“Pity.” He lifted his hands but remained crouched over her.
“The horses,” she prompted.
“Aye.”
She took up the task as he walked back to the horses. When he was hobbling them, Corrie stole the opportunity to check the chafing that had progressed with the afternoon. The light had faded too much to see, but touch served to reassure her that her skin, while roughened, was far from becoming raw. She climbed to her feet and peered around.
“What are you looking for?”
“Sticks.”
“No fire, remember?” He dropped the saddles and blankets beside her.
With so little light, she wasted her grimace. “Not even a little fire?”
He took her wrists and pulled at the cord’s knots.
“This ‘no fire’ is the reason you kept handing me jerk all afternoon.”
“She learns.”
Corrie wanted to growl at him. Instead, she felt the cords loosening. Surprised, she looked down to see the first knot undone and Sverr working on the knot binding her left wrist. “You’ve decided to free me?”
He paused, but he didn’t look up to meet her gaze. “You can free yourself, anytime. Just discover how power moves through the cords.” He released her wrist only to slide the cord to a greater length and start re-knotting it. She tried to jerk her hand away. “No, no,” he said, as if she were a two-year-old getting into the coal pile. He pulled the first of the knots tight.
Tears spilled down her cheeks. Even with the greater length, she could not free herself from the spell-binding. No one powered could do that. Not witch. Not wizard. Hoping the darkness hid her weakness, Corrie tried to keep her breath even, her hands steady as he finished the third knot. She could not hold back the single word “why?”
Somehow he’d seen her tears. He wiped her cheeks with his thumbs. “I saw the way you were holding your shoulders and arms. This will give you more movement.”
“I thought you wanted me messy and miserable.”
He shrugged, movement she more sensed than saw. He resettled his cloak around her shoulders. “Stay wrapped up,” he advised. “The temperature will drop quickly now the sun’s down.” Then he picked up the saddles.
And she stumbled away, tears blinding her.
“Best to tend your business before full dark.”
“There’s not a handy bush,” she snapped.
“There’s not,” he agreed.
“Will you keep your back turned?”
“I should keep an eye out for dust snakes.”
Misery vanished. She stomped a straight line past him. His horse lifted his head then resumed cropping the sparse steppe grasses. She walked further, until in the failing light the grey charger looked like the smoke he’d named it.
The extended cord length did help. She wouldn’t have a problem at all if he’d take the cursed cord off. Keeping an eye on Smoke, she finished and headed back, following a straight line to the horses and then onward until she saw him.
Corrie managed to avoid stumbling over the saddles. As if he’d waited for her return, Sverr mutely headed into the darkness. She listened to the fading crunch of grass then sighed and picked up one of the horse blankets. After spreading it on the frozen ground, she crawled on her hands and knees to flick away any stones beneath it. The last thing she did was free her hair from Sverr’s silk and shake it loose. Then she lay down and drew the extra side of the blanket over her.
The bird chirps and calls died down. A distant ground-owl hooted. One even more distant answered. Far, far off a wolf howled, but no response came through the lonely dark. Stars flickered and grew brighter as night overwhelmed the last sunlight.
Sverr came back, a sure-footed finding that unerringly found the saddles. She heard him shake out his blanket. Then he stepped up behind her. Leather creaked. He placed something at her head, then another something. And then he jerked the blanket off her.
She bolted up as he knelt down. He was a black shadow against the night, and she realized he had smoothed her blanket down only a second before he dropped onto it. “I’m not sleeping beside you,” she said hotly.
“You’ll freeze. Hard frost, remember.”
He was right, curse him. Without a fire or any shelter, shared warmth was necessity.
Corrie lay down, her back to him. “Curse you.”
“I probably already am.”
She lay stiffly as he settled behind her. He shifted a little, got up to remove a stone, then dropped the other blanket over them both and lay down.
