More than a Wizard

by M. Lee Madder

  “Got out, most of them, the ones that didn’t feed the gobbers. Some are still in the corral. You’ll have to round the others up come daylight. You going to leave us out here for the rest of the night?”

  Confronted, the man fell back. Sverr propelled her in then crowded behind her. He slammed the door and leaned against it.

  Corrie looked around the dim smoky room, lit only by the hearthfire. The wife sat in a chair, holding the little boy on her lap. His arm had a torn cloth around it. Blood seeped in a circle through the cloth. Bite mark, Corrie guessed. Herta stood in the deeper shadows, a younger sibling tucked behind her. The family looked as shocked as she felt, words lost to them in the horror they’d seen.

  “The cords are off the witch,” the farmer pointed out.

  “And staying off.” Sverr’s tone dammed any argument. “If it had been off, you wouldn’t have lost your barn. She could have fought them off.”

  “You told us she’s an arsonist and a poisoner, and you’re going to loose her on us without any protection?”

  “I told you she didn’t do it, Pa. She’s expecting Lord Hardraste’s wizards to clear her of blame. I told you.”

  “Shut up, Herta. She’s not sleeping in here with us without the cords on.”

  “Your barn wouldn’t have burned—.”

  “I heard you. You’re in here with her. Something happens, the gobbers come back again,” the children whimpered. The farmer glanced at them then turned back to Sverr and Corrie, “if something happens, you can take the cords off. I gotta protect my family. You can see that.”

  “That child needs healing,” Corrie ventured.

  “Not from you,” the farmer said stolidly. “Get the damned cords on her.”

  Sverr started to argue, but she turned and offered him her wrists.

  . ~ . ~ . ~ .

  She didn’t sleep.

  She hadn’t expected to. She had lain down in the center of the sod house room. The farmer sat in a chair by the fire, an axe across his knees. His wife and children had retreated to the little room behind the chimney, hidden by a quilt. Sverr lay down at her back, a blanket over them, another between them and the dirt floor.

  The little boy had snuffled a long time until exhaustion finally pulled him into sleep. She could hear no sounds from the three females. The farmer had taken longest, but gradually his chin dropped one time too many onto his chest as the god of dreams pulled him under. Only then had Sverr draped an arm over her waist. He squeezed her closer, and then even he fell into slumber.

  Corrie didn’t.

  She could feel it waiting. She didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t sleep either. It crouched. It waited.

  Not gobbers. She was certain of that. This presence had a primeval mind, but there was a cunning as well, a clever trickery, as if it smiled at their sleep and waited for the moment when they would all be relaxed.

  Corrie watched the shadows dancing on the door. When she closed her eyes, she could see that gobber staring up at her, hunger gleaming in its red eyes.

  And she remembered the piglet.

  The itching started so faintly that she might not have noticed if the presence hadn’t lifted its head. Satisfaction spilled through it.

  And Corrie sat straight up, dislodging Sverr’s arm.

  He came awake, warrior-swift. “What is it?”

  “We have to leave.” She didn’t whisper as he had, and her voice roused the farmer.

  “What is it?” Sverr asked again, buckling on his sword, checking his knives and dagger.

  “I don’t know. Something feral. Big. Already here. We can’t stay here.” Untangling his cloak, she scrambled to her feet.

  “What’s she on about?” the farmer groused.

  “Get your family up. Grab things to keep you warm. We have to get outside. Corrie?”

  “Hurry.”

  “The seal?”

  “Barely. I don’t want to wait.” As if talking of the seal triggered it, pain spiked in her left arm. She grabbed it and tried not to vomit. “Hurry,” she gasped.

  He threw the blanket around her, grabbed up his own, and dragged her for the door.

  The floor heaved up. Chunks of dirt sprayed onto the sod ceiling and peppered down on them. Screaming rang in her ears: the farmer, his family, the wooden supports twisting in their post holes.

  The hearth went next. The carefully laid stones were shoved up like a frost heave. Firehot, the stones cascaded into the dirt chunks. Then the hearth collapsed, and the chimney tumbled down, breaking at three places.

