Standing over the dead man ‘Tj’Chin’Ker was impressed by the power of the knives he had made from the boy's severed lower leg bones. Whatever ills the child had suffered before the amputations now served ‘Ker.

  While he would never be viewed as a great artist among his people, ‘Ker made more functional devices than most others might ever be able to coax from such scant materials. Every sickness the original owner had was now held in these smooth, white blades, these subtle tools; or, they should be, if ‘Ker had correctly made them. And he knew he had. ‘Tj’Chin’Ker knew he had been meticulous in their creation. And the state of this corpse was proof. The wreck they had made of this man. Any other day it might be a horror for 'Ker to see. But not here, and not now.

  "Is e draoidheachd cnaimh an draoidheachd as fhearr." His elder brother, the ever sour 'Dne, used to say this all the time, and then he would give an uncharacteristic smile. Almost a dirty smile, 'Ker had later learned. But, 'Tj'Chin'Ker would admit, as he just did now, "Bone Magic is the best magic."

  Or, at least it was when one had too many foes show up; otherwise 'Ker would have just preferred to have stayed home. Read a book. Maybe worked around the house, but he had ne been able to get his own way for two years now. ...THREE... it has been three years since she... his thoughts were cut off by a subtle scuffing noise behind him.

   The making, and using, of proper bone tools were an old magic. A potent magic. And 'Ker had been thankful he had done it correctly.

  Seeing the ruin that had become of this felled attacker gave him pause. The blade of the bone dagger came away too easily, wetly sliding out when pulled from pulped flesh surrounding the wound it had made in the man’s chest, and as ‘Ker watched, the torso of the tall man began to collapse under its own weight. The ribs and organs under then sliding and subsiding into a growing wet mass. The white shirt stained red, now running with yellows and greens far beyond the scope of the puncture; the sickness that small child had in him caused the men in that tower to remove his legs, and now this man had died with that same corruption hungrily gnawing away at his body. I owe those “doctors” and apology; amputation was all they could have done to save the boy, I doubt they have any magics, any medical tricks that would have stopped this rot…

  Never one to let go of perfectly good anger his mind raced on directly to… If they had, Gods damn them ALL, done it sooner, I would not have had to intervene on his behalf, maybe he would still be able to run…Odors worse than any charnel house now assaulted his nose. Green meat…rancid fats, and rotten-butter-in-the-sun stench… closely followed by the open sewer miasma of severed bowels…good luck to whoever has to clean this mess, I doubt the street curs, and carrion eaters will touch this pile...

  As he cleaned the long ivory edge on the dead man’s pant leg, ‘Ker looked at the small object he had taken from the man, and now still held. Matte black, the machine reflected no light, but ‘Ker knew it was mostly made from metals. The weight was wrong for anything else, he knew. Reaching cautiously for the dark thing, he stretched his awareness to the “crack” sounding weapon, ready for whatever spells might have been placed on the little death dealing thing. He thought it might have been some new kind of sling, throwing stones farther and harder than any he had seen before. Before his hand touched the surface of the bent black metal shaft, the smell caught him off guard. He could sense carbon, niter, sulfur, and some other, less readily identifiable stinks coming from the brutal little thing. Chemicals that made a distinct, burned urine scent.

  Pulling back his hand, he gave the object a speculative look as he sat there on his haunches. The peoples of Cathay used such chemistry to make bright light shows, and loud crackling, snapping, popping toys. They also blew each other to thin pasty bits on a regular basis mixing together those same stinking ingredients. Only a fool would approach such a thing without being wary, he knew. ‘Ker had seen the man pull the sable metal thing from a pocket, and wondered at what madness would make a person put explosives so near their own groin.

  ‘Ker thought he had the beginnings of an idea as to the workings of the fell contraption. His eyes and mind were playing across the surface of the thing when he caught a strange motion in the corner of his eye, and stood quickly as his NurzEllen and the dwarf were taken by more of the snowy clad attackers. ‘Ker knew the men in white would be back. And he even knew they would bring more of the loud, cracking, banging, slug throwing weapons with them in their larger numbers; he just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Moron! Oh, you’ll die from that one day…life depends on you not relying on expectations…ESPECIALLY your own...!

