The Reluctant Mage Read online

  Ewen looked away. Next he’ll snatch up Blood-drinker and slap my arse with it, most likely. “Tavin—” His turn to hiss air. “You talk. I’ll listen.”

  Silence. Then Tavin nodded. “The Vale’s a busy place, it is. Enough faces to look at so you won’t be bored in a day. You ride out of the Vale and you ride into Vharne, into the rough country, where the trees outnumber faces. That’s where sorcery lies in wait, I fear. In the valleys. In the silence. In the cold dark of night. That’s why you’ll take Blood-drinker. It drank sorcery once, it did. Could be time the sword drinks it again.” He hesitated. “If it’s strong enough, you are.”

  “Strong enough?” he echoed, and stared at his hands spread flat to the table. “Tavin, I killed Padrig. It’s soaked, I am, in my little brother’s blood. Strip my bones clean you’ll see them stained bright red.”

  Heartsick, remembering, he watched Tavin cross to the table, hook close the nearest chair and sit. Watched the swordmaster’s hands cover his own, fingers tightening on fingers. His gaze was steady. There was love in his eyes.

  “Yesterday you released him. Last night you held him. At dawn you burned him. It was right, what you did. Ewen the Younger—it’ll pass, your pain.”

  Was he a child, to take comfort from a comforting touch? Sitting in the king’s seat, was he a child?

  “What?” said Tavin, leaning back and dropping his hands to his lap. “There’s a thought, there. What is it?”

  He answered before he could stop himself. “It’s happy I was, before the Eastern Vale. It’s happy I want to be again, Tav. Is this what it felt like, when beasts roamed through Vharne? Remembering happiness? Being scared it’s gone for good?”

  “Yes,” said Tavin, very quiet. “Just like this, it was.”

  Oh. Feeling lost, Ewen stared at Blood-drinker in its scabbard. “You truly want me to ride out with this sword, Tav?”

  “I truly do,” said Tavin. “I misspoke, before. You’re swordsman enough not to disgrace it, you are.”

  “Thanks to you,” he said, when he could trust himself.

  “Goes without saying, that does,” Tavin retorted. “But I’ll smile that you said it.”

  And I’ll smile that I’m a swordsman, and not a disgrace. Soon as I remember how, Tav, I’ll smile.

  Tavin tapped the parchment he’d been inking. “What’s this, then?”

  “It’s safe with you the spirit path map stays,” he said. “I’m making a rough copy.”

  “Rough enough so it won’t make sense to eyes that might see it as shouldn’t?”

  “That rough, yes.”

  Tavin grunted, satisfied. “Other news for you. It’s Duff, Refyn and young Hob I’ve picked from the barracks.”

  Duff and Refyn were seasoned men, tough as leather. Young Hob was two years behind Padrig, but what he lacked in age he made up for in ferocity. They’d often sparred in the tiltyard under Tavin’s never-satisfied eye. Quick wits, Hob had, and a quickness on his feet to match them.

  “Ready they are, and eager with it,” Tavin added. “They want their king home in the Vale again, they do.”

  “And Ryne, and the barracks men who rode out with the king,” Ewen said softly. “I’ve not forgotten them either, Tavin.”

  “No.” Tavin cleared his throat. “So, boy, that’s who I picked. You’ll not lose sleep riding out with those lads.”

  “Or with Bryn of the Croft, or Noyce.” He pulled a face. “Though it strikes me I should’ve left Ivyn in the dark so I could leave him well behind.”

  Tavin laughed, with little amusement. “No. It’s right you were to tell him. He’s a pustule, your cousin, but there’s no rule of law says you can deny him the chance to save his brothers.”

  “I sit in the king’s seat,” he said, wistful. “Declare one before sunrise, I could.”

  That raised no bluster from Tavin. They both knew he wasn’t serious.

  “But he’ll plague me,” he muttered. “Tav, you know he will.”

  Tavin scowled. “I do. So it’s best you know this. Strict orders, I’ve given my barracks men. The heartbeat your cousin climbs too high above himself? It’s stepping in they’ll be, to knock him back to the hard ground where he belongs.”

  Ewen drummed his fingers to the table. “And since you talk of climbing too high…”

  “I don’t climb a thumb higher than ever I should,” Tavin snapped. “That Ivyn, he’ll bluster you and overspeak you and call the sky green and the grass blue, boy, and you know it. He’s widdershins like that, the king’s nephew. And when he’s blustering and you’re shouting? Bryn and Noyce won’t step between you. But my barracks men will.”

