Gunwitch

by David Michael

  He stepped up on the ramparts, between the crenellations, and looked down. He saw Chal fighting hand to hand with izidumbus trying to get around the corner of the wall. Margaret huddled behind Chal while Janett raised a rifle and took aimed at the izidumbus. Behind Janett was Major Haley, also lifting a rifle. The major, though, was aiming at him.

  Ducoed brought his left hand around in front of him as the major fired, using the winds he still held as a shield. He had never heard of such a thing before, but as he stood there with the winds in hand, it was the most natural thing in the world. The winds did not stop the bullet, as he had hoped, and he flinched as the bullet grazed his right cheek.

  The pain was nothing compared to the shame of flinching. Ducoed pointed his pistol at Major Haley and unleashed fire. No lightning this time, just pure flame. The fire flowed like water and tried to drown the major, who screamed and dropped his rifle as he fell to the ground. Ducoed watched him roll and slap at the flames, laughing, wondering what Rose would think of the major’s pretty face after this.

  He almost did not notice little Margaret down there, looking up at him, her hatred of him plain on her face, pointing a pistol at him that looked ridiculously huge in her small hands.

  He jerked against the winds again, to his left this time, and harder as Margaret’s pistol fired. He did not flinch this time as the bullet flew wide of him. He laughed as despair mixed with the hatred in her eyes.

  He saw Janett fire at the izidumbu trying grab Chal, then begin a clumsy attempt at reloading. He saw Margaret go to her hands and knees to pick up her dropped pistol. He watched Chal chop at an izidumbu with the edge of her hands and heard the crunch of an arm bone breaking. He bared his teeth in a grin. He had to give up Margaret and Janett to the Ubasi, but there were no other claims on Chal than his own. How he would enjoy–

  As if she could hear his thoughts, Chal’s head came up and turned slightly in his direction. She did not look at him, though. She spun and kicked backward with her right leg and sent the izidumbu with the broken arm over the cliff. Then she stepped up to Janett, grabbed the girl and threw her over the cliff.

  Ducoed’s smile was whipped away by the winds and his laughter died in his chest.

  Chal picked up Margaret and with two steps had launched both herself and the girl over the cliff after Janett.

  “No!” he shouted. He pointed his pistol and pulled the trigger. The striker only sparked since he had not reloaded.

  He had to release his grip on the winds as he reached forward with his magic to create a barrier of raw force between the surface of the river and the falling girls. Janett first, then Margaret, then Chal. He nearly lost his grip on his pistol from the strain of halting the falls of three people. Janett’s fall especially, since she fallen the farthest. The magic pulled against him and tried to pull him off the wall to fall with the girls.

  The magic continued to pull. It did not ease up, even when all three bodies had ceased falling. The muscles on his arms and his chest strained against a resistance he had never felt before. He shifted his stance, trying to brace his feet against the edge of the wall. He pulled.

  It was like pulling on the mooring line of a fully loaded trading skiff. He remembered as a boy being amazed that anything that floated on water could be so heavy and difficult to move. He remembered his father whipping his back, shouting at him, ordering to pull, damn your eyes, pull!

  Ducoed pulled.

  The resistance did not diminish, but it did not gain ground either.

  Braced now and no longer in danger of being pulled off the wall, Ducoed looked down at Janett and Margaret and Chal. The three girls were stopped in midfall. Margaret and Janett looked as he expected, immobilized, caught in the grip of his magic. Chal, though, still moved. He could feel her as she shifted. As her form morphed and grew.

  Chal was the source of the resistance. She was the force that pulled against him, still trying to break free.

  As he watched, Chal’s form became bigger, but less distinctive. She swelled and the edges of her body engulfed her clothes and the pack on her back. As she grew, she became transparent. She became a wave, halted as it tried to break across the river below her.

  The wave-Chal engulfed Margaret, wrapping the girl in wet, pulling the girl into the center of what had once been the native girl, Chal.

