Gunwitch (13 page)

For too long. She had no time for further reminiscing.

“I have not finished my … my
breakfast
,” Janett protested, still sitting on the major’s jacket. She waved her partially chewed stick of jerky like a baton. “And my feet have not yet stopped hurting.”

“Take it as a good sign,” Rose said. “If your feet hurt, at least you’re still alive to feel them. Now, on your feet, Miss Laxton.” When everyone was standing, she said, “Follow Chal. I’ll bring up the rear and see if I can’t make our trail a bit less obvious. Or at least slow them down some.”

“That way is north,” Major Haley said. “Fort Russell should be northwest from here,” he added. “Should we not make the straightest path to the fort?”

Rose nodded, pleased. He might be a young officer, and had probably spent less time in forts than even little Margaret, but he had a head on his shoulders that carried more than just a handsome face. Or what had been a handsome face. If he survived this, his first stretch of duty in the rough, and if Janett did not break him or get them all killed, he might make a good officer.

“This is the bayuk, Major,” Rose said. “The straightest path is seldom the best path, and we have no boats in any case. Further, if they expect us to head to the fort–and right now I don’t know if they do or they don’t–they can try to get ahead of us along that direct path, and wait to ambush us again.”

“I see,” the major said.

The fatigue on his face, his injuries, almost caused Rose to reach out and touch his shoulder, to reassure him. She could heal him, even his lost ear if she took care of him right away–

She cut off that line of thought. So long as he could move under his own power, she had other, more important uses for her limited gunwitch abilities than making a man handsome again. Especially a man who was too young for her.

Once she was alone, Rose took one more close look around. Then she leaned her rifle against a tree and stood in the center of the small clearing. She knelt and pulled out her pistol. The ornate metalwork that wrapped around the wooden stock and the barrel came alive with runes, then faded.

For that instant, she thought of setting an ambush of her own. She was alone, but she was a pistoleer, a gunwitch. And their pursuers were …

She did not know
what
they were. At least they could be killed.

She had seen men welded to machines on Continental battlefields. But those men had still possessed beating hearts and at least one working lung. And a shot through that heart, or the head if the heart was too heavily armored, would bring their gears and mechanisms and the weapons they wielded to a grinding, lurching halt.

That first thing that had attacked her, though, had looked more like the hacked torso of a corpse propped on mechanical legs. She had unloaded both shot and lightning into it, and separated man and machine. The mechanical legs, blasted backward, had kicked a few times and stopped. The torso, though, reduced to a head, one arm and the section of shoulder and chest connecting those had not stopped. She had watched it pull itself along, back toward her, her eyes fixed by the unexpectedness of the sight. Until even worse had come out of the darkness and started killing the soldiers.

Whatever those had been, they had moved too fast for her to see clearly in the dark. Lean, long legs and arms and too-long fingers, carrying axes and swords or just tearing with their hooked fingers. Too many, coming too quickly. And she had had no time to reload.

Pushing magic through an unloaded pistol, even the pistol that she had carried for so long and used innumerable times, was tiring. And she had pushed herself to the limit. Four of those creatures had been consumed in the fire that sprayed out of her pistol. And so had Corporal Higgs, struggling, not dead yet, but only because he had refused to die. One of the creatures held him from behind while another ripped the flesh from his chest and abdomen, exposing shredded organs. Rose was not sure death by fire was the better way for Higgs to die. Disemboweling or burning, either way was going to hurt like hell. Either way, he was going to die. She had just taken advantage of that fact.

The other attackers had broken off then, and fled. And Ducoed had followed them into the darkness, the arrogant, stupid bastard. He had always assumed his own immortality. She and the other survivors had heard one of his lightning bolts, so at least he had lived long enough for one good strike. Maybe he was following them now, trying to catch up. Maybe he had been injured and could not move as fast.

Maybe she wanted him to die, mutilated and screaming. Maybe she was taking advantage of another established fact. There had been a lot of water under the bridge since the King’s Coven. Once she was over the shock of seeing him, she had not wanted to kill him. And, at the moment, ambushed, on the run, with very little food, and less powder and shot, she would welcome him as an ally.

With Ducoed, she could set an ambush, a crossfire of magical energies that would rip apart whatever it was that followed them. Two members of the 101st Pistoleers were a formidable force. But Chal had detected no sign of Ducoed, so Rose had to assume that he was dead.

She unloaded her pistol, being careful with the powder.

Pointing the now empty pistol at the ground, she took a deep breath and let it out slow. She kept her eyes open and concentrated on the magic she needed. The pistol became cold in her grip. She traced a triggering circle that enclosed the entire clearing where they had stopped and rested. The energies came out of her, directed by the gun and her thoughts, and adhered to the ground as she took each step. She could not see the energies, not with her eyes. But she could sense them.

She paused, to let her breathing become regular again. The strain of holding the pistol and maintaining the magic caused the muscles in her back to tense and ache. By working the magic slowly, she could be more precise, more powerful, but it took more effort.

She went back over the triggering circle, weaving in the interdiction to keep animals from tripping the trigger, and an inversion to make the circle invisible to anyone but her. Then she traced two blast direction lines that crossed in the center of the triggering circle. And a flare line up from the cross point, to as high as she could reach.

The knuckles of her right hand showed white. She had to hold the gun with both hands to keep it steady.

No more weaving and tracing now. She aimed the muzzle where the blast lines crossed and pushed raw, cold magic out of her, piling fire and lightning into a single point that pulsed with the pounding of her heart.

