by Kate Elliott
Drums and a horn call signaled the charge. Welf pressed forward as their horses broke from walk to trot to gallop, a roll like thunder filling his ears. He pushed his horse past the prince, so that he took the brunt of the impact. A lance struck him right over the heart. As he fell, he heard a cry of grief and anger, and a man’s hoarse voice shouted Ekkehard’s name in surprise.
Ai, Lord, it was Prince Sanglant!
The ground slammed into him, and the last thing he saw was the hooves of his horse, coming down on his head.
If she remained still, her feathers would blend into the silvery grass and only the keenest eye could observe her. Sanglant was intent on her mate, a silver-hued griffin asleep on the sunning stone.
The prince’s spear was poised as he prepared to strike. His eyes calculated his next move, as did hers. She would not let him kill her mate.
She pounced, he spun to meet her, but the advantage was hers. The shaft of his spear shattered under her attack, and her weight bore him to the ground. Her mate awoke at the noise, hearing her shriek of triumph. Calling shrilly, he shook himself free of sleep and leaped forward to assist with the kill.
Her claws pressed the prince’s shoulders to the ground. But he hadn’t given up. His knee jabbed hard into her belly, but she would not free him. She could not let him kill again.
Slewing her great head to one side to get a better look at him, she recognized at his throat a scar taken long ago, half hidden now by a braided gold torque. She had thought him dead, once before, and had died for her mistake. She screamed fury. The Angel of War danced at the edge of her vision. Razor sharp, her beak would cleave flesh easier than any sword could.
She would not die at his hands again. And again.
And again.
A growl rose in his throat as he tensed to fight her off. He yanked an arm free and grabbed desperately for her throat, ignoring the blood leaking from a dozen cuts scored along his fingers as he clawed for purchase at her iron feathers. She struck at his vulnerable eyes.
The last thing she heard was his scream as she fell free of the mirrors, spinning and tumbling in the blast furnace that was the wind of war.
Ai, God, she had killed Sanglant. She groped at her throat, thinking to find a bruise where he had tried in that last instant to choke her. Instead, her gold torque was missing. Gone.
With a scream of fury, she lifted heavenward on her wings of flame, beating for a sliver of light, like the moon’s crescent, that drifted far above her. The world below had gone white as a blizzard of snow and wrath obliterated the plain, the dead and those who killed them, all vanished beneath a mantle of white. A broken spear rolled over the icy waste, caught by the wind’s cold hand.
Mirrors winked like flashes of lightning half hidden by storm clouds. A wild laughter boomed like thunder, fading into the distance.
“Now you are bitten. Who has won, and who has lost?”
“I have escaped you,” cried Liath triumphantly as she neared the silvery boundary and saw a gap splitting open in the gleaming shell that marked the sphere of Mok.
But Jedu’s laughter had already lodged in her heart. And she could still feel blood, and life, spilling from her unmarked throat.
XV
EAGLE’S SIGHT
1
BULKEZU and his army cut a swath of misery and destruction through the southern portion of the dukedom of Avaria before turning north as summer waned, but Hanna never saw Prince Ekkehard weep for his father’s ravaged kingdom until the day the vanguard of Bulkezu’s marauding army came across the ruins of the palace of Augensburg. As the abandoned palace came into view, populated now only by weeds, insects, and a pair of red deer that sprang away into the forest, the young prince began to cry silently, tears streaming down his cheeks. Had he been there that day when Liath had sent the palace up in flames, desperate to escape Hugh?
Hanna could not now recall. She only remembered the terrible flames and the blasting heat that had scorched her skin when she had dragged Liath away from the inferno. Where were Folquin, Leo, Stephen, and her good friend Ingo now? Had they survived the winter in Handelburg? Would she in the end find herself facing them across the field of battle? Would any Wendish army ever confront Bulkezu, or would he simply march across the length and breadth of the land sowing desolation and terror for as long as he wished?
