Lucky or Unlucky? 13 Stories of Fate

by Michael Aaron

  Took me a second to realize which Captain he meant. I shook my head. “Nope, haven’t seen him since I woke up.” And fortune willing, I wouldn’t see him later, either. I didn’t have the foggiest idea what he might do if he found me back here with the 43rd, but it probably wouldn’t end well.

  Just worry about that bridge when I came to it, I guess. What alternative did I have? Crawl back to the damn sorcerers, soak up the sick? No, thanks.

  “Well, take a seat then. Might as well get comfy before the shit hits in the morning.” He motioned towards the west when he saw my confusion. “Rebs are out there, as promised. Brass is saying they’ll try and hit us soon.”

  Nodding, I took an empty spot on the wall, leaned back and tried to breathe normally. Still hard to do, with this clench and unclench, muscles and stomach holding the energy I’d unintentionally taken from the ill.

  “Sorry about Jimmy,” Sarge said, his face held up to the sky, breathing out a long plume of smoke. “A good man.”

  We were both silent for what seemed an hour. Him thinking whatever it was he was thinking, me on the chaos I’d woken up to, the rock and the hard place I found myself in. Sarge would glance in my direction every once in awhile, and I knew something was different about him. Or hell, maybe it was more about me.

  He finally looked away, reaching for something beside him. An object landed with a thud on my legs, thick and dark, cloth of some kind. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I swallowed hard. It was my field coat.

  On the shoulder, newly sewn, the yellow sun of the Sorcerer Cadre.

  “Captain thought you might swing by here,” Sarge said. “His way of saying you’re not welcome anymore, I guess.”

  Sarge was good enough to let me get a bit of rest in the trench. Of course, I didn’t figure sleep would do me a whole lot of good, so I stayed up most of the night anyway. Sure, I closed my eyes, tried to relax, but nothing worked. Pent-up energy, frustration and anger at the sorcerers, at myself, it all blocked me in, kept my mind pacing.

  After a while I gave up trying. I thanked Sarge for letting me get some shut-eye, picked up my coat and climbed over the edge of the pit. The others in the squad, awake and ready for the coming battle, stared as I left, gawked at the patch on my coat.

  I stood and stretched, relieved that some of the power inside had subsided. I still felt it, but the need wasn’t as overpowering. Maybe I could control it now. Hell, maybe it would go away, and I could feel normal again.

  The first rays of the sun looked ready to peek over the eastern hills, past the river. Graveyard Hill, directly east of Hindman Hill, was covered in rifle pits, several artillery pieces set up behind an earthen wall. I looked to the west, the woods and ravines below still cloaked in shadow. I wondered where the Rebs would be, when they might attack and how many would hit the 13th here.

  I peered into the sky, curious if any of those lucky stars people kept talking about might be up there.

  The far ledge of the trench exploded outward, dirt and debris flying in all directions. The force of the impact blew me off my feet, and I tumbled to the ground, covering my face with crossed arms. I rolled over onto my stomach and felt shredded wood and packed dirt land around me. I kept my eyes squeezed shut as other things fell back to earth with wet squelches. My ears rang, the only sound the hollow tang of metal.

  Finally my surroundings stilled, and I chanced a look. The trench holding my old squad, obliterated. A gaping wound dug into the dirt, feet from where I stood. Broken slats of blood-spattered wood, half-buried rifles, a torn hat. Someone’s leg, ripped apart at the knee.

  Numb, I realized Sarge saved my life. Hell, Captain Jones, for that matter, wherever he was.

  My heart pounded in my chest, and I felt the rise of energy again, the arcane power flooding my body. I half-crawled, half-scrambled towards the earth mound behind the outer trenches, thought better of it. Artillery guns sat there, and soon enough they’d be firing barrages of their own, which made them tempting targets.

  Instead I scrambled for a trench to the right of Sarge’s ruined pit. I couldn’t hear anything beyond the keen of the blast, but now I saw the surefire report of rifles, the squad of men in the pit returning fire. Tiny tufts of dirt flew as Reb rounds bit into the outer walls of the trenches.

