by R S Penney
He killed the Source.
The Eradians knew almost nothing about Field Binding. They had to be wondering how he could project his voice with such volume. If they feared Aladri magic, perhaps it would be enough to make them turn away.
“They’re coming for us!” Miri growled.
Then again…
Another glance through the spyglass showed him at least two dozen men in black coats marching into the swamp, wading through knee-deep water as they approached the base of the hill. Every one of those soldiers carried a rifle. If they reached the hilltop…
Miri drew herself up to full height, gesturing toward the battlefield. “Archers!” she bellowed. “Blue feathers!”
Tommy selected an arrow from his quiver, one that was marked with bright, blue fletchings. At Miri’s command, he nocked and drew back the string. Jim and Victor did the same on either side of him.
“Loose!” Miri shouted.
Bow-strings snapped and arrows flew, each one landing in the swamp, disappearing into the water. Every one of those arrowheads was a Heat-Sink. Tommy triggered all of them with a single thought.
The water froze with a creaking sound, solidifying around the legs of every soldier. Some of those men cried out in shock. A few of them fainted as the heat was drained from their bodies.
“Rifles!” Miri yelled.
Ken, Kaylee and Billy Potts approached the edge, each lifting their rifle to peer through the sights. They lined up shots and fired, thunder filling the air and making Tommy’s ears ring.
Bullets ripped through Eradian bodies with a spray of blood. Unable to fall over, many of those men just flailed. A few of them tried to lift their weapons and return fire, but with their legs trapped by the ice – not to mention the frigid cold that addled their brains – they couldn’t get a clean shot.
Miri shot a glance toward him, her eyes wild with urgency. “Lommy,” she barked. “Take out those cannons.”
Even without the spyglass, he could see that the gunners were adjusting the inclination of their artillery and loading balls for a second volley. They knew now that their enemy had gathered at the edge of the hill and that firing on the camp was useless.
Without looking, Tommy seized an arrow with white feathers, nocked it and drew back the string. Compensating for the mild, southward wind, he loosed. He didn’t need his eyes to tell him that the arrow landed true about two feet in front of the cannons.
Tommy triggered the Force-Source.
A blast of kinetic energy hurled chunks of dirt into the air, and the cannons rolled backwards, nearly running over the gunners who leaped out of the way. One of them fell over onto its side. Not good enough. He would have to disincentivize them from going anywhere near those heavy weapons.
Tommy chose another arrow. Nock, draw and loose. The shaft planted itself in the dirt next to the first one he had fired, and he triggered the Electric-Sink he had Infused into the arrowhead.
The first gunner to get to close went rigid as if he had been taken by the paralyzing venom of a snake. A few seconds later, his muscles went limp, and he fell to the ground, dead. The others had no idea what had happened, but they were wise enough to steer clear of cannons.
“Stand together!” Miri shouted. “This is just beginning!”
The Weaver had to resist the urge to laugh. Barely five minutes into this battle and her uncle had already lost about a tenth of the force he had brought with him. She would have helped, but Timothy had to have his grand story of heroic soldiers triumphing over the rebels and their black magic.
She stood next to a tent with her arms folded, smiling impishly as she watched the scene play out. “Oh, uncle!” she called. “A moment of your time.”
Another platoon of men tried to charge across the swamp, but within seconds, they were slipping and sliding on the ice. Many fell flat on their faces only to be struck down by bullets from the distant hilltop.
Standing well back from the water’s edge, Timothy twisted around to glare at her. “What is it?” he snarled.
“I think I know the identity of their Field Binder.”
“Their what?”
Shutting her eyes, the Weaver sighed in frustration. “The one using black magic,” she said in tones that parents usually reserved for unruly toddlers. “His name is Tommy Smith. He likes to Infuse his arrows with all sorts of nasty surprises. Are you ready for me to step in yet?”
“Thaw the water,” Timothy commanded.
