The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  Li’at’dano sprinkled ocher over Blessing’s limp body, then dabbed a spot on either of Sanglant’s cheeks, drawing the spot out into a line, and finishing with a red mark on his brow. She marked the rest of them in the same fashion, and when it came Anna’s turn, it was all she could do not to shrink away from the centaur. Those eyes seemed flat, and the pupils weren’t shaped right, and certainly no trace of human emotion enlivened that creamy face. She could kill any of them with a kick, if she wished—well, any of them except Prince Sanglant.

  And when they woke—if they woke—this creature would be her keeper. She didn’t fear Li’at’dano, precisely, but the thought of living among the centaurs for untold years made her suddenly very queasy.

  The prince knelt by the low entrance and, with his daughter clutched tightly against him, edged forward on his knees into the grave. Heribert followed him, carrying a lamp and a blanket, and after him went the Kerayit healer dragging behind him the heavy leather pouch in which he carried the tools of his trade.

  Then it was Matto’s turn. He took in a deep breath and glanced back at Anna and Thiemo, but he said nothing, only got down on his hands and knees and crawled in after the others. Once he was inside, Anna ducked down under the lintel, able to walk in a crouch rather than have to crawl as the bigger men did. The smell of earth overwhelmed her. The ramped floor sloped down and as she pushed the bundle ahead of her, unable to figure out any way to carry it, the ceiling above receded until she was able to raise up a little and walk bent over. The passageway seemed to go on for longer than ought to be possible, given the outward dimensions of the hummock, and when she reached the chamber, the flickering lamplight suggested a chamber far larger than it had any right to be. The corbeled vault was so high that Sanglant could stand upright. The walls were pockmarked with niches, but the lamp didn’t give enough light for her to tell what was stored in them.

  Thiemo caught her wrist as he crowded up beside her. “Dead people,” he whispered. “They bury dead people in here.”

  A scream caught in her throat.

  “I pray you,” murmured Heribert to the prince. The cleric had set down the lamp and now fussily arranged the blanket in the center of the chamber. With a grim expression, Sanglant laid his daughter on the blanket, tucking the ends around her feet, and kissed her twice.

  The Quman youth crept in, staring about the vaulted chamber. He kept his hands away from his weapons, but it was comforting to see him armed together with the swords Matto and Thiemo carried and the knife she herself wore at her belt. Only the healer and Heribert carried nothing to defend themselves.

  The prince lifted the lamp and shone it one final time into the face of each person there.

  At last, he spoke. “It makes no matter whether my beloved daughter survives, only that you six were willing to serve her even in the face of death. I will never forget that. When we meet again, you will receive a just reward. No one has done me a greater service than you.”

  There was nothing more to say. Anna willed him to go quickly so that she might not have to suffer his good-byes any longer. She might never see him again, the one she loved best in all the world. He held the lamp while they each of them sat down in a circle around the unconscious girl and once they had settled he placed the lamp beside Brother Heribert licked his fingers, and snuffed out the burning wick.

  “Fare well,” he said.

  He embraced Heribert last, then was gone. She heard his shuffling crawl up the tunnel.

  “It’s strange,” said Matto in a whisper. “I can’t see any light at all. We can’t have come so very far, and there were no twists in the passage.”

  She groped and found his hand, squeezed, and reached to the other side for Thiemo. There she sat holding on to each of them. The Kerayit healer crooned softly in a nasal voice. Although the words and the eerie tune made no sense, it was somehow soothing.

  They waited.

  The blackness was complete, drowning them. She could see nothing, not even Matto or Thiemo so close on either side of her, but the clasp of their hands comforted her. At length her trembling slowed and ceased. The cold grasp of reality overtook her; she might die, here and now, or she might not, but she had made her choice and now had only to wait.

  It was strange to feel so calm.

  “What’s that?” whispered Matto.

  “Hush!” said Heribert, who was now their leader.

  A barely audible rumble vibrated the ground under her thighs and rump, more felt than heard.

  “The army is moving,” muttered Thiemo.

