The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

Bertha looked past Liath, and laughed. “Not as many as you wished, eh?”

Sanglant seated himself in the chair. “That depends on what they have to say.” The others ranged around him, falling into obviously familiar patterns but leaving Liath unsure how to position herself. Where did she fit in?

She had felt so strong, walking the spheres, but there she had been acting alone. Here, maybe she would never fit into the tightly woven army that Sanglant led. She stared at the sun’s fiery trail, a golden-pink layer sprawled out along the western hills. Ai, God, how cleverly Sanglant had placed himself: it seemed as if the sun set in order to do him obeisance.

Gyasi appeared at the head of a score of riders who pointed at the hooded griffin, exclaiming among themselves. They bore two banners, one marked with three slashes and the other with a crescent moon. Sanglant shifted in his chair, hand restless on his hilt of his sword, as Gyasi dismounted and led six of the Quman forward: four winged warriors and two women wearing impossibly tall conical hats ornamented with beads and gold. The two barbarian women were burdened with more jewelry even than Sorgatani, as if the weight of their gold determined how important they were.

As they advanced, Liath slipped sideways, out of the crowd. Wichman glanced at her as she slid past him, and he recoiled, bumping into Brother Breschius, who constituted the other half of Sanglant’s schola.

“I pray you, Brother, attend me,” Liath said softly, and Breschius obediently walked with her a stone’s toss away from the rest. They halted near a group of soldiers come to stare and to keep their prince safe from the interlopers. “What do you know of these Quman?”

“Little enough.”

“What do those markings mean?”

“It is the mark of a snow leopard’s claw, the device of the Pechanek tribe. They are the ones who abandoned us the day we met the Horse people. The other—” He shrugged helplessly. “—I do not know. Brother Zacharias would have. He knew a great deal, for he had lived as a slave in the Pechanek tribe.”

“I know no Brother Zacharias. Where is he now?”

“He fled with Wolfhere when we were in Sordaia.”

“I heard a little of this tale. Is it certain that Wolfhere betrayed Prince Sanglant?”

Breschius shrugged. “Who can know? Both he and Zacharias are gone in the company of a small, dark man, a powerful sorcerer, so Gyasi says. That’s all I know. I was with Prince Sanglant at the palace of the exalted Lady Eudokia. I did not witness the incident. Only Brother Robert did, who was Lady Bertha’s healer. The poor man died a few months ago of the lung fever. It is a miracle that Prince Sanglant kept so many of us alive. Yet perhaps not a miracle at all. He has the regnant’s luck.”

So he did, as he allowed the Quman representatives to kneel before him. The griffin cowed them; he had been right about that.

“How came you to his service, Brother? I do not recall you from King Henry’s progress.”

“I am not Wendish, my lady. I was born in Karrone but sent early to a marshland monastery. That is how I come to speak Wendish. I lost my hand in the service of the God, for I set out to bring the light of the Unities to those who live in darkness. It’s a convoluted tale, but this much may help you make sense of it. I was a slave among the Kerayit, taken to be a pura by one of their shamans.”

Astonished, she looked at him more closely, but no mystery clung to him. He seemed calm, and confident, a middle-aged man with handsome enough features that, she supposed, might attract the attention of a lonely young woman doomed to isolation. Of course, he had been young then.

“You do not live among the Kerayit now.”

Breschius’ smile was leavened by regret, an old sorrow never quite recovered from. “She died, and I came into the service of Prince Bayan. When he died, I swore to follow Prince Sanglant.”

“Why?”

“Can you not see why, my lady? Look at these Quman. They come to ally themselves with the man who defeated their greatest leader, the man who led the army that devastated their ranks. They see it, too. They will not resist him.”

Yet not every creature that encountered Sanglant succumbed to his charisma. Li’at’dano had not.

“Tell me this, then, Brother, since you lived among the Kerayit. Why do their males remain among the herds?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why is it only the female centaurs rode out to meet us?”

“Ah. Yes. That puzzled me as well, for the Kerayit I traveled with had little intercourse with the Horse people. But I learned the truth eventually. The Horse people are not like us. They are only female.”

“How can they only be female? What does that mean?”

“It means just that. They are only female.”

“How can they breed, then?”

“They have puras, do they not? The stallions. Only the female foals breed true. The males are all colts.”