  One of the men turned, like he had just noticed me. He motioned feverishly with his hand, shouting, waving me into the trench. I crawled and fell over the edge, landing in a heap beside the soldier.

  He saw my patch and grinned, slapped me on the back as he reloaded his rifle. He thought I was something I wasn’t. I shook my head, ignoring the arcane surge, the sudden intensity on my skin, the warmth. I pushed against it, forced it down. I didn’t know if sickness was the only cause, or if pain would do the same. Hell if I would take from these men if it did.

  So I did what I was trained to do. I picked up one of the extra rifles, loaded it, and took aim over the edge of the trench. Now that the first light of the sun crept over the horizon, the Confederates were advancing down below, an entire regiment of infantry, under the cover of trees and fallen logs, or whatever scrub they could find.

  The piercing blast of artillery fire sounded to my left. More of a thumping vibration in my ear, since my hearing still hadn’t fully returned. I glanced over towards Graveyard Hill. Guns rocked against their wood blocks, pillars of smoke drifting from their barrels. Men loaded cannonballs, rammed them home with long poles and set to fire in smooth, practiced motions.

  The Rebs pushed towards the hill, their ragged shouts of confidence interrupted by explosions of wood and soil.

  The battle for Helena had well and truly begun.

  My first rifle shots were erratic and off target, my nerves raw, but soon enough I settled into a rhythm. Duck, load, take aim, breathe in, out, shoot. Duck, load, take aim, breathe in, out, shoot.

  My shots started connecting. I took down a soldier, my round catching him flush in the chest. He spun, his mouth open, and fell awkwardly on his side. Another Reb went down, my shot punching a hole through his leg. After several exchanges of gunfire, ducking back against the gun pit, sweat running down my face, then popping up to rain more lead down on the Confederate soldiers, I lost count of how many I hit.

  I no longer cared, it was all about keeping my rhythm, maintaining the firing routine. Life was the biting taste of gunpowder and smoke, the thunder of artillery, the snap of gunfire, the thud of ammunition striking packed soil and wood. The worries of the past day fled, replaced by the adrenaline of battle, the fear of incoming projectiles. For the first time since I’d woken up the day before, I felt normal. Just a regular man, struggling against normal foes.

  Almost enough to make me smile.

  The sudden thought died when one of the men in the trench fell. He paused, grasping at his shoulder, looked at the blood on his fingers and collapsed on the dirt floor of the rifle pit. He grimaced, holding his hand against his shoulder, pressing hard to stem the flow of blood. It didn’t look too bad, not at first sight anyway. But I felt my grip on the rifle tighten at the sight of the blood, his gritting teeth.

  I felt it. In the pit of my stomach, like standing over a warm fire, I took in his pain.

  The energy rushed through my body, to my feet, to the tips of my fingers. Heat flared inside, and I strained against it, tried to will the power away. I leaned back against the trench wall, my eyes squeezed shut, my breathing forced and labored. Sweat broke out, warm and wet on my skin. The faint hint of smoke reached my nose. My stomach churned.

  When I opened my eyes, a steady flame coursed down my hands. Smoke rose from the wooden grip of my rifle, the fire already blackening the wood, spreading from my hands like the onset of darkness after the sun set in the evening.

  I panicked. Tossing the rifle away, the stock smoldering, I jumped to my feet. My heartbeat a rapid staccato against my ribcage, I pushed against the arcane power, commanded it to get the hell away from me, to die out. Patting my hands, I worked to snuff out the
flames, but the fire continued to sway and dance along my hands. It hovered over my skin, a gentle heat that was no hotter to the touch than warmed bath water.

  “Get down!” one of the soldiers shouted, his warning a deep echo in my ears.

  I heard another ragged shout, and then several loud pops. I cried out as a sudden, coursing agony shot through my neck and shoulder. I fell down against the rifle pit’s earthen barrier, one hand instinctively drawn towards the pain at the base of my neck.

  Shot. I’d been shot. The words ran through me like a fever, over and over, rushed and hot. I’d been shot.

  Dread and fear coiled in my mind as I cringed, then snapped my eyes open. I lifted my smoking hand. Blood seeped from the wound on my neck, a long, dark gouge across the skin. Looked like a bullet had grazed my neck, taking a chunk of skin with it. I breathed a small sigh of relief, thankful it wasn’t worse, even as much as it hurt. A hole in the neck, and I might not last an hour, let alone the day.

