“I think I’m getting the hang of starting fires, master,” she declared. “I’ll have a nice, warm stew ready in a half hour or so.”
She said it so naturally I had to remind myself it was just a charade. ‘Master’ was a normal term of respect for an apprentice speaking to her teacher, but I’d gathered that this land was pretty medieval in its attitudes about things like civil rights. A master was supposed to support and train his apprentices, but he was also responsible for their discipline and I doubted they had many options if he decided to be brutal about it. An ordinary craftsman would have to worry about the opinions of his neighbors and the local lord, but one who traveled didn’t even have that minimal constraint. Let alone a wizard.
It was the kind of place where any attractive female who took an apprenticeship would expect servicing her master to be part of the job, hence the constant assumptions along those lines from everyone around us. I was starting to wonder why the girls had been so willing to go along with a plan that essentially involved pretending to be my personal concubines. But then again, the fact that Captain Rain had felt the need to reassure them he wasn’t going to let his men casually rape them was also pretty telling. Pretending they were already taken might be the only way they could avoid having some asshole decide to ‘claim’ them.
Ah, well. When in Rome, at least act Roman enough that you don’t stand out too much. Low-tech societies tend to be xenophobic too, and the last thing I wanted was to create a situation where I’d end up making enemies of the local humans. The monsters were bad enough.
So I just nodded, trying to look like I was used to having a beautiful girl waiting on me hand and foot. “Good. Do you need anything?”
“We’ll manage, sir.”
Cerise shot me a grin. “You know Avilla and her cooking, master. Give her a couple of days and she’ll be baking cookies over an open fire somehow.”
Avilla swatted her arm. “Hush, you! Find me the ladle, and then peel a few of those potatoes.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Avilla settled in to preparing our meal with the casual skill of an experienced chef, with Cerise smoothly adopting the role of assistant. I left them to it, and set about making a circuit of the camp to see what I could learn about our hosts.
There were only about a hundred of the soldiers. Their weary faces and ragged gear told the story of a hard-fought campaign that they knew they were losing, but they saw to their tasks with the disciplined efficiency of veterans. After fifty percent casualties that was pretty damned amazing, and my respect for Captain Rain rose several notches. Not many officers could hold a unit together under circumstances like these.
The civilians, on the other hand, were shell-shocked refugees who might have stepped right out of a charity advertisement. They were a fair-skinned, dark-haired people, a bit short but not as tiny as medieval peasants had been back on Earth. The typical clothing was essentially a sack of rough cloth with holes for arms and legs, although here and there I saw a proper dress or something resembling pants. Shoes were a rarity, with most of the refugees, just wrapping their feet with rags, and I wondered how many frostbite cases I’d get before we reached our destination.
There weren’t nearly as many children in the crowd as I would have expected, especially considering the large family sizes that were normal for preindustrial societies. Lots of teenagers and older kids, but very few toddlers or infants. There were also noticeably fewer adult men than women, and all of the survivors clutched at improvised weapons. Mostly farm implements, like scythes and hoes, but a few had hunting bows or improvised spears.
The implications were grim. These were the people who’d fought their way free of a long string of disasters, and anyone who couldn’t keep up hadn’t made it this far.
On the good side, there was a small herd of sheep and cattle with them and most of the wagons seemed to be loaded with food. At least we weren’t going to starve anytime soon, and arriving at a besieged settlement with stores in tow was a good way to get invited inside the walls. The wagons themselves were a bit run down, however, and my thoughts quickly turned to options for repairing or replacing them. I couldn’t shape wood, and stone would be too heavy to make a wagon out of, but there ought to be something I could do.
Captain Rain found me still musing on the subject some minutes later, and pulled me aside.
“Not to be too demanding after all your good work this afternoon, but I wanted to see if you can do anything about the security of the camp,” he said in a low voice. “The goblins like to try to sneak in and cut men’s throats in the dark, and sometimes they bring trolls.”
