Heart of Black Ice Read online

  On the night of the uprising, when mobs killed their masters and destroyed thousands of years of the sovrena’s perfect society, Maxim had fled the city laughing. As the chaos continued to build, Thora had sent Adessa after the wizard commander with instructions to hunt him down and bring back his head as a trophy. For many days, weeks, she had tracked the man through the swamps, down the Killraven River, until finally trapping him here at this isolated cottage. She recalled the delicious impact of her sword against his neck, the crunch as she cut through his spine. A shiver went down her back as she thought of it now.

  With her highly attuned reflexes, she whirled at the sound of a crackle like melting ice. Pale statues stood just at the edge of the cottage’s garden: a broad-chested man in patched clothes, and his wife with her hair bound in a scarf, her wide hips covered by a patchwork skirt. Three children were by them: a young girl of about five, a boy of eight, and an older boy of eleven or twelve. The petrified figures began to move sluggishly, inhaling deep breaths as they came alive again. Confused, the family bent their arms in wonder.

  Adessa relaxed. She should have expected this would happen once she killed Maxim. The Farrier family lived in this cottage in the forested hills above the river town. Apparently, the kindly people had welcomed the wizard commander and offered him shelter, but when they tried to flee, he had turned them all into statues. Now that the wizard commander was dead, his petrification spell had worn off.

  Their skin softened and flushed with color again. In the minds of these terrified people, they had been running into the night, terrorized by Maxim, when their existence had suddenly stopped. Now, like a snapped string, it was a different night sometime in the future, and everything had changed. They didn’t even know how many days had passed or what had happened in the world.

  And there was a bloody woman standing before them with a severed head in her hand.

  The little girl screamed. The disoriented mother grabbed her youngest children. The father stood next to his older son, ready to defend his family.

  Adessa realized that she must look a horrific sight, a muscular woman clad only in black leather, her skin covered with branded runes. She lowered the head and spoke in raspy words: “You no longer need to fear the wizard commander. He is dead.” She looked down at the head she clutched in her left hand. “You are safe now.”

  The family stared at her with wide eyes, then looked at the headless body sprawled on the ground among the dry spruce needles.

  She said, “I am Adessa, the morazeth leader from Ildakar. I was sent to kill Maxim, and I succeeded in my task.”

  The parents and children clung together, afraid to move, though they clearly wanted to run like skittish deer. Adessa made no threatening gestures. “I am no danger to you. The wizard commander can no longer hurt you.” She turned to the little girl, saw the fearful face soften into fascination as she fixated on the dripping head. “I need to take my trophy back to Ildakar.”

  Though the father was still wary, his shoulders relaxed. He put his arm around his wife. “If you killed that awful man, then you saved us.”

  “What happened to us?” the wife asked. Her face was lined with wrinkles, though she seemed rather young. “We slipped out of the house at night, hoping to get our children to safety while Maxim was sleeping. We were going to run to the river town and beg for help.”

  “He turned you to stone,” Adessa said. “You had no chance against his spell.”

  The eleven-year-old boy said, “I remember running. I turned around and saw him come out of the cottage. I tried to shout a warning, but—” He swallowed hard.

  “We were statues?” the father asked. “Just stone figures standing out here under the trees?”

  “And now you are whole again,” Adessa said. “You can live your normal lives.”

  Unceremoniously, she kicked the headless body at her feet. “I tracked him here. I set a trap.” She turned to look at the heavy tree trunk still dangling on ropes; it had swung down like a murderous pendulum to smash him in the chest. “I used a bent sapling, that fallen log, some rope. He focused on me because he thought I alone was the threat.…” Her stiff face fostered a grim smile. “Now you are safe.”

  The Farrier family moved uncertainly around the headless body, running back to their cottage. The father hurried his children ahead of him. The mother said, “We should thank you. Is there anything we can do for you?”

  Adessa stood with her feet planted in place. “I have a long journey back to Ildakar so that I can deliver the trophy, as I promised.”

