Crown of Stars

by Kate Elliott

  “To die.”

  She snorted. “I’ve come to think that dying is the coward’s choice.”

  He shook his head. “I have been sorely wounded many times. Perhaps it’s true that being dead brings peace, but the dying itself is not so easy. I pray you, Liutgard, remember that I value your loyalty.”

  “Surely you do!”

  “You have never faltered.”

  “Only in my heart.”

  “Well, then, listen to me. When the time comes to strike, you must remain behind the walls. Until your daughter is recovered, you must remain safe—”

  “In case I am killed, and she is dead after all, and the inheritance thereby left in confusion? No. I will ride, just as you will. I want revenge.”

  “I need a strong captain to hold these walls!”

  She gestured toward Fulk. “There he is.”

  “Hai!” A sentry shouted. “See there, Your Majesty.”

  Guards clattered to attention along Kassel’s wall walk.

  “There!” cried Liutgard, pointing.

  The clouds split as suddenly as if they had been sliced asunder. Sunlight lanced over the valley, sharpening every detail of Conrad’s camp. That light illuminated the southeastern ridgeline. A gash in the wall of trees opened as first one, then a pair, and then a dozen trees toppled. Banners made tiny by distance flowed like water as they rippled back and forth.

  “That’s her signal!” cried Sanglant. He turned to Captain Fulk. “Set Lewenhardt here to watch and listen. We arm. Spread the word by mouth alone. Let no trumpet or bell sound the alarm until the gates are opened.”

  “What of Wichman?” Liutgard asked. “Do you think he and his company are lost?”

  “Always.” He grinned. “We shall not count on them. But I will expect them, nevertheless.”

  As they moved to the stair to descend the tower and prepare for battle, a tingling in the middle of his back gave him pause, like the misgivings of a man new to war who imagines the ax blow that will bring his death. Stopping in mid-stride, he canted his head, lifted his chin, and tasted the air. “That is the smell of Eika.”

  “Eika?” cried Fulk.

  “Can Sabella have made an alliance with those creatures?” demanded Liutgard. “Better to hold within our walls than ride into such an ambush.”

  “Conrad would not risk the entire kingdom with such a reckless alliance. This is only more reason to ride, and ride soon. At worst, we can guide Theophanu and her army into the safety of the walls. Be on alert.” He shook his head. “Theirs is not the only scent that rides the wind today.”

  Before the gate they readied their arms. Horses were watered and barding was strapped tight. Sibold handed him his dragon helm. When he fixed it over his head, a murmur rose from the watching crowd. He adjusted his mail so it lapped over his belt, loosened his sword in its scabbard, then twisted his lance, checking for any warp or crack. It seemed only moments since the whispered “to arms” had summoned the battle-ready force to the gate, yet after all an interminable time dragged past as they waited for Theophanu’s signal.

  What if he was wrong? Perhaps her army was already overwhelmed, or she had changed her mind, choosing not to support him. The outcome of this day turned on the fealty of his sister.

  The sound rose faintly, but clear, a long low horn call resounding across the valley, followed by three rising notes. Men strained at the ropes as they opened the gates. Within the walls, a horn lifted its voice in alarm, three blats. The city’s dogs barked a rousing reply. In the citadel, a bell took up the call, mingling with shouts and the high-pitched wails of the lesser horns.

  Sanglant put spur to Fest. The gelding pressed eagerly onto the field. The sun stood high over all, barricaded on all sides by a glowering wall of dark clouds. The valley lay in brightness, and the forest beyond, in shadow.

  Answering trumpets came from the siege works, which were well constructed against a charge. Pickets of stout, sharpened poles and half-dug trenches guarded the bulwarks, with Sabella’s and Conrad’s banners stationed deep within. There were but two flaws. They had anchored their right flank upon the steep northern slopes but had not yet set defenses there, perhaps thinking the slope itself sufficient to reject a charge. Some trenches were partially excavated to their rear, but nothing was complete. The other flaw in Conrad’s defense was, of course, that he had to defend from both front and behind.

