Gunwitch

by David Michael

  Before she left the tent, she performed her first act of rebellion, an amusing prelude to the next, much bigger act she expected. She touched the iron belly of the woodburning stove with the muzzle of her pistol. Heat poured out of her, chilling her insides even as the iron edges of the stove began to glow a dark red. The air in the tent had become noticeably warmer even before she reached the front flap.

  The December wind took away the warm air that surrounded her as she walked, but it could not touch her.

  * * *

  She did not see any guards as she walked between the quiet tents, though she could hear them occasionally. She reached the tent Thomas shared with five other young men, Privates Holland, Holtes, Symond, Towneley, and Woolmer, then stood in the wind, suddenly afraid of continuing her plan.

  She had not met Thomas after midnight since that last disastrous time. He had not even spoken to her since then. He had to know that she had thought of him. She had tried time and again to speak to him. She had apologized, and even once had whispered into his ear, “If you tried again, I would not pull back.” But he had never responded. Why would he speak to her now?

  She felt a presence behind her. Her first thought was that it was a guard on patrol, then her unshackled senses somehow told her that it was someone like her. A gunwitch.

  She turned around, prepared to nod to whoever it was and walk away, to go back to her tent and her cot and be miserable and probably never see Thomas again after the morning muster.

  Thomas stood there. She could not see his face clearly in the dark, only the flash in his eyes and the whiteness of his teeth as he smiled at her.

  “I knew you would come,” he whispered and held out his hand.

  First the smile, then the words, then taking his hand in hers. Rosalind’s heart beat faster and she felt her face grow warm.

  “Thomas, I–”

  “Shh,” he said and held up a finger.

  Thomas led her through the tents, then out of the tents to the firing range.

  “Where–?”

  “Shh,” he said.

  Once they were behind the earthen embankments at the far end of the firing range, Thomas finally stopped walking. He pulled her to him and put his arms around her.

  Rosalind realized that with her newfound, unshackled immunity to the cold, she did not need either shelter or cover. She and Thomas could–her face became hot with the thought–be a woman and man–be with each other–almost anywhere in this cold, dark night. Though a blanket or something under her back would doubtless be more comfortable than bare dirt. At least she had her uniform on. Her coat could be a cover for the ground. Maybe Thomas would offer his coat, as well.

  “Did you think I would forget?” he asked, whispering in her ear.

  “What?” she asked, his hands on her back, her breasts pressed against his chest, the feel of his lips and his breath against her ear, the presence of him so close to her, all causing her to tingle.

  “Did you think,” he said again, his voice no longer soft, “that I would forget?” His hands moved from her back and gripped her forearms, no longer gentle.

  She sensed the magic stirring in him an instant before she felt the invisible bands of force wrap around her, hold her in place as he stepped back from her. She wanted to ask him what he was doing, but she could not open her mouth. She was immobilized.

  The wind blew against her. Now she could feel the cold, but she could not correct her balance. Thomas laughed and stepped to one side as she first teetered, then fell forward. She could not move her hands or shift her legs. Her right wrist and left elbow took the fall, the pain in both joints making her cry out in pain, her cry muffled by the lips she could not open.

  She felt again Robert Phillips’ arms around her, holding her, making her watch while William Phillips stripped Elizabeth.

  Rosalind forced the pain out of her mind and reached deep inside for her own magic to defend herself. Her pistol was in her pocket instead of gripped in her right hand, but she had not needed the pistol against Robert and William, she would not need it now–

  Behind her, above her, Thomas laughed. At her.

  She could feel the magic inside her, but it was just out of reach. As if she still had her shackle on. She strained and pulled and pushed, but neither the binding nor the forbidding could be budged. More than the wind chilled her.

  “I learned that from Corporal Strauss,” Thomas said. He was not laughing any longer, but Rosalind could feel the smirking smile on his face. “Not intentionally, though. She didn’t exactly teach me how to do this. She demonstrated it for me. She demonstrated it on me. Remember? She taught me this at the same time.”

  The unseen bindings that held her shifted and pulled and Rosalind was flipped to her back. She grunted as the breath was knocked out of her.

  “I’m sure you remember, Rosalind,” Thomas said. “You were there too.”

  The bindings pulled her arms out straight, twisting her wrists and elbows painfully, wrenching her shoulders. She wanted to scream against the pain, to shout for help, but she could only groan and grunt, her own lips and teeth stifling her cries.

  “You could have helped me. You could have joined me. Together we could have–” He stopped. “You could have let me kiss you,” he said after a long pause, his words almost a shout now.

  She wanted to tell him she was sorry. That she would kiss him now. That he did not have to do this. That she would forgive him even now. She wanted to beg him to stop.

  Her legs pulled apart despite her efforts to keep them together.

  “But, no.” He stepped close to her and leaned over her. “No. You could have done all of those things, but you did not.”

  He did not use magic to unbuckle her belt.

