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“What news?” she demanded.
For a moment Hanna thought she sounded alarmed.
The messenger began to cough, and the captain laid a comforting hand on the lad’s shoulder and spoke instead.
“Grave news, Your Highness. This young fellow was sent to ride to Mother Scholastica’s company, as you ordered.”
“Yet here he is.”
The lad found his voice. “The road is blocked,” he said faintly. He shuddered, bit a lip, and steadied himself. “Your Highness,” he said more clearly. The captain stepped back. “I pray you, I bring ill news. We can’t reach the company you speak of because the road is blocked.”
“Blocked by what?” she asked.
He groaned and covered his eyes.
“Go on,” said the captain. “You must speak, because you were the one who saw it.”
“An army, Your Highness.”
A murmur of alarm passed through the court, but Theophanu called for quiet. “Have Conrad and Sabella flanked us? We’ve seen no movement in their encampment.”
“This army isn’t human, Your Highness. They’re the northlanders, what were once used to raid the northern coast years back. It’s an army of Eika, Your Highness.”
“We saw no sign of Eika on the road.”
He shook his head. “I know not where they came from, my lady. We are cut off utterly from the east.”
Theophanu looked at her captains and her companions, who had fallen into stunned silence. “They have come out of the west, or out of the north, and if that is so, then they have circled most of the valley of Kassel. We are caught between them, and Conrad. Captain, to arms. See to our eastern defenses—if we have any. We must find some way to alert Sanglant, so he is ready when we sound our advance.”
4
AFTER the rider named Peter joined them, they marched for about a league through quiet forestlands before a horn called the alarm from the rear guard. Rosvita heard shouts as a soldier galloped up along the road.
“Holy Mother! Sister! I pray you, fall back to the line of wagons at once!”
Rosvita swung her mount around immediately, but Mother Scholastica stared stubbornly at the flushed and frightened messenger. “What news? Why this alert?”
“Armed men, trailing us on the road!”
“Have they identified themselves?”
“I think they mean to do so.” Trembling, Brother Fortunatus pointed west.
A score of beasts stepped out of the trees and onto the shaded road. In form they bore a remarkable resemblance to humankind, with bone-white hair, two arms and two legs and a human-shaped torso, and facial features that from a distance might be mistaken for those of a man, but they were not men. Many bared their teeth, which had a sharp splendor like to that of dogs. They made no other threatening move, although their silence seemed threatening enough.
“Ai, God!” cried their escort, Peter.
“This can’t be Conrad’s army,” said Mother Scholastica indignantly.
“Pull back to the wagons,” said Sister Rosvita in a quiet voice to the riders surrounding her, who were mostly clerics of her own party or those church folk attending the royal abbess.
“Look in the trees!” exclaimed Fortunatus.
The pallor of their hair gave them away, ranks and ranks of them ranged in the forest, all standing as still as if they were statues—and so they might have been, sheeted in tin or copper or gold.
“I believe we are surrounded.” In the face of disaster, Rosvita found that she felt perfectly calm. “I pray you, Mother Scholastica, fall back to the wagons. I will remain here. Fortunatus, please find Sergeant Ingo or Sergeant Aronvald. We’d best discuss our options while we still have time to talk.”
They waited in a chilling silence, Rosvita out in front with Peter remaining bravely beside her while Mother Scholastica led the others back to the wagons.
