Blood Of The Wizard (Book 1) (27 page)

Chapter
60

__________

In Cullfor’s lightless dream, he and the beast are writhing in combat on a rocky beach.  Soon after, he is awake. 

And confused.

Cullfor rubbed his face, but the edges of his dream were still sharp.  In his mind, pearls of the beast’s blood were still swimming down the heft and curve of its blackish, battered silhouette, and he could still smell the crisp, fetid-meat scent of its breath.  As he swiveled onto an elbow, he blinked at the pressed dirt section of floor. 

He was in his uncle’s cottage….

What was he doing in his uncle’s cottage? 

He rolled, very slowly, and once he got on his back, he stared up.  For a long time.  There were only pain and thirst.  Then roof beams.  Then, at the far the long room, the hearth seemed to come into being; it was making the side of his face sweaty.  Trying to orient himself, the first conscious thoughts were of Aural, about her showing him her pale arse, then each smooth cheek of it being eaten like a white apple by a fairytale creature.  He blinked again, and then rolled onto his side.  In the copper band of a beer barrel, a purple-eyed version of himself was staring back.  He looked beyond terrible, like a creature parents warned their children about.  Despite the copper’s distortion, he could see that his nose was jaunty and dark.  The eye sockets were grisly starbursts.  All the blood-encrusted teeth seemed to be there.  But one wiggled when he rubbed it with his incomplete tongue.  His hair was sweaty, like wet black snakes on his forehead and neck.

He shivered, then tapped the keg.  The beer was cold, more delicious
against
his face than in it.  Then, careful of his nose, he washed his beard in it.  He spent painful eons peeling away the dark tendrils of blood.

When he was able to right himself with the top of the keg, he stood.  He clung to the wall.  But it was all he could do to remain upright.  More than once, the spinning forced him into strange dullness.

Memories began splashing, thoughts of smoke and screams.  Throughout every thought was a bizarre howl, or roar, like the sound of dragons in the distance.  His bottom lip quivered into a sneer, briefly.  He was not positive he could remain standing.  After some slow breaths, he sat.  His lips curled again as he reached down and picked up the axe that had knocked him out. 

Of course, he thought, flipping the incredibly light weapon in his hand…
adaranth
.  The small blade was forged from the rarest of metals, found only in the firestones within a dragon’s craw.  It was worth a small fiefdom…

which meant they had left it on purpose. 

Then he saw why.  He looked at the inscription on the steel handle.  In dwarven runes, it read:  Live well, young wizard.  Many have died for you.  Remember your uncle, who now feeds the crows.  And remember your aunt fondly, as I will, for soon I will dine on her flesh.

He made a fist, which hurt his leg.  Everything was weak and stiff as tears began to well in his eyes.

Then, dragging the swollen limb, he coasted out into pavingstone courtyard.

__________

It was the stillness that slapped him.  The air itself seemed dead.

Where are the other survivors?

There were none.  Twice as many dead bodies festooned the ground as before. 

He cocked both swollen eyes, staring dumbly at the crows, which had become brazen by the feast before them.  They were filthy and wet, perched half-inside the carcasses.  One of them was pecking on his uncle’s face.  The arrows that had killed him were gone, adding to his suspicion that they had been tipped with adaranth—there had been no need to leave them too; the point was made.  

Cullfor shooed the bird, compelled now to drag the big fellow into the church.  But his face was aching as he bent over his uncle like his eyes might burst.  And tendons seemed like they were snapping in his arms as he used the fabric of magic to pull him to the front of the church.

He settled on rolling some canvas out of the pub and covering him.  High, thin clouds spun overhead.  When he sat, he was spent.  He sat on the chapel’s steps and looked down at Fie Wyrmkiller’s bloated form.

“They have taken her, Uncle Fie.”

There was something cruelly soothing in the disgusting truth of it.  A morbid, dizzy sense of release washed through him, like his hands were on fire, then chopped off.

“And I know what you would have me do.  But would
you
, old man?  Could you?  What manner of life would it be to look back on this moment and know that I did naught to avenge you, uncle… nothing to try to get her back?”

__________

A half of an afternoon later, Cullfor stared down the river trail, watching as some hundred or so members of a neighboring village’s warband came.  He did not see their captain, a halfling lord named Bedew.  But the little old dog didn’t have to be here.  As they spilled into town, his well-armed campaigners were marking his claims on Gintypool with their carriage alone.  Halfling are a merry folk.  Let any doubt of that dissolve here and now.  But truth is a strange and slippery eel, for the truth is this:  Halflings go to war so rarely because they are so awfully, awfully good at it. 

Loud and forward, they arrived on foot, already here from Nobody’s Sleigh.  The armored halflings nodded grimly to each other, out of respect, but they were already poking around for anything of value.  A few nodded to him in recognition.  These were folk who once fought at Brickelby Castle against the Dwarf-King with his uncle.  Which is why, perhaps, they politely acted oblivious of him.  That, or they did not recognize his swollen face.  Either way, he was glad of their courtesy.

