LATE IN THE morning the next day, Silas and Lainie approached a small, neat house on the edge of the town of Piney Ridge, tucked into the foothills forty leagues north of the Gap. It hadn’t been hard to find Adelin Horden once they arrived in the town where her letters to her husband had been posted from; it turned out she had lived there her whole life.
“Ready, darlin’?” Silas asked Lainie.
She gave him a wan smile. Neither of them wanted to be here, but, though he had never met the living man, Garis Horden had been Silas’s fellow mage hunter and Hidden Council ally, and Silas considered it a matter of honor to personally inform Horden’s widow of his death. Lainie, struck with deep sympathy for the woman who had been left to wonder for so long what had happened to her husband, had insisted on coming with. “Ready as I can be,” she answered.
“Let’s get this done, then.” The sooner they got it over with, the sooner he could stop dreading it, and the sooner they could put more distance between themselves and the Gap. Now that they weren’t hiding among a hundred or more drive hands, with his shields lost among the copious amounts of magical power being freely used by the mages at the market, he felt dangerously exposed. Lainie had warned him about her friend’s husband’s threats, but he was less worried about a gang of Plains than he was about the large number of mages still at the Gap.
They rode up to the house and dismounted, looping Mala’s and Abenar’s reins around a fence post. Silas took his knapsack from where it hung from his saddle, then they went to the front door and knocked.
A moment later, the door opened to reveal a short woman with a compact, curvy figure, wearing a spotless white apron over a neat blue print dress. Her dark brown hair, done up in a tidy bun, had a few strands of gray, and faint lines marked the corners of her eyes and mouth, but Silas guessed she wasn’t older than thirty or so. Life in the Wildings was hard on women.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
A lump of ice seemed to have settled in Silas’s stomach and another in his throat. He forced himself to speak. “Mrs. Horden? Adelin Horden? I’m Silas Vendine, and this is my wife Lainie. May we come in for a moment?”
She glanced at Lainie. Seeming reassured by the presence of another woman, she said, “Why, yes.” She sounded puzzled, and a bit wary, but she stepped aside and let them in.
Silas stopped just inside the door, not wanting to intrude any further. “Mrs. Horden, I… Well, there’s no good way to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it. It’s about –”
She went pale. “It’s about Garis, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.”
“He’s… he’s dead, isn’t he?”
His throat tightened, and the next few words were some of the hardest he’d ever had to say. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“I thought – I was afraid, when I didn’t hear – Oh!” She dropped to her knees and snatched the skirt of her apron up to her face as deep sobs wrenched her body.
A sting in Silas’s eyes joined the ache in his throat. He had no idea what to say or do, but Lainie knelt down beside the sobbing woman and put her arms around her. “I’m so sorry,” she said. Her words trailed off into tears, and the two women wept together while Silas stood by, feeling helpless.
At length, Mrs. Horden fell still. She wiped her face with her apron and stood, Lainie helping her up. “I’m sorry,” she said shakily. “I think I knew – it had been so long since his last letter – but to hear it, and know there’s no hope –” She wiped another tear away with her hand and smoothed her hair. “Well. I suppose it’s better to know than to go on wondering. Please, would you like to sit down for a bit?” She indicated an upholstered couch and chair set, nothing fancy but still a luxury here in the Wildings. Horden must have provided well for her.
“Thank you.” Silas removed his hat and sat in the chair. Lainie and Mrs. Horden sat down together on the sofa, Mrs. Horden gripping Lainie’s hand as though it was a lifeline.
“I don’t know if I want to know what happened to him,” Mrs. Horden said, “but I have to ask… Do you know?”
“I didn’t see him killed,” Silas replied, “but I found his body immediately afterwards. It was in Ripgap, down in the Bads. It was quick, and he didn’t suffer.” That wasn’t entirely true, but the lie was out of kindness. Horden’s death had been quick, true, but it had also been brutal, and it wouldn’t help Mrs. Horden to know that her husband had been tortured as well. “I made sure he had a proper burial, with the right prayers spoken.”
“Do you know… how he died?” She twisted both of her hands in her apron and didn’t look at him.
Silas decided to spare her the more horrifying details. “He was murdered by a man named Orl Fazar.”
“Murdered!” she gasped. “But why? He was such a good man; who would want to kill him?”
“I’m sure you know, ma’am, the Wildings can be dangerous for any man, good or not.” Silas had debated whether or not to tell her the whole truth about Horden. Now, he decided, truth was what she needed; it was the only thing that would keep her from gnawing herself to death over unanswered questions about the man she had married. “How much do you know about what Garis did for a living?”
“He never told me very much. All I know is that sometimes he would tell me he had to go away for a while to take care of some business, and he didn’t know how long he would be gone. When he was away he wrote to me whenever he had the chance, but he never told me what he was doing. I asked him about it a few times, and he just said I would be happier not knowing. I got the impression he was a bounty hunter, or a lawman of some sort. It couldn’t have been anything wrong or criminal, could it?” Her eyes and voice pled with him to tell her it wasn’t.
“Nothing like that, Mrs. Horden. He was a good man. Never let yourself doubt that. You’re right that he was a bounty hunter, though he never hunted bondservants or other innocent people. You can rest assured of that. But there’s something else, that might come as a shock. Your husband was a wizard.”
She sat stunned and silent for a moment. “A – a wizard? But he was such a good man. I had no idea –”
“There are a lot of bad wizards, but there are some good ones, too. Like my wife. And myself, I hope.”
