PROLOGUE (77 page)

"I beg pardon, my lord Alain." Lavastine's captain appeared before him, inclining his head respectfully. "The men will work in shifts all night. We should have rampart and fosse finished by dawn, though I'm not sure we can have much faith in it. You've seen them Eika, my lord. Fought them, too, and killed your share." He grinned, remembering the skirmish last autumn, and his praise warmed Alain's heart and gave him courage. The captain hadn't stayed so long at Lavastine's side because he handed away praise to curry favor for himself. Lavastine did not tolerate fools and sycophants; they did him no good. "Though I pray to Our Lord that no such thing will be the case, I'm still betting that the Eika will swarm that wall like mice into a granary. Ai, well, your father the count knows what he's doing." He said it not to reassure himself but with complete confidence. "We'll leave three gates for the mounted troops, each blocked by wagons. All's proceeding as planned. I'd advise you to get some rest, my lord. When battle comes, you most of all will need your head clear."

Alain nodded. "Very good, Captain," he said, but the words sounded lame. He felt helpless and, what was worse, useless. Many of these men were veterans of numerous campaigns against the Eika. Here, after a single battle in which he had killed a
guivre
that was already wounded and probably dying and one skirmish in which he'd been unable to strike a blow and yet been praised for his killing, he was second in command
—albeit watched over by an old veteran.

Like the mail shirt he wore, the weight of this responsi
‍
bility weighed heavy on his shoulders. But he had no one he could confide in, only the Eagle, and Lavastine had sent her and a small contingent back to search for King Henry. Ai, Lady, he could not even protect poor Liath.

"Come now, my lord," said the captain, who had not yet moved away. "I remember when I was a lad. There's no use in worrying about the tide coming in, as it'll come whether you wish it to or no. Just get off the beach, that's what my old dad always told me."

Alain could not help but smile. "Spoken like my aunt
— He broke off, for it was still painful to speak of Aunt Bel— his aunt no longer—but the soldier only nodded and indicated to Alain that the entrance to the pavilion lay open and servants waited to attend him.

He had this responsibility now. He was Lavastine's son and heir, and this night and in the days to come, whether the Eika attacked or waited, he had his duty.

Dismissing the captain, he went inside with Sorrow and Rage at his heels. He lay down on a pallet, still in mail and tabard, with his helmet, sword, and shield beside him. Behind the pavilion he heard horses snuffling, that group of riders under the command of the captain who would remain with him here on the hill. His hand, drifting over the side, came to rest on Sorrow's head. Rage whined, turned a few tight circles, and settled down.

Perhaps there would be no battle. Perhaps if Henry arrived in time, then peace might be forged between Henry and Bloodheart. Perhaps Fifth Son dreamed of peace as well.

But peace did not come to his dreams.

Battered and still weakened by loss of blood, he sat as silent as stone in his chains and listened as the Eika held a war council. His six dogs ringed him. They scratched at the flagstone floor, sensing the excitement. Blood and death: At times like this Sanglant wondered how much the dogs understood, how intelligent they really were. Voiceless they might be, but they did not act mindlessly
—yet neither had they the cunning of men, or of their Eika masters.

Bloodheart conferred with his son, the one in disgrace.

"One army," said Bloodheart.

"Many fewer in number than our own people, if my dreams are true dreams, and I believe they are."

"So you believe," said Bloodheart. "What standard flies at the head of this army? That of the king?" He leaned forward, claws extended, his great, scarred face a gleam of iron and shadow. The scent of his anticipation lay sodden over the assembly of Eika soldiers.

"Black hounds on a silver field," said the son. "A red eagle. A tower attended by ravens."

Sanglant shut his eyes, fighting back the pain. If he shifted on the floor to find a more comfortable position, stone scraped his flesh raw. His wounds had healed, licked clean by his dogs, but the touch of Aoi magic had somehow scoured his senses so every touch of his skin on stone or on the harsh coat of the dogs or on the coarse metal of his chains flamed like fire through his body, every smell
—even and especially his own—made him reel, every taste of such food as he could glean from the garbage tossed aside by Bloodheart and his sons nauseated him.

Black hounds on a silver field. That would be the Count of Lavas. This much he dredged from his memory. A red eagle: Fesse. A tower attended by ravens: his aunt, Constance, if indeed she still presided as biscop in Autun.

But not King Henry.

He shifted his shoulders to try their strength. The dogs, sensing his movement, growled softly.

Bloodheart sighed and sat back. "So my scouts report also. The chieftain of this army is not the king, then. Well enough. The king is coming, or so you report. And I sense him, likewise, like a rot breathing in my bones." When he grinned, his jewel-studded teeth flashed in the light that lanced in low through the western windows. He looked toward his prisoner. "But he won't arrive in time. A little army, this first one that troubles us." He fingered the bone flute at his belt, tugged it out, and lifted it to his lips. "I'll chew up each little army piecemeal, as it comes to me, and let the dogs fight over what remains.

"All but
you."
Abruptly he jabbed at the son, who danced back and then had to slap away the sudden assault of growling dogs
—Bloodheart's pack, those who hadn't transferred their allegiance to Sanglant.

The Eika prince's own dogs bolted forward, teeth bared, but he kicked them back and, slowly, all the dogs settled down while Bloodheart watched their interplay with unholy glee.

"You!
You returned here without my permission, and so you will taste no blood in the coming battle. So will
you
remain behind, still in disgrace, to watch while your nestbrothers run forth to the glory of slaughter."

The son did not protest this judgment, but an unfathomable expression flashed across his sharp face before he retreated to the accompaniment of his brothers' howls and jeers.

