by Ty Johnston
Chapter 2
The horse did not survive. Guthrie had had little trouble catching the beast, but he soon discovered the animal had lost its packs loaded with food and blankets. After the ruckus with the Dartague, all that had remained on the horse was its saddle and tack and harness. If the sergeant had not needed the beast, he might have slain it to put it out of its misery, but as things had stood there had been a week’s ride ahead of him.
The going was tough. The snow had been drifting lazily for weeks before Guthrie and his men had encountered the barbarians, but now the winter closed its mighty fist along the border between Dartague and Ursia, the northern mountains belching forth daily snows to cover the land. The white landscape could cause a man to lose his bearings and go blind if not careful. Fortunately for him, Guthrie Hackett was a careful man. He cut strips from his tunic to create wraps for his eyes, only a thin slit allowing through the blinding light of the sun that emanated off the snows all around. Food was more difficult to come by, though water was aplenty, a mouthful of snow enough to slake one’s thirst. The horse managed to find some scrub here and there to munch upon, enough to keep the beast going for some little while but not enough to hold its strength. The sergeant fared little better, cursing his luck more than once for not having a bow available for hunting, but he created a makeshift spear from his dagger and a sturdy branch found along his path. That spear brought food in the manner of rabbits and other smaller creatures that ventured forth into the weather. At least the snow made tracking no difficult matter.
Guthrie was no woodsman, but he had spent enough time hunting in and near the wilds to know his way back to the village. His horse managed to survive for four days, then the Ursian set out on foot. Five more days of plowing through snow and across ice brought him down from the mountain paths and into the flatlands of northern Ursia, his homeland. Here he could see to the horizon. What he saw was a sea of white, some hints of trees here and there.
Another day and he spotted a large break on the horizon. Herkaig, the village the Dartague had attacked. He had been drawn here not because of the region’s recent history, but because it had been the closest settlement to him. Even the fort where he was stationed was another dozen miles beyond.
Ahead there was no sign of smoke from any chimneys, but he hoped there was still someone alive, or at least some food and perhaps a horse or mule. Stamping through the white, his heavy boots leaving deep tracks in his wake, he waded forward. The going was rougher in some ways, the snow deeper on the plains than it had been in the mountain passes, bringing new levels of pain to his weak legs. He was tired and hungry, but an end was in sight.
Tromping into the edges of the village, Guthrie found battered doors hanging open among the stone and lime cottages. His shoulders slumped at the sight. His head shifted from side to side, hoping to hear anything of the living, but the only sound that came to him was the howl of the winter’s wind upon the flats.
When he had left here weeks earlier, the place had been a wreck, dead bodies everywhere and blood splashed upon the buildings. But there had been survivors, people trying to put their lives back together. It had been the local sheriff who had called upon Guthrie’s captain at the stronghold, seeking aid against the Dartague raiders. Guthrie had been dispatched with the others, a squad far too small in number for the appointed task of rounding up or slaying the guilty Dartague. The captain himself had been too busy entertaining a local knight to take part, and other men could not be spared from their daily tasks of guarding the main northern road that ran from east to west, the largest road in this part of Ursia.
Glancing within the darkness of an empty hovel, the sergeant cursed his luck. Sent to do an impossible job, he was the only survivor, and there was no assurance he would yet survive. He needed proper food and warmth. The day was still fairly early, but he would sleep here tonight within one of the stronger structures.
Moving on to the next building, a larger one, he hoped yet to find food. His guess was the inhabitants had fled the winter storm after their numbers had been decimated, likely fleeing to the stronghold. Guthrie only hoped he could survive long enough to join them. His own reserves were beginning to grow weak.
At the next house he paused before the opening where a door had once hung but was now missing. A look inside revealed little at first, the gloom more than his eyes could reach through for the moment, but a shifting of the clouds above stretched the sun’s cold rays into the doorway. A pair of wool-clad legs stuck out from the shadows.
Guthrie paused. Then he lowered a hand to the handle of his mace at his belt. There had been plenty of dead when he had left behind Herkaig, but there had also been an effort to remove the corpses and prepare them for burial. Whomever this dead person was at the sergeant’s feet, it was likely they had died since Guthrie had left the village with his men. He leaned forward, nearly squatting, and stared into the shadows. His suspicions were proven correct when his eyes cleared of the gloom and he could make out the stone-like blue features of a dead man stretched out in front of him. The poor fellow had frozen to death before the open slice to his stomach had killed him. But why had he been left behind when the others had fled?
