We headed North from the town and towards Spurbank Fort. As we got closer to the area, that distinctive black stone started to poke through the grass. This area used to be heavily mined before the war, but modern construction techniques rendered the stone less desirable than it was before.
Spurbank was largely constructed from it. The fort could be seen for miles around, perched atop one of the many hills that surrounded Channery. It was one of the largest forts constructed during the Civil War, intended to form a long line of defence through the middle of the countryside and prevent an enemy advance with cannon-based fire support.
Despite being abandoned for years, the sturdy build meant that it easily withstood the elements. The defences were multi-layered, with an exterior wooden wall bottomed out with trenches and spikes. Beyond that lay the interior courtyard of the main building.
It was surrounded on all sides by a network of trenches. They were deep enough to conceal anyone moving through them without any special consideration. Using them, the defenders of the fort could move throughout the area and launch ambushes on attacking enemies, or hunker down and stop charges from cavalry and infantry. For our purposes, it also served as an easy escape route should the fort be breached.
We were on one of the hills across from the fort. Veronica retrieved a spyglass from her bag and started studying the area for clues while we hid behind the treeline to conceal our presence. Seeing a head poke over the edge of one of those trenches like a groundhog from a hole confirmed our suspicions. This was the place.
“They have men on watch,” Veronica observed succinctly.
“You don’t need magnification to see that. They’re buzzing like a hive of insects.”
“The road we passed over before we arrived showed signs of recent use too. They must have transported their supplies here and hunkered down to try and weather the storm that’s coming.”
“Do you think they can?”
She folded it back up and slipped it into her pocket, “Hm. The police aren’t experienced in siege warfare but deploying a military response will take too long. They have to handle it because nobody else will.”
With that, we moved back behind the trees and explored the surrounding area, looking for forward alarms and potential entryways. The trenches were extremely long, spitting the occupants out into the countryside. Some of the ditches from the fields were used as makeshift defences if the first line failed, though the preparation required to do that was beyond the current owners.
We did spy several more Scuncath milling around the place. Some were carrying boxes, others were armed with bolt-action rifles or small arms. It was unlikely they could hit a human-sized target from their current positions, but the long sightlines gave them a lot of room for advanced warning.
It was going to be difficult for the police. Veronica was correct in her assessment. They were used to bludgeoning petty thieves or chasing down pickpockets, not launching a siege on a huge fortification. They wouldn’t be bringing cannons to bear to crack the walls and shatter their lines. It would be horses, pistols, and the occasional shotgun if they were lucky.
No, that wouldn’t work if they were willing to kill the hostages to spite them in response. A more surgical approach would be necessary to rescue my Father and the rest.
Genta spoke up, “Uh, Veronica – do you mind?”
“Is something wrong?”
“I need to use the bathroom. Might I take a short detour?”
“There are no bathrooms out here, not even in the farmhouses.”
I crossed my arms, “Then he’ll just have to use a tree. Nobody is going to see him.”
Genta was caught off-guard by my rather flippant treatment of handling his excretions. A noble lady with an accent like mine should have gone white as a sheet at the mere thought of urinating outside and without plumbing.
“I’ll be back in a moment!”
Genta hobbled away from us to find an appropriately secretive spot. My cynical mind was imagining him running away after what Veronica did to the Scuncath we found blackout drunk by the road. I leaned against one of the trees and enjoyed the countryside air for a moment. Veronica had other ideas.
“We never had a proper discussion about that train incident.”
“What is there to discuss?”
“I heard that you liked shooting - the sport, but there’s a big difference between that and learning to take someone’s life. What you did back there was unusual, to say the least.”
“You’re worried,” I stated bluntly.
That threw her for a loop, “I don’t get worried.”
“Don’t tell me obvious lies like that. You’ve already indicated that you have done various things for the sake of protecting me, that’s why you weren’t at the house or there to raise me – because you were worried. There’s nothing wrong with being worried, you know. I’m not here to titter at you like a tedious pedant.”
“You’ve done enough of that already.”
“What I’m saying is that your actions are entirely understandable from that perspective.”
“Why do you always try to analyse what I do? I could just be doing this for the sake of keeping my cover,” she growled.
“Keeping your cover? You brought me along to keep an eye on me. You could have left me back there and dealt with the consequences later.”
“And my choice was ultimately vindicated. I don’t want a destructive actor like you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Your heroics are noble but pointless – there are some facts that cannot be changed through pure motivations.”
She saw me as some garden-variety idiot. She’d conjured up images of me running headlong into danger without planning and preparation. Even after the train incident, she did not acknowledge me as someone who was capable of handling themselves. She wanted total control over me.
