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He flexed his stiffened fingers and rose to a crouch. He had to stop then until the world stopped spinning. He drew deep breaths, though the air burned his lungs with cold.
When he was as steady as he was going to get, he crept forward through the sedge. The moonlight was very bright and its color was strange—as if the moon had turned to fire.
The hairs of his nape stood on end. He flung himself flat, just as the fire came down.
It struck with a roar that consumed everything there was. The earth heaved under him. A blast of heat shocked him, then a squall of scalding rain. He gagged on the reek of hot metal.
He lay blinded, deafened, and soaked through all his layers of rags and leather and furs. His skin stung with burns. For a long while he simply lay, clinging to the earth that had gone mercifully still again.
He suspected that he might be dead. Every account of the One God’s hell told of fire and darkness, heat and cold together, and the screams of the damned rising to such a pitch that the ears were pummeled into silence.
If he was dead, then the dead could feel bodily pain. Shakily he lifted himself to his elbows.
The sky was still raining stars. The river’s gleam was dulled—spattered with earth and mud and fragments that must be ash. The camp was a smoldering ruin.
All the horses were dead or dying, and the men were down in the ashes of their tents, writhing in agony or else terribly still. Even Euan’s dulled ears could hear the screams of the wounded—and from the sound, those wounds were mortal. The tents were shredded or, on the upriver side, completely gone. The earth gaped where they had been.
Euan’s clothes had been a mass of tatters even before the fire came down. What was fabric was scorched and what was fur was singed, but most of it was intact. Snow and sedge between them had protected him.
He bowed to the strength of the One God who had hurled a star out of the sky to defend His worshipper. He only had to hope that there was enough of him left to make it across the river—and enough provisions left in the camp to feed him before he went.
If nothing else, he could feast on horse meat. There would be a certain pleasure in that, considering how the imperials worshipped the beasts. He staggered erect and made his wobbling way down the hill to the remains of the camp.
None of the legionaries had escaped. Those few who had not died outright, Euan put out of their misery.
The stink of roasted meat made his stomach churn. When he sliced off a bit from a horse’s haunch, he found he could not eat it. He put it away thriftily in his traveling bag, then tried to forget he had it.
There was bread in the ashes of one of the fires on the camp’s edge. It was well baked and savory—a miracle of sorts. He disciplined himself to eat it in small bites, well spaced apart to spare his too long deprived stomach, as he prowled the ruins.
The blasted pit was still smoldering. Every grain of sense shouted at him to stay far away, but he could not make himself listen. It was as if a spell drew him to the place where the star had fallen.
Amid the embers and ash in the heart of the pit, something gleamed. It was absolute stupidity, but he found a way down the crumbling sides into the new-made and intoxicatingly warm bowl.
The star lay in the center in a bed of ash. In spite of the light he had seen, it was dark, lumpen and unlovely, an irregular black stone half the size of his clenched fist.
The heat of its fall was still in it. He had a firepot, stolen from a trader outside a town whose name he had never troubled to learn, and it was just large enough to hold the starstone.
The thing was shockingly heavy. He almost dropped the pot, but he caught it just in time. The weight of the heavens was in it.
It was much harder to climb out of the pit than it had been to go down into it. The sides were steep and slippery with mud and melting ice. Euan came dangerously close to surrendering—to sliding back to the bottom and lying there until death or daylight took him.
In the end it was not courage that got him out. It was pride. However he wanted to be remembered, it was not as the prince of the Calletani who gave up and died in a hole.
He lay on the edge, plastered with mud and gasping for breath. He had no memory of the climb, but his arms and legs were aching and his fingers stung.
Gingerly he rolled onto his back. The stars had stopped falling.
The one in his bag weighed him down as he rose. Wisdom might have persuaded him to drop it, but he had paid too dearly for it already. He stood as straight as he could under it.
There was still food to find and a river to cross. He scavenged a bag of flour that had been shielded by a legionary’s body, a wheel of cheese that was only half melted, two more loaves of bread that had been baking under stones and so were preserved from destruction, and a jar of thick, sweet imperial wine. There was more, but all the horses were dead and that was as much as he could carry.
