The Gathering Storm

others walk in the labyrinth



he glimpses, briefly, the Eagle whom Prince Sanglant rescued from Bulkezu’s horde, her hair gleaming like pewter as she turns to glance around in surprise, as though she has seen him. She vanishes down a side path, pushing a white-haired woman along before her, but he does not see the older woman’s face before



a wagon rolls far away, a tiny cottage on wheels with beaded curtains rattling and smoke spinning upward from a hole in the top, and beside it on a sturdy gelding rides a woman who shines gloriously as the blue light pulses around her and all at once refulgent wings blossom from her shoulders



Zacharias fell hard up to his wrists in muck and pungent manure, gasping and panting, chest tight.



“Liath!” said Hugh in a voice rough with passion, or anger.



“My lord presbyter! Your Excellency! We have been waiting for hours, Your Excellency! We despaired—!”



“God help us! He looks ready to faint. Grasp hold of my arm, Your Excellency. Vindicadus, run down to the camp and make sure my lord’s chair is ready. Warm broth! This way, Your Excellency.”



No one helped Zacharias up. Their voices faded as they moved away from him, and it took some time before he had the strength to lift his head and rise. Clouds chased across the heavens. Below his feet the ground tumbled away into massive, broken earthworks and farther down these leveled out to become grassland and woodland and, to the north, a dense forest of oak and pine. A river curved away until it was lost among the trees. A piece of metal glinted far below on bare earth, but when he shifted his weight onto his other foot, he lost sight of it. His shadow fell before him, drawn long by sun at his back. He turned, gasped in fright, and lifted a hand to shade his eyes, but the looming figures that advanced on him were nothing more than giant stones set into the earth—the crown out of which he had staggered. Pinks, blue gentian, and yellow stars bloomed on the grassy sward within the stones although whole stretches of ground consisted of dirt tamped down by a great weight now removed. Here and there cinquefoil speckled with yellow flowers crept through and around bleached bones lying scattered through the grass.



“Brother Zacharias!”



Two soldiers waited, arms crossed as they frowned at him. He stumbled after Hugh who, surrounded by his retainers, descended through the maze of earthworks.



A crude hamlet consisting of a dozen huts and several pit houses lay at the base of the hill, just within an eroded earthen gateway that closed off the labyrinthine earthworks from the open land beyond. There was such a dearth of refuse, with fresh pits dug close by for a necessarium and heaps of earth still crawling with worms and bugs, that Zacharias realized the tiny village was itself newly erected, not more than a year old and inhabited by two dozen or so dark-haired, pale-skinned folk. These natives cowered at the doors to their houses and, when Hugh appeared in his splendid garb, flung themselves prostrate to the ground.



Hugh studied them before speaking in an encouraging tone. His voice was no longer ragged with emotion, although he still looked pale.



“Brother Marcus said there was one among you who could interpret for the others—who would that be? Let that one come forward without fear. I am pleased with all I see and all that you have accomplished here. Fear no anger on my part.”



After a pause, a man raised up and by means of gestures indicated that someone was coming from outside the earthworks. One of Hugh’s soldiers, by name of Gerbert, scrambled to the top of the nearest embankment.



“There’s a small church half built out there, my lord,” he called down, “and some men coming. They’ve a deacon with them.”



The gateway had once boasted a deep ditch crossing its opening as a form of defense, but the pit was now mostly filled in with debris although on one side recent scars showed where someone had started to dig it out again. Boards thrown over this sinkhole made a bridge. The procession that approached was led by a young deacon in stained and mended robes, who supported herself with a staff since she walked with a pronounced limp. She had a merry face and a cheerful smile that made her look extremely youthful, since her two front teeth were missing, and her bright, open expression sustained the shock of Hugh’s presence without much more than a widening of her eyes and a trembling of her hands.



“My lord!” She knelt before Hugh. He offered her a clean, white hand, and she took it in a hand chapped and dirty from hard labor and kissed his fingers, but after this he squeezed his fingers over hers and indicated that she should rise.



“I am Presbyter Hugh, come from the skopos’ palace in Darre with these retainers.”