Crown of Stars

by Kate Elliott

  She tried to speak but had no voice.

  Cat Mask leaned over her. “What creature have you called down on us?”

  Shifting the arrow a finger’s length got him to look down at it. “Kill it,” she whispered. “With—griffin—feather.”

  A fox face loomed over her. “This is the one we seek! You’ve killed her!”

  “Stand back! Let me aim!”

  Liathano.

  Dead anyway, she thought bitterly as her vision clouded, hazed over by a veil of darkness. The galla will devour me. Ai, God, Sanglant. The baby, the precious blessing. The flames devoured her, and she fell.

  I couldn’t even warn Hanna.

  A spark flew. In a shower of light, the galla snapped out of existence. And so did she.

  4

  HAVING once tasted the air roiling around a swarm of galla, Hanna now felt her flesh attuned to their presence. Although Liath had vanished into the forest, Hanna knew, at once, when the creature vanished, as she would know the instant a great weight pressing down on her body was lifted.

  “Come!” She opened the door of Sorgatani’s wagon and clattered down the steps. She grabbed her staff, which she had left outside, leaning against high wheels. She stared around the clearing, hoping to see Liath reappear.

  “What think you?” Breschius blocked the door. The Kerayit shaman stood behind him, rubbing her forehead.

  “My face hurts,” she said. “So it hurts, before a storm front breaks. Something has happened.”

  “The galla is gone.”

  “Best you not go hunting her,” said Breschius, “with the night coming down. You’ll be stumbling through the dark all lost. There’s no telling what you might meet out there, wolves, darts, bandits.”

  It had grown too dark to see more than shapes and shadows, no detail, and only the starless sky above, nothing to mark direction or the passing of time.

  “I curse them for fools,” said Hanna fiercely.

  “Who?” asked Breschius.

  “The nuns, all of them, even Sister Rosvita, for leaving you out here.”

  “No.” A lamp burned behind Sorgatani; the golden net that capped her black hair glittered in its illumination. “They are safe without me. I am safe alone.”

  Hanna had learned not to argue with Sorgatani, who had become morose since the attack in Avaria. “Very well. You wait here for Liath. I’ll warn the nuns and Lions about the galla. Where one comes, another may follow.”

  “Is there anything they can do if a galla comes?”

  “No. That’s what they must know.”

  She drew her sword. She didn’t much like the feel of it in her hand. She had no real confidence that she could kill with it, but like so many other things, it was necessary. She was lucky to have a sword—this one had belonged to one of Lady Bertha’s soldiers, now deceased.

  A warbler trilled from the woodland, and she frowned. “I’ll come back at dawn. Stay inside.”

  “I don’t like this,” said Breschius suddenly. “Best if you stay, Hanna. You’ll be safer if you bide by us.”

  She ran as much to escape his pleading as to return to the convent. Something was wrong. She knew it, but she could not explain it. Liath should have returned—unless the galla had caught her. Devoured her.

  She must not think like that.

  Twilight ate at her vision, but she had walked this path a dozen times in the last few days. A breath—a pale arrow—whistled past her.

  “Oh, God.” She ducked down, running with short, rapid steps, heart racing, utterly alert. She plunged out of the trees into the open ground surrounding the convent.

  “Attack! Attack!” she cried, and heard her own voice choke on fear, and tried again. “To arms! To arms! Aronvald! Thiadbold!”

  A shaft sprouted out of the ground a body’s length from her. She zigged and zagged, stumbled once, kept going although she had scraped her hand raw. Blood trickled off her palm. A torch bloomed at the wall, then a second and third and fourth, so much light she could see their figures scrambling to take up defensive positions where the wall protected them. The work they had done this afternoon would not be enough.

  “Get cover! Get cover!” The light exposed them. She sprinted, making for the ditch. Arrows thunked into the dirt.

  A horn lifted to sound the alert. Alarm! Alarm! it seemed to cry. Awake! Stand ready!

  “Archers! Hold your fire!” That was Thiadbold, taking command of his men from the shelter of the wall. Voice carrying from the far side of the compound, Sergeant Aronvald called for his three remaining archers: “Stand where you’re covered! The rest of you, get down! Keep your heads down, dammit!”

