New World: a Frontier Fantasy Novel

by Steven W. White

  Bogg scanned the river for some part of the boy to come up. There was no sign. He sloshed back toward the center of the river, uncertain how far to cut downstream. There weren’t much point. If the boy had lost his footing, the current would blow him downstream quicker than Bogg could follow.

  Bogg was in to his chest. With his eyes this low over the water, it was harder to search. "Pup!"

  He heard splashes, but the water out there was so brown and churned up and milky that he couldn't make sense of what he was seeing at first. It was Simon, sure enough, splashing along on his back, his nose bobbing out of the water, pointed at the blue sky. The boy kicked his legs and pumped his arms together, pushing himself along like a turtle or a river otter.

  "By jings..." Bogg muttered. The lad was swimming, but it weren't no stroke seen before by the eyes of men. Bogg laughed.

  The current was still playing with the little feller. Bogg stomped after him. Simon wriggled his way across the river, passing downstream of Bogg, and closed on the shallows. And quick! His nose, hands and knees came up with each pump of his arms and legs.

  "What do you call that, boy? It ain't no dog paddle."

  Simon's ears were underwater. He swept his way to the bank and -- maybe tried to turn over, Bogg couldn't tell -- and plumb sunk himself. His legs kicked up in the air. Bogg splashed down to him, but paused just out of arm's reach to see if the kid would do some other neat trick.

  Nope. The kid had lost it and was drowning in two feet of water.

  Bogg grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up. Simon spat and coughed and waved his arms, his eyes wild and unseeing. Finally, the pup got his feet under himself and grabbed Bogg's hairy wrist.

  "Ow," Simon said.

  Bogg let him go. "I thought you couldn't swim."

  "I can't." He wobbled a little.

  "What was that?"

  "I don't know. I made it up."

  Bogg whistled low out his toothhole, and chuckled all the way to dry land.

  #

  There are many contradictory stories of mystical phenomena on Mira, but one common thread runs through them: thaumaturgy does not work there. Charms, spells, hexes, and glamours don't function as expected, or at all.

  One of the reports from the Stiletto gives the account of a survivor of an earlier expedition. They had scouted inland to a bank of impassable hills, and were attacked from above by a pack of serpents (see Creatures, Hoopsnake). The expedition's war mage attempted a volley of lightning bolts, but the spells malfunctioned and merely charged the air. The serpents rolled down the hill and struck, killing the mage and all but three in the rear guard, one of whom passed on the story.

  There are two exceptions to this rule of magical quiescence. First, there are reports that some, but not all, enchanted objects retain their magical properties on Mira. Second, reports are very consistent that many of the creatures native to Mira exhibit magical properties.

  Excerpt from the Introduction to Survival in the Miran Wilds

  by Dugan Wisefoot

  #

  That evening, they camped among the pines at the base of the Chilly Mountains. Bogg offered Simon some waterlogged coneybuck. “It won't keep. If I had a day to lay around, I'd smoke it.”

  Simon huddled in his wet clothes close to the fire. To distract him from the cold, he flipped through Dugan Wisefoot's Survival in the Miran Wilds. He hadn't opened it since he had tried to read on Jouster. Reading on horseback made him nauseous. Now, he held each wet page up and let the firelight glow through it, warmly translucent.

  Bogg had stripped and wrapped himself in his black cloak, which seemed to repel water well enough. Everything else they owned hung on pine branches over their heads. Two pairs of boots swayed up there, along with a much smaller pair of shoes.

  “Bogg,” Simon said. “You're always wearing that cloak.”

  “I am,” he declared. Even after its dunking, it looked velvety and coal black as always. Bogg worked his fingers through his drying beard.

  “What kind of skin is that?”

  Bogg grinned so wide, Simon could see that awful gap in his teeth. “It's a splintercat skin.”

  Simon's eyes narrowed. He shivered. Bogg didn't say yes to every wild conjecture about Mira, so maybe the stories Bogg told him were true. Or half true. No unicorns? Fine. The story about the hidebehind sounded frightening enough at first... then less so over time as Simon thought it over. But this--

  "What's a splintercat?"

  Bogg's blue eyes twinkled in the firelight. "One of the deadliest, treacherousest critters this side of the Two-Dog Mountains. Not many have seen one, and fewer live to crow about it. Traces can be seen now and again of the creature. I came across one by accident. Startled both of us. Have you ever seen a tree plumb split open and shattered?"

