A Dark Reckoning

by J. R. Rasmussen

  “We’re not at home. I came here with full authority to represent our interests.” She arched a brow at him in the most imperious way she could manage. “You, on the other hand, came to communicate my messages, and assist me as I see fit. Not to overstep your bounds.”

  “This is preposterous!” Desmond’s face was getting quite flushed, between the firelight and his indignation. “There’s no decision to be made! You cannot give away half—”

  “A third. I talked him down, though no doubt that was his intended number in the first place.”

  “You cannot even consider it!”

  “Plainly I can. And I am.”

  Desmond shook his head. “If you do this, you will regret it.”

  “Of course I will! Terribly, and forever! As I will regret not doing it.” Erietta turned toward the fire, grateful she’d already unbraided her hair, so she could let it hide her face. She was perilously close to tears—a rare occurrence for her—and she would never let Desmond see it. “The only question is which I will regret more.”

  7

  Wardin

  “You aren’t focusing!” Pate flicked his wrist, and something heavy thudded against Wardin’s side, nearly bowling him over. “You’ve got to concentrate!”

  “It’s a bit hard to concentrate when you keep pelting me with rocks!” Wardin kicked aside the offending chunk of stone, doing no small measure of damage to his toes, as it was nearly as big as his head.

  “Oh?” Pate crossed his arms and sneered, an expression made more pronounced by the side of his mouth that did not move easily. “Do you think things will be nice and calm on a battlefield? No distractions? Or perhaps you think you’ll just ask nicely for everybody to be still so you can concentrate?”

  “I’ve been on a battlefield,” Wardin grumbled. “I don’t need you to tell me what it’s like.” In point of fact, it had been still, during one part of it, at least. As though the rest of the battle fell away, and only Wardin and Bramwell and their swords remained.

  Pate scoffed. “A skirmish. You’re going to have to think on a much bigger scale than that, son, if you intend to take Corghest.”

  “I’ve already told you, I don’t intend to take Corghest. Not yet. Or Narinore either, so don’t bother bringing that up again.”

  “And just how do you hope to win Eyrdon without winning either of those?”

  “Patiently,” Wardin snapped. “When Erietta comes back with the Dords—”

  “If she comes back with the Dords. You might as well say if Eyrdri herself sends a herd of flying horses to join your cavalry.” As the days went by with no word of a resolution, Pate (and several of the others) grew more and more doubtful of Erietta’s ability to strike a bargain with Iver.

  But Wardin refused to have so little faith. She would find a way. “When she comes back with the Dords, they will sail to Corghest, and we can take it together, from both land and sea. I can’t hope to do it on my own, and I won’t waste lives in the attempt. Tobin’s been fortifying the stronghold there since our skirmish at Pendralyn. I haven’t the men or the supplies for a siege.”

  Ignoring Pate’s reply—it wasn’t as though he hadn’t heard the man’s opinions several times over already—Wardin pushed aside his coat and raised the hem of his tunic to expose a scrape just below his ribcage. A bruise that would be quite ugly by tomorrow was already spreading there. “You hit me hard, that last time. Lucky you didn’t break a rib.”

  “Wouldn’t call it luck.” Pate limped closer, and when he saw the blood, smiled as though Wardin had just promised him a treat. “Well, you’d best heal that, hadn’t you?”

  “Healing is sage magic. As is tossing rocks around with your mind, by the way. For a battlemage, you don’t do very much battlemagic, do you?”

  Pate shrugged. “That’s all in how you define it. Affinities can be fluid, you know. You’ll never truly master magic until you realize that. When you’ve pushed your balance with physical magic, you switch to another kind. In any case, I’m not asking you to use sage magic, as you know perfectly well.”

  “You’d prefer I push my balance with the kind that can’t be righted?” Wardin raised a brow. “You just had me practicing conduction this morning. Corbin has repeatedly told me I can’t use it very often.”

  “You can’t use battlemagic very often either, judging by how inept you’ve been at harming me for the past hour. Don’t see why you’re so afraid of getting unbalanced, when you’re doing so little to earn it.”

