In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

Henry’s corpse lay fixed over Fest’s saddle. Sanglant held the reins.

“Your Majesty.” Hathui bowed before him. “What now?”

“Where is Zuangua?” he asked, surveying the scene. “I see no Ashioi among our number.”

“They did not follow us back this way, my lord prince …” Lewenhardt corrected himself. “Your Majesty.” Like the others, the young archer was filthy, smeared with ash and dirt and blood. Ash pattered down, the sound of its steady rain audible even through the many noises of the army creaking into place, men weeping, men talking, horses in distress, a few dogs barking, and wagon wheels squeaking on the fine layer of ash and grit. “They went off into the trees toward the sea, along the old track they were following before. I don’t know where they’ve gone.”

“I do,” Sanglant said. “They’ve abandoned us and gone home, for I’m thinking that their homeland must surely have returned from its long exile.” It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think of Liath struggling among the living or lost to death. “Hathui, if we build a fire, can you seek Liath through the flames?”

“I can try, Your Majesty.”

He nodded. She took two soldiers and trudged through the pall into the forest, where charcoal would be easy to gather. The trio passed a group of exhausted men stumbling out of the trees. The ash so covered every least thing that it was impossible to tell what lord or lady these soldiers had served before the night’s cataclysm.

All his, now. Every one of them. With his dying breath, Henry had willed Wendar and Varre to his favorite child, his obedient son, the bastard, the one the king had long wished to succeed him despite all opposition.

“We cannot see into the future,” Helmut Villam had once observed. That was a mercy granted to humankind, who would otherwise drown in a sea of unwanted knowledge filled with reversals, tragedies, unhoped-for rescues, and the endless contradictions of life.

He remembered the passion in his own voice that day by the river, below the palace of Werlida, when he had spoken so decidedly to his father the king. “I don’t want to be king. Or heir. Or emperor.”

And now, of course, he was. King, and heir to an empire he had never desired.

“What of your Aostan allies?” he asked his cousin Liutgard, nodding also at the old duke, Burchard.

The duchess shrugged, wiping ash off her lips with the back of one filthy hand. Her hair was streaked with ash, tangled and dirty; impossible to tell how fair it was under all the soot. “They fled west along the coast instead of following us,” she said. “Their allegiance was to Adelheid, not to Henry. There are yet stragglers, and a few wandering confused among our troops. For the rest, those who live, I believe they will all fly home.”

With a sigh, Sanglant rubbed his stinging eyes. “Has there been any report of the griffins?” he asked those standing nearest to him. Clustered behind Hathui were a dozen Eagles rescued from Henry’s train.

In truth he needed no answer. If the gale had not killed the griffins outright, then it had surely blasted them far away. It seemed impossible for any creature in the air to have survived the storm.

Ai, God, he was so weary that he had begun to hear things, a strange rushing roar that nagged at his hearing until even the folk surrounding him heard as well. To the south, shouts of alarm rang out above the snap and crash of branches as though a second wind raked through the forest. Scouts left behind to stand sentry over the road tumbled into the clearing.

“The ocean! The ocean has risen!”

He gestured to Lewenhardt and Captain Fulk. Together they ran along the road into the trees, and before they had gone far they saw an astonishing sight. Water surged inland through the trees, losing depth quickly until it lapped and sighed around their boots. As they stared, it drained away, most into the ground but in a few stubborn rivulets back toward the sea, dragging twigs and leaves in its undertow. Sanglant knelt and brushed his fingers through a remnant pool as the roar of the receding waters faded. He touched the moisture to his lips, spat out the salty brine.

“This is seawater.”

“That is not possible,” said Captain Fulk. “No tide can rise so high. It’s a league at least—more!—from here to the ocean!”

’s army formed up to his right: Duchess Liutgard and her cavalry out of Fesse, Duke Burchard and his Avarians together with his daughter Wendilgard’s remaining men, and others from Saony and the duchies of Varre. The terrible storm and the blast of burning wind had hit Henry’s army as hard as his own.

Henry’s army no longer.

Henry’s corpse lay fixed over Fest’s saddle. Sanglant held the reins.

“Your Majesty.” Hathui bowed before him. “What now?”

“Where is Zuangua?” he asked, surveying the scene. “I see no Ashioi among our number.”

“They did not follow us back this way, my lord prince …” Lewenhardt corrected himself. “Your Majesty.” Like the others, the young archer was filthy, smeared with ash and dirt and blood. Ash pattered down, the sound of its steady rain audible even through the many noises of the army creaking into place, men weeping, men talking, horses in distress, a few dogs barking, and wagon wheels squeaking on the fine layer of ash and grit. “They went off into the trees toward the sea, along the old track they were following before. I don’t know where they’ve gone.”

“I do,” Sanglant said. “They’ve abandoned us and gone home, for I’m thinking that their homeland must surely have returned from its long exile.” It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think of Liath struggling among the living or lost to death. “Hathui, if we build a fire, can you seek Liath through the flames?”

“I can try, Your Majesty.”

He nodded. She took two soldiers and trudged through the pall into the forest, where charcoal would be easy to gather. The trio passed a group of exhausted men stumbling out of the trees. The ash so covered every least thing that it was impossible to tell what lord or lady these soldiers had served before the night’s cataclysm.

All his, now. Every one of them. With his dying breath, Henry had willed Wendar and Varre to his favorite child, his obedient son, the bastard, the one the king had long wished to succeed him despite all opposition.