She shut her eyes and tried to still her mind. Apprenticed to Freithe, she had had to learn to shut off everything but the need to sleep. Noxious odors from brewing tonics or burnt herbs were the least of her problems. When first she’d gone to the hill witch, Freithe was as quick with her cane as she was with her tongue. In Hardraste’s dungeons, exhaustion had driven her into sleep. She dropped off whenever she sat or lay down.
Tonight her thoughts whirled with questions she hadn’t asked about his brother or his plans or with her repeated demands to be freed. His snippets about magick pointed to a wider knowledge than she had. Had he not bound her, she would have given in to the surges of trust that kept welling up. If he would just remove the cords—.
She wiggled, seeking a more comfortable position.
“Can’t sleep?”
She jerked. His even breathing had tricked her into believing he’d dropped into sleep. She bit her lip then asked, “You do know that you gave me enough length to choke you with the cord?”
“And who would untie you?”
“I could find someone. The steppe isn’t barren of folk.”
“You say that when we haven’t passed a single person all the day?”
“You saw the smoke trails, just as I did. You skirted ‘round the homesteads.”
“So I did. Not so ignorant, are you?”
If she answered that, she’d snap his head off. “There’s a light, way off over there. Flickering. Pretty far off, I think.”
He turned on his side, toward her, and half-lifted to look into the dark. She stared, unblinkingly, until he dropped back. “Campfire, back the way we came. Far behind us.”
“The reason we don’t have a fire? Following us?”
“Aye and nay. Whoever it is, I don’t think they know we’re ahead of them, but I also don’t want to attract any attention. I haven’t seen signs that we’re being followed, but that’s no guarantee. We certainly didn’t wipe out the troop. Guilliame survived. With the dawn he would have got on our trail. I didn’t try to hide it last night. He can’t use up his horses, not on the steppe, not without remounts. He’ll follow and hope to catch up to us or hear news that the political situation in Ornestreigon has changed.”
“It would have to, wouldn’t it, with the chancellor-regent dead?”
“Depends on who gets the nod from the young king.”
“Will he come so deep into Milstreigon with his country’s leadership in disarray?”
“I’m not talking politics in the middle of the night, Corrie.”
“Are you not worried about predators?” As if to reinforce her question, a wolf lifted its call to the starshine. It remained unanswered.
“I didn’t hobble Smoke. He’ll take on anything that thinks to attack the horses. And wolves avoid people. Go to sleep, Corrie.”
Chapter 4
She woke, furnace at her back, cold air at her front. Groggily, she stared into the dark and tried to piece the world together. A weight pinned her waist. She shifted, but the furnace didn’t move.
Sverr, she remembered, his arm over her, his heat keeping her from freezing, his breath feathering through her hair.
She caught herself scooting into the heat. Closing her eyes, she slipped back into sleep.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
She snapped awake, ice banishing sleep.
Pitch blackness cloaked her. She shivered with cold, but the ice that snaked her veins had nothing to do with the
dropped temperature.
Something gripped her forearm, her right hand trapped between. She twisted.
“Be still,” someone hissed in her ear, and fingers squeezed her arm harder.
Sverr. He lay stiffly against her back. His hand was what gripped her arm and trapped her hand. She blinked at the darkness. The distant fire had vanished. Cold starlight gave her shapes, a hillock on the horizon that she didn’t remember. Then the dried grass crunched, and the hillock moved. She could now see the flickering distant campfire. As she stared, two eldritch green coals looked at her, winked away, and came back.
The ice increased. And the grass crunched again. The eldritch eyes inched closer. The thing growled.
The hairs on her neck stood up. Wolf. “Sverr—.”
She realized he had released her arm even as he reached over her head. Something scuffled on the dirt. “Stay down,” he warned.
Corrie had a nightmare vision of the two of them, torn apart by a pack. Then the wolf growled again. And Sverr sprang into motion.
The wolf leaped.
Something scythed the air. The wolf yelped and fell back. The sword, she realized, or that long knife. Sverr was between her and the wolf. He stabbed out. The wolf snarled and scrambled aside. He shifted, staying between her and the wolf, while she cowered under the blankets. She knew better than to lift up. A fight with no light, more on sense than anything: her head could roll onto the dirt. A rush, a thrust. The wolf yelped again.