  “Tavin, I can take care of—”

  “No,” said Tavin, and slapped the table hard enough to splash the parchment ink in its pot. “Arse in that seat or out of it, boy, you’re the king’s voice until the king is found alive.” Up came Tavin’s finger, pointing. “Tell me the last time you heard your father bellow in this Hall—or out of it, come to think. Tell me, can you, Ewen? A tankard of cider says you can’t.”

  It was a fair point. And true enough, the notion of wearying himself against Ivyn’s bluster for all the days they’d be hunting through Vharne wearied him sitting here, no Ivyn in sight.

  “It’s a sweet care you have for me, Swordmaster Tavin,” he said, grateful. “You’ll do fine in this king’s seat while I’m away.”

  Tavin didn’t relish the reminder. Eyes narrowed, he stood. “Finish inking that map, boy. You’ll not find those spirit paths by spitting on your finger and waving it in the wind.”

  And that was their private, sentimental farewell.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The early morning was thick with mist as Ewen led his hunting party from the castle’s barracks, Blood-drinker in its scabbard laced tight to Granite’s saddle. The weight of that famed longsword hung heavy, doubts gnawing despite Tavin’s faith in him.

  I’m the swordsman to wield it, am I? If there’s blood to be spilled, the courage and skill to spill it are in me, are they? Padrig was a merciful releasing, he was. The truth is a woman could’ve done that.

  Any farmer’s wife in the Vale could have done it. Twice a week those women slaughtered goats. Even with his other bloodings, that was more blood than he’d ever shed.

  Countless hours of his life spent in the tiltyard, thrusting and slicing and parrying with a blade, killing sand-filled mannikins, and now he carried Tavin’s sword, a beast-slayer of a weapon. Only the tiltyard wasn’t true battle and neither was putting down a brain-rotted wanderer. And while life in Vharne, in the Vale, could never be called easy, it wasn’t hard the way life had been hard in the years and years the kingdom was overrun by beasts.

  If danger comes to us in the rough, I’m the man to face it, am I?

  His mended arm ached, doubting him. Angry, he pushed uncertainty aside.

  Tavin said I was, he did. I must trust to that.

  Ivyn on his lean black gelding rode at his right hand, smug he’d usurped Tavin from that prized place. Any fear he felt for his brothers was locked secret behind his face. Following them, Bryn of the Croft kept pace with Noyce and his three keen, panting dogs. Obedient creatures, they were, black and white and tan, long-tailed and short-coated, spike-collared and responsive to his snapping fingers and soft whistle. Bryn and Noyce straddled hardy brown Vale horses, good for leagues of trotting without breaking a sweat. Last of all rode Tavin’s handpicked barracks men, mounted on finely-trained barracks horses. Fit and fierce in the eyes, Tav’s men were, gazing left and right and left again as though a brain-rotted wanderer was like to spring out from behind a tree in the Vale.

  Spirit save us from that.

  Young Hob had been given the sour task of leading their packhorse. Its baskets carried food and waterskins and five pigeons for winging messages back to the castle.

  Spirit send me good news to send. Let me live to send Tav any news at all.

  Clatter clop clatter went the horses’ hoov
es on the Vale road. The grey stone castle and its surrounding cottages were a distance behind them now. Around them spread the fields and farms of the High Vale. They rode so early there were few folk stirring. Even the milch cows were yet to gather at their pasture gates. The penned sheep and goats still slumbered and the farm dogs let them be. The handful of warmly-dressed men and women who had risen with the misted sun stopped their labours to watch the hunting party ride by. He was well known so they waved at him, silently curious, and he waved back, leaving them none the wiser for his passing. There was no need for them to know of waking dangers in the north. Not yet. Time enough for that when such secrets couldn’t be kept.

  Closing his eyes, Ewen breathed deep of the damp green countryside. Whatever happened after his leaving, Tavin and Clovis between them would see the peace kept until his return. They’d keep order in the Vale, settle disagreements beyond it. Make sure the barracks scouts kept watch on Vharne’s borders and along the grey, dismal divide between themselves and the blighted south.

  But even so…

  It’s Manemli waking to trouble now, and Ranoush. We’re under siege in Vharne, we are, nowhere to run. Trapped, with the kingdom’s coastal villages ruined years ago and our knowledge of sailing lost with them. If Tav’s right and the north’s waking—if Dorana’s waking—

  Dorana.

