Winter Witch (13 page)

“Shamans,” said Ellasif.

“What else?” asked Balev.

“That’s all,” said Avari. “Perhaps you can barter with them.”

Balev looked at the Korvosan as if he had pulled his beard. “These men do not barter,” he said.

“Perhaps if we left some goods behind,” began Avari, but he saw that Balev was no longer interested in his counsel.

Ellasif would not have believed the caravan could travel any faster, but a combination of imploring and cursing the donkeys urged them to speeds that threatened to smash the wheels from the wagons. Balev led them northwest, toward the approaching storm. Soon the thunder rolling down the western mountains was louder than the rumble of their wagon wheels. Deep within the black clouds, lightning crackled with dire mirth.

Within half an hour, one of the rear guards called out that he spied their pursuers. All at once, the quiet with which they had entered the Nolands fell beneath an avalanche of curses and prayers. When one of the goats fell and was dragged, a girl of no more than seven years leaned out of the back of the wagon and cut the beast’s tether. The beast tumbled and stood, bleating its indignation. It trotted after the wagons that steered to avoid it, and then it was left behind.

It was foolish to think the raiders would be content with a single goat, but Ellasif hoped they would at least pause to capture the animal. With any luck, it would slow one or two of them as they secured their prize. She looked back to see whether they would take the bait, but a wake of dust had risen behind the caravan. Gusts from the storm stabbed holes in the opaque wall, but only for an instant before it closed again.

A cry from one of the rear guards heralded the first volley. The arrow stood straight up from his leather spaulder, and the man slapped away the shaft as if shooing an insect, leaving the arrowhead stuck in his armor like a bee’s stinger. It was a lucky shot, the other missiles falling short or harmlessly near the other caravan guards. At least the wind favored the caravan, thought Ellasif.

An instant later, the rain began.

Ellasif nocked an arrow and waited for a clear shot. The rain thinned the wall of dust, and for a few moments Ellasif could see their pursuers. They were big men with ragged silhouettes, like the rough sketch with which Avari began most of his drawings. Some were fair-haired with long, braided beards, their clothing made of bear and otter pelts. They bellowed dire promises, mostly stolen away by the wind. Others in buckskins kept their heads and faces shaved but wore paint or tattoos over most of their exposed skin. They whooped ululating war cries of no words Ellasif understood, but the threat was no less horrible.

In one smooth motion, Ellasif stood high in her stirrups, turned, and fired an arrow. It struck a thick wooden shield bolted to the half-severed arm of an Ulfen man. He stared at her as he rode on, his black-toothed grin promising personal revenge. Ellasif nocked another arrow.

Her second shot appeared to miss, passing near the head of a Shoanti warrior. A few seconds later, the man fell backward off of his saddle, a dark plume rising from his throat.

The other guards were less successful. Only one other raider fell to their arrows, and he leaped up immediately to run after his mounted companions.

A bolt of lightning struck nearby, for an instant turning the world black and white. Horses screamed, and the back of the chicken coop wagon flew up over its front, crashing upside down over the backs of the animals. One of the twins flew from the ruined vehicle and tumbled to the ground. Ellasif rode to him. Timoteo and one of the guards rushed to the wagon as she reached down to lift the stunned boy onto the saddle before her. She looked up to see what else she could do. The driver of the wagon was obviously dead, his neck broken.

The Nolanders were less than twenty yards away as Timoteo stood between them and the guard lifting the other twin from the wrecked wagon. Ellasif moved toward them, but Timoteo caught her eye and waved her off. “Go,” he said. “Take him away from—”

Another bolt of lightning fell, this time directly upon Timoteo and his horse. For an instant Ellasif saw them outlined like withered skeletons, and then the blinding flash was gone. In its wake, man and steed stood like a grim statue, burned black and red. Then they tipped as one into a jumble of flesh and bone.

The surviving guard’s horse screamed as the man swung back into the saddle, pulling the other twin up before him. He kicked the beast into motion, and they galloped toward Ellasif. She was already turning, but one of the approaching raiders caught her eye.

