The Queen of Mages (52 page)

He’d always been careful to pull out before
he came, always, even with prostitutes who could make their bitter
tea. But now he didn’t. He thrust, and came, grunting, feeling
Katin’s fingernails digging into his ribs. She wrapped her legs up
around him, pulling him down, never to let him go.

He awoke when the dawn came, as Katin
breathed slowly beside him.
There will be others like Adeline.
This was only one skirmish.

A war is coming.

By unspoken agreement, Amira and Dardan did
not discuss the disaster in Seawatch. He was mortified at having
fallen for Eltasi’s trap, even if they had escaped. Amira was
focused on searching for mages, and simply did not bring it up.

Dardan was grateful to let those memories
recede each day. He had felt so accomplished after negotiating to
meet with the duke, and especially after returning to Stony Vale
and helping set matters right there. It shamed him to think of
it.

They spent the next weeks canvassing the
Dukedom of Seawatch, scouting every town and village they could
find. Amira and Garen watched for the spark, that line of silver
light they said they could see. As far as they knew, no mage could
hide from them; if they could see a person, they could tell.

Despite Warden Iris’s protestations that he
would not assist them in searching for mages—he was merely
escorting them until such time as he could determine how to
(honorably) force Amira to return to Callaston—he slowly slipped
into the role of bodyguard and man-at-arms, advising them on where
the most protected spot was to make camp, or how to avoid dead-ends
and chokepoints in towns and villages. It did not help his cause
that Amira frequently asked his opinion on such matters. Sometimes
she resorted to suggesting something obviously dangerous, and Iris
simply did not have the cruelty in him to let the woman make such a
blunder. It fascinated Dardan to see the full force of his wife’s
charm turned against another target.

Dardan didn’t feel like he had much role at
all now, aside from helping navigate from one town to another. In
his youth he’d studied maps not only of Hedenham County, but the
rest of the Dukedom of Thorncross, as well as neighboring dukedoms.
Count Asmus had said it was important to know nearby lands, but
Dardan had just thought it was fun poring over the maps, with their
odd marks and intricate details.

From the city of Seawatch they went north to
Braenar County, whose mazelike crags bordered Vasland. Iris advised
against going deep into the crags in order to search the villages
there for mages; they’d likely run across Vaslander raiding
parties, which would be nothing but trouble. After Braenar they
went southwest into Vannar County, and then south through Youngs
County toward the Stormrest Hills. Crossing those storm-wracked
hills in the deepening cold would have been much too dangerous,
leaving them to go around to the east or west. West would take them
into Everfleet County, which was in Thorncross and closer to Edon.
Neither Amira nor Dardan had any interest in that.

At least Eltasi hadn’t sent men after them,
or prevailed upon the royal army to hunt them down. Still, Dardan
couldn’t help but look over his shoulder several times each
day.

Thus they found themselves, in the last days
of autumn, travelling down the coast road, into Barrowmere County
in the Dukedom of Tidemere. And by now their party had doubled in
size.

First they had come across Francine West, a
wisp of a girl from a farm in Vannar County. Garen had spotted her
spark as they passed her farmhouse; she lived there with her
father, who beat her and yelled constantly. She had been all too
glad to abandon the brute and join them when she found that there
were others who shared her power. Francine had been terrified to
reveal it to anyone, but when Amira confronted her, the girl wailed
with joy and at once told her father to go stuff himself. For a
girl with such a meek physical presence, she turned out to be
rather blunt and chatty. Garen took a shine to her at once, which
suited Dardan just fine. Even after their night out in Seawatch,
Garen had still paid what Dardan considered to be undue attention
to Amira.

Next had been the twins—not sisters, not
really, but so alike in aspect with their black hair and pale skin
that Dardan suspected they might have been separated at birth.
They’d found Sophie Williams and Emma Powell in villages fifty
miles apart, the former accused of witchcraft and sentenced to hang
by terrified townsfolk, and the latter hiding in a barn for fear of
a similar fate. Emma had taken some coaxing, thinking it was a
trick by the other townsfolk, but with smiles and encouragement
Amira brought her around.

