PROLOGUE (127 page)

Sibold and the rest of Sanglant's company had circled the base of the knoll to pinch off the attack from the other side. While many men who bore a banner simply followed and defended, not so Si-bold: the reckless fellow seemed to enjoy dropping the banner in the face of his foe and then closing for the kill while the enemy was still confused. Pressed from all sides, the Quman broke and scattered, running like deer.

The Quman who had pursued the attack up onto the hill were now cut off, and the hundred or so Wendish warriors at Sanglant's back whittled them down until there were not more than two dozen Quman left, many dismounted and wounded, now surrounded.

Sanglant knew one word in the Quman tongue.” Surrender!" he cried now.

A few of the Quman cursed. The rest remained silent, unyielding.

Between one breath and the next, the rain stopped falling. Red-haired Captain Thiadbold stood at the height of the knoll,, commanding what remained of the stalwart Lions. He stepped forward.” No mercy!" he shouted into the unexpected silence.” Kill them all!"

With cries of glee and fury, the Wendish soldiers fell upon the cornered Quman. The fight was short and desperate. Lord Hrodik fell, pierced in the side, but soon the last of the Quman was beheaded by a Lion's ax after having been knocked prone by old Gotfrid, the Lion Sanglant had rescued from a slaver's chains.

Blessing burst into sight as though she had exploded out of a

tree. She leaped for her father's arms. Sanglaht scooped her out of the air and held her tight, face pressed against her hair. She smelled of rotting logs. But she was alive.

"I was waiting for you," she cried, scolding him, "but it took you so long to come and kill the bad men."

"I know, sweetheart," he said, trying not to weep for joy at holding her, unharmed.” They won't hurt you now. I must go to fight at the front. The battle against Bulkezu is yet to be joined." "Didn't you kill Bulkezu? Wasn't that dead man him?" "Nay, Daughter." Tears stung his eyes. They always did, when he had to view the carnage, so many good men down.” This was only a feint, an attempt to roll us up from behind and catch us between two claws." He kissed her and handed her into Heribert's waiting arms as the cleric staggered down the slope, face pale and robes streaked with blood. Quman blood smeared Blessing's cheek and stained her tunic where she had pressed against her father's tabard.

"Thank God," said Heribert. That was all. Anna crept forward to sink down next to the cleric. A moment later young Matto and Lord Thiemo, limping but mobile, pushed their way out of the crowd as well. Were they all that remained of the men he'd left behind to guard Blessing?

Fulk and his company had slaughtered any remaining Quman and now hunted through the scattered remnants of the baggage train. None of the ill-gotten loot from the train would ever arrive in the eastern plains, nor would any of these rich fabrics and glittering jewelry ever adorn Quman women.

"My lord prince." Captain Thiadbold knelt before him, bloodied but not bowed. The groans of wounded men, Wendish and Quman alike, made a horrible din around them.” What is your command?" "Set up a field hospital." Sanglant glanced around and caught sight of Wolfhere, who had done his part in the fighting but now moved through the battlefield, searching for wounded who could be pulled free.” Eagle! You'll stay with the Lions. There must be men here who might still Jive if they're cared for. These wagons can be set to rights, and loaded. Be ready to march as soon as you can."

"What of the Quman who are injured?" asked Thiadbold.” My men will kill them willingly enough."

Sanglant hesitated.” Nay. Save those who can live. The Lord enjoins mercy, and I'll have it now. Our enemy may yet prove of use to us."

Wolfhere glanced at him, a strange expression on his face, but he said nothing. Instead, he hurried down the knoll to organize the freed prisoners and surviving soldiers into a work detail. Thiadbold merely shrugged and rose, calling to his men, Captain Fulk rode up.” My lord prince. The Quman are routed."

"Sound the horn and rally the men. We must return to Prince Bayan."

