Accidental Sorceress (Hardstorm Saga Book 2)

by Dana Marton

  They had no food that I could see.

  They led me to the middle of their clearing and gestured for me to sit on a log. I glanced back at the Selorm, who had their own provisions, same as I. “Let us share what we have.”

  The men did not protest. If anything, they appeared relieved as if they had worried that I would not allow them to share.

  After we ate, then drank fresh stream water, I washed my hands. “Let me see all who are sick here.”

  They lined up before me, all twelve, minding each other, those with the most severe injuries first.

  I began by setting a dislocated arm that should have been set days before, my work made more difficult by the overgrown swelling. The old man did not cry out. I bandaged his shoulder as tightly as I could, then told him not to move it for several days.

  Then I treated a young man’s stump—he lost half of his arm in battle. After that came infected stab wounds, and way too many burns.

  Night fell by the time I finished, having the satisfaction of knowing that the people around me were in less pain now than when I had arrived at their village.

  Marga went off hunting. We set sentries. But when Marga came back a short while later, dragging half a mule deer to me as a gift, even the sentries lay down to rest.

  In the morning, we shared some bread. Baran chopped the half deer into two quarters, then wrapped the meat in leaves. He tied one package onto his own back; the other was taken by Hartz.

  We did not discuss the villagers joining us. They simply fell in step.

  As before, we moved to follow the road from the woods, at a distance. Tomron and the others were soldiers. They had marched on roads; the network of roads was what they knew. They did not know the hidden creeks and valleys enough to navigate by them.

  But the old woman, Hilla, said, “I know the pathways of the forest, my lady. That might be a safer way.”

  So I told her to lead us, and she did.

  We reached the next village toward the end of the day. The huts here too were all destroyed. But this time, three times as many survivors eased forth from their hiding places to meet us. Here too, I had to assure everyone that Orz would not steal their spirits. Since they could see that all others in our traveling group were yet hale and not running in terror from the hollow, they believed me.

  The tiger they accepted at once and without question.

  “How did this many survive?” I asked the village leader, a miller.

  “A child had wandered off into the forest, my lady. Many men and women ran to find him, spurred by the pleas of his crying mother.” He pointed at one of the women, who held a little boy close to her chest.

  Then he continued. “While we were searching for the child, the enemy came to the village but missed the rescue party as we had gone far into the woods. By the time we returned toward dawn the following day, all we found in place of our homes was smoldering ashes and scattered bodies.”

  These villagers had been living in root cellars and offered us shelter there. They even had fires, which they kept hidden below the ground. We roasted the deer, and all ate well.

  Come morning, as we left, the new people joined us.

  “If we meet enemy soldiers, I cannot protect these people,” I told Tomron, worrying a bundle of herbs with my fingers as we walked. “Do they know that?”

  “We are at war. They will meet enemy soldiers one way or the other. If they are by your side, my lady, you can heal what harm might befall them.”

  I would try, if I was not cut down myself.

  We followed an animal trail through the woods. Tomron pointed out deer and wild boar droppings, which the tiger sniffed with interest.

  Our growing rag-tag tribe walked in groups of twos and threes. Since we had children and old people with us, we did not move as quickly as I could have with the original six soldiers. But since the path through the woods was shorter than following the road, I thought we might yet reach Brooker’s Castle even faster.

  The Selorm soldiers and the tiger hunted as we went. The rest of us foraged. We did not have much food, but enough for each day, so that nobody went hungry, which was more than the villagers had had for some time. They were happy, one after the other coming up to thank me.

  “I gave them nothing,” I told Tomron when he joined me later.

  “You gave us all a shared purpose, my lady.” As he walked, he was sharpening a straight branch as long as he was tall.

  The soldiers were making simple hunting spears so at least all the men could be armed. The spears were shaved to a point, then the point hardened in fire when we stopped to rest—not much, but better than nothing, according to Tomron.

  “A good purpose can give a man reason to live,” he said now. “A good leader can bring a soldier out of the very grave to fight again.”

  As he dropped back to check on the end of our long column, I pondered his words. If I gave people a shared purpose, they gave me a sense of strength. They were here because of me, so I could not be weak. I could not grieve for what was lost. I could not turn around or lie down to die when I thought of Batumar and my heart broke over and over again.

  The people followed because they had someone to lead them. And I led because there were people behind me whom I could not leave to their fate.

  Thus we went from village to village, collecting up the left behind, the maimed, the frightened. As we marched on, I talked to each and every person, asked them what they knew about Brooker’s Castle, about Lord Karnagh, about the great endless woods, even about strange plants that were unfamiliar to me because they did not grow on my island.

  In the evenings, I healed the sick, then told stories to the children. Most of the adults gathered around us too, which was becoming more and more difficult. After each village we passed, we needed a larger and larger clearing for our night camp.

  The men and women grew strong from regular meals and regular rest. Some felt safe enough to sleep through the night for the first time in a mooncrossing or more. They were greatly heartened by having a sorceress and a tiger and a magically recovering hollow among them.

