Someone rapped on David and Jerriel’s back door quietly, two nights later. Subdued tapping, but persistent. As if they they didn’t want anyone else nearby to hear them but the people inside the home.
What the hell now?
David sighed. Time check on his new watch: 3:35 a.m.
He grabbed the leather baldric with his longsword and tomahawks sheathed on it, and slipped it over his shoulder.
Jerriel came out of her room at about the same time he came out of his. Both of them were in T-shirts and sweat pants. She suffered from a bad case of bedhead, but she apparently had heard the rapping also and held her staff ready.
“Darksight!” she said, casting the spell in English to give them both night vision.
He glanced in a mirror on the wall. Both of them had the same dark band of the spell’s energy over their eyes as before.
“Daeved,” Jerriel said quietly, keeping her staff aimed at the door. “Who is it?”
The tapping increased, almost urgently.
“I don’t know,” David said. He slipped one of his tomahawks loose in his right hand and reached for the doorknob with his left. Jerriel covered him.
He pulled the door open, ready to fight.
Steven Hayward crouched down on the back stoop, still reaching up and rapping with his hand.
“Steven?” David said. The boy waddled into the entryway and closed the door behind him. He stood up, a short sword at his side and a dagger on his belt. He was still breathing hard but quietly from running.
He couldn’t help staring at Jerriel.
David noticed the boy’s arm bleeding from a long gash.
Jerriel saw the wound, too, and tended to it while David looked at him. Steven grinned at having Jerriel fuss over him.
“Steven? What is it? Are the monsters back? Who hurt you?”
“They came to our house. About a dozen of them. They attacked us. I got cut saving Mom.”
“Who, Steven? Was it the monsters?”
Steven looked up, still in shock. Tears ran down his face. He nearly sobbed when he spoke. “No, it was people. Just guys from the militia. They turned on us and tried to take us prisoner. Said they’d kill us if we didn’t let them gag us, tie us up, and haul us away. They called us traitors. After all we’ve done–they called us traitors!”
Traitors? To what! The Haywards fought as bravely as anyone else.
Something was wrong. Something about all of this was very wrong.
“Steven, what happened? Your folks, are they–”
He nodded, wiping his nose. “They’re okay now. Nobody told these guys that Dad and Mom still had people sleeping over at the house and in the garage. When the trouble started, and the shouting, they all came boiling out armed and ready to help. The intruders got scared and tried to grab my mom and fight their way out.” He blinked and his eyes got big.
“That was a big mistake–on their part. I’ve never seen my dad fight like that, even against the monsters. It was scary the way he cut those guys down; he didn’t give them any chance at all.”
David knew exactly how good Fred Hayward was with a sword. He had trained with him for years. A third degree black belt, too. Not a man you’d want to cross.
Let alone try to abduct his wife.
Steven shook his head and rubbed his eyes.
“Go on, Steven. You’re sure your folks are okay?”
“They got hurt a little, but nothing bad. Dad questioned one of the men before he died. There’s a coup going down tonight. Someone in the militia and on the town council is trying take over. My dad sent me here to warn you! They’ve sent people to kill Dirk Blackwood, and probably some after you, and lots of others. And they’ll definitely want to capture Jerriel.”
David’s blood ran cold in his veins. Then he got get angry.
Bastards. As if things weren’t bad enough.
Most likely some power-hungry, greedy jerk or an entire group of such bastards wanted to take charge and set themselves up as petty warlords over everyone else.
Some people hadn’t changed very much at all.
In their zeal, they’d kill or capture anyone who might be able to resist them. People like the Blackwoods, the Haywards, and him.
Kill anyone who might oppose their tyranny.
They were after Jerriel, too. Yeah. She’d be a big prize for them. The only known wizard, and someone who knew all about Tharanor.
Jerriel finished bandaging Steven’s arm and peeked out the window at the front of the house. She and David pulled running shoes on without socks.
David slipped his padded helmet on. No time for the rest of his armor.
“Daeved!” she said in quiet alarm. “Many peeple are in the street. They’re cooming this way.”
David wasn’t sure how much of Steven’s message Jerriel had heard, but apparently enough to know that they were in trouble again.
“Out the back!” David said. If they were lucky, they could make it over to the Hayward’s house. By then Fred would have enough militia around him from nearby that were loyal to them.
They just had to get there.
Thank goodness Fred sent Steven to warn them. Although that had been desperate, too, under the circumstances.
They slipped out the back door, out into the cold night air.
They spotted five men with weapons slipping through the neighboring backyard to cut them off.
Two charged David. Two charged Jerriel and Steven.
“They’re back here!” the fifth man yelled.
David’s tomahawk whizzed through the air and smashed the man in the head, dropping him.
The others attacked.
“Get the girl,” a voice shouted from the front. “Kill the others!”
44
An open carriage raced up, filled with one of Mason’s four-person reloading teams. They pulled a small cart of inert black powder guns and reloading supplies behind them, along with some modern guns and ammunition that wouldn’t function.