He stopped to eat a little bread and nibble a bit of cheese. Near where he was sitting, the captain’s tent still stood, scorched but upright. The captain had come out when the fire fell—his body lay sprawled in front of the flap, crisped and charred, with the marks of rank still gleaming on his coat.
Inside the tent, something moved.
Euan sat perfectly still. It was only the wind. But if that was so, then the wind blew nowhere else. The night was calm. Even the moon seemed to be holding its breath.
A shape rose up out of the ashes. It was clothed in a glimmering garment, like something spun out of moonlight. When it stood upright, it stretched long arms and groaned, shaking off a scattering of ash and cooling embers.
The shimmer tore and slid away like the caul from a newborn calf. A man stood in the ashes, whole and unharmed, fixing glittering eyes on Euan. “You’re late,” he said.
Two
Euan was not often speechless. He did not often find himself face to face with a man he had never expected to meet in this of all places, either—still less a man who should have been dead a dozen times over.
“Gothard,” he said. His tone was as cold as the air. “There was a meeting? I must have missed the messenger.”
His sometime ally and cordial enemy looked him up and down with that particular flavor of arrogance which marked an imperial noble. By blood and looks he was only half of one, but his spirit did nothing by halves. “One of the patrols should have captured you days ago. How did you manage to escape?”
“Apologies,” said Euan, dry as dust. “Clearly I failed to do my duty—whatever that was.”
Gothard was barely listening, which did not surprise Euan in the least. “Every stone I scried showed the same thing—you in the legions’ hands, ready to be taken back to Aurelia for trial and inevitable execution. And yet you eluded them all. That’s interesting. Very.”
“I’m sure,” said Euan. He rose carefully, and not only because he was still weak. He did not trust this man at all. “I take it you weren’t a captive, either? Don’t tell me you’ve got the legions in your pay. That’s a fair trick, considering what you tried to do to their emperor.”
Who, he did not add, happened to be Gothard’s father. That particular family quarrel served Euan well. He was not about to take issue with it.
Gothard’s lip twisted. “Clearly you don’t understand how easy it is to get possession of legionaries’ gear if you happen to have allies in the ranks. Those were my men. I don’t suppose you’ve found any of them alive?”
“None who would want to stay that way,” Euan said. “Was that your star? Did you call it down?”
“Would I had such power,” Gothard said with an edge of honest envy. “This is a stroke of the gods. It cost me twenty men—but it gained me you. Maybe you’ll prove to be worth the exchange.”
Euan’s lips drew back from his teeth. “What makes you think I want anything to do with you?”
Gothard’s grin was just as feral and just as empty of humor. “Of course you do. I’m your kinsman—and I know the empire well. You can use me, just as I can use you.”
“I’m not taking you across the river,” Euan said. “You’re a traitor to your kin already. I doubt you’ll be any different on the other side of the border.”
“You know what I want,” Gothard said.
“You wanted to be emperor,” said Euan. “Now that’s failed. What’s next? A plot against the high king?”
“I don’t want to be king of the tribes,” Gothard said. “I’ll leave that for you. I want the throne of Aurelia, just as I always have. We haven’t failed, cousin. We’ve merely suffered a setback.”
Euan threw back his head and laughed until he choked. “A setback? All our men dead, the emperor not only alive but well, and the two of us hunted with every resource the empire can command—I call that a crashing defeat.”
“Do you?” said Gothard. “The emperor’s alive but not entirely well, the hunt has not succeeded in finding, let alone capturing either of us, and the empire’s magic is wounded to the heart. Do you know what it means that half a dozen horse mages are dead? They still have their Master, but only one other of the highest rank still lives, and I broke him before the Dance began.”
“Then he took your magic stone and drove you out,” Euan said. “That’s not as broken as I might like.”