Bulkezu called a halt. His soldiers and slaves busied themselves setting up camp for the night and turning the horses and livestock out to graze on the lush grass. The site had been entirely abandoned. The forest had encroached upon the open space cleared around the palace grounds. It was a beautiful place, calm and peaceful if only because this one afternoon, at least, there would be no killing.
Hanna had seen enough killing to last her ten lifetimes. Each death was a scar cut into her heart, untold wounds that never really healed, only scabbed over with time.
“Sit here, my lord prince.” Lord Welf steered Ekkehard to a camp chair, swiftly set up by one of their concubines, a blonde girl with the look of a cornered rabbit. As Ekkehard let the girl wipe the tears from his face with a scrap of linen, various slaves erected one of the round Quman tents behind him, deploying an awning to spare him from the afternoon sun. It was a hot day. Hanna sat in the shade of a tree, savoring the tickle of grass against her wrists as she leaned back. Her ever-present guards waited as patiently as stone to either side, not so close that they pressed in on her but not so far that they couldn’t drag her down within ten steps if she made a run for it. One of them chewed on a stalk of grass as he surveyed the birds flitting among the trees. The other two stood there as stupidly as sheep, an easy illusion to cling to until one looked into their eyes.
Bulkezu came whistling cheerfully out of his tent, the first to be erected, leading the prettiest of his concubines, a plump young woman with waist-length black hair almost as luxuriously thick as Bulkezu’s own. This was Agnetha, whom Bulkezu had picked out from the crowd of prisoners that awful twilight when plague had flowered in the mob. She was one of the few to survive that terrible night and she had, amazingly, saved a dozen of her kinsfolk from the slaughter. Bulkezu brought her to Ekkehard and indicated that she should kneel before the young prince. Hanna rose hastily and strode over.
Boso strutted up, as self-important as a rooster. “His Gloriousness cannot bear to see you snivel and whine like a sick child, Your Highness. Therefore, to raise your spirits, and your cock, he’s giving you one of his well-used cunts.”
Hanna had long since grown accustomed to Boso’s coarse and arrogant way of speaking, but she often wondered what exactly Bulkezu did say to his interpreter and how much the Wendish man was twisting his master’s words. As Hanna slid in behind Lord Frithuric, poor Agnetha caught sight of her but could do no more than look at her beseechingly. The young woman was too wise to protest, or even speak or cry, as she was handed from one man’s tender mercies over to the other’s.
However phrased, the offer dried up Ekkehard’s tears. He was well supplied with women, of course, but Agnetha bore about her a certain cachet beyond the perfumes she wore because she was the best-looking woman currently with the army, and Bulkezu’s besides. It was a grand gift to Ekkehard’s mind, and he almost fell over himself thanking Bulkezu while the young woman knelt silently at his feet, trying hard to show no expression at all.
As Ekkehard nattered on, and Boso translated, Bulkezu began to look bored. A discreet hand signal, and quickly enough horses were brought for the Quman prince, his bodyguard, and Hanna. Even Boso was left behind as the small party mounted and rode up to the hilltop to investigate the ruined palace.
Hanna saw no signs of rebuilding. The fire’s destruction had been so complete that there wasn’t anything left to salvage. Two years of rain and wind had washed the mantle of ashes off the hill, but blackened spars still stood in tribute to the sprawling palace that had once taken up half the height. The walls of the stone chapel were more or less intact, scored with the marks of fire. The shattered glass win
dows gaped vacantly and the roof had fallen in. Roof tiles littered the nave. Bulkezu poked through heaps of tiles with a spear but found nothing of interest except a bronze belt buckle, warped from the intense heat, that had once been fashioned in the shape of a springing deer.
He laughed softly. “Would that I had such power.” He glanced up, caught by Hanna’s silence, and peered at her with an unnerving stare. “Do you know how this came about?” He gestured broadly, encompassing the hilltop ruin.
She pressed her lips tightly together.
He smiled. “A broken lamp, oil spilled, or sorcery?”
At times like this, a fit of reckless fury would overtake her, a wish to slam her fist into that handsome face and gallop onward to freedom. But he had too many guards, more carefully placed since her last attempt to escape, for her to try again.
