Tribulations (Rogue Mage Anthology Book 2) Read online

  CHRISTINA STILES is an award-winning freelance tabletop roleplaying game writer, editor, and developer from South Carolina, who occasionally tries her hand at fiction and game publishing. She is the developer and co-author of THE ROGUE MAGE RPG: Roleplaying in the World of Faith Hunter, and her current project is the MEDUSA GUIDE FOR GAMER GIRLS. She teaches game-writing and critical thinking as an English professor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C.

  Christina can be reached at https://www.facebook.com/christina.stiles1

  or on Twitter at @koboldminion7

  Trading Debts

  Early Summer 105 PA / 2117 AD

  Faith Hunter

  Homer crossed the wood planks into the dark opening of the boxcar. The Friesian went without complaint, unconcerned by the hollow sound of his hooves on the boards of the ramp. The open sliding doors looked a lot like the entrance to his barn now that its doors were gone, burned off during a spawn attack before the start of spring.

  The boxcar was hitched just behind the private railcar I had commandeered to take me southwest to the New Orleans Enclave, to the command performance I could no longer disregard. I wouldn’t be traveling alone, of course. As the neomage consul-general of the Mineral City Battle Station Consulate, it was assumed I would travel with a retinue, and I wasn’t being allowed to flout that expectation. When the train finally pulled out of my home town of the last decade, I would have an entourage consisting of a kirk representative who was also a prophet of the Most High and six champards: a kylen, my ex-husband, a double agent of the Earth Invasion Heretics and the Administration of the ArchSeraph, a child who had the uncanny ability to use a seraphic amulet and who now glowed with seraphic energies, an offspring of a mage-human mating called a mule, and a human who wanted to become my lover and wasn’t averse to sharing me. I also traveled with a death mage, and my very own personal protocol officer/scribe/assassin. It was a gathering that seemed destined for chaos and havoc, if not the death of us all.

  I followed Homer into the boxcar and inspected the makeshift stalls, each large enough to hold an oversized workhorse, his tack, food and water troughs, and still leave room on one end of the car for hay, feed, and our baggage. Lots and lots of baggage. It was piled from floor to roof, strapped to the walls with heavy cable. Some enterprising person had strung two hammocks in a corner. Smart, considering the size of the beds in the private car. Even thought I was naturally small in stature, I was unhappy at sharing sleeping quarters with six others. Maybe I could confiscate one of the hammocks.

  I heard the rumble of hooves again and jumped onto the railing between stalls, getting out of the way as Audric led his Clydesdale, Clyde, into his stall. Blond Clyde and pitch black Homer made an interesting pair, both horses tranquil and undaunted by the accommodations, each standing nearly six feet at the shoulder. They were big, big horses, a fitting size for my senior champard, but ridiculously oversized for someone like me. Audric was a giant, a dark-skinned, bald-headed death machine, a master of savage chi and savage blade, and my teacher in the martial arts. And once upon a time, my friend.

  As if he didn’t see me, he turned once in a circle, inspecting the mobile barn before turning back to the animals. I watched silently as Audric gentled his mount and checked the water supply. Inspected his workhorse’s feet. Made sure his tack was secure. Rechecked the water. When Audric had occupied himself as much as possible, and couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer, he turned to me, eyes lowered as if in respect.

  My heart ached, a familiar pain; it wasn’t his deference I wanted, but a return of his friendship, and I feared I had lost that forever by being unable to save the life of his partner, my best friend, Rupert. Audric had remained aloof and cool as the glacier atop the nearby mountains since the death. Though it was summer, and the temperatures reached the seventies at midday, I shivered in his presence, and wrapped my arms around myself.

  We both suffered and grieved, but alone. It would have been bearable, perhaps, had we been able to console one another, but between my guilt and Audric’s blame, there wasn’t room for comfort.

  “Mistrend,” Audric said, bowing, formally. As if he could sense my rising misery and wished to circumvent my response, he said, “Our mounts will travel well.”

  I swallowed my hurt. “Better than we will,” I said, “crammed in like sardines.” I laughed, a forlorn sound, and saw my pain reflected in his eyes. “Audric . . .”