  She ran under the gate, dropped the sword, and fell panting to her knees as Ingo, Folquin, Leo, and Stephen ran to her. She’d had no trouble breathing while she’d been running but now couldn’t get any air in.

  “Hanna!”

  “Got… to … warn … Arrows are poison. Dead … if you’re hit, you’ll be dead. Dead.”

  She searched their expressions for some sign that they understood how serious the situation was. On the ride here from the village, she had told the story of the attack at Augensburg, but who could believe that a man might sustain the merest scratch on his arm and yet die in convulsions?

  Thiadbold knelt beside her. “Here, now, Hanna.”

  She grasped his arm so hard that he gasped. “You must take cover. If… any arrow cuts the skin … they have poisoned arrows. It will kill at once. Even a scratch. Believe me!”

  “I believe you!” he cried with a glance over his shoulder toward the gate, being shouldered closed by a pair of brawny Lions. Barely visible as the night swept over them, Lions clustered in shield walls where the wall gapped. The wall had minimal defensive capability; no inner wall walk offered a vantage for sentries and archers. The nuns clearly had never used swords and bows and spears to defend themselves.

  “Still,” he added, “they’ll be cautious about attacking against walls when it’s dark.”

  “They’ll shoot arrows.” She coughed, and he helped her stand. Her sides heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. “They need only scratch …”

  A trio of arrows spat down out of the night, sticking in the dirt.

  “Take cover!” shouted Thiadbold as men scattered, startled and dismayed. He looked at Hanna, frowning. Because he had his helm on, she could only see his eyes and the lower part of his face, but he looked as steady as ever. “They can’t afford to waste arrows uselessly. If that’s but a raiding party, they’ll hoard their arrows and their poison.”

  “Maybe so, but we are no more than sixty or seventy people all told. If there are only ten raiders and each one has ten arrows, even that could kill every one of us.”

  “You fear them.” He had his hand on her arm in the manner of a man comforting a loved one.

  “I fear their poison. I saw my companions fall. Ai, God.”

  He nodded. “Have you a bow?”

  “I do, but I’m only a middling shot. Sergeant Aronvald will have more weapons, for he kept with us the weapons of the soldiers we lost. He has only three good archers left but another half dozen strong bows. We’ve been making arrows as we go.”

  He released her and called to Ingo. “Sergeant, you’re in charge while I go to the other side. Keep their heads down and their bodies under cover. Do not shoot unless you have a target. Let no man be exposed by the light of torches.”

  “Shall we douse the torches, Captain?”

  He worried at his lower lip. “If only we had lit a ring of torches out beyond the wall we might see them coming, if they choose to storm our position.” He shook his head impatiently. “But we have not. Leave the torches be for now. Let no man stand where the light will give him away. Come, Hanna. Tell me the story again.” He began walking and she sheathed her sword and jogged up alongside him, still puffing.

  “Aronvald!” he called, and was answered from the shadows by the weaving shed, where a strong section of wall separated
the shed and the orchard from the darkness of the forest.

  “A good place to creep up close,” he muttered.

  She stumbled on a rock, an old building stone half buried in earth and grown over with moss—what in God’s names was that doing here? Once a structure had stood here, but in the darkness she couldn’t guess what it might have been. Wincing, she got to her feet and dusted off her gloved hands. Seeing her unhurt, Thiadbold hurried to consult with Lady Bertha’s sergeant. The two men stood close together under the eaves of the weaving shed. Hanna looked around, getting her bearings. Her eyes had adjusted—as much as they ever would—to the dark; she hadn’t seen this portion of the compound closely during daylight.

  Sergeant Aronvald had lit no torches. His men waited in the shadows, four of them up on ladders to get aim over the wall. They were all in mail and helmets, some inherited from the dead. The half dozen Lions waiting below beside the narrow orchard gate wore brigandines and decent helmets. All had boiled leather greaves, gloves protected across the back of the hand with chain mail, and good boots—a soldier’s stout friend on the march. This she had noted when she’d first met them at the village; after so long on the road she had learned to assess quickly what manner of armor her friends, and her foes, kept on them.

