The Wizard's Daughters: Twin Magic: Book 1 (14 page)

A growling noise drew his attention. Around the hovel came a wolf on a tether, teeth bared. It was guarding what appeared to be the entrance.

Walther, Ariel, and Astrid had stopped the wagon and followed him over.

“I think we have our lair. As well as fine place to camp. If we can deal with this beast.”

Erich drew a throwing knife, but Ariel grabbed his wrist.

“No. Wait.”

“Why?”

“Let us try to calm it down.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Can you talk to wolves?”

“We are not animalists, no. But natural magic is fundamentally about listening to the natural world. We may be able to let it know we mean no harm.”

Holding hands, the girls approached the wolf, their free hands held out. It stopped growling but remained wary.

“She’s just frightened,” Astrid said. “The ogres were very cruel to her.”

“It’s a female?”

“Yes.”

“We’re telling her we want to release her, that the ogres will not hurt her anymore.”

The wolf backed up to the end of its tether, but did nothing further as Astrid bent down and untied it. As soon as it was free, it darted away, running across the clearing . . . but then stopped at the edge of the woods and turned to watch them.

Erich turned to entrance to the lair, then froze. It was clear now these had been no ordinary ogres, whose plotting rarely extended much further than their next meal. That ambush had been perfectly laid. Had he been looking a different direction and not seen the club coming at him, he would be dead now and the girls bundled off to the ogre’s stewpot. This hideout was well hidden; absent the mud holding their tracks, there was no reason to pick this trail over any of the others they’d seen off the road. They had trained a wolf to guard their home, yet there were no piles of offal or gnawed bones around to give the place away.

That suggested to him that the danger might not yet be past.

Walther saw him thinking. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t do anything. Let me look around a bit.”

A bit of exploring vindicated his suspicions. There was a door of sorts over the entrance—a woven array of tree branches—but looking closely he could see the trigger of a trap. A rope tied to one corner led upward into the heap of trees. The other end was attached to a precariously laid tree trunk, its roots fire-blackened and sharp. Had he simply opened the door, the trunk would have come swinging down and impaled him.

Still, it was a crude trap and easily disarmed. He untied the rope carefully, keeping himself out of the way of the trunk above. Nothing happened. He looked around further just in case this fairly obvious trap concealed a more cunning one, but saw nothing.

Very slowly, he opened the door. Nothing further happened, but he could see now just how successful the ogres had been with their raiding.

Inside, it was if someone had picked up a town marketplace, shaken it a few times, then upended it. There were bundles of cloth piled in one corner, several barrels of what appeared to be ale, a pile of cookpots in a sack, four or five traveling chests filled with clothes, and jumbles of rusty weapons, armor and traveling gear apparently taken from their victims, all of it tossed haphazardly on the ground or over a few crude pieces of furniture. A fresh leg of venison hung from the ceiling near the fire, which was built under a crude stone chimney. A huge iron pot sat in the fire, and on either side of the chimney were two piles of blankets that appeared to be their beds.

“Oh, my God,” Ariel said. “Look at all this.”

“Have a look around, but be careful. We can’t take all of it, but some of it may be useful.”

Erich first inspected the venison, which looked edible. “Here’s dinner,” he said.

The girls were soon poking through the traveling chests and rooting through the clothes, as Walther sifted through the pots and other loot.

It took Erich a few minutes to realize something was missing, or at least not visible. Ogres liked to collect shiny things, and they had surely taken some money from their victims. Those traveling chests had likewise belonged to the sort of woman who would possess jewelry. Yet he could find nothing.

Erich thought. If he were an ogre, where would he hide his money? That question answered itself after a moment. He would hide it somewhere only an ogre could get at it.

Looking around again, he noticed that the bedrock under one of the boulders that comprised the chimney was deeply etched. The scratch marks pointed directly at the boulder as if it had been dragged over them repeatedly. Efforts appeared to have been made to conceal this, but the etch marks were too deep. Crouching down, it was clear: The boulder had been laid over something.