  Standing at the cottage doorway, the husband said, “Come in and eat with us. We’ll provide a meal so you will be strong for the journey.”

  The mother said in a harsh whisper to her husband, “Your naive heart and hospitality caused us enough trouble already!”

  “It’ll be fine,” he whispered back. “She killed the bad man.”

  Adessa just wanted to be on her way, but she realized she was in no hurry now. Maxim was dead. Suddenly she felt weary. Hunting the wizard commander had given her a clear purpose, and she had endured so many hardships to achieve that goal. Now her guiding light had winked out. But her mission wasn’t finished until she delivered his head to the sovrena. She would be foolish to refuse the offer of sustenance, which would help her run farther and faster. “Yes, I accept your food.”

  Still carrying the repugnant head, she followed the family into the cottage.

  “Must you bring that inside?” asked the mother, horrified.

  “Yes. I must.”

  While the children looked uneasily at Adessa, the father lit candles and built a fire in the stone-lined hearth. Soon, the interior was bathed in warm, comforting light.

  The younger children ran to their beds, huddling together. The older brother stood uncertainly beside his father, while the mother moved about the kitchen, opening the larder to see what they had left to eat. She sighed in dismay. “That man ate most of our supplies. I have part of a ham, smoked catfish, and some cheese.” She scrutinized a rock-hard heel of bread. “This is old and stale.”

  “I will eat it,” Adessa said. “I don’t know how long Wizard Commander Maxim lived here alone, but he would never deign to bake his own bread.”

  “I might find a chicken in the yard, wring its neck,” the father suggested. “We’ll have a proper feast, if you’re willing to wait.”

  Adessa considered, but shook her head. “I need to be on my way.”

  Though he had felt obligated to make the offer, the man seemed relieved when she declined.

  The mother set out whatever food she could scrounge and called the children from their beds to the wooden table. Adessa set the severed head on the corner next to where she would eat.

  The father regarded her awkwardly. “I have water from the cistern. You can wash before you eat. You have … blood on you.”

  Adessa looked at her bare skin, at the scarred designs that had been burned by hot irons as she earned each rune of protection. Maxim’s blood covered her arms and abdomen, and rusty red flecks caked the black leather band around her chest. The speckles made mysterious patterns, drying to form a meaning, a message that she couldn’t understand. “The blood of my victim is a mark of honor. Why would I wash it off?”

  The mother quickly sliced the ham, fish, and cheese, and they shared cups of water, though the conversation was awkward. Adessa ate ravenously, paying little attention to the taste as she absorbed the nourishment she required. Now that the wizard commander was dead, she tried to feel the remnants of the blood magic inside her, but she had used it all. Her unborn child had given her the magical strength she needed to kill a powerful wizard, and now she was back to her normal self—and her normal self was powerful indeed.

  The family ate in nervous silence, unable to look away from the gruesome head resting on the corner of their table. The neck stump left a rusty stain on the wood. From now on, whenever they looked at the mark, the Farrier family would remember her.
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  “You can bury his body out in the yard,” she said after finishing the stale lump of bread she had promised to eat.

  The father stared at her, then nodded. “We will get rid of it.”

  The younger children whimpered.

  Adessa wolfed down her food. “I must be moving now.” She gulped the last of the water in her cup. “I have many miles to travel upriver.”

  “We’ll help you be on your way,” the father blurted out a little too quickly, though it was still many hours before dawn. “Can we give you supplies? What do you need for your journey?”

  The mother offered, “There’s more in Gant’s Ford. Down in the town you can stock up on any provisions you require.”

  “I need little.” Adessa checked her weapons, the dagger and short sword she had brought from Ildakar, the morazeth agile knife clipped to her side, which could bring such intense pain with just a touch. As she lifted Maxim’s head by the hair, she reconsidered. “There is one thing you could give me. I need a sack.”

