Gunwitch

by David Michael

  Out of the channel on the other side and still running, still pulling Major Haley along, and him pulling the growing storm that was Janett.

  Chal threw her senses forward as she ran, through the leaves and the flowers and the grass and the roots of the trees, searching for sign of Rose. Any sign at all.

  For long seconds, stride after stride, she found nothing, and doubt and despair grew in the back of her mind. She did not wish to lose Rose, her friend and sister. Through her long travels she had found few sisters among either the pale newcomers or the cousins of her own people. To the former, she was only another native girl, to be ignored or exploited. To the latter, she was not of their sept or clan, so she was forfeit. Rose, though, had been like her, an exile, pushing against the constraints of her world as much as Chal pushed against hers.

  Water flows, the Water Mother had told her time after time. It does not choose its course. It does not ask where it flows.

  Water can be pushed uphill, Water Mother, she had replied. Or carried.

  Yes, child. The ancient face of the Water Mother had showed only the patience of a mother at the repeated nonsense of a child who had not learned to listen. But once you release the water, again it flows, and all your pushing and carrying is for nothing. That is the nature of water: to flow.

  Chal had mastered the waters, but not learned to give herself to them and let them flow. And so the Water Mother had sent her away.

  Go, child. I release you. When you have learned for yourself what I have been unable to teach you, you will return to me.

  What if I die, Water Mother? Before I can return to you? Chal had been found by the Seekers when she was a child, and had no memories of her life before the Water Mother. She had grown up learning about the waters–and wondering about the world beyond Tik’al, and longing to go and see. But her duty had been clear from the beginning. She was to succeed the Water Mother. Why else had she been found and trained? That was why she had hesitated on the last step of the temple and did not place her foot on the path to her future. What if I find … that I do not want to return?

  All waters return to the source, child. Have you learned nothing? The thin shoulders of the Water Mother had shrugged. But, if you are lost, then I will train another.

  Chal had smiled. What if there is no other, Water Mother?

  Water flows, my child. Water flows.

  Those had been the last words Chal heard in her own language, and the sight of Water Mother closing her eyes, nodding her head, then turning to walk back up the tall temple steps, had been the last time she had seen the old woman who was her first sister and the only mother she remembered.

  Water Mother had returned to the waters during Chal’s journeys. Chal did not wish to lose another sister. So she pushed water uphill, carried water to aid her sister.

  As Chal led the major and the girl through the next channel, she finally sensed the footfalls of Rose Bainbridge. Rose was running toward them, head on, retracing her path. She was fatigued, Chal sensed. She had expended herself in her escape, but she was alive.

  Extending her senses toward the camp, Chal found Rose’s pursuers. Maybe one of them was Ducoed, but the rest were wrong, and they moved across the earth in a way that made them hard to count and obscured any sense of humanity that might be among them.

  She felt the lake across the distance between her and Rose and chose where she should would release the water to flow. She increased her pace, pulling the two children with her.

  * * *

  Chal slowed and released the hand of Major Haley in the trees before the lake.

  “Remain here,” she said.

  Major Haley nodded, his face sweating, his breath coming in gasps. The run, and Chal’s need, had exhausted his newfound strength. Janett collapsed at his feet. Janett looked furious, and like she wanted to say something, but could not get her breath. Chal smiled at her.

  “Rose will be here soon. Go with her. I will find you.”

  She turned her back on them and stepped out of the trees. The waters of the lake surged against the shore as she appeared, and lapped almost to her feet, anticipating her call, impatient but deferential.

  Across the lake from her, scarcely visible in the faint light of the stars, Rose appeared out of the darkness of the far trees. Chal smiled when Rose did not pause, but ran over the surface of the lake, her feet making small ripples where she stepped. Rose’s magic, not the water itself, supported her, still Chal could not help but feel again their kinship. Of women in exile. Of women of power.

  Chal stepped forward so she stood in the shallow of the lake’s edge, the water just touching her toes and the soles of her feet.

