Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (102 page)

It had become a very old joke, but he and his companions still found it hysterical.

Amazingly, Prince Ekkehard had learned to keep his mouth shut at such times. He merely handed the feather to Baldwin for safekeeping.

They had passed the first signs of a village some time ago, woods logged out for firewood and buildings, grazed meadows, a litter of pig bones, and fields left fallow. It had been a quiet ride; there were remarkably few birds in the woods. Now as the sun sank into the afternoon, light filtered mellowly through spring leaves. They rode alongside a flowering orchard. Three half grown boys sprinted out from the cover of the trees to stare.

"Look at them spears!" cried one of them, whose face was at least as dirty as his feet.

"Come you to kill the beast?" cried another, galloping alongside the road until a ditch cut him off. Their friend had already taken off across a side path, leaping a rivulet, and vanishing into a crowd of waist-high berry bushes as if all the Enemy's minions pursued him.

Word flew before them, and when they reached the village, they were met by a delegation of village elders, three old women and two bent men who seemed to have about a dozen teeth between them. What must have been the rest of the village population crowded behind: matrons; men and boys of all ages; little girls. Strangely, there seemed to be no young women of marriageable age among them. Dogs barked, and Thoughtless took a swipe at one scrawny yapper with his spear, nicking the poor creature in its hindquarters. Ivar had seen this scene before as they had traveled at a leisurely pace south and east from Gent: the village elders would offer a few poor gifts as a transparent bribe and then suggest that the group travel to a manor house or monastic farm farther up the road, one more fit to entertain a party of their consequence. Wichman would refuse because he preferred lording it at villages, where there was inevitably a handier supply of reluctant young women.

"God's mercy," cried the eldest of the sages, an old woman who had to lean on a stick to support herself. She had an odd way of clipping off her words at the end, the local dialect. "Our prayers are answered, my lords. Say that you have come to kill the beast!"

"What sort of beast might that be?" asked Wichman, scanning the huts and outlying sheds. Beyond, long fields tipped with green striped the ground, interspersed with ranks of fruit-bearing bushes and trees. Something pale flashed between two trees, escaping to the safety of the woods: a dog? a goat?

"Ai, a terrible creature not born of earth! Since Margrave Vil-lam and Duchess Rotrudis drove back the Rederii these twenty years and brought them into the Light of God, we've had no trouble here. But now!" Several folk wailed out loud. "Shades in the forest there've always been, but this! First all manner of unGodly lights up in the old stones, and now the beast. Why has God seen fit to torment us?"

"What manner of beast is it?" repeated Wichman. He had his most irritating little smirk on his face.

"A terrible creature never meant to walk on earth. It come from the stones one night, flew out of a blinding light. As big as a house, it is, like an eagle, only it's a monster sent by the Enemy to plague us. Its claws could lay open a cow with one rake. First it only took the deer, but we fear that—

"Haven't you any daughters but those little ones?" demanded Thruster suddenly. He was rubbing one thigh obsessively, sweating a little although it wasn't very warm.

Every man and woman in the place went still and white. One child, piping up, got a slap on the mouth.

"Eaten!" said the woman in a quaking voice. She had warts on her nose and a stubborn gleam in her eye. "The beast took the deer first", and then our daughters."

"I would have taken the daughters first and then the deer," said Useless, "but this must be some agile relative of Eddo's." They laughed uproariously, including Thruster.

"Hold your tongues!" said Wichman, who hadn't laughed. "Whose land is this?"

"It's our own, my lord. I come with my husband, God rest him, to settle here when there wasn't nothing but savages living here. It were the agreement made with King Arnulf s stewards. We're beholden to no lady but only to the king."

He grunted thoughtfully. His horse, getting restive, danced a little sideways, and he yanked it back. "But I must keep my companions happy, or they won't want to risk their lives. What can you offer us?"

"Food and shelter, my lord."

"I know what you're hiding," said Wichman. "And I want it for myself and my men."

"What're they hiding?" cried Thruster eagerly.