  That was a monstrous thought, that was. The sorcerer’s home, the place they all thought was long dead. Sick with fear, he could make himself, thinking of that. He could tumble from Granite and cower mouse-like beneath a blade of grass. But what good would Tavin’s Blood-drinker do him then?

  He had no right to be cowering in fear.

  It’s the king’s son, I am. It’s Vharne I’m carrying on my back.

  Folded tight and tucked inside his shirt, against his warm ribs, his copied map of the spirit paths rode with him. At a rough guess, following the king’s direction, they’d take five dawn-to-dusk days to reach the Vale’s northern edge. From there, with Bryn’s help, they’d take the first of the spirit paths leading to the border with Ranoush, before swinging west into the empty places where Neem and the Croft and so many forgotten towns and villages had thrived before the coming of the sorcerer and his beasts.

  And we’ll find the king there, we will, alive and well. We’ll find Van and Lem and Tav’s barracks men and his good right hand, Ryne. We must.

  Because he wasn’t near ready to wear the king’s crown for good.

  “You’re quiet,” said Ivyn, with a narrow glance. “Thinking to keep your own counsel until this is over, are you?”

  “What do you want me to say, cousin?” he replied, as beneath him Granite minced across a wide wooden bridge spanning one of the Vale’s many swift-flowing creeks. “Spoke my piece yesterday, I did, in the Hall.”

  “And now you’ll keep silent ever after, will you?” Ivyn’s gelding baulked at the hollow hammering of hooves behind it. He dug his heels into its ribs and hissed a curse beneath his breath. “Witless slug. I should be riding my stallion.”

  Ewen sighed. “Your stallion can’t be ridden within ten paces of anything else, Ivyn. If it wasn’t such an ill-tempered creature—”

  “Ill-tempered? He’s honey-sweet, that horse,” said Ivyn, his voice rising. “This is you on the king’s seat again, Ewen. Only you can ride a horse with balls.”

  And you’re the only man I know, Ivyn, can split my head wide with words.

  “You want to keep your balls, cousin? Then keep a civil tongue, you should,” he said, menacing. “This time yesterday I was soaking my brother in oil and torching him, I was. My temper’s short. Don’t tease it any shorter.”

  A snort from one of the following men. Ivyn whipped round in his saddle, offended and glaring.

  “Ivyn…” Blowing out a breath, watching it thicken the chilly air, Ewen took his hand from the reins and touched gloved fingertips to his cousin’s bony knee. They were all across the creek’s bridge now, passing between brambled hedges draped in dewy cobwebs. A pretty morning. The feather-rustled pigeons in their wicker cage were cooing. “Ivyn, listen. It’s blood that joins us, and a common cause. If I ride silent it’s not a silent way of saying you don’t deserve my speech. I ride silent for I’ve nothing to say.”

  “And why is that, Ewen?” said Ivyn. “Your brother died brain-rotted. Your father kept a secret map. You tell us we must ride these spirit paths and can only claim to know they’re not sorcery. Every day more witless wanderers cross into Vharne, spreading death and ruin. Surely you have something to say.”

  “Clap tongue, Ivyn,” he snapped, and kicked Granite into a trot.

  Thanks to bad weather it took them nearly seven days to reach the edge of the Vale. When it started to rain, late the second day, they pulled on their oiled leather coats and wide-brimmed leather hats and endured the misery as cold water trickled down their necks.

  Nearly three uncomfortable days, that went on for. Ivyn sulked through every one of them and only stopped when the rain stopped.

  Trudging through greyish-brown mud smearing halfway to their horses’ knees and hocks, basking in weak sunshine, at last they came across the weathered border stone warning them “Here ends the Vale.” It was barren countryside in these parts, stringy grass and stunted saplings and stones. If ever the soil had been tilled, the rough had reclaimed it years and years ago. Carried on the rising and falling breeze, an odd, stale taint. The horses, uneasy, swished mud-clotted tails and stamped hooves as they walked. Ravens huddled in the meagre trees, mocking them. Small bleached bones poking out of the waterlogged ground were the only other hints of life.

