The War and the Fox

by Tim Susman

  Between the three of them, only Kip trusted his translocation enough to take himself to a spot he’d previously visited, but he couldn’t take others. Summoning, though, he could do easily, so they found a room on the third floor and he and Malcolm summoned first-order demons to send to New Cambridge. First-order demons, though limited in their power, had the significant advantage that they did not require the sorcerer to perform the calyx ritual—imbibing a small amount of blood from a Calatian, termed the “calyx,” whose magical qualities would increase the sorcerer’s power—to successfully bind them. Kip had found that a small taste of his own blood would work for him, but he still preferred to avoid it whenever possible, and Malcolm felt the same.

  Through the demons’ eyes, they searched the ruined barn until they found a scrap of paper. “Peacefield, in Quincy,” was all it read.

  “Where’s Quincy?” Malcolm asked.

  “Near Boston.” Kip searched his memory. “South, I believe?”

  “If none of us have been there, then I suppose we could fly.” Malcolm dismissed his demon but Kip kept Nikolon around.

  Alice had been sitting with arms folded and ears flat, put out at not being able to see what Kip and Malcolm’s demons were seeing, and now jumped up. “I can lift us if you guide me.”

  Before they could proceed further with that plan, shouts sounded from outside, muffled, and then the sharp retort of a gunshot.

  The three of them stared at each other for a moment, and then another gunshot sounded. Kip ran outside and plunged into chaos, soldiers clogging the hallway searching for targets for their half-lifted rifles. By the time he and the others made their way to the meeting room where they’d met Captain Marsh, they were just in time to see the last of the sorcerers disappear.

  “Where did they go?” Alice asked. “Where should we go?”

  “The room’s empty,” Kip told Malcolm.

  “Aye,” his friend said. “Give me a moment and I’ll have eyes again. Shouldn’t have dismissed the blighter so soon.”

  “Put a ward up first.” Here in the room, with men shouting outside and gunshots crashing, Kip felt vulnerable.

  “Alice.” Malcolm reached out a hand. She took it, and Kip took the other. The hands glowed orange for a moment and then Malcolm spoke the spell and the glow died down. “That should do,” he said, “for the three of us, anyway. Now let me make the summons.”

  Nikolon. Show me where the gunshots are coming from.

  The street outside the Armory appeared in his vision, where a row of soldiers in bright red uniforms knelt in formation and fired on the armory. Kip scanned the street around them but could not see sorcerers anywhere. Did military sorcerers wear black robes? Red uniforms? Are there sorcerers around? he asked.

  Six on the roof of this building, Nikolon replied promptly, three on the roof of the third house from the end across the street, and one in the stairwell of this building between the second and third floors.

  The ones on the roof might be the American sorcerers, but one in the stairwell? “What?” Kip exclaimed aloud, and at that moment shouts and curses came from the hallway outside and then stopped abruptly with several loud impacts that sounded like bodies hitting stone.

  Show me the hallway outside.

  Half a dozen American soldiers stood immobile against the walls to either side of the hallway. Between them strode a tall, thin man in black robes with a sharp black goatee, a sorcerer Kip didn’t know. He walked quietly, peering into every room, and was only two doors down from the room they were in.

  Kip pointed outside to Alice and Malcolm and said in a low whisper, “Enemy sorcerer.” Alice nodded and called magic to her; Malcolm was in the midst of his summoning spell and Kip realized that in a moment the demon would appear and Malcolm would have to speak to bind it.

  Can you create a light as bright as the sun just in front of the sorcerer’s eyes? Kip asked Nikolon.

  That seemed in line with Nikolon’s abilities, and indeed the demon responded, Yes.

  Do so when I tell you. Kip bit his lip and watched the sorcerer move down the hall. They had only seconds, and his plan was only half-formed.

  “What should I do?” Alice whispered.

  “Stay here,” Kip said, gathering magic, and said, Now, to Nikolon as he jumped out into the hallway.

  A bright light flashed in front of him, obscuring the face of the sorcerer. Kip used physical magic to take the rifle from the hands of one of the immobilized soldiers and swing it at the back of the sorcerer’s head.

