Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

King Emeric leaned forward in his throne. "I've checked on your background, Aldanto. I know who you are, my Milanese traitor and sell-sword. This is the right sort of task for you, I think. Find Erik Hakkonsen-or his woman. Find them and bring them in. Hakkonsen I will have dead, happily. If you only get the woman… see that she survives. If not quite as she was, but in a good enough state to be bait. In the meantime, I'm returning to Hungary to fetch more troops and enlist some very powerful support. When I come back, I want to see Hakkonsen's head."

The blond man paused and then nodded jerkily. "Hakkonsen. Yes."

"Good," said Emeric. Nastily: "That'll keep you and that yellow dog of yours busy."

Chernobog did understand long-standing hatreds, for such things were meat and drink to it-and it indulged in such things itself, from time to time. It also understood the elimination of threats. Hakkonsen was the one who had put that throbbing scar on his forehead. The puppet himself hated the Icelander, for that matter, insofar as the puppet was still able to feel anything.

As for Emeric, well, Emeric did not merely nurse his grudges, he nurtured and watered them with blood, something else that Chernobog understood. So the demon would cooperate. It did not do this for Emeric, or in fear of Emeric. It did this for itself.

Compared to hunting for this place's seats of power, hunting peasants around the maquis was as easy as breathing to the shaman. He sent the hawks up, spotted a peasant and his son, and hunted them down with Caesare and his Croat escort.

"You will find these hill-fighters," said the scary-looking blond in charge of the soldiers. "You will ask other peasants until you find them. And then you will give the leader this note. You will tell him I am a Greek with the Imperial fleet-but that I am from Corfu. I am shocked by the devastation, and wish to strike back at the Hungarians. Your family has worked for mine for many years. If he comes… Your son is free. Do you understand?"

The boy was perhaps four years old. The Greek peasant nodded. "Yes." He paused; quavered: "Do you promise you will do nothing to hurt him?"

The blond blinked. "Of course."

The yellow dog made no promises.

"It seems worth looking into," said Erik. "It would hit Emeric where it hurts. Money and weapons we certainly need. But can we trust this Xerxes?"

"My family have worked for them for many years, sir," said the peasant, nervously wringing his hands.

Erik's heart went out to the man. To be loyal enough to go looking for people the Hungarians would kill. Still, it could be a trap. "I'll meet him. Go back to him and tell him there is a small mountain just north of Giannades. There's a shepherd's hut on the ridge. I'll meet him there at moonset. Alone. Anyone else and he'll die. You'd better come back as a hostage, too."

"Where will I find you, master?" asked the man. "I'm from down south. I don't know my way around these foreign parts."

The Corfiotes always managed to make their island sound six hundred miles long, not about forty. "Just come up this valley. Someone will see you and bring you to me."

The man nodded resignedly.

"You must let me see my little one before I will go back. You must." There was an edge of hysteria and distrust in that voice.

The one named Aldanto shrugged. "See. But not touch or speak to. He's in the hut, guarded by the dog."

The peasant walked fearfully to the entrance of the hut. That yellow dog made him very nervous. Then, peeking inside, his face relaxed. He stared a while, then turned and reset his face into a grim determination. "Very well. But you hurt him and I will kill you."

The blond smiled at him. "Just do your part."

"You will let him go unhurt?"

"I will not touch a hair on the boy's head, if you do as you're told. I swear it. And I'll reward you with ten gold ducats."

"I don't want money. Just my child."

He turned and left.

High up in the clear blue sky, two hawks turned, too.

In the shepherd's hut, the shaman studied what was left of the boy: only a scrap of chewed bone on the bloody, but once lovingly embroidered, child's waistcoat. Just enough to conjure a good seeming from the magical principals of contagion and sympathy.

The dog's long red tongue licked the yellow teeth. Even the marrow in those dainty bones had been sweet.

"This is a bad place. Hawks keep chasing rabbits."

"Your control over them is weak."

"I have their names. They cannot do this," grumbled the shaman, muttering a string of words in Finno-Urgic.

The Caesare puppet shrugged. "Well, we have the general locality, we have a rendezvous. We need to plan everything carefully. It's not going to be easy. I've tried to ambush this one before once. It went badly."

Bianca was finally able to get rid of her "relatives" the day after the failed Hungarian assault. At her suggestion, her supposed uncle and aunt ventured outside with her the next morning, sharing in the general glee of the Citadel's inhabitants that another of Emeric's ploys had failed. They headed toward the walls, wanting to see the now-ruined moles.

Their path, as Bianca ushered them along, took them by an old stone-walled building that had suffered a fair amount of damage from cannon fire since the siege began. Some of the stones were now loose, held in place by wooden bracing. The night before, under cover of darkness, Bianca had smeared the stones and the wood supports with the special ointment she'd made up. Then, softly spoken the necessary incantations over them.

She accompanied her "uncle" and "aunt" on their promenade, chatting with them cheerfully. As they neared the wall of the old building, she stopped suddenly and went down on one knee.

"My shoe's got something in it. I'll catch up with you."

They continued on. When the moment was right, Bianca murmured the final words of the incantation.

It all worked very nicely. Following the principles of contagion and similarity, the wooden supports gave way and almost sailed toward her victims' heads. The loose stones followed, completing the work.

By the time Bianca's screams brought passersby to help her in her frantic attempts to remove the debris, her "relatives" were quite dead. The face and skull of her "aunt" were so badly crushed as to be unrecognizable.

Four priests, standing already at the fortress walls and inspecting the ruined moles, seemed to flinch as one man. Two of them raised hands to their heads, as if in sudden pain.

"And again!" hissed Eneko.

"Who is she?" wondered Diego, lowering his hands slowly and a bit shakily. "And where is she hiding?"

"I don't know. But we must start searching for her in earnest. This creature must be stopped."

Something about the whole situation made Erik nervous. It just didn't feel right. "The rest of you stay back here. Deploy scouts on the ridge. Kari, Basil, Dimitris, let's go forward."

The hut appeared deserted. A low stone structure, a mere single room, it didn't appear to have many possible hiding places. And except for the long moon-lit shadows of the ridgeline they were advancing down, no close hiding places. Erik sniffed. It was a balmy night and warm air was full of the scents of wild thyme. So why could he now suddenly smell something totally out of place in the Ionian air?

Ice. Sea ice. And something he'd last smelled with Abbot Sachs and Chernobog's vessel. Like too sweet an incense. It made him want to sneeze.

It also made him very tense. The hilt of the tomahawk slid into his hand, and he walked forward alertly.