He enjoyed her anger. He fed on it, and it made him laugh. Although, of course, almost anything could make him laugh.
“Sorcery,” he replied with satisfaction, as though she had answered him.
Maybe she had.
He whistled sharply. After a bit his shaman, Cherbu, trotted up on a piebald mare whose blotched coat bore a vague resemblance to the patchwork cloak and trousers worn by its rider. The two men exchanged a few words, after which the shaman dismounted, got down on his hands and knees, and proceeded to sniff like a dog, following an unseen trail through the ruins. Bulkezu followed him on horseback, singing in that irritating nasal tone the Quman used for their favorite songs to entertain himself as he waited. Hanna recognized a song he had once translated for her:
“Has anyone suffered so much misfortune as I have?
Who pities the orphan, or the little bird that falls from its abandoned nest?
It would be better to be dead than motherless.
But fate has already played this song.
If my mother rose from her sickbed and kissed me now, it still wouldn’t bring me any joy.”
He paused. The shaman had vanished. Hanna looked around wildly, but she saw no trace of Cherbu or his patchwork cloak among the fallen beams and barren ground. The noises from camp, below them, seemed suddenly faint, shrouded. A cloud had covered the sun, granting respite from its glare, yet a thin line of light slithered through the wreckage like a snake.
An owl hooted. White flashed off to one side, and Hanna turned in time to see a huge owl settle onto the highest wall of the burned chapel.
“I’m here,” she whispered, wondering if will alone, chiseled to a point and flung outward on a thought, would be enough to alert the owl to her presence among the Quman.
It raised its wings once, like a salute.
One of the guards drew, aiming an arrow at the huge bird, but Bulkezu spoke three soft words.
A billowing cloud of ash blew up from the ruins, making Hanna’s eyes sting. She blinked rapidly, shielded her eyes with a hand, and when she dared look again, the owl was gone. The shaman, coated with a white layer of ash over his patchwork clothing, stood in the midst of the ruined barracks where five Lions had died.
“There,” said Bulkezu. “That’s where the fire started. He can taste it, you know.”
“Taste what?”
“Magic.”
“Why does he follow you, if he’s so powerful? What do you give him to make him ride so far?”
Bulkezu laughed. God have mercy, how she had come to hate that laugh. “Cherbu is my brother. Our mother commanded him to serve me. Are you Wendish so uncivilized that you would disobey your own mother? It’s true, isn’t it, that you fight among yourselves more than you fight anyone else.”
This struck him with such force that his laughter redoubled and he actually had to wipe tears from his eyes.
While she stewed, stoking her anger, she watched Cherbu pick through rotting planks and leaning wooden pillars singed by smoke and flame. Cold cinders crumbled under his hands as he marked a patch of ground with soot, then stamped around in a curious dance, singing in a reedy voice that occasionally slipped low.
Until a word she knew well slipped out of his throat, strangely accented but impossible to ignore.
“Liathano.”
She started, betraying herself. Bulkezu whistled. Cherbu shook himself, slapped the ground, and returned, humming under his breath. He had a habit of regarding his listeners out of one eye, tilting his head to the side like a bird. Bulkezu questioned him at length, but the shaman replied in short phrases and finally shrugged, ending the conversation.
“Where is she gone, this Liathano?” Bulkezu demanded with a frown, turning to Hanna. “My brother says she is a female, but that he can’t smell her out. Where is she gone?”
At last Hanna smiled, letting anger bloom. “Why should I tell you?”
Her cool defiance provoked him; easy to see, when his nostrils flared like that and his horse shifted nervously under him, catching his mood. But his wrath only made her more stubborn. She stared him down as his dimple flashed, as he laughed but stroked the hair of his trophy head instead, almost caressing it. His brother spoke to him, glancing once at Hanna, and Bulkezu jerked as if he’d been struck. Without a word, he reined his horse around and rode down to camp. The set of his shoulders betrayed his rage. Half his guards followed him. The other half remained behind, watching with blank expressions.
