The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  “Yet it is true that any leader needs a reward,” continued Stronghand. “Let this precious jewel serve to reward you as you deserve, for the victory you have achieved this day.”

  “Do you think to bribe me?” asked Quickdeath, but like any Eika warrior, he hesitated.

  Last Son brought the chest, carved out of ivory, banded with gold, and ornamented with cabochons of pale aquamarine and dark red garnets, and placed it on Stronghand’s thighs, then retreated to stand by the others.

  “I will not have it said I give grudgingly to those who fight in my army.”

  Quickdeath flashed a smile, leaped forward with a laugh, and grabbed the chest off Stronghand’s lap. “Now both your army and your treasure will be mine!” he cried as he flipped open the lid.

  Stronghand’s men knew this as the signal. They froze in place, as did Stronghand, knowing stillness was his weapon now.

  The rash ones did not understand caution, or stillness.

  The ice wyrms were deadly, but fragile. Even starlight burned them. They were sightless, but Quickdeath’s startled movement offered target enough. He dropped the chest. The tiny ice wyrm scuttled across the dirt to the closest thing that moved. And stung.

  Quickdeath’s scream pierced the heavens themselves. His warriors scattered in fear, except for two bold and loyal dogs who jumped growling into the fray, but the sun had already blasted the tiny creature to dust. Stronghand signaled, and Last Son struck down the dogs while Quickdeath twitched and croaked in agony as the venom coursed through his body. Their blood spattered his writhing body.

  “Leave him,” said Stronghand, rising. He picked up the ivory chest and frowned at it while two of his brothers collapsed his chair and made ready to leave. “A pretty thing,” he said, “but the knowledge possessed by the craftsman who made it is worth far more than the object itself, however brilliant these gems shine.”

  The chieftains approached.

  “Did you know he would challenge you?” asked Ironclaw.

  “I knew he was rash, and scorned caution. That was all I needed to know.”

  “How did you come by that ice wyrm?”

  Stronghand bared his teeth to show the jewels drilled there, as sharp as starlight. “Any one of us may brave the sands where the ice wyrms dwell.”

  “Yet how many would think to do so? And survive the attempt?”

  Stronghand let the chieftains think this over. Quickdeath’s warriors would return in time, although by losing their war leader they had lost claim to their victory. They had learned their lesson. They would not rebel again.

  “Come,” he said. “I will see what remains of the town.”

  The detritus of battle looked much the same whatever country he was in. The Salian dead cast into the river bloated just like any other; their blood stained the waters with the same hue. Their famished children bawled and whimpered in the same fashion as any freshly orphaned waif cleft so suddenly from its parent. Flames ate wood regardless, and the drought that had plagued Salia all summer encouraged the conflagration and made it burn even hotter so that by the time he reached the town gates, most of the buildings inside were on fire, smoke and ash rising into the sky to paint it a boiling gray. The gates had been razed, an impressive feat of destruction, and the defenders had created a second barrier with a jumble of carts and wagons, but these, too, had been smashed and pathways cleared through their remains where Quickdeath’s troops had made their charge.

  “Blow the horn,” he said to Last Son when he had tired of walking among the dead. “I want all of our warriors to withdraw from within the walls.”

  He gave orders that the last refugees were to be allowed to depart with whatever goods they could carry, stipulating only that any man carrying a sword was to be killed. Ash dusted his bone-white hair and coated his face and torso. The air stank of burning and death, yet it was not death that bothered him but the loss of this town’s useful purpose, its craftsmen and storehouses, its gardens and tanneries, its merchants and smithies and marketplace.

  The towns were the wheels that would drive his cart; the sails and oars that could propel his ships. A certain belligerent industry smoldered in the towns, at odds with the languorous round of existence that defined the countryside, where most of the common folk labored in the fields in some form of servitude to their noble masters.

  “What will you do with this place?” asked Ironclaw. He had stuck close by Stronghand’s side and seemed, perhaps, to regard him with a new respect.

  “We must not overextend ourselves. But I would rebuild such towns when it is convenient to do so. Let them be filled with artisans and laborers who will pay a tithe to our coffers in exchange for freedom to work.”

  “Why not make them slaves?”

