Deadly Wands
SUMMARY: Billy’s parents hid his unique powers as if his life depended on it. Used for flight and firepower, wands give their owners great power, and Billy has the best. So when ambitious rulers murder his parents, the orphan leads his friends in an epic war against an oppressive empire that seeks to conquer the other half of the world. Ready to die for liberty, can he bear to see his friends die, too?
NOTE TO READERS: This is not a kid’s book like Harry Potter. It has many fights, duels, and large-scale battles. The themes are appropriate for teenagers and adults. The wands are not magical; they shoot fireballs, project steel, and empower flight, resulting in massive aerial battles.
DEDICATION: I dedicate this novel to my beautiful wife Liz and our two wonderful sons, Brian and Lucas.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The son of a magazine editor, Brent Reilly wrote the asteroid-impact novel Regolith, has a master's degree in counseling, and builds oceanfront condos in the Caribbean island of San Andres. You may reach him at BrentJReilly@gmail.com.
Copyright © 2011 by the author, Brent Reilly.
Published by Smashwords for Brent Reilly
This story is fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental. All rights are reserved. Except for book reviews, no more than four paragraphs can be reproduced without written permission from the author.
CHAPTER 1
A wand bristling with power in each hand, Lady Elizabeth finished putting her body armor, battle helmet, and game face on. A birthday present from her father, her new wands blew away anything she had ever known, and must have cost a bloody fortune. Certainly she never would have attempted her plans for the day without them. Savoring the raw energy flowing up her arms, she forced herself to put aside all doubt, regret, and mercy. She could not afford mercy. Not today.
The beautiful blond sixteen year old placed her old wands in slots in her boots and used them to propel her a meter into the air. She flew around the room, careful not to impale herself on the assortment of weapons hung on the walls. Never had she felt so powerful. Hovering in the center of the room, she arched her back and with a yell flung her arms wide as flames erupted five meters out of each wand, which made them twice as strong as her old ones. She felt strangely comforted by the terribleness of her primal scream.
Her childhood taken away by the kiss of the most horrible man she knew, she could now barely relate to the innocent little girl she was the day before. If she could just smash the guy waiting for her in the dueling arena, then maybe she could escape her arranged marriage after all.
With a flick of her wand the thick oak door flung open. She flew down the hall, letting her fury feed a newfound aggressiveness. A handsome man in expensive armor waited for her in the arena, wands in hand.
"Congratulations, little girl. I hear you're marrying the Mongolian ambassador."
Nothing he could have said could have infuriated her more. Eager to surprise him with her new wands, she flew at him at a 45 degree angle, firing a series of powerful blasts that forced him to flight. Instead of flying in a straight line -- suicidal in battle -- she alternated between her left and right boot wands to zigzag unpredictably. A combat veteran, he knew from the sound of her blasts that she upgraded her wands -- the louder the wand, the more powerful the blast and the faster it traveled. That made it harder to deflect or avoid.
He went for height, using all four wands to shoot straight up. As she blasted the path ahead of him, he zagged diagonally using one hand wand while firing back with the other. She chased him up, out into the bright sunlight. Unlike a real dueling arena, no stadium seating surrounded the high circular walls. Aside from a castle over the hill, they were all alone as their blasts echoed over the green English hillside. As she closed the distance, eager to finish the fight before he adapted to her new wands, strong winds from a coming storm pushed them around.
One hundred meters above ground, they used their wands to extend swords once they closed within five meters. The steel weighed literally nothing, so speed mattered more than strength. Because each wielded long, weightless blades, the whirlwind battle made it impossible to avoid glancing blows struck at lightning speed -- a disadvantage to the fighter with inferior armor. Unlike sword fights on the ground, each sought to surge above or below their opponent, like cats tumbling down a hill. Fighting while flying is inherently exhausting -- especially wearing heavy armor -- so winners were more often those with greater endurance than greater skill.
The force of a strong blow knocked the girl back far enough for him to shoot her with both wands. Instinctively she use one hand wand to propel her down in time to avoid the heat while blasting his exposed feet. Pain interrupted his ability to concentrate, throwing him in an uncontrolled freefall. Elizabeth flew after him to end this once and for all.
He fought through the pain to regain control over his wands in time to end his freefall. But she remained close enough to smack him with all her might, sending him sprawling in the arena dirt. She blasted each side of him, excavating small craters and smothering him in a dust cloud. She found him coughing and screaming, beating the flames burning the clothes under his body armor. Dueling without body armor is suicidal, but that didn't make taking it off fast, easy, or simple. With the smell of burning flesh making her nauseous, she used a wand to lift and dump his burning body into a bathtub-size container of water that every arena kept available for just this purpose. The burning stopped with an audible sizzle sound. Her teacher's relief proved short-lived as he attacked her verbally.
"Are you trying to kill me?"
An ironic accusation given his most frequent criticism was she lacked the killer instinct necessary to survive battles, much less win them. Burning up herself, she took a minute to take her helmet and body armor off while he did the same to inspect his burns.
"Uncle George, that monster actually kissed me this morning. On the lips!"
"You mean the ambassador? Mother probably suggested it. We just got word the Mongolian government finally approved the treaty, on the condition that you consummate the marriage and produce a male heir to the English throne. I imagine Ambassador Tamerlane is eager to start."
Lady Elizabeth was the only legitimate child of Prince Richard, the Royal Heir. Her grandmother, Queen Margaret, desperately needed the leverage that an alliance with the Mongolian Empire would bring to complete the conquest of Ireland, her lifelong dream. And to protect England from Mongolia itself. No small consideration.
