The War and the Fox

by Tim Susman

  “Aye, easy to hold and not so hard to learn. Even Kip’s picked this one up. I reckon you could learn it easily enough if you liked.”

  Kip took up the station Lowell had assigned him, from which he could see the American army arrayed before him, scattered groups of men in barely better formation than on the other side of the hill, and beyond that, smears of red that he supposed were the British Army. Here he would need better eyesight, so as quietly as he could, he stepped into the other room. Captain Lowell caught his eye as he went and frowned, but Kip signaled that he’d be back in a moment and the captain nodded.

  He had not yet figured out how to make Nikolon appear invisible when summoned, and he supposed that the sudden appearance of a naked Calatian vixen in the house would disturb the soldiers, who already seemed wary of Calatian sorcerers. When Nikolon appeared and Kip had bound her, he ordered her to remain invisible and to relay to him the locations of the British military units.

  Back in the other room, Captain Lowell explained to the soldiers why they did not cast physical protection wards in battle. “You can easily see the effects. It is key to keep the sorcerers hidden, or the enemy sorcerers will focus their attentions on them, and most wards can be undone with vigorous attention. This is what happened at the battle of Fort Duquesne.”

  “Can’t they just try to pick up this house?” one of the men asked.

  “There are a number of houses and structures around here,” Lowell responded. “They would have to pick up each one. To spot a protection ward, they could make a light rain fall and the shelter would be visible.”

  “Sorcerers can make it rain?” the soldier asked. He stared around at Kip, as though Kip were the only sorcerer here.

  “Sometimes.” Kip focused on the images Nikolon was sending him now and returned to his station at the window. “It takes a good deal of effort.”

  “Can they call lightning?”

  “Aye,” Kip said absently, looking out over a column of red-jacketed soldiers. What had appeared from a distance to be a uniform red smear over the countryside resolved into people, and more than that, the red varied from person to person: a few clean and bright uniforms, many showing stains and small tears. The soldiers bore resolute, stoic expressions, even those breathing hard from the march. Keeping Lowell’s words in mind, Kip looked for the enemy sorcerer, with no luck. No doubt they had wards up just as he did.

  “Why not just call lightning on the enemy?” the American soldier asked Kip.

  “In a way, that’s what we do with demons,” he said. The great demon Farley had summoned would probably be able to curse twenty men at once, or raise a great blizzard to impede them—if Kip could control him long enough to be useful. The demon that Windsor had summoned to kill the people at the college had required even more control; he wasn’t sure that anyone else save perhaps Master Odden would be able to control it. Besides, for anything more than a first-level demon, Kip would have to cut himself to taste blood, and he had no desire to do that in this house where the wound might easily fester. “But there are demons on both sides, and the more powerful, the more dangerous to the sorcerer.”

  “As I understand it,” Lowell said, “many battles come down to demon-battles.”

  “I’ve never been in a battle.” Kip gripped the windowsill, still looking over the British army. Nikolon, are there other demons about anywhere? he asked, while also replying, “Most sorcerers can’t bind two demons at once, too.”

  “Kip can, though,” Alice said proudly.

  No, Master, Nikolon replied.

  This got a startled look from Lowell. “Can you now?”

  “Not any two demons,” Kip said. “I have a good deal of trust in one particular demon, and we work together well enough that I can spare the energy to bind another.”

  “Trust?” Lowell’s brow wrinkled. “I haven’t heard that word used with demons ever.”

  “You’ve not heard of a Calatian sorcerer either.” Malcolm finished his wards and now sat on the rug next to Alice. “Our Kip can do many surprising things. Have any of you some water?”

  One of the soldiers passed over a canteen, and the room fell silent. To change the subject, Kip asked, “How long have you been stationed here?”

  “This house, or the harbor?” the soldier who’d passed the canteen asked.

  “Either.”

  “This house, five days. The harbor, ooh, must be two months now? But we were part of the British Army for some of that. Got our new kit a month ago and orders to wear it just last week. Looks a bit rough, I know, but our Captain says you can’t make uniforms for a thousand men all in one week. Maybe sorcerers could, though.”

