Black Coven (Daniel Black Book 2)

by E. William Brown

  Beyond them, I could just make out motion under the trees along the river bank. The goblins were here.

  I pulled myself to my feet, and threw myself back towards the fight. “Gronir! Get your people out of there!”

  Narfing reared up for a better look around, and spotted me. “Still alive, little wizard? None of you will survive to see Kozalin again. But I’ll kill you first, if that’s what you want.”

  The wolfen backed away nervously. “Goblins on both banks, boss,” Gronir called.

  I nodded. “Keep them busy, and stay well back. This is going to get ugly.”

  “You have no idea,” Narfing chuckled darkly. Then he struck.

  For all his vast bulk he was as fast as a striking snake. His head blurred towards me, and I barely had time to throw myself into the air before it smashed into the ice where I’d been standing. He went right through it despite its thickness, sending boulder-sized fragments flying everywhere.

  Alright, I had his attention. Now how was I going to stop him?

  I conjured a long lance of force, and tried to angle my fall to land on the monster’s back. But even with the momentum of my fall behind the impact my weapon sank barely a foot into his scaly hide. I had to jump off immediately to avoid getting dragged underwater, and then his head came smashing up through the ice again.

  This time I didn’t see him coming in time, and his armored forehead smashed into my shield with the force of a locomotive. The impact sent me flying, momentarily stunned again, and my shield’s energy level sank alarmingly. I couldn’t take many more blows like that.

  A tail the size of a longboat rose up through the ice near where I was going to land, and batted me back towards Narfing’s head. Damn it, at this rate I was going to get killed.

  I shrouded myself in flames as I flew, hoping that would discourage the sea serpent from his game of ping pong long enough for me to get my bearings. But instead I found myself slamming into a wall of broken ice. Then I was underwater, and my flaming aura was snuffed out. I frantically closed the ventilation holes in my shield before the inside could flood completely, but I still got soaked in freezing water.

  In the dim light filtering down through the broken ice I could just make out Narfing’s vast bulk sweeping around for another pass.

  My shield enclosed enough air to last me a few minutes, and was buoyant enough that it would bob back to the surface pretty quickly. But that would just leave me a sitting duck again. Instead I gave myself a hard push, sending myself jetting through the water towards the river bottom. Narfing adjusted his aim, obviously having no trouble following my movements.

  I conjured an invisible lance of force fifteen feet long, and wove a tether of force magic to anchor it to the riverbed. Let the monster’s own momentum do the work. But Narfing jerked away at the last moment, and swept past well beyond the point of my weapon. Damn it, my force constructs must be visible to his sonar.

  The end of his tail smacked into me from above as he finished his pass, smashing me down into the frozen mud below. My shield’s energy was getting dangerously low now, and it wasn’t recharging as quickly as it should have. Holding the shield up against the pressure of the water around me was consuming a good chunk of my amulet’s energy output, and the way I kept getting battered around didn’t help. I needed to strike back somehow, but my usual tactics weren’t working.

  Fine. Time for something different. As Narfing swept around to face me again I quickly conjured up a ball of nickel-iron and expanded it, forming a large hollow sphere. Then I banished the material.

  The resulting thunderclap of imploding water was loud enough to deafen me. Narfing thrashed in pain, his attack run completely disrupted.

  Alright, monster. Let’s see how you like a bigger one.

  I started working on another sphere, but this time he realized what I was doing too soon. A sweep of his tail produced a sudden current that swept me away, and I lost my hold on the sphere I’d been making. His head came in again, and I desperately jetted aside in an effort to avoid the blow. But I wasn’t used to maneuvering underwater, and my movements were too slow. I barely got out of the way, and he simply turned and snatched me up in his jaws as he passed.

  Crap.

  The sea serpent had a double row of huge, serrated teeth that definitely weren’t made of anything as fragile as normal bone. They ground down on my shield, and my energy reserve rapidly fell towards zero under that tremendous pressure. A few more seconds and I’d be ground to paste, but I couldn’t wiggle free.

  I reached my left hand in past the teeth, and conjured a mass of molten nickel-iron in his mouth. Hot metal compressed by a pressure equal to the Earth’s core met freezing water at a piddling few dozen atmospheres, and exploded.

  When I regained consciousness I found myself bobbing in the middle of an expanse of water littered with chunks of ice. My left arm was gone from the elbow down, and my whole body was a mass of pain that throbbed dully through the partial anesthesia from my amulet. I catalogued the injuries wearily with my body sense. My whole left side was a mass of burns and charred flesh. I had almost two dozen broken bones, including both legs and most of my ribs. My right foot had apparently gotten caught on something, because half of it was missing. The eerie silence told me I was still deaf, and for that matter my vision was a bit blurry too. Oh, of course. I had a concussion to go with everything else.

  But I was alive, and as long as nothing interfered with my healing amulet I’d stay that way.

  I’d been out long enough for my shield to recharge, so it was probably safe to say I’d gotten Narfing. Were the wolfen still here? Gingerly, I levitated myself out of the water for a look around. A wide field of shattered ice stretched out around me in all directions. But I could make out movement in the distance to the… east? Yeah, that was east. I floated unsteadily in that direction.