  “A man who is whipped is like a coal beneath ashes—still hot with resentment.”

  “Then whip him until the spark dies.”

  “If the spark dies, then he is no more than a beast, without spirit or thought. Nay, I will make slaves where it benefits me, but let artisans and freeholders grow in such soil that will provide me with a rich crop.”

  “You are not like the chieftains who have come before you,” remarked Ironclaw, but the comment rang like iron in Stronghand’s ears, a decisive stroke. Ironclaw’s caution had yielded; his distrust had given way to approval.

  “No,” he agreed. “I am not.”

  In the distance, out where stragglers fled into the surrounding woodland, a pair of beasts loped out of the forest. Something in their dark shapes triggered an avalanche of recognition. Around him, Eika dogs began barking, churning forward in a frenzy while their masters beat them back.

  “Hold!” he cried, and his soldiers took up the cry as it carried outward so that no one there attacked the creatures who approached. He handed his standard to Last Son and ran toward them, and it was true, after all, that he knew them.

  Their ribs showed, and dirt and leaves matted their black flanks. One had a torn ear and the other limped, but he knew them, and they knew him. They swarmed up with ears flattened and hindquarters waggling. Even starved and weakened, they were big enough to knock a man down and rip out his throat. His own dogs ringed them but stayed clear, warned off by the hounds’ growls and snaps.

  “Yes,” he said, grinning as they licked his hands. “Yes, you have found me. Now you must lead me to Alain.”

  XXVII

  UNEXPECTED MEETINGS

  1

  ROSVITA dreamed.

  Prince Sanglant rides at the head of a great army up to a noble hall. Atop the roof flies the banner of Avaria: the powerful lion. A thirtyish woman regally gowned strides out to meet him. She is one of Burchard’s and Ida’s heirs; the hooked nose and the characteristic droop of her lips confirm it. She is cautious but not unwelcoming.

  “We have much to speak of,” the noble lady says to the prince as she takes hold of his bridle in the same manner that a groom holds the horse so his lord can dismount. “You know what grief my family has suffered. My elder brothers both dead in their prime, fighting Henry’s wars. Now my mother and younger sister have died of the plague, my duchy is ravaged, and I fear that my father is being held against his will in the south, if he is not already murdered as they say Villam was. Henry has not remained loyal to us as we have been to him.”

  A thunderclap shudders the heavens overhead, and Rosvita is borne away on the dark wind, far away, until she sees her young half brother Ivar lying dead in the back of a cart, his body jolted this way and that as the cart hits ruts in the track. Grief is an arrow, killing her; then his eyes snap open, and he stares right at her. His blue eyes are the sea; she fails into the waters as night roars in to engulf her.

  She swims in darkness as the last of her air bubbles out from her lips. Rock entombs her. She is trapped. The memory of starlight dazzles only to unravel into sparks that wink out one by one as the last of her breath fades and she knows she will drown.

  A spatter of cold and damp brushed her brow and melted aw
ay, and a second cold splash kissed her lips, startling her into consciousness, but she still could not see, only heard the sound of the sea roaring and sucking around her as the waters rose and fell and rose again, battered against rocks. She was blind and mute and too weak to struggle.

  Where am I? What has become of us?

  Fortunatus’ dear voice emerged unexpectedly out of the black sea.

  “Sister, I pray you. Can you hear me? Nay, Hanna, it’s no use. I can’t wake her.”

  “We’ll have to carry her. We must go quickly, or we’ll be captured. Those are King Henry’s banners. How came his army here so quickly?”

  “Better to ask how many weeks or months passed in the world while we walked between the crowns. They could not have known where we were going, since we did not know it ourselves.”

  “The Holy Mother is a powerful sorcerer. Perhaps she can see into the future.”

  “That may be, Eagle, but I think it unlikely since she would have to have known Sister Rosvita had the knowledge to weave the crowns. Best to ask ourselves where we are, and why the king and the skopos have led an army to this same shore.”

  Hanna’s laugh was bitter. “You are right, Brother. No matter what the answer, we are in the place we least wanted to be! Hurry!”