Prince Ekkehard pressed his horse forward. Compared to his older cousin, he looked slight and almost frail, but he held his head as proudly and he was of course dressed magnificently. "I am Ekkehard, son of King Henry," he said in a bold voice. "I have come to save you. I ask no reward for my companions and myself no matter what the risk to our lives, for I know my duty as a prince of this realm. Tell me more of this beast that afflicts you."

In this way, Ivar found himself pressing through grass and chest-high foliage along an overgrown trail, following his guide, a thin and rather frightened boy whose speech was almost unintelligible. As Ekkehard's least favorite companion, Ivar had been sent ahead to scout the stones, the lair of the mysterious and horrible beast, and his guide had evidently been chosen because he was one person the villagers wouldn't much mind losing, poor lad.

Bait,
Wichman had said, and his companions had all pounded each other on the back at this witticism and snorted and chortled. Baldwin had looked annoyed and begun to intercede, but Ivar had stopped him. He was proud to go, truly. He wasn't afraid anymore because he trusted in God's plan now even if he did still have uncomfortable dreams of Liath some nights. Anyway, it wasn't fair to make the poor boy go alone.

He hiked up his novice's robes as they forded a broad and shallow stream. Wet to the knees, he clambered out on the other side, keeping up a stream of prayer as he crept on behind the boy. God had a plan, of course, really She did, and he trusted Her, but he still wondered why his stomach couldn't decide between leaping up out of his throat or dropping straight down out the other way, and if he kept his mouth moving he didn't quite have to think so much. How many lost souls had he brought to the truth since his revelation on the streets of Gent? Enough that he could go straight to the hall of the martyrs? He and Ermanrich and Sigfrid had preached among the benighted so pugnaciously for the next week that eventually Brother Humilicus had gotten suspicious, and the biscop had had them hauled up before her on the charge of heresy.

They had escaped only because Ekkehard was leaving with Wichman the next day and, driven by Baldwin's coaxing, he had used his princely authority to yank them out of the biscop's very annoyed grasp. But he hadn't been happy about it. And he still didn't like Ivar.

Had there been enough souls saved in Gent? It was hard to tell, and the villagers they had preached to along the way had been reticent, but at least those humble souls hadn't stoned them or driven them out. They'd listened, and whispered to each other. They'd even asked a few questions.

No one had said the work would be easy. God's plan wasn't all honey and pudding.

At times, Ivar wondered what God had planned for people like Lord Wichman, one of the most useless creatures ever to stalk the earth. Send a beast to kill
a
beast, Ermanrich had murmured as the expedition had armed and made ready to assault the beast's lair, but he'd stopped giggling at his joke when Ekkehard had commanded Ivar to walk ahead. Ekkehard had given him a small horn, which he now clutched in his right hand, and he hoped he'd have a chance to use it.

"Hsst!" The boy waved him back with a stick, then motioned toward a jumbly dark rise ahead of them, an unnaturally round hill crowned with fallen stones and unpleasantly torn up trees. It suddenly seemed odd to Ivar that all birdsong had ceased. Sun flashed among the stones, but then Ivar blinked, seeing it flash again, seeing it move, as if sunlight had been caught within the ruined stone circle and was trying to break free.

"Uh," uh, uh," grunted the boy in terror, and bolted. From the heart of the stones the sun rose, although the sun was already midway down a western sky half hidden in the broken clouds.
It
was huge and brilliant, covered in gold. Ivar heard shouts from behind him; the rider had seen it, and anyway, as he gaped as it rose higher and higher, he realized that he had dropped the horn.

It was shaped something like an eagle with a tufted eagle's head and a noble beak, but it was manifestly no eagle. They couldn't grow so large, and eagles didn't have gold feathers, as if they'd been gilded by flying too close to the sun. It was magnificent, with tail feathers that seemed to blaze and eyes that even from this distance sparked and glimmered like starlight. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.

Scrabbling on the ground, he found the horn, lifted it, and blew, but all that came out was a stuttering wheeze.