  The wave rolled forward, tumbling Margaret within it, reaching for Janett.

  The runes on his pistol burned as bright as the sun and the barrel glowed red from the magic that pumped through Ducoed, through the gun and into the barrier. All the muscles in his body were tensed, threatening to pull him apart.

  He almost let go, refusing to kill himself in his quest for immortality, then he found a new source he could tap.

  Chal herself.

  Images flashed in his mind too fast and too alien to comprehend, but he knew, somehow, that Chal was sacrificing herself to save the girls. She had made a choice, a choice that she could not unmake. A choice that left her vulnerable to him.

  Ducoed smile. He knew what to do with vulnerable women.

  This was not the way he had planned to take Chal, to consume her and kill her. It was so much better.

  The wave that had been Chal, with Margaret in its midst, came to a stop again, before it could reach Janett.

  Ducoed laughed as he felt the raw power coming into him, pulled, taken, pillaged out of what once been Chal the native girl. She really was more than she seemed. More than he could have ever expected.

  He saw Margaret looking up at him through the haze of water that engulfed her. He pulled back his lips to show his teeth in a grin. He no longer needed the Ubasi. Margaret and her sister, the lovely Janett, would be next.

  Chapter 20

  Rose

  Battlefield, Fort Russell

  1742 A.D.

  Ducoed’s laughter still rang in Rose’s ears, mocking her as it had too many times before. She longed for a target to shoot at. Especially Ducoed.

  She stumbled about in the darkness that had wrapped itself around her, shouting for Corporal Rickell or Sergeant Tabart or any of her men. And her pistol. She had to have her pistol. She still had the last pistol she had taken from Rickell, and it was loaded, but it was not her pistol. She would need her own pistol to take on Ducoed. And she would need to rest. Or draw from one of the men. The magic she had already performed had taken a lot out of her, and she had not had a chance to rest.

  She tripped over something–or someone, since it seemed to move against her–and fell forward. The fall took longer than she expected, continuing after she took the first impact on her left shoulder and the side of her head. She flailed with her right hand, looking for the ground, and lost her grip on the pistol as the back of her head struck hard, packed earth at the bottom of what must have been a trench. Lights streaked visible pain across the darkness of her vision.

  The sharp pain in her head, the loss of the pistol, the dirt in her mouth, the smells of fresh earth and death sent her to the edge of panic. She teetered on the edge of losing control. She rolled off her wrenched left arm and into a sitting position. That helped.

  She stood slowly, right hand feeling the side of the trench, left arm curled against her chest. The sounds of the battle seemed muffled, either by being below the battle here in the trench, or because of the darkness. Or maybe from the throbbing pain in her head. She also heard the sounds of a struggle in the trench with her, not far away, in front of her. She thought about moving toward the struggle. Sudden memories of the mud and death in Brittany, though, made her start to back away from it. The trench walls she could not see suddenly seemed to hem her in on all sides. She started to turn around. Then she stopped moving, forced the memories from her mind, and tried to regain control of herself again.

  This was not Brittany, and there was no mud trying to suck her in even as she lay in it trying not to be seen, hoping that the next groundshaking explosion and rain of mud would not be her last. Then, after that blast, hoping t
he same thing again. Then again.

  By comparison, her current situation was almost idyllic. Except for the darkness, which still pressed against her.

  She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She would need to be calm if she were going to go after Ducoed. She took another breath and let it out slowly. If she were going after Ducoed–and there was no doubt about that–she needed to get rid of this darkness. Another breath, in and out. If she was going to get rid of this darkness, she needed the gun she had dropped.

  After a final deep breath, she squatted and felt around with both hands. Her left hand found the last loaded pistol Corporal Rickell had handed her and she grabbed it again with both hands and pulled it to her chest. She hoped the gun was still loaded. No way to check. She hoped the corporal was still alive, for both their sakes. No way to check that either.

