The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  “I almost feel that I am home again,” gasped Sister Hilaria with as much of a smile as she could muster. Her lips were bleeding, as were Hanna’s.

  Certainly the monastery resembled St. Ekatarina’s in its inaccessibility, high up along the cliff face with a forbidding rock ridge above and only the trail leading up to it. An army might besiege this small settlement to no avail since it possessed, as they discovered, a spring within the walls.

  “Quite at home,” added Hilaria, who smelled water when they passed a stairwell cutting down into the rock. “I only need a pair of buckets and a shoulder harness, and I’ll be ready to set to work hauling up water.”

  Instead, they settled Mother Obligatia in the pair of adjoining rooms—cells, really—where they were herded and shut in. The two chambers were built of stone so cunningly fitted together that it appeared the builders had not needed to use mortar. The floor was dirt, as gritty and dry as the air. Six pallets lined the walls. The second room had four actual beds with rope strung between the posts for a mattress. It was smaller than the first but opened onto a tiny, triangular courtyard where they could take air and sun; this courtyard boasted a high brick wall too high to see over and a single olive tree under whose inadequate shade stood a stone bench. There was not a single other living creature in the courtyard except ants and flies. They couldn’t even hear birds singing.

  “Here you will rest until I return to fetch you,” said Sergeant Bysantius to Rosvita. “The monks will care for your needs. I leave as well ten of my men-at-arms as guards. Do not, I pray you, be fearful. I mean you and your companions no harm.”

  “A fine sentiment,” said Rosvita when she translated his speech for those who could not understand Arethousan, “but we cannot trust him. We must scout out our surroundings and make ready to escape.”

  Yet when Hanna surveyed their company, she knew they had traveled as far as they could. Ruoda and Jehan were so weak it Was a miracle they had come so far, and Jerome and Gerwita had only made it up the trail by stopping to rest every ten paces. All four of them lay on the pallets, utterly exhausted. Even Fortunatus and Heriburg were flagging, even she was, and the old ache in her hip had returned. They hadn’t the strength to run, not now.

  For the first ten days they mostly slept, talking little, recovering their strength, with rock and a hard blue sky their only companions. Sister Petra insisted on sitting outside in the direct sunlight until her face was burned and blistered from the sun, and then she suffered under a terrible fever for days.

  They saw only two monks, both of them withered old men as wrinkled as the raisins they sprinkled onto the porridge given to the prisoners twice a day. Neither spoke, not a single word, but one knew herb-craft, and he brought ointments for Sister Petra, a foul brew for those suffering from the cough that relieved their congestion, and a spelt porridge for Mother Obligatia along with sage steeped in wine.

  “We must keep up our strength,” said Rosvita one evening in the courtyard after they had finished a noble and astoundingly filling supper of beans stewed with parsnips and fennel.

  With the help of Hilaria and Fortunatus, Hanna climbed up onto the top of the wall—and shrieked. The courtyard was carved into the last triangle of the ledge, an acclivity whose bounds were cliff above and below. She hung over the wall, feet drumming on the bricks while Fortunatus held her ankles, and stared straight down into the defile as though the wall became the cliff face. The gulf of air made her dizzy. Dusk swept in from the east; the valley below was already drowned. A fly buzzed by her ear, but she dared not slap at it. So far away that it was only a speck, a hawk glided on the wind. If only they could fly, they could sail right out of here. Then she looked down again, and fear choked her: the whole wall might collapse under her weight and send her plunging.

  “We can’t escape by this route. Too steep to climb above, and too steep and too far below.” She kicked out and jumped, landing with knees bent as Fortunatus steadied her. She wiped her hands on her leggings, but they were so dry that she wondered if the dust would adhere permanently to her skin. Her heart was still racing.

  “The sun will kill us if we escape without a good store of water,” said Aurea, always practical.

