‘A mage from the south,’ Velindre corrected her. No, take the horse and welcome. I’d be casting him loose otherwise. All I ask is that you look after him; he’s been a good beast to me.’
The woman detained her with an insistent hand. ‘Shouldn’t I keep him till you come back this way? I’ll give you a bed again and welcome.’
‘I shan’t be coming back this way,’ Velindre assured her brusquely. ‘Good day to you.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to come back and not find us,’ the woman continued, as if Velindre hadn’t spoken. ‘See, with a horse, me and the children, we’ll make for the lowlands when the thaw comes, go back to my own family’ The children in question, three of them and none taller than their mother’s apron strings, peered around the doorframe, blue eyes wide.
‘The animal is yours. Make whatever use of him you want.’ Pulling her arm away, Velindre began walking up the track, cursing under her breath as she stumbled on frozen ruts. Solid boots thudded on the ice-hardened earth behind her and she tensed, clasping her double-gloved hands together beneath the all-concealing fur cloak.
‘Taking a walk, mistress mage?’ One of the village men hurried to draw level with her. He had the short, stocky build and fair complexion of the mountains, with a heavy leather coat further padding his bulk. Velindre ignored him, increasing her pace.
‘What was your business with the Widow Pinder?’ A second man came up on her other side. He was taller than the first, with the dark, curly hair and olive skin of southern Tormalin blood incongruous with the snow and ice all around.
Velindre kept walking, face expressionless. She fixed her eyes on the fir forest ahead, dark above the leafless skeletons of the lower slopes.
‘Widow Pinder’s eldest, she was telling my Sonille that you’re some wizard woman,’ a voice from behind taunted.
Sniggers told Velindre that the remaining three idlers from the tavern were trailing a handful of paces behind her unwanted escort.
‘Go on, then, show us some magic,’ mocked the man with the Tormalin blood.
‘Magic’s not welcome round here.’ The stocky man scowled at her. ‘Is that where you’re headed?’ He pointed up past the ridge of hills sheltering the little village, towards a forbidding range of high peaks. Clouds were gathered just beyond, dark grey and ominous in an otherwise clear blue sky. Higher up, white clouds were spread by the winds into feathery streaks. The grey clouds weren’t moving.
‘He asked you a question, lady!’ The Tormalin man darted forward to plant himself solidly in Velindre’s path, hands on his hips.
Velindre made to step round him. A second stocky man with muddy brown hair appeared from behind to block her way. With the fair-haired man on her other side and the two remaining loafers behind her, she was effectively surrounded.
‘Haven’t you got anything better to do with your time?’ she asked with faint derision. ‘Let me pass. My business is none of yours.’
‘You tell us what it is and we’ll decide that,’ the fair-haired man said boldly.
‘We don’t want no more wizards setting up home hereabouts,’ growled one of the pair behind her. ‘You’ve seen a wizard hereabouts?’ Velindre turned around, surprising a flare of panic in the thin-faced speaker’s eyes.
‘That’s a wizard’s work, isn’t it?’ He waved a shaky hand at the distant leaden cloudscape before hastily snatching it back. ‘There’s valleys up there no one’s got near in years.’
‘Everyone knows it’s magic keeping us out.’ The Tormalin man scowled. ‘Even if the wizard hides himself away up there.’
‘Find themselves caught up in tangles of plants knotting themselves, people do,’ the brown-haired man insisted, ‘or get turned around so often they find themselves back where they started.’
‘Life’s hard up here.’ The thin man’s companion added his voice to the debate. The scars on his face attested to “his words. ‘We work hard for our furs and our tin and it’s share and share alike. We don’t close off the land with magic and hoard it all for ourselves.’
With the slope of the track added to her already greater height, Velindre looked down on him with undisguised disdain. ‘I assure you, I have no interest in furs or tin.’
‘What’s in those valleys?’ The fair-haired man stepped closer, his shoulder nudging her arm, belligerence curdling his face. ‘Come to share the spoils with that wizard, have you?’
‘Is it gold?’ the brown-haired man asked hopefully.
‘Magic or not, you must need some help. We could lend a hand.’
‘As long as we’re fairly paid,’ warned the fair-haired man.
an.
‘Let’s say whoever’s up in those hills wants your help.’ The Tormalin man laid a heavy hand on Velindre’s shoulder. ‘Then he can pay us for your passage through our territory, can’t he?’
‘You’ve never actually seen a wizard, have you?’ Velindre looked the Tormalin man in the eye before glancing at his hand, amused. Not this mysterious mage you say lives beneath those clouds nor any real wizard.’
‘What’s that to you?’ The brown-haired man looked uncertainly at the man with the scars, who glanced uneasily at his hatchet-faced friend.
‘Seen plenty of fools up from the south who think it’s easy pickings up here.’ The fair-haired man tried to seize her other arm through the thick fur of her cloak.
Velindre flung her hands wide. A burst of blue light blew the five men away with a brutal gust of magical wind. The fair-haired man fell backwards, landing hard to sprawl gasping, arms waving feebly as the breath was knocked clean out of him. The Tormalin man tumbled sideways, ending up in a crouch like a whipped cur, clutching at a tuft of frosted grass, his jaw slack with inarticulate astonishment. Taken entirely by surprise and with the downward slope treacherous behind him, the brown-haired man fell in a tangled heap with the one with the scars. Only the hatchet-faced man kept his feet. He stumbled backwards down the track, hands raised in feeble denial, his head turned aside and eyes screwed tight shut, too scared to want to see what might be coming next.
‘I told you my business was none of yours.’ Entirely composed, Velindre stood, her hands held wide, dark fur cloak and golden hair streaming behind her as if she stood in the teeth of a winter gale. Not a twig stirred on the winter-stricken trees on either side of the track. ‘I take it you’ll believe me now when I tell you plainly that you have no hope of detaining me.’
She thrust a hand forward and a ribbon of sapphire light hobbled the hatchet-faced man. ‘Whereas I can make your lives very unpleasant if you have any notion of following me.’ With a snap of her fingers, she called down a bolt of lightning from the clear blue sky. It struck the rowan she pointed to with one long, pale finger and the tree burst into crackling white flames.
Movement down the hill caught her eye and Velindre realised that almost the entire meagre population of the village was watching from doorways or around the corners of their ragged-edged huts. T will know if you try following me,’ she continued with precise menace, ‘just as I will know if anyone decides to offer the Widow Pinder any trouble for giving me a bed for the night. I recommend you bold heroes make that plain to your neighbours.’
With a wave of her hand, she snuffed the flames consuming the rowan. The only sound was the faint patter of the tree’s few remaining leaves and berries falling to the ground. Velindre gestured discreetly towards the tree and a charred branch broke away with a tearing crash. As the shaken men all jumped, startled, and looked at it, Velindre wrapped herself in a swathe of dazzling cerulean light and vanished. The cowering men rubbed their eyes, blinking painfully as they stared gaping at the place where she’d been. Smiling unseen, the magewoman retreated slowly up the hill. It had been some while since she had worked invisibility around herself, she realised with faint amusement. Who would have thought an apprentice’s trick like blinding someone with magelight would prove so useful? Drawing the air close in around her, she deftly bound water and fire into the spell to cloak herself entirely from view.