“You’re wizards, too?” She shifted nervously, glancing from him to Lainie. Then, with obvious effort, she collected herself, settling herself firmly in her seat, folding her hands in her lap, and meeting his eyes again.
“We are,” Silas said. “And I think you know that by telling you this I’m putting our lives in your hands.”
“Yes. Of course. It’s just… All the bad things they say about wizards, but Garis was none of those things – We were together for ten years and more. I knew him. Wizard or no, he was never anything but kind and gentle and fair.” She clutched her apron with both fists. “Tell me the truth – was he hanged?”
“No, ma’am. The man who killed him was also a mage, a wizard. It’s a long story, but I want you to know what kind of man your husband was, what he believed in and what he died for. Garis, like me, was a mage hunter, authorized by the Mage Council in Granadaia to hunt down renegade mages out here in the Wildings. These are mages who come out here in search of wealth and power without regard for the laws that mages are subject to or for the rights and freedoms of the Plain settlers. The Mage Council doesn’t care about the Plain settlers one way or the other; they just don’t want unregulated, uncontrolled mages running wild out here. But some of us do care.
“Horden, like me, was involved with group of mages dedicated to working for rights and equality for Plain people, in opposition to the Mage Council and Granadaian law. The Mage Council, or someone on the Mage Council working on their own, sent Orl Fazar out here to eliminate mage hunters who were associated with this group. Besides your husband, Fazar killed another mage who was part of this group, a man named Verl Bissom, and I was next on his list. My wife managed to kill him first.”
Mrs. Horden looked at Lainie. “You killed the man who murdered my husband?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lainie said.
“He’s dead? Did he suffer?” A startling edge entered the woman’s gentle voice.
Silas spoke up, to spare Lainie from having to recall too much about their time with Fazar. “He experienced a considerable amount of discomfort before Lainie was done with him.”
“Good,” Mrs. Horden said vehemently.
Silas reached down for his knapsack. “I’ve got a few things for you.” He took out Horden’s pack, which he had kept all this time, along with a couple of letters and Horden’s mage ring. “Here are his belongings, which we found with his body.” He handed the pack to Mrs. Horden, who cradled it to her bosom. Then he gave her the letters. “This is the letter he was writing to you at the time of his death, and your last letter to him. I’m sorry to say he never got it; we found it at the Bentwood Gulch mail depot when we were trying to track you down.” He had decided to keep back the torn letters, to spare her the knowledge that her husband’s killer had handled and maybe even read them.
Mrs. Horden unfolded her husband’s last letter to her. As she read it, her face crumpled and she began crying again. When she finished reading, she held the letter to her heart for a long time.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said, wiping tears from her eyes.
“I’m the one who’s sorry, ma’am, for having to bring you bad news,” Silas answered. He held out Horden’s silver ring, set with a clear blue-green stone. “This was his mage ring.”
Mrs. Horden took it. “I know this ring. He always wore it as his wedding ring, though I hadn’t given it to him. He said it was a family heirloom.”
She was wearing a wedding ring, a plain gold band, on her left hand. “I think you’ll find that if you’d like to wear it, it’ll fit,” Silas told her. Mage rings lost their magical properties at the death of their owner, but Silas had set a new resizing spell on the ring right before they came here, which could be removed if she didn’t want to wear the ring after all.
Mrs. Horden slid the ring onto the fourth finger of her right hand, then gasped. “You’re right. It fitted itself to me. Like – like it belongs –” She broke down crying again. “At least I’ve got something of him besides his letters. In ten years, we never had a child. I suppose I can’t…”
“It isn’t that,” Lainie said.
Mrs. Horden looked at her. “What do you mean?”
Silas took up the subject. It was a delicate thing for a man to discuss with a woman not his wife, but better he did it than Lainie have to talk about something that pained her so. “In Granadaia, when mage children begin to mature, a spell is placed on them to block their fertility. It can’t be removed until they enter into a marriage approved by the Mage Council. It’s to manage the bloodlines, since magical talent is a family trait. Horden would have had that spell placed on him as a boy, and if he never married in Granadaia, it was never removed.”
After another long silence, Mrs. Horden said, “He could have told me.” Her voice was raw with pain. “Why didn’t he ever tell me about himself? Didn’t he trust me?”
“I’m sure he trusted you,” Silas said. “But the knowledge that someone is a mage is dangerous, both for the mage and for the person who knows about him. I believe he was trying to protect you by not telling you.”
“I hope that’s why, and not because he was afraid I wouldn’t love him if I knew. I would have loved him no matter what… But now I’ll never have the chance to tell him that.”
“I think he knows,” Lainie said. “I’m sure he looks in on you from the heavens whenever he can.”
There was nothing else to say after that. Silas stood up and put his hat back on. “We need to be on our way now, Mrs. Horden. Things being the way they are, it isn’t safe for us to stay too close to the Gap for too long.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Horden stood as well. “Thank you for coming this far to tell me about Garis and bring me his things. It was kind of you.”
“If you ever need anything,” Lainie said earnestly, “write to my father. Burrett Banfrey, in Bitterbush Springs. His place is the Double B ranch. I know it’s a long way away, but if you tell him we’re acquainted, he’ll do anything he can to help you.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Horden said as she saw them to the door. “I’ll remember that.”
Outside, Silas and Lainie unhitched their horses from the fence. Silas got ready to mount up, but Lainie stood leaning against Mala, one hand wound into the horse’s mane, her shoulders hunched and shaking. Silas had known that this errand would be hard on her tender heart, but it must have been even harder than he had realized. “Darlin’?” He touched her shoulder.
