It cut deep into the monster’s flesh with only a faint tug of resistance. A torrent of steaming blood gushed out of the wound, drenching me thoroughly. The wolf abruptly stopped trying to kill us in favor of getting away, but it only made it three steps before collapsing in a heap. The snow around it rapidly began to turn red.
I rushed over to Cerise. “Are you alright?”
She licked the blood dripping from her dagger. “Hell, yeah. That was awesome, Daniel. Let’s kill some more of these guys.”
“Look out!”
The panicked cry from one of the cowering villagers warned me that our victory hadn’t gone unnoticed. Two more wolves were headed our way, and the giant had drawn a hand axe from his belt. I turned around just in time to see him throw it at me.
Time seemed to stand still as the glittering mass of steel spun through the air towards me, the complex interplay of forces that guided its path announcing that the giant’s aim was true. It would spin three more times as it sailed through the air, then smash edge-on into my chest. With the force of a hundred pounds or so of flying steel concentrated on the tiny surface area of its edge it would cut through my shield like tissue paper.
I stepped into the spot my sorcerous instincts pointed to, two feet forward and a foot to the left, and held out a hand bolstered by telekinetic strength. The shaft of the axe slammed into my palm, and my hand closed around it. I let the impact of the blow spin me around in nearly a full circle, adding my own power to the movement. Then I released it again, and watched it sail through the darkness to sink into the chest of the wolf on the left. The beast went down with a howl of agony.
The wolf on the right checked, and eyed me warily.
“Come on then, monsters!” I shouted. “Who dies next?”
The giant roared, and charged me. The wolf circled right, watching for an opening.
“Oh, crap,” Cerise muttered behind me.
“Take cover,” I advised her, and counter-charged.
It was insane, but I figured being unpredictable was my best shot at surviving this. I let my force bubble drop, knowing it wouldn’t do any good against a weapon the size of the giant’s spear anyway, and desperately wracked my brain. Jump? No, he’d probably seen me do it to the wolf, and he’d just stab me in mid-air. The force spike trick? No, he was wearing chain mail, and steel links that size would be stronger than my force constructs. Earth trickery?
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
He was almost close enough to stab me now, so I turned the ground around us into a quagmire of mud. The first few inches came out frozen, which was a pleasant surprise since it meant I didn’t immediately sink.
The giant wasn’t so lucky. His tremendous weight cracked the frozen surface instantly, and he plunged knee-deep before he knew what was happening. I jumped away with a burst of force magic as he started to struggle, and rapidly circled around the trap.
The giant shouted something in what I assumed must be his own language, but he couldn’t turn fast enough with the goop impeding his movements. I laid a horizontal force wall over the muck to use as a path, circling quickly to get behind him, and then ran in close to ram a slender lance of force between the links of his armor and into his right kidney.
He howled in pain. I made the end of the lance grow into a spinning blade for an instant, thoroughly mangling the tissue inside. Then I released the spell, and a spray of searing blue blood gushed from the wound.
I staggered back, gasping at the sudden cold, and nearly got eaten by another wolf. I barely evaded its snapping jaws, and rolled under it. From that position making a sharp spire of stone erupt from the ground to impale it seemed like the logical course.
The wolf’s blood was hot, and I found myself almost grateful for the dousing I got. Unfortunately one of its paws caught me as I was trying to get out from under it. I went flying, and struck something that was harder than my skull.
For a few minutes all I could do was lie there in a daze, but eventually I managed to get my eyes to focus. I found myself lying in the smashed remains of a wagon, with what felt like half a dozen broken bones. Avilla was crouched over me wrapped in a blanket, with a concerned look in her eyes.
“Can you hear me, Daniel?”
“Yeah,” I grated. “Crap. That one hurt. Gonna need a few minutes to fix everything.”
She gave a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. I was afraid they’d killed you.”
