Crown Of Stars - Child Of Flame Part 75

Baldwin came and lay down beside him." Are you all right?" he demanded in a low voice.

"How did you know the way?" Everything still seemed too bright to see, so he kept his eyes under a tent made by his hands.

"I don't know. I just wanted to get out of there."

Lying there in tall gra.s.s, swept by breeze and taking in heady lungfuls of air, Ivar had a revelation: Everything Baldwin had done, from running away to the monastery to running away from Margrave Judith, all of which had seemed so purposeful and clever and forcefully planned, had actually bubbled up out of a similar thoughtless impulse. Just to get away. It was only luck that Baldwin had succeeded when he had. Truly, G.o.d had granted him beauty and luck, but he had been filled so full of those that evidently there hadn't been room for much else.

"It's all right, Baldwin," said Ivar wearily, sitting up. His whole body ached, and he blinked away tears as he lowered his hands for his first good look at their surroundings." I don't know how, but I think we escaped the Quman."

The clouds had the soft gleam of pearls, more light than gray. The seven companions sat scattered in an utterly unfamiliar clearing marked by a stone circle and four large overgrown mounds, ringed by tall trees of a kind that did not grow in the eastern borderlands, where gra.s.slands lapped a thinning forest. The leaves had turned red, or yellow, or orange, a mottling of color across the surrounding forest. The air smelled clean, untouched by the carnage of battle, and it had the sharp clarity of late autumn. It had been late summer when they'd fought the battle at that old tumulus. Yet by the evidence of his eyes, weeks had pa.s.sed instead of a single night.

There was a long silence in which he heard Baldwin breathing and, behind him, the voices of the others. Sigfrid was singing a hymn, and Lady Hathumod was alternately weeping and praying with frenzied pa.s.sion while Ermanrich kept interjecting comments, trying to calm her down. Gerulf and Dedi were talking so excitedly to each other that he couldn't make out their words through the haze made by their peculiar way of p.r.o.nouncing certain words. They moved out into the clearing, exclaiming over the trees and the sky. The two Lions had been so direly wounded, and he'd thought for sure that Dedi was as good as dead. How could they be charging around now as fresh as spring lambs?

"My lord Ivar!" cried Gerulf, hastening back to him. The old Lion was almost beside himself with excitement; his face shone as though light had been poured into it." Do you know where we are?"

"As long as we're well away from the Quman, I don't care where we are." With a grunt, Ivar got to his feet, rubbing his backside.

"It's a miracle, my lord! G.o.d has delivered us from the Quman. This is the hill above Herford Monastery, in western Saony. We can see into the duchy of Fesse from here."

"Herford Monastery?" Ermanrich came forward." That's impossible. We were in the marchlands- "It was summer!" cried Hathumod raggedly." And he still walked among us."

"All of our wounds are healed," added Sigfrid diffidently, sliding up beside Ivar to examine his mutilated hand." Look at your hand, Ivar. It looks as if you took that wound months or years ago."

"I'm thirsty," said Baldwin." Haven't we anything to drink?"

"Hush." Ivar surveyed his six companions and then the clearing in which they stood. The low earthen mounds and the stone circle reminded him vaguely of the great tumulus with its embankments. Hadn't there been a ruined stone circle at the top of that ancient hill? Yet obviously they no longer stood there. For one thing, Ivar had never before seen a stone circle in as perfect repair as this one was, each stone upright and all the lintels intact. Somehow, in the s.p.a.ce of one night, they had traveled from the marchlands all the way to the center of Wendar. In the s.p.a.ce of one night, they had traveled from summer into autumn.

Sorcery.

s.h.i.+vering, he grabbed hold of Sigfrid's hand and then Baldwin's." Come, friends," he said, seeing that they had all clasped hands, clinging together in the face of so many things they could not explain." Truly, I don't understand what has happened to us except that our friend Gerulf must be right. G.o.d has saved us from death at the hands of the Quman, so that we can continue to do Her work here on Earth. Don't forget the phoenix. Our task is just beginning."

Hathumod burst into tears again, clutching the rusted nail to her chest as if were a holy relic.

"G.o.d be praised," murmured Gerulf, and the others echoed his words, all except Baldwin, who was looking anxiously around the clearing.

"It's going to be night soon," said Baldwin, "and I don't like to think of sleeping out next to these old grave mounds. I don't like to think what might crawl out of them once night falls."

"Nay, I don't fancy sleeping near these old mounds either," said Dedi with a nervous laugh, and they all laughed, swept up with relief and the release of all those hours of fear and struggle.

"Is there a path that will lead us to the monastery, Gerulf?" Ivar asked, because he'd had the same thought. Yet shouldn't he trust in G.o.d to protect them from evil spirits and blood-sucking wights, given the miracle that had already happened? Still, it never hurt to help G.o.d's design along when you could.

"It's been a few years," said the old Lion, scratching his beard, "but I think ..." He pointed toward a narrow gap in the dense wall of trees." I think that's the path over there."

They all stood there, then, waiting, looking at Ivar. Somehow, over the course of the battle and through that long and bitter night trapped underground, he had become their leader.

"We've got a long road ahead of us," he said." Come on."