The man was a tall, emaciated Shoanti. He wore a bone breastplate and held a feathered wand above his head, his face lifted to chant to the storm. A nimbus of electricity crackled around his fetish. Ellasif knew he had slain Timoteo, and she felt a hot surge of vengeance fill her heart.

“Come!” cried the man carrying the other twin. “Hurry!”

Ellasif weighed the warm mass of the boy against the cold weight of her anger. She rose in the stirrups and shot one last reckless arrow toward the shaman. She turned and kicked her pony into a gallop the instant after she saw it enter his open mouth and emerge with a gory little plume above his skull.

The raiders’ horses were faster, and in seconds the thunder of their hooves was louder than the storm. Ahead of Ellasif, Avari had turned to stare at the oncoming raiders. His mouth was an O of shock or disbelief.

“Run, you idiot!” shouted Ellasif. She could not risk losing Avari, especially not after traveling so far for him. How could he just stand there gaping?

Avari lifted his palm as if showing something to the Nolanders, but his hand was empty. His lips moved, and Ellasif realized he was not gaping but speaking. As she passed him, he completed his incantation and turned his palm outward. A brilliant cone of colored light shot from his hand and enveloped the nearest four riders and their horses. Without a scream, the horses tumbled to the ground, their riders falling with or over them. Men and beasts lay stunned or dead, crushed beneath their falling mounts.

A volley of arrows from the caravan guards slowed the next ragged rank of attackers, but still they did not stop. Leaving their companions on the ground, they charged ahead.

Avari chased after Ellasif, the long legs of his horse soon overtaking her pony. He gestured with one hand and spoke more of the arcane words that were powerless on the tongue of anyone but a wizard. Ellasif heard the snap of bowstrings behind them and cried out a warning, but Avari had heard it too and pressed himself flat against his steed, as did she. An arrow skimmed her shoulders and caught in her cloak, but neither she nor the boy was hit. Avari cursed like a sailor, and for a moment Ellasif thought he had been hit.

“Lost the damned spell,” he shouted at her. She sympathized, knowing how difficult it was even to shoot an arrow while riding full tilt.

Ellasif and Avari reached the rest of the caravan, but the raiders were already among them. The other guards had closed in with the wagons, interposing themselves wherever possible between the Nolanders and the noncombatants. Gisanto had already cut halfway through the neck of a red-bearded Ulfen man, and the blood spray covered the Varisian’s face. He looked like a demon as he screamed curses at the attackers, wheeling left and right to cut off any who dared approach the wagon he defended.

Balev rode up beside Ellasif and grabbed the boy, who cried out, “Uncle!” Thus freed, Ellasif drew her blade and looked for Avari.

The mad fool was standing up in his saddle, making himself the best possible target in the caravan. The Nolander archers had already marked him, and their arrows formed a black crescent as they fell toward him.

“Get down!” cried Ellasif. Avari had to have heard her, but he continued to cast his spell. He completed it just as the arrows struck, but none of them touched his flesh. Each of them—and there had to have been more than a dozen—flinched away as though striking an invisible wall a few inches from his body.

Avari’s new spell materialized among the Nolanders, a roiling green cloud of noxious gas. Even from twenty yards’ distance, the stench curdled Ellasif’s stomach. The effect on the raiders touched by the cloud was instantaneous. A couple turned their horses away, leaning over the beast’s necks in convulsive vomiting. One or two more crumpled to the ground within the miasma, disappearing in the distance. Two more rode through the cloud, choking and gagging along with their horses.

Avari had slain no more than one or two, but he had slowed them. In the resulting confusion, the nearest of the Nolanders spread out through the caravan. A one-eyed Shoanti warrior dragged a screaming woman from the driver’s seat of a wagon and rode away with his prize. Camillor began to ride after her, but Balev bellowed at him to remain with the caravan.

Another Shoanti shaman, this one with a pale green snake entwined along his arm, raced toward Avari while shaking a serpent-headed staff. Avari snapped off a few syllables and made a lewd gesture. The spell sent quakes of uncontrollable laughter through his attacker’s body. The shaman veered away, barely able to grip his horse’s mane, much less direct his mount toward the foe.