  Pate nodded at the scrape. “There’ll be no warm fire for you until that’s healed. Heard you had some skill at mundane healing, back when you were Bramwell’s adept. Perhaps it’s a natural proclivity. Surely you must be good at something.”

  Although he didn’t say so, Wardin was fairly certain he would be better at healing himself than harming Pate. Looking at the man’s scars, his twisted leg—injuries he’d sustained while fighting for the Raths—Wardin couldn’t put his heart into hurting him. Though Pate’s incessant criticism sometimes made it tempting.

  But whatever talent he might have for healing would have to wait. “No. It’s too soon after the last session. I’ll go to the sage hall and find a healer there.”

  “You’ll have trouble walking to the sage hall with your leg so banged up, won’t you?”

  “My leg? My leg is fi—”

  He should have known better. Moments later a rock—the same one that had caused the last injury, as it happened—slammed into the side of Wardin’s knee. Another hit his ankle. At least the fall that followed was cushioned by the snow.

  “Blast it, Pate! I ought to take your head for assaulting your prince!” Wardin sat up and pressed gingerly at the knee, then winced. Both it and the ankle would be swelling in a moment. Nothing was broken, but he felt quite sure he’d be limping around for a day or two, if he didn’t get a healer to tend to it—or tend to it himself.

  “What you ought to do is heal that.”

  Wardin clenched his teeth. Perhaps he really would have the mad fool locked up and punished. It was true that he was proving as helpful with recruiting as they’d hoped; the mere news of him being back in Eyrdon had already rallied more people to their cause. But once they saw Pate for themselves, surely those people would agree that the man had, in fact, lost his mind somewhere between the last war and this one.

  Pate crossed his arms, his jaw set. “I’m hard on you, it’s true. But you’re up against someone far, far harder, son. You’ve little hope of winning against the likes of Bramwell Lancet if you won’t commit.”

  “Commit.” Wardin snorted. But despite his irritation, a part of him wanted to see if he could do it. He’d been having little luck with conduction; the affinity was not a natural one for him. Yet he had, in fact, committed to learning it, and using it.

  Yes, it was dangerous to practice unbalanceable magic twice in one day, particularly when he was still so new to it, and had so little understanding or control. He did not yet know his own limits, nor the limits of the spells he cast.

  But the winter was half over. He didn’t have the luxury of months of patient study.

  Rowena and Bracken were huddled together several strides away, where they were safe from rocks, snowballs, sticks, and any other debris Pate could find to hurl at his student. A jolt of pain shot through Wardin’s knee as he twisted toward them, but he suppressed a groan and whistled for Rowena instead. She whined softly and trotted over to him.

  “Believe me, I’d like to go inside, too.” He scratched her neck. “Help me, and then we can.” She whined again and licked his ear.

  “All right, then.” Wardin looked past Pate, to the wall of rock where the stream disappeared into the mountain. In a jagged corner where water met stone stood a browned and withered dolberry bush that was unlikely to weather the rest of the winter.

  It had taken a dozen crossbills to heal Desmond’s fractured leg. But bones were notoriously difficult to mend. Surely one half-dead shrub would do for something as
minor as a few bumps and bruises.

  He gathered his power, and felt Rowena’s calm energy flowing into his own. But this was different from preparing other spells. A third energy joined with theirs, usurped by Wardin: that of the bush. A scrap of life, trapped inside a dying thing. Soon it would breathe its last—or so it would seem—and the plant would decay and rot.

  But life could be neither created nor destroyed, or so Pate said. Only moved from one place to another. Eventually that dead bush would become part of the soil, enriching it, giving life to something new.

  Unless Wardin harnessed that remaining bit of life first, and directed it according to his will. Rowena nipped gently at his hand. He ignored her, focusing on the bush with all his might. His mind seemed to stretch and swell with the power he was amassing. Stealing.

  The pressure built. Bright, hot pain flared behind his eyes. His nose ached as though he’d been punched. He was teetering on a brink he knew was dangerous. His balance, perhaps. Or perhaps it was just the bush, struggling to keep what he was taking.

