Winter Be My Shield (4 page)

Everyone who carried the taint was required by law to wear one. Humankind was never meant to possess this kind of power, or so the lore said. It was an accident of nature and of the Gods, a corruption of the natural order. Folk like him were said to have brought the power with them by accident, when they journeyed from the realm of the spirits to be born into flesh. Those born with power couldn't help the way they were made, but they were dangerous, whether they meant harm or not. Left unchecked, their power would cause havoc and destruction, spread disease and bring disaster down on the people around them. If worn for long enough and paired with the rituals and prayers prescribed by the priests, the warding-stones were supposed to extinguish the spark of power entirely.

It had never worked for Isidro, but then he'd never worn the stone willingly. His first one had been presented to him at the Children's Festival, an event held every year in the spring, when every child between the ages of six and twelve was tested for the taint. In every temple in Ricalan, the priests marked out a ritual circle with lines of coloured chalk and set the sacred stones around it, while all the children living under the temple's remit would take their turn standing at the centre of the circle. If he or she carried the taint, the stones would light up like candles, the child's name and parentage would be marked in the temple records, and the child would be given a warding-stone, with the command to wear it until death.

Isidro was eight winters old when the stones lit up in his presence. It had come as no surprise — his birth mother carried the taint as well. In the home temple of his father's clan, Elza had always gone first into the circle, both to test the priests' preparations and to demonstrate to that year's crop of children there was nothing to fear. She had worn her stone until the day she died in a hunting accident, when Isidro was twelve.

Isidro set the stones down and unconsciously wiped his hand against his thigh. Just holding the things made him feel as though he was suffocating, as though his mouth and nose and ears were stuffed with wool that threatened to choke him with every breath. As a boy, he'd
taken the wretched thing off at every opportunity, until his kin, in desperation, had tied the cord so tight he couldn't slip it over his head. Once his father had died and there was no one left to enforce the rule, Isidro had thrown the cursed thing away for good.

Cam knew all this. The nursemaids who had raised him in his mother's court used to threaten him with sorcerers if he misbehaved. He had grown up with a Mesentreian's attitude towards mages, but he set that aside when it came to Isidro.

‘Valeria had a set like this,' Cam said, examining the gilded links. He only ever referred to his mother by her name. If pressed he would grudgingly acknowledge their kinship, but nothing more.

Garzen stood, stretching his back, and then came over to them with the two ruby bracelets dangling from one hand. ‘Ye Gods, but they're ugly things,' he said, squinting at the murky jade. ‘These aren't much better.' He held up the bracelets he had cut free. ‘They must be worth a cursed fortune, but I can't say I care for the taste of him what made 'em. Well, at least they'll be worth a bit to sell. Put them with the others, will you, lads?' He dropped them into Isidro's palm and turned back to help Rhia finish cleaning and binding the burns.

When the stones touched his skin they flashed with a sudden, vicious heat; it took all his will not to curse and drop them. The enchantment inside the stones was a fierce, angry thing, and it lashed out at his touch. For an instant, it felt as though he'd grasped a live coal, but only for an instant, and then it was gone. His skin felt scorched. It left no mark, but Isidro had a fair idea of exactly where the girl's burns had come from.

‘Those burns on her wrists …' he said. ‘Any idea what caused them?'

Garzen cleared his throat. ‘Well, it's a funny thing, but looks like those bracelets did it. Couldn't have, of course — there's no way to heat them up that wouldn't have burned her worse. Maybe they'd tied her up with rope and she held it over a flame to free herself? That's probably it.'

That wouldn't match the pattern of the burns. Isidro caught the end of one of the bracelets between his thumb and forefinger and let it dangle, glowing sullenly in the lamplight. This was an enchantment he hadn't come across before. A Mesentreian priest could have made them, perhaps. Or maybe the one who locked them around her wrists had enough power and influence to convince Lord Kell to make them.

