Crown Of Stars - Child Of Flame Part 21

Inside, he stowed the leather bundle with her precious items inside a wooden chest for safekeeping. He grabbed one of her sleeping furs and hurried outside, where the hounds waited.

Sorrow and Rage weren't alone. Half the village had followed him, although they hadn't come inside; the other half waited uneasily outside the council house.

As the hounds sniffed the fur, Kel stepped forward as if to speak, but Beor thrust him aside and set his spear against Alain's chest. The bronze blade gleamed wickedly. Alain grasped the haft of Beor's spear. The other man was stronger, with a bear's muscular bulk, but Alain was on fire.

"Move aside," he said in his own language, staring him down." If we go quickly, we may still be able to follow their trail and get Adica back. If they meant to kill her at once, they'd have done so, but if they took her, it means we have a little time at least. For the sake of G.o.d, do not hinder me."

A strange expression pa.s.sed across Beor's face. Behind him, villagers murmured to each other. Beor stepped back hesitantly.

"I go," said Alain, groping for words." I find Adica."

Mother Orla spoke. Instantly, several folk ran off into the vil- j lage.

Kel jumped forward, carrying now a bronze knife in addition to the bronze spear he had taken off the corpse of the dead invader." I go!" he cried triumphantly.

"I go," said Beor abruptly.

Belatedly, a dozen other adults volunteered, but a large party could not move in haste and secrecy." Kel." Alain paused, then nodded sharply." Beor. We go."

Quickly, they made ready. Alain wished keenly for his knife and sword, but he didn't know where Adica had hidden them, and there wasn't time to look. Instead, he accepted a bronze knife. Mother Orla's errand runners brought rope, waterskins full of mead, a wooden tube lined with fired ceramic and filled with hot coals, and a pungent supply of dried fish, wayfarer's bread, and a bundle of leeks. Both Beor and Kel had wood frames to sling on their backs, fitted with a leather sack for carrying these provisions. Even this ! took precious time.

Alain led the hounds down to the birthing house. Urtan's daughter, following, showed him the scuffed ground where the altercation had taken place; by means of signs and mime, she showed him what she had seen from the watchtower at the gate. Urtan and his companions had run up to Adica and Tosti moments before a group of at least twenty raiders had come running down from the tumulus. They had split into two groups, one to harry the village and one to capture the Hallowed One, Adica.

The hound sniffed the ground and, at a command from Alain, trotted away toward the tumulus, following a trail only they could perceive. Alain followed at a jog, with Kel and Beor at his heels. The villagers gathered like mourners at the gate, watching them go. Then, prudently, the gate was swung shut. The half-finished outer palisade looked flimsy from this height. He saw a sc.r.a.p of color fallen in the ditch: a corpse.

Who were the raiders who had struck? Why did they look like relatives of Prince Sanglant? Everyone knew that no Aoi roamed the Earth any longer-not unless they were shades, caught in a purgatory between substance and shadow. Why did they want Adica?

Beor and Kel could probably answer these questions, but he had no words to ask. He could only pursue.

He expected the hounds to lead them to the stone circle, but they cut away at the highest ring of earthworks and padded along in the shadow of the twisting serpent of earth until, at the eastern edge, they scrambled downslope.

There, most of the way down the eastern slope, stood a stone lintel, the threshold of a pa.s.sageway that led into the great hill. Kel moaned with fear as the hounds sniffed at the opening. A long-dead craftswoman had carved into the left-hand pillar a humanlike figure wearing the skin and antlers of a stag. Beside the yawning opening lay an offering of flowers, wilted now, scuffed by the pa.s.sage of animals and wind. A deer had left droppings where it had paused to investigate the flower wreath, and the hounds became enamored with this fascinating reminder of its pa.s.sage.

Beor knelt. When he rose, he displayed a scale of bronze that might have fallen from armor. Alain searched to make sure they hadn't missed any other sign of the raiders' pa.s.sage. A stone had fallen from the hillside and now rested among faded cornflower blossoms. Tansy had found a foothold in a hollow off to one side, where water collected. That was all.

