Kate Elliot - Crown of Stars 2 - Prince of Dogs

PROLOGUE

All spring they managed to stay alive by hiding in the abandoned tannery quarter, coming out only

at night to scrounge for food. After a few nights, running from the dogs, hiding in the pits, they became

accustomed to the stink. Better to stink like the tanners, Matthias pointed out to his sister, than be torn to

pieces by dogs.

Anna reflected silently on this. It gave her some small satisfaction to know that if they were

caught by the Eika savages, if they were run down by the dogs and rent arm from shoulder, leg from hip,

at least they would smell so badly of chicken dung that surely not even those hideous dogs would eat

them. Or if the dogs did eat them, then maybe their flesh, immersed so many times in oak bark tannin that

their skin had begun to take on a leathery cast, would poison the creatures; then, from the Chamber of

Light where her spirit would reside after death in blessed peace, she could watch their writhing, agonized

deaths.

All spring there was food to be scrounged, for those who had escaped the city had fled without

having time to fetch anything and those who had not escaped were dead. Or so at least observation told

them. Half-eaten corpses lay strewn in the streets and alleys, and many houses stank of rotted flesh. But

they found stores of vegetables in root cellars and barrels of ale in the common houses. Once, they

foolishly ventured to the kitchens of the mayor's palace where they found sweet meats that made Anna,

who stuffed herself with them,violently ill. Matthias forced her to run, gagging, with a hand clapped over

her mouth to keep it in and in such pain she thought her stomach was going to burst, all the way back to

the tanneries so she could throw it up into the puering pits, a stew of chicken dung mixed with water that

would, he prayed, hide the smell of fresh human vomit.

No dogs came 'round the tanneries for a long while after that. Perhaps the Eika had given up

hunting their human prey or deemed there were none left worth hunting in the empty city. Perhaps they'd

sailed down the river to hunt in greener pastures. But neither child dared climb the city walls to the

parapet to see how many Eika ships lay beached along the river's edge. Now and again they saw Eika

walking those parapets, staring north toward the sea. Now and again they heard the keening and howling

of the dogs and, once, the screams of a human, whether man or woman they could not tell. They kept to

familiar haunts and stayed mostly in the little shed where Matthias had slept after he had been apprenticed

to a currier the winter before the Eika attack. Left behind, forgotten, in the confusion of the attack and

the hopeless street-by-street defense of the city, he had had the wits to take refuge with his younger sister

in the foul tannery pits when he saw the dogs hunting through the city. That was why they had survived

when so many others had died.

But come summer, they used up their last stores and had to dig in untended gardens for those

half-grown vegetables that had fought past the weeds. They learned to hunt rats, for there were rats

aplenty in the empty buildings, fat ones well fed on dessicated corpses. Anna found herself with a talent

for stone throwing, too, and brought down seagulls and complacent pigeons and once a feral cat.

Come summer, more Eika came, and these Eika brought human slaves with them, gleaned from a

distant harvest.

When one fine summer's morning the Eika returned to the tanning quarter with slaves brought to

work in the tannery, the two children fled to a loft and cowered behind tanned hides which had been

hung to dry from the crossbeams. When they heard voices, the creak and scrape of a body climbing the

ladder, Matthias boosted Anna up to one of the great beams. Her terror added strength to her tugs, and

with him scrambling on the uneven plank wall and her pulling, they got him up beside her. There they

huddled, clinging to the beam and shaking with fear. The stink of the tannery protected them no longer.

The trapdoor opened at the far end of the loft.

Anna sucked down a sob when they heard the first whis-pery soft words-an Eika speaking a

language they could not understand. A dog yipped and growled outside. As if in reply a human

voice-below, from over by the puering pits-yelped in pain, then began screaming and pleading pointlessly

and unintelligibly, screaming again until at last, mercifully, the screams cut off with a gurgle. Matthias bit

his lip to keep from crying out. Anna's eyes filled with tears that slipped down her cheeks; she grasped

the wooden Circle of Unity that hung on a leather cord at her thin chest-her mother's dying gift to her-and

traced her finger around its smooth circle in silent prayer as she had seen her mother do many times,

though this wordless prayer had not availed her mother against her final illness.

Footsteps shuddered on the rungs. A body scraped, half metal, half cloth, heaving itself up and

over onto the loft floor. A man grunted, a human sound, curt and yet familiar in its humanity.

