“The fire must be smoking,” she muttered to herself, and left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
Benziorn and Tarnal were waiting for her in the kitchen. Zanna took one look at their grave faces, and all thoughts of Yanis fled her mind. “Dad…?” she whispered. Tarnal, his eyes shadowed with concern, leapt up and took her arm, leading her gently to the chair. Perversely, Zanna wanted to hit him. She wrenched her arm from his grasp and leapt back up to her feet. “What is it?” she shouted. “What’s wrong?”
Tarnal opened his mouth and shut it again with a helpless shrug—and for the first time, Zanna saw the shimmer of tears in his eyes. He looked expectantly at the physician.
Benziorn leaned across the hearth and took hold of Zanna’s hand. “Your dad was just telling me how you got him out of the Academy,” he began conversationally.
Zanna stared at him in disbelief. Something bad had happened to Vannor—she just knew it—and this lunatic wanted to waste her time with idle chatter? Yet, to be fair, he did not seem like such an idiot now that he was sober. He seemed fatherly and sensible: someone who respected her. Someone she could trust. “What’s wrong with my dad?” she demanded through gritted teeth.
“I was astounded,” the physician went on as though he had not heard her, “that such a little lass had the courage to accomplish so much for her father when he needed her. But it’s not over yet, Zanna. Now Vannor needs your courage and assistance again.” She felt his strong fingers squeeze her own. “His hand is too badly damaged for me to save it,” he told her bluntly. “It’ll have to come off.”
“No!” Zanna gasped. Her strong, vigorous father, maimed and crippled? It was unthinkable. Though her eyes burned with tears, she managed to keep her voice steady. “Are you really sure? Is there nothing you can do to give him a chance?”
“I’m sorry,” Benziorn told her. “I know what you’re thinking. He’s only a hopeless drunk—what can he know? Surely someone who has the faintest notion of what he’s doing could save that hand. But you’d be wrong. Whatever else I am, girl, I’m a damn good physician who already saved the arm of your young smuggler friend in there—you ask Tarnal. I used to be the foremost Mortal Healer in Nexis, before the Wraiths took my family and I lost myself in the bottle. I know that you’re not the sort of person who can be fobbed off with a few soft words. You’d rather have the truth, so you can know what you’re facing—and that’s what I’m giving you. That hand is nothing more than a lump of mangled meat. The bones are smashed and splintered, the muscles pounded to oblivion, and where the tendons are, the gods only know. After your little jaunt through the sewers, infection has set in, and is spreading rapidly. Vannor had to make a decision—his hand or his life—and he had the sense not to mess about. We were only waiting for you, to begin. Vannor needs you with him in there, girl—he asked for you—but if you don’t think you can cope with it—if you’ll be sick, or faint, or get all emotional on us—you’d be better staying away. Your father needs you strong now.” Benziorn raised his eyebrows challengingly. “Well? What is it to be?”
“I’ll come, of course,” Zanna replied without hesitation. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
The moors at night were a cold and eerie place. The low, black, barren humps of the hills stretched on endlessly in all directions, and there was nothing to break the force of the thin, cold wind that whistled mournfully across the slopes. Bern shivered, and pulled the hood of his cloak up around his face to hide the vast, dark spaces that surrounded him. This accursed wilderness was no place for a city man! The baker, who had never taken an interest in horsemanship, wished now that he had not left all the errands involving riding to his older brother in their youth. He shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, trying to find a bit of his backside that had not already been rubbed raw, and wished that he knew where he was. Once he’d left the road, he had usually camped by night—but this time, just as the sun was setting, he had seen a smudge of darkness on a distant ridge that looked as though it might be the trees that the Lady had told him to watch for.
Foolishly, he had thought he could reach it before the darkness fell. He’d been wrong.
Not for the first time, Bern wished that he had never agreed to undertake the Lady Eliseth’s mission—until he thought about the cellar of his bakery, packed to the doorway with all that lovely grain. He smiled to himself. The thought of the men and women that he was about to betray perturbed him not at all. He had only to get through this, and when he got home, he’d be the only working baker in Nexis. Why, he could ask whatever price he liked for his bread, and no one could object. Just thinking of all the riches that could be his on his return helped to stiffen his resolve. Besides, he must be almost there by now. On the horse that the Lady had provided for him, and following her directions, he had made good time. If he turned back at this late stage, he would have much farther to travel, and nothing to show for it at the end—and though he would rather die than admit it, even to himself, the mere idea of crossing the cold-eyed Magewoman turned his bowels to water.
What was that? The distant wailing was low and eerie, raising prickling gooseflesh on his skin and transporting his mind back to childhood tales of the ghosts and demons that haunted the moor by night. Bern’s fingers tightened on the reins. Then the sound came again—much closer now—and, suddenly, ghosts would have been a comfort. Wolves! This time Bern had no difficulty in recognizing the sound. Neither did his horse. Uttering a shrill neigh of fear, it took off with a bound that almost unseated its unwary rider, and bolted.
All thoughts of wolves fled from the baker’s head—he was too preoccupied with simply staying in the saddle. Clinging desperately to the horse’s mane and jolted about with every stride, he was borne helplessly onward, galloping blindly, at breakneck speed, across the rough terrain. Bern’s hood blew back from his face, and the cold wind pierced his clothing as his cloak flapped uselessly behind him. He plucked up his courage to let go of the mane and hauled desperately on the reins until he thought his arms would tear free from his shoulders, but it had not the slightest effect on his terrified mount. He lost one stirrup, then the other, and began to slip inexorably sideways. Suddenly the horse lurched forward over some hidden obstacle, and pitched head over heels. Bern went flying and landed hard. He remembered nothing more.
When he opened his eyes, he was dazzled by daylight. For a moment, the baker wondered where he was. He was freezing cold and drenched with dew; he ached all over, and his head was throbbing abominably. Another man might have wondered what he had been drinking the night before, but Bern was far too tightfisted with his money to waste it on ale as his father had done, and too surly and single-minded about his work to seek comradeship and conviviality. Besides, he had no friends, and viewed them as an unnecessary luxury.
With a groan he rolled over—and the first thing he saw was the body of the horse lying nearby, cold and stiff, its neck skewed at an angle so grotesque that it brought his stomach into his throat. It was only then that Bern remembered the previous night—and the wolves. The wolves! In panic, he tried to struggle to his feet—and then realized that if they hadn’t got him last night, while they’d been hunting and he’d been unconscious, there was little danger now.