Here's an excerpt from Chapter 6, after Desora has met Captain Braxton and realizes that he knew her before she lost her memory.
From Chapter 6
Silence had fallen, and Desora used it. “Whatever
you want matters not. We’ve trouble. Up at the High Meadow, the shepherd and
his entire flock were killed. Ripped open and left in tatters. I don’t know
what killed them. And we have wyre in our forest.”
“Wyre?” a villager questioned.
“Shapeshifting wolfen,” a guard muttered for
answer.
“Not possible,” Skellig said. Desora knew little
of the stout man, only that he had more wealth than his fellows.
“I have spoken with one,” she countered. “He
threatened me.”
“How did you escape?” That was the blacksmith,
brawny as the armored men though he worn a leather apron over his chambray
shirt with its rolled sleeves.
“She’s a wizard,” said a bearded guard, his
gauntlets removed yet his armored plate still worn.
She frowned at the smile he gave her. Who is he
to smile at a stranger? Who is he to answer for me? Yet the blankness in
her mind echoed with recognition. He wasn’t familiar to her, and she dared not
smile in return. Did he not know wizardry rolled off the enchanted wyre without
causing any damage? The Wizard Enclave concealed that knowledge, but warriors
with the Fae should know it.
“Lady’s Moon is over two weeks away,” a third
villager said. “How can the wyre shift?”
“Because a sorcerer came with the pack,” Desora
said. She kept her voice flat, emotionless. The villagers knew her as little as
she knew them. Indeed, they knew more of her than she did of them. Granny would
have talked to Teyja, and that girl was known for her chatter.
The villagers exclaimed and looked frightened. The
guards and the rangers frowned but didn’t scare easily. “Granny,” the
blacksmith asked, “is this true? A wyre pack and a sorcerer are in our valley?”
“Merketh—,” Desora started, but Granny gripped her
wrist, so she fell silent.
“Desora has never lied to me,” the wise woman
said.
“The wyre killed our shepherd?”
“And his flock,” Elder Skellig said. “Newly
sheared, thank the Great Laoffe. We didn’t lose that wool. We’ll need to pool
our funds to replace the flock.”
As the village men murmured about financial loss,
Desora lost patience. “Stop. Stop! Deal with your losses later.”
“Listen to the wizard Adalse,” the captain
snapped. “You have greater trouble than coins lost.” He turned to her. “Lady
Adalse, what must be done?”
She appreciated his support, but she must correct
his delusion that she was a great wizard. Later was the time for that, much
later, when she confronted the reason they sought her. “We must bury the boy
and burn the animals’ carcasses and discover what monster did this.”
In the High Meadow
Granny had remained in the village, choosing to
work with the wolfsbane Desora had gathered to make charms for the villagers.
The village men decried the waste of sheep, no
doubt thinking of the mutton that fed no one. Skellig muttered, but the
blacksmith said the flock could be built around the handful of sheep still
sheltered in the village.
Desora gaped at their lack of grief for the boy.
Even the rangers who dug the grave had sorrowed over that young life. Skellig
had proposed the burial here, rather than in Mulgrum, and gave as his reason
that the boy was orphaned, his family lost two winters ago. Someone in the
village had taken him in and given him work, but benevolence hadn’t motivated
that unknown person.
All of the villagers argued to recover the mutton.
“Looks like the sheep died last night,” the
captain said, refusing the plan. None of these incomers had magic to recognize
the spell on the meadow or the wards that Desora had set. “Nor do we know what
killed them. They could be infected with disease. Or poison.”
“Lady, can you tell us that the meat is good? So
much mutton. We could smoke several portions of meat. It could make the
difference between a hale winter or a starving one for many families. We’d take
nothing near those wounds. Lady, can we use it?” a villager pleaded.
Before Desora answered, the captain stepped
between her and the villagers. “Don’t question the wizard. Best that the whole
village doesn’t sicken and die because you didn’t wish to waste meat.”
Arms crossed, the blacksmith stood stalwart even
as some of the men muttered disagreement. “Then what should we do with it?”
“Burn it,” she advised.
Two rangers were appointed to build the pyre while
others were set to the task of drawing the carcasses to it. Two guards took
small axes and chopped at the scrubby trees on the meadow’s edge to provide fuel.
The third guard and a ranger watered the horses at the spring pool. With the
sun on its descent down the clouds laddering the horizon, Skellig demanded that
he and his fellows return before twilight fell. Without waiting for any
approval, they hustled through the meadow’s boulder-bounded portal and down the
trail. Desora watched them leave. Other than comments and mutters, they hadn’t
lifted a hand to bury the boy or deal with the dead flock. At the pace they
set, they should pass Granny’s cottage before full dark.
