The Gathering Storm

  He felt as if he were rising off the carpet, but it was some other part of him that, shifting, loosened from the cord binding it to the earth.

  He hunted alone in the tall grass, flayed by a winter wind that had a malicious soul which hoped to devour his flesh until only his bones remained scattered on the steppe. The wind was his enemy.

  In the way of dreams, he came unexpectedly upon a shoreline where he saw himself in the cold blue waters: but he wore a face not like his own, with eyes shaped like almonds, with a mustache, with short black hair crowned by a white fox-skin hat.

  If I am not myself, then who am I?

  There came from the grass behind him a hooting cry of challenge: the griffin that stalked him just as he stalked it. Into the grass they ran, fighting the wind, tumbling and clashing, until he pinned her to the earth, and she became a woman clad in burnished iron skin struggling beneath him. He entered her, and in her rapture she transformed back into a griffin, but she was already his. He had tamed her. He had made her pregnant with his seed.

  That night to mark his triumph he shot burning arrows into the sky, each one blossoming into a star.

  Thus were the Quman people born of the mating of man and griffin.

  He turned his head as the firelight glinted off the skin of the slave woman, giving her eyes an iron gleam, shading her skin until it shone like metal, silvery and strong. Was she a griffin, stalking him in her human form? He smelled her musk, but whether it was witchcraft sewn around her body to capture him or only the immemorial mystery of man drawn to woman and woman to man; he could not tell.

  She turned, and with the twist of her body the light shifted. A man ducked out through the entrance flap. A gust of pungent smoke swirled.

  He floated on the haze, staring down at Sapientia asleep on her couch, snoring softly as the mothers of Bulkezu sucked at their pipes and watched his empty body without expression.

  The griffin warrior ran a finger along the sharp quill of one of the feathers that made up his wings, which were laid out beside him. Down that trickle of blood Sanglant’s thoughts drifted up through the smoke hole until he hovered above the camp, seeing tents like a flock of mushrooms battered by snow and wind. He smelled the blizzard coming. A solitary figure picked its way up the long slope below which they had set out their camps, but he flew higher still as effortlessly as an eagle catching the updraft under her wings.

  A blizzard was coming, hard and powerful, as implacable as the stone-faced mothers and their hatred for the man who had defeated the son of their tribe.

  The wind breathed ice through his spirit. The ancient hills bent under the weight of the storm.

  Something was waiting farther away even than the approaching storm. He could not see it, but he felt it along his skin, a prickling like sparks in the frigid air.

  Down a long distance, he heard an owl’s faint call of warning.

  Something is coming.

  He fell hard through the shivering night air, back into the prison of his body, jerked upright as he came back to himself. Lips brushed his ear. The Salian woman leaned against him, overcome by the lassitude brought on by the drug, moaning under her breath with such a perfume of desire that he at once, all of him, came alive with shamefully intense arousal, hot and strong.

  His hands strayed to the laces fastening her jacket. He felt the promise of her skin so close, only the thin layer of clothing separating her from him, all of it easily discarded. She pressed eagerly against him. He followed the movement, gaze sliding down the length of her body to the sensuous curve of her bare feet, but the twisting patterns in the rug caught his eye, seducing him along their unfolding paths. While the slave woman nibbled gently at his ear, he followed this other trail with his gaze until he ran up against the cold stare of the mothers.

  They were waiting for him to bare the chink in his armor. They were waiting for him to lose face, even if it meant sending their slave to couple with him publicly as a bitch in heat seduces any nearby dog.

  Every man has his weakness.

  He pulled away, scrambling to his feet. The musician still sang as his companion bowed that infuriating drone on and on. “He heard thunder in the air. Tarkan heard the thunder of wings, these wings which were beating as the hunter approached. Now the heavens were full of the sound as the great creature approached.”

  Was that thunder, or the boom of wind against the tents?

  Abruptly, the musicians ceased, bringing silence.

  The griffin warrior leaned forward to blow along the length of his iron wings; the tone that sang so softly from them was sweet and deadly.

  It did not sing alone against the rising wind.

