The Gathering Storm (136 page)

“Now!” echoed the Old Ones.

Now.

The Old Ones had searched and commanded, and at the three northern crowns their agents leaped into action. To the north, ice wyrms consumed Brother Severus. To the northwest, an Eika prince called Stronghand cut down the clerics gathered at the Alban stone circle. To the east in the wilderness north of Ungria, Hugh—nay, it was not Hugh at all. Hugh had set another in his place to absorb the backlash he knew was coming, a tattered, mute cleric named Zacharias. That other man flung himself bravely into the crown, knowing it would kill him, but by tangling the threads he knotted
them all across the northern span of the weaving. One side of the spell began to unravel.

Anne did not falter. She was stronger than Liath had imagined any mortal could be.

“Marcus! Meriam! Abelia!”

They did not fail her. Across the southern span the net held steady and with its thrumming architecture to bolster her Anne bent her will to the north and from her place in the center of the crowns she painstakingly wove the threads back together. The spell shuddered back to strength, weakened along that line but not shattered. The Earth groaned and quaked. The heavens ripped, turning white as lightning scorched the sky. The waters of the sea were sucked out and farther out yet by an unnatural ebb tide until a broad swath of shoreline was laid bare, exposing ancient foundations, old roads, shipwrecks, and gasping fish.

There was no one in place to halt Meriam, Marcus, and Abelia because they could not reach them even with the Eika ships. They hadn’t had time. Yet the Old Ones left no contingency unplanned for. Age gave them an advantage Anne did not possess: they knew how to think things through from beginning to end. They had one force left in reserve.

One last weapon.

Liath was only sorry for Meriam’s sake, because Meriam had been kind to her, but it had to be done. Best not to think about consequences.

Swift. Daughter. Act. Now.

Aether poured through the net of the spell down to the Earth. Liath drew this bright, heavenly substance into her and used its power to unfurl her wings of flame. When those wings enfolded her in a sheltering cage of aetherical power, she reached down and farther down yet to the burning rivers—and called fire out of the deeps.

ALONG the outerworks of the ancient fortress Fulk ordered the men. Those who could still heft a shield formed a tight line behind the tumbled stones. As Bwr, Quman, and Ungrians filtered in, they were sent out into the clearing to cover the flanks to ensure safe passage from the line of retreat to the fallen arch of the gate. A dozen wagons trundled up, but the roadway leading up to the gate was impassable because of fallen stones and broken pavement, so after their cargo of supplies and wounded were hauled up into the ruined fort, they were rolled against the others to form a barrier, yet another makeshift wall to hold off Henry when he arrived.

“We’ll be surrounded by Henry’s army,” said Fulk, following Sanglant up the ramp with men bearing torches before and behind.

“Perhaps. The Ashioi are powerful allies. They can’t be killed because they aren’t truly alive.”

“That’s so.” The captain glanced from side to side nervously. Shadowy forms—old women clutching baskets and jars, lean children with eyes as bright as stars—glared at them from the alcoves and hollows where they had taken shelter. When lightning flared, they almost dissolved away entirely into the light. It was easier to detect their presence when it was dark.

“Can you smell it?” At the gate that led into the inner court, Sanglant paused while wounded trudged or were carried past into the shelter of what appeared to be a fallen chapel. “There’s water here. We’ll not be driven out by thirst, at least. You’re in command, Fulk, unless Lord Druthmar is found.”

He hurried down the ramp and back into the clearing, running once he gained level ground, careful of his feet given the many corpses littering the open space. To the south, where Henry’s forces pressed the assault, Sanglant saw signs of his own stragglers losing order and flying. Men passed by, some weaponless, most wounded. Seeing their prince, those without weapons took heart and moved to go back to the fray, prying swords and spears out of the hands of corpses, but
Sanglant ordered them up to the walls. They were being overwhelmed, yet the shadow elves would soon turn the pursuit upon the pursuers.

“Hai!” called Zuangua. “Make haste. We haven’t much time!”