She spun around. “Don’t you ever leave me!” she cried.
He closed his arms around her. “Lainie –”
“Don’t you die and leave me alone like that!” she wept, pounding her fists against his chest.
“Lainie. It’s all right.”
“I don’t care where we go, or what I have to give up. I just want to go somewhere where I won’t have to be afraid of you getting killed.”
He held her close, feeling the dampness of her tears through his shirt. Finally she understood how he felt about the possibility of losing her. Somehow, though, he didn’t feel like he had won. “We’ll head west, and talk about it along the way,” he said. It was a decision to be made with clear and careful thought, and now that he found himself faced with making it, he couldn’t help questioning himself. It was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? He had vowed to keep her safe, and this was the only way.
She nodded against his chest. “I’ll go wherever you think is best. So long as you’re safe, I don’t care.”
* * *
SILAS AND LAINIE rode away from Piney Ridge, setting their course southwest across the Long Valley. Their plan was to cross the Gap River at the place where it flowed out of the Valley through a narrow canyon between the Ghost Hills and the Sundown Hills. From there, they would continue south to Sundown Pass, then leave the Valley and head west. Compared to going north through the Bottleneck, this route would cut a good three months off the journey to where the wagon caravans departed to cross the plains to Amber Bay, and it would avoid the more heavily-populated areas of the northern Wildings. Riding past the Gap on their way south would be risky, but if they kept to the west side of the Long Valley, that would put a safe distance between them and the mages at the pass.
The grassland here, away from the Gap, wasn’t as lush as in the valley right below the pass, and with the dry, hot early autumn weather setting in, the way was dusty. They rode slowly to save the horses’ strength and avoid raising the dust, while Lainie’s thoughts jumbled through her mind as she tried to come to terms with the decision she had just made.
They would be turning their backs on protecting people like Adelin Horden and Paslund and Mr. Nikalsdon and her Pa. She would never see her Pa again; not that she could ever go back to Bitterbush Springs, anyhow. They could invite him to go with them, but she knew he would never leave his ranch, not after he had worked so hard to build it up from nothing, not after he had already lost one home and inheritance when his mother robbed her own family of their land.
And she would never have children. But she had known for a while that this was a vain hope; she just hadn’t wanted to admit it. The Mage Council never would have approved their marriage. There was the wishcatcher the A’ayimat woman Kesta had given her, with its promise that somehow a hidden way would be found, but it was hard to believe in such a vague promise. Would the wish even work if they were going to a land where there was no such thing as magic? What of adopting an orphan – were foreigners allowed to adopt children in those lands across the sea?
On the other hand, they were leaving behind people like Landstrom and Flania’s husband and Mrs. Bington, and the hands who had bragged about hanging wizards and the people who had tried to hang her in Bitterbush Springs. They were leaving behind mage hunters and assassins and the Mage Council. Much as it broke Lainie’s heart to think of going away, she couldn’t banish the memory of Adelin Horden’s grief and of Garis Horden’s lonely grave far away in the hard, barren dirt of the Bads.
Still, they were turning away from what they believed in, and giving up all hope of having children or seeing her Pa again…
A thought came to her. “I’d like to write to my Pa,” she said to Silas. “Tell him where we’re going, and ask him to go look up Mrs. Horden sometime if he’s over this way on the drive.”
Silas glanced at her. “You aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?”
She shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I? She’s a widow, and my Pa’s a widower, and neither of them are that old –”
He gave her a crooked grin. “Mrs. Horden’s no older than I am. Younger, I’d say.”
“Well, yeah –” It was easy to forget that Silas was so much older than her, thirty-three to her twenty. “I mean, my Pa’s not that old, and not too bad-looking. They could have a baby or two, and then Pa would have someone of his blood to leave the ranch to.” That would ease her conscience a little, at least in the matter of her Pa.
“Let’s get away clear from here, then we can stop and send a letter at Sundown Pass. There’s a mail depot there.”
“Yeah, let’s do that as soon as we can.”
As the day wore on through the afternoon, they continued south and west, angling towards the hills. Silas kept up a constant survey of their surroundings, while Lainie went on trying to convince herself she had made the right decision.
“What’s that?”
Silas’s voice after what must have been a couple of hours of silence startled Lainie out of her thoughts. He was looking back over his shoulder, peering into the distance. She turned to see what had caught his attention. To the southeast, back in the direction of the Gap, a cloud of dust hung low in the air. After several heartbeats, Lainie realized that whoever was stirring up the dust was heading towards them.
“Riders,” Silas said.
Now Lainie could see the shapes of men and horses in the cloud of dust. Five or six of them, she guessed, and coming on fast. Gralen and his gang? Or – She reached out with her mage senses and was slammed with the presence of power. Fear clenched at her insides. “Mages,” she said.
“And not even trying to hide it. Ride straight for the hills.”
They both kneed their horses into a gallop, heading directly west now rather than southwest, lengthening the angle between themselves and the hunters coming from the southeast. Lainie leaned forward in the saddle and urged Mala on as fast as the mare could run while Silas and Abenar kept pace beside them on the left. If they could make it to the hills, maybe they could lose their pursuers in the rugged landscape or seek refuge with the A’ayimat. It was so far, though; a good thirty leagues lay between them and the safety of the hills. The horses would tire long before they made it that far. But then, so would the hunters’ horses. She and Silas would make it to safety, Lainie repeated over and over to herself as she rode. They had to.
