The Gathering Storm (87 page)

His ship scraped through reeds and grounded on the muddy shoreline. A second ship, and a third, slid up beside it. Dogs poured over the railing, eager for blood. His warriors leaped over the side and assailed the rampart. Unused masts were carried as rams, and soon they breached the stockade in a dozen places. Yet a hedge of Alban spears and shields filled every gap as soon as it was opened, and Alban archers darted to and fro behind the shield line, releasing shafts at deadly close range as they targeted the mass of dogs. With each push over the rampart, a countercharge drove the RockChildren back, but never all the way back into the water, never all the way back to their ships. More poured up on shore to support those in the vanguard.

The queen of Alba rose above the fray, her wolf’s head helm shining and her banner held high behind her. A rank of tall shield-men as brawny as bears protected her, all armed with great axes.

“Tenth Son! Hold the standard and do not leave the ship. I’m leading a countercharge.”

Against the queen, Stronghand himself must be seen to prevail, just as he had at Kjalmarsfjord been the one to throw his challenger Nokvi overboard to the merfolk.

The sun rose high in the morning sky. Its light made the stones atop the hill seem to glow. From the other side of the
island he heard the flanking ships engage. Shouts and cries rose up into the sky like startled birds.

“Now!”

He pushed into the front line, half a head shorter than most of his brothers. They struggled up over the rampart, clawed feet digging into the dirt to keep their purchase as spears thrust against their shields in an effort to drive them back. Arrows poured in on their flanks, and many of his warriors staggered back or fell, but the rest held their line as others filled in. The Alban line stretched and thinned under the onslaught. Here and there an inward bulge formed as the RockChildren pressed hard down off the ramparts. The toll was grim on both sides, but he had a larger army and one final surprise to unveil.

Once again the queen appeared. She drove headlong into the flank of one of those bulges, cutting the forward forces off from reinforcement. With a score of Hakonin warriors, Flint charged to meet the Albans, but these queen’s men had such unusual size and girth that they could each one meet the charge of an Eika and hold their ground. With shield pressed against shield, the struggle became a stalemate.

Stronghand was caught behind his own shield line as a dozen men filled the breach and another dozen pushed against the Eika, straining, grunting, while all about them axes cleaved shields, spears thrust, and arrows whistled. One huge man stalked into view, looming above the battling line. The queen gave way to let him through.

He was massive, like a tree trunk animated and molded into the form of a man. His helm was closed over his face and only his beard could be seen; curly and green like moss. His ax crashed down onto the head of the warrior standing just to the right of Flint; the hapless soldier’s skull split in two and blood poured out as the corpse collapsed, leaving a gap.

Three men sprang forward to meet the giant, but he swept them aside with a sideswipe of his shield as easily as a man dusts chaff from a table.

The earth beneath their feet trembled.

Again the ax rose and came down. Flint parried the blow with his shield, but the metal rim and wood body splintered and snapped and he dropped down like a stone under the
weight of that awesome blow. Again the ground shook as if it would heave and buckle under the strain. The line shifted; the Eika, impossibly, lost heart in the face of such impenetrable strength.

The giant’s ax rose again, poised to strike and break the line.

The knoll exploded in golden flame and green fumes. A roar to curdle any creature’s blood vibrated through the air. Beyond the stones, the wyvern rose up from the cliff face where it had been interred for centuries, a skeleton no longer but fully fleshed. Deadly venom dripped from its fanged mouth. Its wings beat a thundering rhythm, and clouds of dirt and a spray of poisonous vapor blew outward from the tremendous wind made by wings. It curled its tail tight, using it like a rudder, and swooped down toward the Alban queen.

The dogs ran for the water.

Half of the Alban men fled blindly, although there was nowhere to run, struggling and pushing and trampling as they shouted and screamed in terror. The rest stood transfixed, and only a handful of her guardsmen had the presence of mind to turn to face the new threat.

“Now!” cried Stronghand triumphantly, and with a howl of victory the Eika surged forward to crush the Alban lines.

Flint leaped to his feet and buried his ax in the chest of the giant, then danced sideways as the huge creature toppled and fell flat, crushing two Alban soldiers under his bulk. Stronghand raced through the breach and with a dozen men at his side hit the stunned guardsmen and bowled them over. Above, the wyvern dissolved into a rattling, tumbling shower of bones, the illusion fading in a roar of sound no less impressive than the panicked screams of the vanquished Albans as the Eika killed as many as they could.

