The Whitefire Crossing (16 page)

When my laden mare cantered up to the wagon, I found Cara already digging through crates and throwing probe poles into a stack on the ground. Deep lines bracketed her mouth, and the shadow of her father stood in her eyes.

“Mother of maidens, not the kid, too?” She hurried over and helped me lift Kiran into the back of the wagon.

“What d’you mean, ‘too’?”

“Found Harken two wagons down, with Bartel and Korro. All three of ’em barely breathing and limp as dead shiftmice. Merryn says he can’t wake them.” She tossed me a blanket and the box of old cloth strips Harken used for quick bandages.

“Damn it, I gave Kellan’s horse to Harken, told him to ride.” My voice came out all rough. Proof be damned, my gut insisted this crazy mess had something to do with Kiran. In which case Harken and all the other downed men were my fault, for bringing him along on the trip. An awful weight settled beneath my ribs.

“Bartel’s two sons showed up on Kellan’s gelding just as I left,” Cara said. “Harken must have passed the gelding off to them. You know he and Bartel are friends from way back.”

“Khalmet’s hand, what a crazy thing to do. If that avalanche had run true, they’d never have had time to get clear.” I twisted a ragged strip of linen around Kiran’s palm with unnecessary force.

“Good thing it didn’t, then.” Cara’s voice was tight, and I knew she was thinking of the catastrophic casualties if it had.

“You didn’t make a bad call.” I shoved a wadded blanket under Kiran’s head. “Conditions weren’t right for the couloir to slide.” That was as close as I dared come to my suspicions. That sharp crack right beforehand, almost too loud to be natural...sign of a magical trigger?

The bleak look didn’t leave her eyes. “Maybe not, but men are dead anyway.” She dropped a hand on my shoulder. “Merryn’s moving down the line, tending to the injured. He’ll help Kellan if he can. I need you to come work the probe teams.”

“I know.” I snatched up a pair of shovels. When Kiran woke up, I wanted answers. If he woke. I pictured Harken lying crumpled and silent, and my throat closed. No, damn it. Surely they’d all recover.

The avalanche debris formed a vast white wall across the trail, dwarfing the remaining wagons. Soon as we reached it, the first thing I saw was Pello, sitting on the trail wrapped in a score of blankets and surrounded by a group of excited drovers. I fought to look happy over a successful rescue, instead of disgusted. How in Shaikar’s name had Pello survived? Gods all damn it, the man was like a cockroach.

Jerik kicked his way down a set of boot-packed steps from the surface of the slide. He jerked a thumb at Pello. “We saw his foot sticking up through the snow and dug him out first thing. No other survivors, so far.”

Cara eyed Pello and shook her head in amazement. “Somebody owes Khalmet a favor.”

Yeah, and it sure as hell wasn’t me. I cursed under my breath.

Pello didn’t glance our way. One arm was braced over his ribs, and his copper skin had a sallow tinge. He was the very picture of a shaken survivor; but when an anxious drover offered him a flask of heated tea, the abruptness of his reach spoke more of anger than of nervous relief.

I knew the feeling. If Kiran was a mage, he was a fucking incompetent one. Men dead, wagons destroyed, and for what?

The rest of the day was long and frustrating. Cara, Jerik, and I spent hours leading men in carefully spaced lines down the path of the avalanche debris, stabbing our poles into the snow as deep as we could. All we found were two dead bodies and a few splintered crates. The rest was buried too deep. If the summer proved a hot one, enough snow might melt off by season’s end for later groups to find more, but with debris this thick, maybe not. The drovers plied their poles in grim-faced silence. Some of them wore so many charms they clinked as they walked.

It was near sunset by the time Cara called a halt to the search. Meldon waved her over to the last intact wagon for a long conference. Jerik and I sat silently, watching and waiting as men straggled back to their wagons. I spent the time turning over theories, none of them good.

Most of what I knew of spellcasting came from street rumors and kids’ stories, not the most reliable of sources, but I’d always heard magic took a lot more work than using the Taint. I’d been with Kiran all that morning. Surely if he’d cast a spell to trigger the avalanche, I’d have noticed. But the more I considered, the more certain I became that Kiran’s enemy was responsible for the slide.