  A hundred strides off, Sanglant wheeled his force to the left and made for the slope. Some archers loosed arrows in vain. Others crawled through their own defenses so they might close the range against the riders that charged across their front. Even as they did so, infantry advanced at double time out of the gates of Kassel, shields held high and their own archers behind, letting fly as they closed the range. The Varren archers who had come out before the lines scrambled back to their defenses. A few fell.

  Where the Varren line gave way to hill, Sanglant leaped the farthest and most shallow trench. A pair of archers rose to meet him. He thrust the first through the right eye even as that man tried to nock a new arrow. The other man stumbled as he staggered back. As Sanglant passed, lifting his arm and twisting up to free the lance, he kicked the second archer in the throat. He reset his lance, but it was hard work. The chase, the thunder of hooves around him as his troop smashed into the Varren flank, the first screams, that sharp stone scent that gave him flashes of vision of Bloodheart’s hall in Gent, all these roused the fury that drove him in battle. He sucked it down. He was regnant. He was captain. The one who led. He pushed on as his riders scythed the ground behind him. They must push forward, no respite for those in front and no time to slay those left behind. To his right, he glimpsed Liutgard’s cavalry pressing the line on either side of Kassel’s milites as they pushed and pushed. They had to cut through the lines and reach the Hellweg at the base of the ramp so that any of Theophanu’s troops who were riding in from the Hellweg would have a clear descent into the fray.

  Wind churned the heavens. A battlement of black clouds rose in a ring around them. Waiting outside the hall, Hanna shuddered as a cold rain drove over her, but a moment later the shower ceased and only the towering thunderheads warned of the looming storm. The sun shone above the valley of Kassel, yet nowhere else.

  “Sorcery!” the Saony guards whispered.

  She wiped rain from her eyes. Theophanu’s army was in tumult, units trotting out in all directions. The main force of infantry moved toward the ridge slope where, moments before, ax-men had toppled a dozen trees. Six men waved cloth banners where the view opened, trying to alert those trapped with Kassel. Their faces were caught in the sun, but their backs were still in shadow.

  “Eagle!” Theophanu emerged from the hall, armed and fit for battle. A captain walked beside her, carrying her helmet. “Eagle, make ready. Kinship demands we warn Conrad and Sabella of the Eika. We must join to negotiate against a greater threat. You’ll be brought a fresh horse.”

  “And ride into the battle, Your Highness?”

  “If need be. You will ride along the Hellweg and gain herald’s entry into Conrad’s camp where they’ve set a barrier across the road, at the top of the ramp. If you cannot reach Conrad or Sabella, then ride to Kassel’s gates. I will rally my forces at the gates of the town if they refuse to listen to reason.”

  Hanna could scarcely breathe, thinking of the Eika scout she had seen in the forest. Why had he let her pass? Would the Varren troops recognize and respect her Eagle’s badge and cloak? But she nodded, shucking her doubts and fears aside because that was what an Eagle had to do. “I am ready.”

  A horse was led up and the reins given to her. She mounted. It was a short ride to the Hellweg, and the descent of the road along a shallower rise briefly gave her a clear view back the way she had come.

  From the top of the hill, where the banner flapped in the morning air, the trumpeter called and Theophanu’s advance began. Lines of infantry descended the hillsides, breaking and re-forming around trees and outcrops of
rock. Most of the cavalry led their horses down the slope, though Theophanu and her commanders rode, standing above the rest.

  Hanna heard, from the direction of Kassel, an answering shout of horns, followed by the blare and call out of the Varren camp. She pressed her mount—a calm mare, thank God—and raced down the road and into the forest with braids flying and her heart galloping in time to the staccato of hooves: A bronze face stared at her from the trees, but she did not look closely into the dense foliage. Better not to know. At any instant she expected a cold arrow to pierce her flesh, but none came.

  The feeling that swelled in his heart was the one that humankind called “amusement.” For how many winters had he gathered his forces, forged alliances, destroyed his enemies the tree priests, and studied the ways of the enemies of the Eika? Never had it occurred to him that they would be so dedicated to their own destruction, their own petty quest for power, that they would burn their own great hall even as he battered upon their door. Their scouts knew of his army, yet still they commenced their civil war, clan brother against clan brother.