  Still squatting, she raised the gun over her head with her right hand and pointed it straight up. Some magic did not require aiming. For what she was about to do, “up” was as specific as she needed to be, but she did not want the bullet–if it were still there–if the gun were not jammed with dirt and about to blow up in her hand–to hurt anyone. She paused to think about how to counteract the blackness, and decided on a simple shredding–with a lot of effort behind it, since a man who could suspend himself in midair probably drew on some stalwart magic–plus a gunwitch flare. She covered her eyes with her left hand, ignoring the pain in her left shoulder, opened herself up to the magic inside her, and pulled the trigger.

  The effort yanked the air out of her lungs and she felt the pistol disintegrate in her grasp. Cold splinters of wood rained down on her. She had no idea where the barrel went. She lost her balance as the kick of the pistol and the force of the magic pushed against her and she fell back. Her head thumped off the side of the trench, but she kept her face covered.

  Bright white light leaked around the fingers of her leather glove and she felt heat like the noon sun warm the air around her and drive away the cold in her chest. She uncovered her eyes and saw that the black cloud had been driven back. The bright light came from where the flare and the blackness still fought against each other, sizzling and popping in the air over the battlefield.

  Corporal Rickell spotted her as she climbed out of the trench. She stumbled as she stood, fatigue from the shredding and the flare trying to drag her back into the trench. Rickell had been squatting where she last remembered seeing him. She looked around for Sergeant Tabart and the rest of her squad, but the contest between flare and darkness left green streaks on her vision, making it hard to see. She looked back at Rickell and saw that he had stood into a crouch and was running to her, holding her gun and another pistol out to her, both of them butt first. She noticed that some of the creatures were running away from her and from the intense light of the gunwitch flare suspended above her. Not all the creatures, though.

  She took the guns from Corporal Rickell just as a red and black skeletal form fell on him seemingly from out of the black-and-bright sky and spiked him to the ground. She fired the gun in her offhand at the monster and blasted its torso backward. Her fatigue and the magical stresses she had already pushed through that pistol destroyed it, as well, and it fell apart in her hand.

  When her eyes could focus again, two of the monster’s long spiky arms still quivered before her, stuck in Rickell’s prostrate form. She pulled the spikes free one at a time, then knelt beside the corporal and turned him over. She sighed. She did not need her limited training in healing to tell her that the corporal was already dead. One of the spikes had pierced his heart. She took the two other loaded pistols Rickell had on him, and his bags of shot and powder.

  Something black and menacing pounded through the air over her head and bounced, sizzling and popping off the flare. Before she could see what it was, the ground beneath her lifted and threw her and Rickell’s corpse forward. She landed on Rickell’s body, then flipped over and off him, losing her grip on the pistols.

  Sergeant Tabart appeared beside her as she scrambled, trying to get the guns again. She found them and checked the loads as the sergeant picked up the bags of shot and powder. Sergeant Tabart put his arm around her as she stood, and helped her walk away from Rickell’s body, away from where the flare still defied the blackness and drew the attention of the attackers. The sergeant made her sit behind an earthen rampart. He took the extra pistols from her and squatted next to her. “If you don’t mind me saying so, Major,” he said, “I think you’ll be wanting to catch your breath before you do much else.”

  “Ducoed,” she managed to say. “I have to … find Ducoed.” Then she added, “And stop … calling me … ‘major’.”

  “Again, begging the Major’s pardon,” Sergeant Tabart said, “but I think you had best be dealing with yon big fellow first.” He pointed with his chin. “He seems to be the more immediate problem.”

  Rose looked up and over her left shoulder. The big man with the hide cape still … flew, or hovered, or whatever … over the battlefield. He was spinning in the air, his dark eyes squinting against the glare and looking all over the battlefield. Looking for her, she was sure, since she had ruined his black cloud. The regulars on the ground might have been able to shoot up at him, since he was distracted, but they were engaged with the other, more monstrous creatures Ducoed had brought with him.

  Ducoed. He was the one she wanted to kill.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, “I don’t have … the strength.” Not for both Ducoed and this man, to be sure. Maybe not even for one of them.

