“No, lass. I know we do not control this sjakki board the gods have us playing on.”
“And you think Sverr believes he controls the sjakki board?”
“Northers are known for their arrogance.”
“He is not arrogant. He is more than competent, and he knows it. That is not arrogance.”
“He is mad, then, with the insanity that infects all Northers. He would ride in alone and unarmed to free his brother. So, I will give you a thing to arm yourself, a thing that I learned after many years of seeking. This thing will give you great power over the Prime, especially if you are the wizard that I think you are?”
“Wizard? Me? Both you and Sverr have hinted several times that I am more than a simple witch.”
“I am more than a simple witch, lass. I am bane witch, and woe comes to the witch who crosses me—as your Freithe certainly has crossed me by teaching you so little. You, Corrissidy, are no less than wizard, and I believe you are something more.”
She scowled. “You wrap your words in a riddle. You did so last night. Can there be a wielder who is more than a wizard?”
“Aye, and Enstigorr fears this. For this reason he locked you down. He did not let his pets play with you, did he? Did he punish the Bone Weaver for cutting your hair?”
Enstigorr’s anger had pulsed tangibly in that stone-cold cell when the guards dragged her in and he’d seen her hacked hair. Not a bald scalp, but irregular lengths less than two fingers’ length all over her head. She remembered his bony fingers touching her head, those fingers as ice cold as the stones that never heated. He’d sifted through the strands then lifted her from the floor and backed her against the wall. She’d been too afraid to look at him. Stand, he’d told her, and she obeyed, too frightened to move. I will revenge, he’d sworn.
“Snossi was punished,” she told Mannemous.
“You said last night that Raicha was not allowed to use her knives.”
“I didn’t say it like that.”
“What else would it mean, lass? Snossi punished, Raicha forbidden to draw your blood, and Omonte dared only ask a few questions to track other wizards and witches. Did you meet Arne? He is usually out, rounding up what Omonte finds with his interrogations.”
Her stomach revolted at the thought of yet another wizard allied to the Prime. “I did not think I would have to contend with a fourth.”
“Ah, lass. Enstigorr seeks a fifth—a full hand of powerful wizards in his control. To get his fifth, he needs to locate and control a wizard that his pets will not kill in their eagerness to syphon off power that would help them break his bindings on them. A wizard he could trick into subsuming her power to his.”
Corrie looked up. “Are they not so powerful, after all? He controls them with bindings?”
“Why else would they remain obedient? They want to rule, not be his tamed dogs. He bound them in such a way that they cannot threaten him without risk to themselves, even if banded together. He will be eager to have you back—still afraid of him, still greatly untrained, still unaware of your potential. He must bind you to him before you realize that you can do more than challenge him, that you can defeat him.”
She rolled her eyes. “You have wild dreams, Mannemous. I cannot defeat the Prime. He has the Hand to fight with him. He draws upon their power.”
“And if they die before he can draw on their power?”
She stared, struck, for he hinted at a long-considered plan to overset the Prime. Enstigorr, diminished, was not Enstigorr the Prime. But—“He is too powerful, even with the four gone. He will have no difficulty in binding me.”
“He cannot bind you unless you are willing, and he did not manage that before, did he? You do not fight alone, Corrie. Sverr and I talked of this last evening. You will go in, exchanged for Brom, then we three will come in after you. Each time we defeat one of his wizards, Enstigorr’s power will diminish—which means he must siphon off more power from the ones that remain. They become easier to defeat, and thus he is weakened even more.”
The danger was that this plan would work. She had learned prudence, though. “A lovely little plan, simple, with the sjakki stones falling your way—but. You need time to remove the seal from Brom and time for his recovery—and all that time I will be in Enstigorr’s hands. This talk of yours is not wise. It makes me regret my promise to Sverr to help free his brother.”
Remembering the blood-letting for the Prime’s foul spells, Corrie shuddered. Blood had trickled down her arms and legs while she writhed in his chains. Witches screamed in agony, and Corrie screamed with them—and Enstigorr laughed and asked, “Are you broken yet, my Corrie?” One after another, he bent six terrified wizards to his will, then slit their throats when their power stuttered out.
Tears spilled unheeded from her eyes. “I fought him,” she said grimly, “to no effect. Why do you believe he will value me more than the dozens upon dozens he has tossed upon the midden for carrion birds? I escaped him once.” She set aside the tin cup that she had hidden behind and looked directly into those pale green eyes. “Enstigorr will drain me and kill me rather than allow that to happen again.”
“Lass, you had great effect. Did he drain you dry, the way he did the others? Did he syphon any of your power—or only take what he could from your blood? No, he could not tap the core of your power. The more you fought, the more you impressed him. Then you escaped, yet another sign of your strength, lass. He will be eager to have you returned—not to kill you. No, lass, he needs to bind you to him. For that, he requires your willing participation in any spell. Reason with you, woo you, terrorize you, prey upon your greed—he will try all that and more to suade you.”
“You do not mention torture. I saw him torture others.”
“He cannot blind you with pain and win your willingness. That never works. No, he will reason with you, intimidate you, even frighten you—but he cannot harm you when he seeks your concession that he is your master and controls your essential power. And when he thinks his suasion has worked, that is the very instant you must kill him.”
