Free The Gift by Alison Croggon

her stomach. They seemed to her the very sound of unlife, of creatures neither dead nor alive, but caught in a tormenting void between, condemned to envy and hate everything that took joy in existence. She shuddered with nausea. Cadvan continued to feed the fire, apparently unmoved. Then they heard the wers bunch together, and Cadvan reached for his sword. “They’re going to rush the barrier,” he whispered.
    Maerad’s pulse was hammering in her ears; she clutched her dagger until her knuckles were white. She listened to the heavy thunder of the wers’ paws, and their breath, and the collisions as they hurled themselves forward; but the barrier held, and they were repulsed, howling. Cadvan relaxed and sat back.
    “First game to us,” he said to Maerad. She saw the flash of his grin through the leaping shadows.
    The wers’ assault on the barrier lasted for more than an hour; they threw themselves again and again at the enchantment, or tried to break it with their claws and teeth. Cadvan and Maerad sat in silence the entire time. Cadvan’s barrier held well; they were not strong enough to break it, and he wanted them to tire themselves in useless assault. He hoped that they would hurl themselves against it all night. Then they stopped their rushing, and he heard one wer, the leader, he guessed, begin to howl; but it was a different howl this time, a thin, almost human wail, with words in it. It started low and quiet, but as time went by, it grew louder and more insistent.
    “The wer leader is making a counterspell,” Cadvan said. “We’re unlucky. It’s rare for a wer to know sorceries.”
    Maerad met his eyes, fear clutching her afresh. “What does that mean?”
    “Either my spell is good, or it is not. There is nothing we can do except wait to see if it holds.”
    Cadvan picked up his sword and waited, tense. Maerad felt the power outside build. It gathered at the weakest part of the barrier, the join; like an evil black blade it tried to force itself into Cadvan’s mind. He fought back, his jaw set, the sweat starting on his forehead, and Maerad watched him with mounting anxiety. The voice built to a crescendo, an unbearable pitch of sound, and then suddenly came a noiseless explosion, a burst of black light, and Cadvan rocked back against the wall with a grimace of pain. But the barrier still held. The wers could not enter.
    Then came a sound Maerad disliked even more: silence. The wers were regrouping.
    Cadvan put down his sword and rummaged through his pack. “Drink something,” he said. He passed her the bottle that contained the herbed drink. “Now we must be vigilant.”
    “What for?”
    “Anything. Anything at all. Sit with your back to the fire. Try to remember that this tower is roofless. The only way they can get in now is from above. The fire will daunt them, but not enough.”
    Maerad grasped her dagger in her hand and sat next to Cadvan, straining to listen. She could hear nothing but the blood in her ears. Dread rose in her heart until she almost wished something would happen, anything, anything to break this horrible suspense. She stole a look at Cadvan. He looked almost serene, his face relaxed, his eyes watchful. She took a deep breath.
    They sat in this silence for what seemed like hours. Every now and then Maerad moved to ease the aches in her body, but Cadvan never stirred.
    “Maybe they’ve gone away,” she said at last. “We’ve heard nothing for ages and ages.”
    “Ssshhh,” Cadvan hissed. “The only thing we can be sure of is that they haven’t gone away.
Listen.
”
    “But there’s nothing to hear.”
    “They will wait. They want our wills to weaken in fear. They feed on our fear. It’s their life, their bread. Starve them! Send your mind out into the night. Use the Gift you have. Send it out into the night. Then you will hear.”
    Maerad wondered what he meant. Perhaps she should . . . Experimentally she gathered up her mind and imagined it past the walls of the