More than a Wizard

by M. Lee Madder

  Rolling hills had sheltered the pocket meadow. As soon as the horses climbed out of it, the steady steppe wind struck. Corrie wanted her coat, threadbare though it was, but it had burned up with the tavern. She said nothing to Sverr. They had not ridden far when he noticed her shivering.

  “Where’s your cloak?”

  “In ashes.”

  He towed on the long lead rein to bring the gelding beside his horse. Then he unwrapped his cloak. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I thought I was supposed to look miserable.”

  “There’s miserable, and there’s frozen.” He spun the cloak around her then tucked it into place, under her arms, under her thighs, under her buttocks. He took his time.

  “Don’t enjoy it so much,” she finally snapped.

  That grin came back. “We’ll get you a cloak first opportunity.”

  “I don’t want to owe you anything.”

  “By my count, you already owe me one life. Maybe two.” He laughed when she glared.

  But his cloak was warm. She seized the chance to ask one of the many questions spinning around her head. “Sverr, how do you know about spell-binding cords?”

  “Don’t know how, just do. Don’t know any wizards but you.”

  “I’m not a wizard.”

  “You told those guards you weren’t a witch. You have to be something. Throwing power to blaze up a fire from nothing, that means you’re more than a witch. Wizard fits best.”

  “But—if you don’t know any wizards—how do you know about the cords?” He shrugged. She persisted. “You’re a Norther. I thought wizards were all through the Norther Mountains.”

  “Wish they were. It’s a useful rumor.”

  “Useful?”

  “Cuts down on invasions.”

  “Oh. Will you ever take these cords off?”

  “When you learn. Might be useful for traveling, the way your eyes flare up. That’s something else you need to learn.”

  “I can’t control the power reflecting in my eyes. No one can.”

  “No one can that you know.”

  “How do you know when you don’t know any wizards?”

  But he refused to share that answer. He checked her hold on the reins, gave an appreciative glance at her bared calf, then scanned the horizon. That done, he spurred his horse to a canter. The two horses on lead rein followed, their tails flicking.

  Corrie jounced as the gelding matched the charger’s pace.

  Chapter 3

  Sverr didn’t return to the road. Corrie bit her tongue rather than question him. After a while, the horses dropped back to a walk. The steadiness of the pace and the slow crossing of the land lulled her into a reverie.

  The gelding had stopped for several moments before she came out of her thoughts. She blinked. Everything looked the same. The steppe stretched toward the distant foothills. A stream of smoke identified a remote farmhouse.

  “Asleep?” Sverr asked.

  “Thinking. I don’t suppose wielding magick with your toes is practical.”

  “You’d burn up a lot of boots.” His grin widened. “You’d have to keep your skirts lifted.”

  “Which you would enjoy.”

  “Oh, aye.”

  She looked around but saw no reason to stop. “Time to walk?” she hazarded.

  “Time to walk,” he confirmed. As he swung down, she untucked his cloak, good cloth and not threadbare like hers, burned up with Pagsey’s inn. Another piece to put into the puzzle that was Sverr. While his hands were full of cloak, she swung down. Somehow she got tangled. He caught her and bundled her close with the cloak. He lifted her then pulled her foot free of the stirrup and lowered her to the ground.

  She stood blinking, her thoughts still tangled, while he wrapped her into the cloak again. Then he picked up her bound hands and fastened them on the cloak so it wouldn’t fall off.

  He started off with long strides. The horses followed, bobbing their heads. She stumbled after.

  He kept escaping her view of him. He set that long-legged pace and never once looked to see if she kept up. She did. After ten hills, she decided she didn’t hate him, just some of the things he did. Binding her with the spell cords. Saying things just to get a rise out of her. Staring at her legs. But he hadn’t taken advantage. And he hadn’t laughed at her when she tangled up her dismount.

  “When will you take the cords off?”

  Sverr looked around then slowed to let her come beside him. “Back to that, are you?”

  “If you need a witch’s help, this is not the way to get it. Or are you going to take me to Hardraste and collect the bounty?”

  “Are you admitting you’re a witch now?”

  “I’m not a witch.”

