Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (9 page)

Cerise was dressed now and Avilla was nowhere in sight. The slender witch

was arguing rather heatedly with a group of soldiers. About a dozen of them,

all gathered in a nervous clump with bulging packs on their backs.

“A little thing like you won’t last long out here without protection,” one of

the soldiers was saying. “Maybe the wizard will wake up, and maybe he

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won’t. Either way he’s not going to be in any shape to take care of you girls.”

“You have no idea what our master is capable of,” Cerise sniffed. “If you

guys want to run off in a panic I can’t stop you, but we’re safer with him even

if there wasn’t a soldier left in the camp.”

“Come on, Rolf, quit dicking around,” one of the men grumbled. “Just

throw the little bitch over your shoulder and let’s go. She’ll come around after

we fuck her a few times.”

“Shut up, Hroldir,” the leader said gruffly.

“Yeah,” Cerise chuckled darkly. “You don’t steal a wizard’s property.

When he first took us our master bound our wills to his so we’d serve him

faithfully forever, and laid dark curses on us to make sure any other man who

touches us will die screaming. Not to mention we aren’t just his pet bedtoys,

we’re sorceresses. If you mess with us we’ll be cursing you and screwing up

your shit forever.”

Hroldir gave Rolf a stubborn look, but the group’s leader ignored him.

“Now look, missy, there’s no need to take that tone. Some of the men may be

thinking with their dicks, but if the wizard dies on us you’ll be glad enough

there’s someone willing to take you in. I wouldn’t even be giving you the

chance if I hadn’t seen you and the crazy blonde come running out of the

Witchwood full of goblin arrows. No way any of these civilian girls could

keep up on a forced march.”

“Now we can carry your master for a bit if you think he can be moved, but

that giant’s buddies could be here any minute. So you need to tell your friend to

put down the cleaver and grab her pack right fucking now, or we’re leaving all

three of you here to die.”

“We’re not the ones in danger of that here,” I interrupted.

The men gasped, and I was amused to note that a couple of the ones

between me and Hroldir exchanged nervous glances and discretely stepped out

of the line of fire.

“What’s going on?” I said sharply. “Where’s Captain Rain?”

There were grim looks at that.

“He’s fucked up bad, sir wizard,” Rolf explained. “A felwolf bit half his

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arm off, and then the damned giant stepped on him. One of the boys got a rope

around the arm, and maybe you could save him if you had time. But he’s got so

much shit broken he’ll die for sure if we try to move him, and if we don’t get

our asses in gear here we’re all goners.”

I frowned, and took Cerise’s offered hand to pull myself to my feet.

“What’s the hurry?”

I glanced around, noting that there were a lot fewer people in the camp

than there had been yesterday. The remaining villagers were all huddled in a

miserable-looking mass next to the one intact wagon, along with a handful of

soldiers. A few people were tending the wounded or policing the camp, and I

caught a flash of Avilla’s blonde mane atop one of the dead wolves. But most

of them were just huddled under their blankets looking terrified.

Then I realized the sun was up. It must have risen while I was healing

myself, but I was sure that hadn’t taken more than a half hour or so. I felt a

prickle of disquiet as I realized the attack had come during what the military

calls ‘morning nautical twilight’ - the same timing modern special forces

groups prefer for surprise attacks. It might just be a coincidence, but I suddenly

had a bad feeling about the general competence level of those giants.

Rolf’s response didn’t help.

“The stories all say giants live in big tribes, just like human barbarians.

You saw what one frost giant and his pet wolves did to us, sir. There’s no way

we can fight a whole squad of his buddies at once.”

“Or a frost drake,” one of the men put in. “Some of them are supposed to

have those too.”

Rolf nodded. “Yeah. If we keep on like we have been we’re all going to

die. We’ve got to drop the dead weight and make straight for Lanrest. It’s only

twenty-five miles, we can be there by midmorning tomorrow if we make a

forced march of it.”

I frowned. “So you’re just abandoning the civilians?”

He shrugged. “No way they can keep up. If we bring them they’ll just end

up strung out all down the road like a big monster buffet. That’d be like a giant

sign behind us pointing out where we are. But it looked like you and your girls

can keep up, so you’re welcome to come with us.”

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I was so shocked I just stared at him for a moment. Apparently Captain

Rain really had been the only thing holding this unit together.

“Shall I go tell Avilla to skip the wolf steaks, master?” Cerise asked

quietly.

My gaze flicked automatically to Avilla, as I realized that’s what she was

doing with the wolf corpse. Then it fell to the hopeless mass of peasants, and

the handful of soldiers left to guard them.

“No,” I said firmly. “These cowards can abandon their comrades and

their honor if they want, but we aren’t going to. Show me to the wounded.”

A growl of anger went up from the mob of deserters, and hands went to

weapons. I called up a force bubble, and let it bleed a haze of shimmering blue

sparkles into the frigid air.

“Try it. There won’t be enough left of you to bury.”

Rolf raised his hand. “Easy, boys! We didn’t come over here to pick a

fight with no wizard. If he wants to be a damned fool and die that’s his

business. Let’s move.”

I waited until they were well out of reach, and then spun and stalked

towards the survivors. Cerise trotted along behind me.

“Are you sure that was the right move, Daniel?” She asked quietly. “I’d

feel kind of bad about leaving these people, but I don’t want to die for them

either. It’s not like we owe them anything.”

“They’re human beings,” I said shortly. “I’m not leaving anyone to die as

long as I have a choice about it. Avilla! Can you make enough of that for

everyone?”

