Frostflower and Windbourne (Frostflower & Thorn) Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  NOTES TO THE 2012 EDITION

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1982 by Phyllis Ann Karr.

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Wildside Press, LLC

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  CHAPTER I

  “Hellbog,” Thorn said, “all we know is that a priest died tonight screaming about green wasps flying down at him. We don’t even know we have the right sorceron. You haven’t had time to search the whole stinking town.”

  “Why search?” said Third Master Clearthinking. His speeches rarely matched his name. “We won’t find many of them outside their dens in the middle of winter. Not this deep in the midlands.”

  “All right,” said Thorn, “let’s say you were the only sorceron in the area. Would you sit down in a town the size of Five Roads Crossing, with a barracks of ninety warriors, while you sent out a spell to kill a priest?”

  Clearthinking flattened his palm on the table. “It is impossible to think as the sorceri think! No decent creature should attempt it.”

  “At least credit them with a little survival instinct,” said Thorn.

  Master Youngwise, who had grown out of the first part of his name forty years ago, smiled tolerantly. “All this is interesting, but irrelevant. Obviously, we cannot learn the truth until after we’ve power-stripped him.”

  “What difference does it make?” asked Strongneck, who had not earned her post of second wallkeeper by virtue of intelligence. “Better off to kill ‘em all, stinking sorceri.”

  “Is that all his Reverence’s death means to you?” said Thorn. “A bloody excuse to kill a sorceron, whether you’ve got the right one or not?” Thorn glanced at First Wallkeeper Eaglesight, her one potential ally. But Eaglesight’s sense of justice had been worn down over the years to fit everyday expedience, and she only mirrored Youngwise’s smile and shook her head slightly at her third keeper. (Warriors God! thought Thorn, don’t let living ever do that to me!) Aloud, she said, “Strip a sorcerer and you ruin him for life—not to mention the poor bitch of a warrior who does the work. If this one’s innocent, you’ll have wasted two people for nothing.”

  “No such creature as an innocent sorceron,” said Strongneck. “You call ‘em people?”

  Eaglesight slapped her palm against the table. “Skin you, Thorn! You’re nothing but a stopgap wallkeeper, and we gave you the post because you were lucky enough to clean that bloody nest of outlaws out of the Westmarsh Wastes last summer, not because we wanted your opinions on sorceri.”

  “Eat stones, Eaglesight,” said Thorn. “I’m only trying to save you one of your women.”

  Youngwise smiled again, squinted at Thorn through the age puckers around his eyes, and rose to his feet. “We waste time. Even now the sorcerer may be gathering his power for a spell against us. The problem is not whether he should be stripped, but whom we will choose for the task.”

  “Yes!” said Smoothermore. “A sorcerer who can throw his spells from Five Roads Crossing into the hall of Deveron’s own farm—Gods!” he added, making the circle gesture for protection. “He’ll shrivel the woman who touches him like a dry leaf in the fire!”

  Thorn snorted. “The women who brought him in are still safe, aren’t they? If he’s so damned powerful, why hasn’t he blasted us already?”

  “Likely he spellcast his Reverence four days ago when their Reverences came to town to give the Midwinter Ceremonies,” suggested Clearthinking, “and the spell only burst open tonight, after smoldering inside his Reverence all this time.”

  Smoothermore made the circle gesture again. Strongneck muttered, “Kill ‘em all!” Eaglesight rubbed her cheek and began, “That newest one of ours—Bumprick—she calls herself a good milker.”

  “Keep Bumprick,” said Youngwise, looking at Thorn with an expression as near a grin as he could stretch from his withered lips. “Who better for the work of power-stripping this deadly sorcerer than the woman who singlehandedly defeated Dentblade and her entire outlaw pack?”

  “Yes!” said Smoothermore. “The very woman—oh, Thorn can drain him if anyone can.”

  Demons gut you, Smoothermore, you should know, thought Thorn. Gods, once was enough with you!

  If Thorn had not tried, like a bogbitten idiot, to help the sorcerer, it would have been natural for her to protest. But she had trapped herself with her own mouth. Inwardly cursing them all, herself included—it gave her thoughts something besides fear to work on—she rose, turned her back on the Council, and strode to the door. Flinging it open with a crash that sounded of splinters, she crossed the drafty hall to the prisoner’s room, guarded by a copper-cased oakwood bolt and two nervous spearwomen, Clampen and Sharp, wearing copper headbands, heartdisks, belts, and wristguards. Sharp even had a copper disk sewn near the hem of her tunic.

  My last act as third wallkeeper of this stinking town, thought Thorn, noisily thrusting back the bolt. After a glance around to be sure the other wallkeepers and townmasters were watching her through the open council chamber door, she went into the prisoner’s room. Slamming the door shut behind her, she slid the inner bolt into place.

  “Wallkeeper!” exclaimed Clampen, “if you bolt yourself in—”

  “Dice with Smardon!” Thorn shouted back. “If I can’t even slide a bloody bolt when I’m through, you can let us both rot in here!”