Gothard’s face flushed dark in the moonlight, but he did not give way to his fit of temper. “Yes, I underestimated him, and that was a mistake. But that won’t give back what I took away. His powers are in shards. Maybe he’ll be of some use as a riding master, but as a master of the white gods’ art, he’s done for. And so, for all useful purposes, are the horse mages. They’ll be years gaining back even a portion of what they lost.”
“I do hope you’re right,” Euan said, “because there’s a war coming, and now we have an enemy who’s not just defending his lands against invasion. He’s out for vengeance.”
“All the better for us,” said Gothard. “Anger blinds a man—as I know better than any.”
“So you do,” said Euan sweetly. He turned on his heel. It was a somewhat longer way to the river than if he walked by Gothard, but he was not eager to risk a blade in the belly.
Unfortunately for his hopes of escape, he was much weaker than he wanted to be—and Gothard was well fed and armed with magic. His hand gripped Euan’s arm and spun him back. Euan struck it aside with force enough to make Gothard hiss with pain, but the moment for escape had passed. He was not going anywhere until this was over.
“Suppose I take you with me,” he said. “What’s our bargain? You help me become high king and I help you become emperor? What guarantee does either of us have that we’ll get what we wish for?”
“There are few certainties in life,” Gothard said. “Don’t you love a good gamble? There’s a crown for you and a throne for me, and power enough for the two of us. Or we’re both dead and probably damned.”
“I can’t say I dislike those odds,” Euan said. “Come on, then. Take what you need and follow. I want to be well away from the river by sunup.”
“In a moment,” Gothard said. “Wait here.”
Euan considered telling him what he could do with his damned arrogance, or better yet, walking away while Gothard did whatever he had taken it into his head to do. But curiosity held Euan where he was—and weakness, if he was honest with himself. The heat of the star’s fall was nearly gone. The cold was sinking into his bones.
Gothard strode directly toward the pit where the star had fallen. Euan knew what he was looking for. He was a mage of stones, after all, and the star was a stone.
It weighed heavier than ever in Euan’s traveling bag. A hunted renegade, stripped of his warband, needed every scrap of hope or glory that he could get his hands on if he wanted to stand up before all the tribes and declare himself fit to be high king. This was a gift from the One, a piece of heaven. It carried tremendous power.
How much more power might it carry if a stone mage wielded it—and if that stone mage was sworn to Euan?
Gothard was a wrathful man and a born traitor, and he was probably mad. But he had powers that Euan could use—if Euan could keep him firmly in hand.
This was a night for taking risks. Euan stood on the edge of the pit and looked down. Gothard was crawling on hands and knees, muttering what might be spells, or more likely curses.
The firepot was cold. The starstone felt as if it had turned to ice. It was so cold it burned Euan’s hand as he held it up. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
Gothard’s back straightened. The pale oval of his face turned toward the moon. His eyes glowed like an animal’s.
His voice echoed faintly against the sides of the pit. “Where did you find that?”
“Not far from where you’re standing,” Euan said. “It was hotter than fire then. Now it’s bloody cold.”
“What were you thinking to do with it?”
“Make myself high king,” Euan said.
“Are you a stone mage, then?”
Euan refrained from bridling at his mockery. “No, but you are. What will you give in return for this?”
“What do you want?” Gothard asked. “We’ve already bargained for the high kingship.”
“Now I’m assured of it,” said Euan. “Wield your powers for me. Help me win the war that’s coming. Then we’ll talk about the empire we’re going to take.”
“All with a single stone,” Gothard said, but Euan could hear the yearning in him.
Euan could feel the power in the stone, too, though thank the One, he had no magic to work with it. His soul was clean of that.
“This is a star,” he said. “There’s nothing stronger for your kind, is there? I see it in your eyes. You’ve never lusted for a woman the way you lust for this. This is every bit of magic you lost when your brother took your master stone—and as much again, and more that I’m no doubt too feebleminded to comprehend. I want my share of it, cousin. Swear by it—swear you’ll wield it in my cause.”
“I swear,” Gothard said. His eyes were on the stone.