A sound to one side brought the sergeant’s head around. But there was nothing to see. Only the village path that ran straight through two lines of the stone buildings. Beyond either end of the street was the open expanse of the flatlands. Guthrie couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to live here in the middle of nowhere, especially this far from a main road, but he supposed farmers had their reasons.
Another sound. This one louder. It had been like a cracking twig beneath one’s feet. It had come from behind and to the left.
Guthrie spun about, hefting his weapon. Still, nothing. Across the way was another cold home, this one with most of its doors and shutters remaining though battered and hacked. Had the noise come from within there? He was not sure he wanted to know. If there was anyone else here, they were likely either to be in a bad way or to not be overly friendly, or perhaps both. Guthrie had not enough strength to care properly for someone ill or wounded, and no doubt he was too weak to combat an enemy.
But if an enemy, who could it be? He had seen no tracks through the snow other than the ones he himself had left behind. True, the snow fell often enough it could have covered another’s trail mere hours earlier, but who would be slinking around this dead village without a horse and without a fire?
Someone who was up to no good, that was who. Someone who had been waiting, perhaps waiting for Guthrie himself. Or some scavenger, a beast braving the weather for a meal. Could the Dartague have changed their mind about allowing him to live? Not likely. The northern tribes weren’t known for their fickleness.
Fear growing in his tight stomach, the sergeant recognized there was nothing to do but to push through a door of the building across the way from him. If there was a foe inside waiting, then so be it. He would not be hunted, and the anticipation was nearly as bad on his nerves as would be actual combat.
Guthrie strode forward, his mace held high. He kicked out at the door, snapping it back on its hinges. Trickling dust and snow were all that greeted him.
He stood his ground for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust to the shadows of the place. He waited, but nothing untoward happened. Pushing ahead, he ducked as he entered the home. Weak sunlight through the cracks in the shutters revealed a small place that had probably been quite homely once upon a time. A simple table of pine with two chairs, a cold stove in the back wall with another chair next to it. Scattered here and there various garments and belongings that had been tossed about during the raid. A door at the back hung open to show further darkness beyond. Realizing the opening in the back probably led to a bedroom, Guthrie promised himself to keep it in mind when he decided to rest.
But first, seeing as there was no enemy, he would search for food. His stomach grumbling, his last meal having been eaten nearly a day earlier, he lowered his weapon and trudged furt
her into the house. Whatever sound he had heard had likely been nothing more than a piece of wood drying in the brittle cold, or perhaps one of the houses settling.
Near the fireplace he found several black iron pots. Removing their lids he found them empty. Likely spilled during the fighting, if there had even been food within them. Glancing around, Guthrie sought a cupboard or a hanging ham or anything. But there was no immediate evidence of food. Had the Dartague taken it all with them? Possible.
A shadow moved across the open entrance.
Guthrie’s mace came up again as his gaze darted toward the door he had left open upon entering.
Nothing further stirred. Through the door he could spy puffy drops of snow flittering down from above to sleep upon the ground.
“Who is there?” he called out.
No answer.
“I am more than willing to defend myself,” he shouted. “I am armed and a trained soldier of His Holiness Beneficence the Second!”
Again, no answer.
At first.
Then a dour cackling whispered upon the wind. Weak to the ears, as if a spirit calling from beyond the grave.
Guthrie did not like that sound. It spoke of the unusual, the supernatural. It spoke of magic. In his world, magic was evil. There was no such thing as a good wizard or witch except a dead one. Magic was feared so much within the nation of Ursia, the punishment for spell casters was death. Magical creatures were not tolerated, but put to the blade. Foreigners practicing magic were barred from entering the lands, and the Ursians were not above slaying mages who lived near their borders. This was another reason the Ursians were rarely on friendly terms with the Dartague, the barbarian northerners allowing wyrd women and skalds within their midst to practice enchantments and sorcery.
Whether the source of the dark laughter outside the hovel’s door was human or not, Guthrie feared eldritch powers were at work. No normal person sounded like that, as if they were a risen corpse tittering at the foolishness of those still living.
His grip tightened on his weapon as he took a step forward.