  The mother scurried about the kitchen until she produced an empty burlap sack that had been filled with millet. Adessa thanked her and stuffed Maxim’s head inside, twisted the end around her wrist, and turned to the door of the cottage. “I will be on my way.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The strange, shadowy people in Orogang closed around Nicci with outstretched hands, as if they intended to overwhelm her by sheer force of numbers. They rustled as they moved, unnaturally quiet.

  When she reached out for her gift, she struggled with a wave of unsettling nausea that lingered inside her from the abortive sliph journey. The silvery creature had damaged her somehow, maybe accidentally, maybe intentionally. Where was the sliph? Nicci needed to go!

  As the strange, muttering people closed in, she drew her two daggers and held them out in a threatening gesture. “I have no quarrel with you, but I will defend myself.” She backed to the base of the towering Utros statue. “I don’t want to kill you.”

  One of the hooded figures cried out in gibberish, some dialect Nicci didn’t understand. More voices joined in, sounding frantic. Another spoke in slurred, deeply accented words that sounded like, “Take her! Not much time.” The people carried no weapons, no swords or knives, not even sticks or clubs, but their numbers had doubled into an alarming force in just a few moments. They closed in on her.

  A third voice was more agitated. “Sun is rising! Hide.”

  Facing them, Nicci slashed the air with her daggers to ward them off. As dawn brightened over the mountain crags, the strange people grew desperate. Several more of the shadowy people emerged, waving antique-looking swords. They howled, a sound of deep alarm. As Death’s Mistress, Nicci would have had no qualms simply incinerating them all with a wash of wizard’s fire, but these gaunt, scuttling figures were obviously frightened of something. Right now her command of magic seemed uncertain, yet it was her best way to drive away so many without massacring them.

  She thrust one dagger back into its sheath and extended her arm, palm outward. Despite the throbbing in her head, she called up her gift and formed a wall of air as a defense. The invisible battering ram knocked aside five encroaching strangers, and they tumbled back into their fellows, but the crowd closed in from opposite directions. Their voices became more understandable, though it remained a distorted dialect.

  “Take her! Inside the buildings!”

  “Hurry! The sunlight!”

  Though she reeled, weak and dizzy, Nicci found enough strength to blast with air again, shoving more of the people away from her. Hands grabbed her shoulders from behind. Four of the silent strangers had climbed over the base of the Utros statue to attack her from an unexpected side. They jumped on her, tried to drag her down. The drab people fell upon her like wolves on a wounded deer.

  She spun, used her gift to form a circular whirlwind that shoved them all away. “Stay back!” Lashing out, she stabbed her dagger between the ribs of a gaunt woman, who collapsed, bleeding onto the statue general’s feet. Others immediately whisked the injured victim away and took her to one of the buildings. The dark, open doorways looked like toothless mouths.

  Her eyes flashed from target to target as the mob hesitated but pressed in, looking for any opening. Why did they want her so badly? Nicci decided the time for patience was over, and she couldn’t allow herself softness or sympathy. She concentrated on the hardness inside her, the heart of black ice that was Nicci’s strength when emotions were a vulnerability. It was her shield against love, although Richard had taught her that love itself could be a different kind of strength. Through him, Nicci had learned a new respect for helping people and fighting for a greater good, but she couldn’t forget her other strengths.

  As the desperate hands reached out to grab her, she called up her gift, ready to release more destructive magic. “Leave me alone, or you will all die.”

  “All die!” shouted a man in the crowd. “The zhiss can’t have her!” They pushed forward as if it were a rallying cry.

  Nicci called a band of lightning from the sky to blast the flagstones of the plaza, a clear warning. It shattered a long furrow and hurled four of the gray-robed people aside. She whirled in her black dress, ready for the next foolish challenger. She would drive them all away. As the daylight brightened, she could see their expressions, which were oddly fearful and yearning, not bloodthirsty. That gave her pause again. Did she really need to kill them?

  “Take her!” shouted one woman. “Hurry.”

  The people surged forward as if they’d already forgotten the powers Nicci had just demonstrated, and she was forced to blast another dozen with a second bolt of lightning. But the hooded people didn’t seem to care; they only wanted to capture her.