A blast of magic exploded between them, sending grass, rocks, and dirt flying into the air and pelting down on them. Startled, Mala veered to the right while Abenar shot off to the left. Lainie struggled to bring her panicked horse around and close the widening distance between her and Silas, then a second blast sent Mala running even faster in the wrong direction.
Silas reined Abenar around, riding to put himself between Lainie and the hunters. “Ride!” he shouted over the pounding of the horses’ hooves. “I’ll hold them off!”
Lainie couldn’t leave him to face them alone. She fought again to turn Mala back. “No!”
“Ride, damn it!” Silas bellowed.
He sounded angrier than when he had yelled at her the day the rustlers came around – and scared, as well. The tight, sick feeling inside Lainie got even worse. She looked back at him; with Abenar at a full gallop, he twisted around in the saddle and shouted several Island words as he made a sharp gesture with his left arm. A high, wide shield of shimmering blue light, that must have cost a great deal of power, appeared between him and the pursuing mages –
And shattered under the onslaught of four blasts of magic hitting it all at once. In the next breath, a fifth blast arced over Silas’s head and landed between him and Lainie in a huge upheaval of rocks and dirt.
Mala’s terror spurred her ahead even faster, leaving Silas farther behind. The hunters were trying to separate her and Silas, Lainie realized. They were pushing her away from him; it was him they were after, not her. She had to get back to him and help him, but Mala was racing in a breakneck panic and it was all Lainie could do to hang on to the reins for her life.
Behind her, she heard Silas shout out more words in the Island language; more magical explosions followed, then gunfire. Desperately clinging to her terrified horse, Lainie dared another look back. Silas turned in his saddle as he raced ahead of the pursuing hunters and fired his gun. A hunter tumbled from his horse. Lainie reached out with her mage senses, trying to grab hold of power from one of the hunters, to take it or suppress it. A wall of power slammed her away, almost as though they had expected her to try that. The attack jarred her magical and physical senses; she collected herself just in time to veer Mala aside from a rough, rocky patch of ground that would have twisted the mare’s leg.
Yet another gunshot rang out. Lainie looked back again to see Silas sagging forward in the saddle. He twisted around and fired again, then his body jerked as another shot, and another, and yet another hit him in the back. He fell from the saddle to the ground, and Abenar ran on, riderless.
“Silas!” His name tore from Lainie in a painful scream. She beat her heels against Mala’s sides and pulled on the reins, desperately trying to turn around to get to him before the hunters did. A giant ball of magic crashed into the ground beside her and sent her and Mala tumbling. She hit the dirt painfully hard, and darkness exploded around her.
* * *
SLOWLY, LAINIE’S SENSES cleared. She was lying crumpled on the ground. Cautiously, she sat up; everything hurt, but nothing seemed to be broken. With a sudden stab of alarm, she looked around for Mala, fearing to find her horse fatally injured. The brown mare was a few measures away, working herself back to her feet. She didn’t appear to be seriously harmed, thank all the gods.
And Silas… Lainie spun around to see a cloud of dust to the south and east, growing smaller as the hunters headed back towards the Gap.
“No!” she sobbed out. The only reason they would be riding away was because they had finished what they came to do.
She crawled over to Mala. Hanging on to the stirrups and saddle, she dragged herself to her feet. Mala’s sides were heaving and frothy. The horse would never be able to catch up with the hunters; she was too exhausted to be ridden at all right now. Leading the mare by the reins, Lainie started walking back to where Silas had fallen, her legs cold and weak, her insides churning with fear of what she would find.
She stopped before a puddle of blood on the dirt and trampled grass. His hat lay nearby, abandoned. He was gone.
The last of Lainie’s strength left her. She dropped to her knees next to the blood. With numb, shaking hands, she picked up his hat and crushed it to her heart. “Oh, Silas.” Pain like nothing she had ever felt before swelled inside her till she thought it would tear her in half. “No!” Deep sobs wrenched her whole body, and she doubled over, crying, lost in a dark, boundless grief.
She wept until she had nothing left inside and her tears had run dry. Her hands still clutched Silas’s hat to her breast. Though an occasional silent sob still shuddered through her, she forced herself to sit up straight. She’d had her cry, and now it was time to face the situation.
The hunters had taken him. If he was dead, they would have taken his ring as proof of the kill so they could claim the bounty on him, and left his body. She couldn’t think of any reason why they would go to the trouble of taking a dead man all the way back to Granadaia. So, he had to be alive. And they must want him alive for some reason; else why bother carrying a wounded man back through the Gap? Why not just finish him off and take his ring?
So, that meant he was captive. And that he needed her help.
Abenar had come back while she was crying. He whuffled and nosed at her head, as though agreeing, He needs our help. Silas had put keeper charms on his horse, his hat, and his water bottles, to ensure that they never got lost. Once, only half in jest, he had threatened to put a keeper charm on Lainie as well, but they didn’t work on people. Lainie didn’t know over how far a distance keeper charms would work; would they fail if the charmed object and its owner were too far apart? Whether they did or not, she would make sure that his horse, his hat, and his water bottles, and she herself – on whom he had cast the most powerful spell of all, the spell of his love and devotion – were reunited with him.
“They can’t take you from me, baby,” she said. She looked at his blood, thickening and soaking into the ground. If she was going to go after those hunters and rescue him – and she would, all the way to Granadaia or even to the ends of the world if she had to – she was going to need help. The Wildings was her land; the magic of its life, its earth, was bred into her blood and bones, just as she and Silas were bound to each other’s hearts and souls. She was shaped to take and use the power that flowed through the ground just beneath her. The Sh’kimech were there as well, dark, powerful, and dangerous, but they claimed her as their Sister and bowed to her command.
