Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (57 page)

She noticed the wink of a tiny fire away from the village. Even after the hardships of the road, she could not resist the prick of curiosity. Because the sodden ground cushioned her steps, she got out away from the village and was able to come up behind him without him noticing she was there. By the fire back in the village, soldiers laughed and began to sing.

The old Eagle sat on the ground, on his cloak, and stared into a small campfire with such intense concentration that he might not have noticed her even had she called out to him.

"Lady have mercy," he said in a soft voice. "I am so weary."

At first she thought he knew she was there, and that he had confided in her. His shoulders sagged, and his real misery cut her to the heart. She took a step forward—

The fire hissed. She stopped dead.

There were shadows moving in the fire.

r She almost shrieked, but she had honed her control over many years in the king's schola, and the fear skittered over her like a thousand bugs crawling on her skin and then faded as her vision sharpened—as she began to understand what she was seeing.

"I have failed," he added, speaking to the shadows within. He sounded close to tears. A slow drip, drip, drip of water serenaded them where moisture seeped off an overhanging rock. Beyond it, she could hear a distant waterfall—or was that the crackle of the fire, a whisper...

"Do not worry, Brother, you have done your part well. "

Ai, God! Old secrets hoarded by certain Eagles, the ability to see through fire or stone, an old trick that had, so it was said, fallen into disfavor after the Council of Narvone. But such a trick remained useful to the regnant, kept secret among the Eagles by their pledge of loyalty to each other and to the king. How else could they bring their messages so quickly, know where they were going so clearly, and bring such exceptionally valuable intelligence when they arrived?

Wind moaned through the rocks. Within the fire the shadow moved, shifting like a person swaying before a large fire. A tiny light bobbed impossibly behind, a candle caught within the flames—or only the image of a candle, seen through fire.

"You discovered the one whom we all thought dead, who may yet be a threat to us. Armed with this knowledge, we can act. And despite everything, Brother, you found the girl."

Wolfhere shook his head impatiently. Rosvita could not see his face, but everything she needed to know she heard in his tone. "Found her, and then lost her again."

The wind tugged at her robes, as cold as winter, and she shuddered. Flames shivered in that wind, and for an instant she thought the branches and coals would be scattered. Then, inexplicably, the wind died. Wolfhere rested his forehead on his fists. In the silence Rosvita heard the voice clearly; not young, not old, it was without question female.

"Fear not. She is back in our hands."

WAVES
chop the hull of the ship as they drive north along the landward side of the island of Sovi. Oars beat the sea in a rhythm as steady as the drum of his heart. He shades his eyes against the glint of sun on the waters. Is that movement in the sound ahead? Or only the hump of a rocky islet?

"Ships!" cries the watchman. "To the north, near the fjord's mouth! "

He had hoped to skate in down the long fjord waters and take them unawares, but Skelnin's chieftain is no fool, and not unambitious on his own account. He has scouts, he has ears. He will not go down without a fight. He may even believe he can triumph this day
—
and it is possible he will. But unlikely.

The watchman tolls off the number: one, four, nine, twelve, fifteen longships in all, and a number of fishing skiffs that no one bothers to count. His own forces number only fourteen longships, but Skelnin 's ships come at him like sheep, bunched without order. They will fight with no plan beyond killing.

At his shout, his own ships are lashed together, three abreast like islets on which Skelnin's warriors will run aground, with five to guard his flanks and strike at will where there is an opening. The cauldrons of hot oil are readied; stones moved; spears lowered.

He himself stands in the stern of the middle ship in the middle raft. The captain of each ship looks not at Skelnin's ships but on Rikin 's chief. As the ships close the gap, he lifts his standard as a signal.

In each ship two poles are raised, each one capped with an iron hook. Each hook holds a cauldron filled with oil bled from the ocean leviathans and mixed with certain powders that intensify its burning. At his order, brands are lit from the fire boxes set by the lowered masts, and when fire touches the oil within the cauldrons, black smoke boils forth.

A rain of arrows showers down, and his own men loose a sheet of arrows in answer. A few warriors drop, those who have not tucked under their shields in time; one spins and falls over the side to vanish in the gray seawaters.

The first ofSkelnin's ships reach the platforms, grinding along broadside. Shields are locked and spears bristle to repel boarders as others knock away grappling hooks. The Skelnin RockChildren jeer and cry as they try to leap the gap, but he only watches; he can hesitate one instant more as two more ships move in against his own and as his other ships, too, are attacked.

He won this battle when the cauldrons were lit.

The first rocks fly, crashing against wood. The prow of his ship with its glaring dragon stem clashes with the proud boar's head stem of the Skelnin chieftain's ship. Now they are surrounded on three sides. He lifts the standard a final time.

The cauldrons swing out and a searing waterfall pours down upon the enemy. It spreads into the enemy ranks, spattering on flesh and wood like the wet hot heart of the earth itself, as fierce as the molten rock that runs in the veins of the earth. As the ships scrape each other, his own warriors press the attack where panic erupts among the enemy.

One ship begins to burn. The shield line breaks, and Skelnin's warriors scatter as his own press their advantage, leaping across the gap and striking with their axes to clear the ship. The dead and wounded are thrown into the sea, as he had promised: when he surveys the waters, he sees the ripples that have followed in his wake boil to life as the merfolk net the feast he has promised them.

So the battle runs. Three of Skelnin's ships blaze into fiery death; four are cleared and taken; three try to bank away into flight, but his own ships, those left to guard his flanks, race after them. Four fight on as though courage itself may bring victory.

