Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga) (57 page)

Lowrey shook his head. “No, that was one of the pieces I discovered from the journals and notes Lady Alarian shared with me. The first lords set a trap. They were afraid that someone would try to undo what they had done. For those who aren’t of the blood, Mirdalur is just a ruin. But if a Lord of the Blood returns without the proper elements, the energies will protect themselves.”

“How?” Connor pressed.

“I’m not sure exactly, but the warning was unmistakable,” Lowrey said. He looked from Connor to Penhallow. “Of course, that was when the tame magic, the
hasithara
, still worked. Without it, who knows? Mirdalur is a place of power—a place where the
visithara
, wild magic, is strong. That magic is feral now. It makes Mirdalur a very dangerous place. We’ve got to stop Blaine McFadden from going to Mirdalur until we know what Quintrel had in mind.”

“Because if anything happens to Blaine, the ability to fix the magic may die with him,” Connor murmured.

W
HERE DID YOU GET THE HORSES?” BLAINE
stared at Geir and the six horses that stood waiting for them.

“Since the Great Fire, finding a horse isn’t really a problem,” Geir replied. “So many of the manors were destroyed that some of the best horseflesh in the Ascendant Kingdoms is wandering around riderless—if you’re fast enough to catch them,” he said with a smile that showed the tips of his long eyeteeth.

“You stole them?” Piran asked incredulously.

Kestel elbowed him. “No king. No soldiers. Remember? We’re not likely to hang as horse thieves.”

“It’s just a touchy subject with me,” Piran said, misgiving clear in his face. “It was one of the things that landed me in Velant.”

Blaine chuckled, knowing that brawling while on duty, disorderly conduct, and behavior unbecoming to an officer were likewise among the charges that got Piran a one-way ticket to Velant, but he did not mention it. “I think they’re the most beautiful things I’ve seen since we landed,” Blaine replied. “I was trying to figure out how long it would take to walk home, and I didn’t like the answer.”

The horses had no tack, promising an uncomfortable three-day ride to Glenreith. “If you were going to steal horses, couldn’t you have managed a few saddles as well?” Piran grumbled good-naturedly.

Blaine and the others fell silent as they rode across the moonlit landscape. They rode cross-country, avoiding the roads to elude Reese and the highwaymen Geir assured them lay in wait around nearly every bend. Their route also gave them their clearest view yet of just what Donderath’s fall had cost. When they had landed in the ruined city of Castle Reach, Blaine had prepared himself for the devastation. This was worse.

Once-fertile farm fields were scorched black. Stone fences and cottages were nothing more than blackened heaps. Of the houses made from sod, wood, or thatch, nothing but charred posts remained. None of them spoke as they rode across untended farm fields grown high with weeds. Here and there, they spotted pigs and chickens, cows and mules, wandering free, mute survivors of the Cataclysm.

“The fire did so much damage,” Dawe murmured.

“It was worse by harvest,” Geir said. “Without their small magics, farmers were beset by locusts. They had relied on the magic for so long, many forgot the old ways to drive away pests. Magic helped them drain fields or redirect streams in ways that fought nature. Without the magic, the low places flooded. Rot and blight made for a slim harvest.

“Tradesmen who cut corners building fences and barns and who had used a flicker of magic to cover their lapses were caught out when their buildings and hedgerows collapsed,” Geir went on. “And without the midwives’ magic, animals and people alike suffered.”

Blaine glanced at Geir, surprised at the sorrow in his voice and the pained expression on his face. “It was much worse than
even the
talishte
could remember,” Geir said quietly. “Even most of the old ones can’t remember a time before magic. Many of us still have descendants living in Donderath, and while they may be distant relatives, we are aware of how they fare. So very many died,” he murmured. “Most mortals no longer know the way things were done before the magic. There are few aside from the
talishte
to teach them, but most scorn our help.”