  And Orz was recovering. His gait improved. He carried himself differently. I began to wonder if he was yet as old as I had first suspected him to be. He joined the men to help with tasks but never strayed far from me and never uncovered his face. He never spoke to me again either.

  He was as big an attraction, especially for the children, as Marga.

  Tigers were the symbol of the Selorm, the lords who kept the kingdom protected. The Seb villagers blessed me for bringing Marga among them.

  On the fourteenth day after we crossed the border, we came across the ruins of an ancient city in the hills. No fallen-down huts here, but great buildings made of stone, towering walls, and towers, some still standing, most collapsed, covered in moss and vines.

  A hush fell over us as we walked down wide streets that had enough room for several carts side by side, drawn by teams of oxen.

  Some of the walls were heavily carved, depicting people and animals and wondrous contraptions: one that seemed to make cloth, but not like a weaver’s frame; flames that burned in sconces without torches, not an oil lamp, not a candle, yet clearly a source of light.

  “What place is this?” I asked, but no one could answer.

  Yet they were the ruins of some great nation that had once ruled these lands. We found the outskirts of the city early in the morning and were still walking through the ruins that night as the streets went on and on, walls carved with gods and goddesses that time had forgotten.

  I saw rows and rows of symbols and great shapes of squares, triangles, and circles, carved over and into each other. I had the strong feeling that they represented something, perhaps the builders’ most important knowledge, meant to be passed down to those who came after.

  Yet war had erased all their wisdom, even their memory. All that they had known, would we ever again discover?

  Trees grew inside houses and palaces, buildings and natu
re mixed together, climbing lianas covering walls and holding up the few roofs that had not yet collapsed.

  The city was larger than any I had seen in our Shahala lands, or among the Kadar, or during my travels since. I could not conceive that people this numerous and rich could disappear without a name, without a memory.

  And if they could, how could small villages and my small island stand against such forces as the Emperor’s dark armies?

  I might have lost hope there, as we camped in what had once been a great temple, if not for the people around me. They looked to me for hope, so I smiled and told stories of the weak overcoming the strong, the few defeating the many, tales of survival, and tales of better times that would someday be ours again.

  Later, as I sat on a pile of rocks, I watched the people sleep around me. More than one had smiles on their faces. Maybe they felt safe because we were in a sacred place. I wondered which god had once been worshipped in this temple.

  A strong sensation that I was being watched brought me out of my reverie. I looked around, then relaxed. Of course, I was being watched. I was sitting in the middle of a large group of people. Many glanced toward me as they settled in.

  If unease seeped into my bones, I wrote it down to the strange place, to the fact that the sky was darkening.

  Tomron sat next to me. “Bad news, my lady. The three men we found by the creek this morn say they passed by Lord Brooker’s castle a mooncrossing ago.” He said the words as if they sat heavily on his tongue.

  “Did they see Lord Karnagh?”

  “No, my lady. But they saw Lord Brooker’s blackened corpse hanging from the parapets.”

  My heart sank. Lord Brooker was dead. So could Lord Karnagh be, for all my hopes. Was I simply leading all these people to the enemy?

  As if reading my thoughts, Tomron said, “The spirits brought you to us, Sorceress. What you order, we obey. Where you lead, we go.”

  I was no leader. I was no sorceress. I kept looking at the people who had gathered in this long-gone city around me, unable to understand how all this had happened.

  “They are here, gathered all together, all safe and fed tonight, because of you,” Tomron remarked.

  I filled my lungs with cold night air. “I will take them to Lord Karnagh.” But as I heard my words spoken out loud, I buried my head in my hands for a moment with a strained laugh.

  “They are taking me,” I blurted the truth to Tomron. “The Seb villagers are showing the way. The Selorm soldiers protect us. The men and the tiger do the hunting. The women do the foraging. All this could go on without me.”

  Tomron’s forehead furrowed. “Here is my truth, if you do not mind my saying so, my lady. I have spent most of my life in military tents. The canvas keeps out the rain. The smoke hole lets us have a fire. The flap allows us in and out. The tent has many much-used parts. The tent pole just stands stuck in the ground. Until I bump into it in the night, I often forget that it’s there. But without it, there would be no tent. You are what holds us together and holds us up.”

  I sighed. “I fear your opinion of me is higher than what I deserve, Tomron.”

  “You are a very young sorceress. Mayhap you do not see all yet.” He ducked his head. “Forgive me, my lady.”

  I smiled at him.

  He stood. “I best go see to setting sentries. The tiger is off hunting. She can give us no warning.”

  As Tomron strode off, I stayed where I was, watching the people. Standing in a corner like a sentry himself, Orz watched me. Not for the first time, I wished I could talk to him. I had tried, more than once, but he always backed away.

  I thought about walking over to him and trying again. But if he wished for solitude, did he not deserve to receive at least that? So I stayed where I sat.

  A fair while later, Marga appeared in the destroyed doorway, dragging half a wild boar into the temple. She dropped it at the edge of the open space in the middle, then padded over to me.

  I stood to find a spot for the night, laid my blankets on the ground, then we settled down to sleep.

