Black Coven (Daniel Black Book 2) (12 page)

I floated over to the wolfen, and found that they were cheering. I had to fix one of my ears to hear Gronir’s report, but replacing a burst eardrum only took a few moments.

“I don’t know what you did to the sea serpent, but he sure didn’t like it,” he told me. “The one time he came up it looked like his whole jaw was gone, and he was bleeding like a stuck pig. I figure he slunk off to die.”

“What about you, boss?” Gudrin asked, looking a bit green.

Daria shook her head and laughed. “Our wizard’s immortal, silly. This won’t stop him for long. Right, boss?”

“More or less,” I agreed. “But I won’t be good for much until I can heal myself, and that’s going to take time. What about you?”

“We lost Enok,” Gronir said unhappily. “He got his leg broke fighting the serpent, and then he got mobbed by some goblins.”

“I think my arm’s broke,” Valdrin put in.

“We all got a lot of cuts and pokes from those goblins,” Umar commented. “But that won’t slow us down much. Too bad about the transport, though.”

“Yeah, I take it the vehicles ended up on the bottom of the river?”

They all nodded.

“What about the pilot?” I asked.

“He was hiding in the transport when it went down,” Gronir said. “That was a good while ago.”

Lovely. The doors on that thing weren’t watertight, and unless he landed right next to a heating stone the water was cold enough to be lethal. If he hadn’t turned up by now he was already dead, one way or another.

“No big loss,” Gudrin shrugged. “He was annoying. So now what?”

I sighed. “Do a quick sweep, and see if anyone can spot the pilot or Enok’s body. I’m not leaving anyone behind if there’s a chance they might have survived somehow. Valdrin, let me take a look at your arm while the others are doing that. Then I need to patch myself up a little.”

A distant flash and crack of thunder interrupted me. I looked up to find that the peak of the Iron Citadel’s tallest tower was hidden in a writhing ball of what looked like lightning. It lasted for several long seconds, arcing to the tops of the other towers and crawling across the iron ramparts. When it finally faded the main tower was noticeably warped, and the upper portion was red hot.

“That doesn’t look good,” Daria commented nervously.

A wind blew out towards us from the city, briefly bowing the snow-laden branches of the trees along the shore. Then it reversed direction, and the temperature abruptly began to fall. I turned around slowly, careful not to send myself into a spin, and looked out to sea.

The dark clouds I’d noted earlier were sweeping towards us, carrying a wall of snow with them.

“No,” I agreed. “That’s not good at all.”

              I don’t think I would have made it back if I’d been alone.

              It only took me a few minutes to treat the hairline fracture in Valdrin’s arm, at least well enough that he’d be able to travel. But there was no way I was going to be ambulatory anytime soon. I had too many things wrong with me, many of them serious problems that would require major tissue repair. I wasn’t going to be walking again without several hours of dedicated healing, and levitating myself around took too much concentration to keep up for long.

              So I was forced to improvise. I conjured up a thin rectangle of stone just big enough to hold me, and slapped a quick and dirty levitation enchantment on it. It would fade in a day or so, but we’d be done with it by then. I added a lip around the edge and long handles on the outside, and gingerly settled myself on top of it.

              Broken bones shifted and ground against each other. I was grateful for the pain block, or I’d probably have passed out right there. As it was I managed to get myself into a prone position without puncturing a lung or severing any major arteries, but it was an unsettling reminder of how fragile I was right now.

              “Magic stretcher, huh?” Daria looked the odd contraption over, and nodded. “Yeah, we can push this thing and still run pretty well. Can you make it float a few inches higher?”

              “Sure.” I strengthened the enchantment, and my viewpoint rose a bit.

              “Perfect. Um, you are going to be alright, aren’t you? You’ve never lost a limb before.”

              “I was trying not to think about that,” I admitted. My ribs shifted, and I realized talking wasn’t doing them any good. A shiver ran through me, and I fumbled with the tattered remnants of my warmth cloak.

              Daria leaned over and carefully arranged what was left of the garment, then pulled a blanket out of her pack and draped it over me as well.

              “There. Better?”

I nodded. “Thanks. Need to concentrate on healing now. Tell Gronir to try and get us home.”

Gronir stepped into my field of view. “We’ll do our best, boss. Come on boys, let’s get moving.”

A couple of the men grabbed the handles on the sides of my floating pallet, and pushed. The rest of the pack took off around them, and soon we were racing back toward town at a speed few horses could have matched.

But the oncoming storm was still gaining on us.