  “Are you admitting the guards didn’t lie when they said you’d escaped Hardraste’s dungeons and Enstigorr’s blood-black spells?”

  “You heard that?”

  “I heard more. The Prime Wizard used the last of your blood that he’d hoarded to work a spell to track you. I heard everything except your name.” He stopped and waited.

  Sverr’s horse nosed his hand, then his ears pricked. He looked up. An ear flicked forward.

  An antelope stepped daintily down the sloping hill to their left.

  The gelding nudged her spine. “Corrie,” she said finally.

  “I’m Sverr.”

  “So you said earlier. So the captain said last night. And also said you had killed the chancellor-regent of Ornestreigon. Even here we heard of that. An assassin who crept into the palace and killed the chancellor-regent in his bed.”

  “Not in his bed. In the bed of the Lord Chamberlain’s wife. Killed her, too, before she screamed for the guards. A shame. She was pretty, not a wild-haired hellion who doesn’t think.”

  When he described the deaths, no emotion gleamed in his ice-chip eyes. She shivered. Ignoring the comment about herself, Corrie demanded, “What are you? An assassin? A Norther assassin?”

  “It makes it worse that I’m a Norther?”

  “What do you want with me?”

  “I need a witch. A special kind of witch. A wizard would be better.”

  “Root witch, hedge witch, wood witch, marsh witch. I’m none of those.”

  “And you’re not a wizard.”

  “So I told you. I can work power—.”

  “That’s an understatement. I saw the magick you flung around, Corrie.”

  “I’m not a witch,” she protested. “I’m not a wizard.”

  “Maybe that’s what I should be hoping for.”

  She shook her head at his riddles then lifted her wrists.

  “No, Corrie. Don’t ask. Work it out.” He started walking again.

  She trudged behind, off to the side so she didn’t have to watch for horse droppings.

  Sverr kept to the hollows between the rolling hills. They climbed across only a few times, and each time he scanned the horizon in all directions. Watching for more troops. Five troops after him, she remembered. She recalled the swordfights. He had sliced through the soldiers’ defenses. He had assassinated Ornestreigon’s ruler—not the young king but the regent who held control. And the soldiers had tracked him into Miltreigon, Hardraste’s realm.

  He had stopped again. As she came up, he unhooked his waterskin. Corrie watched him drink, watched his throat apple work with each swallow. He wiped his mouth and handed the waterskin to her. She wet her mouth, wet her throat, took another swallow, then handed it back.

  Sverr shook his head. “Drink.”

  She didn’t tell the Norther that the steppe could be unforgiving. She lifted the waterskin and swallowed three more times. Then she handed it back.

  He shook his head at her. “Quench your thirst, Corrie. We’ll refill the skin at the next stream.”

  The steppe wind gusted down the slope. It brought dust and stems and leaves and whipped her hair around. She couldn’t hold the waterskin and drag her hair out of her eyes and mouth.

  He made
an impatient sound and pushed it back for her. “Who cut your hair? They did a hatchet job.”

  “One of the wizard’s. He used it for a spell.”

  His hands stilled. His right thumb tracked across her cheekbone. “Which one?”

  “Snossi.”

  “Boneweaver? He knows better.”

  His left hand dove inside his leather vest and came out with a strip of red silk that fluttered in the breeze, gentler now that the gust had passed. Ruthlessly, he raked her hair back. One hand clubbed it at her nape; the other caught the riband around it.

  She wanted to ask what Snossi should have known and then how Sverr knew Snossi should have known it. And how Sverr knew who Snossi was. She was so intent on keeping those questions back that something else popped out. “Your sweetheart won’t like your using her favor on me.”

  “My sweetheart?” He finished fussing behind her head. “I don’t have a sweetheart, Lyse Oyne.”

  “You go around collecting silk?”

  “Like a magpie. Brom used to laugh at what I dragged in.”

  “Who is Brom?”

  The light left his eyes, leaving them opaque, depthless. “My brother. He’s in Hardraste’s dungeons.”

  She gaped.