She set her hand in the patch of blood, palm flat against the ground, and reached down into the earth, through warm amber then farther down to the cold, lightless realm of the Sh’kimech. I need your help, she told them. He’s mine, and they’ve taken him away from me. Help me get him back.
They stirred eagerly at her words. Sister. If he is yours, then he is ours too. We will bring him back. And destroy the ones who took him.
Yes, she promised.
She drew them in along with the warm, bright earth-power of the Wildings, filling herself with magic until she could hold no more. With her own power, she tamped down the Sh’kimech deep inside of her. Sleep until I need you, she told them. Then she wrapped the Wildings earth-power around them, shielding herself from their soul-chilling presence.
The day of the storm, the Wildings power had drained out of her when she wasn’t using it. Now she needed a way to bind it inside her until she was ready to use it. She looked at her hand, covered with blood and dirt mixed together in a thick mud. Silas had taught her that blood, like words, gestures, and written symbols, could be used to bind magic, though to use blood for this purpose was a deep and dire thing, to be done only when necessary, for spells and vows thus bound were unbreakable.
Now, she thought, it was necessary.
Joiner, Mender, Defender, Avenger, help me, she prayed. Whatever it takes, I will get him back safely, or avenge him if he’s dead. She reached inside her shirt and smeared Silas’s blood and Wildings soil onto her breast, over her heart, binding the power of the Wildings and the Sh’kimech within her and sealing her vow.
Renewed strength and determination filled her. She wiped the rest of the bloodied dirt from her hand on some grass nearby, then stood. Taking stock, she noted that Abenar’s saddlebags were undisturbed and Silas’s knapsack still hung from his saddle. So, in addition to her own things, she had all of Silas’s belongings and supplies and his half of their money. Tenderly, she rolled up Silas’s hat and tucked it into his knapsack.
She judged the horses still too tired to carry her. They could walk for now; the hunters’ horses would also get tired. As well, the sun would be setting soon. But even if the hunters had remounts and could light their way through the dark with mage lights, Silas hadn’t gone down easily, and they had to be feeling the effects of the fight. Walking wouldn’t lose her too much ground, and it was better than pushing these good, brave horses to the point of uselessness or worse. They could walk longer into the night than tired, burdened men could ride.
She took Abenar and Mala by the reins. “Come on, let’s go find him.” Leading the horses, with the lowering sun behind them and their shadows lengthening across the valley ahead of them, she started walking south and east, towards the Gap and Granadaia.
THE END
Thank you for reading
To the Gap
Please consider leaving a review;
they are very much appreciated!
To stay informed of new releases and special offers,
please sign up for my email alerts
To view the complete catalog of my books,
please visit http://www.kyrahalland.com/books.html
Read on for a sneak preview of City of Mages,
Book 5 of Daughter of the Wildings!
Riding Mala at a gentle pace and with Abenar trailing along, Lainie arrived at the Gap late in the afternoon the day after Silas was captured. Even now, several days after the end of the annual cattle market, the cattle were still still heading into the Gap, one herd of a thousand head at a time, on their way to Granadaia. Looking at the number of cattle still waiting in the broad valley at the mouth of the pass, Lainie guessed it would take at least another two days for the rest of the cattle to enter the pass. She had no idea how long it would take for them to cross all the way through the Gap. Some tents still stood around the market grounds, where men were counting the cattle and making notes on pieces paper nailed to writing boards while cowhands watched over the herds.
There was no sign of the hunters who had taken Silas. Lainie had spent the seemingly endless night walking the horses until she just couldn't go any farther, then she had tried to rest for a short time. In her mind, over and over, she had seen Silas shot from the saddle; the awful memory had made sleep impossible, so as soon as she had regained enough strength, she was up and moving again. The horses seemed rested enough by then that by trading them off she was able to ride them back to the Gap. Now it looked like the long night of moving ahead with little rest hadn't allowed her to gain on Silas and his captors.
She rode over to the nearest of the men who were making notes. "Excuse me, mister?"
He gave her a quick glance, a disdainful look on his dark, sharp-featured face, then went back to his paper. "The hiring foreman is somewhere over there, but I believe they have enough crew already." He spoke in the crisp, clipped accents of an upper-class Granadaian, and a broad gold ring set with amber flashed on the forefinger of his right hand as he wrote. He was wearing the fanciest greenfoot suit Lainie had ever seen, modeled after the workclothes worn by cowhands but of fine materials and elegant cut, with shiny buttons and fancy, colorful top-stitching and embroidery. The crown of his green-dyed straw hat rose twice as high as any real cowhand's hat. Even the gun holstered at his hip was fancier than any real gun would be.
"I'm not looking to hire on," Lainie said. "Some bounty hunters shot my husband and took him." As she described what had happened, her heart started to race with panic and she thought she might start crying again. She still couldn't believe what had happened. She fought to get herself under control, and went on. "They were headed this way. Have you seen them?"
"Yes, we let them into the pass a few hours ago. Normally it's closed to traffic until all the cattle have gone through. Their business was urgent; they'd captured an escaped bondservant, and were in a hurry to return him to the owner of his contract."
"That wasn't a bondservant, that was my husband!"
"How unfortunate." He sounded like there was nothing in the world he could care less about.
Lainie wheeled Mala and Abenar around to follow the next bunch of cattle through the Gap, but the man ordered her, "Wait."