  More pressure still. Something was going to rupture. A thin waft of smoke rose up from the bush, and Wardin feared he would set the thing on fire.

  Then, as though it had indeed been burned, the bush blackened, withered, and curled into itself until it was barely visible against the dark rock behind it.

  At the same time, the pain radiating through Wardin’s leg disappeared. The soreness in his side was gone, too. He yanked his tunic up again to inspect the injury there, then felt his knee, and finally his ankle.

  The scrape, the bruise, the swelling, all of it was gone. His skin was completely unmarred. He felt not the slightest throb.

  For a moment Wardin could only gape at his leg, oblivious to Rowena’s fussing and whatever Pate was saying. Was this what it felt like to heal?

  It was glorious. The surge of energy—of power—in his chest was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Heat seemed to emanate outward from that spot inside, as though his heart had turned into a sun. It warmed his cheeks, pricked his fingers and toes. He half expected to see the snow melting where he sat.

  Laughter swelled inside him. He let it out to echo through the valley as he looked up at his teacher.

  Pate wasn’t alone. Arun stood there with Helena, and Erietta’s blackhound Hawthorn. Wardin grinned at the frank shock on his friends’ faces.

  “I gather you saw that?”

  “Wardin.” Arun swallowed, looking like he was trying not to be sick. “Rowena.”

  With a start, Wardin turned to the blackhound. She was cowering now, shivering at his side, her eyes baleful. He put his arm around her and scratched her neck and chest. “She’s fine. Not a fan of conduction, as a rule. Can probably tell I’m not very good at it yet.”

  “War, you …” Arun shook his head.

  Helena said what it seemed Arun could not. Unlike him, she didn’t look disgusted or worried. She only looked angry. Outraged, in fact. Wardin had never seen the lively, cheerful kennel mistress with eyes so cold. “Did you just take from her?”

  Wardin’s jaw fell open. “Of course not! How can you even ask such a thing?”

  Pate won’t be the only one I’m throwing in a dungeon. All of them need to learn some respect.

  But this time, Pate was on the right side of things. “He didn’t do a thing to Rowena. Even if he were inclined to, which I can assure you he’s not—”

  “Of course he wouldn’t do it on purpose,” Arun interrupted. “But perhaps the spell got away from him.”

  “It didn’t,” Pate said. “Shocking as this is, and I assure you, nobody is more shocked than me, it was a perfectly executed spell. For once.” He gestured at the blackened shrub. “And that was the only thing he conducted from. As I was saying, I would never allow him to use a blackhound. The very idea is ridiculous.”

  Wardin squeezed Rowena again. Whatever had upset her, she’d recovered from it. She licked his face and nosed at his neck for a bit before bounding over to greet Hawthorn.

  “See?” Wardin stood, brushing snow from his trousers. “She’s perfectly healthy. And she wouldn’t be slobbering all over me if she were angry with me, would she? I would never hurt her. She knows that.”

  As should you. He looked from Helena to Arun and back again. Neither looked convinced. How dare you?

  Helena’s nostrils flared. “She’s your hound. Bonded with you. She’d forgive you anything.”

  “Please. Have you seen her after I’ve made her walk too far on a hot day? She won’t even look at me. Trust me, Rowena is not the forgiving sort.”

  And neither am I, as you will shortly learn if you don’t shut your mouth.

  Wardin kept smiling, though it felt stiff and unnatural, more like a grimace. It wouldn’t do to show his friends (insolent meddlers) the temper that was seething beneath the surface. They might think he was unbalanced, and then he would never hear the end of it. “Enough. I know what I’m doing.”

  And you’d best never question me again.

  He gestured at Rowena, who was now rolling around with Hawthorn and Bracken in a great pile of black fur and wagging tails. “And if you won’t take my word for it, or Pate’s, see for yourself. She is clearly fine. Now then, what brings you out here? More new arrivals today?”

  Helena’s expression remained hard, but she seemed to have remembered her place at last. She nodded. “A bigger group this time. Seven of them, and they’re doing quite well.”