The discovery of wands in China in the 12th century completely transformed human civilization. Or, more specifically, thousands of wands in the hands of Genghis Khan's Mongol horde completely transformed human civilization. Handcrafted from sacred trees thousands of years old, the more powerful wands made flight possible, allowing the Mongolian Air Force to pound defenseless ground troops armed with swords, spears, and arrows. Genghis Khan conquered central Asia, China and Korea in his first century, India the second century, and most of Europe the third. Only by developing their own air force did the Europeans stop the Mongols from conquering the world.
As it was, the Mongols controlled all of Europe except the Scandinavian kingdoms, the islands of England, Ireland, and Iceland, the westernmost quarter of France, and most of Spain. A thousand Mongols employed a million allies who enslaved millions of Africans to mine precious rocks and minerals throughout Africa. Aside from the Americas, only the islands of Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Hainan, Indonesia and its neighbors remained outside of Mongolian control.
General Tamerlane, in particular, repulsed Lady Elizabeth for his history of building pyramids with the skulls of those who resisted him. Delhi alone contributed 100,000 heads to one pile. Genghis Khan started the tradition three hundred years ago by piling the heads of men, women, and children into separate piles. Critics claimed General Tamerlane killed 17 million people. Being a two hundred year old condescending jerk did not add to his personal charm. Just the thought of him touching her made Liz physically sick. Her first thought was to kill herself. Her second was to flee.
"I will not give the English crown to a descendent of Genghis Khan," Liz vowed fiercely, even though that king would be her son. "Plus, the treaty will give the Mongolian Air Force bases in England to launch attacks on Free Europe and the Americas. France and Spain are all we have left between us and them. Opening a new front would quickly destroy all organized resistance in Europe."
Prince George dumped his chest plate on the ground, took off what remained of his shirt, and got out of the dumping pool. Water pooling at his feet, he inspected his wands for water damage, cursing softly.
"Why do you think I'm recruiting another thousand English flyers to fight for France. We're risking our lives without pay or the thanks of our country. But you know the Mongols desperately need this treaty. How do you expect to escape from the greatest empire in human history?"
She let that sink in, before concluding: "I hope to have a child before they kill me. I'll pray for a quad, a powerful quad, who will scare even the Mongols."
"The treaty guarantees that mother remains queen for life, but it does not guarantee that your father will succeed her. I've already told him that the Mongols will insist that our Mongol-loving brother John replace her. He's the force behind this odious treaty. He has always been jealous that he never became a quad like us."
In a typical population, only 10% can use wands to light fires or move furniture. Only 10% of those are powerful enough to kill. Of those, only 10% can use two hand wands at once, and only 10% of them can use foot wands to fly. Since only 1 out of 10,000 people can use four wands at once (i.e., quads), everyone wanted to mate with them.
Three centuries ago, the rich and powerful were no more likely to have wand capabilities than the poor. After three centuries of selective breeding, quads now ruled every major kingdom in the world. Those not led by powerful quads were killed and replaced by powerful quads.
Genghis Khan himself, the most powerful quad in human history, able to produce a flame 12 meters long, deliberately impregnated as many Mongol and allied quad women as possible. The thousands of children he bred with other quads formed the elite troops that enabled the Empire to keep expanding. Rumor said the Great Immortal already produced a million descendents.
When Prince Richard’s powers bloomed at puberty, Queen Margaret offered a generous stipend to any English quad who reproduced with her first-born. The irony of Elizabeth being the Royal Heir's only legitimate heir is that she had a few hundred half-siblings -- some old enough to be her father.
But mating with a fellow quad only increased the odds of producing quad children. It did not guarantee it. The power so generously given Prince Richard skipped Prince John, only to bless the third son, George. Deeply religious, John assumed he somehow offended God to be denied a crucial power given both of his brothers. He repented, built churches, and preached with the passion of a convert. Only to discover that George was gay. That was the last straw. His twisted mind remained locked in punitive mode ever since.
John tried to get the Mongols to marry one of his sons, with their offspring becoming king, but the oldest, Aidian, had already married a powerful English quad, and John's only other quad son was still a child. The ambassador scoured the royal family, and concluded that Lady Elizabeth would produce the most acceptable heirs to the throne.
"People would prefer you to John -- at least you're not a wussy," Liz added, as John was useless in battle. "So he must be doing all this so Aidian becomes king."
"Let me see your wands," George insisted, holding up her hands. "Richie gave you grandfather's sticks! No wonder your blasts are so strong. These make you more powerful than Aidian. Mother will demand them back once she finds out. Regardless that grandfather gave them to Richie after he won the national dueling championship."
"I'd rather die than help the Mongols finish conquering Europe." She gave her uncle big puppy eyes. "Let me fly with you to France. I'd rather die fighting there than live dropping Mongolian babies here."
George groaned. And not because of his burns. A great side effect of using a powerful wand was its ability to cure. Quads rarely became sick, and healed quickly when wounded. The burns covering his body were already changing color as he sucked power out of his wands and directed them to his injuries. Wands also extended a natural lifespan, and the more powerful the wands, the longer they extended life.
"I can't do that. The fighters will work without pay or thanks, but not if the Queen forbids it. Even if she didn't punish them, few would risk crossing my vindictive brother. No, the only way I can raise enough fliers is if you are not one of them."
"I'll just go alone. The French are desperate for quads."
"Then we won't be able to go. Mother will assume I am helping you, and no one will risk going with me if I'm pissing off the queen."
In anguish she turned and started punching blast-holes in the stone walls. She didn't know how long she did this, but she found herself flying ten meters in the air and dozens of chunks blasted out of the walls when she finished.
"Well, can you at least loan me money? I'll have to try Spain or Africa."
"Liz, I'm broke. I'm financing much of this operation out of my own pocket since the Royal Treasury sure as hell can't have anything to do with it."
