Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (19 page)

night threatened to overwhelm me. It was so tempting to simply say yes, to

whatever this vision of loveliness might ask of me.

But I’d been married long enough to know better than to make major

decisions in this kind of situation. Amanda had done the same thing, offering a

blow job out of the blue and pausing in the middle of it to propose vacation

plans or a new car or whatever else she might want at the moment.

So instead I hugged Avilla against my chest, and sighed.

“I’ll think about it,” I told her. “I’ll want to know a lot more about what’s

involved in a coven-bond and how they work.”

“Of course,” she agreed.

“If there are unbreakable vows involved I want us to think very carefully

about what to include,” I went on. “Something that sounds fine at first glance

could easily end up making us all miserable twenty years from now.”

“I’ve got a bunch of notes we can look over,” Cerise agreed. “I’ve been

trying to work out ideas for years.”

“Thank you, Daniel,” Avilla breathed. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to

make this work.”

Then she kissed me, and the time for conversation was over.

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Chapter 8

In the cold light of day, I was sure there had to be a catch.

Seriously, two beautiful young women volunteering to share a guy? Let

alone the thing with the maids, and all the ‘please tell us what to do’ vibes I

was getting from them.

It was too good to be true. They wanted something from me, and they

were trying to dazzle and distract me to keep me from noticing the catch until it

was too late. It was the only explanation that made sense.

Unfortunately, my own ignorance made it impossible to guess what the

truth was. Maybe this ‘coven bond’ ritual was actually going to turn out to be a

mind control spell, or some kind of sacrifice. Maybe they had a way to steal

my magic if I consented. There were a thousand possibilities.

Or maybe they were just desperately scared, and were trying to make

sure I didn’t abandon them. That was the kicker. Just because they were trying

to manipulate me didn’t meant it was for nefarious purposes. Hell, they might

even like me as much as I did them, in which case it would be damned stupid

to throw this away just because I couldn’t let go of my suspicions.

So I resolved to keep my eyes open, learn fast, and play along until I

figured things out. At this point that was really all I could do.

At least I finally had some time to prepare. I’d sandbagged more than a

little on my construction time estimate, but I still needed to spend most of each

day working on the wall. I wanted to make sure the Baron would have no

excuse to interrupt my work or short me on my payment, and besides I was a

little nervous that the giants would make a move before I was finished. The

town had been attacked several times by goblins, trolls and other lesser

threats, so it was only a matter of time.

The first day I spent part of the morning making the rounds of the

injured who’d been under my care, speeding along their healing and making

sure they’d all make a full recovery. They were happy enough about that, and

more than a few of them made inquiries about whether I was hiring. Not having

time to organize that myself, I sent most of them to see Avilla.

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She’d been shocked when I told her I was putting her in charge of

organizing the group I wanted, but she was happy enough when I explained my

reasoning.

“We can’t afford to take a bunch of extra people, and I figure this is

like setting up a minor noble’s household. I’ve got no idea what we actually

need in the way of domestic staff, but I’m sure you can handle that side of it.

We’re also going to need laborers to move supplies around, teamsters to drive

whatever I come up with for transport, probably a blacksmith and some other

craftsmen to support the troops and keep all our gear in order. Keep the group

as small as you can, but I expect we’ll end up with a dozen soldiers and at

least that many support staff.”

“More, if we want to be self-sufficient,” she replied, already

considering the problem. “What about families? The best craftsmen will

mostly be married, won’t they?”

“Probably. We’ll take them, of course. But try to keep the total number

of people down, especially children. Travel is going to be dangerous no matter

how well we prepare, and I’d rather not have a bunch of little kids in the line

of fire.”

I spent an hour enchanting warmth cloaks for Cerise to sell, and

confirmed in the process that I was getting faster at it. It was a pretty simple

enchantment, and practice made a big difference. The last cloak took me barely

ten minutes to make, and I was actually optimistic about improving on that

time. With any luck I’d be able to equip my whole group with them before it

was time to leave.

Unfortunately working on the wall didn’t get any easier. My limit there

was more a matter of power than skill, at least when it came to conjuring up

thousands of cubic feet of earth and stone. The second tower went up a bit

faster than the first, but the fact that I wasn’t bothering to do anything fancy

with the interior was a lot of that. I put on exterior doors of stone, but the

inside was just five identical floors of one big room each.

Things got more complicated when I got to the road I’d noticed running

parallel to the river. Obviously that called for a gatehouse, but how was I

going to make a gate out of stone? Mechanical engineering wasn’t my

specialty, and it would be awful easy to end up making the gates so heavy

they’d be impossible to move.

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Putting in the foundation for a pair of towers with a gatehouse between

them was easy enough, but I was still mulling over the gate problem when I

heard Beri’s voice call down from the top of the wall.

“Master Black? Are you down there?”

“I’m here!” I called. “Wait where you are, I’ll be right up.”

I carefully levitated myself up the face of the wall, and found Beri

waiting at the top. She was wearing one of the new warmth cloaks, which

seemed sensible enough, and awkwardly holding something to her chest.

She gave a startled squeak, and backed away for a moment before she

recognized me.

