down.

Maklos whistled softly, like a bird, and pointed to the scar cut through the undergrowth where Alain and Laoina had thrashed down from the hillside. The waning quarter moon was rising. Agalleos scooped up mud from the streambed and streaked Alain’s arms, legs, and face with it. They started up with Shevros in the lead.

The twins clearly had experience climbing rugged hillsides; they swarmed up so fast that Alain, less sure of where to place his hands and feet, had finally to ask them to slow down. The moon rose higher. They rested at the abandoned nest and continued on, glancing over their shoulders toward the fort looming darkly on the ridge behind them. They weren’t anxious, precisely, but they were as taut as strings pulled tight. How keen sighted were the Cursed Ones’ sentries?

Shevros reached the cave mouth first. Low growls trembled in the air. Alain scrambled up beside the young man, heaved himself over the lip, and slid down inside. Sorrow and Rage practically bowled him over with their greeting. When he’d gotten them down, he let them drink. Agalleos dropped down beside him, struck fire, and got a torch burning before moving into the cave, wary of the hounds.

“Are your spirit guides too heavy to grow wings?”

“They have no wings. But we have rope.”

Keeping well back from the hounds, Agalleos prowled the cave, thrusting the torch into every crevice and hole in the limestone wall. “It was the Bent People who brought you here? On what manner of ship or beast did you travel?”

“I don’t know.” Alain did his best to describe their journey, but gave up after Maklos, who had climbed down after, snorted loudly, and skeptically, when Alain told of the great marketplace where skrolin and merfolk traded their wares.

“Peace,” said Agalleos sternly. Maklos had a cocky lift to his chin, the kind of young man who believes, with some justification, that the young women of his acquaintance persist in admiring him. “He and his brother are learning to be Walking Ones. That’s made my brother’s son believe he knows more than he does.” His tone changed as he addressed the young man. “Do not forget the lesson of your cousin, who thought he was smarter than the rest of us and became food for the crows!”

Sorrow padded over to Maklos, sniffing him up and down while the young man held very still, one hand twitching at the hilt of his sheathed sword.

“Nay, it matters not,” said Alain, whistling Sorrow back. “I have seen many things hard to believe. Have you seen the Bent People with your own eyes?”

“Not I.” Agalleos shook his head. “Nor any I know. It sounds like a good tale told at the fireside to me. But our great queen Shuashaana knows many things beyond the understanding of simple men like you and I. She is a woman, isn’t she? She is a word worker, a crafter, I think you call it in the language of the Deer people. She is the heir of Aradousa, who was mother of our people, the daughter of bright-eyed Akhini.” He finished his examination of the cave’s depths, easily plumbed, and returned to Alain. “There are caves all through these hills. My grandfather called them ‘the mouths of the old ones’ and he said people would get lost in them and never come out.”

Maklos grunted. “An old man’s smoke dreams!”

Agalleos eyed him sharply. “Say what you will about the old stories. My grandfather was a wise man. I do not ignore his wisdom.” Then he grinned at Alain. “Lucky for us that you’re a Walking One, too. That makes it easy to talk.”

“I’m not a Walking One.”

“How comes it that you speak our language, then?”

“I only know the language of the Deer People, and that of my own country.”

wins parted the bushes, stationing themselves up and downstream from Alain as he filled all four waterskins. “How did you come to stumble upon us?” he asked.

“The queen saw you in a vision. She sent us. The Cursed Ones have a fort here. She feared they would capture you. Then that would be the end. You would have been sent to walk the spheres. Skau!” He hissed the word, making a sharp gesture at his throat like a knife cutting into the skin.

“What does this mean, to walk the spheres?” The phrase niggled at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t place where he had heard it.

“Hurry,” said Agalleos. “We must get these spirit guides and be gone before dawn.”

They waded back up the creek. Alain smelled death before he saw it. Luckily, the tumble of corpses was mostly hidden in the darkness, five soldiers lying dead under a sycamore tree where Agalleos’ party had caught them. They had been only a few hundred paces behind Alain and Laoina when they had been struck down.