  “Did you ever wonder what happened to Private Millsom?” he asked as he pulled off her boots. “Corporal Edwards taught me that one. How to turn the magic back on its source. I very nearly died by my own lightning.” He tugged against the legs of her trousers. “I was behind Millsom that day on the range. She was shooting flame out of her pistol. And then, suddenly, all that flame came right back at her. Whoosh! All of us behind her were burned, but none as bad as her. Or as fatally.” He had to force her legs back together to get her trousers off without tearing them. Then he spread her legs again.

  The wind found her bare flesh and tried to freeze her, in the same way she had frozen William Phillips. She tried to lose Thomas’ words in the sound of the wind, but she heard them all. She could not get away from them.

  “Millsom was the one that reported us,” Thomas went on. He unbuckled his belt. “She was the one that put us in the situation that proved so educational for me. Do you think she appreciated my little thank you?” He squatted between her legs, his trousers pushed down to his knees, his manhood extending in front of him. “Here’s my little thank you for you, Miss Bainbridge.”

  She was cold. So cold. Even the tears that leaked from her unblinking eyes were cold. Thomas’ legs were hot against hers as he pushed himself into her and pulled himself out, over and over. She could not ask him to stop. She tried not to think of anything as she lay there, tried not to remember that only a few minutes before she would have given him what he was now taking. She did not want to believe that she had never seen past his eyes and his smiles.

  He said nothing as he pounded against her and did not kiss her or touch her anywhere else. He grunted and sighed when he finished. His seed was like liquid fire inside her. She tried not to think about what that could mean.

  “You don’t have to worry, Rosalind,” he said as if he could sense was she was refusing to think. He sat back and grabbed her trousers from the ground where he had dropped them. “You ever seen a pregnant gunwitch?” he asked as he used a leg of her trousers to clean himself. “There’s a reason for that, you know.” He dropped her soiled trousers on her loins and stood.

  Rosalind thought–or maybe she wished–he would leave her there. To die in the cold. Maybe to die of shame.
But he only backed away a few steps.

  As suddenly as it had bound her and cut her off, the magic holding her limbs vanished, blown away with the wind. Her arms and legs rotated in their sockets, her elbows and knees relaxed, and she cried out in pain. The cold of the air no longer touched her, but Rosalind could not stop shaking and shivering.

  “You could take your revenge, Rosalind,” Thomas said. “There is nothing stopping you.”

  Rosalind did not look at him as she sat up, wincing at the pain in her joints, shamed by the pain in her loins and the blood and semen on her trousers. Wanting to cry, but refusing to do so in front Thomas. She did not want revenge. She just wanted to be warm again. To be whole again. Clean again. To again believe that Thomas Ducoed was her friend, and that she would let him kiss her.

  “Did you hear me, Rosalind?”

  Her lips pulled back and bared her teeth. Suddenly she did want revenge. She wanted to reach deep into the cold depths of her and freeze him where he stood. She wanted her hands around his neck, squeezing his throat as she took all the human warmth from him and released it into the wind. But she did none of these things. Because she was not like him. She wanted to tell him that. I’m not like you. But all she said was, “Don’t say my name.”

  He watched her, saying nothing more as she stood, and pulled her trousers back on, first one leg, then the other.

  She made each motion deliberately, with full concentration. Because she felt if she did not give each step her full attention, she would find herself drawing her pistol and shooting him. And she knew, somehow, that was what he wanted. She could see, with no recourse to any magical sensing, that he wanted her to attack him more and more with each second she refused to do exactly that.

  She turned her back on him as she pushed her belt through the loops, pulled it around and buckled it. She wondered if he would attack her again. She shook, no longer from the cold, no longer from the shame, but with rage. She ground her teeth against the shaking–and against the wish that he would attack her again. So she could fight back this time. And maybe kill him. Because he wanted her to attack him. He was ready for her to. She could sense that. He was ready for her to unleash her cold magic on him. So he could turn it back on her, like he had done to Private Millsom.

  “Do you know how I learned to do that?” he asked from behind her, as if he had again read her mind. “It’s not so much being taught how to do it. It’s knowing that you can do it. Like when you shot that sheep. ‘At first you did not know you could,’” he said, quoting from Corporal Edwards’ speech at the ceremony a few hours before. “’Then you knew you could. Then you did it.’”

  “You don’t know me,” she said, and realized only then that he had never known her. Just like she had never really known him.

  As she started to walk away from him, he called after her, “I knew you would just take it. Like you took that punishment with me.”

  She did not respond. She did not know how to respond. She still could not quite believe what had happened to her. She had thought– She tried not to think. Not now. She continued walking.

  “I am a bit disappointed, though, Rosalind. I had hoped you would fight back.”

  “Don’t say my name,” she said. “You don’t know me.” She did not say the words loudly. She did not care if he heard them. He must have heard her, though, or guessed, as he always seemed to guess what she was about to say or do, because she heard him laughing behind her.

  Chapter 19

  Ducoed

  Southwest Wall, Fort Russell

  1742 A.D.

  Ducoed laughed as he drew magic through his empty pistol to throw off the mantle of blackness Umoya had thrown over him. He had felt Rose’s cold blast as it passed him. If he had not pulled up on the reins when the darkness rolled over him, his horse have broken its leg and thrown him, and Rose’s cold magic might have killed him. He wondered which of those outcomes Umoya had been hoping for.