  "I think so."

  "Splintercats do that."

  "Lightning does that."

  Bogg watched the fire and nodded. "That's true." His grin didn't slip. He had a secret he was proud of.

  Simon's shirt clung wet and icy to his back where the fire couldn't reach it. "Bears will pull down apple trees to get at the apples."

  Bogg nodded again. "I reckon. But not always. Splintercats live in the deep woods, in the Green Man Forest, where trees are thick. They're the fastest animal there is. When they smell prey and get revved up, they go faster almost than you can see. Why, if they had a straight shot, they'd go a mile before you could say what. Just a black streak over the hills, like a thunderbird shadow. But in those woods, they fly around like a parched pea in a hot skillet, busting trees near to sawdust. They've got teeth and claws and suchlike, but they kill their prey often as not just by clobbering it." Bogg took a deep breath and let out a satisfied sigh. "Naturally, their skin is invulnerable."

  Simon's mouth hung open. He closed it. "How come I've never heard of it?"

  Bogg grinned. "Read plenty of books, have you?"

  "I have indeed."

  "What about that one?" Bogg pointed at Wisefoot's work in Simon's lap. "That one mention splintercats?"

  Simon peeled through the wet pages to the index, which he examined with his water-spotted magnifying glass. Under S, no. He looked under life... then animals... then found a host of entries under creatures. No splintercat, though.

  "No, it doesn't."

  "Too bad. Hm. What'd you pay for that book?"

  "My dad printed it for the author. It's a gratis copy." Simon kept looking. No unicorn, either. Thunderbird was listed, and... "Have you ever heard of star jelly?"

  Bogg raised his eyebrows. "Heard of it. Great piles of it at dawn, shimmery and light as air, always gone by breakfast-time. Evaporates. Comes from the sky, they say. An omen. I never seen it."

  "Skunk ape?"

  Bogg whistled. "Smelled it, maybe."

  "What about a giant giasiccus?"

  "Never heard of it."

  "Bald Eagle?"

  "Real. But they ain't bald. Their heads is white."

  "Bugaboo?"

  "Real."

  "Ballyhoo?"

  "No such thing."

  "Chipmunk?"

  "Real."

  "And we've both seen coneybucks. Let's see... farn?"

  "Real."

  "Hellangone?"

  "Fake."

  "Hoopsnake?"

  "Not sure."

  "Kangaroo?"

  "Fake."

  "Teaketteler?"

  "Maybe."

  "Whangdoodle?"

  Bogg scowled. "That's just plain stupid."

  "Wampus?"

  "Definitely. All those critters in there?"

  "There's more. I skipped some." Simon handed Bogg the book. He took it, closed it, opened it, hefted it, as if to check the binding and feel the weight. Then he looked at the index page. "It's the queerest thing I ever saw. Like a shrew with muddy feet danced on the page. I want to wipe it clean. Just th
e same, it's so neat and orderly, in little rows. Like it's supposed to make sense." Bogg nudged Simon and pointed at the page. "I tell you what, there ought to be a book about this!"

  Simon smiled. "There are. There are books about everything."

  Bogg frowned. His jaw worked back and forth. "Can you learn me?"

  #

  Chapter 11

  Tyrus Jurgen leaned against a pine tree, and the trunk pressed his cuirass sharply into his back. This hill was brimming with trees, the whole land was brimming with trees. He and the others had dragged themselves up this wooded hill -- steep as a gangplank -- for an hour.

  His party -- Yolaf, Cadogan, Uilleam, and Zane -- had collapsed on the hill. They sprawled around him. He remained alert and standing, even though blisters burned his feet.

  Tyrus had never felt so far from home. He had come to believe that the entire land of Mira was cursed.

  A week earlier, Tyrus had captained a stout little man-of-war and made a living both profitable and enjoyable, striking terror in the hearts of the Miran scum he found cowering on the vessels that came and went from Driftwood Bay. His patron, a certain Duke of Zubenshire, had a rival in a neighboring Algolan province who had set up a logging colony of indentured servants in Mira. Direct war would have been undiplomatic and expensive, so the Duke had hired Tyrus.

