Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1)

by Michael Watson

  “But?”

  “But there are as many or more stories about Pactbound disappearing since she arrived in Khalanheim early this year. They are almost always criminals or other unsavory types. Some turn up dead in the city’s alleys and under districts, cut down like rabid dogs. Other must have fled the city.” His gaze went to the sky. “Pactbound in Khalanheim work by their own set of rules. Like the aurora they surge and fade by some controls or rivalries. Mostly among themselves. Ty, I don’t know much about Pacts, but I know that some are rather mild, if permanent, and depend on what the person gained in exchange for service. Maybe yours is one of those.”

  “Liran, I died and came back to life.”

  “True. I’m just telling you what I know.”

  Tyrissa flopped back onto the packs, “Helpful as always.”

  “Also true.”

  After another stretch of silence, Liran said, “Normally, Pactbound are granted, ah, powers of some sort. Magick abilities. Fireballs and such.”

  “Yes.” Tyrissa had read as much in her many adventure novels and was more than familiar with the idea.

  “Well, can you do anything?” They dodged around that particular topic back in Edgewatch. Perhaps her parents didn’t want to know.

  “No. Gods, that’s the worst part. I feel exactly the same! Worse even, thanks to this, this burned foot from…” Tyrissa trailed off, mind drifting back to her encounter with the daemon. She ran a hand across her stomach, making certain it was still whole. The memory was still fresh enough to be chilling, a nightmare that wouldn’t fade away.

  “You said it was feeling better.”

  “Yeah,” Tyrissa conceded. She pulled away the cloth wrapped around her injured foot. The skin was now a little more than a large purple bruise, far into the healing process. Liran glanced over his shoulder and raised an impressed eyebrow.

  “Considering you got it, what, two days ago that is a remarkable rate of healing. Some would say unnatural. Doesn’t even look like a burn anymore.”

  “That is something.” Tyrissa thought back to the feverish night in the Morgwood. That sickness had struck and run its course in a matter of a few hours, and her foot had gone from seared and boiled over to a mild, if large, bruise in a few days. Soon, perhaps even tomorrow, she should be able to pull on a boot and walk on it again.

  But where were the oft wrote about elemental Pactbound powers? Calad Stoneshield could pass through rock walls, the Windmages of Hithia could fly, and the Waveriders of Rhonia could part a storm around a ship. Tyrissa, so far as she’d seen, could heal faster than normal. That was undeniably useful but hardly among the stunning displays of power in the tales. If it was even that much.

  “It could be an aftereffect of my revival. It could have been an incomplete or gradual process, like I woke up a little too soon. If it fades I’ll be left with nothing but a Pact etched inside of my head and no guidance towards completing it.” The idea of finding this Pact Witch in Khalanheim became a more attractive option by the minute. If only to learn more about what she was now. One so adept at curing and killing would have to know a thing or two. Tyrissa would just have to be careful not to make herself a target.

  “Are you sure it’s fading?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps you should explore that idea. Test out your limits.”

  Tyrissa blinked at her brother’s back in shock. He was actually suggesting that she hurt herself on purpose! What’s more, she shocked herself by thinking where her knife was stowed, though dismissed the idea in an instant.

  “I think I’ve had enough cuts for a while, Liran,” Tyrissa said, smiling at the sheer morbidity of it. Still, she shivered at the memory of her battle with the daemon, feeling little slices of phantom pain from the countless cuts.

  Liran barked a short laugh. “Fair enough,” he said. “But it’s something to keep in mind. Always take any and every advantage, sister.”

  One of too many things to keep in mind, Tyrissa thought.

  They arrived at the outskirts of Tavleorn the next day under gray skies that teased the possibility of rain and never carried through. Originally built atop a rocky bluff that punched up from the earth like a godly fist, the city of Tavleorn now spread out down spiraling, tiered cliffs and over the fields below. The city’s history of craftsmen showed in all the new construction bearing artful flourishes of carved stone that mimicked the small but beautiful castle keep crowning the heights of the town’s heart. Tyrissa last came here two years ago and the town was noticeably larger, as the rows of new houses springing up at the outskirts of the town could attest to. For every house left empty by the Cleanse, two families moved in from outlying, isolated villages, a process that continued all these years later. Not every attempt at rebuilding the past was as successful as Edgewatch and tales abound of villages folding, their residents flocking to the cities and towns with better luck.

