Crown of Stars 2 - Prince of Dogs by Kate Elliott

Author:Kate Elliott [Elliott, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Published: 2011-07-22T20:13:37+00:00

"Stop!" cried Liath, but Hugh rode up beside her and set his hand on her arm. Her voice vanished.

Theophanu was still turned, raising a hand in acknowledgment; there was an instant when her face registered the tableau behind her. Her expression froze in horror.

Amalfred shot. Another lord shot. The arrows sped toward their target.

She would not be powerless this time! She wrenched her arm out of Hugh's grasp. Please God let her bring fire through her eyes alone. Let the fire in the vision of the burning stone pass through her as through a doorway, as though a daimone of the fiery sphere above had reached down below the moon and pressed its blazing touch onto the speeding wood of the arrows.

Both arrows ignited in midair. Theophanu threw herself off her horse. The wailing and shouting that deafened Liath now was its own conflagration.

"My God, the princess!"

"A miracle! A miracle!"

"Lord Amalfred, what meant you by this?"

"But I saw a deer. These others-!"

As all protested that they, too, had seen a deer, Sapientia began to sob noisily. Liath threw her reins over the horse's head, dismounted, and ran forward; she stubbed her toes on a log, jumped over another only to have her boots sink into the dense litter of fallen and rotting leaves in her haste to reach Theophanu.

The princess' hair lay in disarray, braids fallen loose, her riding tunic twisted at her hips, her gold-braided leggings ripped at the knees, her face scraped and stained with dirt. She shoved herself up and reached for her knife as Liath dropped down beside her. "Have you come to finish the job at her bidding?"

Liath threw up her hands to show she was empty-handed. "Your Highness! Are you hurt?"

"Your voice." Theophanu's eyes flared with astonishment. "Your voice is the one I heard warning me. What treachery is this?"

"They saw a deer where you rode, Your Highness."

"I am no deer to be hunted and slain. Was this an accident, Eagle?"

But now a forester had come up, and the crowd like a mindless writhing creature moved across the wood to engulf them. Back on the path, Hugh comforted a weeping Sapientia.

By now the king had come up to the others, and in their babble of voices Liath heard repeated over and over that all dozen or so there and even in addition the foresters had seen not Theophanu but a deer.

"Witchcraft," someone said.

"A miracle," said another.

"Too many damn fool young hotheads hunting for prizes and seeing visions in the mist," said Villam with disgust.

"This day's hunt ends now," said King Henry. A groom helped him dismount. He came up to his daughter and extended a hand. She took it, and he raised her up off the ground. "You are unhurt?" he asked. Villam by now had forced order into the milling mob behind them, pressing them back from the frightened horse. Far away, hounds bayed wildly. Henry released Theophanu's hand and beckoned a huntsman forward. "Follow the hounds," he said, "and bring back to the lodge whatever meat you take.

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