The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

Hammering blows stuttered against the door. The entire structure shuddered. In a cacophony of bells, the younger servant leaped up and slid the door sideways enough to peer through. Torchlight flashed through that gap. Outside, amazingly, night had fallen although Liath had no sense of so much time elapsing while she conversed with Sorgatani.

“Bright One!” The shaman’s powerful voice had the force of an avalanche. Even Sorgatani, unwittingly, trembled.

“Come quickly, Bright One! Prince Sanglant is missing. He has taken the child.”

2

PAIN made his head throb, and he knew that pain of such intensity, touching every point in his body, did not help him think straight. But he would not remain a prisoner in the centaur camp any longer. If he had no help from his wife in making his escape, so be it. He had survived four years without her. He had managed all that time. He could manage now.

“My lord prince! You shouldn’t try to stand, my lord!”

It was astonishing how much agony it cost him to stand. “My clothes, Anna.”

Dressing was child’s work, yet he grimaced as he pulled his wool tunic on over his under-tunic. He could not bend to bind on his leggings, so he sat on the chest and let Anna lace up his boots.

“Where is my spear?”

They had left his gear on the carpet next to his pallet, which suggested that he was not, precisely, a captive, but he ignored these distracting thoughts as he buckled his sword over his back, wincing, and threw his cloak over everything, pushed back on the left shoulder so he could draw his sword. Every time he moved, he felt a thousand daggers pricking him in each muscle; hot fire ran up his tendons. His chest ached horribly; each breath hurt.

“It’s here, my lord.”

“Are you strong enough to carry Blessing?”

“I think so, my lord. But—”

“Pick her up.”

“Her Highness Liathano has not returned yet, my lord. She went out with the shaman—”

“Anna!”

She knelt beside Blessing, got her arms around the girl, and heaved her up. Blessing wasn’t that much smaller than Anna but she was light, and Anna was strong and stubborn. She draped the unconscious Blessing over her shoulders like a sack of grain. Sanglant got a good grip on the spear. The extra weight of the sword across his back seemed like the hand of a giant, pressing him down, but he refused to give in to weakness.

The healer sat placidly by the door, watching his struggles without speaking, her kohl-lined eyes intent with curiosity and her broad face as expressionless as uncarved stone. As Sanglant reached the threshold, the healer rose.

“You are not healed,” she said in her gruff voice. “Not wise to walk.”

“I am returning to my army.”

He stepped out into the camp, leaning on the spear to support himself, and paused there, fighting to catch his breath, as Anna negotiated the threshold with Blessing and halted beside him. Twilight had descended, but the waxing moon gave off enough light that they might walk through the night grass with a reasonable certainty that they could mark their way.

The healer followed them. She was not much taller than Anna but considerably broader through the shoulders. She held a cured sheep’s bladder and a leather flask.

“Are you going to try to stop me?” asked Sanglant, feeling dangerous because his head reeled and the moon shone overly bright and the ground had a disconcerting sway to it.

“Nay, lord. I receive the duty to heal you. I follow you.”

“Don’t try to stop me.” Stubbornness was all the strength he had, that and this coiling, burning anger that drove him. Liath had abandoned him, stolen his victories, and chatted companionably with the creature who had kidnapped his daughter and refused to help him rescue the child from Bulkezu.

Something in this train of thought didn’t make sense, but he wanted to recover under the supervision of those he trusted—he did not want to be beholden to these uncanny creatures and their human companions.

He wanted allies who treated him with respect.

“They’re more like slaves, if you ask me,” he said to no one, or to Anna, as he hobbled through the grass toward the western ridge somewhere beyond which his army camped. The pain of healing had drawn his nerves so fine that he distilled the thread of his army’s campfires from out of the strong scents that surrounded him in the centaur encampment: boiled wool, blood, fermented milk, horse.

“Who is, my lord prince?” she asked, huffing as she walked.

Not many walked abroad through camp now it was dark and those who did made no attempt to stop him. Though he staggered frequently, he possessed sword and spear, even if he needed the spear’s aid to walk. Tents loomed as obstacles but proved easy to walk around although the extra distance took its toll.