Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga)

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Sounded more like a battle cry to me,” Dawe said. They ran for the door, each grabbing something to use as a weapon.

  “This way,” Blaine said, leading them toward the barns.

  They found Kestel standing in the open space in front of the barn. Her clothing was torn and her lip was split. A long knife with a bloody blade was held tightly in her right hand.

  “Someone jumped me,” she said, her voice breathless. “He got away, but he’s hurt.”

  “We’re on it,” Piran said, taking off at a run toward the forest, with Dawe close behind.

  Blaine realized Kestel’s left arm was cradled close to her body and that her sleeve was dark with blood. He turned to Verran, who had followed them out of the kitchen. The minstrel held a frying pan in one hand and a small dirk in the other.

  “The pan was handy, and I had the knife on my belt,” Verran said with a shrug.

  “Take Kestel in and get her cleaned up,” Blaine said. “I’m going with the others.”

  Before long, they filed into the kitchen, cold, snow-covered, and discouraged. “We lost him,” Blaine said, hanging up his sodden cloak. “Without torches, we couldn’t go far into the trees, and finding someone in a black cloak in the deep brush is damn near impossible.”

  Kestel sat at the table with her injured forearm on a piece of cloth as Verran carefully stitched closed a gash. A glass of whiskey sat next to Kestel’s left hand, and she tossed back what remained of the amber liquid, then cursed fluently, her face taut with pain.

  “How bad?” Blaine asked.

  “I’ve had worse,” Kestel replied.

  “Not too deep, but it will heal faster with a couple of stitches,” Verran replied. Kestel winced. “Sorry,” Verran said. “I’m a better musician than tailor.”

  “Do you think it was our ‘friend’ from the wedding?” Piran asked, exchanging worried glances with Blaine.

  Kestel shook her head before Blaine could reply. “No. This was a professional.”

  Blaine looked at her. “A professional what? Thief?”

  Kestel bit back a curse as Verran finished up his stitches. She was silent for a few moments as Verran bound a strip of clean cloth around the wound and then went to pour Kestel another whiskey. “He wasn’t a thief. He meant to kidnap me.”

  “A rapist?” Dawe asked.

  Kestel closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “Maybe, but that wasn’t the intent I got. He said, ‘You’re coming with me,’ and he grabbed me, but there wasn’t anything sexual about it.”

  “What makes you think he was a professional?” Blaine asked.

  “He moved like a soldier,” Kestel replied. “He knew how to grab someone, and if I didn’t have the skills I’ve got, he would have had me. Fortunately, I had a knife. So did he. But he didn’t expect me to know how to use it.”

  “This makes no sense,” Piran said, anger clear in his tone. “Why would anyone want to kidnap you?”

  “Did you get a look at him?” Dawe asked.

  Kestel shook her head. “He’d made an effort to hide his face. The hothead you and Mick tussled with at the wedding wouldn’t have bothered.” She managed a wan smile. “Maybe I should feel flattered. No one’s tried to kill me since I left court.”

  “How badly did you injure him?” Blaine asked. “We can put the word out in Bay-town, ask around among the healers.”

  Kestel closed her eyes. “I stabbed him in the right shoulder. I got him good. It won’t heal on its own.”

  “You look like you could use a rest,” Dawe said with a reproving glare at Piran and Blaine. “Why not get some rest? We can go back out with lanterns and see if he left anything behind.”

  That Kestel would agree to lie down was proof enough that she was shaken by the assault. Verran busied himself cleaning up the blood from the table and putting away his supplies, while Blaine and Piran shouldered into their cloaks once more.

  The wind had picked up as they stepped outside. The candles inside their lanterns flickered. “What, exactly, do you think we’ll find?” Piran growled, hunching against the cold.

  “Don’t know. Maybe nothing,” Blaine replied, his voice nearly lost to the wind.

  They retraced their path to where Kestel had been attacked. Blood stained the snow, which showed obvious signs of a scuffle. They walked back along the route they had taken into the woods when they had followed the attacker’s footprints.