I agreed to that at the time to make her bring me along. She must have understood then that I was not going to take ‘no’ for an answer. There was that glimmer in my eyes that equal parts worried and assured her. It was the same look that she had in hers. I’d inherited more than just their colour. We were birds of a feather.
But she was not going to trick herself into believing that I somehow inherited her willingness to kill. That was a line that could only be crossed after a lot of training and focus. To accept the weight of each life taken and the emotions that came with it, and to never treat it frivolously. I could get angry at them and harm them but it was essential to keep a hold of my senses in the aftermath.
Though such a distinction mattered little now that I had no economic motive for my acts. I tried to get a fresh start, but that wasn’t what Durandia wanted from me. She needed a problem solver, and a lot of problems unfortunately involved extreme violence. Negotiation with an apocalyptic death cult? Out of the question, it seemed.
“I haven’t done anything that you have not given me permission to do,” I countered, “I am more than capable of seeing the value in maintaining a coordinated approach. Should I have left you to be consumed by that Horrcath?”
“I would have killed it myself.”
Now that was petty. How could she have shot the chains while being chased exactly?
Free from Genta’s prying ears, Veronica decided to deliver some frank honesty. She took a deep breath and came out with confirmation of one of my pet theories.
“I left because I wanted you to have a normal childhood. I wanted you to enjoy all the things that I never got the chance to, and I thought that Damian would be able to give that to you.”
She wanted to know, oh so badly, when and where I learned to kill people like she did. But the problem was that there was no satisfactory answer that I could offer her, even if I were feeling generous.
“It is not Father’s fault.”
She closed in until we were face-to-face, her voice intense and low; “How can you say that? It was his responsibility to watch you. He must have had a serious lapse in concentration to miss you learning how to kill people!”
“This... whatever this is, was set into motion long before you even considered giving birth to me. There’s nothing either you or he could have done about it.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she whispered.
“I’ve been touched by the Goddess!” I said half-jokingly, “My divine purpose is to be here and deliver punishment to wrongdoers. To that end – I was granted the ability to fight and utilise magic.”
She didn’t believe me. She shook her head and stepped back, “Ridiculous.”
“If you feel like searching for eyewitnesses, paper trails, or other evidence of when and where I learnt these things, then I recommend that you save yourself the trouble and the time.”
“Stop playing games. I know that you aren’t going to share truthful information with me unless I give you something in return.”
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“You did. You said you left me with Damian to protect me. I presume that also extends to rendering yourself absent from my life until now. Did you worry that they’d kill me, or take me away if they found out? I must say, a greater effort to distance ourselves aesthetically would have helped. There’s no question that we are mother and daughter.”
“Did the person who taught you how to kill give you that forked tongue as well?”
“No. This is of my own making. The point is that your desire to keep this information from me has done nothing. We still find ourselves in the same situation you feared all those years ago. The truth always comes out in the end.”
“You’ve enjoyed thirteen years of peace because of me. Don’t underestimate how much damage my handlers can cause if you show them a single sign of weakness.”
“My knowing about this would change nothing. I was hardly going to abandon my responsibilities and go on a wild goose chase looking for you. The only thing that matters is whether they know who I am. The burden is all on you.”
“If they knew, you and I would be long dead. I had to minimize that risk. Transparency is not always a positive.”
The issue was more nuanced than that, and I accepted as such. There were times when keeping a hostile person in the dark was helpful, but there were other times when the spread of knowledge was a good thing. Medicine, literacy, sciences and mass media were the tools by which the lower classes ascended and became more engaged with the society they lived in.
Turmoil was an inevitable side effect. It was not something that could be controlled. As nations industrialised and more skilled workers were demanded, the more educated and critical they became. Total control meant economic and social devastation, to drain the fight from every citizen until they gave up on the nation and abandoned it.
The just approach could be difficult, emotionally and practically. The woman crying her eyes out in Channery as we spoke, having learnt about her husband’s death through second-hand sources, was one such example. I did not believe it right to keep that from her – not for the sake of protecting a police operation which the Scuncath were already aware of.
“Now that I’ve told you that, do you feel like offering me something in return?”
“I didn’t realize we were still doing that.”
She looked like she was about to knock my block off for saying that. I held up my hands in surrender and laughed in that characteristically obnoxious way that I was known for at the academy.
I chose something that she could both use and believe; “That magic I use to break weapons? It’s a hyper-concentrated magical field that I project into the essential components. A basic form of nihility magic. Another example is I could snap my fingers and cut an artery close to your heart. You could die on the spot and have no idea why.”
