Part 58 (2/2)
Then it was silent, for the s.p.a.ce of two breaths, or two hundred breaths, impossible to tell because his skin tingled so sharply that the sensation obliterated all his other senses. Blood trickled from one ear as his sight returned, and he pushed up to his knees. His hair had come alive, twisting like the living hair of the merfolk.
Only the Holy One still stood upright, unable to collapse because of the ropes binding her. Her flesh was burned and her black hair, mane, and coat singed. The priest had been thrown twenty paces away, his burned and contorted corpse smoking. Fire danced along the hem of his cloak and died. The obsidian knife lay at the centaur shaman's feet, melted into a puddle of steaming gla.s.s.
Alain staggered to his feet just as the drivers fell from the wagons, clothes burned off their bodies, and stumbled away toward the safety of the woods. One of the horses, caught in the traces, tried to rise, but could not. Alain kicked down a nearby soldier who tried to stand. He made it, barely, to Li'at'dano. As he cut the ropes, she collapsed gracefully to the ground. Centaurs struggled up, their manes and hair standing straight up like that of frightened cats. Sos'ka was not among the standing.
The Cursed Ones were slower to rise. Some crawled away. Other were killed by those centaurs who recovered first, but Alain could do nothing to help them, any of them. All he could do was help the shaman to rise. This close, he saw the horrible bruises across her torso, the marks of a whip, and the mangled stump of one ear, its tip cut clean off.
At last, Sos'ka appeared at his side, singed but living.” In the wagon,” she said. It was not easy to get Li'at'dano in, and a tight fit besides to place a centaur's body in a bed meant for carrying two-legged creatures and their cargo. When they had done, other centaurs had already unfastened the stunned horses and harnessed themselves in their place.
”What did she do?” Alain asked, leaning on the wagon to catch his breath. His hair was finally beginning to settle. A huge scar marked the center of the road.
”Li'at'dano wields the weather magic,” said Sos'ka.” She called lightning.”
A new herd of centaurs galloped up, wielding torches like clubs as they scattered or killed the rest of the Cursed Ones. Only now could Alain hear the distant clash of battle by the fort, fading as wind rose up out the dark, a rus.h.i.+ng in the nearby trees. He heard barking, coming closer.
Sos'ka whistled, and a centaur with burnt-b.u.t.ter-colored skin and a glossy gray coat trotted up. She carried a bow, with a quiver of arrows slung over her back.” He'll need to ride if he's to come with us,” said Sos'ka.
”He is not,” said Gray Coat.” His companions come now, on the backs of Ni'at's foals. They must return to their own herd with this news.”
”Let him come before me.” The Holy One's voice was soft, labored, yet it still sang sweetly. He turned to look. The shaman lifted her head, seeking; she seemed blind, although her eyes were open.
”Here I am,” he said, reaching out to touch her questing hand.
”Yes.” She caught hold of his fingers, her grip uncomfortably strong.” You are here. What is it that you wish to ask me?”
How did she know? ”Are you the one called Liathano?” He stumbled over the p.r.o.nunciation, trying it again.” Li'at'dano.”
”I am called Li'at'dano.” A thin smile teased her swollen lips.” But there is one who will be given my name in the time yet to come.”
”Ai, G.o.d.” Her words shuddered through him like the tolling of a bell. He glanced around at the centaurs looming and pacing, impatient to go, to get their rescued shaman to a place of safety where she could heal. But he still had so many questions.” Where am I, truly?”
”You are here.”
”Where was I before? Where was I when I was alive?”
”You are alive now.”
”Alive where?” The words caught on his tongue, all tangled and heavy. He could barely speak.” Alive when?”
A dozen centaurs pounded up, Agalleos and Maklos clinging to the backs of two roan, mare women. Agalleos looked grim. Maklos seemed, as he dismounted, to be flirting with the pretty creature he had just ridden in on. Torches s.h.i.+fted and bobbed in the darkness as more gathered, retreating from the battle at the fort.
And he remembered: the soldier prince hadn't died. He wasn't a shade. He remained as alive, at this moment, as Alain was.” Ai, G.o.d. I'm not in the afterlife, am I?”
”No,” she said sadly, ”you are not. I found you only because the one you call Liathano dragged you off the path that leads to the Other Side.”
”You mean I was truly dying.” Bitterness took hold of him as he blurted out his next words.” I served the Lady of Battles as she bid me. I died on that battlefield.”
”You did not die only because the fire's child dragged you off the path. I saw you in the crossroads between worlds and lives, in the place where all that was and that is and that will be touches. There I got hold of you, and I brought you here. To this time. To Adica.” Pain creased her features, but she managed to speak.” Who needs you.”
Ai, G.o.d. Adica!
Rage and Sorrow swarmed him then, bounding up fearlessly through the herd of gathering centaurs, leaping over the corpses of the dead, and jumping up to lick his face.