  Malcolm laughed. “Now there would be a better use of magic than half the spells I’ve seen.”

  “The whole house looks rough,” Kip said.

  The soldier nodded. “Aye, and smells it, but it’s walls and a roof and we were lucky to be chosen for it. Bentley there’s got an uncle high up and he dragged us along with him.” Malcolm passed back the canteen, and the soldier toasted his companion.

  So the rest of the army had been sleeping out of doors, and the British had marched for miles to get here. One exhausted group of men against another, and Master Colonel Jackson’s sorcerers against their British counterparts to gain an advantage for their exhausted men. As Kip reflected on it, the week confined to the Trade House’s shelter and regular meals didn’t seem as bad anymore.

  For an hour they stood there and watched, long enough that Kip began to think he should dismiss Nikolon. “Still no movement,” he told Lowell, who’d asked for regular updates.

  This time the captain paced away from his own window spot. “I can’t tell what they’re waiting for. The last of them has arrived, you said?”

  Kip had said it twice, in fact, but he nodded. “Why are we waiting for them?”

  The soldiers muttered agreement. “They sit there,” one said. “Why not open fire on them?”

  “Because they have ships coming into the harbor, perhaps,” Lowell said. “It’s not our place to question the generals.”

  Nikolon had continued to scan the army, and now Kip spotted an otter-Calatian relieving himself outside a tent. Nikolon, he said, are there any other Calatians in the British Army?

  The Army had a Calatians division, he knew, but had any of his people sided with the British? “Lowell,” Kip asked, and then remembered the ranks. “Sorry, Captain Lowell.”

  “Yes?”

  “How many of the Army remained with the British?”

  Nikolon answered at the same time as the captain, but Kip was gaining experience at listening to the demon while remaining attentive to the real world. I have not seen any others.

  “A few here and there. Mostly officers, the people who own a good deal of…property. Who would have the most to lose should the government that recognizes their ownership be removed from power.”

  Nikolon was showing him more of the soldiers, human after human, but at the way Captain Lowell said, “Property,” Kip realized that all the soldiers he was seeing were white. Most of the American Army had been white as well. “Er,” he said, “What about Calatians?”

  “There’s one Calatian unit in the Army,” Lowell said. “I don’t know if any of them deserted.”

  “There’s a Calatian on the British side.” Kip pointed out the window. “In uniform but I think he’s a calyx.” Nikolon, where’s that otter?

  The demon returned him to the area where the otter had been. I cannot see him.

  “Almost sure,” Kip amended before Lowell could comment. “Malcolm, how can you break an inattention ward?”

  “Walk into it,” Malcolm said cheerfully. “I suppose you mean from a distance, though.”

  “Stop,” Captain Lowell said. “We haven’t been ordered to take any action. Surveillance is permissible, but no direct action.”

  “I’m only trying to break a ward that is preventing my surveillance.” Kip directed Nikolon back to where they’d s
een the otter, the exact spot as best he could find. “If he has a calyx, he’s likely to summon something nasty.”

  “Take no action,” Captain Lowell said. “That’s an order.”

  Move at a walking pace back toward the camp, Kip told Nikolon. Go back and forth until you find a tent with the otter inside it. To Lowell, Kip said, “Very well.”

  Lowell stared at him until he added, “Sir,” which Kip did as neutrally as he could without giving offense.

  “How will we know when to attack?” Malcolm asked.

  “One side or another will give orders,” Captain Lowell told him. “If the British charge our position, we attack. If the generals order us to attack, we will.”

  Kip gave a curt nod and looked back out the window again, watching the red smears in his vision as Nikolon showed him a slow crawl back and forth across grass. There was a tent, but it didn’t seem important, and Kip was going to tell Nikolon not to bother with it, but then the demon stopped.

  I cannot proceed, he said.

  With difficulty, Kip focused. The tent, that tent. Can you show that tent to Malcolm?

