The Gathering Storm (133 page)

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 difficult 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 oddest 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.

In truth, they were an easy target, but although Henry’s forces harried them, the king—the
emperor
—did not press an all-out assault. Henry, too, was impeded by night.

“He’s holding off,” said Sanglant to Hathui. “He’s waiting. For what?”

“We’re deep in enemy territory without support. Why should he risk losing more men than he needs to if he can pick us off piece by piece at less risk to his own? Too, I think his men are afraid of the griffins.”

“As they should be. But the griffins can’t help us now.”

Lightning turned the sky to a ghastly gray-white. The silhouettes of trees leaped into prominence, and were gone, all except the afterimage. Distant thunder rumbled, then faded. His ears felt full, as though ready to pop. An arrow whooshed past to bury itself into the wood of the wagon just in front of them. Out in the forest, a man yelped as he was struck.

They held their position as they trudged along. The lightning storm flashed and boomed off to the east as they kept moving in formation, not breaking ranks. They had lost far too many men in the field, but he dared not number or name them now. They had retreated over the corpses of their own, but they had not left behind any wounded man who could be moved. Yet the heat had sapped them, and they had abandoned more horses than men. Half their supplies had been lost. Even at such a slow pace and with the mercy of night they could not go on much longer. He was still sweating; the night hadn’t cooled down, and the air got thicker and more humid until it seemed difficult to take in a breath.