  “No,” said Matto. “We couldn’t feel them, they’re too far from us.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Hush,” said Heribert.

  The Kerayit healer fell silent as a high, singing note thrummed at the limit of their hearing. A second voice joined the first, not a human voice nor even that of any living thing but of an entity so ancient and cold that its voice had great beauty but no warmth. Their harmony twisted through her bones and made fingers of cold fear race up and down her spine. She shuddered; the eerie counterpoint made her ears hurt, and the melisma of those voices stabbed her through the chest like knives whose blades had been soaked in icy water until they burned.

  “Ai, God,” breathed Thiemo as in ecstasy.

  Matto whimpered in pain.

  Light flashed as swiftly as lightning, a blue fire, and in that instant she saw the six of them seated around the corpselike form of Blessing. The niches caught fire, blossoming into a labyrinth of passageways.

  She saw into the tangle of the maze that flowered around them, reaching in all directions and in no direction, and anchored by a blazing stone pillar in whose heart lived past, present, and future woven each into the other in an unfathomable skein.

  She saw.

  A silver-gold ribbon winds through the heavens in twists and turns so convoluted that she cannot tell one side of the ribbon from another or if it even has two sides at all but only one infinite gleaming surface without end. The dazzle of stars blinds her, and then the glory of the heavens vanishes as a shadow looms, so huge that it covers half the sky. An immense weight bears down on her, crushing the air from her lungs. She struggles, but the weight passes right through her, and as she comes up gasping and choking and coughing for air, she sees

  gnarled, hunched creatures clawing through tunnels of stone

  a young woman, dressed in the most peculiar manner and with her face scarred, struck down by a spear made of light as she stands before a blazing stone crown

  a young lord asleep with six companions curled around him

  a half naked warrior and his comrades striding along a path, stone-tipped spears in hand and revenge in their hearts; their bodies look like those of men and women but they wear animal faces: a wolf, a falcon, a griffin, a great cat, a curly-snouted lizard

  a man attended by two hands, his face obscured by shadow as he kneels beside a dead man whose flesh, horrifyingly, crumbles away until there is nothing left but bone

  Blessing, grown into a young woman, seated on a golden throne

  the Eika who caught them in the cathedral at Gent but let them go stands at the stem of a ship attended by grim warriors, his form outlined against the elaborately carved dragon prow; as the ship grinds up the slope of a beach he leaps out and at the head of his army assaults a creature half woman and half glittering wolf’s-head. Bodies fall everywhere. Blood streams down the shore into the shallow waters where the churning makes them swirl and muddy until she sees, in their depths, the most awful sight of all:

  Blessing’s withered corpse, burning on a funeral pyre.

  “No more!” she gasps as the visions wash over her in a flood and she drowns.

  Blue fire swallowed her. Thiemo’s hand convulsed in hers, and he fell against her.

  Then, nothing.

  4

  THE ships arrived in threes and fives, guided by the men who had paddled northeast with Manda’s tribesmen through the fens to the sea. As
the fleet gathered, the holy island on which the queen sheltered began slowly to become wreathed in an impenetrable fog that each day spread farther out across the waters. Eight days after Elafi and Ki had guided him to the secret path that led beneath the hill, Stronghand readied his troops, detailed his plans, and moved his ships into position. He called for the attack at dawn.

  Dawn never came, or so it seemed. The sun crossed the threshold of night, but no light penetrated the viscous mist risen from the fen. Even the ferocious dogs seemed subdued by its weight.

  “We should wait until tomorrow,” muttered Dogkiller. “Our ships will be scattered and our attack confused in this fog.”

  “No. This mist smells of tree sorcerers. The tidal swell is in our favor, high and strong. My ship will lead the attack.”

  When Stronghand stepped to the stem of his ship, he thrust his banner before him. As they rowed into the gloom large drops of water condensed on the staff, and on the hull, as the mist thinned. Soon water dribbled off every surface and around and behind them shadow ships took form; more phantom than real. As they pushed forward the fog shredded into patchy wisps and the ships took on solid form. With a will the men bent to their oars, stirring the murky water as they skimmed across the wetlands. Dogs thrust their heads out over the railing to sniff at the air, their glossy flanks trembling with excitement. Now and again a ship snagged on a high lying shelf or on a bank of reed submerged by the tide, but otherwise the shallow draught of their ships served them well.

