Though appalled by his master’s obliviousness, Nightfall appreciated it. The prince’s frivolous conversation might keep the sorcerer distracted long enough for Nightfall to formulate an escape. Cautiously, he eased his leg over the saddle, the movement slow and deliberate, designed not to draw attention. He tried to slip gently from the animal’s back but managed only to bury his own body, chest-deep, in mud sticky as glue and heavy as scale weights. One hand plunged deep into the muck for balance. He managed to save the other by clinging to the cantle. The horse floundered into another bucking attempt at freedom, and a hoof slammed Nightfall’s knee hard enough to incapacitate him. Without the cushion of mud, it would have shattered the bone for certain. He gritted his teeth and waited for the pain to diminish.
The sorcerer’s gaze followed Nightfall’s course. His stance displayed assurance, and his features twisted in obvious amusement. For now, he played along with Edward. "You may call me Ritworth the Iceman. I’ve come for your squire."
"My squire?" Edward glanced briefly at Nightfall, then back at their guest. "My squire has enough to do tending me. His services aren’t for hire."
"It’s not his services I’m after." His grin became more I like a rictus. "It’s his soul."
The words struck Edward dumb, and he frowned in consideration. A chill swept Nightfall, as crisp and painful as the coldest winter night. It made little sense for the sorcerer to reveal himself this way, and he seemed too smart to make such an obvious mistake. Accustomed to reading motives, Nightfall put the pieces together quickly. He recalled the Healer’s description of the sorcerer’s ceremony in Delfor, how pain had driven a dying man’s natal ability to the surface. It seemed a small jump to guess that not just physical agony, but intense emotional trauma, could affect one of the talented in the same fashion. Clearly, Ritworth planned to send Nightfall into a panic, thereby drawing his gift to the surface. The torture would come later, amid the final tearing of soul from body.
The idea brought a rush of the very terror Nightfall knew he had to suppress. Even as he struggled to drive it down, the oath-bond fluttered to noisy, painful life within him, an ear-splitting alarm that made action all but impossible. Nightfall gasped, the agony in his head scarcely bearable. For an instant he wondered if the sorcerer had used a spell to create the pain, but his heart told him otherwise. It came of other, more familiar magic; and he traced the thought that had reawakened Gilleran’s handiwork. It came in an instant. There could be only one reason Ritworth had so casually revealed himself to Edward. The sorcerer planned to kill the prince.
Irony only intensified the excruciating mixture of headache and hysteria. One magic must drive him to chase away the only man who might rescue him from the other. Either way would cost his soul eternal torment, yet one could spare the life of a man he was growing to like. He gathered breath to shout, mud yielding to the expansion of his rib cage. “Master, run! Run! Save yourself!"
The oath-bond receded, allowing thought to trickle in, accompanied by an uncontrollable fear. As his vision cleared, he saw Ritworth shout something uninterpretable, finger pointed at Edward.
"Run!" Nightfall shouted again, flopping into the swamp mud for a desperate run to shore. The muck closed around him, swallowing him into its depths, and he managed to move less than an arm’s length from the horse in the time it took Ritworth to cast his spell.
Prince Edward drew his sword and ducked at once, using the gelding as a shield. Something radiant struck the side of the white’s head, back-splashing in sparks and droplets like iridescent liquid. The horse went still, his eyes locked wide with raw terror and shock. Frost formed on ear hairs and whiskers, then the magically frozen head shattered into fragments on the ground, and blood pooled from a neck that seemed more glass than flesh.
For an instant, time stood still. "Holy Father,” Prince Edward said in awe, and his voice seemed loud in the sudden hush. Nightfall grabbed desperately for any object of substance, groping through the thick, unyielding mud. The daggers in his leg and boot sheaths had become buried beyond hope, and he fished for tunic pockets washed askew. The sorcerer’s head lowered, and he mumbled, apparently tapping captured souls for another spell. The oath-bond became a constant scream that bounced agony through Nightfall’s brain. He touched some object in the sludge, and his fingers winched desperately around it. It gave, nothing more than a fragile stem. Through a fog of disappointment, Nightfall kept his hand tight around the ball of mud. It would not kill, but it might distract. He hurled it at the sorcerer. "Damn it!" he screamed. "Run! Save yourself, or he’ll kill us both. Just run!"
More from habit than effort, Nightfall’s aim was true. The mudball slopped onto Ritworth’s chest, and glowing strands in multiple colors rocked like a rainbow from his fist, sputtering randomly to the ground. A few strands brushed their creator, and he flinched from their touch, barking curses that bore little relation to the grating language that called his magic. He glanced at Nightfall, anger only making him appear larger and more savage.
Prince Edward bolted for the shelter of the forest.
At the movement, Ritworth spun. He shaped more sorcery, his words a dull growl. Nightfall blessed the delay that came of using power stolen by murder rather than chance of birth. He hoped Dyfrin’s other theory also proved true, that each use of the spell loosened a sorcerer’s tie to his victim until the soul broke free and the talent with it. It would make Ritworth more sparing of his abilities. Nightfall hurled another mudball. Again, he hit his target, this time in the back; but Ritworth anticipated the missile, managing to finish and launch his magic at Edward’s retreating form. Skewed by the force of the blow, or some diversion from the prince, the ice attack crashed into a tree. A white explosion of light spread from the impact, and the tree groaned and swayed, a chunk of its form nearly opaque. Edward disappeared into the brush.
The oath-bond washed back to baseline, leaving Nightfall mercifully clear-headed. Likely, the sorcerer had only a small repertoire of spells, those he had managed to discover and wrest from their innocent owners. Most of those would prove useless for attack or defense. Still, he only needed the ice magics to kill; and, from the Healer’s description, the pain he inflicted could come of more mundane means. Nightfall thrashed at the mud with coordinated movements, managing to eel toward shore only slightly before the sorcerer’s dark gaze pinned him and the death-mask smile returned. Ritworth laughed, the sound rich with evil.
Despite his best efforts, terror flashed through Nightfall. He clung to stability and practicality; he knew fear and had never allowed it to rule or paralyze him before. Needing a grounding point, he wondered how much practice it had taken the sorcerer to perfect such an ugly sound. Still feigning ignorance, he ceased struggling and met the sorcerer’s icy glare with the blue-black eyes that had demoralized so many. "What do you want with us?"
"I want your talent, Sudian Edward’s squire." Ritworth strode to the edge of the swamp, careful not to step too close to the banks. "It’s no use pretending. I know it’s there. I can feel it."
A force colder than metal in a blizzard brushed Nightfall’s consciousness. Though it scarcely touched him, it spiraled a chill through his entire body. He forced consideration, afraid to sacrifice directed thought for the emotion that would make the sorcerer’s task simpler. He knew that users of magic could not sweep minds continuously; too many of the natally talented successfully hid their abilities for that to be the case. Apparently, such action required an imprisoned or otherwise stationary target and/or a high degree of suspicion. Or, perhaps, it first necessitated fear, pain, or serious mental agitation. Nightfall suspected that the agony caused by the oath-bond had proven his undoing. Now, he fought down the rage and horror inspired by Ritworth and the carelessness that had sent him plunging into a swamp. He would need to act solely from logic and react only in a dispassionate manner to all that happened next. He would have to learn quickly to disconnect pain from the emotions it inspired.