The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 373

fire and lightning so bright it stings her eyes, it blinds her the Earth burns

the Earth splits and cracks open and a yawning abyss swallows the Middle Sea, and she is choking as a wall of water sweeps inland, drowning all before it

“Enough!” cried Eudokia, voice rising, cracking with fear.

Hanna was flung backward and hit her shoulders and then her head, although the carpet cushioned the blow somewhat. Yet sparks shot from the brazier and spun like fireflies, raining down as the general leaped forward to shove Lady Eudokia’s chair out of the way, chair legs catching in the carpet and dragging it up into stiff folds. An ember ghosted down to light on Hanna’s cheek. No vision, this. It burned into her skin and, with the heavy incense clouding her lungs, she gulped for air, coughed helplessly, and passed out.

“Hanna, I pray you, wake up.”

She fought those hands, knowing that the fingers that closed around her neck would choke the life out of her just as the smoke had.

“Hanna!”

A jolt threw her sideways into a hard wall. After this new pain resolved into an ordinary scrape and bruise, she found herself staring into the grain of rough-hewn wood. She recognized the scrape of wheels and the lurching gait of a wagon. She lay in its bed with the heavens splayed above her almost gauzy, they glared so whitely. Because the sight made her eyes hurt, she looked down. Fortunatus strode alongside, peering down anxiously at her.

“Hanna? Are you awake?”

The taste of the incense still clogged her throat.

“Hanna, what happened?”

Other faces crowded around as they jostled to get a look at her: Ruoda, Heriburg, Gerwita, Jerome and Jehan, the sisters from St. Ekatarina’s, the servant women, all sliding in and out of her vision. Then Rosvita came and the others melted aside so the cleric could walk with one hand upon the wagon. Her gaze on Hanna had such a benign aspect that Hanna gave a sigh of relief, though it hurt to let air whistle from lungs to mouth.

“Let her be, comrades.”

“But what happened?” cried the others, voices tumbling one on top of the next. “Where are we going in such haste? Why are we traveling back the way we came as though we’re fleeing the Enemy?”

“Can you tell us what happened, Hanna?” Rosvita’s tone was mild but her expression disconcertingly tense. She touched Hanna’s cheek with a finger, flicking at the skin; Hanna winced, feeling the scar where the ember had burned her. “Ah!” murmured Rosvita sadly, as if she had only now realized that Hanna bore a new injury.

“I saw it.” She did not recognize her own voice. The smoke had ruined it. “Fire. Burning. A flood of water as mighty as the sea unleashed.” Tears made her stammer. “T-the end of the world.”

3

THE company of thirty handpicked soldiers and their charge fled down onto the coastal plain in blistering heat to rejoin the queen’s army, and on the evening of the fifth day they rode into a camp situated near the shore in the hope, perhaps, of catching a breeze off the waters. Yet the tide was far out, exposing rocks and slime, and despite the lowering twilight there was no wind at all, only the heat.

In the center of camp Antonia dismounted from her mule and fixed Adelheid with an exasperated gaze as a servant showed her to a seat under an awning. Adelheid indicated that all but Duke Burchard and her most faithful retainers should depart to give Antonia a few moments to relax in peace.

“How long will we suffer in this heat?” Duke Burchard asked the empress, as if continuing a conversation halted by Antonia’s arrival.

“It is part of the skopos’ plan. If clouds cover the sky, then she cannot weave her great spell. Or so I understand.” Servants fanned them, but it was still almost too hot to breathe.

Burchard grunted, sounding uneasy. “When I was young, the church condemned tempestari. They said such magic interfered with the natural course of God’s will.”

“One might say the same of swords and spears,” observed Adelheid, “for otherwise enemies would do much less damage each to the other when they went to war, and battles would be a far less bloody business. Sorcery is a tool, Burchard, just like a sword.” She turned to regard Antonia, who had finished drinking her wine while a servant wiped her sweating brow and neck with a damp linen cloth. “You were not successful, then, Sister Venia?”

She was dusty, sore, hot, tired, and thoroughly angry. “He has griffins!”

“So the scouts reported,” said Burchard with an uplifted brow. “Didn’t you believe them?”

“I did not comprehend the nature of their power.”