Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Then the rest of the elephants passed her position and crashed into the spears. The phalanx dissolved as the massive forms shattered spear and bone. Elephants, skewered through limb and neck, went berserk, tossing and stomping on their riders, on their foes, on anything they could reach. Blood spilled on the snow. Behind the elephants, soldiers advanced, carrying great axes; their job was to finish off the shattered phalanx. She could not tell if they saw her at all, but she dared not wait to find out. Rising to her feet, she shot any creature that seemed to approach in her direction. They weren’t real, after all. She wasn’t really killing them because they were already dead. She was only protecting herself.

She fired ten times, and ten men fell dead or dying.

Jedu’s expression warped, rage turning to sadistic joy. Liath reached to her quiver for another arrow. Only two remained.

Ai, Lady. These warriors were as much victims of Jedu’s wrath as she was. She could remain here, trapped in the agony of war, or she could seek the gate that led to the sphere of Mok. With an effort, as the battle raged around her, she remembered her wings. She called fire and, with her wings burning at her back, lifted above the fray. Arrows that flashed toward her burst into flame, their ashes raining onto the carnage below.

Men screamed. Horses fell, kicking. The killing went on and on and on.

Let there be an end to it.

She nocked arrow to bow and drew Seeker of Hearts one more time, aiming true at Jedu’s grimacing face.

Loosed the arrow. That blissful smile of joy melted from the angel’s hideous and beautiful face to be drowned once again by an expression of rage. Her maw opened, exposing teeth like a thousand daggers; in that dark cavern, the arrow was lost at once.

Heart pounding, wings hissing at her back as she beat hard to stay aloft, Liath reached back for her final arrow. Her fingers touched silken coverts, the gold feather given to her by Eldest Uncle, which she had used to fletch her last arrow.

Before she could pull it free of the quiver, Jedu gave a cry, shrill and piercing, that caused every creature on the plain to shudder to a halt. Liath tumbled backward on the wind of that cry, fighting to control her flight, as the angel’s words boomed out over the battlefield.

“Die a million deaths. Suffer for all eternity. No one, Daughter of Fire, enters Jedu unbidden. No flesh escapes my bite.”

Then Jedu heaved out her chest, and sucked in.

With all her might Liath fought to fly higher, but she was drawn in despite her struggles. The mirror eyes grew huge and in their depths she saw the slain, and the slayer.

Ai, God. Some she knew. There a guivre, killed by Alain. There an Eika chief, falling under Lavastine’s sword. There a Quman soldier, being drowned by Ivar. There Ironhead’s pretty concubine, driving a spike through the sleeping king’s head.

A lord outfitted in mail and helmet tumbled from his horse, dismounted by a spear thrust. The man who unhorsed him was no luckier; the impact of his own blow overbalanced him and he was thrown from his horse to land hard on the ground, losing his helmet, while a skirmish raged around him, made misty by the slant of light obscuring the mirrored eye into which she stared in horror.

It was Sanglant, except he was so young, scarcely more than a boy.

The stinking aroma of a charnel house dizzied her as the angel’s mouth opened wider, to swallow her whole.

She twisted, reaching for Sanglant, spinning herself into the mirrored eye, into the grasp of her lover.

She landed on a soft cushion of long green grass. The blinding sunlight stung her eyes, but at least it was warm here. Yet she hadn’t escaped Jedu’s rage. Her horse, leaping over her, galloped off, and the din of battle still filled her ears.

She was not herself. She lay in a man’s body, a lord of Hesbaye, nephew of the countess, risen in rebellion because his mother’s portion had gone to his aunt at her death instead of to him. So inconsequential did King Henry think him and his rebellion that the king had sent his half-breed whelp against him, a child not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age, untried and unfit even with an older, wiser captain riding in attendance.

How was it, then, that the brat had unhorsed him?

A body slammed against him, pressing him into the grass. Ai, Lady, it was Sanglant, helmet lost and black hair streaming. He was so young, lithe, lean as a reed, not yet filled out with a man’s height and breadth. Yet he still felt firm and reassuring, lying against her.

“Sanglant!” she whispered, having no breath to shout. “It’s me. It’s Liath!”

He slipped his arm across her chest, a broad knife clenched in his fist as he brought it to her throat. In a quick motion, the merest sting, the blade bit deep and her words choked and drowned in blood as she struggled to tell him. Her life gushed from her neck. She clawed toward her throat, anything to stop the blood, but he pinned her arms under his weight. Gasping, she looked into his green eyes, but all she saw was the rage of Jedu. Rays of sun melted holes in her vision; murky stains blotted out Sanglant’s face. The world narrowed, sound faded, and all washed black.