Blood Of The Wizard (Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter 2

Outside, the night air moved briskly.  It was cold as a corpse’s nipples.  A foot of snow covered the ground while a few lonely clouds scooted atop the black fir trees.  It smelled of even more snow, or perhaps sleet, despite the great splash of stars mid-heaven.

I looked up the side of Colli Mountain to the light of Uncle Jickie’s hall.  It was a grand old lodge, built in the old
dwarven style, with wooden rails, embellishments, and antlers galore.  It was there that I met the redheaded dwarf who was to be such a strange part in my life, the reason that I’ve bothered to pen my tale….

  I had only just arrived, a boy of fourteen, still wiping my mother’s tears from my sleeves.  She had, of course, begged me to stay in Delmark.  But there were brothers aplenty to work the farm—two older, one younger.  I had three sisters too, each pretty enough to earn a lordship in dowries. 

It was a cold autumn morning
when I left, just before the Feast of Fall’s Nigh. I was poaching hind deer in the vast meadow near our farm.  It was just before dawn.  A thick fog hung in the air.  I had tied my monstrous draft horse to a creekside stump.  As subdued birdcalls reverberated in the gray distance, they echoed from the deep corners of the hollows.  At places, the air was so thick the fog seemed like the work of dragons or wizards.  Only when I had passed over the river’s headwater did it lessen.  But here the going was slower.  The small rivulets and mossy stones were slick enough to put a goat on his arse. 

In the end,
three hours’ journey seemed to have taken a day.

Finally,
I had climbed into an old walnut tree with my bow.  I had a quiver of gray-fledged arrows.  The fog was thinner, but it moved on the wind, so that if I stared into it, it almost seemed the tree was moving sideways with me.

The
n there was a form in the gray.

It was my
father.

A
nother petite figure emerged.  They were approaching each other through the blurred air.  The other was a woman.  She had a donkey.  She was younger than my mother, though not by much, perhaps thirty.  She was plump and ruddy-faced, and blonde as snow.  I recognized her from the neighboring clan. 

He approached her slowly.

What happened next, I dare not think of it any further.  I knew only that I could never face my mother again.  Yet as I sat by my campfire that first night here in the mountains, I feared I had erred.  After traveling so many weeks northwest, alone, the first living thing to meet my eye was a great bear.  It was dragging a stout little fellow, a dwarf.  It was the first one I’d seen of either.  There they went, right by me.  By damn, a real bear.  A real dwarf.  One was screaming.  One was growling.  I could not decide which was doing which.  Then, just as suddenly, they disappeared into the black woods.  When the shock left me, I loosed an arrow.  Then another.  Then all of them.  And when I had loosed them all, I saw a dead bear that looked like a seven hundred pound porcupine.  Some ten feet behind was the old fellow, half-crazed with shock.  He was looking up at me from a large puddle of his own blood.  When the gruff little bastard stood, he just dusted himself and told me, ‘well done, young man!’  He invited me to his lodge, where I met Halvgar, who asked how things had gone with the bear.  And when they laughed, talking it over, I knew I had made the right choice.  Hell, but I could no more conceal my awe-struck admiration for their hearty ways than a young maid on first discovering her own charms.  Halvgar must have noticed my boyish reverence, because he deigned to ask me about my cutter’s longshirt, a thick leather jacket imbedded with thin plates of steel, which was still lighter than the dwarven chainmail.  In less than a moment, I was talking to him as if he were the lad, and I, the magnificent old dwarf.

“
He makes me feel quite like a lad again,” he had said, resuming conversation with Uncle Jickie.  “Thundering hell, master!  I can hardly believe I came into this high country a lad of fifteen.  And now, here I am  an old fellow like you, Jick!”

At that information, my heart gave a curious, jubilant thud. 
He came here at my age?  Was I like these dwarves?  Could I, one day, laugh at being mauled by a bear?

My
new uncle mentally measured me with that stern look I would later learn he was so expert at, interrupting my reverie. 

Then, seemingly undecided, he turned to Halvgar. 

“Hmph!  Save that sharp tongue for pork and beer, Master Halvgar.  You’ll be finding a plump wife one of these days, and she’ll be renewing your damn youth… all over your hall, I’ll wager!”

At which master Halvgar nodded agreeably.

Once the lively redhead had stepped out that night, Uncle Jickie looked at me again.  He seemed to recognize the wanderlust in me.  “You’ll have your chance to prove yourself, young human.  And pray Heaven you’ve got have half as much of the heart in you when you are thirty as that fellow did at fifteen!”

I
did not even hope for that much, but I no longer looked upon the dwarves as some unreachable icon of ferocity—a fact that had been pounded into my head since my earliest youth.  There were real beings, people, you might even say, and the things they did were not just the lyrics of epic poems. 