  She leaned against the door a moment, forcing herself to breathe softly, listening for any noises that might tell her how closely those outside were pressing their ears to the wood and how much sound might carry through. Then she turned and had her first look at the sorcerer.

  He lay on the bed naked and spread-eagled, his arms and legs held down by copper clamps, his face turned toward her. He was aroused, and shivering desperately. Maybe it was the cold—the fire had burned to white embers, the winterboard and fur curtain over the window did not keep out all the draft, and the two candles and one oil lamp added little heat to the room.

  Thorn crossed to the fireplace and built up a new fire, putting on the worst-seasoned logs in hopes they would keep up a loud, long snapping.

  The sorcerer looked a few years younger than Frost. Thorn would be surprised if he had passed twenty-five. Both his eyes were blue, but it was not hard to imagine that Frostflower had stared up at her captors with just that same scared look last summer. The thick copper clamps around his wrists and ankles were crusted with verdigris.

  Thorn walked to the bed’s head, careful not to brush against the sorcerer. He turned his face to keep watching her. She thought of the first time she had ever seen Frostflower, sitting huddled at a table beneath the inn stairs to drink her milk in very small sips. Maybe this fellow had been sitting still like that, eating a meatless supper late at night, when the townwarriors clumped in and cornered him at spearpoint.

  His face was thin, but it would have been strong if his eyebrows had been darker and his expression less frightened. His eyebrow ridges jutted very s
lightly, his nose was straight and smoothly tipped, and he was smart to stay clean shaven since his chin was cleft and just about the right size, neither large enough nor small enough to need hiding under a beard. His hair was buttermilk blond, clean and fluffy except near his face where perspiration had matted it. What a waste! the swordswoman thought wryly—this bastard of a sorcerer’s better looking than I am.

  Chances were he intended to follow the custom of his kind—use the last of his power to blast his rapist into premature old age. Thorn had seen that happen. Twice. It helped keep people cautious about molesting other sorceri, and the raped ones thought they were about to lose their power anyway, as soon as they got their first milking or pricking. Was he planning to wait until he actually felt her slide down around him, or might he start withering her at once, even before she took off her trousers, if she accidentally brushed her lips against his ear?

  Crouching, she leaned as close as she dared and muttered, “Keep your voice down. Quiet. I’m not going to milk you.”

  He turned his head toward her so quickly that his cheek scratched her nose. She jumped back, terrified, and fell with a thump. She sat on the floor a moment, trying, even while she cursed herself for a clumsy, skittish cow, to feel her face for premature wrinkles. Then she saw the sorcerer was still watching her with that identical look of fear and nothing else.

  She grinned, imagining how the listeners outside interpreted that noise she had made falling. Quiet, she had told the sorcerer? Well, thank the gods the one concession made to a sorcerer for his maleness was to give him his milking in private. Sorceresses were usually power-stripped with as many looking on as cared to.

  Rolling back up to her haunches, she leaned toward him again, not quite so close this time. “I said I’m not going to touch you,” she whispered.

  A pucker appeared between his eyebrows, but otherwise his expression did not change.

  “Don’t you believe me?…Whisper, mutter—just so you keep your voice down—but answer me!”

  He shook his head slightly and moved his lips. At that moment the fire popped loudly.

  “What?” said Thorn.

  He whispered, “Closer!”

  “You want me to bend down closer?”

  He nodded.

  “My ear to your mouth?”

  Another nod.

  “Unh.” She thought it over. His head wasn’t clamped down. She could picture a sudden movement, his teeth in her ear, the contact giving him his chance to shrivel her into a crone. She shook her head. “You can whisper loud enough to let me hear you where I am.”

  He turned his head away from her and stared up toward the ceiling. A tear slanted down his temple.

  “What the Hellbog is it?” Thorn’s whisper almost broke into a full voice. “Mumble up, will you? Don’t you want a friend? Would you rather have some big cow falling down on you right away?”

  “Yes!” He spoke aloud. “You filthy trickster!”

  “Shut up!” she exclaimed. “Azkor’s talons, sorcerer, I’ll get you high enough for one good, wet ride anyway!”

  He shuddered. She thought for a moment he was going to break a few hand bones, pulling at his clamps. She stood back and let him pull, watching the bed quiver beneath him. His face was tear-stained and his nose clogging. He breathed heavily through his mouth, choking on sobs. His prick was pointing straight up, and he probably hated it.

  “All right!” Thorn leaned forward and spoke in a low, harsh mutter. “Gut you, there are people listening outside that door. You made me say it!”

  “Trickster!” he repeated. But at least this time he whispered.

  “What?”

  “You won’t—I won’t—you won’t catch me—with your soft words—then down and off again before—farmers’ bitch, I’ll shrivel you! Oh, no, you won’t trick me and escape!”

  “Warriors’ God!” Thorn stood back and rubbed her chin, staring at him. Well, they were still talking in whispers. That was something. Even as his words gained strength and coherence, he had kept his voice down. She stooped to make one more attempt. “Listen, you idiot. I’m trapped here with you. Now do you want to trust me and relax, or do you want—”

  “Trust! You will not trust me!”