"But you're making tons of money making longbows!" At ground level, most wands lose effectiveness beyond one hundred meters, while his two-meter-tall longbows offered twice the range.
"I was. The last year was the most profitable of my life. But then some longshoremen mistook William, my business partner, for a Mongol and tried to teach him a lesson. He killed one and injured several others who had no idea he was a quad."
"You never told me he was a quad!"
"I never knew he was a quad. He only used hand wands in my presence. But it gets worse. He fought in self-defense, so nothing should have come of it, but he projected blades six meters long. That makes him among the most powerful in the country. Everyone wants to know where he got his wands, and why he hid their power. Who the hell hides their power for two years? He must be a veteran to fight like that.
“Anyways, someone used their wand to record the fight, and you know how these things spread from wand to wand. Pretty soon John got a copy and ordered Will's arrest just to put me out of business. Which he did. None of his apprentices could replace him, forcing me to close shop. That's why I'm free to return to France so soon."
"I remember you speaking highly of him," she nudged him.
"Oh, he's great. He is an engineer by choice, but he thinks of himself as an inventor and innovator. Sure, he's secretive and paranoid, but he has enough fancy ideas to last a lifetime."
"Is he a good man?" she asked quietly.
Silence. No longer able to concentrate on healing himself, George opened his eyes and examined his favorite niece. "Ah, crap. You want to fly away with him."
"Well, I can't live in the Mongol Empire, and much of the rest of the world is a war zone. A lone girl will not survive long. If he's a powerful quad who needs to flee England, then fleeing with him doubles my chances of survival. Will you at least introduce us?"
George held up his hands and physically backed away from her. "That would jeopardize my ability to help France. No, if you do this, I need to be seen elsewhere. However, you can bring him his money and personal belongings. He's hiding at my lake cabin near Edinburgh, where I took you fishing when you were just a little kid."
She laughed at that since they went fishing there just last week. Finally, she was no longer a little kid. If she could get her own stuff without raising suspicions, then they could be out of her grandmother's reach very soon.
"Please tell me you haven't shagged him!" she suddenly demanded, since that's what he used the cabin for.
"Liz!" he shouted, properly scandalized. "How can you even think such a thing?"
"Because you are handsome, charming, and persistent. So tell me the truth."
He shook his head. "No, we never had sex."
"But you tried."
Now he laughed. "His paranoia doesn't let him drink enough. That guy never lets his guard down. I thought I had a chance since he never visited the local prostitutes, as far as gossipy servants could tell. I've had more success with monks."
The strength of her relief surprised her. She didn't even realized she had been holding her breath.
"We're not gonna get far without money, though. I can hock my jewelry, but that takes time."
George suddenly laughed. "I know where you can get money. From your evil uncle. John has been skimming off government revenues ever since he talked his way into mother's confidence. That's how he's been able to buy all those properties at a time when the queen keeps raising taxes to fund the conquest of Ireland. I even know where: in that old vault in his castle keep."
"But how can I get to it?"
"It was built before wands were discovered, so the vault is high in the keep tower where it could be easily defended and hard to remove. Just hover near the top and loosen the mortared stones around the arrow slits."
The prospect of sticking it to that bastard John made up her mind. She blamed him for the treaty, and therefore for her arranged marriage to that odious man. She looked at the position of the Sun.
"I've got to go!”
She hugged him hard, tossed her armor into her backpack, then flew home to get her stuff. The forgotten uncle she left behind cried alone.
CHAPTER 2
The lake reflected the last twilight of the setting sun as William finished peeing against a tree downwind of the cabin. No one enjoys walking in the dark, so William took care of business while he had some light left. As a cool breeze rustled the leaves above, he sensed someone land softly behind him. Assuming a threat, he whirled around and cut the air as far as his steel could reach while he prepared to blast with his other wand.
Poor Lady Elizabeth had the wit to duck under the deadly blade while her hands held large travel bags instead of wands. Not wanting to die, today of all days, she quickly shouted out:
"George sent me! William, I brought your stuff from his castle."
The sight of a beautiful blond, all alone, stunned William. Never a talker, he instinctively scanned the skies.
"No one followed me," the girl assured him. "I flew as high as possible and from cloud to cloud to avoid being seen. And only George knows I am here. I am sorry to surprise you, but these things weigh a ton. George could not come himself, and I was the only one he could trust with your life," she added to give herself leverage.
He could not see anyone else, and they would have attacked while she distracted him.
"Wow!" she exclaimed, examining the distance between them. "You put out a solid seven meters of steel. I doubt there's a dozen quads in the country that can beat that. You’re a damn super-quad!"
He tried not to let the flattery affect him. "Hey, I know you. George showed you my factory despite my specifically forbidding tours."
His sword disappeared back into his wand, although he kept both ready. She stood up and took off her backpack, cloak, and the helmet that protected her eyes and ears when flying fast.
"I am his niece, Lady Elizabeth. My father is Prince Richard. Because I am his only legitimate child, some refer to me as the heir to the heir." And, with that, she bowed to throw her hair over her face, then threw her head back because she knew guys really liked that. She ended up with one foot forward and her hands on her hips, trying to look as sexy as possible. He saw threw it, of course.
"Nice try, lady, but that won't work with me," he said with a smile, genuinely liking her.
"It looks like it already has," she said, gesturing towards his semi-hard penis. "You were taking so long that I was not sure if you were peeing or masturbating. George mentioned that you don't go out much."
Red faced, William turned around, exposing his vulnerable back, despite his paranoid instincts, to tuck himself back in. He hid behind the tree to recover his composure.
"Thanks for bringing my stuff. You can go now."