“Can you? Why don’t you use that trick all the time?”
I smiled, “A bullet is easier.”
Our discussion came to an end with the return of Genta from his toilet break. Veronica was close to completing her mental map of the surrounding area, so after another half-hour of studying the trenches we decided to return to town and prepare for our infiltration. Daylight was burning.
----------------------------------------
Samantha was not having the relaxing vacation she was hoping for.
After the fight, Samantha used her healing magic to fix up the criminals’ injuries. Eugene brought the horse around and hauled them down to the constable’s office to be processed. Arson was a serious offence – they’d be lucky to get away with a sentence lighter than twenty years respectively, and that was before they threatened to kill one of the family.
She hoped that the drama would roll over quickly – but someone in town spotted what Eugene was doing and got the whole damn story from him! Soon enough every townsperson in the vicinity was aware of the attack on the farm, and the threat now posed to them by the ‘mysterious strangers from the mist.’
Samantha was stressed the hell out. Not only did she have to grapple with an existential question about her own morality and future decision-making, but now a group of murderous psychopaths were invading her hometown and trying to kill everyone.
Claude and Max swung by once they heard the news. All three were standing in front of the charred remains of their once proud barn.
“Where’s your Dad?” Claude inquired.
Samantha slumped over and groaned, “He’s enjoying his new-found fame right now. Everyone thinks he’s a hero for putting a stop to some of these maniacs that have shown up. They’re parading him through the streets for it.”
Even though she did half of the work!
Max slicked back his hair, “I can’t believe we ended up surrounded by them when we were trying to avoid them. It would have been better to stay at home.”
Claude shook his head, “You didn’t want to stay in the wreckage of your house, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. I’m only talking about the risk factor here.”
“Did you see the protests happening in town, Sam? It looks like the news got out. All the townspeople are shouting and yelling outside of the jailhouse.”
Samantha peered between her fingers, “We should have said something. They almost burned down our home because I was too indecisive.”
Claude shrugged, “You could have hardly predicted that sort of problem. People are complicated, that’s the issue. Sometimes they do stuff that defies all rational explanation.”
“I’m not sure I agree with that. Maria is insistent that everyone has a deeply rooted motivation for what they do.”
“You’d trust Maria over me?”
“When it comes to wisdom, yes.”
Max consoled the destitute Claude by placing a hand on his shoulder, “Maria does have a strange level of ‘wisdom’ about a lot of matters. It’s not right for a thirteen-year-old girl in my opinion.”
Samantha agreed. There was something up with Maria – a secret that she was keeping that was even more shocking than her identity as a hardened killer. Did Durandia grant her a boon of knowledge and experience? Maria must have cultivated it somehow.
She turned her attention back to the ruins. Eugene and Ben had spent the morning picking through the surface level and removing the carcasses of some of the animals who weren’t able to escape. Eugene’s precious farming machine was in better shape than she first thought, but it did need repairs to be operable again.
That was a small relief. Losing both the barn and the tractor would put the family in a dire financial situation. Those were big expenses that provided an outsized amount of value to their operation. She hefted away a large piece of burnt timber, revealing the corpse of a chicken that was unfortunate enough to be caught inside.
“Augh. Poor thing.”
Samantha liked looking after the chickens, but they were the most vulnerable of all the animals on the farm. Hawks and foxes would try to pick them off, so they often kept them in the barn just to be safe. This one wasn’t so lucky. Her Father said to never waste an animal. Samantha retrieved the body and carried it to the porch for later. They could use it for meat rather than throwing it into a hole and calling it a day.
Claude and Max assisted Samantha in the clean-up process. Max wasn’t used to hard labour of any sort, and he quickly became aware of how out of his depth he was when it came to physical activities. Joining one of the sports societies suddenly looked a lot more attractive.
With hands beleaguered by splinters and arms about to fall from their sockets, Samantha decided that forcing her friends to help her was a bad impression to be making. She pulled them both away and back towards the house as the collapsed timber became too heavy for them to lift on their own.
“I didn’t ask you two for help.”
Max shrugged, “I wasn’t going to sit there and watch you do all the hard work.”
“This isn’t the hard bit,” Samantha explained, “We’ll need some extra hands to move the big structural pieces, or Dad might decide to cut them into smaller ones first.”
Max was getting a crash course in countryside living. He was a coddled nobleboy who wasn’t even first in line to inherit the family’s empire. It made him feel somewhat ashamed to now face the reality of what people without his immense wealth dealt with. Although it wasn’t every day that a group of cultists burned down your barn and tried to kill your family, on that they shared some common ground.