  The goblins were trying to finish the job. The wolfen had somehow gotten pinned into a bend in the channel, with a large group of goblins and trolls hemming them in while smaller groups peppered them with arrows from the far shore. But the goblins weren’t having an easy time of it. The ground was littered with bodies, goblins and wolves and even a beheaded troll.

  Unfortunately the wolfen seemed to be out of arrows, and they must have lost the transport at some point. They crouched behind the meager cover of a few dead enemies, with their spears and swords at the ready.

  A goblin arrow bounced off my shield. Heads turned in my direction, and a shrill babble arose from our enemies as they noticed my approach. I could pick out a dozen white-cloaked shamans in the group, and I realized uncomfortably that the ring I’d enchanted to block their curses had been on my left hand. My shield would stop physical attacks, but I’d learned in Lanrest that there were plenty of spells that would go right through it.

  But we’d had half a dozen skirmishes with goblins since I’d built myself a defense against such attacks, and they didn’t know it was gone. I extended my right hand, and triggered the enchantment on my other ring. The magic reached out, searching for the complementary pattern on my missing weapon, and pulled.

  Grinder‘s hilt flew up from the field of flotsam, and sailed through the air to smack into my hand. I willed it to life, and the blade reformed. It was strange, not being able to hear its howl, and I found myself checking out of the corner of my eye to make sure it had worked.

  The goblins ran.

  All of them were mounted on wolves, so it was a rapid retreat. The shamans actually laid down a wall of mist to obscure their movements as they went, and the whole operation was a lot more adroit than I was used to seeing from goblins. Even the trolls responded quickly to whatever order had been given, backing up a dozen paces with their eyes on the wolfen before they turned to lumber off into the fog. In less than a minute there wasn’t a goblin in sight.

  I floated over to the wolfen, and found that they were cheering. I had to fix one of my ears to hear Gronir’s report, but replacing a burst eardrum only took a
few moments.

  “I don’t know what you did to the sea serpent, but he sure didn’t like it,” he told me. “The one time he came up it looked like his whole jaw was gone, and he was bleeding like a stuck pig. I figure he slunk off to die.”

  “What about you, boss?” Gudrin asked, looking a bit green.

  Daria shook her head and laughed. “Our wizard’s immortal, silly. This won’t stop him for long. Right, boss?”

  “More or less,” I agreed. “But I won’t be good for much until I can heal myself, and that’s going to take time. What about you?”

  “We lost Enok,” Gronir said unhappily. “He got his leg broke fighting the serpent, and then he got mobbed by some goblins.”

  “I think my arm’s broke,” Valdrin put in.

  “We all got a lot of cuts and pokes from those goblins,” Umar commented. “But that won’t slow us down much. Too bad about the transport, though.”

  “Yeah, I take it the vehicles ended up on the bottom of the river?”

  They all nodded.

  “What about the pilot?” I asked.

  “He was hiding in the transport when it went down,” Gronir said. “That was a good while ago.”

  Lovely. The doors on that thing weren’t watertight, and unless he landed right next to a heating stone the water was cold enough to be lethal. If he hadn’t turned up by now he was already dead, one way or another.

  “No big loss,” Gudrin shrugged. “He was annoying. So now what?”

  I sighed. “Do a quick sweep, and see if anyone can spot the pilot or Enok’s body. I’m not leaving anyone behind if there’s a chance they might have survived somehow. Valdrin, let me take a look at your arm while the others are doing that. Then I need to patch myself up a little.”

  A distant flash and crack of thunder interrupted me. I looked up to find that the peak of the Iron Citadel’s tallest tower was hidden in a writhing ball of what looked like lightning. It lasted for several long seconds, arcing to the tops of the other towers and crawling across the iron ramparts. When it finally faded the main tower was noticeably warped, and the upper portion was red hot.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Daria commented nervously.

  A wind blew out towards us from the city, briefly bowing the snow-laden branches of the trees along the shore. Then it reversed direction, and the temperature abruptly began to fall. I turned around slowly, careful not to send myself into a spin, and looked out to sea.

  The dark clouds I’d noted earlier were sweeping towards us, carrying a wall of snow with them.

  “No,” I agreed. “That’s not good at all.”

  Chapter 7

  I don’t think I would have made it back if I’d been alone.

  It only took me a few minutes to treat the hairline fracture in Valdrin’s arm, at least well enough that he’d be able to travel. But there was no way I was going to be ambulatory anytime soon. I had too many things wrong with me, many of them serious problems that would require major tissue repair. I wasn’t going to be walking again without several hours of dedicated healing, and levitating myself around took too much concentration to keep up for long.

  So I was forced to improvise. I conjured up a thin rectangle of stone just big enough to hold me, and slapped a quick and dirty levitation enchantment on it. It would fade in a day or so, but we’d be done with it by then. I added a lip around the edge and long handles on the outside, and gingerly settled myself on top of it.

  Broken bones shifted and ground against each other. I was grateful for the pain block, or I’d probably have passed out right there. As it was I managed to get myself into a prone position without puncturing a lung or severing any major arteries, but it was an unsettling reminder of how fragile I was right now.