“Kill him? You are dreaming, Mannemous, wilder dreams than before.”
“Only you can do it, Corrissidy.”
She could not argue him away from that belief. Sverr had somehow won the bane witch’s conviction that Brom would be freed and Enstigorr killed. Corrie tried a sideways track. “Twice you have used my birth name, yet I did not give it to you.”
“Your father Teigellin did, as he allowed me to know his birth name, all those years ago, when he had me reckon your power.”
“A birth name is kept safe. You should not use it so recklessly. It can be used against a wielder, to bind and control them. It was one of the first things Omonte tortured from us. Some gave it up before the first sunset.”
“I warrant you did not, yet more evidence of your strength of will and power.”
She would not increase his wild beliefs by confirming his guess. “You should not say it,” she warned again.
“You will know Sverr is your bond-mate when he tells you his birth name. Will you give him yours in return?”
Pain rattled through her, for he asked a truth question. “I do not know.”
“Lass, search your heart for that truth. He claimed you. He delights in you. He will want to bond with you, likely before we reach Hardraste.”
The words tore veils from her eyes. Something heavy pressed over her. Sverr’s cheerful morning meant more than she’d realized. Corrie hunched under heavy guilt. “Surely this is not the information you claim will give me power over Enstigorr.”
“I did stray from it, but all this needed airing before we take the first steps to Hardraste. Perhaps I am reluctant to part with information that I spent years searching for and then guarding until the appropriate need came. Give me your arm.”
She didn’t hesitate, and he unwrapped the bandage.
“You come to me with Sverr who is Brom’s blood, and you came to me years ago with Teigellin, who is your bl
ood. The greatest of gods prepared the way for you now through those first steps when your father brought you to me, so I would know the answer lived and continue my search.”
Corrie scowled. “I am not some fulfillment of prophecy, Mannemous.”
“Sverr and Brom seek a talisman that can defeat a Prime and his hand of wizards. What if that talisman is not a thing but a she?”
The last wrapping slithered away. A thin scar looked days old instead of mere hours.
“This talisman, Brom told me, had fallen prisoner to evil yet remained wholly good.”
She didn’t try to understand his riddle. “I am not what you are looking for, Mannemous.”
“Even when it blazes in your eyes?” He hovered fingers over the scar. “The seal bored deep. I had to cut more than I anticipated. I healed the muscle and your flesh, but some weakness will remain for a time.”
She touched the scar, finding no tenderness. “Weakness I can deal with. Attacks by day and night and an insidious poison that saps me, those I cannot.”
“You did not say if an attack came yesterday. No? You came within a day of a Hardraste troop, and the Prime stops the attacks. He expected his seal to simplify their job.” The old bane witch dug into the pocket of his over-tunic. Cringing visibly, he withdrew a braided cord that spun around itself. Holding it by the tips of his fingers, he handed it to her, sighing audible relief when he dropped it into her hand. “Here is one proof. I cannot bear to touch this cord; it burns ice all through me. Not only can you wear it while withstanding its effects, but you can also evoke power through it.”
“I must have built an immunity to the spells. I spent weeks in the Prime’s dungeon.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Corrissidy. You have not built an immunity to the binding spell. Those stones did not sap your will along with your power. You escaped when many others have failed.”
“That was mere chance.”
“A chance others did not take if they were given it.”
Guilt settled more heavily on her, lurked in wait. “Others escaped with me.”
“Those in the cell with you? How much did you have to prod and goad to get them to follow you past the bars and up the first spiral of stairs?”
When opportunity came, she had not escaped on the first night or the second or the third for that very reason. Greiss had helped her convince the others. Dreilldah and the two she mothered, Pynim and Katya, two or three years younger than Corrie, had wanted to huddle against the wall, a false safety. Without Greiss adding his voice to her urgings, they would never have breathed clean air again. Then the old man’s frail body gave out on their second night of freedom. The others had scattered like seeds while Corrie held Greiss until he breathed his last.
She heard on the fourth day that Dreilldah and Pynim were re-captured. On the sixth day, from the dense trees near Hardraste, she watched the elder witch and the youth herded along the road back to the castle. Had the Prime’s spells and tortures sapped more than power and will?
Of Katya she had never heard.
Mannemous gestured to the spell-cord she wrapped around her wrist. “This cord that traps others, you can use it to unlock the key to the binding spell. When you do, no such spell—not even the Prime’s—can control you. Reach inside yourself, and evoke the great power, and the Prime and his hand of wizards cannot withstand you.”
“You speak of a dangerous power,” she whispered.
“Indeed I do, lass. An nth of the power Enstigorr wielded, and he glutted upon it and used it to glut upon more. As he still does, feeding on the witches and wizards he imprisons.”
“Like Brom?”
“Like Brom,” he agreed. “Know this, Corrissidy: with or without your aid, Sverr will go into Hardraste to free his brother. They are birth-brothers, a tie that increases the blood connection. As Sverr is sun on ice, Brom is the night-kissed.”
“I have sworn to help him,” she said stolidly, not knowing why he’d returned to this.
