Crown of Stars (Page 181)

He had not even a knife to defend himself. She raised the mace, and closed on Ivar.

A wild roar of voices lifted off the battlefield as a storm of rage and fear swept the field. Above all this, riding on the wind, a shrill cry rang down from the heavens. A vast shadow scudded over the valley of Kassel. Men staggered to a stop where it passed. Ivar could not move, although he bent his mind on a helpless struggle to get his legs to move. Even Sabella paused in mid-step, her mace lifted above her shoulder, in the act of commencing the blow that would smash Ivar’s head in.

All became still. Thunder faded. The rattle of drums fell silent. Men simply ceased moving. Even the horses could only roll their eyes in fear. Moans rose from terrified men as from a choir, but these voices were soft, muffled by this heavy weight that drowned all creatures on the field of battle.

Wichman grunted. His hand twitched. His fingers curled around the hilt of his knife, and he eased it free of its leather sheath. Somehow, where all others stood in a stupor, as if turned to stone, he flicked his hand.

The knife flew, winking.

God knew that Wichman had always possessed an unnatural measure of luck, although only God knew why such an unpleasant man should gain what was denied to others.

The blade buried itself in Sabella’s throat.

At first, she hung there as though held up by the same stupifying force that had seized all of them. A single drop of blood pearled from the wound.

That shrill cry raked through the valley a second time. This time Ivar saw the beast fly overhead. Its scaly hide shone with a poisonous glamour that made his eyes ache. Its baleful glare paralyzed all that looked its way, and because it was both beautiful and terrible, all men and women stared to see it fly above them.

“Call me a pig,” muttered Wichman. He slumped. His eyes rolled up in his head.

Sabella dropped, with the mace still gripped in her hand and the knife embedded in her throat.

Ivar could not move and he could not hear, not the wind, not any cries of humankind, not the bells. He thought he had gone deaf until the silence was broken by a mundane sound, heard from this distance only because of the uncanny hush.

It was the cheerful barking of a pair of hounds.

2

EVEN the plans of the canniest leader will sometimes go astray, because no person can anticipate the twists of fate. It is always the unexpected blow that brings you down.

He holds the standard devised by the old priest. Its haft is painted wood, and the cross guard is adorned with feathers and bones, unnameable leathery scraps, the translucent skin of a snake, yellowing teeth strung on a wire, the hair of SwiftDaughters spun into chains of gold and silver and iron and tin, beads of amethyst and crystal dangling by tough red threads, and bone flutes so cunningly drilled and hung that the wind moans through them. The haft hums against his palm as though bees have made their hive inside the wood.

This powerful amulet, woven in and into and of the wood pole with its cross guard, protects from magic all those he holds in his hand and under his protection.

Yet there are creatures in the world that have a power akin to magic, woven into their very bones, but which are not themselves magic wielded by the hand of another.

This truth he has overlooked.

When the bell voices throb in the forest, when the pillars of black smoke glide out of the trees and flense his soldiers, he knows fear for the first time. His Eika are the bravest of all soldiers; they do not fear death because they have already eaten death in order to become men and not remain dogs.

What stalks them now is not death but obliteration, and even so they leap to fight it although they are overwhelmed. What the creatures of darkness eat is the soul.

He is shaken. Standing on the road, surveying what he knew until this instant was to be his greatest victory, he is too stunned to move out of the way as the towers of black smoke cut through his soldiers and loom over him.

Last Son slams into him, and they tumble over the side of the ramped road and roll in a cascade of pebbles and dirt around and around and around. The standard is ripped to pieces, shattering. All its parts and pieces spill and spray in every direction.

Perhaps it was a root that tripped him up, or his own feet, or a hollow in the path they followed. He fell sprawling and smacked into the dirt. The hounds at once swarmed him to lick his face and tug at his clothing. For too long—an instant or an eternity—he lay stunned as a growing wind shook the trees and the guivre chirped restlessly, tail thrashing in the brush.

He was blind to what lay outside him, but in his inner eye a vision of the past bloomed until he could see nothing else.

The Lady of Battles and her white warhorse climbing the Dragonback Ridge.