But Hanna laughed, flushed with the satisfaction of having finally won a single, tiny victory.
Cherbu clucked his tongue, shaking his head from side to side so that his earrings swayed. When he spoke, although she couldn’t understand the words, the tone could just as well have been her mother scolding Hanna and her two brothers if they whispered during Mass: “You know better than that…”
“I know, my friend,” she said, and was surprised that she considered him no enemy, not really, despite the gruesome ornaments he wore. After all, she had not seen him lift a weapon or cast a harmful spell, not once. His cloak of magic protected Bulkezu from magic; that was all. He regarded her with a puzzled grin, since he couldn’t understand a word she was saying. “I know I shouldn’t make him angry. But right now it’s the only weapon I have.”
Such a frail weapon to fight back with, especially when fighting back made no sense. If she hadn’t been Sorgatani’s luck, well, then she’d be dead.
The light of the setting sun streamed golden across the open space, illuminating each suffering soul slumped in the grass, two or three hundred of them mixed in among the livestock. It was hard to count with the sun’s light shining in her eyes. By killing hundreds, Bulkezu had slaughtered the plague in their midst, but that didn’t mean he’d stopped taking prisoners.
Her anger was a small thing to lay as an obstacle in his path, but sometimes you had to make the most of what little you had.
By the time she got back to camp, Bulkezu seemed to have forgotten about the incident. A feast was laid, cheese and freshly baked bread salvaged from the small estate they’d overrun that morning, roasted venison, and mare’s milk. Bulkezu never drank much wine or ale, preferring to watch Ekkehard and his companions drink themselves into a stupor. In general, Quman soldiers were a dour and unexciting bunch, not one bit up to the standards of carousing that she had grown accustomed to riding with Wendish or Ungrian nobles.
It was, thank God, possible to step away from the feast and relieve herself in what passed for privacy, given the three soldiers who never strayed more than ten steps from her. The Quman were not in the habit of digging ditches to use as privies, but at least, like well-trained dogs, they tended to choose one area at each place they camped for these necessities. She remained at the outskirts of camp for as long as she could and watched the stars twinkling in the sky above.
Where was Liath now?
She had no way to look for her. She did not dare attempt to use her Eagle’s sight for fear that Bulkezu would discover that she possessed a skill, not quite magic but stinking enough of sorcery, that he might try to force her to use it on his behalf.
A woman hurried out from the te
nt, making choking noises. She dropped to her knees a few paces from Hanna and threw up, mostly wine. The acid smell stung the air, then faded.
Hanna dropped down beside her. “Are you well?”
It was Agnetha. She grasped Hanna’s hands. “He’s not happy with me,” she whispered frantically. “I did what you said. No flattery. No whining. No crying. But he sulked. Listen to him now.”
Ekkehard had gotten hold of a lute and started singing, obviously drunk. He had a clear tenor and a poet’s talent for shaping a phrase.
“Once in this bright feasting hall
I laid eyes on the most beautiful of women.
Yet now I return and find her gone
the walls fallen,
the hearth silent,
no ring of cup or lilt of song
to cheer my heart.
Death has swept away all that I cherished.”
“What shall I do?” whispered Agnetha, retching again, nothing but dry heaves now. She clutched her stomach. “Ai, God, he said he would throw me to the wolves, to the common soldiers. Tell me what shall I do, Eagle, I pray you.”
“Lady shield you,” murmured Hanna. A simple village girl like Agnetha hadn’t the least idea how to be a concubine. And why should she have? Hanna had learned how to negotiate and observe at her mother’s inn; those skills had served her well at court. “You can’t treat each man the same. What Bulkezu liked isn’t what the prince will want. Flattery for Prince Ekkehard. Tell him anything as long as it’s praise. If he casts you off, beg to go to one of his companions. Manegold is vain and shallow. Welf is short-tempered but feels shame for what they’re doing. Benedict is sharp. He’ll see through bald flattery, and he likes to hit his girls. Frithuric likes men as well as women and mostly wants to be petted and kept comfortable. He’s decent enough.”