The Eika spoke again, this time in recognizable if broken Wendish. "How soon these is ready?"

"I will have to look them over." The man enunciated each word carefully. "Most likely all are

ready if they've been here since-" He broke off, then took a shuddering breath. Had he witnessed that

killing just now, or only listened to it, as they had? "Since spring."

"I count, these," said the Eika. "Before you come, I count these skins. Less than I count come to

me when they ready, I kill one slave for each skin less than I count. I start with you."

"I understand," said the man, but the children could not see him, could'only hear, and what

emotion they heard in his voice they could not interpret.

"You bring to me when ready," said the Eika. The ladder creaked, and this time they recognized

the slight chime of mail as the Eika left the loft and climbed back down, away, to wherever Eika went

when they were not hunting and killing. Still the children clung there, praying the man would go away. But

instead he moved slowly through the loft, jostling the hides, rubbing them, testing them. Counting them. A

loose plank creaked under his foot. The quiet rustle of a hide sliding against another marked his progress,

and the huff and stir of leather-sodden air in the dim room, spreading outward from his movements,

shifted and swirled about them like the exhalation of approaching death, for discovery would indeed

mean death.

Finally it was too much for Anna, who was three winters younger than Matthias. The sound got

out of her throat, like a puppy's whimper, before she could gulp it back. The man's slow quiet movement

ceased, but they still heard his breathing, ragged in the gloom.

"Who's there?" the man -whispered, then muttered a Lady's Blessing.

Anna set her lips together, squeezed her eyes shut, and wept silently, free hand clutching the

Circle. Matthias groped for the knife at his belt, but he was afraid to pul! it out of its sheath, for even that

slight noise would surely give them away.

"Who's there?" the man said again, and his voice shook as if he, too, were afraid.

Neither child dared answer. Finally, thank the Lady, he went away.

They waited a while and climbed down from the beam. "I have to pee," whimpered Anna as she

wiped her nose. But they dared not leave the loft and yet, sooner or later, they would have to leave the

loft or starve. She peed in the farthest darkest corner and hoped it would dry before anyone came back

up. There were other chores for the new slaves in the tannery-hides to be washed and hair and flesh

scraped from them, new pits to be filled for puering or drenching, hides to be layered in with oak bark,

saturated in the tannic acid, or, tanning completed, rinsed off and smoothed before drying. There were

other lofts where hides waited, drying, in silent darkness, until they were ready for the currier. No reason

anyone should come up here again this day.

But that evening they heard steps on the ladder. No time, this time, to scramble up on the beam.

They huddled behind the far wall, wrapping themselves in a cow hide.

They heard, instead of words, the soft tap of something set down on wood. Then the trap closed

and footsteps thumped down the ladder. After a bit Matthias ventured out.

"Anna! Quietly!" he whispered.

She crept out and found him weighing a hunk of goat's cheese in one hand and a dark, small,

misshapen loaf of bread in the other. A rough-hewn wooden bowl sat empty beside the trap. She stared

at these treasures fearfully. "If we eat it, then he'll know we're here."

Matthias broke off a piece of cheese, sniffed it, and popped it in his mouth. "We'll eat a bit now,"

he said. "What difference does it make? If we don't get out of here tonight, then they'll discover us sooner

or later. We'll save the rest for after we've escaped."

She nodded. She knew when to argue, now, and when to remain silent because argument was

pointless. He gave her a corner of cheese; it tasted salty and pungent. The bread was dry as plain oats,

and its coarse texture made her thirsty. He divided the rest of the food into two portions and gave half to

her. Both carried leather pouches, tied to their belts, for such gleanings as this. Such necessities the ruined

city provided in plenty, taken from empty houses and shops or-if valuable enough-pried from the dead.

Water, clothing, knives or spoons or even an entire timbered house furnished with fine painted furniture

and good linen, none of this they lacked; only food and safety.

They waited until no crack of light gleamed through the plank walls onto the warped floorboards,

until gray shadow became indistinguishable from black. Then Matthias eased open the trap and slid over

the edge as quietly as he could.

"Lady!"

A man, not Matthias, spoke. Anna froze. Matthias grunted and dropped to the ground.

