Year Minus Fifty

1

Will Stalking Light frowned as he looked at the fairy glow in the distance. He and his

six brothers had been contracted out as regulators for the Steps of Corwin down

below. They were looking for a missing child, and here were fairy lights.

He didn’t like that at all.

He made the call of the common owl as he went to investigate the lights. Something

was going on. It was his job to make sure the town was safe.

His brothers answered his call with calls of their own. They were on the way to help

him.

Will pulled an arrow from his quiver as he moved forward. He was the best shot of

the seven of them, and the most patient in his opinion. He could wait for hours for the

best shot and then hit the bull’s eye every time.

He angled in to get a better look at the coming battlefield. He didn’t like the looks of

things.

The lights drifted around a set of standing stones on an outcropping from the face of

the mountain. The forest fell short of the natural platform. Once he was out in the

open, he would have maybe two shots against some kind of magician, or natural

monster, from the looks of things. Clouds scudded across the sky, blocking moonlight

occasionally but not enough to hurt his vision.

What did the magician want to do? He decided it had to be a magician, and that the

fairy lights were a spell building up energy. If it was a monster, he would have to

reassess how to battle it when he saw it.

If the girl was there, he would have to rescue her while he was dealing with the

monster.

It wouldn’t be the first monster he had put down since becoming a regulator for the

town. He was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

A dog barking told him that Wendall was close. His brother could take care of any

close in work if it came to that.

Wendall had a natural talent for movement. Swords were his dancing partners.

Anyone who got too close learned what it meant to try to cut in from him.

Will didn’t answer the bark. He was too close. If the magician, or monster, heard him,

it might make them suspicious and then they would do something to the little girl to

spite him and his brothers.

He moved to the edge of the trees. Shadows danced inside the standing stone circle.

He was going to have to make a move without his brothers.

He moved forward. He nocked his arrow as he went. He needed to be ready to shoot

as soon as he had a target.

Things came out of the shadows. Too long teeth and eyes that dripped red fire

contrasted with the blue flame of the fairy lights. He shot one in the eye as it charged

him.

Wendall exploded out of the darkness on his left. His twin blades sent black blood to

boil the air as he cut into the guardians.

Will pulled another arrow and shot another black thing as fast as lightning. He was

pleased that the arrow had enough power to carve a hole through the head of his

target.

The other five brothers appeared out of the night with weapons in hand. They slashed

about with swords and one axe, killing the guardians as swiftly as they could.

“Get the girl, Wendall!,” demanded the eldest brother, Wilson. “Get her clear so we

can retreat.”

Wendall barked like a dog as he sliced through the guardians in his way to get to the

central stone of the ring. It was a flat cube raised out of the ground. The fairy lights

danced around it as someone spoke words that ground on the ears. He sliced through

the wool restraints and pulled the victim loose. He backed up with the girl in his arms.

Will shot the guardian nearest Wendall in the face. His brothers were working so well

as a distraction, he could shoot at will.

He couldn’t make out the magician. His creatures were a cloud in front of him. If he

had one good shot, he could end this.

Wendall dropped the girl outside the circle so he could draw his weapons again. He

waved her away as he backed up to defend her from any threats. She would have to

make her own way home until they were done with this.

Hopefully they would catch up with her on the way back to town and hand her over

to her parents in the morning. They had to kill the monster behind everything before

they could do that.

Wendall sliced through anything coming at him. He barely had to move as his swords

sent blood burning into the ground. He wanted to kill the magician, but the beasts

were coming out of everywhere to stop him.

The chorus reached a crescendo. Blue fire filled the air. Wayne’s axe knocked one of

the black protectors out of the way by splitting its head so that it fell to the ground at

his feet.

Will had an arrow ready to go. When he saw the cloaked figure revealed behind the

falling thing burning the ground, he released the string. He cursed when he saw that

the arrow hit some kind of protection and only partially stabbed into the magician. He

drew another arrow to finish the job.

Whatever else happened, their foe could not be allowed to do what he wanted. They

were charged with protecting the Steps of Corwin from things like this.

Wayne raised his axe as he moved to slice at the magician. Blue flame covered the

seven brothers.

The magician looked up at the sky. He looked down at his burned hands. He

considered explanations for what he had done to the townpeople who lived below.

