The Whitefire Crossing - By Courtney Schafer Page 0,51
the time Cara called a halt to the search. Meldon waved her over to the last intact wagon for a long conference. Jerik and I sat silently, watching and waiting as men straggled back to their wagons. I spent the time turning over theories, none of them good.
Most of what I knew of spellcasting came from street rumors and kids’ stories, not the most reliable of sources, but I’d always heard magic took a lot more work than using the Taint. I’d been with Kiran all that morning. Surely if he’d cast a spell to trigger the avalanche, I’d have noticed. But the more I considered, the more certain I became that Kiran’s enemy was responsible for the slide.
Kiran had jerked upright like he’d sat on a pin, before the crack had sounded. Maybe he’d sensed the magic, somehow. He’d let me carry him out of harm’s way—but then he’d had the idea to use the slide to kill Pello, and run back to cast his own spell. The only part I wasn’t sure of was what had happened to kill the mules and men. Maybe Kiran’s enemy had sent along a death spell just in case the avalanche wasn’t enough to destroy his target.
Cara returned, her face set in hard lines. “Ten men died in the avalanche, and six others were found dead mid-line. The drovers report twenty dead mule teams and four dead horses. Seven men are still unconscious including Kellan and Harken, six were unconscious for a while but woke up while we were searching, and as many as thirty more are complaining of feeling weak and sick.”
She looked back to where Meldon stood, his gray-haired head lowered and his thick arms crossed. “Some of the drovers are afraid of another avalanche and want to retreat to Ice Lake to get out of the slide zones. I told Meldon the avalanche debris is thickest behind us, so I recommend going on to Pero Lake in the next cirque over. I estimate it’ll take us a day to fix an onward route, and two or three days if we tried to get through what’s behind.”
The seams in Jerik’s weathered face deepened. “We need to talk,” he said. His eyes cut left and right, as if checking to see if anyone else was in earshot. Cara motioned impatiently for him to go on.
His voice lowered to a growl. “That was no natural avalanche. A layer that deep shouldn’t slide after a night so cold. And you both heard that crack, loud as thunder—no layer would break so loud! More, all these dead men and animals—I’ve seen it before.” He twisted a snow pole in his hands, looking nearly as spooked as the charm-clutching drovers. “During the mage wars, in the city. When the mages fought, sometimes afterward there’d be whole areas of animals and people, laid out like they’d dropped in their tracks. Most of ’em dead, but the ones on the edges might just be unconscious for a while. Some claimed the deaths were a deliberate scare tactic, but others said ordinary folk die whenever they’re too close to a powerful spell casting.”
Cara stared at him, a frown line between her blonde brows. “No surprise that magic’s involved here—nobody’s wanted to say it, but we’re all thinking it. But you’re saying somebody here in the convoy cast a spell, and the act of casting killed the men and mules nearby? I’ve never heard of magic working like that.”
“Me neither,” I said. “Hell, there’d be nobody left in Ninavel if people died every time a mage cast a strong spell.” All sorts of mages came to Ninavel, with a multitude of ways of working magic. Purified metals, crystals, wind pipes, complicated formulas and rituals, knives and blood...all those had featured in one story or another. None had mentioned death as a side effect. But if Jerik was right, maybe it happened when a mage got sloppy, casting a spell in a hurry as they must have done during the mage wars. That fit all too well with my theory about Kiran making a snap decision to use the slide against Pello.
“You both know that avalanche didn’t run true.” Jerik’s knuckles whitened on the snow pole. “I figure a mage started the slide and then directed it right where he wanted.”
“Son of a bitch,” Cara hissed. “The bastard responsible for this deserves to be thrown off a cliff.”
I hid a flinch. More than ever, I needed to know the truth