“Heavens,” muttered Tess. “Enough to make you pity even a Hun.” Doctor Richard Shealy had become infamous around the hospital for his disinclination to follow careful hygiene. Making matters worse, his uncle was rather far up the chain of command, and therefore, great efforts had to be taken to mitigate the worst of his blundering rather than simply returning the man to his unlucky patients back in England.
There was a long pause, and Tess looked up to see Vera still staring at Doctor Spall, her fingers nervously tapping at a teacup. Her brow was pinched, and her lips moved slightly, though no words escaped.
“Vera?” Tess reached over and touched the girl’s wrist, surprised at how cold the skin was when she herself was sweating heavily in the summer heat.
Vera started, then looked at her in annoyance. “What?” Then she looked down. “Maybe you’re right about taking a break, Tess. An afternoon away from the wards might do me good.”
“Maybe more than an afternoon.” Tess felt a bit relieved as Vera set down the cup and headed out. The thought of a break turned her own thoughts to happier places. She’d recently had a letter from her husband, who noted he had some leave coming, suggesting if she could get away at the same time, they could spend a week in Paris. Seeing the sights, sampling the foods, finding something nice for each of the children.
Tess had replied that it sounded like a lovely plan, but that she would be primarily interested in testing out the hotel bed, and a week’s leave was barely adequate to do the kind of thorough investigation she had in mind. She could of course elaborate but had no desire to shock the censors.
IT WAS ALMOST A WEEK later, with a nearly full moon lumbering up in the sky, that Tess recalled her conversation with Vera. One of the men was hemorrhaging, and she had been sent out of the ward to warn the surgeons that they needed to get ready for another patient. With most of the hospital in bed, she’d trusted that the eagle eyes of Matron Johnson were probably shut, and had raced pell-mell down the paths of duckboards in complete violation of the rules against running.
Having delivered the message, she’d started to head back to the ward when she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning, she saw Doctor Spall slipping out of the door to the prisoners’ hut—a lonely little building, set as far from the other wards as possible. Instinctively, she stepped back into a shadow and watched as he glanced around him before furtively setting off in the opposite direction from the main hospital. He was dressed in uniform, his shirtsleeves rolled up on this breathlessly hot night, but he had a small medical bag in his hand, and there was something dark rolled up under his arm.
It was just as well that most of the hospital was asleep, and that it was as quiet as it could ever get around there, because as Tess watched him leave, she became aware of a soft hissing on the night wind, a scraping of scales on rough wood. Acting quickly, she popped her knuckle into her mouth and bit down sharply enough to draw blood. Her eyes automatically filled with tears, but a drop of blood touched her tongue as she whispered the words, and then a film slipped over her eyes to let her see beyond what even a witch’s eyes could normally catch.
A creature trotted along in the doctor’s shadow, heeling as well as a finely trained hound, but there was nothing canine about it, despite its four feet. The moonlight showed its scales, but there was no shine—instead, they seemed to swallow up the silver glow into a sulky blackness. Tess stayed absolutely still, praying to different gods now that it wouldn’t catch sight of her, but luck was on her side, because the creature never took its gaze away from the bundle beneath the doctor’s arm. A dog lusting for a bone, Tess thought to herself, and shuddered at the thought of what that creature would consider a treat.
The doctor and his dark companion continued to walk away, off into the direction of a patch of woods that had become a popular picnic spot for the nurses on their days off. Tess hesitated to follow—at home, on Cornish soil, she had a dozen family members, skilled in craft or not, who she could’ve called up to help her, but here, she was completely alone. Her iron spoon was safely in her pocket, but the creature she’d just seen wasn’t one of the Folk, either fair or dark. Cold iron would be of little help to her. Silver, perhaps, if it was blessed by a true-hearted priest.
Tess eyed the sky again. The moon would be truly waxed tomorrow. She was a hedge witch and had no desire to be anything else, but sorcery was tied to the movements of the sky and stars. Whatever the doctor’s companion was hoping to sample, it probably wouldn’t be able to feast on it tonight. Doctor Spall must be gathering. Once again, she wished that she was home—Aunt Nessa was the one in the family who knew the most about sorcerers, though Tess wondered if even she’d ever heard of a Summerlord’s son engaging in that.