But of course it was far too heavy for him to move, as was the intent. He pulled at it a few times, but accomplished nothing but sending a twinge of pain through his injured shoulder.

“I think the ogre’s treasure hoard is under this rock,” he announced. “But I cannot see a way to move it.”

The other three came over. Walther examined it and nodded. “Perhaps we could find a lever somewhere in here.”

“There might be another way,” Astrid said. “There is a spell we could use. It would make you stronger.”

“
Cryfder Arth
?” Walther asked.

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?” Erich asked.

“
Strength of a Bear
,” Astrid replied. “Another one from Mother’s books. It’s only temporary, but it might work.”

“I don’t know if it will be enough,” Ariel said. “There are more powerful spells of that nature, but we have not the talent for them yet.”

“Try it, then.”

Astrid and Ariel joined hands and recited a low incantation. Erich could again somehow feel the energies they were collecting. When they laid their hands on his shoulders, all of it burst into him at once. He was briefly blinded by an intense blue flash behind his eyes, as if someone had hit him over the head. But he now felt strong enough to rip a tree from the ground.

He tried the boulder again, and this time lifted it up and cast it aside with crash as if it weighed no more than a bale of hay.

Walther, Ariel, and Astrid jumped back in surprise. Walther looked the most shocked.

“Daughters . . . I was not aware your skills had progressed so far.”

The girls looked at each other. “Neither were we,” Ariel said after a moment.

The strength was already ebbing from Erich’s arms—and along with it, the pain from where the club had struck him—but he could see now he was correct. Under the boulder was a large hollow in the rock, and inside it was a wooden chest about a foot deep and half again as long. He lifted it out and set it on top of the crude table where the ogres apparently ate.

He examined it carefully but could see no traps. It was not locked, so he opened it slowly.

It was not the Rhine-gold, but it was impressive. The chest was about half full with a jumble of copper, silver, and gold coins of various mintings. Mixed through it were a collection of copper and silver baubles, and one gold bracelet. The other three looked on as he sifted through it all.

Erich turned to Walther.

“As you are financing this expedition, I would say this belongs to you.”

Walther shook his head. “As we would all be simmering in that pot without you, and would never have found this in any case, I would say that makes it yours.”

Erich looked down at the hoard. “Let me at least reimburse you for my new armor and equipment.”

Walther nodded. “Fair enough.” Erich counted out the twenty or so gold crowns he had spent, and the artificer slipped them into his purse.

Then Erich noticed a small leather pouch under the coins. He drew it out. The pouch was tied with a drawstring, but he opened it and emptied the contents into his hand. Two clear blue stones, each about the size of an acorn, tumbled out. Both were polished smooth with a flat base.

“Well, will you look at this?”

“Sapphires, by the looks of them,” Walther said. He held one up to his right eye and peered through it. “Yes. They’re not glass or quartz. The light moves through them the wrong way.”

“You can tell?”

He nodded and returned the stone to Erich’s hand.

“Crystals are central to artificing, and different gems refract the light differently. These are worth a fair bit of coin.”

There were two, and Erich had a thought. He held his hand toward Ariel and Astrid. “Two such beautiful gems should have equally pretty settings. One for each of you, I think.”

But the girls did not move to take them.

“Thank you,” Astrid said, “but we cannot.”

“Consider it a gift in honor of your impending marriage.”

“It’s not that,” Ariel said. “They’re beautiful. But they’re blue.”

Erich’s forehead wrinkled. “You do not like blue?”

“It’s more that blue does not like us.”

“Blue things interfere with our flows,” Astrid said. “We don’t know why, but they do. Something as simple as a blue scarf can disrupt our casting. A blue dress will disrupt it entirely.”

Walther’s eyes widened. “You never told me this.”

“You never noticed how we never wore blue?” Ariel asked.

“I suppose I did, but . . . that is very odd.”

“Yes,” Astrid said. “We think it may have something to do with Grandmother.”

Erich thought for a moment. “When you cast that spell on me, the strength. I saw a blue flash in my head.”

Both girls stared at him in surprise. “You did?” Ariel asked.

