Promise of Blood

Chapter 17

“I’m looking for Privileged Borbador.”

Taniel stood in the entrance to a tavern. It was a big place, though very old. Half the roof had caved in and long since been badly repaired. It was called the Howling Wendigo. Its name came from the low whine of wind in the eaves, which now drowned out everything else, as conversation in the place had stopped.

Fifty or more sets of eyes stared at him. He was alone; he’d left Julene and Ka-poel outside to wait. He wore his buckskins and his cap and he was glad of it. Spring or not down in the valley, Shouldercrown Fortress was still locked in winter.

“What business does a powder mage have with our Privileged?”

Our Privileged. Taniel didn’t like the sound of that. Bo had made friends with these thugs. Convicts and malcontents, the poor and the wretched – these were the members of the Mountainwatch. They didn’t trust easily, and they welcomed strangers like a crowded city welcomes a plague. They were easily the toughest of the Nine.

Taniel took a deep breath. He wasn’t in the mood for this. I’m here to kill him, he wanted to say. Get in my way and I’ll put a bullet in your head. Instead he said, “That business is mine.”

A man stood up. He was younger than Taniel by a year or two at most. Scrawny, bearded, he wore a sleeveless shirt despite the cold, his arms corded with the muscles of a man who hauled timber and worked the mines. He scowled at Taniel.

“That business is ours,” the man said.

“Fesnik, don’t mess with a powder mage,” someone else said. “You want Tamas breathing down our necks?”

“Shut up,” Fesnik called over his shoulder. “What if we don’t tell you?”

“You the toughest one here?”

“Huh?” Fesnik seemed taken aback by this.

“Simple question,” Taniel said. “Are you the toughest, father-stabbing, goat-raping, inbred son of a whore in this place?”

Fesnik turned away from Taniel, a half smile on his face. He came back around quickly, knife drawn. Taniel drew both pistols. One barrel went in Fesnik’s mouth, cracking teeth and bringing the man’s knife thrust up short. Fesnik’s eyes went wide. The other pistol pointed at the first Watcher to climb to his feet.

“My name’s Taniel Two-Shot,” Taniel said loudly. “And I’m here to see my best friend, Bo. Tell me kindly where he is?”

“Taniel Two-Shot?” a voice asked. “Why didn’t you damn well say so? Bo’s up the mountain.”

“That true?” Taniel asked Fesnik.

The man nodded, eyes crossed from staring at the pistol barrel in his mouth.

Taniel holstered both pistols.

“Sorry,” Fesnik said, checking his teeth. “Bo said not to let any powder mages know where he was. Nobody but you, that is. Said you might come looking for him.”

Taniel tried to keep the scowl off his face. “Sorry about the teeth,” he said. Louder, “Drinks on Field Marshal Tamas!”

A general cheer went up around the room. Taniel gestured Fesnik closer. “You say he’s up the mountain?”

“He went up there almost two weeks ago. Right after an inspector fellow came up from Adopest to see him.”

“When did he say he’d come back down?”

“He didn’t.”

Taniel scratched his jaw. He’d not shaved since starting his hunt for the Privileged in Adopest. The thick curls on his neck itched. “Why’d he go up?”

Fesnik shook his head.

Taniel felt a sharp fear run up his spine. Bo knew that Tamas would send someone to kill him.

“And he told you to tell only me?”

“Yeah. He’s told us a lot about you. Said you two have been chums for years.”

That felt like a knife thrust to Taniel’s gut. He clenched his teeth and forced a smile on his face. Psychological warfare on Bo’s part? Or just drunken chatter? “That’s right. How long does it take to reach the top of the mountain?”

“Well, he won’t have gone all the way to the top,” Fesnik said. “There’s a monastery up there for the pilgrims, a couple miles short of Kresim Kurga. He’ll have stopped there.”

Kresim Kurga. The Holy City. It was a name out of legends. Taniel hadn’t heard the name since his nurse had taken him weekly to Kresimir’s chapel when he was a child. Even then, he’d never believed it really existed.

