The Gathering Storm

  “Get him wine,” said Marcus. “I will hear what he has to say. Why did you not tell me that he traveled with Prince Sanglant’s mother? He can’t know what he saw, but careful examination may reveal much to an educated ear.”

  “Better just to kill him and have done with it!” insisted Wolfhere.

  “Nay!” Zacharias choked out the word. “She led me through the spirit world. I saw—” His throat burned. “I saw a vision of the cosmos!”

  Spasms shook his entire body and made the bruise at the base of his neck come alive with a grinding, horrible pain. He folded forward, almost passing out.

  After an unknown while, he struggled out of the haze to find himself bent double over his arms. Wolfhere had returned with a wine sack. Gratefully he guzzled it, spat up half of it all over his fetid robe before he remembered to nurse along his roiling stomach. He must go slowly. He had to use his wits.

  “What is this vision of the cosmos that you saw?” asked Marcus when Zacharias set down the wineskin.

  “If I tell you everything I know, then you’ll have no reason to keep me alive. It’s true I followed Prince Sanglant, my lord, but I only followed him because I hoped he would lead me to his wife, the one called Liathano. It’s her I seek.”

  Marcus had an exceedingly clever face and expressive eyebrows, lifted now with surprise. “Why do you seek her?”

  “I seek any person who can teach me. I wish to understand the mysteries of the heavens.”

  “As do we all.”

  “I will do anything for the person who will teach me, my lord.”

  “Anything? Will you murder my dear friend Brother Lupus, if I tell you to?” He gestured toward Wolfhere, crouched within the pale aura given off by the lamp, his seamed and aged face quiet as he watched the two men negotiate.

  A breath of air teased Zacharias’ matted hair, curling around his ear. Was this the whisper of a daimone? Was Marcus a maleficus, who controlled forbidden magic and unholy creatures? He shuddered, his resolve curdled by a flood of misgivings. Yet he couldn’t stop now. He was a prisoner. He was as good as dead. “I am no murderer, my lord. I haven’t the stomach for it. But I am clever, and I have an excellent memory.”

  “Do you?”

  “I do, my lord. That is why I was allowed to take the oath of a frater although I cannot read or write. I know the Holy Verses, all of them, and many other things besides—”

  “That’s true enough,” commented Wolfhere. “He has a prodigious memory.”

  “Is he clever?”

  The old man sighed sharply. Why did he look so distressed? “Clever enough. He survived seven years as a slave among the Quman, so he says. Escaped on his own, so he says. Sought and found Prince Sanglant with no help from any other, so he says. He talks often enough of this vision of the cosmos that he was vouchsafed in the Palace of Coils. He entertains the soldiers with the tale. He says he saw a dragon.”

  “I only tell them the truth!”

  “Well,” said Marcus speculatively. “A dragon. Perhaps you’re too valuable to throw overboard to drown, Zacharias. Perhaps you can serve the Holy Mother in another fashion. Perhaps I will teach you what I know after all. That will serve as well as killing you will, in the end.”

  Zacharias dared not weep. “You will find me a good student, my lord. I will not fail you.”

  “We shall see.” Marcus fanned his hand before his face. “You must clean up. I cannot bear your stench. Brother Lupus?”

  Wolfhere’s lips were pressed as tight as those of a man determined not to swallow the bitter brew now on his tongue. “Do you intend to go ahead with this?”

  “We are few, and our enemies are many.” Marcus had a cherub’s grin that made Zacharias nervous. The cleric’s riotous black curls gave his round, rather bland face an angelic appearance, almost innocent.

  Almost.

  “If this man can and will serve us, then why should I cast him away? We can all serve God in one manner or another. This is the lesson I learned from the one who leads us.”

  “So you did,” said Wolfhere sardonically. “Very well. Are you satisfied, Zacharias? Will you do as Brother Marcus says?”

  Such a thrill of hope coursed through Zacharias that he forgot his nausea, and his pain. “You will teach me?”

  “I will teach you everything that I can,” agreed Marcus with an ironic smile, “as long as you will serve me as a student must serve his master. Do as I say. Be obedient. Do not question.”

  “I can do that!”

