Jorundyr's Path: Wolf of the North Book 2

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  ‘Of course,’ Jagovere said, smiling. ‘It wouldn’t be complete without mention of Ulfyr the Fearless.’

  Wulfric frowned. ‘I told you not to call me that.’

  ‘And I told you protesting was the surest way to make it stick.’

  ‘You’re going to go after dal Valeriano when they let us go?’ Wulfric said.

  ‘I am. He betrayed us. Worse than that, even, I’m pretty sure he intentionally sent us to our deaths. After his idiot mage blew himself up, he knew he was beaten, but he sent us forward anyway, then ran. I’m going to cut his balls off, feed them to him, and let him bleed to death.’

  Wulfric raised his eyebrows, having never heard Jagovere speak with such vitriol before.

  ‘How are you going to do it?’ he said.

  ‘No idea, but so long as the end result is what I want, who cares?’ He paused for a moment, and the hatred on his face softened. ‘Whatever it is, I’m sure it will make for a great story.’

  ‘You won’t be able to do it alone,’ Wulfric said.

  ‘He was my father. One way or the other, I’ll do it.’

  ‘I owe him too. I’d have been arrested and executed in Ruripathia if he hadn’t helped me,’ Wulfric said. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  Jagovere looked over to him, genuine gratitude in his eyes. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘We’ll make a tale that will rival any of the great epics.’

  ADALHAID

  Adalhaid could tell that something was wrong as soon as she got back to the palace from the university. The change in mood was instantly recognisable. It was as though a great dark cloud hung over the palace. Where chatter, laughter, and braggadocio usually reigned supreme, there was only silence. Adalhaid spotted one of the scullery maids she was friendly with and made her way over.

  ‘Has something happened?’ Adalhaid said. Her eyes widened when she saw the maid’s red, puffy face.

  ‘It’s young Master Petr,’ she said. ‘He fell from his horse. His neck broke. He’s dead, Adalhaid.’

  The news hit Adalhaid like a brick to the face. She had promised to take him to the park that afternoon. There was a pond there that he liked to float paper boats on. Aenlin, his twin sister, would watch and feed the ducks. The two were never far apart. Adalhaid had no idea what to say or do.

  ‘Aenlin?’ she said after a moment. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ the maid said, ‘but she’s inconsolable. His lordship’s physician had to give her something to sleep.’

  WULFRIC

  ‘Northlander.’

  Wulfric recognised the voice instantly. Its honeyed tone was etched into his memory. He turned to see the woman standing in the shadows. Even knowing she was there, she was difficult to see. Some sort of southern magic? he wondered. The bruising and swelling around her mouth had started to fade, but it was clear she had taken quite a beating.

  ‘What do you want?’ he said. He didn’t like the effect she had on him, and he didn’t like the way it made him let his guard drop. Even now, knowing what he knew, he still wanted her.

  ‘You and your friend are going to kill dal Valeriano?’ she said.

  He wasn’t armed, and was not as confident as he would have liked that he could kill her without a weapon. He could remember all too well their last encounter, and how easily she had made him release his grip on her hand.

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said.

  She laughed, a sound that caused his breath to quicken. ‘You wear your lies as obviously as your arrogance,’ she said. She remained in the shadow, and made no threatening move. ‘You’re going to kill dal Valeriano. I’m going to help you.’

  ‘What use would we have of a woman?’ he said.

  She moved quickly; she was standing next to him in the blink of his eye, and he felt the all-too-familiar sensation of a dagger tip pressing against his crotch.

  ‘I can go places and do things a big ignorant Northlander cannot,’ she said. ‘I can hear things and see things that people do not want seen or heard. Do not act like you have a choice.’ She smiled, revealing perfect white teeth behind her deep red lips. ‘Ulfyr.’

  He opened his mouth to speak, but could feel the pressure on the dagger increase, so he shut it.

  ‘I can be your friend or your enemy,’ she said. ‘If you intend to kill dal Valeriano, you want me as a friend.’

  ‘I thought dal Valeriano was your friend.’

  Her eyes flashed with anger. ‘His goals matched Prince Peruman’s. For a time. That was all.’

  ‘And now you want to kill him?’

  Her glower said he wasn’t going to get an answer. He shrugged. ‘This assumes we’re ever going to get out of here.’

  ‘You’ll be released soon. Tomorrow, perhaps. Dal Valeriano has overthrown the Duke of Torona. Killed him and his family. Peace is being negotiated. The war is all but over. He has no claims south of the border.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Wulfric said.

  ‘Varada,’ she said, in a way that made it clear that was all the information she was giving him.

  ADALHAID

  Petr’s death had left Adalhaid in a stunned daze. It was hard to imagine that all the life had been snuffed out of the energetic little boy. She wondered if she had been there when the accident had happened, whether she would have been able to help. If the strange talent she possessed might have saved him. It was a tragedy that impacted everyone in the palace. In a place that revolved around superficiality, greed, and ambition, Petr and his twin sister had been a breath of fresh air.