  His finger pressed her chin up, closing her mouth. He turned her to the gelding. She stumbled as he pulled the horse closer, but his grip on her arm steadied her. “Ready?”

  Having considered her earlier problem, Corrie clawed up her skirts. He grinned and obligingly gathered up the hem. Then he bent to give her a boost. And she realized the view he had. “Stop grinning, Sverr.”

  “Hard not to. Just . . . hard.”

  She didn’t want to know that. Intensely masculine, his appreciative attention melted the stoniness that had guarded her heart. She had to keep reminding herself that he had bound her with these cords.

  Corrie shoved her foot into his hands and grabbed the saddle ridge when he lifted her. She tried to jerk her skirts into place, but she gave up and accepted his help, even to his tucking the back of the skirt under her buttocks again.

  He stepped back. “Are you getting chafed?”

  “No.”

  “Corrie,” he warned, “don’t lie. You’ll be in trouble if you get rubbed raw.”

  Flushing with embarrassment, she amended her denial. “Not yet.”

  “You need trews. And a cloak.”

  His concern pricked tears. She fiddled with the reins and toughened her voice. “And where would we get these? We can’t go to a village. You can’t. I can’t.”

  “How did you manage to get so far west without being caught? With those eyes, they should have had you before a fortnight was up. When did you escape?” He mounted with an ease she envied.

  “Before summer.”

  Sverr pulled his horse even with hers. He again checked her hold on the reins, then gathered up the lead line. “How?” he asked again. “Your eyes reveal everything.” He prodded his horse forward.

  She shifted in the saddle. “I had no power to speak of in the first days. I used every bit of it to get us out.”

  “The guards said that the ones who escaped with you had been re-captured. How many?”

  “Four. We were six when we went in, but the cold of the dungeon took Beryl. Greiss died after; the cold had infected his lungs. I had to force them to run with me.”

  “Lost the will to run,” he said, as if he understood the sunless dank cells that had closed around them. “How did you keep your will?”

  “Enstigorr would not let the other wizards use me for spells, not after Snossi cut off my hair. He threatened the guards if they abused me.”

  “Did he punish the Bonewearer?”

  She nodded, but she willed the memory away. Enstigorr had forced the other wizards to watch the punishment. Chained against the wall, Corrie screwed her eyes shut during the screaming. She had felt drowned in the pain rolling off the wizard and the fear that enwrapped Raicha and Omonte.

  The Prime had awakened her by tapping her cheek. She drank the cordial he offered then retched when he said, “With ten spoons of Snossi’s blood. A lesson to them all. You are mine.” She had fainted again. When she woke the second time, this time in the dark cell, she wanted to kiss the very stones.

  As if her aversion rippled out of her, Sverr led her away from those memories. “So, you fled west. Why not east or south or north? Ah, but you wouldn’t go to Thulestreigon. Norther swine live there.” He looked to see if she smiled.

  She didn’t. The horses had achieved a hilltop. She looked along the flattening slope to the endless sweep of the steppe. With the elevation, she could see snow dusted in the farther areas. Running near the base of the hill was a meandering line of scrubby trees. How had he known the creek would be there?

  “Corrie? Why did you run to the west?”

  “It was away from Freithe, the hill witch who sent me into Cormbey, where I was taken. And away from what is left of my family in Lesser Creek. The foothills of Hollereste, on the edge of the Chenowith Marsh. No places you’d ever see on a map.”

  “Back hills girl. Wide-eyed in the towns, I bet.”

  She hunched her shoulders. “If you’re trying to get your brother out of Hardraste’s dungeons, why did you assassinate the chancellor-regent of Ornestreigon?”

  “He traded Brom to Hardraste. I raised the ransom he demanded, and he traded Brom the day I arrived in Verdeneth.” He sat rigid in his saddle. His gaze focused steadily on the land before them. “The chancellor-regent refused to see me for a week then let me turn over the ransom before he informed me that Hardraste had paid a higher ransom.”

  She could imagine those frustrating days, and his collapse of hope when the ruling regent informed him of the trade. “That’s when you met Captain Guilliame. During that week. And you’re not an assassin.”