I considered the problem for a moment, eying the layout of the camp. Yeah, the shadows cast by the wagons would make it hard to keep watch, and the tree line wasn’t that far away. Come to think of it, weren’t medieval people usually night-blind from some kind of vitamin deficiency?
“That’s a tricky problem,” I told him. “I could set a ward around the camp to detect motion and sound an alarm, but we’d get a lot of false alarms from wandering animals. I can shape earth, but building a wall and ditch substantial enough to slow down trolls would be quite a project. Hmm. What about setting traps? I could turn some patches of ground around the camp into stone spikes, like a field of caltrops. One goblin might sneak past, but if a bunch of them try it some of them are bound to hit a patch.”
His eyes glinted in the firelight. “I like the sound of that. The little bastards always pitch a fit when they get hurt, and trolls are worse. Alright, I’ll detail a squad to escort you while you set it up. How long will that take?”
“Maybe twenty minutes.”
He nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate the consideration you’ve been showing the men, sir. Most wizards would put up a lot of fuss about ‘wasting’ their time and magic on common folk.”
“Yes, well, I try to be more practical than that. For all I know the soldier I save today may be guarding my back tomorrow. But I’d better get this done before it gets completely dark.”
I was surprised how nervous it made me to leave the circle of wagons as the sun set, with shadows already pooling under the trees where anything might be lurking. But sergeant Thomas showed up momentarily with a half-dozen burly fighting men in tow, and they seemed to know their business. It took a few minutes longer than expected, but I got a nice irregular ring of traps laid in just as the last sliver of sun dipped below the trees.
Then I was back to my own little camp, to enjoy my first taste of Avilla’s cooking. She greeted me with a cheery smile, handing me a wooden bowl of dark stew along with a generous hunk of bread. I wondered for a moment how she’d managed to produce it so fast, since the recipes I’d seen for such things always took hours.
Then I took my first bite. I paused to stare at the spoon.
“How is it?” She asked nervously. Cerise rolled her eyes, but was too busy wolfing down her own portion to comment.
“Well,” I said consideringly, “If my wizard gig ever falls through we can always get you a job as some king’s personal chef.” I suddenly suspected this was what she’d meant when she said she was a ‘hearth witch’, but there were too many ears around us to ask about that now.
She giggled. “Oh, master, you’re such a flatterer.”
I might have replied, but I was too hungry for banter with a meal like this waiting for me. By the time the three of us were done there was no need to clean the bowls, because every particle of food was gone.
By then it was snowing lightly, and the wind had picked up a bit. The girls retreated into the covered space of the wagon, re-packing their bags and beginning to unroll the blankets we’d brought along to serve as bedrolls.
I was bone tired, and most of me wanted nothing more than to crawl into the wagon and go to sleep. But events were moving too fast for that.
“I’ve got a few things to take care of before bed,” I told them. “I’ll be along in a bit, but don’t bother waiting up for me.”
“Seriously?” Cerise gave me a surprised look. “I’m about to pass out, and I haven’t done anything today compared to you.”
Avilla cuddled up behind her, and slipped a hand under her blouse with a giggle. “Aw, is my poor little kitten all wilted? Maybe I can perk you up.”
Cerise squeaked in surprise, but made no effort to get away. I chuckled, and resolved to give the young lovers some time to themselves.
“I’m sure you’ll manage, Avilla. Give her a few licks for me while you’re at it.”
“Hey!”
I left Cerise blushing and stammering in Avilla’s arms, and went off to find a spot to work. Sorcery didn’t seem to require much in the way of materials or rituals, but I still didn’t want anyone getting too good a look at what I was about to attempt. Not to mention that being interrupted might not be entirely safe.
Fortunately the majority of the camp was already bedding down for the night, leaving just a few guards up and about. I suppose peasants would be used to going to bed with the sun in a place like this, and there wasn’t much to do in the dark anyway. I saw a few couples sharing blankets here and there, their activities studiously ignored by their neighbors.