"There now," said the man, "don't pull your knife on me. I won't hurt you. Lady Above, I didn't

think any soul had survived in this charnel house. You're just a child."

"Old enough to be apprenticed," muttered Matthias, stung, as he always was, because this man's

voice was like their uncle's and his taunt the same one. Only perhaps, Anna thought, this man had spoken

with awed pity, not with contempt, when he called Matthias a child. She had a sudden rash intuition that

this man could be trusted, unlike their uncle, and anyway, if Matthias was now caught, it was better to die

with him than to struggle on in a fight she could never win alone. She swung her legs out and climbed

quickly and quietly down the ladder.

Matthias swore at her under his breath. The man gasped aloud, then clapped a hand over his

mouth and stared furtively around, but they remained alone. No one moved through the tanning grounds

this late. The quarter moon lit them, and thin ghostly shadows cut the pits with strange patterns. Anna

grabbed her brother's hand and held on tightly.

"Ai, Lady, and a younger one still," the man said at last. "I thought you was a cat. Are there more

of you?"

"Only us two," said Matthias.

"Lord in Heaven. How did you survive?"

Matthias gestured toward the pits, then realized the man might not be able to see his movement.

"There was food enough to be scrounged, until now. We hid here because the dogs couldn't smell us."

The man squinted at Anna in the dim light, stepped forward abruptly, and took her chin in his

hand. Matthias started forward, raising his belt knife, but Anna said, "No," and he stopped and waited.

After a moment the man let go and stepped back, brushing his eyes with a finger. "A girl. You're

a girl, and no older than my little Mariya. The Lady is merciful, to have saved one."

"Where is your daughter?" asked Anna, bold now. This man did not scare her.

"Dead," he said curtly. "In the Eika raid that took my village not a month ago. They killed

everyone."

"They didn't kill you," said Anna reasonably, seeingjhat he looked alive and not anything like the

shade of a dead man-not that she had ever seen such a thing, but certainly she had heard stories of them

such as come back to haunt the living world on Hallowing Eve.

"Ai, they killed me, child," he said bitterly. "Killed all but this husk. Now I am merely a soulless

body, their slave, to do with as they will until they tire of me and feed me to the dogs." Though he spoke

as though living exhausted him, still he shuddered when he spoke of the dogs.

Anna sorted through this explanation and thought she understood most of it. "What will you do

with us?" she asked. "Won't the Eika kill us if they find us?"

"They will," said the man. "They never leave children alive. They only want grown slaves strong

enough to do their work. But I heard tell from one of the other slaves that there are no children in Gent,

no bodies of children, simply no children at all. It's a tale they whisper at night, in the darkness, that the

saint who guards the city led the children away to safety or up to the Chamber of Light, I don't know

which."

"It's true," muttered Matthias. "All the children are gone, but I don't know where they went."

"Where are your parents, then?" asked the man. "Why were you not taken to safety, if the others

were?"

Anna shrugged, but she saw her brother hunch down as he always did, because the misery still

sank its claws in him although she did not recall their parents well enough to mourn them.

"They're dead four summers ago," said Matthias. "Our da drowned when he was out fishing, and

our ma died a few months later of a fever. They were good people. Then we went to our uncle. He ran,

when the Eika came. He never thought of us. I ran back to the house and got Anna, but by then there

was fighting everywhere. You couldn't even get to the cathedral where most folk fled, so we hid in here.

And here we stayed."

"It's a miracle," murmured the man. Out of the night's silence came sudden noise: dogs barking

and a single harsh call, a word neither child understood. The man started noticeably. "They come 'round

in the middle night to count us," he said. "I must go back. I won't betray you, I swear it on Our Lady's

Hearth. May Our Lord strike me down with His heavenly Sword if I do any such thing. I'll bring more

food tomorrow, if I can."

Then he was gone, retreating into the night.

They relieved themselves quickly in one of the stinking pits filled with dung and water, and

paused after to look up at -the strangely clear sky, so hard a darkness above them that the stars were

almost painful to look upon. They heard the dogs again and Matthias shoved Anna onto the ladder. She

scrambled back up, and he came up behind her and closed the trap. After a hesitation, but without

speaking, they devoured the rest of the cheese and bread-and waited for tomorrow.

THE next night, long after sunset, the man came again and tapped on the door softly and said, "I

am your friend."