  He turned his head stiffly toward her. “Am I less of a Norther swine now?” But his voice held no humor. And his eyes remained that lifeless opaque.

  “Somewhat less,” she conceded.

  He shifted, re-settled his shoulders, then kicked his horse into a gallop. The gelding lumbered faster, its pace evening out as it achieved the gallop. Corrie clung to her seat and trusted the horse wouldn’t fall or jounce her onto the hard ground. She now knew the reason he needed a witch, and it mitigated the cords he’d put on her. Somewhat. Shite.

  . ~ . ~ . ~ .

  The day passed into the afternoon, the sky remaining crystal blue, the radiant sun as unrelenting as summer. Sverr shared no more confidences, as if the openness she had weaseled out of him about his brother had set a trap on his tongue. They walked some to rest the horses, rode mostly, usually at a canter. With the sun at its zenith and the steppe wind nearly quiescent, he gave her dried jerk she had to gnaw to get any nourishment from.

  Brom’s situation would have won more sympathy if Sverr hadn’t bound her with the cords. He hadn’t recounted the reason Ornestreigon had imprisoned the Norther or the reason Hardraste had bought him. Was Brom a wizard? But Sverr had said very clearly that he knew no wizards. Hardraste had cells for magickal and political. No criminals; those he hanged immediately. Which was Brom: magickal or political?

  If magickal, Enstigorr had his claws into Sverr’s brother. Of the political prisoners she knew nothing. Either way, she wanted to help Brom—but the thought of those cold, damp cells sucked away her will. She feared the four sub-wizards, but Enstigorr terrified her. Such as she was would have only one chance to defeat the Prime Wizard. Suspecting that she was a bane witch, Enstigorr would not give her that chance.

  . ~ . ~ . ~ .

  They camped in the open.

  The land had flattened out as the afternoon progressed. The dirt became dryer; the trees fewer and fewer. As the sun descended, the birds flocked together to swoop and swirl in great masses against the aureal pink.

  Fascinated, Corrie watched until the last swirl. Her hilly birthplace afforded no chance for birds to use the sky from its vault to the g
round for the glory of massed flight. She’d seen small flocks, but never thousands upon thousands of birds wheeling and diving and whirling and chasing as if they flew as one thought.

  When the great flock separated and smaller groups hied off to distant cover, she realized twilight had deepened into night. Although the day’s light still embued the sky with purpling blue, darkness cloaked the steppe.

  And Sverr had drawn up the horses.

  She kicked free of the stirrups and kept a good grip on his cloak as she swung off the saddle. She wasn’t expecting her legs to be water. He caught her before she collapsed to the dirt then lifted her and carried her away from the horses before placing her on the stubbled ground.

  He knelt before her. His big hands cupped her calves and kneaded the muscles. It felt so good that Corrie moaned. Embarrassing herself, she tried to push his hands away.

  “Leave off, Lyse Oyne. You can’t reach, not with your hands bound like that.”

  “Yet another reason to take off the cords.” She spoke without heat. The massage felt so good, her eyelids fluttered down. Only to snap open when his hands slid up to her thighs. “Sverr!”

  The flash of his eyes and teeth were bright in the twilight darkness of his face. “You’ll thank me in the morning.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Don’t lie, Corrie.”

  She borrowed his pout.

  On the whuff of his laugh, the massage shifted to the outside of her thighs. He squeezed her flanks, pressed his knuckles into her flesh, and rubbed hard up and down. Then he shifted to the tops of her thighs and worked the muscles from her knees to her hips, her skirts sliding up until her shins and then her knees were bared.

  “The horses—.”

  “Smoke won’t stray unless he’s spooked, and the gelding won’t stray away from Smoke.”

  “A fire—.”

  “Not tonight, Lyse Oyne. You can see for miles out here.”

  It took a few moments to come up with another protest. “Morning will be a hard frost.”

  “Weather-wise, are you? Even through the cords?”

  “Farm-raised.” The massage was relaxing more than her cramped muscles. She wanted to drift to sleep. Then he began kneading her inner thighs. However good it felt, it also felt like a liberty she dared not allow. Corrie pushed his hands. “I can reach those muscles.”