  His troops had marched down along and beside the road called by its builders the Clear Way, for its width and straightness. He had learned that it was built upon an ancient road engineered by the Dariyans, and it was therefore the quickest and easiest route from Autun to Quedlinhame. Hearing the start of the battle, he had backed his forces into the trees. Cavalry was always at a disadvantage within the forest.

  “Last Son,” he called. “We will advance to the rise where the road emerges out of the forest. There, it ramps down into the valley. In that place they have set a barrier across the road. We’ll take that ground, and from the height we will watch. Do not throw down the banner that flies in that entrenchment. Let them believe their own people still control the barricade.”

  “Lord Stronghand! A rider approaches along the road, out of the camp of the Wendish army!”

  He saw her, and he knew her, because he had dreamed her once—the only person in all of humankind whose dream he had ever snared besides Alain. She was one of the messengers called Eagles, but in all other ways a mystery to him, except for her pale hair so white that it might have belonged on any good Eika brother.

  “Let her pass,” he said.

  He smelled the sweat of her fear, and he admired the stoic courage that had propelled her onto a road she must know was overrun by her enemy. She galloped past. The sound of her passage faded. He lifted his banner and tapped it three times on the earth, that infinitesimal tremor enough to alert his brothers, whose rock-born heritage gave them a keen sensitivity to any whisper in the earth.

  His force was mixed with various groups of human allies, most of them former slaves and poor folk out of Alba and the coastal reaches of Salia. Well trained and finely honed, eager for glory and the fruits of victory, they moved out. Scouts ran up in stages to report that there was minimal defense at the barricade because the soldiers stationed there were peeling back to meet the double-pronged attack of the Wendish host.

  He looked back to see the wagon of the shaman come into view, rattling along the stone of a road meant for foot and horse traffic, not for wheels. The horses were skittish. The one-handed servant had dismounted to lead them, leaving the cleric to cling to the driver’s seat. Strange that it should all fall into his hands so easily.

  As this wing of his army surged forward, he called Last Son to his side and gave the standard into his keeping. Together, they advanced.

  The barricade had been thrown across the road where it came out of the forest. Just beyond the barricade, the ridgeline sloped sharply down, and here the famous Dariyan ramp descended into the valley.

  Thanking the Lady and Lord with each panting breath, Hanna pounded up to the wagons braced across the roadway and shouted at the only pair of faces she could see within.

  “Let me pass! I am an Eagle in the service of Princess Theophanu! I carry a message for Lady Sabella and Duke Conrad!”

  She got no answer.

  From this vantage, she had a wide view of the valley. The wind was strong up here. Behind her, she heard the drumming of rain, yet the sun shone over the valley. Riders had plunged out of the city and were now punching deep into the northeastern edge of the Varren line, where the entrenchments were weakest and the surrounding hill face very steep. Turning, she saw the flash of color as Theophanu’s army worked free of the eastern hills. As the princess’ soldiers closed with the rear entrenchments, her infantry tightened their ranks, and archers, working in the gaps in groups of twenty or thirty, directed their fire into the wood picket and at the heads peeking above the half finished earthen berm. The shields closed on the picket, and great axes reached out to hew or pull down what obstacles they could. Few had fallen as far as Hanna could see from this distance, but pikes, axes, and arrows responded from the other side of the berm.

  The battle had begun in earnest.

  “Ai, God! Ai, God! Run!” screamed the soldiers manning the barricade. They were only a dozen, but they scattered like rabbits as a hawk dives, some down the ramp and some stumbling over the side into brush and trees.

  She turned.

  On the road behind her, coming up through the trees, marched the van of the Eika army, shield upon shield, approaching in silence except for the tramp of their feet. But even this sight and sound did not make her freeze with dread. Not this, but another thing.

  Above the fray drifted a resonant whisper, so faint she only registered it because she had heard it before and knew what it was: the tolling of bell voices, each of them calling.