Sibold raised the gold banner high so that all could spot the prince's colors as Fulk blew three staccato blasts on the horn. Almost all his men reassembled; Lord Hrodik had fallen and was possibly dead, but the prince guessed that he hadn't lost more than ten men in the attack. If only the Lions, and Duke Boleslas and his Polenie, had been so lucky. He could see the line of battle, and the dead, stretching east into the forest, a clear trail of bodies and blood showing the way the earlier battle had fallen out with the Quman chasing down the fleeing baggage train and the Polenie trying desperately to stop them.

No use dwelling over what was past. No time for regrets in the midst of battle. Knowing the real battle could be joined at any moment back on the Veser plain, Sanglant raised a hand to signal the advance. Paused. The skin between his shoulder blades crawled, as though an arrow had been aimed to pierce his back. He glanced back over his shoulder.

Captain Fulk moved up beside him.” Do you see anything, my lord prince? I believe we killed them all. They'll not be back to trouble your daughter this day."

"Nay, it's not that, although we have to win the battle at hand before we can be sure we're free of trouble." Sanglant had a momentary illusion that hornets were swarming all around his head, but it sloughed off quickly. Yet he still could not shake the sense that someone was watching him.” Ai, Lord, Fulk, it's hard enough knowing the danger my sweet child faces every day, that I've brought on her. Lord knows I've done things I'm not proud of these last months, but God forgive me, I still think of Liath constantly. Will I ever see her again?"

"I pray that you will, my lord prince."

At times like these, battle was almost a relief. Better to fight than to dwell on his grief and his fears. He lifted his hand again, calling for a new lance to be brought for him.

A crack of thunder splintered the air around them. Horses neighed, rearing. Men raised their voices in alarm, but as suddenly quieted. As though silence itself commanded attention, men began to look around. Sanglant, too, looked back over his shoulder to see a tiny figure descending from the knoll. A veil concealed her face, but her ancient hands, gnarled with arthritis, betrayed her age. Scarcely taller than a child, Bayan's mother wore rich gold robes elaborately embroidered with scenes of griffins and dragons locked in battle. When she commandeered a horse from a soldier—who promptly dropped to his knees as though felled—and mounted with assistance from one of her slaves, Sanglant saw that the robes were split for riding. Hastily, he rode over to her as soldiers reined away, made superstitious by the stories they had heard and by the uncanny behavior of the rain.

"My lady," he began in Wendish, "I pray you, forgive me for not knowing the proper address for a woman of your birth and rank." Though she was mounted now on a huge warhorse whose size dwarfed her, she did not look ridiculous. Sanglant towered over her.” I beg you, you will be safer here in the rear now that we have—

One of her slaves stepped forward.” Stand not in the way of the holy woman." He was a huge man with a dark complexion and thick shoulders and arms, not the kind worth tangling with in a fight unless necessary.

"She is safer—

She rode away. Her feet didn't even reach the stirrups.

"The holy woman has seen that her luck is in danger," said the slave.” She must go."

Her luck?

That quickly, Sanglant remembered the old Kerayit custom, that a shaman woman's luck resided in the body of another person.

Her luck was her son.

This time when he raised a hand, twin horns blared. In the distance, he heard the answering bell of Druthmar's horn. Afflicted all at once with a horrible sense of foreboding, Sanglant signaled the advance. With his forces marshaled and Druthmar waiting farther down to join them, Sanglant led them back along the road at a trot.

Long ago, at besieged Gent, when she saw him for the first time, he had been wearing that same dragon helm, splendid and handsome. Just as he was then. Just as he is now. Desire is a flame, a torch burning in the night. No traveler can help but be drawn toward it.

Ai, God, she misses him. She misses the feel of him.

But she has to go on. She has to choose wisely, never forgetting that she isn 't truly on Earth but rather ascending the last sphere.

No creature male or female can harm him. Remembering this, she stayed her hand through the worst of the fighting. In battle, truly, Sanglant can take care of himself. She hasn't forgotten the lesson she learned in the sphere ofJedu, the angel of war.