  The rest were silent, waiting for Rosvita to speak. Both Gerwita and Heriburg had come down with the cough, but they didn’t suffer from it as badly as Ruoda and Jehan, who were only now beginning to recover the color in their cheeks although they still slept most of the day and night.

  “Until we are all strong, I think we must bide here quietly,” said Rosvita at last. “I will ask the guards to allow us to take turns hauling water up from the spring. Surely they tire of performing this task, and it will allow us to gain strength by climbing the stairs with full buckets. When all of us can manage the feat—” She smiled at Mother Obligatia, lying on a pallet beside the open doorway, since it was understood that Obligatia and Petra would be exempt from work. “—then we choose between what opportunities seem open to us. Meanwhile, I will ask the guards if we might obtain quills and ink and a table and bench for writing. As well make good use of the time, if we can.”

  5

  WITH fewer than fifty picked troops at his back, the boldest and most reckless, Stronghand struck inland, following the hounds. The trail took them east and northeast through northern Salia. The war between the Salian heirs had already ravaged the countryside, but they still fought a dozen skirmishes before they came to a ferry crossing on the banks of a great river which marked the limit of Salian territory.

  The Hessi interpreter nodded at the river and the garrison stationed on the far bank.

  “That is Vanish country, part of the duchy of Arconia,” Yeshu said. He had spent much of his childhood in Salia under the tutelage of an uncle and knew the country well. “Under the rule of King Henry and his sister Biscop Constance. But those in the garrison are flying the sigil of Duke Conrad. You see? The hawk of Wayland. We heard rumors in Medemelacha that King Henry is dead, or has abandoned the north to linger in the old city of Darre, seduced by dreams of empire. Biscop Constance is said to be a prisoner of her half sister, Lady Sabella. Sabella married her daughter to Duke Conrad. Maybe this is true. I haven’t seen it for myself.”

  Hessi merchants liked to see things for themselves before pronouncing them true or false. It was one of the reasons Stronghand found them useful to work with. If he dealt fairly with them and allowed them to expand their trading networks, then they returned a fair profit in information and taxes in exchange.

  “We’ll need ships to attack that position,” said Stronghand, “unless you know another ford that can be crossed.”

  “Duke Conrad is vigilant, so they say. He has ambitions in eastern Salia, I have heard.”

  “Yet such a river makes a powerful border. It would be hard to rule both sides of the bank if you haven’t enough of a foothold. Duke Conrad sounds like a prudent commander.”

  “It is said he is. He has allowed my people to trade in his cities. He does not demand more of a tax than other nobles.”

  “So he is a man who will watch his back.” Stronghand turned to Last Son, now his second because he had left Trueheart behind in Alba as governor. “We’ll need fifty sheep or cow bladders. Call as little attention to yourself as possible. Eat your fill.”

  They moved upstream under cover and once they were out of sight of the garrison he unstoppered the precious flask the merfolk had given him and let fall two drops of spoor into the streaming water. They ate well that night, careful not to gorge, and remained concealed in the woodland all through the next day, scouting upstream for the likeliest place to cross. A bend in the river offered the best conditions; the twenty human soldiers could swim it and the Eika cross with the aid of inflated bladders. By dusk they were ready to go. He left four men behind to wait for the merfolk.

  Now they would have an escape route if the hounds led him farther inland than he hoped. They were a small group, fashioned for speed and a quick strike, not for a prolonged
campaign.

  He let the hounds support him across. Swimming made him nervous, as it did all Eika because they did not float like humankind. And because he knew what lurked in the depths. Although he had an alliance with the merfolk, he did not trust them. Their desires and goals seemed too alien from his.

  But as he clambered up on the far shore, these reflections made him grin. Certainly humankind feared and hated the RockChildren for the same reason. What we do not understand makes us afraid. What does not look like us on the outside must remain suspicious. Yet how much harder it was to see past the outer seeming into the inner heart. The merfolk wanted restored to them what they had lost.

  Was that so difficult to understand? Any soul might feel compassion for what they had suffered—if it were a soul that could feel compassion.

