Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (121 page)

"Nay, Ernust," retorted the scarred woman. "If we leave, then those damned Salavii tribesmen will just move in and take our village, and never give it back!"

They all began to argue with a passion that showed they had quarreled over this point many times in the last few days. At last the scarred woman pounded her cup on the table until the rest fell silent. She turned to Hanna.

"What do you advise, Eagle?"

They looked at her expectantly, and she thought she had never been offered a heavier burden than the one implicit in their gazes. She didn't know how much weight they would give her opinion, and yet any words she said now might make the difference between life and death for them.

"The Quman move swiftly," she said at last. "If you're caught on the road, you'll all be slaughtered. The rains have been bad enough that the roads are terrible in any case. It took us three days to get this far from the fortress of Machteburg, and you'll find no closer refuge than that. I think you're better off building a second palisade hard up against the ditch, and bracing for a siege. If your Salavii neighbors are good Daisanites, you might try to ally with them to protect yourselves—

But that was more objectionable even than the thought of dying at Quman hands. True, the Salavii had converted ten or even twenty years ago, and they weren't particularly belligerent even as more Wendish settlers moved into what had once been exclusively Salavii territory—their Wendish overlords saw to that—but everyone knew that they were dark, dirty, different. Their daughters were whores and their sons rams. They talked a funny language and were too stupid to learn Wendish. They couldn't be trusted. Worst of all, when the church had finally sent a deacon to minister to the region, she had established her parish by the Salavii village instead of in the perfectly fine little church they had built here in expectation of her coming, and she walked here on Hefensdays and LadysDays to lead Mass and preach a sermon. It was a terrible insult.

Hanna had a fair idea that it was wise of the deacon to stay closest by those of her flock who were most likely to stray. But she wasn't about to tell these people that, not when their anger roiled in the longhouse as acrid as smoke from the hearth fire.

"I pray you, friends," she began, raising her hands for silence. "These are difficult times, and we must pray to God to give us guidance. But if there is nothing further I can do to help you, then we must march on so that we can join up with the host of Princess Sapientia. If Margrave Judith has joined them with a host as well, then perhaps the Quman need never reach your village at all, and you can get on with your harvest."

"If there is a harvest with all this rain," the talkative Ernust began. "We haven't had more than ten days of sun this sum-merThe distant blare of a horn drowned out the rest of his complaint. The startled servant girl dropped the pitcher, and it hit the corner of the table, cracked, and spilled crockery and fragrant mead all over the packed earth floor. Every head turned toward the sound.

Hanna was already on her feet and headed toward the door when the others began talking, calling to her, begging to know what the horn symbolized.

"It's the call to arms," said Hanna, and then she got outside and ran toward the gate.

"What are they talking about now?" Ivar reined up next to Baldwin, who had for the first time in the two days since they'd left the fortress of Machteburg fallen back from his favored position riding beside Prince Ekkehard. Right now, the prince was conferring with the captain of his new escort, a dozen light cavalrymen who had agreed to ride with him as far as Prince Bayan's encampment, which according to the last report lay somewhere to the east.

"I think they're agreeing that there's nothing worse than trailing an army," said Baldwin.

"It would be worse
not
to be trailing an army," retorted Ivar. "The enemy could be anywhere out here, so they said at Machteburg."

Ermanrich, mounted on a sway-backed gelding which had seen better days, only snorted. "We won't be trailing them for long from the looks of it."

They all expected to see the Lion standard appear around every bend. The manure that dotted the track was still warm. Fresh wagon ruts had made treacherous ridges and valleys in the muddy road, a trap for horse's hooves. A few isolated fields and the well-worn trail suggested that a village was near, and Ivar hoped against hope that the army that marched just ahead of them had stopped there, even though it was just past midday. He surveyed the gloomy landscape, the unkempt strips of fields lying to the south, the mucky road that stretched east toward war and adventure and, perhaps, freedom. To the north lay woodland, thin but dark under the gray clouds. The branches of the trees rattled in a gentle drizzle.

"Imagine, Ivar," Ermanrich said, "you were to enter the monastery of St. Walaricus that lies somewhere out here in these Godforsaken lands. But I suppose that the missionaries who bring the word of truth are the favorites of God, not the forsaken ones."

"We should remain out here after the war is over," suggested Sigfrid. It was still startling to hear his voice. "Maybe this is where we're meant to preach."

Baldwin replied, but Ivar didn't really hear him. Something held his gaze on that strip of northern woodland, something about the way distant branches shifted as the wind died and the drizzle let up. The others began to move on, but he held his mount up short and stared into the woods.

There it was again. Branches moved. A pale form flashed beyond a thicket.

"Ivar, what is it?" Baldwin called back to him.

"Wait," he replied in a low voice. First Ermanrich, then Baldwin, then Sigfrid reined their horses aside. They, too, looked into the wood. Surely they were as nervous as he was.

Leaving the fortress of Machteburg and crossing the Oder River had made the adventure of war and righteous preaching seem a little less golden. Yet when he closed his eyes, he could still see the phoenix, rising, and he knew in his heart that he had to find that splendid creature again, that in the cloud of its being he would find truth, and peace. If he breathed enough of that magical smoke, surely he would stop dreaming of Liath. What shifted among the trees wasn't golden, but for an instant he thought it was another great bird, caught in the forest.

Then he realized his error.

Sigfrid gave a croak of dismay and alarm, then recalled he could speak: "God have mercy!"

"There!" cried Ermanrich. "To the left of the wide oak."

"Oh, shit," murmured Baldwin.