Taniel brought himself back to the present. He couldn’t wait here. He would have to go up after Bo and leave him buried in the snow. Taniel would be back in Adopest before they discovered Bo was dead.

“I’ll go up and see him,” Taniel said.

“This time of year?” Fesnik shook his head. “Not even a seasoned Watcher will guide you up, and believe me, without a guide you’ll walk into a snowstorm and never come out. The roads are treacherous well up until early summer.”

“My father mentioned a man named Gavril,” Taniel said. “Old friend of his. Said he was the best mountain man in the Nine. What?”

Fesnik had started to laugh. “Gavril, he might do it. If he’s sober enough to see but drunk enough not to think straight. I’ll try to find him for you.”

Fesnik went off into the barroom crowd. Taniel returned to the street, where he found Julene glaring at Ka-poel. Ka-poel was staring up at the mountain above them.

“Bo’s up there,” Taniel said, pointing to the mountain. “We’re going up after him.”

Julene’s eyes narrowed. “It’s probably a trap. He must know Tamas would send someone.”

“He does. But he told the Watchers to let me know where he was if I came. No one else. That means he trusts me.”

“Or he trusts himself to kill you before you can get off a shot.”

“I know Bo. It means he trusts me.” He took a deep breath. “Worse luck for him.”

“We’ll need supplies and mountain gear,” Julene said. “And winter clothing.”

“You’re not coming.”

“What?” Julene stared at him hard.

“You almost got me killed more than once,” Taniel said.

“How dare you.”

“Shut up. I’m going up there with Pole; we’re going to do in my best friend and come right back down. Carefully, quietly. You start throwing around sorcery up there and not only will the entire Mountainwatch know what we’re doing but you’ll likely bring an avalanche down on us.”

Julene sneered. “I don’t trust you. You’re weak. You won’t be able to pull the trigger.”

“Killing Privileged is my specialty,” Taniel said. He took a hit of powder. A small one, just to calm his nerves. He took a second hit. “Bo’s a danger. I know how to deal with a danger. Now, shut the pit up and go find yourself a room to hole up in. There’s another reason I’m leaving you down here. If Bo gets the drop on me or slips by me somehow, I want you watching. Kill him on sight. Can you do that, lady?”

Julene’s arms trembled. She looked as if she wanted to leap on Taniel and tear his throat out with her teeth. Without a powder trance Taniel might have been intimidated. With a powder trance, Taniel didn’t give a damn.

“Well?” he asked. “Can you damn well do it?”

Julene whirled and stalked away from him, down the street.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

The door to the tavern opened and Fesnik stepped out, shrugging into a knee-length deerskin coat. He was followed by one of the biggest men Taniel had ever seen. He wore thick leathers and furs soaked with sweat and beer, and he struggled to focus his eyes on Taniel even as he toppled against the side of the building. He shook his head and slurred, “I’m Gavril.”

Taniel looked him up and down. “Fantastic.”

Taniel paused to adjust the furs protecting his face as a freezing wind spattered him with snow. He flinched away from the biting cold, turning his face from the wind, even though Gavril had warned him that to do so could mean death – always one foot in front of the other, eyes on the snowbank ahead of you or you might step into a half-hidden fissure or off the edge of a cliff.

Right now, Taniel didn’t much care. Ten thousand feet below them, farmers tilled their fields as the spring weather warmed. A few more weeks and it would be warm enough to go swimming in the Adsea. Yet here he was, nearing the top of the highest mountain in all the Nine – some said the world – with snowshoes strapped to his feet, armed with rifle and pistols that were probably too frozen to work, on his way to kill his best friend, with a drunk as a guide.

He was tied to Gavril by a sturdy rope, though the wind had died enough that he could see the big mountaineer through the eddy, some ten paces up the slope. Their climb was steep, but bearable. After all, there was a road under there somewhere. This pass was well used in the summer – or so Gavril claimed. The wind swirling around them brought no fresh snow; it only kicked up the top layer from the recent storm. Taniel could have sworn he heard a child’s laughter every time more snow slapped him in the face. The mountain was a cruel place, he decided.