  Under the regal blue unicorn of the Privateers of Sept Algolus, Tyrus and his team had sailed the long voyage across the lonely ocean to Mira. The heavily treed islands in the bay made excellent cover, and ambushes proved so easy that Tyrus commanded the man-of-war's quartermaster to target any supply or colony ship they came across, whether subjects of the Duke's rival or not.

  Soon, the stout little Maleolus had grown heavy with booty. But the quartermaster only complained about its lost nimbleness, and how it rode low in the water. Tyrus knew their mission was complete and the time had come to sail for home, but he couldn't resist a tasty frigate that had blundered into range.

  One last prize.

  The frigate had given them a merry chase among the islands, into a part of Driftwood Bay that the charts called Keelkicker Shallows, a name stemming from more than simple Miran whimsy. In one moment, Tyrus was standing proudly at the bow, and in the next, he was jumping into a lifeboat.

  He wouldn't have made it -- in his armor, he'd have gone straight to the bottom -- but for Yolaf, who cleared the lifeboat for him, tossing the quartermaster and the sailors into the waves.

  Tyrus and his party were the only ones who made it to land.

  It had been four days since the wreck of the Maleolus, and two days since their last decent meal -- a pig Yolaf found in that last little town. Cadogan had burnt the pig black over the fire. Tyrus wanted meat, properly cooked. He wanted grog. He wanted a woman. He wanted to be back in Algolus, or at least under sail.

  Yolaf sat up, leaning his enormous body on his hammer, and turned his bald head to the speckles of sunlight that came through the trees. "I like the rest," he boomed contentedly. "I don't like the walk, but I like the rest." The day before, Yolaf had found a patch of brown-spotted, earthy-smelling mushrooms. He had wolfed them down, only to double up and howl with cramps an hour later, and vomit them up. He rubbed his belly from time to time now, but seemed to suffer no permanent harm.

  Zane's slender body lay slack on the ground like windless sails. His arm lifted to point at the giant. "One more optimistic word comes out of your mouth, you clod, and..." Zane stopped. Zane was no match for Yolaf. Zane was a bowyer and a dandy, half Yolaf's size (though they were all half Yolaf's size), and would only stand a chance against Yolaf if he were a hundred yards away, because then Zane could put an arrow through him.

  "Wanna wrestle?" Yolaf asked. It was as close as he ever came to a threat.

  Zane's blue-gloved fingers felt his chin under his neat black van dyke. "By the gods," he pouted. "I need a shave."

  A grin pulled at the corners of Yolaf's enormous mouth, showing massive teeth.

  Cadogan the Red held his axe in the air. "I volunteer."

  Tyrus pushed himself off the tree. With morale this low, his men would be at each other's throats. Unless he kept them moving, so there was no time for anything else. "Rise, gentlemen."

  Yolaf stood, and gray-haired Uilleam pushed himself to his feet with his javelin. Cadogan and Zane groaned. Before Tyrus could threaten them, Uilleam touched Tyrus's arm and turned him away from the others. "I don't see the reason," Uilleam murmured, "to continue this way."

  Tyrus's face tightened up and he whispered, "Another challenge from you, Uilleam?"

  "Just a suggestion. We could descend to the wide river we crossed..."

  Tyrus sneered. They had almost drowned getting their armor and weapons across that river, except for Yolaf, who waded across, dry from the waist up.

  Uilleam went on. "We could build a raft from trees on the bank. Follow the river to the ocean. Journey on the shore, where the going is easy, village to village, taking the provisions we need. We can reach Rastaban soon enough that way."

  Tyrus put his hand on Uilleam's shoulder and squeezed. "Not soon enough. Build a raft? You think Cadogan and Zane would be any use in building a raft? You would step onto a raft with Yolaf? It would take too long, Uilleam."

  "Tyrus... my lord... even the mosquitos seem to covet our Algolan flesh. This land is killing us."

  "Hold your tongue, Uilleam. You presume to educate me about this land? I know the evil of this place. I feel the wretchedness of Mira in my bones. Every moment on this foul continent, away from Algolus, away from a ship, is agony for me. So we will waste not a moment. We shall cross directly over this peninsula, straight to my buried treasure, then to Rastaban, where we shall dine with our fine displaced Algolan countrymen, purchase a vessel and crew, sail out of Pirate's Bay and homeward bound. There isn't a wakeful moment in which I don't hold this goal fixed in my mind. I see it."