That distant, maniacal laughter came again, almost hollow as if it came across a long distance or from deep within a well.
Guthrie halted once more. His free hand slid his dagger free of its leather binding.
There were no new sounds, only the familiar ring of the haunting wind upon the plain.
Enough of this. He charged forward, his lack of patience getting the best of him. Rushing out the doorway, he dodged to one side and lifted his mace across his face as a shield as his dagger snapped out ready to strike.
There was nothing. The dead man’s unmoving legs still extended from the shadows of the doorway across the narrow road. The wind still howled overhead as the sky grayed to the color of a dying fish’s belly. Flecks of snow sauntered down from upon high, adding to the growing drifts along the sides of the houses. Guthrie’s trail continued back the way he had come, toward the mountains along the distant northern horizon.
He straightened and lowered his weapons. I have been alone too long. My mind is playing tricks on me.
His blade was nearly returned to its sheath when he spotted movement out of the corner of his left eye. Guthrie spun. There! He could have sworn he had seen something fluttering past at the end of the row of houses. It had been but a blur it had moved so fast. There had not been enough time to catch details, but Guthrie had an impression of a thin, gauze-like garment floating out behind a person as they lunged behind the house at the end on his left.
Now anger grew within the sergeant’s breast. Someone was playing games with him. Whether the games were innocent or deadly, he had had enough of them. If his tormentor should be skilled with magic, then it was time to discover how well magic held up against the cold iron of a spiked, rounded mace.
Guthrie took off at a run, the tired muscles of his legs suddenly given new strength by the rage that had built inside him. His heavy boots jogged over the snow, the way made easier because he had already leveled this path upon his tromp into the village.
Rounding the corner of the last house on the left, the sergeant opened his mouth for a roar as he raised his mace and dagger. Then his legs slowed and his weapons lowered once more.
Again there was nothing.
Beyond the edge of the village was the whisping pale view of the land, the wind bringing up more snow than was falling by gusting along the surface of the packed white powder.
Guthrie cursed and ripped away the cloth strips that had helped shield his eyes from the glare of the sun and the snow. He slung the wad to the ground and stomped on it, cursing once more.
By rights he should have been released from his service to the army. All he needed were the official papers from his captain. He should have been in an inn somewhere with his feet up, a warm bowl of stew before him with an ale, perhaps an arm wrapped around a woman. Was it too much to ask after ten years in the pope’s service? Apparently so. Instead of being a free man for the first time since he had been a teen, he was stuck in this frozen wilderness playing games with the dead.
No more.
He slammed his dagger into its home and slung his mace on his belt, then turned back along the path between the houses built of stones. He would find food, build a small fire and slink away to sleep in a bed somewhere. In the morning he would travel the distance to the stronghold, give his report, write letters to the family members of his slain men, then ask the captain for his pay and his letter of discharge. With any luck within a week he would be someplace warm, looking for a new manner of living besides hacking away at barbarians between relentless months upon months of tedium, sifting through merchants’ wagons, standing guard duty in the cold beneath a tower, running errands for the officers or the stray knight, protecting caravans, watching over peasants who spoke snide words about the soldiery behind the men’s backs ... Guthrie could go on. Soldiering was a thankless business. Always had been.
But regrets about his past life and dreams for the future fled from his mind as he neared the open doorway where he had discovered the dead man.
The man was still dead, his legs still sticking out the door, but he was no longer alone.
Guthrie reached for his mace.
“There will be no need for your weapons,” the woman said, if she was indeed a woman. The sergeant had never seen her like before, but he had heard stories here in the north about ice witches. She was a head taller than himself, and Guthrie was no short man, though her form was slender beneath the tattered brown rags that draped across her body. Children often held to beliefs of witches as ugly beasts, but the creature before him was quite stunning, her face slender, her lips a dark shade of coal, her eyes black and shaped like almonds, her ears ... here the woman’s resemblance to humanity ended. Her ears were narrow and rose to points. Her flesh was a pale azure, the color of ice beneath the snow. The hair of the witch was as black as oil, and hung in strands from her head like dead snakes.
Despite her words, he hefted his mace, the smooth leather wrappings of the club sliding through his right hand until he felt the weapon’s weight balancing at the end of his reach.