Cautiously, Matthias opened the trap and peered down. After a moment he climbed down. Anna

followed him. The man gave them bread and watched silently as they ate. She could see him a bit more

clearly tonight-the moon was waxing, and its quarter face slowly swelled, bubbling toward the full. Not

particularly tall, he had the broad shoulders of a farmer and a moon-shaped face.

"What are you called?" he asked finally, hesitantly.

"I am called Matthias, and this is Anna, which is short for Johanna. Our ma named us after the

disciplas of the blessed Daisan."

The man nodded, as if he had known this all along or perhaps only to show he understood. "I am

called Otto. I am sorry the bread was all I could bring. We are not fed well, and I dare not ask the others

for a share of their portion. I don't know if I can trust them, for they're no kin of mine. Any one of them

might tell the Eika in return for some reward, more bread perhaps."

"It is very kind of you to help us," said Anna brightly, for she remembered that their ma had

always told her to' be polite and to be thankful for the gifts she received.

The man caught in a sob, then hesitantly touched hei hair. As abruptly, he backed away from her.

"Or perhaps like me, the others would gladly help, if only it meant find ing a way to see two more brought

free of the savages. It isn't as if the Eika play favorites. I've never seen them seek to turn their slaves

against each other by handing out special treatment. They despise us all. All are treated the same Work

or die."

"Is it only here," asked Matthias, "in the tanneries, thai they've brought slaves?"

"They've opened up the smithies, too, though they've no one trained here in blacksmith's work.

But we're slaves and expendable." His voice was hard. "It's fortune's chance I was sent here to the

tanneries, though it stinks like nothing I've smelled before. It's whispered that at the forge men are burned

every day and the Eika as likely to slit a burned man's throat as to let that man heal if he can't get up and

keep working. I saw those Eika. I saw one pushed into a fire. It didn't burn. The heat left no scar on its

body. They don't have skin, not like us. It's some kind of hide, like a snake's scales but harder and

thicker. Dragon's get." He hawked and spat, as if to get the taste of the word out of his mouth. "The

spawn of dragons and human women, that's what they say, but I don't see how such an unnatural

congress could take place. But we should not speak of this in front of the child."

"I've seen nothing she hasn't seen also," said Matthias softly, but Anna felt at once that the man's

simple statement, protecting her, confiding in the boy, had won over her brother's trust.

She finished her bread and wished there were more, but she knew better than to ask. Perhaps he

had given them his entire ration. It would be rude to demand more.

"Fortune's chance," the man whispered bitterly. "Fortune had smiled more sweetly on me had she

let me die with my children. But no." He shook his head, shifting, casting a glance back over his shoulder

nervously, for surely he had reason to be nervous, as did they all. "For every-i thing, a reason. I was

spared so that I might find you." He took a step forward, clasped Matthias by the hand and with his other

hand touched Anna's hair gently. "I will find a way for you to escape here, I swear it. Now I must go. I

tell them I use the privies each night at this hour, so I must get back. The Eika are strange creatures.

Savages they are, surely, but they are fastidious; but perhaps that only goes to show that 'the path of the

Enemy is paved neatly with well-washed stones, for the waters cleansing them are the tears of the

wicked.' We may make soil only in one place, no pissing even except where they tell us to or on the new

skins. That is why we may come out for a few moments' freedom in this way, even at night, for they

cannot bear the stink of our human bodies near their own. But I dare not stay longer."

He came again the next night, and the next, and the next after that, bringing them pittances of

food but enough to stave off starvation. Ale he brought also and once wine in a flagon, for there was little

water to be found in and about the tanning pits and all of it foul-tasting.

He quickly discovered that Matthias had more knowledge of the tannery and its workings than

any of the slaves set to work here; in three months' apprenticeship, Matthias had learned the rudiments of

currying and tanning, enough to know what went on at each station and with each tool. The boy he

treated politely, even kindly, but it was Anna he truly doted on. She sat on his lap and he stroked her haii

and once or twice forgot himself and called her "Mariya."

No one disturbed the hides in their loft. Otto explained that he was in charge of overseeing them,

and no slave had time to look into another's business. After several more nights passed, he began

bringing more food.