  Did Wolfhere whisper, again, “You sorry fool!”? It was only the creak of the ship rolling in the waves. It was only memory, mocking him.

  “Let it be done,” said Marcus, who had heard nothing untoward. “I will teach you the secrets of the heavens, Brother Zacharias. I admit you into our holy fellowship.”

  “Then I am yours,” cried Zacharias, beginning to weep. After so long, he had found what he sought. “I am yours.”

  4

  “BRING the slaves.”

  Sanglant indicated the thirteen men who knelt in front of the cell where Blessing was confined. Sergeant Cobbo herded them over. These were not foolish men, although they were barbarians and infidels. They recognized him for what he was, even if they seemed to have offered their allegiance to his young daughter. They knelt before him, a ragged but defiant looking crew, half naked, sweating profusely in the heat, but unbowed by his appraisal.

  Six were Quman, stripped down to loincloths. Despite the dirt streaking their bodies, they had made an effort to keep their hair neat, tying it back into loose braids with strips of cloth. They had pleasant, almost docile expressions. They looked like the kind of young soldiers who are happiest singing a song around the fire, good-natured, easy to please, and unlikely to fight among themselves. The seventh of their number bore tattoos all over his torso, twisted animals amid scenes of battle and carnage, griffins eating deer, lions rending hapless men, and a belled rider mounted on an eight-legged horse riding over corpses.

  Of the other six, four might have been any manner of heathen —Salavii, Polenie, Starviki, or otherwise—with matted dark hair, wiry arms, and thick shoulders, and stolid expressions that did not conceal a rebellious spark in their gaze although their ankles and wrists bore the oozing scars of shackles.

  “Are any of these men Daisanites?” asked Sanglant.

  Breschius knew an amazing store of languages, and he spoke several now, getting responses from all four of the men.

  “They are all heathens, my lord prince. Sold into slavery by raiders. This Salavii man says it was Wendish bandits who took him prisoner and sold him to an Arethousan merchant. He wishes to return to his home. The other three say they will gladly enter the service of your daughter if they will be allowed a servant’s portion, a meal every day, and her promise as their lord never to abandon them.”

  “Let the Salavii go, then. I want no slaves in my army.”

  Breschius spoke in a guttural tongue. The Salavii man rose nervously looking as though he expected a whip to descend.

  “It is a long road to Salavii lands,” remarked Captain Fulk. “If he can make it home safely, then he’s both strong and clever.”

  “Give him bread, ale, and a tunic,” said Sanglant. “I’ll not have it said I turned him out naked.”

  Even as Breschius began to speak, the man bolted for the gate, ready for a spear thrust to take him in the back. Fulk whistled, a piercing signal, and the guards leaped back so the man could sprint out of the fort unobstructed. The remaining three heathens shifted fearfully, but Breschius calmed them with a few words.

  “He had no reason to trust us,” said Sanglant, “but I doubt me he’ll get far.” He turned his attention to the last two slaves. They were much darker and wore torn robes and ragged pointy felt caps over cropped hair. Sanglant frowned as he studied them. These two kept their heads bowed, their gazes lowered, although they also looked to be young, strong men.

  “These two are Jinna, are they not?” he asked
Breschius. “Are they believers?”

  “Do you see the brand on their cheeks?”

  “Is that their slave mark?”

  “Nay, my lord prince. Or rather, I should say, yes, but not in the way you think. Every young Jinna man marks himself in this way when he becomes an adult. It is the way he enslaves himself to the god’s worship. No Jinna man may marry if he has not branded himself a slave to their fire god.”

  “Yet it’s men who made them slaves on Earth, not their god. Tell them they may go free if they wish.”

  “I do not speak their language, my lord prince.” He spoke to them anyway, giving up when they made no response. “They must not be merchants, my lord, or they would know at least one of the languages commonly used by traders.”

  “Then we must hope that gesture will suffice. What of these Quman? But you do not speak Quman as well as did Brother Zacharias, do you, Breschius?”

  Anger flowed back quickly, although he had thought he had banished it. He clenched his left fist and glanced toward Blessing’s cell. In the interval while he was gone she had fallen quiet. Maybe she had just screamed herself hoarse.

