The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  “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.”

  She chuckled as she tied up the herbs into tight bundles. “Perhaps we do. Shall I hike back down the trail and light a fire for Eagle’s Sight, my lord? Liath may have reappeared. It’s been three nights since I’ve looked.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t feel easy. We’re too close to Aosta now. Liath knows what her task is. We must stay hidden.” He grinned as an unexpected mood of reckless jollity swept him. “It is an irony, is it not? Isn’t that what the poets would call it? The regnants of Wendar kept secret the knowledge of the Eagle’s Sight so that they could make use of the advantage it gave them. Now, protection against that sight has become so commonplace among those of us who know of its existence that the sight no longer serves any function. Yet I find I prefer knowing that I will make my way unencumbered by sorcerous aids or obstacles.”

  “Not even those wielded by your wife?”

  He laughed, because it was both painful and sweet to think of Liath. “I don’t know. I only know that without magic Anne and Adelheid and Hugh could not have ensorcelled my father.” He gathered up the herbs. “Come,” he said, rising. “Only protect me from our guide’s lovely granddaughter, by whatever means necessary, and you’ll have my thanks.”

  Thoughts of Liath stirred his dreams, and he woke more than once, restless, discontented, until those disturbing visions melted into broken dreams of war. A hammer beat out a sword, cruel and jagged in shape. Sparks flew from the glowing iron with every stroke, and each spark drifted heavenward on that holy fire, spiraling and dancing, to become a star.

  All at once he started awake, hearing that ringing beat, but he realized he was listening to the chuffing of the griffins. From the half-open tent he saw the stars twinkling above, yet a haze began to obscure them as he watched, growing murkier, covering the sky. The canvas rustled as if a rain were rolling in, but the air was dry and no thunder sounded in the distance.

  Something is coming.

  As he slipped on his boots and buckled his belt, an odor that reminded him of the forge crept into the air, blown in on that wind. Memories like bright sparks snapped in his mind. The dark spirits, the galla, that he and his mother had battled at Verna three or more years ago had brought with them the stench of the forge.

  He faced into the rising wind. Up and down the camp came awake. Horses stamped and neighed. Dogs barked. Men called out each to the others or pounded extra stakes and rope to fix down flapping canvas. The wind whipped his hair around his neck as he turned to face south toward the height of the road ahead where a dozen soldiers stood sentry duty. The chuffing of the griffins grew in pitch until it became a cross between a yelp and howl. Others woke, grasping their weapons. From the hill they heard the somber tolling as of a bell.

  “What manner of storm is this?” asked Captain Fulk, coming up beside him.

  “Nothing good. Let an alert be passed all the way down the line. We must be ready.”

  He pushed past the men to the hooded griffin; Domina had scattered men by stalking through the tents to stand with its eagle’s head upraised as it called out a piercing challenge.

  A horrible screech answered that call, carried on the wind from the sentries at the forward edge of camp where the road disappeared over a rock rise.

  The sound of a man dying told much about how he was being killed. A quick blow on the field of battle might produce a subtle sigh. A gut wound often elicited screams, a mixture of pain and the realization that one’s life was ending. This scream was that of a man dying in increments as his flesh was flayed off still living bone. Through the darkness, for now the stars were all but gone, Sanglant saw the shadows of men fleeing their posts. One figure, caught in mid-stride, was lifted from the ground where he flailed as if drowning, while he screamed and screamed until his silhouette against the deep blue of night was extinguished. A scatter of bones fell to earth.

  “Torches!” cried Sanglant, coming fully awake at last.

  While few men had senses keen enough to see or smell the galla or taste on their tongue the scent of the blood of dying men which carried on the wind, all could hear. All realized that they were set upon not by a mortal foe but by wicked demons.

  “Your Highness!” Fulk ran up beside him, and even he, who rarely sounded shaken, could barely speak from fear. “I don’t think steel or fire can banish such creatures!”

  Panic bled backward from the vanguard as men cut loose their horses and fled north along the road, or up the slopes, anywhere; a rout unfolded around him in the space of two breaths. Like a rolling mist, the galla came over the hills that sheltered the camp; few of the sentries stationed at the perimeter of camp were swift enough to escape, and as he finally got an arm to move, a leg to move, those slowest in their flight were flayed to the bone and their remains scattered on the gale.

