He glances at Papa Otto, who bides quietly among his advisers. He has never forgotten the words Otto spoke to him long ago in a tent shelter beneath a bitter winter wind driving ice along the rock face of a cove. That day seems long ago to him now, back in the days before Fifth Son of the Fifth Litter took the name Stronghand, before he became chieftain over Rikin tribe and defeated his enemies at Kjalmarsfford. Long ago, but no less vivid in his mind’s eye.
“I have no choice but to serve you,” the slave Otto had said. Hate had burned in his expression, but he had been helpless to act against the master he loathed and despised.
Stronghand lifts his head to scent the spring wind. His dogs lie in a restless mass around him; they stir and wiggle and yip, eager to run. Most of his troops are eager to run. Victory at Hefenfelthe has not tested them, only sharpened their zeal. They chafe at their restraints.
Yet it remains true that the Eika are few, while humans are many. But the Albans, like the Eika and all their human brethren, keep slaves, war captives, the destitute, the unfortunate, the weak, and the helpless. The ones born into servitude.
The ones who hate their masters.
“We will march,” says Stronghand, raising his staff. Wind moans in the bone flutes and rattles beads and finger-bone chimes. “We have other allies, who do not yet know they are waiting for us.”
A tickle against his fingers woke him, and he started up.
Stronghand would help him! It came clear as suddenly as a blast of light banishes darkness when fire catches tinder and blazes up. Memories burned into his mind’s eye made sense as they had not before, when he could neither think nor make sense of the nightmare he had glimpsed through the heart of the spell woven by Adica and the others. The Eika were born that long ago day, created out of the supernatural melding of humans, great standing stones, and dragon’s blood.
Stronghand would listen, and believe.
He was halfway up before he remembered to check under his feet. The mouse was gone. He rubbed his eyes as he glanced up to gauge the position of the stars. How long had he slept? How soon could he act?
“Brother Alain!” Ratbold stumbled up from his crude bower at the edge of the woodland, scratching his stubbled chin and looking mightily irritated. “You did not wake me! Where are the sheep?” He halted as Rage growled at him, startled by his aggressive movement toward Alain.
The disk of the newly reborn sun gilded the eastern tree-tops with a tender clove-pink glow. The fog that weighed down Alain’s soul dissolved as though the rising sun were burning it off.
“God curse him!” Ratbold strode to the center of the meadow; only prior and lay brother stood where the sheep had suffered. Flat patches of grass betrayed where the stricken sheep had lain in their illness. They hadn’t gone far, or long ago. “That damned man has stolen his sheep away!”
“Wait, Prior. I hear them.”
Hidden by the trees, the farmer was laughing, calling out. “Come along! Come along now! Look how they walk!”
Farmer, children, and lambs gamboled into the clearing, the ewes trotting among them under the supervision of the steadfast dog. Ratbold was too astonished to scold them. He rushed over, ignoring the yapping sheepdog, and brusquely examined the hooves and mouths of the ewes. The lambs scattered as he moved among them. The children and the dog rushed around, dog barking, children screaming with delight, as they chased the lambs back from the woodland edge. Light clouds scudded in from the east, shadowing the sun; a shower misted the scene, moving off as quickly as it arrived, and the sun came out from behind the clouds.
“Impossible,” cried Ratbold, checking each of the ewes in turn.
“I said it was not the murrain!” shouted the farmer triumphantly. “Just a fungus. A rot. Cured now! Cured! Once I got them out of the mud.”
“Impossible,” repeated Ratbold.
But true.
Ratbold insisted they remain at the standing two more days to make sure the disease did not reoccur. He believed in the murrain, and he feared that without his supervision the outbreak would spread.
Alain chafed, eager to return to Hersford, but he recognized the farmer’s needs as well. No need to wait fruitlessly when so many spring chores needed doing. Because of the threat of murrain, the local oxherd would not bring his oxen for plowing, so they had to laboriously turn over the earth for the garden by hand. For three days they worked, sweating despite the cool weather, and in the evenings Alain told the children stories and taught the two eldest a little from his meager store of herb-craft, so they might add to their larder and soothe simple illnesses that afflicted them. Three days passed and the sheep showed not the slightest sign of lameness, blistering, or sores. The children’s rashes healed.
