Child of Flame (Page 150)

No one dared speak for fear their voices would carry on the still winter air across the sea of snow and blanketed forest to the waiting Quman. Surely they were still out there.

They hadn’t the time or the energy to dig graves in the frozen ground, so they just left them for the wolves, not even building a cairn of rocks over them as they had for the man who’d died during the night. What else could they do?

As the others made ready to go, Hanna grimly followed the tracks of the raiding party a short way, just to get an idea what direction they were heading. That was the eeriest thing of all: the Quman riders had obviously ridden back down the trail toward the abandoned village. One man had been bleeding enough to leave a faint trail of blood in his wake, quickly churned away by the passage of his fellows. It seemed possible, in retrospect, that the solitary hoofprints veering off from the trail a stone’s throw from the abandoned village had been those of a Quman scout rather than one of the deserters. Had it only been a dream that she’d seen pale wings moving among the trees last night?

Of course it had. If the Quman had spotted them, they would have attacked. They hadn’t spotted them, and they hadn’t attacked.

Never argue with Lady Fortune, her mother would say.

Nervous every time a branch creaked or cracked under the weight of snow, she returned to the others. They were eager to be gone from the scene of carnage.

“Didn’t they kill even one?” demanded Lord Frithuric. “I thought Lord Dietrich’s cousins were strong fighters.”

“Maybe they were taken unawares,” said Hanna, which shut them up.

Maybe she had ridden under worse conditions in her time as an Eagle, but she couldn’t think of any. The silence became excruciating. Little arguments flared up over nothing, tempers goaded into flame by anxiety. They slogged on and on and on along the path that led them deeper into the forest, far past the woodland fringes where they had traveled thus far, on into the old uncut heart, a vast tract of trees and silence. They saw no living creatures except themselves. The path was their only landmark. They waded knee-deep through snow along a narrow track bounded by trees. Except for a detour here and there to cut around an escarpment or dip down to a ford in a stream, the path took a fairly straight course through the old forest. Luckily for their feet, the streams had all frozen over, making every crossing easy.

The worst part of the whole long, cold, nerve-racking, miserable day was that it got dark so early, leaving them caught in twilight deep in the forest without shelter.

Fortunately, the old sergeant, Gotfrid, knew woodcraft. He spotted a dense stand of fir trees off to the right of the path. In their center, under overhanging branches, they discovered a living cathedral blanketed with needles and almost free of snow. The air lay close and quiet underneath the overarching branches. In an odd way, Hanna felt protected here, as though they had stumbled upon an ancient refuge. Eighteen people and the eight horses could all crowd in, as long as two men were posted as sentries at the fringes to peer out into the darkening forest. Clouds hung low, seeming to brush the tops of trees, and snow skirled down, spinning and drifting.

“It’s really beautiful,” she murmured to old Gotfrid. She had come up beside his sentry post to survey their situation. “Or would be, anyway, if we had a fire and mead.”

“And no Quman lurking like wolves to feed on us,” he agreed. He was a good man, stable, shrewd, and steady, who had spent most of his adult life as a Lion.

“There’s something I don’t understand, though, Gotfrid.” She glanced back to make sure the others couldn’t hear them. Several ranks of trees, each taller and broader than the last, separated them from the hidden center. “Why would a practical man like you throw away everything for a heresy?”

He chuckled, taking no offense at the question, as she’d guessed he wouldn’t. He was old enough to have white in his hair and a few age spots on his face. “You’re thinking that those young lords might be taking to a heresy just because they’re young and rash and fools, aren’t you? That’s because you’re a practical young woman, as I’ve seen.” He spoke the words approvingly, and it was a measure of the respect she’d gained for him on this desperate journey that she smiled, pleased with the compliment. “But it isn’t a whim, friend.” He faltered, growing suddenly serious.

Snow fell softly throughout the vista beyond, a mantle of white over everything. It was almost too dark to see.

“Have you ever seen a rose?” he asked finally.

“Truly, I have seen one or two in my time. I saw the king’s rose garden at Autun.”