“You have, but you refuse to accept the weapons you are gifted with. Are you afraid? When you fought the birds, did the power that incinerated them frighten you?”
“I-I—.”
“Sverr is not afraid of the power that roared out of you. I thank the gods that they bound you to him. He stopped that destructive power last night.”
“He stopped it? You mean, I did try to hurt you when you removed the seal? I would have hurt you? I thought I fainted. How did he stop me?”
Before he could answer, the door slammed open. Sverr stood on the threshold. His sword smoked in the icy air, red running down the blade.
“We have visitors.”
Chapter 13
Mannemous sprang up with an agility that belied his age. “The troop came back? I expected it.” He began throwing on his wrappings.
“As did I, but I hoped we would be gone.”
The heaviness shifted its weight under Corrie. It settled to wait, growled at the wait.
And Corrie tilted her head, suddenly realizing the pressure came from outside herself.
“They will have tracked us. Better to face them now, on land I know,” Sverr said. He wiped the blood from his blade.
“I assume you dispatched the advance scout,” Mannemous said.
The pressure wasn’t outside. It was under her. And impatient. It strained against a loosely held leash. Go away, she ordered.
No. The word grated along her bones. Called.
Wait.
Am waiting.
“Three scouts who did not expect that I would notice them lurking in the trees.” He cupped Corrie’s elbow and lifted her. “Time to move, sweetling. Better to meet them outside, especially if Enstigorr controls a ground-troll.”
She moved. Her mind careened from the drogger beneath them to the idea that she was a bane wizard who could talk to the creature, from Sverr’s mysterious ability to stop the killing power that erupted from her to the Hardraste troop that waited to haul all of them to Enstigorr. Yet she had experienced a drogger’s destruction, and even stunned, she moved.
“How far out?” Mannemous asked as Corrie snatched up Sverr’s cloak.
Sverr had returned to the door. He glanced at the snow-laden trees. “Coming as we speak. A wise captain will hold back, waiting on scouts he’ll never see again. I’m not certain their leader is wise. The scout said it was a damned fool of a wizard.”
Wait, she told the drogger.
It grunted at her, a grinding like stone over stone.
“Do you think this troop was at the farmer’s?” She wound scarves offered by the bane witch around her neck.
“That, with the fact that they didn’t burn Mannemous out yesterday. If they wanted him, they shouldn’t have left him a retreat.”
“They may not be after me,” the old witch offered.
Sverr snorted. “A bane witch? They’ll march you up to Enstigorr.”
“Would they know we were heading to him, to remove the seal?”
“If they thought that, they would have attacked last night. No, they cast a wide net and caught more than a single bait.”
Mannemous snorted. “There speaks the warrior. So, the captain isn’t wise, and the wizard is a young fool. What do you think then?”
“They’ll find the first body and not wait to check for the other two. They won’t reveal themselves until we leave the cabin. They won’t expect us to fight. We’ve run for days.”
“Not at Pagsey’s Tavern,” Corrie reminded.
“Cornered wolves there, sweetling. This wizard thinks the seal herded us into a trap. They’ll expect you are unable to give any help, and an old witch can’t possibly stand against a young wizard with a troop at his back.”
She cinched the old witch’s leather belt tight around her waist. “You think it’s a wizard with the troop?”
“To track the seal, aye.” He advanced a few steps to tug at her wrappings then chucked her under the chin. His glacial eyes, so serious, helped her find a tranquil
center.
Under. She remembered the drogger beneath them.
As if it ‘heard’ her thought, the creature wiggled its shoulders, as if testing the soil between it and the cabin.
Wait. Not yet.
If she could talk to it, maybe she could turn it to their advantage. ‘Called’ it had said. Like the other animals had been called by the seal. Yet the seal was gone, burned to ash and scattered. This drogger had to be on the wizard’s leash. It waited for that wizard’s order.
Yet it listened to her and responded to her. Maybe it would obey her.
What was the point of being a vaunted bane wizard if she couldn’t snap another wizard’s leash and take it for her own?
“This old witch,” Mannemous was saying, “wants to know how you know it’s a wizard and not a witch.”
“From one of the scouts. He didn’t tell me much more.”
“How much more? One wizard. Any witches?”
“None. Fifteen riders, twelve now.”
“And the wizard?” Corrie asked, fumbling with thick mittens. “Did he say anything about him?”
“Young. Arrogant. Rash. Cursed when I asked and died cursing.” He took the second mitten and smoothed it onto her hand.
“Can we trust him?” Young and holding a drogger leashed.
“He had no reason to lie, not hating that wizard like he did. I got the impression that this group had split off a larger group to cover more ground. His major’s with the other group; they got this wizard to lead. That was four days ago.”
“After Pagsey’s Tavern,” she breathed.
Sverr pulled the scarf up to cover half her face. “After they planted the seal and could track you. We surprised them by heading for the steppe.”
“The animal attacks herded us back. They herded us here.”
“We still have an advantage, sweetling. They think the seal can incapacitate you. That wizard will have a surprise when he triggers the spell to the seal.”
“It will rebound on her,” Mannemous smirked, “and that’s when we take them.”
More than a Wizard Page 17
