The Sentinel Mage (20 page)

The patrol slowed from canter to walk—the horses pushing through the waving stalks of corn—and halted a dozen yards distant. Harkeld scanned the faces. His gaze halted on the soldier wearing the officer’s badge of rank.

“The officer is King Magnas’s youngest son,” he said quietly.

Beside him, Justen loosened his sword in its scabbard. “Is that good or bad?”

“We’re friends,” Harkeld said, and then corrected himself:
We were friends.
The witch’s blood running in his veins must change that.

The officer nudged his horse forward a few paces. “Harkeld. We’ve been looking for you.”

Harkeld dipped his head in greeting. “Tomas.”

“My father wishes to offer Lundegaard’s assistance in your cause.”

Dareus nudged his own horse forward, placing himself between Harkeld and Prince Tomas. “And what does King Magnas know of our cause?” There was no belligerence in his tone, no hostility, merely polite curiosity.

“The Ivek Curse.”

“A fable,” Dareus said, with a casual, dismissive wave of his hand.

“Not according to the reports coming out of Vaere.” Tomas regarded the witch steadily. “You need not fear us. We seek only to help.”

The horse that was Gerit snorted.

Harkeld turned his head at the rumble of hooves. A second patrol came into view, cantering through the corn. Twelve more men. He was aware of Justen stiffening alongside him.

“We understand there’s a bounty on Harkeld’s head,” Tomas said.

Dareus shrugged. His posture was relaxed, one hand holding the reins, the other resting on his thigh, but tiny flames burned at the end of each fingertip. He was ready to fight.

“My father has issued a proclamation. Any man who attempts to harm Harkeld will forfeit his livestock, his holdings, and his life.”

The second patrol slowed to a walk.

“A dreadful punishment,” Dareus said, politely. “Tell me, why should we believe—”

The two hawks swooped low above their heads, shrieking. One plummeted down to land. It was Ebril.

Prince Tomas’s mount shied. There was a scrape of steel as the soldiers drew their swords.

“Archers!” Ebril shouted, pointing back the way they’d come. In the blink of an eye he became a lion, another blink and he was gone, charging back through the cornfield.

“Sire!” Justen cried. “Get—”

Something struck Harkeld’s shoulder blade. The impact almost knocked him off his horse. Justen grabbed him, steadying him in the saddle. “Sire!”

Harkeld clung to the reins with one hand. His left shoulder, his left arm, were numb. He dimly heard Tomas shouting, heard the thunder of hooves as the patrol followed Ebril at a gallop.

Dareus was at his side. “Get him off the horse!”

He slid awkwardly from the saddle, staggering when his feet hit the ground. “What—” The numbness spread to his chest. There was something wrong with his heartbeat. Someone grabbed him as his knees buckled.

“Sire!”

Faces loomed in his vision. Justen’s. Tomas’s.

“What—” His vision grayed at the edges. He tried to make his tongue form words—
What happened?—
but everything went black.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

J
AUMÉ WASN’T THE
only one heading west any more. There were other people on the road. They passed him on horseback and in wagons, grim-faced and urgent. He learned to step to the side of the road when he heard the sound of hooves. He learned not to ask for food.

The rumble of wheels came from behind him. “Out of the way, boy!” A stone shied at him.

Jaumé scurried aside.

A wagon passed, drawn by oxen. On the driver’s bench were a man and a woman, two children. The woman clutched the children tightly to her. She turned her head and looked at him as they passed.

The wagon was piled with belongings, with food. Jaumé watched it disappear around the next bend. Hunger gnawed in his belly. The apples he’d stolen from an orchard yesterday were gone, eaten.

Two miles further on was a village. It was about the size of Girond, twenty or thirty cottages with whitewashed walls and thatched roofs, built around a cobbled market square with a well at its centre.

The village was silent, empty.

Jaumé explored cautiously. He saw hens pecking between the cobblestones in the marketplace, a slinking dog. The windows of the empty cottages seemed to stare at him. He knew the curse wasn’t here, knew it was miles behind him, days behind him, and yet hair pricked on the nape of his neck. He shivered.

Like Girond, the village had an inn. It had been looted. The door swung open in the breeze, banging against the whitewashed wall. Jaumé hurried past.

He chose a cottage at random, peering in the windows. Only his face looked back at him.

His stomach rumbled, loud in the silence. Jaumé took a deep breath and opened the cottage door.

He checked the kitchen first. The larder had been hastily emptied. Dried beans rolled beneath his feet. A sack of flour lay where it had been dropped, split open, flour coating the floor.

Whoever had emptied the larder hadn’t been thorough. Hanging in the darkest corner was half a leg of cured ham.

Jaumé scrambled up on a shelf and unhooked the ham. His mouth watered as he jumped down, his feet sending up a puff of flour. He bit into the ham, sinking his teeth into salty, stringy flesh, and hurried out into the kitchen, chewing.

