Debt of Bones

  Thomas’s face glowed scarlet above his white beard. This is a foolhardy act of desperation!’

  Wizard Zorander flicked the finger. The papers flew from the old wizard’s hand and swirled up into a whirlwind, there to ignite, flaring into ashes that lifted away on the wind.

  ‘Sometimes, Thomas, all that is left to you is an act of desperation. I am First Wizard, and I will do as I must. That is the end of it. I will hear no more.’ He turned and snatched the sleeve of an officer. ‘Alert the lancers. Gather all the cavalry available. We ride for Pendisan Reach at once.’

  The man thumped a quick salute to his chest before dashing off. Another officer, older and looking to be of much higher rank, cleared his throat.

  ‘Wizard Zorander, may I know of your plan?’

  ‘It is Anargo,’ the First Wizard said, ‘who is the right hand of Panis Rahl, and in conjunction with Rahl conjures death to stalk us. Quite simply put, I intend to send death back at them.’

  ‘By leading the lancers into Pendisan Reach?’

  ‘Yes. Anargo holds at Coney Crossing. We have General Brainard driving north towards Pendisan Reach, General Sanderson sweeping south to join with him, and Mardale charging up from the southwest. We will go in there with the lancers and whoever of the rest of them is able to join with us.’

  ‘Anargo is no fool. We don’t know how many other wizards and gifted he has with him, but we know what they’re capable of. They’ve bled us time and time again. At last we have dealt them a blow.’ The officer chose his words carefully. ‘Why do you think they wait? Why wouldn’t they simply slip back into D’Hara?’

  Zedd rested a hand on the crenellated wall and gazed out on the dawn, out on the city below.

  ‘Anargo relishes the game. He performs it with high drama; he wants us to think them wounded. Pendisan Reach is the only terrain in all those mountains that an army can get through with any speed. Coney Crossing provides a wide field for battle, but not wide enough to let us manoeuvre easily, or flank them. He is trying to bait us in.’

  The officer didn’t seem surprised. ‘But why?’

  Zedd looked back over his shoulder at the officer. ‘Obviously, he believes that in such terrain he can defeat us. I believe otherwise. He knows that we can’t allow the menace to remain there, and he knows our plans. He thinks to draw me in, kill me, and end the threat I alone hold over them.’

  ‘So…’ the officer reasoned aloud, ‘you are saying that for Anargo, it is worth the risk.’

  Zedd stared out once more at the city below the Wizard’s Keep. ‘If Anargo is right, he could win it all at Coney Crossing. When he has finished me, he will turn his gifted loose, slaughter the bulk of our forces all in one place, and then, virtually unopposed, cut out the heart of the Midlands: Aydindril.

  ‘Anargo plans that before the snow flies, he will have killed me, annihilated our joint forces, have the people of the Midlands in chains, and be able to hand the whip to Panis Rahl.’

  The officer stared, dumbfounded. ‘And you plan to do as Anargo is hoping and go in there to face him?’

  Zedd shrugged. ‘What choice have I?’

  ‘And do you at least know how Anargo plans to kill you, so that we might take precautions? Take countermeasures?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ Vexed, he waved his hand, dismissing the matter. He turned to Abby. ‘The lancers have swift horses. We will ride hard. We will be to your home soon – we will be there in time – and then we’ll see to our business.’

  Abby only nodded. She couldn’t put into words the relief of her petition granted, nor could she express the shame she felt to have her prayer answered. But most of all, she couldn’t utter a word of her horror at what she was doing, for she knew the D’Harans’ plan.

  *

  Flies swarmed around dried scraps of viscera, all that was left of Abby’s prized bearded pigs. Apparently, even the breeding stock, which Abby’s parents had given her as a wedding gift, had been slaughtered and taken.

  Abby’s parents, too, had chosen Abby’s husband. Abby had never met him before: he came from the town of Lynford where her mother and father bought the pigs. Abby had been beside herself with anxiety over who her parents would choose for her husband. She had hoped for a man who would be of good cheer – a man to bring a smile to the difficulties of life.

