by Dana Fredsti
Stearne rode up close, and smiled.
“Your flying familiars seem to have run afoul of Providence, wizard. Still, such a most beauteous sea spread out before us. A fine day for a swim, is it not?” he said with mock civility. “Pray, let us not keep you. Though in truth, you scarcely seem dressed for such sport. Perhaps you may yet partake of more running for us instead? What say you?”
His soldiers chuckled.
Amber fought to come up with an answer. Something—anything—to buy Merlin a little more time. She could see Cam’s muscles tensing, and knew Blake was thinking along the same lines. She had to do something, but she had no idea what.
“My dear fellow, there’s no need for any of this,” Harcourt said loudly, taking a step forward with arms wide open. “Can’t we come to some sort of mutually advantageous agreement?”
“Bargaining now?” Stearne’s eyes narrowed. “What manner of double-dealing are you playing at?”
“No chicanery, I assure you,” Harcourt said with a small laugh. “Surely a man of your ability can discern that even in our present sorry state, we are folk of distinction and means.” He glanced at Cam. “Some of us, at least.”
“Go on.” The Puritan’s voice betrayed curiosity.
Harcourt did. “Surely, given your position, you might make use of us, rather than… squandering our unique talents and resources, all because of an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
“How so?” The witch hunter sat up straighter in his saddle.
The professor glanced at Merlin, and then continued.
“Myself, I possess degrees in a multitude of scientific fields,” Harcourt said, “and that advanced learning could be applied to a wide variety of projects and consultations. For example, I possess the formula needed to create a special galvanic nerve elixir—which can be used to address all manner of physical and cerebral ailments, complaints and maladies, both common and exotic.”
Stearne glared darkly at him.
“Your stratagem comes clear,” he hissed. “You will not tempt me with your worldly so-called knowledge, or your alchemical trifles.” He turned to address the rest of his prisoners. “Thought you to distract me with your bevy of tricks and dodges? The lot of you have led us on a merry chase, and that ends here.”
Amber shuddered and the witch hunter noticed, giving her a look that hinted at vile things to come. She clenched her hands into fists as heat flushed her cheeks.
“Here your revels cease,” he proclaimed. “Each of you will pay dearly for your wicked mischief—” He looked straight at Amber as he continued. “—for a very long time before we suffer you to die. There is no escape from divine justice.”
“Justice?” Nellie let out a mocking laugh. “What do you know about justice? Do you tell your men what you do to the women behind closed doors? Is that divine? Is that justice? Are any of their wives or daughters safe from you?”
The witchfinder didn’t deign to reply, but his stare promised a world of pain.
Emboldened by Nellie’s words, Amber stepped forward, refusing to look at Stearne and instead turning her attention on his soldiers, looking up at the barrels of their pistols.
“Why do you hate us so much?” she asked. “We’re not your enemy. We’re not witches, or spies, or whatever else you think we are. We’re just people, just like you, and all we want is to get home safely.” The soldiers gave no response. She took a deep breath, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
“Don’t you see? There are monsters out here. They’d be more than happy to turn every one of you into a meal.” Pointing an accusing finger at Stearne, she continued. “Hate and fear are the easiest things in the world to sell. Don’t buy it. Don’t be his slaves. Don’t be idiots. Stop wasting your time and concentrate on your real enemy.” Amber glared at the witchfinder. “And stop listening to assholes like him.”
She couldn’t read their expressions as they continued to watch her in stony silence—like gargoyles, their faces brutish, ugly, and hard. For what felt like a never-ending moment, she stood there, vulnerable and trembling, trying hard not to let them see what she felt inside—a spiky iron hedge of black fear closing in on a single fragile hope.
“Girl, you’ve a right rare gift for speech-making.” Stearne’s lieutenant, a stocky, grizzled man with the scarred face of a bulldog, lowered his pistol and spoke in a deep, gravelly voice. His face remained unreadable, but his flat gray eyes fixed on hers.
The other riders looked at him.
He leaned forward in his saddle.
