The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“The men have cleared the trees away, my lord prince,” Hathui said now, riding up to him where he waited on the road. She eyed the granddaughter, rolled her eyes, and went on. “Two were felled by axes. You can see the bite of a blade in their trunks.”

“Bandits?” he asked.

“No bandits up here, my lord,” said the old guide, “unless they’ve come north from Zuola because of hard times there. No man winters up here. That’s a death sentence.”

“The monks winter over at St. Barnaria’s Pass.”

“Well, they ain’t rightly men, are they? Clean-shaven like women—begging your pardon, my lord—and women can take the cold better, that’s for certain.” He patted his granddaughter fondly. She was a sturdily built girl of no more than fifteen or sixteen years with the thick buttocks and legs of a person who hikes and climbs every day. She smiled at Sanglant, displaying remarkably even, white teeth, sign of strong stock. Hathui snorted. He flushed and hastily turned his attention to other things, tilting back his head to survey their route.

They had reached the pass’ summit yesterday after struggling through a complex warren of stones cast across the road in stages that had seemed to be the remains of three different rockfalls. Now the road wound almost level at the base of a barren valley, which they had mostly climbed out of before this latest barrier had brought the vanguard to a halt. They had crossed through a land of rugged mountains capped with bare rock which dropped down on this side in north-facing slopes where green alder bushes grew along the furrows and alpine rose on the higher slopes where water did not collect. There were no patches of snow on the slopes at all, not even in the shade. According to Ucco, they had come three quarters of the way across and tomorrow would start their final descent through the foothills of Zuola and, beyond that, down through steep valleys onto the northern coastal plain of Aosta.

“Is it possible they know we are coming?” he asked, eager to discuss war rather than lust.

“They might know,” Hathui admitted reluctantly, “if it’s true Wolfhere betrayed us.”

“We must suppose that he did. To believe otherwise is folly.”

Her frown was answer enough to a question she didn’t like the sound of, no matter how many times it bowed before her. “Wolfhere is a good man,” she insisted.

He shrugged. Behind, the male griffin huffed, and Sanglant dismounted.

“We’d best stop for the night,” he said, wiping his forehead. There hadn’t been rain for weeks. Even Ucco had difficulty finding enough drinking water for their entire army and all their stock.

“I’ll let Captain Fulk know, my lord.” Hathui reined her horse away.

The male griffin was limping, and even the female—bigger and stronger—suffered from the altitude.

“I didn’t think they’d hurt like this just from climbing,” said Sibold, standing clear of the huffing griffin as he watched the prince approach. “They never seem to catch their breath.”

“Domina hasn’t flown once since we reached the mountains,” said Sanglant. Lewenhardt had shot a bear yesterday and Sanglant fished a hank of meat out of a barrel and walked right up to the griffin so that it fed out of his hands. He respected the sharp curve of its beak, but more and more he had come to think of Argent as a cross between his horse and a jessed eagle. Though it loomed larger than a warhorse, and could send him flying with a swipe of its foreclaws, it never did, and he felt easy around it now, although Domina still held herself aloof. After Argent fed, he stroked its downy head-feathers until it rumbled with pleasure deep in its chest, rather like a cat. Still, its breathing was labored, and it huffed twice more, too much like the dry cough of a man who has caught a fever in his lungs and can’t squeeze it out.

“We’ll stop here for the night and let them rest. It’s not more than two days’ march to Aosta.”

“Thank God,” said Sibold. A few other soldiers had gathered, those brave enough to stand watch on the griffins, and they echoed Sibold’s words. They wanted out of the mountains. They wanted action, not this endless long journey.

Yet Aosta wouldn’t bring peace.

They set up a rough traveling camp. The Quman had a way of pitching canvas lean-tos to hold off the prevailing wind that the rest of the army had adopted, and after feeding the griffins Sanglant made a tour of the camp: the Villam auxiliaries under the command of Lord Druthmar; the Saony contingent who chafed under the difficult rule of Lord Wichman; a ragtag collection of fighting men out of Eastfall and Westfall whom he had placed under the able command of Captain Istvan; Lady Wendilgard and her Avarians; the centaurs and their Kerayit allies; the Quman clans, stolid and silent, and their strings of horses; his own personal guard, now numbering more than two hundred.

His soldiers had grown used to the routine of the long march. The horses were cared for first while sentries took up places along the road. A line formed at the infirmary, mostly men complaining of loose bowels and sore feet. There was plenty of light for men to collect mountain pine for firewood, although little enough meat or porridge to cook over those fires. They would live off the land in Aosta and make enemies by doing so, yet he could not regret that they would march down onto the Aostan plain at harvest time, when they might be assured plenty to eat and bread every night.

“You’re quiet, my lord prince,” said Hathui when they returned to the van where the griffins had settled down to rest like big cats curled up for the night.

“So I am.” He shaded his eyes to sight west along the mountain ridges, then turned to examine the wandering line of camp stretching north along the roadway. The rear guard lay out of sight because of the curve and dip of the valley. “We’re vulnerable, strung out along the road like this. Ah! Look there!”

A rich harvest of herbs grew beyond the alder, and until it grew too dark to see he plucked saxifrage, chervil, and wolfsbane.

“What virtue do these herbs have, my lord?” Hathui asked, working alongside him to his direction.

“Different virtues for different plants, but all of them can aid men who take wounds in battle. Wolfsbane can do more.” He glanced up at the sky, which was darkening as night swept up the valley. Only the peaks were still lit. “It can poison a man, should it come to that.”

“Poison is a traitor’s weapon.”

“Some name us traitors. Would you poison a man, Hathui, if it meant that a thousand men would be spared death in battle?”

She sat back on her heels. “You’ve taken me off my guard, my lord prince. How can we measure one man’s life against a thousand?”

“We do so all the time. Every day.”