Before that year had passed, Halvgar and I were as good companions as dwarf and a
man could be.  However, Halvgar spoiled it by fulfilling my new uncle’s prediction and finding a big, ripe, fair-haired wife.  That meant an end to our rides, to our sailing down the river, and our long evening talks.  But second place was fine.  By sixteen, I discovered that the rowdy mountain maids didn’t have to be hunted and chased like they did back home.

My uncle, on catching me with a pair of them in his study, remarked that it may be time to begin construction on my own hall.

I apologized, telling him something about this place had propelled me from boyhood to manhood

“
Indeed, young Mister Fie.  Like a tadpole into a damned eagle!” he chuffed. 

And so he helped me build a grand hall
.  It was larger than his own, but lower on the mountain, which was something else that I could never quite figure if it were important in dwarfdom as a rule, or to Old Jickie in particular. 

M
eanwhile, a son came to my friend’s home and I had to be thankful for a humble third place.

So, here I was, stepping outside Goback Pub, waiting for Halvgar’s arrival.  A decade had passed before my very eyes, and save for the occasional rowdy mountain girl, there had been no conquests with which to prove myself. 

Which was fine by me, frankly.

Peering from the porch for some sign of him, I was surprised by the form of a horse beneath the lantern of the arched gateway.  As I walked up, the creature gave a whinny.  Then I recognized it was Halvgar’s pony, lathered with sweat.  It was shivering, but he had given it no blanket.  The reins had been slung over the hitching post, and I heard steps hurrying to the side door of the pub.

“
Halvgar?”

There was no answer.

I led the horse to the stable-lad and hurried back to see if Halvgar was inside. 

The sitting room was deserted, but Halvgar’s well-known red-topped figure was entering the
dining room.  He must have seemed a curious figure to the questioning looks of old dwarves and men, who were still arguing:  in one hand was his riding whip, in the other, his gloves.  He wore the dwarven chainmail tunic of his kind.  In his belt were two axes.  One sleeve was torn from wrist to elbow, and his boots looked like something had clawed them.  His helm was still on, slouched down over his eyes.

“
Frozen hell, Halvgar!” Uncle Jickie thundered, facing him as I came up behind.  “Have you been in a fight or in bed with that Shiri?” 

“
She let you out of the house with this chill in the air?” asked Addly’s tall guard.  The young man was gazing hard at the helm, which should have been taken off at the door.  Everyone kept their weapons at hand at all times, of course, but the helms were to be taken off, a custom shared by dwarf and man alike.

Not a word came from Halvgar.

“How’s the cold in your head?” he continued, still trying to stare Halvgar’s helmet off.

I rushed forward.
“Hullo, old fellow!  What’s kept you?”

But I quickly checked myself.

Halvgar turned slowly towards me.  Looking up at me, he offered no greeting but a stone-set pair of eyes and parched, wordless lips.  If Addly, insufferably honest ass that he was, hadn’t been jowls-deep in beer, even he would have noticed that there was something terrible written on Halvgar’s face.

“
Did the wifey let him out of her arse long enough to come play?” he asked, despite my raised hands and headshaking.

Barely were the words out when Halvgar’s teeth clenched behind
his bearded lips, giving him a feral expression that was strange to his jolly face.  He spun and took a quick stride toward the officer. 

Then he whirled his whip in one cutting blow, landing it across Addly’s red cheeks.

Chapter 3

The whole thing was so unexpected that for a moment not one soul in the room drew a breath.  Then Addly sprang up with the bellow of an enraged bull, overturning the table in his rush.  A dozen guards were pulling him back from Halvgar.

“
Halvgar!” I yelled, unsure what to add

But Halvgar stood motionless
.  It was as if he saw none of us.  Except for being out of breath now, he wore precisely the same strange, distracted air.

“
Hold back!” I implored.

Old Addly was striking every nose and noggin around him to get free from the guards. 

“There’s a mistake!  Something’s wrong!”

“
Glad the mistake landed where it did, all the same,” whispered Uncle Jickie.

“
Demon!” Addly roared.  “Cowardly little devil, you
will
pay!”

“
Frozen hell, but get him out of here,” my uncle said.  “Side room—here—lead him in—he’s gone mad, by thunder!”

“
Never,” I said.  I knew both Halvgar and his wife too well.  They were stout dwarves with stout minds. 

W
e led the poor, dazed being into a side office.

J
ickie promptly turned the key and took up with his back against the door.  “Now, master,” he broke out sternly, “if it’s neither drink, nor madness—” There, he stopped, for Halvgar, utterly unconscious of us, moved automatically across the room.  Throwing his helm down, he bowed his head over both arms above the mantelpiece.

My uncle and I looked to each other.  Raising his brows, Jickie touched his forehead and whispered across to me,
“Mad.”