  "But Tyrus," Uilleam said. "We are warriors. We are not mountain men."

  "How dare you!" Tyrus hissed. "We are not worms? We are not rats, you say? We are not rebels and exiles, fanatics and doomed madmen? Speak like that again to me, and I need not warn you about what I'd do." Tyrus's eyes bored into Uilleam. He tipped his head to the others. "You are not like those three. You are too wise, Uilleam, to need threats from me to motivate you--"

  The tree beside them sounded a loud wooden snap. Its branches vibrated and sprinkled pine needles on them. Tyrus scanned above him for the thing, whatever it was, that had struck the trunk. He half-expected branches to break loose and fall on him, the tree had been beaten so hard. Nothing. An icy wind blew, lifting their hair and chilling their skin. Uilleam looked suspicious. "Is it--"

  "To arms!" Tyrus roared as more trees downslope snapped and shook. The others drew weapons and looked up. Zane strung his longbow with quick efficiency, nocked an arrow, and searched the treetops for a target. Some trees stretched to a hundred feet or more, and each tree shivered as it boomed, like it had been struck.

  "Attackers upslope!" cried Tyrus. He dodged to the downslope side of a thick pine, and braced his shield close against his shoulder. "Get behind cover!"

  Cadogan had just turned to face uphill when the armor at his chest rang as if pounded by a hammer. He fell back and rolled in dead pine needles, lay prone for a moment, and dragged himself behind a tree.

  Yolaf stood behind a tree too small for him.

  "Zane!" said Tyrus. "Let fly!"

  "At whom?"

  Tyrus had no answer. Was it a squad armed with firelocks? He couldn't hear the discharges or smell the gunpowder. His shield rang and bucked against his arm. Tyrus pressed back against the tree's rough bark and checked his shield for damage. And there, jammed in a nest of splinters, was a small gold sphere. Tyrus knew the stories--

  "Vivets!" he called.

  "Where?"

  "In the trees!" Tyrus couldn't reach them if they w
ere in the trees. No axe, hammer, not even his sword could reach them. Zane, the bowyer, was their only hope. "Zane!"

  Zane snarled in frustration, drew back his longbow and launched a black arrow into the trees. It vanished among the branches. Soft titters, as from snickering children, came from above.

  "Uilleam," said Tyrus. "Your javelin!"

  Uilleam leaned out from his trunk and scanned the trees up the hill. A gold ball flashed through his arm, piercing the chain mail, and sprayed a mist of blood out both sides. Uilleam howled, dropped his lance, and sank behind the tree.

  Cadogan lay on his back, his fingers pressed to the dent in his cuirass. He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his red braids, and screamed a charge of curses at them. "Fie! You cullions! You scalls, you foul blots! Die and be damned, you curs! Hell gnaw your bones! Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!"

  Tyrus drew his sword. He had taken it from old Fergus Smith, the greatest swordmaker in Sept Algolus, and a decent alchemist as well. Then he had killed old Fergus, testing the blade on his calcified bones, making sure there would never be another (it seemed the sensible thing to do; Tyrus had wondered why it didn't happen more often, then he had wondered why anyone would go into weaponsmithing if that was the tradition). The sword was called Blodleter, and its gleaming blade had a groove deep in the flat of each side to let out the blood and bile and spinal fluid that Tyrus would spill. The hilt was gold and inscribed with, "Behold Blodleter -- KALLISTI", which meant "To the fairest."

  Tyrus had begun with the plan of counting all the people he would kill with it, and the plan had gone fine, until (at a count of one hundred seventy three) he had swung into battle and killed so many, so fast, that he lost count. After that, he wondered if he should count animals too. And what of those he prodded overboard with it? Did they count? He couldn't decide, and gave up. A shame, because he would be pushing a thousand by now.

  Tyrus grinned. And what of including vivets?

  The hilt of Blodleter fit in his gauntleted fist and fairly cried for vivet blood. But what use was the sword against laughing green ghosts in the treetops? Tyrus had never seen a vivet face-to-face, and didn't know what to do. How could he get close to them? He could climb this tree, but he'd be no closer to them. They flitted tree to tree like monkeys.