He left Fest with Hathui and Sergeant Cobbo and followed Zuangua as best as he could, but it was hard going once they got into the forest. The shadow prince moved so gracefully between branches that his armor or cloak never snagged and his face was never scraped. He was unhindered by the poor light lent only by shaded starlight, setting moon, and irregular flashes of lightning. He was also silent and odorless in a way most disconcerting to Sanglant who knew men and beasts as much by their sound and smell as their faces and color. He existed, but he had no earthly substance, and more than once Sanglant slammed up against an unnoticed tree that Zuangua effortlessly avoided.

They passed Malbert, still carrying the dragon banner, and a ragged group of grim soldiers marching double-time in tight formation. “Make haste, my lord prince!” Malbert called in an uncanny echo of Zuangua’s words. “There’s one group behind us. I fear they’re lost.”

At last they came upon the rear guard huddled around an overturned wagon. Wounded men had spilled out on the ground, and while some crawled or limped away down the path after the retreating line, Lewenhardt, Sibold with an arrow pierced through the meat of his neck, and six others held out around those of their injured comrades who could not move themselves. No few soldiers wearing the eagle of Fesse or the tricolor of Wendar lay dead or dying from their attempt to overrun these last few guardsmen, but a fresh assault pressed out of the trees on the heels of those who had fallen.

Zuangua danced up to the soldiers, startling them as he jumped up on the wagon and sliced the air with his obsidian-edged spear. The cut left a trail of sparks in its wake.

Lewenhardt, with an empty quiver at his back and his last arrow nocked, stood stunned, unsure if he should loose it at the shadow or at Henry’s men.

“Lewenhardt! Sibold!” Sanglant came up beside them out of the gloom. “Take every man you can carry and go. We have
new allies. We’ll cover your retreat. There’s a fortress ahead where Fulk’s in command. Go!”

Sibold did not answer because the arrow in his neck, while not seeming to hinder his movement or threaten his life, shut him up. Seeing Sanglant, Henry’s men shook off their doubt and with cries and shouts pelted forward. Lewenhardt released his arrow, taking one man in the thigh, then scuttled backward with the rest.

Out in the woods to either side, shrieks rent the air. The Ashioi had reached their prey. Sanglant braced. He was not used to fighting on foot, but he could hold his own. Spears jabbed at him, but the light wasn’t good enough for his enemies to hit true. Above, on the wagon, Zuangua swept his blade above the swarm of men, then struck among them like black lightning. His spear passed through armor and shield and deep into the bodies of his foes. With every blow a man fell, struck not through flesh but through soul, killing the being that animated the mortal shell. Lightning flashed, and flashed again, and a third time in quick succession, and as if it had torn a gap in the stillness a gale blew across their position out of the east. The trees creaked and no few swayed dangerously in that tempest. Leaves and branches rained down, striking men in the head and knocking them flat. A leafy branch crashed right down through Zuangua, and though the wind drove some men to their knees, although Sanglant had to dodge blows and branches alike, the shadow prince stood balanced upon the wagon’s side as if it were a calm day. Men struggled to fight him, but none of their blows had any force against a shade.

Sanglant laughed, knowing how cruel an irony this was. He had found an army that death could not claim.

Lightning flashed and thunder rolled; this time the Earth itself trembled beneath their feet. Men screamed out among the trees. The world had gone black except for bolts of lightning that lit the sky. The moon was gone and all torches blown out by that wind. Only the firefly lights borne by the stalking Ashioi darted within the wood.

As quickly as it had come, the gale stilled. Zuangua trilled a war cry and that cry was echoed a hundredfold throughout
the woodland. That cry had no words but every soul within earshot knew anyway what it meant:

Vengeance.

The Wendish army fled except for the few who fell to the ground speaking prayers or simply weeping at the judgment now laid upon them.

“The hour is at hand, Cousin! The sacrifices are ours to take.” Zuangua leaped from the wagon, thrusting at will deep into the bodies of the men who had fallen to their knees. He gave no mercy; he sought none. Sanglant ran at his heels as a second gale crashed through the forest. The shouts and screams of men rose in counterpoint to the crash of falling branches and the roar of wind in the leaves. They pressed on as branches fell all about them, as the ground shivered beneath their feet, as lightning dazzled in wave upon wave until day and night melded and splintered and here and there in the forest trees exploded into flame where lightning struck and dry limbs and dry leaves flashed and blazed. Smoke curled among the trunks. Men ran, and fell where hissing darts pierced their bodies. A fiery rain pattered down around them, but it was only burning leaves. There was no rain, no clouds. It was as hot as it had been in the daytime with the sun overhead.

