“She burnt down Pagsey’s Tavern?”
“You heard she did it? And she poisoned some people. Her mentor, for one, because the hill witch had already informed the Prime that she was a danger,” he added, painting her blacker. “And there was a merchant, after she stole his money.”
“You know what Hardraste’s wizards will do to her?”
“No more than she deserves. Four dead by her poisons. Pagsey’s Tavern burned to the ground, and more people dead in that fire.”
The farmer spat. “She can stay in the barn with the animals. You’ll find a couple of empty stalls for your horses, near the door. You can have a pallet before the hearth.”
“I’ll stay with the witch. I have to protect my investment. Thank you for house-room.”
“Fair enough. You both can be in the barn—after supper. I want to talk to you over stew and bread. My daughter Herta can get her food.”
“Done,” Sverr said and dismounted. “I’ll see to our horses, make sure the witch won’t wander off, then I’ll knock on your door.”
“Don’t dawdle. We were sitting down to supper when we heard you coming in.”
The hound never got happy with them, and the tall daughter lingered in the doorway until Sverr led Fat Goose in behind Smoke. He didn’t unsaddle either horse, which surprised Corrie.
Their entrance to the barn disturbed the hens in their box roosts and woke the goat, which set up a plaintive bleat. Corrie spotted the horns of an ox at the far end of the barn. The big animal was strong and steady for a farm, working long after a horse would give out. No mules, but a donkey also stirred in its stall near the ox. A fat pig and her piglets, a cow and a fuzzy calf. This was a prosperous farm. Was the one last night as prosperous before the raiders came?
The farmer brought in a lantern and hung it on a hook off one of the main support beams. “Bring it to the house. Don’t leave it for the witch to make mischief with. Herta will bring out food in a bit. She’ll have a lantern with her.” He didn’t wait for a reply, just turned on his clogs and slopped heavily out of the barn. He left the door open.
Corrie had a sight-line to the sod house door. When it shut behind the farmer, she asked, “I’m a poisoner, too, am I?”
“It made a good tale. I told you: part lie, part truth.”
“What do you think he wants to talk about?”
“Any news I’ve heard. With luck, he’ll know who burned out the other farm. The family may have come here when they fled, but I would have expected them to stay, not move on. Don’t worry, Corrie. We’ve got shelter for the night, and we’ll get re-provisioned tonight.”
“`Re-provisioned`. You sound like a soldier.”
“I was one.”
That comment reminded Corrie how little she actually knew of this Norther swordsman. Yet his wizard brother was held in Hardraste’s dungeon, likely tortured by Enstigorr, and her worry was that Sverr had claimed she was a poisoner.
Feeling chastened, she slid down beside another support post. “You can tie me up here for appearance’s sake. So the witch won’t wander off.”
“Sorry about that,” but he didn’t look repentant. “As your gaoler, I wanted it clear that I needed to keep watch over you.”
“Except to eat a hot meal before a lovely fire.”
He crouched before her. “I’ll warm you up when I come back.”
“Sverr—.”
“Corrie.”
She thought about last night and yester afternoon. “Aye,” she breathed.
“Promise not to change your mind.”
“Why?”
His grin flashed, crinkling around his eyes. “You need to ask before agreeing, Lyse Oyne. You’re not going to like the way I tie you up.”
She didn’t like it. He left her hands in front but fastened her against the support beam. With her legs bent under her, the circulation to her feet would be cut off long before he came back. “I take back my promise,” she gritted.
“You can eat this way. If I hogtie you, you won’t be able to.”
“My feet are going to sleep already. I think my legs will, too.”
He pushed her hair out of her face. “When the daughter goes back after you eat, she’ll tell them how I tied you. I’ll be the evil gaoler, then.”
“Protecting them from the mad witch poisoner and arsonist.”
“Exactly. You can stretch up a little. Just make it look impossible when she’s here.”
“Don’t enjoy the farmer’s daughter too much.”
“Nyah. Too young. Too eager. No challenge in it.”