  And something laughed, deep, low, rumbling like distant thunder.

  Corrie scrambled up, Sverr steadying her. He’d drawn his sword, but she didn’t see how steel could fight whatever was demolishing the sod house from below. The farmer staggered to his feet, clutching the useless axe. He called out to his wife, his words lost in the heaving earth, the twisting wood—and the rumbling laugh, clearer and clearer as the house lost its shape.

  The door splintered off its hinges. Sverr dragged her backwards through it. Freezing air took her breath and burned her lungs. Ice pellets struck her face and hands. A giant hand reached up, the last hearth flames illuminating it against the steely night, great gnarled fingers curled into a claw. It grasped the roof and clawed it back into the ground. Someone screamed, high-pitched, agonized. Then the giant hand reached up again, grabbed more of the soddy roof.

  The screaming stopped. The ice kept falling. The hand reached up two more times, but its destruction was done.

  The seal on her arm faded to nothing.

  Sverr guided her back to the barn. Flames licked over timbers, but most of it merely hissed as the sleet cooled the heated posts and planks. She resisted when he tried to push her down beside the hot foundation.

  “No! That—that—.”

  “Ground-troll. Drogger. Gone. I promise you. Is the seal still reacting to it?”

  She dragged in another icy breath, deeper this time, more sustaining. She tore her gaze from the collapsed house and fastened upon him, on his icy eyes. So cold, like everything around her, like her. “No. It’s faded.”

  “You woke us in time.”

  “Not soon enough. They—.”

  “Like the other family.”

  “Aye. Was it—working with the gobbers?”

  “Maybe. It’s certainly the same result.”

  “Will the gobbers come back?”

  “I’ll keep watch, Corrie.”

  “No. You should sleep. You need to be alert.”

  “I can go on short rations. You sleep, Lyse Oyne. You’re shocked. Sleep will help.”

  She let him settle her against the stone foundation. He tucked the cloak in then wrapped both blankets around her. He dragged over the broken door and timbers from the barn and built a fire. Then he slid down beside her and leaned against her to share warmth. She draped a blanket over him and saw his smile, however drained.

  “I don’t want to sleep. I felt it, Sverr. That ground-troll. I didn’t know what it was. I felt it waiting.”

  “They have power, of sorts.”

  She rested her head against his arm. “I’ve never heard of them.”

  “We get them in Thule, sometimes. Ground trolls, cave trolls, droggers all.”

  “Stories.”

  “Real enough when you get into the hinterlands. Worst are the ice wolves. They don’t fear man, not like the droggers.”

  “I don’t think that ground-troll fears man.”

  “It fears us. We can track it with witches or dogs. A handful of men can kill it. So it hides and attacks by ambush, like tonight. Wards don’t stop it. Only power can.”

  “I could have killed it.”

  “Not unless it exposed itself, and it didn’t do that.” When she didn’t answer, he nudged her. “Did it, Corrie?”

  “No. It didn’t.”

  “Not your fault the family died.”

  They fell silent. Corrie buried her face in the blanket. She turned over
in her mind all the ways she could have helped the family. She turned over every way she could have stopped the gobbers’ attack and warned the farmer in time to save his family.

  “I should have said something when I first sensed that—that troll.”

  He seemed to divine what she meant. “To what purpose? Do you think that man would have listened?” Sverr draped an arm over her shoulders and tucked her closer. “The boy and Herta and his wife were bitten. Did you see?”

  “The boy’s arm, aye. Not the others.”

  “He wouldn’t let you heal them. They had two days, maybe three, before infection set in. Once gobber infection gets in the blood, death is quick. Not even our wizards know a cure.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better, Sverr.”

  “Not, but it’s the truth. You need to know that. You didn’t cause anything tonight, Corrie, and you couldn’t stop anything either. Hurts to hear, I know. Hard to accept. But truth.”

  She didn’t answer. She kept her face buried in the blanket and waited for dawn.