The guards repelled the raiders, but only for a moment. Balev shouted encouragement for all to keep riding, but behind them Ellasif heard the Nolander leaders rallying their forces to continue their pursuit. With the mud growing ever thicker, they would be upon them again in minutes.

Avari cast another spell, the results of which were invisible through the veil of rain. A moment later, the screams of horses and the curses of their riders told her he had somehow impeded their path.

“Go!” Avari cried. “Balev, turn us toward Brinewall.”

“No!” shouted Camillor. There was terror in his voice, beyond that which Ellasif knew every member of the caravan already felt.

“They won’t follow us there,” yelled Avari. Ellasif had to acknowledge he had a point.

“To Brinewall!” she shouted. To her surprise, Gisanto added his voice to their plea.

Balev made his decision. “Follow me!” he roared, his voice challenging the thunder for command. No one could disobey that voice, and so they ran northwest.

They were much closer than Ellasif had realized, and the next stroke of lightning cast the fortress of Brinewall into stark silhouette. She could make out no details, only the crenellated edge of a wall that seemed to rise naturally out of the riverside cliffs. There was a village on the other side, but Ellasif had hoped never to see its abandoned homes, nor whatever lay within the haunted walls of its castle.

The Nolanders drew close again. If the sight of the fortress frightened them, they showed no fear of it. They were bloodied now, their prey grown more precious for the blood they had spilled in pursuit of it. Lightning flashed again, casting the outline of the forbidden place against blanched clouds.

Queerly, the lightning cast the shadow of the castle down upon the caravan and beyond them, throwing a shadow over the Nolanders. One of the attackers screamed. Others grew desperate in their threats. “We shall retrieve your corpses in the morning!” cried one.

They were not alone in their fears. Mothers driving the wagons and warriors riding beside them wept openly. None desired to spend a moment, much less a night, in Brinewall.

“We cannot go in there,” shouted Gisanto, his face etched with an agony of indecision. He had supported the suggestion to flee here, but could not force himself to enter.

“We don’t have to,” replied Avari, with a brassy note of triumph in his voice. “Look!”

All eyes turned in the direction where he pointed. East of the castle, a bridge wide enough for wagons spanned the Steam River. Each flicker of lightning made its granite stones gleam under the rain.

Rain tickled Ellasif’s tongue, and she closed her mouth. The others were gaping, too, but Balev wasted no time wondering who had built the structure, or when. He kicked his horse and led the charge.

The storm swallowed the last of the daylight, and they rode by the intermittent flashes of lightning, encouraged by the sight of the inexplicable bridge. At first the Nolanders faltered and fell back, but then they too saw the span. At least the far side would provide a bottleneck for defense, Ellasif thought, but after the grueling chase, she doubted the Varisians’ ability to fend off the savage men.

They flew across the bridge, and just as Ellasif would have done had she been in command, Balev ordered two of the wagons turned to provide cover, while the guards stood behind them, bows in hands. Ellasif joined them, but Avari did not. He stood nearby, digging through his pack until he found the map she had seen him drawing the night before. He rubbed at the bridge he had drawn, but neither his finger nor the rain made so much as a smudge on the page.

The first of the Nolander’s horses touched the opposite side of the bridge. The raiders paused, waiting for their full strength of numbers to arrive before resuming the assault.

“It’s no good,” murmured Avari. “But it can’t have been coincidence.”

“What?” shouted Ellasif. She wished the wizard would either join the defenders or get his city-bred skin behind the wagons.

Declan ignored her. “It has to be the map,” he whispered. “And if I can just erase ...” His gaze sharpened at the sound of his own word, and he spoke a few more in an arcane tongue. Upon the last syllable, he passed his palm over the map, rendering the parchment completely bare.

In the darkness between the thunderbolts, the sound of two large splashes came from across the river. Men shouted in alarm, and one voice traveled downriver, its screams growing more and more frantic as it moved toward accursed Brinewall.

