More than a Wizard

by M. Lee Madder

  “I can’t believe—.” Enstigorr’s raven croaked in her memory.

  “Aye, day and night and day. You’re drawing them somehow. We can expect another attack tonight. We need shelter.”

  “But why?” She stuck her arms out. “I’m not marked.”

  “You have to be. Think back. That guard had a good grip on you. Did he fasten something on your arm? Some kind of sigil? Black and cold as ice?”

  Until Sverr described it, the memory was lost to her. Yet she saw the guard. He’d had something in his palm. She’d seen only its blackness. Her fear had focused on the spell-cords. But she remembered how he’d clapped one hand on her forearm, the ice that invaded her afterwards. She remembered glancing at her arm before her attention jerked away. “A sorcerer’s sigil.” She ran her fingers over the spot but felt nothing.

  “You remember, then?”

  “Aye. If these animal attacks are connected to the sigil, how would the guards have kept them off? I would have still been bound with the cords. Surely Enstigorr would not have risked such attacks with his guards bringing me back to him.”

  “Some kind of counterseal. As long as you were in proximity to it, the sorcery wouldn’t draw these attacks.” He flicked her cheek then grasped her elbow and walked her to the gelding. “This changes my plan. We can’t go straight into Hardraste’s dungeons, not with Enstigorr’s sigil on you. He’ll turn it against us. We’ll have to go to Mannemous.”

  “Where?”

  “Not where, who. Mannemous. A friend. Well, not a friend, but not an enemy either.” He grinned as he tied the blanket behind her saddle. “Oh, he’ll have fun with you.”

  “Don’t play mind games, Sverr. Is this Mannemous a wizard?”

  His grin didn’t diminish as he cupped his hands to help her mount. “Wizard. Bane witch, some say. Brom didn’t know if he were friend or foe, only that he hates anything to do with Hardraste. After talking to Mannemous, Brom went on to Ornestreigon while he sent me south, to Threinorr Keep.”

  Someday she would learn the reason that the brothers had come into the Great Vale. “Can we trust this Mannemous?”

  “We’ll have to.” He threw her up then guided her foot into the stirrup. His hand wandered along her thigh under the pretense of tugging her skirt into place.

  Corrie shoved his hand and jerked her skirt down. “Stop thinking about getting under my skirt.”

  “I like what’s under your skirt, Lyse Oyne.”

  She rolled her eyes. “So, we’re seeking shelter. Will we get there before dark?”

  “A little after.” Still cheerful, he mounted and pulled Smoke around. “An hour’s ride, maybe a little more. Farmsteaders. They might remember me. I stayed with them on my way to Threinorr. Paid them for their hospitality. Ready?”

  Corrie nodded. Fat Goose started at his usual plod, but the gelding didn’t need to be kicked to break into a canter to keep up with Smoke.

  . ~ . ~ . ~ .

  The collapsed sod house looked like a broken barrow.

  A few wooden braces stuck out of the crumpled sod. The central dome had caved in. Nearby stood the blackened stone foundation of a large outbuilding. Some charred timbers remained standing, but most of the planks had been wholly consumed or broken when they fell into the conflagration that destroyed it.

  Corrie stared at the burnt-out barn. Farmsteaders near the steppe lived in sod but built stone and wood for their animals. Neither structure had saved whoever had claimed this land for farming.

  Sverr walked back to her. His eyes caught the moon’s silver in the twilight. Fat Goose shifted under her and flicked his tail. Smoke stood still, head lifted, sniffing the wind, sniffing old smoke and fear.

  “Can you tell what happened?”

  “Raiders, at a guess. Ground’s churned by many horses. No wheeltracks. If any survived, they escaped on foot.”

  “How long ago?”

  “A moon ago, maybe more. Not long after I stayed with them. Steppe doesn’t get much rain. I think only the wind’s disturbed the ground.”

  “Will we stay?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. Full dark would descend soon, and the moon was far from full. He looked over the destruction then all around them before stubbing his boot-toe in the ground. “Can you set wards, Corrie? Over how large an area?”

  “It helps if I work with a set boundary.”