  The waters trembled in ecstasy at her touch, and their song crashed and roared around her, shaking her to her bones. She trembled too, and fought against the urge to join them, to let go of herself and melt into the waters and be one with them. Her time was still not yet. She was not here to flow with the waters, but to push them uphill.

  Chal pushed and Rose surged forward faster than a horse, no longer having to use her own magic to gain traction. The water held her now and provided its assistance, gave her strength.

  On the far shore, the first pursuers appeared. They were only thin shadows in the starlight, but to Chal the whole world was bathed in blue light. She could see them for what they were, the soulless skeletal corpses of men and women violated by the magic that Chal’s people had created in their arrogance and their ignorance, then tried to contain and bury. Tried and failed.

  The creatures saw Rose on the lake and moved to follow her. The waters did not support them but the creatures did not stop. They splashed forward until they disappeared beneath the surface.

  Chal tasted their taint in the water and spat. She made claws of her hands in front of her, then forced them apart quickly. The waters of the lake responded to her and pulled apart the black creatures in their midst, scattering the twitching parts along the bottom.

  Three small grunzers, trailing sparks of red and wrong, burst out of the trees now. These did not head into the lake, but moved along the bank, coming around, running at full speed. More black figures came out of the forest and followed the grunzers.

  Rose ran into Chal’s arms and nearly knocked her over, but the waters did not let them fall. The waters anchored her feet to the sand of the shore like the roots of a cypress.

  “What,” Rose said, panting, her arms around Chal, hands clutching the back of Chal’s blouse, “are you … doing?”

  “Getting my feet wet,” Chal said. She hugged Rose to her and kissed her cheek, tasting sweat and magic, and pushed Rose’s fatigue into the water, which washed it away. She could not restore Rose’s spent magic, but she could do this much. “The major and Janett are behind me, in the trees. Take them. Run. I will catch up.”

  “I told you to wait,” Rose said.

  “And I told you to run.”

  “Rose!” Ducoed’s voice boomed across the lake as Chal saw him step out of the trees, his pale face visible, and his aura.

  “Go!” Chal said and pushed Rose to the trees, where the woman stumbled but caught her balance and ran to Major Haley, Janett still at his feet.

  In front of Chal, Ducoed’s aura exploded and hot lead and white lightning came out of the sky and struck her in the chest.

  Her arms wide, her feet planted in the water, she screamed as the power burned through her. The waters absorbed the lightning and the surface shone with sparks that dimmed the stars. Chal fell to her knees and nearly toppled face first into the water.

  She regained her balance, sustained by the waters, and did not fall. She could not fall. She was too tired–three days without sleep–and the waters called to her too strongly. She would not be able to resist now if the waters engulfed her.

  She felt fish and plants in the water die even as the flesh of her chest mended itself, forcing the lead ball out of her to fall and ripple the water around her feet, allowing her to breathe again as her strength rep
lenished, brought to her by the water, and she wished she had time to weep for the sacrifices made on her behalf.

  Her senses expanded with her renewed strength and the greater contact with the waters and she saw-heard-felt-tasted-smelled Rose pull Janett up and throw the girl into Major Haley’s arms and send him running away to the north.

  And she felt-heard-saw-smelled-tasted Ducoed calling forth his power again, reloading his pistol for another shot.

  And tasted-felt-smelled-saw-heard the grunzers stomping under full steam toward her, huge black axes raised to chop her down and force her blood to rejoin the waters of the world.

  She reached her left hand toward the oncoming grunzers and felt the water in their boilers and taught them how to breach their iron boilers, and lent them the power to do so. She sensed the shrieking souls, confused by her assault. The first grunzer exploded, and the second, then the third. Hot steam and jagged iron and parts of wretched corpses and wisps of freed, shredded souls roiled and fell around her, striking the sand or splashing into the water to be washed away.

