Witchy Winter

by D. J. Butler

  But maybe he’d return.

  Westward, several streets away, a pack of wolf-, boar-, and lizard-headed men emerged from a burning building. Seeing Sarah’s party, they howled and charged.

  “I cannot protect us,” Sherem said. “I have lost my gift.”

  Yedera interposed herself between Sarah and the oncoming beastkind, sword in a low guard position.

  Sarah knelt and placed the Heronplow at the base of the Treewall.

  She took off the crown—her neck felt as though it might snap from the weight—and handed it to Korinn. “Regent-Minister, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Korinn bowed and took the crown in both hands.

  Sarah wrapped her hands around the iron sphere of the Orb of Etyles. Through her witchy eye, she could see the Mississippi River within, but at the cusp of reaching into the sphere, she balked. She just hurt too much.

  “You’re the Beloved.” Alzbieta put a hand on Sarah’s forearm.

  Sarah laughed drily. “I don’t see as that makes me any more powerful. Though it might mean more people askin’ me for things.”

  “They won’t ask for more than you can give. The goddess promised that.”

  Sarah nodded. “I think She also suggested I ain’t gonna live very long. Still, here we go.”

  Lacking any better words, she repeated her previous spell. “Magna mater, maxima mater. Rogo ut hoc aratrum pelleas.”

  She willed the Heronplow forward and called the goddess to guide it. To her surprise, the golden plow turned into the gate, turned again, and pushed itself straight into the wood of the Treewall.

  Sarah’s three witnesses gasped as one.

  Behind them, the slave bearers murmured.

  The Treewall began to bloom.

  While the Heronplow was close, Sarah saw the bulging wood as it passed through. Where the plow touched any tree of the wall, the tree turned green and blossomed immediately. Dead wood grew new bark, dead limbs filled with sap and dripped the excess into the snow. Leaves burst from the branches, thickening the defensive screen of the wall. Branches became supple, and knitted themselves together more tightly. Heat flowed from the Treewall, and the snow on the ground within twenty feet, waist-high in some places, quickly sank into the earth.

  The moving Heronplow passed Yedera, who paid it no mind. It passed the charging beastkind and they leaped away, surprised. After a short and fierce exchange of grunts, they ran at Sarah again.

  Men on the wall above her began to shout in astonishment. Some of them saw her and pointed, but she paid them no heed, focusing on her spell-prayer.

  The beastkind howled.

  Soon the plow was far enough away that Sarah could no longer see it. But she felt power flowing through her, her own body heating and drying out, and she saw the progress of the plow by the greening of the Treewall. The blooming spread all around the city faster than a galloping horse.

  “Beloved,” Maltres Korinn said.

  The other two witnesses simply wept.

  The beastkind were close enough that Sarah could see their eyes. Yedera raised her blade and bellowed: “Mother Podebradas, give me victory or give me birth!”

  The beastkind roared back.

  When the Heronplow emerged against from the wood of the gate, opposite where it had entered, and found the beginning of its furrow, the beastkind stopped. They looked at each other with puzzlement, as if they were waking from a dream they couldn’t understand.

  Yedera hissed at them and shook her blade.

  Without a sound, looking down at the ground as if embarrassed, the beastkind turned and walked away.

  Sarah released the magic, dropped the Orb of Etyles, and fell onto wet grass.

  “Sharing is not one of them.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “The barn ceiling is about to fall in,” George said.

  Nathaniel hadn’t awoken. He lay in the sweat lodge, mumbling and kicking his heels at the floor. Landon looked closer to death each time Ma’iingan checked on him.

  And George was right: the ceiling was on the verge of collapse.

  “I have a plan,” Ma’iingan said. “If we each carry one of them over our shoulders and we run in opposite directions, maybe one of us will get away.” It was a terrible plan. George Isham would drop Landon and run. Ma’iingan wouldn’t drop Nathaniel, and therefore the wiindigoo would capture him. Everyone would certainly die except George, and he might not make it, either.

  “I have wronged them both,” George said. “I only wish I could carry one over each shoulder.”

  Or maybe George wouldn’t drop Landon, and they’d all get taken.