"Oh, because it's hard to navigate at night, Uncle George let me spend the night at his cabin."
She heard a groan from behind the tree.
"It's okay," she assured him. "Until my foot wands started working at puberty, they trained me as a healer, so I've seen naked men before." The last part being a total lie. She laughed gaily to put him at ease. She needed him before, but wanted him now. So she changed the subject by opening his bag.
"George paid what he says he owed you. I found three other small bags hidden in your room."
"I can't believe you found three out of the four! You are thorough." He reset his wands in their arm sockets and walked over to rifle through his stuff. "You brought my small tools!" he said excitedly. "Oh, thank you. I need these to maintain my wand launchers."
He seemed as happy as if she dropped him a ton of gold.
Making herself at home, she folded up his sleeves to examine the launchers. Leather and small wires held each wand in place on the underside of each arm. She caressed his arms as she studied them. "Then this must launch them," she concluded, pushing against a lever that caused the wand to spring into his open hand. "That's bloody brilliant!" Now virtually in his arms, Elizabeth gazed into his eyes, huge respect lighting up her face. "No wonder George praised you so much."
Suddenly uncomfortable, William backed away. "Won't they look for you?"
"They think I’m with Uncle George, which will give me time to flee the country."
"You're not going back?" he asked, astonished.
"I can't. I'm sure you've heard about the treaty with the Mongol Empire. Well, the Mongols will only accept the terms grandma insists on if I marry the Mongolian ambassador so the English crown passes to one of our sons. But if I marry him, then the Mongols get to establish air bases, which they will use to attack Free Europe from the rear. I cannot be a part of that, so I need to flee to prevent the treaty. The Mongol Empire will try to punish me, but don't worry. After tomorrow I won't endanger you further."
Having sized him up, she realized that she could not ask him to take care of her; he must volunteer to act the part of the hero, saving the damsel from danger.
With that she used her wands to lift her bag and backpack and move them into the cabin. Enjoying the view of her from behind, he did the same. Inside she looked at the only bed and tried not to think of all the guys her uncle had sex with there. She turned to William once he dumped his bag.
"My Uncle John is the one pursuing you. Without him, you and George would still be in business. He is also the one behind the treaty, so we both need to flee England because of him. He has been skimming tax revenues and hiding them in a vault at Castle Edinburgh. During his son's wedding a few years ago, I got to know the area pretty well. But it will take two fliers. If we go late at night, no one may even notice us. If they do, the only quad is my first cousin Aidian, and I'll take care of him."
Will considered it. "We can't run away together. The Mongolian intelligence service is after me. Being with me will only unnecessarily endanger you. You will be safer without me."
"A lone woman is not safe anywhere. I can shoot five-meter-long flames, but doing so will attract the very attention I need to avoid. If I fight back and lose, I am gang-raped; if I win, my identify and cover story will be investigated. Either way, I am screwed. If I am returned alive, the queen will make me marry that horrible man who built pyramids of skulls, and the Mongols will soon control all of Europe. If we flee together, then we can at least pass ourselves off as a married couple."
"You're just a girl. How will you pass as my wife?"
And there is was. The moment of truth. Liz both looked forward to and dreaded this opportunity. She rehearsed the script she wrote in her head and hoped it sounded natural.
"I have a related concern. I would rather die than marry that monster and give the Mongols a plausibly heir to the English throne. Not being a virgin would help, being with child would help even more, but being married with child would be best. They cannot marry me if I am already married, and a legitimate son would have greater claim than a younger, half-Mongolian bastard brother."
Stunned, he sat on the bed, which put her wonderful breasts at eye level. It impressed him how much thought she put into this. "How could you plan all this before even meeting me? What if I was an ogre, an idiot, or a birk?"
"I saw those machines you made to mass-produce the parts for the longbow, so you're no dummy. George likes and respects you, and no one is a better judge of character. You could be married, but after two years here alone you are more likely to be a widow. You are not gay or George would have had his way with you. And you could not be too ugly or George would not have tried to have his way with you." They both laughed at that. "Honestly, though, I assumed you were much older because he said you must be a veteran, given the way you beat those longshoremen. But you are not old. Not at all. In fact, I'd say your age is perfect for me."
"You've decided to marry me in just the few minutes you've known me?" Excessively cautious, Will couldn't imagine doing something so important so spontaneously.
"Well," she replied with a sly smile, "seeing your penis helped."
Now they both laughed comfortably together.
"But you don't know anything about me, while I could trace your ancestry back centuries."
"Are you a good, decent man?" she asked softly, afraid of the answer.
"I think so. I hold myself to high moral standards. Which is why I have dedicated my life to reducing the Mongolian Empire. If alive, I believe my parents and grandparents would approve of me and everything that I have done. Although, if she could see us now, my grandma would be laughing her ass off."
"You are an orphan?"
"Everyone related to me is dead. And I, too, can trace my lineage back centuries."
That shocked her. "How can you have no family?" Her family, in contrast, numbered in the thousands.
"Before you marry me, you should know that for three hundred years my family has dedicated itself to burning the ancient trees that the Mongolians need to arm their military. Killing Mongolian troops isn’t enough because they control half of the world's population. They can replace troops far easier than wands. The Mongols don't have the largest military they can afford; they have the largest military they can arm.
“The older the tree, the stronger the wand. Trees less than a thousand years old can barely spark a fire. The fewer ancient trees within the Mongol Empire, the fewer troops they can arm with wands. My father's best guess is that we deprived the Mongolians of several million wands. With those wands, Genghis Khan would have conquered the world long ago."