At that, Halvgar turned slowly round and faced us with blood-shot, gleaming eyes. 
“
Mad
,” he muttered.  He took a breath, framing his next words with great effort.  “By thunder, fellows, you should know me better than to mouth such rot!  Tonight, I’d sell my soul, sell my very
soul
to be mad, to know that all I think has happened, hadn’t happened at all—” and a sharp intake of breath broke his speech.

“
Frozen hell, out with it, old friend!” Jickie shouted.  “We’ll stand by you!  Has that blasted tall, red-cheeked bastard—”

“
Pray, spare your curiosity a moment,” Halvgar cut in.  He put his gloved hand to his forehead.

“
What the—what did you strike him for?”

“
Did I strike somebody?” Halvgar asked, speaking with the slow, icy self-possession bred by a lifetime of danger. 

He almost seemed to chuckle
. 

Again
, my uncle flashed a questioning look at me.

“
Did I strike somebody? Wish you’d apologize—”

“
Apologize
!” thundered my uncle.  “I’ll do nothing of the kind!   Served him right.  ‘Twas an ugly way, an ugly way indeed, to speak of anybody’s wife—” But the word “wife” had not been uttered before Halvgar threw out his hands in an imploring gesture.

“
Don’t!  I can’t get away from it!  It’s no nightmare.  My lads, how can I tell you?  There’s no way of saying it!  Such things don’t—couldn’t—to her—of all…  But she’s… She’s gone.”

“
See here, Halvgar,” my uncle said, utterly beside himself.

“
See here, Halvgar,” I said, stupidly heedless of the brutality of our consol. 

But he heard neither of us.

“They were
there
—they waved to me from the garden as I entered the forest.  By damn, only this morning.  They were waving to me, and when I returned from the river at noon, they were gone!  The curtain moved and I thought my boy was hiding, but it was only the wind.  We’ve searched every nook from cellar to attic.  His toys were littered about and I heard his voice everywhere, but no!  No—no—we’ve been hunting the house and garden for hours—”

“
And the forest?” Jickie asked, the cutter instinct of former days suddenly re-awakening.

“
The forest is ankle-deep with snow!  We beat through the bush everywhere.  There wasn’t a track.  Not a broken twig!” 

His torn clothes bore evidence to the thoroughness of that search.

“Nonsense,” my uncle burst out, beginning to bluster.  “They’ve been driven to town without leaving word!”

“
No sleigh was at Bastard Hill this morning,” returned Halvgar.

“
But the road, Halvgar?” I questioned, recalling how the old timber hall stood well back in the center of a cleared plateau in the forest.  “Couldn’t they have gone down the road to those elf encampments?”

“
The road is impassable for sleighs, let alone walking, and their winter wraps are all in the house.  For Heaven’s sake, lads, suggest something!  Don’t madden me with these useless questions!”

But in spite of Halvgar’s entreaty, my excitable uncle subjected the frenzied soul to a storm of questions, none of which helped.
I stood back, listening, and pieced the distracted, broken answers into some sort of coherency: 

That morning, Halvgar light-heartedly kissed wife and child and waved them a farewell.  He rode down the winding path at the northern edge of Frostetch Forest to catch some fish.  At noon, when he returned, there was no wife nor child, nor any trace of them.  The great hall, which had echoed to the boy’s prattle, was deathly still.  The nurse was summoned.  She was positive Madam Shiri was amusing the boy across the hall, and reassuringly bustled off to find mother and son in the next room, and then the next, and yet the next, all to discover each was empty.  Utterly.  Empty.  Alarm spread to the hall servants.  The handmaids and shieldwives were questioned, but their only response was white-faced, blank amazement.  And all the superstitions of hillside lore added to the fear on each anxious face.  Halvgar had torn outside, followed by the whole household; but from Bastard Hill in the center of the glade to the encircling border of snow-laden firs there was no trace of wife or child.  He could see for himself that the snow was too deep and crusty among the trees for Madam Shiri to go twenty paces into the woods.  Besides, footmarks could be traced from the garden to the bush.  Pawprints too.  Besides, he need not fear wild animals.  They were receding into the mountains as spring advanced. 

Then Halvgar had laughed at his own growing fears
. 

Shiri must be in the house. 

The search of the old hall began again.  From the hidden chambers in the vaulted cellar to the attic rooms above, not a corner of the hall was unexplored.  He wondered if anyone had come and driven her to Goback.  But that was impossible.  The roads were drifted to the height of a horse and there were no marks of sleigh runners on either side of the riding path.  He wondered if she could she possibly have ventured a few yards down the main road to the small encampment of elves, whose women had made such a smiling fuss of over the stubby little baby.  But the elves had broken camp earlier in the morning and there was only a dirty patch of littered snow, where the skin-tents had been.