  Across the lake, she heard-smelled-felt-tasted-saw Ducoed bring his pistol in line with her heart for another shot, his eyes penetrating the steam around her.

  Chal stood, forcing her legs to relinquish their contact with the water and to hold her weight. She felt Ducoed’s aim adjust as she moved, his eyes, his magic locked on her heart.

  She pushed the water of the lake at him just as he squeezed the trigger.

  His shot, lead and lightning and white-hot fire, hit her left shoulder as the waters of the lake leaped from their bed and washed over the far bank, crashed into Ducoed and those that stood with him and the trees and those that still rushed to join him. Lightning and fire exploded, throwing her back, out of the water. Through it all she heard trees and bones crack under the force of angry water.

  Her sight dimmed as she flew and she lost sight-sound-smell-taste-touch with Ducoed as both of them were pushed back by the other’s onslaught.

  For the second time in less than a minute, she found herself in Rose’s arms. They had fallen together this time. Rose helped Chal climb to her feet. “Come on, Chal, let’s go.”

  “I … told you … run,” Chal said.

  “And I told you let’s go,” Rose said. She wrapped her left arm around Chal’s waist and supported her as the two of them went into the trees, following Major Haley’s trail north.

  Chapter 11

  Ducoed

  Near Lake Palpa

  1742 A.D.

  Ducoed watched as the izigqila he had chosen was brought forward. The black man was unconscious, drugged, with his legs bound and his left arm bound to his side. He was shirtless, wearing only the short trousers allowed to the izigqilas. Two izidumbus carried him and dropped him where Ducoed indicated. The izigqila groaned but did not wake. One of the izidumbus pulled on the man’s right arm so it was outstretched.

  Mandla, even blacker than the izigqila. stood at the head of the unconscious man and drew his scimitar. He looked at Ducoed.

  “Not yet,” Ducoed said.

  He heard Margaret whimper and looked down at her. Her two izidumbu attendants held her between them while she tried to look at nothing. He could not hurt her, not physically. And he could not have her. She was for another purpose than his carnal pleasures. But there were many ways he could inflict pain on the youngest child of the former Leftenant Laxton. Like now. His own pain would feel all the more intense if she could share it with him.

  “Don’t worry, Margaret,” he said. “I won’t have him killed in front of you.”

  He eased himself back on the pallet of blankets that had been laid out beside the izigqila. He looked up and caught Margaret’s eyes and smiled. She looked away. Then, with his left hand he untied the crude, bloody sling that bound his right arm tightly to his chest. Only able to use that one hand, he was clumsy, but he would do it himself. The Ubasi, his new partners who thought they were his master, knew what he was capable of, but their servants they had sent with him on this quest thought him as weak as the other white men. He would show Mandla and the rest that they underestimated him.

  Ducoed kept his face blank, refusing to show the pain that throbbed in the shattered remains of his right arm as he arranged that arm beside him. Bone fragments ground against one another and jagged edges sawed at muscles and poked through the skin. His right hand, still intact, not even scratched, clutched uselessly at nothing, the fingers twitching with the beat of his heart. He gripped the stock of his pistol with his left hand. He had lost his arm, but he had recovered his pistol.

  Chal. The name flashed in his mind, and the image of the girl’s face. He bared his teeth.

  All he had been able to think about for the past day had been Chal. And when he thought of her he had to grit his teeth against the pain as he tried to clench his fists, imagining her in his grasp, dying as she gasped for breath, his hands squeezing her throat as he hammered her with his cock, crushing her beneath him, finding pleasure from her struggles and release as she died. He could have neither Margaret nor Janett, and Rose he had taken already. But there were no claims on Chal. None but his own.

  Soon, he promised himself. There was business to attend to first.

  He looked up at Mandla, and the warrior’s flat eyes reflected his gaze. “Do it,” he said.