"That's bloody brilliant!" And it was. Once Mongols rolled over the Jin Dynasty of northern China, everyone wanted ancient trees to make powerful wands. But Genghis Khan already identified huge forests of them in Siberia and assigned an army of craftsmen to make as many as possible. He conquered so much so fast because he had more wands, better wands, and an air force trained to maximize their unique abilities. Burning those forests would give the rest of the world time to catch up. "Since I probably won't live long anyways, I would love to spend the rest of my life doing something far more effective than killing Mongols one by one."
He just told a total stranger his darkest secret, and she thought it brilliant.
"Well, it's a lot more dangerous than it used to be. They guard their remaining trees. My parents and both sets of my grandparents died burning ancient forests. The trick is to burn them after a long drought or dry season. I have to fly higher, farther, and faster than the guys chasing me, so I've mastered meditation to lower my breathing to fly higher. Because there's less wind resistance higher up, you can fly faster the higher you go, which means the farther you can travel before exhaustion. I can fly over a thousand kilometers when most quads are lucky to fly half that. Though having powerful wands helps."
Better wands meant faster flying.
"I can slow my breathing down, I have excellent wands, and two quads could burn twice as many trees. So, to accomplish your family’s mission, we should join together."
With that, she quickly and inexpertly removed her clothing. To not give him time to over-think, she then undressed him as well. Now revealed in all his glory, ignorance paralyzed her.
"Now what do I do?" she asked him, her eyes fixed on his erect pole.
"You could sit on it," he suggested.
Liz avoided eye contact, nervous as hell. "Okay."
Something about the expression on her face struck his heart like Cupid's arrow. Through trial and error, she worked her way down, only to have an intense sensation overwhelm her. Shaking with terror mixed with bliss, she screamed, "what the hell was that?"
"That was an orgasm."
She stared into space a moment, then tilted her head, before exploding: "That lying bitch!"
"Focus, Elizabeth, focus. Would you like another? You may enjoy it more, now that you know what to expect."
"Another?" She didn't know whether to believe him. "I can really have another?" That just seemed too good to be true, and it was her experience that anything that good was denied her.
He grinned and started moving his hips. She groaned and closed her eyes. Liz stuck her hands on his chest to steady herself so she could focus on this whole "orgasm" thing. All too soon her groans turned to moans which were replaced with uncontrolled screams as her whole body shook. Will couldn't believe his luck: a young beauty who orgasms easily and repeatedly. If she could cook, he was getting the whole package. If the mightiest empire in human history was not trying to punish her, she would have been perfect.
After hours of the most epic sex in his life, William lay transfixed by the woman sleeping naked in his arms. The thought of marrying anyone, given his chosen profession of burning well-protected trees, had always seemed a fantasy at best, and an irresponsible selfish act at worst. His parent’s deaths traumatized him. Yet he could protect Free Europe simply by marrying and impregnating the queen's delicious granddaughter. His parents would sure as hell approve. His grandma would blast him for thinking twice about it.
CHAPTER 3
From the city of Edinburgh, the castle built upon a high volcanic outcropping dominated the skyline. Sheer cliffs to the north and south, and a steep ascent from the west, meant the castle only had to defend itself from the east. A six-ton siege cannon called Mons Meg, built in 1449, could hit targets two Scottish miles away. Which included much of the city itself.
"I can see why your uncle would store his money there," William commented.
Indeed, the place looked impregnable. First fortified by the legendary Briton King Ebraucus 2500 years before, who had fifty children by twenty women. Ebraucus' father killed his brother, ruled as a tyrant for twenty years, then, like the Roman dictator Sulla, abandoned his family to pursue sodomy.
"The vault lies in David's Tower in the middle of the castle, near St. Margaret's Chapel, who died there in 1093. John married into Scottish royalty specifically so his family could live in the castle palace. All we have to do is remove some blocks around the arrow slit where the vault lies, fill up the backpacks, then fly away."
Yeah, like it would be as easy as it could be.
To lighten their load, they hid everything, including their heavy armor, in the tallest tree near their next stop. Hopefully their improved maneuverability would more than compensate for lack of armor if this turned into a fight.
"Well," William added, "we don't have all night."
Liz smiled, since it would be dawn in a few hours. Hopefully her hard-drinking cousins were deep asleep.
They flew in from the north, where they had a clear view of the arrow slit they needed to widen. After hovering below the rim of the wall to locate the sentries, each knocked out a guard. After spending a minute to look for anyone else, they hovered around the arrow slit, each using a blade to slice into the mortar that bound each block. Despite working together, it still took several exhausting minutes to remove enough to slip in. Furniture still blocked the way in and Liz, in her haste, simply pushed it over, causing a loud crash. The wealth stunned them. Liz recorded it with her wand so all of England would learn of her uncle’s swindling. Each then filled up a backpack, starting with the gold and small precious jewels.
A few minutes later they heard someone yelling. A moment later, a uniformed guard flew to the opening and saw the wand-torches. Liz immediately used a blunt blade like a hammer to smash him in his helmet, but he used a wand to sound an alarm as he fell down. The high piercing noise echoed over the castle.
William assumed they would leave at once, but Liz kept filling her backpack without ever glancing at the hole in the tower. Until a quad started blasting them. He knew it had to be a quad because those who can only use hand wands cannot fire and hover at the same time. They can fire in a controlled fall, but that requires altitude. This guy fired too fast for that.
"That's an idiot, so it must be my cousin," Liz informed him. "He's Keeper of the Castle, so it's his hide if we get away." She seemed remarkably calm given the partial blasts coming in. A blast widens over time, so the farther away, the more it disperses and the less lethal it becomes. Firing closer in would have ensured that the core of the blasts entered the hole. "The coward could have killed us if he fired from the hole. Here, let me buy us some time." She tapped her wand to her vocal cords to multiply her voice. "Aidian," she yelled out.