  Sanglant.

  Horns shrilled the alarm. The Varren camp—what Ivar could see of it—erupted into movement.

  Lord Berthold called to their guards, who were staring nervously toward the royal tents. “What news, friends?”

  But the guards gaped at the heavens as abruptly the sun broke through the clouds. They shaded their eyes with their hands, squinting under the bright glare, paralyzed.

  A captain ran past, and shouted at them. “To arms! To arms! Get to your unit!”

  “What of the prisoners?” they called after him.

  “Leave them! We’re under attack!”

  They bolted.

  Berthold dropped into a crouch, Odei, Jonas, and Berda gathered around him, kneeling. Ivar stood off to one side, but Brother Heribert was still picking through the mouse nest, dangling the dead creatures by their tails and swinging them gently back and forth as if this movement might restore them to life.

  “Listen,” said Berthold. “We have to stay here. Await Wolfhere.”

  “Shouldn’t we make a run for it?” asked Jonas.

  “No. The Varrens might kill us for trying to escape, and the Wendish attacking might mistake us for Varrens and we’d still be dead. Just stay put.”

  “Oh, God.” Jonas pulled a hand through his curly hair and tugged on it nervously, grimacing when he yanked too hard. “I hate staying put.”

  Heribert looked up, a tiny corpse hanging by its tail from his fingers. “He comes.” He dropped the mouse on the ground and, when he rose, stepped on it without seeming to see it. Bones crackled, but it had no juice left in it.

  Jonas winced. Berda scrambled away as Heribert took a pair of steps closer. Berthold stood.

  Shouts and cries clamored from the direction of the town. The rumble of charging horses shook the air. They dashed to the boards and tried to peer through the gaps, where they had a chance of seeing the field of battle. Working two of the boards to get the crack to open wider, Ivar caught a splinter in the stump of his missing little finger. Cursing, he squeezed it out, together with a tiny pinch of blood.

  “Do you see?”

  “It’s too bright!”

  “Could you move? It’s my turn!”

  A crash sounded behind them. All turned, except Heribert. Just beyond the byre gate, a wagon had broken its axle and tipped, spilling barrels and weapons onto the ground. One barrel rolled out of sight. Another had broken open,
and ale soaked into the dirt. Men swarmed over the wreck, cursing. An arrow whistled out of the sky and slapped harmlessly into earth. Berda lifted her head and sniffed at the air.

  “Come quickly.”

  Ivar yelped. Jonas shrieked. Berthold jumped and stumbled. Even Odei, usually stolid and passive, skipped back to slam into the wall. Berda was already turning to acknowledge Wolfhere, who stood by the back wall. A cloud—like flour floating around a baker—of white mist evaporated as he beckoned. Light shone through a gap in the boards, illuminating his legs.

  “Stay behind me. We’ll run east. If we can make it up the ramp, we can hope to lose ourselves in the hills.”

  “Like we did before?” asked Ivar with a sneer.

  “Better than staying here,” said Berthold. “Caught in the middle.”

  “Put on these.” Wolfhere placed on the ground six amulets, crudely woven out of grass and herbs. He shoved a board to one side, ducked down, and slipped through the opening. Heribert was gone after him before anyone else could react, and then Berthold dashed forward with his attendants behind. Only Ivar hesitated, but he hadn’t the courage to stay behind.

  He knelt to pick up the last amulet with his mutilated hand. It was as crudely and hastily woven as a child’s daisy necklace, and when he lifted it to his nose, wondering what plants had been woven into it, he sneezed hard. Fern interlaced with wolfsbane; a few pale flowers he did not recognize were crushed in the tangle.

  At the wagon’s wreck, a sergeant showed up, shouting orders. Ivar pushed through the loose boards, then huddled there aghast, blinking in the sunlight, as he realized that the others were gone. Around him, groups of soldiers sprinted toward the entrenchments, but of Wolfhere and the others he saw no sign at all among the farmstead’s buildings, the pitched tents, and the many wagons. Maybe it was only the light that blinded him.