Cerise appeared next to her, and crouched to stab her daggers into the ground before wrapping herself in a blood-stained blanket. “Nah, Daniel’s tougher than that. The frost giant died, and the wolves that can still move ran off. Go ahead and fix yourself up, we’ll keep an eye on things.”
“Thanks.”
I turned my attention inward. Three broken ribs took some effort to knit back together, and then I had a crushed shoulder to deal with. Fortunately the bones hadn’t severed any arteries when they broke, or I might not have lived long enough to wake up.
I made a mental note to come up with better defensive measures soon, and focused on the task at hand. Eventually I got the shoulder put back together, although I’d have to be careful with it for a few days. Then the frostbite where the giant’s blood had struck me, and a nasty laceration along my chest where one of the wolf’s claws had apparently caught me.
Too bad I couldn’t repair my shirt as easily. I only had one spare, and I had a feeling it was only going to get colder.
Finally I opened my eyes again. Apparently it had been a while, because Cerise was dressed now and Avilla was nowhere in sight. The slender witch was arguing rather heatedly with a group of soldiers. About a dozen of them, all gathered in a nervous clump with bulging packs on their backs.
“A little thing like you won’t last long out here without protection,” one of the soldiers was saying. “Maybe the wizard will wake up, and maybe he won’t. Either way he’s not going to be in any shape to take care of you girls.”
“You have no idea what our master is capable of,” Cerise sniffed. “If you guys want to run off in a panic I can’t stop you, but we’re safer with him even if there wasn’t a soldier left in the camp.”
“Come on, Rolf, quit dicking around,” one of the men grumbled. “Just throw the little bitch over your shoulder and let’s go. She’ll come around after we fuck her a few times.”
“Shut up, Hroldir,” the leader said gruffly.
“Yeah,” Cerise chuckled darkly. “You don’t steal a wizard’s property. When he first took us our master bound our wills to his so we’d serve him faithfully forever, and laid dark curses on us to make sure any other man who touches us will die screaming. Not to mention we aren’t just his pet bedtoys, we’re sorceresses. If you mess with us we’ll be cursing you and screwing up your shit forever.”
Hroldir gave Rolf a stubborn look, but the group’s leader ignored him. “Now look, missy, there’s no need to take that tone. Some of the men may be thinking with their dicks, but if the wizard dies on us you’ll be glad enough there’s someone willing to take you in. I wouldn’t even be giving you the chance if I hadn’t seen you and the crazy blonde come running out of the Witchwood full of goblin arrows. No way any of these civilian girls could keep up on a forced march.”
“Now we can carry your master for a bit if you think he can be moved, but that giant’s buddies could be here any minute. So you need to tell your friend to put down the cleaver and grab her pack right fucking now, or we’re leaving all three of you here to die.”
“We’re not the ones in danger of that here,” I interrupted.
The men gasped, and I was amused to note that a couple of the ones between me and Hroldir exchanged nervous glances and discretely stepped out of the line of fire.
“What’s going on?” I said sharply. “Where’s Captain Rain?”
There were grim looks at that.
“He’s fucked up bad, sir wizard,” Rolf explained. “A felwolf bit half his arm off, and then the damned giant stepped on him. One
of the boys got a rope around the arm, and maybe you could save him if you had time. But he’s got so much shit broken he’ll die for sure if we try to move him, and if we don’t get our asses in gear here we’re all goners.”
I frowned, and took Cerise’s offered hand to pull myself to my feet. “What’s the hurry?”
I glanced around, noting that there were a lot fewer people in the camp than there had been yesterday. The remaining villagers were all huddled in a miserable-looking mass next to the one intact wagon, along with a handful of soldiers. A few people were tending the wounded or policing the camp, and I caught a flash of Avilla’s blonde mane atop one of the dead wolves. But most of them were just huddled under their blankets looking terrified.