  The man staggered forward but didn’t fall. Kip swung the rifle again, and then another rifle flew through the air and struck the man on the temple. At that, he fell to the ground and didn’t move.

  Kip whirled to see Alice in the doorway, her ears back but smiling. “I told you to stay in the room,” he said.

  “What if you’d been hit?” she retorted. “I’d be in the room with no idea what was going on. Malcolm put a ward on us, so I was safe.”

  “My wards aren’t completely foolproof.” Malcolm came up behind her. “Especially if you jump out in front of a fellow and hit him.” Kip had caught Malcolm’s orders binding his demon, and his nose tingled strongly from that one and Nikolon being both nearby.

  “They’d protect me from physical magic, though.” She pointed to the men around the hallway, now mobile again. “That’s what he was using.”

  Two of the soldiers had bent to tie the arms of the sorcerer. Kip stepped forward. “That won’t do any good,” he said. “Keep him unconscious until Captain Marsh returns.”

  One of the soldiers squinted up at him. “We don’t take orders from you.”

  “We’re lieutenants, I’m told.” Kip broke off, not wanting to ask the men what their rank was.

  “He’s telling you truth,” Malcolm said. “Binding a sorcerer’s hands is like taping up your mouth. Might make you feel good but does naught to stop you fighting.”

  The soldier’s expression darkened. Kip looked around. “Where is Captain Marsh?”

  Before they could answer, noises came from the stairs. One of the soldiers went to investigate, and the loudest gunshot Kip had yet heard sounded, making him flatten his ears as the rest of the soldiers dropped to alert crouches. The unfortunate soldier who’d braved the danger tottered back and then slumped against the wall.

  Show me the stair, he commanded Nikolon, and there saw three red-coated soldiers, rifles at the ready, making their way up. With some concentration, he called magic and picked up the foremost one, then threw him back into the other two. They tumbled down, cursing, and landed in a pile at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Go now!” he gestured to the soldiers, calling more magic and yanking the invading soldiers’ rifles from them. A moment later his allies ran into Nikolon’s field of vision and grabbed at the soldiers, pulling them away from each other and binding their hands behind their back.

  Alice ran over to the soldier who’d been shot. Kip followed, asking Nikolon to find Captain Marsh for him. “Malcolm,” he called, “can you take charge of the sorcerer?”

  “Aye,” Malcolm called back.

  Another soldier knelt with Alice next to his wounded comrade. Alice had asked for a cloth to press to the wound, but the young man shook his head. “I fear he is beyond our help,” he said.

  The wounded man stared straight ahead, his breath coming in wet, shallow gasps that felt painful to Kip. He was inclined to agree with the other soldier, but Alice was not convinced. “We must put pressure on the wound,” she insisted.

  “Unless your friend has some healing magic,” the man said, “there’s naught to be done. He doesn’t even hear us. Dorkay? Dorkay?”

  Motion in the hallway behind Kip drew his attention. He turned expecting Captain Marsh, but the figure striding toward him was taller than Marsh and more commanding. Master Colonel Jackson took in the scene and stopped at the head of the unconscious sorcerer, with Captain Lowell and the translocational sorcerer he’d called Caldwe
ll trailing behind him.

  “What’s happened here?” he snapped, staring around the hallway. “Where’s Captain Marsh?”

  “On the roof, sir.” Kip had just received this information from Nikolon. “The Armory was attacked.”

  “I can see that,” Jackson snapped. “Caldwell, go fetch Marsh.”

  Malcolm stepped up. “It appears we were attacked from the outside while this fellow took it on himself to infiltrate the building with a small group of friends.” Jackson knelt to examine the captive sorcerer, so Malcolm went on. “Kip and I reconnoitered with demons, and Kip disabled the fellow with a blow to the head.”

  Kip wanted to interject that Alice had helped, but given Jackson’s previous attitude, that didn’t seem wise. She still knelt by the dying soldier, still in distress. “He’d immobilized the soldiers here, and when they were released, that one ventured the stair and got shot. So we threw the enemy soldiers down the stairs with physical magic and the rest of the men here captured them.”

