Cold Magics (58 page)

“Escort duty?” Eileen looked puzzled. “Who are they escorting?”

“The refugees,” said Thomas. “They’re being driven out of the city.”

Thomas led them all out into the street. The cold woke him up, but every step still felt like an effort. He made himself move along as fast as he could. Eileen put her arm in his until they reached the main thoroughfare.

Henry and his knights were there; so were his levies, all looking tired and cold. They lined the streets on either side as the refugees gathered together their belongings and children and prepared to be turned out. There was a stack of weapons by the gates, and Thomas guessed every man of the refugees would be given something before the whole lot were turned out into the cold. He crossed through the crowd, and to his surprise, saw Baron Gallen and his family among the refugees. He went to them, Eileen and the two knights following on his heels. The crowd glowered at them but, under the watchful eyes of Henry’s guards, no one made a move.

“Baron,” said Thomas, stepping forward and bowing. “What are you doing here?”

“All those without a home have been turned out, lad,” said the baron. “No exceptions made for nobility.”

“But you had a home,” said Thomas. “You and your people were—”

“Burned out in the night,” said the baron. “Took out the houses and five of my men. The women and children got away. The livestock weren’t so lucky.”

“I’m sorry,” said Thomas. “I wish we could have helped.”

“I heard what you and your students did in the battle,” said the baron. “Will you be joining us in the field?”

“In a few days,” said Thomas.”

“Assuming we’re alive in a few days,” the baron’s wife said bitterly. “Why can you not come with us now?”

Thomas was confused. “Aren’t they sending the mercenaries out with you?”

“Not until tomorrow, lad,” said the baron. “Apparently, they need to pack all their gear.”

“I suppose so,” Thomas said, but doubted it. “I’ll get there as soon as I can, I promise.”

“Thanks, lad,” said the baron. He smiled, “I mean, Captain.”

“Good luck, Baron.”

Thomas shook the man’s hand and then headed for Henry, who was watching the proceedings from his horse. Henry raised a hand in greeting. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Looking for you,” said Thomas.

“I thought you were…
seeing
to your men this morning.”

“I did.”

“Then how is it you’re still standing?”

“I ate something,” said Thomas. “I’m exhausted, but I got a message this morning and have to check it out.” He handed Henry the note.

Henry looked at it, then handed it back. “Think some good will come of it?”

“Don’t know,” said Thomas. “But after the last two days, I’ll take the chance.”

“Fair enough.”

“Something else,” said Thomas, “if I can speak to you privately for a moment?”

Henry called Sir Lawrence over and told him to take charge, then dismounted and walked with Thomas up the street. Eileen and the two knights stayed behind. Thomas told Henry about the battle in the streets and the words the man had said before he threw fire.

“Koon skob?” Henry repeated.

“Something like that, aye.”

Henry thought on it. “Kyun skob?”

Could be,” said Thomas. “I was getting fire thrown at me at the time.”

“And you call that an excuse for not listening?” said Henry. “Shame on you.”

“Funny. You recognize it?”

“It means fire-rain,” said Henry. “It’s Talikan.”

“Talikan?” Thomas was dumbfounded. “But Tali is five hundred miles away and across the sea, to boot.”

“I know.”

“You don’t even have a coastline. Where did they come from?”

“No idea,” said Henry. “Maybe John will tell us.”

“Aye,” said Thomas. “Any word on him?”

Henry shook his head. “Nothing.”

Thomas nodded but didn’t say anything more on the topic. It was hard to feel sorry for John—who had been trying to kill him—but the man was still Henry’s brother. “All right,” said Thomas. “I’ll go check out the bookseller.” He managed a smile. “Want to meet me in the tower later? We can test whether the rods work.”

Henry managed a smile back. “Only if I get to stand behind you.”

Thomas walked Henry back to his horse. “Where’s George?”

“Other end of the street,” said Henry. “He and the Wolves are going to sweep up the road, to make sure no one tries to stay behind.”

Thomas looked at the crowd of cold men, women and children. “This is wrong, Henry.”

