City of Mages (Daughter of the Wildings #5)

by Kyra Halland

  City of Mages

  Daughter of the Wildings, Book 5

  by Kyra Halland

  Copyright 2015 Kyra Halland

  Smashwords edition

  Thank you for purchasing this ebook. It is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, please go to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Illustration: Mominur Rahman

  http://illuminatedimages.co.uk/

  Title Font: Carnivalee Freakshow

  by Christopher Hansen

  A nightmare come true - Silas is captured by mage hunters. Determined to rescue the man she loves, Lainie follows him and his captors into the mage-ruled land of Granadaia, where she discovers a betrayal she never imagined and a deep-rooted conspiracy that threatens the safety and freedom of the settlers in the Wildings. Alone in a strange land, with no one she can trust, Lainie must find a way to free Silas and put an end to the danger facing their beloved Wildings.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  The World of Daughter of the Wildings

  Preview of For the Wildings

  More Tales of Fantasy, Heroism, and Romance

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  LAINIE ARRIVED AT the Gap late in the afternoon the day after Silas was captured, riding Mala and leading Abenar. Through the seemingly endless night, she had walked the horses until they were recovered from the chase, then alternated riding them so as not to tire them out while she went after the hunters. She had tried to get some rest herself, but the awful memory of Silas being shot from his saddle had run constantly through her mind, and her urgent need to catch up with him and his captors filled her with restless, desperate energy that made sleep impossible. By now, aside from a few short breaks, she had been on the move all night and all day.

  Even now, several days after the end of the cattle auction, there were still thousands of cattle at the Gap waiting to head into the pass, one herd of a thousand head at a time, to make the final drive to Granadaia. Several tents remained standing around the trampled, dusty market grounds, where a handful of men stood talking together and making notes on pieces of paper nailed to writing boards. A couple dozen cowhands were watching over the herds and getting ready to drive them up into the Gap. Lainie was relieved to see a lot fewer of the black-clad Mage Council enforcers around than there had been before.

  There was no sign of the hunters who had taken Silas. Lainie looked at the small wooden building near the mouth of the pass, that Silas had told her was the mage hunter way station. The hunters would either drop Silas off there to be transported to Granadaia or take him through the Gap themselves, to personally deliver him to the Mage Council and claim the bounty on him.

  The way station looked deserted. Lainie supposed she could knock on the door and ask if Silas was there. The hunters had been after Silas, not her, and they could have taken her while she was knocked out, but they hadn’t, so maybe the Mage Council didn’t really want her, after all.

  She shook off the thought. The long night of little rest and her shock and grief had left her mind foggy and her thoughts muddled. She was in no state to be making possibly dangerous decisions based on assumptions instead of hard facts. If she was wrong, she would only get herself in trouble and then she wouldn’t be any help at all to Silas. There were plenty of other men around who might have seen the riders and could tell her where they had gone.

  She made sure her mage ring was on her wedding finger and her power was well-suppressed; between the wizard-hating Plain hands and the chance that she was wrong and the Mage Council did want her, it would be better to pass as a Plain. Then she rode up to one of the hands guarding the cattle in the stockades. “Hey, there,” she greeted him.

  He tipped his hat to her. “Miss.”

  “Did some riders, maybe five or six, carrying a couple of wounded men come by here today?” As she followed the hunters’ trail back to the Gap, she hadn’t seen any sign of the man Silas had shot, so they must have picked him up.

  “They sure did, Miss. Some good while after noon, in a big hurry.”

  So she was less than half a day behind them. Not bad, considering she had walked half the night; carrying the injured men could only slow them down. “Did they go up into the Gap, or did they stop at that building over there?” She pointed at the way station.

  “I saw them stop and talk to that greenfoot over there.” He pointed to a man in a sky blue suit and hat standing outside a tent next to the road. “But then I got busy bringing out the next herd to go up, and when I looked again they was gone. Sorry I can’t tell you more than that.”

  “That’s okay. I’m much obliged.”

  He tipped his hat again, and Lainie rode towards the Granadaian man he had pointed out. This fellow was wearing the fanciest greenfoot suit Lainie had ever seen, modeled after the work clothes worn by cowhands but of fine materials and flamboyant cut, heavily decorated with shiny buttons and fancy, colorful top-stitching and embroidery. The heels of his richly-tooled boots must have been four finger-widths’ high, and the crown of his blue-dyed straw hat was nearly twice as tall as any real cowhand’s hat. Even the gun holstered at his hip was fancier than any normal gun would be. He was likely a mage, though he could have been a favored Plain employee. Either way, by the looks of him, he probably wasn’t going to be very friendly.

  “Excuse me, sir?” Lainie said.

  He glanced up from his writing board with a disdainful look on his sharp-featured face. His skin was a deep tan that could have been the result of Island blood or long days working outdoors or both. Then he returned his attention to his papers. “The hiring foreman is somewhere over there, but I believe they have enough crew already.” He spoke in the crisp, clipped accents of an upper-class Granadaian, and a broad gold ring set with amber flashed on the forefinger of his right hand as he wrote.