But he knows better. Fortune favors the bold, and the cunning.

The last of Skelnin's ships are grappled in by three of his own ships, and their crews overwhelmed. The ships of the fisherfolk are of little account. Most have fled already and those that attempted to join the melee were sunk with rocks. But caught in the middle of the battle, Skelnin's chieftain roars on, his own picked warriors fighting beside him with the blind fury of berserkers. That they will lose is evident to all. Now the last dozen of them press forward, and with a great roar of hopeless rage they beat down the shields on the steerward side of his own ship, thrust somewhat out before the others by the tide of the battle. With a stunning leap the hugest of them
—
Skelnin's chief himself—forces his way over the side. The ship rocks wildly behind him, tipping one of his own men and one of Rikin 's into the water. Their heads bob (white as tiny icebergs, and suddenly Skelnin's man is dragged flailing into the depths.

Skelnin's chief shrieks out his fury and knocks aside two of Stronghand's crew as though they are feathers. With a curse on his lips, he charges Stronghand.

Such strength is a weakness. Reliance upon it makes one's mind weak.

As Skelnin's chief bashes his way toward the aft of the ship, clubs and spears and axes rain down upon him. His boar-tusk helm shatters, and the bone of his head shines through his torn scalp like snow upon a peak, but he still comes. Is it possible that fury can transcend the limits of flesh? Poised in the stern, hand upon his own iron-tipped spear, Stronghand watches with interest as Skelnin's chief staggers on. But in the end even the greatest will bleed, and flesh becomes dust just as the great cliffs that loom over them will become sand in the end to be scattered in the breeze
—
or so the WiseMothers say.

Struck behind the knee and pierced through his throat, Skelnin's chief collapses a spear-length from Stronghand's feet.

A roar of triumph lifts from his warriors, a shout that shudders the air and echoes off the distant dark cliffs. Now they will believe in him. Now others will flock to follow his standard. He surveys the carnage without pleasure, but also without pain. This is the way such things are accomplished. For other tasks, other methods will prevail.

Those of the wounded who seem minded to surrender, and to live, he lets pledge loyalty to Rikin fjord. Those of his men who flounder in the sea are fished out, untouched
—
it was the bargain he made. Most of the dead they tip into the water, as he promised, but he lets his own dogs, now unleashed, tear Skelnin 's chief to pieces.

The clamoring of dogs ripped Alain out of his dream. He half fell off the bed. The rug had slipped and the cold -* against his bare feet brought him fully awake.

Tallia stirred. "What is that noise?" she murmured, a soft complaint.

He wore his shift, as he always did to bed—unnatural in a marriage bed, but it was Tallia's wish. Now he fumbled for his sword and sheath and bolted for the door, where servants rolled aside, coming awake themselves as they scrambled to get out of his way. An amulet wrapped the latch, and he got his fingers around the cord and yanked it free. He flung the door open so roughly that the ligatura—blessed and bound by the deacon— that hung from the threshold rained onto him, dried herbs and parchment scraps inscribed with verses from the holy book. He brushed his hair free of them as he ran down the stairs to the level below. The walls stank of incense from the nightly rounds the deacon made with her censer, swinging it back and forth to drive away evil creatures from within the walls. A smoky light permeated the curving stairs from below—the fire of torches.

Fear clutched his heart.

It had been so quiet for a month after Steadfast's death. He had begun to believe that they were free, that the curse was nothing but ravings spun into being by the prince's disordered mind.

The door into Lavastine's chamber was latched from the inside, and servants already crowded there. Several bore torches aloft to light the others, who were slamming their shoulders into the heavy door to force it open. Alain stumbled onto the landing, slipping on the litter of pine needles that had been strewn on the floor to drive away evil. Even through the heavy wooded door the noise of the hounds was deafening.

"Let me through!" The men parted before him, but he grabbed two of the stoutest and all together they hit the door with their full weight, hit it again as inside hounds went wild. One of them yipped in pain, a high yelp, followed by a furious crescendo of barking.

"Terror!" It was Lavastine's voice.

"Father!" cried Alain. With servants on either side, he slammed against the door again. It shuddered, creaking. A ligatura had been laced above this door as well, fastened more tightly, but now its component parts began to drizzle down on them: sage, withered dill, oak twigs, and linen strips written with signs, smelling faintly of cypress.

"Alain, don't come in!" shouted Lavastine. "It's in here."

"Again!" His shoulder was numb, so he turned to use the other. They hit the door, and it creaked again, but did not budge. "My lord!" A soldier came panting up the stairs, carrying two axes. He was followed by another soldier carrying a torch.

Alain grabbed one and set to work with a will, out of his mind with fear, hacking madly as the hounds scrabbled and barked on the other side; so close, so impossibly far. He could not hear the count, except for a string of curses. Ai, God, if the thing had gotten into the room, then hjs father could not risk a dash across the floor to open the doorTHe was alone in the dark, helpless except for the hounds. /

Wood shattered under the blade. Beside him, the soldier wielded the other ax with the trained strokes of a man who has seen battle many times, and indeed the torchlight gave enough clarity for Alain to glimpse the man's face: one of the veterans of the Gent expedition.

"Is it an assassin?" a servant wailed.

"Nay, an evil curse!" shouted another. "The dead hand of the Eika, avenging hisself on the count for his victory at Gent!"

Haze made the landing yellow as Alain chopped. Wood splintered, and his blade cracked through, hung up in the wood. The hounds fell silent except for a whimper coming from one of them.