The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  The wind tickled her neck. A chill ran down her spine, and she shivered. The agony in his tone was awful to hear but Sanglant was not a subtle man. What he felt, he expressed. He knew no other way. He could be no other way.

  “There,” he said, his voice a scrape. “I’ve said it. You know how badly I want you, Liath. God know how desperately I have dreamed of you by day and by night. Worst it was, by night. I have kept concubines briefly, or gone without, but whichever it was, it never made any difference. I could never stop thinking of you and wondering if you ever intended to come back to me, if you really cared for me and the child. Or if you were dead. There were days, God help me, when I thought it would be simpler if you were just dead, for then I would know that you had not meant to leave me behind. That you still loved me truly. Not that you made a rash vow once when you thought I was safely dead, or spoke a pledge in a rush of infatuation and desire for me, but that it was the wish of your heart despite anything else the world and the heavens offered you. That you want me that much. As much as I want you.”

  He gripped her wrists, pinning her hands to the ground on either side of his body.

  “I must know, Liath. I must know.”

  She wept silent tears, burned out of her by the force of his pain and his honesty. After a while she was able to speak past the quaver that kept strangling her words.

  “I possessed wings made of flame. Wings. My kinfolk welcomed me into my mother’s home, a city encompassed by aetherical fire. It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

  “A river of fire flowed there, and I followed its current into both past and future. The ladder of the mages was laid plain. I glimpsed the mysterious heart of the cosmos. Nothing was closed to me. Nothing. Not even my own heart. Because that is what I fear most.”

  “Your heart?” His gaze remained fixed on her, dark and terrible. The breeze swept strands of his black hair across his face, their movement too dim for mortal eyes to see—but not for hers. She knew now what she was, and what she was not.

  “Just … just …” Each word was a struggle. The truth was so hard. “Being brave enough to trust. To love. Being brave enough not to hide. I don’t know—” Emotion choked her, and she shut her eyes to contain it, as if it might explode out through her gaze. Grains of fire trembled everywhere around her, in the grass, in the earth, in the wind itself, the seeds of a devastating conflagration. She dared not let them loose.

  He lifted a hand to touch her chin. The caress of his fingers was like water, cooling, calming.

  “I’m not like you,” she said, “so open. So honest and true.”

  “So mad,” he muttered.

  She smiled. The salty liquid of her tears tickled her lips.

  “So mad. And so strong.”

  “Am I?”

  “You are. I don’t know if I can love fully and truly. Da and I lived apart from the world for so long. We hid ourselves away. We veiled ourselves from the sight of those who hunted us. When Hugh took me as his slave, I built an even higher wall to protect myself. It was easier that way; it was the only way I knew. But even when you came, though I let you in, that wall held firm. I was used to the wall. I felt safe with it to protect me. And then. When I ascended into the heavens, I saw everything I had ever wanted.”

  She tilted her head back and through a blur of tears gazed at the beauty of the sky so shot through with stars that it seemed to hold as much light as darkness.

  He was silent. He did not move except to release her wrists.

  “I could have abandoned the world below to its fate. I could have left all this behind. Forever. Anne and her sleepers, Henry and his wars, everyone and all of it. Hanna and Ivar. You and the baby. I could have joined my mother’s kinfolk and cast off this flesh. But I had to know. I couldn’t leave you behind because I’ve never really known you. I don’t know if I can want you as much as you want me. I don’t even know how much that is. But I have to try. That’s why I came back.”

  The stars burned in the night sky. Did her kinfolk journey there, so high above? They had not mourned her leaving; the span of a human lifetime meant little to them. They had simply looked into her heart and let her go.

  She cupped his face in her hands. “Look into my heart, Sanglant.”

  “Ai, God,” he murmured, like a man who has received his deathblow, but he gazed at her face, searching.

  Poised there, she waited as the wind rustled in the grass and a nightjar churred. In the distance an owl hooted.