  The hounds shook themselves off. His soldiers deflated the bladders and carried them along in case they had another river to cross. The hounds cut back toward the ferry crossing to find their trail, and once again they speared east and south through woodland. After a pair of days the land became broken and hilly, and the fields and settlements they had been careful to avoid fell away. Up in the hills no one farmed.

  On the third day he smelled the smoke of smelting fires and in the late afternoon they crept up to the verge of a great scar dug into the land. The forest had been cleared back; the reek of charcoal tainted the air. Shafts pitted the land, and steam rolled out of their depths. Men dug and hauled and hammered, most in chains and a few with whips and spears and knives set as guards upon the others.

  “These are mines,” said Yeshu. “Silver and lead if we’re in the Arbeden Hills, as we should be. These are the richest veins of silver and lead in the northwest, so it is said. King Henry controls these mines and feeds his treasury out of their bowels. But you see, there.” He pointed to a log house set at the eastern edge of the clearing, where two banners could be seen through drifts of smoke. “Duke Conrad’s hawk flies beside a guivre. The guivre is the sign of the duchy of Arconia.”

  The hounds whined, ears flat, bodies tense. They wanted to charge forward, but they looked up at Stronghand, awaiting his command.

  “We’ll move swiftly,” said Stronghand, gathering his men close. “Some man out to relieve himself will stumble upon us soon enough. We’ll strike first to free those in chains and kill as many of the guards as possible. Some of the slaves will join us. Others will flee. The confusion will divide the attention of the guards. I will follow the hounds. Once we have my brother, we grab anything we can carry and retreat. What you grab is yours to keep or trade, and all of you will have boasting rights. Is that understood?”

  They nodded. He had been careful to pick those who liked daring and risk but who had no obvious pretensions to rule. For this troop, including young Yeshu, the hazard itself was the reward. Such a gamble made the blood sing.

  He grinned and gestured. “Move out. When I release the hounds, that is your signal to attack.”

  They split up into smaller groups and spread out to surround the clearing. He waited, counting off the interval, and with the sun a hand’s span above the western horizon and the guards and workers beginning to slacken their pace as they readied themselves for the evening rest, he released Sorrow and Rage.

  The hounds bolted forward. Silent, as was their custom, his troops broke from the woodland cover and sprinted across the open ground, overwhelming the first guards they came to before those men could raise the alarm. The scuff of feet on earth; a shout; the ring of hammer on chain as a slave struggled to free himself; a grunt as a guard doubled over, skewered on the end of an Eika spear. Rage leaped, bowling over a guard who had turned, in surprise, a shout of alarm twisting into a scream as the weight of the hound bore him to the ground.

  Guards, free workers, and men without chains grabbed their picks and raced toward the log house.

  “To arms! To arms!”

  “We’re attacked!”

  “Beasts! Fire! Run!”

  Many scattered into the forest. Others barricaded themselves into the log house. His men swarmed the open ground, which was a carpet of ash and dust and chipped, wrinkled, rutted earth from the tread of feet, the dragging of chains, and the press of wheels. Twenty surrounded the log house, using the dips and levels of the uneven ground as cover; his human archers shot at any sign of movement within the house. Others spread out to stand sentry along the woodland’s edge or to stand guard over the shafts, not knowing if men might clamber up from the depths.

  Yet the scene of this swift victory gave him no pleasure. The stench of the workings stung like poison on his skin. The land had been stripped to bare earth, and even that soil had been mauled into an ugly facade. To steal treasure out of the earth they had created a wasteland.

  The slaves, chopped free, ran for the trees, but his soldiers captured about a dozen, driving them forward in a herd. The hounds loped up to the lip of a big shaft and yipped and whined at its edge.

  “I’m looking for a man known as Alain,” he said to the slaves cowering before him. “I’ll give a handsome reward to any man who leads me to him.”

  They responded with frightened silence.