“If you have plans to slay me,” Guthrie said, “I wish you would get about your business instead of lurching from shadow to shadow.”
She grinned. It was an impish grin, almost girlish, but the sharpened teeth beyond her thin lips revealed a darker side to this woman.
“I have no wish for your death, sergeant,” she said. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
Guthrie’s eyes narrowed. How had she known his rank? He had yelled out he was a soldier, but he had never mentioned ... then it struck him. How silly to have forgotten. The helm hanging on his back from his belt held the insignia of his station.
“What do you want of me?” he asked.
“Assurance,” the ice witch said. “Assurance I am to live for many years yet to come.”
Her answer made no sense to the Ursian. “I do not bargain with sorcery. Whateve
r you have planned for me had best be forgotten.”
She cackled, the sound proof it had been her who had made the noise earlier. “So little do you know.”
“You are right. There is much I do not know.” He waved his mace around to indicate the village where they stood, him in the road and her next to a corpse. “I suppose you are the reason the farmers have fled.”
“No,” she said. “They left without my prodding.”
“Do you expect me to believe you?”
“Believe what you will, but I brought no harm to these simple folks. Why would I? They have never done ill to me. For that matter, none of them even knew of my existence. It is only recently I have returned to this region, having come down by the mountain trails you yourself plodded a day ago.”
“And why did you not stay in your own lands?”
“Because I have need of one such as yourself,” the witch said. “I need a soldier, a leader of men, someone who has the ear of the Ursian commanders.”
Guthrie guffawed. “You are a witch! By law I should smash in your skull and burn you at the stake!”
She smiled again. “Yes, you Ursians have no love for my ilk, do you? But what you do not know, sergeant, and what many of your countrymen have already learned, is that I am not your enemy. You have a foe far more deadly than myself.”
Guthrie’s eyes narrowed. “Of what do you speak?”
“The Dartague,” she said.
“The Dartague are border raiders, little more. Every few years they send a party into our lands, claiming vengeance for our priests spreading the faith of Ashal, all the while pillaging.”
“What you say has been true in the past,” the witch said, “but no longer. A number of Dartague clans have gathered under one leader. They have declared they will drive the Ursians away from their borders, forever.”
He spat into the snow. “The Dartague are barbarians, little more. They fight among themselves so much they could never present a true threat to Ursia.”
“To your nation as a whole, perhaps, but their numbers are quite large, more than enough to force your garrisons further south.”
Guthrie had heard enough talk. The witch was boring him with nonsense. He shrugged at her. “What evidence do you have for any of this?”
“Look around you,” she said. “Where are the villagers?”
“They fled,” Guthrie said. “That much is obvious.”
“But why?”
“That I do not know, and frankly, I’m not sure I care. I was to be discharged from the army this very day. As soon as I see my commanding officer, I can take off my sword.”
The woman’s eyes grew wide with surprise. “A veteran, then. All the better.”
“I have told you, I will not do your bidding.”
“Perhaps,” the witch said, “but what would you say if I told you it was the Dartague who drove off the villagers?”
Guthrie glanced around at the empty buildings with the broken doors and busted window shutters. “I would say you are wrong. I was here after the Dartague raid. There were a number of villagers dead and many wounded, but they were not ready to run.”
“They would and did when a larger force came upon them from the mountains.”
Guthrie’s face screwed up in confusion. “Witch, do you even know of what you speak? I’ve just returned from hunting the very raiding party that struck here.”
“Yes, and while you were traipsing through the mountains on a fool’s errand, a small army descended here. If not for the snow, you would see the obvious signs of the march.”
“This makes no sense.”
“You were deceived, sergeant, lured into a trap. You and your men. All along the border, for hundreds of miles, there were minor skirmishes and raids. All on the same day at approximately the same time. A dozen or more villages were raided, but not too harshly, not enough to cause the locals to flee nor seek the protection of larger forces. Your own men were only involved because of the nearness of your fortifications to this village. Elsewhere, local sheriffs rounded up small groups of men and went hunting for revenge. Most of them likely have found death, though some few might have been allowed to survive, like yourself.”
“What are you saying?” Guthrie asked, his weapon lowering, nearly forgotten. “Why would the Dartague do this?”
“To lure out small groups of your men, to make sure your villages were left without protectors.”
