One of the braves walked forward, presenting Caleb’s staff to the elderly man with a noticeable air of deference. The old man looked it over with mild curiosity. The runes themselves seemed to interest him, and he traced them several times with one finger. Caleb braced himself, ready to throw up a shield if he saw the sigils light, but the staff remained dormant.
The elderly man seemed satisfied with whatever he’d discovered, and he came forward, using the staff now to walk with, though he didn’t seem to need it. As he approached Caleb, the crowd murmured in agitation, perhaps worried that the dreaded white man was going to attack their venerable elder.
Caleb held up his free hand, once again displaying his intention to simply remain passive. The old man tilted his head, looking the Peacemaker up and down. His eyes lit on Caleb’s gun, which they hadn’t taken away, and he asked something of his braves. The leader answered with a shrug. Apparently, they didn’t feel the firearm was a danger.
“Are you up to translating again?”
Ernst barely shook his head. “I don’t want to weaken myself that much around that one.” His eyes had never left the coyote, though the predator seemed to ignore Ernst’s very existence.
The jackalope’s voice drew the attention of the ancient Indian, and he tilted his head the other way, his sharp eyes examining the creature in Caleb’s arms. His gaze moved from Ernst to Caleb and back again, a thoughtful frown forming in the lines of his face.
He looked to one of the braves and gave an order. The intent became clear when the young man reached to take Ernst away from Caleb.
“No!” Blue flame flared to life around Caleb’s empty fist, the threat explicit. No one was taking Ernst.
The brave hesitated, glancing toward the older man. The ancient one nodded firmly, indicating that he was to proceed. Reluctantly, the man stepped forward.
“Kracht!” A bolt of raw force leapt from Caleb’s hand, slamming into the young brave’s chest and sending him sprawling to the ground.
It was not a killing blow but one meant to daze. The brave blinked his glassy eyes, barely aware when his comrades moved to help him to his feet.
Caleb continued to hold his power, and licks of blue energy flared around his fist, casting strange shadows on the faces of the watching throng. They were eerily silent, but no one made any further hostile moves. “If you have to, blink out of here, Ernst.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“It wasn’t a suggestion.” He glanced at his familiar. “For once, just do as I ask, all right?” Ernst didn’t answer.
The ancient Indian was examining his stunned brave, and to Caleb’s surprise, seemed to be chuckling. With mirth in his eyes, he came back to Caleb and pointed at the power held in his hand.
“Not a chance. You threaten Ernst, you deal with me.” The Peacemaker shook his head firmly.
The old man shook his head in reply, saying something in their musical language. He pointed across the clearing, past the fire, to a wooden frame with leather stretched tightly across it. It had many holes punctured in it and a few broken arrows around the base. A target, obviously.
“You . . . want me to hit that?”
The old man nodded, insistently pointing toward the target again.
It was easy enough to do, though Caleb couldn’t fathom why the old man wanted him to. The trick would be keeping the thing from erupting in flames and igniting the entire forest.
With narrowed eyes, he brought all his concentration into the middle two knuckles of his hand, condensing the blazing power into a narrow point of light. Arm outstretched, he breathed the word kracht on his exhale, and power lanced forth with a sharp crack, a beam of blue in the firelit night.
The target blew apart into many pieces, those standing closest to it diving for cover with surprised cries. The old Indian laughed with obvious delight, going himself to retrieve pieces of the mangled frame and looking them over with excitement. There seemed to be much laughter in the crowd, good-natured mockery of those who had fled from the exploding target.
“They’re all crazy, Ernst.”
“I highly doubt that.” The jackalope burrowed himself deeper into Caleb’s elbow. “Look out. He’s coming back.”
It seemed ridiculous to be holding on to a fistful of raw power in the face of such a wizened individual, but Caleb did it anyway, bracing himself for whatever came next.
The ancient one smirked, and pointed once again to Caleb’s flaming hand, then to the leader of the braves who had captured him. The brave stepped forward, his jaw and fists clenched, a hint of hatred in his dark eyes as he gazed at the white man.