“I know,” said Henry. “But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Someone on the city wall gave a shout and the gates cracked open. Men and women began to move, shouldering bags and gear, getting ready to push carts. There were no animals save a few dogs, Thomas saw.

“Line up,” came the call from the gate. “Men on the left to get your weapons, women and children on the right! Line up!”

“Best get going,” said Henry, mounting his horse. “I’ll see you later.”

Thomas rejoined Eileen and the two knights and headed down the road. “I can’t believe they’re turning them out into the snow,” said Eileen. “Do you think they’ll make it?”

“Depends how many of the enemy there are left,” said Thomas. “I don’t know how many we killed, I don’t know how many hid…” he looked over his shoulder at the departing crowds. “There might even be some still among them.”

Eileen looked over her shoulder. “You don’t really think so.”

“I don’t,” said Thomas. “But at this point I’m not ruling anything out.”

They made their way through the city, the knights at their heels. People still walked the streets, helping neighbours or going about their business, but the feeling of constantly being watched was gone. The streets felt empty without the crowds of refugees. Thomas thought about Baron Gallen and his family, and the other refugees turned out into the cold of the winter. He sighed. He could only prepare his troop as best he could and be ready to march when asked. He wondered if whatever was at the bookstore would help him.

May as well wish for a map to their hiding place
, thought Thomas.
It’s just as likely as there being any magic.

They moved through the poor quarter, where they could see signs of the street battles from two nights before. Smouldering ruins stood where houses used to be. There were still splotches of blood in the streets, though the bodies had been removed.

“Around this corner,” said Thomas. “He was lucky he didn’t catch fire…”

The rest of the sentence trailed away as he stared at what was left of the store’s front window. The walls around it were gone. The books that had sat in the window were still there along with a few other trinkets, but were charred nearly beyond recognition. Smoke drifted lazily up from the centre of the ruin.

“It’s gone,” said Thomas. “He’s gone.”

“Then who sent you the note?” Eileen asked, staring at the mess.

“I don’t know,” said Thomas, his stomach churned uneasily all of a sudden. “We need to go. Now.”

He turned and something heavy and hard struck him in the face. He reeled back, one hand going to his sword even as the other reached up for where the skin of his forehead had been split. The knight raised his hand and Thomas got a glimpse of the horseshoe before it smashed into his head again. Everything flashed white before going black.

When Thomas came to consciousness, he was someplace dark and cold. His head throbbed and he couldn’t move. Something was frozen to his forehead. It took him a few moments to realize he was face down, tied hand and foot, and that a gag had been stuffed in his mouth. He was cold enough he couldn’t feel his fingers or his feet. He could barely breathe through the gag. He started to panic, flailing against the ropes and pushing his tongue against the cloth. Nothing worked. When he twisted, he bounced off of stone walls on either side of his body. He tried to sit up and his head connected with a low stone ceiling above. He cried out in pain, though he could barely hear his own voice through the gag.

At last, his energy gave out and he lay still, desperately trying to pull air into his lungs.

Still there was no light, no sound, no warmth. Thomas became aware of tears on his cheeks and in his eyes, and blinked to clear them away. Tears would do him no good, and judging from the temperature, would probably freeze to his face, leaving him even more uncomfortable than he already was. He forced his breathing deep and even. His face and head still ached from where he’d been hit with the horseshoe.

Gently, he turned onto his side and pulled his legs towards his body. They touched the wall after bending only inches. He rolled over as best he could on top of his tied arms, and tried the other side. Same thing. His legs were tied at the feet and at the knees, he realized, and his boots were gone. Each of his hands had been pulled up behind his back and bound to the opposite elbow. His cloak and coat were gone, too. The key to his tower, amazingly enough, was still on the cord around his neck.

He tried wiggling his fingers and was rewarded with some small sense that they were moving. He kept at it, wriggling them back and forth. They burned as blood worked its way back into them. It was one of the happiest sensations Thomas had ever felt. He turned his attention to his feet, wriggling them back and forth. They had left his stockings, fortunately, and while it wasn’t much protection, it was better than nothing. His feet started to tingle as well and Thomas realized that the problem had been his position as much as the cold.