"The Eika have increased our rations. They brought in more slaves to work the bakeries, but

also, my boy, what you have told me and I have told the others is helping us work. They are pleased with

us, so they feed us better." The moon was full, now, and Anna could see his expression, which was, as

always, grim. "No good fortune for those taken to the smithies, or so I hear. As many are dragged out

dead as walk in alive. Beasts!" He hid his eyes behind a hand, but she could see the anguished line of his

mouth. "Soon the hides will be dry and they will be cartet off, and then there will be no place for you to

hide."

"They'll hang up more hides, won't they?" asked Anna "Ah, child." He pulled her tight against his

chest. "Tha they will, but I can't hide you here forever. I've asked her and there, but I don't know how to

get you out of the city except-"

"Except what?" demanded Matthias, for he, too, Ann knew, had been talking to her about any

possible way fo them to escape from the city. Perhaps they could have don it during the spring, had they

not been so frightened, bu they had been frightened, and the dogs had roamed th city every night. Now,

with slaves in the city and all th gates watched-or so he assumed-it would be even hard to escape.

"I don't know. It's just a story, and I don't know whether to believe it." But he clutched Anna, his

lips touching he hair, a father's kiss. "I've heard some say there's a creature, a daimone, held prisoner in

the cathedral. They say the Eika enchanter lured it from the heavens above where such creatures live and

imprisoned it in a solid body like to our own. He keeps it chained to his throne."

Anna shuddered, but she felt safe on Otto's lap; he was holding her so securely.

"I am thinking," continued the man slowly, "that the magi say daimones know secrets hidden from

human ken. If it is true the saint beloved of this city saved the children, if it is true she led them by hidden

ways out from the cathedral to safety, then might not this daimone know of that hidden way? For can

daimones not see into both the past and the future, farther than mortal eyes can see? If you offer the

creature some gift, and if it hates the Eika as much as we do, might it not tell you of this secret way? It is

a small chance, surely, but I can think of no other. The gates are guarded day and night and the dogs

roam the streets." He shuddered, as they all shuddered, at the thought of the dogs. "You are children.

The saint will smile on you as she did on the others."

"You will come, too, won't you, Papa Otto?" Anna rested her head on his chest.

He wept, but silently, tears streaming down his face. "I dare not," he said. "I dare not attempt it."

"You could escape with us," said Matthias. "God will show you mercy for your kindness to us,

who are no kin of yours."

"God might, but the Eika will not. You don't know them. They're savages, but they're as cunning

as weasels. They mark each slave, and if one slave goes missing, then others ret staked out in front of the

dogs and the dogs let loose » them. That way if any slave tries to escape, he knows what will happen to

those left behind. I will not cause the death of those I work beside. I could do nothing to save my family.

I will not save myself and by so doing kill these others who are as innocent as my dear children. But you

two might escape, if you can find and speak to this daimone."

"But what could we bring it?" Matthias asked. "We have nothing-" Then he halted and Anna saw

by his crafty look hat he had thought of something. He reached into his boot and drew out the prize of

their extensive collection of knives, secreted here and there about their bodies. This one, looted from the

corpse of a stout man richly dressed in the kind of clothes only a wealthy merchant or a noble could

afford, had a good blade and a finely wrought hilt molded in the shape of a dragon's head, studded with

emeralds for eyes. By this measure Anna saw Matthias trusted Otto fully; the knife was too valuable to

show to anyone who might covet it and easily take it by force from a lad and his young sister.

Otto's eyes widened, for even by the moonlight the knife's quality was evident. "That is a

handsome piece," he said. "And a worthy gift, if you can get so far."

"But how will we get into the cathedral?" asked Matthias. "The Eika chieftain lives there, doesn't

he? Does he ever come out?"

The slow quiet brush of summer's wind, the night breeze off the river, stirred Otto's hair as he

considered. Anna smelted on its wings the distant tang of iron and the forge, a bare taste under the stench

of the tanning pits so near at hand. The man sighed at last, coming to some conclusion. "It is time to trust

others. This information I cannot gain on my own. Let us pray, children, to Our Lady and Lord. Let us

pray that we weak mortal folk can join together against our heathen enemies, for now we must trust to

others who are no kin of ours except that we are humankind standing together against the savages." With

this he left them.

The next night he brought a woman, stooped, scarred, and weary. She stared for a long time at

the children and said at last, "It is a miracle they could have survived the slaughter. It is a sign from St.

