Vicious Magick (11 page)

The air is thin, and Madra’s breath comes out
in puffs of steam. An aggressive goat charges her from behind a
rock, there’s an explosion as she squeezes the trigger of her
powderblast and fells the beast.

“Nice shot,” D’Kassar says.

“Thanks.”

They plow forward and snow begins to fall,
limiting their visibility. Madra snaps her head toward a sharp
whooping sound as two yeti, seemingly identical twins, run out of a
cave and straight for them.

“What the hell are those?” she asks.

“Reload your weapon.”

She does, and they both fire on the beasts,
to no effect.

“It’s just pissing them off!” she shouts.

“Forget it! Run!”

They spend the next few minutes following the
tracks deeper, ever deeper into the mountain before they’re stopped
by a distant sound, the sound a thousand lizard-shaped footclaws
would make if they were running towards something. In the light of
their torches, they soon realize that the sound is, in fact, a
thousand lizard-shaped footclaws running towards something. The
footclaws are attached to feet, which are attached to lizard-shaped
people, which in turn are attached to rather large spears and
pickaxes.

“I think,” Zander says, “that we’re going the
wrong way. If I recall, there was a fork in the tunnel a while
back. That other way seemed like the right way.”

Novanostrum draws his staff and stands fast
against the oncoming horde. The lizard people stop in their tracks,
confused and awed by the sight of a pissed-off wizard.

“You! Don’t take another step! I’ll blast you
right out the other end of this mountain!”

“He’ll do it,” Zander says, “I saw him do it
just the other day.”

One of the smaller lizard people daintily
puts his foot in front of him and takes a step. Novanostrum
responds by attempting to summon a huge fireball, but all that
happens is that the stones wedged into the walls glow a bright
green, which causes Novanostrum to have a revelation.

“I remember now! We learned about these
stones at the Academy. They’re called Moonmight stones. They…absorb
magickal power…dammit.”

“I think it’s time to go,” Zander says, to
nobody in particular. He can hear Novanostrum’s rapid footfalls
receding into the distance.

Madra and D’Kassar run down the mountain with
the yeti in hot pursuit. They spot a cottage in the distance and
dash towards it. As they get closer, an old man walks out to meet
them.

“Get inside grandpa,” Madra shouts, “they’re
coming!”

“Hey!” he shouts at the yeti, stopping them
in their tracks, “They don’t want to play! Go home!”

The twin yeti slink away, dejected.

“Wow,” D’Kassar says, “that was some neat
trick.”

The Pontiflex Minor

The Pontiflex Minor is the second-in-command
of the Crucifist Church. While the Grand Pontiflex has the final
say on any matter concerning the church, there are a lot of
official decisions that he doesn’t have time to make, and these are
made by the Pontiflex Minor.

A Pontiflex Minor is chosen by the Grand
Pontiflex upon his ascension to office.

After sprinting down the side-tunnel of a
side-tunnel, Novanostrum and Zanther have managed to barricade
themselves inside a provisioning room used long ago by the miners
who dug the steamtunnel.

Novanostrum grabs a dusty mug from a metal
shelf, wipes it with his sleeve, and holds it under a nozzle
sticking out of one of the barrels. He twists the knob and a
frothy, amber liquid falls into his mug. He sniffs it, puts it to
his lips, and takes a draught.

“It’s beer, and…it’s
good
.”

A second later, Zanther’s filling his own
mug. “Oh man, it
is
good,” he says, trying to gauge how much
beer is left in the barrel and in the other barrels, “we should
probably hang out here for a while until those lizard people forget
about us.”

Madra and D’kassar are sitting at a table
inside the old man’s hut, drinking hot cocoa.

“And that’s when my wife walked in! Heh, rest
her soul,” the old man says, eliciting laughter from his
guests.

“Ha! And did you explain to her that the
woman was just a witch responding to your ad in the
Kleighton
Gadabout?
”

“I was too embarrassed to tell her I took
that ad out in the first place. I had a big mole on my bum, and
rather than going to the apothecary and paying some physic to cut
it off, I thought I’d be clever-”

“And sell it to a witch!” D’Kassar
interjected.

“It’d be funny if my wife didn’t start
punching the witch and get herself turned into a groundpig.”

“But you got her changed back, right?” Madra
asked.

“No way
to
turn her back. Had that
groundpig for ten years, was a damn shame when it came time to eat
it.”