“No.” Caleb shook his head emphatically. “I’m not shooting at him.”
The old Indian frowned and made a gesture toward both men before bringing his two hands together sharply in the middle.
“I think he wants you to fight him, Caleb.”
“Why in the hell would I do that?” They were all crazy. Dear God. “Look, I don’t know what you’re about, but I’m not fighting someone for no reason.”
“Think of it like a duel. Just . . . put him down quickly, without hurting him.”
He looked down at Ernst. “Just whose side are you on? Besides, I’m not letting you go for anything. Lord only knows where they’d try to carry you off to.”
The old man seemed to understand, and he gestured toward Ernst, then himself. The amusement had vanished from his dark eyes, and he clearly understood the gravity of what he was asking.
Caleb took a step back, squeezing Ernst until the little creature wriggled uncomfortably. “No one touches him.”
The old Indian smiled gently, nodding his understanding, but looked to Ernst next, offering his hand to the jackalope instead.
“Caleb . . . air!” Ernst jabbed his partner with his antlers in an effort to breathe, and reluctantly, Caleb eased up.
“Can he hurt you, Ernst?” The arcane flames still crackled around his fist, and he kept his wary gaze on the old man.
“I don’t think so. But their magic is not like ours. I can’t feel it at all.” Caleb couldn’t feel it either, and it bothered him. There should have been something there, something to explain the subtle show of great power they’d been subjected to on the way there. “It’s all right, Caleb. I don’t think he’ll let anything happen to me.”
He didn’t want to give Ernst over. The very thought made his stomach knot painfully, and he felt the beginnings of a cold sweat on his forehead. He’s not being taken away. He’s just going to be safely out of harm’s way. Still, it took a few deep breaths before he could willingly hand his familiar over to a potential enemy.
The old man cradled the jackalope carefully in one arm, managing to scratch the animal’s ears and still hold onto Caleb’s staff at the same time. After a few moments, Ernst purred softly.
Though he felt like the skin was about to crawl off his back, Caleb withdrew his power, coiling it into the center of his chest again. The blue fire snuffed out. “I don’t want to fight your man.”
The old man never even looked at Caleb, but merely shuffled off to the side with Ernst, entranced with the charming little creature. His coyote remained where it was seated, watching the proceedings with a bored gaze.
The Indian brave said something to Caleb, and it wasn’t hard to guess the sound of an insult. Caleb raised a brow. “I’m not fighting you. This is ridiculous.”
The dark man smirked, saying something to his cronies. They hooted and whooped at Caleb, taunting him.
The Peacemaker held his ground, but took no hostile moves of his own. “I don’t want this. I have no quarrel with any of you.”
Perhaps the tall warrior had a quarrel with him. Suddenly, the brave let out a wild whoop. He spun in a full circle, braids flying, and flung his hand at Caleb as if throwing a spear. There was no weapon present, but Caleb could see the shi
mmer as the narrow shaft of air hardened, crystallized, and came straight for him.
Only instinct and years of training saved him. “Schild!” It wasn’t pretty without his staff to help him focus, and it shattered into a cloud of spent arcane motes on the first strike. But the air spear was likewise destroyed, a faint breeze stirring the clearing where it had been released.
A chorus of laughing catcalls echoed around the clearing, goading the brave on. He glowered, apparently not seeing the humor in the situation. Caleb didn’t see it, either, and made a few emphatic negative gestures, hoping the other man would stop. He did not.
There was no warning cry this time. The brave dipped and bobbed in an odd little dance, then slammed his palm against the ground. Instantly, Caleb felt the vibration in the soles of his feet, and he dove to the side only a heartbeat before the ground beneath him exploded in a rain of dirt and rocks. Those spectators who also got showered with debris called disapprovingly to their tribesman.