They all jumped out and began unhitching the cart.
Mason and his friends went around to help.
“How much does that cart weigh?” he asked.
Cameron Patterson, the leader of the team, jerked the cart free of its hitch. “About two, three hundred pounds,” he guessed.
“We might only have seconds to do this,” Mason told them. “Help me wheel it up to edge of the lake. The rest of you get some ropes on it. We’ll drive it under the water’s surface and see what happens. If something goes wrong, or if something happens to me, you’ll need to be able to pull the cart back out with the ropes.”
“I wish we had thought to have them send some of the new sorcerers over,” Blondie said. “Since their powers and their foci haven’t solidified yet, they might be able to have focused reactions similar to your–if the process didn’t kill them outright. Mace, I hope you don’t mind if I don’t go in that charged water. There’s no reason I have to take a chance on dying. I wouldn’t be able to do what you have done, anyway. Whatever my powers are, they’re already fixed within me by now. I’d be taking a chance at death for nothing.”
Mason nodded as they kept pushing the half-loaded cart closer to the water. “Sure thing, Blondie. You hang back. You’re right. Don’t risk it.”
Blondie dropped back before they reached the edge of the glowing water. By then they had two, bright yellow nylon ropes on the cart, trailing back to the beach.
All four of the loaders kept pushing.
“I can try to wheel it in under the surface myself,” Mason told them. “This is going to be dangerous. This Wild Magic power could kill us all. Don’t go into the water if you don’t have to.”
The other three looked to Cam and nodded. “We’ll help you push it under and then try to get out and see to the ropes,” Cam said. “We all accept the danger, Mace. Like you said, this might be our only chance to get this done. We have to risk it.”
They went in up to their knees. The water was still very cold
. A few of them cursed. Mason tried to catch his breath and stop his own teeth from chattering.
There wasn’t time for the others to shed anything but their coats. They still had all of their clothes on.
Without hesitation, the five of them shoved the cart under water, rolling it forward deeper and deeper.
They gulped in breaths before ducking their heads under the surface.
Lightning struck the water once more and an energy surge grabbed them and the cart and swept them in an arc to the left for about twenty feet.
Strange energies and patterns of light enveloped them. Mason focused all of his energies and thought on concentrating those powers through himself and the supplies in the cart.
A similar haze of disorientation wafted through him, and in his delirious state, he saw the colored waves pulsing through and around himself, just as they had before.
No more lightning struck, and shortly thereafter, Mason shook himself and needed air so badly that he clawed his way up the few feet to the surface.
Even as he caught his breath and went back down, the lights in the water winked out.
The Wild Magic had come and gone, even as the other wagons and carts raced up to the water’s edge.
Mason followed the ropes. They were slack. Apparently, no one had been able to hang onto them.
He trailed them back and walked out of the cold water shivering, with a rope in each hand.
On the short beach, confusion still reigned. Troops holding the ropes had been yanked into the water when the wagon got swept away.
When the water flashed, anyone still in the water got zapped. The lucky ones were only stunned.
Cam Patterson was the only one to stagger up out of the water before collapsing in the short grass at the edge. He passed out.
Linda Collier was found floating in a strangely shaped block of magical ice.
By the time others busted her out of it, she was dead. She had stopped breathing, and no attempts to revive her worked.
They searched the lake for hours thereafter, but never found any sign of John Wolper, or Marie Purdy.
Major Avery was about to order the other teams into the lake anyway, and asked for volunteers. Many put up their hands and stepped forward.
Mason forced himself back up to his feet and staggered toward them. “Don’t bother,” he muttered. “The Wild Magic has come and gone, and done whatever it will. The water isn’t glowing. Everyone will just get wet and cold for nothing. Am I right, Blondie?”
“That’s right, Mace.”
It was still raining. The clouds still boiled. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Major Avery studied the sky. “More storms are coming in. Do you think it will work in the daytime?”
Mason shook his head violently. “We don’t even know if it worked this time,” he said. “We’ve already lost three good people. Let’s test what we have before we take anymore risks.”
Cam Patterson sat down in the short grass on their right, crying into his hands for the loss of his three friends.
Mason picked up the ropes and held them up. “Let’s pull this cart out and examine what we have.”
Many strong hands quickly pulled the cart back up out of the lake, and Mason asked that the black powder guns and lead shot be dried.
While they waited for that to be completed, Mason tried shooting some of the modern guns and ammunition.
Almost all of them were still duds. And no one knew why.
The only reaction came from a single AR-15, but Mason threw it down after trying to fire it. The rifle grew red hot and hissed, and then melted into slag in the wet grass as everyone watched.
Mason took one of his empty guns and loaded it with the formerly inert black powder, using his own patches, ball, and percussion caps that he knew would work.
He took aim at the wreckage of his old duplex.
The resulting blast shredded a good chunk of it. Despite their losses, Mason could not help grinning and getting excited. “It works. At least we know the powder works!”
