Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7)

“Stay behind me. We’ll run east. If we can make it up the ramp, we can hope to lose ourselves in the hills.”

“Like we did before?” asked Ivar with a sneer.

“Better than staying here,” said Berthold. “Caught in the middle.”

“Put on these.” Wolfhere placed on the ground six amulets, crudely woven out of grass and herbs. He shoved a board to one side, ducked down, and slipped through the opening. Heribert was gone after him before anyone else could react, and then Berthold dashed forward with his attendants behind. Only Ivar hesitated, but he hadn’t the courage to stay behind.

He knelt to pick up the last amulet with his mutilated hand. It was as crudely and hastily woven as a child’s daisy necklace, and when he lifted it to his nose, wondering what plants had been woven into it, he sneezed hard. Fern interlaced with wolfsbane; a few pale flowers he did not recognize were crushed in the tangle.

At the wagon’s wreck, a sergeant showed up, shouting orders. Ivar pushed through the loose boards, then huddled there aghast, blinking in the sunlight, as he realized that the others were gone. Around him, groups of soldiers sprinted toward the entrenchments, but of Wolfhere and the others he saw no sign at all among the farmstead’s buildings, the pitched tents, and the many wagons. Maybe it was only the light that blinded him.

“Hey! You, there!” cried a sergeant, coming around the corner of the byre. “We need help here!”

Ivar settled the amulet around his neck. The sergeant pulled up short, whipped his head from side to side with a comical air, and scratched his head; giving up, he trotted away.

But now Ivar could see a faint cloudy trail twisting and turning away past the farmstead cottage, around and under wagons, and cutting across open ground where it zigged and zagged in the manner of a drunken man weaving to avoid obstacles. He ran after them, praying under his breath. His hand hurt. Blisters rose on his palm, as though he had burned himself, and the scars on the stumps of his fingers began to ooze blood.

He jogged between tents, stumbled on a guide rope, jinked sideways to avoid a line of men marching double-time who did not see him, and paused midway toward the lines to catch his breath, hand pressed to his side. The pain bit deep in his hand. His neck was beginning to itch where the amulet brushed bare skin. He tugged it down, but that pressure broke it, and it unraveled to spill like water onto the ground. Steam hissed over him and dissipated in a cloud of stinging gnats that buzzed around him in two swift circles before roaring heavenward and transmuting into a blaze of falling embers.

“Hey! You there!” A brawny man armed in mail but no tabard strode toward him, brandishing an ax in each hand.

Ivar drew his sword.

“No, you fool! Take these axes and get east to Captain Sigulf’s line there just north of the ramp. Can you take a pair of spears as well?”

“Best run with these and send another man after me,” said Ivar as he sheathed his sword and grabbed the axes. He took off. Without the amulet, he could not find their trail. He reached the road and ran toward the ramp visible in the distance because of its immense size. After a while, he had to stop to get his breath and to measure the lay of the land.

The sun’s heat made him sweat. On all sides, dark clouds built as for a storm. Wind creaked and groaned in the far forest.

The valley of Kassel was like an uneven bowl, with its steeper, higher rim to the north and east and a lower rim to the south and west. Most of the western ground was striped with fields, a long stretch of land that terminated where the slopes rolled up a shallow rise and sprouted trees. A line of unevenly spaced fruit trees ran through the middle of the fields, parallel to a narrow waterway. The Varren camp had been planted where the more rugged eastern and northern slopes gave them some protection, and also to straddle the Hellweg where it cut diagonally from northeast to southwest through the valley. Here, because of the contours of the earth, Ivar could sight easily both downslope and up, southwest and northeast.

On the northeastern flank, the siege works were under assault by cavalry smashing through the lines. He watched, in awe of the power of the warhorses. Infantry advanced out of the town gates, pushing straight for the middle trenches and pickets. To the east and southeast, troops wearing the red and gold of Saony poured down off the hillside to press the outer works. The banner of Arconia flew above this line, moving up and back as troops needed reinforcement.

The famous road, the Hellweg, was easily visible from here where the massive ramp lifted off the valley floor in a smooth incline that reached the low ridgeline and struck thereafter straight into the forest. Some idiot had thrown a barricade of wagons across the top of the ramp. He saw small figures poised there among the wagons. A rider—a tiny, toylike figure—galloped out of the forest along the road and pulled up before the barricade.