There, unexpected, waiting unshaken in the road with a brace of noble companions at his back and his banner planted beside him, stood Henry.

The emperor needed no torch to light his way. He
was
a torch. His eyes gleamed with an unearthly light, cold and brilliant. A nimbus cloaked him, shedding that inner light onto the path and into the air. Where wisps of smoke trailed around his feet, the smoke glowed a ghastly silver.

Sanglant stumbled to a stop. Zuangua paused next to him as a dozen Ashioi ghosted out of the woodland to take up positions at either flank. The hawk-masked woman slipped into place at her prince’s right hand with her bow drawn and her lips pulled back in a feral, unavian grin.

“This is your father?” Zuangua murmured. For the first time he sounded uncertain and even afraid. “I did not know any woman of my people would embrace a daimone of the lower sphere.”

Sanglant wept to see him. Of course Hathui had told the truth. He could smell that this was not his father but an interloper residing within his father’s shell. Perhaps Henry’s noble companions suspected something was amiss, because they stared at the emperor in shock and then belatedly recalled that they must keep track of their enemies, now gathering before them. No human man could shine so brightly, not even one granted the luck of the king. Yet a lingering trace of his father still existed, hidden away beneath the daimone’s presence. If he could reach the man, he might give him the strength to fight against the creature that possessed him.

“I pray you, Father,” he said. “Let us call for a truce. Let us end this war.”

“Kill him,” said Henry.

Sanglant took one stride, another, and broke into a run. Behind, he felt the hesitation of his kinsmen; he marked it, but he was already at full speed and dared not stop. Would not stop.

He would rid Henry of the daimone. He would rescue him.

Henry’s guard shouted. Several lords leaped forward to place their bodies between prince and emperor, but Sanglant took one in the thigh, shattering that man’s mail, and another in the guts, thrusting so hard it split the man’s mail shirt. He twisted the blade and pushed him aside with his foot. Three others fell to bolts of elfshot.

Henry had not even drawn his sword. He stared indifferently at the death of his companions.

“Damn you! You’re not Henry!” Yet Sanglant could not strike his father. He seized him by the gold brooch that clasped his handsome cloak and yanked him, but he might as well have been pulling on a mountain.

Henry did not move until he himself struck. The back of his hand caught Sanglant under the chin and sent him flying backward, lifting him right off his feet. The prince landed hard, jaw cracking. Blood rimed his lips.

Zuangua lunged, but Henry dodged and raked Zuangua with a mailed hand. Bronze armor gave way as three wide furrows of blood opened across Zuangua’s chest as if Henry’s hand bore unseen claws. Astonished, Zuangua leaped back, still grasping his spear. Although the stark wound did not
seem to hurt their leader, the Ashioi were now less eager to press forward.

Sanglant clambered, wincing, to his feet.

“Traitor,” said Henry in another creature’s voice. His voice had the timbre of a bell and it carried far into the forest, out to the ranks of his terrified army. His companions took a step back from him. “You have all along plotted with your mother’s kind. Now we see the truth of it. Duke Burchard. Duchess Liutgard. My noble companions. My captains. Do you see it? Do you mark him for what he is?”

“Murderer!” cried Duke Burchard, rallying. “You betrayed my daughter!”

“Traitor!” cried Liutgard more passionately. “I believed that you were loyal!”

Sanglant stood, unsteady, as the ground shook and he struggled to focus his eyes. His ears were ringing and ringing although there was no thunder. Silence gripped the land, or he had gone deaf but for a whooshing that resolved itself into the griffins, circling above.

Ai, God! The feathers! He grabbed for his knife’s sheath, but in the course of the battle the feathers had torn it right open. They were gone, and half the sheath with them. If only one feather would come drifting down from on high into his hand, he could succeed.

Henry—the daimone—laughed cruelly and lunged forward. Just in time Sanglant stepped aside and parried the blow, but that blow hit his shield so hard that wood disintegrated and he was sent reeling, and tripped, and stumbled, and barely fended off another cut from one of Henrys captains, then went down on a knee. The captain gasped sharply as a dart sparkled in his shoulder.