He handed the bracelets to Cam, who took them with a low whistle.
‘Someone's going to be spitting that she walked away with these.' He put them with the others, all wrapped up in the scrap of cloth, and began to pack everything back in the bag, but when he went to put it at the foot of the newcomer's bed, Rhia waved him away. ‘Not there. She is still weak. I don't want those cursed stones near her.'

‘They're just witch-stones, Rhia.'

‘No matter! Put them over there.' She pointed to the part of the tent where the miscellaneous gear was stacked. ‘You have few mages in this country, Cammarian. You are lucky to have so few. I have seen strong men die of trifling wounds because they would not let their curse-stones be taken away. Even witch-stones sap strength.'

Cam shrugged and put the bag as far away as he could from the sick beds laid out head-to-head. ‘Is that far enough?'

‘No. Throw them into the sea. That will be far enough.' Rhia gave a weary smile. ‘That will do, though. For now.'

 

Sierra held herself perfectly still. The soft noises of night were all around her — the sighing breaths of people asleep in their furs and the comforting crackle of the fire within the stove; but her heart was beating fast and she had to work hard to keep panic from taking her over.

She couldn't see. That was the worst part. A thick blindfold covered half her face and she didn't dare raise a hand to explore it. Her hands were by her sides, pinned down beneath a weight of fur, and the burns around her wrists kept a dull throb in time with her pounding heart. Her whole right arm throbbed from knuckles to elbow, as though she'd sprained or wrenched it.

The last thing she remembered was huddling beside the tiny fire in the rough shelter beneath the branches of a spruce. With hot food in her belly she'd been warm for the first time in days and had fallen asleep not caring that she would probably never wake. Better to die free than spend the rest of her life as Kell's pet and Rasten's plaything.

But now she was alive, warm, awake … and what? A prisoner? She'd thought she was heading east when she left the king's encampment, but in the midst of the blizzard the blasting wind was her only sense of direction. The fact that she was still alive told her she hadn't stumbled across an Akharian legion. The Slavers didn't tolerate mage-talent among their captives. They would have cut her throat at once.

She was too far north to have strayed into settlers' lands, and if the king's men had tracked her down she'd be back in Kell's hands already. What did that leave? She could have been found by the outlaws who haunted these hills, or by the men the Wolf Clan sent to hunt them. Or perhaps some country folk had come across her while checking their trap-lines …

If she'd been brought in from the cold by ordinary Ricalanis, they'd feel duty-bound to hand her over to their ruling clan once they found out what she was. If she'd been picked up by one of the outlaw bands, they'd likely try to keep her for themselves, as they did with the women they captured on their raids. By the Black Sun, she ought to hope it was the bandits who'd found her — so many had died at her hands already that it seemed foolish to have qualms against spilling more blood, especially that of the murderers and thieves who made up the outlaw bands.

If an ordinary family had picked her up, she might have to shed blood to escape them anyway.
Stop it,
Sierra told herself,
just stop thinking like that. I'll cross that river when I come to it.
All her dreams and hopes had been focussed on escape for so long — now that it had come, she didn't know what to do next. All she knew was that she had to keep moving. If Rasten didn't track her down, then it would be the Akharians snapping at her heels soon enough. They couldn't be far away — she'd escaped while Kell and Rasten were attending upon the king in a discussion of strategy while the invaders massed on the far side of the river valley. For all she knew, the legions and their mages had already met the king's men. What if the Akharians came upon her before Rasten hunted her down? Sierra clenched her fists at the thought, but then with a shuddering breath forced herself to relax them before her power could spill. If they came, she would fight with all she had, but the Gods alone knew if her power would be enough. She was untrained — Kell had seen to that — and if they were anything like her old master they would flatten her with one blow. But Kell only spoke of the empire's mages with disdain, so perhaps she would stand a chance. Only by meeting them would she be sure, but she'd rather be well away from here by the time the Slavers came. Wherever
here
was.

Supposing she
could
avoid Rasten and the Akharians, she had no one to turn to, no family and no kin. For all she knew, her parents were dead, and had been for two years, ever since the night Kell had tracked her to
the ruined temple where they'd taken shelter and pinned her there with Rasten and a contingent of the king's guard.