  She realised her being there would have made little difference. Indeed, she was thankful she had not been. She still had no idea how to control her magical talent—and even had she been able to, healing injuries such as those Petr had sustained would have revealed what she could do. She would have had to stand idly by, or condemn herself to death. It was a hideous choice to have to make. She might not ever be able to use it to its full potential, but she knew she had to try to tap into it, at least a little. To squander her talent was an insult to the gods, who were the source of all things magical, and was too selfish a choice for her to live with. She thought of Wulfric. He had never allowed fear to hold him back, and she resolved not to either. She would not be careless with her life, but she would not let this talent go to waste, even if it only meant she could offer the smallest of aid to those who were suffering. She might not have been able to help Petr, but there were others she would. She had been playing around with it in her spare time, but she couldn’t tell if she’d made any progress. She knew she would eventually have to try it out on a real patient.

  A boy was ushered into her treatment room with a cut on his arm. It was small and only needed to be cleaned and stitched, but it was the type of thing that could cause the blood to go bad, and ultimately kill. So small a thing, yet still potentially fatal. At times the world seemed far crueller than it needed to be.

  She took his arm and smiled. ‘It might be best if you look away,’ she said.

  The boy did as he was told and she rubbed some alcohol on the wound to mask any sensation that might follow. The boy hissed in discomfort.

  ‘Keep looking away,’ she said. ‘I’m going to clean it and bandage it. Won’t take long.’

  She studied the wound, a cut the length of her thumb, and committed its shape and the angry red colour to memory. As she stared at it, she was taken by sudden temptation. A little test couldn’t hurt, could it? She took a deep breath, and concentrated on a desire to heal the injury. She could feel her finger grow cold, then her hand and finally her forearm. She barely noticed. She was fixated on the wound as it went from red to pink. She knew it was time to stop, but the temptation was so strong that she couldn’t. The closest word to describing the sensation she felt was joy. She continued to watch in fascination as the flesh knitted before her eyes.

  She pulled her hand away and gasped. She took a step back to balance herself, and a wave of light-headedness passed over he
r. Nausea followed, to the point she thought she might be sick, but it faded quickly. The boy looked at her with a curious expression on his face. She put her hand over the healed wound so he could not see it, and wished she had not allowed herself to get carried away. She took a moment to settle. She lifted her hand and looked. She had done far more than she intended, and worry twisted in her gut. She hadn’t been able to stop herself, and she didn’t know why. Curiosity? Lack of control? She would need to work that out as soon as she could. She reached for her needle and thread, and a bandage, hoping to hide her work in conventional treatment for as long as possible.

  As she stitched, she cursed her rashness. She had allowed her grief over Petr to dictate her actions before she was fully ready. However, she had learned more about it—the temptation, and the pull to continue past the point her head was telling her to stop—and that was important too. Sometimes an unintended or unwanted result was as important as the alternative. It was progress, and she took satisfaction from that.

  41

  AETHELMAN

  It had been many years since Aethelman had visited a city. He had travelled south in his early days as a priest, the only time in his life when he had questioned his vocation. When they had questioned their vocations. The memory tugged on the fibres of his heart.

  The city had been a dangerous place for two young people to run to, but it was the only option for priests who had renounced their vows. Every god-fearing man, woman, and child in the Northlands would have turned their backs on them, so they ran south, where no one cared for the old gods. It had seemed so romantic. So terrifying.

  Grey Priests had only a small ability with magic, some more than others, but it was more than enough to make them pariahs in the south. Aethelman and Aesa had known this, and had sworn to one another they would be careful, that they would keep it secret and live ordinary lives like any other young couple. In those first days, it had seemed like the southern witch hunters were everywhere. He had lived in a constant state of fear and paranoia. Aesa had told him to relax, that there was no chance of them being found out so long as they were careful. She had been cleverer than him, braver. He was terrified that he would be the one to make the mistake, that he would be the one to put the love of his life in peril. In the end that hadn’t been the case, though.

  Sorrow formed like a heavy lump in his stomach as he stared at the city walls. He could hear her laugh, smell her hair, feel her touch, but they were all long gone. Long dead.

  He thought of the laughter that had guided him through the cavern beneath the Hermitage, and closed his eyes as he did his best to remember the sound perfectly. How he missed it. Tears had welled in his eyes by the time he opened them. He wondered how different his life might have been, had she lived. Her kind heart was what had killed her. A child crushed by a runaway barrel had broken Aesa’s resolve to keep her power in the shade, and in saving the child’s life she had forfeited her own.

  The witch hunters had been beating at their door the next morning. Intelligenciers, the southerners called them; a grand name for a grubby job. From arrest to pyre took only the blink of an eye. It had been luck that Aethelman had not been there when they called, otherwise he would likely have joined her on the pyre—she had always gone out to fetch bread from the baker every morning, but for some reason he had offered to do it that day to give her a few extra minutes in bed. He often wondered at the small, thoughtless choices made in life and how they could change it utterly.

  He had stood in the crowd that day, hoping he could ease her suffering. It had been futile. His own suffering had been so great that he could do little for her. He had not been man enough to be there for her at her worst moment. All he could do was fixate on his grief at losing her, and so while she had died in agony in the flames, he had wept. A long life had done little to dull the pain of the memory, now that he had allowed it back out of the dusty recesses of his mind. Anger was something he rarely felt, but it flowed through his veins in that moment so strongly it shamed him.