  As he watched, one of the men, the one now roughly holding NurzEllen stepped toward him, and shouted for his surrender. It was a very sporting idea. It offered him an honorable death, dying to save those who had helped him. Dying for friends. It reeked of nobility, in fact.

  That's a horrible idea. He thought.

  'Tj'Chin'Ker had never had much use for nobility, not when a good kick from an unexpected side would work much better. Shaking you executioner’s hand might show you’re a good sport, but ripping that hand off to beat the man to death with it was a method with which he could live.

  Singing out what he thought was a passable goodbye in this “Anglo-ish” the people here favored. Honestly, it doesn’t sound that much like what I remember the Angles spoke… or the Saxons…I thought those uppity brutes would have been killed off by now, or died of their own stupidity…but here I am, learning this new Anglo speech, and running from men from Kemet! When were they allowed to wander freely on these shores? The Dancer would never allow that, for fuck's sake…is he dead?

  It was a sobering thought, the Dancer’s death. Legends said he couldn’t die. His mission from Father relied on that fact. The ‘Tj’Chin’Ker, the FIRST ‘Tj’Chin’Ker, after whom he had been named was now needed badly by The People...by his people, he couldn’t be dead. At least, 'Ker hoped he could be dead.

  A bullet bouncing off and along the bricks near his head jarred him from such defeatist thought. He inhaled deeply, and exhaled and old word, along with a pulsing of his own Willpower, now infused with a bit of his anger, and his life's energy. The shadows around him slowly moved. The darkness pulsed, and he turned calmly to look at the men now gathering to kill him.

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  He knew they had their monstrous pellet throwers trained on him, but he now had so much shadowy darkness gathered about his body that he was certain that they couldn't actually see him where he now stood.

  'Ker listened to the bluster of the man in white who he guessed was their leader. The man obviously loved to hear himself yammer, as he rained invective and some bizarre, Solar God based Holy Writ down upon 'Ker's head in equal measure.

  With a quick chirp he hoped would insult and confuse the idiots, 'Ker jumped back and to the side, spinning toward the deeper shadows from which he had pulled his temporary cover, dashing off at as fast a pace as he could move, around the corner and down the alley.

  Racing off, he heard the man holding NurzEllen scream for his fellows to give chase. And without missing a beat, they did just that. Between one step and the next he could feel the vibrations of their shoes on the strange street surface over which he now ran. While the men pursuing him had much longer legs, they lacked both ‘Ker’s innate strength, and his inspiration; they gained no ground on him, though they did run quite fast. ‘Ker even found to his delight, his distance from them increased a few hand widths with each stride.

  As he streaked through the dark passages, ‘Ker sought a viable plan. While leaving NurzEllen and the H’Aghram alone with his attackers was not the choice he wanted, it was the one choice he knew he had made correctly. Even the old human generals of past eras knew you couldn't effectively wield the power of "hostages" over a foes who was not there to threaten. And their leader now did exactly as ‘Ker had hoped he might. When they are divided, I might fell them like tall weeds and at my leisure. Hey, that’s catchy… he thought. While running as hard as he could, ‘Ker noticed the sheer bulk of trash strewn in his path. An idea skittered about in his thoughts as it finally came to the fore, and grabbed at his attention.

  Passing a pair of obviously destitute peasants, rooting in trash bins, their legs extended behind them as the dug through the middens, ‘Ker stooped to tear both shoes from the feet of the smaller one, who wore the image of a dancing purple bear, wearing a kilt of some kind, on the back of her coat.

  The screeching howl that accompanied that act was pitched high enough that it told 'Ker this was a woman, not a man. The stench of the two of them almost gave him pause, but the sounds of pursuit hurried him along. With a twist of his nimble fingers and a flip of his wrists he extracted the laces from the poor woman’s footwear and was off again in a flash, tossing the rotting boots back to the still now stumbling, yelling woman. From behind him, he could hear the man trying to calm her down, as she hooped after 'Ker, her feet rebelling at touching the near frozen slush on the street.

  "FAK! Alan, those'er mah bes' trainers!"

  "Liz, calm doo..."

  A flurry of bullets whizzed past his right ear as he ran, and several meaty thumps sounded from back where the irate couple had been yelling in the wet alley.

