The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 347

The griffin sprang. It leaped not like a warrior plunging into battle or a wolf in a last burst of speed as it brings down an elk, but rather like a kitten chasing a moth around a candle, surprised at the ease with which the moth is swatted down but greatly pleased when another comes along to play. Its mate yelped and danced along the slope, wings outstretched as she sliced through the crowded galla.

The galla felt no fear, and so they came on, much to the griffins’ delight. They shrilled no death screams, only whushing sighs of relief as their earthly forms splintered where griffin feathers cut through them; one by one, they were banished from Earth and fled back to the abyss from which they sprang.

Some few of the galla pursued the army, but with great bounds and gliding leaps the griffins cleared the camp and took off in pursuit of the pursuers. As they overtook each of the galla, they made a great spectacle of pouncing on the shimmering spear of darkness, and with each snap of release, each galla vanquished and banished, the griffins released a rumbling noise that could be mistaken as nothing but the sound of elation.

Sanglant climbed to his feet. He stood alone amid the ruin of camp and laughed to watch the griffins at play while his heart wept for those of his men who had been murdered in such a foul, cowardly manner.

And yet, and amazingly, when the galla were all gone and every trace of that iron sting had been blown into oblivion, the griffins circled around and padded back to him. They loomed over him, and Argent bent its head and shoved him playfully as if to say: will there be more?

“There will be more,” he promised. “So I fear.”

As soon as it was light, he rode south with two dozen men along the trail while leaving Captain Fulk to set the army in order. The path made by the galla was easy to follow: all living things were dead where they had passed, even the plants. About an hour’s ride south he discovered a hollow lying east of the road where the massacre had happened. Vultures and crows led him to it, for they had gathered in great numbers. Within this bowl of ground fifty or more men had had their throats cut and then been abandoned. Blood spattered everywhere, and it stank. The birds had pecked out all the soft eyes already, and the feast was so rich that he had to kill one before the rest fluttered away reluctantly only to roost close by, waiting.

Hathui and several of the men were sick; he himself could scarcely stand to look. It was one thing to kill in battle against an armed opponent. This was murder, plain and simple.

They returned to the army in a grimmer state of mind than they had left it, rejoining them at midday. Captain Fulk had the ranks set in marching order, and as soon as the prince arrived, he made his report.

The guide and his pretty granddaughter had vanished, but more than one man reported having seen them running north with their packs bouncing on their backs. All but forty-eight men were accounted for, yet the bones they had collected on the hillside and along the road where the galla had attacked seemed to add up to no more than nineteen men. Most likely some had lost heart and run for home. Still, not one among the Quman, or the centaurs, deserted him. Of his own men, Den and Johannes were missing and presumed among the dead.

“My people took the brunt of it!” Lord Wichman complained. “Twelve men posted on sentry duty in the van, and only poor Thruster is left of them. Look at him!”

Lord Eddo had a bad reputation and was not liked even by Wichman and his cronies, but Sanglant had to pity the man now. He was a wreck, babbling and weeping without end about demons and fearful whispers and the claws of the Enemy raking into his guts until a potion got down his throat made him sleep.

“This may be the least of the losses we’ll suffer,” said Sanglant, looking at each of his commanders in turn. “If there are any without the heart to go on, now is the time to leave, without shame.”

His captains looked beyond him to the two griffins, who lounged up on the rocks, taking the sun, sated and satisfied. Unbound and unrestrained, they had not flown off.

Captain Fulk laughed. “If such creatures follow you of their own volition, why would we poor frail humans turn away? Your army is ready to march, my lord prince.”

3

UNCLE pushed the handcart and its precious container of grain plus a beautifully carved bench for trade along the windy path that led out of the valley. The Brat padded alongside, chattering nonstop about each least sight; she had never left the valley before, not in her entire life. The trail rose, crested a ridge, and descended out of the hills into open country beyond. That journey took them all morning and into the afternoon. Treu followed at his heels the entire time and now and again licked his hands.