Others acted uncertain why their new, much wealthier captain would even want the muddy little bend in Gardenwater River.  Like most villages in the Watershed, it had no walls.  No tower.

Our swords are our walls.  Our faith is our tower.

They had too damned little of each.

__________

Beyond the soldiers, a monk was filing into the courtyard, Friar Basil.  The freckled old halfling was from the other direction, west.  He was from Muttondon, Cullie believed.  It was beyond the dark stretch forest where he had felt the strange presence this morning.  He had gone there get Auntie Dhal’s birthday present.

The brown-garbed old halfling dropped to his clean knees in front of the primitive chapel.  For a brief moment, he prayed, almost sobbing.  Then he kneeled nearby and began crossing Uncle Fie’s body repeatedly.

His uncle had spoken of the halfling more than once, usually in angry whispers.  Still, Cullfor understood little of him, only that he was a traveling monk and that he conducted church business at several parishes.  Uncle Fie had called him a “migratory rodent”.

Cullfor sneered, looking away.  A couple of soldiers were standing in front of Pluck Bird Pub.  They carted armloads of spoils, talking low.  They wore helms but no chain mail.  Both of them nodded
yes
across the courtyard, to a thick young halfling.  The boy was not just soft, he had the bobbed hair of a poet.

When they had nodded again, they pointed to Cullfor, and the boy began walking toward him.

Cullfor stood, breathing deliberately slowly.  Already, he didn’t like the lad’s face, which was also that of a poet, an awkward cocktail of fear and arrogance.

“Your uncle?” the young man asked, too plainly, before kissing Cullfor on the forehead.

Cullfor kissed him back.  “Dead.”

“Yes, we’ve feared this day.  Tricky business, that of Mage-Guard.”

The boy had a poet’s lack of decency, too. 

Cullfor shot him a look.  “Dwarves.  Attacked this morning,” he said.  “Dragon-cutters, I think.  They came in a longboat, like the man-warriors of Delmark.  They took my aunt and her handmaiden.”

The young halfling seemed to be thinking of some properly insulting way to express the lack of surprise in his head. In the end, he just nodded, too softly.  He looked off for a moment, seeming to write something in his mind. 

Then he walked away.

Something boiled up from Cullfor’s stomach, and the words that wanted to come out felt like sticky, hot acid.  So he breathed, and he did not speak them.  He growled inwardly.  He watched him, contemplating something very stupid when heard someone call the boy Ghelli.

He decided to let the matter go.  Of enemies, he already had plenty, including the Dwarf-King of Yrkland.  There would be no sense in adding to that list.  Cullie looked around again in the terrible recognition of the fact that he was utterly alone. 

Ghelli stopped.

Cullfor looked him over.  He imagined the lad had given him some time, a moment to think and change his story.  Perhaps, when he did not, curiosity had won out.  Whatever the reason, Ghelli returned.

“Wizard, what will you do?”

Cullfor shifted his weight.  The question was a surprise; it caught him off guard to think anyone might think so little of him as to ask.  He looked down at his new axe, the one the dwarves had left, the one the Dwarf-King’s smith had inscribed with the taunt… the one he planned to bury between the Dwarf-King’s eyes.

“Maybe I’ll split your jaw, boy?...”

Ghelli looked up, gripping his own weapon.

“Then perhaps I’ll go up into the heart of Yrkland, to Arkenstowe, kill them all, and bring back my aunt and her handmaiden.”

“Oh.  Yes?”

“Good Joyous God, boy.  What choice does honor leave me?  Of course, yes.”

Ghelli put his hand on Cullfor’s shoulder.  “All the more then, wizard, I would remind you that your honor, your power, and not to mention your courage, is well known here.”

Cullfor looked at the hand. 

“And, forgive a simple dolt, but we both know full well that all of your boats are burnt.  No one is going to sail you out of Sleigh.  And I would wager that no one is going to sail you out of The Seven Patricks, Brickelby, or even treacherous old Fetter.”

He ignored him and it to himself again:  He would get them back.  By damn, he would go northwest to Arkenstowe Castle and get them back.

“Then I will go by land, boy.”

“A dwelf, across Delmark?  Are you mad?

“I’m no fool, halfling.  I’ll go north into the borderlands then skirt around Dragonfell.”

“Wizard, you do not see my offer here?

“What of it?”

“This of it:  My father knows your virtue, your quality.  He knows your worth and prowess on the field of battle.  It is said you have yet to be bested in single combat.  And you know him to be wealthy and merry enough.  I imagine you have some home here?”