  Chapter 9

  Corrie felt hollowed out by the time dawn greyed the blackness and revealed an ice-coated landscape. Everything looked like the fragile crystal she’d once seen Enstigorr hold in his hands, a lovely confection that reflected the light and caught prisms in its edges. And he’d broken it then and used the shards to cut her arms. He’d cut his fingers on the crystal, too, and the blood he gathered in the copper basin had been theirs mingled.

  The memory shivered through her. She turned away from it when she heard a crunch across the ice. Sverr, returning with Smoke. Goose loitered behind. She sighed at the gelding. Poor horse, it couldn’t help its nature.

  He began to unsaddle Fat Goose. She watched unseeingly as he shook out the blanket then refolded it to sling back over the gelding. That roused her interest. She frowned as he settled the saddle back in place and began cinching it. “We’re not staying?”

  “Don’t think it’s wise.” He started on Smoke.

  “We didn’t get re-provisioned?”

  “No. I’m glad I decided to wait until I came back into the barn to unsaddle the horses. I would not have relished riding bareback.”

  She turned to the ruined sod house. “Should we offer a memorial?”

  “And say what? They were good people who let you be tied in a barn and didn’t offer to help you when the gobbers attacked.”

  “They were concerned for their little ones.”

  “The little boy only came out to see what happened to his dog.” He slung the saddle over Smoke and made quick work of the girth strap.

  His comment sounded callous, but he also pointed out how the farmer and his family had been callous to her. “They should be mourned.”

  “Family that comes this way can mourn them.” He came and turned her away from the soddy. He cupped her face. His hands felt hot against her chilled flesh. “Did you sleep at all?”

  “A little.”

  “Before the gobbers attacked and not at all after?”

  She looked over his shoulder at the burnt-out barn. Her eyes felt scratched raw. She was cold to her bones and shivering constantly.

  “Come.” He guided her to Goose. “When we stop, I’ll brew some coffee,” he tempted.

  . ~ . ~ . ~ .

  Sverr brewed coffee several times that day, and they huddled together at night. The cold rain that occasionally spit ice pellets made the ride miserable. The gelding’s heat kept her from shivering uncontrollably, but she wanted nothing more than to curl up by a fire. She couldn’t bring herself to chew the jerky that he pressed on her.

  Nothing bothered them that day, and with Corrie’s ward set, nothing bothered them that night. The next day dawned the same, rain and ice that soaked and froze everything. Ice rimed the plants and trees and gave the flat steppe a frozen beauty.

  She didn’t notice when he began following a meandering creek. The rain and ice pellets changed to floppy snowflakes that dusted the landscape very quickly then began laying a smothering blanket of beautiful snow. Corrie let Fat Goose have his head and sat huddled in her misery. When the horse stopped, she roused only with effort.

  Sverr was already at her side, pulling her down. Again he cupped her face. His thumbs touched beneath her eyes. “You look ill.”

  “I’m cold. Weary.” He ran his hands up her arms. “You checked me last night. I wasn’t bitten. Sverr,” she warned him when he crouched and reached for her skirt hem. “Don’t you dare lift my skirt. I wasn’t bitten.”

  “Is that a dare, Lyse Oyne?”

  “You don’t look so fresh and pretty yourself.”

  “That’s my Corrie.”

  “I’m not your Corrie.”

  “Keep arguing, sweetling. It will warm you up while I get a fire going.”

  “You gather the wood, and I’ll spark it.”

  He gave his first real grin since yester evening. “I’m glad you feel up to it.”

  Contrition struck her. “I’m not pulling my weight. I’m sorry.”

  “Corrie, Corrie.” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “I’ve pushed you hard in a handful of days, and you’ve fended off rooks and gobbers and survived a ground-troll. You’ll be your old self when you get some hot coffee in you—or me in you.”

  “Sverr.” She opened her eyes wide. “It’s too cold for that.”

  “Corrie, it will never be too cold.”

  “I’ll get frost-bit.”

  He just grinned. “Time to teach you to ride. Your bits will be covered.”

  “I can—oh.”