Sorrow barked and vanished into the pa.s.sage. Kel had gone quite pale, as though painted with chalk. Beor only grunted, but he had a fierce grin on his face as he looked toward Alain as if to see if the other man were brave enough to continue on.

No matter.

A half-dozen torches lay ready, stacked neatly inside the threshold. Alain caught a spark in the pitch-smothered head. Flame blazed up. With his staff skimming the ground ahead to test for obstacles and a second unlit torch thrust between his belt and tunic, he followed Sorrow into the pa.s.sage.

Beor and Kel exchanged words, soon m.u.f.fled by stone. Alain had to crouch to move forward. Ahead, he heard Sorrow snuffling and panting. The torch bled smoke onto the corbeled ceiling. Hazy light revealed carvings pecked into the stones that lined the pa.s.sageway: mostly lozenges and spirals, but here and there curious sticklike hands which reached toward four lines cut above them. Such symbols of power betrayed the presence of the old G.o.ds, but he wasn't afraid of them. They had no power over those who trusted to the Lady and Lord.

The ceiling sloped up, and the thick stone walls rose higher and higher until he walked, unexpectedly, into a great chamber. A stone slab lay on the ground in the center of this chamber. Sorrow sniffed impatiently around it, as though he smelled a rat.

Alain held up the torch as Beor cautiously stepped into the chamber behind him, spear held ready for battle. Rage padded in his wake. There was no sign of Kel.

The high corbeled ceiling arched up into a darkness the hazy torchlight could not reach. Opposite Alain, and to either side, lay niches, each alcove carved with the representation of an ancient queen.

Here, deep in the womb of stone and earth, not even the wind could be heard. But someone was watching them.

"Where is she?" Alain demanded of that unseen presence.

The torch whuffed out as though a gust of wind had extinguished it. One moment, it hissed and threw smoky light all around them. The next, it was too black to see, and he smelled the scent of burning pitch curl and die away until all he smelled was earth and damp and cold, and the comforting aroma of dog. Beor swore under his breath, more prayer than oath.

Then even those sensations were gone, and Alain could no longer feel or hear anything, not the breathing of the hounds, not the stone itself beneath his feet. He was alone except for a shuddering, wheezing sigh that breathed in and out around him, as though the hill itself was a living creature, half asleep and half aware.

"Where is she?" he called again. The vision hit like a blast of light, searing his eyes. Three queens stand before him, one to the north, one to the south, one to the west.

"Wh.o.a.reyou, to make demands of us?" cries the youngest. She holds in her hand a bow whose length runs writhing with gold salamanders, burning like fire. Her tomb is carved with two sphinxes. Their clever faces, as much feline as woman, gleam as though touched by phosphorus.

"Who are you, holy one?" She is no saint known to the blessed Daisan, but he can respect her nevertheless, for she is a woman of power even if she is dead.

Her voice rings through him with the fierce clamor of a thunderstorm." I am the one called Arrow Bright. Have you not heard of me? Was I not fostered by the lion women of the desert, who taught me the secret ways known only to the Pale Hunter?"

"There is much I do not know," he admits.

"What do you want?" asks the second queen, standing to the south. Her tomb glows with gold beaten into the shape of a sow, and she has herself the ample outlines of a prosperous woman, sleek and radiant.

"What do you want?" Only a rash man states his true purpose before he knows what he is facing.

She laughs." I am Golden Sow. It was my magic that made all the women of my tribe fertile, and all their children healthy. Is this not what all people want?"

"How is it that death has marked you, and yet you stand living?" asks the third queen. Her voice has a rasp that makes his skin crawl. Her cairn stands to the west, opposite the pa.s.sageway. More primitive than the others, it consists of a simple mound of discolored stones like so many worn teeth that once belonged to a creature so vast that each tooth was as big as an adult's head. She is ancient, and toothless, but her eyes are as brilliant as stars.

"How do you know I am living ? " he retorts.

"Only living things suffer desire," retorts Toothless in kind." What can you give us in return for an answer?"

He laughs." I have nothing to give you, for I came naked to this place."

"Do not say you have nothing," scolds Golden Sow." You have youth and vitality. You have life."

"You are untouched, still whole," says Arrow Bright." You are a virgin, as are all those sworn to the Pale Hunter's service."