  Gerwita whimpered. Ruoda coughed, echoed by Jehan. These sounds roused Rosvita as no others could. They must make haste, or it would all have been for nothing. She could not expect mercy from the skopos for herself and particularly not for her attendants, for whom she was responsible.

  “Ungh,” she said, clearing her throat, trying to force a word out. Her eyes were sticky, but she peeled one open to see a head swaying an arm’s length above her, face turned away as it surveyed a sight hidden to her. The crown of his head was bald, and his hair was thinning, streaked with gray. Even Brother Fortunatus was growing old. A snowflake twirled down to become lost on his shoulder. He looked down, saw her waking face, and smiled as brightly as a child, a beacon of hope.

  “Sister Rosvita!”

  The others crowded forward, an ocean of faces, too many and yet too few. Where was Sister Amabilia? How had she got lost? Others seemed only vaguely familiar to her, as if she had known them once, a long time ago, and then forgotten them. Weren’t those Hilaria and Diocletia from St. Ekatarina’s Convent? Their expressions appeared so anxious that their fear gave her strength, and strength reminded her that Sister Amabilia was surely dead. The old grief, muted now if no less painful, gave impetus to her resolve.

  “I can stand.”

  It took Hanna and Fortunatus to aid her, and her legs trembled under her as she licked her fingers and used the saliva to wet her still-sticky eye until the moisture loosened the gunk that had sealed it shut.

  “How long have I been unconscious?” she asked as she blinked to clear the blurriness from her vision.

  The sky stretched hazy dark above them, and although she found it difficult to get her bearings, she fixed on the spray of light that blanketed the vista before them: a hundred fires, two hundred, even more, laid out in an unreadable pattern that sloped away from them to an unknowable horizon lost to night. Snow dusted the ground, and the wind had a bite. A few flakes spun past.

  “Long enough to pray. It was dusk when we walked out into this place, with only a few stars in the heavens to draw us here. The clouds came in swiftly. We can’t escape by the crown even if you were strong enough to weave it again.”

  “Where are we?”

  They answered with silence.

  She attempted again to get her bearings.

  In waking, she had struggled with confusion, but as she took in the ragged group she remembered everything. Heriburg still clutched the satchel that held the precious books, her History and the copy begun by Sister Amabilia and continued by other hands, as well as their copy of the Vita of St. Radegundis. Besides the clothes on their backs, a few knives, and Hanna’s weapons, the books were all that remained of the possessions they had carried away from Darre. Jerome sat on the one chest they had filled with certain provisions and treasures saved by the sisters from the convent and hauled with them through the crown. For they had not escaped the convent alone.

  “Mother Obligatia! Where is she?”

  “Here I am, Sister.”

  Sister Hilaria stepped aside to let Rosvita pass. With Fortunatus’ aid she knelt beside the pallet on which the old abbess lay. Obligatia was so physically weak that it was always a surprise to hear how strong her voice was and to see the powerful spirit in her gaze—she bore the intensity of a much younger person.

  “So,” said Mother Obligatia. “A gamble, which you won, Sister. You have woven the crowns and brought us here.”

  “If only we knew where here is!”

  “There are not many stone circles with precisely seven stones, as this one has.”

  “Seven in all or seven still standing?”

  The stones rose at the brink of a cliff, and although she could pick out seven massive pillars she could not be sure if others lay toppled along the ground. They seemed to be standing on the edge of the world with the wind beating and moaning through the stones and the waters spilling over rocks far below, gurgling and whispering. Landward, the ground sloped away down a long, gentle distance that couldn’t quite be called a hill. There might have been heights beyond where the army was camped, but without stars or moon it was difficult to tell what was shadow and what the land itself. Just beyond their group Teuda sat beside poor Sister Petra, who rocked back and forth babbling as Teuda soothed her.

  “Seven in all,” said Mother Obligatia.

  “How are we situated?” Rosvita asked. “You saw the last of the setting sun.”

  “The sea lies south, more or less,” said Hanna. “We’re looking north.”

  “It’s still winter, by the look of this snow. You’re sure it is King Henry’s army?”

  “I am sure,” said Hanna. “The skopos is with him.”

  “How could they have journeyed here so swiftly?” Rosvita rubbed her eyes wearily. Fortunatus kept a hand on her back to support her.