  “Magic stretcher, huh?” Daria looked the odd contraption over, and nodded. “Yeah, we can push this thing and still run pretty well. Can you make it float a few inches higher?”

  “Sure.” I strengthened the enchantment, and my viewpoint rose a bit.

  “Perfect. Um, you are going to be alright, aren’t you? You’ve never lost a limb before.”

  “I was trying not to think about that,” I admitted. My ribs shifted, and I realized talking wasn’t doing them any good. A shiver ran through me, and I fumbled with the tattered remnants of my warmth cloak.

  Daria leaned over and carefully arranged what was left of the garment, then pulled a blanket out of her pack and draped it over me as well.

  “There. Better?”

  I nodded. “Thanks. Need to concentrate on healing now. Tell Gronir to try and get us home.”

  Gronir stepped into my field of view. “We’ll do our best, boss. Come on boys, let’s get moving.”

  A couple of the men grabbed the handles on the sides of my floating pallet, and pushed. The rest of the pack took off around them, and soon we were racing back toward town at a speed few horses could have matched.

  But the oncoming storm was still gaining on us.

  I closed my eyes, and focused my attention on my injuries. As usual my amulet was mindlessly trying to heal everything at once, which was tremendously inefficient even if it did serve to keep me conscious. But that was only burning about half the amulet’s energy output, leaving the rest available for my own use.

  I started by nudging my broken bones back into place one by one, fusing the ends together so they’d stop shifting around and causing more damage. There were some nasty breaks, and dozens of splintered fragments of bone lodged in the surrounding tissue. Some of them I was able to fit back together, but others I had to just banish. My left knee wasn’t going to be working properly anytime soon, and neither was what was left of my right foot.

  By the time I’d finished with that it was snowing heavily, and the wolfen had been forced to slow to a more normal pace. I sat up gingerly, thankful that my force field kept the snow and most of the wind off me.

  Daria was walking next to me, and noticed the motion. “You need anything, boss?”

  “Water? How are we doing?”

  She passed me her water skin, and gestured towards the looming shadow that was barely visible to our left. “We’re following the river bank for now, but it’s getting hard to see. It’s going to be a long trip at this rate.”

  “Let me know if you need to stop,” I told her. “No sense in getting lost. I think I can make a shelter if I have to.”

  She shook her head. “It’ll take more than a little wind and snow to stop us, boss. You just concentrate on healing. We’ll get you home, and then we can make sure everyone’s safe.”

  Yeah, I was worried about that too. If there was an attack on the city coming we needed to get ready. But I had trouble picturing any kind of military force operating in this weather, so we should have some time.

  I checked on that concussion next, but my amulet had pretty much taken care of it. Most of my incidental aches and pains were gradually fading as well, but the mass of charred flesh that made up most of my left side was another story. I was probably missing half my skin along with a good chunk of muscle mass, and that could easily kill me if I lost my amulet.

  A lot of the ruined flesh was too damaged to heal, and I was forced to carefully banish it one chunk at a time. The light slowly faded as I finished cleaning up my torso, and started to grow new skin over the damaged areas. It was a good thing I’d had a lot of muscle there to start with, but even so there was some damage to my organs as well. Great, one more thing to worry about.

  Some time later I finished repairing my kidney, and realized that I was shivering again. My fingers and toes were going numb despite the heat radiating from my cloak, and I was pretty sure there was ice in my hair. I opened my eyes for another look around.

  It seemed like the snow had eased up a bit, but the wind was still blowing. The light of one of my magic torches shone from somewhere nearby, illuminating the silhouettes of the wolfen creeping over the snow. But it was a good distance away, and the light that reached me was dim enough that I
couldn’t see anything clearly.

  “Daria?”

  One of the dark shapes moved to my side. “I’m here, boss. What’s up?”

  “Are you guys really going to be alright in this?” I asked. “It’s got to be well below zero.”

  She cocked her head. “Zero? What’s that?”

  “Ah, silly me. A wizard thing, don’t worry about it.”

  “If you say so. It’s not fun, but the men can take it. I think us girls are about to drop, though, and you don’t look too good. Will that thing hold another person’s weight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Can you turn off the invisible wall for a second? I’ve got an idea, but I was waiting for you to wake up to try it.”

  I dropped my shield, and she hopped lightly up onto the stretcher to crouch over me. Her warmth cloak settled over us both, and she carefully lowered herself until we were barely touching.

  “Better?” She asked. “I don’t want to put any weight on you.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, and sighed in relief.

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “That’s a lot better. I’ve actually got my ribs patched back together now. Just don’t touch my left side, and I don’t think you’ll hurt anything.”

  She nodded, and carefully settled herself against my right side. There was barely room for us both, but she had no shyness at all about the situation. Her lean body was a warm weight against me.

  “Umar, how’s the extra weight? Any problems?”

  One of the shadows pushing the makeshift vehicle shook his head. “This thing moves real easy, Daria. We can keep pushing it all night.”

  “Thanks, Umar.”

  She turned her attention back to me. “I’m thinking me and Embla can take turns like this, taking a break and helping keep you warm. We can’t have our wizard freezing to death on us.”