They did not ask her if she was willing to remain
with the rangers and guards.
As long as she’d lived at Mulgrum, the villagers
still considered her an incomer. They’d never had a chance to question her coming
to this last village in the northern reaches of Elsmere. Mulgrum tucked itself
in the shelter between the Faeron sept of Bermarck to the west and the Wilding
to the east, both heavily forested. A single road from the south entered
Mulgrum, and all travel came and left by that narrow road.
As for Weorth, not even mountain goats climbed
those rocky heights.
Desora watched the men drag the sheep by their
hind legs to the pyre. With most of the sheep hauled close, a couple of men now
searched the sweet clover and grass for areas with no blood. When the captain approached
her, she caught her breath then half-turned, placing the setting sun behind
her. No mundane soldier would intimidate her. Whatever their mission, these men
should place no reliance on her wizardry, burnt out six years ago. She had only
the Citadel healers’ account that she had wielded great magic against the
sorcerers of Frost Clime. Except for the elemental power of Earth, she had
nothing that could be construed magic.
Brax
This captain had the look of command, serious,
burdened. The wounds on the corpses had increased his frown. His brown hair had
started to thin though he seemed near her age. She thought their ages much the
same. The sun glinted on reddish strands, and he sported a trimmed beard that
covered the lower half of his face. He appeared solid, built to wield a
broadsword or a battle axe. Unlike the rangers, with the wiry frames of
archers, he and three of the men wore armor with a hauberk under a leather
jerkin. How long had this captain and his three men ridden with the rangers?
Their horses were also different, big destriers
rather than the long-legged steeds ridden by the rangers, who moved swiftly and
rode constantly.
These were soldiers, joined into the ranger troop.
To find her.
She shivered.
“Adalse.” When she frowned, he swept a courtier’s bow,
though he wore armor and leathers rather than fine court silks and
embroideries. “Lady Adalse de Sora.”
“When you speak with me, you should call me
Desora. How did you find me, captain?”
“You hid yourself well. We found no mention of you
among the mundane. A Fae trader gave us your direction. No, I’ll use his words.
He said a Fae-featured wielder calling herself de Sora had an audience years
ago with the Maorn Regnant de Thettis ze Bermarck.”
Fire crackled as the rangers kindled the pyre.
Courtesy had revealed her. Desora had not dared to
omit the unwritten protocol to introduce herself to greater users of magic when
she entered their territory. She wanted solitude, not a cadre of Fae sentinels at
her hermit’s hut. That visit would not have been congenial. The knights of the
Kyrgy lord Horst would have menaced her for years had she neglected that
simplest courtesy.
“The Bermarck Maorn told you how to find me.”
“After he confirmed our mission, aye, Lady. We
stayed longer at his court than I anticipated.” He grinned suddenly, open and
friendly with camaradie. “My men had their eyes opened in our days at the Fae
court.”
Desora ignored that distracting aside. “Tell me
who you are. Are you from Iscleft Citadel?”
“You know us, Lady.”
“I do not,” but she examined him more closely. In
the sunless twilight, her blank memory offered that faint echo. Maybe she had
known this man, but that past had vanished. Her voice stony, she added, “I do
not know the reason you track me. You are from Iscleft Citadel. You claim that
I know you. Is this some past acquaintance that we have? You, your men, none of
you are in my memory.”
His expression lost its friendliness and became
flat, somber. “They said you might not remember.”
“Who are they?”
“The healers. Your fellow wizards who remain at
the Citadel, your friends there. One healer, though, he said you might never
remember. The rest expected you to have recovered. They’ve expected you for the
past five years. They gave me hope.”
“Recovered?” Her laugh was short, a bark of sound
with no humor. “I am not ‘recovered,’ captain. I never will be. I have no
wizardry. That magic is gone, entirely gone.”
That shocked him. “But they announced you—.”
“Your men, with Granny Riding’s help. Hindrance to
me. I have no magic. I have a little power, elemental power. Only of the Earth.
Growing things. Sparking life when it’s seeded in the soil.” When he remained
bemazed by her words, she said, “You still have not told me who you are. Are
these rangers at the Citadel, too?”
“Me, my guards, we were there, but no longer.”
“Are you with Baron Elsmere?”
“We are detached, temporarily. To find you.” His
words had the bitter irony of foiled expectations. “The rangers are bound to the
Thettis Harte, allied with us by his will. They roan the vale because of the
incursions this spring.” When she didn’t respond, he grimaced. “You’ve heard
nothing, have you? Of course not. You’ve become a recluse.”