  Drawing rein, his right arm aching from the damp, Ewen tugged the copied spirit map from inside his shirt and unfolded it. The others eased to a halt around him, Tavin’s barracks men hovering their fingers close to their sword-hilts. Always on the alert for trouble, they were. Noyce’s three dogs flopped onto their bellies, pink tongues lolling, careless of the mud. But their ears were pricked and their amber eyes were watchful, and they never stopped scenting the breeze.

  “Well, Highness,” said Ivyn sourly. “Where do we ride from here?”

  Good question, cousin. Care to give me the answer?

  Though a red tracing on the map claimed the birth of a spirit path somewhere near to where they’d halted, he could see no marker or signpost for it. And with no first-hand experience of these hidden paths, finding one wouldn’t be simple.

  Unless Bryn can stir his childhood memories. Drinking sunlight…

  If only the king hadn’t kept his secret so close.

  Ivyn sat a little straighter, suspicion dawning. “Ewen, you don’t know where this spirit path is, do you? Not beyond a scrawl on that map.”

  Ignoring his cousin, Ewen turned to Bryn of the Croft. “Is any of what you feel here familiar? Sense a spirit path in these parts, can you?”

  Bryn, who’d proved himself as quietly good-natured as Ivyn wasn’t, cast a squinting look around them. “It’s been a long time, it has,” he murmured. “But—no. More rain’s coming, it is. That’s all I feel.”

  “So it’s in the wrong place, we are? Already?” said Ivyn. He never tied back his long hair, not even for riding. It tangled over his face so he could pout behind it. “That’s an achievement, that is.” He hawked and spat. “Led us into ugly country for no good reason, you have.”

  Ewen felt his fingers tighten on the map. “If the scenery irks you, Ivyn, complain to the king, you can.”

  “Complain to my belly!” said Ivyn. “There’s no game here, Ewen. What do we dine on tonight, cousin? Mud pie?”

  He hated to admit it but that question was fair, too. With the help of Noyce’s dogs they’d snared coney for supper a few times since leaving the castle, but still the cheese and smoked goat-meat they’d brought with them were running low.

  “It’s not here we’re making camp tonight, Ivyn,” he said, less biting. “We’ve got a good four hours’ riding left before dark. Chances are we’ll find
fresh meat for supper.”

  “Chances,” Ivyn muttered. “It’s more than chances I want.”

  He was so gutsick of Ivyn’s complaints he could have punched his cousin to the ground. “And it’s less carping from you I want, Ivyn! Did you think we’d be sightseeing, did you? Did you think this journey would be anything but grim?”

  Ivyn glared at him, and he glared back. Like always, his cousin surrendered.

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Then bridle yourself, I say, or I’ll send you home to the Vale, I swear.” He breathed out hard. “This is Vharne. We’re not going to starve, Ivyn. And the spirit path is here somewhere. Bryn will find it for us, he will. Won’t you, Bryn?”

  Bryn blinked. “Highness, I’ll try, but—”

  “But he can’t promise it, Ewen,” said Ivyn, scowling. The curse of him was he never stayed cowed for more than a handful of heartbeats. “You had to know that, you did, before you dragged us out here. So if Bryn’s belly stays empty of sunlight, what then? You’ve kept tight-lipped since we left the castle, you have. And we’ve followed like meek lambs because you sit in the king’s seat. Well, cousin, the king’s seat is leagues behind us and here we are in the rough with no spirit path to follow.”

  He was sore tempted to slap Blood-drinker against Ivyn’s arse. It’s a fool, I was, not to leave him behind. “You’re in my charge, you are, Ivyn. I’ll protect you.”

  “That’s so, is it?” said Ivyn, sneering. “Like you protected Padrig?”

  Ewen had his dagger half unsheathed before he felt his fingers round its hilt.

  Noyce’s dogs lurched to their feet, softly growling. As Noyce snapped his fingers at them, Tavin’s handpicked man Refyn nudged his horse closer to Ivyn.

  “It’s the prince’s cousin you are, and Murdo’s nephew,” he said, his grey eyes cold and his voice biting. “So I won’t put you on the ground this time. Next time, I will.”

  Finger by finger, Ewen let go of his blade. “He’ll put you on the ground and I’ll let him, Ivyn,” he said, his throat tight. “Mention my brother again and I’ll put you there myself and could be I won’t think to let go of my dagger.” Temper still simmering, he turned to Bryn. “You were on foot in the Croft, you were, when the beasts attacked. Could be you’ll feel the spirit path if you slide off that horse and wander for a bit.”