The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  An object hit Anna hard on the head, slid down her nose, and fell into snow and petals. It was a key.

  “Let the hunt begin, Bulkezu. If you harm her, you will suffer tenfold what she suffered.”

  Bulkezu’s weight shifted painfully on her back as he grabbed the key off the ground. The knife pricked Blessing under the jaw as he shifted. Chains clattered down. He took hold of the back of Blessing’s tunic and hoisted her up, holding her tight with the knife still at her throat.

  “If you want her to live, girl,” he said to Anna without looking down at her, “then you will accompany us because I cannot be bothered to care for her.”

  Blessing had risked her own life. Anna could do no less.

  She pushed up to her feet, swaying and dizzy. Blood stippled the churned snow and muck and stained the iron links of the chain. Men scattered around them, running to the boundary of the camp with weapons in hand. Grooms fought down maddened horses as petals drifted in clouds through the air. Mud spattered everywhere as the warm wind melted snow, as feet ground moisture into grass and dirt.

  Anna staggered after Bulkezu through the clamor and chaos. No one heeded them, although perhaps it only seemed so because she could not see very well. He had no trouble keeping Blessing held tight with one arm while brandishing the spear with the other; he had remained strong even after months of captivity.

  Men formed up around the perimeter, tense but ready, their spears and shields a fragile line of defense.

  “Let him through! Let him through!” shouted Matto ahead of them. “God curse you! Make a way through for him, or he’ll kill them both!”

  Bulkezu carried the princess past the line of men formed up along the outer perimeter of the camp. He paused long enough to sling the girl over his back, a shield against arrows, and plunged forward up the slope with knife and spear in hand, silent but breathing hard. Snow turned to sludge under his feet as a last few petals spun down around them. In the east, light rose as dawn threatened.

  Blessing woke at last, kicking at the backs of his knees.

  “Quiet, worm!”

  The iron edge of his voice subdued her.

  He will kill us, thought Anna, too stunned to weep. Was it better to struggle and die fighting or to follow quietly in the hope they might escape?

  Though he labored, he did not slow. They crested the hill as the rim of the sun splintered the horizon. In a broad valley below, a river meandered through towering grass that shimmered like gold. The lowland ended abruptly at the foot of steep crags jutting up along the eastern horizon. A petal brushed her cheek; another settled on Blessing’s upturned rump. Wind carried the scent of grass and of spring. Snow melted into dirty mounds, the icy remains of winter; spring had swept in.

  On its wings, off to both left and right, an army of mounted men approached with bows and spears held ready. They weren’t Quman—they didn’t wear wings—but there was something misshapen about them nevertheless that Anna could not discern with one swollen eye and her back and arms on fire with pain.

  Bulkezu had seen the soldiers, too, had heard the thunder of their approach across the ground.

  “Witches!” He spat on the ground before forging down a slope made slippery by melting snow and the sheen of fresh mud churned up under his footsteps. He stumbled once, swearing as he fell to one knee, but his grip on the girl did not falter. He was unbelievably strong. His hands were chains, as unyielding as iron. He had tucked the knife into a boot where Blessing could not reach it, but Anna wondered if she herself could grab for it. Yet he still carried the spear. If he killed her, then Blessing would be at his mercy.

  As they descended the slope, the grass rose from knee-high at the crest to thigh-high as the ground leveled off. The pale sea cut off her view of everything except the ragged summits of the crags. He waded into this ocean, the grass reaching his waist, his chest, and soon higher than a horse’s head.

  She had heard that the griffins roamed in the lands where the grass grew as tall as houses.

  Maybe that was how she would die: Bulkezu would stake her out and use her as a lure for the griffin he meant to kill so he could build himself new wings. Grass stung her face, whipping against her, focusing her thoughts as she jolted along.

  I will not die. I will not let Blessing die.

  There had to be a way to escape. He said nothing, just trudged at a steady pace.

  “Please,” Blessing said at last. “If you put me down, I’ll walk.”

