Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4) Page 2

“Ai, God! There you are! I thought you’d been swallowed.” He heaved a ragged sigh, then went on in a low voice, making a joke of his fear and relief. “Maybe even the hills think Baldwin is handsome enough to eat, but I don’t know what they’d be wanting with an ugly redheaded sot like you, Ivar.”

“Dirt is blind, otherwise you’d never get inside. Come on.” Ivar waded over to the conscious Lion. “Friend, can you walk?”

“So I can, a bit, lad. But Dedi, here—” The old Lion got suddenly hoarse.

“We’ll carry him,” said Ivar hastily. “But let’s get him out of that mail first. Ermanrich, give me a hand, will you? Baldwin, you help the Lion in, and keep ahead of him in case there’s any pits.”

“Pits? What if I fall into a bottomless hole?”

“Baldwin, we haven’t got time! Here.” He found the unconscious Lion’s sword sheath. “Take this sword and use it to feel your way forward.”

Amazingly, Baldwin obeyed without further objection. He helped the old Lion to his feet and steadied the soldier as he hobbled to the tunnel.

It wasn’t easy to get mail off an unconscious man.

“I think he’s already dead,” Ermanrich whispered several times, but in the end they wrestled him out of his armor.

Nor was it easy to haul him in through the tunnel even without his armor. He was a big man, well muscled, so badly injured that he was a complete dead weight. Luckily, the water did not rise past their thighs before an upward slope brought them shivering out of the water onto dry ground. The weight of the hill pressed above them. Dirt stung Ivar’s nostrils, and his mutilated hand burned with pain.

“Thank God,” said Baldwin out of the darkness.

Ivar and Ermanrich set down the unconscious soldier, none too gently, and Ivar straightened up so quickly that he banged his head hard against the stone ceiling. The pain made tears flow, and in a way he did want just to sit down and cry because everything had been such a disaster. He really had thought they’d win the battle. Prince Bayan’s and Princess Sapientia’s troops had looked so magnificent arrayed against the Quman army, and even the dreaded Margrave Judith had ridden out with such a strong host that it seemed impossible that everything had fallen apart, including their line. Prince Ekkehard had vanished in the maelstrom, his companions were scattered or dead, and they were all that was left. Probably they were the last remnant of Bayan’s army left on this side of the river: two badly injured soldiers, four novice monks, and one lost nun.

The battle had started very late in the afternoon, and now night settled over them. Two hours at the most separated them from that glorious place where they’d waited at the front of the right flank, ready to sweep into battle. It just didn’t seem possible everything had gone wrong so fast.

But meanwhile, someone had to go back to make sure that the Quman hadn’t followed them under the hill. Cold, wet, and shivering, Ivar braced himself for the shock of wading back into the water that drowned the lower reaches of the tunnel. His leggings already clung to him like icy leeches, and his toes had gone numb from cold.

A hand snaked out of the darkness to grab at his sleeve. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Baldwin asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Nay. It’s better if I go alone. If something happens to me, it’ll take you and Ermanrich and Lady Hathumod to carry the injured Lion.”

Baldwin leaned closer. Despite the long weeks of travel in harsh conditions, the terror of a losing battle waged as afternoon gave way to dusk, and the desperation of their scramble over the ancient earthworks, Baldwin’s breath was still as sweet as that of a lord sitting in pleasant splendor in his rose garden, drinking a posset of mead flavored with mint. “I’d rather be dead than go on without you.”

“We’ll all be dead if the Quman find that armor and figure out that we’re hiding in this tunnel. Just stay here, Baldwin, I beg you.”

Behind, in the stygian blackness, Sigfrid’s gentle voice fell and rose in a melismatic prayer. Somehow, the darkness warped time. Hadn’t it just been moments ago that they had stumbled upon that hidden opening? It seemed like hours.

Beneath Sigfrid’s quiet prayer Ivar heard Hathumod murmuring words he couldn’t quite make out. She was answered, in turns, by monosyllabic grunts from the old Lion and whispered questions from Ermanrich. He could not see, not even Baldwin, who stood right next to him. He felt them, though, huddled together like frightened rats under the weight of earth and rock.