Prince of Dogs

Page 115

She stared at the stone, frightened. Something was not right here. What was it Master Helvidius had said about illusion?
But it was only a stone.
Her pouch dug into her thigh, the scant reward for her hours of foraging. She had found a few handfuls of acorns which could be leached and ground up into gruel, withered nettle and parsley to flavor soup, and a dead squirrel.
Her thoughts wandered to those happy days when Matthias had labored in the tannery and Helvidius had sung for the lordling every night, when she had begged scraps of food from the soldiers and they had eaten every day. Now they were always so terribly hungry, and little Helen had barely strength to cry. Maybe it would have been more merciful to have left her to die with her mother and infant sibling.
Slowly, while she stared without truly seeing, the stone took shape as illusion toys with the form of things: a spear point, a head, eyes peering up at her, seeing her … it was not a standing stone at all but an Eika soldier creeping one cautious step at a time toward her, easing up the low rise. Terror seized her heart. Goose prickles rose on her arms and neck. She wanted to scream, yet no sound rose out of her throat.
“They find you if you scream,” Matthias had said when they lay in the stinking tanning pit while Eika and their dogs prowled the deserted tanning grounds. “Lie still without a noise.”
Yet would a scream turn it back into stone? Would a scream wake her up and free her from this nightmare? Would the two soldiers come running to save her? They were still out there somewhere, hiding, searching for the Eika guards….
Or had the Eika already slain them?
Did the soldiers see only stones and fail to strike? Had they been cut down unaware that they already faced their foe in the guise of unmoving rock?
Movement stirred in the dark entrance to the byre, a figure ducking out from under the low roof. Smaller than the others, this one had a bad limp and a familiar tilt to his head.
At last the scream rose out of her throat, loud and piercing.
“Matthias!” She could not help herself. She leaped to her feet. “Matthias!”
His name carried upon the breeze and across the vale. Most of the cattle lifted their heads, dull wits responding at last to this unknown sound.
The Eika stalking her froze in its tracks, as if trying to turn itself again to stone, but it was too late. The waning rays of the sun silhouetted every detail of form—no dream at all, but illusion shrouding it: the obsidian leaf-shaped spear; the jut of its lips and the gleam of teeth beneath; the smooth sheen of gold-tinted scales that were its skin. All showed plainly now, illusion banished. A dozen Eika stood frozen in the vale, like statues, and not until the first of the soldiers sprang from his hiding place in the grass and struck a fierce blow did the Eika realize their illusion was shattered.
They moved, dashing to fight, but the trick had worked against them. As a half dozen soldiers rushed in and the pound of hooves alerted Anna to the arrival of Lord Wichman, the Eika ran here and there, almost at random as if, separated, they were confused.
The Eika below her took two great strides up the hill, then, hesitating, turned back toward the vale. From the far slope ten horsemen crested the hill, Lord Wichman at their head, and raced down the gentle slope at a full gallop. Swords held high, they bore down in pairs upon their scattered foes. Another six soldiers appeared from the grass with spears.
An Eika with a large stone ax rushed a spearman. The huge form of the Eika eclipsed the warrior so Anna could see only the Eika as the two met. The point of the spear pushed through the Eika’s back; the two fighters twisted around, both now visible. As he was forced to the ground, the spearman’s spear shaft bowed as the man attempted to shift the Eika aside to avoid a blow from the creature’s ax. The haft snapped and the ax fell hard upon the warrior’s leg. A sound reached Anna; she did not know whether it was that of the broken spear or of splintering bone. Still from the ground, first with the splintered shaft of wood and then with a dagger the man rained thrusts and blows upon the face and neck of the Eika until it at last lay still. All over the field Eika fell, most in silence, some in flight.
Matthias dashed back into the shelter of the byre. Of the other slaves, one followed him into the ragged shelter while the other two ran for freedom.
“Matthias!” she shrieked. He had to run now. What if the others retreated and some of the Eika were left alive?
The Eika at the base of her hill turned at the sound of her voice and raced up the hill—whether to flee the fight or to catch her she did not know. But it made no difference. A knife in the hand of a starving girl was no match for a spear wielded by an Eika warrior.