  Sanglant stepped to the entrance. Hathui stood beside him as he lifted the flap and listened.

  “Something is coming,” he said.

  2

  “ANNA! Wake up!”

  A hand pinched Anna’s forearm.

  “Anna! Wake up!”

  “Ouch!” She sat up to find Blessing crouching on the pallet they shared. The girl’s breath misted in the air. Lying back down, Anna pulled quilt and furs up to her neck, shivering.

  “Anna!” The girl’s voice was a hoarse whisper. Around them, the prince’s courtiers slept hard, some snoring, some whistling in their sleep, others still and silent as the dead.

  “Something’s coming. I’ve got to go out and see what it is.”

  “Your Highness!”

  “Don’t call out! I command you.”

  Already dressed, Blessing moved fast. She had an almost supernatural sheen to her, apparent only when it was dark—a faint suggestion not of light but of being, as though her soul could be glimpsed as a shimmer beneath the surface of her skin. By the time these muddy thoughts made sense to Anna, the entrance flap had stirred and Blessing had slipped outside into the deadly night.

  She drew in a breath to shout for help. Stopped.

  The last time they had let Blessing slip away, Prince Sanglant had whipped Thiemo and Matto and threatened to cast her out should she fail in her duty a second time. She still remembered the way his switch had cut into the dirt, the way grit thrown up by the force of his anger had lodged in her teeth. He would banish her and Thiemo and Matto out into the killing winter night.

  Terror made her stutter out a bleat. Her voice choked off as if a hand throttled her. Shaking, she groped for her third tunic, her cloak, and furs, fumbling and clumsy as she struggled into them and fastened pins and brooches.

  Thiemo and Matto had been banished to the far side of the large tent, forced by the prince to share a pallet so they would learn to tolerate each other, but the merciless cold and the seemingly endless journey had done more than this punishment to dull their anger. She crept between the pallets and sleeping figures to reach them, shaking them awake.

  “Hurry! The princess is gone missing.”

  She reached the entrance without mishap. The slap of the night air was cruel. It hurt to breathe, but she pushed out past the guards, scanned the dark camp, and turned on them.

  “Where is the princess?” Her eyeballs hurt, stung by air so cold it seemed likely to freeze them in their sockets.

  “The princess?” That was Den’s gravelly voice, though she couldn’t make out his features. “Anna, you must be sleepwalking. I’ve not seen the princess out here. She’s in her bed, and warm, unlike us. You’d best go back in.”

  The moan of the wind shifted, rising in pitch. The tent shuddered, the entire frame bending under a blast. Snow spun out of the heavens and, abruptly, came down in streaming waves of dense white. Shouts, and frightened whinnies from the horses, broke out all through camp.

  “God protect us!” shouted Den’s companion, Johannes.

  A blinding curtain of snow driven on a gale obliterated their view of the nearby tents. The wind roared. Thiemo and Matto stumbled out of the tent. Inside, a babble of voices raised in alarm as the tent rocked in the wind.

  Thiemo yelled, but she couldn’t make out his words over the
scream of the wind. She huddled miserably under the scant shelter provided by the tent’s awning.

  “… Princess Blessing!” Matto shouted, his words torn away by the wind.

  “Where is she?” shrieked Thiemo.

  Heribert appeared at the entrance, holding a lamp that blazed long enough for her to see his frightened face. A gust of wind rattled the tent and actually lifted her off her feet as the men around her cried aloud. The lamp flame snapped out. A groan and crash splintered the air as the tent, next to them—the one that held the prisoner—keeled over under the force of the wind. Its felt walls flew; poles snapped in two, their shards spun away. Soldiers scrambled to grab hold of the covering, but they could not stand upright.

  Snow swept down. She could no longer see Den or Johannes. The icy grip of the wind blistered her face and stiffened her fingers. Her toes went numb.

  She was yanked back into the safety of the tent—if it could be called safety, with the entire structure creaking under the assault of the storm. Men gripped the tent poles in a desperate attempt to hold it down. Thiemo was yelling at her, his hand fastened so tightly on her wrist that his grasp burned, but she couldn’t hear him over the roaring wind. Heribert had fallen to his knees beside the feather bed where Blessing was supposed to be sleeping.