  When she first saw Philip, she thought he must be the most serious man in all the world. His young face looked to her as if it had never once smiled. That first night after meeting him, she had cried herself to sleep over thoughts of sharing her life with so solemn a man. She thought her life caught up on the sharp tines of grim fate.

  Abby came to find that Philip was a hardworking man who looked out at life through a great grin. That first day she had seen him, she only later learned, he had been putting on his most sober face so that his new family would not think him a slacker unworthy of their daughter. In a short time, Abby had come to know that Philip was a man upon whom she could depend. By the time Jana had been born, she had come to love him.

  Now Philip, and so many others, depended upon her.

  Abby brushed her hands clean after putting her mother’s bones to rest once more. The fences Jana had watched Philip so often mend, she saw, were all broken down. Coming back around the house, she noticed that barn doors were missing. Anything an animal or human could eat was gone. Abby could not recall having ever seen her home looking so barren.

  It didn’t matter, she told herself. It didn’t matter, if only Jana would be returned to her. Fences could be mended. Pigs could be replaced, somehow, someday. Jana could never be replaced.

  ‘Abby,’ Zedd asked as he peered around at the ruins of her home, ‘how is it that you weren’t taken, when your husband and daughter and everyone else were?’

  Abby stepped through the broken doorway, thinking that her home had never looked so small. Before she had gone to Aydindril, to the Wizard’s Keep, her home had seemed as big as anything she could imagine. Here, Philip had laughed and filled the simple room with his comfort and conversation. With charcoal he had drawn animals on the stone hearth for Jana.

  Abby pointed. ‘Under that door is the root cellar. That’s where I was when I heard the things I told you about.’

  Zedd ran the toe of his boot across the knothole used as a finger-hold to lift the hatch. ‘They were taking your husband, and your daughter, and you stayed down there? While your daughter was screaming for you, you didn’t run up to help her?’

  Abby summoned her voice. ‘I knew that if I came up, they would have me, too. I knew that the only chance my family had was if I waited and then went for help. My mother always told me that even a sorceress was no more than a fool if she acted like one. She always told me to think things through, first.’

  ‘Wise advice.’ Zedd set down a ladle that had been bent and holed. He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘It would have been hard to leave your daughter crying for you, and do the wise thing.’

  Abby could only manage a whisper. ‘You speak the spirits’ own truth.’ She pointed out the window. That way – across the Coney River – lies town. They took Jana and Philip with them as they went on to take all the people from town. They had others, too, that they had already captured. The army set up camp in the hills beyond.’

  Zedd stood at the window, gazing out at the distant hills. ‘Soon, I hope, this war will be ended. Dear spirits, let it end.’

  Remembering the Mother Confessor’s admonition not to repeat the story she told, Abby never asked about the wizard’s daughter or murdered wife. When on their swift journey back to Coney Crossing she spoke of her love for Jana, it must have broken his heart to think of his own daughter in the brutal hands of the enemy, knowing that he had left her to death lest many more die.

  Zedd pushed open the bedroom door. ‘And back here?’ he asked as he put his head into the room beyond.

  Abby looked up from her thoughts. ‘The bedroom. In the rear is a door back to the garden and the barn.’
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  Though he never once mentioned his dead wife or missing daughter, Abby’s knowledge of them ate away at her like a swelling spring river ate at a hole in the ice.

  Zedd stepped back in from the bedroom as Delora came silently slipping in through the front doorway. ‘As Abigail said, the town across the river has been sacked,’ the sorceress reported. ‘From the looks of it, the people were all taken.’

  Zedd brushed back his wavy hair. ‘How close is the river?’

  Abby gestured out the window. Night was falling. ‘Just there. A walk of five minutes.’

  In the valley, on its way to join the Kern, the Coney River slowed and spread wide, so that it became shallow enough to cross easily. There was no bridge; the road simply led to the river’s edge and took up again on the other side. Though the river was near to a quarter-mile across in most of the valley, it was in no place much more than knee-deep. Only in the spring melt was it occasionally treacherous to cross. The town of Coney Crossing was two miles beyond, up on the rise of hills, safe from spring floods, as was the knoll where Abby’s farmyard stood.

