The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

There it was again. Branches moved. A pale form flashed beyond a thicket.

“Ivar, what is it?” Baldwin called back to him.

“Wait,” he replied in a low voice. First Ermanrich, then Baldwin, then Sigfrid reined their horses aside. They, too, looked into the wood. Surely they were as nervous as he was.

Leaving the fortress of Machteburg and crossing the Oder River had made the adventure of war and righteous preaching seem a little less golden. Yet when he closed his eyes, he could still see the phoenix, rising, and he knew in his heart that he had to find that splendid creature again, that in the cloud of its being he would find truth, and peace. If he breathed enough of that magical smoke, surely he would stop dreaming of Liath. What shifted among the trees wasn’t golden, but for an instant he thought it was another great bird, caught in the forest.

Then he realized his error.

Sigfrid gave a croak of dismay and alarm, then recalled he could speak: “God have mercy!”

“There!” cried Ermanrich. “To the left of the wide oak.”

“Oh, shit,” murmured Baldwin.

The wings had the high sweep of a vulture’s and the same cold white underside. But it moved swiftly, negotiating the trees not with great flaps but at a canter. Other wings appeared behind trees or rising from gullies or over hillocks. Maybe they would have been visible all along had he thought to look. Or maybe they were cleverer than the troop of half-grown boys and the untried escort who had crossed the Oder River with the idea that adventure lay beyond it.

His heart pounded so furiously that he couldn’t speak. Maybe there was a reason adventure always sounded so good in the safety of a hall, with a bard singing to those who had survived.

Baldwin’s voice rose high and sharp with the alarm. “To arms, to arms! They’re coming from the woods!”

Ahead of them on the road, Prince Ekkehard hoisted his lance, only to have his arm restrained by the older man who was captain of the escort. “Those are Quman raiders! I pray you, my lord prince, let us ride hard ahead in hope of meeting with Captain Thiadbold. He has fully two hundreds of Lions—”

“But there can’t be more than a dozen of them!” cried Ekkehard.

The words of the captain had already been heard by more than Ivar. A few of the company began to move rapidly down the road. By this time Ivar could see a score of Quman riders approaching through the woods.

“Thank God we left the wagons at Machteburg in exchange for more horses,” said Ermanrich as he kicked Ivar in the thigh. “Ride, you idiot! They’ll run you down if you sit there gaping!”

“Ride, my lord prince!” cried the captain.

Ekkehard hesitated, as if contemplating the nobility of such action.

But the captain was a man of experience, and he knew how to deal with hotheaded young charges. “Follow me!” he cried, and the entire company lurched forward. Ivar needed no more urging. That faint memory of the phoenix, glimpsed through the trees, vanished as soon as he saw their hideous forms clearly: winged like demons but riding stout ponies, they had flat, featureless faces, broad bulky bodies, and skin leprous with huge square scales.

As they reached a gallop, mud kicked up off the hoofs, flung through the air. Ivar turned in the saddle to see the first of the Quman clearing the woods. They, too, broke into a gallop in pursuit. Maybe it was better not to look behind. Ivar resolutely focused ahead, until a sound, as of an arrow whistling at his back, made him duck low to his horse. Had they already caught up to him? He was the last man in line.

He had been issued a spear at Machteburg, and he swung around now, almost overbalancing himself. There was no rider at his heels. It was nothing but the sound of their wings singing a song of the battle to come.

He heard a shout as they thundered round a broad bend in the road. Ahead he glimpsed a Lion starting forward, spear raised, and a cavalryman swinging up onto his horse. Another Lion let forth the shout “To arms!” and a horn rang out, three sharp tones. Ekkehard’s company had already pounded past the first line of soldiers. The grooms and servants rode on toward the safety of the main force of Lions, who had broken their march on the outside of a ditch that surrounded gardens, fields, and an inner palisade marking a fortified village.

One by one, Ekkehard and his soldiers turned their mounts to face back the way they had come; Ivar grabbed his shield off the saddle, bracing his spear on his boot. Another half-dozen riders in heavier armor had joined them by the time all of Ekkehard’s fighting company was poised to face the Quman. As they came riding hard down the road, the Quman dropped their lances, and in that moment as their line solidified, the whistling of those wings was the only sound in the entire universe.