Another rope led off behind Taniel, where Ka-poel struggled slowly with her snowshoes, and behind her a small man named Darden trekked along in her wake. He was an old Deliv who had insisted on coming along. He said he had a cousin at the monastery who had been dying last fall, and he wanted to know if he had survived the winter. Taniel didn’t trust him. Was he one of Bo’s friends?

Gavril was a jovial drunk, and had been surprisingly interested in the trip up the mountain. They’d set off within hours, and though Gavril had wobbled on his snowshoes the first half day, Taniel was certain he’d gotten dead sober by the end of the second.

Taniel paused briefly to check the pistol at his hip. The flintlock was frozen, jammed with snow and ice. The powder still seemed to be dry, though, and the bullet was wedged firmly in place. That was all that mattered for a Marked. He could make his own spark to fire the bullet. Yet… Taniel examined Gavril. Would the man give him trouble when Taniel put a bullet through Bo’s eye? Or would any of the monks? Taniel checked his second pistol. Would he be able to make it back down the mountain without Gavril if it came to that?

By the time they finally rose above the worst of the wind, Taniel had long since ceased being able to feel his legs. The swirls of snow died down, and the sun came through the eddy, nearly blinding him. The trail leveled out, and suddenly he saw ground; not just hard-packed trails of snow but real earth notched with shovel marks. This had been cleared recently. He blinked in surprise and tried to smile. His face was too numb.

“How are you?” Gavril’s voice cut through Taniel’s thoughts. The words were a welcome change to the howling wind and the mountain’s mocking laughter after three and a half days of climbing. Taniel realized that they’d not said a word in that time, not even during their camps at night, when the four of them huddled together for warmth in Gavril’s small tent.

“Hine.” Taniel came to a stop beside the big mountaineer, and they waited for Ka-poel and Darden. Taniel closed his eyes and worked at his mouth, trying to form words.

“Fine,” he said. “How much harther? Farther?”

“There,” Gavril said. He pointed upward.

Taniel shaded his eyes and squinted into the sun. “It’s so bright up here. I can’t see. How can you?”

“Years on the mountain. You don’t need eyes after as long as I’ve been here. Novi’s Perch. We’re just beneath it.”

Darden grinned at Taniel through cracked lips, his dark-skinned face split with the size of the smile. He was a small man, and easily as old as Tamas. “Almost there,” he said. He was barely breathing hard, Taniel noticed with annoyance, though Taniel himself gasped for breath.

Taniel held his snuffbox of powder up to his nose and snorted straight out of the box. He carefully returned it to his pocket – he didn’t trust his numb fingers. The rush of the powder trance made him dizzy for a brief moment, then his breathing came easier and his muscles relaxed.

They removed their snowshoes and finished the climb to the monastery. It was only a few hundred more feet. The trail narrowed as they went. To the left, the mountain rose above them in a sheer rock face. To the right, only white sky was visible – the cliff seemed to have no bottom. They moved into the shade of the monastery, and Taniel was able to look up and really see it for the first time.

Novi’s Perch seemed to be part of the mountain. It had been built of the same dusty gray rock, and parts of it had even been hewn into the bones of Pike itself. It blocked the trail – that is, the trail ended at the doors to the monastery, and the building rose up above them for a hundred feet or more. It overhung the cliffside to their right by a dozen feet, and Taniel wondered how the monks could sleep, knowing they were suspended above thousands of feet of nothing.

The monastery was plain and unadorned. The stones were chiseled flat, the arches of the doors and windows rounded at the top. There were no spires or grand facades. Only the location of the place gave it grandeur, and the daring of its construction hanging out over the abyss.

Taniel stepped off the road and onto the stone doorstep. He gazed upward, unaware that he’d been wandering, until Gavril reached out and grabbed the front of his coat. He jumped. He’d been not two feet from the edge of the cliff and its perilous drop.