  Piran searched the snow for anything the attacker might have dropped, careful to check the brambles at the forest’s edge for torn clothing. “Look here,” Piran called, pointing. “He came out of the woods on the far side of the farm and worked his way around. That’s the long way, if he came from town.”

  Blaine looked down at the snow and frowned. The snow had been churned up where the three of them had run into the woods, obliterating the attacker’s prints. But several imprints lay outside the path, and Blaine wondered if Kestel had wounded the man badly enough that he had lost his balance.

  Blaine knelt down beside one of the prints and let out a low whistle. Piran came to look over his shoulder. “What?”

  “It’s a clean footprint, and not one of ours,” Blaine replied.

  “So?”

  “Look at the heel. It’s an odd shape.”

  Piran bent closer. “Doesn’t look like Holt’s work,” he said. Holt, the Bay-town cobbler, was known for the quality of his workmanship and the lack of choices in the styles of shoes he offered. Boot or shoe, for man or woman, Holt made a single, functional style. Since he was the only cobbler in Bay-town, patrons could wear his shoes or make their own, unless they paid a high price for rare imports from home.

  “Might be something he bought from a supply ship,” Blaine mused. “That’s an unusual style. We could ask in town, see if any of the merchants remember boots like that.”

  Piran straightened. “There’s one other group that doesn’t buy their shoes from Holt,” he said, his voice hard. “Prokief’s soldiers.”

  Blaine stood and dusted the snow from his pants. “I wouldn’t have said it looked like a soldier’s boot. Toes are too pointy.”

  Piran shrugged, his expression dark. “Wouldn’t have to be regulation issue. Prokief’s friends had access to goods that never made it to the Bay-town shops. He was known to have visitors from time to time. I doubt they were required to surrender their clothing, like we were.”

  Together, they tramped through the snow toward the homestead. “That doesn’t make any sense, Piran,” Blaine argued. “We’ve had our Tickets for years. Why would one of Prokief’s soldiers come all the way out here to attack Kestel?”

  Piran shrugged. “I don’t know, but I plan to find out. You’ve got to admit, between the direction he came from and that boot mark, it’s suspicious.” He paused. “We’re far enough out of town, someone looking for an easy mark—or an easy lay—could find it a lot closer. Ask Verran, but I can’t imagine any decent thief imagining that a farmer out in the barn would have coins or jewelry.”

  “And it’s easy enough for a man to find company in town, he’d hardly have to come all the way out here to find a woman,” Blaine replied, not liking the direction the conversation was going. Much as he hated to admit it, Piran had a point.

  They stomped the snow off their boots outside the door. Piran put a hand on Blaine’s arm, stopping him from opening the door. “Tomorrow I think we should take a little trip into Bay-town. Ask some questions.”

  Blaine nodded. “Agreed. And Kestel’s going to hate this, but I think we need to make sure she’s got someone to guard her, until we find out what was behind the attack.”

  Piran smirked. “You get to break that news. Even with her wing clipped, our Sour Rose isn’t going to like it.”

  Blaine’s expression was hard. “I don’t like it, either. But I’m going to find out what’s going on, and if I find whoever did this, I’ll make sure he won’t come around again.”

  When Blaine awoke the next morning, he found Verra
n and Kestel already in the kitchen, arguing about breakfast.

  “I tried to reason with her,” Verran said, throwing up his hands. “Told her to take it easy, I’d cook.”

  “I’ve already been stabbed. I didn’t want to be poisoned, too,” Kestel returned, though a glint in her eye gave Blaine to know she was enjoying the argument. “Besides, the cut wasn’t that deep. It’s sore, but not enough to keep me from my chores. I’ll be fine.” As if to make her point, her knife, cleaned and sheathed, hung at her belt.

  “Suit yourself,” Verran grumbled, stepping away from the hearth. Kestel’s back was to him, so he moved to put bread and jam on the table, along with plates, before she turned. He shot a triumphant glance at Blaine, and poured himself a cup of tea from the kettle by the hearth.

  “You’re up early,” Kestel observed, glancing back at Blaine. She took in the items Verran had put on the table and sighed, rolling her eyes.

  “Piran and I have a couple of errands in town,” Blaine said, ripping off a hunk of bread and covering it with jam.