Then I realized the sun was up. It must have risen while I was healing myself, but I was sure that hadn’t taken more than a half hour or so. I felt a prickle of disquiet as I realized the attack had come during what the military calls ‘morning nautical twilight’ - the same timing modern special forces groups prefer for surprise attacks. It might just be a coincidence, but I suddenly had a bad feeling about the general competence level of those giants.
Rolf’s response didn’t help.
“The stories all say giants live in big tribes, just like human barbarians. You saw what one frost giant and his pet wolves did to us, sir. There’s no way we can fight a whole squad of his buddies at once.”
“Or a frost drake,” one of the men put in. “Some of them are supposed to have those too.”
Rolf nodded. “Yeah. If we keep on like we have been we’re all going to die. We’ve got to drop the dead weight and make straight for Lanrest. It’s only twenty-five miles, we can be there by midmorning tomorrow if we make a forced march of it.”
I frowned. “So you’re just abandoning the civilians?”
He shrugged. “No way they can keep up. If we bring them they’ll just end up strung out all down the road like a big monster buffet. That’d be like a giant sign behind us pointing out where we are. But it looked like you and your girls can keep up, so you’re welcome to come with us.”
I was so shocked I just stared at him for a moment. Apparently Captain Rain really had been the only thing holding this unit together.
“Shall I go tell Avilla to skip the wolf steaks, master?” Cerise asked quietly.
My gaze flicked automatically to Avilla, as I realized that’s what she was doing with the wolf corpse. Then it fell to the hopeless mass of peasants, and the handful of soldiers left to guard them.
“No,” I said firmly. “These cowards can abandon their comrades and their honor if they want, but we aren’t going to. Show me to the wounded.”
A growl of anger went up from the mob of deserters, and hands went to weapons. I called up a force bubble, and let it bleed a haze of shimmering blue sparkles into the frigid air.
“Try it. There won’t be enough left of you to bury.”
Rolf raised his hand. “Easy, boys! We didn’t come over here to pick a fight with no wizard. If he wants to be a damned fool and die that’s his business. Let’s move.”
I waited until they were well out of reach, and then spun and stalked towards the survivors. Cerise trotted along behind me.
“Are you sure that was the right move, Daniel?” She asked quietly. “I’d feel kind of bad about leaving these people, but I don’t want to die for them either. It’s not like we owe them anything.”
“They’re human beings,” I said shortly. “I’m not leaving anyone to die as long as I have a choice about it. Avilla! Can you make enough of that for everyone?”
The pretty blonde started at my call, and smiled down at me. “If that’s what you want, master. There’s certainly more meat on these beasts than we can hope to eat. But it will take time.”
Something in the sky behind her caught my attention. There were dark clouds rolling down from the north, much closer than the ones we’d seen yesterday. It was far too cold for rain, so that meant more snow. Possibly even a blizzard. Lovely.
“That’s fine,” I told her after a moment. “I’ll need an hour or two to stabilize the wounded before we can move, and we won’t be going very far.”
She nodded, and returned to butchering the giant beast.
I found Sergeant Thomas talking quietly with the men that were left, which was something of a relief. Trying to organize this group by myself would have been quite a challenge.
“Sergeant,” I nodded. “Glad to see you made it.”
He took in my appearance, and shook his head. “You look like hell, sir wizard. I take it you’re staying, then?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I can’t see abandoning all these people. How bad is it?”
He lowered his voice a bit. “We’re pretty fucked, sir. We lost a lot of men in that battle, either dead or run off into the woods. We’ve only eight men fit to fight, there’s thirty or so refugees left that didn’t die or run off, and those felwolves scattered all the animals. We’ve got a dozen wounded too bad to walk on their own, and no way to pull the only wagon that isn’t smashed. Even if we leave them behind the rest of this bunch’ll be lucky to make five or six miles a day, and I don’t see us going more than a day or two without another attack.”