  Points of fire flared on the islands as the Albans prepared for battle, but the water between them lay clear and open. Stronghand leaned forward to taste the wind: was that the scent of their enemy’s fear, leavened with the stink of decay? As he turned to survey his flanks, those ships sweeping around to hit the island from the opposite side, the deck shook beneath him.

  Tenth Son, at the stern, called out an incoherent warning. Behind them, other ships rocked, yet there was no wind beyond a trifling early morning breeze. Barking and yelping shattered the quiet; men shouted in alarm.

  Darkly sinuous shapes writhed up out of the water.

  The boat lurched sideways so suddenly that he fell against the railing and barely caught himself with his free hand, almost pitching right over the side. A dog skidded past him and fetched up hard, rattling the railings. Tentacles snaked up along the planks. He threw the standard onto the deck but before he could pull himself upright a vise gripped his ankle and he was tugged so hard he flew backward and plunged into the fen.

  The water swallowed him. Spinning, he got himself oriented, but when he tried to stand his feet sank into silt. Roots and vines wrapped around his legs. The keel parted the muck above him. A flailing oar struck him on the head, and he staggered. The living roots embraced him, pulling him into the slippery mud.

  His breath was going. His lungs were almost empty. He grabbed a root and drew his ax, hacking twice before cutting it through, yet for each one he sliced away another curled up to take its place. He worked methodically and efficiently, but his life was slipping away into the water.

  Draining.

  Darkness.

  He was blind, hallucinating with something as close to panic as he had ever felt in his short life.

  Chains scrape around his ankles and wrists, weighing him down as his captor bargains with a merchant.

  “It’s true he’s blind, but look at him. All his limbs work. He’s healthy. And he’s as good as brainless. Doesn’t even remember his own name.”

  The merchant grunts disgustedly. “You’d offer me a lame horse by telling me that it’s easier for walking children to keep up with it? Nay, twenty sceattas for him.”

  “Twenty! Robbery! I’ll take forty, but only because he’s blind. His hearing is sharp as a dog’s. Look how strong he is!”

  “Strong? Looks like he’s in a stupor to me. He’s probably mute and touched in the head to boot.”

  Moist hands test the muscles of his arms, squeezing and measuring. They pause to tap at metal.

  “What’s this pretty piece? Bronze, and cunningly worked, too. That would bring you a fair price down at smith’s street.”

  “It won’t come off,” replies his captor reluctantly.

  “Won’t come off?” Fingers grope at the armband given him by the skrolin, the last thing he possesses that links him to what he was before he forgot everything. “What kind of fool—ai! Uh! Uh! Shit! It burned me!”

  “You think we wouldn’t have taken that off right away, if we could have? It’s some kind of magic piece. A curse, maybe.”

  “Magic! Curses! Fifteen sceattas is more than generous for the likes of him.”

  “Fifteen! Thirty five is my last offer.”

  What are “skrolin”? The word hangs in his memory, but he can make no image, can only remember the sound of clawed feet scuffling on stone. After all, he is blind.

  The merchant’s hands run down his flanks and prod his buttocks. Once he had clothing, but it has been stolen or sold. He wears only a loincloth and a frayed, stinking blanket thrown over his shoulders. The wind chills him, but it also brings to him a panoply of noise wrapping him around and drowning him.

  “Oysters! Oysters!”

  “Have ye heard the news? Two Salian ducs have each claimed the throne. It’s said their armies are marching.”

  “Are we safe here?”

  A cart rumbles past. Chickens cluck. He smells the dusty aroma of unmilled wheat, tinged with decay—the last gleanings from a winter storehouse. He hears the steady, careful blows of a workman chiseling stone, the rasp of an adze dressing wood.