When the lightning flashed again, Ellasif saw no bridge. There was only the black expanse of the Steam River flowing between the caravan and the Nolanders.

Chapter Ten

The Stalkers in the Pines

Declan had always thought of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings as a snowy wasteland, but in summer it was greener than the pastures surrounding Korvosa.

It was also a rugged land, but even across its stony hills, bright patches of lichen and brilliant wildflowers made it appear more like a faerie land than the forbidding territory of the dreaded Ulfen raiders. In just a few days he had come to realize the Ulfen were far more diverse than the reputation of their pillagers would suggest. Since their narrow escape at Brinewall, the surviving members of the caravan had passed farms tended by men and women who, while big and hardy, resembled the seafaring marauders of their country as much as Korvosan stable boys resemble Hellknights.

When Balev sent Camillor ahead to ask permission to approach a dairy farm in hopes of camping nearby, the man of the house welcomed the entire caravan to water their beasts at his troughs. The grateful Balev haggled only halfheartedly while trading Taldan linen and skeins of embroidery thread from the bazaars of distant Katapesh for chickens, milk, flour, and a pig that the Varisians roasted that night to share with their hosts. Gisanto’s mother told a fortune of marriage and many children for the farmer’s daughter, but no one danced, and no one sang. There had been no music since Timoteo died.

Balev had wept openly when Gisanto’s mother led the women in sewing a gray shroud around the bard’s gusli. Declan felt himself choke up, but he was surprised to see Ellasif wiping away tears before she fled the ceremony. While she had rarely chatted with the bard, she seemed to grieve as deeply as any of his kin since his passing.

The men dug a shallow grave, and Gisanto’s sister Nadej placed the instrument inside. Balev praised Timoteo’s talent and courage before saying a prayer to Desna, imploring the goddess to send happy dreams of their lost friend to all who loved him. Then Gisanto’s mother prayed to Pharasma to speed him to his final rest, and tossed a handful of earth lightly upon the “body.”

Declan was relieved to see that, after all others walked away from the grave, the men assigned to fill it gently removed the shrouded instrument before closing the hole. Later he spied one of them placing the gusli inside one of the Varisian wagons, where Declan guessed it would remain until one of the children demonstrated a talent for music.

Later, as Declan peered through his sextant to find a bearing on their current position, Ellasif approached. “Is that where your magic comes from?” she asked. “The stars?”

He jotted down the figures he had gained before she could distract him further. “No, this isn’t magic at all.”

“How does it work?”

He hesitated, wondering how much a warrior bred in the Land of the Linnorm Kings would comprehend basic arithmetic, much less the calculations required to determine longitude and latitude. “Basically, I measure the height of the stars from the horizon, and that tells me where we are.”

“But the stars move.”

“Not exactly,” he said. He explained that the rotation of the planet made the stars appear to move, and that the pole star could always be trusted to indicate north. She knew the latter fact and scoffed that he could assume otherwise.

“All right,” he said, raising a hand for peace. “The basics are simple, but the details can be complicated. If you get them right, you can not only figure out where you are, but you can plot a course to where you want to go.”

Ellasif made a point of identifying eight or nine constellations to show him that he wasn’t the only one who knew something about the night sky. A few of the names were different, but she had learned them almost as well as he had, and without the benefit of a university education. Once she had made her point, they said their goodnights and retired to their beds.

After the night spent at the farm, the mood of the caravan recovered, if only slightly. Balev was only the first of many to thank Declan for his help fending off the Nolanders, but he walked quickly away after expressing his gratitude. Even the young women who had once greeted him so flirtatiously now cast their glances from a distance. They were more curious than ever, but now they were also a little frightened of him. Knowing a man could cast spells was different from seeing him do it, and Declan suspected the Varisians were equally attracted to and wary of wizards. In Declan’s opinion, the latter was the wiser reaction.

After several years of eschewing the skills he had learned at the Theumanexus, it had felt strange to cast spells so freely. They came to him much more easily than they had in his student days. He was not sure whether that meant he had learned them better than he realized or that fear of death had inspired a certain excellence. Much as he regretted the need to cast them, he was glad he had listened to Ellasif.