A cheer went up from the troops.
Mason felt somewhat relieved. The Pistolero would be able to keep shooting and assisting the war effort in a major way.
Although none of the modern-style guns and ammo functioned properly, they quickly discovered that all of the black powder shooting supplies would work–but once again, only for Mason.
At first they hoped Cam Patterson might be able to use some of the new guns. He had been exposed to the same Wild Magic at the same time.
But none of the guns would work for him.
Blondie tried to explain to them. “For there to be any hope that repeating the process would work, the person exposed would have to be a mage–preferably a new sorcerer whose powers have not fully formed. Unlike wizards, who must learn to cast spells, a sorcerer can use his powers gradually by chance and need, through force of desire and will. But Wild Magic affects even mages randomly. Look at the Shooting Stars. Their focus is very different than that of the Pistolero.”
“I honestly don’t know if we could get the same reaction twice,” Mason flatly said. “But at least now, we do have a way to recharge and replenish my supplies.”
“You need to discover as many latent or active mages as possible among your people,” Blondie advised. “Especially any who show signs of becoming sorcerers.”
“How do we test them?” Avery demanded. “How do we do all that?”
Blondie shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“We need ten more like the Pistolero and the Shooting Stars,” Major Avery said. “Twenty if we could get them.”
He grew so frustrated that he punched one of the wagons with is gauntleted hand. “Damn it! We still don’t know anything, and we just lost good people.”
Mason looked at the cart and tried to calm his friend. “Bill, all of our people were willing to take that risk. They even said so as we took the wagon in together. We barely made it in time as it was. But it wasn’t for nothing. I was going to run out of ammunition in about a week. Now we have enough for me to keep fighting on the front for months. That’s something.”
Avery wiped his cold, sweating face. “I guess you’re right. Sorry I wigged out there for a bit.”
Mason clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re all under a lot of pressure, Bill. Let’s distribute all of these reloading supplies and extra guns to the other three reloading teams. You see to Cam and get him some peace and rest off the line. Having those extra guns will help us out, too. And I like the looks of those other black powder shotguns. We can put loads in them that will do a lot of damage up close and far away. I’ve got a good feeling about all of that.”
45
David blocked an ax stroke with his longsword, then slashed deep down the second man’s leading leg, through the knee. The man grunted and went down on his knees, thrusting at David with a spear.
David whirled, sliced the spearhead off, took a kick to the side of his leg, and blocked another swing of the axe.
Steven lunged and ran the spear carrier through the chest with one of his short swords.
David rapped the ax guy in the face to stun him, then split his head open, even through the motorcycle helmet he wore.
Jerriel muttered some words quietly. Big spikes shot out from her staff, shredding the two attackers in front of her. They fell at her feet.
One of them clutched a katana in his twitching hand. Steven snatched that up as they ran past the fallen thugs and down a side street.
David looked back. About thirty more attackers swarmed around their house.
The three of them rounded a corner a few blocks later and saw several troops guarding the street. “I’m Captain David Pritchard of the Blackhawks,” he shouted. “Traitors attacked us in our beds. Please, help us!”
The men drew their weapons. Two of them had bows.
“We know who you are,” the leader of the band said. He and the others charged at them. “Drop your weapons! Tell
the girl to–”
Jerriel cast another spell, a spray of lethal sparks. But two men sprang out of hiding from the right side and threw a net over her. She cried out. They dragged her down.
Her spell shot off harmlessly into the night sky. One of the men dazed her with a blow from a club.
Steven leaped in and thrust his short sword into the club wielder’s throat and severed the hands of the other holding the net with the katana.
David dodged and blocked two arrows, deflecting them with his sword. The other men spread out to rush him.
Jerriel tried to get up, and scramble out of the net, reaching around for her staff.
“Steven, get behind me!” David said. “Stay there and protect my back!”
“I will!”
Then they fought, surrounded by seven attackers bent on killing them.
David lashed out quickly. He tried to hold them off, and attempted to wound or kill as many of them as he could. He took a cut on his upper left arm, a grazing jab from a spear to his right leg.
Steven was smaller, but very quick. Even at nearly fifteen, he’d been well-trained by swordsmen much bigger and older than him–including David.
One of the attackers tried to grab Steven and now lay screaming and thrashing with his belly slashed open.
Four of the five remaining attackers were wounded and bleeding by then.
“Get in there and drag them down!” the leader said, the only one not hurt.
“You get in there!” one of them hesitated and taunted back.
“Follow me, then!”
They charged once more.
David cut the leader’s arms off just above the elbow. He backcut and ran the attacker on the right through the chest. The man fell back. A spear shot past David’s head on the left, just missing his face. He dropped back and held his longsword at the ready in his left hand.
A spear haft struck David in the head from the side, ringing his bell through his helmet.
He pushed the spear aside with his longsword and dropped down low. With a draw cut of his blade, he bent his strength into the stroke and cut the spear man’s legs off just below the hips.
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