Raising her human hand, the Weaver curled her fingers, channeling heat into the swamp. Within seconds, the ice melted, becoming stagnant water once again. Soldiers were splashing through the reek, trying to reach the base of the hill.
“Very good,” Timothy said. “Now, teach them a lesson.”
Spreading her arms wide, the Weaver threw back her head in exultation, grinning like a little girl with a new toy. Now, she would have a little fun.
Something was wrong. The water should not have melted that quickly. Tommy reached out to the Ether – the crystal atop Vengeance’s temple had granted him the ability to find it in seconds – and the world changed before his eyes. Particles swirled all around him, billions of them. Trillions!
His first instinct was to scan the enemy camp with his thoughts, but something got his attention, something he would never have noticed without the Ether. A build-up of electrostatic energy in the atmosphere. But that could only mean…
Releasing the Ether, Tommy turned and dove for Victor. “Everybody, get away!” he shouted, tackling the other man to the ground. They rolled partway down the hillside, stopping when they collided with a tree.
He caught a brief glimpse of the others scattering.
Then a jagged bolt of lightning struck the hilltop. The flash was bright enough to blind him. His ears popped from the peel of thunder, and tears streamed over his cheek.
The purple afterimage faded just enough for him to see the blurry trees and mud all around him. There was motion on the hilltop, but he couldn’t tell who had survived the blast. His head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton.
Reaching into his pocket, he found the tiniest shard of crystal and crushed it in the palm of his hand. A rainbow spread over him, red to orange to yellow to green. It faded away before turning blue, but that brief moment of healing was enough to restore his vision and clear the fog out of his brain.
Adele. It had to be her.
He communed with the Ether, letting his mind drift over the swamp, ignoring the black-coated men who converged on the hill. Within seconds, he was mapping the enemy camp with his thoughts. It didn’t take long to find the dark pit of emptiness that must have been Adele.
She turned her head toward him, sensing his attention.
He had caught her in the middle of preparing something vicious. Perhaps another lightning bolt. What was it Desa had said about severing her connection to her power? Tommy forced the Ether into that emptiness. He could feel Adele’s scream even from this distance.
Dismissing the Ether, Tommy scrambled up the hill with his bow in hand, huffing and puffing until he reached the top. “It’s Adele!” he yelled. “I’ve incapacitated her for now, but she’ll regain her power in a few-”
He cut off when he saw the scorched bodies lying in the mud. It took a second for him to recognize them as Billy and Kaylee. They had taken the brunt of the lightning strike. “Almighty protect us.”
Jim ran along the ledge, scanning the swamp below. “They’ve almost reached the hill!” he said. “We’re about to be overrun!”
Miri stepped out from behind a tree with her teeth bared. A gash in her forehead dripped blood onto her cheek. “Red feathers,” she panted.
Obeying her order, Tommy and Jim raised their bows, firing the appropriate arrows into the water. The men at the base of the hill hopped back, trying to avoid each projectile that came their way, but sharp steel was the least of their worries.
Tommy triggered the Heat-Sources he had created weeks ago.
The water began to bubble, steam rising from the swamp as the frightened soldiers retreated. One fellow managed to get his rifle up and fire a single shot that left a ringing in Tommy’s ears.
The bullet pierced Jim’s stomach, causing him to fall to his knees. He clutched at the wound as if trying to hold his guts inside.
“He needs a crystal!” Tommy shouted. “He needs-”
A thought occurred to him, diverting his attention away from his injured comrade. Ducking out of sight behind a tree, he made himself one with the Ether and directed his thoughts toward the enemy.
Adele had indeed regained her power; he could feel her manipulating air molecules. To what end, he could not say. Once again, he tried to force the Ether into the darkness that suffused her body from head to toe. But this time, she was too quick for him. As he gathered his will for an attack, Adele simply disappeared. He searched for her, letting his mind fly over the enemy camp and the hilltop, but she was just gone.