  “He is so tall, more or less. Black hair, fair skin. He may have been blind or mute when you saw him. The hounds belong to him. Perhaps you recognize them.”

  From the crowd a low voice murmured. “What kind of reward?”

  Stronghand grinned, showing the jewels studding his teeth. “Your life. Is that not enough? Your freedom, which I grant you regardless. If you will have more, I must have more. I deal fairly with those who serve me faithfully, but I also punish those who believe they can cheat me.”

  A stocky young man stepped forward out of the crowd, trailed by a second, taller companion. They wore rags that shed dirt with each step; they were themselves so filthy it was difficult to make out their features. But he liked the look in their eyes: although they feared him, they each had a keen gaze and an intelligent expression. Their captivity had not beaten them down. They hadn’t given up yet.

  “We came here with a fellow we called Silent, for he couldn’t speak or see,” said the stocky one. “They took him into the shafts to walk the wheel. He might live yet, or he might not. The slaves who tread the wheels don’t live long.”

  The taller one nodded. “He was a decent fellow, poor lad. But the Captain would know if he still lives. I heard a rumor that the Captain had him cast into the pit in exchange for a pair of gold nomias.”

  “The pit?”

  “Only dead men are cast into the pit.”

  The slaves shuddered, hearing these words; the pit scared them more even than he did.

  “I don’t know who would have wanted him dead, though,” added the taller one, “a blind mute as he was.”

  His stocky companion nodded. “He wasn’t just an ordinary prisoner. Someone was trying to get him out of the way. He knew something, I’d wager.”

  “Where is this wheel? Where is the pit?”

  But he already knew. The hounds whined and scratched at the lip of one of the shafts. They knew where their master had gone.

  The ones who had made Alain suffer would suffer in their turn. With cold fury in his heart he turned to Last Son. “Kill every man here except the slaves we have freed. They may go free, as they wish. Burn the rest alive.”

  Last Son nodded and called out to the archers. By the time Stronghand reached the shaft and turned to clamber down the ladder into the workings, the log house was already ablaze and he heard the shouts and screams of the men inside as they made their final charge, out the door, in a vain attempt to escape.

  As he descended, darkness swallowed him. He had his men bring torches such as the miners used, and with rather more difficulty the hounds were lowered after him, down each level and farther down until they reached the lowest wheel. Here, by the wavering, stinking light of pitchblende torches, Sorrow and Rage snuffled all around the wheel and up a low tunnel to a cold, damp hollow worn into the sto
ne where rags and leavings and waste had collected.

  Their tails beat the walls, wagging. They stuck their noses into the garbage and whined. Alain wasn’t here, although by the testimony of the hounds he once had been.

  “Hsst!” Yeshu stood beside him, head cocked. “Listen!”

  They heard the clamor of metal striking stone. A shout, followed by a harsh scream. A few moments later two of his soldiers padded out of the blackness dragging an injured man with a third soldier holding a torch to light their way.

  “He and his companion attacked us,” they said. “The other one is dead.”

  The captured man moaned, lifting his head. “Mercy,” he croaked. Blood pooled at his shoulder and dripped to the floor. “Mercy, lord. We are only poor miners, defending ourselves.”

  “Where is the pit where you cast dead men?”

  The man sniveled. “I’ll show you! I’ll show you!”

  “You’ll come down with me. Bind up his wound.”

  He cried and pleaded as his wound was bound up, and it puzzled Stronghand to see that his fear of the pit outweighed his fear of his captors. What lay down there? Ought he to be afraid also? Yet the unknown had never frightened him. He feared only where he knew danger threatened him, and the unreasoning, babbling terror of this man made him curious.

  “Please don’t make me go down!”

  The workings lay eerily silent, all sound muffled, the weight of earth heavy over their heads. Water trickled down side passages. Torchlight illuminated ancient scars mottling the walls where stone had been chipped away as miners sought new veins. These rich workings could supply a great treasure-house. It would be worth a great deal to him to possess mines like this.