Crown of Stars (Page 187)

“I am come.” Stronghand scanned the field with a look as weary and filled with pain as that of any human captain who has seen his soldiers scythed down before him. “I am come to find you, as OldMother and the WiseMothers commanded me, their obedient son.”

3

SOLDIERS made room as Hanna pushed through the crowd to the body and its attendants. No more than a dozen people had reached the wreckage, but more were coming, shaking free of their stupor to stagger in from all sides. Men wept openly, while others stared in shock, eyes dry. The body had been horribly crushed and mutilated by its impact with the wagon. She could do nothing for the dead man.

But Sorgatani might yet be alive in the overturned wagon.

Turning, she stared into the face of a slender Eika warrior. Like all his kind, he smelled of the scent that rises off rocks baking in the sun. His eyes narrowed.

“I have seen you before.” It was startling to hear human words issuing from an inhuman mouth.

She sidestepped without answering, flushed as adrenaline raced. He held no drawn weapon, but he looked as dangerous as any sharp spear and he had besides many ranks of Eika filing down the ramp after him. The front ranks of this silent army halted at a prudent distance rather than descending into the midst of the shaken crowd of Wendish and Varren combatants.

Sorgatani’s sorcery could protect her if fighting broke out. It was a coward’s instinct, but she was numb to the bone, still reeling from the torpor that had gripped her when the guivre screamed overhead. Her skin burned with a fading memory of the passing of the galla. So close that they might have devoured her, as they had so many others.

All gone, although she did not know what had driven the galla away. Sanglant was dead, but his body was not consumed.

She shuddered, taking a too hasty step away, and tripped over the tangle of harness. A strong hand caught her. She looked up into the face of a young Quman warrior. Swearing, she yanked her arm out of his grasp, and jumped away.

“Hanna! Steady!” A hand braced her.

“Wolfhere! How are you come here?”

“It seems Sanglant is truly dead.” The familiar face and his kindly expression soothed her.

“How can it be? I thought his mother laid a geas on him, that no creature could kill him.”

He shrugged, surveying the wreckage. “What wagon is this? Not Wendish, by the decorations. What manner of creature bides within? There is sorcery knit into those walls.”

Hanna flushed. “A Kerayit shaman, that’s all. She can have known nothing of this. It’s an accident that her wagon struck the prince—the king—at all. You cannot—you must not—let the blame fall on her.”

“So she is a woman,” he murmured. “Nothing strange in that.”

He looked at the broken form of the driver, who had fallen underneath the still living horse. The beast’s hindquarters were crippled, and every time it tried to struggle up, it collapsed again on top of the driver’s battered corpse. The other horse was quite dead, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Flies buzzed around its open eyes, although, strangely, no flies afflicted Sanglant’s corpse. “Lord Berthold, here is your healer. I fear she is dead.”

A trio of young men pressed forward to surround the body of the Kerayit woman who had been driving the wagon.

“Where did she come from?” asked Hanna. “God Above! Where did all of you come from?”

She stepped back as the Quman picked a route past her. He knelt beside the dead woman and pressed his mouth to her mouth in a gesture nothing like a kiss.

Sitting back on his haunches, he spoke to his companions. “Dead in truth, Lord Berthold. No breath lives in her.”

“A faithful servant,” said the one called Berthold quietly, “if quite the ugliest woman I’ve ever set eyes on.”

The Quman shrugged. “She was one of that kind. I know not your word. In our language, we say they have two spirits.”

Hanna happened to be looking toward Wolfhere. Now the Eagle’s gaze fixed on the young Quman. His breathing quickened, and he leaned over him to frown at the body. It was true that the Kerayit had a coarse face and big hands; her felt skirts, hiked somewhat up because of the way she had fallen, revealed thickly muscled calves not quite those of even a soldierly woman.

“What do you mean?” The Eagle reached for the skirts to pull them up, but the Quman half drew his sword, a gesture hidden from everyone but the five clustered around the dead Kerayit. The movement was just enough to show that he would allow no desecration of the corpse.

“These, the Kerayit, are enemies of my own people. But we respect those of two spirits. It is ill luck to trouble these who are touched by the gods.”