Deadly Wands (5 page)

Because his birth certificate said Billy was
eight instead of six, he had to keep up with the other boys in
horseback riding, archery, and wrestling. This toughed Billy up,
and William wanted Billy as tough as possible. While other kids
played, Billy trained.

William put a priority on tactical sense.
He’d outline a scenario and walk Billy through it. Then he’d change
something that forced a different strategy. Rage and terror drove
most fighters, but William wanted Billy to foresee how any given
situation would play out before engaging. William collected video
montages of every battle he could, and together they analyzed who
did what right and wrong.

“Win your fights before they start,” dad
would tell him. “The better you plan, the less you’ll bleed.”

William made a living dueling. Liz feared for
him every time he entered the arena. However, killing a few
thousand Mongols a year boosted his wand power and made him enough
to give Global Bank the capital it needed to expand
internationally. All too soon he had several thousand of his wife’s
relatives on the payroll.

The catch to dueling was getting killed by a
better dueler, like a millennial -- those with one thousand proven
kills. Proving a kill is easy since a wand records everything it’s
used for, from starting fires to moving furniture to blasting
enemies, although that memory can be lost when passed to a new
owner. Everyone feared millennials because their goal was not
money, but longevity. The more powerful the wand, the more years it
provided. The Empire made dueling the national sport, pastime, and
obsession so kids would grow up dreaming of living forever with
wealth, fame, and glory. The best duelers could effectively live
forever, although the price of immortality was endless war.

"Good morning," the horde's leader greeted
them. "Tomorrow we’ll move north along the Irtysh River for better
grazing for the animals."

"We’ll catch up if we’re not back in time,"
William assured him pleasantly, eager to maintain good
relations.

The leader smiled down at Billy. "Beriakh
says you almost fly faster than him, and he’s the fastest that I’ve
ever seen. Maybe soon you can represent us in the summer games. I’d
love to see those arrogant fools beaten by someone half their
size."

Once the leader left, William smacked the boy
on the back of the head. "You raced the regional speed
champion?"

"What?" Billy demanded. "I let him win!"

“I’m counting on you to continue my line,”
his father told him for the millionth time. “Don’t get killed until
after you’ve reproduced.”

The trauma of hearing her husband fighting
for his life while Elizabeth gave birth triggered uncontrolled
bleeding that made her unable to have more babies. Liz would never
forgive her Uncle John for preventing her from having more
children.

As always, the family flew as high, fast and
far as possible. Today they went north over the vast Mongolian
Plateau to the Siberian forest to visit some friends of the
family.

When Mongols originally expanded, they
incorporated the Tatars, Manchurians, the Chinese, and those living
in the Stans. The one original neighbor who refused were those
living in Siberia. Intensely cold and heavily wooded, the Great
Khan didn’t need to conquer Siberia because the Siberians couldn’t
defend it. Mongols simply took what they wanted, and killed any
Siberians who got in the way. The Siberians needed to eat, too, and
so attacked rich Mongols. As the number of Mongols multiplied, the
number of Siberians dwindled to near-extinction. Mongols probably
would have exterminated them long ago if William’s ancestors didn’t
provide them with food, money, and wands for the last two
centuries.

Survival depended upon living undetected, but
William arranged this meeting long ago. A few thousand Siberians
greeted William like family and spoke of his parents and
grandparents like old friends. William, Liz, and Billy carried all
the fruits, vegetables, spices, milk, and medicine that they could
carry. They had drop-off points all across Siberia.

The Siberians were down to a thousand or so
quads and several thousand two-wanders six years ago when William
offered to give them a superior wand set for every quad they
created. They also had to agree to stop attacking Mongols to
prevent retaliation.

Because William had big plans for them.

The Siberians dispersed after nightfall
because they were harder to detect in small numbers. In the
morning, the family flew back south. They stopped for lunch and
dueling practice. Billy killed a marmot, skinned and cleaned it,
then built a cooking fire under a tree with many branches to
disperse the smoke. Unfortunately, some wet leaves caused too much
smoke to be seen from above.