It trumpeted. The sound boomed around him, as melodious as the voice of angels, too powerful for mortal ears to comprehend. He'd never seen anything cover ground that fast. It was far, rising from the fallen stones, and then it was near, as big as a warhorse, diving for him with talons edged and pointed like swords.

He flung himself flat on the ground. The air heaved and blew as the creature passed over him. The beat of its wings burned his neck, and he was dizzied by a scent as sharp and heady as the incense used in church. He heard a very human shriek beyond him, but he was too winded to move.

Was that the face of the Enemy, so dazzling that it would kill you as you stared at it in wonder? Or was it a precious glimpse of the face of God in all Her terrible splendor?

A bony hand tugged at his ankle, and he yelped, kicking— but it was only the boy, who had come back to get him. Distantly, he heard horses scream and an outbreak of shouting. Wichman's voice pierced momentarily above the chaos: "With your spears, you fools!"

A riderless horse galloped out of nowhere, wild with terror, and Ivar leaped back out of its way, stumbled, rolled, and struck his shoulder on an inconvenient rock. He got to his hands and knees, scrambled behind a prickly hedge, and panted until he could think again. The boy had vanished with the horse, or in its wake. Finally, disgusted with his cowardice, he ran back toward the ford, trying to keep out of sight.

The clamor of a particularly ugly skirmish rang in the air, wounded horses, a panicking man, a huffing grunt like erratic bellows, someone screaming over and over again about his arm. Ivar came into sight of the ford. Beyond it, where the wood fell away into open ground, the great creature beat above a churning clot of riders like a beaked angel shrouded in golden light. Basking in the glow were seven riders, chief among them Wichman, never one to shrink from a fight. Each time the beast came near the ground, they prodded and thrust with their spears, and each time, with great beats of its wings, it would lift out of reach. With a shout, Prince Ekkehard spurred forward from the group, trying to get a thrust up from underneath, and for an instant he was out of reach of the others. The beast curled sharply toward him, uncannily graceful, and its talons caught his shoulders.

The young prince's arms were immediately pinned to his sides as talons dug deep into shoulders protected by a good mail coat. His spear fell to the ground, yet he didn't shriek, although blood began to run. With strained wing beats it tried to raise him into the air. The horse bolted out from under him, and he kicked, flailing helplessly, as if trying to reclaim his mount although the horse had already bolted into the woods. His helm, knocked loose, spun to earth.

He struggled on, pumping and swiping with his feet, as the beast flew low toward the ford where Ivar stood frozen, quite unable to think or act. Wichman and the other five riders pounded after in close pursuit. Shouting and whooping, more came riding from the woods, calling out the prince's name. As the beast closed, still beating low, Ivar could see Ekkehard's face, white, grimacing as he twisted, and yet in an odd way almost exulted.

The wind off its wings blasted Ivar as it came right in over his head, still unable to gain height. Without thinking, he leaped. Springing from a crouch to the air in two steps, he caught hold of one of Ekkehard's flailing legs.

At first he thought both he and the prince would be borne away as his toes left the ground, but in the next instant his feet were dragging in the water as the beast banked to one side, borne down by the extra weight. He heard Wichman shout, felt the press of horses nearby, driven in against their will. He didn't see the blow, but he felt it shudder through Ekkehard's leg, heard a grant from the prince, a groan forced out between gritted teeth. The beast trembled, and all three of them fell to the ground. The slow strained beats had become the frantic fluttering of a wounded wing, splashing in the stream.

Letting go, Ivar rolled over to see hooves slashing air above him. A shower of iron points and wooden shafts whistled past, cutting the sky into ephemeral ribbons. The cruel beak struck a hand's breath from his bare foot, and water sizzled from a weeping cut under one radiant eye; its blood scalded his toes. He threw himself sideways, rolling and rolling through the shallow water, gasping for breath and gulping more water than air until he was in the middle of the stream and outside the frenzied circle on the bank. He could see nothing but men and horses and spears, a frenzy of spears rising and falling like hammers beating death from life.