  “Let me try to create a little space we can work in,” Ma’iingan said. It wasn’t an escape plan, it was a scheme to buy a few more minutes. Maybe God-Has-Given would accomplish whatever it was he was attempting in those minutes. He handed his German rifle to the young Cavalier. “Shoot them if they come for me.”

  Axe in hand, he kicked the barn door, foot lashing out over flames. He’d intended to knock the door so it would swing open, but instead it fell completely off its hinges and toppled forward. It hit the ground, but not flat—something, presumably one of the wiindigoo’s walking dead, lay trapped beneath it, groaning and pushing.

  Ma’iingan grabbed the burning frame of a drying rack by the only corner not covered in flame and dragged it behind him. He jumped deliberately on the yawing planks of the toppled door, taking his best guess at where the draugar’s head was and hopping up and down on it with both feet.

  Then he dragged the burning rack and pushed it against the barn wall, perpendicular, creating a corner protected on two sides by fire.

  Bang!

  A zaambi Ma’iingan hadn’t seen fell to the ground, George’s bullet in its kneecap. It groaned, and then it groaned even louder when Ma’iingan hacked off both its arms. With the second blow, Ma’iingan’s axe stuck in the earth; he yanked, and it didn’t come up.

  With a groan and the sound of feet shuffling in the dirt, another zaambi came around the corner of the barn. Ma’iingan left the axe where it was. He unslung his bow and took three quick steps into the cold night. The draugar turned to enter the burning barn, raising its arms and reaching for George Isham, who was shoving the ramrod down the barrel of Ma’iingan’s rifle.

  Ma’iingan put an arrow through the draugar’s head. The force of the blow knocked the creature staggering sideways and the arrowhead sank into the burning wall of the barn, trapping the zaambi in the flames. It continued to grope and to kick at the earth as its flesh charred and then ignited.

  Ma’iingan watched while George carried Landon out, and then George stood guard. The Ojibwe knelt to grab Nathaniel by his shoulders, and saw a bear-shaped shadow crouched over him.

  “Makwa,” Ma’iingan said. “I do this to help the boy.”

  The bear-shadow emitted a plaintive whine.

  What was happening to Nathaniel? Where was he?

  Ma’iingan dragged Nathaniel into the terribly imperfect partial shelter. Immediately after Ma’iingan laid Nathaniel out and stood again, arming himself with his bow, the barn roof fell.

  The blue pre-dawn light made the fire, which had been a towering protective wall, look like an orange carpet.

  A tall black shadow approached, chanting in a nasal whine. Ma’iingan sank three arrows into the wiindigoo; they bristled from its chest like porcupine quills, and the wiindigoo drew a long, straight sword.

  Ma’iingan grabbed a piece of timber from the fire. It burned at both ends, but along the middle it was solid piece of wood cut square, a finger’s length to each side. He could barely grip it with his hands, but as the wiindigoo swung his sword at Ma’iingan’s head, the Ojibwe brought up the timber and caught the blade. The wiindigoo was very strong and the blow knocked Ma’iingan back several steps.

  Sparks showered around him.

  “Hey, Zhaaganaashii,” Ma’iingan grunted. “What do you want the boy for? We can share him, na?”

  Behind
the wiindigoo, several draug approached.

  Bang! George fired at the shuffling dead and knocked one of them down.

  “The Emperor Thomas Penn excels at many things.” Again, Ma’iingan heard the nasal voice as a thought in his mind at the same moment he heard it with his ears. The wiindigoo swung his sword again and this time Ma’iingan stepped out of the way. “Sharing is not one of them.”

  Ma’iingan took a swipe with his timber, and the wiindigoo parried. Ma’iingan followed immediately by leaning in, shoving one flaming end of the timber into the wiindigoo’s face.

  The wiindigoo roared and stumbled back. Ma’iingan lost his balance, and suddenly the wiindigoo’s sword was biting into his back.

  He stepped through the attack and stumbled away, keeping hold of his timber. “Wiinuk,” he muttered under his breath. He circled, barely avoiding the grasping hands of two more zaambi, and then squared off to face the wiindigoo again, fire at his back.

  “I don’t know your Zhaaganaashii emperor,” he said. “But I only need the boy for a little while. Let him do a task for me, and then your Penn can have him.” For a moment, as he said the words, he tempted himself.

