Winter Be My Shield (17 page)

‘Isidro?'

Isidro realised he was standing on the ice with the waterhole at his feet. The surface of the water had frozen over, and there were lynx tracks in the snow around it where the beast had come prowling to investigate the disturbance. Isidro turned and saw Cam a dozen paces behind him.

‘What are you doing out here?' Cam said, his voice soft.

Isidro held up the pot. ‘Fetching more water for Sierra.'

‘Oh,' Cam sagged with visible relief. ‘I was worried —' He broke off abruptly and shook his head. ‘Look, I'm glad you're getting along with her. Whatever trouble she brings us … it's worth it to see you showing some life again.'

Isidro started to smile, to make a joke and shrug it off, but stopped when he saw Cam's grave face. ‘Have I been that bad?' he said.

‘I've been waking up a dozen times a night to check that you're still in your furs. I've been having nightmares about waking up with you gone, and finding you in the snow. And when I heard you walking past …' Cam swallowed hard. ‘This is where you're supposed to say you wouldn't do such a thing, you hadn't even considered it.'

Isidro set the pot down. ‘I won't lie, not about that. If I thought I was going to be captured again, I think I'd cut my own throat. I don't think I'd survive another round and if they marched me into that tent again, I wouldn't trust myself not to beg to be allowed to do what they wanted. Cam, if they find us, don't let yourself be taken alive.'

‘I've had much the same thought,' Cam said. ‘By the Black Sun, brother, what are we going to do?'

Isidro just shook his head. Ever since he was taken prisoner, they'd all been living from one day to the next, with no chance to make a plan to weather the coming war, or even how to survive until the end of winter.

The future seemed hopeless no matter what came. If the Slavers defeated Kell and the king's men, the Ricalani folk would be helpless to resist being enslaved alongside the settlers. If the Mesentreians prevailed, they would continue their efforts to push the clans northwards and claim their land for the settlers. Either way, it would be a precarious existence for a wounded man and the fugitive foster-brother struggling to support him.

‘Mira will help us,' Cam said. ‘The Wolf Clan has spies all through the king's army. She knows the lay of the land better than we do.'

Isidro had his doubts, but he held his tongue. Mira — or Mirasada, to give her full name — was heir to the Wolf Clan, and every bit as cunning and scheming as her mother. She was genuinely fond of Cam, but she was also betrothed to the king's cousin, and he wasn't at all certain she would let sentimentality sway her if the association became inconvenient. Even if she did chose to help them, Isidro wasn't sure there was much she could do once the fighting began and the country descended into chaos. This would be a war not of sword and spear, but of mage-craft and power, and all of Ricalan had been raised on tales of the horrors that were born when mages fought. ‘Do you think there's any chance Mira and her clan will take Sierra in to help fight the Akharians?'

Cam paused, surprised by the question. ‘Honestly? No. The clans will never accept a mage, Issey, you know that.'

Isidro nodded, wearily. He did know it; he just wished it could be otherwise. What Sierra could do was remarkable and it seemed foolish beyond reason to throw away such a weapon in a time of such need. But when did folk ever let reason guide their actions?

‘Are you coming back in?' Cam asked.

Isidro broke the ice with the heel of his boot and shook his head. ‘No. I think I'll go back to Sierra, if she'll have me.' If he did end up on the headsman's block, he didn't want to regret turning down the offer of a night in her arms.

‘Well, for the sake of my sleep, brother, will you promise me something? Will you swear that you won't go and kill yourself without letting me know and giving me a chance to talk you out of it?'

The water beneath the ice was black and oily, like the blood of the world oozing from a wound, and Isidro remembered how he'd longed to be carried away the night before. It was a distant thing now, but when Sierra was gone and the future felt bleak and empty once again, he knew it would return. ‘I'll promise, Cam. If you promise that after we've talked it through, you won't try to stop me.'

‘Sir?' Osebian's captain sat stiffly in the saddle, his eyes unreadable behind his wooden snowgoggles.