It was cold, but my cloak was as warm as an electric blanket. With the hood up I wasn’t especially recognizable either, and no one bothered me as I made a slow circuit of the camp. I sorted out the details in my head, digging through the instinctive skills that had been dumped into my mind looking for any options that I’d missed. There was some interesting stuff there, but most of it either wasn’t relevant or would take far too much time.
Finally I settled myself against a wagon wheel, and turned my new senses inward.
So far I’d been using my flesh element entirely for healing, and I started out by continuing that trend. The trickle of power from my amulet was far larger than the energy output of a human body, and it took only a few minutes to wash away most of the physical fatigue left by the long day’s exertions. The mental fatigue was another matter, but I’d be able to sleep soon enough.
Once that was done I dug deeper, reaching for the flesh-element analogue of the shaping ability I’d already applied to stone.
Living tissue can’t just be sculpted like clay, of course. There are millions of little details that have to be carefully managed through any change in physical form, from the placement of nerves and blood vessels to the alignment of muscle fibers and attachment points of tendons. Not to mention the delicate complexity of the matrix of individual cells, which can’t just be stretched or compressed much without killing them.
As a result shaping flesh was a slow process, more a matter of coaxing the body to grow in the desired manner while augmenting its natural abilities with magic. I could see that the subject’s genetics still played an important role in the process, although my own will could exert considerable influence. It was also a very energy-intensive process, and my little power tap would be a real limiting factor if I ever tried something ambitious.
Fortunately, tonight I was just after one of the easier transformations. A career as a desk jockey had left me in poor shape for marching in snow or fighting off monsters, and I could imagine dozens of ways that lack could get me or the girls killed. We’d been lucky so far, but I couldn’t count on that to continue. So my first attempt at a physical transformation was a shaping to make myself stronger.
The shaping mimicked the effects of actual exercise, only a few thousand times faster. Every muscle in my body twitched violently, vibrating with energy as a dull burn suffused them. I added a secondary flow to keep the fatigue under control, grimacing as the diversion of energy slowed the transformation. But it was just as well, as a ripple of growth forced me to juggle a dozen more complexities all at once.
Where was the extra mass coming from, anyway? I had a dim sense that it was being conjured from some external source, just like with the hammer I’d made in my first battle. But beyond that I had no idea, and I certainly didn’t have time to worry about it now.
My muscles grew in slow fits and starts, as I struggled to counteract all the unpleasant side effects a too-fast change created in the rest of my body. But gradually I got the hang of it, and the process began to smooth out. A constant rate of change made everything easier, and for the better part of an hour I sat and coaxed the transformation along.
I wasn’t going for the huge bulging muscles of a weightlifter, of course. Aside from being too obvious a change, it wasn’t optimal for my situation. I needed the strong legs and aerobic endurance of a marathon runner, in case we needed to outrun danger. The rock-hard physique of a serious martial artist, to protect my internal organs from blows I didn’t see coming. The strong arms and back of a laborer, in case I needed to carry an injured civilian while my limited supply of magic was in use. Conditioning, and more conditioning, and yet more conditioning.
Finally I reached the limits of what I could do. I opened my eyes to find that the camp was still and quiet, and the snow was falling harder now. A wave of exhaustion washed over me, and suddenly finding my own wagon again seemed like an enormous undertaking. I was too tired to stand up, let alone walk anywhere.
I pulled the hood of my cloak down over my face, and let my eyes drift closed again. The magical warmth would protect me from the snow, and the girls would probably enjoy their privacy anyway. I was asleep in moments.
Some time later a small but very strong hand shook me awake. I blinked my eyes open to find Avilla’s face inches from my nose.
“Daniel? Are you alright?” She asked worriedly.
“Yeah. Just tired. Rough casting.” I mumbled.