  “She’s gone!” screamed Anna. “She’ll die!”

  She jerked her arm out of Thiemo’s grasp and pushed out through the entrance flap before he could stop her.

  She flung herself forward into the blizzard, stumbled when a hand clasped her boot and dragged her into drifting snow. It was no hand; it was a tangle of rope. Her fingers were so cold she could scarcely unwrap the rope from around her ankle, and with every precious, passing moment the cold bit deeper into her bones. It was hard to stand, but the wind pressed her forward as she floundered through the remains of the collapsed tent. Twice she collided with soldiers crawling over the fallen walls. They shouted at her and grabbed at her, but she eluded them. She had to keep going. She had to find Blessing.

  She tripped over a fallen pole and fell into a nest of scalding serpents that writhed around her, tongues biting through her gloves to pierce her skin. She cried out, terrified, until she realized these were not snakes but cold iron.

  A chain writhed down over her head unexpectedly. It dug into her eye before scoring her cheek and nestling like a viper at the curve of her neck. A force more powerful than the wind jerked her back into a solid wall. The chain choked her. She threw her head back, trying to get air. Snow dusted her lips and eyes; she swallowed, struggling against a powerful grip.

  “Give it up, or I will kill you.”

  Bulkezu’s voice had the ability to penetrate the howling winds where none other could. His icy grip squeezed off the useless scream rising in her throat. He pushed her down on top of the chains and knelt on top of her chest, his weight forcing her into the rough metal links. Although the pain drove like knives into her spine and back, terror made her mute.

  This is how I will die.

  Snow blowing into her face made tears come to her eyes; her legs burned as the cold melted through her clothing to scald her skin, a cold so intense that it burned like heat. His hand curled around her throat, pushing just so at the soft belly of her neck. She gagged, choking, coughing, drowning. Figures swam into view through the wall of snow, hanging back when they saw that the prisoner had taken his own captive.

  Stalemate. She had watched the prince play chess many times; she had sat silently while Brother Heribert tried to teach an impatient Blessing the basic strategy of the game.

  “Lions can be sacrificed,” he would tell her, “to advance the other pieces.”

  With her peripheral vision she glimpsed a suggestion of cautious movement to either side, but to move her head even slightly caused Bulkezu to probe for a more painful place to squeeze. She whimpered; his lips creased upward in a smile, although he did not look down at her.

  She lay still as her body grew numb from terror and cold, as Bulkezu’s hand twitched, once, twice, a third time, on her neck as if reacting to a sight she could not see. He darted forward, then fell back with one knee grinding hard into her abdomen. He had ripped a spear away from one of the prince’s soldiers. Which one had thrust at him, risking her life?

  She was only a Lion. The prince would sacrifice her rather than lose Bulkezu.

  Tears turned to ice on her cheek. She could no longer feel her lips or her fingers or her toes. How could she have been so stupid? If she hadn’t panicked, if she had kept her head and asked for help, she wouldn’t lie here at his mercy.

  If Blessing hadn’t run away.

  The loathing and rage hit with as much force as the storm: I hate her, the spoiled brat. I don’t care if she’s dead!

  “Anna! Anna! You let her go, you ugly monster!”

  Shouts broke the stalemate.

  “Catch her!”

  “Stay back, Your Highness!”

  “She got my knife!”

  “Grab her, you fool!”

  The spear’s haft slapped against her head as Bulkezu twirled it, getting a better grip to meet a new attack. There was a scuffle, roars of anger from the soldiers, and a body hit Anna across the chest so hard that the wind was knocked out of her. The weight of that small body caused the chains to bite into her shoulder blades. She coughed out a mewling cry of pain as her vision hazed. Blood dribbled down around her ear, freezing. Her eye would not open.

  Blessing had tried to rescue her.

  Shouts reached her faintly, a distant swarm of movement felt more than heard. Bulkezu straddled both Anna and the second body as he braced for a new attack. When he laughed, high-pitched and gleeful, the sound cut across the screaming pitch of the wind.