  Again, the sense of being watched assailed me. Orz, I thought. Yet his gaze on me had not bothered me in the past. He watched me like the Palace Guard would watch a queen they were ordered to protect. I did not know who he was, but I knew he harbored no malice toward me.

  I wished he was not so averse to my touch. I knew his battered body was in pain. I wished he would let me heal at least that much.

  Baran, one of the Selorm soldiers passed in front of him, and I realized that without his back bent and his head in that deep bow, Orz was just as tall as Baran, and even wider in the shoulders. He had a hunting spear now, one of Tomron’s, and despite his ruined fingers, he held the weapon well. He truly must have been some kind of soldier or captain before his tragic path led him to Ishaf’s sorcerer.

  I closed my eyes, forcing my mind from him and toward all I needed to do next.

  Within a day or two, we would be at Brooker’s Castle. Of course, as we were now, all of us could not sneak into the castle unseen. We would have to camp at a fair distance in the woods and send but a few. Tomron and his men would know the castle best. I would go with them. I could not risk their lives in place of mine.

  Marga and Orz would have to stay behind. They would attract too much attention. Whether or not they would obey my wishes to stay in the woods remained to be seen. I often had the feeling that Marga was humoring me, like a mother would a favored child.

  And Orz… I sensed that he had ideas different from mine. But he would always place my wishes above his own. So he might yet be talked into staying behind once again, one last time.

  I was certain that someone inside Brooker’s Castle would have news of Lord Karnagh. Lord Karnagh might even be there himself, injured, kept in shackles in the dungeons.

  I would heal him; then he could lead what Selorm and Seb were still alive inside, while those who followed me would attack from the outside. We would retake the castle. Then Seberon would have two free cities. That would be a start.

  Pressed against Marga’s round side for heat, I went to sleep with that hope in my heart.

  We were attacked at dawn.

  Chapter Twenty

  (The God Demands Payment)

  Marga had gone off for another hunt. Since our numbers had increased, she hunted more, as if accepting the people as her cubs. Or maybe she felt sorry for us, thought us deaf and blind, lost little things in the forest without her strength and fangs.

  I had once, at Karamur, seen a merchant’s ferocious guard dog that was half wolf adopt a kitten whose eyes hadn’t opened yet and feed the kitten among her pups. Perhaps so we were with the tiger.

  I woke when she moved off, instantly missing her heat. She padded silently among the sleeping people, leaped up to a window opening, hesitated for a moment, then jumped out and disappeared.

  I settled back to sleep, knowing that should the enemy find us, we had sentries to sound the alarm.

  And some time later, indeed they did. The plaintive cry of a shepherd’s horn rent the night. But the warning did not arrive early enough to allow us escape. We barely had time to come fully awake before the enemy was upon us.

  The ruin had too many gaps, was too difficult to defend as the Kerghi horde charged. Most of our men had spears, but the rest of us could only throw rocks.

  The stone temple, at least, was an advantage. The enemy could not burn us out with fire, then slaughter us when we rushed outside to escape the flames. The roaming Kerghi who found us were prepared for villages with wooden huts and thatched roofs. They were not prepared for a siege.

  They had a few bows but no grand division of archers. They had to come up to the wall, climb up to the windows, and try to fight their way in. At which time, they were close enough to suffer injuries.

  Orz was by my side suddenly. In his hand, a sword dripping with blood had replaced his wood-tipped spear. Had he taken that sword from the enemy?

  My gaze searched for the child
ren in the semidarkness of but two small fires burning, the flames nearly dead. I could see little, not even if we were winning or losing.

  We were many. We had enough soldiers and Seb men to defend each opening, with the old and the women helping. As I rushed toward a wounded man, I spotted two of the little girls and called them. They ran to me, burying their faces against my body in fear.

  Other children, hiding behind fallen columns and broken stone benches, dashed over to us. Three young mothers had suckling babes. They too scrambled over and followed me as I dragged the injured man to a staircase close behind me. At one time in the distant past it had led down to a lower level but was now half-filled with dirt, nothing more than a hole in the floor.

  “Go down and stay down. Quickly.” I stood on the first step, pulling the arrow from the injured Seb’s thigh, taking his injury upon me where my healing spirit could mend it much more quickly.

  Orz stood in front of me once again. Whatever came for us would first have to go through him.

  Hartz, with a lance in his side, was dragged to me. I helped him, then others who staggered or were brought over.

  As light dawned outside, little by little, I could see better. The enemy had maybe a third of our number, though they were all trained fighters with swords and lances, while we had only a handful of soldiers. But we did have the protection of the walls.

  And soon we had an ally outside, for I heard the tiger roar.

  I watched for her, my hand wrist-deep in an injured woman’s side, but I saw a white-haired man, Ramu, fall at the door instead. An old woman dragged him bravely to safety, back to the staircase. I would see to him next.

  As I turned, I glimpsed a streak of yellow through the nearest window, Marga striking down an enemy soldier outside. Be careful, great mother.

  Her claws shredded the man’s face into ribbons, and the Kerghi warrior’s scream could be heard over the battle din as he fell.

  I could not watch longer, for I needed to tend Ramu, who had a spearhead lodged in his chest. “I need hot water,” I begged Orz.