  The city loomed above the intersection of the Fjordway and the Heartroad, the core of Morgale’s settled cross. While thought to have been built by the same hands, if the Fjordway was a practical work, the Heartroad was a masterpiece, a raised roadway of gray-white stone wide enough for a dozen wagons abreast and shockingly level and enduring. It was said to run across the continent, from Greden in the north until crumbling in the broken lands near Hithia.

  “It would be for the best for us to stay among the caravan and avoid the city,” Liran said. “We’re camped at the Harvest Fairgrounds.” Liran guided Izzy off the Fjordway, following a narrower road that looped through the newer sub-villages that ringed the city. As they passed, some residents waved with genuine smiles. Others gave them cold, careful stares. Both were understandable. She would expect the same from Edgewatch.

  “For the best,” Tyrissa said, disappointed. She wanted to see Tavleorn’s winding narrow streets that curled up the cliffs once more, and the grand plaza at the top hemmed in by stone temples and the castle. Tyrissa always smiled at how the masons of Morgale could mine serene beauty from the severity of plain gray stonework. It would be her last chance to see the comfortable sights and sound of a Morg city for a long time, to say nothing of her eldest brother Corgell and his family. But lingering in populated areas would only invite incident. While she had no obvious indicators of being Pactbound, and they were ahead of any word spreading from Edgewatch, there was always the chance she would react with something or manifest a more conspicuous ability. At least, that’s how the stories go. For all the time she spending reading the exploits of magick-wielding adventurers, there was little detail on how being Pactbound actually worked.

  The promise of power. The thought should excite her, a fulfillment of childhood fantasies. Instead it loomed over her head like an unspoken threat, like the heavy clouds of today’s sky.

  At the Harvest Fairgrounds, it looked as if someone had dropped a ship in the center of the field, hundreds of miles from the nearest drop of ocean water. At the center of the field stood a great barge of sand colored wood with tapered ends and sloping slides standing atop five sets of massive, iron rimmed wheels. Three clear layers composed the barge, the base above the wheels easily ten feet tall, with multiple broad cargo doors around the base. Above that, accessed by ladders recessed in the hull were a ring of normal sized cabin doors with narrow ledges at their thresholds. An open deck crowned the entire thing, shaded by gently rippling canvas awnings attached to thin metal poles, sails as misplaced as their ship. Two flags fluttered in the intermittent wind, one a solid field of green, the other black bearing the circular crest of the Khalan North Trade Company. The wheels implied mobility, but Tyrissa could see no means of moving the massive construction. It would be like towing a full size inn.

  “That is the North Wind. The second of its name,” Liran said. “It’s the size of a ship, so the company figured it should be named like one.”

  Suddenly Tyrissa had a second, obvious question.

  “What happened to the first North Wind?”

  “Fire. Burnt t
o ashes mere days before its maiden voyage. A total loss. Central’s investigations concluded it wasn’t a rival guild but that’s doubtful. We call it accidental arson.”

  A temporary village encircled the North Wind, a court neatly arranged around its king. Wagons and peaked canvas tents formed a wall between the outskirt villages of Tavleorn to the north. They’ve been here for a while, if the muddy and rutted pathways and patches of faded, sun-deprived grass beneath the wagons were any indication. Each wagon and tent bore the colors and crest of Khalan North, an outbreak of deep blues and black among the normal tones of earth and stone that dominated Morgale’s cities, landscape, and fashion. On the south side, the livestock pens used by shepherds during the Harvest Fair were commandeered by the caravan’s herd of workhorses.