The double doors of the monastery opened with the whine of unoiled hinges. Taniel’s pistol was half drawn before he realized it wasn’t Bo. A man and woman, both about Taniel’s height, bowed their heads in greeting. They were tall for Novi, and their skin was olive – just a shade lighter than Darden’s.

“It’s very early in the year for pilgrims,” the Novi man commented when they’d all come inside.

Taniel glanced at his weapons, at his thick furs and leathers, and at his companions with their climbing gear. They were obviously not pilgrims.

“I’m here to see Privileged Borbador,” Taniel said quietly. The words echoed in the long, stone hallway, and Taniel felt like he was whispering inside of Pike’s own old bones. “Where can I find him?” Taniel needed to get this over with as quickly as possible. If Bo had an inkling Taniel was after him…

The woman nodded solemnly. “I see. I’m afraid your journey has not quite ended.”

“Pit.” Taniel glanced at the monks apologetically. “Sorry, sister.”

“He’s a few miles up the trail past the monastery. A cave.”

“I know that cave,” Gavril said.

“Did Bo tell you why he came up here?”

Both monks shook their heads. “He said someone might come looking for him,” the man said. “He asked us not to stop him from coming.”

Bo was definitely expecting someone. No getting around it.

“How do I get up?” Taniel asked.

“Through the monastery,” the woman said. “This is the only true path up the mountain, even in the summer. We are the gatekeepers to Kresim Kurga.”

Taniel felt his heart jump. “It really exists?”

Both monks raised an eyebrow at Taniel.

“The Holy City?” Taniel said. “It’s really up there?”

“The ruins, yes,” the man said. “Long ago, Novi chose his people to guard the high places of the Nine. Kresim Kurga may have been long abandoned, Kresimir’s protection dissipated, but we have not shirked the duty placed upon us by our saint.”

Gavril stepped up beside Taniel as Darden went to the man and woman and spoke in a low voice. Taniel tried to listen to them. He caught the words “ill” and “cousin” before Darden was led down the corridor by the man.

“What is Kresimir’s protection?” Taniel asked.

Gavril was large enough that his head nearly scraped the monastery ceiling. “The God wove powerful sorceries, back during his reign, so that no one, sick or in health, young or old, would be bothered by the elements or the altitude sickness.”

“Altitude sickness?” Taniel said.

“Comes from being so high up,” Gavril said. “Darden and I, we’re acclimatized. Others get thirsty, and bloody noses, headaches, sickness in their stomach. Of course, you’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be fine? Why?”

Gavril didn’t answer. The Novi woman approached them. “Would you like to rest before heading up?” she asked.

Taniel knew he should, but he couldn’t risk Bo getting wind of his arrival. “No thank you.”

“It should be an easy climb,” she said as she led them through the monastery. “We’ve started clearing the road up to the summit.”

They passed by many adjoining corridors that seemed to stretch deep into the mountain, and by dozens of smaller rooms, doors open, monks within. There were both men and women. Taniel paused just outside one bedroom. A monk sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning over a box of colored sand, making patterns with a long, curved stick. Taniel did not see many monks outside their rooms, though he did hear voices down from the deeper corridors. He’d never imagined that Novi’s Perch was this big, or that so many people lived this high up the mountain all winter long.

Ka-poel paused at every room and hallway, the smile on her face like that of a child who wants to explore. Taniel dragged her along impatiently.

After many flights of stone stairs they reached a sudden end. It looked identical to the entrance on the other side, down to the same double doors.

“The doors will be barred after you have gone through,” the Novi woman said. “There are… others… on this side of the mountain.”

Taniel paused at this. He opened his mouth to ask her, but she retreated down the hallway. Taniel was left alone with Gavril and Ka-poel. The big mountaineer shrugged.