The night was cold, and a thin dusting of fresh snow lay across the ground. Kestel shivered, pulling her cloak more tightly around her shoulders, but Blaine wondered whether it was due to the chill or to the awful realization of what had befallen their homeland. Finally Verran broke the silence. “There’s naught left to steal,” he said in a hushed voice. The others turned to him with a questioning look.

“On the way back aboard the ship, I had a picture in my mind what it might be like. I’d figured all the strange lights and such that Connor told us about would have scared off the locals and left a bounty to pick through.” Verran sighed. “I’d fancied myself sifting through the leavings, gathering a small fortune in pilfered goods.” His expression grew serious. “But there’s nothing left, and nowhere to sell it, is there?” Grief was clear in his voice. “I guess I didn’t want to understand what Connor was telling us. I can’t believe that it’s all gone.”

Blaine listened numbly, fear growing as he wondered what they would find when they reached Glenreith. Growing up under the harsh discipline of his father, Blaine had often dreamed that lightning would strike the old manor, collapsing it around the old man. Now that the possibility appeared very real, grief and fear filled him. All the years in Velant, and after that, as a “free” man in Edgeland, Blaine had kept alive the hope that his sacrifice had enabled Mari, Carr, and Judith to
live a better life. In dreams, he had seen himself reunited with his family, walking the familiar pathways on the manor’s large grounds. Glenreith had always remained a constant. He did not want to come so far to find that only rubble remained.

At Geir’s request, they rode with swords and crossbows at the ready, visibly armed. To Blaine’s eye, they appeared to be the very highwaymen they sought to elude. They passed few other travelers on the rutted roads, and their group outnumbered all of the small clutches of wayfarers who were unlucky enough to be about by night. Blaine was relieved when the first night was uneventful.

They took shelter just before dawn in the ruins of an old stone barn. “If it hasn’t fallen down by now, it’s not likely to do so tonight,” Geir said, offering scant comfort as Blaine eyed the rubble of the barn’s old walls and lofts. “If it’s still standing, we’ll be safe enough for one day.”

Dawe poked among the wreckage as the others found places to sleep. Blaine saw Dawe stoop and sift through the leaf-strewn rubble, pocketing items as he went. Curious, Blaine walked over. “I thought Verran was the thief in our bunch,” Blaine said with as much lightness as he could manage.

Dawe stretched his lanky frame and ran a hand back through his hair. “Can’t steal from the dead, Mick,” he said with a lopsided smile. “You know me. Always tinkering. I’m just gathering up bits of metal. Got an idea for a special kind of crossbow that could fire faster and get off more arrows than an archer can shoot. Might come in handy if Reese’s
talishte
come at us, or if Pollard’s men outnumber us.”

Blaine eyed the collection of iron bits Dawe had gathered in a rag. “You think you can make something like that?”

Dawe’s eyes sparked with the first enthusiasm Blaine had
seen in several days. “I’d sure like to give it a try. I’m guessing Glenreith had a blacksmith, didn’t it? If so, I can get the forge going, see what I can do.”

Blaine sighed. “It used to. Had to make repairs to the farm tools, shoe the horses, fix the wagons. That’s assuming that there’s anything standing at all,” he added.

Dawe seemed to sense his mood, and he nodded. “So that’s what’s had you so quiet. Should have figured as much.”

“I might drag everyone out here only to find that there’s nothing left,” Blaine replied, trying to keep his voice from giving away just how much he feared that outcome.

“Might be,” Dawe allowed. “Then again, maybe it got off easy, on account of there not being a Lord of the Blood in residence. We might show up on the doorstep and have your aunt decide she doesn’t want a bunch of criminals as houseguests.”

Blaine pictured his aunt Judith, a thin, quiet woman who had withstood heartache and loss. She had married well as a young woman, to a man she had actually loved. First, there had been miscarriages, several of them. Finally, two treasured children were born, only to die before their tenth birthdays. Then her husband broke his neck in a riding accident. Grief-stricken and alone, Judith took on a new cause, doing her best to protect her sister by marriage from the brutality of Blaine’s father. She had not succeeded, nor had she been able to protect Blaine, Mari, or Carr from Ian McFadden’s wrath, although she did the best she could to offer comfort and healing. If anyone could have survived the Cataclysm, it would be Judith McFadden Ainsworth.

