The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 167

The children were exhausted with grief and fear and went to their beds without complaining. The farmer insisted on spending the night outside with his precious sheep.

“I’ll sit the first watch with him,” Alain said to Ratbold.

The prior nodded. Because the night was fair, Ratbold rolled himself up in a blanket under the shelter of the nearby trees, but the farmer sat meekly on the ground, all vigor gone out of him.

After a long silence, the man said, “Is it hopeless? Will your herb-craft cure them? I am ruined….”

“I do not know.”

He was helpless, as he had told Prior Ratbold. It had been easy to remain at the monastery as the season changed; the round of work never ceased; the hunger of his fellow lay brothers for companionship and comfort never ended. The destitute and desperate always found their way to the gates, those who could. Those who could not suffered where they were. There was nothing he could do. He hadn’t even been able to save Adica.

He, too, sheltered a blight on his soul. He, too, was penned in, waiting only to die. He was imprisoned and might bide on Earth for long years, if God were not merciful, long years remembering Adica’s sweetness and the light she brought with her, that was her essence. The smell of meadow flowers.

It would have been better to walk in company with her down the path that leads to the Other Side.

Yet how could he bear to leave the world, which was so beautiful? Even here, on this deathwatch, the night blossomed around him. A nightjar churred. The hazy cloak of air thrown across the sky hid half the stars and pricked the others into unexpected brilliance. Sounds unfolded beneath the canopy of trees barely stirred by a lazy breeze: the breathing of the ewes, the skittering of a mouse, the ticking of a bug, the distant tumble of a stream. The shadow of a bat swooped past; an owl cooed. Grass tickled his fingers where his hand lay slack on the ground, and he felt a tiny body creeping into the shelter of his hand as an owl glided past, seen swiftly and then gone into the trees. A minuscule tongue tested his skin. He sat very still so as not to scare the mouse away. The wind rustled in the branches and the grass swayed and whispered, playing along his wrist and hand, telling him a story of lands far away, lost to him once….

The last patrol to return brings the long-awaited news. North lie fens where the tree sorcerers hide their secrets and where the Alban queen has fled to rebuild her power. On an island land isolated in the middle of that wasteland of water and reeds rests a stone crown. But the marshland swallows strangers foolish enough to venture in without a guide.

“We will find a guide,” says Stronghand, indicating that they should go on with their report.

Hefenfelthe is only one among the queen’s many strongholds. Other hill forts guard the tracks that lead north through hostile territory now swarming with Alban war bands and a growing Alban army, called together to resist the invader. If the Eika army marches, it will meet with heavy resistance. They will have to fight every step of the way, and that is even before they reach the impassable southern margin of the fens.

“I do not fear the Albans,” he says to his soldiers, “nor do you. Yet fighting along the roads is not the only way to conquer a country. I respect the dangers posed by the marsh, but I do not think it impassable. Is there no river we can sail up? Does the water in these fenlands not drain into the sea?”

The fens drain northward; this much the scouts observed, but they did not scout the fens themselves or journey north beyond them once they confirmed the rumors of the queen’s sighting. Other voices chime in with their own observations. Eika have raided sporadically along the Alban coast for generations, and it is well known that a great wash of water dominates the middle northern coast. Yet how many rivers spill into this drainage none know, nor have any Eika navigated those channels. They might sail up a hundred rivers and streams and still not find what they are looking for in such a maze of waterways and bog.

“We can send scouts,” he says, “but we cannot wait for their report. The Alban queen cannot be given enough time to consolidate her position. We must march overland and strike them from the south, through the fens.”

Ironclaw shakes his head. “Did you not hear what they said? The Albans will fight us every step of the way through country they know like their own hand. They are dogs, loyal to their queen. They will bite and nip at us all the way.”

“Do you fear them?”

“No! No! No!” protests Ironclaw, seeing he has lost face by expressing caution. “We are stronger, but we lack numbers. The Albans will never lay down their arms.”

“Will they not? Is Hefenfelthe not alive with Albans working in the forge, rebuilding this tower, and plowing the fields?”