  “Fire,” he whispered hoarsely, as though stricken by wonder; but then, his voice always sounded like that. “Fire is the heart of you.”

  He reared up, almost dislodging her from his lap, and crushed her in an embrace so tight that for a moment she could not breathe. “I am not waiting any longer,” he added, half laughing and all out of breath, so vibrantly alive and awake and aware that his presence swallowed everything else, the heavens, the world, sound, and light.

  Well. Everything except the grass tickling the sole of her left foot.

  But when she kissed him, when he kissed her, that distraction, too, vanished.

  4

  EXCEPT for the presence of the daimone-woman, she could have made easy work of the hunter now sprawled, sleeping, on the grass, vulnerable and alone away from his tribe. Yet she had killed him once already, hadn’t she? Hadn’t that stab been enough to kill an elk or a bear?

  He had recovered because of the magic woven into his bones.

  There was more to this hunter than could be seen and smelled on his skin. He had captured her mate and proved his dominance over him. For her to kill the hunter now would be an affront to the dance of the males, who owned as their birthright the measure of their dance, each of them competing with the others for right of place.

  So.

  She could abandon her mate, or she could follow the hunter and the daimone-creature, who claimed the hunter as mate just as she had many seasons ago claimed hers.

  Wind rippled in the grass, singing softly in her feathers. The aetherical tides waxed and waned in every season, but the threads that bound the world were digging new channels; this she sensed. The world was in flux.

  With her nest destroyed there could be no hatchlings this year. It would take an entire season to restore the nesting grounds, and she did not want to abandon her mate. Perhaps it was better to abandon the old ways for one season, to strike out into new territory, to follow the paths made by the thrumming lines of force as they wove into new patterns.

  For as long as her mate remained a captive, she would follow the hunter.

  Why not?

  XXII

  A NEW SHIP

  1

  “THEY know we are here,” said Stronghand to his assembled chieftains and councillors in the hall at Weorod, where Lord Ediki sat on the lord’s seat and presided over the servants and slaves who brought meat and drink around to each member of the gathering. “Yesterday, according to our allies, two Alban ships brought reinforcements to the island.”

  Rain drummed on the roof. Under the eaves at each side of the hall, children and dogs huddled, watching. Some had been slaves, others the children of those who ruled here before, but Ediki had commanded that each one be given opportunity to prove themselves no matter their birth. It was the way of the Eika, their new masters, so Lord Ediki proclaimed, as well as the ancient way followed by his ancestors.

  “We have no ships on this shore,” said Dogkiller. “How can we invade across the waters? It would be death to wade.”

  “We must scout the waterways that empty into the sea,” said Flint. “Then our ships can sail in and attack from the north.”

  “Scouts we will have and in plenty,” agreed Stronghand, surveying his company as he waited for Yeshu to finish translating into Alban. He himself spoke first in his own language and then in Wendish, but although he understood Alba well, he still stumbled over speaking it. “Manda, headwoman of the Eel tribe, has put fourteen boats and twenty-four skilled guides at our
disposal. I need volunteers to search north.”

  About three score men—RockChildren and human alike—had crowded into the hall to listen and, as Stronghand had expected, half of them lifted their voices, clamoring to go. They were the ones who sought honor and glory and riches, who gazed on Lord Ediki’s new holdings with envy, or who simply craved the danger.

  Stronghand lifted a hand, and the voices stilled.

  “Two men will go in each boat. A gold nomia to every man who reaches the sea and our ships. For every ship guided back through the fens to our position here, I will give another nomia.”

  They were eager to start out, despite the dreary weather. As the company dispersed, he took Tenth Son outside. Many score soldiers had gathered to hear the council tidings, and they dispersed in groups, heading back to their tents and bivouacs or to make ready for guard duty. Tents had been thrown up within Weorod’s stockade while the rest lay scattered between the stockade and the dike, using wagons and recently dug ditches to create barriers in case they were attacked unexpectedly. Everyone was waiting for the next assault, with varying degrees of patience. As long as the queen lived, she ruled.