  The griffins howled in unison, and Domina turned her head back to chuff at her mate. Her iron feathers glimmered where the wind ran through them.

  “Fulk! Take the men and horses and retreat north at full speed. At dawn if you’ve had no signal from me, gather our forces. If I am dead, let Lady Wendilgard take command. Save my father.”r />
  “My lord prince.” Fulk did not hesitate; he was too good a soldier. He called out. Anshelm raised the horn to his lips and blew. The call rang above the screams and chaos and soon the tide of men flowed north along the road in a steadier stream, pushing the rear of the panicking army before it. Even the centaurs and the Quman fled.

  Sanglant ran to Argent. “This is your fight!”

  He cut the trusses that held the hood and as the cloth fell away and Argent shook its head to cast off the remaining tangle of ropes, he sawed through the restraining ropes. The toll of bells rang through the air. The hot iron scent of aetherical bodies descended upon them. He heard his name in their heavy voices. Turning, he raised his sword as the ranks of galla swept down.

  “Sanglant! Sanglant!”

  “This earthly realm of pain is no gift, let us free your soul!”

  Their forms were clear, towers of darkness and vaguely humanlike, although their features were blurred and faceless. They had grasping claws and could rend flesh. The smell of iron overwhelmed him as he staggered backward, unable to stand against such an onslaught. A wave of heat washing down before them completed the feeling of being cast into a blacksmith’s white-hot hearth. He struck with his sword, but it passed through a wispy form and a quick hop backward was all that saved him from its touch. The rocky ground twisted under his feet, and he stumbled and fell flat.

  The griffin sprang. It leaped not like a warrior plunging into battle or a wolf in a last burst of speed as it brings down an elk, but rather like a kitten chasing a moth around a candle, surprised at the ease with which the moth is swatted down but greatly pleased when another comes along to play. Its mate yelped and danced along the slope, wings outstretched as she sliced through the crowded galla.

  The galla felt no fear, and so they came on, much to the griffins’ delight. They shrilled no death screams, only whushing sighs of relief as their earthly forms splintered where griffin feathers cut through them; one by one, they were banished from Earth and fled back to the abyss from which they sprang.

  Some few of the galla pursued the army, but with great bounds and gliding leaps the griffins cleared the camp and took off in pursuit of the pursuers. As they overtook each of the galla, they made a great spectacle of pouncing on the shimmering spear of darkness, and with each snap of release, each galla vanquished and banished, the griffins released a rumbling noise that could be mistaken as nothing but the sound of elation.

  Sanglant climbed to his feet. He stood alone amid the ruin of camp and laughed to watch the griffins at play while his heart wept for those of his men who had been murdered in such a foul, cowardly manner.

  And yet, and amazingly, when the galla were all gone and every trace of that iron sting had been blown into oblivion, the griffins circled around and padded back to him. They loomed over him, and Argent bent its head and shoved him playfully as if to say: will there be more?

  “There will be more,” he promised. “So I fear.”

  As soon as it was light, he rode south with two dozen men along the trail while leaving Captain Fulk to set the army in order. The path made by the galla was easy to follow: all living things were dead where they had passed, even the plants. About an hour’s ride south he discovered a hollow lying east of the road where the massacre had happened. Vultures and crows led him to it, for they had gathered in great numbers. Within this bowl of ground fifty or more men had had their throats cut and then been abandoned. Blood spattered everywhere, and it stank. The birds had pecked out all the soft eyes already, and the feast was so rich that he had to kill one before the rest fluttered away reluctantly only to roost close by, waiting.

  Hathui and several of the men were sick; he himself could scarcely stand to look. It was one thing to kill in battle against an armed opponent. This was murder, plain and simple.

  They returned to the army in a grimmer state of mind than they had left it, rejoining them at midday. Captain Fulk had the ranks set in marching order, and as soon as the prince arrived, he made his report.

  The guide and his pretty granddaughter had vanished, but more than one man reported having seen them running north with their packs bouncing on their backs. All but forty-eight men were accounted for, yet the bones they had collected on the hillside and along the road where the galla had attacked seemed to add up to no more than nineteen men. Most likely some had lost heart and run for home. Still, not one among the Quman, or the centaurs, deserted him. Of his own men, Den and Johannes were missing and presumed among the dead.