  That made the second group of Wardin’s new horses from Heathbire. They would continue to come in small numbers at various intervals throughout the rest of the winter, to make travel less cumbersome and arouse less suspicion. Wardin was assigning a contriver to every group he could, to ease their way further.

  They couldn’t keep them at the magistery; the door to Pendralyn in The Dark Dragon couldn’t admit anything larger than sheep or goats. They’d started renovating an old barn in Avadare, and constructing additional stables as quickly as they could along the southern border of the village. As Helena was the best with animals, she’d won the position of stable mistress.

  “Excellent,” Wardin said. “Shall I come and see?”

  Helena looked like she’d rather spend the next hour with anyone else, but she could hardly make an excuse, when she’d come to find him for this very purpose. “As you like, Highness.”

  Arun cleared his throat. “I’d like a word with you as well, War. A private matter.”

  “I’ll find you when I’m finished with the horses.”

  “Will you?” Arun arched a brow. “Well, if you should forget, you can be sure I’ll find you instead.”

  Wardin chuckled and clapped his thigh for Rowena, who returned to him quite happily. (See?) “Perhaps I’d best hide, then.”

  Arun laughed, but neither of them was more than half joking, and both knew it. Wardin had no doubt this private matter involved a very long, and possibly very loud, lecture on the evils of conduction.

  * * *

  “You meant it about hiding, I see.”

  Wardin sighed and stood aside to let Arun into his chambers. “I’m not hiding. I just chose to have my dinner alone.”

  Arun smirked as he tossed a small basket of honey cakes onto the table. “Because you were hiding.”

  “Because I had some maps to study. I’m not ashamed of learning conduction, you know, whatever your opinion of it. Do you want some mead?”

  “When do I not want mead? If you insist on continuing this ridiculous scheme, I’ll thank you to stop bringing the hounds with you. I’ll keep Rowena with me while you go out there to kill living things for no good reason. Bracken, too.”

  Wardin felt none of his earlier anger. He only felt tired, a bone-deep exhaustion that had set in shortly after he came back from inspecting the horses. Even lifting two mugs of mead seemed like a trial. “For the last time, Rowena was and continues to be fine. You misunderstood her reaction because you were determined to see some evil.”

 
The blackhound in question was snoring by the fire, but she punctuated this declaration with three lazy thumps of her tail. “See?” Wardin handed Arun his mead and sat down. “She agrees.”

  “She just heard her name. And probably hoped it meant we’d rouse her for cake.” Arun took the chair across from him. “If she was fine, why did she look so upset? Even if she wasn’t hurt, she was certainly terrified.”

  “I told you, she doesn’t like conduction.”

  Arun spread his hands, as though Wardin had just proved his point. “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  Of course it does.

  Wardin stared down into his mug. He knew as well as Arun that the excuse he’d given earlier, that his lack of skill was what made Rowena nervous, was laughably absurd. She’d helped him learn all sorts of spells, most of which he’d been quite bad at when he started. Of course the fact that this magic—and this magic alone—scared her was cause for concern.

  But it didn’t change anything.

  Not really. Conduction might not be pleasant, but it was necessary. Wardin never would have agreed to Pate’s conditions, had he not believed the man on that point.

  “Rowena will get used to it,” he said. “And I did not go out there to kill living things for no good reason, as you so ridiculously put it. I finished killing a plant that was dying already. For the purpose of healing.”

  “Healing bruises Pate gave you, just so you’d have to kill something to heal them!”

  Wardin sighed and rubbed his brows. “Why were you even out there? Did you come to spy on me and find something to criticize? Or were you just strolling the grounds with your sweetheart?”

  “Helena is not my sweetheart.” Arun crossed his arms. “Although I may be gaining on you, after today. You certainly diminished her good opinion of you.”

  “Is that what you were about, then? Bringing her out to show her the dark magic I’m practicing, eliminating your rival?” In truth, there was no rivalry. Wardin hadn’t the least interest in Helena beyond enjoying her friendship. But he wasn’t above using her as a deflection.