The pretty blonde started at my call, and smiled down at me. “If that’s

what you want, master. There’s certainly more meat on these beasts than we

can hope to eat. But it will take time.”

Something in the sky behind her caught my attention. There were dark

clouds rolling down from the north, much closer than the ones we’d seen

yesterday. It was far too cold for rain, so that meant more snow. Possibly even

a blizzard. Lovely.

“That’s fine,” I told her after a moment. “I’ll need an hour or two to

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stabilize the wounded before we can move, and we won’t be going very far.”

She nodded, and returned to butchering the giant beast.

I found Sergeant Thomas talking quietly with the men that were left, which

was something of a relief. Trying to organize this group by myself would have

been quite a challenge.

“Sergeant,” I nodded. “Glad to see you made it.”

He took in my appearance, and shook his head. “You look like hell, sir

wizard. I take it you’re staying, then?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I can’t see abandoning all these people. How bad is it?”

He lowered his voice a bit. “We’re pretty fucked, sir. We lost a lot of

men in that battle, either dead or run off into the woods. We’ve only eight men

fit to fight, there’s thirty or so refugees left that didn’t die or run off, and those

felwolves scattered all the animals. We’ve got a dozen wounded too bad to

walk on their own, and no way to pull the only wagon that isn’t smashed. Even

if we leave them behind the rest of this bunch’ll be lucky to make five or six

miles a day, and I don’t see us going more than a day or two without another

attack.”

I frowned. “I was afraid of that. Well, it looks like there’s a blizzard

coming in, and even if the cold doesn’t bother frost giants I doubt they can see

through falling snow. So we’re going to collect what supplies we can and hole

up maybe half a mile from here, just far enough that no one’s likely to find us

before the weather clears. You collect supplies and get everyone organized

while I do what I can to keep the wounded from dying on us. When we find a

good spot I’ll work some magic to make a shelter and keep it warm.”

He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Sounds like a plan, sir. Any chance

you can save the Captain?”

“I’ll try, Thomas. Just show me where he is.”

Captain Rain was a grisly sight. Apparently he’d been popular with the

refugees, because a few of the peasant women had gotten a little fire going next

to him and were carefully tending his wounds when we arrived. But most of

his right arm was missing, and there were bubbles of blood on his lips.

One of the women looked up, and hope blossomed on her face.

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“Lord wizard!” She said pleadingly. “Are you here to save him?”

“I’m going to try,” I told her. I knelt next to him, and laid a hand on his

forehead to feel out his injuries.

It was bad. His chest had been crushed by the giant, and the broken ribs

had punctured both lungs. They were filling with blood, which he had precious

little of left after losing the arm. Frostbite was already setting in on his feet,

and he had a concussion on top of everything else.

“Damn,” I muttered. “Sergeant, I’m going to need a half hour or so just to

get him stable enough to move, and even then we’ll need a stretcher. You said

there are some other serious cases too?”

“Yes sir. The worst is Dorgen, he got bit by a wolf and survived

somehow. Then there’s a stab wound from that giant’s spear, and a lot of bad

gashes and broken bones.”

“I see. Figure a couple of hours for me to get them ready to move, then.

Avilla’s making wolf steak for everyone, so at least we’ll be well fed. We’ll

set out as soon as everyone’s eaten.”

“Yes, sir. I hope we have that long. Not much left to stop another attack

with those damned deserters gone.”

“Can’t be helped, sergeant. Maybe you could arm some of the peasants?”

He considered that. “Better than nothing, I suppose. I’ll see to it.”

He turned to go.

The woman who had spoken before tentatively put her hand on my arm.

“You can save him, my lord?”

“I think so. If the monsters leave us alone long enough.”

She blinked back tears. “Bless you, milord!”

One of the others, a pretty girl who might have been fourteen, smiled

happily. “See, Vasha? I knew we shouldn’t give up.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” I told them. “He wouldn’t have lasted this

long otherwise. But I’d better get to work now.”

It was an exhausting two hours. My amulet might recharge my mana, but

working magic continuously for long periods was still a strain. The knowledge

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that I didn’t have the time or energy to fully heal any of my patients was an

added complication, because it meant that I couldn’t just flood them with

healing energy and let it do what it wanted. Instead I had to focus in on specific

trouble spots, forcing the magic to heal only what I wanted it to and leave

everything else alone.

Shifting Captain Rain’s broken ribs back into place and fixing his

damaged lungs took most of the time I’d estimated. Then I had to deal with the

shock, blood loss and hypothermia, all of which were systemic issues that

were almost impossible to touch without half my energy flow bleeding off into

his other injuries. At least the concussion wasn’t a bad one. I had a headache

by the time I was done, and it wasn’t as solid a job as I would have liked.

“Keep him warm, and try to get a little water into him if he wakes up,” I

directed. “And be very careful when you move him. I’ve got his ribs back in

place but they aren’t properly healed. They’ll snap like twigs if they take a

blow.”

“We’ll treat him like spun glass, milord,” Vasha assured me gratefully.

I left them to it, and Cerise led me off to the next patient. Apparently she’d

been making herself useful getting the triage organized while I was busy.

“Is she his wife or something?” I wondered once we were out of earshot.

“Concubine,” Cerise corrected. “I think she’s a favorite camp follower he

decided to take on permanently, or something like that. The others are peasant

girls she picked out for him from the refugees,”

I stopped dead. “Wait, what? The little redhead can’t be over fourteen.”

“Yeah, so? What else is a girl who’s lost her family going to do to try to

make sure someone takes care of her?”