Lastly had come Vincent Barnes, a hulking
young man with an honest face, whom they found in a fishing village
where the Stormrest Hills met the sea. Vincent had been tromping
about angrily when they found him, shunned by the other townsfolk.
They’d been too intimidated to attempt to hang him as Sophie’s
fellow villagers had tried, but still he found no love amongst
them—his own parents had thrown him out—and was as glad as any of
the others to join Amira and her growing band.

Disowned by their families, spurned by their
friends, adrift in an increasingly hostile land. Relieved as they
were to have found someone who would accept them, the new mages did
not all instantly become best friends. There was mistrust and
bickering, but between Amira’s charm and Dardan’s stern
admonishments, the newcomers eventually became something like
companionable.

———

Dardan shook the snow off his cloak. “I
thought the coast was supposed to be warmer than this.”

“The western coast is, dear,” Amira replied,
taking his hand as he helped her down from her mare. “It barely
snows at all in winter there.”

Dardan grumbled. “It’s not even winter yet,
not until after Remembrance and Wintergift.” But almost;
Remembrance began in two days.

Here, on the outskirts of Elland, gales came
in from the sea with bitter regularity, smashing against the
Stormrest Hills. Fresh snowdrifts taller than Dardan marched up the
ridges, unblemished as yet by footsteps of man or beast. The days
had almost reached their shortest; at night the temperature dropped
precipitously. Soon Wintergift would come and winter would truly
begin.

He and Amira had gone into the nearby
village of Breaker Stand to search for news and try to buy
supplies. They’d heard nothing of interest; in the snow, travellers
were increasingly rare. Food was hard to find—at any reasonable
price, anyway. Travellers seeking provisions at this time of year
always found prices cruelly inflated.

Dardan was not pleased by how little of
their coin remained. Feeding all these mages was getting
expensive—not to mention the horses. Certainly they could hunt and
forage for some of their food, but with the early snows, such
resources grew scarce.

Darkness had fallen upon them by the time
they returned to the stand of bare poplars where they’d left Warden
Iris and the other mages. Several figures were gathered around the
campfire. The ground in a wide circle around it had been cleared of
snow; a simple task, since Amira and the other women could use
their power to warm the ground, melting the slush and ice in
seconds. They’d even figured out how to dry snow-soaked branches,
turning damp wood into timber suitable for a fire.

Dardan heard a sharp
crack
in the
distance, and then another. That must be Vincent, off practicing
with his power. He’d said he was afraid of hurting someone and
practiced alone much of the time, no matter how Amira insisted that
they all train together.

Amira faced Garen. “Have you all been
practicing?”

“Yes,” Francine said, rushing over. “Look!
Look what I figured out!”

“You’ll like this,” Garen said, smiling
wide. Francine had taken his hand, Dardan noticed.

Dardan watched as Francine concentrated,
staring into space. Then she looked over at Amira, as if for
approval.

Amira gasped. “Remarkable! How did you do
that?”

“Dare I ask?”

Amira turned to Dardan. “She can create a
new bead while the first one is still dissipating. It’s amazingly
quick!”

The implications failed to settle upon
Dardan. “I shall assume that is a good thing.” He stalked away,
leaving them to discuss their mysterious magic. The cold and dark
discouraged him, and he lay alone by the fire while Amira conferred
with the other mages, wondering not for the first time where this
road would end.

After a while, she came and knelt on the
muddy ground beside him. “Are you all right?”

“No, I am bloody well not all right,” he
snapped, and sat up. “We’re sleeping on frozen mud. We’re a month
out of Seawatch and have barely four new mages to show for it. An
army to make men tremble, surely. And in case you forgot how to
count, we’re down to the last coppers in our pockets. How exactly
did you expect to feed all these people?”

Amira drew back, startled. “What is this
anger? You know we have no choice! What would you have us do? Go
back to Callaston and politely ask Edon if he’ll leave us be?”

Dardan grunted and lurched to his feet.
“Never mind.” He stomped off into the night, until the campfire was
a faint twinkle among the leafless trees. Couldn’t she see that
this whole arrangement was doomed? Couldn’t she see that he needed
her more than these strangers did?

———

Their camp was only a half day’s ride from
the count’s seat at Elland. The city had an encircling wall that
sloped down toward the seaside. As in all sensible port cities, the
docks sat outside the wall. Amira seemed optimistic that they’d
find at least one more mage in a city this large, the largest
they’d visited since Seawatch.