“I suppose you’ll toss me over when I’m no longer a challenge.”
“You’ll always be a challenge, Lyse Oyne.”
When Sverr shut the barn door, Corrie tested how much movement he’d left her. Her thighs burned when she lifted up, but the relief to her calves and ankles and feet was prickingly immediate. Without much effort, she should be able to wriggle to a standing position and eventually out of the rope.
The farmer’s daughter appeared with a lantern and a bowl of soup. The light was welcome, but the soup had lost its heat. The brown bread was stiff but perfect for sopping up the broth. And Herta wanted to untie Corrie so she could eat.
“I can manage,” Corrie said, pitching her voice not to disturb the animals.
“You shouldn’t be tied,” the girl fretted.
“Give me the bowl, and let me eat.”
“I’ll untie you a little bit.”
“There’s no little bit in untying me. What’s your name? Herta? Well, Herta, what happens if you untie me and Sverr comes back?”
“I’m not afraid of that Norther.”
“You should be afraid of me.” Stupid girl. Sverr was right. For all her height, Herta was still young, too young to consider the consequences of freeing a mad witch poisoner and arsonist. “I did do what Sverr said,” half-lie, half-truth.
“I don’t think you did. You don’t look like someone who would murder people. If you were, you would be desperate to have the rope and those cords off. But you’re trying to proect me. He must have the wrong person.”
“I did work at Pagsey’s Tavern. I did burn it down.”
“For a good reason, I warrant.”
Corrie guessed that saving Sverr’s life counted as a good reason.
The hens fluttered in their roosts.
“You don’t need to be afraid of that Norther. I’ll delay him till morning. You can get well away. Trust me. Or do you want to go to Hardraste to die?”
She didn’t want to go to Hardraste to die. She would stay with Sverr past Mannemous and the seal’s removal. If he took her to Hardraste, he would trade her for Brom. Enstigorr would exult to have her back.
Before yesternoon Corrie would have snatched Herta’s offer.
Brom remained a vague figure, but she could envision Raicha’s needles inserted into his flesh. She’d seen it. Raicha liked to torment the men, and after Enstigorr took what he needed, he often looked the other way for Raicha and Snossi and Omonte—until the end. The Prime always appeared for the end.
But since yesternoon she had committed herself to Sverr. Whether it was their budding relationship or the rooks’ attack or his reasoning about the attacks, she would help him free Brom. Dammit.
“No. Give me the bowl, then leave me alone. I’m not the witch he thinks I am. Hardraste’s wizards will know that. They’ll set me free.”
The girl’s mouth twisted. She sat back on her heels. “Then you still believe in justice?”
“I believe the gods work circumstances so that good will triumph. I thank you for your willingness to help me. Believe me when I say your help is not needed.”
The goat bleated, as if seconding her surety. The girl gave her a strange look as she handed over the bowl. “Are you sure?”
“Even if I were not, my escape would gain me nothing. The Norther is a good tracker. Like that mastiff of yours, he won’t let go. He would soon have me again—and he would punis
h me for escaping.”
Herta had no additional argument to make. Corrie sipped the cold soup and dipped in the bread to sop up the sodden vegetables. Hunger staved, she gave the bowl back and licked her fingers of the last crumbs while Herta returned to the sod house. She had left her lantern, an unexpected grace that kept back the darkness that would sap her will. Corrie rested her head against the wooden beam and closed her eyes.
Chapter 8
She woke with her legs cramping. The mastiff outside still barked. She wished it would stop. Then, as she roused more, she realized the other animals had also waked and stirred in their stalls. Yet they were strangely quiet, except for the snuffling of the fat sow and her piggies. Smoke tossed his head and shifted, stamping his feet while Fat Goose placidly looked at her.
The barking stopped with a squeal.
The sheep began to bleat. The chickens squawked. Only the larger animals remained quiet. Her eyes grew wide when she heard scratching along the rock foundation. Then the scratching hit the planks, tore into the wood. From several places. And a rattling growl, last night’s nightmare.