Cullfor nodded.  So this was Bed Bloodwine’s boy.  The bastard was growing like weeds in horse dung.  He drank in the sight of the young lord another moment and thought for a moment about what the young lord said—he had
more
than some home here; he had more than a man could ever need here.  He had good fires on cold nights.  He had his pipe after a good breakfast.  He had long afternoons of beer and making merry, crazy afternoons and clever conversation with his friendly neighbors, and long nights of chasing plump halfling women around his little cottage. 

“Yes, well.  I
did
.”

The young lord harrumphed.  “Well then.  Perhaps another could be arranged in Nobody’s Sleigh.  We have cottages there to, you know!  By damn but we’re really coming along!  And women.  Hell, wizard, we’ve got women so plump that when they stomp grapes, it rains wine for two days after.  They’re so randy, so pale, you gotta sow their clothes on good so the neighbors don’t be counting every blue vein in those cabbage-heavy teats.”  The boy seemed wistful for an instant, then shook his head.  “Besides the ladies, wizard, to go by land… where’re you to find a pony after the hoof blight?  Damned if the horse is more than a fairytale creature these days.  Let Nobody’s Sleigh… may, let
us
be your home.  Let my father be Mage-Guard, wizard!”

Damn it, but Cullfor smiled at that.  All around him was the utter destruction of all that he loved, all he had
ever
loved…

And he smiled.

“Well then, young master, much love, lunch, lust, and luck to you and your father.  And sweet lord but the women are fine your way.  But I cannot chase them.  Not until I return… I’ll be needing my strength for the walk west.”

Chapter 61

__________

As the dwarves worked to steer the longboat down Gardenwater River, Dhal gripped the worn wood of the gunwale.  She was in absolute shock, torn from her home, tied up, then tied again next to something… 
impossible
.

Something straight out of a childhood nightmare.

Right next to her was a dragon—a very long dragon.  The beast was so long its tail dragged in the water behind them, and its head was so massive it seemed that it could decapitate a man with one bite. The breath alone was unnerving.  It filled the air around the vessel with a stench to bring sea scavengers to the surface to investigate. 

She breathed while she stared, the oceanic horizon moving behind it, rising and falling.  The afternoon sky was gray—a frozen, undulating portrait of the water under it.  Gulls screeched loudly behind the vessel while some circled overhead.  Yet others began diving to the foamy gray surface, picking at the great curling wake of the dragon’s tail.

The dwarves had retied its tail down and rechecked the head, but as they made their way out of the river into the bay, it began to lunge and rumble.  The motion made the boat’s path feel unnatural, like the ship was animate, fighting the crew’s efforts to find for itself the best way from shore.

She could hardly look at it.  They had set on her on a led reliquary, and as she wrapped her heels around it, she closed her eyes.  The air was gritty and wet. 

The dwarves were still binding her with calf gut to the gunwale.  She almost welcomed the security of it.  When they were done, she opened her eyes to watch them set the sail.  They slipped backwards and sideways, climbing on the beast, which made it shiver and rock.  Still, despite the beast underfoot, they worked the ropes expertly, threading it at intervals like giant breeches.  Before she could understand what pattern they were making, they were done.  They began pulling the deflated bladder of canvas up the mast. 

Suddenly the wind caught, and it uncurled in an instant, whipping from their hands.  They thudded with hard knocks beside her.  As they got to their feet, the others laughed.  When they moved out of her way, she noted the odd pattern on the sail’s cross. 

It was the mark of the Dwarf-King, Jorigaer Bloodhelm.

Her stomach became unhappy.  She closed her eyes again, surprised to find the air more comfortable now.  The wind did not chill the skin the same way it did on the river.

Suddenly, the vessel lifted wildly. 

She leapt up in a panic, the gut rope whetting lively rips across her wrists and waist.  A gauntleted hand grabbed her shoulder, and she gripped the boat’s worn wood, reeling from the pain.

As they pounded down once again, she righted herself.  The wind picked up, buffeted them in warm wet sprays as she rubbed her wrists. 

Hurting, she thought about her husband.  The pain melted into the pit of her stomach.  It was an ache too soon and too deep to think about for very long.  Still she could not stop the images from flashing into her mind of his dull anger, frozen on his dead face.  She thought about his contorted body on the ground, about how stupidly proud she was that the sight had not made her cry.

Strength, it had felt like.

Finally, she looked back at the handmaiden.  There was a scourge of new bruises across her throat.  She had been vomiting over the edge, evidenced by the pale neck and cheeks.  The edges of her lips were already baked from the wind and salts.  She looked just as miserable as they both felt, but there was enormous comfort in seeing her. 

Their eyes met, briefly.  With their looks alone, they shared the surprise at their care.  These dwarves were not tender, but they were far less brutish than she had envisioned.  When they were tossed atop the wood pile, it had been to secure them, not rape them.