  He stopped, dropped her, and waited without speaking, breathing hard, while the princess winced and, cautiously, pushed up to stand.

  “Anna?” she croaked.

  “I am here, Your Highness.” Her shoulders throbbed; her eye ached and her cheek stung. She saw the sky as patches of blue and white, clear sky and clouds, glimpsed through the waving stalks above her. It was impossible to know what direction they walked in; she could no longer see even the eastern crags. Only the trail Bulkezu had left, beaten down by his weight, betrayed their path, and even so the grass was springing back up behind them.

  Soon they would be utterly lost.

  “Go.” He poked Blessing with the spear.

  The two captives led the way, walking side by side. It was exhausting work trampling the grass, pushing through with arms raised. Vegetal dust matted her hair and formed a layer of grit on her lips. Soon she was sweating although it was warm only in contrast to the killing cold they had survived.

  Twice she veered sideways, thinking to lead them back around in a circle in the direction of camp, but he poked Blessing each time hard enough to make the girl cry out, so Anna had to fall back in line. He was herding them like beasts in the direction he wanted them to go.

  Once Blessing tried to outrun him, hoping his long captivity would make him slow, but he caught up, slammed her across the back with the haft of his spear, and waited silently as she groaned and struggled back to her feet with Anna’s help.

  He, too, seemed exhausted, but there was in his expression a look of such cold determination that Anna knew he would never falter. His gaze met hers. He had beautiful eyes; even his face, scarred as it was, remained handsome—if one could admire such swarthy features. But he measured her as a man measures his horses, wondering which is healthiest and which he might need to kill for food on a hard journey.

  “Come, Your Highness,” she said.

  Wincing, weeping silently, Blessing took Anna’s hand and went without a word.

  In time, the sun rose above the grass and tracked across the sky. She was sweating in earnest, dressed in her winter clothing, but dared take nothing off. If this warm spell was only a sorcerous spell, how soon would winter blast back in to kill them? For how long could a witch alter the weather? How far did the spell’s reach extend? They might easily walk right out of this warm cocoon into the blizzard. Surely a weather witch, no matter how powerful, could not wipe away a storm of such power. Yet there was nothing she could do about that. She staggered on, concentrating on each single step as the only thing that mattered in the world. Blessing did not speak, only trudged.

  As long as they kept moving, he would not kill them.

  A high scream pierced the heavens, an eerie cry that lingered on and on and chilled her to the heart.

  “Go!” said Bulkezu, although she had speeded up at the cry.

  Was he frightened?

  Almost she turned to examine his expression, but she dared not. It was wounded animals that were most likely to maul you. The cry rose again, off to the left this time, not behind them, echoed by a second voice to the right.

  “We’re being hunted,” whispered Blessing, squeezing her hand.

  Bulkezu jabbed her with the haft. “Go! Go!”

  She heard the murmur of running water just before the ground broke away precipitously and she slid and stumbled down a steep, short slope. Breaking out of the thick grass, she rolled on the gravelly shore of a river not more than a strong man’s spear toss across, nothing like as deep and wide as the Ves
er River at Gent. East across the river, visible from this shore because of the lay of the ground, clouds roiled over the crags. A veil sheeted down from the cloud cover. She smelled the chill scent of streaming snow. The blizzard did indeed still churn above the mountains, reaching north and south like gigantic arms to encircle them where they rested in the heart of a spell. The sun shone above as merrily as it might on any fine spring day.

  Bulkezu cursed wickedly, standing at the brink, not going forward into the current although the river looked fordable. She crouched to splash water on her face. Its touch stung, so sharp a pain especially on her bruises and cuts that she whimpered, trying to hold the sound in so he wouldn’t know how scared she was. That was the lesson she and Matthias had learned in Gent: never let your fear rule you. Those ruled by fear died.

  The wailing cry cut through the air again, closer now, followed by an answer off to the right and, abruptly, a third yipping wail behind them.

  A rider galloped toward them along the shore of the river. Anna blinked, thinking the sun or her injuries had addled her mind: the creature had only one head, yet it was obviously human. Wasn’t it?