They hurried as the blasts stopped.
"I know that voice. Who are you?" Aidian shouted back.
Instead of answering, she worked until they started shooting again.
"What's grandma gonna do when she learns how much you stole from her?" she finally replied.
"Identify yourself!" he screamed.
"You even have the pendant, ring, and necklace that her mother left her."
Blasts from a few dozen wands now struck them, but they were too far away to seriously hurt them.
"They're lined up along the rampart," she guessed, getting up after getting knocked down. "We'll escape south, then. Here, help me with my backpack. It's heavier than I thought."
Even with her back against the wall to support the weight, she still could barely stay upright. "How do fliers carry more than their weight?" she asked in disbelief.
"You can carrying more flying than walking," William answered.
"Aidian," she called out to stop the firing. "My unborn son will be king before you and yours."
"Elizabeth?" he asked in stunned disbelief. "What the hell are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking of blasting you to hell!" she yelled with a laugh as William closed her backpack. "It's time to settle things between us, once and for all, like the warrior I am and you wish to be."
Aidian laughed, all his arrogance showing. "This is a better gift than that trifle you gave me for my wedding."
Liz peeked out, locating every enemy. She showed herself fully then, ready to dive behind cover if anyone fired.
"Come and get me then, cousin!"
With that she flew around the tower to scan the castle for warriors. She popped up from the south to see if anyone was on the tower roof. "The roof is clear and I don't see anyone to the south. They're all lining the northern ramparts. I'll lead them north and meet you at the tree."
Without giving him time to argue, she rose to land softly on the tower. Softly because a hard landing, with all that weight, would send her tumbling to her death. She fired two-meter-long flames from her hand wands so Aidian would underestimate her. Then, with a scream, she flew high to meet him over the castle, now alit with torches. She worried that the warriors below would help Aidian, and with relief she saw that he alone flew to fight her. That arrogant birk assumes he won't need help, she realized with barely controlled glee. Even his own brothers failed to back him up.
From higher up he fired continuously. She let the first one hit her so she could pretend to lose her balance. Fired from far away, it lacked the power to hurt her. Sure enough, he shot down to finish her off. Flailing a few hundred meters above ground, she almost lost her balance while pretending to lose her balance. She trained to duel, not to move cargo like an air mule. Without a helmet, Aidian clearly saw her distress as he descended upon her. She barely managed to avoid the next blast by maximizing thrust from all four wands. Two fliers flying towards each other at maximum speed only gives them seconds to win or lose a duel. Liz pulled her ace in the hole, firing both hand wands. Now close enough to see the shock in his eyes by the strength of her blasts, he desperately tried to slow his descent.
She attacked him in the dark with two-meter-long swords. He replied with four meter-long blades. Liz quickly found an opening and managed to crush his groin from five meters away using steel tipped with a spiked ball that crushed him where it hurt the most.
The pain cost him his concentration. His wands failing, she grabbed him before he fell to his death. Something deep inside her screamed that he must die. Life may be precious, but not every death is a tragedy. Instead, she resisted her gut instinct and dropped him into bushes alive.
Hidden in the tower and grunting under the weight of his backpack, William marveled at his new fiancée. Until then, he never saw her marriage proposal as real. When he woke up to find her naked and ready for more, he assumed she was just using him to steal money. As he watch fliers take off after Liz, William found himself looking forward to their wedding with un-William-like enthusiasm.
"Holy crap," he whispered to himself as he flew away. "I'm getting married!"
CHAPTER 4
The exhausted couple landed at dawn before the front gate of an old, secluded home surrounded by grassy hills and farm animals. Liz made her wand sound a greeting. Several dogs immediately rushed the fence. Because fliers could literally drop anywhere, everyone owned guard dogs to warn them of intruders.
"You nervous?" William asked, surprised, given her steadiness robbing a freaking castle.
"When my father hit puberty, he fell for a hot dueler named Susan, but couldn’t marry her because the family didn’t find her genealogy acceptable. So they had a dozen kids instead and she helped find other powerful quads to also have his children. Because she had his children first, and because she has enough personality for several people, everyone calls her the Matriarch. She has been reduced to living here now, after John kicked them out of their beautiful estate. Many of her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids live here as well since they cannot afford to live on their own.
“Grandma sent my dad to Ireland to conquer the Irish. Instead he married my mother, an Irish queen. Although not officially banned or exiled, he wisely stayed to unite Ireland. His plan was to sire a strong son who could become king of both England and Ireland, like his grandparents did with Scotland. Then my mother died giving birth to me. With my father gone, Uncle John used his new powers to take back the stipends and estates given to those families. They don't blame me personally, but I can't help but remind them of their change in fortune."
"Then you must remind them of something else," William said.
Liz turned to stare at him when a large man holding wands in both hands burst out of the front door. He touched a wand to one eye, closed the other, and studied them. Then he shook his head and began yelling excitedly back to the house. A dozen people of all ages rushed to give Liz hugs, all talking over each other and the dogs. William could easily tell who the Matriarch was, even though she didn’t look any older than her sons. After an eternity of greetings, the group slowly made their way inside.
"This is my fiancé, William. William, this is Susan and her first-born son, Richard."
William shocked everyone by hugging the Matriarch, then shook the big guy's hand. "You are younger than I expected, your majesty."
They all laughed, since the first-born son of the Royal Heir looked like his clone.
"And you don't look like an old Mongol birk," Richard replied with a smile.
"No, I am some other birk," William said to more laughter, winning them over. "Back home I am known as Baron Wilhelm von Richthofen."