  Yes.

  Please do.

  Next to him, Malcolm gave a start and then leaned back against the wall. “As I was saying, Kip, purely for speculation, if you were to try to break a ward from a distance, it requires a good line of sight to where the ward is, and then you have to feel it out. But if, for example, you were to ask me to do that right now, I’d likely have to drop the two wards I’m holding, for they require some focus to keep and if I were to cast a spell that took up my concentration, someone might easily break them while I wasn’t attentive.”

  “The defensive sorcerer focuses only on defense,” Captain Lowell said. “For just that reason. If we had sorcerers who could hold wards and attack the enemy, we wouldn’t need three sorcerers to a unit.”

  Outside the house, the American soldiers had gotten to their feet, many looking at the ground. Kip pressed the side of his face to the window so he could see. “Something’s happening.”

  Captain Lowell snapped to attention at his own window and then relaxed. “The ground,” he said. “Standard opening tactic. It’s physical magic disrupting the stability of the ground. Can you counter it?”

  He spoke to Kip, but Alice responded. “I can,” she said confidently, and strode to the window next to Kip to look out.

  He wanted to hold her back, especially because with Nikolon’s eyes he saw the British soldiers now marching toward the hill. The vulnerability of this small frail house made his fur prickle; surely any soldier with a rifle would be able to see the house and make a target of it. But no, that was what Malcolm was preventing. “They’re coming,” he called. “The British Army.”

  “I see.” Captain Lowell turned back to the soldiers. “Two of you, go into the other room and guard this house against any advances.”

  “Yes, sir.” Two of them, chosen by some method Kip wasn’t privy to, got up and walked to the other room, muskets at the ready. The third kept his musket trained on the door of the house.

  “Again,” Captain Lowell said to Kip, “the rules of combat.”

  “Don’t harm where avoidance suffices; don’t kill where harm suffices.” He appreciated that, because he’d feared he would be called on to incinerate all the men in the army, and while he could have called up that magic easily, he did not want to.

  “This is hard,” Alice said. Her paws had glowed and now she was manipulating the spell she’d cast. “I’m trying to put the ground back and keep it flat, but he’s fighting me.”

  “The closer you are, the more control you have.” Kip admired her concentration. “You can best him.”

  She was, to some extent. The men outside looked more confident in their footing and now stood their ground, waiting for the British to crest the hill. A moment later, Alice gave a short gasp. “I beat him!” She clutched Kip’s arm. “He gave up! I steadied the ground!”

  “Good job. We’ll win this battle yet.”

  “He’ll move on to another spell,” Captain Lowell said. “Be ready.”

  Alice’s ears went back, and Kip had to bite back a remark that of course they didn’t think that this small victory had made the difference in the battle, but it was important to Alice. There would have been scant time to say anything in any event, because a man made of smoke standing a hundred feet tall came into being over the top of the hill. It gestured slowly, re-forming every time breezes pulled bits of it away, its indistinct face nevertheless showing a grimace as its hands stretched out to menace the American soldiers.

  “He’s called a demon!” Kip cried. “It’s going to kill—”

  As soon as he said it, it became clear that the demon was nothing but a distraction. The British troops appeared on either side of the smoke-man and through it, firing at the Americans and cutting a bloody swath through their ranks. There had been perhaps two hundred Americans in Kip’s field of view, and in those first few seconds a quarter of them fell to the ground. The reports of gunfire echoed and echoed, so that both Alice and Kip lay their ears back, and a moment later the screams of men joined the rapid concussions.

  “Well?”

  Kip looked up to see Captain Lowell staring at him. The man gestured toward the window. “Do what you do!”

  “What?”

  “Do something! Anything!”

  “Anything” for Kip led first to fire, and the first thing he could think to do was send bursts of fire down the battlefield between the British and American lines. The fire startled everyone, so it wasn’t clear that it helped the Americans much, but at least it gave them time to recover, and after a few moments the British advance had halted some fifty feet from the house, though the barrage of gunfire and the screams of the men continued, setting everyone on edge.