We are going to be bait.  The assassins he sent to Arway, just short of a dozen, had all met the same grizzly fate.  He is taking us to lure the wizard into Yrkland.

She ventured another glance at the enormous creature beside her.

Or else we are going to be this beast’s next meal.

__________

Stepping inside his cottage, Cullie shook, angry with himself for allowing the halfling boy to cheer him up.  But such is life, he told himself.  It cannot help but put its heel on fallen men and squeeze strange things out of them. 

Plus he realized he was mad at himself.  The lad’s offer was getting heavy in his head, and that was nobody’s fault but his.  He wanted to sit.  But he knew what his mind would do if he did. 

To business:  What would he need to take?  Nothing came to his numb mind. 

He hobbled through his house to the lean-to.  He opened the door to the comfortable wattle and mud-brick room.  The onion bin was tipped.  Under it, the money was dug up.

Gone.

“What in the four corners of hell?” he whispered.  “Cool Laney …”

He started roaring, his fist in his mouth.  But he had to get over it.  Had to act.  It was a matter of minutes before the new lord’s warriors came in and started making claims.  He was certain his own little cottage had nothing of value.  Just his bed.  His finely-carved furniture.  But he had to check.  His most valuable items were blocks of salt and jars of spices, some from the other side of the world.  They might fetch a price, but at the coast of lugging all the jars, then finding a buyer in Muttondon.

There was only the wand, which he had foolishly left behind.  The wand focused a wizard’s powers, and, given the right woods and enough time, even amplified them.  It was trick of the thumb, really.  A well-worn wand could focus the might of some old wizards to an accuracy that bordered on the impossible

In the end, he found little.  Some piss jars.  Rags and a bowl.  A little food.  Leave it all, he told himself.  Except for the flat wheel of cheese.

That young Ghelli was right.  This was not a thing for which a man could buy help.

He went to the hunting room next.  It was large, hot.  It held the loom.  Strewn across it was the thickest of several wool packs.  It hung alongside the sheath to his best sword.  The incorrigible oaf who made had insisted on keeping it to halfling dimension.  He was surprised, later, to discover the sword was itself a finely tuned instrument.  As a dwelf, he was nearly five feet tall with what amounted to a human’s frame; how the old halfling had known he would be better off keeping the weapon the size of a dagger was still a mystery.  When he had bought it, Old Lew had said the steel spoke to him.  It hadn’t.  It was impossible.  He had marked this as some odd halfling trick, or superstition.  And yet Cullie had come to master the smallish weapon.

He set it aside and grabbed the wool pack.  Testing it, he put the flat of wheel cheese inside and tied it to his waist.  It was suitable. 

His purse yielded an extravagant, but inadequate, breakfast of truffles.  Under a chain mail tunic, there were a few reels of silver and copper.   For the next seven or eight minutes he got himself free of his tunic and britches.  He winced, noting the wound on the back of his thigh.  It would be nastier before it improved.  But knowing this was hardly a tonic.  Already, the smell was worsening. 

He hobbled back into the bath chamber, then made a crude dressing by mixing vinegar into a pot of cheese butter.  It was difficult work applying it, worrisome to see the thin lather sink into the wound.

When he stood again, he was shaking.

And he was still angry.

And he was hurting like fifteen hells. 

He carefully belted the open area with the butter’s cloth and put some more shin bindings around it.  Then he went back in the main and put on his lord’s pants, binding them to a comfortable firmness.  Next, he opened his clothing chest.  Inside he found a shirt and a newer tunic without sides.  There was also an old black woolen cloak.  He put the open tunic over his own shirt and wrapped the cloak on, broaching it with a small clip of iron. 

He looked down at the sword, drew it, and sighed.  He laced the sheath to his belt and grabbed the little weapon.

It struck him as odd that no one was coming in yet.  Were they granting him some time?  He doubted it.  The way of things was starting to fray, the old order of things.  Decency.  Respect.  They were the real fairytales these days.

More likely, they were giving him time to mull over his own stupidity.

Which was decent enough, he supposed.

In his care corner the chest was much larger:  full of trinkets and broaches, and other things the halflings had paid him with for the unusual services he sometimes provided.  There were even female items, belts, painted bone lockets, and some beads of glass, bone, and stone.  Nothing worth taking.  Yet he snatched a small scrap of the handmaiden’s aromatic bath wool.  He had stolen a few years ago for reasons he still found difficult to remember.

He sniffed it and pocketed a bitter memory, that of him calling her an idiot.  Slowly, he tied the bath wool around his wrist.

There was some more money, two old silver Vyrk coins.  Five reels of copper.   Then suddenly he realized how stupid he was being.  Walk to Arkenstowe?  People would think him a fool for even attempting it. 

Then he put the coins in his purse and growled to himself:  Let them think what they want
, and kick them in the face with every hoof in hell if they didn’t understand.