I closed my eyes, and focused my attention on my injuries. As usual my amulet was mindlessly trying to heal everything at once, which was tremendously inefficient even if it did serve to keep me conscious. But that was only burning about half the amulet’s energy output, leaving the rest available for my own use.

I started by nudging my broken bones back into place one by one, fusing the ends together so they’d stop shifting around and causing more damage. There were some nasty breaks, and dozens of splintered fragments of bone lodged in the surrounding tissue. Some of them I was able to fit back together, but others I had to just banish. My left knee wasn’t going to be working properly anytime soon, and neither was what was left of my right foot.

By the time I’d finished with that it was snowing heavily, and the wolfen had been forced to slow to a more normal pace. I sat up gingerly, thankful that my force field kept the snow and most of the wind off me.

Daria was walking next to me, and noticed the motion. “You need anything, boss?”

“Water? How are we doing?”

She passed me her water skin, and gestured towards the looming shadow that was barely visible to our left. “We’re following the river bank for now, but it’s getting hard to see. It’s going to be a long trip at this rate.”

“Let me know if you need to stop,” I told her. “No sense in getting lost. I think I can make a shelter if I have to.”

She shook her head. “It’ll take more than a little wind and snow to stop us, boss. You just concentrate on healing. We’ll get you home, and then we can make sure everyone’s safe.”

Yeah, I was worried about that too. If there was an attack on the city coming we needed to get ready. But I had trouble picturing any kind of military force operating in this weather, so we should have some time.

I checked on that concussion next, but my amulet had pretty much taken care of it. Most of my incidental aches and pains were gradually fading as well, but the mass of charred flesh that made up most of my left side was another story. I was probably missing half my skin along with a good chunk of muscle mass, and that could easily kill me if I lost my amulet.

A lot of the ruined flesh was too damaged to heal, and I was forced to carefully banish it one chunk at a time. The light slowly faded as I finished cleaning up my torso, and started to grow new skin over the damaged areas. It was a good thing I’d had a lot of muscle there to start with, but even so there was some damage to my organs as well. Great, one more thing to worry about.

Some time later I finished repairing my kidney, and realized that I was shivering again. My fingers and toes were going numb despite the heat radiating from my cloak, and I was pretty sure there was ice in my hair. I opened my eyes for another look around.

It seemed like the snow had eased up a bit, but the wind was still blowing. The light of one of my magic torches shone from somewhere nearby, illuminating the silhouettes of the wolfen creeping over the snow. But it was a good distance away, and the light that reached me was dim enough that I couldn’t see anything clearly.

“Daria?”

One of the dark shapes moved to my side. “I’m here, boss. What’s up?”

“Are you guys really going to be alright in this?” I asked. “It’s got to be well below zero.”

She cocked her head. “Zero? What’s that?”

“Ah, silly me. A wizard thing, don’t worry about it.”

“If you say so. It’s not fun, but the men can take it. I think us girls are about to drop, though, and you don’t look too good. Will that thing hold another person’s weight?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Can you turn off the invisible wall for a second? I’ve got an idea, but I was waiting for you to wake up to try it.”

I dropped my shield, and she hopped lightly up onto the stretcher to crouch over me. Her warmth cloak settled over us both, and she carefully lowered herself until we were barely touching.

“Better?” She asked. “I don’t want to put any weight on you.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, and sighed in relief.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “That’s a lot better. I’ve actually got my ribs patched back together now. Just don’t touch my left side, and I don’t think you’ll hurt anything.”

She nodded, and carefully settled herself against my right side. There was barely room for us both, but she had no shyness at all about the situation. Her lean body was a warm weight against me.

“Umar, how’s the extra weight? Any problems?”

One of the shadows pushing the makeshift vehicle shook his head. “This thing moves real easy, Daria. We can keep pushing it all night.”

“Thanks, Umar.”

She turned her attention back to me. “I’m thinking me and Embla can take turns like this, taking a break and helping keep you warm. We can’t have our wizard freezing to death on us.”

“Thanks, Daria. Technically I wouldn’t die, but any magic I spend fighting the cold takes away from what I can use to heal myself.”

“So that’s how it works,” she mused.

“What about Gudrin?” I asked.

“Oh, she’s busy showing off how tough she is,” Daria explained. “Probably bite my head off if I said she might need a rest. She’ll either march the whole way on her own feet, or pass out and have to be carried. The rest of us are making bets on whether she can make it.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve known women like that before. I didn’t know you had them here.”

