When the weapons finished rising, they bobbed about for a moment like twigs in a swift-rushing stream. Some of the spears turned end over end. Some of the swords danced as if sorcerous hands wielded them.
One sword clashed in midair with a battle-ax. The sparks they struck from each other poured down upon the torches. As if the sparks had been water and not fire, the torches died.
Crouching like an animal on all fours, Aybas briefly shut his eyes. He did not see the glow die from the weapons and all of them plunge out of the sky and into their masters" hands.
He did hear the crunch, like a rotten melon bursting, as the battle-ax clove the skull of its owner. He also heard the scream as another warrior"s spear plunged through his outstretched hands and drove into his belly.
Every mortal ear in the valley must have heard that scream, and likewise the beast"s reply. Aybas would have sworn that the sounds of s...o...b..ring and sucking could not roll like thunder if he did not hear them do just that. A moment later he realized that he was also hearing witch-thunder, which had come without lightning several times before and considerably frightened the wizards.
Both wizards and warriors seemed stricken mute and motionless by the uproar. One warrior finally broke into movement, bending over his screaming comrade and silencing him by cutting his throat. As silence returned, another warrior opened the curtain of the litter.
The woman who stepped forth moved with the grace of a queen, for all that she was barefoot and wore only a soiled nightshift. Her dark hair would have flowed down upon her shoulders under other circ.u.mstances.
Now it made a bramble-bush tangle. b.l.o.o.d.y streaks on neck and ears told where jewelry had been savagely wrenched off.
On one slim arm rode a swaddled bundle. Aybas uttered a short prayer that the bundle was only clothing that Chienna had been allowed to bring away. Then the bundle wailed and the princess changed her grip that she might soothe her baby.
Aybas felt strangely calm. Prince Urras"s crying was the first wholly natural, wholly human sound that he had heard in this valley in many days.
Then the drums and that hideous raw-throated trumpet raised their din again. Aybas realized that it was time that he make himself seen, even at the side of the Star Brothers. It would not do to let the wizards wonder if Count Syzambry truly valued the princess. Death would come to her very swiftly if they began to doubt that.
Aybas rose, brushed dirt and the dust of spice-berry flowers from his clothes, and strode toward the Star Brothers with his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Princess Chienna took no comfort from seeing a man in civilized garb approaching her. She had two causes for this.
One lay in heeding Decius"s wisdom, likewise that of her father and of her late husband, Count Elkorun. All three had said that false hope in a desperate situation brings deeper despair. Since despair would slay her child as well as herself, she would fight it as long and as fiercely as possible.
The other reason for denying herself hope came from no one"s counsel.
It came from knowing that a man such as she saw before her could only be serving her enemies. Count Syzambry, most likely, or another lordling in the tumbledown alliance the count had raised against her father.
Their alliance would fall, the princess was sure. She was not sure that she would see its fall with living eyes, but she swore now to all the G.o.ds that she would see it from beyond death if she had to.
As his mother"s rage touched him, Prince Urras forgot that he had been soothed into silence and began squalling again. With a fierce will, Chienna calmed herself and began rocking the baby in her arms.
He went on squalling. She decided that he was probably hungry.
"Is there a wet-nurse among you?" she asked. She wanted to say, "in this accursed pesthole of a village."
"I will inquire, Your Highness," the man said.
Chienna hid surprise. By the Great Mother"s Girdle, the man knew the forms of courtesy!
"Do you that," Chienna said graciously. She bounced the baby up and down. "He hungers, and I am sure it is no part of your plan to encompa.s.s his death."
"None of mine," the man said. He was clad in a mixture of new hill-folk shirt and cloak and the ruins of civilized breeches and boots. His sword seemed a new one that had seen much hard service in little time.
And was there a slight emphasis on the word "mine"? Chienna dared a look at the... the Star Brothers, they called themselves. The hill wizards, the villains of tales that had been old when her nurse was a babe.