“Oh! Sorry, sir, I didn’t realize that was you for a moment. Miss Avilla

sent me with lunch. Unless you were coming back to the tower?”

“No, I need to make as much progress as I can today. What have you

got there?”

She smiled. “It’s pretty clever. She made minced meat rolls, but they

would have gone cold long before I could get them to you in this weather. So

Miss Avilla collected stones from the river and heated them on the stove. Then

we filled the bottom of a pot with them, put the rolls on top, and wrapped it in

towels so I could carry it without getting burned.”

She set the pot down as she explained, and spread a blanket in the lee

of the parapet so we could sit out of the wind. Then she produced a small

decanter of water, and a cup.

I shook my head. “That girl is a miracle worker with this domestic

stuff, isn’t she? Well, you may as well have a seat. How are you doing?”

She seemed a bit surprised at the question, but recovered quickly.

“Well enough, sir. I’ve been helping Miss Cerise run errands all morning.

We’ve traded off two of the cloaks already, and we’ve been procuring all sorts

of supplies for Miss Avilla. Mind you, no one wants to part with food.”

“I’m not surprised,” I sighed. “I suppose we’ll have to do something

creative to stock up for the trip. Bribe an official with magic items, or maybe

go find a lost granary to recover. I notice the Baron has salvage teams going

out to the surrounding farms already.”

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“Yes, sir. Um, do we really have to leave?” She looked out over the

frozen landscape around the town. “That seems awful dangerous.”

“We’re going to be in danger no matter what we do,” I pointed out.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be a lot better prepared this time. We won’t be on foot,

and I’ve got some ideas for magic weapons to discourage any monsters that try

to bother us.”

“If you say so, sir. I’ll miss the tower, though. I wish we could just

close the doors and stay behind those walls until this is all over. The thought of

going out there again...”

She huddled in on herself, clearly terrified at the idea. Poor girl. I

suppose I couldn’t blame her for that. I put a comforting arm around her, and

she curled up against me.

“Tina and I are lucky you came along when you did,” she said softly.

There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I occupied myself with eating.

The food was excellent as usual, but hungry as I was it didn’t last long.

“Master Black?” Beri asked. “Does it take a special talent to learn

magic? Or can anyone do it?”

“Are you interested?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. The stories all say bad things happen to

people who tamper with dark forces. But I can’t help thinking that if Miss

Cerise ran into some terrible monster in a dark alley, the monster would run

away screaming. I’d give a lot to be like that.”

“Hmm. Well, there’s more than one kind of magic,” I said, repeating

what Cerise had told me just a few days before. “Some you have to be born

with, but others anyone can learn if they’re willing to put in the work.

Unfortunately it takes years to get to where you can do anything impressive.

Cerise and Avilla have both been practicing since they were children, and

they’re just starting to blossom.”

“I see.” She shifted, her hand slipping under my cloak to rest on my

chest. “I suppose I’ll just have to stay close, then. Is there anything else I can

do for you, sir?”

Was she trying to flirt with me? Well, this was hardly the place for

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that.

I let her go, and set the lid back on the pot. “No, I’m good. I’d better get

back to work now.”

Conjuring metal took easily a hundred times more energy than stone,

but in the end it was the only feasible solution. I hung each leaf of the gate on

an iron post set deep into the stone, with a counterweight that would be hidden

inside the wall. That let me build each door out of a framework of iron bars

several inches thick, covered with a two-inch facing of iron plate studded

liberally with spikes. The inner surface got a much thinner layer of iron plate,

and I was able to fuse all of it together into a single seamless mass with a bit

of effort. The whole thing took a couple of hours to build, including the iron

beams that could be dropped across the inside of the gate to hold it shut. But

the end result was light enough for a couple of men to open and close, albeit

with difficulty.

A few men from the current gate garrison wandered out for a look

while I was working on it, and their sergeant offered some shrewd advice on

details like where to put vision slits and the door into the gatehouse. I ended up

installing a portcullis, along with quite a few arrow slits and murder holes

covering the approach to the gate.

They also pointed out some of the practical problems inherent in living

in such a structure, which convinced me to go ahead and install fireplaces on

each floor and a few privies in discreet locations. It was far from ideal, but

that way they’d be able to get by if I never got a chance to put in magical

heating or plumbing.

Later that afternoon, once I’d finally finished the gatehouse and started

on the next stretch of wall, I got my next visitor. This time it was a burly fellow

with graying hair and a scraggly beard, carrying a weathered-looking spear

and bundled up in a coat and cloak that seemed quite well-used. He was

accompanied by a couple of younger men, also armed with spears, but from the

way they focused on surveying the snow-covered fields around us I surmised

they were here as his bodyguards.

I was raising a new stretch of wall when I noticed them, and dropped

back to ground level to see what they wanted. As the older man approached I

noted that he wore a large silver amulet outside his cloak, bearing an odd

knotwork symbol that looked sort of like three overlapping crescent moons.

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“Any idea who that is?” I asked the leader of my current bodyguard

squad. What was his name, again? I’ve never been good with names, and there

was so much coming and going it was getting hard to keep track.

“That’s Holger Drakebane,” the soldier explained in a low tone. “He’s