Kiran had jerked upright like he’d sat on a pin,
before
the crack had sounded. Maybe he’d sensed the magic, somehow. He’d let me carry him out of harm’s way—but then he’d had the idea to use the slide to kill Pello, and run back to cast his own spell. The only part I wasn’t sure of was what had happened to kill the mules and men. Maybe Kiran’s enemy had sent along a death spell just in case the avalanche wasn’t enough to destroy his target.

Cara returned, her face set in hard lines. “Ten men died in the avalanche, and six others were found dead mid-line. The drovers report twenty dead mule teams and four dead horses. Seven men are still unconscious including Kellan and Harken, six were unconscious for a while but woke up while we were searching, and as many as thirty more are complaining of feeling weak and sick.”

She looked back to where Meldon stood, his gray-haired head lowered and his thick arms crossed. “Some of the drovers are afraid of another avalanche and want to retreat to Ice Lake to get out of the slide zones. I told Meldon the avalanche debris is thickest behind us, so I recommend going on to Pero Lake in the next cirque over. I estimate it’ll take us a day to fix an onward route, and two or three days if we tried to get through what’s behind.”

The seams in Jerik’s weathered face deepened. “We need to talk,” he said. His eyes cut left and right, as if checking to see if anyone else was in earshot. Cara motioned impatiently for him to go on.

His voice lowered to a growl. “That was no natural avalanche. A layer that deep shouldn’t slide after a night so cold. And you both heard that crack, loud as thunder—no layer would break so loud! More, all these dead men and animals—I’ve seen it before.” He twisted a snow pole in his hands, looking nearly as spooked as the charm-clutching drovers. “During the mage wars, in the city. When the mages fought, sometimes afterward there’d be whole areas of animals and people, laid out like they’d dropped in their tracks. Most of ’em dead, but the ones on the edges might just be unconscious for a while. Some claimed the deaths were a deliberate scare tactic, but others said ordinary folk die whenever they’re too close to a powerful spell casting.”

Cara stared at him, a frown line between her blonde brows. “No surprise that magic’s involved here—nobody’s wanted to say it, but we’re all thinking it. But you’re saying somebody here in the convoy cast a spell, and the act of casting killed the men and mules nearby? I’ve never heard of magic working like that.”

“Me neither,” I said. “Hell, there’d be nobody left in Ninavel if people died every time a mage cast a strong spell.” All sorts of mages came to Ninavel, with a multitude of ways of working magic. Purified metals, crystals, wind pipes, complicated formulas and rituals, knives and blood...all those had featured in one story or another. None had mentioned death as a side effect. But if Jerik was right, maybe it happened when a mage got sloppy, casting a spell in a hurry as they must have done during the mage wars. That fit all too well with my theory about Kiran making a snap decision to use the slide against Pello.

“You both know that avalanche didn’t run true.” Jerik’s knuckles whitened on the snow pole. “I figure a mage started the slide and then directed it right where he wanted.”

“Son of a bitch,” Cara hissed. “The bastard responsible for this deserves to be thrown off a cliff.”

I hid a flinch. More than ever, I needed to know the truth of Kiran’s involvement. Preferably before Pello decided to denounce us both to the rest of the convoy.

“You said the deaths happened when mages fought. Maybe one mage started the avalanche, and another tried to save the convoy,” I offered. Better to start laying some groundwork now, in case of trouble. Maybe I could paint Kiran as having saved lives instead of taking them.

Jerik snorted. “Funny how none of Horavin house’s wagons were saved, then.” He shook his head. “I figure a rival house decided to get creative and hired a mage to ruin Horavin.”

“That’s crazy,” I protested. “Horavin’s too small. Any house wealthy enough to pay for a spell that powerful could’ve bought Horavin flat out. Easier, cheaper, and a lot less chance of nasty retaliation from Horavin’s allies.”

“Then maybe the head of Horavin looked cross-eyed at the wrong kind of mage,” Jerik said. “I’ve seen them destroy men for less.”

“Khalmet’s bones, I can’t believe this.” Cara pressed her fingers to her forehead and rubbed. “Shaikar take all mages! How are we supposed to know if some asshole’s about to bring down another slide on our heads?”

“Nothing the likes of us can do about magic.” Jerik jabbed his pole into the snow as if he imagined it piercing a man instead. “You’ll have to warn Meldon and let him weigh the risk.”

Cara sighed. “I’ll go talk to him, but you’re coming with me. I want you to tell him exactly what you remember.”

