The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“Peace!” said Liath sharply. They quieted at once and turned to her respectfully. “Did he not tell you what occurred at Gent?”

“Gent’s a long way from here,” said Old Uta, “and is nothing to do with us. Indeed, I’d never heard tell of it before they came.”

“What’s Gent?” piped up one of the younger children.

“It’s the place where Martin and Young Uta came from, child.” The old woman indicated the bridegroom and then a stout girl with scars on her face and hands. “We took them in, for there were many young people left without family after the raiders came. We’ve always use for more hands to work. It took us and the other foresters ten years to cut that road.” She nodded toward the track that led eastward out of the clearing into the dense forest. “Now we’re done, we can cut a home out of this clearing and be free of our service to Lady Helmingard.”

“Well, then,” said Liath, looking at each in turn, “I’ll thank you not to be thinking it’s any fault of Martin’s that he lost the horse. The king’s own Dragons died saving what townsfolk they could from the Eika. There was nothing a boy could do against savages.”

“Did all the Dragons die in the end?” Martin asked. She recalled now that he had been the kind of boy who yearned after the Dragons and followed them everywhere he could.

“Yes,” said Wolfhere.

“No,” said Liath, and she had the satisfaction of seeing Wolfhere astounded in his turn. “The prince survived.”

“The prince survived,” echoed Wolfhere, on an exhaled breath. Liath could not tell if he were ecstatic or dismayed.

“The prince,” breathed the young man in tones more appropriate for a prayer to God. “But of course the prince must have lived. Not even the Eika could kill him. Are they still there in Gent? The Eika, I mean.”

“Nay, for two great armies marched on Gent in order to avenge the attack last year.” Her audience raptly awaited the tale, and even Wolfhere regarded her with that cool gray gaze, patient enough for obviously wanting to hear the story of how Prince Sanglant had survived the death both she and Wolfhere had visioned through fire.

So she told the tale of Count Lavastine’s march and the terrible battle on the field before Gent, of Bloodheart’s enchantments and the Eika horde. She told of how Lavastine himself had taken some few of his soldiers as a last gamble through the tunnel and how Bloodheart’s death had shattered the Eika army, how King Henry’s army arrived at the very end—just in time. She could not resist dwelling perhaps more than was seemly on Sanglant’s great deeds that day, saving his sister’s line from collapse, slaying more Eika than any other soldier on the field. To these isolated forest folk the tale no doubt could as well have been told about heroes who had lived a hundred years before; she might as well have sung the tale of Waltharia and Sigisfrid and the cursed gold of the Hevelli for all that her words truly meant no more to them than a good evening’s tale.

But they proclaimed themselves well satisfied when she had done.

“A fitting tale for a wedding feast,” said Old Uta. “Now we’ve somewhat for you to take to King Henry, as a token of our gratitude for his generosity in granting us freedom from Lady Helmingard’s service, which she laid heavily on us.”

Recalling the diploma she carried, Liath removed it from her saddlebags and read aloud to them King Henry’s promise that the foresters would be free of service to any lady or lord as long as they kept the king’s road passable for himself and his messengers and armies. The king had not yet put his seal on it, but the foresters nevertheless listened intently, touched the parchment with reverence, and examined the writing, which, of course, none of them could read.

“I’ve a wish to go back to Gent,” said the scarred girl, Young Uta. “I don’t like the forest.”

“You’ve a few years to work off first,” said Old Uta sternly, and the girl sighed.

But Martin was satisfied with his new life. He had a bride, a place of honor, and security among his new kin. The foresters had meat in abundance and wild plants and skins to trade to the farming folk for grain to supplement what vegetables they could grow in their garden. Even in years made lean by a scant harvest there was game to be caught in the deep forest. They showed off their iron tools: two axes and a shovel. The rest of the tools were made of wood, stone, or copper. They had a storehouse filled with baskets of nuts and pips, shriveled crab apples, leather vessels brimming with barley and unhulled wheat, herbs dried and hung in bundles, and several covered pots of lard. From the rafters they brought down four fine wolfskins and a bearskin and these they rolled and tied and gave to Wolfhere to present to the king as a token of their loyalty and in honor of his recent visit to Weraushausen and the pledge made between foresters and king.