One of the black-coats came charging out of the boiling water, racing up the steep slope. Some of them were smart enough to realize that pressing on was wiser than trying to go back to their camp. Or rather, it would be if hot water was all they had to worry about. Tommy triggered the Force-Source he had Infused into a rock.
The ground exploded under the young soldier’s feet, hurling him backward into the bubbling stew. He screamed as his body was submerged.
The others were dancing about. Many of them had dropped their rifles; a few had retreated to a safe distance. The heat that Tommy had unleashed would soon dissipate throughout the swamp. In a minute or two, the water would be cool again.
Miri rushed to Jim, dropping to one knee beside him. She pressed a crystal into the palm of his hand and then crushed it. Tommy felt the Ether surging, healing the other man’s wounds. He could sense damaged organs repairing themselves, sense the growth of new cells.
“He’s weak,” Miri said. “He’ll survive. but he needs rest.”
Adele’s sudden reappearance in the Eradian camp drew Tommy’s attention like an iron filing to a magnet. He sensed her among the enemy troops, a cloud of darkness in the shape of a woman.
Gathering the Ether, Tommy prepared to attack, but once again, she was too quick for him. She vanished before he could cut her off from the source of her power, taking a dozen black-coats with her.
They materialized on the hilltop, only fifty feet away. Tommy was so shocked that he lost the Ether. The sea of spinning particles became a world of solid objects, and he was confronted by a raven-haired Adele who smiled at him, her orange eyes alight with anticipation. “Here we are, boys!” she said. “Enjoy!”
Then she was gone again, disappearing to the Almighty knows where.
Black-clad soldiers raised their rifles.
Tommy got up and charged toward the enemy, triggering his Force-Sink pendant. Their guns flashed as they opened fire, and bullets slammed to a stop in front of him, hovering in the air.
One of the soldiers flailed as Miri shot him in the chest; another went down when Victor’s arrow took him right between the eyes, but the rest fanned out. They had Tommy and his followers pinned. Enemies before them, a steep slope behind.
Mrs. Potts jumped on one man before he could take aim, tackling him and striking him repeatedly with her fist. Petra did much the same, whacking one of the soldiers with her broomstick. She hit several times before the man turned and ran her through with his bayonet. “No!” Tommy screamed.
He was dimly aware of Miri using those fancy holds she knew to disarm one man and send him careening into a tree. But there were just too many. He could already see an Eradian pointing a rifle at him. His Force-Sink was used up.
It was over.
Lightning shot out of the sky, thin blue streams that struck the ground and flung rocks into the air. Frightened by this new development, the soldiers turned around to see what was happening. And then bullets rained down on them. Men howled as their bodies were pierced.
Tommy looked up to see a tiny figure in brown descending from the overcast sky. No, it couldn’t be! He laughed despite himself. Of course, it could! The newcomer extended her hand toward the ground, slowing her approach with a Force-Sink.
Desa landed in a crouch with her arms spread wide, her eyes wide with feral hatred. She was a mother bear protecting her young. Rising in one fluid motion, she snarled.
And the remaining soldiers backed up instinctively.
“Get down!” Desa barked.
Tommy didn’t have to be told twice. He threw himself to the ground just in time to see her thrust her hands out with fingers splayed, releasing waves of kinetic energy from her rings. Men were hurled backward like leaves kicked up by an angry wind. One by one, they went over the cliff.
Tommy was caught in the blast as well, sent rolling toward the edge. He grabbed an exposed root at the last second, his legs dangling over the muddy hillside. Hopefully, no one else had been hurt.
He looked up to find Desa standing over him and shaking her head in exasperation. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” she said, offering her hand.
He took it, letting her pull him to his feet. “Five minutes,” he grumbled. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but it was more like five months. How did you fly like that?”
Desa removed her spent bracelet, slipping it into her pocket, and then immediately drew out another one just like it. She slapped that one on her wrist. “A little trick with Force and Gravity-Sources,” she said. “I’ll teach you when we have a moment.”
