He did not turn to leave; he did not trust them that much. He edged sideways while never letting his gaze leave them until he was at the great doors, awash in sunlight. Then he was gone.
Sanglant bolted. Lavastine started after him, but the prince ran not after the fleeing princeling but rather to the altar where lay Bloodheart’s corpse. The old priest had vanished; only the broken arrow haft remained. Sanglant upended the wooden chest and a downy spill of feathers wafted into the air as a cloudy haze. What in God’s Names was he about? He coughed and pawed through the clot of feathers desperately, finding nothing, then gave up and knelt instead beside Bloodheart’s body. With a howl, he wrenched the gold torque of royal kinship from the dead enchanter’s arm.
The five dogs, crowded at his heels and sniffing and scrabbling at the corpse, raised their heads and howled wildly in answer.
“We had best be gone,” said Lavastine. “We will head for the gates.”
“Is that … creature … truly Prince Sanglant?” asked Erkanwulf, and several other men muttered likewise.
“Quiet!” snapped Lavastine, and then they hushed of their own accord because the prince now walked toward them with his retinue of dogs nipping and barking at his heels. He now held a spear and a short sword, gleaned from the corpses. Liath could not bear to look at him, and yet she kept looking at him. She could not believe he was alive, and yet, even if he was, could that … thing … truly be the man who had fallen at Gent over a year ago?
He broke away before he reached Lavastine and his men, as if he didn’t want to get too close, and came to the huge, open doors of the cathedral. There, he stopped short as if chains had brought him up. As if he dared to go no farther.
“Come,” said Lavastine to the prince as he led his party up beside—but not too close to—the dogs. A few of the men held their hands up over their noses, those who could reach them under the nasals of their helms. The count crossed out onto the steps that fronted the cathedral. The square beyond lay empty under the hazy afternoon sunlight. “We must make haste. My son—”
But he broke off, unable to speak further. In the far distance, Liath heard the sound of horns and the frenzied shouting of Eika.
That Sanglant had stepped out from the shelter of the cathedral she knew without looking, because of the stench. But now he spoke. His voice was hoarse, as if it had grown rusty from disuse—but then, his voice had always sounded like that.