What she said made some sense. It was an old tactic, but not one familiar to the Dartague. A small force attacks before pulling back, then when hunters are sent out, a larger group of warriors drives in to finish off an unprotected village, all the while an ambush is laid for the hunters themselves. Such strategies had worked in wars of the past. But the Dartague did not fight this way. They were not treacherous.
“I see by the look in your eyes you are still not quite believing,” the witch said.
“It does not seem like something the Dartague would do,” Guthrie said.
“Oh, how little you know of the Dartague.”
“I have lived within their reach for several years now.”
“And you have learned nothing,” the witch said. “You know only what you have seen, what some few prisoners or slaves have told you. All of it lies. All of it meant to lull the senses of you Ursians.”
“Are you saying some kind of major attack has been in the works for years?”
“The Dartague always have plans for an attack against foreign enemies. Always. It is why they fight among themselves so often, to strengthen their arms and their stomachs against the ferocity of war.”
The sergeant shook his head. “I still don’t understand. Why would the Dartague attack here a second time? Why would they lure out the fighting men all along the border?”
“Because they seek annihilation of your kind,” the woman said, adding, “at least along the border, within their own grasp. They have no desire to fight a war all the way to your capital of Mas Ober, but they will no longer tolerate the interference of your priests and your soldiers at the very steps of their homeland.”
“Then ... the villagers here, they fled a second wave of attack?”
She nodded. “Yes, a much larger attack, hundreds of bulky warriors in their furs and carrying their swords and spears.”
“Then where is this Dartague army?”
“They have moved on.”
“To where?”
“To your fort.”
“What?”
“My guess would be by now the Ursian stronghold at the crossroads has already been taken, the soldiers slain and the officers tortured. Some few might have been fortunate enough to escape.”
Guthrie stood up straighter, his voice rising. “When did this happen?”
“Likely within the last day or so,” the ice witch said. “I have been here, waiting for you, so I have not been following the marching Dartague.”
Ignoring any danger the woman might represent, Guthrie turned away from her, facing the cold flatlands once more. He stood there motionless, his eyes staring across the ocean of white to the mountains. If what she said was true, then there would be hundreds, possibly thousands, of his countrymen dead all across northern Ursia. The Dartague plan, as the sergeant understood it, made some sense. The barbarians took out the local men of fighting age without drawing the immediate threat of the army, then once rested and furnished with supplies from the very villages they had assaulted, the Dartague moved in to wage war on the local troops. It was not actually the plan of a genius, but it was more complex than any strategy Guthrie had witnessed from the uncouth barbarians. His mind was already altering, changing how he thought of these men and women who had been his foe for years.
“Do you know the outcome of the battles along the border?” he asked
“No,” she said, “at least not yet. I have my ways of discovering such information, but at the moment I am more concerned with you.”
“Me?”
“I was drawn to you af
ter Ildra allowed you to live.”
“The wyrd woman?”
“Yes, that is her. I have had my sights on her for some time, which is why my gaze fell upon you.”
“What do you have to do with any of this?”
“Little,” the witch said. “I am no friend to the Dartague and, despite your own countrymen’s wrath against my kind, I have never done harm to one of your own.”
Guthrie thrust up his hands. “Then why are we here? Why am I here?”
“You are here because your captain sent you forth to hunt down a small party of raiders,” the woman said, “but the truth is you were played a fool and your Ursia will suffer along with you. You came to this village to seek aid, but instead you find me. I am here because I have been awaiting you. For my safety, the weather is my own doing. Once your stronghold has been taken, the Dartague are more likely to remain there for a few days if there is a storm blowing across the land. I wanted to keep them there long enough for us to meet.”
His shoulders slumping, hope fled from Guthrie’s features. His country attacked, many dead, and him miles from any safe haven. And still he was not out of the army. Most likely he would never be discharged now, not if the witch was right that a major border conflict had now erupted. The sergeant had no hatred for the army, but he had done his ten years and was ready to move on to a more simple, less dangerous life. But now that was not likely to happen.
Still, he did not know what the witch wanted with him. He turned to face her once more, placing his back against the wide expanse of the snow-covered realm.
“Why have you sought me out?” he asked.
She grinned yet again. “Finally we are getting to the heart of the matter.”
“Which is?”
