“No one here, Doyen.” The soldier bowed before Dradus, his gaze on his boots.
Dradus growled under his breath, his anger bubbling to the surface. “Someone tell me how a young woman with no magic and no woodsman’s skills managed to walk into the forest and disappear without any one of you imbeciles noticing?”
The two scouts tasked with keeping an eye on the witch’s hovel hunched away from his wrath and said nothing.
Dradus slashed his riding crop down on the shoulder of the scout closest to him. The man flinched away with a gasp and clutched his injured arm. “Well?” the mage said. “I’m waiting.”
The unharmed scout stepped farther out of striking range before answering. “She must have left when we were in the village,” he mumbled.
Were he not so disliked by Hayden’s army and the general populace of Castagher, Dradus would cheerfully turn both men into torches with a few carefully recited spells. Such an action, however, guaranteed he’d never make it back to the city alive. This troop was loyal to its king, not him. Any unfortunate accident might happen on the return journey. The soldiers assigned to help him find the witch and Varn’s daughter would offer platitudes of false regret and swear each other to silence over their roles in his demise.
He clamped down on his wrath and spoke between clenched teeth. “You were supposed to keep an eye on them and their house, not running your hands up an ale wench’s skirts in the nearby town.” The soldier who offered up an explanation opened his mouth again. Dradus raised the crop in warning. “Don’t bother, unless you want a taste of what I delivered to your companion. You said the witch is dead. Buried or burned?”
“Buried. Not far from here, beneath a big tree. It’s easy to spot. Whoever buried her made sure animals couldn’t dig her up.”
“Well we can. Take me there.” Dradus grinned as both scouts paled. “Pray her spirit won’t hold it against you when you bare her bones to daylight.”
He left the remainder of the troop to ransack the hovel, inviting them to take whatever caught their fancy. The two scouts gazed longingly at the door where soldiers dragged out bedding, meager furniture, pottery and bits of clothing.
“You’ve forfeited the right to the loot,” Dradus said. “Get moving.”
Judging by the look of the cottage, there was little worth taking. He’d already scoured the few books the witch kept on a shelf near her keeping cupboard. They contained nothing of value for an adept of his skill, and his disappointment left him short-tempered. Niamh of Leids had once been a magic user of renown before she disappeared, and Dradus had hoped to find at least one grimoire of powerful spells he could learn and add to his repertoire. Recipes for herbal brews and incantations to counteract toe fungus were useless to him.
The two scouts waited for him near the grave site, a mound of rocks placed beneath the shade of a giant fir. A withered bunch of daffodils offered a splash of color and proof that someone had visited the grave days earlier to pay their respects. Most likely Varn’s daughter, who had vanished into thin air.
He paused for a moment, brought up short by the faintest touch of sorcery unlike any he’d ever encountered. The sensation hummed along his nerves in fits and starts, fickle as a firefly’s light. Just as his senses grasped its essence, it winked out only to tease him a moment later.
“Do you feel that?” he asked the two men with him. They glanced at each other and back at him before shaking their heads. “Of course not,” he said. “Why would you?” Doltish louts, the lot of them. They wouldn’t recognize magic if someone dumped a bucket of the stuff on their heads.
“Start digging,” he commanded. “I want to put a few leagues in before the sun goes down.”
“What do you want us to do once we open the grave?” The unfortunate recipient of the kiss from Dradus’s crop looked ready to bolt for the trees. Superstitions regarding the dead and their vengeance ran strong in most people, and this scout was no exception.
Dradus spotted a log nearby that made an adequate seat and settled onto it. He smiled at the two men, the smile widening as they paled. “Once you open the grave, I want you to get out of the way so Dame Niamh and I can have a little chat.”