  “The corral’s mostly standing. I’d rather be by the barn than the house.”

  Corrie didn’t ask his reason. The caved-in sod house spooked her. Wights lived in barrows. Fire’s destruction was clean.

  “I’ll gather dried grasses for the horses. Can you get a fire up before you set the wards?”

  She nodded at this re-division of labor and prodded Fat Goose toward the ruined corral. Sverr’s stallion followed her then nosed her hair while she tied the gelding to one of the standing fence posts near the trough—still holding water, she was glad to see.

  She didn’t unsaddle the horses; Sverr could do that after she closed the wards. Nor did she dig in his pack for the flint. She had learned to spark fire a decade ago. The problem would be sufficient tender to keep it going while she built the wards. The barn timbers she should reserve for the overnight. The clear sky already twinkling with stars promised a heavy frost by dawn. She headed for the sod house.

  Up close, the damage appeared to have come from inside the structure. Had something ripped out the supporting framework? Had a giant hand pierced the central dome and clawed the roof in on itself?

  The caved-in house disturbed her. She stayed on the edge, not wanting to step on any part of the tumbled walls or roof, not even for splinters for kindling. She didn’t smell death, but the hairs on her nape lifted when she touched the broken clods scattered around the foundation. Three feet of stonework remained to mark the hearth. The gaping hole for the doors front and back seemed like a vacuum waiting to suck her in.

  When she hauled back splintered wood, Sverr had dumped two sheaves of dried grass by the horses. He headed back into the falling dusk for more. “We need that fire,” he said as he passed her.

  “I know,” she huffed. “It needs to keep burning while I set the wards.”

  He caught her shoulders and stopped her. “Sorry. I know you know. I’m glad you’re thinking ahead. But—.” He looked at the darkening land. “Has your arm been itching?”

  “No. Have you seen something? Heard something?”

  “I feel like we’re being watched.”

  Her quiet “me, too” drew his gaze back to her. He squeezed her shoulder, then he strode into the dark. She saw the glint of his long dagger in the fading light. Using it like a scythe would dull the blade.

  A cold wind swept its hand across her face, lifted her hair, blew her skirts around her legs. Smoke lifted his head. His muzzle glinted whitely, dripping. His ears flicked. Then he dipped back to the trough. Fat Goose shifted a step but kept his nose buried in the water. Stupid horse. She shivered and headed for the spot she’d picked for the fire.

  Full dark had fallen when she began to build the ward. The blaze lit her way. She started along the corral railing undamaged by the raiders and worked its outer perimeter. The conflagration that had consumed the barn had eaten about ten feet of the fence on both sides, but she had a line to follow and didn’t falter.

  The power arced between her hands, crackling in the cold air. She felt her hair lifting with the energy running through her, pouring through her veins, skimming along her sinews, rich and deep and exalted with the god’s gift. She could have danced with the joy of wielding the power that she had denied herself for so long, the power that Enstigorr had tried to deny her.

  The wards etched lines in the air and in the soil, limned golden with magic, edged with bronze and ripples of crimson, protection and defense together.

  She walked inside the ward line. The shield rose behind her, building, firming as she worked around the barn. She didn’t look back to check it; she could feel the shield m
elding step by step. She didn’t look to see if Sverr had returned; time enough for that as she neared the horses. She concentrated on the ward. The wolf, the rooks: what worse thing could Enstigorr send?

  She reached the barn’s corner and turned. The ward cast a golden glow ahead of her. The firelight created flickering shadows from the standing beams, jerkily moving like a disjointed doll.

  And claws scrabbled on the rock of the barn’s foundation.

  Fear iced Corrie. She stopped and tried to see what hid against the barn, waiting for her.

  But if Enstigorr had sent it, then her arm would be clawing for attention.

  Yet some thing had brought down that sod roof.

  She could see nothing ahead of her. Not a sorcered animal, she reassured herself. The embedded sigil would warn her. Not evil or poisoned magic; it would have triggered the wards behind her. Had someone survived the raiders and crept back here for protection?

  She stepped forward.

  Movement flashed ahead of the ward’s glow, into the firelight, then it was gone. Dust-colored. Lean. Low to the ground and fast, so fast.