  “Private Dorkay, sir,” the soldier who’d knelt by Alice said. “He’s been shot in the chest and I’m afraid there’s not much to be done.”

  “He’s died.” Alice stood, and only then did Kip realize she’d been holding the soldier’s hand. She came to Kip’s side without another word and he put his arm over her shoulder. Her head came to rest against his side.

  Caldwell reappeared with Captain Marsh. Jackson noted their appearance and stood, brushing his uniform clean of dust. “Marsh,” he said. “Thank God. I’ve been taking testimony from Calatians and the blind here. If you please, it would be a great relief to hear the event related by a sensible man of uniform.”

  Kip and Malcolm both stiffened, and Malcolm looked about to speak, but thought better of it. They listened as Captain Marsh provided an account that included very little of what had transpired inside the armory but did inform them that several enemy sorcerers had been outside with a British battalion firing on the Armory. “It appears that the outside attack was largely a diversion and that they hoped to take the Armory from the inside.”

  “Not a bad plan.” Jackson rubbed his chin. “Let’s see what this fellow has to say.”

  He knelt by the captive sorcerer and placed a hand on his head. After a moment, the sorcerer startled awake. He stared into Jackson’s face, eyes wide, and Kip could tell he was reaching for a spell to cast.

  “Ah ah ah,” Jackson warned him. “I’ve cut off your magic. Now why don’t you tell me who your commander is and whether there’s another attack planned.”

  His voice was pleasant, but Kip felt the chill behind it. The matter-of-fact way that Jackson said “cut off your magic” took him back to the panic he’d felt when similarly cut off, back in the White Tower a year ago, especially when he hadn’t understood why it had happened.

  “I’ll tell you nothing, traitor,” the sorcerer said.

  “You’ll tell me now or I’ll dig it out of your mind, which will be considerably more painful,” Jackson said with the same casual tone. “The end result will be the same.”

  “So you think,” the sorcerer said.

  “Is the Armory warded against demons?” Kip asked Malcolm quietly.

  His friend replied in like tones. “Probably, but not by me.”

  Nikolon, please tell me if any demon other than Daravont appears inside the Armory building the instant you detect it.

  Yes, Master.

  Jackson lifted one hand, building a complicated spell and casting it. “Now,” he said. “Tell me your attack plans.”

  A horrible grating noise came from the sorcerer’s throat as though each word he spoke were being dragged by rusty chains. “We hoped to take the Armory unawares by attacking on two fro—”

  The word cut off as though he’d been silenced by a spell. His mouth continued to work, but no more noise issued from it. His eyes fluttered and then rolled back in his head, and spittle dribbled from the corners of his mouth. A moment later he went limp.

  “No!” Jackson grasped the man by his collar and stood, lifting him off the floor. The feat surprised Kip so much that he took a quick step back, worried Jackson might throw the man around the hallway. “Don’t you—come back here.” He slammed the man against the wall and stared into the blank eyes as though he could see the answers in there. For the space of five heartbeats thudding in Kip’s ears, everyone in the hallway stood motionless as Jackson probed. Then he dropped the sorcerer to the floor.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Gone.”

  “Gone?” Captain Marsh asked, staring uneasily down at the limp robed body.

  “He had a trigger set by a spiritual spell to erase his mind if pressured by another spell.” Jackson turned to the three captive soldiers. “I’ll wager these three don’t, though they may not know anything.”

  Marsh knelt next to the sorcerer and put fingers to his neck. “He’s still alive.”

  Jackson had taken a step toward the other captives, drawing even with Kip. At these words he froze. Then in one fluid motion, he spun on his heel, clapped his hand to his belt, and knelt even as he drew and stabbed downward a large hunting knife.

  Kip, Malcolm and Alice jumped back, and even some of the soldiers flinched. Blood spurted from the man’s neck onto the stone floor, pooling and running into the crevices between the stones. “There,” Jackson said, stepping back. “Now he’s alive neither in mind nor body.” He looked around at the people and pointed to Alice. “Clean that up.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Kip said, trying not to look at the dead sorcerer or think about what this man, who was now his commander, had done. “She wasn’t allowed to enlist so technically she’s not under your command.”

