Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (38 page)

"Ai, God." How could he answer them? Yet such a thrill of joy throbbed through him at the thought of men he could lead, comrades to live and fight beside, that he was at once stricken to tears at the memory of his brave Dragons.

Anne answered before he could find his voice. "Nobly offered. But where we go, they cannot follow. We cannot support so many in idleness, and in idleness they would grow bored and difficult. Nay, the contemplative life is not for such as these."

The men muttered at her words, but they waited for
his
answer. So many faces turned up to him: all of them young and newly come to soldiering except for two weathered-looking men, one of whom was Captain Fulk. Sanglant met each man's gaze and nodded at him, and each in turn responded in his own way: with an answering nod, a cocky grin, a serious frown, a bob of excitement, a tightening of the jaw as resolve set in.

"Sister Anne's words ring true enough," he said finally. His heart ached for what had been offered but was not his to take. Not now. Not yet. "I mean to go into seclusion...until my father's anger toward me cools. I would gladly lead you, my comrades, but it would be no fit life for you, and it is true you would only grow bored and contentious, and you would fight among yourselves."

"Then what are we to do, my lord prince?" asked Captain Fulk, almost pleading.

He owed them consideration. They had offered him everything that mattered to a soldier: to stand beside him. He could not simply dismiss them. "Go to Princess Theophanu. I tender you into her care. She keeps her own counsel, and she will watch over you. She rides south to Aosta soon enough, where you will see plenty of fighting. When I have need of you, then I will know where to find you. I will fight no battle without you at my side."

"We will do as you wish, my lord prince. But we will be waiting for your call."

He walked in among them, then, took each man's hand between his own as a sign of their fidelity. He recalled the names of those who had been at Ferse, and asked the names of the others. All twenty-seven had strong shoulders and an iron glint in their eyes: Men who dared defy the king to ride with him. He admired them, and he knew their worth.

Anne and Liath had already mounted, Anne upon one,of the mules like a good churchwoman and Liath on the smaller horse, leaving Resuelto for his greater weight. They waited for him, and in the end he had already made his choice. It was time to go.

But God knew how hard it was to leave behind his life as prince, lord, and captain, made doubly hard by the oaths just freely offered to him.

"We will wait for you, Prince Sanglant," repeated Captain Fulk, and the men murmured those same words and by speaking them made them binding. Then, as if Fulk understood that their presence was a chain binding the prince, he directed the soldiers to disperse, which they did with dispatch and admirable efficiency. They had even muffled their horses' hooves in cloth to cover the sound of so many riding out.

Sanglant mounted Resuelto and hurried to catch Anne and Liath, who had already vanished through the gate and now rode down the road through the lower enclosure. The pack mules plodded behind them, burdens swaying in a steady rhythm. Of Anne's servants he saw no sign. An owl hooted but remained hidden in the darkness. The waning gibbous moon rode low in the west, and its light made the road gleam as though an en

J

chanter's hand had laid that light down before them to make their way easy—and safe from anything that might harm them. Anne did not even look back as they crossed out of the lower enclosure and picked their way down through the ramparts. Liath glanced back once at the palace grounds now high above them, walls washed a pale gray under the moon, and she looked relieved more than anything. But he wept softly, in grief for the estrangement from his father and in regret for the brave men he had left behind.

TONE TIME

HJE
gathers stones, none larger than his fist, none smaller than a hen's egg, and collects them in a leather pouch. The stones must not be too large, all together, for him to carry, but they must not be too small to serve his purpose
—
and there must not be too few of them. Here in the northlands, stone offers a rich harvest, and although his specifications are strict, he has no trouble finding what he seeks.

He hears footsteps, but it is only one of his slaves, come to report. He sends the slave on her way. Armed with this intelligence, for he has made of his slaves a net of listening posts to seek out his rivals, he makes his way up along the vale to the spot where his last two rivals face off.

He finds a vantage point between two boulders. With interest he watches the duel: First Son of the First Litter, calm, canny, and strong, waits as Seventh Son of the Second Litter circles in aggressively. Too aggressively. He watches dispassionately as the two brothers meet, clash, rip, and leap back. Seventh Son is quick and ruthless. First Son has greater strength, but he wastes it not, for the duel is still young. He lets Seventh Son feint and

circle, lunge, parry, and retreat, and hoards his own strength meanwhile.

Another lunge, another blow. Blood flows, eases. First Son wears a gash in his left shoulder. Seventh Son limps. They begin again.

In the end it is simply a matter of time. Seventh Son is fierce, but fierceness does not count for everything. First Son did not escape from the ruin of Gent with a large portion of his warband intact by being foolish. Nor is he foolish here.

In the end, it is Seventh Son who lies bloody and torn upon the earth. Fifth Son-does not wait for First Son to cut the braid that will mark his victory, but retreats from his hiding place and cuts through trees to the path that leads up to the fjall, to the nest of the WiseMothers. He passes the newest WiseMother, still on her slow journey to the fjall, but he does not stop to speak to her. He must have time if he is to defeat First Son.

At this elevation all vegetation has been scoured away by the unceasing wind and the unforgiving chill, all but moss, moss everywhere except on those slopes where there is a recent fall of scree. Snowmelt streams flow downslope, as clear as air and bitterly cold. Everywhere rock lies, tumbled in the streambeds, smothered in moss, blanketing the slopes; rock is the mantle that shrouds the deep earth and the hidden fire.