  He whirled and faced the opening of the boxcar, his weight balanced on wide-spread feet, his stance the unarmed version of the crab. I caught my breath. A peculiar silence seemed to spread over the world, an encroaching quiet that made the slightest sound brittle and echoing. I swung from the rail to the floor, landing lightly on the straw. The horses at my back moved restlessly, their breath stertorous in the confined space.

  I breathed deeply, sending out a mind skim, drawing in the physical and psychic scents carried on the wind. Horses, manure, hay, feed, leather. Audric, soap, sweat, and beer. Tension. Farther off, smoke. Fear. The stink of brimstone, acid, rotten meat. Spawn.

  Audric instinctively reached for a weapon that wasn’t at his side. He had been working all day, using his brawn to carry stone, building a house for humans, to protect the citizens of Mineral City, the people under my care. He’d been working, unaware of the passage of time, and now it was near dusk. There had been no hint of the Dark for two months. He had become lax. As had I. “Damocles,” he said. “What weapons you can find. Now.”

  Without a thought about who was the titular superior, reacting instead of consciously acting, I whirled, erupted into mage speed and burst through the door between train cars. I flew over the segmented wooden bridge that jacketed the coupling between cars and ripped at the door to the private state car, slamming it back on its hinges. Inside, Eli looked up, his head moving human-slow.

  I raced to the pile of my luggage and jerked the weapons case from the center of the stack. The baggage began to slide, a sluggish, ponderous response to gravity, unimportant to a mage. I ripped the case open and unstrapped my newest weapon, the sword of Damocles, pulling the blade from its soft sheath. Before it snapped free, my left hand had liberated the kris-knife and slipped it into my belt.

  Still moving faster than a human could focus, I scrambled over the falling luggage, spotting Audric’s weapons case, a plain, supple, leather bag, long and narrow, menacing in its simplicity. Without a thought I upended the bag. As the pile of luggage hit the floor of the railroad car, I pulled Audric’s twin swords free, jumped to the floor, and raced back.

  “Thorn?” Eli’s question trailed behind me.

  In the doorway of the boxcar, I slapped Audric’s katanas into his hands and followed him down the ramp to the cracked asphalt road. My heart raced, uneven thumps of adrenaline rush. My breath came fast as I studied the town spread uphill before me. Stone buildings lined Upper and Lower Streets. Humans hurried along them, dressed for summer in thin clothes, unarmed, children at their sides.

  The sun was a splinter of light on the horizon, casting long shadows, obscuring faces and identities, not that it mattered who they were, friend or uneasy ally. They were all under my protection, had been since I claimed the town as a battle station against the encroaching Darkness.

  I heard the boxcar doors roll closed, and Eli appeared at my side, strapping his flame-thrower on and closing a sat phone. “What we got?”

  “Spawn-scent,” Audric said. It was a fact that spawn didn’t move until full night. Of course, the last few months had convinced us that facts were things to be disproved.

  Eli sniffed and shrugged. “You supernats got noses like dogs.”

  “Wolves,” Audric corrected. “We are not domesticated.”

  “Stop,” I said, when Eli showed an inclination to argue, or to defend dogs. The two had been sniping at each other for days. “Have you . . .”

  “Called the town fathers and the EIH? Yeah. They’re on the way. Ciana is standing at the door to the shop with th
e amulet to bring up the wards, people are pouring in, and the bell”—over his last word, the sound of a brass warning bell began to clang—“over the new town hall is ringing. We got people watching the hills and warriors heading our way.” He slapped the last strap in place and pulled a 12-gauge, double-barreled shotgun from the long holster strapped to his back, breaking it open to check the load. The gun held four rounds, each filled with holy oil, salt, and fléchettes of mage steel. It was his own design, put together with the expertise of my pet assassin. There had been no incursions of the Dark since the big one that destroyed the town; Eli had been eager to try them out.

  As if aware that my thoughts were on him, Eli slid a palm around the back of my neck and pulled me to him. I opened my mouth to say “Stop,” but his mouth landed on mine in a cold, hard kiss that tasted of human and beer. I felt my knees soften, which was really stupid considering the spawn. But I leaned into him, just for a moment, and wrapped my sword arm around his waist, Damocles pointing to the sky. I kissed him back. His grip on my neck softened, and he eased away a fraction. “Luck,” he said against my lips, his amber eyes wicked and laughing.