Better not to poke further at this particular snake’s burrow, Tess thought. Not much that a witch alone could accomplish, and if the doctor was perhaps restricting himself to the prisoners, well—they were a nation at war, after all. Her own husband and all her brothers were on the line right now, doing their best to blow the Huns into the next world, and she didn’t think any the worse of them for that.
Even while she was thinking this, Tess’s feet were acting on their own, carrying her closer to the prisoners’ hut. Staying to the shadows, Tess poked her head inside the door. Not much different from her own ward when viewed with normal eyes—the beds crowded a bit closer, perhaps, the men still in their tattered uniforms rather than tidy hospital pajamas, and the night nurse nodding at her station in a way that Tess doubted was wholly unassisted by Doctor Spall—but the smells of rot and black blood filled her nose and coated her tongue.
One of the German prisoners caught her eye, and bile burned her throat. Barely eighteen, and what was on his cheeks would be more honestly called fuzz than stubble. Something had scared this one badly—the whites of his eyes were showing—and Tess’s added sight showed her where Death had already written her sign across his forehead. Tess wondered who was waiting at home for this boy. Bad luck that he looked so much like her own dead cousin—or was it the last little vestiges of her spelled sight, the one that showed the truth that even a witch would rather not see?
TESS CAUGHT VERA THE NEXT morning, in a rare lucky moment when the tent was empty save for the two of them, everyone else either in the mess hall or heeding the call of the necessity. At first, the girl shook her head at Tess’s questions, insisting that it was just as she’d said when they’d talked about this before—that Doctor Shealy was the one who tended to the prisoners’ needs, and Doctor Spall had never even crossed the threshold. But Tess was paying attention this time, and she could see how the girl’s eyes widened with horror at the sound of the man’s name, and the way sweat popped up on her forehead. She’d seen something, all right, and her body remembered what her mind had been forced to forget.
Given more time, Tess could’ve done it with more finesse, teasing the knowledge out under the veil of forgetfulness before letting it slip down again to cloud the girl’s memories forever, but time was a luxury she lacked. So, it was fast and graceless, with a handful of herbs dropped into a basin of water, and then the quick application of that altered liquid to Vera’s face, and only sheer good luck keeping her from having to explain to any of the other women why she’d just dumped an entire basin of water over Vera Bloom (though Tess didn’t doubt it was something that at least a few of them had dreamed of doing on several occasions).
There was a bit of shrieking when it happened (even on a hot morning, cold water wasn’t always welcome), but perhaps there was something to be said in favor of a good women’s college after all, because Vera pulled herself together almost immediately and gave a thorough accounting of exactly what Doctor Spall had forced her to forget.
It was the Dark stuff indeed, down below and next to the devil’s own furnace, that Spall was meddling with. He was offering the German soldiers’ lives as currency—trimming away with the scalpel to keep their wounds from closing, until each would just peter out
and die. And with that wretched Richard Shealy in charge, and only German lives at stake, few would question a death rate that was high even for there. Though from the sound of it, Vera had certainly questioned it a time or two, resulting in a heavy ensorcellment to keep her quiet.
“So, what are we going to do about this?”
Tess blinked at Vera, who had put both hands on her hips and, despite looking like a half-drowned kitten, had her jaw set at a most alarmingly obstinate angle.
“Really, Vera, you’ve had a hard time of this, and perhaps you ought to leave it—” Tess knew even as she started that she was going to fail.
“Those are my patients he’s been hurting, so don’t think for a second you’re just going to pat me on the head and leave me out of this.”
Tess struggled, then gave up. “Shit,” she said flatly. “Well, God knows I could use a second set of hands for this.”
WHICH WAS HOW THEY ENDED up crouched in the woods beside a lightly worn path, with Tess armed with a silver chafing dish she’d nicked from the officers’ mess, and Vera holding a cricket bat she’d borrowed from one of the orderlies.
“Are you quite certain this is a good plan?” Vera whispered.