Her expression firmed. “Right. Let’s get you to bed before you catch your death of cold.”
She slipped under my arm and lifted me to my feet despite my feeble protests, and dragged me off across the camp. I was still so tired the world seemed to sway like the deck of a ship, and I found myself leaning heavily on her. She took my weight without protest, though at one point she paused to wrap my cloak around us both.
Then she gasped softly. “It’s so warm! How did you... fire magic?”
“Mmm hmmm.” Her hair smelled nice. Like baking cookies on a warm spring day.
“I suppose you weren’t going to freeze, then,” she observed. “But I still can’t have my heroic protector sleeping alone on the hard ground. Come on, almost there.”
Soon I was foggily clambering into the back of a wagon. Avilla stopped us when we were half inside, and I frowned in confusion as she bent over me. But she was just taking off my shoes. She left them next to her own just inside the covered space, and deftly laced the canvas flaps shut again.
“Avilla?” Cerise asked sleepily.
“I’m here, kitten,” Avilla replied softly. “Go back to sleep.”
“M‘kay. C’mere.”
A slender hand snaked out from the pile of blankets to grab my arm, and pulled me down. A moment later I found myself on my side half under the blankets, with the little witch curled up against my chest.
“Mmm, muscles. Yum.”
She was a very naked little witch. I froze, my sleep-addled mind having no idea how to react.
Avilla giggled softly, and slipped in behind me. Oh, my. She’d been naked under her cloak?
“Um,” I said intelligently.
“Put your arm around her,” Avilla advised quietly. “She doesn’t have so many nightmares if she’s being held.”
I obediently let my arm fall to encircle the sleeping girl. She gave a little sigh, and buried her face in my chest.
“There you go. Goodnight, Daniel.” Avilla reached around me to stroke Cerise’s hair, and then left it there as she relaxed against my back.
I decided I’d leave the thinking for later. “Goodnight, Avilla.”
Chapter 4
I woke to the crack of splintering timber, and an ear-splitting howl right above my head.
A massive weight landed on my chest as my eyes flew open. Avilla’s startled yelp in my ear rem
inded me where I was, but my face was covered with canvas and it was too dark to see.
The weight shifted, and I felt my ribs creak. I pushed, blindly but with the full power of my force element, and it lifted. The canvas flew away from my face, and I found myself looking up at a giant wolf.
It had a man in its jaws, and as I pushed myself upright I saw it shake him like a dog with a rabbit. Then it dropped him, and turned its gaze on me.
Avilla scrambled behind me with a whimper, and I knew I had to hold its attention. I threw a ball of fire at its face, and jumped off the wagon.
Sure enough it followed, spinning in place to snap at me with teeth the size of swords. I gathered a burst of force magic and jumped, pushing off to send myself sailing high over the beast’s head. The long seconds of hang time gave me a chance to send a flurry of force blades raining down on it, but they didn’t penetrate deep enough to have much effect. The beast was easily the size of an elephant, and I was going to need something with more punch than that to deal with it.
The rest of the camp was in complete confusion. More giant wolves were rampaging among the refugees, killing men and panicking the livestock. On the other side of the camp a giant who must have been twenty feet tall stood laughing and laying about with an enormous spear.
After that I was too busy for sightseeing. The damned wolf was smart enough to see where I was going to land, and coming down without going splat was tricky enough that I barely managed to fend it off. Its jaws closed on the force bubble protecting me and began to squeeze, sending blue sparks dancing through the air around me as the spell threatened to collapse.
Then it yelped in surprise and jumped back. Cerise rolled out from under it with a bloody dagger in each hand, still as naked as when I’d come to bed. The wolf lashed out at her with a paw, and she nimbly ducked under the blow.
I dove forward while it was distracted. Its chin flashed by above me, and then my line of sight was clear. I conjured another force blade, this one six feet long instead of my usual two or three, and slashed it across the wolf’s throat.
Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) Page 5