“All Mulgrum is reclusive, captain. What should I
have heard? Trolls and ogres attacking as they leave the Wilding? I cannot help
you with that. You must address the Kyrgy lord. He rules the Northern Reaches
of the Wilding.”
“Trolls, ogres, gobbers. Creatures who’ve never
before left any Wilding. The villages and farms have no defense against them.”
“Lord Horst rules the Wilding,” she repeated.
“He is elusive. He has not answered the Thettis
Harte’s messenger.”
That shocked her. Did the Fae have difficulty in
locating the Kyrgy lord? When she’d sought him to introduce herself, she’d
entered the Wilding, played with elemental Earth, and knights had appeared,
folding out of the veil to confront her. They’d transported her by the same
method to Horst’s forest palace, a vaulted structure that dwarfed its
surrounding one-story buildings.
This captain wanted her to enter trouble she could
do nothing to help, and they already had a mission before them, to stop the
sorcerer and his wyre. Now they also needed to find whatever had killed the
shepherd and his flock. If this captain wanted her to introduce him to Lord
Horst, she could guarantee nothing. Does he want me to fight magical
creatures with power that grows plants and a few healing spells?
“You still have not told me who you are.”
“You do not remember me from the Citadel?”
“No. My apologies. Did we know each other? Were we
friends?”
With effort, he wiped away his frown. “Not friends
but close. You have indeed forgotten?”
“My wounds were of magic. They tell me that I was
unconscious for a week. My recovery took more than a month. You must have been
gone during that time.”
“I was gone that entire season. Commander Ferro
sent my troop on a mission to the Shining Lands. Only we four returned. By
then, you had left, and the commander gave us new orders.” His eyes searched
hers. “I am Braxton. Brax. I had the rank of sergeant then. Does my name ring
no bell of memory?”
“A sergeant named Braxton. Brax. At Iscleft
Citadel. I have no memory from that time, only after I awakened in the Healers’
Hall. You are a stranger telling me this. You could be a liar. How would I
know?”
“Gods.” He swiped a hand down his face. Then he
looked at the pyre growing with heaped carcasses, smelling of roasted mutton
and musty wool. Sparks danced upward in the smoke that boiled off the fire.
Twilight had darkened, but the pyre cast enough light to see his consternation.
“They didn’t tell me your injury was so serious.”
“If you were at the Citadel—.”
“I was. My men also were, Klemt and Mannon and
Challach.”
“When did you leave? How did you leave? The
Citadel does not loose its hold so easily.” She remembered that from her
petition to leave. The commander had stubbornly refused. Only the healers’
support won her the right to leave … as long as she returned when her magic was
restored.
As it never had.
He hefted a broad shoulder in a shrug, and that
did toll a memory. “We left three years ago. Took us two years to track word of
you. You didn’t leave an easy trail to follow. That Fae trader gave us a
direction to pursue. We entered at Skree. That’s south of Bermarck. We took
work with the Ysagrael Tiraz. He allowed us to transfer to the Thettis Harte
when spring came. We’ve ridden with his rangers since, looking for you.”
“Thettis Harte? He is Maorn Harte.”
“Aye, when you’re outside Faeron judgment, it’s
Maorn.”
Outside Fae judgment? Desora didn’t
understand, and her head ached as she tried to recall a map of Faeron and the
septs and their rulers, the Maorketh and three Maores and three Maorns.
Knowledge she no longer needed or wanted. She
didn’t intend to linger at any Fae court. She wanted her isolated hut, simple
salves and balms as her work, her concerns with gathering enough wood and
preserving enough food to last the brutal winters.
“Why do you seek me now, captain?”
“I wanted to follow you as soon as I returned to
the Citadel, but the commander refused. I hoped, every day for three years,
that you would come back. When you didn’t, I determined to follow you, no
matter how cold the trail. I had to finish my term of service. Klemt and Mannon
and Challach agreed to come with me. We got lucky a few times, really lucky
with that Fae trader, lucky with the Ysagrael Tiraz endorsing us for the
Thettis Harte. I wouldn’t call the trolls and ogres luck, but they enabled our transfer
to Thettis Harte. We rode with the rangers for two months with never a word of
you. Not until you came into the tavern with that wise woman.”
He’d waited for her. He’d hoped for her return. Then
he’d doggedly tracked her. He must have despaired of finding her.
No matter that his search tugged at her
heartstrings. Brax had now found her. Yet his search was futile. Desora had no
memory of him.
She had no wizardry to help him.
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