Kristine." She went away again, and he gave them their nightly ration of food.

The next night he brought a young man who had broad shoulders but such a weight on them that

he looked as bent with age as a man twice his years. But seeing the children, he lifted up and became a

man proud of his youth and strength again. "We'll show those damned savages," he said in a low voice.

"We'll never let them have these. We'll beat them in this. That will lend us strength in the days ahead." The

next night Otto brought a robust woman who still wore her deacon's robes though they were now

stained, torn, and dirty. But she nodded, seeing the children-not surprised, for surely she had by now

heard tell of them. She bent her head over clasped hands. "Let us pray," she murmured.

It had been a long time since Anna had prayed. She had forgotten the responses, but she traced

around the smooth wood of her Circle of Unity carefully with a finger as the deacon murmured the holy

words of God, for that was the prayer she knew best. Otto watched her, as he always watched her: with

tears in his eyes.

"This is a sign from God," the deacon said after her prayer. "So will They judge our worthiness to

escape this blight, if we can save these children who are no kin of ours and yet are indeed our children,

given into our hands, just as all who live within the Circle of Unity are the children of Our Lady and

Lord." Otto nodded solemnly.

The deacon rested a hand on Matthias' shoulder, as if giving a blessing. "Those who get water

from the river and bring it here have spoken now with those who get water for the smithies, and of those

in the smithies some carry weapons to the cathedral, where the chieftain sits in his chair and oversees all.

Other slaves who sweep and clean the cathedral meet at times with those who carry weapons from the

smithies, and this information they have given us." She paused at a noise, but it was only the wind banging

a loose shutter. "The chieftain leaves the cathedral four times each day to take his dogs to the

necessarium-" "The necessarium?" asked Anna.

This question stirred the first faint smile Anna had seen on any of the slaves' faces, even on

Otto's. "Pits. Holes dug in the ground where such creatures relieve themselves, for even such as they are

slaves to their bodies. As are all of us bound to mortal matter. Now hush, child. Though it was a fair

question, you must listen carefully to my words. Once each day all Eika leave the cathedral, with their

dogs and the few slaves who attend them there. They go to the river to perform their nightly ablutions-"

She raised a hand to forestall Anna's question. "Their bath. At this time, which is the time Vespers would

be sung each evening, the cathedral is empty." "Except for the daimone," said Otto.

"If such a creature truly exists. So say the slaves who clean there, but it may be that their minds

are disordered by their proximity to the savages, for none has been allowed close to this creature, which

is said to be chained with iron to the holy altar. By their description it seems to be more of a dog than a

man. One man said it has human speech, but another said it can only yip and howl and bark. To this plan,

if the saint grants us a miracle, we must trust. Now do you understand?" She asked this of Matthias and

studied him carefully in the moon's waning light as he nodded, once, to show he understood. Anna

nodded also and took Matthias' hand because she was so frightened.

"Tonight," said the deacon. She looked at Otto and he nodded, though his hands clenched.

"Tonight?" asked Anna in a whisper. "So soon-?" Impulsively she darted forward and clasped

her arms round Otto's body. His clothes hung on him, a once stout man made thin by privation and grief,

yet still he felt sturdy to her. He held her tightly against him, and she felt his tears on her cheeks.

"We must move immediately," said the deacon. "You might be discovered any day. It is indeed a

miracle you have not been found before this." She frowned, and the moonlight painted her face in stark,

suffering lines. "We know not if some fool will betray us all, thinking to gain favor in the eyes of the Eika.

But there is no favor to be gained with the savages. They are no kin to us. They have no mercy for their

own kind, and less than that for us, and so shall we have no mercy for them. Now. Make your farewells,

children. You will not see Otto again."

Anna wept. It was too hard to leave him behind, the only person besides Matthias who had

shown her kindness since her parents died.

"Take news," said Otto. He still held Anna, but she knew he spoke to Matthias. "Take news to

others that some are yet alive in this city, that we are made slaves. Tell them the Eika are massing and

building their strength, that they are using us to forge weapons and craft armor for them."

