The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  Liutgard’s voice carried above the fray.

  “Sanglant! Give up this rebellion! Throw down your arms and your father will show you mercy!”

  He could not answer. He broke through and with a dozen or more centaurs behind him galloped along the path, bearing down on Liutgard. She was easy to mark: she wore a surcoat of white and gold, royal colors, although her banner was furled for the ride through the trees. She had loosened the straps of her helmet and pushed it back the better for her voice to be heard.

  As Sanglant closed, she pulled her helmet down and braced. Five men stood between him and the duchess, and he fought furiously to reach her. He took the arm off an ax man and punched another aside with his shield, kicked a third man in the face who was attempting to rise after being bowled over by Fest.

  He closed, and he met Liutgard’s defiant gaze.

  She is my favorite cousin.

  The thought fled, and in its passing he hesitated. Then he struck, but the eagle banner swept down over him before his blow landed, blinding him, trapping him in the cloth. She had caught him. His blade rang against hers as she parried, all the while pressing the banner against him that he might not escape it or bat it aside.

  “To the Duchess!”

  “Get him!”

  “For Fesse!”

  A spear slammed against his breastplate but did not penetrate; a sword glanced off his greave. The ululations of the centaurs guided him as he cut into the banner pole’s shaft. The cloth slithered down off him, falling to the ground and clearing his sight.

  The press of men around him forced him back together with the centaurs who had come to his rescue. They formed a small phalanx and he shouted, calling others to join up with them. Liutgard fell back. Her ripped banner, its broken haft grasped by a sergeant, rose to shouts of triumph.

  From up on the bluff a horn rang out three times. She had only to hang on until Henry reached her.

  “Mark her! Mark her!” he cried to the centaurs at his back. If Bayan could die with an arrow in his throat, so could Liutgard. Fesse arrows struck his shield and one stuck, quivering there. Fest veered and stumbled as a spear grazed his withers.

  Two centaurs fell; the others ululated and first Liutgard’s horse and then the others around her went crazy, and she could not run or fight. He closed.

  A horn sounded to his left. Out of the woodland to the north swarmed many more men, some on horseback, some running. They wore the colors of Avaria.

  “For Henry!” they cried. “Murderer! You murdered our lady! Traitor! Deceiver!”

  In another ten breaths they would be upon him. A glance told him what took his breath away: These were Wendilgard’s men.

  Avaria’s heir had betrayed him.

  He had no choice but to retreat or else sacrifice what remained of his strike force. They lost three centaurs pulling out, but with the enemy fighting their own mounts and using the cover of the trees they were able to pull back out of range where he found Capi’ra bleeding from a dozen shallow wounds.

  He caught his breath while she tallied her forces. His mouth was parched and his neck and back soaked through with sweat. The pursuit came close behind; they had to move on, and quickly. He had to decide what to do. If he stopped even for a moment to think, to consider that he had been so close to murdering his own kinswoman, he would lose all.

  “No worse than I expected,” Capi’ra said in such a stolid and unemotional voice that her calmness struck him like a slap in the face. “No more than twenty dead. Yet we cannot take on such a large force, even broken up as they are within the woods.”

  “No,” he agreed. The truth hurt, but he had to face it. “No. Henry closes in. Wendilgard has moved against us. Adelheid will attack our rear. We must pull the entire army back west and north through the woods before we are surrounded. We’ve lost the battle.”

  XXXII

  WORSE YET TO COME

  1

  IN Alba, at twilight, Stronghand strolled up to the stone crown and stared out over the fens. The horizon on all sides and most of the flat waters and half-drowned hillocks were hidden by a thick haze shrouding the land, but the sky above was so clear that it seemed stretched and thin, almost white. The sun was sliding into that haze, drowning. Soon the stars would come out.

  He ruled Eika and human alike; his ships roamed the seas and struck the coast at will; all of Eikaland lay under his rule, and most of Alba had capitulated and was falling into line. But when OldMother commanded, he must obey. He had reached Alba three days ago. Thoughts of Alain chafed him, always, but he had been given a task to complete.

  “Father Reginar,” he said, greeting the young churchman who waited eagerly and anxiously beside the stone crown together with five other clerics.

  “Prince Stronghand.” Reginar was young, callow, and arrogant, and hadn’t the ability to hide his scorn, but he was no fool. Stronghand’s soldiers guarded him against those who might interfere with the spell he and his comrades meant to weave this night. For that reason, Reginar tolerated the Eika.

  Stronghand bared his teeth, noting how the clerics flinched and stepped away from him. The sun set, and the first stars blossomed in the vault of the heavens. Far to the east, lightning stroked through the sky, although they were too far away to hear answering thunder.

  “I pray you,” said Reginar’s companion, a woman holding a short staff. “If you will allow us, my lord prince, we will begin.”

  He nodded and retreated ten steps down the slope of the hill. There he clasped his hands behind his back as the woman took her place in the weaving circle. Three of his brothers joined him, as silent as mist. Ursuline waited in the camp below, leading the evening song. He heard many voices joined together, singing a hymn. Some of those who sang were RockChildren.