  So that was what he had wanted, trying to get her to put her ear within reach of his mouth. To test whether she would trust him, and, if she did, that meant he could trust her. Or was he playing the kind of game he accused her of playing?

  She found his black robe lying on the floor, picked it up, and spread it over him. Gods, what a simple thing to forget to do for the poor bastard! No wonder he did not see any reason to trust her, lying there cold and naked all this time. “Warmer?” she asked.

  “You have some hatred for your comrades?” he whispered. “You hope to make them think I am stripped, so that I will blast them instead of you as they torture me? Is that it?”

  Grinning, the warrior got a stool and sat down near his head. “Not a bad idea, at that. But I’d prefer to save both our guts. Can you think of any way to do it?”

  He closed his eyes. “God, you people are subtle!”

  Apparently she would have to do everything else and the brainwork, too. Aware she did not have much time left before they got dangerously restless outside, she put another ill-seasoned log on the fire and tried to weigh all the possibilities. It would have helped if there had been any possibilities.

  “Afraid of him, Third Keeper?” came Strongneck’s voice from the other side of the door. “Want me to come in and drop you down on top of him?”

  Thorn walked to the middle of the room before answering. “Want to get blasted with me, Second Keeper?”

  Someone else said something. Thorn could not hear many of the words, but it seemed to be about her having bolted the door from inside. The door clicked and thumped once or twice against the bolt. “Damn you, Thorn,” called Strongneck, “nobody bolts herself in!”

  “Relieved, Second Keeper? Now let me alone if you want the job done! Azkor’s claws, he’s as limp as raw egg yolk! You think it’s easy to get him up? Well, you don’t make it any easier with your bloody banging, you stupid cow!”

  “He was up when we left him,” protested one of the guards. After clamping him down with gloved hands, they would have tickled and thumped him with leather swafflers on the ends of long, copper-plated sticks.

  “Well, he’s down now! So go eat stones and let me work in peace!”

  “Get the dice, Clampen.” This time it was Eaglesight talking. “You have as long as it takes us to play one game of Falling Doubles, Thorn.”

  Thorn picked up one of the swaffling-sticks, which had been left in the corner, and hit it twice against the door so that it made its distinctive, doughy sound.

  Then she returned to the bed, laid the stick gently on the floor, straightened and showed the sorcerer her empty hands. He stared at them, shuddered, and looked away.

  She tried to joggle his brain. “Any ideas?”

  “No. There is no way.” He closed his eyes once more. “What will they do to you if you do not…enfold me?”

  “Probably peel me, at the least, if they find out. Cold weather to go around without your skin, eh? Unless I climbed out the window and…” She stopped and pondered that idea, not too enthusiastically.

  “If you mean well,” he murmured, “trust me…touch me. My hand. Only for a moment.”

  Well, that was the only way out she could see for both of them—through the window. So she would have to touch him sooner or later.

  “Remember,” she whispered, “blast me and you lose your powers. Trust me and we may both have some chance.” She set to work on the clamp that held his right wrist. Even now, as she wiggled the pin out of the hasps and lifted away the wristlet, she avoided contact with his skin.

 
He lifted his arm, elbow resting on the bed, fingers fluttering eagerly for a moment before he spread them out and waited, gazing up at her. When the fire was not cracking or hissing too noisily, she thought she could hear the roll of dice in the hallway outside. Crouching, she wiped her right palm and held it up to the sorcerer’s hand.

  They meshed fingers and held for a few breaths, Thorn relaxing as her heartbeat steadied. If he had been aging her, her heartbeat would have raced into a pumping whir while she touched him.

  Then he sighed and ruined the moment by murmuring, “Farmers’ woman, go ahead. I will not wither you.”

  “Gods and demons!” Breaking the handclasp, she set to work on his other wrist clamp. “You think we’ve got time to screw? Just get your stinking robe around your stinking body.” Freeing his left arm, she moved to the foot of the bed and began unpinning the clamps around his ankles. He sat and gathered his robe up clumsily, pulled it on as best he could. She got another glimpse of his groin, cursed her foolishness, said, “Finish this yourself,” and went to the window.

  The hardest thing about taking down the fur drape and winterboard was doing it quietly. But the lattice beyond the winterboard was heavy pine, with interstices too small for her hand to have reached through and almost as deep as the length of her little finger, the screen set at least a hoehead-length into the windowframe all around.

  “Sorcerer! You can rot through wood, can’t you?”

  He joined her at the window, tying his robe together in front, his fingers shaking. He looked through the screen at the wet, thickly falling snow, and nodded.

  “How long will it take you to rot out this bloody lattice?”

  He slid his hands along it, feeling inside the interstices. “Soft pine…wetted before the freeze—mild freeze, almost at thaw point…Not long. Not as wood goes. I’m good with vegetable matter, even dried.”

  “Can you work with a little noise in the room?”