  A moaning cry rose out of the forest, more wail than sob, an awful racket that made her cringe and then hate herself for her fear.

  “What was that?” whispered one of the men as the sound died. Wind rattled branches. The orchard swayed as if each tree were trying to come unstuck, to move its roots, to flee that noise, which rose a second time, hung in the air, and faded.

  “I don’t like this,” said another Lion.

  She encountered no more obstacles as she came up beside Thiadbold and Aronvald, who were talking with the intensity of men who know a decision must be made swiftly and decisively.

  “… fire,” Thiadbold was saying. “So we can see them. We might see if we can shoot flaming arrows into the trees.”

  “It’s not likely to work,” replied Aronvald, “as it is so damp, but I tell you, Captain, it’s better than no idea at all, and no idea is what I’m having, for we lost half our company and our good lady to these creatures.”

  “If that’s what’s out there. It might be bandits. We came across some the night before we reached Freeburg, but Liath chased them off. With fire, that is. Which is how I came to think of it.”

  “There’s a trick to getting the flame to hold as the arrow flies.”

  “I’ll put my men to work on it. Mayhap the good nuns have some pitch—here! Hanna!”

  “I’ll go and ask them at once, and take the message to Ingo, of what to expect,” she said.

  “Folquin and Leo can be in charge of fixing the arrows. They’ve done something like in the past, and are clever. Go.”

  This time she knew enough to skirt the stone that had tripped her before, and as she swung wide around it a golden light flared above her, hissing as it spit sparks. Had one of Aronvald’s archers gotten fire fixed so quickly?

  The bright missile pierced the thatched roof of the main hall and at once streamers of flame blazed down the slanted roof. A second arrow skittered along the incline and tumbled to the ground. Two more lit the sky, arcing in over the wall, but they missed the hall and skipped over the tiles of the small chapel, the only building not roofed in thatch.

  “’Ware! ’Ware!” shouted Aronvald. “Laurant! Tomas! Get to the horses! Go!”

  She turned just as an arrow buried its burning head in the thatch that roofed the weaving shed. The roof of the hall smoldered but did not catch, but when a second arrow slammed into the weaving shed’s roof, flames caught and leaped and danced. The light threw twisting shadows all around, and cast yellow into men’s complexions as they backed away. Their enemy had settled on the same plan of attack: burn them out.

  “Water! Water!” cried Thiadbold.

  Horses neighed from the corral where they had been confined. If they panicked—

  Sister Rosvita and Sister Acella appeared on the porch of the hall. Smoke leaked out of the door, wrapping them in a writhing gray aura that dissipated an instant later in the wind.

  Must go, she thought, knowing herself vulnerable out in the open, but she could not make her feet move as a fire broke out in the thatch of a storage hut. A clamor began out by the main gate, men shouting an alert, men running. A man screamed.

  “Hit! Hit!”

  “Pull him back!” That was Ingo calling out commands. Ai, God. “Where’s that cart? Faster, boys! Get it in place! Keep your heads down!”

  “It burns! Ai! Ai!”

  “Hold him down! Get him to the hall!”

  “Hanna!” The cry came from Thiadbold.

  She turned toward him, and saw a streak, a shadow. “Thiadbold!”

  Too late. The arrow cut through his glove and stuck, bobbing as he cursed and yanked it free. Aronvald, behind him, sprang forward, shoved the captain to the ground so hard that Thiadbold collapsed straight down on his back, arms flung out. The sergeant swung with all his strength and with precise aim. He severed Thiadbold’s left arm midway along the forearm, cut it clean off.

  Thiadbold seemed in shock, perhaps from hitting his head on the ground, as the sergeant dropped his own sword and fell to his knees, unbuckling his belt. There was blood, but Hanna was too far to see it gush from the wound, only trails of it rushing past Aronvald’s kneeling figure. The flow slowed to a trickle.

  Aronvald twisted. “Hanna!”

  An arrow thudded into the ground a body’s length from her. Another shivered in the earth behind the sergeant, who grabbed his sword and rose.