While he could not bring himself to trust her fully, the little Ulfen woman had given him good counsel. If only he knew more about her and why she was guiding him toward Whitethrone, perhaps they could be...what? Friends? Trusted colleagues at the least, he hoped. He had to admit that he liked her, despite—or perhaps because of—her refusal to tell him much about her past. With her skill at arms, not to mention her cunning, Ellasif would be a valuable ally in ransoming or rescuing Silvana and Majeed Nores.

That was assuming, of course, that Ellasif meant to be helpful. The closer they came to Irrisen, the more Declan needed to understand what motivated her. After fighting and running for his life, and watching good folk die, Declan felt a keener appreciation for his own life. If Ellasif’s scheme included putting him in danger—more danger than he intended to put himself in, anyway—he wanted to know. He was far from his home in Korvosa, and with every step they moved closer to Ellasif’s homeland, which he understood poorly at best.

Before approaching Ellasif, Declan consulted Skywing. During the battle with the Nolanders, the feisty drake had disabled two of the attackers with his narcotic stinger. He had not, now that Declan thought about it, cast any spells. Declan sent Skywing a telepathic question. It was becoming easier to send his thoughts as they communicated more and more often since leaving Korvosa.

Spells to protect you
, the little dragon explained.
Was expecting you to fall off your horse again.

Very funny
, thought Declan. Despite the badinage, Skywing’s telepathic message included a strong sense of chagrin, so Declan believed him. It occurred to him then that he had never asked Skywing how it was he could cast spells at all. Was Skywing the familiar of some other wizard? Before he could ask, the little dragon interrupted his thought.

I know only a few spells
,
Skywing sent.
Not a wizard like you.

I am not—!
Declan thought before giving up. If he had proven nothing else in the flight from the Nolanders, it was that he was undeniably a wizard.

And possibly something more. The incident with the Shoanti monolith and then the vanishing bridge had confirmed that fact. Somehow, his powers of magic were mingling with his knack for art. Whatever it was, it was not a power he evoked consciously—although to be honest, he had the notion of an easy river crossing at the back of his mind when he first sketched the map of the Nolands from Balev’s descriptions. The question was whether it was a power he could use intentionally.

Do you trust Ellasif?
Declan asked Skywing.

There was a long pause before Skywing replied,
Maybe she is not a bad person.

Maybe?

Usually I am right the first time,
the dragon said.
Takes time to adjust.

Declan’s laugh attracted the attention of the nearest Varisians, but when they saw Skywing circling above, they shook their heads and looked away. The ways of wizards were strange.

Declan spent the better part of a day devising conversational strategies to coax Ellasif into revealing more of her past and plans. The Ulfen city of Jol lay just south of the Grungir Forest, another day’s travel to the north. It was there the caravan would end its journey, trading the remainder of its southern goods for fine northern pelts and ivory.

Despite her return to the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, Ellasif did not behave as though she were looking forward to the homecoming. Declan had overheard her conversing with Viland Balev. The caravan captain had tried to persuade her to accompany the Varisians back south after he had finished his business in Jol, but Ellasif remained adamant that she would continue her journey north with Declan.

It irritated Declan to hear her speak for him, as though they had come to an understanding. He had never agreed to travel with her beyond the caravan’s route, despite her assumption that she was here to protect him. And he would not agree, not so long as she failed to explain why she had surreptitiously guided him along this path.

The prospect of traveling from Jol to Whitethrone alone or in the company of a hired guard, however, was not exactly appealing. The truth was that Declan could think of no one else he’d prefer to accompany him on a dangerous trek, if only he knew that he could trust her.

After Ellasif left Viland Balev, Declan rode up beside her. She greeted him with a curt nod, and they rode in silence for a time while he mustered the nerve to start an innocuous query that would gradually wind around to his real question. Yet he found himself unable to begin. It all seemed so deceitful that at last he blurted out, “Exactly what are you leading me into?”