  “All right, then,” Jackson said, and started to say more, but Alice interrupted him.

  “It’s alright, Kip. I’ll clean it up.” She gathered magic, her paws glowing turquoise. Kip saw the slight shaking in them, but probably nobody else could.

  “Here, now!” Jackson exclaimed.

  Alice ignored him, casting an advanced physical magic spell. She lifted the body and collected all the blood around it in marble-sized globules that floated in a cloud around the corpse. The nearby soldiers backed away, eyes wide, but Alice stayed cool. “Where do you want it?”

  Jackson raised his eyebrows. “You have some skill, that is clear. Deposit it in the room all the way down the hall to the right, just on the floor.”

  Alice walked down the hall, opened the door, and then guided the body through it, the blood cloud trailing behind. Kip heard the wet thump as it hit the floor, and then Alice closed the door and walked back to Kip, looking rather pleased with herself.

  “Maybe we should have you enlist after all,” Jackson said. “Come, I’ll arrange it. Captain Lowell!”

  Kip hadn’t noticed Captain Lowell’s return. The man stepped forward. “Yes, sir?”

  “You’ll be my liaison to this unit. Remain with them and I’ll relay my orders to you.”

  Confusion creased Lowell’s face. “But sir…”

  “Was any of that unclear?” Jackson snapped. He pointed to Malcolm and Kip with a sweep of his fingers. “Accompany them to find their translocational sorcerer and then return here for further orders. If the British are attacking Boston there are two more places they may try, and we must be ready to defend them.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lowell lowered his head.

  Jackson gestured Alice to follow him and led her down the stairs. Lowell turned to Kip and Malcolm. “All right, then,” he said, not looking nor sounding pleased. “Let’s go find Miss Carswell.”

  3

  Peacefield

  Lowell helped immediately simply by knowing where Peacefield was. “That’s John Adams’ house,” he said. “Down in north Braintree.”

  “None of us have been there,” Kip said. “We’ll have to take a carriage. Is it safe?”

  Lowell shrugged. “As safe as can be with three sorcerers on board, I suppose.”

  As they descended the
stairs, Malcolm hung back and whispered to Kip, “I’m keeping Dar, then, if it’s dangerous.”

  “Right,” Kip whispered back. “I’ll dismiss Nik.”

  He did so without Lowell noticing. For the first time, he felt apprehensive about dismissing Nikolon. Rarely had he been in a situation where he might be attacked at any time, and Nikolon provided a measure of security that he was now trusting to Malcolm and his demon. At the same time, he felt that he was building a rapport with Nikolon, and part of that was not binding the demon in this world for too long. Some first-order demons remained bound at the College for months at a time, but Kip knew that being bound grew more and more painful for demons over time. He tried to limit his bindings of Nikolon to a few hours at the most.

  Despite his worries, the carriage ride to Peacefield was, apart from some very bumpy roads, undisturbed by soldiers or, for that matter, conversation. Alice, who rejoined them outside, had her hackles up because she’d been enlisted as a private and not a lieutenant, despite the fact that she was a sorcerer. Kip and Malcolm agreed that this was unjust, but they didn’t want to talk about anything else in the presence of Lowell, and the captain spent the entire trip staring out the window at the sunset and darkening sky.

  Kip spent most of the ride wondering if they would be able to convince Emily to come back, and also about his sudden transition from apprentice and teacher to soldier. Soon the scenarios he’d been imagining for months would become real, though almost certainly different. He knew he’d be useful, had thought he might be sent to burn shipyards or supplies, but those decisions were not his to make now.

  He hadn’t much choice; Master Odden was gone. Where had he been taken? Had he and the others been killed? A day ago he wouldn’t have thought it likely, but Jackson’s casual treatment of an enemy sorcerer’s life had changed his outlook. They were at war now, and life meant less than strategy. Captain Marsh had said almost as much. Still, Jackson had only killed that sorcerer when he had no more value. Kip had to hope that the British saw reason to keep the New Cambridge masters alive.