“Yes. What does that mean?”

They looked at each, then at Walther, who shrugged. “I don’t know,” Ariel said. “Neither do I,” Astrid said.

Erich put the stones back in the pouch. “It’s getting dark. We should get dinner going.”

♦ ♦

As they explored the ogres’ house, nine men on horseback passed them on the road going the other direction. The man in the lead wore a black felt cap with a red feather.

21.

Erich cut the venison into a more manageable size for roasting and tapped one of the kegs of ale, which proved to be quite good. The girls collected a few things they wanted to take and carried them out to the wagon.

“The wolf is still out there,” Ariel said when she returned.

“I think the ogres must have raised her from a cub,” Astrid said. “This is her home. She has nowhere else to go. She may not even know how to hunt.”

Erich hacked the leg bone from the venison and held it out. “Plenty to go around.” Ariel took it and left the hut.

“She’s eating,” she said on her return.

Astrid had joined the dinner preparations, having brought in some potatoes and carrots. She took one of the pots from the heap in the corner, filled it with water from a skin by the chimney, and set it by the fire.

Then she bent over behind the eating table and came up with a long, curved sword in a leather scabbard.

“Erich, what is this? Is this something you can use?”

He sighed. “Oh, what a beauty. Let me see that.”

The blade of the sword was about three feet long, singled-edged and slightly curved towards the end, with a wooden-handled hand-and-half grip and a simple straight cross-guard. On one side of the cross-guard was a short protrusion about an inch wide that curved down over the grip.

“What kind of sword is that?” she asked.

“They go by different names. My swordmaster called it a war knife. It’s a battle-blade, not for dueling.”

He drew it from its scabbard and swung it slowly around his head, testing the balance. It was excellent.

“I’m not sure I’ve seen one like that before,” Walther said. “Not of such a size.”

“They’re not common, in part because they’re not so easy to forge. The length and curvature means you need substantial skill to get the balance just right. It takes a master swordsmith to manage it. They also require strength and training to use effectively. Whoever lost this was a professional swordsman . . . or perhaps just fancied himself one. I suspect it may have been the latter. A man worthy of this blade would have made short work of those ogres.”

He swung it around again. “Odd. It’s lighter than it should be.”

“Is that bad?” Ariel asked.

“No, it’s good. A lighter blade is a faster blade. Whoever made this was a master indeed.”

From what Erich could tell, the ogres had been using it as a kitchen knife, but an hour so with his sharpening stone would have it back to serviceable condition.

“It’s a good find. Thank you.”

♦ ♦

As they were eating dinner, Erich noticed the wolf lurking in the doorway.

“Your pet is back,” he said. He tossed the animal another chunk of venison. It picked it up in its teeth, but rather than leaving again, padded warily into the house, walking over to a corner and sitting down to eat.

Ariel and Astrid watched it. Erich noticed them joining hands.

“She doesn’t know what to make of us,” Ariel said. “She’s glad the ogres are not here, but she’s not sure she can trust us.”

Ariel rose and walked slowly over to it.

“I wouldn’t approach a wolf when it’s eating if I were you,” Erich said.

But Ariel did not stop. The wolf looked up at her. She knelt down and began scratching it behind the ears. Erich tensed up, waiting for disaster. But nothing happened.

“She’s not afraid of me.”

Astrid came over and joined her. The wolf began to relax and then, as Erich watched in amazement, rolled over on her stomach, which the girls began rubbing.

“She’s so lonely,” Astrid said. “She’s never had a pack. The ogres beat her to make her vicious so she would be a good guard.”

Erich looked at Walther.

“They can tell all this?”

“They’ve always been good with animals. It’s part of their talent. They’ll spend half an hour apologizing to our chickens before they go in the pot.”

“Yet Ariel told me they were not animalists.”

Walther shook his head. “A true animalist could talk to that wolf as clearly as I’m talking to you. But a skilled naturalist can at least make herself understood.”

By the end of the dinner, the wolf was sitting calmly under the table at their feet. Erich fed her bits of venison until she was full.