”Down! Down!” he said, almost laughing. Almost crying.
Gray Coat lifted a conch sh.e.l.l to her lips and blew. She bent forward to touch, respectfully, one of the hooves of the shaman.” We must go. Our rear guard cannot hold off the Cursed Ones forever. You must be well away before they march out in force.”
”Yes,” agreed Li'at'dano.” I fell for their traps once. Not again.” She laid her head down and, with a ragged breath, closed her eyes.
Alain lifted his hands from the wagon's side just as it lurched forward, pulled by two strong centaur women. Torches lined the roads, and an eerie whistling rose from the a.s.sembled centaurs as the wagon pa.s.sed through their ranks.
”Come,” said Agalleos, taking Alain by the arm.” We must go with them.”
”But we have to go back to get Adica!”
”The road back is closed to us now. The Cursed Ones will roam everywhere because of this. It isn't safe.”
”But-”
Sos'ka trotted up.” Here is my cousin,” she said, indicating a husky centaur who bore a remarkable resemblance to Sos'ka: shoulders the width of Beor's and muscular arms. Like all the oth J ers, she went naked, not aTc.r.a.p of clothing.” She will carry you for the first part of the road.”
”Come,” said Agalleos.
Rage and Sorrow nosed against him, licking his hands. In the distance, a shout raised from Spider's Fort. Already the ma.s.s of centaurs had fallen in to follow the wagon, torches fading into the distance as they picked up speed.
Alone, he could not make his way back to Shu-Sha's camp through unknown country now surely buzzing with agitated soldiers on the lookout for creeping enemies. In a way, it seemed like losing the phoenix feather was a terrible omen. Anger and fear warred within him, until he remembered the Holy One's whispered words about Adica: ”Who needs you.”
No matter what came next, he would find a way back to her.
AFTER twenty days marching west, the armies moving in parallel columns under separate commanders, they began to get sporadic and possibly exaggerated reports of a large Quman force moving north along the Veser River, closing in on Osterburg. Just as they were. The thought of facing Bulkezu again made Zacharias so sick that he could scarcely bring himself to eat.
Rumors flew violently among the troops, often accompanied by fistfights. Who would command, when the battle came that everyone was hoping for? Henry had said that he meant Princess Sapi-entia to be his heir, her soldiers argued; but he never anointed her, Sanglant's loyal followers retorted. They had heard the king offer Aosta and its crown to Sanglant. Didn't that count for anything? Not if he'd refused it, the answer went. He was still a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, after all, even if he was a great fighter and leader.
No one could answer that objection satisfactorily: he was still a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, after all.
It was rumored that Princess Sapientia was pregnant. When at last the call came down through the ranks that there would be a trial by combat to determine who had the right to command, evi eryone knew that she would therefore choose her husband as her champion. The church sometimes used such trials to determine which person G.o.d ordained as victor when an irreconcilable dispute was brought before a biscop. Only one could win, and that one would win the right to command the combined armies, now almost three thousand mounted warriors, a huge force with more lordly and monastic retinues joining up every day as they marched west, gathering strength and resolve.
The road in this region of Saony was more a wagon track, but at least the local residents at the villages and estates had heard rumors of the atrocities committed by the Quman army to the south and were, for that reason, only somewhat reluctant to give over stores of their newly harvested grain to the army.
They set camp early that night where three gra.s.sy meadows cut a swath of open ground through woodland. Sheep and cattle grazed, watched over by shepherds. The commanders ordered half the beasts taken from the herds to feed the army and sent the rest on their way to discourage hungry soldiers from stealing what they wished under cover of night.
The two armies gathered just before twilight in the central meadow, where a slope ran down to a stream. Gra.s.s grew abundantly. The soldiers took their places on the slope while servants set up a pavilion by the stream's edge for those n.o.bles privileged enough to attend Princess Sapientia: Bayan's Ungrian retainers, Lord Wichman, the Polenie duke Boleslas, Hrodik and Druthmar, Brigida with her levies from Avaria, a lady from Fesse, and several n.o.bles from the marchlands who had joined to avenge the damage done to their lands by the Quman.
Prince Bayan's mother had been brought forward in her palanquin, but of course, with all the veils drawn and curtains closed, no one could see her nor ever would. She had a new slave, one of the ones she'd bought at Machteburg: a well-built Quman youth standing beside one of the carrying poles. Like the other three, he watched without expression as the proceedings unfolded, as though he was both deaf and mute. Had the old woman ensorcelled all those who served her? Had she cast a love spell over Sapientia to make the princess besotted with her husband?
”It does seem odd to me, said Zacharias to Heribert, glancing around to make sure no one was paying attention to them, ”that Prince Bayan commands her army in all but name.” They stood behind the chair, placed to the left of Sapientia's, set aside for Blessing.
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