Michael Stackpole - At the Queen_s command

Makepeace shot. Nathaniel, just finishing a quick reload himself, didn't see if the big man hit anything or not. He came up, sighted the rock and, when he saw movement, fired. Whatever had been moving stopped, but that didn't matter much.

The pasmortes had reached them.

Kamiskwa screeched at the top of his lungs and lunged from behind the tree, his warclub held high. His first blow crushed a skull and the second caught a pasmorte in the chest. Ribs snapped and the creature flew off into the underbrush. The Altashee stalked forward, his club whirling, not waiting for them to close.

Makepeace similarly waded into battle, clubbing his musket. He brought it down sharply, bashing a skull in, then levered the body aside. Two more came at him, more by happenstance than planning. He smashed one with the rifle, but the other lunged and bit him on the thigh. Makepeace roared, dropped his rifle and ripped the thing away from his leg. "Back to Hell with you!" The very avatar of wrath, he hoisted the thing aloft, then slammed it down, snapping its spine over his knee.

Two of them had come for Nathaniel, but a snowdrift slowed them. Nathaniel buried his tomahawk in one's skull, then sidestepped the other. He smacked it in the head with his rifle's butt and it dropped, but only for a moment. It kept clawing at the snow. He hit it again, crushing the skull.

By the time he wrenched his tomahawk free of the first, only one of the pasmortes remained. It was a small man none of them recognized. The pasmorte didn't have any intelligence showing in the one eye he had left, but he crouched and hissed at them like a snake. He shifted to face each in turn, but Makepeace got behind and draped his bear robe over him. Makepeace gathered the whole bundle up and smiled. "Got your Prince a prize.

Nathaniel quickly reloaded. Kamiskwa retrieved his musket and followed suit. They watched the bundle while Makepeace got his gun and reloaded. The big man also produced some leather straps. He opened up the robe a bit, bound the pasmorte' s ankles together, then dabbed a loop around a loose hand. He stripped the robe off, forced the pasmorte face down in the snow, and tied his hands together. The thing still hissed, but wasn't moving much.

Makepeace, back in his robe again, dragged the thing along by its ankles as they approached the rock. Before they saw anything, they heard the sound of breathing-more angry than labored. Kamiskwa went up and around the hillside to cover, then waved Nathaniel forward.

The pasmorte behind the rock had taken the bullet high on the left side of his chest. He struggled to move his limbs. It almost looked as if he was drunk or asleep, but his eyes were open and he scowled when his eyes focused on Nathaniel. "This is the second time you have killed me."

"I'd do it a third, Etienne Ilsavont."

"This shot shouldn't have hurt me."

Nathaniel smiled. "Special bullets. Prince Vlad cast lead around an iron core. Figured if you was magicked up, iron might magick you down."

The thing snarled. "The soldiers will find them, the Norillian and the traitor, and kill them, you know. Then they will come for you."

"The Norillian? Owen?" Nathaniel looked up. "Makepeace, stay with him."

Kamiskwa had already turned. Nathaniel tracked after him and the squad of Ryngian soldiers who had struggled up the hill. The man he'd shot lay dead. The other was shivering and making mewing sounds. His eyes didn't focus and the red snow around him marked his time in minutes. Nathaniel crested the hill, found another Ryngian soldier dead, and Kamiskwa at the bottom of the hill.

The Altashee looked up from where he crouched. "Blood, and it goes that way."

Nathaniel looked. "The winding path. Owen knew better. Why would he…?"

Kamiskwa stood. "He knew to fear it, and hoped the others did not."

"We have to go after him."

"No."

"But your father and the bargain he struck. They could do us no harm."

Kamiskwa shook his head. "My father's bargain was that no innocents would be taken. If we step on that path, we knowingly violate the agreement."

"They wanted Owen once." Nathaniel sat down in the snow. "They ain't letting him go this time."

"I fear you are right." Kamiskwa turned from the winding path. "Tonight we have lost a brother. This is something for which the master of the wendigo will pay a dear price."

They returned to the battlefield and decapitated all the dead, including the Ryngian regulars. They put the soldiers and some of the pasmortes into one batteau and sent it drifting back west. They hoped the current would suck it down the Roaring River. They loaded their two captives and the ammunition from the dead soldiers into the other batteau and headed across the lake. Two days later they reached the outflow to the Tillie and were able to work the boat down quite a ways.

Iced-over rocks made the going treacherous the few times they had to get out and pull the batteau past obstacles, but they learned a few lessons in the doing. The smaller pasmorte fell into the river and, despite having been underwater for five minutes, had not drowned. And when the sun came out, both pasmortes became a bit more active, though Etienne remained very weak and palsied.

They brought the batteau almost into Hattersburg, but cached it west of the town and cut south to avoid the town itself. They visited Seth Plant just long enough to tell him where they had cached the boat and that he was welcome to it. From there they headed south, hoping to cut the Benjamin below Grand Falls. Etienne slowed them with his clumsiness, so they fashioned a travois and dragged him-a task actually made easier because of the snow.

The party detoured to Saint Luke to tell Kamiskwa's father of Owen's death. They made a separate camp outside the bounds of the Altashee village and kept the pasmortes fully restrained. The Altashee mourned Owen in a ceremony both solemn and sincere, with many tears shed. Little Agaskan, however, maintained Owen would bring her doll back.

The ceremony gave the men time to rest before heading out again. Once back on the trail they moved as quickly as was prudent, but the weather did not cooperate. Just over a month out from Anvil Lake, they camped below Great Falls and built a roaring fire. They let the little pasmorte huddle near it. The journey had not been kind to him, and the fire did little to revive him.

Makepeace finally said what Nathaniel had been thinking. "Hisser ain't long for this world."

"Nope."

The small pasmorte' s leathery skin had split and frayed. His fingertips were all white bone and one of his cheeks had opened beneath that empty eye socket. And something kept leaking out of that socket like tears, save that they were black and foul smelling.

Makepeace squatted next to him. "Got a notion what is ailing him?"

Nathaniel shook his head. "Ain't nothing wrong with him but he's dead and all."

Kamiskwa frowned. "The wendigo leaves the weak."

Etienne laughed, his jaw gaping open and out of his control. "You do not understand. Du Malphias could fix him easily. The man works miracles."

"He ain't 'zactly here." Nathaniel frowned. "I wonder iffen his magick gets weaker the further things get from him."

Makepeace grunted. "That would explain Hisser's problem. Don't look good for you, neither, Pierre."

Ilsavont laughed. "He will be coming soon enough. Over the winter he will have the dead of Kebeton shipped to him. He will leave them frozen like my pere until spring. They will be thawed and finish the fort. Then he will come for you. You will all die, then you will serve him, too."

Makepeace snorted. "Good God willing that ain't a-going to be happening."

"Fools. Du Malphias does to us what your God did to His Son. The difference is that du Malphias does not seek salvation, but dominion, and he shall have it."