Owen raised an eyebrow. 'You believe this?'
'Don't know what I'm believing about Pierre here. Still and all, that same winter, Kamiskwa and me went to Trading Post Number Twenty-three up Queensland. Small place, palisade fence, main gate open, store open, snow drifted in. Five men in there, dead, froze-solid, half-eaten.'
Nathaniel looked down, his brows furrowed. 'Most folks think it was a bear. Trapper up that way got a bear come spring, said he found a ring in the stomach. That was good enough for most folks.
'But there weren't no bear tracks or scratches at Twenty-three. Weren't no bear awake then. Weren't no hands gnawed off.'
He toed the corpse. 'I ain't saying it was Pierre here. Like as not it weren't. Don't know what it was. But I am willing to believe there is evil in the world, evil what will make a man crazy. If they want to call it wendigo, that's good enough for me.'
Part of Owen wanted to dismiss the wendigo as superstitious nonsense, but he'd seen things on the Continent that had driven men mad. He recalled having to fetch an officer out of the wine cellar of a chateau. The man had just packed himself into a corner and sat there weeping in the dark. He wasn't drunk; he was just seeing ghosts. That was one kind of madness, and Owen had seen the other, too, the bloodlust that never could be sated.
Wendigo is as good an explanation as any.
'What do we do?'
'Grab an ankle.' Nathaniel set his rifle down, and took hold of one leg. 'We're going to drag him over to that pile of wood, light it up, and burn the wendigo out of him.'
They didn't have enough time to burn the body entirely since they wanted to be well away from the spot before nightfall. Kamiskwa said that only the head needed to be burned. Nathaniel produced a stone knife and took the head off a bit more efficiently than made Owen comfortable.
They left the Ungarakii bodies where they lay, but stripped them of all weapons. They also cut off knotted bracelets, one of which each warrior wore. Each seemed to Owen to be of a different style, woven together out of a variety of colored threads and what looked to be hair.
Kamiskwa let a finger bump along a series of knots. 'The patterns indicate his family, clan, and societies. The colors are events. Blue for birth, red for battle, black for ceremonies. The hair is from men he has killed.'
Nathaniel plucked one from Kamiskwa's hand and measured its thickness against his own thumb. 'Two inches, maybe three. That's worth a crown.'
'A bounty?'
'That's right, Captain Strake. We get to Hattersburg and the six we collected here means we can live fancy for a while.'
'I wasn't aware Her Majesty's Government…'
'It don't.' Nathaniel tossed the bracelet back to Kamiskwa. 'Frontier settlements have been asking a long time for some of you Redcoats to keep them safe. Them settlements don't have proper charters, so no troops come. Bounty-men will come, though, and hunt all manner of things, including the Ungarakii.'
In dealing with the Ungarakii bodies they found the remains of Owen's musket. A ball had shattered the stock. Owen removed the firestone assembly and the barrel, then tossed away what remained of the stock. He appropriated the dead man's musket. It took the same caliber shot as his musket, which saved Owen the need to recast bullets. More importantly it had a shorter barrel, trimming two pounds from the overall weight and a foot and a half from the length.
The barrel, however, was the wrong shape to accept Owen's bayonet. And the shorter length meant it had a shorter effective killing range. In the woods this would not constitute much of a problem, since anything he could see would be well within the weapon's lethal range.
By rights, Ilsavont never could have expected to hit any of us. Owen looked back at Nathaniel as they marched along. 'You said he wasn't a good shot. Why did he shoot from that range?'
'Been cogitating on that myself. I reckon he done seen your red coat and got to panicking. A mite skittish he always were.'
'That not withstanding, I am still going to be in uniform on this expedition.' Owen scratched at the back of his neck. 'His action would confirm his being in Tharyngian employ.'
Nathaniel shook his head. 'Most like, but ain't no love lost 'tween the Altashee and the Ungarakii. Could be his boys seen us earlier and gathered here to get us.'
Kamiskwa turned and snorted. 'Ungarakii cringe before the Altashee. They would not have dared hunt us. They were tracking the corpse we found.'
'Is that so?' Nathaniel scratched his chin. 'They was heading in that direction.'
Owen frowned. Ilsavont was Ryngian. The Ungarakii were Ryngian allies and knew the area. The dead man's journal had been written in Ryngian and he was a scout himself. It made sense that someone might be sent to look for him.
'If they were hunting the body, how did they do it? Neither of you saw any sign of the dead man's passing, did you?' Owen looked at Nathaniel. 'You made a point of this being a big land. How would they expect to find one body in so huge a landscape?'
Nathaniel shrugged. 'I wished I had you an answer.'
Kamiskwa held a hand out toward Owen. 'The corpse's ring, please.'
Owen dug it out of a pouch. 'Do you think magick is involved?'
The Altashee cupped the ring in his hands. His eyes closed. He remained very still for a moment, then his eyes snapped open. 'Strong impressions. The feeble Ungarakii could not track them.'
'I don't recall Pierre being so all-fired powerful myself.'
'Kamiskwa, can you track this ring back to another impression?'
The Altashee again closed his eyes, then snorted. 'Yes.'
'Where?' Owen smiled. 'It will lead us to du Malphias, I am sure.'
'It is faint and fading.' Kamiskwa shook his head. 'And would lead us back to Pierre.'
'Damn.'
Kamiskwa grunted. 'We should push on. What I cannot detect, perhaps my father can.'
Owen rubbed at his hip. 'Not sure how far I'm going to make it.'
Kamiskwa smiled. 'No matter how far it is, we should walk with haste. We have the ring and though the wendigo no longer has a head, we do not want his body coming after us.'
Chapter Twenty-One
May 9, 1763
Saint Luke
Bounty, Mystria
T he thought of a headless body trailing them through the woods did create a sense of urgency. They pushed on into the dark until they'd crossed another large stream. They camped slightly upriver of some rapids and Kamiskwa insisted on sinking the ring into the river for the night.
Nathaniel agreed. 'Wisdom in action. The ring will make magick ripples in the water. The wendigo will follow it down stream and miss us by a mile.'
'That will really work?'
Kamiskwa shrugged. 'In the old stories something similar has been effective. Now we need to take care of your hip.'
Owen hobbled down to the stream's edge. His red coat might have made him a target, but it had cushioned the impact with his musket's stock and had absorbed many of the splinters. He pulled it off, then peeled his trousers down.
As battle wounds went it wasn't that horrible. One splinter had stabbed about an inch deep. The rest had just peppered his flesh. He drew the long one out, starting blood flowing slowly from a hole he could plug with his thumb.
Nathaniel appeared and handed him several of the fern fronds. 'Chew.'