“I for one want to hear what else you have to say—” There was a fire in his eyes now as he raised his voice. “—when we truss you back up on the stake in Lexden Common and roast you like a Papist’s plump Christmas goose, you poxy hell-bound bitch!” The other Roundheads threw their heads back into long hyena howls of raucous laughter, dark and ugly. The sound shriveled Amber’s soul.
At a nod from the witchfinder, the soldiers began to dismount. Most kept their guns trained on the prisoners, while others pulled manacles from their saddlebags. Stearne urged his horse forward and leaned down, cuffing Amber savagely across the face, hard enough to knock her to the ground. She lay there, stunned and heartsick as one of the soldiers tramped up to her, bindings in hand.
The Puritan stared down at Amber with gloating satisfaction.
“Thought yourself so clever, wench? Now you wi—”
As the Roundhead reached down for Amber’s arm, Cam charged forward, delivering a high kick square to the soldier’s face. A stream of blood gushed from the man’s nose and mouth, his helmet flying off as his body snapped backward. Stearne’s horse reared up in a panic. The closest soldier turned at the commotion—as Cam snatched up the chain meant for Amber and swung it up into the man’s surprised face.
Rattled by the suddenness of the Celt’s attack, the Roundheads twisted to bring their guns to bear on him and opened fire. Most of the barrage went wild, though several rounds struck Cam’s second victim from behind, killing him on the spot. Amber rolled out of the way as Stearne struggled to rein in his rearing and kicking steed. Smoke and the smell of gunpowder filled the air.
* * *
Seeing his chance, Blake lunged forward and cold-cocked the nearest Roundhead as the man turned to shoot Cam. He grabbed the soldier’s musket and shot the next closest one point-blank in the throat, then swung around to smash the musket butt-first into the face of a third soldier coming up from his flank.
He turned back for just a moment to face his astonished companions, who stood in shock, watching the chaos.
“Run!” Blake yelled.
* * *
“Ov Camtargarus Mab Cattus na Trinovanti!” Cam roared at his shaken foes as he charged again, swinging the chains into a mass of them. They scrambled over one another to get out of the arc of his red-stained makeshift flail. Not all succeeded. Behind them, the rest of the company’s horses stamped and snorted anxiously.
One Roundhead dropped his spent pistol, quickly drew his cavalry sword, and thrust it at Cam’s eyes. The Celt ducked out of the line of attack and came up again, whipping the chain around the soldier’s sword and forearm. With a wrench of his arm, he yanked the man past him to the ground—but lost the chain as it snagged on his stricken foe.
* * *
Blake flipped the musket in the air to change up his grip, turning it from a crude spear to a club. He swung it in a wide swathe, trying to draw in as many of the soldiers as he could keep engaged, but there were too many to keep them all at bay.
Still, he’d faced worse odds in North Africa…
* * *
Nellie scanned desperately through the smoke and chaos, seeking to spot Amber.
“He said run!” Harcourt shouted, already backing away, though there was still nowhere to run except into the water.
“No!” Merlin yelled back over the din of the fight. “Stay together!” He was still gesturing oddly.
There! Nellie finally spotted Amber, still on the gro
und, terrified, scrambling to avoid being trampled by Stearne’s rearing horse.
“Amber!” she shouted.
Despite Blake and Cam’s efforts to keep them all busy, the other side had more than enough soldiers to completely surround the two fighting men—with still more soldiers free to come after the rest of them, as well.
* * *
Empty-handed, Cam rushed his closest foe, grappling with him before the man could connect with a swing of his sword. He flung the assailant to the ground, rolling and struggling fiercely for control of the blade, while the other Roundheads tried to get in on the fight.
Blake raised his musket in both hands just in time to block an overhead blow, then struck out at his opponent, clocking him with both ends of the firearm. A split-second later he twisted to sidestep another attacker before slamming the musket down on the soldier’s head, sending him to the ground, too.
More closed in to fill the gap.
