Crown of Stars (Page 205)

He nodded carefully, to acknowledge that he had heard her. “Today we have won a great victory. As for the rest, as we say in my country, we must take it one stone at a time.”

3

AT dawn, Zuangua took control.

“We’re not to move out of the camp until he gives permission,” Liath said to Anna. “He says we’ve already trampled valuable sign.”

Anna obeyed without protest. What else could she do? She was grateful to have been rescued from the country of the Ashioi, but she might as well have been flotsam caught in the current, spinning and tumbling. She stood beside the fire pit, and she watched, because she could do nothing else.

The trackers were one male and one female, maskless and naked except for sandals and a loincloth tied up between their legs so it would not drag on the ground. They made a circuit of the stone crown and slowly widened this spiral to include the grassy mounds. Here, alongside one of the mounds, the female tracker lingered, while the male tracker moved swiftly toward an obvious path breaking out of the trees on the southern side of the clearing.

“Hei!” called the female tracker.

Anna followed Liath and Zuangua, who hurried to the tracker’s position. The woman pointed to scuff marks and broken stems of grass beside one of the narrow openings that led under a burial mound. They consulted, then looked around at the mask warriors who had gathered.

“Anna,” said Liath. “You’re the best fit.”

They gave her a torch, lit by a touch from the lady. The way the flame flared made Anna tremble to think of having that kind of power, and she dared not say “no.”

In the east, Prince Sanglant had been able to crawl through the passageway to the central chamber of the burial mound in which he had interred Blessing and her six attendants. He would never have fit in this tunnel. Even the Ashioi, none of whom were particularly tall, were a broad-shouldered, stocky people, too wide abeam to fit easily.

Anna got down on hands and knees. Shoving the burning torch before her, she edged forward with elbows leading and feet trailing behind. The smell of earth overwhelmed her. With each breath she sucked in drifting motes of earth, the ancient air of the tomb. Stone grazed her head. A bug scuttled over her hand, and she choked down a shriek. Her own body blocked much of the light from behind, and in any case the tunnel was long and the opening small enough that she was soon swallowed.

What if Blessing had been murdered, and stuffed into this hole? Her body, decomposing, riddled with worms and maggots?

But the torch met no resistance. It cleared the lowest point in the passage, where she had to shinny along the ground like a snake, and then suddenly the ceiling lofted away above her. She had come to the heart of the mound.

The flames whispered, echoing off the low vault of corbeled stone. Blank eyes stared at her from around the chamber. Hollow faces leered, mouths agape in white grins. Skeletons, dressed still in their finery, with wisps of hair capping their bony heads.

She screamed, slapped her hands over her face.

It was all a vision, a nightmare. Moaning, she tried to lower her hands, but she could not move, she could not think, she could not breathe.

They scuffed the dirt. They were moving, scrabbling toward her, reaching out with white fingers to scrape her flesh from her bones, to make her into one of them …

A touch brushed her shoulder.

She sobbed hysterically.

“Anna! Anna! They’re dead. They can’t hurt you!”

She groaned.

“Here, now, Anna. Just go back, then. I’ll look around. God Above! They’re wearing the silver tree, the mark of Villam! Could these be the companions of Lord Berthold, who were lost here?”

Shaking, still weeping, Anna lowered her hands.

Liath had crawled in after her, and now, standing but bent over so her head didn’t graze the ceiling, she held a torch out and examined, each in turn, the remains of seven dead people. Mostly the flesh had been eaten away, although dried bits adhered in places and they still had much of their hair. The cloth of their garments had not decomposed as quickly. The mark of the silver tree was easily visible on their finely woven tabards. A naked sword lay over the legs of one; rust discolored it.

“These two are dressed differently,” said Liath, pausing beside the last two, who lay at an awkward angle to the others, as if they did not belong. “Ai, God!” She held the torch closer, to get a better look.

These wore tabards stitched with the black dragon worn by the retainers sworn to serve Prince Sanglant. One of the tabards was patched in three places easily visible to the eye: a large patch at the dragon’s right claw, a smaller mend at the sign’s snout, and a third at the shoulder.