It was growing warmer in Euan’s hand, or else his fingers were too numb to tell the difference. It seemed both heavier and lighter.
Its power was changing. Gothard was changing it—without even laying a hand on it.
Euan refused to give way to awe. He would use a mage for his purposes, but this was still a half-blood imperial with the taint of treason on him. Gothard would keep his oath exactly as long as it served his purpose, and not a moment longer.
Euan would have to make sure that that was a very long time. He was aching, frozen, dizzy with hunger and exhaustion, but he laughed. He was on his way home, and he was going to be high king.
Three
Euan Rohe walked into his father’s dun a handful of days before the dark of the year. A bitter rain was falling, but the west was clear, a thin line of pale blue beneath the lowering cloud.
The dun was older than the Calletani, a walled fort of rammed earth and weatherworn stone. The wall enclosed a half-ruined tower and a clutter of round houses built like the traveling tents of the people. The king’s house was built around the tower, with his hall in the center. All of it sat on a low hill that rose abruptly out of a long roll of downs.
In milder seasons it was a vast expanse of grass and heather shot through with the silver lines of rivers. Now it was a wilderness of ice and drifted snow, whipped with wind and sleet.
Gothard could have brought them there on the backs of dragons, or conjured chariots out of the air around the starstone. It was Euan who had insisted on taking the hard way on foot over the mountains and through the forests into the heartlands of the Calletani. It was a long road and grueling, but it was honest.
It had also given Gothard ample time to learn the ways and powers of the stone. Euan had no objection to the provender it brought, either the game that walked into his snares or the wine that appeared in his cup. It kept them both alive and walking. It protected them against either discovery or attack, and smoothed their way as much as Euan’s scruples would allow.
“You’re as stubborn as the damned horse-gods,” Gothard had muttered one evening, while a blizzard howled outside the sphere of light and warmth that he had conjured from the stone. “They won’t fly, either. The harder their worshippers struggle, the happier they are.”
“That’s the way of gods,” Euan said.
Gothard had snarled at that, but Euan refused to change his mind. Magic was a dangerous temptation. He would use it if he had to, but he refused to become dependent on it.
They walked, therefore, and Gothard played with the stone, working petty magics and small evils that made him titter to himself when he thought Euan was asleep. Gothard had never been what Euan would call sane, but since he had gotten hold of the starstone, he had been growing steadily worse. He was not quite howling mad, but he was on his way there.
He had been talking to himself for two days when they passed the gates of the dun—a long ramble that Euan had stopped paying attention to within the first hour. Part of him listened for signs of immediate threat, but it all seemed to be focused on the riders and their fat white horse-gods, Gothard’s dearly loathed brother, his even more dearly loathed father, and occasionally the sister whom he direly underestimated. Gothard, in true imperial style, had convinced himself that the females of his kind had neither strength nor intelligence.
At last, under the low and heavy lintel of Dun Eidyn’s gate, he stopped his babbling. There were no guards at the gate, and only a single sentry snoring on the wall above. The two wanderers went not only unchallenged but unnoticed.
Euan resolved to do something about that at his earliest opportunity. Winter it might be, but armies could still march and raiding parties rampage through unprotected camps and ill-guarded duns.
There was no one abroad within the walls. Smoke curled from the roofs of the round houses, and lights glimmered beneath doors and through cracks in shuttered windows. Even the dogs had taken shelter against the storm, which with the coming of dark had changed to sleet.
The door to the king’s house was unbarred, and also unguarded. The guard who should have been there was inside with the rest, in the warmth and the smoky firelight of the hall, finishing the last of the day’s meal and passing jars of wine and skins of ale and mead. The songs had begun, the vaunting that would bring each warrior to his feet with the tale of his own exploits and those of his ancestors for as far back as the rest would let him go.
Euan stood in the shadow of the doorway, letting it sweep over him. Five years he had been away, fighting his father’s war and living as a hostage among the Aurelians. He needed time to believe that he was back at last—and to see what had become of his people in the time since he was gone.