* * *
Four Roundheads came around the edge of the melee and spotted Nellie, Merlin, and Harcourt. The nearest two came straight after Nellie, one with arms outstretched, the other with shackles in hand, both laughing as if playing some schoolyard game.
She bolted to evade them, but they chased her down quickly. One seized her around the waist, the other grabbed at her arms, cackling with glee as she tried to hit him and claw his face. Together the filthy pair tackled her to the ground, pinning her down to get the manacles on her.
Another rushed up to Harcourt, sword out. The professor shrieked and put up his hands, but before he could even say a word in surrender, the soldier struck him down with no more concern than if he’d been swatting a fly.
The last of the four soldiers came for Merlin. The scientist raised his hands slowly and carefully in response.
“Easy now,” he said gently. “I’ll go quietly.” The soldier’s cheeks were pockmarked with smallpox scars, his eyes narrow and suspicious. He held up a chain.
“No tricks,” the man grunted.
* * *
Prone on the slippery ground, Cam gripped the soldier’s sword arm, straining to keep the small-sword from plunging down on him. His other hand grasped the soldier’s neck, while his foe clenched Cam’s throat, just below his silver torc—a contest of strangulation. Only a hand’s span lay between their faces. His opponent’s was red and sweaty, the cords in his neck stretched to the breaking point beneath Cam’s fingers.
Then Cam heard the piping of the fairies growing louder, and at last he saw them dancing before his eyes, tiny blue stars, old familiar friends. His opponent’s grasp on his neck suddenly loosened, and Cam released his own death grip in order to wrench the soldier’s wrist inward, driving the blade into the man’s neck. Blood drenched him and the soldier slid off, limp as a dead fish.
He shot up, gasping for breath. Instantly the other troopers were on him. One struck him with the butt of his musket to the face, knocking him back to the cold ground. Another launched a vicious jab to his guts. As did another. And another, until Cam could no longer feel anything at all.
* * *
With an unexpected low swing, Blake caught one Roundhead just below the knee, dropping him like a felled tree. The commando kept moving, weaving and dodging, but the soldiers kept him ringed in, and he knew the fight was going on too long. His speed was starting to lag. He beat back two sword thrusts, ducked a swinging weapon, and jabbed his musket stock into the opening of another soldier’s helmet.
He wheeled about, just as Stearne’s grizzled lieutenant got into the fray. The burly man had another flintlock pistol ready, out and aimed at Blake’s heart. On sheer reflex alone Blake gave a backhanded swing of the musket as he ducked to the right. It connected just as the Roundhead fired, knocking the weapon aside. Blake reeled, ears ringing from the pistol’s booming report.
Behind him, another soldier fell with a scream.
A musket swing caught him in his blind spot. Rolling with the blow, he came up again and parried a sword cut, but a second one sliced open a red line along his arm. He swung the musket wildly, but took another hard blow on his shoulder. The impact knocked the musket out of his hands, and then a third solid hit to his side knocked him to the ground.
A heavy foot caught him in the pit of his stomach, causing Blake to curl up reflexively. The same foot rolled him on his back before planting itself on his chest. Blake opened his eyes to see the lieutenant standing above him with a triumphant sneer. Another soldier with manacles bent down toward him, but the big man pushed him back.
“No shackles for this one,” he growled, pulling out yet another flintlock pistol from his brace, and aiming it down at Blake’s head.
* * *
Merlin kept his arm movements slow and deliberate, his voice meek and reasonable. The soldier cuffed one wrist, then the other, locking both tight. Then he looked up, catching sight of Merlin’s face up close. His eyes widened and he stood transfixed, staring into the violet blackness of Merlin’s eyes and the tiny stars cascading down their depths.
“You—you have the evil eye…” he stammered, backing away in horror.
“No, no,” the scientist said gently. “No, there’s a reasonable explanation.”
The pockmarked soldier raised an accusing finger at him.
“You do! You’re a warlock and you’re casting a spell on me!”
“No, let’s calm down.” He raised his hands. “There’s no such thing as a warl—”
“You’re the Devil! Christ Jesus save me!”
The soldier took another step back, pulled out his flintlock, and shot Merlin dead in the chest.