  "Alan" never got the chance to calm his lady love, Liz, down, at least not in this world.

  Braiding while running, 'Ker on occasion reached out for other items as the alley walls sped past. His pursuers must have been following the noises he made as he stripped the items he needed from his surroundings while zigzagging between buildings in the neighborhood. Turning left and right at random as some shiny objects caught his eye, and gave him hope.

  On the opposite side of the great tower, 'Ker was surprised to see a wide open, brightly lit and gaping maw of an entrance. Several white painted carriages sat around this bold and blazingly lit entrance, many with red and blue geometric designs picked out on bright white surfaces. 'Tj'Chin'Ker sped past this hell of blazing lights and noise, wondering if the activity here, now, was related to the mess he had just left, and to which he was now rounding the building to approach from the far side. This tower keep was a larger thing than any broch he had ever seen in his old homeland of his youth. It was a marvel, all on its own.

  'Ker let an excited, and slightly manic edged "EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeee...!" escape his lips as he danced past this other entrance.

  A heavy, curved spring of steel from beside a long abandoned, broken down cart someone had put up on blocks to repair the wheels he guessed, some leather cut from the sleeve of drunken rambler’s coat who sang and rang a bell beside an improbable cauldron NOT hanging over a fire, several of the tall, thin, whippy sticks holding up shiny reflecting plates at the corners of a cart way entrance to the understory of an absolutely huge brick building.

  While many of these things had strange and unfamiliar uses, ‘Ker had no idea that an automobile was anything beyond an extravagant waste of metal; but he knew what was usable when he saw it. He even found a few bottle caps that, once he bent them in half and tied them into place, ‘Ker dragged them along the wall to both sharpen them and to keep his enemies aware of where he might be headed. It was all taken on the run, improvised as he went along, and built on the fly; even pigeon feathers from an unfortunate bird ‘Ker had snatched up and stuffed in his pocket for a quick meal later, had their place in his hastily made plans.

  As he rounded what he expected was a corner very near to where he had left NurzEllen and the dwarf, he turned around. Skidding to a stop, 'Ker then took careful aim as he breathed heavily around a huge grin. It took longer than he expected for them to catch up with ‘Ker; thinking quickly, his foot lashed out to kick some debris in the alley. From a distance he could hear the renewed effort of rapidly approaching feet. ‘Tj’Chin’Ker’s smile turned nasty as he drew his right hand back to his ear and waited.

  When the first man to round the corner saw his quarry, he had just enough time to wonder where the little man had gotten such a funny looking device before the first slender, long spear went through his right eye and continued further into his brain, to shatter as it struck the gently curved back wall of his skull.

  The second, slower man to turn that same corner a moment later caught his own spear through his chest, and into his heart as he stopped to stare down at his felled compatriot. The spear tip had not been as sharp as the one embedded in his coworker's skull, the wound it made not nearly as neat and tidy. The path it had cut was, however, just as definite.

  ‘Ker watched as the man began to slump at his friend’s side, and wondered why someone obviously trained to kill had stopped to stare uncomprehendingly at a dead body. Curiosity is costly…some days more so than others… standing over the dying man, ‘Ker saw and recognized the sun-in-eye shaped pendant that hung from his neck.

  ‘Tj’Chin’Ker now knew who was his real enemy tonight. Looking down into the light that was quickly fading from his eyes ‘Ker said very carefully, in Latin, because he had never learned Kemet, “You die at night, far from your God’s light. The Sun will not see your death, and your soul will go into the abyss.”

  A slow smile edged the corners of ‘Ker’s mouth as the man gasped in fear, his eyes widening before his soul’s slipped off into whatever awaited it on the other side of life.

  Oh, 'Ker was certain who had sent these men to harry his flanks. These jackals were old prey of the 'Tj'Shea. The Dancer had decreed, and the Father and the Mother had seen His word obeyed.

  Ra's priests were not allowed in the lands held by the 'Tj'Shea. With the People having been gone for so long, maybe the old Sun God thought this land was his now?

  'Tj'Chin'Ker smiled as he turned toward the end of the alley, to where the last few priests still would be holding his NurzEllen.   To where the fun would be.