It was no longer empty. A man stood between him and the open door.

Jaumé halted, his mouth full, the ham clutched to his chest.

The man wore muddy boots and had a rucksack slung over his shoulder. A week’s worth of stubble covered the lower half of his face. A forager, like himself.

The man’s gaze fastened on the leg of ham. His expression became sharp, intent. “Give it to me,” he said.

Jaumé shook his head and shrank back, tightening his grip on the ham.

The man reached into his pocket. He pulled out a knife. “Give me the ham.”

Terror locked Jaumé’s muscles. He didn’t move as the man walked towards him, couldn’t move. He stared at the knife, too afraid to chew, too afraid to swallow, almost too afraid to breathe.

The man jerked the ham from his grasp. “Get out of here, boy.”

His muscles unlocked. Jaumé ran for the door, stumbling over the step, his mouth still full of half-chewed ham. Once the village was out of sight he fell to his knees and spat out the ham, gagging, gulping for breath.

When he’d stopped shaking, he picked the ham out of the dirt and ate it.

C
LOUDS GATHERED IN
the sky as the afternoon progressed. It began to drizzle. Jaumé trudged through the mud, shivering, huddling to the side of the road when wagons and horse riders passed.

In the early evening, he came to a lane leading to a farmhouse. No smoke came from the. chimney. To one side of the house, sheets were pegged to a washing line. Two of them dragged on the ground, muddy.

Jaumé hesitated, and then walked cautiously down the rutted lane. No dogs barked warning at him, no one answered his knock on the kitchen door.

He pushed it open and entered warily. The kitchen was empty, the ashes in the fireplace cold. He tiptoed into the larder. His feet left wet, muddy prints on the floor. The shelves were bare apart from a scattering of peppercorns and cloves.

Outside, a basin of muddy water and potato peelings sat beside the kitchen doorstep. Jaumé crouched on the step and groped in the water, catching a handful of peelings. He chewed them, fishing in the water for more. His fingers touched something sharp, something cold.

Jaumé stopped chewing. He tipped the water out of the basin. In the bottom, amid the peelings, lay a knife.

He picked it up and wiped it carefully on his shirt and put it in his pocket.

In the henhouse, Jaumé found five eggs. He ate them, sucking the contents greedily from the shells. Next, he looked in the shadowy barn. He could see where the farm wagon had stood, where the horses had been stabled.

He found an empty waterskin hanging on a peg, and a thin blanket that smelled of horses. He took them both, filling the waterskin at the well. And then he set off west again, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, the waterskin slung over one arm, the knife in his pocket.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

T
HE LAST TIME
Innis had healed the prince she’d felt his loathing of her, like something crawling under her skin. This time he was unconscious. The healing was much easier.

As she repaired the broken shoulder blade and rib, the damage to his heart, she began to get a sense of who Prince Harkeld was. Without revulsion and fear dominating his emotions, other aspects of him were discernable. On one level, he felt a lot like Petrus: a sense of youthfulness, maleness, vitality. But beneath those were other things. Her hands lay on his back. She felt the warmth of his skin, the movement of his body with each inhalation, each exhalation, but she was also aware of other things: confidence, stubbornness, determination, pride, honor.

Mixed with those things, tainting everything, was a turmoil of confusion and fear, a bitter edge of hatred, the sharpness of panic, a sense of helplessness, grief.

What had she said to Petrus?
He’s like a mage who’s been stripped of his magic
.

She’d been wrong. What had happened to Prince Harkeld was worse than that. He hadn’t lost one thing he valued; he’d lost it all—his home and family, his birthright. Everything. And he’d lost it through no fault of his own.

Innis realized she was stroking his shoulder blade lightly with her thumb, trying to give comfort. She stilled the movement.

She looked up as the door opened. Petrus entered. Behind him, guarding the doorway, was one of King Magnas’s personal guardsmen. A russet-brown hound lay alongside the man. Ebril.

Petrus closed the door. He was dressed in fresh clothes. His face was clean-shaven. “How is he?”

“I’m almost finished.” Innis stood and stretched. “Will you help me turn him over?”

They eased the prince onto his back. His skin was as tanned as Petrus’s, the dusting of hair on his chest dark brown instead of golden.

Innis pulled the sheet up to his chin. “Where’s Dareus?”

“Talking to the king. With Cora and Gerit.”

She nodded and smothered a yawn, looking down at the prince. His face was dark with stubble, the muscles slack in sleep. A curse shadow lay over him, but she barely noticed it. She’d grown used to the sight of them draped over everyone. “I don’t know how to shave.” Innis touched a finger to the prince’s cheek, felt the rasp of whiskers. “Will you teach me?”

“Yes, later.” Petrus took hold of her arm and tried to shepherd her towards the door. “Let me finish healing him. Go and bathe. Rest.”

She shook her head. “It’s fine, Petrus.”

“But—”

“I want to do it.” She pulled her arm free.