The duke shifted in his seat irritably. The ribs he'd cracked in a fall last summer ached fiercely, feeding Rasten a steady thread of power through the amulet he wore. ‘What is it?'

‘One of the men thinks he saw a man watching us from the tree line. I sent a couple of scouts out to investigate, and they found no tracks, but Drebian swears blind he saw it and he's a reliable man. Would you have us stop and search further, sir, or shall we push on?'

Osebian pursed his lips and twisted in his saddle to take a good look at the country around them. Sierra's trail followed the winding path of a narrow river valley, a ribbon of bare ground that wound between the hills. The spring floods kept the valley clear of vegetation and the wide northern bank was so exposed it carried only a thin cover of snow packed firm enough by the wind that the horses followed the trail without snowshoes. Here, the river channel was at the southern edge of the valley; in places it had carved deep cuttings into the earth and trapped windblown snow in the hollows. If man or beast veered off the trail and into the river channel, within a dozen paces he would find himself foundering up to his waist in soft, powdery snow.

‘It's too exposed to stop here,' Osebian said. ‘Tell the men to head for the trees. We'll find cover while the scouts take a closer look.'

Not for the first time, Rasten wished he had Sierra's powers. Her ability to sense the pain of others, even something as minor as a cut or a burn, gave her a good chance of detecting anyone trying to creep up on her. The Akharian legions had been only a few days to the west when they'd picked up her trail and now staying ahead of the invaders was as important as keeping on her heels. The delay itched at him — every halt
meant they were losing ground, but Rasten couldn't deny that Osebian had more experience in these matters. The duke had been leading men into battle back when Rasten had just begun his training.

As he turned his horse, Rasten saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. The winter sun hung low in the southern sky and the trees that stood on the southern bank of the river above the small cliff cast long shadows over the edge of the channel. It was the movement of a shadow that drew his attention, but it was gone too quickly for him to make out what it was.

Osebian's captain trotted back along the line shouting orders to his men, who obediently turned their horses towards the trees. When his mount went to follow, Rasten reined it in and the beast pawed at the snow, tossing its head in protest. Osebian's valet, who led the horse that carried Rasten's prisoner, skirted around him with a wary glance and prepared to follow the duke up the shallow slope.

A man cried out in a strangled shriek and a jangling barb of power speared into Rasten from the chain of amulets binding the men to him. A soldier was slumped over in his saddle with an arrow jutting from his back. The horse shied away, startled by his cry and the sudden scent of blood. The rider slipped from the saddle and landed heavily on the ice.

‘Archers!' one of the men shouted as a rain of arrows fell. ‘Archers to the south!' All around him men and horses alike screamed as the shafts found flesh.

Rasten cast a shield over himself, then activated the amulet Osebian wore, shielding him as well. None of the other men carried the same protective enchantments — it would have drained his power too quickly had he tried to shield them all.

The men at the head of the line spurred their horses towards the trees, but after only a few strides they reined in so sharply their mounts squealed and fought their bits.

‘Riders to the east!'

‘Form up!' Osebian bellowed as arrows flashed to ashes against his shield. ‘Form up and charge! And you, mage, do something about those whoreson bowmen!'

Rasten was already on the ground with his knife in his hand. The mounted warriors were closing the gap with Osebian's men, and the archers had come forward to the edge of the cliff above the riverbed
where they were silhouetted against the sky as they took calm, measured shots at the riders milling below.

Rasten ignored them. He cut the cords that bound his prisoner to the saddle and dragged him onto the snow. The man screamed and struggled as Rasten pinned him down with a knee across his throat and cut open his shirt to bare his chest and belly. He was already marked with the symbol that anchored Rasten's power, a brand he had burned into the prisoner's skin. The ritual words came to his mind unbidden, not a prayer as the priests chanted in their temples, pleading with gods and spirits who didn't listen and didn't care, but a ritual of the Blood, a set of key words to which his body and his power had been trained to respond. Almost at once he felt the calm detachment of the trance descend upon him, and then a great rush of energy as his power rose up and locked onto the man lying beneath him, feeding off the sacrifice like a leech drinks blood.