  Several surprised her by throwing a crudely woven net over her from behind. Weighted with stones, the net drove Nicci to her knees, but she hunched her back and released a burst of heat that incinerated the tangled strands. She rose back to her feet, brushing off strings of ashes.

  Striking out with greater power, Nicci made the ground tremble, loosening the flagstones and shifting the earth. An ornamental pillar on the other side of the square toppled. She flung out her hand and pushed a wall of wind into the crowd, but they came at her from different sides. There were so many people. So many!

  When Nicci had fought Sulachan’s swarms of half people, with their blank, bloodthirsty eyes, she never once felt a flicker of doubt, never saw them as anything but inhuman. But these gray-robed strangers had a different emotion in their eyes. It was not a hunger, but rather a need, a sadness.

  “I don’t want to kill you. Why are you doing this?” She held her bloody dagger in one hand, her other palm outstretched as she called up more of her gift. She still had plenty of fight left within her, but she was definitely feeling weaker. She needed to rest and recuperate after the disruptive journey through the sliph.

  A man tackled her from behind, but Nicci reached out to crush the man’s throat with her gift, then cast his heavy body aside. She could no longer use a velvet touch if they were attacking her. More and more of them swarmed all around her and crowded in, unafraid. Growing more angry, Nicci blasted them, hurling bodies in all directions. She had warned them many times, but it was as effective as standing on the seashore kicking at the waves.

  Someone seized her wrist, making her drop the dagger. “We have to take you!” the shrouded man urged. “Stop fighting!”

  Another attacker struck Nicci on the back of the head, and a red blur flashed through her skull. She heard shouts and excited whispers, terrified groans. Dozens of hands grabbed her arms, her legs, picking her up and carrying her away. Stunned, Nicci realized they were taking her toward the towering palace that loomed over the great plaza.

  She struggled for consciousness, tried to reach for her gift, but her ears were ringing. With a cry, Nicci unleashed an instinctive, barely controlled surge of magic and seared two of her handlers. They stumbled back, their hands smoking, but others kept whisk
ing her along. Nicci thrashed.

  “The sun’s cleared the horizon,” someone yelled. “Hurry!”

  Outside in the open square, as dawn washed away the gloom, the frenetic people disappeared like beetles scattering from beneath an overturned rock. They rushed to different buildings and ducked inside the dark interiors. As she fought to break free, she heard doors slam around the plaza, the heavy thunk of crossbars sealing them inside. The attacking mob dissipated like smoke in a heavy wind.

  The grip on her arms and legs was like iron as her captors rushed her through the arched doorway into the building. She was engulfed by shadows. Forging her anger into strength, Nicci fought with renewed vigor, scratching, punching. “Don’t make me kill you!”

  “Come with us!”

  Feeling wet blood in her hair from where she’d been struck on the head, Nicci could no longer afford mercy. She crashed the people away with a surge of magic, and dropped to the floor in the enclosed foyer, free. Lurching to her feet, she called a more powerful weapon, a sphere of wizard’s fire, which she tossed into the crowded corridor just inside the entrance. She had to get these people away from her. Deadly flames carved through eight attackers, and she smelled roasting flesh and burning hair. The charred corpses slammed against the wall and crumpled onto the floor. Fires from burning bodies illuminated the shadows inside the palace entry.

  Nicci tore herself free from the last clinging hands and turned to rush back into the open plaza, but one old woman in a gray robe scuttled forward, blocking her way. Her wrinkled face held a beseeching expression. Her words were heavily accented, but understandable. “Stop! We’re trying to save you!” Nicci’s blue eyes flared with angry questions, but the woman urged, “Don’t go out there. You’ll die. We’ll all die. Please!”

  Outside, a golden sunrise lit the city of Orogang. Razor-edged shadows spread across the ground, and the distorted silhouette of the General Utros statue stretched over the flagstones. The ancient city again looked entirely abandoned. Nicci knew that if she got outside, these people couldn’t pursue her. For some reason, they were terrified of the sun.