Ellasif opened her mouth, her pointed chin jutted as if to deliver a defiant retort, but nothing came out. Declan seemed to have caught her flat-footed, so he pressed the unexpected advantage.

“I mean, we’ve fought side by side now,” he said. “We’ve seen people we both care about die on this journey, and you still haven’t told me why you cleared my path to join this caravan.”

Ellasif shut her mouth and stared steadily ahead. To the north, a distant forest cast a thick blue line on the northern horizon. The caravan passed more and more stands of fir trees as they followed a network of ox trails and fields so full of stones that a romantic might have mistaken them for ruined plazas.

“So that’s the way it is,” said Declan. “I’d just hoped I’d earned a little more of your trust after all the time we’ve spent together.”

“You can spend your whole life with someone and still have your trust betrayed,” Ellasif said.

Her tone was so bitter than Declan could almost taste it. He sensed she wasn’t talking about him or anyone else in the caravan. Whatever she was talking about, it still tormented her. Unfortunately, he had no better course to follow, so he asked, “Who hurt you so badly?”

Ellasif’s eyes moved from the north to the east. “My closest friends,” she said.

“Could it have been some sort of misunder—?”

“No.”

Declan sucked air through his teeth. It would have been easier to let it drop and try again later, but he was running out of time.

“I have to think that in my position, you wouldn’t trust you,” he said.

Ellasif said nothing to that.

“And perhaps it would be better for me to strike off on my own,” he said. At an empathic protest from Skywing, he added, “With only a sarcastic house drake to protect me.”

“You would be eaten by trolls within two days,” Ellasif predicted.

“Making me of no use to you.”

“You don’t know how to reach Whitethrone,” she said. “You wouldn’t even make it past the dancing huts.”

“The what?”

“One of them nearly destroyed my village when I was a girl. Hundreds of them stand sentinel around the borders of Irrisen, ready to tear apart any intruders in their gigantic talons.”

“How did you get past them?”

“Stay with me,” she said, “and I will show you.”

“Not until you explain why you need me,” he said firmly.

She frowned as if considering his ultimatum. Declan wasn’t sure how convincing he had sounded, and Ellasif made some good points about why he needed her help. Skywing was an excellent scout, but Declan doubted the dragon and he could fend off a band of goblins, much less a pack of wolves. And, anyway, what the hell was a dancing hut?

“You are not the only one who wishes to rescue someone from the winter witches,” Ellasif said. “I need your help as much as you need mine.”

“But why—”

“You do wish to rescue your Silvana, do you not?”

“Well, of course, but—”

“Then it is settled,” she said. “When the caravan stops in Jol, the two of us go to the rescue together.”

Skywing chirped a protest.

“The three of us,” said Declan.

Their conversation did little to help Declan understand the shield maiden, but he let it go for a while as they marched ever northward. The path they followed led through stands of woods no bigger than a Varisian village, and the dark outline of the Grungir Forest still lay thick and blue on the horizon. There was at least another day to discuss the matter further, depending on whether they waited for the Varisians to finish their business in Jol. If Declan and Ellasif had not come to a full understanding by then, he would have to spend a little more of his small fortune to hire one of the full-sized Ulfen bodyguards that southern nobles favored.

He prayed it would be just a little more of the money, because he still was not sure how much it would take to ransom Silvana and Majeed Nores. If his purse was too light, would he have the courage and skill to rescue his “fair maiden” and his astronomer master like a hero from a story? Alone, he certainly would not. But perhaps with the help of Skywing and Ellasif ...

The fanciful notion brought a smile to his lips, and he immediately regretted it. This was the sort of arrogance that had led his brother down a path of self-destruction. And worse, Declan reminded himself, thinking of Isadora and Rose. He hated the cliché of the evil wizard most of all because he knew how much truth there was to the idea. The fear and admiration he’d received from the Varisians ever since using his spells to fight the Nolanders was exactly the sort of thing that put a man’s foot on the wrong path. He’d enjoyed it, both the respect afterward and, to be honest, the thrill of the fight itself. And that was exactly why he had to be careful how and why he used his magic.