With a flick of his wrist, Rasten opened the man's belly from pubis to sternum. The prisoner arched his back and gurgled a scream, bucking beneath him, but Rasten was ready and looped cords of power around him to hold him down.

Glistening grey ropes of intestine spilled from the wound. Rasten pushed them out of his way and reached into the warm, sticky cavity of the prisoner's chest. His fingers found the heart and, when they closed around it, it pulsed and squirmed against his palm like a sack full of snakes. Rasten clenched his hands and with one practised movement he tore the man's heart from his chest.

The flood of power hit Rasten so hard and so fast that it knocked him back onto the snow. Colours burst in front of his eyes, vivid and bright. The sky turned to sapphire and the snow around him was as brilliant as crystal.

The ritual was a quick and clumsy one, but it served his purpose. It had taken only a few moments and, as he fell back onto the snow, Rasten saw the archers arrayed on the cliff above concentrating their aim on him despite his protective shield.

Rasten raised one blood-smeared hand and sent a wave of energy sweeping over them. It hit the bow-staves first, scorching them black, then it swept up the arrows, consuming the fletching in a flash of flame. Next the hemp bowstring caught and charred to ash, and then it hit the archers themselves, igniting their clothing and their hair, enveloping
each man in a ball of flame and sooty smoke. The hail of arrows abruptly stopped as the archers blazed like bonfires on the edge of the cliff. One or two of them hurled themselves over, leaping down to the deep, powdery drift below in an attempt to quash the flames.

Drained and empty, Rasten slumped back onto the snow. It had taken most of the power he'd wrung from the sacrifice and he had no connection with the dying men through which to recover it, no amulets or ritual marks upon the ground he could use to draw energy from them.

While his attention had been on the archers, the mounted men had met on the snowy bank. The clash of swords surrounded him and men shouted and cursed while their horses squealed, kicking up sheets of snow while steam rose from their sweating bodies. Osebian's men had the worst of it — still milling under the rain of arrows, they had been unprepared when the enemy hit them, swinging around to come from the northeast to drive the horses and men back into the deep, soft snow that filled the river channel.

With his head swimming Rasten got to his feet with a hand still clenched around the heart he'd ripped from his prisoner's chest. One enemy rider spurred his horse towards him and chopped down with his sword. Rasten's shield, at rest a barely visible veil of flame-coloured light, caught the blow and flashed bright red as it absorbed the force of the cut. He dropped the ragged wet lump of meat onto the snow and summoned a claw of power that caught the warrior and dragged him from the saddle, the cords of his energy searing deep into the man's flesh as he screamed.

‘Mage!' the cry went up around him. ‘Battle-Mage here!' It took Rasten a moment to realise they were calling out in Akharian, the language of Kell's homeland and one he had insisted Rasten learn.

As the shout went through the Akharians they turned their horses towards him. Akharians had their own mages, but without one of them on the battlefield to launch a counter-attack they had another tactic for dealing with him. The riders mobbed him, trying to overwhelm him with sheer numbers and hammer on his shield until he grew too exhausted to hold it up any more. As they pressed in around him, Rasten threw the last of his strength into the shield and reached for the amulets Osebian's men wore. The enchantments they bore were forged with his blood, inextricably linked to the column of energy that coursed along his spine. If a man who wore the charm was wounded, the enchantment would channel the
energy to him without him needing to do a thing. They delivered enough energy to keep his shield up, but now he needed something more.