"It is not the Pale Hunter I serve," he says, as respectfully as he can, for it would not do to insult queens of such power, especially since they are dead.

"You serve the Lady, as do we all." Toothless moves a step closer. The scent of the grave wafts from her as her cape, woven of gra.s.s, stirs in an unfelt wind." The Lady commands both life and death."

"Then I am in Her hands." He bows his head under the weight of a greater presence looming beyond, an effortless stillness that pervades the chamber and, swelling, expands to fill the entire universe.

Toothless laughs." Let it be witnessed."

"I know where she went," says Arrow Bright suddenly, "but it is the way of this place that no thing can be given without an offering pledged in return."

He will give them anything, if only it brings Adica back to her village. He has lost so many; he will not lose her, too." What do I have that you want? I came naked- He knows at once what they want from him, and he blushes furiously, heat spreading along his body.

"Pledge to us that which you have held to yourself for so long. If you find her, bring her here, and here, fulfill your pledge."

"So be it," he murmurs.

Sorrow barked. Alain staggered as though the ground had dropped out from under him. Beor caught the torch before it fell. He seemed about to speak, but they heard a ghostly whimper and both turned, weapons raised, just as Kel stumbled into the chamber, sweating with fear but with a grimace of determination on his young face.

Rage began digging furiously by the stone altar. Dirt flew, stinging the walls, and a moment later the deepening hole revealed-^ small plank door laid flat against the ground. Straining, Beor tugged it up. An ancient stairway cut down into the rock. At once, Sorrow descended cautiously. Kel muttered imprecations under his breath, but when Alain started down after the hound, he felt Kel head down behind him. Light flared; Beor had lit a second torch to bring up the rear.

The stairs were as smooth as if they'd been polished, and they descended in a curving sweep for long enough that they might have sung Nocturns and seen the sun rise at Prime. Instead of counting the steps, Alain focused his attention past Sorrow so they wouldn't be ambushed out of the dark. Once he stopped so abruptly, hearing a noise, that Kel b.u.mped into his back. The entire party came to a halt.

The noise came again. And again. It was only water, dripping into an unseen pool.

Beor handed round the waterskin and a corner of wayfarer's bread, enough to slake thirst and hunger.

Torchlight flickered on featureless walls. The ceiling lay so low that he could easily touch it with the flat of his palm. By lifting his arms, he could tap the walls with his elbows. Truly, the rock had them closed in. Better not to think about it. Better not to dwell on a force of armed warriors skulking ahead of him, with spears leveled to pierce his gut. Better to be grateful that the rock remained dry instead of dripping clammy water all over them. It was always wise to thank G.o.d for small mercies. He smiled grimly as Sorrow headed down into darkness again. What need had he to fear, when he had already suffered the worst that could happen to any mortal?

They kept going until the stairs gave out abruptly in a landing just large enough to contain the two hounds and the three men. Beor lifted his spear to tap the rock ceiling, now out of arm's reach. Two tunnels opened before them. A breath of air teased Alain's face as though the rock itself had exhaled. Then all was still.

They each took a sip of water to wet their dry throats. The air had changed, stung with a sharp scent. The rock had changed as jwell; it didn't precisely look like rock any more but had a smooth, polished gleam to it, shuddering under torchlight.

Kel spoke in a frightened whisper, something about a hill, or something under the hill. Nay, a people who lived under the hill, or so it seemed, for he used the word skrolin-sisi several times, enough that Alain was able to pick it out from the others. Was there a tribe who lived deep in the earth? Someone had carved these tunnels.

Beor answered in his big man's rumble. If he, too, were afraid, it was impossible for Alain to tell.

J.

Rage snuffled around the two black openings and chose the one to the right. They went on, but soon the tunnel split into two again and two more. If not for the hounds, they would have lost themselves, for they had stumbled into a labyrinth that went on and on for what seemed forever. Yet the stone walls remained dry and unmarked, oddly warm to the touch, unnaturally smooth. Whatever hand had built this place had not chosen to adorn it with any form of ornamentation. That made it easy for Alain to paint a sooty mark on the right-hand side of each new turning they took, so that they could, he devoutly hoped, find their way back.