Bloodheart laughed, settling himself deep in his throne. He lifted his flute and began to play while beyond, in the vast nave, the scrape and ring and grunt of Eika preparing for battle filled the vault with reverberations as complex as those of a congregation singing a hymn.

Outside, like a pulsing echo, drums began to beat.

LIATH and ten lightly armed riders bearing spear and shield started south at dawn the morning after the destruction of the Eika ship at the river's mouth. They rode through woods and fallow fields, many grazed, some growing wild after last year's burning. Beside a stream that drained downslope toward the Veser River they stopped to water and graze the horses, and to eat.

Soon they cut inland to avoid Eika patrols. The rough country above the river plain made for hard going. They rode too deep in the woods, sundered now from the river bottoms by the bluffs, to see the river or any indication that they neared Gent.

When they stopped at nightfall, the cavalry captain took her aside. "How far to Gent?" he asked.

"I don't know. A day or two from the river's mouth
— that's what Mistress Gisela told us—but none survived in Steleshame who'd made the journey themselves and I'm thinking now that the day's trip they mentioned from Gent to the sea was by boat, running with the current."

These skirmishers had come from the county outside Autun, and swore allegiance to Biscop Constance. Now, smiling wryly, Captain Ulric indicated the full moon rising through a gap in the trees. "If we can make our trail where there's light enough to see, then perhaps we can ride farther tonight. I don't like riding out here alone. God know the Eika might leap out from behind any tree."

So, after a rest, they went on, nervous and watchful.

It was a long night.

In the predawn stillness, with the moon sliding below the trees, they groped their way along an overgrown trail and came out to a burned farmstead.

"I recognize this place," said Liath, breath hissing between her teeth. She led them into a meadow beyond the sad remains of buildings and there, in the clearing, she had light enough to discern the landscape.

"This is the cave's mouth!" she exclaimed. "Look there!" The light on the eastern horizon rimmed the bluff with a dim glow but its rocky slope lay still in darkness. "From the height you can see the city. Who will follow me into the cave? I'll need a torch once we get inside."

None of the men seemed eager to follow her into the cave, but Captain Ulric picked out a volunteer, left six men with the horses, and took another two to climb the bluff with him.

"Come now, Erkanwulf," she said to her companion, a slender young man with pale hair, "I can't believe you'd be afraid of the dark."

"Ai, well, mistress," he said politely but with a slight tremor in his voice, "I'm not feared of the dark. But my good mother did tell me that the old gods fled to the caves when the deacons and fraters came to our country and drove them out of the villages and crossroads and stone circles. How do I know that wasn't true in this land as well?"

"I didn't see you flinch at fighting the Eika, friend. You dispatched one yourself, at the river's shore."

"So I did, but they're savages, aren't they? And they can die just like you and me can, so there's no reason to be feared of what is mortal." She sensed him grin by his tone; it was too dark to see. "Unless it has an ax and you don't, I suppose." He chuckled, perhaps recalling Sergeant Fell. But he followed Liath gamely enough as she thrust through bushes and found the mouth of the cave.

Setting flint to rock, Erkanwulf caught a spark and lit the pitch-soaked torch just as he stepped inside. She sucked in breath, seeing the flame spit into existence. Could she have lit it with the touch of her hand? It was still too dangerous for her to try.

The young man had already gone forward, made bold by
'"
"See here," he called back over his shoulder, his fire.

shadow writhing over the walls as he moved into the back of the cave. "There's no outlet. This must be the wrong cave.

"No." She shook herself free of this fruitless worrying; she couldn't unravel the mystery of her own magic until she found a teacher. As Da always said:
"Harvest the wheat that's ripe instead of watching the shoots grow."
"I know this is the right place." Coming up behind him, she stopped short. It was all rock, a rough wall of stone that curved back above them, sealing them in...

. . . and yet, wasn't there a kind of vibration to the wall, a disturbance in the barrier of rock?

"No," she said as it dissolved before her. "See, there, you can see the break in the wall," she stepped forward as Erkanwulf gasped.

"You'll walk right into the wall
—!"

She found the first step with her foot, poised there with the touch of air swirling up against her like an echo of the river's currents where the Veser met the sea. She smelled the dank passages of stone, the dry scent of old earth, the holy remains of the dead who lay in the cathedral crypt and, surely, the rank presence of the Eika in the cathedral itself and the blood of all those who had died.

Sanglant.
And poor Manfred, and all the others who had fallen together with Gent.

Erkanwulf gasped again. The torch's heat flamed against her back, and she shifted sideways as he came up beside her. "By our Lord! It's as you said! I'd never have seen it with the shadows so deep here. Lady Above! Do you think the old spirits were hiding it from us?"

She turned back in time to see him retreat, face golden under the torch's light. He looked all about himself as if he expected a peevish sprite to swoop down upon him with elfshot nocked and ready to let fly. She laughed. "Nay, friend Erkanwulf. Remember, I saw the vision of St. Kristine with my own two eyes, and I'll never forget it, so long as I live. I think she hid the entrance so that only those in need could find it. Come on, then. We've news to take to Count Lavastine
—"

"And his army yet to find," countered the young man as he followed her out. He snuffed the torch, tossed it to his waiting fellows, and climbed the bluff after her. She could hear him puffing and grunting as he scrambled, slipping on loose scree. Was that pounding his heavy tread?

As she reached the top, it hit her as the sound swirled around her like a breath of distant wind off the river. It was not thunder or the pound of feet but rather the sound of Eika drums. How could she hear them from this distance
—unless the battle had already been joined?