“The monks have strange stories,” he said. “About what kinds of creatures come out during the winter months, up in Kresim Kurga. They’ve been waiting longer each year before letting the pilgrims up.” He shrugged again. “I’ve never seen anything strange up there, myself, aside from the odd cave lion. Ready?”

Taniel put a hand on Gavril’s chest. “I’m heading up alone,” he said. Then, to Ka-poel. “I want you to stay here too.”

She scowled at him.

“I need to have a private talk with Bo. It shouldn’t take too long, and the monks said the road is clear.”

Ka-poel held up a finger, then jerked her thumb at herself.

“No,” Taniel said. “You’re staying here. With Gavril.”

Gavril chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I really should…,” he rumbled.

“No,” Taniel said firmly. He hefted his rifle. “I’ve got this for cave lions.”

Taniel heard Gavril bar the door after he’d gone out and wondered whether the big mountain man was getting any ideas about Taniel’s visit. He might suspect something. But then, the man was a drunk. Taniel’d get a few drinks in him back at Shouldercrown before he headed off.

The trail widened enough that there was comfortable space between Taniel and the cliff edge. Eventually the sheer rock face on his left softened, until it became a rocky, snow-covered hillside. The trail was not steep here, and he didn’t need his snowshoes.

Taniel spotted the cave from quite a ways down the road. It was easy to see – the entrance was as big as a house. He found a good knoll not long after. It was a small hill, perched just higher than the trail, between the trail and the cliff edge. He climbed it carefully and settled down in the snow. It was perfect for a marksman. He could see the cave entrance completely and he was hidden by snowbanks.

The only downside was that it sat on the edge of the cliff. It might have been ten thousand feet to the bottom, for all Taniel knew. He dug his fingers into the snow. If Bo got wind of Taniel, he’d be swept off the knoll with the flick of Bo’s fingers.

Taniel watched from his vantage for several minutes. His powder trance allowed him to see details of the cave even though it was far off. The entrance pointed just slightly off center from him. It appeared bored into the side of the mountain, with a thin footpath leading up to it and a steep hill of ice and snow on the left. It was perched right on the edge of the cliff.

The cave was occupied. A thin trail of smoke curled from within, rising straight into the windless sky, and the footpath was heavily trodden. Taniel opened his third eye to confirm it – Bo was there, his pastel glow wavering beside a fire inside the cave. Taniel crawled back off the knoll and opened his gear.

Taniel began getting ready. He moved methodically, double-checking everything, cleaning the flintlock and pan of snow and checking the barrel before he began. He bit the cartridge and primed the pan, and then poured the powder and ball into the muzzle. A little powder on his tongue to deepen the powder trance, and then he rammed down the cotton. Lastly, he brought out his sketchbook and flipped open to one of the first pages – Bo. A sketch Taniel had done on the voyage to Fatrasta. Bo was clean-shaven with short hair and wide cheeks, a smirk on his lips. Taniel tapped the likeness with one finger and climbed back up onto the knoll to wait.

He remained there as the sun passed its noon height and began to descend to the west. The air cleared, and from his knoll he could look out to his right and see all of Kez, distant plains and cities shimmering on the horizon beneath the setting sun.

The passing time gave Taniel’s mind the chance to wander. He couldn’t help but think of Vlora. As young lovers they’d spent afternoons shirking their training to take to bed in cheap inns. He smiled at those memories and felt his heart beating faster. No, that wouldn’t do. He had to keep calm as he waited for his quarry. He remembered one of those times, returning to find Tamas waiting. Tamas had informed him that Taniel and Vlora would marry when they were old enough, and that had been the start of their engagement.

Unbidden, images of Vlora in bed with another man came to his mind. His hands trembled until he pushed those images away. He forced himself to seek the calm of his powder trance. Think objectively. Did he love her? Perhaps. He’d always enjoyed her company. But did he really love her?