The torch, burning low, began to sputter. They paused to take water with a bite of dried fish. The pitchy smoke steamed past Alain's head, making him cough. His eyes streamed. Fighting for air, he inhaled but took in a lungful of the noxious smoke instead. Head spinning, he caught himself on the wall, leaning with his head pressed against the cool stone, trying to get steady. From deep in the rock noise shuddered up to drown out the pounding of his heart: a grinding rumble kicked at rhythmic intervals with a decisive clang, like the stroke of a gigantic blacksmith's hammer.

He shut his eyes to stop the dizziness. For an instant he hallucinated: his cheek, pressed against the wall, lay against iron, as though he had fallen asleep on his sword.

He slid a hand up the wall as understanding struck him. The walls were not stone at all. Iron had been forged and shaped to form a cloak for the walls in the same way that soft leather was formed into a glove to fit a person's fingers.

The torch died in his hand. He groped for the spare one tucked in his belt, but a big hand closed over his, to stop him. Beor's hostile presence hulked beside him. Nothing could stop Beor from killing him right here and right now. The hounds did not growl.

In the silence, he heard what Beor and Kel were straining to hear: the distant clash of a melee echoing weirdly down the labyrinth of iron halls. Beor pushed past Alain to take the lead, but he had gone no farther than ten steps, past two branching tunnels, before he faltered. Some trick of the labyrinth made the sound fade. For a moment, the hiss of Beor's torch drowned out the battle. The big man turned back to try one of the other tun nels, but the hounds surged past him, Alain in their wake, and continued on in the same direction. As the pa.s.sage twisted, the clamor of arms would sound close, then far, and although they went quickly, still Alain was careful to mark each turning so that they could return.

His sight had adjusted to the dimness. With Beor's torch flaring fitfully behind him, painting shadows and streaks of light over the uncannily regular curve of the tunnel's ceiling, he had no trouble marking his footing. The hounds did not falter. Kel brought up the rear.

He had no trouble marking his footing until he stumbled, slipped where the ground banked sharply down, and half slid into a chamber lit by sorcery, a flaring yellow-white light that blinded him because it was so bright.

One of the hounds barreled into him. He staggered back into the shadowed archway of the tunnel, fell to his knees, and flung up his staff, thinking he would be struck down while he was helpless. No blow came.

Not four steps in front lay an abyss, into which he had almost stumbled. From this angle, he couldn't see its bottom.

The clash of arms echoed all around the chamber, making it hard to tell where it was coming from. Strangest of all, he heard no voices, as if the melee were being conducted in silence. The hounds did not bark or cry out a warning. Kel whispered a word: skrolin! Beor gave a sharp hiss to keep Kel quiet.

Bright light flared again and immediately dimmed to a mellow glow as suddenly as if a giant's breath had blown out a rack of ten torches, leaving only one burning. By this light, Alain saw a melee strung out on the other side of the chasm. About a dozen of the masked warriors struggled against slender, small creatures, who looked like half-grown children whose skin had been polished until ithad the muted gleam of pewter. The feathers ornamenting the warriors' helmets and armor convulsed with their movements. Many had pushed their masks down for better sight in the dimness. Their bronze spears rang on the round shields held by the little people, shields incised with strange geometric patterns too peculiar to recognize. In their left hands these small fighters held slender clubs with k.n.o.bby heads that seemed inadequate to the task of war.

All at once, Alain saw Adica, caught in the mob, her hands bound. A man with a helmet crested entirely with snow-white feathers shoved her forward into the hands of his foremost soldiers, trying to move her toward a far archway that gave into a larger pa.s.sage: their escape route.

Beor nudged Alain, pointing.

A bridge spanned the chasm.

"Ashioi," Beor continued in a low voice." Fe skrolin d'Ash-ioiket."

Alain set two fingers to his lips for silence and crept forward.

The narrow bridge was cunningly spun out of ma.s.sive iron rope. He crossed swiftly, crouched low, with the hounds at his heels and the two men following. The bridge swayed beneath his tread. No one on the other side had seen them; they were too intent on keeping alive as the battle swayed back and forth, voices grunting, coughing, and once a shriek of pain, quickly cut off.