  I don’t know what triggered it, if it was the sight of my own blood, or the adrenaline of seeing the Rebs charge the hill, or if maybe it was entirely accidental, random fate, but a switch flipped. I felt it in my guts, the arcane power rising, then breaking the threshold, crashing through like a bullet tears through glass. Any sense of control fled as the energy took me, grabbed me by the hand and threw my will to the four winds. I stood and faced the charging Confederates, fear replaced by a curious, distant calmness.

  My own pain simmered and faded, now only a faint echo. I felt the sudden heat, the insistent throb of energy in my chest. Without thinking, without really even understanding what I was about to do, I raised my hand, pointing at the men who shot us, who shot me.

  The fire lanced from my fingers, a stream of flame and rising smoke that washed over the nearest Reb. He screamed, flailing uselessly at his burning uniform, plumes of smoke drifting from his charred skin. He tumbled to the ground, his agony radiating outward, sweeping over me.

  His screams died, subsiding into a slow, drawn out gurgle, and then he finally stopped thrashing. The body stilled, the flesh turning a charcoal black, its mouth open in a frozen scream of horror. The sickly sweet smell of acrid, burnt flesh reached my nose.

  The flames carried, swept over the man’s companions, halted their charge. The soldiers turned and fled, running downhill, scrambling and rolling, my inferno charring their flesh, scorching them until there was little left beyond forms composed of solid ash.

  My eyes watered as their pain touched me. I felt it bore into my skin, taken in, absorbed by whatever arcane powers I now possessed. My stomach churned, and I doubled over, leaning on a shaking knee.

  Too much. I’d just killed men, set fire to them with a simple gesture. Confederate, Union, it didn’t much matter at that moment. I’d just burned men alive by barely thinking it. It was all too much.

  I vomited, the rushing sound loud in my ears. I retched for several seconds, my stomach heaving until it was dry and empty, the sounds of chaotic battle seemingly far off.

  “Get up, soldier!”

  I shook my head slowly at the order, running a grimy sleeve across my mouth. “N-No, I c-can’t…”

  Rough hands grabbed me by one arm and forced me to my feet. The man’s eyes pulled up with momentary surprise when he noticed who I was, what I was, and then the intense frown returned.

  “S-Sorry, Captain,” I muttered. I felt dizzy, like the world contorted and spun around me. Everything turned upside down. I felt eyes on me, the men in the rifle pit silent.

  Captain Jones hesitated, eyeing the trench and his men, the smoldering bodies beyond. After a moment he pushed me towards the inner edge of the trench. “You don’t belong here, sorcerer,” he said, an aura of command returning to his features.

  I waited for his refusal, for him to manifest his bitter grudge, but it didn’t come. “We’ll hold here,” he said, nodding to the east. “Captain McCleary has sent for you. She’s at Graveyard Hill.”

  My pause seemed eternal, like I stood there for centuries, indecisive, my mind as unsure as my body. I wanted to tell him about Sarge, about my friends in the 43rd, how I didn’t want this blessing, this curse. How I was just a simple bargeman, swept up in a civil war between men of a nation sundered. Warring with itself. Sundered like me.

  But looking at Jones, behind him at the boys in the rifle pit, at their nods, others attending to the fallen soldier’s wound, I sensed something else. A dim recognition, a sense of pride. I’d saved them, hadn’t I? Their pain had given me power, a force I hadn’t wanted, but I’d used it to help them. I pushed back a charging line of Confederates, sent them back down the hill.

  The arcane buzzed around me, ready, and everything fell into focus.

  I almost didn’t recognize the feeling as the smile crept up my face. “Yes, sir,” I said, and then dashed out of the pit. I ran east, towards Graveyard Hill, shouts of, “Give ’em hell!” at my back.

  Captain McCleary stood behind the cannons barricaded just behind Graveyard Hill, at the wooded peak of the tall hill. She passed orders off to a mounted courier as I approached, slapping the horse into action. The rider wheeled and headed northwest. Billowing clouds of smoke filled the air, rising into the morning sky as the guns roared one after the other. The earth shook with each blast, and I struggled to keep my footing as I neared.