  Stronghand ducked under the shelter of an empty byre and stood there with Tenth Son as rain drizzled down around them, leaking through the thatched roof, which was not yet repaired after the winter. Although the stalls had been cleaned out, clumps of manure pebbled the floor, and the smell of animal and dung clung to the earth.

  “I will take two brothers with me, but I wish you to remain behind, not because I do not trust you, but because I do.”

  Tenth Son nodded, accepting the statement—however startling it might be, since the RockChildren never spoke of trust between themselves.

  “The standard stays with me. If I fall, then it will be of no use to anyone else. The magic is tied to my life.”

  “Yes,” agreed Tenth Son. “If you fall, this army will splinter into a thousand spears, each one striking at the others. Why do you not wait for the ships?”

  “If I wait for the ships, then the queen will know I am coming. If I go now, she will not expect a visitor. I will see this crown for myself. I must know what it is they hope to accomplish there. In my dreams …”

  He trailed off. He rarely spoke of his dreams because RockChildren did not dream, but he knew that many secrets lay half revealed in the dreams he shared with Alain, more precious than gems and gold.

  “What will you do when you get there?” asked Tenth Son.

  “I don’t yet know,” he admitted. While most RockChildren would see the answer as weakness, Tenth Son could understand improvisation as a strength.

  The rain let up as the gray afternoon darkened toward an early twilight. Clouds hung low and heavy. A child laughed. Nearby, Elafi and Ki squatted on the ground beside a small wicker cage. They had wished to see Stronghand’s camp and the size of his army, and had explored and poked around for much of the day, but now they turned to their own preparations for this night’s journey. Strangely, they were tying scraps of candles to the feet of two squawking pigeons. From the camp he heard the ring of a hammer beating out iron, but it was his companion who interested him most right now.

  “Why do you follow me?” he asked finally.

  Because they were littermates, Tenth Son was very like to Stronghand in looks, but although he, too, was rather more slender than most RockChildren, he had a hand’s height advantage over Stronghand and more bulk through the shoulders and chest. He was bigger and stronger, as most RockChildren were, but strength wasn’t everything.

  “I am not as clever as you are, Brother,” Tenth Son said at last, “but I am clever enough to know that my fortunes rise with yours and will fall with yours. Hakonin and the other chieftains will not march behind my standard. If you die, I am nothing.”

  “What is it you want? You have been loyal to me in the manner of humankind. I would reward you, if that is what you wish.”

  Tenth Son bared his teeth. Like all warriors, he wore jewels drilled into his teeth to advertise his prowess. “Can you give me anything I ask for?”

  “No. I cannot give you the moon or the sun. I cannot give you life beyond the one you are fated to live. I cannot make you anything but what you are.”

  Tenth Son nodded, satisfied with the answer. Against the gray afternoon backdrop, his braided hair gleamed as white as bone. “Those things I do not want. I want what even the slaves among the humans possess. I want a name.”

  Later, as they glided through the water of the fens, Stronghand brooded.

  A name.

  For generations the WiseMothers had hoarded names like gold and allowed only the chieftains of each tribe to take a name. The lowest slave among humankind bore a name; why not his own kind? Did the WiseMothers consider their grandsons lower than slaves? Or had there never been any reason for names among creatures who gave little more thought to their lives than did the dogs that followed at their heels?

  Did the two Rikin warriors who accompanied him desire names, too, or was it only Tenth Son who had caught the fever?

  “You are thoughtful, my lord,” said Ki.