The light changed again, brightening with a flash. The skrolin leaped forward in unison to grapple with their enemies. Now Alain could see that the skrolin weapon was more vicious than it appeared: protruding from the club were two moist spikes, serpent fangs with drops of venom that sparkled in the sorcerous light. They used it to strike at the legs of their taller opponents, bringing them down. One masked warrior, forced to her knees, came eye-to-eye with the small warrior whose club was now pinned under her weight. The skrolin punched its shield into her beautiful hawk's mask, splintering wood, but as the skrolin drew back for another strike, the kneeling warrior wrapped the haft of her spear behind the neck of the skrolin to force it against its own shield, choking it until its eyes bulged and its head began to loll as it fought for air. Its helmet fell free, rolling along the edge with a rhythmic tinkling sound before plummeting into the black pit.

Alain leaped from the bridge to the firm rock below. Swinging his staff in a full arc, he caught the warrior on the side of the head to knock her flat. The skrolin struggled, squirmed, and rolled away. The fallen woman's eyelids fluttered. Her mouth, visible through the shattered mask, sighed open as in death. Had he killed her? But she moaned again and tried to rise before falling back, still stunned.

The nearest masked warrior slammed his shield against the skrolin facing him, before thrusting hard at Alain's head. Alain gave a sharp parry and stepped inside his range to bring the b.u.t.t end of his staff hard up into the gut of the warrior, then whipped the staff back down onto the man's shoulder, forcing him to the ground.

Beor and the two hounds charged past Alain. The white-crested captain stepped forward to counter this new threat. Rage and Sorrow leaped to the attack but were met by a mist of gnats. Sorrow yelped and collapsed to the ground, scratching violently at his head, as Rage bit the haft of a spear. With jaws clenched tight over the wood, she shook the spear back and forth, worrying it free of the captain's grasp. Beor quickly took advantage of White Feather's helplessness with a thrust at the man's unprotected back, but the white-crested warrior let go of the spear, dropped, and rolled to evade the thrust. In an eye blink, he leaped to his feet and drew his bronze sword. Beor had no shield to counter its thrusting tip. With a berserker's fury or perhaps only an experienced warrior's quick calculation of the odds, Beor dropped his spear, dodged the thrust, and grappled hand to hand with the captain.

Kel had joined Alain and together they parried blows from the other warriors, trying to sow confusion. Trying to stay alive. Rage leaped into the fray and Alain quickly lost sight of her. Sorrow had rolled out of harm's way, still frantically clawing at his muzzle.

Kel had courage but little experience. His hesitations were costly, and only theNpresence of the skrolin kept the enemy from overwhelming them. But many of the skrolin had already fallen. Alain could mark each, one-who was wounded, who was dead. That awareness swellep to encompa.s.s the entire field marked by the skirmish as he fought to keep alive, to keep his companions alive, and to drive^ path through their ranks to Adica. The Lady of Battles did npt^attend him here. He had no desire to kill; the thought of killing revolted him. But as he parried and struck, spared Kel a glancing blow and shoved a fallen skrolin out of harm's way, the melee gained sharpness and clarity, an uncanny predictability, a slowing down of time and motion as though all the other partic.i.p.ants had been caught in a spell.

The openings became obvious, the blows struck at him easy to counter. As a child he had so loved and dreamed about the frescoes that adorned the church walls: The fall of the ancient city of Dariya to savage hors.e.m.e.n. The fateful battle of Auxelles, where Taillefer's nephew and his men lost their lives but saved the empire. The glorious victory of the first King Henry against Quman invaders along the River Eldar, where his b.a.s.t.a.r.d grandson Conrad the Dragon charged his troop of cavalry straight into the midst of the terrible host of Quman riders, breaking their line and sending them scattering back to their own lands.

The field of battle became itself like one of those tapestries, not an undecipherable chaos but a painting in which each fighter was as transparent to him as if he had opened a window into that mind. He knew who was scared and who was hesitant, who new to war, who dangerous through experience or because she was coldblooded. He knew who was ready to run and who was prepared to die.