  Corrie nearly laughed with relief. Hare. One of the large steppe hares, as terrified of her as she was of it.

  An owl hooted in the distant wood. Stars twinkled overhead. The steppe wind blew past her, briefly giving rhythm to the barn’s shadows. And she continued building the ward.

  The lifted hairs on her nape cautioned her that danger still lurked.

  Sverr was using a handful of gathered grass to rub down Smoke. Her eyes lifted to him as she finished her circuit. He paused to watch her before moving on to the gelding.

  She tied off the last sigil, felt the ward close like a fortress wall, and her shoulders sagged. Warding did not consume power; it sapped concentration. Her head ached. That would ease, she knew, but in these first seconds she didn’t exult in the power that had drained her.

  She didn’t know how long she stood, head lifted to the stars but eyes closed, the energy of the ward still crackling in her hair. Her hands shook. She twisted them into her skirt. She just breathed, listened, waited, hoped the frisson of wariness would dissipate.

  Sverr touched her. She jumped. Opening her eyes, she looked round at him. The fire’s glow burnished him. His hand slid down her arm. He twined his fingers with hers.

  “Easy, Lyse Oyne. Was it that hard?”

  “A long spell. I’m out of practice. I just warded my pallet when I stayed at taverns. I wanted to be safe, but I didn’t want to attract attention.” She gave a lopsided smile. “No telling who you’ll come across in taverns.”

  He grinned then, still holding her hand, drew her over to the fire.

  He’d been busy with more than the horses while she finished the ward. Their blankets rolled out beside the fire. Journey bread and nuts and dried fruit and jerk lay on a cloth beside the pallet. Coffee steeped in the tin cup.

  “A feast,” she said. She settled against the barn’s stone foundation. She draped his cloak over her legs, hoping to warm up faster.

  “We’ve enough for morning. I’d hoped to restock here. We’ll have to do it at the next farm.” He handed her the coffee.

  She inhaled the fragrant steep and took a cautious sip. “How far to this Mannemous?”

  “Day after tomorrow. And hope he’s there.”

  “What’s he like, this wizard of yours?”

  “First off, he’ll tell you he’s a bane witch, not a wizard. He’s cagey and old with it. I reckon when you live that long fighting suspicion or people trying to bind you to their will, you greet every stranger with distrust. He liked Brom. He didn’t like me. Said I wasn’t honest enough.”

  She sputtered dry journey bread. She brushed away crumbs and looked up to see Sverr’s crestfallen face. She tried for tact. “You have a tendency to reveal only snippets.”

  “Pot and kettle, Lyse Oyne.”

  She rolled her eyes at that old adage. Sverr was right; she kept back a lot, and she still didn’t intend to bare her whole life.

  He continued his description of the old bane witch until Corrie could see him standing in her mind: gnarled hand on a gnarled walking stick, green eyed and white maned but clean-shaven, an aberration when most men sported an array of moustaches and beards.

  Except for Sverr. She liked the clean line of his jaw, even with a second day’s growth scruffing his cheeks and chin. Corrie looked away before he caught her staring. The late afternoon’s activities were too tempting. He flirted too easily. She needed to remember that he didn’t talk beyond freeing his brother. He desired her, but did he want her for more than a tumble and a means to enter Hardraste’s dungeons?

  A whetstone sliding over steel drew back her attention. Sverr had drawn sword, long dagger, and his knives, his nightly chore to prepare his weapons. Corrie watched him work. She didn’t know what drew her eyes back to the sod house.

  “Corrie. Lyse Oyne. Look at me.” The insistent voice finally caught her. “You’re wandering a far path, sweetling. What are you thinking about?”

  She stared at the destroyed dwelling, a barely lit mount against the flatness of the steppe behind it. “I hope the family escaped the raiders.”

  “So do I, but that’s not what you’re thinking, Lyse Oyne. Tell me.”

  Wariness iced down her spine then faded into warmth. “The roof collapsed from inside. As if a large hand reached up and tore it down upon itself.”

  He didn’t answer immediately. “Strange, for certain. But that thing would have to crawl through the sod to get out. I didn’t see signs of that. Just caved in.”