Here an arm of the fjord has sliced into the high fjall, and a stream spills over a cliff that plunges straight down like a knife cut. The falling water booms down to the tongue of fjord. The cliff he stands on is mirrored in the still water far below. For a moment, he sees his own shape, indistinct and tiny, a transitory blot upon the ancient land, and then the wind moving over the water obliterates him
—
as will his own mortality, in time. But not this day.

A dog howls in the distance. A hawk soars above the opposite cliff face, joined by a second hawk, then a third.

Wind stirs on his shoulders, and he turns away from the edge and makes his way to the ring of WiseMothers. He watches the ground with care, because here on the fjall the silvery nets of the ice wyrms change from season to season as their paths change, snaking lines of glimmering sand, each grain a crystal shard of venom: Their trail.

It is a peculiarly still day, wearing away to what passes for night at this season. Here on the fjall the wind usually cuts unceasingly, sawing and grinding away at the rock. Today it rests quiescent, stirring only occasionally as if it, too, awaits the decision soon to be reached on the nesting ground of the WiseMothers.

The land dips to make a hollow, where the Rikin WiseMothers congregate and whisper. Their thoughts reverberate into the heavens, and touch OldMan, the moon, the priest who in ancient days was banished to the fjall of the heavens as punishment for his transgressions. That is why the moon alone among all the heavenly creatures fades and dies, and is born again out of darkness. Such is the fate of all sons of the RockChildren.

The WiseMothers stand hunched in a rough circle, huge bodies ossifying, too heavy now to move. Each one stands with her toes just grazing on the expanse of silver sand. The sand lies smooth; no trace of the ever-present wind touches it; no debris lies scattered from recent storms; no scallops ripple its surface, for the nest of the WiseMothers is impervious to wind and guarded by the ice-wyrms.

Only the WiseMothers know what they are incubating here.

For a long while he watches the glimmering hollow. Nothing stirs. Nothing.

But that is illusion.

Even the small creatures that haunt the fjall know to avoid the nesting grounds.

He takes a rock from the pouch and tosses it. Where it hits the sand with a thunk, a shudder ripples out from it actually visible in the surface just as a tossed stone ripples still water. As the vibrations stir the sand away on the other side, where the rock fell, he slides one foot onto the hard surface and follows with the second.

The stone tilts, rocks. A gleaming claw, translucent like ice, surfaces to hook the stone. That fast, stone and claw vanish. He stops dead still. The sand where the stone hit eddies, smooths over, and lies still again.

He waits.

He dares not move.

He does not fear the claws of the ice-wyrms. They are fragile creatures, sightless, as thin as rope, at home only when they burrow deep in their nests of crystallized venom. Even starlight burns them.

But there is no creature the RockChildren fear as much as the ice-wyrms. No death compares to the wretched fate that awaits one who is stung. The venom of the ice-wyrms nourishes the WiseMothers, who nurse the roots of the earth. They alone are strong enough to take succor from it.

To all other creatures, it brings that which is worse than death. In this way Bloodheart protected himself, with a dead nestbrother animated by magic and fueled with venom. That is the mark of an enchanter: Even after death his hand can strike down the one who killed him.

He reaches into the pouch, draws out another stone, and tosses it. One stone at a time, he slides out across the nesting ground toward a small hummock that emerges from the silver sands in the center. As hard as iron, the surface of the hummock is polished to a pearlescent gleam.

It takes him half the short summer's night to get there, but when he reaches the hummock and takes that last step onto its slick surface, he can shake out his tense limbs. The rounded dome warms his feet, and it smells faintly of sulfur. He is safe.

Safe, that is, until he has to cross back.

He has made this journey before. Only here, in the center of the nesting ground, can mortal ears hear the whispering of the WiseMothers. No creature enslaved to the earth lives long enough to hear even one of their thoughts in its entirety. But the youngest of the WiseMothers can still speak, if only one has the patience to listen. He has listened to them before. He has brashly asked their advice.

Yet it is not their advice he seeks this day.

Night fades to morning. He waits. First Son does not come.

He waits, and listens.

"They. Will. Pass. The. Bridge. And. The. Cataract."

"They. Will. Part. The. Waters. The. Fire. Rivers. Will. Change. In. Their. Course."

"Make. Room. Make. Room."

A
sigh passes through them, wind groaning down from the northern fjalls, murmuring out of the eastern fjalls, and whispering in the faint voices of those few scattered to the south where the land has been worn away one stone at a time by tide and current, where sea and ocean meld and mingle to breathe the vapor of their disparate perfumes into the salt-strewn air.

What the WiseMothers speak of is mystery to him. The sun passes its noonday height and begins to sink before he hears a stealthy footfall, followed by the frustrated roar of First Son of the First Litter as he springs out from the rocks and stands on the brink of the nesting ground.

"Coward!" he cries. "Do you think to hide from me there? Weakling! You must have water and food in time, or you will wither away and return to dust. Come and fight."

"Come and get my braids," says Fifth Son. He displays the three braids he has tied around his arm. "If I die out here, you will still have to come and get these to prove your worthiness before OldMother."

For a moment only First Son gapes, taken by surprise. He, strongest and canniest among them all, wears only a single braid wound round one arm. But he will not ask how his rival gained so much while he was gaining so little; he controls his surprise quickly. He is not foolish.