  “My people took the brunt of it!” Lord Wichman complained. “Twelve men posted on sentry duty in the van, and only poor Thruster is left of them. Look at him!”

  Lord Eddo had a bad reputation and was not liked even by Wichman and his cronies, but Sanglant had to pity the man now. He was a wreck, babbling and weeping without end about demons and fearful whispers and the claws of the Enemy raking into his guts until a potion got down his throat made him sleep.

  “This may be the least of the losses we’ll suffer,” said Sanglant, looking at each of his commanders in turn. “If there are any without the heart to go on, now is the time to leave, without shame.”

  His captains looked beyond him to the two griffins, who lounged up on the rocks, taking the sun, sated and satisfied. Unbound and unrestrained, they had not flown off.

  Captain Fulk laughed. “If such creatures follow you of their own volition, why would we poor frail humans turn away? Your army is ready to march, my lord prince.”

  3

  UNCLE pushed the handcart and its precious container of grain plus a beautifully carved bench for trade along the windy path that led out of the valley. The Brat padded alongside, chattering nonstop about each least sight; she had never left the valley before, not in her entire life. The trail rose, crested a ridge, and descended out of the hills into open country beyond. That journey took them all morning and into the afternoon. Treu followed at his heels the entire time and now and again licked his hands.

  “Look at how wide open everything is! Look, there’s a hamlet! Look, I’ve never seen those people before! Hey, there! Hello, there! We’ve come walking all the way from Shaden! What’s this place called? Obstgarten?” In a lower voice. “Isn’t that a peculiar name, Uncle? Just calling themselves ‘orchard’? Look! I’ve never seen an oak tree so big! We could live inside that trunk if it was hollow! Is it much farther to the miller?”

  His stomach hurt. Although the others had taken cheese and baked eggs for the journey, he was so hungry he couldn’t wait for midday so he had eaten another half a loaf of old bread that morning, the last of the hoard stored in the deacon’s cupboard, too precious to waste although it had become so desiccated that it tasted like rocks and gritted between his teeth.

  This countryside seemed vaguely familiar to him, although he wasn’t sure why, but every time they came around a curve in the path the sight of that particularly unmistakable oak tree whose broad, leafy crown seemed to hide half the sky, or an apple orchard, or a hollow lush with alder made his eyes hurt and his head throb until he thought he would go blind again. His fingers were cold, although it was a late summer day so hot that the heavens had a tendency to shimmer.

  “Storm,” said Uncle, pausing to rest while he wiped sweat off his brow. He pointed southeast where the land was most open. “Coming up that way.”

  Thunderheads piled up to form a huge wall of cloud, white at the top and an ominous green-gray color along the base.

  “We’d best take cover,” added Uncle.

  “Can’t we make it to the miller?” asked Brat anxiously, biting on a grimy finger.

  “We’ll go a bit farther. I don’t see any likely place here and we passed that village too long ago. I don’t feel rain yet.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “We’ll eat when we’ve reached shelter.”

  The leaves danced on the trees, spinning and whirling until he thought he saw daimones at play in the rising wind, laughing and teasing as they sp
orted in the branches of the broken woodland through which they traveled. Meadows and fallow fields cut the woods into clumps and strips where humankind had hacked out a place for themselves; they could never leave well enough alone. They delved deeply where they weren’t wanted and chopped down the forest because it made them fearful, and in time they would flatten and consume everything like rats set loose in a storehouse of grain.

  He walked behind Uncle and Brat and the cart, wondering why his fingers, which had been so cold, were now beginning to burn as if he had thrust them into flames and yet here he just walked and there wasn’t a fire anywhere except maybe the one in his head because his head was burning, too, a conflagration so fierce that although he could see, it wasn’t like true seeing where a man touches an object with his vision and notes and measures that it is there and thinks about it and makes a judgment or a decision of what to do regarding what he has seen, only there were objects before him moving or not moving and he wasn’t sure what they were any more only that he had to avoid smashing into things which was getting more and more difficult.

  “What’s he babbling about, Uncle?”

  “Hush, child. He’s a holy man. Don’t offend him.”

  “He’s scaring me, Uncle! He’s a crazy man! Fire and judgment and the world burning. Is he seeing the end of the world?”

  “Hush, Brat. Hush. Look there! Thank the Lady. It’s the miller.”