A dozen thugs soon showed up, shocking the
hell out of Billy, who’d never get over his hatred of being
surprised. These parasites lived off of the packs, obeying no laws
that restricted their appetites. Far from Mongol authority, they
could do whatever they wanted without consequences. The family came
across bandits before, but having already flown several hours, they
were too tired to flee. Billy wisely dived in the snow to hide
himself.

William and Liz put their backs to the forest
so the raiders would land with Billy hidden behind them. They
closed on the couple, their intent clearly hostile.

"We have nothing of value," William yelled in
fluent Mongolian.

"Even from far away we heard your blasts,"
their leader replied. "But because sound travels so far, we
couldn't locate you until we saw your smoke. I’m glad we didn't
quit. We love rich tourists on vacation."

Nomads called rich families who briefly
roughed it "tourists." Robbing tourists gave raiders the cash they
needed to gorge on drink and whores.

"Go find softer targets," William suggested,
burning nine-meter-long flames to let the criminals know what they
faced. He felt proud of how much his frequent dueling boosted his
flame.

In return, the leader fired ten-meters out,
which made him among the most powerful on the planet. Some
libraries kept lists of everyone who ever produced ten meters
because it was so rare.

"You don't become a cook without breaking a
thousand eggs," the predator said, using a metaphor for millennials
who have killed a thousand warriors.

Just then four fliers attacked William from
the rear while the dozen in front flew straight at him.

William saw their plan clearly: to overwhelm
him from all sides. The solution was to fly fast through the trees
to separate the fast from the slow to deal with just a few at a
time.

William led Liz away before becoming trapped.
They soon lost all but the fastest. Both wore white deels, the
thick fur coats that Mongols favored, so after a turn they dropped
down to blend with the snow.

They blasted the leader, who shielded himself
just in time, but the next fastest were less lucky. Fireballs took
out two and a third crashed into a tree at high speed. Four more
hunkered down and exchanged fire until the leader returned.

Then Billy attacked them from behind and sank
two boot blades into the two closest, and steel from hand wands
into the backs of the others. He fell hard on his back and rolled
under cover in case some lived long enough to fire back. His
parents charged and finished them off. They transferred ownership
of the wands before they turned cold.

"I got several more back there," Billy
whispered proudly, unnaturally calm. "Now you guys get the leader
to show me his back."

Which seemed as good a plan as any. It’s hard
to hit fliers because they can move so fast in any direction. The
solution is to fix their attention up front, then kill them from
behind.

The couple flew back where they came, but
over the trees instead of through them. As expected, the head
bandit chased them, his coat still smoldering. The parents then
dropped below the tree line and weaved their way back to Billy, who
waited patiently in a tall tree. At the perfect moment, Billy
launched himself at full speed and impaled the guy with two pikes
in the back before he even knew of Billy’s existence. He tumbled
head over heels and smacked hard against a birch tree. The blow
shook with such force that the snow on its branches fell.

Billy dropped on top of the guy and strictly
followed protocol. A dying warrior has nothing to lose by fighting,
so Billy sliced his biceps so he could not fire back. Then the boy
took his boot wands, whose power filled Billy better than any drug.
He had transferred wand ownership before, but not with sticks of
this power, and the sensation overwhelmed him. He closed his eyes
and soaked up the experience. Wands grow more powerful the more
they are used, but people do not blast rocks with the same emotion
that they blast enemies, so the more people a wand has killed, the
more powerful it became. These ancient wands had killed a lot of
people.

Wands don't transfer ownership well, and the
more powerful the wand, the harder to transfer. Weak wands, like to
store videos, can be passed around without loss of power, but
strong ones cannot. Wands taken from cold dead hands lose much of
their strength, which is why warriors prefer dueling, where they
can take wands while the owner at the moment of death.