"We'll come back for you," said Matthias, his own voice choked with tears. Anna could not

speak, could only cling. Otto stank of the puering pits, but they all of them stank of the tannery; it was a

good scent to her now, a familiar one that promised safety. Out beyond the tanning pits lay the great wide

world which she no longer knew or trusted. "Ai, Lady," whispered Otto. He kissed Anna's hair a final

time. "Perhaps it is worse this way: that you have given me hope. I will wait for you, as well as I can. If

you live, if I survive, if we are reunited, then I will be as your father."

"Come, children," said the deacon, taking their hands after gently prying Anna free from Otto's

grasp.

Anna cried as she was led away. She looked back to see Otto staring after them, hands working

at his sides, opening and closing, and then his face was lost to her, hidden by night and distance.

The deacon took them to the edge of the fetid trench where the slaves relieved themselves. "Wait

here," she said. "A man will come for you."

She left and returned to the building where the slaves slept. Somewhat later, the young man they

had met before arrived.

"Come," he said, hoisting Anna onto his back. "We must run all the way to the forge." So they

ran, hiding once for the man to catch his breath and a second time when they heard the howling of the

dogs nearby, but they saw nothing. Only ghosts walked the city at night. It had been so long since Anna

had ventured out into the ruined streets that the open spaces and angular shadows, the simple emptiness,

made chills crawl like spiders up and down her skin.

The young man left them, quite unceremoniously, by another trench, this one equally filled with

the stink of piss and diarrhea. But it was yet a good, decent, human smell, not like the dry metallic odor

of the savages.

A woman found them there. She stared at first, then handled them, touching their lips, their hair,

their ears.

"You are real," she said. "Real children. They murdered mine. Come. There is no time." She led

them at a loping run farther into the labyrinth of the city, on to another trench, another group of slaves. By

this way, from trench to trench, they passed through the city.

"That is our only freedom," said the man who took them at last within sight of the cathedral even

as they saw the first stain of light in the eastern sky. "They are savages, the Eika, but they cannot stand

the least stink of human piss or shit near them. I've seen a man killed for loosing his bowels where he was

not meant to, though he could not help himself. So we may come out to relieve ourselves, one by one,

and if we say we are having the cramping, then we are allowed a little more time. Now. This is as far as I

or any of us can take you. Hide here, under these rags next to the trench, for the Eika never come near

these trenches. Do not move, do not stir, even if you hear the dogs. Perhaps they will discover you and

kill you. We,all will pray that they do not. Be patient. Wait out the day. You will know by the light and by

the horn they blow and by the great size of the procession when they go down to the river. Be careful,

though, for they do not all go; some remain behind to guard the slaves who sleep in that building across

the way, which they call the mint. For all I know, some may remain behind here in the cathedral as well.

What is inside the cathedral I do not know. That you must discover for yourselves. May God go with

you."

He clasped their hands in his, first Anna and then Matthias, as the sign of their kinship. Then he

directed them to lie flat and covered them with the stinking, filthy rags. Anna heard his footsteps recede.

Something crawled over her hand. She choked off a gasp. She dared not move, hardly dared breathe.

But for the first time in so many days and weeks she held an odd, light feeling in her heart. It took a long

time to decide what it was, and finally she recalled Otto's last words to them:

"You have given me hope."

Amazingly, even almost smothered as she was by the foul-smelling heap of rags, she slept.

Howls woke her. She jerked up and at once Matthias shoved her down to keep her still. She

made no sound.

Rags slipped, giving her a view of the steps of the cathedral and avenue. Not five paces from her,

a man stopped, turning his back to the pile of rags, and pissed into the trench. Then, straightening his

clothes, he edged closer and crouched down. Of all the slaves she had seen he looked best kept; his

tunic was not encrusted with dirt, though it was not precisely clean either. He toyed with the rope belt

hung low on his thin hips and glanced back once over his shoulder, toward the cathedral steps. Through

the gap in the rags Anna could see on those steps another slave. This person-she could not tell if it was a

man or a woman- washed the gleaming white stone steps with rags and a bucket of water.

The man cleared his throat and spoke in a rush. "As soon as all have gone down the road, run

inside into the nave. Stay in the shadows if you can and go to the end, where you will find the altar. There

you will find the dai-mone. Approach it softly. It can be violent, or so we have seen. None of us speaks

to it. That is forbidden."

He stood and walked away, and that was the last they saw of him, for first he vanished from their

restricted view and then, coming back into sight on the steps, he was suddenly engulfed by dogs.

