Page 76 of Lord of Fire and Ice

The man blinked once.

“How many men in the house? Blink the number.” When he didn’t respond immediately, Brandr laid the flat of his blade across the man’s windpipe to encourage honesty. “Two, eh? You’re sure.”

The man blinked once emphatically.

“Is there anyone else in the house?”

Another blink.

“The woman you took?”

He blinked once then twice more.

“More women?”

The man started to nod but thought better of it with Brandr’s dagger at his throat. He settled for blinking once more.

“How many?”

The man’s eyelids fluttered several times.

“Lots of women. Maybe children too,” Brandr surmised. He brought the butt of his dagger down hard on the man’s temple, sending him either to dark oblivion and a three-day headache or a more merciful death than he deserved.

Brandr didn’t much care which.

He couldn’t break into the sethus and engage Katla’s captors in that tight space with so many innocents within range of a sword stroke.

He needed to draw the other men out.

In case the man at his feet was only unconscious, Brandr picked up his feet and dragged him a few paces away from the byre. Then he opened the gate and quietly drove out all the mangy-looking stock.

He needed a diversion, and a burning outbuilding would do admirably.

Controlling an existing flame wasn’t so hard a trick, so long as Brandr was able to concentrate on it. He could usually make a blaze burn hot and fiery or subside to smoldering ash with a mere thought.

But calling up fire from nothing…that was another matter entirely. It required a clear head and an untroubled heart, neither of which Brandr possessed at the moment. He was so worried for Katla he wondered if the flames would appear when he conjured them.

“The fire of creation is all around us, bound in the air, hidden between one breath and the next,” the sorcerer who trained him in Byzantium had told him. “If the flames hear your summons, they will come to you, and you can bend them to do your bidding. If they hear you not…”

The old master had shrugged with his palms turned up, a purely Eastern gesture, and cast his gaze skyward. Fire was too volatile an element ever to be wholly under a mage’s control, especially if the mage wasn’t of calm mind.

Brandr extended a splay-fingered hand to the night sky then held it before his chest, sheltering his hand against the breeze. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, trying to empty his mind of everything but the dance of all-consuming light. Then he blew softly on his palm, letting the god who’d made him a fire mage work, if He willed.

When Brandr opened his eyes, a small blue flame flickered in the center of his palm, hovering a breath above his skin. There was no heat, but the fire cast a circle of yellow light around him, shooting beams as if Brandr held a tiny sun in his grasp.

With the speed of thought, the flame arced from his hand to the rotting thatch on the cattle byre. It caught in a heartbeat and sprinted along the sagging ridgeline, standing at attention like a row of fiery warriors waiting the command to charge. He ordered it to work.

He’d give the blaze a few moments to take firm hold, and then he’d sound the warning.

***

“Fire!”

Brandr was in her mind again.

“Fire,” Katla repeated softly then louder. “Fire.”

Tryggr turned to glare toward her corner. “What did you say, wench?”