  Two women laugh, but their voices fade as they walk on; like everyone else they take no notice of the interchange in progress. He is beneath notice, submerged into the background, just another commodity at the market town waiting to be sold.

  A pig squeals as its throat is cut, an awful noise that goes on and on before, between one breath and the next, cutting off:

  He shudders all over.

  “Well, he can’t likely escape if he’s blind,” agrees the merchant in answer to an unheard question. “I think I know who could take a lad like this, dumb and witless and blind but otherwise hale. Thirty sceattas. Take it, or go elsewhere.”

  “Done.”

  The last root parted under his ax. He thrust up with his legs and burst out of the water, gasping for air, hollow with rage. From the other ships, men cried out in horror. Planks creaked as plants lashing up from the depths tried to pull apart planks and drag down keels. He sputtered and grasped the side of the listing ship. Tenth Son was first to reach him, hauling him up and over the side. He fell to his knees, grabbed the standard, which was lying untouched on the deck, and with his lungs on fire and his body shedding water and mud he struck the haft to the deck three times.

  Roots withered and fell back into the muck. The churning waters stilled.

  Next to him, a dog growled.

  Still coughing, he surveyed the fleet. He had no time to dwell on the vision that had almost drowned him. One ship had capsized, its warriors and dogs lost to the swamp since RockChildren did not swim. Yet men would be lost to battle nevertheless. This battle had already begun as the magic of the tree sorcerers retreated before his talisman.

  He lifted the standard. Drums sounded the advance as oars stroked to a beat. They closed with the shore. Flaming arrows shot by the Albans lit arcs through the sky and fell against shields held in place by warriors clustered on the foredeck of each ship. Before them the three islands rose out of the swamp. A hastily constructed earthen dike ringed the land, topped with a crude stockade neither stout nor tall. The enemy had scoured the island clean of vegetation for building, for fire, for fodder, and the stink of their overcrowded encampment drifted over the waters. Rising above all, at the height of the tallest island, the stone crown dominated the scene.

  His ship scraped through reeds and grounded on the muddy shoreline. A second ship, and a third, slid up beside it. Dogs poured over the railing, eage
r for blood. His warriors leaped over the side and assailed the rampart. Unused masts were carried as rams, and soon they breached the stockade in a dozen places. Yet a hedge of Alban spears and shields filled every gap as soon as it was opened, and Alban archers darted to and fro behind the shield line, releasing shafts at deadly close range as they targeted the mass of dogs. With each push over the rampart, a countercharge drove the RockChildren back, but never all the way back into the water, never all the way back to their ships. More poured up on shore to support those in the vanguard.

  The queen of Alba rose above the fray, her wolf’s head helm shining and her banner held high behind her. A rank of tall shield-men as brawny as bears protected her, all armed with great axes.

  “Tenth Son! Hold the standard and do not leave the ship. I’m leading a countercharge.”

  Against the queen, Stronghand himself must be seen to prevail, just as he had at Kjalmarsfjord been the one to throw his challenger Nokvi overboard to the merfolk.

  The sun rose high in the morning sky. Its light made the stones atop the hill seem to glow. From the other side of the island he heard the flanking ships engage. Shouts and cries rose up into the sky like startled birds.

  “Now!”

  He pushed into the front line, half a head shorter than most of his brothers. They struggled up over the rampart, clawed feet digging into the dirt to keep their purchase as spears thrust against their shields in an effort to drive them back. Arrows poured in on their flanks, and many of his warriors staggered back or fell, but the rest held their line as others filled in. The Alban line stretched and thinned under the onslaught. Here and there an inward bulge formed as the RockChildren pressed hard down off the ramparts. The toll was grim on both sides, but he had a larger army and one final surprise to unveil.

  Once again the queen appeared. She drove headlong into the flank of one of those bulges, cutting the forward forces off from reinforcement. With a score of Hakonin warriors, Flint charged to meet the Albans, but these queen’s men had such unusual size and girth that they could each one meet the charge of an Eika and hold their ground. With shield pressed against shield, the struggle became a stalemate.