“Actually, I’m rather sure that this is a terrible plan, but it’s the only one I could come up with in the time,” Tess whispered back. “Now, hush.”
Another twenty minutes ticked by as they crouched down, the fat moon rising lazily in the sky. Then another ten minutes, which felt easily like two hours. Finally came the sound of old leaves rustling beneath boots, and they both tensed.
Clive Spall turned the corner with a bundle under his arm and a demon at his heels, and neither were expecting the cricket bat that whistled out of the darkness and crashed into his fine nose, eliciting a wholly unmasculine yelp of pain.
The little demon jumped to protect the fool who had summoned it, such fools being difficult to locate even in these fraught times, and the easy living that Spall had been providing it must’ve blunted its instincts, because it went for the white-faced girl wielding the cricket bat and didn’t even realize Tess was there until the silver platter was under it and the silver lid smashed from above, and quick as a nip, Tess had sat herself down atop to weigh it all down. She had some reason to be grateful the years had added somewhat to her rear end when the demon started rattling away. Every little bit helped, and she was trying to ignore the cold sweat running down her back at just the thought of how easily she could’ve missed with her grab, and just how badly that would’ve ended.
She’d told Vera to gag Spall as soon as he was down, but the girl hesitated over shoving a rolled-up handkerchief in the mouth of a man with a broken nose. That would’ve been a deadly mistake with any other sorcerer, but this one burst into tears and the whole sorry story spilled out.
Because Tess had been wrong—he wasn’t some Summerland scion eager to bathe in blood. He was a young doctor driven half mad from all the pain and suffering he’d seen, enough that when an opportunistic demon had presented himself with a promise that he, Clive Spall, could end the war with the blood sacrifice of enemy soldiers and the small consideration of his own soul, he’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. He was desperate to divulge his important mission, explain his noble sacrifice, receive their gentle understanding and perhaps even blessings before he went forward and gave his immortal soul for the good of all England—
“Bollocks,” Tess interrupted him, having tolerated as much as she could stand. Clive blinked at her, a perfect picture of the self-sacrificing knight (provided one ignored the hanky pressed against his gushing nose). Vera also looked taken aback—possibly more susceptible to knights errant than she would have liked to admit.
Tess, however, was having none of it. “Idiot. Do you think you could possibly offer more blood than is soaking France? At best, you could offer a thimbleful more, with your own soul as a chaser, and some dark trickster”—here she banged her heel against the silver lid beneath her rump, and the creature hammered back with quite a bit of pique—“would gladly drink both down and give you nothing in return but the rotting smell of your own lost heart.”
And that was rather the end of it. They tied the silver chafing dish closed and threw it and its demon occupant into a pond—not that that would kill it, but Tess hoped it might teach the creature a lesson, and at least gave the rest of them a feeling of accomplishment. They half-carried Clive Spall back to the hospital, where he promptly collapsed, was diagnosed with nervous exhaustion, and was shipped back to England for a long-overdue rest, with everyone in the chain of command apparently looking the other way regarding his broken nose. Thanks to the curdling of his glamour, most everyone apparently felt he must have deserved it, which was rather the truth.
Vera returned to the prisoners’ hut with an absolute ferocity and made such a fuss about the treatment of the prisoners, threatening to make a formal complaint every day, that Matron Johnson assigned an extra two nurses to the ward, then retaliated by putting Vera in charge of delousing the enlisted men’s uniforms for a month. But the surviving Germans, spared Spall’s scalpel and with very good nurses on hand, finally started to recover.
And Tess tended to her ward with small magics—keeping away the flies, fleas, and rats. Holding back the gangrene and urging flesh to mend. She emptied bedpans (that wasn’t really magic) and fluffed pillows (that part was a little magic—no soldier sleeping on a pillow that Tess had fluffed ever suffered a bad dream), and above all prayed that the war would end soon.
THAT WASN’T THE END OF it, of course.
She was walking to her tent at twilight when the demon appeared again, trotting at her heels as daintily as any lady’s spaniel.
“It was a nice little sideline,” it said pleasantly. “You really can’t blame me for taking what was offered.”