  Eli wasn’t dumb. He knew I’d been fighting my response to him for weeks, and he was doing everything in his power to make sure I lost that battle. Releasing me, he cocked his brow at Audric. “Dogs,” he said. “Cute little lap dogs.”

  Audric bristled. And ducked. The near silent whirr of wings was the only warning.

  Dragonet. Damocles was out of position, my grip weak. I stepped into Eli, shoving him down, and spun, twisting my body and the battle sword around, up in a spiral. And impacted the scaled legs and body of a Darkness. Ichor flew. Splattered my cheek, burning like acid, as it flew away, not unharmed, but not near death. The blasted beasts had far more than the nine lives of cats.

  Eli swatted my backside, a look of approval on his face—of the move that saved his life or of my butt, I wasn’t sure.

  I whirled the sword, grimly pleased. I tossed the blade up and caught the hilt. Audric rolled his eyes at the theatrical move. The sword, which had hung in the town hall for less than two months, had been gifted back to me by the Elders for use in the town’s defense. And as it turned out, I needed a good sword. Though I had thought I would hate the weapon, its perfect balance and the zing of power I felt each time I touched it had grown on me in practice sessions in the last months.

  Spawn raced down the street in a swarm. The sound of their chittering and squawking, so much like a bizarre language, rose on the cooling air. They sprinted from alleys and side streets, the swarms meeting like the eddy line of the tide and an inland river, crashing together, merging. There were thousands. Someone started to scream. “Get it off, get it off, get it off me! Noooo—” the scream cut off in mid peal, gurgling, choked as if the screamer’s throat had been bitten away. Audric danced up the street and dove into the wave of spawn.

  In the distance, I felt my twin lift her head and stare into the distance, aware of my emotions, my fear racing through her. “Thorn?” she thought at me.

  “Dark!” I thought back. Rose reached for an amulet. I saw/felt her hands close on it. A spawn lunged in, clawed hands razor sharp. My mind engaged, I failed to respond. The shotgun boomed beside me, opening a wide swath in the attacking Darkness. Leaving a mist of black blood hanging in the air, body parts of the long-legged beasts littering the ground.

  “Hot tamales, it works,” Eli said, clearly stunned. The new ammo was a success.

  I shook off Rose’s reactions and preparations, and whirled the longsword. The battle blade took the arms off of a shocked spawn, standing nearly inert with astonishment.

  Eli screamed, “Yeeeeehaaaaw!” and depressed the trigger of his other weapon, shooting burning holy oil at the Dark charging in to fill the void. The flame was a long, horizontal stream of fire, rising in the falling night. Spawn sizzled, crackled, and screamed. “Feel the burn, baby!” Eli shouted. To me, he reminded over the sound of battle, “Herd them toward the old church.”

  I nodded and lunged into the swarm behind Eli who fired the shotgun again, clearing a path in the oncoming Darkness. My heart settled, beating hard and steady, my battle sword and kris flashing with the confidence of two months of intensive training.

  I centered myself between my champards. Nine feet from either man, I whirled the swords, hacking off spawn body parts, leaving the mutilated beasts in the street. We no longer dispatched spawn left alive behind on the battlefield. Once upon a time, spawn would crawl away, heal, and come back to fight another night. But there was little game on the mountains; all the deer, elk, rabbits, turkeys, and moose had been devoured by the Dark. Now the spawn were hungry, starving, and ate their brethren when injured. Around us, spawn began to pull away the wounded and feast.

  I cut into a spawn eating its kin, Damocles’ edge slicing true and clean, so sharp it was like cutting warm butter. The mole-like body of the minor Darkness halved and toppled. I was cutting two more before it reached the broken pavement of the street. I had already blown through my energy reserves, and drew on my single remaining prime amulet to power the mage speed, knowing I couldn’t keep up the pace for long without it. And I didn’t want to drain power from the new power sink up the hill. I needed that for other things.