Stronghand lunged just as the queen made ready to flee. She parried him and swung a blow with her sword, but he dodged, ducked inside her reach, batted her shield out of the way, and cut off her head. The wolf’s head rolled sideways and came to rest with its muzzle leering at the sky. Her heart’s blood gushed onto the earth from her severed neck.

“Go!” he called to First Son, who was waiting for the command.
A score of soldiers trotted off through the chaos toward the stone crown.

Tenth Son slogged over to him through the sea of dead to give him the standard. “Not as good as Bloodheart’s illusions,” he commented. “The colors were too bright. But the poisonous spray was a nice touch. Do such creatures kill with venom?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen such a beast before.” All around them the killing went on as the remains of the battle swept toward and then ringed the Alban encampment. At the water’s edge, the boldest dogs turned and loped back into the fray. “Come with me.”

The remaining Alban soldiers stood back to back in a tight shield wall that enclosed the central camp and the huge white tent that had sheltered the queen and her lineage. Two women wearing bands of gold around their foreheads stood under a white awning, one very elderly and the other so young she was still a girl. She wore armor but no helmet and did not look strong enough to heft the sword that she held in her left hand. Children cowered at the entrance to the tent, towheaded lads and lasses wearing the garb of noble kinfolk in stark contrast to the two score or more crudely garbed slaves huddled up against the walls of the tent. Caught, as Ursuline the deacon had once said eloquently, “between the Enemy and the hindmost.” They alone were unarmed. Every adult in camp, not just the soldiers, had some kind of weapon in hand, shovels, picks, pitchforks, sharpened stakes, and many a makeshift club. Even the remnants of the tree sorcerers, young and old alike, held their leafy staves as if they were spears and not the staffs through which they wielded their magic. They knew their magic had failed them.

Stronghand beckoned to a trio of soldiers. “Lift me on a shield.”

He set his feet at either side of the round shield, swayed as the soldiers hoisted him, and caught a fragile balance. His own warriors pulled back from the front line, and even the Albans fell silent, weapons at the ready, as they stared up at him. One archer shot at him, but he shifted sideways so the arrow grazed his left shoulder, the merest prick against his copper skin. The others held their fire.

“For some among you,” he shouted, “there can be no mercy today. But those among you who are slaves, hear me. Cast aside your servitude and join us. Let the slave become the master, and the master become the slave. If you join us, you will live and be given land and the chance to start again. If you remain, then you will die with those who have ruled you.”

The girl queen lifted her sword to point at the heavens. Was it fear or fury that transfigured her youthful face? “Kill them!” she shrieked.

Her armed countryfolk, all but the soldiers, turned as one mass and butchered the hapless slaves.

Stronghand leaped off the shield. “No mercy!”

The Eika surged forward.

No mercy they showed, not this day when Alain had been shown no mercy. Black anger scalded his heart, and he himself killed the queens and the screaming, terrified children.

When all the Albans were dead, he sat in the queen’s gilded chair and surveyed the islands while his soldiers assembled before him. Most of the corpses lay twisted on the ground, although he had ordered his men to string up the bodies of the tree sorcerers from the masts of their ships. The dogs fed eagerly. Tents lay trampled; piles of bodies marked episodes of fierce fighting; a few horses and sheep had been killed, and one of the ships had caught fire and now smoldered as his men heaved buckets of water over the smoking deck. The slaughter had an especially pungent smell because so many had died in such a small area.

A lone hound, lean and gray, nosed through the wreckage and paused to lap at a pool of blood, ears down and body cowering. A trio of Eika dogs caught its scent and raced toward it, and it bolted, yipping. The chase vanished from his view but ended in a spate of frantic barking and a squeal of pain, cut short.

It was a bloody field, truly, but all battlefields were in the end. Humankind might glorify war or twist themselves into knots to justify their conflicts as necessary and right, but he knew better. They were a means to an end, one choice made
instead of another—effective, brutal, and if fought on the right battlefield with the right timing, decisive.

He had done what he needed to do to get what he wanted.

Yet he could not erase the stain of Alain’s suffering from his mind. It seemed he could never exult in his greatest victories.