As he came down from the high, Billy noticed
the dying man staring viciously at him.

"You're just a damn kid," the leader
whispered, growing weaker as his blood colored the snow red. "You
don’t even know who I am."

"I don’t even care," the boy replied, as he
put a boot on the guy’s chest and roughly tore the two hand wands
away. The boot wands warned him of the power of the hand wands,
which spiked him with a sizzling energy that some prefer to
orgasms.

His eyes rolled up into his skull and his
skin tingled deliciously. Billy didn’t realize it yet, but he had
just become addicted to what quads called “sipping” and what
everyone else called “sucking.” The world saw so much war because
warriors went crazy from desire without regular shots of wand
juice. Sucking a powerful wand dry added decades to one’s life.
They say that youth is wasted on the young, and virtual immortality
wasted on those who must kill to stay alive.

Billy had no idea how much time had passed,
but his parents had already collected the coins and wands from the
other fifteen attackers when he came to.

"Let's go home," his mother told him. “Anyone
who can shoot flame ten meters is trouble.”

“He’s not dead yet,” Billy objected. “I want
to see him die.”

The thug gathered what little strength he had
left to whisper to Billy, “My grandfather will make you die
horribly, and soon.”

Billy extended flame eight meters with his
new wands. “Let him try.”

The boy watched the brute’s eyes go blank,
something he’d never tire of. For a warrior, nothing else compared
to taking life. The wands in his hands told Billy when the bandit
died -- they grew warmer and full of life. Holding the wands at the
moment of death is vital to keeping their full power.

Billy vowed right then and there to become
the best quad in history.

CHAPTER 7

Before they could pack the marmot, a visitor
descended, his wand emitted a friendly greeting, as curtsey
demanded, before landing across from them. He looked like a rich
noble. William's wand returned his greeting, but remained wary.

"I’m looking for Barchuk the Bandit," the
visitor said, stating his business like a good Mongol. Mongols only
had one name, and so used descriptions to differentiate those who
share names. "I heard a firefight."

"And what is your business with him?" William
asked, keeping his tone neutral.

"I planned on killing him," the visitor
replied. "His raids threaten the nomads."

"Then you’re too late. We killed them
defending ourselves."

"You?" The visitor found it hard to believe.
"No disrespect, but Barchuk was very good. I trained him myself,
before he turned bad. I even gave him his wands."

"No disrespect, but he traveled with fifteen
others. Were you hunting them alone?"

"Yes," the visitor answered, not at all
insulted.

Husband and wife exchanged anxious looks. "I
am Vesak," William said, using his Mongol name. "I descend from
Taran of Kiev."

"I knew Taran well. Good Mongol. We fought at
Kiev together. That movie his wife made of him even attributed some
of my kills to him. It still feels like someone stole from me."

"And who are you?" William asked, annoyed
that he had to ask.

"It's hard to believe you killed
Barchuk."

"His body lies a few hundred meters over
there."

"And his wands?"

"I gave them to my boy for when he gets his
powers at puberty."

Billy helpfully held out the wands. The
Mongol tapped an eye with his wand to examine them from a distance.
"Yep. That's them."

"Is that what you want? His wands?" William
asked.

Billy reset them in his arm launchers when
the old man turned away.

"I wanted them, yes. But if you gave them to
the boy, then you did not transfer ownership quickly enough to
retain their power. Otherwise you’d have kept them for
yourself."

Which was solid reasoning, except the wands
belonged to Billy, who killed Barchuk and transferred
ownership.

"We dueled so high that, when I finally got a
lucky shot, I lost him in the trees. He was cold when I found him,"
William lied. He waited patiently, but the visitor was in no hurry
to leave. "We have nothing more of value."

"Oh, but you do," the Mongol replied. "You
have wands powerful enough to kill a great dueler like Barchuk, and
fifteen others. A powerful wand can last me years, if I sip
moderately." He turned to Liz. "I’m sorry, ma’am, but I need yours
as well."