A horn blasted, a sharp, painful sound. A swarm of dogs surged down the stairs, growling and

barking and yipping and howling like mad things. Anna whimpered and then stuck a hand in her mouth,

biting down hard, to stop herself from crying out loud. They were monsters, huge hulking things as tall at

the shoulder as she was, with long lean haunches and massive shoulders and yellow eyes that sparked

with demon's fire. Their mouths hung open perpetually to display their great teeth and red, lolling

tongues.

They bowled over the two slaves, overwhelmed them until all she could see was a frenzy of dogs,

roiling and leaping and biting each other and only God knew what else. She shut her eyes and groped for

her Circle. Matthias choked down a sob; his grip on her tightened. She dared not look. She did not want

to see.

A voice roared, a great bellowing powerful shout. She squinched her eyes shut as hard as she

could, but Matthias tugged on her and her eyes opened. Eika strode down the steps now, sickly things

with their scaled hides. Yet each one, though a savage with nothing of humankind in it, had a brutish

strength and the gleam of animal cunning in its bearing and in its sharp ugly face. They grabbed the

frenzied dogs by their back legs and yanked them away, struck them hard blows with their clawed hands

or the hafts of their spears. The Eika yipped and howled at the dogs as if they were kin and could

understand each other in their beast's language.

Behind them came the oddest looking pair of Eika she had yet seen. The first was a huge brawny

creature dressed in gold-and-silver chains studded with bright gems, and its companion was an Eika as

scrawny as the human slaves and itself clothed only in a single rag tied about its hips. A leather pouch

hung from the belt around its waist; it carried a small wooden chest braced against one scrawny hip. The

huge Eika waded into the seething mass of dogs and proceeded to strike about himself, roaring and

laughing as he tossed dogs aside and beat them away from their prey.

One dog at last broke away and bounded down the steps. Many of the Eika warriors followed

after it. As if this defection signaled their defeat, the rest of the dogs retreated from the Eika chieftain's

wrath-or his humor, for why else would he station slaves on the steps right then, knowing what the dogs

would likely do to them?-and loped away down the steps, turning to follow the others down toward the

river. As they cleared the steps, their passing revealed two ravaged, red heaps of-

This time she clamped her eyes shut and did not look, willed herself not to look, and heard only

Matthias gulping under his breath, trying to keep silent because any noise would doom them.

Finally he whispered, "They've gone. They've carried the two-them-away. Come now, Anna.

Don't lose heart now when we're so close."

He scrabbled at the rags, dug himself free, and jumped to his feet, then yanked her up. He ran

and she ran behind, stumbling, gasping for breath because she was so scared and because she had

almost forgotten how to run and because her legs were stiff from so many days lying still. They came

under the shadow of the cathedral wall and ran up the steps. Blood still stained the stone next to an

overturned bucket of water, and runnels of pink water seeped down the steps toward the avenue below.

Rags were strewn everywhere, stained with blood.

The great doors stood open, but because the sun set behind the cathedral, little light penetrated

the interior by this, the eastern entrance. They ducked inside, and at once Matthias threw himself against

a wall and tugged Anna down beside him. He put a finger to his lips. They stood there in shadow and

listened.

And heard . . . the music of chains, shifting, whispering, as some creature tested its bonds and

found them as unyielding as ever.

Matthias crept forward to hide behind one of the great pillars of stone that supported the great

roof. Here, in the side aisle, they remained in shadow. The nave itself, the vast central aisle of the

cathedral, was brighter, lit by windows built high into the towering walls that faced north and south.

Brightest of all was the altar, lying in a wash of light from seven tall windows set in a semicircle at the far

end of the church, encircling the Hearth. A heap of refuse lay next to the altar. Matthias slipped forward

to the next pillar, using it as cover to get close to the altar. Anna followed him. She wanted to grab hold

of his belt, to cling, but she did not. This she had learned: They must both be free to move quickly.

It was silent. The stone muffled sound, and the outside world seemed far away in this place-once

a haven but now the camp of savages. She felt their musty scent against her the way dry things dragged

against the skin cause a tingling in fingertips and neck; she smelled it the way a storm announces itself by

a certain feeling in the air long before the first rolling peal of thunder is heard and the first slash of lightning

Kate Elliot - Crown of Stars 2 - Prince of Dogs

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