He lay where he was, wriggling his fingers and toes, forcing himself to breathe deeply. He thought about summoning light—he was pretty sure he could manage to do it; the spell didn’t need words or gestures, just thought. He didn’t try it, though. He had the feeling he was lying in a crypt and was terrified that, if he called light and confirmed it, he’d start panicking again.

He lay in the darkness, wondering what had happened to Eileen and to Henry, and how long it had been since he’d lost consciousness and what had happened to the refugees and why Richard had betrayed the duchy. He thought long about that one, mainly to keep his mind off what might have happened to Eileen. In the end he could come up with no specific reason. Maybe he wanted to be duke. Maybe he’d made deals with the nobility in exchange for favours, maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe I can levitate the door—or roof, or whatever this thing has—open.

The thought came to him unbidden. He seized it, remembering the first time he’d levitated a spoon back at the apartment in Hawksmouth, and the huge boulder he’d lifted at the standing stones. He’d have to light the place up, he realized, to see what he was doing, and if there was a way for him to move whatever was shutting him into the small space He settled his breathing again and imagined a ball of light, floating above his chest. It took him a few tries, but he managed it.

The view was not encouraging. The space he was in was rough stone, solid above him, below him, on either side, and—as he discovered when he craned his neck—at his feet. He could feel panic welling up in him again and he forced it down.
All it means is that the opening is behind my head
, Thomas thought.
So calm down and look
. He craned his neck and twisted as best he could in the narrow space, rolling onto his side. He could see the rough edge of the stone above his head and nearly cried with relief. He twisted all the way around, careful to keep part of his focus on the light as he looked over the opening.

It was closed, of course, but not sealed shut. He could see gaps around the stone that blocked the end of the chamber. It was rough-hewn, but definitely man-made, and Thomas could see that it was no more than an inch thick. The gaps around the edges let Thomas’s light pass through them, but the slight beams of illumination did nothing to brighten the space beyond. Thomas didn’t care. There was a way out, and that was all that mattered. He began to slow his breathing, thinking about the stone above him and wondering if he could summon enough energy to move it.

Steel grated on stone as a sword blade was shoved through one of the gaps around the edge of the stone and then twisted and pulled out, nearly cutting Thomas’s face on its way. The stone fell away and a pair of rough hands pulled Thomas halfway out of the hole. Someone fetched him a ringing blow to the side of the head with a steel-backed glove. Thomas felt his forehead open up again.

“You listen, you little bastard,” said the knight who’d struck Thomas down. “You stop that witchery right now, you hear? We have that pretty girl of yours, and if we see one more sign of magic, we’ll cut her face open and then take turns on her until she prays to the High Father for death, do you understand?”

Thomas nodded. The hand fetched him another blow to the side of the head. “Do you understand?”

“I understand! I understand!” The words were completely muffled by the gag, but it seemed to satisfy his captors. The sword was taken from his throat and he was shoved back into the hole hard enough that his feet hit the end. He heard the rock being shoved back into place, and then everything went quiet again. Thomas forced his breathing calm, forced himself not to moan over the new pain in his face. Instead, he concentrated on the fact that Eileen was alive. The thought was enough to keep him calm, and helped him to face the cold and the dark until he drifted off to sleep.

H
e woke to the sound of the sword once more being shoved through the hole. There was light this time, and Thomas managed to register more of his surroundings as he was pulled out of the hole and set on his feet. The two knights practically threw him against the wall and pinned him there before untying one of his hands. Pain stabbed through his arm as it fell down his back to his side. They pushed him towards a hole in the corner, shoving him up against the wall there. The stink wafting up from the hole left Thomas no doubt as to its purpose.

“Do what’s necessary,” said the knight. “And no tricks.”

Thomas thought about unleashing lightning on them. He was certain he’d have the strength. The knights must have seen it in his expression, because the lead one stepped forward and shoved him hard against the wall a half-dozen times.