  “I’m not looking to hire on,” Lainie said. “Some bounty hunters shot my husband and took him.” Her heart pounded hard as she put words to what had happened, and she thought she might start crying again. It seemed horribly unreal and all too horribly real at the same time. She blinked back tears and fought to steady her voice. “One of the hands said they came this way and spoke to you.”

  “Yes, we let them into the pass early this afternoon. Normally, the Gap is closed to traffic until all the cattle have gone through, but their business was urgent; they’d captured an escaped bondservant and were in a hurry to return him to the owner of his contract.”

  “Thank you.” Lainie wheeled the horses around and started up the road towards the mouth of the pass.

  “Wait!” the man ordered as three enforcers moved to block her way.

  Lainie reined in and looked around. The mage had drawn his gun and was aiming it at her like he knew how to use it. “I told you,” he said, “the pass is closed to traffic until all the cattle have gone through.” He gave her a hard little smile.

  Lainie hated people who enjoyed telling other people what they couldn’t do. “That wasn’t a bondservant, that was my husband! I have to go after him.”

  The mage shrugged. “How unfortunate for you.” He didn’t sound the least bit sorry. Now he cocked his gun. “I cannot and will
not allow you to interfere with the passage of purchased cattle through the Gap, especially not for the purpose of giving aid to a criminal.”

  “He isn’t a criminal!” Lainie retorted. “And anyhow, what about you? I thought guns were illegal in Granadaia.”

  “They are.” His grin grew more predatory. “But we aren’t in Granadaia.”

  Lainie glanced back at the enforcers. Their faces were as hard as the blue-suited mage’s words. She wrestled with herself, trying to decide what to do. She didn’t want to wait. She couldn’t leave Silas with those men, hurt as he was, and she couldn’t let him fall into the hands of the Mage Council. All the terrible things he had told her they did to renegade mages, that he had told her they would do to her if they ever caught her, went through her mind. She pictured Silas imprisoned, tortured, Stripped of his power and left a mindless husk, even killed, and her stomach clenched in pain at the thought.

  She had also heard that the highest parts of the pass were usually snowed in for the winter by mid-autumn. Her guess was that she had a month and a half or, at best, two before the Gap became impassable. She didn’t know how far she would have to go to catch up with the hunters or how long it would take her to free Silas, and she didn’t want to risk being trapped in Granadaia for the winter. But getting herself shot or in trouble with the enforcers wouldn’t help matters any. She let out an angry breath and turned away from the mages. She had to come up with some way to get through the Gap without delay, and she had to do it quick.

  She found a place out of the way, then dismounted and sat down. All through the long, exhausting night and day, she hadn’t felt hungry, and she still wasn’t hungry now. There was just a cold, aching lump where her stomach should be. But, whatever she ended up doing, she was going to need to keep her strength up. She dug around in her saddlebags for some flatbread and dried fruit, and dutifully chewed on them. They turned to dust in her mouth, and she had to wash them down with lots of water.

  As she ate, she watched the hands drive a herd of cattle over to the road that led up to the pass. That pinch-nosed sheepknocker in the stupid suit had told her they weren’t hiring any more hands to take the cattle through the Gap, but it sounded like a lot of work, and, anyhow, what did someone who was such a greenfoot as to wear a suit like that know about cowhand work?

  She finished eating and stood, brushing off her hands on her pants. She had nothing to lose by asking. Leading both horses by the reins, she walked over to the foreman who was directing the hands who were driving the cattle. “Say, Mister?”

  He turned to her. “What is it?” His weathered, mustached face looked much more kindly than the mage she had talked to. Lainie felt a bit more at ease; this was one of her people, no matter that she was a mage and he was a Plain.

  “I need to get through the Gap, and I was wondering if you need any more hands.”

  “We don’t usually hire girls for this job. It’s hard work.”

  “I worked the drive, as a cook and a trail hand. I’ve been doing ranch work all my life. Please, I need to get through the Gap, and that man over there said I can’t until the cattle are through. But I can’t wait that long.”

  He glanced over at the mage in the fancy suit. “Much as I hate to agree with that greenfoot, he’s right. What’re you in such a hurry for?”

  “Some bounty hunters took my husband. They shot him down from his horse and took him.” Another rush of horror and grief made her eyes sting and her voice falter. “They were allowed through, because it was lawmen’s business. But they took him wrongly, and I have to go after him.”

  “I saw those fellas. Sure looked like they were in a hurry. I was surprised they were allowed in; riding like that could stampede the cattle. In the Gap, that’s deadly.”

  “Please. I don’t even need to get paid. I just need to get through the Gap so I can help my husband.”

  He gave her a look up and down. “You do look like the kind of girl who knows what she’s doing around stock. We can always use an extra hand who’s good with cattle. Those your mounts?” He nodded towards the horses.

  “Yes, sir. They’re both mine. Well, the gray’s my husband’s.”

