Child of Flame (Page 218)

Yet even so, to her surprise, she had not left everything behind. Maybe she could never leave everything behind. She still had her bow and quiver of arrows; she still had the gold torque, cold at her neck, that bound her to Sanglant, and the bright beacon of lapis lazuli, the ring Alain had given her. But nothing else, only the fire that suffused the physical form she called a body.

Jedu’s baleful glare bathed the horizon in a bloody red, the home of the Angel of War. The gates were guarded by a pair of sullen but dreadful daimones, carrying spears carved of crystal. Skulls dangled from their belts, and their faces shone with blood lust. She strung her bow and nocked an arrow, lit it so it burned.

They laughed, seeing how pitifully small she was. Although she was fire, they did not fear her. They were big as castles, with thighs as broad as a house and arms as stout as tree trunks.

“Pass through, pass through!” they cried mockingly, with voices that boomed and crashed. “We’ll watch the sport while you’re hunted down and killed, Bright One.”

“I thank you,” she said, seeing no reason to stay and quibble with creatures who looked ready to squash her like a bug.

She passed through the arch as their voices followed her, deep and resonant. “Go as you please, Child of Flame, yet you will lose something of yourself on the path!”

She tumbled into Jedu’s angry lair.

2

AT dawn, Bulkezu ordered the vanguard driven forward with the lash to swarm the walls of Echstatt. Maybe the hapless men, women, and children would find mercy in the Chamber of Light, since they had certainly found none at Bulkezu’s hands. He used his prisoners wisely, if one called ruthlessness wisdom. By pressing the unarmed mob up against the walls first, he ensured that Echstatt’s defenders used up much of their precious store of arrows, javelins, and hot tar on folk who could do nothing to harm them in return.

Hanna refused to weep while Bulkezu watched her. He liked to watch her, just as he liked to make her watch each assault as his army struck deep into the heart of Wendar, having long since outflanked his pursuers. He was trying to batter her down, breach her walls, but she would not give in.

By midday the Quman breached the town’s gates and the fires started. Smoke and flame curled up from houses, halls, and huts, melting the thin mantle of snow on the rooftops. Mounted on a shaggy Quman horse, surrounded by Bulkezu’s command group as they surveyed their troops from a hillside overlooking the prosperous town, Hanna saw every bitter moment as the victory unfolded. Despair tasted like ash on her tongue as the winged riders started in on their usual slaughter, cutting the fingers off folk who didn’t give up their rings quickly enough, dragging adult males out into the streets and killing any who resisted.

Smoke billowed into the sky as fires raged. A dozen riders hurried out of the church as it, too, began to burn, flames licking up through the roof. Four men held corners of the embroidered altar cloth; vestments, gold fittings, silver cups, and the deacon’s bloodstained stole jostled in a heap at the center. After a moment, the glass window above the altar blew out.

In a prosperous town like Echstatt there was plenty to loot beyond fodder, provisions, and the church’s treasure. Bulkezu’s intentions remained a mystery to her, because he seemed remarkably uninterested in loot except in so far as it pleased his troops to enrich themselves with trinkets and slaves.

Now, of course, came the worst part as the Quman herded the surviving townsfolk out of the gates and onto their ruined fields. Bulkezu gestured, and the command group moved forward. Trapped between his warriors, she had to go along with them as they rode down to examine the captives.

An old woman limped, a trail of blood marking her stumbling path. A young man hugged a baby to his chest while at his side his pretty wife, her expression caught between terror and hopeless anger, slapped her screaming toddler into silence before clutching the now-stupefied child tightly against her as tears streamed down her cheeks. Children sobbed. A girl tried vainly to hold together her torn sleeve. A chubby man in steward’s robes fell to the ground and lay there moaning helplessly, face buried in the dirt.

Smoke from the burning houses clouded Hanna’s vision. Tears stung her eyes. The townsfolk saw her then, an Eagle riding among the hated Quman.

An elderly man dressed in a rich man’s tunic stepped forward, raising his merchant’s staff. “I pray you, Eagle,” he cried, “intercede for us—”

A Quman struck him down. Blood pooled from the old man’s temple into the depression left by the heel mark of the warrior’s boot. A half-grown boy with a cut on his cheek screamed out loud, once, and an older girl who looked to be his sister clapped a hand over his mouth. There was a terrified silence. All of the townsfolk dropped their gazes and hunched their shoulders, as if by not seeing, by making themselves small, they would not be seen.