It was a basic trick, one of the first any cadet at West Point learned. To churn the earth beneath an advancing army’s cavalry, to destroy roads and train tracks, to fell trees across paths and funnel them into ambush, all started with the same source skill. But as Caleb reached for the traces of the arcane power that had to be used, he felt nothing. It was as if the ground had simply erupted of its own accord.
“Come on Caleb! Thump him one!” Ernst was the sole voice cheering for him, and he stared at the little creature in disbelief.
“Have you lost your—”
“Look out!”
Caleb’s distraction almost cost him again. The tree branch above, as big around as his waist, broke with a loud snap, plummeting downward. There was no way to dive free of the reaching limbs, and his shield would not hold against that much weight. With only a split second to decide, he shouted, “Stoppe!” and channeled through his upstretched palm.
Not a shield, this time, but a cradle made of energy, catching the limb in midair. The downward momentum was captured, reversed, the energy conserved as it held the tree branch up instead of dragging it down. It swayed there, barely two feet above his head, the thinnest of twigs trailing across the ground near the fire. Though he could have easily launched it some distance, he instead lowered it gently to the ground, mindful of the gathered crowd. Judging by the pallor of those closest to him, he could tell they understood what danger he’d just saved them from.
“That’s enough! You’re going to hurt someone!” The response was a hail of thorns, ripped from a nearby tree. “Brand!” They burst into flame in mid-flight, falling like tiny stars to the soil. Caleb brushed one tiny ember from the brim of his hat, straightening it. “All right. I’ve had enough of you.”
Ernst was close enough to act as a channel, and Caleb opened up his awareness, reaching for the brave’s power. He could siphon it off, feed it out through Ernst and away, squelching it against the nullstone deep beneath their feet.
Only there was nothing to grab. The brave simply wasn’t there in any magical sense, and Caleb was left with a flailing metaphysical hand, grasping at empty air. And like any void left wanting, his power went seeking that which it lacked. It moved through the crowd, sweeping over man and woman, young and old, finding each and every one of them an empty void. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said the entire village was barren.
The hole within him hurt. It hungered, aching for that which it used to hold. Caleb’s own power was stunted compared to its former prowess, but, oh, it remembered. Had there been more magic nearby to snatch, it would have, and what destruction he could have wrought then.
With a tremendous force of will, he wrestled it back in, closing the ravenous maw within his psyche, tying it down, muzzling it. His jaws ached as he ground his teeth together, and his fingernails had gouged bloody crescents into his palms.
The crowd was silent, and his opponent held a frozen fighting stance, hands poised to direct some new torment at Caleb. The dark gazes were wary now, not only from the braves but from the rest of the tribe as well. Somehow, despite the fact that they had no power he could sense, they knew what he’d tried to do.
Shame curled into his stomach, sick and churning. It was one thing to appropriate the energy of one person to prevent harm to others. It was quite another to go seeking it among innocents. Yes, he’d stopped and pulled back. But the fact remained that for that one brief moment in time, he’d lacked enough control to retreat.
Shame quickly turned to anger, both at himself and at the warrior who had forced him to this point. Caleb squared his shoulders. He would end this fight now. Blue flame crackled to life around both hands again.
The man across the clearing sensed the change in his opponent, and the fight was truly on.
A sharp gust of wind met a solid blast of force in the center of the clearing, almost blowing the large bonfire out. Even as the embers flickered and struggled to survive the onslaught, Caleb caught the wind, lit the tiny particles within it on fire, and shoved it back at its sender.
A waterskin hanging on a nearby teepee burst, becoming a thin sheet of moisture between the blast of flame and the Indian brave. It went up in a hiss of scalding steam, but the fire was doused.
Caleb drove his power down, into the ground, and a jagged furrow opened up as the blast powered its way toward the other man. The Indian jerked both hands skyward, and a wall of thick shale exploded from the ground in front of him, shattering into thin splinters as it took the brunt of Caleb’s blow. Someone to the side cried out in pain as a sliver of rock found a home in his unprotected flesh.