She looked around and saw that he had drawn the gun, and was aiming it her like he knew how to use it. It would to foolish to assume that he didn't.
"I told you," he said, "the pass is closed to traffic until all the cattle have gone through." He gave her a hard little smile. He was enjoying this.
Well. She wasn't just some Plain that someone like him could boss around. Lainie took her ring from her wedding finger and slid it onto her right forefinger, and let enough power flow to it to make it glow rose. "Listen to me. I'm a mage. So's my husband."
"Then he was taken by mage hunters, which means he's wanted by the Mage Council. And I am most certainly not going to get involved in a matter like that." He cocked the gun. "You can do whatever you want, get yourself captured as well, as long as you don't interfere with the passage of purchased cattle through the Gap."
"I thought guns were illegal in Granadaia."
"They are." His grin grew more predatory. "But we aren't in Granadaia."
Getting herself shot wasn't going to help Silas any. Lainie let out an angry breath and turned Mala away from the man. She didn't want to wait. She couldn't leave Silas with those men, hurt as he was, and she couldn't let him fall into the hands of the Mage Council. She had also heard that the highest parts of the pass were usually snowed in for the winter by mid-autumn. She didn't know how long it would take her to catch up with Silas and the men who had taken him, or how far she would have to go, and she didn't want to risk being trapped in Granadaia for the winter. Her guess was that she had a month and a half, or, at best, two, to get in, find and free Silas, and get out before the Gap got snowed in. She hoped it wouldn't take anywhere near that long, but it was best to plan for the worst.
She found a place out of the way, then dismounted and sat down. It had been a long, exhausting night and day for her and for the horses. She wasn't hungry, there was just a cold, aching lump where her stomach should be, but she knew she needed to keep her strength up. So she dug around in her saddlebags for some flatbread and dried fruit, and dutifully chewed on them. They turned to dust in her mouth and she had to wash them down with lots of water.
As she ate, she watched the hands drive the next group of cattle that would go through the Gap over to the road that led into the pass. That pinch-nosed sheepknocker had told her they weren't hiring any more hands to take the cattle through the Gap, but it looked like a lot of work, and anyway, what did someone who was such a greenfoot as to wear a suit like that know about cowhand work?
She stood, brushing off her hands on her pants. Leading both horses by the reins, she went over to one of the foremen who were supervising the hands.
"Excuse me, Mister?"
He turned to her. "What is it?" His weathered, mustached face was much more kindly than the greenfoot mage she had talked to. Lainie felt a bit more at ease; he was one of her people, no matter that she was a mage and he was a Plain.
"I need to get through the Gap, and I was wondering if you need any more hands to take the cattle through."
"We don't usually hire girls for this job. It's hard work."
"I worked the drive, as a cook and a trail hand. I've been doing ranch work all my life. Please, I need to get through the Gap, and the man over there said I can't until the cattle are through."
He glanced at the man in the fancy suit. "Much as I hate to agree with that greenfoot, he's right. What're you in such a hurry for?"
"Some bounty hunters took my husband. They shot him down from his horse and took him." Another rush of horror and grief made her eyes sting and her voice falter. "They were allowed through, because it was lawmen's business. But they took him wrongly, and I'm going after him."
"Saw those fellas. Sure looked like they were in a hurry. I was surprised they were allowed in; riding like that could stampede the cattle. In the Gap, that's deadly."
"Please. I don't even need to get paid. I just need to get through the Gap so I can help my husband."
He gave her a look up and down. "You do look like the kind of girl who knows what she's doing around stock. We can always use an extra hand who's good with cattle. Those your mounts?" He jerked his head towards the horses.
"Yes, sir. They're both mine."
"You in good health? The air gets thin at the top, and anyone with a weak heart or lungs won't make it over."
"Yes, sir."
"All right, then." He fished around in his pants pocket and came up with a handful of small pieces of paper and a worn-down pencil. Using his callused palm as a writing board, he scrawled something on a piece of paper. "Name?"
"Lainie Vendine." She put a name-slip charm on her name as she said it.
One bushy gray eyebrow went up. "That so."
Lainie cursed silently. He knew who she was. She should have known he would have heard the rumors about her and Silas, and that the name-slip charm might not work. Nothing to do now, though, but own up to it. "Yes, sir."
"Heard tell that you and that husband of yours are wizards, and that you saved the northern herd from a wizardly storm."
"That's right." She waited for his rejection, and braced herself against the very real chance she would have to fight her way out of there, never mind being allowed up into the Gap.
"Why would bounty hunters take a wizard?"
That he would bother asking questions took her by surprise. "They're mage hunters. He's in trouble with the Mage Council in Granadaia."
"Huh." Then, to Lainie's disbelief, he scrawled her name onto the paper and added his signature. "Any man who's run cross-wise to the gods-damned Mage Council is all right by me. Even if he is a wizard himself. Here." He handed the slip of paper to Lainie. "Go on. When you get through -- if you get through, and I want you to understand that every year we lose a handful of trail hands in the Gap --"
"Yes, sir. I heard my Pa's stories about when he came through. I know it's dangerous."
"Your Pa... Would that be Burrett Banfrey, of Bitterbush Springs? And you're his girl Lainie, that they say ran off with a wizard?"
"Yes, sir. My Pa isn't a wizard, though; I got it from my grandmother." As always, the thought of the wicked, heartless woman who was the source of her talent, who had abandoned and betrayed her family after learning she was a mage, left a bitter taste in Lainie's mouth. But she didn't want her Pa to be in danger with people thinking he was a wizard.