  Mandla nodded. He looked down at the unconscious izigqila. Then, like a controlled explosion of action, he pointed his scimitar behind him, shifted his feet, and brought his arm around in an arc. He seemed to kneel as the scimitar bit into the izigqila’s arm at the shoulder. The blade cut through both flesh and bone in a single stroke, embedding itself in the earth as blood flowed.

  Margaret let out a faint scream, and the izigqila groaned again, but there was no other sound.

  Mandla pulled his scimitar from the earth and wiped it clean of both dirt and blood on the izigqila’s trousers.

  “Now me,” Ducoed said.

  Mandla nodded again, and moved so his feet were near Ducoed’s head. Ducoed looked up at the black man and the long, curved blade of the scimitar.

  Chal had put him in this situation, and he hated her for it. He had focused on Rose as the main threat, and he had ignored Chal. He had underestimated the little native girl. She had surprised him. And she had hurt him. She had survived his first shot, a rare feat. She had healed herself in a flash and destroyed three of the soulgrunzers with just a wave of her hand. Then the water of the lake had risen in front of him, as if standing on its own, then crashed down on him, trying to smash him, to overwhelm him and crush him.

  Such power. How had he not seen it?

  “Margaret,” he said, so the little girl would look at him, see him.

  The scimitar flashed again. He felt only a slight tug as the muscles and bone of his right shoulder were parted. Only seconds had passed when he saw Mandla over him again, holding the scimitar as it dripped his blood.

  He heard Margaret scream again, louder this time, and he laughed at the sound even as the pain of his amputation reached his brain.

  Squeezing the pistol, he focused on that, and drew forth his power. He felt the tingle of electricity in his muscles and exhaled ozone-laden air. He forced himself to sit up, to leave his right arm on the ground behind him. “Bring me the arm,” he said, the muscles of his face a tight mask.

  He saw Margaret trying to cover her eyes, so she could not see Mandla pick up the severed arm of the izigqila, but the izidumbus held her arms. He laughed again.

  Mandla brought him the arm and knelt beside him.

  “Place it,” Ducoed said through clenched teeth, “against my shoulder.”

  Mandla matched the sliced ends and pushed them together. The pain that stabbed into Ducoed brought tears to his eyes and he thought he felt the enamel of his teeth flake under the pressure of his jaw. Blackness whorled around his peripheral vision and tried to overcome him. He resisted, refused to go unconscious. He drove back the darkness with electric brightness, and
pushed his power into his new arm.

  More pain, and resistance, as his body refused to accept this new member.

  Ducoed stared at the black hand with its yellow-brown palm and commanded it to clench. The fingers twitched.

  Rose had healed his lashes and broken bones time and again throughout their training at the King’s Coven. She had tried to teach him, but he had refused to learn. Healing was not power. Neither, he had discovered, was lying on his back, staring at the sky as his blood leaked from the wounds of multiple gunshots, waiting for the nursemaids of the 102nd to reach him. By then it was too late to ask Rose for her help. But the 102nd was full of women who he could, and did, tap as he recovered from the disaster of his first campaign.

  Muscles and sinews and veins and arteries began to twine and combine. Marrow and bone bridged. The pressure in his mind and in his chest grew, pushing against the inside of his skull and squeezing his heart. He had never attempted anything like this before and the strain threatened to consume him. He no longer focused on channeling power into the new join. Now the healing pulled, and he fought to not be consumed by his own electric magic.

  His new black hand formed a fist and the muscles of the arm bulged and the whole arm shook.

  Healing was not natural for him. The methods of the 102nd were so … weak. Even the few men in the 102nd used methods reminiscent of fairy godmothers. But, after forcing himself to learn the basics of empathy and nurturing, Ducoed found he could command his body to heal itself. As long as he pushed enough power into the injury and he could stand the strain. Or share the strain with another.

  Mandla, who had remained beside him, holding the arm in place, now shifted to move away from him. The black hand closed on Mandla’s wrist and prevented the movement. And opened a conduit into the warrior’s strength.