Taniel often wondered about love. It sometimes seemed a foreign concept – something out of poems. Vlora was the first woman he’d grown truly close to since his mother’s death, when he was six. He had few memories of his mother. Most of what he knew of her had been told to him afterward: that she was a powder mage and a member of the Adran nobility, though her mother had been Kez. She’d been a hard woman on the outside, as hard as Tamas, but he distinctly remembered a gentle nature that emerged when they were at home. Even when Taniel had a governess to watch him, his mother had always been present.

That had changed after her death. Taniel had gone through a string of governesses, whom he strongly suspected Tamas had been sleeping with. And then the governesses stopped, as if Tamas had had enough. The next woman to enter their lives was Vlora. He remembered competing with Bo to try to impress her. It was the only time in his life he’d been able to best Bo for a woman’s affections. Did that mean she was the only one for him? No. It was too big a world for that.

It was surprising to him how little he thought of her now, so many weeks after ending their engagement. He touched his pocket, where he kept the rumpled likeness of her he’d torn from his sketchbook. No, he did not love her. He’d been hurt by her betrayal, but mostly in his pride. Their marriage had been a foregone conclusion for so long that it seemed strange not to have it looming in the future anymore.

He wondered what her assignment was now. Was she still attached to Tamas’s staff? Tamas wasn’t overly sentimental, not by any stretch of the imagination. He’d be angry that the wedding was called off, but he’d not want a talented powder mage like Vlora far off.

Taniel found himself grinding his teeth together. Not sentimental. Ha. Sent his own son up here to kill his best friend. Why would he do that? Was it punishment for letting Rozalia live? Was this some kind of test, to see if Taniel was still loyal?

No, it wasn’t any of those things. It was pure expedience for the old bastard. Taniel was the best shot in the army. He could shoot a man’s hat off at three miles on a windy day. If that wasn’t an option, Taniel could get close to Bo without raising suspicions, and put a knife in his gut. When would Tamas learn that expedience was not always right? He’d certainly had a dose of it when he threw Nikslaus into the Adsea. Taniel couldn’t help but feel proud of his father for that. The pride was short-lived.

“You’re going to have to take a shit eventually,” Taniel muttered to himself as the day wore on. He remembered a time, crouching on a knoll in the king’s forest outside of Adopest. He’d been fourteen. Bo had figured out where the queen and her handmaidens liked to bathe in the river. They’d concealed themselves on a knoll for almost twenty-four hours before the women had come down to the river. Bo had been armed with a looking glass; Taniel had a horn of powder and the eyesight of a powder trance. It was risky, and they both knew the beatings they’d get if caught. Yet the queen was said to be one of the most beautiful women in the Nine.

And she was. The wait – and the risk – had been well worth it.

There was movement in the cave. Bo emerged. He stood in the entrance to the cave and rubbed his hands together, looking out over Kez not a foot from the edge of the cliff. Taniel wondered how Bo could do that without quaking at the fall. He took a deep breath and steadied himself for the shot.

Bo turned to examine the hillside. He removed a thick fur hood, and Taniel examined his childhood friend down the barrel of his rifle. Bo’s hair had grown long in the Mountainwatch, and he sported a thin, unruly beard. He’d lost a lot of weight since Taniel had last seen him. Bo studied the hillside and then looked down the road toward Taniel.

Taniel resisted the urge to duck. Bo was looking right at him. Bo shielded his eyes from the sun and tugged absently at his Privileged’s gloves. The arcane symbols on the back of the gloves caught the sunlight, and Taniel wondered whether Bo had surrounded himself with a shield of hardened air. Bo’s strongest elemental aura was air.

Did Bo know he was here? Was Bo waiting, laughing to himself, ready to strike Taniel down when he betrayed his position? Was he watching Taniel with his third eye? Taniel couldn’t sense Bo’s third eye, or any kind of shield. Taniel’s finger tightened on the trigger.

Bo stood there for another minute or two, squinting down the road before he turned to go back inside.

Taniel swore to himself. Why the pit didn’t he pull the trigger? He’d had a good shot. He sighed. He knew the answer.

“To the pit with it,” he said aloud, and stood up.