She had no ward to protect her now, Sverr was far away, and she was tied to a post.
Corrie started wriggling to straighten up even as she tried to count the different places where the barn planks were clawed. Two at the back, that was definite. One behind the sheep’s stall. Two—no, three near the barn door.
The milch cow joined the chorus. The ox began bleating. It tugged at its rope. Corrie eyed its horns as she straightened and began tugging at the rope binding her. If the ox charged out of his stall, one swipe of a horn would slice her open.
A man shouted. The three gobbers at the barn door abandoned the wood to turn toward easier flesh. A woman screamed. Someone else did, high-pitched. Oh, gods, the children? Corrie frantically tore at the knot binding her to the support beam.
And one of the gobbers discovered it could grab a plank edge and rip it off.
The barn became chaos. The sheep jumped the bales across their pen. The chickens flew from their roosts. The ox rammed its head against the planks, but the stout rope held.
Sverr’s knot didn’t. She nearly sprawled over a piglet when the rope loosened. The donkey nearly knocked her over. The binding cords confined her wrists, but power ran into her fingertips and arced like foxfire. Another plank screeched off its nails. Corrie scrambled over sheep, dodged the calf crying for its mother, and reached the vacated stall as a gobber squirmed its way through the opening.
She didn’t stop to examine the creature. She scorched it with power. It screamed and jerked back, but the narrow space between the boards trapped it. She scorched it again, full in the face. It swallowed fire instead of air. The horrible scream died. It hung limp in the opening, as effective a barrier as wood.
Another plank screeched off its nails. For dangerous seconds Corrie couldn’t locate where. Then she saw its long, maljointed arm reaching in, grabbing at the ox’s flailing tail. The animal jerked a last time at the rope. It gave just as the gobber grabbed the switch of tail. Corrie jumped to one side as the ox plowed out of the stall, half-hauling the gobber inside before the monster lost its grip. She scorched it. It screamed out as it twisted, caught between the planks. When the ox passed, Corrie hit the gobber with more power.
Somehow the gobber jerked free, but another arm reached in, just as the donkey shoved into her. Caught between the wood stall and the little animal, she tried to shove it away. It brayed at her, kicked out with both hooves, missing her by inches. She shoved again. The donkey stumbled away, into the milling sheep. It brayed as a hen landed on its back.
Corrie turned back to the gobber. It was gone. For one horrid second she thought it had gotten inside, then she saw misshapen fingers curling around another plank. The wood gave, and she had a full view of the steppe monster’s elongated snout and burning eyes.
Animals squealed behind her. She jerked around and saw another gobber in the midst of the sheep. One hand grappled a bloody piglet. The other stuffed something into its mouth. Beyond it, another gobber stumbled around the calf. Feathers stuck from its reddened snout. And another one climbed through an opening at the back of the barn.
Something grabbed her hair.
She jerked around and threw power. The gobber shrieked as foxfire hit its chest. She tore free and staggered back.
The gobber covered in feathers reached for her. She ducked and nearly fell over a squealing piggie. A hen flapped between her and the first gobber. The cow lumbered between her and Feathers. Smoke was neighing. She heard the hard drum of the stallion’s hooves. Was Fat Goose still placid with three—four—five gobbers in the barn?
She dodged the donkey and fetched up against the ladder to the loft. She saw the ox swing its head and blood spurt, and she stayed for no more. She scrambled up the ladder, tripping over her skirts, hampered by her bound hands, but reaching the loft with more speed than she would have made to the barn door where more gobbers waited.
Sverr’s cloak billowed around her. Corrie fought free then half-fell onto the piled hay, stiff and sweet-smelling. She scrambled around and peered over the loft’s edge.
Something had opened the barn door. The animals streamed into the darkness. She saw Smoke go with them, Fat Goose not far behind. The calf went, the donkey, a stream of sheep stumbling over the remaining piglets, even the ox deciding the night was safer than the torchlit barn. Three gobbers ran after them. Two remained. One still feasted on the piglet. The other put its hand on a ladder rung and looked up at her.