People were getting hurt, and Caleb had never wanted that. He pulled two large boulders from the already ravaged ground, firing one after the other like the cannonballs of the war. The brave ducked, and both rocks sheared off a tree some distance behind them, and the ancient giant fell with a boom.
The Indian man threw one hand out toward the remnants of the large fire, and the flame answered, rising in one sinuous line like a great serpent, the head weaving back and forth menacingly. In the trees overhead, leaves and twigs popped softly, the sap in them boiling in an instant. The scent of burning foliage permeated the clearing. They had only moments before the entire forest ignited, tinder-dry as it was.
“No!” Horrified, Caleb watched the serpent, careful not to be entranced. Like the snake it resembled, fire could ensnare the mind, luring people to their deaths with false promises of safety if they would just remain still. The trick was not to look it in the eyes.
Regardless of where it originated, fire was pure energy, and this Caleb could grab. The hungry monster within him gleefully launched itself at the serpent of flame, gulping ravenously. He felt the searing heat of it as it entered his body, and the blue flames around his fists turned orange, singeing the hair of his forearms. The fire serpent hissed and writhed, coiling over and over itself in an effort to escape, but Caleb had a large gaping hole within himself. There was more than enough room to capture and hold it.
Dimly, he heard Ernst yelling for him to give it over, to bleed off the power that was never meant to be encased in a human form. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he had to. Give it up, or burn with it. But, oh, it felt good, the heat coursing through his veins. Even with his eyes closed, he could see the world tinged in shades of red and gold and, at the very depths of his vision, the blue of hottest flame. If he let go, he could be part of it forever, his energy blended with the eternal energy of flame. He’d known, ever since Chicago, that this would be his fate.
Something struck him across the face, hard enough to jar his senses. When he opened his eyes, he found the ancient Indian standing before him, his hand drawn back to slap him again. Seeing that he had Caleb’s attention, he shoved Ernst into the Peacemaker’s arms, the antlers gouging him through his shirt. His blood steamed where it oozed from those scratches and others.
“Caleb, please give it to
me. Please.” Ernst sat up on his haunches, his quivering little nose nearly pressed to Caleb’s. His voice echoed, taking on the crackling sound of a roaring fire. “You have to give it to me, or you’ll burn. Please.”
Yes. He’d seen men burn from within. Their fingers turned black, and their skin curled, flaking away as ash. Their fat bubbled, and they smelled like sizzling bacon. That was why he could never eat that particular food again. And to a man, they died with smiles on their faces, seduced by the very power that devoured them alive.
“Yes.” His own voice was barely audible, the air in his lungs too hot for his vocal chords to handle. “Take it!” Inside, the fire roared its denial, and it scrabbled at him with searing claws, not wanting to relinquish a ready meal.
Through the heat, he could feel Ernst’s forehead pressed against his, the antlers pricking painfully. The brown fur was blessedly cool to the touch, and it cleared away some of the heated delirium from Caleb’s mind. The fire left him, kicking and screaming, but drawn inexorably out nonetheless. That tremendous power funneled through the tiny form that was Ernst and away into wherever a familiar put such things.
Caleb was left cold and sweating, hugging the furry form close to his chest. There was no need for him to say thanks, unless it was to the Almighty for sending him Ernst in the first place. He would be so lost without him.
Someone touched his shoulder, and he looked to find the old Indian peering intently into his eyes. After a long moment, the ancient one nodded firmly. “Epeva’e.” Whatever it meant, he was obviously finished with Caleb. He handed the staff back.
Turning from the Peacemaker and his familiar, the old man hummed tunelessly as he gestured with his hands over the shattered earth and rocks left from the duel. His motions were oddly graceful, and before Caleb’s astonished eyes, the broken soil folded in on itself, the jagged rocks sinking back to their appropriate depths, until one could never tell that anything at all had happened here. The charred leaves fluttered down from their abused twigs, fresh new buds unfurling as all watched. The fallen tree branch took a bit longer, decaying before his eyes to become a part of the loam and normal forest detritus. All that remained was a noticeable lump on the ground, vaguely the length and width of the branch.
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