Yes. They seemed to be displeased with the man, as if he had spoken out of turn.
A dispute between them? Not likely that it was open enough to give her any advantage, but it might be made worse. Not at once; all those who had taught her war craft had counseled against attacking before knowing the battlefield or the foe.
Afterward, though... She remembered Decius saying, "Nothing is worse than sitting and letting the foe do as he pleases. Even if you can strike only the smallest of blows against his weakest part, strike it!"
The captain-general would in time know that he had taught her well, although it was unlikely that she would tell him herself.
The man raised his voice. "Ho, summon a wet-nurse for the babe! At once!"
The princess noted that the wizards again looked displeased. But their displeasure did not stop the man, nor several warriors. The warriors ran off toward one side of the valley as if the ground was spewing flames at their heels.
The man stepped forward. Closer at hand, he showed a pinched, pale face above a scraggly brown beard shot with gray. Yet there were good bones in the face and in the hand he raised in greeting. A n.o.bleman who had come by long and sorry roads to this wretched place, she would wager.
"I am Aybas, formerly of Aquilonia." The accent was not only Aquilonian. but courtly. "The warriors will see to it that your babe suffers for nothing. Can I do aught for your comfort?"
Short of releasing her, or at least taking the hobbles from her ankles, she could think of nothing. Chienna shook her head.
"Then I might suggest. Your Highness, that you sit on the softest rock you can find." He smiled faintly before his face and voice alike turned hard. "The Star Brothers wish to show you the powers they command to punish those who disobey them or make themselves enemies."
Aybas pointed upward, toward the dam of rock and earth that blocked the mouth of the gorge to the left. As he did, something rose above the top of the wall. Something that writhed like a snake but was longer than any snake Chienna had ever seen.
A second writhing thing joined it, then a third, then too many too quickly to count. A body not meant to be described in human tongues followed, climbing the vertical cliff above the wall. Water poured from it as it rose, and it made sounds even less fit to describe.
Prince Urras sensed his mother"s fear by her quickened heartbeat and wailed louder yet. The princess sat down, forswearing dignity for the sake of her babe. She rocked and dandled and bounced him, but nothing soothed the infant.
Yet all was not lost. She did not dare to close her eyes to shut out the scene on the rocky crag that was shaped like a dragon"s head. She knew that to do so would mean punishment, and punishment so soon would take strength she might need later.
She was not forced to hear the cries of the sacrifices, however. Her babe"s wailing drowned them out.
Wylla heard the end of the sacrifice from her perch on a branch high above the valley. Once again she thanked the G.o.ds that she had told no one of this dead tree and the view it gave her. She could see much, without ever being seen.
One day a strong wind would bring the tree down, and then she would need to seek another vantage point for spying on the wizards. Until that day, she would use this perch, with the knowledge of no one else in the village, not even her father.
She waited until the last trace of the beast vanished in the mist gathering over the gorge. That mist always seemed to come after the beast fed. Was it part of the Brothers" star-sp.a.w.ned magic?
She did not know. She could not even be sure that the woman and babe she had seen were Princess Chienna and her son. She only knew that she had to bear the news of what she had seen swiftly out of the valley, to where Marr the Piper waited.
She would not have to go far. The pipes had not sounded tonight, but the thunder and the havoc wrought on the weapons told of Marr"s near presence.
Wylla wore a warrior"s cloak, the shapeless dress of the Pougoi women, and hard-soled leather shoes beaded with colored stones from mountain streams. She cast aside the cloak, then drew the dress over her head.
Under the dress she wore only a birdskin belt, with a dagger of finely shaved mammoth ivory thrust into it. The starlight played delicately over her body as she stood for a moment naked in the night.
Then she bound her cloak about her loins, knelt, and took several deep breaths. As Marr had taught her to expect, the life force flowed into her, making her blood tingle.
When it seemed that her limbs would take fire in the next moment, she leaped up and began to run.
From far ahead in the darkness, the pipes called softly.