  Zedd took Delora by the elbow. ‘Ride back and tell everyone to hold station. If anything goes wrong... well, if anything goes wrong, then they must attack. Anargo’s legion must be stopped, even if they have to go into D’Hara after them.’

  Delora did not look pleased. ‘Before we left, the Mother Confessor made me promise that I would be sure that you were not left alone. She told me to see to it that gifted were always near if you needed them.’

  Abby, too, had heard the Mother Confessor issue the orders. Looking back at the Keep as they had crossed the stone bridge, Abby had seen the Mother Confessor up on a high rampart, watching them leave. The Mother Confessor had helped when Abby had feared all was lost. She wondered what would become of the woman.

  Then she remembered she didn’t have to wonder. She knew.

  The wizard ignored what the sorceress had said. ‘As soon as I help Abby, I’ll send her back, too. I don’t want anyone near when I unleash the spell.’

  Delora gripped his collar and pulled him close. She looked as if she might be about to give him a heated scolding. Instead she drew him into an embrace.

  ‘Please, Zedd,’ she whispered, ‘don’t leave us without you as First Wizard.’

  Zedd smoothed back her dark hair. ‘And abandon you all to Thomas?’ He smirked. ‘Never.’

  The dust from Delora’s horse drifted away into the gathering darkness as Zedd and Abby descended the slope towards the river. Abby led him along the path through the tall grasses and rushes, explaining that the path would offer them better concealment than the road. Abby was thankful that he didn’t argue for the road.

  Her eyes darted from the deep shadows on one side to the shadows on the other as they were swallowed into the brush. Her pulse raced. She flinched whenever a twig snapped underfoot.

  It happened as she feared it would, as she knew it would.

  A figure enfolded in a long hooded cloak darted out of nowhere, knocking Abby aside. She saw the flash of a blade as Zedd flipped the attacker into the brush. He squatted, putting a hand back on Abby’s shoulder as she lay in the grass panting.

  ‘Stay down,’ he whispered urgently.

  Light gathered at his fingers. He was conjuring magic. That was what they wanted him to do.

  Tears welled, burning her eyes. She snatched his sleeve. ‘Zedd, don’t use magic.’ She could hardly speak past the tightening pain in her chest. ‘Don’t—’

  The figure sprang again from the gloom of the bushes. Zedd threw up a hand. The night lit with a flash of hot light that struck the cloaked figure.

  Rather than the assailant going down, it was Zedd who cried out and crumpled to the ground. Whatever he had thought to do to the attacker, it had been turned back on him, and he was in the grip of the most terrible anguish, preventing him from rising, or speaking. That was why they had wanted him to conjure magic: so they could capture him.

  The figure standing over the wizard glowered at Abby. ‘Your part here is finished. Go.’

  Abby scuttled into the grass. The woman pushed the hood back, and cast off her cloak. In the near darkness, Abby could see the woman’s long braid and red leather uniform. It was one of the women Abby had been told about, the women used to capture those with magic: the Mord-Sith.

  The Mord-Sith watched with satisfaction as the wizard at her feet writhed in choking pain. ‘Well, well. Looks like the First Wizard himself has just made a very big mistake.’

  The belts and straps of her red leather uniform creaked as she leaned down towards him, grinning at his agony. ‘I have been given the whole night to make you regret ever having lifted a finger to resist us. In the morning I’m to allow you to watch as our forces annihilate your people. Afterwards, I am to take you to Lord Rahl himself, the man who ordered the death of your wife, so you can beg him to order me to kill you, too.’ She kicked him. ‘So you can beg Lord Rahl for your death, as you watch your daughter die before your eyes.’

  Zedd could only scream in horror and pain.

  On her hands and knees, Abby crabbed her way farther back into the weeds and rushes. She wiped at her eyes, trying to see. She was horrified to witness what was being done to the man who had agreed to help her for no more reason than a debt to her mother. By contrast, these people had coerced her service by holding hostage the life of her child.