  Liran guided their wagon through the camp towards the base of the barge and he received a chain of hails and greetings from his fellow merchants in black and blue. Many of the tents and wagons doubled as small workshops or store fronts, bringing small doses of Khalan crafts hundreds of leagues from their homeland. The caravan’s population was mostly male, but Tyrissa spotted a few women here and there, garbed similarly in guild colors. Equally mixed in were armed guards, with a sword stitched at the center of their guild crests instead of a coin.

  Liran pointed to one of the smaller wagons, one with a rounded top that folded open like a writing desk and built of rich, varnished wood. In attendance was a white-haried man in the company colors, though his patches were more elaborate, his clothes subtly finer. He returned Liran’s greeting with a half-attentive wave, too busy collapsing an array of trinkets and papers into his odd wagon between concerned glances to the heavy skies.

  “That’s Ferdhan,” Liran said, “A sort of generalist by trade but with a keen eye for books. He came along almost for the hell of it, pulling seniority to get a place in the caravan. The long hauls are more of a young man’s game, but we’re glad to have him for when you have to fight off boredom and can’t stand a hundredth game of daajik.”

  “Boredom? That’s more of a threat than anything else I’ve heard of this trip so far.”

  “Probably the most present, if anything. Ferdhan has a small collection of books that he loans out buried somewhere in that wagon of his. You’d like him, I got that book I gave you from his shop back in Khalanheim.”

  “Noted,” Tyrissa said, adding to a growing mental pile of new sights and faces and details. They’d been on the road for two days and she had already torn though most of the unread stories in Tales from Across the North.

  Tyrissa hopped down from the back of the wagon as they reached the base of the North Wind, wincing at the slight, but clearly improving shock from her bad foot. She ducked below the rim of the barge to get a view of underneath. The wheels were as tall as she was, bound to axels the size of tree trunks. Linked to them were a dizzying array of gears and other mechanisms, the purpose of some Tyrissa could only imagine. Behind her sounded the scrape of wood against wood and a ladder slid down from above. She ducked back out from under the barge’s skirt of wood. Liran stood at the side of their wagon, gathering their meager belongings. Tyrissa moved to help.

  “How does this thing move?”

  “Pulled. By animals,” he said with a grin.

  “How many?”

  “Two,” Liran said over his shoulder while stepping onto the ladder. It would take a whole herd to move it. It sounded absurd, but Liran had that slight twist to his mouth that meant he was holding something back. Her brother climbed to the second level and slid the cabin door above to the side.

  Tyrissa hoisted her pack over one shoulder and followed. “Two of what,” she called up to Liran as he vanished into the cabin.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  Liran’s cabin was as small as expected: a tight, box-like space made all the more cramped by the stacks of crates and burlap sacks that crowded one side. A mélange of scents assaulted her as she side-stepped from the ladder into the cabin. The air was thick with the smell of dried whitemint, storfbark and a dozen other herbs and spices taken from Morgale’s forests and hills. It smelled like her mother’s cooking combined with the forest floor of the Morgwood. When returning from longer trips in the forest Tyrissa would stop to pick fresh samples as a little gift for her mother. They were plentiful and essential for the long winters as meals grew blander. In recent years most of these herbs were farm-grown, though they always tasted better when harvested from the wild.

  “Is this your path to wealth, Liran? Herbs?”

  “Only the luckiest merchants have a single path to wealth, but yes, this is one of mine. What’s commonplace to us is exotic to everyone else. Forest herbs, hard kaggorn cheeses, black wool… Morgale has much to offer southern markets. If you go through the hassle of getting there and back, you are justly rewarded.”

  “Speaking of,” Tyrissa said, finding a square of floor space to place her pack, “how long is the trip south?”

  “Six to eight weeks, depending on weather, break downs and how cruel of a pace Master Wilhelm wants to set. There’s little to worry about. Most of what’s said of the journey is overblown. It’s not that dangerous, especially with the numbers we have. It’s just long.” Tyrissa’s view of Vordeum consisted of a scorched land of hidden ruins, lost treasures and vicious monsters. That being overblown would be a relief and a disappointment.

  Liran folded down a narrow bed from the wall and lowered his pack onto it. “We’ll swap who gets the bed and who gets the floor.” The mattress pad looked thin enough to be little better than the alternative.