  She gave me a level look as I stopped beside her. I leaned over, my hands on my knees, my lungs ready to burst. My neck tingled, the pain of my wound dim and barely remembered.

  “Was I right?” she asked.

  A question with a million different meanings. That I wanted it? That I was lucky? That I belonged to them now, to her? That I fed off pain and misery, that I wielded a terrible power? That I knew, now, what I really was?

  I nodded. The only answer I had, and somehow it seemed appropriate.

  She stood there, silent, for several minutes. I stood beside her, and we watched the battle unfold on the southern end of Helena. The men on Hindman had repulsed another charge of Confederate troops, and the guns in front of us tore into their ranks. I heard thunderous booms to the northwest, the sky occasionally pierced with bolts of lightning that drove furiously towards earth.

  “You’re a sorcerer adept of the 3rd Cadre now, Corporal,” she finally said, her tone matter-of-fact. “A combat mage of the 13th Corps. You know what that means?”

  “Not entirely, ma’am,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Those men down there, the men in these trenches,” she said, pointing to the hills and beyond. “Normal men. They live, they fight, they bleed. We take that struggle, we feed off of it, and we use that to protect and defend this Union.”

  “You, though,” the sorcerer said, her eyes bright. “You’re one of the lucky ones, gifted with powers and abilities you’re only just beginning to realize. Embrace it.”

  She was right, I knew. It still didn’t quite fit, this new part of me, but it was a part of me now. I felt the charge in the air around me, the warmth of my skin, in my gut. The arcane energy held there, waiting for me to release its fire and smoke, its pain-fueled flames.

  Shouts sounded from below, hidden in the fallen logs and brush, and then a great ripping sound, like the noise of meat pulled clean of bone.

  “And embrace it fast,” McCleary said, her eyes peering down the hill, towards the ravine. “Because we’ve got company heading this way.”

  She glanced at me, the air shimmering around her. “Our kind of company.”

  Steeling myself for the battle to come, I willed my nerves into grim, hardened silence. Smoke curled from my enclosed fists, the energies cresting, skin tingling and hot. I reached for the touch of flame, for the power inside.

  Maybe I had a star up there after all.

  Wilson Geiger

  Wilson Geiger has been gripped by fantastical worlds not quite our own ever since stumbling upon his father’s copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. He writes fantasy and science fiction stories when not maintaining
networks, troubleshooting servers or fighting the good fight against computer illiteracy. Wilson resides in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife, two boys, and a possessive cat. Read more at wilsongeiger.com.

  13. Married to the Apocalypse

  Mark Lawrence

  Rick knew that if he started something, anything, if he just picked up some new project and ran with it, the question would go away. Stopping, that was the problem. They’d told him in school, in the cross-country races, don’t stop. Slow down, sure, get your wind, slow to a crawl if you have to, but don’t stop. If you come to a full halt, the body just takes a step back, has a look see, and says that’s it, no way, no more. It’s that step back, that extra perspective. Fine, see the big picture if it helps. But in life, when it’s your life, the big picture rarely helps. It’s too damn big, too incomprehensible. It paralyses you is what it does. Keep your head down, keep stepping, don’t lose that momentum.

  In the summer of ’13, the summer that wouldn’t quit, Rick took a step back. They’d come to Holden in March, the ides of March. Mary had scouted the place out when it seemed like the job would take them out of Maine and set them down in Idaho. The job did that. On occasion, like a big wave, it would lift them lock, stock, kitchen sink, and barrel, and strand them on a new shore. On this occasion, it was the wide, bland, corn-belt blah of perfect Idaho.

  “I’ve found the house.” That’s how she put it. Not ‘our house’, or ‘a house’, not a possibility, or a prospect, but ‘the house’.

  “You have, huh?” Rick set his hands on her hips. That still did it for him. Just to feel the span of her between his two hands, and when she moved he’d want her.

  “Yup.”

  “And I’m going to like it am I?” He raised an eyebrow. Mr. Spock taught him that one a long time gone.