The wings had the high sweep of a vulture's and the same cold white underside. But it moved swiftly, negotiating the trees not with great flaps but at a canter. Other wings appeared behind trees or rising from gullies or over hillocks. Maybe they would have been visible all along had he thought to look. Or maybe they were cleverer than the troop of half-grown boys and the untried escort who had crossed the Oder River with the idea that adventure lay beyond it.

His heart pounded so furiously that he couldn't speak. Maybe there was a reason adventure always sounded so good in the safety of a hall, with a bard singing to those who had survived.

Baldwin's voice rose high and sharp with the alarm. "To arms, to arms! They're coming from the woods!"

Ahead of them on the road, Prince Ekkehard hoisted his lance, only to have his arm restrained by the older man who was captain of the escort. "Those are Quman raiders! I pray you, my lord prince, let us ride hard ahead in hope of meeting with Captain Thiadbold. He has fully two hundreds of Lions—

"But there can't be more than a dozen of them!" cried Ekkehard.

The words of the captain had already been heard by more than Ivar. A few of the company began to move rapidly down the road. By this time Ivar could see a score of Quman riders approaching through the woods.

"Thank God we left the wagons at Machteburg in exchange for more horses," said Ermanrich as he kicked Ivar in the thigh. "Ride, you idiot! They'll run you down if you sit there gaping!"

"Ride, my lord prince!" cried the captain.

Ekkehard hesitated, as if contemplating the nobility of such action.

But the captain was a man of experience, and he knew how to deal with hotheaded young charges. "Follow me!" he cried, and the entire company lurched forward. Ivar needed no more urging. That faint memory of the phoenix, glimpsed through the trees, vanished as soon as he saw their hideous forms clearly: winged like demons but riding stout ponies, they had flat, featureless faces, broad bulky bodies, and skin leprous with huge square scales.

As they reached a gallop, mud kicked up off the hoofs, flung through the air. Ivar turned in the saddle to see the first of the Quman clearing the woods. They, too, broke into a gallop in pursuit. Maybe it was better not to look behind. Ivar resolutely focused ahead, until a sound, as of an arrow whistling at his back, made him duck low to his horse. Had they already caught up to him? He was the last man in line.

He had been issued a spear at Machteburg, and he swung around now, almost overbalancing himself. There was no rider at his heels. It was nothing but the sound of their wings singing a song of the battle to come.

He heard a shout as they thundered round a broad bend in the road. Ahead he glimpsed a Lion starting forward, spear raised, and a cavalryman swinging up onto his horse. Another Lion let forth the shout "To arms!" and a horn rang out, three sharp tones. Ekkehard's company had already pounded past the first line of soldiers. The grooms and servants rode on toward the safety of the main force of Lions, who had broken their march on the outside of a ditch that surrounded gardens, fields, and an inner palisade marking a fortified village.

One by one, Ekkehard and his soldiers turned their mounts to face back the way they had come; Ivar grabbed his shield off the saddle, bracing his spear on his boot. Another half-dozen riders in heavier armor had joined them by the time all of Ekkehard's fighting company was poised to face the Quman. As they came riding hard down the road, the Quman dropped their lances, and in that moment as their line solidified, the whistling of those wings was the only sound in the entire universe. "At them!"

Ivar wasn't sure where the command came from, but it was firm. He started forward with the others, a whoop forced out of his lungs from fear and exhilaration.

Ai, God! He'd never been in battle before. Hadn't he dreamed of this? Hadn't he wanted to run away with Liath and go join the Dragons? Join any noble lady's warband so he could escape the monotony of his life as Count Harl's youngest child in the quiet backwater of the north country? Hadn't certain noble fraters and even abbots fought on God's behalf in just this way?

He was terrified and thrilled and on fire, and he didn't hesitate. There wasn't time to make it to a full gallop before the first lance broke upon the first shield. Like a pot dropping down a flight of stone steps, the crash rang as warrior after warrior crushed into a foe.

Ivar held his shield tight over his cheek and chest, and leaned into his spear. The blow was like the wallop of a smith's hammer, and he felt his mount slide between his knees as he was propelled backward over his saddle. A lance had struck his helmet, but he knew he wasn't dead as his back slammed into the ground. His horse bolted, and where that body had once sheltered him he now saw the wings of his foe silhouetted against

the clouds. Yet between one frightened blink and the next, Lion shields passed over him as stout infantrymen leaped across his body, a heavy line of shouting men who themselves charged in good order at the stopped Quman line.

One of them, decorated with captain's silks and protected by the shield line held fast before him, wielded a great hooked spear with which he yanked rider after rider from their seat. Ivar barely had time to scramble crablike backward before ten of the Quman had fallen prey to the Lions, and a few others been struck down in their charge. The remaining dozen winged riders turned and fled back toward the wood.

"Hold fast the line!" cried the Lion in captain's silks, and his command was echoed first by Ekkehard's captain, then by Ekkehard himself, and then by a latecomer, a nobleman wearing the heavy armor of shock cavalry who had just ridden up. One nervous horseman trotted forward a few paces in pursuit of the fleeing Quman only to rein back his horse when an arrow skittered at his feet.

Ivar struggled to his feet. His left elbow hurt terribly, and his hips ached. Baldwin appeared at his side, shaking him by the arm.

"Ivar! Ivar! Can you speak?"

"Ai! Don't pull my arm off! I'm fine. I think I took the worst of it on my behind." He hitched up his light chain mail coat and rubbed himself there, wincing.

"Udo's dead," said Baldwin as the others assessed the damage and a heavy line of sentries were posted along the forest verge. A party emerged from the shadow of the palisade and hurried toward them. Ivar allowed Baldwin to drag him over to poor Udo, who lay dead as dead on the ground. A lance had passed through the neck of his horse and then through his unarmored belly. The sight made Ivar queasy.