  “I don’t see it either. I think it, though. I can’t stop thinking it. I didn’t like being next to it when I was gathering wood.”

  “Sorcery or evil? Neither? What, then?” When she didn’t—couldn’t answer, he shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense, Corrie.”

  “I know.” To stop his questions, she shook the cloth that had been the platter and folded it neatly. “Should I get water from the trough?”

  “No. I filled the waterskin from the stream over there.”

  “We’re going to get diseased, drinking water from here and yon, Norther.”

  “Waterskin’s got a spell on it, Souther. Brom did it. Whatever goes in comes out pure as spring water.” He watched as she prepared to lie down on the pallet he’d rolled out. “You get fireside. Feet to the wall, Lyse Oyne.”

  She scooted over. His weapons went above their heads, then he settled behind her. His heat crowded into her. Why hadn’t she tucked against him earlier? She had shivered since the energy from the warding had dissipated.

  He rocked his hips against her. Oh. That was the reason.

  “Too sore?”

  Somebody has to have sense, she reminded herself. “Probably.” Yet when he scooped under her hip and lifted, she obligingly turned over.

  They kissed. Slow, dreamy. Wet, heated. Deep, intense. He drew back and gulped huge breaths of the cold night air. “Give me your hand. We’ll have a different lesson.”

  Remembering how she’d come apart from his hand, she let him guide her to his groin. “We should sleep,” she murmured as he jerked the laces of his breeches.

  “This will help us sleep.”

  “This is not about sleep,” she protested even as she massaged him.

  “I’ll take care of you, Lyse Oyne, but you need to take the edge off. Otherwise, I’ll ride you all night.”

  So Corrie learned the grip and motion he wanted from her. She learned about muscle and friction, silk over steel. The fire at her back wasn’t as hot as the fire she generated in his body. She learned what made him groan and what wrung guttural pleasure from his throat. He grew in her hand, size and strength and force, thickening, thrusting, until she wanted to forget all about her soreness and guide him into her weeping core. And when he came, pumping into her hand, she learned the scent of his stream and then the taste of it when he lifted her hand to her mouth.

  Watching her tongue lick up h
is stream, he groaned. “Corrie, sweetling, you’re not helping take the edge off.”

  “Sorry,” she said, unrepentant. His head dropped to nestle between her neck and shoulder. Is this me? Eager. Wanton. No wonder Freithe had forbidden her walking out with any young men. Her studies would have been chucked aside; her discipline, scattered to the four winds. This could consume her.

  He had rucked her skirt to her thighs while she thought he rested against her, exhausted by his spilling. He touched her thighs, his fingers searching, probing, teasing.

  “Sverr,” she cautioned.

  His head lifted. The fire gave amber to his normally icy eyes. He looked like a feral wolf from the mountains. “Corrie,” he said as he rolled her to her back. His hand insinuated between her thighs. She remembered the afternoon’s delightful lesson and obligingly opened wider. He chuckled then watched his hand explore.

  Sverr knew where to touch, how to touch, how to alter his touch. Movement, pressure, speed. Pleasuring him had slicked her. His fingers increased that slickness until she groaned in her turn, until she lifted her hips, needy, needing. “Sverr,” she moaned.

  “Corrie, sweetling, look at me. I want to see your eyes. Look.” He used his fingers until the stars burst in her eyes.

  She melted on the pallet as he restored her skirts and drew the cloak and a blanket over them. He leaned over her and chucked another broken timber on the fire, and she inhaled his strength and his weight and wanted—more. But riding Fat Goose already had her sore, and the sex this afternoon had created soreness where she’d never thought about being sore.

  She wanted him, though. She wanted his thrusts in her hand to be thrusts into her body. She wanted to feel that size and strength and force within her.

  Sverr settled back beside her. Corrie sank into sleep with regrets cascading through her.

  Chapter 7

  Think you to escape me?

  Enstigorr. Corrie struggled to say his name. Say it thrice, and she’d have some power over her will. But he’d gagged her. He always gagged her. He knew more than she, had always known more, had never let her get a single half-inch of her own volition.