The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 265

Nearby, axes cut into wood, a man shouted a warning, and a tree splintered, groaned, and fell with a resounding crash that shuddered along the ground, vibrating up through the soles of his feet. The breeze turned, taking the worst of the scorched smell with it. No birds sang.

Fear crept along his shoulders. In some other place the birds had fled, too. All gone. A horrible pain filled his belly as he wept, remembering only that his hands had been slick with blood. Where had he been? What was he doing?

Who am I?

Flashes of memory sparked.

Ships slide noiselessly onto the strand, a shining sand beach touched by the light of the morning sun rising over low hills. Because they come from the west, the ships lie somewhat in shadow—or perhaps that is only a miasma of death and destruction that hovers over them. What pours forth from them cannot be called human, yet neither are these creatures beasts. They are fashioned much like humankind, with their strange, sharp faces and the shape of their limbs and torsos, but under the sun’s light their skin gleams as if scaled with metal—bronze, or copper, or iron—and the body of each one bears a pattern of white scars or of garish yellow, white, or red paint formed into bright sigils. Fearsome dogs yammer beside them, leaping into the fray, biting and tearing. The defenders of this quiet estate fight fiercely and with great courage, led by a handsome young lord carrying shield and sword, but the invaders outnumber them.

It is only a matter of time.

The lord’s hall catches on fire, flame racing’ along the thatched roof.

“Hey, there! Hey! You can stop now, Silent. We’re here.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it, how sometimes he seems to be hearing us, and other times it’s as if he’s gone right out of his head. Maybe he’s one of them whose soul got eaten by wights, just sucked clean out of him.”

“I pity him, poor man.”

“Well, friend, I pity us, for look and see what manner of a pit we’ve come to. A great gaping hole in the earth. Look at those pools of filthy water! Gah, it stinks! I don’t mean to spend the rest of my life here, I tell you that.”

“Hush, Walker. We’ll speak of that later when none can overhear. Here, now, Silent, sit you down. The master is talking with the foreman. God help us, this is a sour and ugly place.”

A hand pressured him downward, and he sat, numb, bewildered. Only when he dreamed could he see, and then he suffered visions of such a fearful host that it was almost a relief when darkness ate those dreams, as it always did.

Wind played across his face. Around him, the other prisoners murmured nervously. The dust of stones clotted the air, and everywhere around rang the sound of picks and shovels and the scrape of wheels along rock.

“There goes the master,” said Walker. “Bound for home, a soft bed, good ale, and the next lot of sorry men like us. He must be glad to be free of this hellhole.”

“I hate you,” said Robert.

All the prisoners shifted as the words chafed them. He could feel the placement of their bodies, three to his left and five clustered to his right, with as much space as any of them could manage between them and Robert.

“I don’t think he’s talking to you,” whispered Will.

“The wights sucked out his soul, too,” murmured Walker.

“I hate you. No. No, you’ll look! Look at the blood! Is that her bonny face?”

The anger and despair in that voice poisoned the air as surely as did the dust and the drifting ash and the stink of distant forges.

He reached, groping, and found a hairy arm, well muscled, that belonged to Robert, but a hand slapped his away, and that voice cursed him while weeping, tears and fury together. He withdrew his hand, now wet with the other man’s tears.

“Up! Up! You don’t get food for sitting on your backsides! Listen here, you men. My name is Foucher, and I’m foreman of these workings. You’ll be hauling stone from the quarry. Work hard, and you’ll get fed and in two years’ time your freedom.”

“Two years.”

Will’s breath chased along his skin, carrying the murmured words.

“I’ll not wait that long,” whispered Walker.

Willehm and Walker sat so close on either side that he felt protected, enclosed.

“Which is the blind mute? And the madman? Those two? Take them to the wheels.”

His comrades muttered oaths as footfalls approached.

“How can a blind man turn a wheel?” asked Will boldly.

“He’ll be helpless if the mad one attacks him,” protested Walker.

“Move off, you two! What’s it to you, anyway? Who better than a blind man to walk the treadmill, eh? It’s all the same to him!” Foucher snickered. “And we can’t trust the madman with any tools, so he’ll walk, too. Else he’ll earn his keep by being thrown down into the deep shafts! As will the rest of you, any what cause me trouble!”