  “Very poorly, my lord prince. I never preached among the Quman. I beg your pardon—”

  Before Sanglant could respond, the old tattooed Quman man lifted both hands, palms facing the heavens. “Great lord,” he said in passable Wendish, “hear me, who goes by the name Gyasi. Many seasons ago, when I am young, the spirits speak into my ear at that day when the moon is dark and hungry. They tell—told—me that in the time to come, a child will save me from the iron rope. Her I must serve. So it happens, this day, that their prophecy comes to pass. I act as the spirits tell me. I do not disobey my ancestors. I will be as a slave to your daughter. These sons of my tribe will also follow her.”

  “Where did you learn to speak Wendish?” asked Sanglant.

  “In our tribe, we keep slaves from the western people. I can speak the language of all the slaves of my tribe. This way, they obey the begh and his mother. There is less trouble.”

  “On their left shoulder they bear scars,” said Breschius. “The wolf’s muzzle, the mark of the Kirshat clan.”

  “How did you come to be a slave?” asked Sanglant. “You wear the markings of a shaman. How can such a powerful man become a slave?”

  “I refused to heed the call of the Pechanek begh when he calls for war against the western lands. I tell—told—the war council that Kirshat clan should not follow that Pechanek whore, Bulkezu. But they send their sons to him because they fear him. As punishment for bad advice, they sell—sold—me and my sisters’ sons into slavery. Three have died. These six, the strong ones, survive.”

  “Bulkezu!” Sanglant laughed. “Bulkezu will trouble you no more. I hold him as my prisoner, here in this camp.”

  The old shaman nodded, unmoved by this revelation. “The spirits told me of Bulkezu’s fate.” He turned to his nephews, speaking in the Quman language. Two spat on the ground. A third laughed; the last two grinned. There was something uncomfortable about the merry gleam in their expressions, the crinkling of eyes, and the gleeful baring of teeth as they contemplated the downfall of their enemy.

  “You are a great lord, in truth,” added Gyasi, “to humble Bulkezu. But you wear no griffin wings. How can you defeat the man who killed two griffins? Bulkezu is still greater than you.”

  “We shall see. I march east to hunt griffins.”

  The shaman’s eyes widened. He tapped his forehead twice on a clenched hand, touched both shoulders, and patted his chest over his breastbone, across a tattoo depicting a bareheaded man copulating with a crested griffin. “That is a fearsome path, great lord. You may die.”

  Sanglant smiled, although he had long since ceased to find his mother’s curse amusing. “No creature male nor female may kill me. I do not fear the griffins. Can you guide me across the grasslands to the nesting grounds of the griffins?”

  “Nay, great lord. Mine is the power of the wolf, to stalk the ibex and the deer. I am not a griffin fighter. The secrets of the nesting grounds have been lost to our people. No warrior in three generations among the Kirshat tribe has worn griffin wings. We are a weak clan now. Our mothers die young. Our beghs have forgotten how to listen to the wisdom of old women. That is why the war council did not refuse when Bulkezu demanded soldiers for his army.”

  A shout rose from the guard on watch, followed by the call of the horn, three Mats, signifying that an enemy approached. Soldiers hurried out of the shade where they had been resting, lifting shields, hoisting bows or spears, and headed for the vulnerable gate. The slaves looked up, but did not rise. Sanglant jogged over to the guard tower that flanked the gate. Up on the walls facing northeast, men gestured and pointed. Fulk and Hathui followed him while Sergeant Cobbo herded the remaining slaves back to the cell where Blessing broke her silence and began to cry out again.

  “Let me out! Let me out! Anna! I want you! Daddy!”

  Sanglant clambered up on the wall to the crumbling guard tower with Fulk and Hathui beside him. The pair of guards on duty—Sibold and Fremen—muttered to each other as they watched. They had marked the riders because of dust, although the troop was still too far away to make out numbers and identifying marks.

  Below, in the gate, a dozen men were pulling back the bridge of planks thrown over the pit. Shadow concealed the depths of that steep-sided ditch where Bulkezu was imprisoned. Was Bulkezu moving along the base of the pit, alert to the new development? Already Sanglant heard the unmistakable flutter and whir of wings, faint but distinctive. He shaded his eyes as he squinted westward at the riders approaching the fort through rolling grasslands that stretched out north and west to the horizon.