* * *
Smoke, confusion, the sound of gunfire, and the screams of panicked horses and dying men filled the air. Crawling on her belly to avoid the stamping hooves, Amber wormed her way past the clusters of vicious fighting. Everything in sight was moving with dreamlike sluggishness—the horses running rampant, the flash and thunder from musket and pistol barrels, the soldiers swarming around her friends like ants.
What was happening? Was she dreaming?
Pulling herself to her feet, she looked about in a daze.
Oh god.
No matter where she looked, her eyes were met with horror. Cam’s body lay unmoving on the ground while Roundhead soldiers beat him with muskets. The grizzled lieutenant who looked forward to her death on the stake was kicking Blake to the ground. Nellie was cursing and fighting while a laughing pair of soldiers straddled her body and shackled her wrists.
Harcourt’s body lay in a crumpled heap in the heath.
And then as she watched, an enraged soldier drew his firearm and shot Merlin. A burst of red spray stained the air. Chained arms thrown high, the scientist’s body flew backward and hit the ground. There it remained, motionless.
She snapped out of her stupor. Eyes wide, she screamed Merlin’s name. The soldier wheeled at the sound and fled, as though he were the victim and not the murderer. Amber scrambled to her feet and ran over to the fallen man.
“Dr. Meta? Merlin?” she said softly, her voice quavering. “Can you hear me?” He was unmoving, shackled arms over his head. She knelt down and listened for breathing. There was none. She touched his chest, running her finger over a wet patch on his black robe, right in the center.
With trembling fingers, she smoothed out the material, revealing first a torn, scorched ring, and below that, a ragged red hole, big enough to slip her fingers in. She pulled her hand back in shock.
Merlin was dead.
There was no word for the howling emptiness that ripped through her. She knelt there, as numb as if the entire world had been murdered.
In a very real sense, it had.
She looked up again, her eyes wet. The fighting was over. Stearne had regained mastery over his spooked horse, and he was once again issuing orders. His lieutenant stood with one foot on Blake’s body, yelling something back up to his master.
Stearne turned and pointed to her. His gaze reflected more than mere triump
h—it managed to blend hunger, wounded pride, vengeance, and lust. Through her haze, she could just make out what he was saying, his voice ringing with righteous fury.
“Enough,” he cried out. “Take the witches and gag their lying mouths. See that they are shackled and hitch them to your saddlebows to march them home. If they resist, let the horses drag them all the way back to the stakes. If the warlocks are too wounded to stand, cut their throats.”
Off to Amber’s left, soldiers dragged Nellie to her stumbling feet, her escorts hauling her away despite her struggles. Knots of soldiers leaned over the unmoving bodies of Cam and Blake, while others trudged toward her and Merlin.
They were coming for her.
She turned her head away—she couldn’t bear the thought of meeting their eyes. With one final shuddering inhalation, she placed a soft kiss on the dead man’s forehead and rested her head on his chest. She waited for the soldiers to drag her away.
A strange sensation tickled her ear.
It was an almost electronic hum—and it was coming from his chest. Sitting up, Amber gripped either side of the tear in his robe and pulled, ripping the fabric open.
Holy shit.
The hole in his skin was overlaid by an intricate mesh of tiny silver hexagons, replicating and spreading out to completely cover the wound.
His eyes opened.
Amber shot straight up to her feet, startling the pair of soldiers coming up to fetch her. Then Merlin sat up. The Roundheads fell back in shock.
“Shouldn’t you two be running away now?” he suggested.
They staggered, turned tail and ran.
42
The rest of the company turned to see the pair of hardened troopers wailing in fear as they fled from the young woman standing calmly… next to the man they had just seen shot dead.
Stearne and his burly lieutenant caught sight of the panic spreading across the troops, and they spurred their horses forward to see what was causing the uproar. The witchfinder pulled back hard on the reins when he saw Amber and Merlin standing there, a wave of speechless horror spreading across his face before he straightened in the saddle, visibly fighting to compose himself.