Frost

by Mark A. Garland

  "Will it survive?" Cantor asked, stretching his neck to watch the mule go.

  "The spell will only last a short time, and the drain is not enough to do real harm; a good mule is not easily replaced."

  Cantor nodded. "What happens next?" he asked.

  "The others will reveal themselves when they attempt to strike," Rosivok said, clearly savoring the idea.

  "We must be in position to take advantage of that," Frost said. "Else all my hard work will go wasted, and perhaps the mule."

  "Will you require survivors?" Sharryl asked, wearing the same satisfied smirk as Rosivok.

  Frost shrugged. "One or two."

  "This way, up and over those boulders," Rosivok said. He wasted no time in setting off up the smooth rock slope beside them, then scrambling over a series of massive rocks and debris left over from a slide, long ago. Not steep, but treacherous. Sharryl went next. She tossed a rope back down to Frost, and he and Cantor used it to pull themselves up and after the others.

  The midday sun was hidden behind a soupy layer of light gray clouds, and the breezes of the day before had stilled, leaving the air damp and warm and smelling of distant rains.

  All of which Frost considered nearly ideal. Wind direction and the scents it might carry were of little concern, and without the harsh rays of the sun intruding on them and degrading them, his simulacrums looked all the more real and would remain that way longer. With luck—which he wasn't at all sure the omens foretold—the waiting troops and their ignoble sorcerer friend would never know what hit them.

  "Not much further," Frost said, as the group forded a crevasse and began working their way along a narrow bit of ledge. Rock faces far below obscured the trail from here, and so them as well. Frost considered his second option, if the first did not prove satisfactory. Whoever his opponent was, Frost had no choice but to assume he would know enough to plan a proper assault, one that would be swift and leave little room for a capable response. A direct attack by sorcery was problematic, since there were very few spells that could quickly disable even a mediocre practitioner of the arts. In order to be effective, any such spell would require skill and control, and a generous, sustained expenditure of energy, leaving one in a state of temporary but intense fatigue, and quite vulnerable, if the attempt was to fail.

  No, it was more likely that the other would take a defensive tack and build his most effective warding spells around each of his soldiers and himself. After all, they outnumbered Frost and his Subartans at least three to one. Sufficiently protected, a troop of able soldiers might have enough time to defeat the two Subartans, and keep Frost himself busy while secondary measures were taken.

  Even trained and enhanced, a human body was capable of only so much effort, could turn stored fat into usable energy only so quickly. A sustained, combined physical and magical assault could ultimately succeed even against Frost.

  So the first option, simply to stand and fight on equal terms, held little appeal. Frost's second option involved far less effort.

  The ledge emptied onto a small, rounded plateau that offered poor footing, but a clear view of the trail below. A long, straight stretch was visible, with slopes and rock falls on either side. A perfect place for a surprise.

  The mule walked dutifully along accompanied by its three conjured companions. Frost looked to the rocks and cliffs ahead, checking both sides of the pass, top to bottom, checking even the skies lest some airborne threat take them unawares. His best efforts turned up nothing out of the ordinary.

  "We will hold here for now," Frost said, "and observe." But the instant he looked down again he saw something he did not expect. The carefully constructed images that strode beside the mule were fading, then were suddenly gone.

  "Not you?" Sharryl asked, eyeing the event suspiciously along with Rosivok.

  "No," Frost confirmed.

  "What then?" Rosivok asked, a question simply put, in the event that plans had changed.

  Frost allowed himself a hard frown while he considered his reply. To be able so easily to counter such an illusion meant his opponent had somehow anticipated both the spell's specific nature and Frost's means of accomplishing it. "I must assume he knows something of me and my ways."

  "Many do," Rosivok said.

  "I am known and acclaimed by bards and emulated by all manner of adepts in many lands," Frost said honestly. "Perhaps my fame has finally caught up with me."

  "You are quite famous," Cantor said. "I had no trouble learning all I wanted to know. Though just now I would like to know how worried I should be?"