The warrior before him did not wish to fight; she wanted nothing to do with humans and had all along thought it unwise to trespa.s.s below ground. The other warrior, facing Kel, was young, ready to prove himself valiant, and fearful enough of humans that he had the advantage over Kel. Alain stepped in to knock away a spear thrust that Kel, attention caught by Beor's tumbling on the ground, wasn't prepared to meet. At the same time the experienced warrior swung her haft toward his head, but he caught the blow on his staff. He pushed the lower tip of his staff behind the leg of the younger one, and with a twist tripped the young one while striking the elder in the forehead. Both fell.

Kel exclaimed aloud. The enemy line was breaking. Freed of her guard, Adica ducked low and dashed away along the cavern wall, into shadow.

The woman below Alain struggled to get up. Alain placed the heel of his hand on the center of her chest to pin her to the ground. Her eyes widened: they flashed green, like jade, bright and penetrating. Sanglant had such eyes, startling with their gemlike intensity. He stared at her and she at him, he in wonder at her beauty and fierce heart, she in a puzzlement that expanded into surprise and respect. Without a word, Alain granted her pa.s.sage to leave.

She sprang up and retreated, dragging the stumbling youth with her. Rage tumbled, unhurt, out of the melee to take up her position beside Alain.

Beor hadn't as much luck. White Feather struck him hard in the shoulder, rocking him back, and jumped to his feet, calling out in a voice that reverberated through the chamber. His warriors, some still struggling and some in retreat, formed up into a stout line with their wounded at the rear. Where was Adica?

The skrolin, many of them leaking a greenish-tinged blood, waited in an eerie silence, as though they would not, or could not, speak. Alain sensed, then, that they were biding their time, delaying their enemy. Waiting-but for what?

Beor got to his feet, slipped on his own blood, and staggered back to stand beside Kel. Adica broke free seemingly from out of nowhere and tumbled over corpses to reach their side.

With angry cries, the masked warriors charged the four humans and the remaining half-dozen skrolin. That quickly, the skirmish dissolved into confusion again. With bound hands Adica grabbed for, and dropped, a spear fallen to the ground. A second time she got her fingers around it and lifted it just in time to clumsily parry a blow. A sword stroke hit Kel's back as he turned in the wrong direction in confusion, but the wood frame of the pack protected him. The leather sacking sagged, sliced open by the blow, and provisions spilled out. One warrior slipped on dried fish, falling hard. But the rest pressed forward under White Feather's command, seeking Adica. Kel fell back, unable to hold his own, and slammed into Adica, who stumbled. Half bent over, Beor set about himself, still a threat despite his wound, j Where had that clarlty-^gone; that had made of the battle a brightly woven tapestry? It had seemed so easy before, for those brief moments drawn out like thread into an unbroken present. Now Alain was barely able to block a blow thrown at Adica's head by the white-crested warrior as the captain's sword cut into and hung up in his oak staff. Sorrow was missing, and Rage had dashed out of his sight again. Claws sc.r.a.ped at his calves. Maybe it was possible to die twice. The thought struck him more with astonishment than fear.

Then the world came apart.

Light failed between one breath and the next, drowning them in blinding darkness. The ground buckled and heaved beneath him. Kel shouted out in fear. Sound cracked like thunder in his ears. The earth splintered between his left foot and his right. He grabbed for Adica and dragged her backward but felt himself sliding forward on his knees toward a new chasm. Heat blasted up from black depths, unseen but felt as a narrow gulf of empty air blasted by a blistering wind. When he opened his mouth to shout a warning, the air scalded his tongue. He couldn't hear his voice above the scream of the wind.

Teeth grabbed him. A jaw closed on his right foot. The hounds were trying to stop his slide. Adica scrabbled for purchase. A spear slid past him. Its cool length brushed past his calf and then tumbled away, and away, and away-it never hit bottom. It seemed an eternity he slid inexorably toward the chasm with Adica struggling upward beside him. His straining hand, trying to brace against the slick stone, sc.r.a.ped on the edge, and he was falling forward as his spare torch slid out of his belt, b.u.mped back against him because of the force of that wind, and tumbled away.

A small hand caught his linen tunic, then his rope belt. A hundred hands swarmed him, poking and pinching everywhere as they hauled him back. He was helpless in their grip, his back sc.r.a.ping on the ground.