  Kestel stood, wiping her hands on her apron, and met his eyes. “This is about what happened last night, isn’t it?”

  “Are you kidding?” Piran answered before Blaine had the chance to speak. He came from his room, still fastening the strings at the top of his shirt. “We know how good you are with a knife. The thief probably bled to death out in the woods. Personally, I’m amazed you didn’t gut him. I’ve seen you dress out a deer.”

  “Compliments will get you nowhere,” Kestel said, breezing between them. “I’ve lived with the both of you long enough to know when you’re lying. There’s probably no stopping you, but be careful.”

  Blaine and Piran exchanged glances. “You know us,” Piran said. “We’ll just make a few casual inquiries, nothing to raise suspicions.”

  Kestel snorted. “You? Not raise suspicions? Since when?”

  “I’m wounded,” Piran said, clutching at his chest.

  Whatever reply Kestel might have made was cut off as a flare of bright light lit the room, blindingly intense. The headache Blaine had fought for days became unbearable, and the pain drove him to his knees. His hands cradled his head. He heard Kestel scream. Two heavy thuds shook the floor. The air around Blaine felt as if he had suddenly been plunged underwater, as if it were too thick and heavy to be drawn into his lungs. His vision blurred, and he collapsed and lost consciousness.

  “Mick, wake up.” It was Piran’s voice, but it sounded far away.

  Blaine groaned. He had no idea how long he had been out, but his head still throbbed. He opened his eyes and saw Kestel clinging to the doorpost, wide-eyed with fear and looking quite pale. Dawe and Verran were slumped on the ground, unmoving. Blaine drew a deep breath to steady himself.

  “Stay still. I’ll see to the others,” Piran said. Piran moved over to where Verran lay sprawled on the floor. He was pale, but breathing regularly. Kestel knelt next to Dawe.

  “He’s breathing,” she reported.

  Piran climbed to his feet and dipped a rag in the bucket of freezing-cold water that sat next to the door. He wrung out the cloth and walked over to Verran, laying the cold cloth over his eyes. Verran sputtered and moaned, then pushed the cloth aside and opened his eyes.

  “What in the name of the gods happened?” Verran groaned. Piran helped him sit and glanced over to where Kestel was ministering to Dawe, who appeared to be in equal distress.

  “You tell us,” Piran replied. He moved back to Blaine and helped him stand.

  Blaine managed to get to a chair by the table and sat down heavily. “I got a headache that felt like a sword was being rammed through my eye, and the next thing I knew, I woke up on the floor.”

  “I felt the same thing, and I couldn’t breathe,” Kestel added. “I was out for a little while, too,” she said, touching a bruise on her forehead. She had draped Dawe’s arm across her shoulder to get him to his feet and was helping him to a seat at the table.

  “You and Dawe were out cold,” Blaine said, looking at Verran.

  Verran frowned, thinking. “I felt magic stronger than I’d ever felt it before. It burned through me. I thought I’d burst into flames. I swear it felt like my skin was on fire, like my bones were kindling.”

  “Verran’s very poetic. I feel like shit.”

  Blaine looked up at Dawe, who had climbed to a seat at the table. He looked ill. His eyes had the bleary look of someone with a fever, and his cheeks were flushed. Dawe seemed unsteady in his seat, and his hands clenched the edge of the table. “I thought I was going to burn to death from the inside out. Never felt anything like it before in my life.”

  Verran managed a grin. “Yeah, but just for a moment, I felt like… a god. It was like my magic suddenly went from a thimbleful to a whole ocean, pouring through me. It was probably just a few heartbeats, but I thought I could touch the sky, like my magic had no limits.” His face fell. “And then it was over, and it was like someone cut the strings to a puppet. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor.”

  Dawe sighed. “Leave it to the minstrel to wrap everything in flowery words. I felt the magic swell into more than I’d ever had before. But it was there and gone before I could think to draw on it. For just a moment, though, I felt like I had enough magic to take on all of Prokief’s warden-mages and kick their asses.” He shrugged. “Then all of a sudden, I was on the floor, waking up.” He looked from Kestel to Blaine. “What did you feel?”