  "Stay back and behind cover, and your worries will be small," Sharryl said.

  Frost rubbed his chin bemusedly with the top of his walking stick and watched the mule walk further on, all alone. He could sense the other sorcerer's presence with the proper effort now, and more faintly, the fading aura of the finely crafted spell he had used to so effortlessly dismantle Frost's careful work.

  "There, on the crest," Rosivok said. Frost looked up. Ahead of them on the far escarpment, a little more than a good arrow's throw away, the others had shown themselves.

  Frost recognized his opponent, even though the distance was too great to see the details of his features. Imadis had always worn black, one of the few sorcerers to do so because of the color's associative nature, the stigma of darkness. But Imadis had reveled in the fear his fashions inspired in common folk and lords alike. He was not a disciple of the darkness, and mortal through and through, but he was nonetheless quite capable. Some years older than Frost, he hailed from a land due north of the Kaya deserts where much of the year the snow and ice made the living unbearable for most—Frost included. Cold lands did not necessarily breed cold people, but Imadis, for all that Frost had seen, could never be held as evidence of that.

  "You know him?" Cantor asked.

  Frost glanced at him over his right shoulder, and found the merchant's eyes fixed on the figures ahead. It was not panic that he saw there, Cantor wasn't one for that, not yet at least, but Frost decided without another thought that this was a man who had known combat only in the telling.

  "I sense something familiar about him," Sharryl said, her voice charged, her body bobbing a bit in place.

  "As well you may," Frost said. "We met before in Tavershall, years ago."

  "An opportunist, if I recall," Sharryl said.

  "A scoundrel," Rosivok corrected.

  Frost nodded.

  "Not exactly old friends, then?" Cantor asked, his voice shaky but holding up, as he was.

  "Imadis likes to play many ends against the middle, and likes to use anyone available to realize his goals, no matter the cost," Frost answered him. "We have met twice before."

  He and Imadis had spent several days together in another town the year before, simply sharing bread, ale and conversation. Frost had found Imadis agreeable enough, though he seemed more mercenary that most.

  More recently they'd crossed paths in Tavershall where Frost had been commissioned to lend his resources to a local lord with a poisoned well, a problem that many in the city thought had something to do with a curse of some kind. An old woman known to be something of a hedge witch and, to her misfortune, a truly clumsy thief, had drowned in the well one night. Her body floated there for days before being hauled up and buried. Frost had arrived only to find Imadis already working on the problem, and claiming the fee.

  "The well will be pure again in a few days," Imadis promised. Frost had no doubt this would come to pass as promised, but he suspected it would have no matter what Imadis did. Then he discovered the truth.

  Frost had followed the poison to its source and found it to be a small spring at the edge of the city. Empty urns lay in the woods nearby, though the smell inside them told the tale. The well had indeed been poisoned—by Imadis himself. "Do you deny it?" Frost had demanded, after confronting the sorcerer privately and laying out his accusations.

  "It is true," Imadis had replied. "And what of it? I have been here, bored a
nd wasting in this town for weeks. I could not help but notice the opportunity recent events seemed to present. You don't strike me as the kind of fellow who would have done differently, had you but thought of it first."

  "Think what you will," Frost had said, then he'd walked straight into the town square and exposed the scheme. Imadis publicly denied everything, then left town under cover of darkness. Frost had seen or heard nothing of him since.

  "I recall there being no more than three or four men with him in Tavershall," Rosivok said.

  "That number has more than tripled," Sharryl said.

  "Yet nothing else has changed," Frost muttered.

  "There is no hope of negotiation?" Cantor asked, stolid, turning to Frost.

  "No," Frost said.

  Cantor wallowed hard. "What then?"

  "I am well prepared, but surprise will not be the advantage I had hoped for, and there is no time to reconsider. I will do what I can. My Subartans must meet those that survive."