"You don't look much like him, but you've got his strong will. I was sorry to hear about your brother; he seemed a fine fellow. Should I see your Pa sometime, I'll tell him I saw you. I just hope he won't have my hide for letting you go through the Gap after that wizard of yours. Anyhow, when you get to the other side, give this to the folks there and they'll pay you. Hope you catch up to your husband, Mrs. Vendine."
Relief and sudden hope after the nightmare she'd been through swept over her. She opened her mouth to thank him, and started crying instead. Not wanting him to think he'd just hired a weepy pitch-fuss, she wiped her eyes with her shirtsleeves and tucked the paper into her pants pocket. "Thank you, sir. I'm very much obliged."
* * *
Cold and pain filled him, radiating from the right side of his back and behind his right shoulder. In the darkness, voices filled with wordless rage and agony tore at his mind. The cold and pain and darkness reminded him of something, but he could never quite remember what; the answer always seemed to slip beyond his grasp. At times, his captors forced food and drink into him but more often than not he vomited what little he'd taken in back up. The journey seemed endless as he was jostled along on horseback, then moved to something that tilted and swayed, making the sickness already overwhelming him even worse. Shivering uncontrollably, wracked with muscle cramps and nausea, the screaming voices ripping his mind to shreds, he didn't think he would survive the journey to wherever they were taking him. The Mage Council, he remembered during his increasingly rare moments of lucidity
What about Lainie? Had they taken her too? He prayed not; he hoped with everything he had that she had kept going as fast and as far as she could. She had all their money; he hoped she would take it and get on a ship and sail far far away where they'd never find her.
Even these few thoughts had become nothing but tatters in his mind by the time he was hauled out of the latest conveyance he was in and dragged into a building. Pain, cold, darkness obscured his senses so that he couldn't make out his surroundings. People gathered around him, talking; their words were gibberish. He was allowed to collapse to the floor, where he lay curled up in agony.
"Remarkably effective." The voice, deep and rich though unmistakeably feminine, cut through the fog of noise and confusion and sickness with its sharp air of authority. A man spoke, his words unintelligible; the woman answered, "That won't be necessary. It will only make her suspicious. She's a clever girl; she'll figure it out for herself."
She... Lainie. Silas tried to force words from his mouth -- if they did anything to Lainie, he would kill them. But his body refused to obey him.
"He's awake," the man said.
"Ah," the woman replied. Silas was rolled onto his back, and the face of an elderly woman appeared, hovering over him, pale, stern, lined, framed with black hair. Recognition leaped in his mind -- he had seen that face before, but not on a woman. But before he could recall where he had seen it, the sense of familiarity slipped away. "Now, we'll see if this works," the woman said.
Something pressed against his mind, pushing inwards. He felt things ripping loose inside of him, felt himself pushed back, buried in a maelstrom of confusion. Lainie, don't -- he cried out in his mind as he smothered behind a heavy veil of darkness.
City of Mages
Book 5 of Daughter of the Wildings
Coming Soon!
Money and Measurements:
copper bits = 3 per penny
pennies = 3 bits
drinas = 10 pennies
gildings = 100 drinas
Week: nineday. 8 gods/one day per god, All-Gods day
Month: three ninedays plus a Darknight
armlength = 26"
measure = man’s arms spread out, from fingertips on one hand to fingertips on the other hand (72"/ 6 ft)
league = 1000 measures (1.13 miles)
The Gods:
The Provider – giver of what's needful, provider of good crops and herds
The Maker – creation, childbirth, creativity, growth of seeds, increase in herds
The Joiner – bringing separate things together, marriage
The Sunderer – violent death, separations, breaking apart
The Defender – defends, protects
The Gatherer – death, return to origins, harvest
The Avenger – attacks, avenges
The Mender – brings together things that were formerly together then separated, reconciliation, restoration. honesty, integrity, wholeness.
The Dragon's Threes Deck and rules:
7 suits/point multipliers: Sun (4x), Moon (3x), Stars (2x), Earth (1x), Water (2x), Air (3x), Fire (4x)
ranks/points: Dragon (15pts), Mage (14), King (13), Queen (12), Priest (11), Demon (10), Warrior (9), Crone (8), Merchant (7), Hunter (6), Farmer (5), Harlot (4), Begger (3), Joker (2), Death (1)
Straight: pts x 3 (3 cards in a row from same suit)
Level: (3 cards of same rank) pts x 2
Ranking points: number of players -1 x 10. e.g. 7 players: best combo gets 60 points, next best gets 50, etc. Worst combo gets 0 ranking points.
The cards are dealt out evenly, extras are taken out of play and placed face-down in the center of table.
Players lay down combinations of three cards. All chosen combos for the round are placed face down before combos are revealed.
Points earned depend on combos, how good they are compared to other combos. Points may be kept with colored pebbles.
Bets change during play.
Up to 10 players can play at once.
Rules of courtesy:
No smoking at the card table if any of the players object to it.
Onlookers may not discuss the cards in players’ hands (this is a shooting offense).
For maps, character interviews, previews of the other books in the Daughter of the Wildings series, and more book extras and information, visit http://www.kyrahalland.com/daughter-of-the-wildings.html
Beneath the Canyons, Book 1
Cowboys and gunslingers meet wizards in this high fantasy series inspired by the Old West. Silas Vendine is a mage and bounty hunter, on the hunt for renegade mages. He's also a freedom fighter, sworn to protect the non-magical people of the Wildings from ambitious mages both lawless and lawful. When Silas comes to the town of Bitterbush Springs on the hunt for a dangerous rogue mage, he meets Lainie Banfrey, a young woman who is both drawn to and terrified of her own developing magical powers. Though Lainie has been taught all her life to hate and fear wizards, she and Silas team up to stop the renegade who has brought her hometown to the brink of open warfare. The hunt takes them deep beneath forbidden lands held by the hostile A'ayimat people, where only Silas's skills and Lainie's untamed, untrained power can save them and the town from the rogue mage and the dark magic he has loosed into the world.