I frowned. “I was afraid of that. Well, it looks like there’s a blizzard coming in, and even if the cold doesn’t bother frost giants I doubt they can see through falling snow. So we’re going to collect what supplies we can and hole up maybe half a mile from here, just far enough that no one’s likely to find us before the weather clears. You collect supplies and get everyone organized while I do what I can to keep the wounded from dying on us. When we find a good spot I’ll work some magic to make a shelter and keep it warm.”
He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Sounds like a plan, sir. Any chance you can save the Captain?”
“I’ll try, Thomas. Just show me where he is.”
Captain Rain was a grisly sight. Apparently he’d been popular with the refugees, because a few of the peasant women had gotten a little fire going next to him and were carefully tending his wounds when we arrived. But most of his right arm was missing, and there were bubbles of blood on his lips.
One of the women looked up, and hope blossomed on her face.
“Lord wizard!” She said pleadingly. “Are you here to save him?”
“I’m going to try,” I told her. I knelt next to him, and laid a hand on his forehead to feel out his injuries.
It was bad. His chest had been crushed by the giant, and the broken ribs had punctured both lungs. They were filling with blood, which he had precious little of left after losing the arm. Frostbite was already setting in on his feet, and he had a concussion on top of everything else.
“Damn,” I muttered. “Sergeant, I’m going to need a half hour or so just to get him stable enough to move, and even then we’ll need a stretcher. You said there are some other serious cases too?”
“Yes sir. The worst is Dorgen, he got bit by a wolf and survived somehow. Then there’s a stab wound from that giant’s spear, and a lot of bad gashes and broken bones.”
“I see. Figure a couple of hours for me to get them ready to move, then. Avilla’s making wolf steak for everyone, so at least we’ll be well fed. We’ll set out as soon as everyone’s eaten.”
“Yes, sir. I hope we have that long. Not much left to stop another attack with those damned deserters gone.”
“Can’t be helped, sergeant. Maybe you could arm some of the peasants?”
He considered that. “Better than nothing, I suppose. I’ll see to it.”
He turned to go.
The woman who had spoken before tentatively put her hand on my arm. “You can save him, my lord?”
“I think so. If the monsters leave us alone long enough.”
She blinked back tears. “Bless you, milord!”
One of the others, a pretty girl who might have been fourteen, smiled happily. “See, Vasha? I knew we shouldn’t give up.”
“I
t’s a good thing you didn’t,” I told them. “He wouldn’t have lasted this long otherwise. But I’d better get to work now.”
It was an exhausting two hours. My amulet might recharge my mana, but working magic continuously for long periods was still a strain. The knowledge that I didn’t have the time or energy to fully heal any of my patients was an added complication, because it meant that I couldn’t just flood them with healing energy and let it do what it wanted. Instead I had to focus in on specific trouble spots, forcing the magic to heal only what I wanted it to and leave everything else alone.
Shifting Captain Rain’s broken ribs back into place and fixing his damaged lungs took most of the time I’d estimated. Then I had to deal with the shock, blood loss and hypothermia, all of which were systemic issues that were almost impossible to touch without half my energy flow bleeding off into his other injuries. At least the concussion wasn’t a bad one. I had a headache by the time I was done, and it wasn’t as solid a job as I would have liked.
“Keep him warm, and try to get a little water into him if he wakes up,” I directed. “And be very careful when you move him. I’ve got his ribs back in place but they aren’t properly healed. They’ll snap like twigs if they take a blow.”
“We’ll treat him like spun glass, milord,” Vasha assured me gratefully.
I left them to it, and Cerise led me off to the next patient. Apparently she’d been making herself useful getting the triage organized while I was busy.
“Is she his wife or something?” I wondered once we were out of earshot.
“Concubine,” Cerise corrected. “I think she’s a favorite camp follower he decided to take on permanently, or something like that. The others are peasant girls she picked out for him from the refugees,”
I stopped dead. “Wait, what? The little redhead can’t be over fourteen.”
“Yeah, so? What else is a girl who’s lost her family going to do to try to make sure someone takes care of her?”
Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) Page 6