  Frost turned to Sharryl and Rosivok. "I will stay here, you two go there," he pointed toward the low land between the two rises, "but be assured Imadis knows what he is about, and will have predicaments planned for us."

  Again, silent nods.

  "What of me?" Cantor asked.

  "Get back, and stay out of sight."

  Cantor nodded, and seemed to have no trouble at all finding a suitable spot to vanish into.

  Frost closed his eyes and tried to concentrate while his warriors left his side—itself a rare event—and set off down the rocks to meet their enemies.

  His first task was to diminish the soldiers' warding spells. Though this would require a bit of guesswork, since countermeasures relied most heavily on knowing precisely the type of spell one was to counter, and a great deal of effort, in this situation, would certainly be difficult to sustain. But three-to-one odds meant these soldiers had more to fear from magic than battle, and were likely protected in matched proportion, so Frost had prepared a spell designed to remove nothing at all.

  Instead, the spell he worked to finish now would use the energy of the soldiers' own warding spells to make them heavy—a burden of great, relentless weight, and one the attacking soldiers would be forced to drag with them into battle. Sluggish and struggling, they would be vulnerable. Rosivok and Sharryl would have to do the rest.

  As for the sorcerer himself, Frost had decided to rely on a variation of his oldest and most effective—if somewhat opprobrious—spells, one of the few he knew that might work against another adept. Though how well, or how quickly, he could not be sure. . . .

  Much depended on Imadis himself. Already Frost could feel the presence of the other's spell workings, a rarefied glimmer of sorcery in the air. Though strangely, nothing yet seemed directed at anyone or anything in particular. Frost waited, working his first spell near to completion while the soldiers all stood there on the next ridge, perhaps waiting for Frost to make a move. Perhaps, one Imadis could then counter.

  You will fail, he told Imadis, attempting to send his thoughts directly to the other, guessing Imadis would be listening.

  No . . .

  The answer came weak, but Frost took this as a sign of nothing. Imadis might not be as practiced as Frost at speaking in thoughts, or he might be trying to influence Frost's preparedness, encouraging overconfidence; which was something Frost had to admit he was occasionally prone to. Today, however, he would not succumb.

  Sharryl and Rosivok had crossed the low point between the two hills and were headed up the adjacent rocky slope now, approaching Imadis. The waiting troops enjoyed the double advantage of numbers and possession of the high ground even without Imadis' help. Frost could wait no longer. He finished the spell, and discovered at once that he had guessed entirely wrong.

  He found nothing to latch onto, to work with, to reshape or pervert. No warding spells were present at all. He had wasted precious time and energies and accomplished nothing.

  There . . . It was Imadis again, his thoughts somewhat clearer now, and most disquieting. Frost quelled his impulse for anger—no time for that, either.

  If they had no wardings they would pay the price, including Imadis. Bringing all his will and concentration to the effort, Frost abandoned his earlier work and quickly recited the phrases that would empower his single most effective spell. Next he added those few last words that would extend the spell's focus to all those who stood on the other ridge, then he added his binding phrase. A nearly impossible task, but Frost could attempt nothing less if—

  He felt the drain on his body immediately, the rapidly growing fatigue that made him feel as if he'd suddenly gone two days without sleep. But it felt good at first, the way all gainful exercise could make one feel, especially when the results could be easily measured. That would change.

  Frost kept focussing, continuing the effort, and waited for the inevitable graying of his targets, the withering, the dying that came from extreme and sudden age. A complex spell, so widely implemented, but he had used this one many times before and perfected its every nuance, making it versatile, yet entirely under his control.

  No, he heard Imadis say again in thought.

  He looked more closely from within and concentrated on the feel of the spell, the push of absorption combined with the gentle rebound that let him know his targets were being affected. He felt nothing, as though the spell was being deflected or altered somehow. Or redirected, he suddenly realized.