Her family had sacrificed all they had to protect her, giving up their kin, their lands, their herds,
everything
. When stories began to spread of the herder-girl's strange powers, they picked up what they could carry and moved along again, uprooting seven adults and half a dozen children, all for her sake.

Kell would have found them no matter what; Sierra knew that now. Her mothers and fathers had thought they were protecting her from the priests, or from a mob that would tear her apart for what she could do. It had never occurred to them that Kell himself would come for her and by the time they realised the danger, it was too late. Two of her fathers had died that night in the ruined temple — and after all this time, she still wasn't sure
which
two — and one of her mothers was bleeding to death when Kell sent Rasten to deliver his ultimatum: surrender now, and he'd spare the rest; resist, and he'd slaughter the lot of them.

Even then, she'd had no faith that he would keep his end of the bargain. But what else could she do? If Rasten outmatched her, Kell was a god compared to her fledgling powers.

Once she was in chains, Rasten had drugged her to keep her from giving them any more trouble, so for all she knew, the rest of her family had been put to the sword the moment she was too insensible to feel it. If they had survived, they would have gone into hiding to protect the children they had left. Everyone knew the taint of sorcery ran through families and there would be some who thought it best if the bloodline that produced Kell's new apprentice ended there. Even if they had survived, and she was able to find them, she couldn't bring herself to seek them out. They couldn't protect her and they'd suffered enough for her sake.

Thinking of them brought tears to her eyes; they stung beneath the mask. Sierra bit her lip to keep from sobbing.
Don't think about that,
she told herself.
Just focus on the problem at hand.

Slowly, slowly, she eased one hand out from beneath the heavy furs and raised it up her face, expecting at any moment for it to be halted by chains or rope, but nothing checked the movement as she lifted her hand from the blankets. In the months that had passed since Kell left his dungeons to travel with the army, she had never been free of the
chains for so long. Without them, she felt strangely light, as though she could just float away.

Sierra slipped her other hand out and explored the blindfold with her fingertips. It was a band of cloth folded over several times and without even a knot to hold it in place. She slipped it off and, as it unfolded, she identified it at last — her cowl, the soft knitted tube that could be worn loose around the neck or pulled up and over the head for another layer of warmth.

Her eyelids felt hot and tight. With great effort she could open them, but all she could see was a blur of grey.
Snow blindness.
Everyone who lived in the north experienced it at some point. It would heal within a few days, but she would be highly sensitive to light for weeks. Sierra mouthed a silent curse. It was a complication she could do without.

Her face felt tight and swollen. She'd got herself frosted, either while she'd been freezing to death during the night or in the days before, she wasn't sure. None of it had the icy-hot burning sensation of true frostbite, so she counted herself lucky.

Whoever had brought her here had stripped her to her underwear, a sleeveless vest and knee-length britches of soft
yaka
-hair cloth, tucked into socks knitted of the same. That seemed a good sign. In Kell's dungeons, prisoners were kept naked. Perhaps she was clutching at straws, but right now she'd take any reassurance she could get.

Her wrists were neatly bandaged and, as she felt her way over them, Sierra realised the punishment bands were gone. For a moment, she was shocked to stillness, but then she had to bite back quickly on a giggle of hysterical relief. The last thing that bound her, gone! Her powers had grown since Kell had first captured her, grown more than she ever dreamed they could. She was no longer a terrified girl of sixteen, hoping that something could be salvaged from this disaster. When they came for her again, she would give them no quarter. This time, she had nothing to hold her back, nothing to lose.

Sierra sat up and something soft yet firm brushed against her head and cheek. She flinched away violently with a small cry of surprise. She caught herself on her right hand and it was then that she realised the ache in her arm was not truly hers. Beneath the relentless throb a soft, spreading warmth was seeping into her body, a steady trickle of energy feeding into the store of power that coursed along her spine.