  “Ai, God!” said a calm voice from the wall. “Sergeant, I’m hit. In the shoulder.”

  “Come down,” said the sergeant in a voice just as calm. Dead men walk because they have no need to run, already knowing their fate. Thiadbold stared heavenward, his left hand lying at an impossible angle to his body.

  Hanna got a foot to move at last, followed by the other. As in a dream, she saw an arrow circling spinning streaking out of the darkness from over the wall, lit by the hellish yellow of the flames as it found its target: it scraped hard across Thiadbold’s remaining arm just above the elbow.

  Aronvald, mute, raised his sword a second time.

  “I would rather die than lose the other one, too,” said the captain, his voice as even as if he were discussing the weather. “Get to cover, I pray you. Hanna, if you’ll help me up.”

  He had, after all, been watching her this whole time; in this dim writhing light it had been impossible to tell. The roof of the weaving shed roared as the flames rushed skyward. The harsh smoke burned in her nostrils as—at last—she found her legs and dashed forward. Her eyes stung from the smoke pouring off the roof and along the beams and posts of the building. She grabbed Thiadbold under her arms and heaved him up as Aronvald ran to the wall and got there in time to catch a man collapsing down a ladder in convulsions.

  That eerie cry wailed out of the forest as Hanna lugged Thiadbold along. His remaining hand clutched her shoulder. He could move his feet; he was still in shock. Blood pumped lazily from the stump of his arm. She got him up onto the porch. There was a pallet inside, one of several. She laid him down, and he grunted—with pain, perhaps, or with fear, or simply with relief. She didn’t know and couldn’t tell.

  Sister Acella knelt beside him. “Sister! A length of stout cord, quickly! This belt hasn’t stemmed the flow of blood. Get the coals hotter. I want a lotion of betony—”

  “We’ve none left, Sister.”

  “Then dead nettle. Bay, if we have it. Best yet, feverwort. I know there is a small stock remaining.” She did not look up as she spoke. The younger nun hurried to do her bidding.

  Smoke streamed down from the roof. Hanna coughed. She was weeping from the stink of it.

  “Go, Hanna,” said Sister Rosvita, coming up beside her. “If there’s aught else you can do.”

  Out into the te
rrible rain of arrows.

  Hanna shuddered, and yet how was she safer here if more burning arrows lit the thatch of this hall? She hadn’t delivered her message to Ingo about flaming arrows and Thiadbold’s plan. From outside, she heard another bout of screaming, echoed by a second drawn-out wail, that hideous cry emanating from the forest. Under the eaves, clerics huddled in silence, their faces pale as they stared at her. She hated them for hiding here, but only for an instant. There was nothing they could do. They didn’t wield weapons; they wielded pens and prayers, and, by the murmuring, she guessed they were praying as fiercely as they could.

  Thiadbold had his eyes closed. Perhaps he had passed out. Convulsions would begin in moments, and in truth she just could not bear to see him die although she hated herself for her cowardice.

  “Let me watch him.” Rosvita crouched beside Thiadbold as Sister Acella got the cord she wanted and set to tying a better tourniquet.

  Hanna retreated like the coward she was. She went onto the porch to see fire consuming the weaving shed and flames spurting along one corner of a hut, not quite catching, not quite dying. A ladder had been thrown up against the eaves at the far end of the hall and there stood Ruoda handing a bucket of water to Fortunatus, to throw atop the smoldering roof. They were just as exposed as she was, except they had nothing with which to defend themselves.

  Ashamed, she ran for the front gate. No arrows struck around her. She came to the shelter of the wall, those stones shaped and settled one atop the other higher than a tall man could reach. The wall had a slight inward incline, being broader at the base than at its top.

  “Hanna!” Ingo gestured to three bodies lying on the ground. “As you said. Only a scratch and they died.”

  His whisper sounded to her like a shout. It had gone so silent around them that she did not even hear wind rattling in the branches, only the hiss and crackle of the fire. The heat of the blazing weaving shed pressed against them. Suddenly, thunder cracked the silence. Rain pattered, turning between one breath and the next into a downpour that took them so by surprise that no one moved, only got drenched until the deluge ceased as abruptly as it had started.