  So. Now it would begin. The alliance the WiseMothers had made would prove wise, or foolish. No matter what transpired, the world would change, as he was already changed.

  There was no going back.

  When evening fell, the allied armies of Lady Eudokia and King Geza made camp in a protected hollow partway up the slope of the drought-stricken hills in Dalmiaka. There was no water to be had for prisoners, only a single flask of vinegary wine passed around between them, a few sips for each member of their party but no more than that. They weren’t given any food at all, not even a dry scrap of wayfarer’s bread.

  Hanna was parched and her head ached from hunger and the unremitting heat. Mother Obligatia lay with a hand across her eyes, pale and breathing shallowly, while Sister Diocletia wiped sweat off the abbess’ face with her own robes. Rosvita stood with a hand on Fortunatus’ elbow as they stared south into the darkening sky. The others clustered behind them, dead silent.

  There were no clouds, not a wisp. The air had such a flat heavy cast to it that it seemed an unnatural color, almost green. The lay of the land allowed them a magnificent view out over a plateau to the south of their position. South lay the sea, although they couldn’t see it from here. A huge lightning storm played across the southern expanse of the heavens, bolts lighting the entire sky, crackling sideways or down to strike the earth. Distant thunder rolled in waves. A net of light sparked and dazzled in the sky as lightning danced around it.

  “We are too late,” said Rosvita.

  “We have failed.”

  Hanna wept.

  Folk along Aosta’s coastal plain northeast of Darre were frightened by the terrible omens that had plagued them in increasing numbers over the last months and weeks, but they welcomed a kindly old woman garbed in simple deacon’s robes and attended by a pair of humble fraters. They did not realize that she was cloaked in a binding that made men’s eyes skip past her and find her unremarkable unless she claimed their notice. They did not see that the fraters carried swords beneath their robes. They fed her and her escort, stabled their mounts, gave her their best bed to sleep in, and in the morning sent her on her way toward Darre with bread and cheese for her midday meal.

  It was often dif
ficult for her to sleep. The amulet blistered her skin, and this evening in particular it burned with a stinging touch that caused her at last to leave the soft feather bed of her hosts and go outside in the hope that the night wind might cool her. Although the skin, where the amulet touched, was red, only a single blister had raised tonight, like a bug’s bite. Nothing to worry about, then. She had only to remain vigilant. Long ago her clerics had woven amulets under her guidance to protect Sabella’s army from the guivre’s stony gaze, and they had developed a terrible leprosy. Certainly in Verna she had learned more sophisticated and careful means of enchantment and sorcery, so most likely the clerics who had aided her then had not been righteous enough to withstand the corrupting effects of the binding’s secret heart.

  No doubt they had got what they deserved.

  Outside she found no relief from the windless heat, however. She stood in the dirt yard between crude door and garden fence and stared at the heavens. Her guards crept out from the stable, rubbing sweat from their foreheads, and after a time every soul in that tiny hamlet—twenty or more, half of them children—staggered from their pallets to stand on the dusty track and stare up at the uncanny lights that played across the stars and the lightning flaring in sheets and chains across a cloudless sky.

  The villagers wept with fear. Even her stalwart soldiers, chosen for their steadiness and loyalty to Adelheid and her daughters, cowered as they watched.

  Antonia did not fear God’s displeasure. She welcomed it. She would survive the coming storm. She would rule the remnant, and all would be well.

  The road Ivar and Erkanwulf followed ran straight west through the Bretwald, a vast and ancient forest in western Saony close to the borderlands where Wendar met Varre. All day, clouds gathered and the sky turned black as a storm approached. At dusk, rain poured down so hard it tore leaves off trees and gashed runnels into the ground. They were stuck out on a path in the middle of the forest, riding in haste, trapped by nightfall, and now sopping wet.

  “We’d best find shelter,” said Ivar. He dismounted and held his nervous mare right up at the mouth, trying his best to calm her, but the storm seemed to shake the entire world.

  “Do you think we’ll survive the night?” Erkanwulf’s voice trembled and broke.

  “Come on!” Fear made Ivar angry. “I’ve survived worse than this! We’ll get back to Biscop Constance. Princess Theophanu charged us to do so, and we mustn’t fail her.”

  “Charged us to take a message, but sent neither help nor advice! And how are you going to get back into Queen’s Grave when you left as a corpse?”

  “We won’t fail her,” Ivar repeated stubbornly, even though he wasn’t sure it was true.

  The rain hurt as it pounded them, and it didn’t seem to be slacking up. He’d never seen it come down like this, as though rain from every land round about had been pushed over this very spot and now, letting loose, meant to drown them. They pulled their mounts under the spreading boughs of an old oak tree. Acorns thudded on dirt and hit them on the head. Rain drenched them. The horses tugged at the reins. Water streamed around their feet, and already the path had turned into a muddy, impassable canal, boiling and angry.

  “Look!” cried Erkanwulf. “Look there!”

  Out in the forest lights bobbed and wove. Erkanwulf took a step toward them and called out, but Ivar grabbed his cloak and wrenched him backward.

  “Hush, you idiot! No natural fire can stay lit in this downpour! Don’t you remember who attacked us before?”