  Ichor and spittle burned through my street clothes and I again drew on my amulets to provide protection and to speed healing. The night air was chill, even in the middle of summer, and goose bumps rose on my burned and exposed flesh. None of us were dressed for battle, and according to the U.S. military, spawn were developing more toxic blood and body fluids. If the burns on my arms and face were any indication, the military was right.

  The roar of battle pounded against my ears as the minutes turned into the first hour of battle, the exhausted men to either side grunting with hoarse breath. I smelled their burned flesh and the pheromones of pain. They were in trouble. But there wasn’t time to pull amulets for them; the spawn were closing in, ready to overwhelm us by sheer numbers.

  I opened mage sight as full night fell, and the carnage emerged in bursts of mustard yellow and dazzling motes of black light for the Dark and dull blue, pink, red, and gold for the humans. Audric and I were the sole glowing mage attributes in the battlefield. Cheran, the assassin, was . . . elsewhere. As usual in battle. And Rose . . . was busy. Preparing.

  EIH warriors and several orthodox kirk acolytes appeared up the street. They battled side-by-side, the acolytes praying from Deuteronomy 7:23 with each death-stroke. “The Lord, thy god, shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed.” The heretics shouted the Scripture of their choice, one that repeated the ancient words of an enemy of the Most High, Exodus15:9, “I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them!” The phrases rang out, pealing with power.

  The Dark fell before the words of both parties, the might of Scripture and prayer increasing the efficacy of each sword stroke and shotgun blast, no matter what the original import of the words had been. But there were thousands of spawn and at least six dragonets. I stumbled over a body and glanced down to see a human and three spawn. The beasts were eating. The man was still twitching. I redirected the downward motion of the sword and killed two of the beasts. My kris took the third one through the eye.

  Their deaths created a moment of calm around me. Wiping the dripping kris clean on a patch of grass and sliding it into my belt, I pulled Healing amulets, ones made by Cheran and me working together in uneasy alliance, each amulet imbued with a sliver of cherub/wheel amethyst and a drop of the assassin’s gold.

  “Eli!” I shouted. When he glanced my way, his smile wild with battle glee, I ducked in under his arm and dropped an amulet into the open neck of his shirt. He sighed, the amulet easing his agony. The scent of flamethrower—eucalyptus and rosemary—and roasted spawn were harsh about him as he curved an arm about me, pulling me tight against him. Eyes sparkling wickedly despite the battle, he said, “You’re a ministeri
ng angel. Wanna play angels and mages, and make hot monkey sex?”

  I rolled my eyes, rotated out of his embrace, and shouted Audric’s name, repeating the process. My senior champard offered no thanks. Treating his wounds was part of my job as mistrend—I knew that—but appreciation would have been nice.

  Taking my irritation out on an unlucky dragonet, I beheaded it, sliced its legs and wings off and cut it in four near-equal parts. It wriggled and died, the division too much for even its regenerative powers. I spotted a second group of soldiers entering opposite from the kirk elders, moving uphill from Crystal Street. We were beginning to get into position.

  The battle lasted almost two hours before all the combatants were in proper position for the little surprise Eli, Audric, and Cheran had cooked up between them. Ten handpicked fighters had converged at the remains of the old Central Baptist Church, hacking and shooting through the melee. Other warriors had herded spawn onto Upper Street.

  The few walls of the old church that still stood had been reinforced with timbers, and now concealed two, handmade, muzzle-loading mortars. Their ammo, like Eli’s personal ammunition, was filled with salt and mage steel fléchettes—fléchettes Cheran had worked with his magery. Into the mix had gone well-used earth salt charged from previous workings with leftover creation energies. The blend had then been prepped with an incantation Cheran had dreamed up in his murderous little mind. We hoped the combination would provide a nasty surprise for the spawn.

  When we gained the walls, five men slung weapons across their backs while everyone else protected them with covering fire and flashing blades. They pulled concealing branches and tarps from the mortars. The rest of us formed a semicircle at the opening in the stone, holding off the invading beasts, killing just enough to make it look like the tide of battle was against us. Letting them come to us, bunch into us, ready to overtake and overrun us. If the weapons didn’t work, it would be a lethal plan—lethal for us.