“I have seen the years to come,” the witch said. “I have seen my own fate. My kind live for many of your lifetimes, for thousands of years, but we can be killed. My doom lies within the wyrd woman Ildra.”
“She is to slay you?”
“No, it is her grandson.”
“Her grandson?”
“Yes, he will use a weapon of flame to burn me alive. I have seen this with my ancient sight. It will come true many years from now unless I do something to subvert the future, to change the path of fate.”
Guthrie’s eyes narrowed once more. “If you think I am going to hunt down and kill this woman for you, then you are a fool.”
The witch cackled. “You will have no choice in the matter. Your military leaders will not give you a choice. They will make you go forth to kill. It is Ildra who is behind this uprising of the Dartague. The wyrd women play a unique role in the society of the northern tribes, part priestess, part witch, but one who can master true power can rise above her station and take the reins of control, becoming master of even the chieftains themselves, including the High Chief.”
The sergeant nodded. “I won’t disagree with you about my future. When I find a garrison or a marching regiment, I’m sure I’ll be pulled into duty regardless of my years of service. But that would have happened anyway. None of this explains why you have chosen me for your needs.”
“Because you know Ildra by sight, for one thing,” the woman said. “She allowed you to live to spread the message of the Dartague might and wrath, but what she does not know is the situation will be turned upon her. You will deliver a message of death to her.”
“And why should I do this?”
“Because I will present you a gift, one that will allow you to hunt her down. Would you not want to use such to end the hostilities as soon as possible?”
“I might,” Guthrie said, “but I would be a fool to take a present from you.”
One of the witch’s slim hands disappeared within the folds of her thin garb, a moment later showing itself again and stretching out toward the Ursian. Within the palm of that blue hand was a bauble, a gem glinting of gold and light. “It is yours. Take it.”
“I think not.”
“Take it!”
“No.” He turned away from her once more. “I will fight the Dartague again, but I will do so on my own terms, as a man and as a soldier. Most importantly, I will fight as an Ursian, without the help of your ... magic.”
There was a rush of movement behind the sergeant. He swung around, expecting an attack from the angered woman, and swatted out with his mace.
She was too fast for him. Her slender frame sidestepped his blow as easy as a snake sliding away from a stomping boot. Now in front of him, practically on top of him with her height, she thrust out a boney hand, the long fingers wrapping around the soldier’s throat.
Guthrie choked and tried to pull back, but the grip holding him was like that of an iron vice. Not able to retreat, he slashed up with his weapon, hoping his iron-headed club would break her hold on him.
But his blow was weak. There had been little room for a proper swing. The ice witch barely registered as the iron head of his mace glanced across her thin but strong arm.
Then it was he saw her other hand held in a fist against her jaw next to her eyes that bore into him.
“I will not be denied!” she called out.
Her fist struck forward, slamming into his face. The blow was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Guthrie Hackett had seen his share of combat over the years, and he had experienced more than a few brawls, but never had he been struck so hard, not even by men twice the girth of this witch.
His head snapped back and a numbness rolled over him. For a moment he feared his neck broken, but then the woman dropped him, allowing him to fall back onto the snow, and despite the pain now blazing away in his jaw, he was relieved to feel that pain and the cold and damp on his back.
Before he could roll away or prepare to ward off an attack, the witch woman was upon him. She planted her reed-like legs on either side of his chest and sat atop him as if they were lovers. One hand grabbed him by the jaw and tugged, causing him to scream out in pain. Her other hand rushed forward, still a fist. But that fist opened at the last moment before connecting with him and Guthrie felt something cold and hard land on his tongue.
He tried to scream and spit, but the witch shoved up on his jaw, clamping closed his mouth. His mace dropped, his hands flailed away at his opponent, hoping to grab anything, to break anything, to cause her pain, to shove her aside, anything.
A faint warmth rolled over him then and Guthrie felt his head go light. His fingers continued to claw at the woman, but they did no good and were only growing weaker. He felt the strength flooding from his body, draining away like water in a sieve. His fighting arms soon lost all their strength and fell atop his chest. The witch withdrew her hands and sat there watching him.
Guthrie groaned, then darkness crept in at the edges of his vision.
“When you awake, you will be a different man,” the woman said, “and your destiny will have altered forever.”
She had other words, many words, but they were lost to the sergeant. The darkness swamped him and his eyes fluttered closed. He knew no more for some while.