Rasten drew himself up, still wrapped in the calm detachment of his trance. When he worked a ritual in the controlled space of Kell's camp, he would place the subject within a circle that would help contain and focus the energies produced, but in a battle it was not possible to choose one's ground and mark the sigil out. Instead, he used the amulets, each one a little node of energy with its own supply of power. With a word, Rasten summoned a burst of energy from each stone and linked them together in a net that covered most of the battlefield in a field of power. He felt a few of the men falter and some of the worst wounded collapsed and died as the amulets drained the last of their strength. Rasten didn't spare them a thought — he couldn't with this ecstatic pulse of energy thumping through him. It took all his training to maintain his focus and not lose himself in that rapturous flood of power. He had to hold it until the charge grew large enough, but each instant he waited was a temptation to give himself up and let the power consume him.

When at last he could hold no more, Rasten released it and let the energy burst from him with the force of a dam giving way. It swept through the men like a wave and everywhere it touched living tissue it ripped, tore, crushed, shredding muscle and splintering bone. The amulets worn by Osebian's men saved them, shielding them from its fury.

Within a few seconds, the wave broke and the energy scattered, leaving Rasten at the centre of a field of carnage. Men and horses had fallen where they stood, now little more than bloody, flayed lumps upon the snow. The damage grew less as the wave swept further away from Rasten — at the very edge some men were still alive, screaming in agony and terror. A few who had been outside the net of power had escaped completely, and in the sudden calm that followed the storm of power they wheeled their horses and fled. Osebian, untouched by the battle, barked at his men to go after them.

Rasten raised his arms over his head and stretched. He felt warm and languorous, just as he did after bedding a woman. Power hissed and crackled along his nerves. The net between the stones still held, and would for a while longer until all the energy contained within it dissipated. While it still stood, energy continued to flow into him from the wounded, Mesentreian and Akharian alike.

‘Don't kill the prisoners,' he called to Osebian as he began picking his way across the churned and bloody snow. ‘Line them up and let me look them over first. I'll need one to replace the man I sacrificed.'

Osebian frowned for a moment, but then nodded to one of the soldiers. ‘See to it.' He turned back to Rasten. ‘We've nine dead and four more badly injured. That's a quarter of my men lost.'

‘Against what, fifty or sixty Akharians?' Rasten said with a grin. ‘Have a care with your tone, your grace. Anyone would think you were ungrateful. Where's my horse? Did the beast survive?'

Still mounted, Osebian could see further than Rasten could on foot and he raised a hand to wave someone over. ‘My servant has it. I must say, Lord Rasten, I am surprised to see you walk away from that mob. I wasn't looking forward to having to report to your master that he'd lost his second apprentice in as many weeks.' He nudged his skittish horse closer to one of the corpses. ‘So these are the Akharian legions we've heard so much about.'

‘Their scouts, anyway,' Rasten said.

‘And they have mages of their own, or so Lord Kell informs me. Tell me, Lord Rasten, can their mages do this too?'

Rasten snorted. ‘The Akharians are afraid of mages like me. That's why Kell left them to enter the queen's service. They treat their mages like slaves and kill any who grow too powerful for the state to control. Why? Does it offend you that they'll be making free with the land that will be yours within a year? I know it's the Wolf Lands you covet, not the girl you'll marry to get them.'

Osebian curled his lip at the mention of his betrothed. ‘Let the Slavers come. They'll save me the trouble of clearing the land when the territory does become mine. No, I only ask because I don't want to see this weapon used against my own men. What about this girl your master has us chasing? Can she do it?'

Rasten threw his head back and laughed. ‘You'd better hope and pray she never learns how. With a little more time to prepare I could kill perhaps a hundred on the first wave. Sierra could destroy ten times that number without breaking a sweat if she could control her powers. Don't worry about the Akharians. Once we have her back we'll tear their legions to shreds.'

 

Once again, Isidro and Sierra found themselves riding at the end of the line, following a path that by now was well trodden into the snow. Sierra's eyes, though much improved, were still too tender to stand the glare of daylight, so she rode blindfolded during the day while Isidro led her horse on a rope. He managed both horses by tying his reins in a knot he could hold with one hand, and by fastening the lead of Sierra's horse to his saddlebow with a slipknot, so that one tug on the end of the rope could free the knot if trouble arose.