  Kestel and Blaine exchanged a glance. “I don’t think I could have said it quite like you did, but the feeling was the same,” Blaine said cautiously.

  Kestel nodded. “It was like being filled with fire and then having it snuffed out,” she added.

  Verran looked askance at Blaine. “I knew our Sour Rose had seduction magic, but you’ve been holding out on us, mate. What’s your talent?”

  Blaine shrugged uncomfortably. “Nothing useful up here. I’m better with a sword than I should be, even allowing for what little training I’ve gotten. Runs in the family.”

  “I thought someone had clipped me, that’s the truth,” Piran replied. He reached a hand up to the back of his head. “Felt like my head was smashed open, only there wasn’t any blood.” He paused, and managed a grin. “Then again, I’m used to that sort of thing. Looks like I recovered a little faster than the rest of you. ’Course, I’m also the only one without a bit of magic.”

  “So if whatever it was laid us all out, and everyone but Piran has a bit of hedge magic, what do you think it did to real mages? Do you think it took out the warden-mages?” Verran asked.

  Piran grimaced. “Probably. But I imagine they’re back on their feet by now, and mad as hornets. The bigger question is, what caused it?”

  Blaine looked at Piran. “I’d like to find out if anyone else felt what we did. I think that a trip into Bay-town might get us some ale and answers.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE YOUNG LIEUTENANT WAS ONE OF MANY runners who had reached the castle within the last few candlemarks. His uniform was torn and burned, and his face was bruised. Some of the tears in his uniform were tinged with dried blood. Though it was obvious that the man was making every effort to hold himself together, his pupils were dilated and his face was ashen.

  “How many are dead?” King Merrill’s voice sounded weary.

  “Unknown, m’lord,” the lieutenant reported.

  “Your best guess, then.”

  The runner drew a deep breath and shuddered. “Ten thousand.”

  “Ten thousand dead!” Lord Radenou protested. “Your Majesty, how can that possibly be?”

  The lieutenant turned on Radenou with a dead gaze. “You haven’t seen what I have, m’lord. My estimate is lower than what I fear to be true.”

  “What of our mages?”

  The lieutenant shook his head. “I know only what I saw, m’lord. But when I reached the high ground some distance behind the battle lines, it appeared that a large portion of Meroven’s forces were
in disarray. The ground around them was scorched, and I saw what looked to be many bodies. Our catapults could not have reached so far behind their lines, so I would guess our mages inflicted the damage.”

  “Your commander—what were his orders?”

  The young man looked badly shaken. “My commander is dead, m’lord.”

  “Whoever sent you, what orders did he have to regroup?”

  The man swallowed hard, as if forcing down memories worse than nightmares. He licked his lips nervously. “One of the captains was trying to rally the survivors who had fallen back to the hilltop. I don’t think he had any orders, m’lord. He told me he hoped to gather enough men to hold the ground.”

  Merrill’s expression was grave. “I see.” He paused. “Thank you for your service, and for your valor in bringing me this message.” The king looked to the servant who had brought the lieutenant to the War Council. “Find this man a room and get him food. Send a healer to see to his wounds.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” the lieutenant said as he made a shaky bow. When he and the servant had left the room, Merrill turned back to his Council.

  From where Connor stood against the wall, the War Council’s table sat in a pool of light in an otherwise darkened room. No one had given the order to light the lamps around the edges of the room. To Connor’s eye, the shadows seemed to encroach around the king and his Council just as elsewhere, a more dangerous darkness threatened all of Donderath.

  “Surely the army can rally,” Lord Corrender said hopefully.

  “Donderath’s generals are good men,” Merrill rumbled. “They’ll hold the line.”

  “For how long?” Garnoc leaned forward. “Your Majesty, the news we’re hearing from the runners is quite different from the reports of the generals just last week.”

  “Much can change in a week during a war.”

  “Indeed, and yet I wonder if the reports you received might have been… tempered to make them more palatable for royal ears?” Throughout the long session, Garnoc had managed to insinuate the information Penhallow had sent with Connor without ever stating it in a way that would have required naming its source. Faced with the grim reports of runner after runner, Merrill had no choice but to hear what his generals had not dared tell him.