Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

He hoisted himself up a chest-high embankment and rolled onto an open ledge. A wave of scent smothered him, lavender and rosemary gone wild, rue and sage a heady aroma like a cloud around his head. The moon sank low along the horizon. He crawled on hands and knees through the overgrown garden and found the place where three walls met, two of them old ring walls and the third yet lower again, an ancient foundation almost consumed by the hillside. Because it was dark, he used touch to find the sphinx with her arching wing, powerful forelegs, and hindquarters carved statant into the stone. He placed a thumb in the sphinx’s mouth, a forefinger in its eye, and a little finger in a cleft carved under the wing.

A musty exhalation of cold air kissed his face. The moon touched the western horizon, sinking fast. He stumbled forward and banged his knees on stairs carved into the hill, too dark to see. He crept his way up using staff and hand, an arduous climb because of the darkness. After ninety-seven steps—he counted every one—he saw a reddish light flickering and bobbing to his right; a wall cut off his forward progress, and he had to turn right and follow a narrow passage barely wide enough to squeeze through because it was half filled with rubble. Fifteen more measured steps brought him to an embrasure cut into the rock, a hidden alcove from which he looked down onto a broad forecourt that fronted the main gate with its twin, square towers.

Soldiers gathered, ready to march. Their torches made the courtyard flare ominously, all smoke and fire and the glitter of bronze helmets and shields. The standard of the blood-knife fluttered in their midst. A slender figure cut through the ranks of soldiers to speak to the standard-bearer. Alain recognized him at once: the prince, whom the guard had called “Seeker.” The two spoke as the soldiers waited in patient silence. Then the prince hurried away, ducking inside a low doorway, lost to Alain’s view.

The high priest came from farther down the forecourt, where a wall broke Alain’s line of sight. His feathered headdress gleamed in the light of torches held up to either side of him. Ranks of spears bobbed alongside, a fence around their prisoner, trapped between two small wagons.

Because of her horse’s body, she stood a head taller than her captives, but her proud and beautiful head was bowed and her eyes were blindfolded. Her thick hair lay tangled and dirty over her shoulders. Bruises and unhealed cuts mottled her naked torso, and she limped, unable to put her full weight on her right foreleg. Her arms were tied behind her back, resting on her withers. Ropes bound her belly and back, held taut out to two wagons, one before and one behind, so she could neither bolt nor kick. She was jerked to a halt as the wagon drivers pulled back on their reins. The gates were unbarred and men hurried to open them.

They weren’t going to wait until daylight to take her away.

Her fine black coat, once glossy, was streaked with dirt and blood and coated with a dusting of ash. She shifted, favoring her injured leg. One of the drivers snapped his whip, a curling “snap” against her croup that made her lurch onto the injured foreleg and cry out in pain. Soldiers laughed to see her suffer. The heavy gates thudded against the towers. The way lay open for the high priest’s party to march out.

Alain stumbled backward, almost tripping when he reached the stairs. The smoky light of torches had blinded him. He counted each step so as not to fall, but feeling with his feet and his hands into the darkness it went so slowly. Was that the jangle and clank of their movements, as the troop moved out? Could he actually hear wheels grinding against dust as the wagons rolled down the ramped gateway?

Or was that only the wind moaning through cracks in the stone?

Or the whisper of men speaking in low voices?

Ninety-seven steps brought him to the concealed entrance. His hands traced the carven wings of the sphinx, sleeping forever in stone. He paused at the juncture of the three walls, seeing a pale light gleaming on the small ledge that harbored the overgrown herb garden, and stayed hidden in the shadows.

Someone stood there, back to him, a soldier with a crested helm wearing a hip-length white cloak. Bronze greaves protected his calves. The wind caught the cloak and whipped the ends up to reveal a finely molded cuirass decorated with boiled leather tassels that reached halfway to his knees.

“You’re wrong,” he said as he turned to face some other person, who was hidden by the curve of the wall. “They will fall before us because our armies are stronger than theirs. They are no better than packs of wild dogs.” The pale light limned his profile as it came into view: it was the prince, but he was now dressed in the garb of a soldier, the same clothing Alain had seen him in before when he had appeared as a shade in the ruins above Lavas.