“In the old days, she might have been scandalized if a pack of ruffians showed up,” Blaine said. “That was before she knew what a monster her brother was, and before I became a murderer,” he added ruefully. “Aunt Judith is a survivor. If anyone’s
managed to keep a household together, it would be Judith, and if I know her, she’s cared for the servants and the hired help as if they were family.”

“Sounds like a formidable lady,” Dawe said, bending to retrieve another bit of iron.

Blaine nodded. “She loved my brother and sister and I fiercely, and after our mother died, she did the best she could to protect us.” He sighed. “What happened wasn’t her fault. No one could control father.” He paused. “What about you? We’ve been so busy running for our lives since we got back, I don’t even know what the rest of you need to do now that we’re home again.”

“My wife ran off with another man not long after I was sent to Velant,” Dawe said, kicking at stones to free a small iron bar. “That was the one letter I received.” He gathered a few more rusted pieces, and then straightened. “Verran’s sister died of the pox before we got our Tickets of Leave. We’ve been talking, Verran, Piran, Kestel, and me. None of us left anyone behind, not that would care. We came back to help you save the magic, and that’s what we aim to do. Like it or not, Mick, you’re stuck with us.”
And with Geir
, Blaine thought.

Dawe and Blaine walked back to the rest of the group in silence. Dawe clapped him on the shoulder. “Get some sleep, Mick. I’ll take first watch. It’ll give me a chance to fiddle around with the metal I found and think about what I’ll make of it.” He grinned. “I’ve got the idea of the thing pretty well worked out in my head. By the time I can get a forge fired up, I ought to be able to get it built.” He paused. “Geir’s gone to ground in the storage bins, but he said we could count on him being ready to go just after sunset.”

“I have the feeling we’ll need your invention sooner than we think,” Blaine said with a yawn, suddenly exhausted. “Wake
me when it’s my shift,” he added, finding a spot near the others to stretch out. Aching in every muscle from the ride as well as from the fight with Reese’s men, Blaine was asleep almost immediately.

It felt to Blaine as if he had just finished his shift at watch and gotten settled when a voice roused him.

“Get up!”

It was the alarm in Geir’s voice as much as the command that roused Blaine. Anything that alarmed a
talishte
was worthy of attention. “What’s wrong?” Blaine asked, getting to his feet and grabbing his sword. Piran and the others were also struggling to wake.

Blaine looked out over the ruined stone wall. Night had fallen. A full moon hung just above the horizon, but tonight it was blood red, with an eerie white ring. A swath of crimson light below it cast a bloody path to the horizon. Between the moon and the horizon, the sky seemed unnaturally dark.

“That darkness is a magic storm,” Geir said. “You’ve got to get below, into the granary bins, until it passes over us. Go!”

A rush of adrenaline drove the last of sleep from Blaine’s mind as he and the others gathered their few possessions and headed for the hole in the floor where Geir had taken his daytime rest. There was no ladder, so Blaine and Piran were the first to swing down, letting themselves drop a few feet to the packed ground below. Dawe and Verran lowered Kestel, then swung down themselves, followed by Geir, who appeared to levitate down effortlessly, drawing the warped wooden trapdoor into place overhead.

“What now?” Piran asked.

“We wait,” Geir replied. “You’re just lucky that the storm came when one of us was awake to spot it.”

They fell silent, huddled in the farthest corner of the cramped bin. A distant rumbling, like the sound of an army approaching at full gallop, grew louder, then became deafening. The air in the bin was alive with energy, the way Blaine had felt once when he’d narrowly missed being struck by lightning. His skin prickled with warning, the fine hairs on his arms and on the back of his neck stood up, and the air had an odd tang that left a bitter taste in the back of his mouth.