The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 331

They moved upstream under cover and once they were out of sight of the garrison he unstoppered the precious flask the merfolk had given him and let fall two drops of spoor into the streaming water. They ate well that night, careful not to gorge, and remained concealed in the woodland all through the next day, scouting upstream for the likeliest place to cross. A bend in the river offered the best conditions; the twenty human soldiers could swim it and the Eika cross with the aid of inflated bladders. By dusk they were ready to go. He left four men behind to wait for the merfolk.

Now they would have an escape route if the hounds led him farther inland than he hoped. They were a small group, fashioned for speed and a quick strike, not for a prolonged campaign.

He let the hounds support him across. Swimming made him nervous, as it did all Eika because they did not float like humankind. And because he knew what lurked in the depths. Although he had an alliance with the merfolk, he did not trust them. Their desires and goals seemed too alien from his.

But as he clambered up on the far shore, these reflections made him grin. Certainly humankind feared and hated the RockChildren for the same reason. What we do not understand makes us afraid. What does not look like us on the outside must remain suspicious. Yet how much harder it was to see past the outer seeming into the inner heart. The merfolk wanted restored to them what they had lost.

Was that so difficult to understand? Any soul might feel compassion for what they had suffered—if it were a soul that could feel compassion.

The hounds shook themselves off. His soldiers deflated the bladders and carried them along in case they had another river to cross. The hounds cut back toward the ferry crossing to find their trail, and once again they speared east and south through woodland. After a pair of days the land became broken and hilly, and the fields and settlements they had been careful to avoid fell away. Up in the hills no one farmed.

On the third day he smelled the smoke of smelting fires and in the late afternoon they crept up to the verge of a great scar dug into the land. The forest had been cleared back; the reek of charcoal tainted the air. Shafts pitted the land, and steam rolled out of their depths. Men dug and hauled and hammered, most in chains and a few with whips and spears and knives set as guards upon the others.

“These are mines,” said Yeshu. “Silver and lead if we’re in the Arbeden Hills, as we should be. These are the richest veins of silver and lead in the northwest, so it is said. King Henry controls these mines and feeds his treasury out of their bowels. But you see, there.” He pointed to a log house set at the eastern edge of the clearing, where two banners could be seen through drifts of smoke. “Duke Conrad’s hawk flies beside a guivre. The guivre is the sign of the duchy of Arconia.”

The hounds whined, ears flat, bodies tense. They wanted to charge forward, but they looked up at Stronghand, awaiting his command.

“We’ll move swiftly,” said Stronghand, gathering his men close. “Some man out to relieve himself will stumble upon us soon enough. We’ll strike first to free those in chains and kill as many of the guards as possible. Some of the slaves will join us. Others will flee. The confusion will divide the attention of the guards. I will follow the hounds. Once we have my brother, we grab anything we can carry and retreat. What you grab is yours to keep or trade, and all of you will have boasting rights. Is that understood?”

They nodded. He had been careful to pick those who liked daring and risk but who had no obvious pretensions to rule. For this troop, including young Yeshu, the hazard itself was the reward. Such a gamble made the blood sing.

He grinned and gestured. “Move out. When I release the hounds, that is your signal to attack.”

They split up into smaller groups and spread out to surround the clearing. He waited, counting off the interval, and with the sun a hand’s span above the western horizon and the guards and workers beginning to slacken their pace as they readied themselves for the evening rest, he released Sorrow and Rage.

The hounds bolted forward. Silent, as was their custom, his troops broke from the woodland cover and sprinted across the open ground, overwhelming the first guards they came to before those men could raise the alarm. The scuff of feet on earth; a shout; the ring of hammer on chain as a slave struggled to free himself; a grunt as a guard doubled over, skewered on the end of an Eika spear. Rage leaped, bowling over a guard who had turned, in surprise, a shout of alarm twisting into a scream as the weight of the hound bore him to the ground.

Guards, free workers, and men without chains grabbed their picks and raced toward the log house.

“To arms! To arms!”