  She and Elafi paddled as quietly as ducks as the twilight gloom settled over them. Even the pigeons, confined in a cage placed at Ki’s feet in the belly of the canoe, remained silent. Reeds shushed along the boat, parting before the prow as they cut through a mire lying just northwest of the island where queen and crown waited. Here, near that island where her army sheltered, the birds had been hunted out, so they had the water to themselves and their progress flushed no betraying clatter of wings. From this direction the high face of the island looked as if it had been cut away by the swipe of a dragon’s tail to leave a steep embankment as tall as two ship’s masts set one atop the other. At the height could be seen the shoulders of two stones thrusting up into the slate-gray sky, fading from view as the light dimmed.

  “Hush,” said Elafi as he guided the boat alongside a low bank and under the sprawling branches of a willow. Stronghand ducked as branches scraped overhead and along the sides.

  “Hush,” repeated Elafi.

  The greenery hid the land around them, but they still had ears.

  “Did you hear something?” A woman’s voice, speaking in the Alban tongue, floated on the air.

  “Nay, I can’t hear nothing for the slithering of these eels.” Her companion was an aggrieved man.

  “Here, now, set down that basket and have a look round.”

  “I will not! I’ll never get this thing heaved back up, it’s that heavy.”

  “Do it anyway, you fool! You’ve heard the news as well as I have, that the savages have come and burned Weorod Holding and killed our good queen’s uncle and brother over there by Grim’s Dike. They might be anywhere, skulking like serpents and creeping up to kill us. I think I heard something scraping along over there, by that tuft—where the willow is.”

  Elafi lifted a charm to his mouth and blew softly.

  “Look there,” said the woman, after a moment. “It’s a deer.” Something skittered through sedge and branches nearby, ending with a soft plosh in the water.

  She swore. “It was too quick for me.”

  “And an arrow wasted, when we’ve none to waste. It’s too dark for you to find it now. Let’s get on then. Tide’ll be coming back in. Venison would’ve been nice, I grant you, but all this talk of savages is making my skin crawl.”

  They waited in silence under the willow as twilight darkened imperceptibly into night and the voices moved away.

  “Keep silence,” said Elafi at last. “That means you, Ki.”

  He pressed the branches aside with his oar and they nosed out of their hiding spot as the supple branches shushed over them, tickling their skin and faces with the touch of new leaves half unfurled all along the tree. With night came a hazy glamour hanging over the waters as though the clouds had drifted down to meet the fens. It was hard to see. Yet Elafi knew where he was going, and Stronghand felt the shift in current where it was slo
wed by beds of reeds or the smell of salty streams running beneath the smoother fresh water of the surface. The ebb tide had reached its lowest point.

  A pintail swished past. Ki bent to the cage sitting at her feet in the bottom of the canoe. Beside it rested a hollow branch. Deftly—heard more than seen—she eased a coal from a hollow with copper tongs and set spark to wick, then released the two pigeons. They fluttered up on the trail of the pintail, and the scraps of candles tied to their feet swayed, slipped loose, and spun down to the water below. Most sputtered and died in the water, but a pair tipped and bobbed, still burning.

  “Swamp lights,” whispered First Son of the Tenth Litter, who had taken his turns on sentry duty at the borderland where Weorod Holding sank away into the fenlands.

  “A good trick,” agreed Last Son of the Fourth Litter, turning to watch the lights behind them.

  Elafi lit a tiny lamp and held it beyond the prow of the ship to light their way, while Ki lit other candles and set them on the water, tag ends that guttered as the wake jostled them, flared, and died. Out beyond the willow a true swamp light flickered and vanished. Stronghand had to admire the cleverness of their use of misdirection.

  They skirted the edge of a bed of reeds that gave them cover as they came right up under the crumbling cliff face. There rested an ancient willow tree, hoary with age, its trunk as thick as a giant’s leg and its lowest expanse exposed by the ebb tide. This close, and with mist spreading its blanket over the landscape, the noises of the island carried easily: a horse’s whinny, a barking dog, the rumble of a handcart over broken rock, the laconic call of a sentry to his companion, a shrill pipe accompanied by the patter of a drum and men singing in harmony. The music spun through the fog like a thread winding around him, drawing him into the haze.