But they were not common nomads. One was a shaman, with a silver ring around his neck, and from that ring a chain of silvered iron ran to the hand of the second nomad, the shaman’s keeper.
Even without seeing the neck-ring and silver chain, Haral and Aron knew immediately who . . . or what . . . the nomads must be, because the third of their number was neither on horseback, nor was it human.
It was a wood-weird, a creature of roughly carved and articulated ironwood, twice as tall as the horses, its big misshapen eyes beginning to glow with a hot red fire, evidence that the shaman was goading the Free Magic creature he’d imprisoned inside the loosely joined pieces of timber fully into motion. Wood-weirds were not so terrible a foe as some other Free Magic constructs, such as Spirit-Walkers, whose bodies were crafted from stone, for wood-weirds were not so entirely impervious to normal weapons. Nevertheless, they were greatly feared. And who knew what other servants or powers the shaman might have?
“The Guard! Alarm! Alarm!” roared Haral, cupping her hands around her mouth and looking up to the central tower. She was answered only a few seconds later by the blast of a horn from high above, echoed four or five seconds later from the mid-river fort, out of sight in the snow, and then again more distantly from the castle on the southern bank.
“Let me in!” shouted the mountain nomad urgently, even as she looked back over her shoulder. The wood-weird was striding ahead of the two nomads now, its long, rootlike legs stretching out, grasping limbs reaching forward for balance, strange fire streaming from its eyes and mouth like burning tears and spit.
The shaman sat absolutely still on his horse, deep in concentration. It took great effort of will to keep a Free Magic spirit of any kind from turning on its master—a master who was himself kept in check by the cunningly hinged asphyxiating ring of bright silver, which his keeper could pull tight should he try to turn his creatures upon his own people, or seek to carry out his own plans.
Though this particular keeper seemed to have little fear her sorcerer would turn, for she fixed the chain to the horn of her saddle and readied her bow, even though she was still well out of bowshot, particularly with the snow falling wet and steady. Once she got within range, she would get only two or three good shots before her string grew sodden. Perhaps only a single shot at that.
“We can’t let you in now!” called down Aron. He had picked up his crossbow. “Enemies in sight!”
“But they’re after me!”
“We don’t know that,” shouted Haral. “This could be a trick to get us to open the gate. You said you were a messenger; they’ll leave you alone.”
“No, they won’t!” cried Ferin. She took her own bow from the case on her back, and drew a strange arrow from the case at her waist. The arrow’s point was hooded with leather, tied fast. Holding bow and arrow with her left hand, she undid the cords of the hood and pulled it free, revealing an arrowhead of dark glass that sparkled with hidden fire, a faint tendril of white smoke rising from the point.
With it came an unpleasant, acrid taint, so strong it came almost instantly to the noses of the guards atop the wall.
“Free Magic!” shouted Aron. Raising his crossbow in one swift motion, he fired it straight down. Only Haral’s sudden downward slap on the crossbow made the quarrel miss the nomad woman’s gut, but even so it went clear through her leg just above the ankle, and there was suddenly blood spattered on the snow.
Ferin looked over her shoulder quickly, saw Haral restraining Aron so he couldn’t ready another quarrel. Setting her teeth hard together against the pain in her leg, she turned back to face the wood-weird. It had risen up on its rough-hewn legs and was bounding forward, a good hundred paces ahead of the shaman, and it was still accelerating. Its eyes were bright as pitch-soaked torches newly lit, and great long flames roared from the widening gash in its head that served as a mouth.
Ferin drew her bow and released in one fluid motion. The shining glass arrow flew like a spark from a summer bonfire, striking the wood-weird square in the trunk. At first it seemed it had done no scathe, but then the creature faltered, took three staggering steps, and froze in place, suddenly more a strangely carved tree and less a terrifying creature. The flames in its eyes ebbed back, there was a flash of white inside the red, then its entire body burst into flame. A vast roil of dark smoke rose from the fire, gobbling up the falling snow.
In the distance the shaman screamed, a scream filled with equal parts anger and fear.
“Free Magic!” gasped Aron. He struggled with Haral. She had difficulty in restraining him, before she got him in an armlock and wrestled him down behind the battlements. “She’s a sorcerer!”
“No, no, lad,” said Haral easily. “That was a spirit-glass arrow. It’s Free Magic, sure enough, but contained, and can be used only once. They’re very rare, and the nomads treasure them, because they are the only weapons they have which can kill a shaman or one of their creatures.”
“But she could still be—”
“I don’t think so,” said Haral. The full watch was pounding up the stairs now; in a minute there would be two dozen guards spread out on the wall. “But one of the Bridgemaster’s Seconds can test her with Charter Magic. If she really is from the mountains, and has a message for the Clayr, we need to know.”
“The Clayr?” asked Aron. “Oh, the witches in the ice, who See—”
“More than you do,” interrupted Haral. “Can I let you go?”
Aron nodded and relaxed. Haral released her hold and quickly stood up, looking out over the wall.
Ferin was not in sight. The wood-weird was burning fiercely, sending up a great billowing column of choking black smoke. The shaman and his keeper lay sprawled on the snowy ground, both dead with quite ordinary arrows in their eyes, evidence of peerless shooting at that range in the dying light. Their horses were running free, spooked by blood and sudden death.
“Where did she go?” asked Aron.
“Probably not very far,” said Haral grimly, gazing intently at the ground. There was a patch of blood on the snow there as big as the guard’s hand, and blotches like dropped coins of bright scarlet continued for some distance, in the direction of the river shore.
Chapter Two
TWO HAWKS BRING MESSAGES
Belisaere, the Old Kingdom
The hawk came down through the clouds, dodging raindrops for the sheer fun of it, despite having already flown more than two hundred leagues. Born from a Charter-spelled egg and trained for its work since it was a fledgling, the hawk carried a message imprinted in its mind, and with it the burning desire to fly as swiftly as possible to the tower mews in the royal city of Belisaere.
The rain-dodging hawk from the south beat another bird flying in from the north by half a minute, so it was the first to get to Mistress Finney, the chief falconer, while the later hawk had to be content going to the fist of an apprentice.
As a matter of procedure, Mistress Finney checked the anklet on the bird, to see where it had come from, though she already recognized him. She knew all the message-hawks of the Old Kingdom, having raised them herself, even if they were later assigned elsewhere, and became only occasional visitors to the capital.
“From Wyverley College, my lovely,” she said softly, making her own peculiar tongue-clicking sound, one all the hawks knew from the egg. “What a long way, and over the Wall too, my brave one. What’s your message, dear?”
The hawk opened its beak and spoke with a woman’s voice, that of Magistrix Coelle, who taught Charter Magic at Wyverley College, in that strange land beyond the Wall, where magic waned and then disappeared entirely, once too far south.
“Telegram from Nicholas Sayre for the Abhorsen. Extremely urgent,” said the hawk.
“Ah, for the Abhorsen,” said Mistress Finney. “Messenger!”
A seven-year-old page who hoped to become one of the falconer’s apprentices leaped up from the bench where she sat with three others, waiting to take the messages the hawks brought in on
the next part of their journey.