Corrie glanced at the straw surrounding her and remembered Pagsey’s Tavern. She’d lucked out so far, her power hitting the gobbers and not the hay and the wood.
Another gobber lumbered into view. It tried to take the piglet and got shoved off. It came to the ladder. It also looked up. She hoped they would fight, but then the second one put another hand on the rung.
Her stomach dropped. It would figure out how to climb. The act wasn’t far removed from scrambling over rocks. Oh gods, she thought—prayed. She looked around for something to throw. She stared at the open barn door and hoped for rescue. Then she looked back at the gobbers.
The second one had another hand on a rung. It lifted itself then sagged back. The third one shoved it and reached for the rung. A scuffle, too short. The third one won. It put both hands on a rung and lifted a foot.
Corrie ducked back. “Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods.”
She heard a grunt, a growl, a scuffling, and a gurgling, and looked over again.
Sverr slashed through the third’s gobber’s defense. One maljointed arm hung useless, blood running from the stump. It snarled and charged, and he swung again, opening up the chest. The monster staggered back and folded in on itself.
While the second gobber figured out how to lift from one rung to the next and the next.
The first gobber flung the remains of the piglet at Sverr. He dodged. The creature grabbed for something else—and got the oil lantern. It screamed as its flesh cooked on the hot glass and metal. The lantern fell and rolled, spilling oil and flame on the hay-strewn floor. The gobber ran from the fire, toward the opening blocked by the gobber Corrie had killed.
The second gobber climbed higher.
Corrie watched the fire speed across the barn floor and into the stalls, each with its own stock of hay.
Sverr hauled the dangling gobber off the ladder and let it drop. She stared wide-eyed as he climbed up to her. She hadn’t even seen him kill the monster. He reached the top, stepped onto the loft, and hauled her up. “Are you hurt? Bitten anywhere?”
“No,” she said shakily then repeated it, for he was running his hands over her arms and neck and back. “We have to get out of here.” He stepped onto the ladder. She stared at the flames rising below him and said inanely, “I didn’t want to burn the barn down.”
“Too late now—unless you can conjure up a rainstorm inside this barn.” He tugged the spell-binding cord off one of her wrists then stea
died her onto the ladder. The flames climbed the support posts and greedily licked into the loft.
“The gobbers?”
“Let’s worry about the fire first, sweetling.”
Down they went, dodging flying wicks and embers, burning in the intense heat, coughing as smoke filled the flaming barn. He hurried her out into the open air. The fire lit the corral. Animals crowded against the fence although some had streamed through broken rails and vanished into the night.
Sverr guided her out of the corral. Then he stopped and began checking her again.
“I’m not hurt,” she reminded him through chattering teeth. She couldn’t tell if she were cold or still scared or shocky.
“Bear with me. I aged ten years when that damned farmer tried to lock me in the house when the dog started barking.”
“What happened to the dog?”
“Eaten.”
“Oh.” He lifted her face up and wiped away tears she hadn’t realized had wet her cheeks. “The horses got away. I saw them.”
“Smoke will be back. Hopefully, that fool gelding will stick with him.”
“If you hadn’t come—.”
“I came. Stop shaking, Lyse Oyne.”
“I c-can’t. I didn’t want to burn down the barn.”
He hauled her into his arms. He felt solid, safe. Corrie soaked in his heat. “You didn’t burn it down. The gobbers did.”
“You killed them.”
He heard the words muttered into his chest. “Not all of them. Drove them off, for now.”
“The seal—it didn’t flare up before.”
“Not at all?”
Still pressed against him, Corrie shook her head.
“Come on,” he said. Her feet didn’t want to move. He half-lifted her to get her walking.
Sverr pounded on the door until the farmer opened it. The man’s bulk blocked the opening. He looked past them at the conflagration roaring in the night. “You burned my barn.”
“Gobbers turned over the lantern,” Sverr retorted. “The girl shouldn’t have let it behind.”
“The animals—.”
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