“I’ll head back to the wagon and set up camp,” I said. I needed some time to think. Cara nodded, absently. She squared her shoulders and strode back to Meldon’s side. Jerik stumped after her. I didn’t envy them. Meldon wasn’t going to be pleased.

Overhead, wispy clouds faded from the pink of sunset toward the gray of twilight. I hurried past groups of men dragging dead mules off the trail. Cara had said earlier that Merryn had taken Harken and a few of the other unconscious men back to his wagon, saying their pulses concerned him, but he’d thought us competent to tend Kiran. Last she’d heard, Kiran hadn’t woken yet. If Khalmet favored me, I’d get a chance to search both him and his gear before Cara and Jerik returned. I didn’t know if I’d find anything, but I sure wasn’t going to miss the chance to try.

The wagons nearest ours were abandoned and silent, their drovers either downed like Harken, or away helping with clean-up work. I rounded the back corner of the outrider wagon and stopped dead.

Pello stood bent over Kiran’s limp body. His eyes were rimmed with white, and metal glinted in one hand.

“Get the fuck away from him!” I shoved Pello back without stopping to think.

Next thing I knew, I was face-down on the trail with my arms wrenched up behind my back and Pello’s knee planted on my spine. I heaved against his hold. He jabbed his fingers into a nerve in my neck. Red agony unstrung my muscles.

I gasped a curse into the dirt. Should’ve struck first with my boneshatter charm, if I meant to tangle with a shadow man. I’d never been much good at fighting—you don’t need fists when you’re Tainted. I’d learned a few dirty tricks after my Change, but I’d spent far more time climbing than brawling.

Pello snarled into my ear, “You think a few years stealing trinkets qualifies you to play shadow games? You don’t even know what board you’re playing on.”

“I’m not the one Shaikar nearly took today,” I gritted out. He yanked my arms higher, and stabbed the nerve again. Black spots danced in my vision.

“If I killed you now, I’d be doing you a favor, little thief.” Pello’s laugh held a bitter edge. “But today, I am in no mood for favors. Far more satisfying to leave you to face the truth of how foolish you’ve been.”

All at once, his weight left me. I rolled and freed the boneshatter charm from my belt, but it was too late. He’d already vanished beyond the dark bulk of the next wagon, and I wasn’t dumb enough to try chasing him down in front of other drovers.

I rubbed abused arm muscles. Fucking shadow man. Did he really think I hadn’t figured out this was a mage’s game? I spat between forked fingers, and turned to Kiran’s pale, still form. The blankets were unwrapped, and Kiran’s clothes looked rumpled. Pello must have searched him. Maybe he’d taken anything there was to find, but I’d search again anyway.

The light was fading fast. I lit a candle lantern and began a methodical check through Kiran’s pockets. I’d finished with his pants and was moving up to his shirt when a glint of metal caught my eye. A few links of a thin silver chain had spilled out of his shirt collar. I untied the top lace of his shirt and pulled the chain out.

My breath stopped for the second time that day. A silver amulet the size of my palm dangled from the chain. The complex, whorled design was studded with seven gems, all different in type and color. Two of the gems were blackened, the silver around them marred by dark streaks. I reached to pick it up for closer study. Warning sparks stung my skin, and I jerked my hand back. From the feel of those sparks, the amulet had a warding powerful enough to kill anyone who tried taking it off Kiran.

I didn’t know what the amulet was for, but I sure as hell knew what it meant. This thing made my warding bracelets look like kids toys. I doubted even the wealthiest of highsiders would have access to so powerful a charm.

Confirmation then, of everything I’d feared. Kiran was a mage, and even if he hadn’t started the avalanche himself, it had still happened on his account. More, Pello certainly knew it. Question was, what the hell was I going to do?

I ground the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to think. I could run. Abandon Kiran and the convoy, and wash my hands of this entire Shaikar-cursed mess.

Yeah, and then what? I’d never work as either an outrider or a courier again, after pulling a vanishing act like that. And I’d never find another way to earn the coin I needed before Melly Changed.

Footsteps crunched on rock. Shit! Gritting my teeth against painful shocks, I stuffed Kiran’s amulet back down his shirt. Then threw the blanket over his chest, for good measure.

A lanky, long-faced man I recognized as one of Bartel’s two sons plodded into view. His eyes were red, and his mouth compressed in a hard, thin line.

I started to my feet, my nerves jangling. Had Pello begun spreading tales?

“Thought you outriders should know,” Bartel’s son said. “Harken’s dead.”