  “Free me, prince of dogs,” cried Bulkezu triumphantly. “Or I kill her.”

  Blessing whimpered in pain.

  Prince Sanglant’s voice reached her over the buffeting wind, a ringing tenor that easily pierced the clamor of battle. Anger and thwarted frustration made him sound hoarse—but then, he always sounded like that.

  “Let her go free, and I’ll let you go free when we reach the hunting grounds of the griffins.”

  Bulkezu laughed again. “To be hunted down by my own tribe?”

  “Very well,” shouted Sanglant. “I’ll throw down my weapons and trade myself for her—”

  “Your daughter is a far more valuable hostage than you would be. Free me, or I kill her. But I will take her with me, so that you will keep my tribe from hunting me.”

  Why had Blessing charged in against a foe she could not hope to defeat? Now she was unconscious, wounded, and Bulkezu’s prisoner.

  “Take me as your hostage and my soldiers will see that your tribe does not hunt you. I can make no bargain with my daughter’s life—”

  The wind roared, obliterating the sound of the prince’s voice as a wave of white swept over them. She could no longer see Bulkezu through frozen eyes and the howling white fog of the blizzard.

  This was the end.

  Something smooth and silken brushed her lips.

  The stinging blast of the snow and ice faded under an entirely unexpected surge of warm wind. White flower petals swirled over her like a cloud of butterflies. Ice melted on her face, making runnels down her cheek as petals tickled her mouth and eyes. This was no natural wind—

  Sorcery!

  The soldiers cried out in alarm and surprise at the shower of petals and the shock of the wind’s abrupt change.

  “Hai!” Bulkezu shouted. A weight hit him, throwing him off her. Within the streaming petals two men fought—Sanglant and Bulkezu—wrestling and rolling. The chains writhed around her, scraping over her legs, burning her arms. Snow that had been caught beneath chains sprayed and scattered.

  “Get the princess!” cried Matto.

  “Anna! Anna!” Thiemo yelled, running toward her.

  She was trapped in a tangle of spitting, biting iron. She got to her knees, but a hand grabbed her ankle and jer
ked her hard so she fell forward while being dragged backward. Iron ripped up the skin on her cheek. She screamed. Bulkezu threw her on top of Blessing’s prone body. Anna’s swollen eye was crammed into the slush, a muck of snow and petals and mud that covered the ground, but she could see the awful scene unfolding a hand’s breadth from her face.

  Bulkezu grabbed Blessing’s hair and twisted the princess’ head back. A knife blade pressed against the vulnerable skin at her throat. The prince cursed violently but helplessly.

  Bulkezu laughed that giggling, mad chuckle that would, surely, sour milk and curdle eggs in the nest; she hadn’t heard it for months. She began to weep.

  The soldiers beyond had gone deadly silent as petals spun down.

  “Now we are both trapped,” said Bulkezu. “Only a Kerayit witchwoman or her mistress can raise a wind like this.” He laughed again. “Free me. I am still fast enough to kill the girl and strong enough to kill her even if you wound me first. My freedom. Or your daughter’s life.”

  A crowd of men gathered around them, holding back as if a fence caught them up short. The blade biting into Blessing’s skin raised a trickle of blood although the girl remained limp.

  Was she already dead?

  Beyond, the camp had dissolved into chaos: horses trumpeting in fright, men shouting and cursing, a thin voice wailing in agony.

  A horn call rising in strength: the call to arms.

  Petals streamed everywhere as the warm wind drowned them. “My lord prince! Come quickly!”

  “My lord! My lord! An army approaches!”

  “We’ve been ambushed!”

  “Horsemen, my lord prince!”

  “So be it.” Sanglant’s was not a voice that hid emotion often, but she could not tell if fury, frustration, fear, or cold raging bitterness ruled him now.

  “Your sister, Princess Sapientia, my lord—”

  “Not now, Breschius. Captain Fulk, I want spears to the fore, braced to face down a cavalry charge.”

  “Yes, my lord prince.”