Now Available
Bad Hunting, Book 2
The town of Bitterbush Springs ain’t big enough for two wizards, or even one, so Silas Vendine, mage bounty hunter, and Lainie Banfrey, mage-in-training, have hit the trail. Then Silas gets word that another mage hunter down in the dry and desolate Bads is on to something big and needs backup. He and Lainie head into the badlands only to find that the problem is worse than they thought... And it’s about to become a very deadly problem for Silas.
Now Available
The Rancher's Daughter, Book 3
Once a hunter of renegade wizards, Silas Vendine now finds himself on the run. He and Lainie are living on what Lainie can win at cards and whatever odd jobs Silas can get from people who need his skills and don’t ask too many questions.
When Lainie’s luck with the cards turns sour, they are led to a meeting with one of the richest ranchers in the Wildings. Brin Coltor wants Silas and Lainie to undertake a dangerous mission into A’ayimat territory for him, and they can’t afford to turn him down. But Coltor is hiding a few secrets of his own, that lead Silas and Lainie right into the trouble they've been trying to avoid.
Now Available
To the Gap, Book 4
With more mages discovering the secret of Lainie's unprecedented magical power, Silas is determined to take her to safety. But they don't have enough money to escape to a place where they can truly be safe, so Silas signs them up to work the big yearly cattle drive. Every summer, thousands of cattle are driven to The Gap, the one pass through the towering mountains that separate Granadaia from the Wildings, to provide the settled lands of Granadaia with fresh meat for another year.
Rumor has it that prices for the cattle will be the highest ever this year, making the drive a tempting target for rustlers. Silas and Lainie quickly realize that the drive also presents an irresistable opportunity for renegade mages to make a quick gilding and stir up trouble. The freedom and prosperity of the Wildings settlers depends on the success of the annual cattle drive, and Silas and Lainie’s lives depend on being able to hide from both the mage hunters who are after them and the mage-hating settlers while saving the drive.
Now Available
City of Mages, Book 5
A nightmare come true, a betrayal deeper than Lainie and Silas could have imagined, that could mean the destruction of everything they love and believe in. Alone in a strange land, with no friends, no allies, no one they can trust, Silas and Lainie have to find a way to escape from their enemies and stop the evil that threatens the Wildings.
Coming Soon!
For the Wildings, Book 6
Silas and Lainie recover from their ordeal in Granadaia, while knowing that an evil is at work that threatens the freedom of the Wildings and that this peaceful interval is no more than a brief illusion. Then the unthinkable happens, the battle begins, and Lainie, the daughter of the Wildings, and Silas, the man she has claimed for herself and for the land, have to draw on all their power and strength – and on the life of the land itself – to protect their beloved Wildings and the people who make it their home.
Forthcoming
from Kyra Halland
In Urdaisunia, a land torn by war and drought and abandoned by the gods, a widowed rebel and a prince walk intertwining paths of danger, love, and war to save the land they both love.
Now Available
A Cure for Nel, And Other Stories
Three short fantasy stories of love, family, greed, ambition, and the desires of the human heart.
Now Available
In a quest that spans centuries, Sevry, the last king of the land of Savaru, searches for the woman who holds the secret to bringing his destroyed homeland back to life.
Now Available
Stodgy Professor Roric Rossony has been asked to find a way to stop the deterioration of the powerful magica. He hires free-spitited Perarre Tabrano to translate books for his research, and finds his life turned upside-down by their unexpected romance and the most important work of his life. When he goes too far in his research, delving into lost and forbidden books, magical disaster strikes, and he and Perarre must flee in search of the secret of the magica's origins.
Now Available
Haveshi, a young wife and mother betrayed by her clan, sets out on a path to regain what she has lost. Latan, a lowly clerk in a magical order, finds himself on a path of unexpected danger and self-discovery, guided by the warrior named Haveshi Yellowcrow. Two fantasy stories set in the same magical world as Chosen of Azara.
Now Available
In a world where music is magic, disgraced musician Sarya dyr-Rusac hears strange and powerful new music on the wind. Torn between the man who loves her, whom she can never have, and a beautiful man in chains who appears in her dreams, begging her to sing him free, she must discover the meaning of the mysterious music she heard before the world itself is torn apart.
Now Available
For the complete catalog of my books,
please visit http://www.kyrahalland.com/books.html
The Log of a Cowboy by Andy Adams http://americanliterature.com/author/andy-adams/book/the-log-of-a-cowboy/summary, considered the most authentic fictional account ever published of a late 19th century cattle drive, was an invaluable source of information on how a cattle drive in the 1880s worked and on the things that happened on a drive, especially the things that could go wrong!
The blog Wild West History http://wildwesthistory.blogspot.com/ was also a great source of information for this book.
Many thanks to Jill and Kellie for reading an earlier version of this book and giving me much-needed feedback.
Also thanks to Mominur Rahman, for bringing Silas and Lainie to life on the cover.
And, most of all, many many thanks to my husband for his love, patience, and support, and to my God for the ability and opportunity to share my stories with readers.