  He gave a shout of laughter as he turned to gather the wood—only to come back after two strides. He picked up her left arm and pushed up her sleeve to examine the area where the seal lay hidden under her flesh. “Has this bothered you this morning?”

  “Not since last night.”

  “I won’t be happy until Mannemous can remove it.”

  “How far is he?”

  “We’ll be there by mid-afternoon.”

  “Can you find your way in this snow?”

  He flicked her chilled cheek. “You forget, Lyse Oyne: I was raised in snow.”

  The dangling spell-cord bothered her, so she wrapped it several times around her left wrist, like one of the expensive bracelets women in cities wore, only theirs were flashy metal and hers was leather braided with wire.

  She had never discovered if the binding spell infused the metal or leather or both. She had stared at a similar cord for long hours last Spring. Then she had thought the binding spell negated all power, but twice now—with the rooks and the gobbers—she had worked spells past the cords. It didn’t void power; it blocked it. And somehow she had learned to work past the block. Enstigorr would not be pleased.

  Especially if he saw her corded, then she burnt him with power.

  “Why are you smiling? Not that I’m against it, but this one has a twist I don’t trust.”

  “We can trick Enstigorr. If I wear the cords when we confront him, he will think I can do nothing against him. And he will be so wrong.”

  “I would like to see his face when you blast him.”

  “You will see it. We’ll have to go into the cells to free your brother. And Enstigorr will be there.”

  “Here, spark the fire already, woman.”

  She had a merry little fire for when he returned with the tin cup and the precious coffee. They stood huddled together, stomping their feet, while the beans brewed.

  “Are all Northers like you? Knowing a lot about power?”

  “Me?” His icy eyes opened wide. “I don’t know about power.”

  “You know things I don’t know.”

  “I told you: I’m observant. I picked up a lot from Brom.”

  “I’m observant. I was even taught, but I didn’t know power ran in families or the ground-trolls could work power.”

  “What you don’t know is the fault of your teacher. When your magick first manifested, you should have gone to a good teacher
. I think they farmed you out as a dogs-body to those witches. When did it first manifest?”

  “With my woman’s curse. When does it manifest with boys?”

  “Your hill witch was a slack teacher.”

  “She taught all the lesser and greater spells, even the ones too powerful for her to work with. When does power manifest with boys?” she persisted.

  “Voice change. Did she ever work blood magic?”

  Shaking her head, she accepted the steaming brew, holding the cup with the blanket protecting her hands. She blew on the rich liquid to cool it. Eyes closed, she took a cautious sip. It burned her tongue then burned down to her stomach where the heat spread to her core. He retrieved the cup. And Corrie kept her eyes shut, remembering Freithe cutting her own arm to draw blood for spells. She’d warned Corrie never to work magick with blood. After Enstigorr, Corrie didn’t think she ever would. But Freithe—Freithe had never taken Corrie’s blood. Her hair, aye, burning it in a copper bowl with her own blood.

  When she opened her eyes, Sverr had unsheathed his dagger. He held it out from him, turning the blade to catch the snow-grey light. And she saw the runes running the length of the blade. Strange runes. Runes that her uncle Arne had taught her after first bemoaning her illiterate state. Laienn had continued that teaching, giving her the alphabet of plain folk. Corrie sometimes confused the two until Freithe forbade her use of the runes.

  “Elvish,” she whispered and took the blade with hands that shook. “And beautiful.”

  “Elvish,” he confirmed. “I’ve seen magicked swords, arrows, shields, even armor and mail with these runes—and sewn with metal thread.”

  Her eyes traveled the length of the blade then lifted to his face, to his glacial eyes and golden hair. She took the cup back from him and drank. The coffee had cooled a little, but it still warmed her. “Are you Elvish?”

  He grinned. “Plain Norther swine, Lyse Oyne.”

  “You carry an Elvish blade.”

  “Plain Norther luck.” He bent to the fire and packed snow over the crushed beans then set it to melt and brew by the fire. “Did Hardraste’s wizards draw your blood?”

  “You saw the scars. You know that happened. But only Enstigorr took it. He used my blood for Dark Moon spells.”