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“Let me hold this for you, Your Majesty,” said the man. “I beg you.”

“Where did you get this arrow?” asked the king as he pressed on the finger with his thumb to stop the bleeding.Advertisement

“At a village called Felsig,” continued the Eagle. “We arrived hours after dawn, when they had repulsed an attack of Quman raiders. We helped fight off the last of them, some of their foot soldiers who I swear to you are so unsightly that they could be born of no human mother, though they are nothing like the Eika. Our comrade Artur died of wounds taken there. We brought with us a lad, named Stephen, who fought bravely in that skirmish. He wishes to swear himself to the service of the Lions.”

“And I, as senior among us, deemed him fit to serve,” added Ingo.

“Do as you see fit,” said Henry. “Such a brave fighter is welcome in my Lions.”

“Whom will you nominate as margrave of Eastfall?” asked Lady Brigida from the crowd. As niece of Duke Burchard and Duchess Ida, she might expect to be named.

Several voices spoke. “Princess Theophanu. Prince Ekkehard.”

Henry raised a hand for silence. “I will think on it. It is not a decision to be made rashly. Duke Burchard.” He turned to the old duke. “Can you send a force into the marchlands from Avaria?”

The duke coughed before he spoke, and his voice was weak. “I have no sons of an age to lead such an expedition,” he said slowly and pointedly—thus reminding all listeners that his second son Frederic had died fighting in the marchlands and his eldest son, Agius, just last spring, had sacrificed himself to save the king from the dreadful guivre. “It is my experience that the Quman riders must be met by cavalry. Foot soldiers cannot defeat them. You must reform the Dragons, Your Majesty.”

“I have no sons of such an age either,” said Henry harshly, not even looking toward poor Ekkehard who sat unnoticed in the corner behind Helmut Villam. “Not anymore. Nor any soldiers as brave as those who died at Gent.”

No one spoke or ventured an opinion, for Duke Burchard had thrown the meat among the dogs and everyone waited to see how ugly the fight would be for the spoils. But no one dared contradict the king, not even Burchard.

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“What other news do you bring for me, Eagle?” Henry demanded, turning his attention back to the young woman kneeling before him. “There has been enough of bad news. Pray you, tell me nothing more that I do not want to hear.”

She had been pale before. Now she blanched. “There is another piece of news,” she began, almost stuttering. “I heard it when we halted at the Thurin Forest, where we had come searching for you. They had it there from Quedlinhame.” Then she broke off.

“Go on!” said the king impatiently.

“N-news from Gent.”

“Gent!” The king stood again.

“Ai, Lady,” muttered Brother Fortunatus, wincing as he got up.

“What news?”

“Only this: that two children escaped from the city. The children said that a daimone imprisoned by Bloodheart showed them the way out through the crypt, but there was no trace of such a tunnel when the foresters thereabouts went later to look.”

“Such a tunnel,” said Villam, “as the other refugees from Gent claimed to have used to flee to safety?”

“I don’t know,” said Hanna, “but Liath—”

“Liath?” asked the king.

“My comrade in the Eagles. She would know. She was there.”

“Of course,” said the king. “I will question her later. Go on.” His interest was keen and his attention, on the young Eagle, utterly focused.

“There is little else to report. The Eika still infest the city. They have brought in slaves who work the smithies and armories and in the tanneries, so the children reported. They saw—” She made a kind of hiccuping sound, then got the words out. “According to the report I heard, they saw the bodies of fighting men in the crypt below the cathedral. Tabards sewn with the sigil of a dragon.”

“That is enough.” The king signed her to silence. She looked relieved to be free of his notice. “I am weary. Today my stewards will organize the train. Tomorrow we ride toward Echstatt. Duke Burchard, you will give me fifty soldiers to send to Eastfall. Young Rodulf of Varingia and ten companions attend me. He can prove himself loyal to me and cleanse his family honor of the stain laid there by his father the late duke by fighting well and bravely in the east. Let them be called Dragons.” The words came hard, but he spoke them. “In time, others will be added to their number.” pqdm.com