Liz looked at him in surprise. This was new. "Listen, I need help. If I marry the Mongolian ambassador, then they will have military bases to attack Free Europe from the rear. The treaty depends on my giving the Mongols a royal heir, so stopping the treaty means I must marry someone else and produce a rival heir."
"Are you already pregnant?" the Matriarch asked.
"No, but we are working day and night on it," Liz replied to knowing smiles. "But I need father's permission to marry, so someone must bring him here quickly so we can wed legally in England before John arrests me."
Richard groaned, because only he could convince the prince to return to England. "He can’t afford to come now, with the potato famine collapsing the Irish economy."
"Ask him if he’d like to borrow a ton of gold at 5% simple interest," William suggested.
One benefit of the Mongols controlling the world's largest economy was their insistence on their trading partners standardizing the weights of coins. A "full" gold coin weighed exactly 100 grams, so ten of them weighed a kilo. A "half" gold coin always weighed 50 grams. 50 and 100 gram silver coins were worth around fifteen times less, and equally heavy bronze coins that much less. Few people trusted non-standard coins anymore. So a ton of gold was literal, not a metaphor.
Everyone stared hard at him, especially his soon-to-be wife. "What?" he said to her. "You thought I was poor?"
Her husband, as she already thought of him, was becoming a mystery before her eyes.
"If he isn't interested, I sure would be," Richard said eagerly. “Did Liz mention that I am a banker? Or was a banker before John got me fired as head of the royal treasury? I now run Global Bank.”
"Make the wedding happen before we’re arrested, and I will loan each of you a ton of gold."
"What's the catch?" Richard asked, because there is always a catch.
"You have to fly a few thousand kilometers to get it," William answered. Mongols, obsessed with units of ten, also forced the rest of the world to adopt the metric system for distance, weights, and measures to facilitate international commerce. "Just get forty trustworthy quads to carry 25 kilos each. Or eighty quads if we include your father's gold. How soon can you leave to get him? We need to escape England before the queen kills us."
The room erupted as the family practically kicked Richard out of his own house.
"There's something else," William yelled over the chaos. "Last night Elizabeth and I recovered money from Castle Edinburgh that Prince John stole from the crown. We can give a kilo of gold, or its equivalent, to every family of Prince Richard who attends our wedding."
Who would also make it more difficult for the local sheriff to arrest them.
"We have over two hundred kilos of gold?" Liz asked in shock, since they had not time to count it yet.
"Two hundred?" he asked, kicking himself. "You said he had one hundred families."
"Before marrying my mother, yes. In the last sixteen years he has fathered many more, both here and in Ireland."
With everyone staring at him, William quickly did some math. On every trip from the continent he brought as much gold as he could carry and deposited it all in the Bank of England. He needed to empty that account anyways, which meant he could pay almost two hundred families, depending on how much they valued the jewels. But, without counting the loot from the castle, he could not be sure.
The Matriarch put an arm around him. "Not that I doubt you, Baron, but it would help if we could record it to show the skeptics. It's a long flight for most of them."
The happy couple led the family to their secret stash in the nearby woods. What they dumped onto the grass could easily be worth two hundred gold kilos.
"Everyone film me," the Matriarch commanded the family as they took out their wands. "Lady Elizabeth and her fiancé, Baron Wilhelm, offer a kilo of gold or its equivalent to every family started by Prince Richard that attends their wedding the day after tomorrow. Only one member of each family has to come, though all are welcome.”
As soon as the last one disappeared in the sky, Liz turned and slapped William lightly. "Why didn't you tell me you were rich?"
"I’d rather you marry me thinking I was poor. Whenever I travel within the Empire, I check out the local dueling champion. If I'm confident I can beat him, then I bet heavily. My parents did the same, so I have accounts all over the Empire."
"Then why the hell did we rob my uncle?"
"I didn't think you would go through with it. Then I wondered if you could pull it off. We will have a hard life on the run, so I had to see for myself how you handled adversity before swearing to spend the rest of my life with you."
"Are you really going to marry me?" she asked, eyes locked on his.
"If you want me to," he answered.
"Oh, I want, all right," she said, taking off her clothes.
CHAPTER 5
His wife's anguished screams pierced William's soul. He stopped his relentless pacing to peek into the room again. Liz, bravely practicing the breathing techniques he taught her, lay sweating on the bed. The team of midwives urged her on, ordering her to push the baby through. After all the fights with bounty hunters and petty bandits since leaving England a year ago, he knew how tough she was. And that only made her unbearable pain harder to handle. The love of his life suffered in agony, and he could do nothing to help her. Except to stay out of the room so she could concentrate. In all, she was taking the birth of their child better than he. One of the women snapped at him, and he shut the door like a boy caught watching a woman bathe.
"Maybe you should wait outside," a man who thought he was his cousin suggested.
They were not really cousins. His great-grandmother married the recently widowed Taran, the Hero of Kiev, when she found herself pregnant and her husband dead from a duel. Then she convinced her new husband to duel to win money until he died in the arena. No one ever knew her son was not Taran’s. Especially Taran’s family by his first wife, who thought William was their cousin. Now rich and accepted in Mongolian society, she raised her son to continue her family's blood feud.
William's primary ancestor was Baron Karl von Richthofen, who Genghis Khan killed while slaughtering the inhabitants of Peking in 1215. The Baron's children swore a blood oath of revenge. They recruited quads from across Europe to help the Chinese fight the Mongol invasion, which probably delayed the conquest by a few decades. The invaders eventually prevailed, but Genghis Khan took the threat so seriously that he sent super-quads all the way to Prussia to wipe out the von Richthofens, once and for all. Luckily, a daughter recreating with school friends in the Great Mountains escaped the slaughter, the lone survivor of a family that once ruled the Kingdom of Bohemia.