  “We’ll have to address that then, won’t we, Major?” The sergeant stood just enough to see over the embankment. “Stringefellowe, you lazy dwarf,” he shouted, “get over here. And you too, Gilbody. And Bradley.”

  The three men scrambled over the embankment and squatted in a line beside the sergeant.

  “Stringefellowe, you’re up first, come over and take the major’s hand.”

  Stringefellowe, a short, barrel-chested man with oversized forearms that reminded Rose of a woodcutter she had known back in Phillips on the Birchwood, came in a crouch around the sergeant and knelt before her with his right hand stretched out.

  Rose took the offered hand with her left, grasping her pistol with her right. She took a deep breath, and let it out slow and cold and misting as she concentrated on drawing Stringefellowe’s strength, pulling it from him and into herself. If their formation had not been disrupted by the black cloud, she would have been able to pull from all the men in her squad, a breath at a time, spreading the burden of her efforts among them all. This way was more direct, but more fatiguing to the man. Especially when she needed to draw so much. Frost formed on his fingers, but he did not lessen his grip on her hand until she let go.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Stringefellowe only nodded in response, then sat back on his heels, breathing hard, as if he had just spent the day marching with a full pack with a wrenched shoulder. How Rose had felt before she shifted her physiological burdens to him. She was breathing hard too, but for her it was like the rush after lovemaking. Like she had felt when Ian had finally left her room the night before–only a few hours ago. Her arms and legs twitched with readiness, her skin tingled, her eyes could see every detail of the world around her. She saw Stringefellowe’s day-old stubble on his cheeks and the flecks of gold in his green eyes–like Ian’s. She could almost see his hair growing. And she could smell his sweat and his breath and that he had had a drink of brandy and that he had fired his pistol eight times since the battle began.

  She thought of Ian, with Chal and the girls and the need to help them with Ducoed. She longed to reach out, to find them and save them. But there was something she had to do first.

  She pulled her feet under her and turned, still squatting, to look up at the man in the air again. She wished she knew the secret of what he was doing. At first you did not know you could. Then you knew you could. Then you did it. Corporal Edwards’ words at the King’s Co
ven. But she had heard those words from Ducoed’s mouth for more than twenty years. His last gift to her. Something else she hated him for.

  On the other hand, even if she could fly, she did not know whether she could take Sergeant Tabart up with her, or that he could reload her pistols while floating behind her. Further, if she or any other gunwitch had hung themselves like that over a battlefield in Europe, the snipers would have had a field day. Still, it looked damn impressive.

  “You ready, sergeant?” she asked. She focused on the man in the sky and his multihued skin, his bare chest gleaming with the sweat of his exertions. She saw the sweat on his brow as he sent another black bolt against the flare and where she had been standing just a few minutes before. The flare had lasted longer than she expected, then it went out as if a black bag had been pulled over it.

  “Kill the bastard,” Sergeant Tabart said.

  “Oh, I will,” she said. “But I have to take care of this big fellow first.”

  She stood. She held her pistol in her right hand and a second pistol in her left. She raised both pistols, aimed them both at the man in the sky, whose eyes locked on hers as she looked at him between the two barrels. His hands jerked. She fired.

  Lightning crashed and burst from her and flew with the bullets. The air burned in an arc from her to the man in the sky.

  Black power erupted from the man’s clenched fists and leaped out to meet her attack. Before she lost sight of him in the resulting conflagration, she saw the man stagger, pushed backward through the air, and maybe there had been a slash of red blood visible across his right arm.

  She dropped both pistols and took the next two that Sergeant Tabart gave her. She could not see the man in the sky any longer. Smoke writhed and coiled obscuring where he had been. She aimed through the smoke, reaching for him with her mind and her enhanced senses, and fired again. This time fire and ice twisted around each other as they raced across the sky, punched through the smoke and came together in a red and blue explosion that scattered the smoke from her last shot.