Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

Sarcyn strode to the door and found the farmhand waiting, as numb as a beast. Sarcyn sent out a line of light and fastened it around his aura, then sent the aura spinning.

“You’re going to fetch us more food. You’re going to say naught but the tale we told you. Look at me, man.”

The farmhand looked up and stared into his eyes.

“I’ll go get the rabbits,” he whispered. “I’ll say naught but the tale you told me.”

“Good. Then get on your way.”

The farmhand rose and shuffled away to the stables. Sarcyn walked through the little chambers, fanned out around the hearth, into the storeroom. There he stopped, grunting in surprise. Alastyr stood before the window, and the corpse of the dead farmer was standing, too, a pale thing, gray and bloodless, but moving nonetheless, swaying on awkward feet. Alastyr shot his apprentice a sour smile of triumph.

“I bound Wildfolk into it. They’ll keep it alive for some time, and it’ll do our bidding. Now, tell me, you little dog, can you match my power in that?”

“I can’t, master, truly.”

“Then mind what you say to me, or you’ll end up the same way one fine day.”

Sarcyn felt a revulsion so strong that he wanted to turn and run from the chamber, but he forced himself to stare at the thing calmly while the master gloated over it. He had the brief thought of trying to escape, but he knew that he was in this dark muck too deep to get out.

Nevyn insisted that Jill and Rhodry have breakfast with him in his chamber, and when a page came, saying that the gwerbret wanted his cousin to come sit with him, Nevyn sent back the answer that the silver dagger was otherwise occupied. Although he doubted that Alastyr could form a link with a rider in Blaen’s warband—or, indeed, anyone else in the dun—things were too dangerous to take chances. All it would take was one crazed kitchen lass with a cleaver and the unnatural strength of ensorcellment to bring his plans to an abrupt end. As he thought about it, it was strange that the dark master had been able to work on Rhodry’s dreaming mind. He began to think that the enemy he was facing was the same man who’d caused the war in Eldidd the summer before, someone who’d seen Rhodry and had had the chance to study him.

Later that day he had another piece of evidence to feed that suspicion. He was perched on the windowsill and watching Jill and Rhodry dice for a pile of coppers. As soon as either had won the lot, they would divide it in half and start all over again. To distract himself, Nevyn began using his second sight to see which one would win each particular game. He had just prophesied to himself that Rhodry’s luck was turning when Blaen himself came into the chamber.

“Cornyn’s back from the Cwm Pecl pass,” he announced. “They wiped out those bandits, and he’s brought back a prisoner. He might know somewhat of interest.”

“So he might,” Nevyn said. “I think I’ll run the risk of leaving here to watch the interrogation. Come along, silver daggers. I don’t want you out of my sight.”

Out beside the warden’s guardroom stood a small, squat tower that served as a dungeon keep for local criminals awaiting trial or punishment. When they came into a small room, ill lit by one tiny window, they found that the wardens had been busy. Bound to a stone pillar stood a man, naked to the waist. Nearby an assortment of irons and pincers lay on a table. A stout man with arms as muscled as a blacksmith’s, the executioner was laying bits of charcoal into a brazier and blowing on the coals.

“Should be nice and hot in a minute, Your Grace,” he said.

“Good. So this is the rat my terriers dragged in, is it? Rhodry, have you seen him before?”

“I have. He was one of the pack who attacked us, sure enough.”

The bandit laid his head back against the pillar and stared so desperately at the ceiling that Nevyn could guess he was wishing that he were dead with the rest of his band. Although Nevyn disapproved of torture on principle, he knew that nothing he could say would convince the gwerbret against it. Blaen strolled over and slapped the bandit across the face.

“Look at me, swine. You have a choice. You can die mercifully and quickly, or slowly, in pieces.”

The bandit set his lips tightly together. When the executioner set a thin iron into the brazier to heat, the charcoal hissed and exuded the smell of burned flesh. With a yelp the bandit squirmed until Blaen slapped him into silence.

“We know that someone hired you to attack the caravan. Who?”

The executioner took the iron and spat on it. The spit sizzled.

“I don’t know much,” the bandit stammered. “I’ll tell you everything I do know.”

“Good.” Blaen gave him a gentle smile. “Then kindly proceed.”

“Our leader’s name was the Wolf, and he was down in Marcmwr, just seeing what he could see about caravans and suchlike. Well, he comes back and says he has a bit of work for us. This old merchant type wanted us to get the lass who was riding with this caravan. Sounds easy, the Wolf says, so we’ll take the old fart’s coin for it. He had this plan. We’d hit the caravan, and the Wolf and a couple of the lads would grab the lass, and then the rest of us would just pull back, like, before we lost any men. We didn’t know she could fight like the Lord of Hell. ‘Don’t harm her,’ he says. Horseshit! As if any of us could have.” He paused to shoot Jill a venomous look.

“Keeping talking.” Blaen slapped him again.

“And we weren’t supposed to harm the silver dagger, either, if we could help it, anyway.” He looked at Rhodry. “He knew your name. ‘Don’t harm Rhodry,’ says he, ‘unless you have to save your life. He’s not as important, but I’d hate to see him dead.’ After you killed the Wolf like that, we cursed well forgot what the old man said, too, you bastard.”

Rhodry merely smiled. Oh, indeed? Nevyn thought, it must be the same dark master, then! But why did he want Rhodry alive? He’d wanted Jill, most likely, to bribe Nevyn to let him go, but why Rhodry?

“So anyway, Your Grace,” the bandit said, “we couldn’t get her. So we elected a new captain and went to meet the old man. We were thinking of killing him, see, for vengeance, but he gave us so much coin that we let him be.”

“What was he like?” Nevyn stepped forward. “Was he a Bardek man?”

“He wasn’t, but one from Deverry. He dressed like a merchant, and mostly he looked as if he came from Cerrmor way. He had this oily little voice that rubbed my nerves raw. One of his men called him Alastyr. He had a servant, see, and one fellow, a swordsman, that fair creeped my flesh. He looked us over like he’d like to slit our throats just to watch us die.”

“He probably would have enjoyed it, at that. Did they have a prisoner with them?”

“They did, this brown-haired fellow tied to a horse. His face was all bruised up real bad, and he wouldn’t look at nobody. He was a slender kind of lad, the sort who remind you a bit of a lass, like.”

“Camdel, sure enough,” Blaen broke in.

“I’m afraid so,” Nevyn said. “Very well, Your Grace.

I’m afraid there’s no more ale to be squeezed out of this turnip.”

“Hang this vermin publicly at noon tomorrow.” Blaen turned to the executioner. “But make sure he dies an easy death.”

With a sudden stink of urine the bandit fainted.

As they left the tower, Nevyn mulled over the bandit’s information. He remembered the shipmaster in Cerrmor, saying that the passenger he’d taken to Bardek also had an oily voice and looked like a typical Cerrmor man. It was quite unlikely that there were two dark dweomer-masters so similar. And this Alastyr had had only one apprentice. The battle odds seemed more and more in his favor.