  “Ai, God! The Lost Ones! We’re doomed.”

  “Hush. Hush.”

  The lights turned their way.

  When you have lost, discipline is everything.

  Sanglant allowed himself a grim smile of satisfaction when he reached the edge of the forest with what remained of his army just as dusk spread its wings to cover them. They hadn’t routed. When the call came to retreat off the field, they had moved back in formation and in an orderly manner, without panic. Now, perhaps, night would aid them and hinder Henry. So he hoped.

  He had chosen to remain with the rear guard, letting Fulk lead the battered army northwest alongside Capi’ra and her centaurs. The remnants of the Quman clans, Waltharia’s heavy cavalry, the Ungrians, the marchlanders, and his Wendish irregulars and cavalry followed Fulk and Capi’ra. He held shield and sword, with stalwart Fest beneath him and his banner and the last surviving members of his personal guard close at hand. Together with the griffins, a tight line of Villam infantry and marchlander archers under the command of Lewenhardt was all that separated him from the press of Henry’s army. Although he had no real way to communicate with the griffins, they had sensed his need and during the entire retreat across open ground had roamed along the last rank roaring and shrieking whenever Henry’s pursuing army came too close. Once or twice they pounced, but the press of spears and swords against them was heavy, and they did not like to get so close. Even iron feathers weren’t proof against steel, although few arrows had enough force to pierce their skin.

  Hathui stuck beside him despite the danger from arrows and the occasional spear chucked at them from the front line of Henry’s advancing army. Henry’s banner he could not see, but he recognized Henry’s presence with each step that he retreated and with each lost, dead soldier he had to leave behind.

  “He isn’t pressing us as hard as he could,” he remarked.

  There was some jostling of position as the infantry shifted formation in order to move from open ground into the woods. A man in the final rank fell forward to his knees as a halberd hooked his shield and dragged him out of place. An ax blow felled him, but his fellows screamed and leaped forward to yank him back to safety. A moment later the injured man was carried out of the line past Sanglant and his mounted guard to the wagons, which trundled at an agonizingly slow pace down the narrow road that led through the forest. Two days ago they had followed Adelheid’s army through more open land just south of the forest, on the narrow coastal plain, but open ground gave Henry’s superior forces too much of an advantage. The forest offered cover, yet it had its own dangers. Sanglant recognized this road as the one Wendilgard had used yesterday when she had pulled back her troops.

  His conversation with her, and his encounter with the shadow prince, seemed ages ago. An eternity had passed since she had turned her back on him. If he had known that she would betray her word and attack his rear, would he have cut her down when he had the chance? Could he kill his own kinfolk? Had his hesitation when confronting his cousin Liutgard sealed his fate?

  Doubts would prove fatal. All this he could reflect over later. Right now, with Sergeant Cobbo at his side holding a torch aloft and the tramp of feet and murmur of men calling to each other to check their positions, he could concentrate on only one thing.

  “It was a trap all along,” said Hathui.

  “My father has not lost his sense of strategy.”

  The thought gave him pause. If Henry could still outplay him in the game of chess, did that mean he had recovered his own mind? Had Hathui been mistaken in what she thought she had seen in the palace in Darre?

  No. He believed Hathui. She was an Eagle, trained to witness and report.

  The forest stymied the griffins and with a shrill call they leaped into the air. The downdraft from their wings sent men flying, and with a rush the last rank got itself together and pulled into place as Sanglant waited under the outermost trees for them to move in under the canopy. At Hathui’s urging he moved forward behind the last wagon where the freshly wounded man groaned and moaned beside a half dozen of his injured comrades. The soldiers who had lugged their companion away from the line paused before the prince.

  “My lord prince!”

  “Your Highness!”

  He gave them a blessing and they hurried back to take their place in the rear guard. It struck him, in that gloaming, how strange it was that men were willing to die for the sake of another man’s honor or ambition and yet would struggle to stay alive in the o
ddest circumstances imaginable, in the teeth of any sort of vile disaster. A drowning man who battled to stay afloat might turn around and sacrifice himself without a moment’s thought so that a comrade could reach safety. A mother would hang on with an iron will through weeks and months of starvation only to give the scrap of food that would save her to her beloved child. God had made humankind’s hearts a mystery, often even to themselves.

  Stars glittered above, seen in patchwork through oak boughs. The moon rode high overhead, but it wasn’t bright enough tonight to offer much illumination. Far away to the east beyond the dark mass of the highlands the sky lit and flickered, then went dark. Although he strained to hear, he heard no answering thunder.

  Within the wood they had perforce to spread out between the trees to protect the wagons. The horses had easier going on the road, although it was slow in any case. All around he heard branches snap, leaf litter crunch beneath boots, and men curse as they lost their footing or were slapped in the face by a limb let loose by the man in front of them. Harness jingled. Horses whickered. Some man’s dog whined. Once he heard the griffins call, but he had lost sight of them. Now and again an arrow whistled out of the darkness. Torches burned all along their route as men on foot lit the way for those with horses. These lights burned far ahead and out to either side, marking the limits of his army, while behind the enemy brought up torches as well, so that the forest seemed alive with fireflies.