Hoofbeats thundered. The ghost white stallion rushed in. Sverr fell back as his horse attacked the wolf.
Hooves thudded on the frozen turf. Something scrabbled on the dirt. Something swished so close she felt the air of it and cowered even more. The horse’s harsh breath, the wolf snarling, a drum of sickening crunches, and silence. Then Sverr, talking softly to his horse, calming him.
She climbed to her feet, still clinging to the horse blanket he’d thrown over her when he sprang up. She could see very little. Too much, if that lumpy mass on the ground was the wolf’s remains. Several feet away and still too close.
He led the stallion to her, put the reins in her hands. “Going to get the gelding.”
She didn’t want him to leave. Necessity bit her tongue. Shuddering, Corrie buried her head in Smoke’s neck while the stallion stood placidly. It stamped its hooves once, and thinking how it had killed the wolf, Corrie was glad the darkness hid the blood.
Sverr came back with the gelding. He tugged the blanket from her and saddled both horses fast, but he didn’t throw her up. He took the reins in one hand, her arm in the other, and walked them out of the camp.
She stumbled several times. He steadied her. Ice no longer infected her veins, but she felt cold, so cold, and getting colder. Exhaustion robbed the wakefulness after the wolf’s attack. She clung to his cloak. They walked for what felt like hours before he stopped. He had kept the distant campfire on his left hand. It was only a glimmer of light now.
Corrie tripped again. He dragged her back to her feet. As she stood shivering, waiting for him to tow her along, he suddenly dropped her arm. He stepped away. She swayed and let her eyes drift shut. Not even the strike of a flint opened them. Only when he pulled his cloak from her slack grip did she come awake. Her fingers tightened.
“Let go.”
“What—?”
A tiny fire lit the night. “See if you can find more straw, sticks, anything for fuel.”
She went, stumbling, shivering, her teeth chattering, keeping the little fire in sight. She came back with useless fistsful of straw and twigs. He had hacked up dried turf. The fire smoldered when he added it. He took her useless fuel and fed it to increase the flames. Small as it was, the tiny fire cast back the shadows.
He stripped the horses, threw her the blankets, and re-hobbled the gelding. Yawning, she sorted the wool out near the fire. He came back, his sword and scabbard ready to be placed at the head of the blankets. The long knife also went above their heads. Then he dropped down beside her. “Show me your arms.”
“What?”
“You were clawing your arm while you slept. Show me.”
When she only gaped at him, he took her left arm and pushed up her sleeve. Reddened skin and long scratch marks showed where her nails had marked her through the cloth. And a dozen thin scars from Enstigorr’s knife gleamed whitely. Her other arm was more scarred; her back, her stomach, her breasts, all scarred.
He didn’t remark on the white scars, just said, “Nothing.”
Her brain was too sluggish. “What did you expect to see?”
“Sorcerer’s mark, to draw the wolf to us.”
The words cast her sleepiness into flight. “I don’t have a mark,” she said stolidly. Then she looked at her arm to be certain. No. Nothing.
“We’ll look again in the daylight.” He pushed her shoulder. “Lie down. We don’t need to waste what’s left of the night.”
She stared at him. Awake now, she remembered her fear, the clawing ice. “That wolf—. Its eyes—.”
“It’s dead now. Burned. I don’t think anything else will attack us tonight.”
She stuck on one word. “Burned?”
“You didn’t look back, did you? It burned after we left.” He lay on his side, facing her.
“But, Sverr, you didn’t set it on fire.”
“No. Sorcery would have. After it was dead. It’s common.”
Her brain worked slowly through his words. How could he know? “How do you know so much of magick?”
“Corrie, lie down.” When she just stared at him, he sat up and took her hands in his. “I don’t know anything of magick. I know about it, a little. Brom would laugh that you think I know anything at all.”
