Page 326 of Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“I have seen you before.” It was startling to hear human words issuing from an inhuman mouth.

She sidestepped without answering, flushed as adrenaline raced. He held no drawn weapon, but he looked as dangerous as any sharp spear and he had besides many ranks of Eika filing down the ramp after him. The front ranks of this silent army halted at a prudent distance rather than descending into the midst of the shaken crowd of Wendish and Varren combatants.

Sorgatani’s sorcery could protect her if fighting broke out. It was a coward’s instinct, but she was numb to the bone, still reeling from the torpor that had gripped her when the guivre screamed overhead. Her skin burned with a fading memory of the passing of the galla. So close that they might have devoured her, as they had so many others.

All gone, although she did not know what had driven the galla away. Sanglant was dead, but his body was not consumed.

She shuddered, taking a too hasty step away, and tripped over the tangle of harness. A strong hand caught her. She looked up into the face of a young Quman warrior. Swearing, she yanked her arm out of his grasp, and jumped away.

“Hanna! Steady!” A hand braced her.

“Wolfhere! How are you come here?”

“It seems Sanglant is truly dead.” The familiar face and his kindly expression soothed her.

“How can it be? I thought his mother laid a geas on him, that no creature could kill him.”

He shrugged, surveying the wreckage. “What wagon is this? Not Wendish, by the decorations. What manner of creature bides within? There is sorcery knit into those walls.”

Hanna flushed. “A Kerayit shaman, that’s all. She can have known nothing of this. It’s an accident that her wagon struck the prince—the king—at all. You cannot—you must not—let the blame fall on her.”

“So she is a woman,” he murmured. “Nothing strange in that.”

He looked at the broken form of the driver, who had fallen underneath the still living horse. The beast’s hindquarters were crippled, and every time it tried to struggle up, it collapsed again on top of the driver’s battered corpse. The other horse was quite dead, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Flies buzzed around its open eyes, although, strangely, no flies afflicted Sanglant’s corpse. “Lord Berthold, here is your healer. I fear she is dead.”

A trio of young men pressed forward to surround the body of the Kerayit woman who had been driving the wagon.

“Where did she come from?” asked Hanna. “God Above! Where did all of you come from?”

She stepped back as the Quman picked a route past her. He knelt beside the dead woman and pressed his mouth to her mouth in a gesture nothing like a kiss.

Sitting back on his haunches, he spoke to his companions. “Dead in truth, Lord Berthold. No breath lives in her.”

“A faithful servant,” said the one called Berthold quietly, “if quite the ugliest woman I’ve ever set eyes on.”

The Quman shrugged. “She was one of that kind. I know not your word. In our language, we say they have two spirits.”

Hanna happened to be looking toward Wolfhere. Now the Eagle’s gaze fixed on the young Quman. His breathing quickened, and he leaned over him to frown at the body. It was true that the Kerayit had a coarse face and big hands; her felt skirts, hiked somewhat up because of the way she had fallen, revealed thickly muscled calves not quite those of even a soldierly woman.

“What do you mean?” The Eagle reached for the skirts to pull them up, but the Quman half drew his sword, a gesture hidden from everyone but the five clustered around the dead Kerayit. The movement was just enough to show that he would allow no desecration of the corpse.

“These, the Kerayit, are enemies of my own people. But we respect those of two spirits. It is ill luck to trouble these who are touched by the gods.”

“Odei!” Lord Berthold spoke impatiently, seeing how folk moved around the corpse of the king not a stone’s throw from them. “Let us do her honor, who kept faith with us, but let us not stand here talking about nothing. If you have something to say, say it.”

“Have you not such kind of people among your tribes? A person born in a girl’s body with the spirit of a man. If she can take on a man’s life, then who will say she is not a man? This one, also. She holds a woman’s spirit, and lives a woman’s life, even if she wears a man’s body.”

“What are you talking about?” cried Berthold.

Wolfhere rose with a grim smile on his face. “So the riddle is solved. And the weapon unlooked for. No creature male or female can harm him. It seems I am lucky rather than clever.” He touched Hanna on the elbow. “Fare you well, Hanna. Stay strong, for the Eagles will need you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked him, but his expression told her nothing and his gaze had already lifted beyond hers to reckon the movement of soldiers and nobles that churned in a massive current drawing them all to the heart of the battle: the fallen king.

“Yes, what do you mean, Odei?” demanded Lord Berthold. “Do you mean Berda is really a man? And only dressed as a woman? And we didn’t notice all this time?”

Odei’s jump from crouching to standing grabbed Hanna’s attention. Quman soldiers were notorious for being the most phlegmatic of men, immune to hardship, safe from emotion, but he was really angry. “Berda was one person, with two spirits. So it is known among our people, who respect those so favored. We must give her proper burial rites.” Seeing the stricken look on the young lord’s face, his own expression softened. “You cannot know. You see only with your outer eyes. My uncle is a shaman. He taught his nephews to look with the inner eye.”

“Wolfhere,” she said, turning back.

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