  “Quman,” he said to Fulk.

  Fulk shouted down into the courtyard. “Get Lewenhardt up here!” He shaded his eyes, peering at the cloud of dust. “Are you sure, my lord prince? I can’t see well enough.”

  “I hear wings.”

  “Sibold,” ordered Fulk, “sound the horn again. I want every man along the wall and a barrier thrown up at the gate to reinforce the ditch. Quman.”

  Sibold swore merrily before blowing three sharp bats on the horn. Half the men had assembled and the rest came running, buckling on helmets or fastening leather brigandines around their torsos. Above the clatter and shouting Sanglant heard his daughter’s muffled shrieks from the cell where he had ordered her shut in.

  “My lord prince!” Lewenhardt scrambled up the ladder to the watchtower platform and leaned out as far as he dared over the railing. He wore a ridiculous floppy-brimmed hat that shaded his eyes better than a hand could.

  Sanglant set fists on the wall, rubbing the coarse bricks until all thought of Blessing was rubbed out of his mind and he could concentrate on the distant sound that he alone, so far, could hear. He blocked out all other distractions, the sound of planks being dragged across dirt, boots scraping on steps and ladders as men climbed into position along the walls, the sobs of Blessing, a bell ringing in the town… as he listened for the sough of wind through grass, the beat of the sun on earth, the rumble of distant hooves, and the whistle of wings. He listened to their pitch and intensity.

  “Griffin wings.” He braced himself to get a better look.

  Was that a thin shriek caught on the wind, a man crying out in fear and pain? It happened too fast, cut short. He could not be sure.

  The wings sang, not in a great chorus and yet more than a few individual voices.

  “Not much more than fifty,” he said. “Certainly less than one hundred.”

  “That’s a fair lot of dust they’re kicking up,” commented Fulk. “Can they be so few?”

  “More than one hundred,” said Lewenhardt. “Perhaps as many as two hundred. They don’t all have wings.”

  “How can they not have wings?” demanded Fulk.

  “Where is Brother Breschius?” asked Sanglant.

  “Fremen,” said Fulk, “fetch the good brother.”

  Sanglant loo
ked back toward town, visible from here as a jumble of walls and roofs broken by the high tower of the governor’s palace and the pale dome marking the Jinna temple. The steady slope of the ground toward the sea caused the land to melt into a shimmering dark flat, the expanse of peaceful waters. Ships were cutting loose from the quay, oars beating as they moved away from the port to escape a possible attack on the town. The ship Wolfhere had escaped on was already out of sight; according to Robert of Salia, who had found Blessing and her new retinue and escorted them back to the camp, that ship had left the harbor before Sanglant had even got the message that Blessing had vanished.

  Ai, God, what was he to do with his unnatural daughter?

  How had he been so stupid as to trust Wolfhere?

  “I see their wings!” cried Sibold triumphantly.

  “God Above!” swore Lewenhardt as other men along the wall got a better look at the riders. The restless glimmer of wings flashed in the light drawn out across grass, sun caught in white and gray feathers.

  “What do you see?” He brushed his fingers along his sword hilt.

  “I see griffin wings, my lord prince. One pair. And towers, fitted with gold.”

  Men hammered away down, knocking beams and wagons into place on either side of the pit.

  “A hard barrier to cross,” observed Sanglant as he looked down, “but not impossible. Here comes the frater. Perhaps he knows the secret of these towers.”

  Fremen came running back with the middle-aged frater in tow. Breschius had some trouble with the ladder because he only had the one hand, but he used his elbow to hook the rungs and hold himself while he shifted his remaining hand and moved up his feet. By the time he got to the top, the approaching riders were slowing down as they neared the fort. The soldiers setting the barricade in place on the outer side of the pit ran across the last two planks, which were then drawn back into the fort. The town had sealed its gates. The great bell ceased tolling.

  “We’re on our own,” said Fulk, a little amused. “We’ve no friends among the townsfolk. Did the governor not like you, my lord prince?”