“He’s a witch? Or a wizard? That’s the reason Hardraste paid ransom for him? Is that the reason the chancellor-regent imprisoned him?”
“Aye and nay. I’ll explain tomorrow, not tonight. We need to sleep.”
At the promise of information, she acquiesced to his tugging and lay on her side, her back once more to him. He tucked against her, and she mutely welcomed his furnace against the dropping temperatures. Her mind, though, still raced. “What woke you? Did you hear the wolf?”
His arm draped over her, and he touched her left forearm. “You were clawing your arm. Hurting yourself and whimpering rather than waking up.
“Why didn’t the horses smell the wolf?”
“Corrie—.” He sighed and nestled closer, his arm curled to embrace her. “It had to have come in downwind of them.”
His heat was beginning to dissipate the cold that had seeped to her bones on the long walk to the new campsite. “You heard it?”
“Heard it. Saw it.”
She stiffened. “You can see in the dark.”
“A little. Not well. It’s not magick. Many Northers can. Compensation for the month-long darkness of deep winter, when the Ice Wolf chases away the Sun, and Brother Hart has to bring him back.”
She remembered those stories, though she’d not heard them since her childhood. Her uncle had had nightsight, she recalled, a long-forgotten snippet about her father’s brother. Tension left her body as she remembered Arne, his golden hair and sky-colored eyes. Tall as a tree to her young self. He would toss her in the air and spin her round and round until she was dizzy. And evenings, sitting before the hearth, he had told stories about Ice Wolf and Brother Hart, Father Sun and Mother Moon, the three Tree Sisters and gnarled Uncle Stone. The aunt—what was the aunt?
She sank into sleep before she remembered what the aunt was.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
“What was the aunt?” she asked as Sverr took her arm to look for Enstigorr’s mark.
“The aunt?”
“Brother Hart and the three Tree Sisters, Father Sun and Mother Moon, Uncle Stone.” She doggedly pursued her question. He looked rougher this morning, a blond stubble glinting on his face, not as thick as some men’s but too attractive for her eyes. And she had to look a wreck after a broken sl
eep and a long walk and her hair wild as a woodbine.
“You know those stories? The aunt is Running Water. And her daughter the Still Pool.” He pushed up her sleeve.
She could not bring herself to look and stared across the steppe. In the bright morning light the thin scars would shine like silver streaks, some barely a finger’s length, a few the span of her hand, one long and thin from wrist to elbow. She had hidden them since her escape. She trembled now as Sverr inhaled sharply when he saw them.
He traced the long one. “Enstigorr?”
Her gaze came back. “Enstigorr,” she confirmed bitterly.
He bent suddenly and pressed his mouth to that long scar. Tears pricked her lashes at the tenderness. Then he straightened. His mouth had a wry twist. He turned her arm to the strong sunlight, but beyond the remnant claw marks and old scars nothing could be seen.
“Nothing,” she said since he seemed reluctant to pronounce her free of any wizard’s mark.
“Nothing,” he agreed and rolled her sleeve back down. “Tell me, Lyse Oyne, how do you know about Brother Hart and the Tree Sisters?”
“My uncle Arne. He visited us when I was little. He told us stories.” Memory snared her, and she didn’t focus on Sverr’s trip to the fire. “He told how Little Brother Fox outwitted the brothers Rook and how the Tree Sisters protected the songbirds from the fowler’s net. Arne was so tall I thought he must have been one of the Tree Sisters’ sons. The last time he came, my father left with him.” She hesitated then added, “They never came back.”
He sipped the coffee then brought it to her. “Is that the reason you hate us Northers? One of us took your father away?”
She protected her hands from the cup’s heat and let the steam warm her cheeks. And she skated away from the question. “I don’t think I ever realized my father and Uncle Arne were Northers until just now. They were blond, only more sun-kissed than moon-iced. Blue-eyed like me. Mama and Gellins were dark, eyes and hair.”
More than a Wizard Page 5