Out on the fens a score of small boats appeared: Manda and her people paddled toward the holy island they hoped to reclaim.

“It will have to be cleaned up,” he said to Tenth Son. “I wonder if they prefer the corpses burned, buried, or drowned in the water.”

“Burning and drowning may pollute what is here,” said Tenth Son. “If I were them, I would ask that the corpses be conveyed to the mainland and disposed of there.”

Stronghand nodded. A score of his Rikin cousins approached, guarding his new allies, whom they had rescued from the shelter built up by the stone circle.

As he waited, he mused, and spoke at last to his companion.

“I am not the OldMother, to grant you a name. But neither am I Bloodheart or any of the chieftains of old, content with what they could grasp for themselves alone. Nay. Why should I stop here? Why should I hesitate?”

Soldiers moved aside to make way for First Son and their allies. They halted ten paces from him.

“As you commanded, Stronghand,” said First Son. “None of the circle priests were killed.”

He moved aside to allow Brother Severus to walk forward alone, leaving his dozen attendants behind him under the protection, or custody, of First Son’s cohort. It was clear that while some accepted their changing circumstances with a stoic calm, others felt less sanguine and the one known as Father Reginar, certainly, looked ready to vomit as he stared at the feeding dogs.

“Lord Stronghand.” Brother Severus spoke Wendish with a strong accent and an arrogant way of clipping off the ends of his words. If the carnage bothered him, he did not show it, but neither did he once look away from the matter at hand. “We have abided by our part of our agreement. Now we expect
that you will abide by yours.” He fished in one long sleeve and drew out a parchment scroll, freshly inked. “We have written up a contract, detailing our agreement. It wants only your mark to seal our bargain.”

Stronghand rose, lifting his standard. With their usual patience, born of stone, the RockChildren waited. “What is to stop me from killing you now that I have you in my power?”

Severus sighed with the weariness of a man who is plagued by the stupid questions of foolish children. “We are sorcerers, my Lord Stronghand. You should fear our power.”

“But I do not.” He gestured toward the field of corpses that surrounded them and made sure to indicate the gruesome trophies dangling from the masts of his fleet. “The magic of the tree sorcerers did not defeat me. Why should yours?”

The corners of Severus’ lips twitched up, but he was not smiling. He lifted a hand casually, and a wind stuttered up from the earth. The awning heaved as though an invisible creature shrugged up beneath it. The cloth of the tents all around them flapped and fluttered. Pennants snapped. The corpse of the youngest queen rolled as a movement within the soil heaved it sideways, revealing maggots where her heart’s blood had pooled on the ground beneath her. Every dog feeding yelped and leaped, as if stung, and like a flock of locusts they bolted into the water and there they stayed, whining but fearful as blood and offal oozed from their muzzles to further muddy the spoiled shoreline.

Stronghand bared his teeth, nothing more. This Severus was not one to be trifled with or underestimated. Unlike most men, he could not be intimidated, and he was no fool.

“We are not so easy to kill,” said Severus as wind rippled the waters and rocked the ships.

Stronghand let the sorcery subside without interfering with it. “Had I wished to kill you, I would have done so already. Be assured that I make no bargain unless I mean to keep it.” He touched the scar on the back of his left hand to his own lips, remembering what had been sealed by blood when Alain had freed him from the cage.

Where was Alain now?

How could he find him, if he had no landmarks to show the
way? “I will mark your contract, but you must first read it aloud for my ears.”

“Of course. Reginar?”

The young man had lost the edge of his arrogance, but he had a measure of courage, too, because he took the parchment from Severus and read in a voice that wavered at first but at length became steady and strong.

“This agreement of mutual aid and alliance spoken and sealed between the Holy Mother, Anne, in the person of her counselor, Brother Severus, and the one known as Stronghand, king among the Eika. In return for the help given to him by Brother Severus in defeating the queens of Alba and granting him material aid in claiming the queendom of Alba, Stronghand agrees to guard those who wish to restore the crown at Wyfell Island; they will abide beside the caretakers of the island in peace and will be allowed to study the ancient art of the mathematici within the confines of the stone circle. In addition, in return for our support and blessing, Stronghand will aid us in restoring and protecting the other crowns we seek, including one in the Eikaland and another in the kingdom of Salia. He will allow missionaries to move freely among his people and among the Alban heathens.”