  “We’re just in time. The caravan’s scheduled to move out in a couple days. There’s still the matter of your passage fee. Can you walk on that foot without limping too much?”

  Tyrissa gave her foot a couple hard pressed into the floorboards. It complained, but felt stable enough. She nodded, holding back the frown at the thought that it was perhaps too well healed.

  “Good. We’ll drop off Izzy and the wagon then head over to Wilhelm’s office. I’m sure he missed me dearly.”

  Wilhelm’s office turned out to be a table and chair set up under a collapsible canvas awning, a fair distance away from the wagons and activity that ringed the main caravan. A wiry man in his fifties with a heavily lined face, Wilhelm was busily flipping through ledgers as they approached. He had a handful of rocks acting as paperweights for the short stacks of paper on his makeshift desk, insurance against the light wind crossing the festival grounds. Two brown dogs lazed near his feet, thin, short haired beasts of little resemblance to the lupine Morg breeds Tyrissa was used to.

  “Liran,” Wilhelm said with the barest flicker of acknowledgement. “Welcome back. I started to wonder if I’d get the chance to strand you here. I could have filled your cabin with something profitable.” He spoke at a quick, precise clip, and Tyrissa had to pay closer attention to understand him.

  “I apologize for the first and dispute the second. Call it a family emergency. Speaking of which, this is my sister Tyrissa.”

  Wilhelm gave a polite grunt and nod, focused on scribbling a quick calculation on the paper before him.

  “I’m going to bring her back to Khalanheim.”

  Wilhelm looked up at her and blinked once. “Very well.” he said. “I can take a passenger fare out of your current margins.”

  “No, no. I was thinking more along the lines of paying her way with manual labor.”

  “Somehow I expected this,” Tyrissa muttered.

  Wilhelm leaned back and tapped a pen against his knuckles, thinking.

  “How well can you climb, girl?”

  “Better than most.” It was good to know those years spent climbing and running through the forest wouldn’t be a complete waste outside Morgale.

  “Mmm. And how are you around large animals?”

  “No complaints. I’ve lent a hand tending kaggorn here and there.” she spared a glance back at the North Wind. “How large?”

  “The largest. Anton
is always pestering me for more hands, and he shall have them, for once. Report to him when he returns with the animals tomorrow evening.”

  With that Wilhelm waved them away and returned to his reports, though he never left them through the entire conversation.

  The next evening the ground quaked and the trees quivered with the arrival of a living Morg myth as a pair of mastodon marched up the Hearthroad from the south. Long since retreated to the hidden forests and taiga of Morgale’s western wilds, the beasts were icons of the Morg people’s past as half-wild clans of hunter-nomads. Many families still passed down worn heirlooms of carved mastodon ivory and bone, relics of an era long past. Tyrissa had heard and read many stories of modern hunters seeking out the descendants of the herd that once roamed the North, toiling for months in the wilderness for a mere glimpse of the creatures. Tyrissa couldn’t stop smiling, faced with another idle dream in the flesh, the darkness and troubles of recent days banished by a brief burst of light.

  One’s fur was a blend of white and gray, like the fitful first snows of autumn on the mountaintops, and the other was an earthy brown. Hardly the ‘woolly mammoths’ of the stories, their fur was shorn short but the tusks were as advertised, ten-foot lengths of curving, pointed ivory. They were as tall as the North Wind, towering over some of the trees that lined the trade road. Each wore a large platform built of rope and leather across their backs, like giant versions of a horse’s saddle. A driver stood at the fore of the platforms, men wearing long bracers on their thick, muscled forearms that linked with similar bindings on the mastodons’ tusks with long ropes. A fleshy trunk dangled between the tusks, occasionally flexing or batting at an unseen annoyance on the mastodon’s face. An array of other handlers and attendants, perhaps five or six per animal rode atop or walked alongside the beasts. A trail of open mouthed children followed behind them, completing the parade. They came to a halt on the south side of the camp, near the horse pens.