Wolfsbane by Patricia Briggs Page B

for the sight that met her eyes.
    Scorched earth followed the shape of the fields exactly, stopping just inside the fence line. The wooden fence itself was unmarked by the blaze, which had burned the house so thoroughly that only the base stones allowed Aralorn to see where the house had been. All around the croft, the fields lay pristine under the snow.
    Wolf slipped through the fence and examined the narrow line that marked the end of the burn.
    “Magic,” he said. He hesitated briefly, his nostrils flaring as he tested the air. “Black magic with the same odd flavor of the spells holding the Lyon. Look here, on the stone by the corner of the fence.”
    She stepped over the fence and knelt on the blackened ground. Just inside the corner post, there was a fist-sized gray rock smudged with a rust-colored substance.
    “Is it human blood?” she asked.
    Wolf shook his head. “I can’t tell. Someone used this fire and the deaths here to gather power.”
    “Enough power to set a spell on my father?”
    Before he could answer, the wind shifted a little, and he stiffened and twisted until he could look back down their path.
    Aralorn followed his gaze to see a man coming up the trail they had taken here. By his gray beard, she judged him to be an older man, though his steps were quick and firm. In ten years a child might become a man, but a man only grayed a bit more: She matched his features with a memory and smiled a welcome.
    “Whatcha be doing there, missy?” he asked as soon as he was near enough to speak, oblivious to Aralorn’s smile.
    “I’m trying to discover what kind of magic has been at work, Kurmun. What are you doing here? I thought your farm was some distance away.”
    He frowned at her, then a smile broke over his face, breaking the craggy planes as if it were not something he did often. “Aralorn, as I live and breathe. I’d not thought to see tha face again. I told old Jervon that I’d have a look at his place, he’s still that shook. Commet tha then for tha father’s passing?”
    She smiled. “Yes, I did. But as it turns out, Father’s not dead—only ensorcelled.”
    Kurmun grunted, showing no hint of surprise. “Is what happens when tha lives in a place consecrated to the Lady. Bad thing, that.”
    She shook her head. “Now, that was taken care of long since. You know the family’s not been cursed by the Lady since the new temple was built. This is something quite different, and it may take a few days to discover what. I thought the burning of the farm might have something to do with it.”
    The old man nodded slowly. “Hadn’t thought there was a connection, but there might, there might at that. Have a care here, then. Tha father, he took ill here.”
    “I didn’t know that.” But she could have guessed.
    Black magic had long carried a death penalty. A mage would avoid it as much as possible. It only made sense that the black magic Wolf felt here would belong to the spell on the Lyon.
    “Aye, he come here tha day after it burned. Walked the fence line, he did. Got to the twisted pole over there and collapsed.”
    “Now, that’s interesting,” said Aralorn thoughtfully. “Why didn’t anyone at the hold mention it?”
    “Well,” replied Kurmun, though she hadn’t expected him to answer her question, “reckon they didn’t know. Just he and I here, and I tossed him on his horse and took him to the hold. They was in such a state that no one asked where it’d happened. Only asked what, so that’s all I told they. This is some young men’s mischief, thought I then.” He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the burnt farm. “Tha father was felled by magic. Didn’t rightly think one had much to do with t’other myself. But if tha thinks it so, then so think I now.”
    “I think it does,” she said. “Thank you. Did we lose any people?”
    He shook his head. “Nary a one. Jervon’s oldest daughter come into her time. The missus and Jervon gathered they children and