Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

The smile vanished from Bulkezu’s face as he urged his horse forward. At once, the jostling ceased and the men moved back obediently. His griffin wings hissed softly as a breeze rose. Bulkezu ruled his army with an iron hand. He did not tolerate fighting among his troops. Lord Wichman and his cronies would not have lasted a day among the Quman, no matter how great their prowess in battle.

He bent down from the saddle to touch the young woman’s hair, letting it fall through his hands before lifting it up again, testing the weight and silkiness between his fingers. The young woman had wits enough to stop weeping, although maybe she was only shocked into a stupor.

Bulkezu had decided to take her for himself.

He called out orders. Then they all waited with that seemingly infinite patience the Quman had while two of the night guards rode away to the vanguard. Bulkezu whistled merrily while he waited; some of the soldiers contented themselves with other women, dragging them away from their families while cries of grief and fear broke out among the new prisoners. The young woman stood stiffly, bolt upright, only her gaze ranging as she looked for help, for succor, for escape—hard to say.

Hanna moved forward as the night guards returned with all five of Bulkezu’s current concubines, to be handed over to the men who had been fighting over the new woman. One of them—the blonde who had been found hiding in a root cellar—threw herself down before his horse, crying and pleading, trying to grab his boot and hang on. Bulkezu, laughing, kicked her in the face and signaled to a soldier to drag her away.

Hanna used the cover of this mild disturbance to ride in close to the new captive. She bent forward as she passed, spoke quickly and in a low voice, hoping the girl had wits enough to pay attention. “No flattery. No whining. No fear. Don’t cry.”

Then she had crossed beyond her, not daring to turn to see how the woman had reacted. The blonde was still weeping as one of the soldiers who had started the fighting over the new captive hauled her away. The old captives merely watched, too ill, too weak, or too hopeless to react. A few enterprising children, grown wise from neglect, sidled over to the families of those taken away. They knew who had access to food: the ones who pleased their masters.

After all, the Quman treated their favored slaves no worse than the prisoners treated each other.

“Men are weak who fight over women,” Bulkezu said suddenly in Wendish as he rode up beside Hanna. They now sat far enough away from the prisoners that none could overhear them.

“Why do you take so many prisoners, when all they do is suffer? They gain you nothing. What you want them all for?”

“I want them so Wendar suffers.”

Truly, he killed them with neglect. “What do you gain by burning and destroying? How does it help you, how do you enrich yourself, by ruining Wendar? Do you hope to rule here? You would have done better to offer marriage to one of the king’s daughters.”

He spat. “What man of my people would wish to marry a barbarian’s get? I’ll take the king’s daughter as my bed-slave if I want her.”

“The king’s daughters have their own armies. They aren’t as easy to capture as these poor, defenseless townsfolk. What honor is there for a great warrior like you in defeating people such as these?” She gestured toward the prisoners.

His wings sighed as wind brushed through them. For a moment, she thought he had not heard her, or was not listening. His night guard, silent astride their horses, waited patiently. In a way, it was as if she and Bulkezu sat alone, separated from the army, from the hapless prisoners, from his personal guard, by the same unnatural mist that had protected him from the shadow elves.

She looked around, half expecting to see his shaman, but all she saw were soldiers, their campfires and bivouac tents, and the crowd of prisoners and livestock winding away along the track as they found a place to settle down for the night. Fields stretched away on either side, delicate shoots of winter wheat trampled into the mud. Farther away lay the line of trees and undergrowth, cut back by the villagers’ need for firewood and building material. Smoldering fires lit the desolate village, now deserted. The ten lucky souls she had chosen for freedom had not stayed to see if Quman mercy would hold until morning.

“They hate me in my own country,” Bulkezu said at last, softly. “The Pechanek elders have grown weak and cowardly. We were driven out of our pastures by the Shatai, and the southern Tarbagai is closed to us because of the Ungrians, those bastards, may their testicles rot. Now my sister’s son is the favorite of the old begh, that son of a bitch, and he’s handsomer than me, too.”