Everyone knew that the Stalking Light brothers were honest and brave to a fault. He

couldn’t sell them on all seven of them leaving town.

He had missed his chance. Their interference meant he would have to wait another

hundred years. He shook his hands as he turned from the circle. He still had enough

of the light inside to drop down to town and walk to his residence.

He should be fixing his hands by the time anyone tried to approach the circle to see

if there was anything to the lights and sounds they had heard in the night. If the girl

made it home, that would give the town enough evidence that the brothers had been

killed in the line of duty.

All he had to do after that was go along with the story until everyone believed it was

real.

He considered if he should help the girl back to town. He decided that it would be

better if everyone thought the brothers had killed him, and he didn’t want the girl to

point out he had been on the mountain in the night too.

He checked the scratch from where the arrow had bit into his armored shirt. That had

been a piece of luck on his part to have armor proofed against such wounds. It hadn’t

worked out as well as he had thought it would, but it had worked.

He walked to the edge of the outcropping and looked down. The town slept below.

Someone would be up, but he doubted anyone would see him. He concentrated on his

hands. Marks appeared in the burned flesh.

He would have to look into fixing them when he got home.

He couldn’t have his neighbors commenting on his hands when they would be

suspicious of any magic user that might come their way in the near future.

And while he might be able to wipe out the town, what happened if someone

blindsided him. He didn’t want to be hanged by the authorities, or stabbed in the back

by someone he missed, or set on fire when he had used all of his magic up defending

himself.

It was better to readopt his disguise and continue as if nothing had happened.

He jumped from the outcropping and let the fairy lights surround him as he fell. He

aimed for a spot behind the mayor’s house. If the man saw him, he could kill him and

say the same enemy that killed the seven brothers had killed him too.

He landed gently and let the lights expire. He buried his cloak, mailed shirt, and face

mask in a space where the mountain formed a crevice. He shoved a stone in place so

no one would find his disguise without some serious looking.

He crept around the house and headed for the street. His own house was down the

terraced steps near the entrance of the valley. He should be able to reach home with

no problems.

If the girl didn’t arrive home in the morning, he would lead a search party for her.

That would help him cover his misdeeds until he was ready to have them revealed to

the world.

He crept down to his house, moving from shadow to shadow. He didn’t see anyone,

and he didn’t think anyone saw him. He reached his house through his backyard and

stepped inside. Several dogs barking hurried him along. He didn’t need a neighbor

to ask him what he was doing in the middle of the night.

He made sure his shutters were closed before he lit the small lantern in his kitchen.

He inspected his hands under the flame. He winced at the sight of them. The brothers

had cost him some function in them.

He gathered some ingredients together in a bowl. He sliced them with his knife,

smiling as the vegetables whispered under the assault. He used a pestle to further

reduce the mix into a paste. He spread on one hand, and then the other. Blue fire

danced around his hands as he felt the aches and pains in them fade away.

He cracked open the covering on his hands. He worked the dried paste away until his

hands were free. He smiled. The burning looked as bad as something you would get

from touching a hot pot.

He could live with that.

He cleaned the bowl and put everything away, ate some fruit, and then headed for the

bed he had built into a wall. He needed to be fresh for when the sun came up and he

had to hide what he had done from them.

He needed to work on his surprised expression so he could slip pass the initial

excitement of his neighbors. He didn’t want them thinking about him when they

should be thinking about other things.

He wondered if he could fool the next regulators as well as he had fooled the seven

brothers. He smiled. Of course he could. All he needed was a big smile and a helpful

attitude.

He drifted off to sleep as he thought about how close had come to absolute power.

Waiting another hundred years didn’t seem fair, but he could draw on the people in

town to do things while he was waiting. He might be able to help expand the town

into a real city state equal to Riordiana, or Messer’s Reach.

On the mountain, a little girl refused to cry. She stood at the edge of the forest and

looked at the seven statues that had joined the standing stones. She knew they had

died to defend her.

She looked up at the sky. She turned away and headed into the trees. She picked a

path heading down toward the town and her unknown enemy.

One day they would meet again, and she would show him that he hadn’t escaped the

consequences of his crimes.

She listened to a dog barking somewhere and smiled as she walked in darkness.