Dardan had spent the whole morning avoiding
her. He regretted how he’d acted the night before—the clarity of
daylight always threw nighttime actions into sharp relief—but today
pride was his armor, and he would not apologize.

They came to Elland’s north gate. The men
there asked for the name of each person entering the city, and what
business they had. The guardsman looked up sharply at Dardan’s
name, and asked him to wait a moment while he fetched his captain.
He returned a moment later with not one but four men, clad in the
deep blue and sea green of House Bahodir. “Count Dardan Tarian?”
their captain asked.

Dardan nodded, tensing a little. “I am
he.”

“Count Razh Bahodir expects you, m’lord. If
you will follow us to the keep.” The guard captain bowed and
gestured through the gate.

Dardan’s horse must have sensed his unease,
for it shied back a little. He turned to look at Amira, who wore a
deep apprehension on her face. “Excuse us a moment,” he said to the
guard, and sidled over to his wife.

“They’re expecting us?” Amira said. She
almost managed not to glower at Dardan. Almost.

“We haven’t been making much effort to hide.
A messenger from Seawatch could have gotten here weeks ago. The
whole eastern half of Garova could know of us by now.”

Warden Iris came over on Hawthorn. His hand
rested on the pearl-pommelled grip of his sword, but somehow he
looked as if he had no intention of drawing it. Dardan knew that
was a lie. They’d been threatened a time or two on their
journey—bandits, wolves—and Iris was always ready to face threats.
“I should like to point out that this could obviously be a
trap.”

“We outnumber them,” Amira said.

“Yes, and quite clearly. So much so as to
lull us into complacence.”

“We can’t very well turn around and leave,”
Amira said. “We still need to buy what supplies we can. Food here
should be a little cheaper than out in the smaller towns.”

“We’ll go in,” Dardan decided.

Iris nodded curtly. “Keep your eyes open. No
blind alleys.” Was he also reminded of Duke Eltasi’s ambush in
Seawatch? The Warden still insisted that Eltasi’s attempt to kill
him had been incidental. Perhaps only if he were
actually
killed would he then believe that their enemies did not care one
whit for his oaths.

They followed the guards into the city.
Dardan’s nerves buzzed as he watched the streets for hidden
dangers. But they stayed on the wide, well-trafficked streets of
Elland; the guards did not try to lead them into any narrow
alleys.

The other mages surrounded Amira like an
honor guard, riding their motley assortment of mounts. Aside from
Garen, who’d been to Seawatch, none of them had ever been to a town
even half so large as Elland, and they gawked at the crowds and the
tall, tightly-packed wooden buildings.

Teams of men with shovels scraped snow from
the roads. It hadn’t snowed since yesterday morning, so they’d made
good headway, but there was still a thick layer of muddy slush. A
glob kicked up by the guard captain’s horse splattered against
Dardan’s boot. They hadn’t been planning to meet any nobles; Dardan
hoped they wouldn’t seem too messy and travel-worn when they were
presented to Count Razh Bahodir.

Dardan knew of the count, but had never met
him. He could not be a soft man; he ruled a county thrice the size
of Hedenham. Would he be kind, cruel, fair?

The count’s keep in Elland was round and
squat, not even as tall as Foxhill Keep, but surrounded by a double
ringwall and moat. The keep and its defenses sat in the center of
the city, and were built of the same shiny gray seastone as the
city walls. Mundane attackers would have a great deal of trouble
getting to the keep, though a male mage—like Vincent or Garen—could
tear the whole thing down in minutes. Which might happen, if they
had to flee in a hurry.

The guards at the keep’s gate stood aside to
let the party through. The keep’s stables were in the outer ring,
so they dismounted and walked the rest of the way, keeping close
together. Dardan could not tell for sure, but Amira and the other
mages seemed to have that air of grim concentration they got when
practicing. He prayed they would keep their power in check unless
an actual threat presented itself.

The guard captain asked them to wait in the
keep’s drafty entry hall. When Dardan felt a sudden warmth settle
on him, he realized that one of the mages must be warming the air.
He glared at Amira and mouthed
Stop it!
Was she so foolish
as to use her mage power just as they were to meet Count
Bahodir?