“Good to have you back, Mrs. Kincaid.”
She looked up at him with large, brown eyes, perhaps wondering how much he had grown in her absence. “Are you ready to end this?”
“Just try and stop me.”
Miri approached the cliff edge, wiping the sweat off her face and blinking the dust out of her eyes. She seemed to notice Desa for the first time and greeted the other woman with a smile. “Excellent timing.”
“You still have ammo?” Desa asked.
“We do.”
“Keep them off my back. Watch for Kalia. She’ll be approaching from the south.”
Tommy braced a hand against a tree, his head hanging with fatigue. “Adele’s here,” he breathed. “She’s supporting the Eradians.”
“I know.” Drawing her pistol, Desa popped open the cylinder and loaded it with six new bullets. “Let’s go to work.”
They were coming up the hill: Eradians in their black coats, each man carrying a rifle, trying not to slip and slide on the mucky ground. Snarling faces looked up at her with hatred in their eyes. Some of them were the very men she had knocked down moments earlier. The nearest one was almost to the top.
Desa reached into her coat pocket, pulling out a handful of black-pepper powder. She flung it at him and used a burst of kinetic energy from her ring to send it right into his eyes. The man stumbled, doubling over in a fit of sneezes.
Desa charged down the hill.
She jumped, planting one foot on the man’s back and pushed off to launch herself at the next soldier in line. That one tried to get his weapon up, but his feet struggled for purchase on the soft earth.
Spreading her legs like scissor blades, Desa brought them together and trapped his head between her knees. Her momentum forced him down onto his back, and she landed perched atop the fool.
A punch to the face knocked him senseless.
Without even looking, Desa drew a throwing knife and tossed it off to her left. When she heard a yelp, she ventured a glance and saw that the blade had sunk into the arm of a soldier who had been trying to point a rifle at her. That fellow dropped his gun, sliding down the muddy slope.
A pair of black-coats at the bottom of the hill stopped in their tracks, both taking aim.
In a heartbeat, Desa had her left hand up to shield herself, triggering the Force-Sink in her bracelet. Thunder split the air, and two bullets appeared right in front of her, stilled by the power of the Ether.
Sh
e quickly rolled aside, taking refuge behind a tree. Bullets sped past her, rushing up the hillside toward Tommy and his people. She would do what she could to protect them, but she was just one woman, Field Binding or no Field Binding.
Desa drew her left-hand pistol, the one she had loaded with Infused bullets, and cocked the hammer. Carefully, she aimed around the tree trunk, firing a single round that landed at the feet of three men in black.
She triggered the Force-Source.
Mud sprayed into the air along with several bodies that were thrown backward. One by one, they landed in the swamp, water splashing around them as they broke the surface. And still, more came scrambling up the hill.
Shoving her left-hand pistol back into its holster, Desa drew the one on her right hip. This one carried ordinary ammunition.
She aimed around the tree and fired.
An Eradian flailed when her shot went through his chest, dropping to his knees and landing face-down on the hillside. One of the others swung his rifle around, trying to target her.
Desa ducked behind the tree, crouching down and crossing her forearms in front of her face. Gunfire rang in her ears. A massive bullet punched through the tree and flew right over her head.
Ripping off her necklace, Desa threw it into the cluster of men who were charging up the hill. And then she triggered the Light-Sink. A patch of darkness consumed them, voices crying out in alarm as the black-coats tripped and fell.
She fired blindly into the gloom.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Wounded soldiers cried out in pain. Bodies slid down the muddy slope, emerging into the light and leaving trails of blood in their wake. Arrows hit them from above, and men shrieked as they were stung.
Desa took the opportunity to load her pistol with fresh ammunition. More enemies were coming. The Eradian commander had at least a hundred men at his disposal. She had to end this quickly. Find Adele and put a bullet through her head. If the Eradians lost their greatest weapon, they might back off.
