Child of Flame

“Yes. Some go every night to hear Prince Ekkehard. He’ll preach to any person, highborn or low. Others say he’s speaking with the Enemy’s voice. Do you think so, Eagle?”

“I’ve seen so many strange things—”

The horn call came, as it did every night. Men cried out the alarm. Ekkehard’s audience dissolved as soldiers grabbed their weapons, lying ready at their sides. Out beyond the wagon lines, winged riders broke free of the storm to gallop toward the rear guard, but only a few soggy arrows skittered harmlessly into camp before Lord Dietrich and his contingent of cavalry chased them off with spears and a flight of whistling arrows.

By the time Prince Bayan arrived from the vanguard to investigate, all lay quiet again except for the ever-present wind and the hammer of rain off to the southeast. He rode up with a small contingent of his personal house guard, a dozen Ungrian horsemen whose once-bright clothing was streaked with dirt. Foot soldiers lit their way with torches. Bayan had the knack of remaining relatively clean even in such circumstances as this—in the torchlight Hanna could see the intense blue of his tunic—and the contrast made him all the more striking, a robust, intelligent man still in his prime whom adversity could not tarnish.

“Fewer attacked tonight,” said Lady Bertha, handing him an arrow once he had dismounted. “It may be that they’ve fallen back so far they’ve given up catching us. Or perhaps they mean us to grow complacent, until they attack in force and take us by surprise.”

Prince Bayan turned the arrow over in his hands, studying the sodden fletchings. “Perhaps,” he echoed skeptically. “I like not these attacks which are coming each night same time.”

Lady Bertha had the stocky build and bandy-legged stance of a person who has spent most of her life on a horse, in armor. She looked older than her twenty or so years, weathered by a hard apprenticeship fighting in the borderlands. “I’ve sent three scouts back to see if Bulkezu’s army still follows us, but none have returned.”

Bayan nodded, twisting the ends of his long mustache. “To Handelburg we must go. We need rest, repair, food, wine. With good walls around us, then can we wait for—” He turned to his interpreter, Breschius, a middle-aged cleric who was missing his right hand. “What is this word? More troops to come.”

“Reinforcements, my lord prince.”

“Yes! Reinforcements.” He had trouble pronouncing the word and grinned at his stumbling effort.

Lady Bertha did not smile. She was not in any case a woman who smiled often, if at all. “Unless we can’t get word out from Handelburg because Bulkezu has used the cover of this storm to move his army so that he surrounds us.”

“Not even Quman army can ride all places at one time,” replied Bayan just as he caught sight of Hanna loitering in the crowd which had gathered to observe the commanders. “Snow woman!” His face lit with a bold smile. “Your brightness hides here. So dark it has become by my campfire!”

Hanna felt her face flame with embarrassment, but luckily Bayan was distracted by Brother Breschius, who leaned over to speak to the prince in a low voice.

“Ekkehard?” exclaimed Prince Bayan, looking startled.

Hanna glanced over at the ring of campfires, but Prince Ekkehard had vanished. She grabbed Folquin’s sleeve and slipped away, eager to be out of Prince Bayan’s sight. She had sustained Sapientia’s anger more than once and didn’t care to suffer it again as long as she had any choice in the matter.

By asking permission of Sapientia to continue searching out news of Ivar, she kept a low profile in the last days of the march until they came to the frontier fortress and town of Handelburg. From the eastern slopes, as they rode down into the valley of the Vitadi River, she could see the walled town, situated on three islands linked by bridges across the channels of the river. West lay the march of the Villams, which stretched all the way to the Oder River. To the east beyond sparsely inhabited borderlands spread the loose confederation of half-civilized tribes known as the kingdom of the Polenie.

The biscop’s flag flew from the high tower to show that she had remained in residence in her city despite the danger from Quman attack. All the gates stood closed, and the few hovels resting along the banks of the river, homes for fisherfolk and poor laborers, sat empty, stripped of every furnishing. Even crude furniture could be used for firewood in a besieged city. Fields had been harvested and the riverbanks stripped of fodder or bedding: reeds, straw, grass, all shorn in preparation for a Quman attack. In a way, the countryside surrounding Handelburg looked as though a swarm of locusts had descended, eaten their fill, and flown on, leaving not even the bones.