“On a platter, you mean?” Tess asked, prompting a low growl as it was reminded of its recent indignity. “I believe I can blame you. Quite a bit, really.”
The demon pranced. “Don’t be like that, Tess Nancarrow. After all, a foolish boy like that didn’t know any of the rules at all. Thinking a little imp like me could end this war!” It laughed. “Far beyond me. Though”—and it smiled coyly up at her, and it was an awful sight—“I could watch over one life. Just one. Guard against bullets, and trench rot, and shells. I don’t suppose that would be of any interest to you, Tess Nancarrow? Just one little life, guarded and minded as if I were the gentlest mastiff given watch over a toddler. A man could come safely out of this war indeed, Tess Nancarrow, were I to guard him.”
She said nothing, and he laughed again.
“No jokes now, hedge witch, because you know I’m telling the truth.”
Nothing. Not a word from her lips, but they were bloodless from how hard she pressed them together.
“Naught to say?” it taunted. “Well, not to fret. If I’m one to judge, this war has quite a bit left to go. Perhaps you’ll rethink your position in a few weeks. A few months. A few years. I have the time, and I’ll be waiting so eagerly to hear your voice.”
Then it was gone, though its laugh still echoed around her, scattering the birds and making a few ants curl up and die.
She couldn’t wait until bedtime but pulled out the sachet as soon as she reached the tent. In went her fingers, out came the thistle. Still wilted and battered, but not dead yet.
“Stay alive, my love,” Tess whispered. “Please stay alive.”
LAST OF THE RED RIDERS
DJANGO WEXLER
HAWK HILL HAD NEVER BEEN much of a town, just another stop on the Splendid West Line, about halfway up the valley of the Ellial. Fruit country, open fields alternating with neat rows of apple and pear trees, with here and there a sturdy little whitewashed farmhouse. Hawk Hill itself wasn’t much more than an inn, which doubled as a train station, plus a church, a general store, and maybe a dozen townhouses. The water tower next to the tracks was painted a cheery blue, and from a distance you couldn’t see where
it was faded and flaking.
No one’s army had marched along the Ellial, but that hadn’t kept the war away from Hawk Hill. I’d never been near the place, but I could see the story in the boarded-up windows and dusty, overgrown streets, the ragged double-bar flag that fluttered over the station. Same as a hundred other little towns we’d passed through, this place had just dried up and blown away.
First the men had marched off, when General Wick had thrown down the gauntlet to the Central Counties. More had joined up in those first heady years, sons begging their mothers to let them give their names to the recruiting sergeants before all the victories were won. Then, as the war dragged on, the recruiters had returned, this time with conscription warrants.
Illustration by NICOLÁS R. GIACONDINO
Hawk Hill had it worse than most. The Centrals had cut the Splendid West at Bronco Pass, only fifty miles off, and there was no longer any reason for trains to come so far out. The people who’d lived here had just gone, back to their farms to stay with family, or east to Garramond or Featherton or anywhere that would have them. They’d probably boarded up their own windows and told each other they’d be back before too long. One more battle, one more victory, and the war would be over, and everything would be the way it was before.
I remembered thinking like that. War has a way of burning off fantasies awful quick.
The Red Riders came up the valley of the Ellial, the heroes of a dozen songs, scourge of Central quartermasters, celebrated in newspapers all across the Defiant. We were a dozen dusty, mud-splattered shapes, with twice as many dusty, mud-splattered horses and a wagon piled high with crates and stacked gear under a tarpaulin. The long crimson cloaks from which we took our name were piled in the wagon, too. These days, we only wore them when Captain Hays wanted to throw a scare into someone.
I was in my usual spot, out front with Little Barrow, my mare poking her way down a dusty cart-track that was rapidly disappearing into the weeds. Rob was out to the left, Bill to the right, and John Plainsman riding tail. The rest were clustered tight around the wagon, the fruit of a month’s sweat and terror. As I came to the edge of Hawk Hill, Captain Hays gave a whistle, and I reined up. The outriders came in, until we were all gathered round.
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