  Frost felt a cold foreboding grip his gut. If Imadis knew anything about Frost, he would know of the aging spell. Of course! He had devised some means of sidestepping it, was even now acting like a lightning rod, drawing Frost's efforts away from his men and around himself, then sending the energy off into earth or air. Frost wasn't sure how, but it was working. His best efforts were failing. Sharryl and Rosivok were rushing to their deaths.

  That, Frost vowed in silence, would not come to pass.

  He began to withdraw from the spell and gathered his wits about him. For all that was happening, Imadis seemed quite preoccupied. Frost held him hard in his gaze and waited for the visceral rejoinder that would mark the moment of contact, but the wait went on, his stare went unanswered. Which meant Imadis was lending his full concentration to that irksome tangle of sorcery he was using to protect his soldiers from Frost's assault. Or he was working on other magics as well, and combined, they had taxed him to his limits.

  Warding spells were the simplest of all and Frost had perfected a number of them over the years; the one he wore at this very moment, for instance. Properly enhanced, a warding spell could reflect an assault from any direction. Which offered a possibility.

  Frost let the aging spell go completely. He took a breath, then spat out the single phrase that would transfer his own warding spell to Imadis. A gift of sorts. He owed Imadis that much at least.

  The effect was immediate. Imadis howled loudly enough to carry across the ravine between them, then he spun halfway around, shaking his head, flailing his arms about as if insects were swarming after him. Whatever he'd been using to reroute Frost's spells, it had flashed back and bitten him like a rabid dog.

  "Now!" Frost said, clearly and loudly, "I continue." He returned to the aging spell, though this time he aimed it only at Imadis' soldiers, concentrating on the nearest of them first. Cut off from their master's protections, the desired effects began to appear.

  The soldiers had stood fast, waiting for their two hapless adversaries to reach them at the top of the ridge so they could cut them down at their leisure. Frost concentrated on his spell, feeding it with measured precision from his considerable body stores. The soldiers' postures began to arch forward. The hair that poked out from underneath their short, wide-rimmed helmets was clearly turning white, especially on the nearest of them. Frost did not allow himself even a smile as he glanced up, but he felt a certain satisfaction well up inside him.

  The feeling vanished as his displaced warding spell dissolved. Frost fought to hold the spell's
energy intact, working two spells at once, but it was already too late for that. No form or function remained, only his own great exertion, and all of that being wasted.

  With a shudder, Frost let the effort die. The soldiers had already grown older and diminished, some more than others, but none had been vanquished.

  Rosivok and Sharryl, each with their subartas lashed to their right arms and a short sword in the other hand, reached the ridge an instant later and struck the first blows. Frost watched Rosivok slice a man nearly in half, then Sharryl felled a second and a third, then Rosivok another. But as Frost watched he found reason for fresh concern. The soldiers that fell kept moving, rolling about in pain, long after they should have lain still. Then one of them gathered himself and rose again, first to one knee, then one foot, until he stood up once more, ready to take up the fight again. Frost could see blood on the soldier's armor, evidence of his wound, but not nearly enough.

  Another spell! Frost felt exasperation clawing at his throat, his wits. Imadis wasn't so talented when they'd last met. He had been practicing and apparently studying Frost with devotion. Flattering on the one hand, though quite inconvenient at the moment. Imadis had anticipated Frost's every move, or nearly so.

  The two Subartans were heavily engaged, fighting with all their skills and strengths, yet each blow proved only temporary. Imadis' men could be wounded, but they would not die. The ones least affected by Frost's aging spell were at the fore now, forcing Sharryl and Rosivok back down the steep rock face while the others began to form a semicircle around the warriors. Frost saw Sharryl flinch as she took a sharp blow to the leather-shielded calf of her left leg. She rallied with a fierce, rapid combination—first the subarta, then the sword—and Frost saw her nearest opponent's left leg come off cleanly just above the knee. The man fell in a heap, screaming at the sky and rolling, hands gripping at the stump. The bleeding seemed to stop quickly enough, but the soldier stayed down, the fight gone out of him.