Part 11 (1/2)

When the weapons finished rising, they bobbed about for a moment like twigs in a swift-rus.h.i.+ng stream. Some of the spears turned end over end. Some of the swords danced as if sorcerous hands wielded them.

One sword clashed in midair with a battle-ax. The sparks they struck from each other poured down upon the torches. As if the sparks had been water and not fire, the torches died.

Crouching like an animal on all fours, Aybas briefly shut his eyes. He did not see the glow die from the weapons and all of them plunge out of the sky and into their masters' hands.

He did hear the crunch, like a rotten melon bursting, as the battle-ax clove the skull of its owner. He also heard the scream as another warrior's spear plunged through his outstretched hands and drove into his belly.

Every mortal ear in the valley must have heard that scream, and likewise the beast's reply. Aybas would have sworn that the sounds of s...o...b..ring and sucking could not roll like thunder if he did not hear them do just that. A moment later he realized that he was also hearing witch-thunder, which had come without lightning several times before and considerably frightened the wizards.

Both wizards and warriors seemed stricken mute and motionless by the uproar. One warrior finally broke into movement, bending over his screaming comrade and silencing him by cutting his throat. As silence returned, another warrior opened the curtain of the litter.

The woman who stepped forth moved with the grace of a queen, for all that she was barefoot and wore only a soiled nights.h.i.+ft. Her dark hair would have flowed down upon her shoulders under other circ.u.mstances.

Now it made a bramble-bush tangle. b.l.o.o.d.y streaks on neck and ears told where jewelry had been savagely wrenched off.

On one slim arm rode a swaddled bundle. Aybas uttered a short prayer that the bundle was only clothing that Chienna had been allowed to bring away. Then the bundle wailed and the princess changed her grip that she might soothe her baby.

Aybas felt strangely calm. Prince Urras's crying was the first wholly natural, wholly human sound that he had heard in this valley in many days.

Then the drums and that hideous raw-throated trumpet raised their din again. Aybas realized that it was time that he make himself seen, even at the side of the Star Brothers. It would not do to let the wizards wonder if Count Syzambry truly valued the princess. Death would come to her very swiftly if they began to doubt that.

Aybas rose, brushed dirt and the dust of spice-berry flowers from his clothes, and strode toward the Star Brothers with his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Princess Chienna took no comfort from seeing a man in civilized garb approaching her. She had two causes for this.

One lay in heeding Decius's wisdom, likewise that of her father and of her late husband, Count Elkorun. All three had said that false hope in a desperate situation brings deeper despair. Since despair would slay her child as well as herself, she would fight it as long and as fiercely as possible.

The other reason for denying herself hope came from no one's counsel.

It came from knowing that a man such as she saw before her could only be serving her enemies. Count Syzambry, most likely, or another lordling in the tumbledown alliance the count had raised against her father.

Their alliance would fall, the princess was sure. She was not sure that she would see its fall with living eyes, but she swore now to all the G.o.ds that she would see it from beyond death if she had to.

As his mother's rage touched him, Prince Urras forgot that he had been soothed into silence and began squalling again. With a fierce will, Chienna calmed herself and began rocking the baby in her arms.

He went on squalling. She decided that he was probably hungry.

”Is there a wet-nurse among you?” she asked. She wanted to say, ”in this accursed pesthole of a village.”

”I will inquire, Your Highness,” the man said.

Chienna hid surprise. By the Great Mother's Girdle, the man knew the forms of courtesy!

”Do you that,” Chienna said graciously. She bounced the baby up and down. ”He hungers, and I am sure it is no part of your plan to encompa.s.s his death.”

”None of mine,” the man said. He was clad in a mixture of new hill-folk s.h.i.+rt and cloak and the ruins of civilized breeches and boots. His sword seemed a new one that had seen much hard service in little time.

And was there a slight emphasis on the word ”mine”? Chienna dared a look at the... the Star Brothers, they called themselves. The hill wizards, the villains of tales that had been old when her nurse was a babe.

Yes. They seemed to be displeased with the man, as if he had spoken out of turn.