When she had sacrificed as much of herself as she deemed advisable, she stopped the flow. The jolt was like a hard fist to her solar plexus, but she maintained her grip on the gun, and on the energies. In the 101st, this kind of trap was built with two pistoleers working together, sharing the burden and reducing the risk. One pistoleer alone might trip or stumble or suffer a lapse of concentration, and set the trap off on top of themselves. Rose tried not to think about failing.

She backed away from the blast point, staying between the blast direction lines. She paused when she got close to the triggering line. She blinked her eyes to clear them, and focused on the circle, so she could step over it. Not until she was more than ten feet from the circle did she squeeze the trigger and let go the magic, severing the connection between her and the trap with the flash of the flint on iron.

Another blow to the solar plexus, harder than the first, staggered her, knocked out her wind and forced her to take a step back. In front of her, as she struggled to breathe again, the air rippled and churned, then settled down. If she concentrated, she could still see the circle. In a few minutes, though, the inversion would be complete, and even she would not be able to sense the trap.

She could have made the trap more powerful by finishing with a shot into the center, or at least recovered some of her own strength from the energy of the exploding powder. But they had no powder that could be wasted. The trap would have to do as it was.

She leaned against a tree, still watching the circle, catching her breath, and trying not to get her hopes up. The trap would probably hit only scouts, and most likely just one scout. But maybe it would put the fear of the gunwitch into the pursuers, and make them more cautious, slower in their pursuit. The sound of the explosion, though, and the flare, would let her know when the pursuers reached this point.

Her legs protested when she forced them to carry her weight again. Her back ached, and her arms. She ignored all her pains and reloaded her pistol.

She looked at the bits of sky the trees let through. Nearly thirty minutes gone. It would be close.

* * *

She set two smaller traps as she followed the trail left by Chal and the others. The fatigue of the first trap, and the continued walking, meant that these traps would be little more than fireworks and flares. There was no help for it. She desperately needed to know how far behind her was the enemy. And how fast they were proceeding.

She estimated she was an hour behind Chal and the others when she heard the distant boom of the first trap going off. Two hours after they had left that point, their pursuers had reached it. Even allowing for a more cautious approach now, they would be lucky if they had time to set up false trails.

Rose picked up her pace.

Just another forced march, she told herself. How many had she endured in the infantry? On even less sleep? With a pack heavier than she had handed off to Chal?
Forced march? This?
She could almost hear her soldier self sneering at her from her past. No, this was more like a leisurely run.

She could only run so fast, though, without leaving an obvious trail. Her eyes sought the signs of passage by her companions. The Major’s bootprints in the mud, or Private Tishman’s, or grass bent by the Janett’s passage. To these places she directed her feet, leaving only a slight smudging caused by her moccasins. Chal left no footprints. She never did. And as long as Margaret walked with Chal, the girl would leave no sign of passage either. Another little trick of magic Rose had not been able to master. So she relied on the more mundane skills Chal and others, like poor Nicholas, had taught her in her years since leaving the King’s army.

She reached the twin cataracts about twenty minutes behind Chal. A tributary stream of the Comite river split its course around a small island of rock. A single, ancient tree twisted up from the rocks, with a collection of equally ancient and twisted bushes around its roots. On each side of the tree, the waters of the stream fell fifteen feet in a continuous low roar. The rock jutted past the waterfalls, dividing the falls and another forty feet of river, sloping like a giant stone arrowhead driven into the earth. Near the rushing water, the rocks were brown and green with mud and moss, but nothing else grew.

Rose was pleased to see that the group had continued walking upstream, away from the cataracts, without stopping. She wanted no unnecessary sign of their interest in the location.

Behind her, she heard another of her traps boom. That confirmed it. Their pursuers had slowed, but not much. Rose forced herself to run.

Ten minutes later, she jogged up behind Private Tishman, just as Chal said, “Rose returns. Do not be frightened.”

“Stop,” Rose said as she passed Tishman and went between the major and Janett to fall in beside Chal and Margaret. “But don’t move out of your places.” Everyone came to a stop. “And don’t sit down, Janett,” she added. “You either, Margaret. Major Haley, please keep Miss Laxton on her feet.” She looked at Chal. “You heard?”

Chal nodded.

“We have less than an hour. Major Haley,” she said, looking up at the man, “continue walking with Miss Laxton, as you have been, another twenty paces. That way.” She pointed. “Then assist Miss Laxton in removing her shoes, and send her back along your path. Miss Laxton, you’ll need to carry your shoes and walk on your own footsteps–”

“Take off my shoes? In this?” The girl gestured at the undergrowth and the damp, bare dirt.

“Yes. In this. Your bare feet leave a very different imprint. Once you’ve sent her back, Major, continue another thirty paces, then take off your own boots and come back along your path. Do it.”

“I will do no such thing!” Janett said, but Major Haley took her arm with his good arm and pulled her along. “Major Haley! How dare you–”

“Now is not the time, Janett.”

Rose turned to Private Tishman. “Go with them, Private,” she said, “following just like you have been. Go thirty paces past Major Haley, take off your boots and get back here.”

Chal, still propping Margaret on her left side, extended her right hand to Janett. The older girl hesitated, then took Chal’s hand, her fingers looking even paler next to Chal’s. Chal led the girls back toward the cataracts.

Fifteen minutes later, both the major and the private returned. The private had his boots tied together and wrapped around his neck like a scarf. “Stay in single file,” Rose said. “Walk in the footsteps of the person in front of you.”