Thus began their campaign of minimizing how many great wands the Mongols could make. Officially Mongols from a prominent family, his great-grandmother's descendents could freely fly around the Empire to burn ancient trees. As the last living descendent, William alone carried the burden of his family's long legacy.
William had more than the lives of his wife and child on the line. Over one hundred million civilians had lost their lives because Genghis Khan wanted to rule the world. How many more would die before someone stopped the Mongols?
Instead of preferring a son or daughter, William prayed for a powerful quad. Every grandparent of both William and Elizabeth had been strong quads, but you never know until the child developed the ability, usually after puberty.
He looked at the kind man who thought he was William's distant cousin. The irony is that he personally liked his fake Mongolian relatives. Plus, they provided a compelling cover story if the Mongols ever investigated him. William was even able to bribe the local official to forward the baby's birth date by two years to throw off Prince John, who would see their son as a rival for the throne.
Their marriage infuriated Queen Margaret, who lost the Mongolian support she needed to revive her country and conquer the damn Irish. She punished Prince Richard by replacing him with the impotent Aidian as the official Royal Heir. She could not anoint Prince John because his long time stealing angered the country. John took responsibility so that the queen could officially pretend that Aidian had no part of it. However, the English liked Prince Richard far more than Aidian, and the romantic elopement of Lady Elizabeth captured the hearts of the nation. Not to mention the sharp contrast between the generous newlyweds and the thieving family of Prince John.
What worried William was the ten kilo bounty on their heads. Prince John wanted them dead, and William wondered how much was vindictiveness, versus how badly he wanted to remove a potential competitor for the crown. When Queen Margaret dies, neither Prince Richard nor Lady Elizabeth could challenge Aidian, given how much they displeased the crown. But any quad son of Elizabeth, especially if Aidian proved a poor governor, could become a viable alternative. He never shared this fear with Liz, who assumed John just wanted to punish them. Ten kilos was more money than most people saw in a lifetime. It was too much to justify revenge, but well spent if it eliminated a rival to a kingdom.
How ironic that he feared his family's past would endanger her, when actually it was her family that endangered him. But well worth it, given how happy Elizabeth made him.
Although not the touchy-feely type, the emotional turmoil of the moment prompted William to hug his fake cousin. Then he burst outside the crowded house into the falling snow for some fresh air. On the steps he breathed deeply, willing his body to relax. Stressed out his entire life, he thought he should be immune to it by now. He tried to force his mind to go blank, like his Japanese martial arts teachers taught him long ago. He felt the tension and anxiety drain out of him.
Noise opened his eyes, and he sensed movement behind a bush to his far left. He turned to see a man peering through plants at him. Instantly alert, he scanned the area around him, finding unusual tracks in the snow where his enemies hid themselves.
"It's him," the guy said in terrible Mongolian, stepping away from the bushes, wands in each hand. William instantly remembered him from his fight with the longshoremen the year before. He wasn't a quad, so that meant the others were.
Instinctively William pressed his inner arms against his overcoat. Even before those wands sprung into his hands, he used the wands in his boots to propel him up.
The problem with ambushing a quad is hitting him before he can flee. Assuming he had been surrounded, William first flew over the house as cover, they attacked them from above and behind. He blasted one who just looked at him in disbelief, wands impotently in his hands. William watched his head explode like a watermelon with great satisfaction. At least two others were now shooting at him, although the house blocked the view of those near the longshoreman. It's easier to dodge blasts from the air, where you can move in many directions, than from the ground. Determined to get them before they negated his advantage by flying themselves, William attacked, hiding behind trees to get ever closer. One jumped behind a narrow birch tree, only for William's powerful wand to blast through it. It didn't kill him immediately, but the three-degree burns and blood loss took him out of the fight. William and the third man traded blasts, but William could dodge his fire while the ambusher on the ground was less successful.
Then two Mongolian bounty hunters from the other side of the house wisely flew at him. William evaded the blast of one, then shielded himself from another. Finally close enough for blades, William used his superior length to stab one in the chest and slice the other below the knee. Without a foot wand, he fell on the roof, where William chopped his head off. In the silence he heard the longshoreman cry like a baby and run like hell through the woods.
Something made him pause a moment before he realized that he just heard the birth cry of his newborn son. A son! Swelling with pride, William sped after his last enemy, expertly weaving his way through the trees as he had long practiced. Instead of shooting him in the back, he shot off both legs with one blast. With the Englishman in the snow on his stomach, William landed on his back and sliced off both hands so his enemy could not use his wands. He then turned over a terrified tradesman, not a warrior.
"How did you find me?" William wanted to know. Not hearing an immediate answer, his wand shot electricity to his groin, making him wail like a newborn.
"You will pay for killing my brother," he promised. "Prince John spent the last year spreading your wanted poster around the world. Every bounty hunter on Earth is looking for you."
"But why are you here?" William wondered.
"To identify you. You grew a beard and changed your hair, so they wanted to make sure before they killed a baby. And they had plenty of time since they thought it safest to attack during the birth."
One part of William thought, "sound tactics," while another was appalled. "How many more are there?"
The dying man laughed weakly. "And dilute their shares? They only promised me a single gold coin, the bastards. Not bad for a month of flying, but nothing compared to ten kilos."
As he faded out from loss of blood, William found his leather money sack and added it to the wands. Then he raced back to rob the other corpses of valuables before the neighbors of his fake family did.
"The bastards assumed I was rich," he explained to the growing crowd, keeping it short and simple. His fake cousin looked at him with both terror and admiration. "I think I got them all, but you better sweep the perimeter to make sure while I see if the baby is okay."
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