“I suppose there are prideful tomboys everywhere. But don’t let me distract you from your healing.”

I nodded, and went back to work.

A while later I was vaguely aware of Daria getting up, to be replaced by a smaller and considerably curvier form.

“Embla?” I asked.

“That’s me, boss.” She pressed her soft breasts against my side, and laid her head on my shoulder with a sigh.

“I’m so tired,” she murmured. “Is it alright if I take a little nap?”

“Sure. I can’t talk anyway, the healing takes too much concentration.”

“M’kay.” Her eyes closed, and she was out like a light.

Replacing all the soft tissue I’d lost was a pain, and I left the task of restoring the replacement muscle tissue to proper condition for later. Then I had to rebuild my knee. It was a good thing I had a working one to copy there, but even so it gave me some trouble. It seemed that my elemental sorcery was a lot better at dealing with biochemistry than mechanical problems, and I spent quite some time puzzling over the repair before I realized that I hadn’t quite put the bones back together correctly. Fun.

I was working on fixing that mistake when I was distracted by shouting.

It was still dark, but now there were two wolf girls piled in with me. Embla was still curled up against my side, though her eyes were open. Gudrin was draped across our legs, completely dead to the world. But through the blowing snow I could make out the looming shape of my tower overhead.

“Looks like we made it,” Embla said softly. “I guess I’d better get up before the sentries manage to get the gate open. Cerise might not be happy to see me like this.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” I agreed. “Although I think Avilla might be the one to worry about.”

Her eyes widened. “Good point. Cerise will just beat me a little and make me submit if she thinks I’m trespassing. Avilla might turn me into a maid.”

She sat up before I could ask what she’d meant by that, and leaned over to shake Gudrin roughly. The two of them disembarked while I was still struggling to sit up, and then the postern gate was creaking open.

That was an idea I’d copied from Earth’s medieval castles. A small door set into one of the leaves of the main gate, just big enough for men to pass through one at a time. Opening it was a lot less risky than unbarring the main gate, not to mention faster.

I could make out a bit of a commotion inside as Gronir conferred with the sentries on watch, and then the wolfen started to enter one by one. I gingerly eased myself off the pallet, since it was too wide to fit through the door. My left leg supported my weight, although the knee joint was pretty stiff. But there wasn’t enough left of my right foot to walk on. How was I going to do this? Make a crutch, maybe?

Daria stepped up to slip my arm over her shoulders, and helped me up.

“You don’t have to do everything with magic,” she chided gently. “We’re happy to help, Daniel.”

“Thanks, Daria. The door is going to be a little tricky, though.”

“We’ll manage.”

She helped me hobble over to it, and we found Gronir waiting there for us. The two of them got me through the narrow opening, and then Daria resumed her place. I managed a few more steps to get clear of the door, and paused to enjoy a breath of air that wasn’t bitingly cold.

“Daniel!”

A black-haired missile flew across the room towards me, and I braced myself for a painful impact. But Embla stepped in the way with her hands out.

“Wait! Careful, Cerise. He’s hurt pretty bad.”

Cerise paused to glare at her, but then her eyes went to my missing arm and she gasped.

“Daniel? Oh crap, you got fucked up bad. What happened?”

“I had a little disagreement with one of Jormungandr’s grandsons,” I told her.

“Damn. Sea serpents are supposed to be really tough.”

“Our wizard sent him packing,” Daria said lightly.

“Of course he did.” Cerise tried to match her nonchalance, but her eyes were troubled. She glanced down at my mangled foot, and back at my missing arm. “Here, let’s get you upstairs.”

She nudged Daria away, and bent to pick me up in her arms. It must have looked kind of silly, since I was a good six inches taller than her. But with the supernatural strength she’d gained in Lanrest my weight was no problem for her.

She carried me up to the atrium, and headed for the elevator while the wolfen all broke off towards the stairs. It occurred to me that I wasn’t even sure where their quarters in the new keep were. Too much happening to keep track of all the details.

Cerise was silent as the elevator carried us up to the landing outside our quarters. The door was open, and Beri was there looking curiously out into the dimly lit atrium. She went a little pale when she saw me.

“Milord?”

“I’ll get better,” I reassured her. I sure was saying that a lot.

Avilla’s reaction wasn’t any better. She came out of the kitchen as we entered, wearing a nightgown and carrying a tray loaded with cups of hot tea and a plate of cookies. She nearly dropped it when she saw me. Then she quickly set it aside, and rushed to examine my injuries while Cerise laid me out on a dining room table that hadn’t been there when I left.