The Gathering Storm
A crowd of men gathered around them, holding back as if a fence caught them up short. The blade biting into Blessing’s skin raised a trickle of blood although the girl remained limp.
Was she already dead?
Beyond, the camp had dissolved into chaos: horses trumpeting in fright, men shouting and cursing, a thin voice wailing in agony.
A horn call rising in strength: the call to arms.
Petals streamed everywhere as the warm wind drowned them. “My lord prince! Come quickly!”
“My lord! My lord! An army approaches!”
“We’ve been ambushed!”
“Horsemen, my lord prince!”
“So be it.” Sanglant’s was not a voice that hid emotion often, but she could not tell if fury, frustration, fear, or cold raging bitterness ruled him now.
“Your sister, Princess Sapientia, my lord—”
“Not now, Breschius. Captain Fulk, I want spears to the fore, braced to face down a cavalry charge.”
“Yes, my lord prince.”
An object hit Anna hard on the head, slid down her nose, and fell into snow and petals. It was a key.
“Let the hunt begin, Bulkezu. If you harm her, you will suffer tenfold what she suffered.”
Bulkezu’s weight shifted painfully on her back as he grabbed the key off the ground. The knife pricked Blessing under the jaw as he shifted. Chains clattered down. He took hold of the back of Blessing’s tunic and hoisted her up, holding her tight with the knife still at her throat.
“If you want her to live, girl,” he said to Anna without looking down at her, “then you will accompany us because I cannot be bothered to care for her.”
Blessing had risked her own life. Anna could do no less.
She pushed up to her feet, swaying and dizzy. Blood stippled the churned snow and muck and stained the iron links of the chain. Men scattered around them, running to the boundary of the camp with weapons in hand. Grooms fought down maddened horses as petals drifted in clouds through the air. Mud spattered everywhere as the warm wind melted snow, as feet ground moisture into grass and dirt.
Anna staggered after Bulkezu through the clamor and chaos. No one heeded them, although perhaps it only seemed so because she could not see very well. He had no trouble keeping Blessing held tight with one arm while brandishing the spear with the other; he had remained strong even after months of captivity.
Men formed up around the perimeter, tense but ready, their spears and shields a fragile line of defense.
“Let him through! Let him through!” shouted Matto ahead of them. “God curse you! Make a way through for him, or he’ll kill them both!”
Bulkezu carried the princess past the line of men formed up along the outer perimeter of the camp. He paused long enough to sling the girl over his back, a shield against arrows, and plunged forward up the slope with knife and spear in hand, silent but breathing hard. Snow turned to sludge under his feet as a last few petals spun down around them. In the east, light rose as dawn threatened.
Blessing woke at last, kicking at the backs of his knees.
“Quiet, worm!”
The iron edge of his voice subdued her.
He will kill us, thought Anna, too stunned to weep. Was it better to struggle and die fighting or to follow quietly in the hope they might escape?
Though he labored, he did not slow. They crested the hill as the rim of the sun splintered the horizon. In a broad valley below, a river meandered through towering grass that shimmered like gold. The lowland ended abruptly at the foot of steep crags jutting up along the eastern horizon. A petal brushed her cheek; another settled on Blessing’s upturned rump. Wind carried the scent of grass and of spring. Snow melted into dirty mounds, the icy remains of winter; spring had swept in.
On its wings, off to both left and right, an army of mounted men approached with bows and spears held ready. They weren’t Quman—they didn’t wear wings—but there was something misshapen about them nevertheless that Anna could not discern with one swollen eye and her back and arms on fire with pain.
Bulkezu had seen the soldiers, too, had heard the thunder of their approach across the ground.
“Witches!” He spat on the ground before forging down a slope made slippery by melting snow and the sheen of fresh mud churned up under his footsteps. He stumbled once, swearing as he fell to one knee, but his grip on the girl did not falter. He was unbelievably strong. His hands were chains, as unyielding as iron. He had tucked the knife into a boot where Blessing could not reach it, but Anna wondered if she herself could grab for it. Yet he still carried the spear. If he killed her, then Blessing would be at his mercy.