  “Pray God,” she murmured, drawing the Circle of Unity at her breast, waiting for Bulkezu to force them out into the water. “Lord and Lady protect us.”

  “Anna! It’s centaurs! I heard them coming!”

  Bulkezu broke to the right, but as Blessing bolted for the slope, he whirled back, grabbed her, and slammed her against his body, holding his knife to her throat.

  Three horsemen came out of the grass, bows drawn and arrows fixed, aiming right at Blessing’s chest. Anna’s heart thudded madly.

  They were not horsemen.

  They were not human.

  They were women—that was obvious, for they went bare-breasted—but at their hips their human form flowed away and became beasts. Women with the bodies of horses.

  Centaurs.

  Bulkezu did not move nor did his knife waver.

  One of the centaurs, a cream-colored mare with dark hair on her woman’s head, spoke to him in words Anna could not understand. Still he did not move, although he was surrounded.

  “They told you to let us go!” shouted Blessing indignantly, squirming in his grasp. “I hate you, you smelly bag of grease!”

  He released her. The centaurs backed up, still with their arrows trained on him, but they did not move as he bolted away upriver, running east toward the crags.

  “I told you something was coming, Anna! No one ever believes me!”

  Anna staggered. The sun made the swaying grass into a green-gold haze, impossible to focus on. A cloud of white butterflies rose up from the shoreline of the river, light winking with each beat of their dazzling wings. A distant call rose, high-pitched, melding with the song of the river. Far above, a graceful shape emerged out of the vanguard of the new storm sweeping in from the east.

  “Look!” shrieked Blessing. “Look there!”

  Its iron wings flashed and glittered, catching the sun’s light. It wore an eagle’s proud head and a lion’s strong body, with a snake’s tail lashing as it flew. If it saw them, it ignored them; perhaps they were beneath its notice. Certainly it was too far away for any of the centaur women to shoot at it.

  “I knew we’d reached the hunting grounds! Now we can hunt!”

  Anna’s knees gave out, but she did not hit the ground.

  Strong arms caught her, and she was lifted as easily as a grown woman hoists a weary infant and thrown across the back of the cream-colored mare.

  She clutched at the creature’s mane to drag herself upright. This was neither mare nor woman. Creatures out of legend had rescued them. Bulkezu had not raped and murdered them. They were free. Laughing, crying, she could not speak to thank them, but she had no need to do so since Blessing had already begun asking questions, demanding to know more about the griffins and the river and the storm of butterflies.

  Someday Anna would go home to Gent and tell the tale of her adventures. Matthias would never believe her.

  That thought only made her cry more.

  3

  “CENTAURS!” breathed Captain Fulk. Like the rest of the men, he stared in astonishment at the inhuman army—perhaps five hundred strong—that approached their hastily-drawn line.

  “Let the men remain in formation,” said Sanglant, “but do not act unless I give you a signal. Or if I fall.”

  “My lord prince!”

  “I know what I’m doing. Breschius, accompany me.”

  He sheathed his sword and stepped out in front of the line of soldiers drawn up along the slope with the camp behind them. They had a terrible position, downslope, where the weight of the centaur charge would press them backward into the wreckage of their camp, scattered, frightened horses, tangled ropes, twisted and fallen canvas everywhere … yet such a ruin gave dismounted soldiers an advantage over four-legged opponents.

  Breschius and Hathui fell in behind him as he trudged up the slope toward the creatures advancing at a walk over the crest. Behind, men called out, calming horses, seeking armor, trading weapons, strengthening their line in case the worst happened. He had only his red cloak to shield him should they attack—that, and his mother’s curse. “Are these the sorcerers we seek, Breschius?”

  “We must hope so, my lord prince. The Bwr people have little mercy for our kind.”

  “Be sure I am remembering the history of the Dariyan Empire and their fate at the hands of a Bwr army so long ago. Yet in the old tales it is always said that the Bwr people came not only to plunder and capture slaves, but because they hated the empire itself. Why would the centaur people hate the Dariyans so much?”