He was forced to hold his tongue when he noticed that the farm didn’t have indoor plumbing so that he didn’t look the fool. Of course, it didn’t – they were in the middle of nowhere, even by the standards of a small town like this.
Max was starting to appreciate the effort Samantha put into her studies at the academy. It couldn’t have been easy to find the time and resources to reach the level expected of new students. Her responsibilities on the farm and the remote location of the town all contributed to the challenge.
The egalitarian reasoning behind the grant program was not always so easy to accept. There had been plentiful allegations of the places being given to those who would have been more than capable of earning a spot without going through the grant system. Samantha was proof that at least one person was using it as intended and benefitting as a result.
Samantha took the chicken into the cellar. It had already been out in the open air for some time, so her Mother would have to make a judgement about what to do with it. When she surfaced, Max and Claude were already bickering about a new topic.
“It’s obvious that the police are going to be here today. The constables must have sent word after we spoke with them. That’s the whole reason they kept his death a secret in the first place.”
Claude scoffed, “They’ve done a terrible job at handling it so far.”
“Your Father’s in charge!”
“No, he isn’t. There are people higher than him who give the big orders!”
“And what do you propose we do about it, exactly? Stop throwing yourself into danger over and over again! Don’t you remember what happened at the theatre?”
Claude’s bravado came to an abrupt stop. His left hand touched the dull ache near the top of his leg, where the bullet shattered his pelvis and almost caused him to bleed to death. The aftereffects of that injury could still be felt.
“That’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m not proposing anything.”
“Then why bring it up? There’s nothing wrong with leaving all of this business to the professionals. Samantha’s family had a personal encounter with them and they found it incredibly dangerous.”
Samantha brought the debate to an end, “My Mum said that she wants us to find out where Dad got to. He’s been messing about in town for hours when he was meant to be back by now, and he took Ben with him. Let’s walk down the road and see if we can’t intercept him.”
Max grumbled, “Is that really safe?”
“They’ve all run off now that the news came out.”
And that was that. Claude and Max fell in line behind their fearless leader and joined her on the long dirt road that led through the outskirts of the town. There were few distinctive features out there, besides the large fields that weren’t quite ready to be planted in yet. After multiple trips to the city, Samantha appreciated the simplicity and peace of the countryside even more.
The walk remained uneventful until they crossed the bridge halfway to town. Over the hill arose the form of a horse-drawn cart. Samantha recognized it as their own, but as they drew closer and closer, she started to notice that something odd was happening.
Eugene was there in the driver’s seat with reins in hand – but there was also a stranger wearing a long cloak. Eugene’s face was indescribable. It was as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t. Samantha connected the dots. The cloaked person was holding an object close to his ribs.
It was too late to turn back now.
Three other people leapt from the back of the cart, all of them armed with guns. The trio skidded to a halt on the road, but there was nowhere to run. They were quickly surrounded and pushed towards the cart where Eugene and Ben were also being held captive.
“Move it!”
Claude and Max shared a weary glance. They didn’t even go looking for trouble, yet it somehow found them anyway. The gunmen forced them to clamber into the back. They remained silent, not wanting to incur the wrath of the cultists.
The man holding Eugene hostage laughed, “What are the odds? First, we find these two trundling down the road, and now we have the other problem child as well.”
“You sure these are the ones?” the other asked, poking Max’s knee with the barrel of his gun.
“Yeah. Frankie got the story from Charles when they were in the cells together. Said that this girl fried him good with some kinda’ magic.”
“So why don’t we just kill em’ and dump them in a field like that copper?”
“They’re sniffing around for that kinda’ thing! That’s why Hoffman nearly killed the idiot himself when he got back to the fort. I’m not sure what’s worse, being caught by the police or making Hoffman angry. If we’re going to kill ‘em, it’ll have to be somewhere private.”
The cart continued past the farm unabated. They were making a long detour, away from the centre of town and towards Spurbank Hill. The five who now found themselves at the whims of the Scuncath continued to keep their peace. None wished to say words that might provoke their now infamous violence.
The men continued to argue throughout the trip about how and when to kill their new hostages. There was little doubt left that they intended to retaliate against Eugene and Samantha for their part in the prior night’s events.
Samantha scowled. Her Dad couldn’t help but make a big deal out of it and relish in the attention, and now they knew exactly who he was because of it. She crossed her fingers and steadied her breathing. There was still time, and she wasn’t going to let her story end like this.
Durandia was counting on her.