He came off his knoll and gathered his gear, then headed up the path toward Bo’s cave.

Pit, what was he going to say? ‘Hi Bo, how have you been, I came up here to kill you? But don’t worry, I’ve changed my mind. I hope everything is fine between us.’

Taniel gathered his thoughts and his resolve – or what was left of it, anyway. He shook his head. He’d been forced to choose between duty and his friend. He hoped that made him a good friend, because he was a piss-poor soldier.

Taniel took one step onto the thin trail leading to the cave and froze. Bo had come out of his cave again. Perhaps fifty paces separated them. Bo would clearly see the rifle over Taniel’s shoulder. Would Bo recognize him? Taniel pulled the furs away from his face and tried to smile. He raised a hand in greeting.

Bo’s eyes narrowed. Taniel swallowed. Bo tugged on his Privileged’s gloves. They blended in with the snow, all white, save for the gold symbols on the back.

Taniel opened his mouth to call out a greeting.

“Not another step,” Bo shouted. “Stay where you are!” He tugged on his gloves again, and Taniel could see something on Bo’s face that he didn’t like. He knew why Taniel had come.

Bo raised his hands over his head. The pose was almost comical. Bo was not a big man, and his thin cheeks and the wispy beard made him look like a boy. Bo’s chest rose and fell, his breathing wild. He was gearing up for something big. Taniel didn’t have to open his third eye to know that Bo had touched the Else with his gloved fingers. Sorcery poured into the world. Taniel squeezed his eyes shut.

“Get down, you fool!” Bo screamed.

Taniel’s eyes flew open. Something hit him from behind, bowling him over. He flew down against a snowdrift, blood pounding in his ears as something big rushed by. Was that Gavril, all wrapped in his furs?

Taniel felt his heart lurch into his throat. No, that wasn’t Gavril. That was a cave lion.

The name was a misnomer. It didn’t look much like a lion. Its back feet were padded, like a cat’s, but its front feet were clawed like a rooster’s with three great talons as long as sickles. It had a head like a tiger’s and the deep, broad chest and maned shoulders of a lion. This one was bigger than any Taniel had ever seen or heard about. It made a Fatrastan swamp bear look small by comparison, and it rushed down the trail toward Bo on its hind legs.

Bo’s fingers worked in the air as if plucking at the strings of an invisible cello. The air cracked, thunder peeling against the mountainside as lightning burst from the clear sky and connected with the lion’s head.

The creature wasn’t even stunned. It sprang from two feet onto four, bounding with the speed of a jaguar. Smoke rose from its furry mane.

Bo jerked one arm into the air and then let it fall. Ice on the hillside above the cave lion suddenly surged down, a mini avalanche, hitting the lion with the force of ten carriages. The ice split, sliding around the creature as it ran onward, as if it were a shark’s fin cutting through the top of the sea. Wind buffeted it; flames shot from the clear air and sprayed across its face. The lion ignored them all.

The cave lion was fifteen paces from Bo, and Bo was looking tired. Sweat poured from his brow. His fingers twitched, jerked at unseen strings. The lion stopped in its tracks.

It slowed, shook its hoary head, and continued onward.

“Don’t just sit there.”

Taniel felt himself jerked to his feet. Gavril was there. His face was red from a long, hard run. He held a spear in one hand, like the kind used to hunt boar.

“Shoot the damned thing!”

Taniel flipped his rifle off his shoulder and sighted. The creature shook its head, as if dizzy, and let out a low howl. It slapped its ears with both clawed hands. It jerked about, slamming its head against the ground as if its skull was full of bees.

Taniel pulled the trigger. The beast’s head jolted back where Taniel’s bullet hit it. He felt his eyes go wide. The bullet had connected and simply slid off the lion’s ugly face – just like it had the Privileged in Adopest. It howled again and made a gesture of disgust toward Taniel with a taloned hand. There was sorcery in this creature, the kind gods are made of.