  He had run back to the Northlands, the Stone still in the bottom of his satchel, convinced that all that had happened was a punishment for them forsaking their vows. He had dedicated his life to his vocation after that, the few brief months of madness with Aesa seeming like a dream. The memory of her would never leave him, however. He hoped and prayed that the gods had forgiven her, that they had forgiven him, and that she awaited him in the next life.

  As hesitant as he was, Aethelman wiped the tears from his face and pressed on to the city. Elzburg. Each step confirmed that this was where the Stone now was. As much as he disliked them, southern cities were impressive places. The high walls and tall towers reminded him the great things men were capable of, and it pained him that they were a monument to violence. He approached the gate, and wondered if the guards knew what to look for—if they could spot a user of magic on sight. They ignored him, though, and he passed through the great gate to whatever fate awaited him.

  PROFESSOR KENGIL

  As much as she might have liked to, Professor Kengil could not spend all her time watching Adalhaid, waiting for her to do something beyond belief. She wanted to believe Rosamund’s story, and see Adalhaid dragged away by the Intelligenciers, but she was beginning to have doubts. Rosamund was a pretty enough girl, but Adalhaid had a fresh-faced beauty that was rare. Jakob Strellis was an exceptionally handsome man, and a very talented physician. She had no doubt that one day he would take over from her. She could not dismiss the possibility that what Rosamund had said came entirely out of jealousy. She had not seen anything conclusive in the child who had allegedly received the magical treatment.

  For a moment, she was tempted to set aside her vendetta. Adalhaid would not even have been alive when Northlanders had killed Professor Kengil’s parents and burned their village to the ground. It was likely even a different tribe, or whatever it was they called themselves. It was petty to hold a grudge against an entire people over the actions of a few, no matter how much injury they had caused, and a small voice inside told her that she should be above such things. That aside, there was something about the girl that Kengil simply did not like. Whether it was her consistently high performance, or the air of perfection and virtue she seemed to emanate, the thought of her succeeding made Kengil rage.

  There was a larger issue at stake, though, one that she could not set aside. Sorcery was illegal. It was her responsibility to make sure every physician who qualified under her watch abided by the training and good practices of the profession. To have a graduate of the university use witchcraft was anathema. It would ruin the university’s reputation—but more importantly, it would endanger patients. No, she had a responsibility and she would satisfy it. She moved to the side a pile of letters from colleagues regarding an interesting case, and returned to audit the records from Strellis’s clinic.

  She scanned page after page. It was a busy clinic, and on any day, Strellis, Rosamund, and Adalhaid saw over a hundred patients. She couldn’t limit herself just to Adalhaid’s work. It was possible Strellis might be covering for her, and putting some of her patients under his name.

  The magelamp on her desk coming to life was the first indication of how long she had been at her task. The little glass globe automatically—magically, she thought without missing the irony—illuminated when it grew dark outside. A vortex of energy swirled inside its thick glass enclosure, as it had every moment of the centuries since its creation by sorcerers long dead. They were expensive, as no more had been made since the wars that tore the Old Empire apart, but a great many had survived, lighting the streets, and the homes and offices of the wealthy. They had fascinated her since childhood. She could afford her own now, and every room of her home had one. Each had its own individual character, perhaps an imprint of the person who had created it all those years before. This one had been owned by the professor of medicine ever since the holder of the post was a sorcerer. It was as beautiful as it was useful, and for the briefest of moments it made
her wonder if magic was indeed as bad as everyone said. If the destroyed leg of a child could be saved by magic, when conventional medicine would see it cut off with knife and saw, might there not be an argument to support it?

  She shook the thought from her head, recalling one or two ‘mages’ who had held themselves out as healers. The mess they had made was beyond even Kengil’s considerable skill to put right. It was a vile thing, and had to be stopped. Medicine was a science, not a reason to dabble in matters that should be left alone.

  Her thoughts drifted back to the interesting case she had been corresponding with the other physicians about. What they had thought was a simple infection of the lungs was proving to be far more, and something that neither she nor any of her colleagues had seen before. She had treated the man, and thought her work done until she followed up on it, and discovered he was as bad as ever. It was not unusual for an initial treatment to fail, however, and a second to succeed…

  She looked back to Adalhaid’s records. Every follow up recorded showed that each of her treatments had been successful. No wounds had gone bad. Not a single one. That was statistically impossible. No matter how diligent the treatment, either through carelessness on the part of the patient, or simply bad luck, infection set in, and occasionally the patient even died. But not with Adalhaid. Everyone she treated healed in accordance with the best-case scenario. It was impossible. Was this it? Was this the proof Kengil needed that she was using more than medical techniques to heal her patients?

  Kengil’s heart raced with the excitement of thinking she may have snared her prey, but was it enough? Perhaps she had simply been careful, and lucky. She was diligent and damn near perfect in everything else she did. Might it not be the case with this also? She had not treated enough patients yet for the numbers to fully tell a story. Might there be a way to force harder evidence?