  “Waiting is also not one of Thomas’s strengths.” The wiindigoo swung his sword overhand and Ma’iingan blocked it. The force of the blow was much harder than Ma’iingan expected, knocking him to the ground and cracking the timber almost in two.

  The wiindigoo stepped closer and stabbed.

  Ma’iingan threw the timber and rolled away. The wiindigoo’s attack missed and the top of his sword sank several inches into the earth. The burning wood struck the wiindigoo in the center of his chest—

  igniting his brown coat.

  Ma’iingan rolled to his feet, pulling his stone-flake knife. Surely, this was the end of the wiindigoo.

  But no. The wiindigoo laughed, a high-pitched sound like a shriek, and strode forward. His burning coat spread out behind him in the early morning air, throwing sparks and threads of flaming cotton in all directions.

  It must be a trick of the uncertain light, but the coat seemed to reach forward, toward the barn, like a living, burning thing.

  “Fire!” A voice shouted, and it sounded like George Isham, only different.

  BANG! A disciplined volley of gunshots followed the cry immediately, the multiple guns firing with one voice that marked Zhaaganaashii shooting.

  Not George Isham. The Earl of Johnsland, his father.

  “Load!”

  The wiindigoo retreated several steps, confusion and anger on his face. He tried to turn and look at the source of the shooting, but Ma’iingan wouldn’t let him. The Ojibwe pressed his attack, darting in past the long sword to cut repeatedly at the sorcerer. It was a dangerous play, given the other man’s longer reach and extraordinary strength, but the wiindigoo was distracted.

  The flames of the burning barn leaped higher. The smell of asemaa grew more intense, as if someone had thrown a large bundle of the herb into the flames.

  Bang!

  This shot came from George, and the bullet struck the wiindigoo in the face. The tall man staggered and went down, and Ma’iingan leaped in for the kill—

  but the wiindigoo batted him aside. It was just the sweep of one arm, but the wiindigoo’s strength was such that Ma’iingan flew twenty feet to the side. He landed hard, feeling a knee give out beneath him as he landed and his skin scorched by the burning coat.

  The wiindigoo leaped to his feet again, sword high, advancing on Nathaniel.

  “Fire!”

  Bang!

  The wiindigoo fell, blood spurting from multiple wounds. Blood black as coal, black as the night sky around the Loon.

  Two horses swept into Ma’iingan’s view as he struggled wincing to his feet and looked for his knife; it had flown from his hand on impact. The riders were the earl and a short blond man Ma’iingan didn’t know, and they placed themselves between the wiindigoo and God-Has-Given.

  “Load!” the earl shouted.

  The wiindigoo stood again, roaring in rage, and then the blond man dropped from his saddle and stepped toward the sorcerer. As the sun peeked over the horizon, its bright rays glinted on two blades in the blond man’s hands, and Ma’iingan realized they weren’t steel—they were silver.

  He lurched forward to help.

  The wiindigoo still had superior reach, and he charged the blond man, blood pouring from many wounds.

  Bang! The earl fired a long pistol and struck the wiindigoo in the chest. The wiindigoo didn’t slow its charge.

  The blond man dodged a blow, and then another, looking for an opportunity to get within the long reach of his foe. The wiindigoo pulled his elbow back, preparing to stab—

  and Ma’iingan caught the elbow with both hands.

  The wiindigoo hissed in anger. With the sun behind his head, Ma’iingan would have sworn the wiindigoo’s irises were pure black, and little black tendrils like capillaries of the night sky radiated outward from that pool of black, threatening to darken the entire eye.

  The flames of the coat scorched him, but Ma’iingan thrust his knee into the wiindigoo’s knee from behind, and dropped, pulling the wiindigoo on top of him.

  Ma’iingan burned.

  The wiindigoo howled.

  The blond man dropped atop them both, stabbing with his silver knives.

  The wiindigoo reacted with sudden energy, shrieking, hurling the blond man away, and leaping to his feet. He clawed at his chest, tearing the two silver knives from his body and dropping them to the ground. Smoke rose from the wounds and from the coat. Writhing, the wiindigoo squeezed out of the coat and hurled it to the snow.

  The coat’s flames blazed higher and its fabric twitched uncontrollably.

  The wiindigoo spat a curse at the Earl of Johnsland, who stood tall in the saddle in front of Nathaniel. George Isham stood his ground beside the unconscious boy, Ma’iingan’s German rifle raised to his shoulder.