  As she backed away, Abby saw the knife the Mord-Sith had dropped when Zedd had thrown her into the weeds. The knife was a pretext, used to provoke him to act; it was magic that was the true weapon. The Mord-Sith had used his own magic against him – used it to cripple and capture him, and now used it to hurt him.

  It was the price demanded. Abby had complied. She had no choice. But what toll was she imposing on others?

  How could she save her daughter’s life at the cost of so many others? Would Jana grow up to be a slave to people who would do this? With a mother who would allow it? Jana would grow up to learn to bow to Panis Rahl and his minions, to submit to evil, or worse, grow up to become a willing party to the scourge, never tasting liberty or knowing the value of honour.

  With dreadful finality, everything seemed to fall to ruin in Abby’s mind.

  She snatched up the knife. Zedd was wailing in pain as the Mord-Sith bent, doing some foul thing to him. Before she had time to lose her resolve, Abby was moving towards the woman’s back.

  Abby had butchered animals. She told herself that this was no different. These were not people, but animals. She lifted the knife.

  A hand clamped over her mouth. Another seized her wrist.

  Abby moaned against the hand, against her failure to stop this madness when she had had the chance. A mouth close to her ear urged her to hush.

  Struggling against the figure in a hooded cloak that held her, Abby turned her head as much as she could, and in the last of the daylight saw violet eyes looking back. For a moment she couldn’t make sense of it; couldn’t make sense of how the woman could be there when Abby had seen her remain behind. But it truly was her.

  Abby stilled. The Mother Confessor released her and, with a quick hand signal, urged her back. Abby didn’t question; she scurried back into the rushes as the Mother Confessor reached out towards the woman in red leather. The Mord-Sith was bent over, intent on her grisly business with the screaming wizard.

  In the distance, bugs chirped and clicked. Frogs called with insistent croaks. Not far away the river sloshed and burbled as it always did – a familiar, comforting sound that this night brought no comfort.

  The gentle fingers that had once gentled Abby’s brow finally found the woman in red leather. For an instant, Abby feared the wicked woman might pull away fro the touch and reel around to unleash her violence on the Mother Confessor.

  And then there came a sudden, violent concussion to the air. Thunder without sound. It drove the wind from Abby’s lungs. The wallop nearly knocked her senseless, making every joint in her body burn in sharp
pain.

  There was no flash of light – just that pure and flawless jolt to the air. The world seemed to stop in its terrible splendour.

  Grass flattened as if in a wind radiating out in a ring from the Mord-Sith and the Mother Confessor. Abby’s senses returned as the pain in her joints thankfully melted away.

  Abby had never seen it done before, and had never expected to see it in the whole of her life, but she knew without doubt that she had just witnessed a Confessor unleashing her power. From what Abby’s mother had told her, it was the destruction of a person’s mind so complete that it left only numb devotion to the Confessor. She had but to ask and they would confess any truth, no matter the crime they had previously attempted to conceal or deny.

  ‘Mistress,’ the Mord-Sith moaned in piteous lamentation.

  Abby, first staggered by the shock of the soundless thunder of the Mother Confessor’s power, and now stunned by the abject anguish of the woman crumpled on the ground, started when hand gripped her arm. It was the wizard.

  With the back of his other hand he wiped blood from his mouth. He laboured to get his breath. ‘Leave her to it.’

  ‘Zedd... I... I’m so sorry, I tried to tell you not to use magic, but I didn’t call loud enough for you to hear.’

  He managed to smile through obvious pain. ‘I heard you.’

  ‘But why then did you use your gift?’

  ‘I thought that in the end, you would not be the kind of person to do such a terrible thing, and that you would show your true heart.’ He pulled her away from the cries. ‘We used you. We wanted them to think they had succeeded.’

  ‘You knew what I was going to do? You knew I was to bring you to them so that they could capture you?’

  ‘I had a good idea. From the first there seemed more to you than you presented. You are not very talented at being a spy and a traitor. Since we arrived here you’ve been watching the shadows and jumping at the chirp of every bug.’

  The Mother Confessor rushed up. ‘Zedd, are you all right?’

  He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’ll be fine.’ His eyes still held the glaze of terror. ‘Thank you for not being late. For a moment, I feared...’