  Hanna went on. “When I was in Darre, I was taken before the skopos. The Holy Mother spoke of a crown by the sea in Dalmiaka. Or we might have arrived in southern Salia or even as far west as Aquila.”

  “As I remember from reading the chronicles,” said Obligatia, fingers still woven through Rosvita’s, “there are crowns with seven stones in all three of those places.”

  “I wove east, or I meant to. This must be the Middle Sea at our backs.”

  “We might be in the north,” said Hanna, “but if that were so, we would be in Eika lands now. I don’t see how King Henry could have marched here with such an army.”

  “You agree this must be the Middle Sea at our backs?”

  “It seems most likely, unless there are other seas we know nothing of. Yet then how could King Henry know of them? If we are come to Dalmiaka, this might be the selfsame crown that the skopos spoke of.”

  “The simplest explanation is often the best one,” said Fortunatus. “If a maiden’s belly swells, it was more like a man who got her with child than a shade or an angel, no matter what story she tells the deacon. If the Holy Mother did not know where we were going, then isn’t it likely she came here of her own accord not expecting to meet us?”

  “Ill fortune for us,” whispered Gerwita, sniffling.

  Ruoda coughed, and her spasms set off Jehan.

  “Hush!” said Aurea from the gloom, where she kept watch. “Look there! Torches!”

  With a grimace, and aided by a spike of adrenaline, Rosvita got to her feet. Fortunatus kept hold of her elbow. Standing, she had a clear view of the land northward. A procession approached from the distant camp, no more than two abreast but more lights than Rosvita could easily count winding toward them.

  “They are seeking us,” sniveled Gerwita. “They know we’re here!”

  “They must have seen the threads of the spell sparking,” said Fortunatus.
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br />   “I pray you, let us go!” said Hanna.

  “Where shall we go in such darkness?” asked Aurea, always practical. “We dare not light a torch.”

  “We do not fear the darkness,” said Sister Hilaria. “If you can carry Mother Obligatia and the chest, then Diocletia and I can take turns leading the group. Night seems bright enough to my eyes. Teuda will bring up the rear. Let me take the staff so that I can test shadows and beat aside brush.”

  “A wise solution.” Rosvita grasped hold of Gerwita’s shoulders. “Sister Gerwita, I am still weak from my labors. Fortunatus must help carry Mother Obligatia. If you cannot support me, then you must leave me behind.”

  Gerwita’s choked sobbing ceased. “I shall never leave you behind, Sister! Here, let me put my arm around your back. Can you lean on me? That’s right!”

  Heriburg had the books, which she refused to relinquish. Ruoda and Jehan had themselves to care for, and it was clear that both of the young novices suffered from a severe grippe but would not complain. It fell, therefore, to Jerome to carry the chest and Fortunatus and Hanna to lift the pallet while Hilaria and Diocletia took the van, each carrying a staff. Teuda and Aurea brought up the rear, shepherding Sister Petra, who showed a tendency to stray if she were not led.

  “Have you a rope that you might tie on her?” Rosvita asked gently, and after brief consideration Teuda used Petra’s belt as a leash, so that the woman would not run off and delay them—or give them away.

  In this fashion they stumbled east parallel to the cliff with the sea to their right and the wind stiff against their faces as it blew in off the water. It was cool but not cold. A salty damp pervaded everything, and as they walked, the fine blanket of snow faded into patches and at last gave way as a warm breeze rose out of the southeast. The ground was rocky and tremendously uneven, but there were few enough trees and large shrubs so Rosvita, walking directly behind Diocletia, did not find herself scratched and mauled too often as the nun flattened or broke off any offending branches. Even as Rosvita’s eyes got accustomed to the dimness, she still felt half blind, but the nuns walked as confidently as if they held aloft torches to light their way. Gerwita steadied her, and indeed the girl trudged along like an old soldier, as surefooted as sin. Behind, Jerome tripped once, landing with a grunt of pain and the heavy thump of the chest, but he insisted he was unhurt and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. They had to go on. They all of them glanced back frequently, and Rosvita felt a great sense of relief when the lay of the land cut off any view they had of the torchlit parade that snaked its way ever nearer to the stones.