  “You in good health? The air gets thin at the top, and anyone with a weak heart or lungs won’t make it over.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, then.” He fished around in his pants pocket and came up with a handful of small pieces of paper and a worn-down pencil. Using his callused palm as a writing board, he scrawled something on a piece of paper. “Name?”

  “Lainie Banfrey.” Despite the use of name-slip charms, the name Vendine seemed to have gotten around. Dutifully, she put a charm on her name now.

  One bushy gray eyebrow went up. “You wouldn’t be Burrett Banfrey’s girl Lainie, that they say ran off with a wizard, and is a wizard herself?”

  Lainie cursed silently. Of course he knew who she was. It seemed like everyone knew. Silas believed using real names with a name-slip charm was better than trying to keep track of a lot of false names and risking getting caught out in a lie, but maybe, just this once, it would have been better to use a fake name. Nothing to do for it now, though, but own up to it.

  She swallowed her fear; she had already learned that with so many mages around, the Plain men at the marketplace didn’t dare hurt her. “Yes, sir. My Pa isn’t a wizard, though; I got it from my grandmother.” As always, speaking of the wicked, heartless woman who was the source of her talent, who had abandoned and betrayed her family after learning she was a mage, left a bitter taste in Lainie’s mouth. But she didn’t want people thinking her Pa was a wizard and maybe trying to hang him.

  “You don’t look much like Banfrey, but you’ve got his spirit,” the foreman said. “I first met him when he was newly come through the Gap, a scared kid with no kin and nothing to his name but the shirt on his back, a handcart, and a sack of beans. But he also had courage and a strong will, and I knew he’d make something of himself one day.”

  His words about her Pa warmed Lainie and bucked up her own courage. “Thank you, sir. He’s a good man.”

  “He surely is. Now, I heard tell that you and that husband of yours, Vendine, saved the northern herd from a wizardly storm, and that he also saved a man from drowning in the White Rock. That true?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why would a wizard do such things?”

  “My husband and me, and some other wizards, too, believe in equal rights and freedom for Plains. They were the right things to do.”

  The foreman nodded, more to himself than to her, as though he was satisfied with her answers. “So tell me, why would Granadaian bounty hunters, wizards I’m guessing, be after one of their own?”

  “He’s in trouble with the Mage Council in Granadaia.”

  “Huh.” Then, to Lainie’s surprise and relief, the foreman wrote her name on the paper and added his signature. “Any man who’s run cross-wise to the gods-damned Mage Council is all right by me. Even if he is a wizard himself. Here.” He handed the slip of paper to Lainie. “Go on. When you get through – if you get through, and I want you to understand, every year we lose a handful of trail hands in the Gap –”

  “Yes, sir. I heard my Pa’s stories about when he came through. I know it’s dangerous.”

  “That’s right. So, when you get to the other side, give this to the folks there and they’ll pay you. Hope you catch up to your husband, Mrs. Vendine.”

  Relief and sudden hope after the nightmare she’d been through bloomed inside Lainie and brought another rush of tears to her eyes. This time she couldn’t hold them back. Not wanting the foreman to think he’d just hired a weepy pitch-fuss, she wiped her eyes with her shirtsleeves, tucked the paper into her pants pocket, and tried to smile. “Thank you, sir. I’m very much obliged.”

  “Glad to be of help.” He eyed the sun, just beginning to dip behind the hills far to the west, on the other side of the Long Valley. “I’ll send you in with the last crew for today. Here c
ome some of them now.”

  Three men on horseback, in full trail-hand gear, their horses and remounts heavily-laden with supplies, came riding over. Lainie recognized one of them from the herd she had traveled with. Not a Windy Valley man; she thought he might have been with the Discovery herd. A bunch of troublemakers, those fellows had been, most of them.

  “Boys, this is Mrs. Vendine,” the foreman said. “She and her husband saved the northern herd from an attack by wizards. You know that, Jervis; you were with that herd. Some Granadaian bounty hunters took Vendine, which, considering what he did for us, I regard as a direct insult to all us Wildings folks, and she needs to go through the Gap to get him back. The little lady’s a good hand on the trail, as good as any man, I hear, but I want you three to keep an eye on her and make sure no one bothers her.” He gave each of them a hard look straight in the eye. “That includes you fellas.”

  The cowhands tipped their hats to Lainie. None of them, not even Jervis, gave any sign that they objected to having a wizard on their crew. If they did, she could only hope that the boss’s orders would keep them from harming her. She pushed back her fear at the prospect of being alone among a group of Plain men who knew who and what she was. It would be okay, she told herself. She could handle them. She knew a lot more now and could defend herself better than the last time a gang of Plains had tried to hang her. “I’m glad to be working with you fellas.”

  “Oh, and Mrs. Vendine,” the foreman said, “stay with your crew. I know you’re feeling hurried, wanting to catch up with the men that took your husband, but I can’t guarantee your safety with any of the other crews, and riding fast in the Gap while the herds are going through might set off a stampede.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand.” Her fear for Silas urged her to hurry on ahead as fast as she could go, but getting herself killed, whether in a stampede or by hostile Plains, wouldn’t do him any good.