Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“No. I must journey north, and I mean to take my daughter with me.”

“What is your plan?”

“I’m not sure.”

“We’ll want shelter soon,” said Dog Mask, always alert, his dark gaze sweeping in all directions. “Look how those clouds are coming down from the north.”

“Storm clouds.” Liath noted how swiftly the front was moving in, and how black its face was, and how high the dark clouds had piled one upon the next over the hills.

“Too late,” said Sharp Edge. “A bundle of masks comes to intercept us.”

A score of masks, mostly birds and cats, charged her group at a full run, ready to cut her off if she tried to escape.

“Now what will you do?” Sharp Edge asked. The four mask warriors looked expectantly at her.

“I will negotiate. And hope they possess no poisoned arrows.”

They met beside the golden wheel, which spun in the brisk wind blowing down off the foothills. The clouds had not quite broken over the hills, but they would at any moment like a flood let loose. The air was charged; the hair on her arms tingled, and her eyes smarted.

There were many witnesses, but the only ones who mattered were Feather Cloak, Hugh, Zuangua, and Blessing. Her own attendants stood back ten paces, waiting for the signal they had agreed on.

“I did not send for you,” Feather Cloak said, eyes narrowed with displeasure. “How and why are you come?”

“She escaped,” said Hugh in a low voice.

“Impossible. No one can escape the Heart-of-the-World’s-Beginning. Who freed you?”

“I freed myself. Give me my daughter and safe passage, and I will tell you how I did it.”

“I won’t go,” said Blessing. “I don’t want to go. I’m training to be a warrior!”

“Hush!” said Zuangua.

She snapped her mouth shut.

Feather Cloak shrugged mockingly. “I cannot force the child to go with you. You have fallen into a trap of your own making, Bright One.” She glanced at Sharp Edge and the four mask warriors who accompanied Liath. “Those who aided you will be punished.”

“Liathano is mine,” said Hugh. “So you promised.”

“Mine to give you when I am ready,” retorted Feather Cloak, “and I am not ready.” She beckoned. Two-score mask warriors closed in to trap them within the ring made by their bodies. “Guard these.”

“This was not our agreement,” said Hugh in an even lower voice, almost a whisper. He had hidden his hands in the folds of his robe, and the cloth shifted and rippled over them.

“The sorcerer who raised the galla is dead.”

“So she is,” he agreed, glancing toward Novomo’s walls. Wind raced through the air and whipped his hair back. “She is no longer a threat.”

“You are right to say so,” said Feather Cloak. “I have been too cautious, too kind. No more. I will tolerate no more human sorcerers who can threaten me. Enough!” She raised both arms, tilted her palms to face the heavens. “Masks! Kill them!”

A shock passed through those mask warriors close enough to hear, like an intake of breath. Even Liath was too surprised to react immediately.

“Too late,” said Hugh into this pause. “My trap is already sprung.”

The storm front crashed down like waves breaking. The wind hit. Within the encampment, the gale uprooted stakes and sent the cloth of the shelters into a frenzy, blowing, curling, or torn loose to ripple away south. Thunder boomed, although Liath saw no flash of lightning. This was no natural storm.

“Get down!” she cried.

Her companions dropped flat.