way up and in while remaining hidden.
They fought through deep drifts. The sound of pursuit came quickly. 'They must have snowshoes.' Quarante- neuf shoved Owen up to the crest of a small hill. 'Go, I will delay them.'
'No, I can't make it without you.' Owen stood and turned, then a musket barked. A ball caught him in the left flank, pitching him backward. He spun, slammed into a tree, then started tumbling down the hillside.
Owen reached the bottom, new pain rippling through him. The bullet had only caught flesh and maybe a little muscle, but smashing into the tree had stunned him. Stars evaporated from his eyes, but the forest took on an odd quality. The snow had tinges of green and hints of deep blue. Stones began to shift shape and trees began to part. To the south a whole avenue opened, welcoming him.
Two more gunshots and Quarante-neuf crashed down beside him. 'How bad, Captain?'
'I will live. Did they hit you?'
'Once, in the stomach.' The pasmorte spasmed, as if to vomit, then spat the bullet into his hand. 'It is nothing.'
'We have to go.' Owen struggled to get up. 'South, there, can you see it?'
The pasmorte nodded. 'The winding path. It will kill us.'
'But it will not return us to du Malphias.'
Quarante-neuf pulled Owen up. 'Then the winding path it is.'
Chapter Forty-Two
October 15, 1763
Anvil Lake, New Tharyngia
N athaniel would have laughed had the situation not been dire. With snowshoes strapped to his feet, Makepeace sailed down the hillside, taking huge long steps and leaps. His bear robe, which he'd peeled down to the waist, had sleeves flopping, making the man look like a four-armed nightmare creature.
Kamiskwa and Nathaniel followed quickly in his wake. The Altashee cut left well above the spot where Makepeace had stopped, and Nathaniel turned to the west two steps later. In parallel, they filed through the woods, coming on through the shore zone.
More guns fired before them, closer this time, and the trio broke into a run. They caught voices distantly, the words unintelligible, but recognized the cadence as Tharyngian. Then, as they came around a hill, three shots fired in volley. The muzzle-flashes revealed an infantry squad in blue jackets tearing up a hill, and over a dozen ragged pasmortes coming on through the snow.
Nathaniel raised his rifle, sighted, and pulsed magick into the firestone. Forty yards, at night, even with the moonlight, would be a tricky shot, but the Tharyngian soldiers silhouetted themselves against the snow. His rifle spat fire and metal. A man halfway up the hill, calmly reloading his musket, grunted and collapsed, snow dusting his corpse.
From his right and left his companions also fired. One man screamed and kept screaming. Two men shot back, one shot hitting the tree behind which Nathaniel had taken cover. The shot hit high. The Ryngians were shooting blindly. Then someone shouted orders and the Ryngian regulars returned no more fire.
Nathaniel ignored the bluebacks and crouched. He worked the lever, cleared the breech, reloaded and levered the assembly back into place. He peered out, saw two silhouettes still on the slope, and pasmortes on their way.
'Remember, the Prince wants one of them things.'
Makepeace laughed. 'I'll try to save him a piece, anyway.'
Nathaniel tracked and shot. One pasmorte was loping forward on all fours. The bullet caught it high in the chest as it rose to spring ahead. It nearly stood like a man again, then flopped over onto its back, arms and legs spasmodically clawing at the sky.
A single gunshot answered him, chipping bark from the tree. 'Careful. One has a gun.'
'By the rock.' Kamiskwa pointed due west, then raised his musket and shot. Another pasmorte went down, raising a cloud of snow. The Altashee ducked back, but didn't bother to reload his gun. Instead he unlimbered his warclub.
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.'
