Cold Steel (Spiritwalker 3)

A woman with a baby in her arms and a raw burn mark on her pale cheek shuffled forward to kneel before the mansa. “My lord mansa. What know you of this wicked spirit whose anger lashed out at us? You are come just in time. Otherwise we would have lost everything.”

He pressed several sesterces into her hand. “No. I am come too late. I should have understood matters differently, and much sooner. Someone from the House will come to see what can be done with cleaning up and rebuilding. For now, you must do what you can.”

Other supplicants began to approach, for it was obvious they knew who he was and did not fear to approach him in a respectful way. In their eyes he was a just master. He passed out coins to the survivors, emptying his purse in a rash manner that made Bee and me look at each other in disbelief. What if we needed that money later? To him it was trivial, something he expected to easily replace. He considered this generosity to be his duty. It was in this way, I supposed, that mages had built the edifice of their power over the generations.

On we traveled. Because we were traveling west, the door in the coach that opened into the spirit world faced the direction I most needed to look. So instead of looking ahead toward the graveled drive and the gatehouse to the estate, I could only stare through the other window as a drizzle clouded the north. Stands of birches flashed silver. Spruce darkened the slopes. In the distance a ring of round houses marked a village several miles off the road. The afternoon light turned to a hazy orange glow.

with face buried in hands for a long time, in a daze of such weary anxiety that I felt rocked as in a boat crossing a rushing river. When my sire had stolen Andevai on Hallows’ Night, I had been more angry than fearful. My sire was not a creature of emotion. He was cruel in the way storms were cruel: They cared nothing for your vulnerability as they crashed through your life. If he wanted something, he had a reason for it that could be addressed.

But Drake’s reasons had melted in the fire of his resentment, the sense that what he had lost could be regained only through the pain and humiliation of others. He had turned in on himself until he had become a mirror that did nothing but reflect his grievances back into his own face. That made him dangerous, but it also made him vulnerable.

The coach slowed to a halt. The door was opened from the outside, and the eru set down the steps so we could get out. Gritty ash burned in my eyes. Sobs and screams billowed with the smoke. We had come to a stop in a hamlet of inns, stables, shelters, and outbuildings. Every building in the village as well as two flat-bottomed ferries were on fire, a roaring blaze whose heat blasted our faces.

“Get down,” said the mansa.

Bee had her head out of the coach, staring at local men who were beating at a fire as they tried to reach someone inside a house. They were so frantic they did not notice us.

“Sit down, Bee!” I dropped to my knees on the road.

The hammer of cold magic snuffed out every fire within sight, the flames sucked right out. The furnace heat turned in an eyeblink to the crackling of timbers buckling and the groan and smash of a wall toppling over. Every person in sight now lay on the ground. All except the eru. The mansa stared disbelievingly at the tall footman in his impeccable dress who appeared untouched by the impressive display. The eru offered a mocking servant’s bow that made the mansa frown.

“Dearest,” said Bee, clambering down, “are my eyes deceiving me, or have we crossed both rivers?”

Amazingly, we had reached the western bank.

Bee glanced up at the coachman, who sat upright and unruffled on the driver’s bench. “And yet why not? For it seems your goblin makers have their own secret magic.”

He removed his cap and slapped it against a hand to shake off ash. “Shall we go on? I am built for a steady, enduring pace rather than for speed. But we are not far behind them now.”

The eru turned to me. “Cousin, is it your plan to come upon them on the road? For if we continue in this direction, I think it likely we shall do so.”

“The fire mage has become quite powerful,” I said. “Can you aid us with your magic, Cousin? For I must believe that you and the mansa, together, ought to be able to kill his fire.”

“If Drake sees us coming up from behind, what is to stop him from simply killing Andevai?” Bee asked.

“Drake needs Vai. And Vai knows Drake needs him.”

The mansa surveyed the village. The locals scrambled into the cold ruins, seeking survivors. “I do not like to think of what a company of fire mages led by a man with no conscience can do to Four Moons House if he chooses to practice his revenge there before he reaches his homeland.”

A woman with a baby in her arms and a raw burn mark on her pale cheek shuffled forward to kneel before the mansa. “My lord mansa. What know you of this wicked spirit whose anger lashed out at us? You are come just in time. Otherwise we would have lost everything.”

He pressed several sesterces into her hand. “No. I am come too late. I should have understood matters differently, and much sooner. Someone from the House will come to see what can be done with cleaning up and rebuilding. For now, you must do what you can.”

Other supplicants began to approach, for it was obvious they knew who he was and did not fear to approach him in a respectful way. In their eyes he was a just master. He passed out coins to the survivors, emptying his purse in a rash manner that made Bee and me look at each other in disbelief. What if we needed that money later? To him it was trivial, something he expected to easily replace. He considered this generosity to be his duty. It was in this way, I supposed, that mages had built the edifice of their power over the generations.

On we traveled. Because we were traveling west, the door in the coach that opened into the spirit world faced the direction I most needed to look. So instead of looking ahead toward the graveled drive and the gatehouse to the estate, I could only stare through the other window as a drizzle clouded the north. Stands of birches flashed silver. Spruce darkened the slopes. In the distance a ring of round houses marked a village several miles off the road. The afternoon light turned to a hazy orange glow.

My nose twitched, and I sneezed.

“More smoke and more fire.” Rory rubbed at eyes reddened by days of breathing ash.

The coach jolted to a halt.

The mansa flung open the door, then sucked in a harsh breath. “We are too late.”

I scrambled out after him.

The turnpike from Audui to Cantiacorum was built atop the old Roman road in layers of crushed stone. South of the road a high stone wall demarcated the perimeter of the main estate of Four Moons House. A wide fan driveway fronted four arches, each ornamented with a phase of the moon. Between turnpike and wall lay a garden and the gatehouse supervised by the women magisters who tended the purification baths and gave or revoked permission for visitors to enter.