  He hated Umoya. Umoya hated him. They were the best sort of allies, and their Ubasi masters had recognized that.

  Ducoed laughed again and kicked his horse back into motion. He forced the horse to leap the trenches, enjoying the thrill of the jump, as if he were riding in some upper-class competition, enjoying the sounds of battle that raged around him.

  There were few English defenders visible this far up the hill toward the smoking, broken fort. Those men were, after all, trying to get away from the fort and into the trees. He did not care about them. Most of them would be izidumbus for him to order about before the sun set again. What he sought was still in the fort, probably trying to escape down the cliffs.

  A mass of ithambofis and izidumbus were moving up the hill on his left. Between leaps, he pulled up his horse and looked across the river. He saw the izidumbus he had sent over the night before coming back over, walking into the water and the current with no fear or hesitation. Some of the creatures were washed downriver, but most of them would make it across to the cliffs. Some of those might even make it up the cliffs.

  The morning air was electric with the magics being released behind him. Beneath the electricity, though, was the singular chill of Rose Bainbridge. He could almost point to where she stood behind Umoya’s black wall, she was that familiar to him. He smiled at the memory of teaching her how to summon the lightning. Did she think of him every time she pulled the trigger?

  As he reloaded his pistol, balancing in the saddle, he again thought about going back to face Rose. To fight her, to best her. To take her and to taste her one more time. Then he would wrest Colonel Laxton from the gauntlets of the ayinafi, kill the man in front of Rose as his last gift to her. A gift to himself, as well, delivered slowly and painfully. But neither his debt to the Ubasi, nor his hope for immortality and power they offered, would allow him that pleasure. At least, not yet.

  He rode through the blasted gate of Fort Russell, amazed at the damage that had been done. He had not thought the fort’s supplies included enough powder to do more than a token amount of damage. Rose must have lent some additional power. The Ubasi would not be pleased. They did not want the fort destroyed, only taken. They had plans for the Misi-ziibi and the lands around it. Taking the fort was the first part of those plans. Having to rebuild nearly half the fort …

  When Umoya was dead, the big sorcerer could bear the blame for many things.

  Behind him, with a dry, swishing sound like men walking through a wheat field ready for harvest, the first of the ithambofis entered the fort. He turned to face them. Empty eye sockets in stripped skulls faced him. Behind the ithambofis, the izidumbus came to a halt, having reached the extent of their orders.

  “Go around on the outside of the walls,” he ordered. “Along the cliff. Apprehend,” he added. “Do not kill.” Ithambofis were much more intelligent than izidumbus, but intelligence also meant initiative. He did not want any mistakes. He could not afford mistakes now.

  He felt the stinging wind of the bullet as it passed his right ear an instant before he heard the report of the rifle.

  He kicked his feet from the stirrups and slid off the back of the horse. He spun and ran for the cover of a piece of the gate still hanging from its hinges. He heard another shot as he ran, but did not see where it hit. He only cared that the bullet had not hit him.

  From cover, he looked out and saw two soldiers on the back corner of the fort reloading their rifles. One of them finished reloading and brought the rifle up to shoulder and aimed toward the gate, fired again. One of the izidumbus still within the gate stumbled and fell, then started climbing to its feet again.

  Taking his pistol from his belt, Ducoed stepped from behind the broken wood of the gate. He aimed at the second soldier as that man finished loading his rifle and started bringing it up. A normal pistol did not have the accuracy to be much of a threat to a single target that far away, and elevated besides. Even a marksman would find the shot a challenge, maybe impossible. Ducoed’s was not a normal pistol. Nor was he a normal marksman. He foc
used on the soldier’s chest, letting his hand do the aiming, then squeezed the trigger.

  Lightning laced with fire exploded from Ducoed’s pistol, arced through the air between him and the soldier, and struck the soldier in the chest. The soldier’s rifle discharged but the shot went wild. The soldier flew back against the crenellations on top of the wall. His rifle fell out of his hands as he fell out of sight.

  The other soldier had been knocked aside by the blast, but he recovered and resumed reloading his rifle.

  Ducoed started walking forward as he reloaded his pistol.

  He and the soldier brought up their guns at the same time.

  He stepped to his left two crossover paces as the soldier fired. Then he aimed and fired. Another soldier died.

  Ducoed reloaded before he ran toward the wall where the soldiers had shot at him. His immortality waited for him just beyond that wall. He saw the twisted stairs leading to the top of the wall, but he was beyond stairs. He laughed and leaped, throwing his chest forward, his arms stretched behind him.

  He felt the magic of the air and the winds and grabbed them with his mind through his pistol. He forced the winds to bear him up and up until he could step on the top of the wall. The strain pounded in his heart and in his head, but the wind whipping around him, carrying him, felt like nothing he had experienced before.

  His breath came in great gasps as he stood on the wall, looking at the world that seemed spread before him. He felt like a giant, a god. He laughed and clenched his left hand as if holding the air, keeping it subdued and under his control. Maybe he did not need Umoya after all. For anything.

  He heard a girl’s scream and recognized Margaret. First the girls, for his debt, then Umoya, for his pleasure.