She hasn 't forgotten the horror of being killed, over and over again, by the one she loves.

But those hornets bother her. She saw them as aetheric darts stinging at his face and hands. He shook them off, but it is obvious to her that another hand works magic, hoping to harm the prince. She touches the golden robes of the old woman, the veiled one, but although the crone starts around surprised, feeling her touch, the woman cannot see her, only sense her gaze. The old woman has a face so wrinkled that it is hard to see the soul beneath, like an insect protected by its carapace. Despite her great age, her hair is still as black as a girl's. Her complexion is dusky, and her dark eyes are pulled tight at the comers in the shape of an almond. These features mark her as a steppe dweller, a woman from the eastern tribes, the people who live on the endless plains of grass with their herds and their tents.

She has powerful magic, the air hums around her as though infested with bees, but it isn't her magic that threatens Sanglant. Regretfully, Liath leaves Sanglant, Blessing, and the old woman behind and speeds onward, an arrow on the aetheric winds binding the Earth. She has become the bow.

Skirmishes are being fought far into the woods and as far away

as the twin rivers, flowing northward to join at the base of Osterburg 's walls. Such melees do not warrant more than a glance. She seeks, and she finds two armies massed for battle just beyond the woodland, gathered on open ground. The Wendish fly the banner of Princess Sapientia, the sigil of the heir ofWendar and Varre, six animals set on a shield: lion, dragon, and eagle, horse, hawk, and guivre. A large force of Ungrians bearing the sigil of the double-headed eagle comes up behind the Wendish line, ready to strike at the center of the Quman line.

Already the Quman archers fire at will, to soften up their enemy, but the Ungrians give as good as they get, and the Wendish legions swing wide and begin a steady advance toward the flanks. The Quman force seems larger than it is. From this height, like a hawk circling, she sees that the wings they wear make them seem as if they have more soldiers than they really do.

Brute force will win this engagement today, unless that magic she tastes in the air and feels like a prickling along her skin turns the tide.

A rumble like thunder rises as the armies shift forward and charge. Dust billows into the air. The Wendish and Ungrian forces shriek and cry out, voices ringing above the pound of hooves, but the Quman advance in uncanny silence, goaded on by their prince, whose griffin wings shine and glitter in the sunlight.

Just as the two armies meet in a resounding clash, she finds a thread spanning the wind. Aetheric hornets gleam along its length, buzzing and chattering as it extends toward the armies. She speeds backward along the thread. Beyond the Veser in a makeshift camp, desperate prisoners huddle, awaiting the outcome of the battle, but the thread leads her an arrow's shot away from the groaning, helpless captives, back across the river to a low rise on the east bank overlooking the plain. The glimmering thread curls into a line of horsemen: a dozen guards, one light-haired person dressed in ragged Wendish garb, and a strange man stripped down to trousers patched together from a hundred different pieces of fabric. Blue-black tattoos cover his torso; they seem to writhe and shiver as he chants. Unlike the other Quman warriors, he wears no blackened and shrunken head dangling from his belt, but his ornaments are gruesome enough: earrings made from shriveled human noses, a needle piercing the septum of his nose and each end of it adorned with a withered human ear.

He is a shaman. The thread of hornets spins out from his voice, twisted into life through the words of his spell.

The woman beside him raises her head. In that first instant, Liath does not recognize her because of the hatred that mars her expression as she gazes over the field of battle. Hate distorts the heart, leaving scars, as it has scarred her own heart. Remembering this, she knows her.” Hanna!"

Hanna shakes her head as though to chase away annoying flies. Her hands are tied in front of her; she is a captive, forced to watch as the battle unfolds. The smooth wood of Seeker of Hearts feels cool against Liath's palms. One arrow will not rescue Hanna, not with a dozen guards, and because she does not exist on Earth in bodily form, she cannot manifest fire. It is only her consciousness that has fallen to Earth; her body remains above.