  “Poets entertain by embroidering fancy patterns on plain cloth. I think bloodlust and greed suffice to explain the Bwr invasion that destroyed the Dariyan Empire. After all, they are more like to the beasts than we are. Yet if these meant to attack, they could have done so under cover of the storm when we were helpless.”

  “So I am also thinking.” Grass whispered against his legs as he followed the scars left by Bulkezu’s passage up the hill, pockets of snow melting into slush that made for slippery going. “Do you think there are weather witches among them who brought the storm?”

  “Truly, it is said the centaurs of old taught weather magic to the Kerayit shamans, my lord prince. They might have sent the blizzard before them, or overwhelmed it with this spring wind.”

  “The Quman are retreating, my lord prince,” said Hathui. “They are abandoning their tents and fleeing.”

  “Keep your eye on them in case they attack us from the rear.” He dared not shift his attention away from his new adversaries as he and his companions came into bow range. He had to try to turn these inhuman creatures into his allies, but he wasn’t at all sure they would believe his stories of distant conspiracies and a vast cataclysm.

  And what of Blessing? What she might suffer at the Quman chieftain’s hands … he dared not think of her if he was to command effectively.

  Although it was hot only in contrast to the appalling cold they had just suffered, Sanglant sweated under the blaze of an unexpectedly bright sun. He paused to catch his breath and wipe his brow. Ahead, the massed line of the centaurs came to a halt. He noticed for the first time that although they carried bows and wicked-looking spears, they wore no armor.

  “God help us,” he breathed, half laughing, “can it be that they are all females? Are there no stallions among them? Nor even geldings?”

  “Beware; my lord prince,” said Breschius. “One comes to meet us.”

  “What of the Quman, Hathui?” He kept his gaze fixed on the silver-gray centaur now picking her way down the slope, stepping with precise neatness through pale winter grass.

  “They seem truly to be running, my lord prince. I would guess that they did not expect to meet up with the ones we face now.”

  “They are wise to be fearful,” commented Breschius, but his voice seemed steady enough for a man approaching, unarmed, an
army that might prove foe as easily as friend. Sanglant glanced at the frater’s right arm, which ended in a stump, but although Breschius, too, was sweating, he did not seem afraid. Sanglant waited, more impressed than he cared to admit, as the centaur halted a body’s length from him, surveying him as closely as he examined her.

  She was old. Strands of glossy black hid within her fine silver coat and the coarse braids of her human hair, which fell past her hips. She wore no clothing of any kind except a quiver across her back and a leather glove covering one hand and wrist. Once all her coat and her woman’s hair had been black, a fine contrast to the creamy color of her woman’s skin. Now faded green-and-gold paint striped her human torso, even her breasts, which sagged as did those of crones well past their childbearing years. It was hard to read age on her face, for she did not possess the exact lineaments of a human face but something like and yet unlike, kin to him and yet utterly different. The expression of her eyes seemed touched by ancient pain and hard-won wisdom. Like a virtuous biscop, she wore holiness like a mantle on her shoulders. She looked older than any creature, human or otherwise, he had ever seen.

  He inclined his head respectfully. “I give you greetings, Holy One,” he said, using the Kerayit title which, Breschius had taught him, was used to address the most senior of their shamans.

  She returned his scrutiny with her own appraisal. “I do not know you, although you have the look of my old enemy. Yet you are not the one I seek, the one I hoped for. Has he not returned?”

  “I do not know what person you speak of.”

  “Do you not? Is he not known in your country?”

  Already she had lost him. “Who is your old enemy, Holy One?”

  “Humankind once called them the Cursed Ones, but the language you speak now is different from the language you spoke when you were young.”

  “I have always spoken Wendish, even as a child,” he began, but he faltered. “You are not speaking of me.” When who was young? He felt as though he teetered on the edge of an abyss whose depths he could not plumb. “How old are you, Holy One?”