Taniel felt the snow beneath him explode. He was thrown into the air, toward the cliff edge. He landed in the snow and slid, unable to find any purchase. He scrambled for some kind of hold. There was nothing. He’d go over the edge in a second.

His boots hit solid ground. Rock jutted from the side of the mountain, a sheet a man’s length across beneath his boots that hadn’t been there a moment before. Taniel struggled to climb back up to the trail. He felt hands grab him.

“Come on,” Darden said. The old Deliv Watcher was armed with a spear in one hand, just like Gavril was. He dragged Taniel up with the other. Ka-poel was there too, lending her small strength. She gave Taniel a wide-eyed stare and then hurried after the others.

Taniel looked for his rifle. It was on the ground, too far away. Did he have time to reload? One glance toward Bo told him no.

Bo retreated to his cave, his back against the rocky wall of one side. The cave lion surged toward him on two feet. It plowed onward as if against a current, each step a struggle. A struggle it was winning.

Gavril reached the lion first. He thrust his spear up, sinking it into the lion’s soft flank. It gave a wail and turned on him. He leapt out of range of the raking claws just in time and rolled back down the trail. Darden jumped over Gavril’s rolling form, spear held at the ready, and rushed the cave lion.

Darden exploded. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. Blood and ribbons of tissue spattered the mountainside. The cave lion howled triumphantly. Taniel didn’t have time to think, didn’t take a moment to consider Darden’s blood soaking his coat. He aimed both pistols and fired.

A powder mage can float a bullet for some distance. It gives his shots extra range, and it cost nothing but his own mental exertion and a bit of extra powder. He can also ignite powder, transferring the energy by touch. A good Marked can do it with bullets, giving one the strength and energy to pierce rock or steel.

Taniel ignited his whole powder horn and pushed the blast behind his bullets.

They tore right through the cave lion. It screamed as bubbling green blood sprayed the icy trail. The lion turned from Bo, its howls sounding like the scream of a wounded horse, and instead turned to face Taniel. It raised a taloned hand. Taniel felt the heat of approaching sorcery.

Ka-poel squeezed past Taniel on the narrow trail, throwing herself between him and the beast.

“Dammit! Pole, no!”

Ka-poel lifted both hands defiantly. She held something in one hand – a doll. It was naked and about the size of a hand, shaped from wax. The craftsmanship was superb. Every part was accurate to a person – a woman, to be precise – especially the face. It was Julene.

Ka-poel stabbed the doll with a long needle. The cave lion howled again and clutched its side. She jammed the needle into the doll’s head, scrambling the tip about inside the skull. The lion twitched and growled. It scratched at its ears and face, which left long, bloody cuts. Ka-poel bent forward, took a long, deep breath, and then blew on the doll.

The cave lion burst into flame. Bo renewed his attacks, fingers flying, lances of ice bursting from the inside of the cave to smash against the lion. Shakily, Taniel reloaded one of his pistols. He had a few powder charges left, though his horn was empty. What could he do against a creature like this? It was trapped between Bo and Ka-poel’s sorcery but it refused to die. How long could they keep it up?

Taniel whirled. “Gavril, your powder horn. Now!”

Gavril, a little ways down the trail, locked eyes with Taniel and tossed him the powder horn.

Taniel caught the horn and hefted it in one hand. Mostly full. Good. He turned. Bo looked like he was about spent, and Ka-poel juggled the burning doll in her hands, needle and fingers thrusting, a look of savage glee on her face.

“Down!” Taniel shouted, tossing the powder horn. He grabbed Ka-poel by the shoulders and threw her against the mountainside. The horn landed between the mountain and the cave lion. With a thought, Taniel ignited it.

His mind warped the blast, guiding it with Marked sorceries to maximize the power of the detonation. The cave lion was thrown into the air, twenty, thirty, fifty paces out from the mountain before it began to curve and plummet. Taniel watched it go, howling, clawing. The howl changed, turning to a scream as the lion’s shape warped into the body of a woman. It bounced off the mountainside, far down, and continued to fall, disappearing through the clouds below.