The alarm now became a panic. 

Halvgar, half-crazed and unable to believe his own senses,
began wondering whether he was in a nightmare.  It was as if he thought he might wake up and find the dead weight smothering his chest had been the boy, snuggling too close.  He was vaguely conscious
that it was strange of him to continue sleeping with the noise of shouting men and whining hounds and snapping branches going on in the forest.  But the din of terrified searchers rushing through the woods and of echoes rolling eerily back from the white hills called him back to an unendurable reality—that, in broad daylight, his young wife and infant son had disappeared as suddenly and completely as if blotted out of existence, or spirited away by demons…

“The thing is utterly impossible, Halvgar,” I cried, afraid to give the thought any reins whatsoever. 

“
Would that it were, dammit!”

“
It was daylight, Halvgar?” Jickie asked.

He nodded moodily.

“And she couldn’t be lost in Frostetch Forest?” I added, taking up the interrogations where my uncle left off.

“
No trace—not a footprint!”

“
And you’re quite sure she isn’t in the house?” uncle said.

“
Yes!  Quite!”

“
And there was an elvish encampment a few yards down the road?” Jickie asked.

“
What has that to do with it?” he asked, springing to his feet.  “They had moved off long before they disappeared.  Besides, elves don’t run off with dwarf maidens.  Haven’t I spent my life among them?  I should know their ways!”

“
But my dear fellow, if she isn’t in the hall, and isn’t in the woods or in the garden, can’t you see, the elvish encampment is the only possible explanation?”

The lines on his face deepened. 
A sort of blackness overcame his brow.  He made a noise you might hear in the shadows of a forest, and if ever I’ve seen murder written on a face, it was on Halvgar’s.

“
What tribe were they, anyway?” I asked, trying to speak indifferently, for every question was a dirk in his heart.

“
Mongrel curs, neither one thing nor the other.  Some are Lepre Cruithne canoemen, guides for the men of Delmark, the rest are just your normal elvish vagabonds!  But they’re all connected with those merchant crews stuck in the bay north of Dragonfell.  When the ice breaks up and the kilted devils can leave to circle the Great Horn, the elvish riffraff will follow in their dugouts!”

“
Know any of them?”

“
No, I don’t think—Let me see!  Thundering hell!  Yes, Killroot!” he shouted.

“
What about Killroot?” I asked.  I had never heard of him.  I was just pinning Halvgar down to the subject; his mind was instantly lost in angry memories.

“
What about him!  He’s my one enemy among the elves,” he answered.  “The thieving long-ear… I thrashed him within an inch of his life at Bardo Isle.  Having half human blood from those Cullish Clans at Bloodhelm’s Landing, he thought it a fine sport to pillage the pack of a Cutter.  The snake stole a silver dirk that my grandfather had at Cullo’s Den.  By thunder, Killroot!”

“
Did you get it back?” I interrupted, referring to the silver dirk.

“
No!  That’s why I nearly finished him!”

“
Is that all about Killroot, Halvgar?” my uncle asked.

He ran his fingers distractedly back through his long, red beard.  Then he rose and came over to me and laid a trembling hand on each shoulder.

“Killroot,” he muttered.  “No, that isn’t all.  I didn’t think at the time, but the morning after the roll with that pointy devil, I found a dagger stuck on the door of my hut.  The point was through a fresh sprouted leaflet.  A withered twig was wound tightly over the blade.”

“
Halvgar, old boy!  Are you mad?” cried Jack Jickie.  “He must be the very devil himself.  You weren’t married then—He couldn’t mean—”

“
I thought it was an elvish threat,” Halvgar interjected. “I thought that if I had downed him in the fall, when the branches were bare, he meant to have his revenge in spring when the leaves were green; but you know I left the island that fall.”

“
You were wrong, Halvgar!” I blurted, the significance of that threat dawning on me.  “That wasn’t the meaning at all.”

But then I stopped.

And we all just stood there a moment.

Jickie was the first to pull himself together.

“Come,” Uncle Jickie said.  “Gather up your wits!  To the camping ground!”

The three of us flung through the pub room, much to the astonishment of the gossips who had been waiting outside for developments in the quarrel with Addly.

There was no time to explain ourselves. 

At the outer porch, Halvgar laid a hand on Jickie’s shoulder.

“Old friend, I pray don’t come,” he begged.  “There’s a storm blowing.  It’s rough weather and a rough road, full of drifts.”

“
Nonsense!”

“
Please, Master Jickie.  Make my peace with that old tall bastard in there I struck.”

And with a huff, Jickie nodded.

Then Halvgar and I whisked out into the blackness of a boisterous, windy night. A moment later, our horses were dashing over snow-packed cobblestones.