  With a wordless shriek of rage and hatred, the wiindigoo turned and fled. George fired, and at the earl’s command, his men—a collection of purple-coated soldiers and others who looked like armed farmers—hurled another volley after the sorcerer, but whether they hit or not, the wiindigoo made it to the line of trees at the far end of the tobacco field and disappeared.

  “Nathaniel!” Ma’iingan tottered in pain toward the boy. In addition to his throbbing knee, the torn flesh of his forearm, and the burns all over his body, his head and his lungs hurt—however sacred asemaa was, too much was still too much.

  “He still sleeps,” George Isham said, standing aside. “And he mutters.”

  The blond man rushed forward as Ma’iingan’s side. “What does he mutter?”

  “Hook, I think.”

  “Maybe he dreams of fishing.” Ma’iingan couldn’t help himself.

  “Not a fishing hook.” The blond man dug inside his coat and came out with a slate fragment and a lump of chalk. “Robert Hooke.”

  Ma’iingan coughed and shrugged. “Who’s Robert Hooke?”

  “Death. Or one of his minions, anyway.” The blond man scooped up one of his silver knives—it looked like a sharpened letter opener—and pressed it against Nathaniel’s neck. A welt appeared instantly and Nathaniel screamed, arching his back and kicking at the dirt beneath him.

  But he didn’t open his eyes.

  “Hooke,” he murmured. “Hoooooooke.”

  “Death has many minions,” Ma’iingan said.

  “More every day.” The blond man began frantically writing on the slate with the chalk.

  * * *

  “Beloved,” Maltres Korinn said, pointing. “What is that?”

  “I ain’t e’er gittin’ used to that title, I tell you what.” Sarah sat up with Korinn’s help. At the touch of his goddess’s Beloved, he felt an electric thrill, despite the sour Appalachee whine that rang in her voice when she was tired or distracted. “What you lookin’ at?”

  Korinn pointed again, at the slate that hung by a string arou
nd the Beloved’s neck. “Words are appearing.”

  Sarah shuddered—fatigue, or pain?—and grabbed the slate with both hands. Maltres could see the words as they formed. They said: NATHANIEL IS IN HOOKE’S GRASP. CAN YOU HELP HIM?

  “Dammit.” Sarah’s shoulders sagged. She looked ten pounds lighter to Korinn than she had just days earlier, positively bony. With a shock, he realized that tears were running down her cheeks and dripping onto the slate. “I got nothin’.”

  “Who is Nathaniel?” Korinn asked.

  “My brother.” Her voice sounded like an old woman’s. “He’s in…he’s under attack by the Sorcerer Robert Hooke.”

  Korinn sucked in his breath. He knew the name.

  “I would help.” Sherem the Polite dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead down into the snow. “I would shield him. I would find him using your shared blood and ward him from the Sorcerer, but I have lost my gift. I can’t do it.”

  Sarah touched Sherem’s shoulder. “That’s my fault, iffen it’s anyone’s.” Her Appalachee accent softened. “Maybe Nathaniel can fight off Hooke himself.” The shadow of an idea flitted across her face. “Or maybe…”

  “Your Majesty?” Korinn prompted her.

  “Get me the Heronplow.”

  Alzbieta Torias had already retrieved the plow from its furrow. Once Sarah had struggled onto her knees, written a few more words on the slate with a lump of chalk, and placed the slate on the ground a short distance in front of her, Alzbieta delivered the Heronplow. Sarah pushed the plow’s blade into the earth before her, pointing at the slate.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Magna mater,” she said. “Maxima mater. Rogo ut hoc aratrum pelleas.”

  It sounded like a prayer, and when she finished her words, she was sobbing. Then Sarah fell forward onto her hands and knees and spat blood into the snow.

  The Heronplow shot forward and into the slate, cracking it into two—and disappeared.

  * * *

  PUT THE SLATE ON THE GROUND BY NATHANIEL, Sara’s words appeared on Jacob Hop’s slate, AND STAND BACK.

  Jacob did exactly as he was told, and for good measure he tossed his two silver knives even farther away. Sarah must be about to work some magic through the slate, and he didn’t want the silver to interfere.