  “More smoke!” Captain Lowell yelled. “Give them cover!”

  But a moment later, streams of water came pouring down the hill between the British lines, avoiding the red-coated soldiers and heading purposefully for the Americans. Where the water met Kip’s fires, they went out in a puff of steam.

  “Physical magic with the water,” Lowell called.

  “I’ll get it.” Alice stared out the window.

  “I think they’re elementals,” Kip said.

  “I can still lift them.” Alice’s paws glowed, but her magic faltered with a barrage of gunshots and she had to start over. Meanwhile, the water was eating away at the mud below the Americans, causing many to slip and fall, and some of those who fell did not get up again.

  Kip sent more fire to flare up in front of a group of British soldiers that were trying to shoot from the shelter of another house up the hill. Even with Alice’s help, he felt outmatched by this other military sorcerer. He hadn’t the experience to know what to do besides light fires, while this sorcerer was calling demons and elementals and who knew what would be next.

  Alice had managed to lift the water from the ground, but now it was in the way of the American soldiers, though at least it concealed them somewhat. Kip saw another soldier close to him fall, and then the one beyond him clutched his throat and sank to his knees. The action was strange enough to draw Kip’s attention, because there was no blood on the man’s uniform. His face darkened to red and then a deep purple, and then he toppled to his side. He spasmed and then lay still, bulging eyes staring at Kip.

  Kip couldn’t stop staring back. A moment later, a pool of water lifted from the corpse and rejoined the water Alice was levitating. Another soldier farther away touched the water and a moment later dropped his gun, choking for air.

  “They’re not elementals.” Water elementals liked contact with people but would not drown anyone, not that way. “It’s another demon,” Kip cried to Lowell. “He’s killing soldiers with a demon!”

  “That’s not the rules—”

  “He’s drowning them!”

  Lowell shouted back, “Then stop him!”

  Nikolon. Kip shifted his view and saw the
tent, surrounded by grass. The soldiers that had been near it were moving away and it appeared unguarded, just another supply tent on the field. He gathered magic and translocated himself.

  His feet landed in damp grass and a light drizzle tickled his ears. Something was in front of him but he couldn’t quite focus on it. He closed his eyes and followed the smell of damp canvas, walking toward it until his outstretched paw touched the tent wall.

  Now when he opened his eyes he could see the tent; he must be inside the ward. He gathered magic, and just as a shout rang out behind him of “Ho! Stop,” he walked into the tent.

  Three men in red-trimmed black robes and one otter-Calatian turned to him as he entered. He let fire loose on their robes, making the otter jump back from them, and before Kip could do anything else, one of the men had grabbed the other two and then all three were gone. Two ravens flew past him out of the tent and then all was still.

  Almost all. The otter had jumped behind a small table on which sat some papers and a goblet, and cowered there, moaning in a low voice. “Please please, don’t set me afire.”

  “Don’t worry.” Activity outside, someone running toward the tent. Kip hurried forward and grabbed the otter’s wrist. “I’m just taking you prisoner.” His paws glowed violet as he gathered magic again and then let loose fire on the canvas of the tent, ordering it to consume only the canvas and no more.

  Heat flared around them and steam hissed as the water in the canvas boiled away. The otter shrieked and hid his face in his paws. Outside, there were shouts of confusion as the men fell back, and then a bullet whistled through the tent. Kip dragged the otter down to the ground. “Where are the demon names?” he demanded.

  “W-what?”

  “Did the sorcerers read names off a paper? Which name did he read?”

  “Aye, but—” The otter’s breathing quickened. “I don’t have to tell you anything, traitor.”

  “I’m sparing your life,” Kip snapped, “and I’m trying to make a better world for all of our kind. You want to be a calyx forever?”

  Another gunshot. The otter looked down at his bloody elbow. Kip said, “Give me the demon name and you’ll be our prisoner. I promise no harm will come to you.”