Over the Darkened Landscape

Cold Ground



Three days ago Robert had shot his horse.

Early in the foothills it had come up lame. He had spent a panicked half-hour or so cutting away strips of horseflesh, hanging the strips from the back of his pack and over his shoulders, hoping the early winter sun would dry them before they rotted. It had worked, mostly. But the horse meat was gone now, eaten during his frantic hike south towards the border.

Now he sat on the cold hard ground, hiding in the bushes in a small ravine and watching a small snare that sat at the base of a willow, thirty paces away. The snare held a hare, its neck snapped and dried blood crusted around its nose. His stomach growled at the thought of fresh meat, of any food at all. But he couldn’t approach the snare; it was still active, ready to lash out if he got too close.

He had stumbled across it earlier in the day, and in his near-delirious hunger he had approached the dead animal without a second thought. Somehow though, his talisman had been in his right hand. He didn’t remember having pulled the pouch out from under his shirt, but quite obviously he had. It had warned him in its own fashion, first sending a shooting pain up his other arm, and when that didn’t stop him, briefly paralyzing his right leg. He had fallen to his face on the frozen ground, cheek resting on a light skiff of snow and frozen earth, and watched as the snare had flailed briefly about, having sensed his presence.

He had lain there for some minutes, drool freezing on his skin, grunting as he fought to get the feeling back in his arm and leg. When he was able he dragged himself back, away from the trap, and when his leg and arm felt better he had cleaned up any sign of his being there. Then he hid himself, and waited.

The sun had disappeared over the edge of the gully when the trapper arrived. Métis. A tall, dark, angry-looking man with a wiry black beard stained with brown streaks of tobacco. He wore a fur hat and gloves, a flannel jacket, and tall moccasins, and carried an ancient rifle in the crook of his right elbow, with a leather bag thrown over his opposite shoulder.

He walked to the trap, set down his rifle and his bag, pulled a knife from its sheath on his thigh. Stitched on the side of the bag was the battle flag Robert had come to hate and fear. White on a blue background, upraised hand and wolf’s head accompanied by the words maisons . . . autels . . . Surtout Liberté. The English translation was In the house . . . At the altar . . . Above All Freedom.

And death. Robert threw his knife just as the Métis seemed to sense his presence. It buried deep in the man’s neck, and he died without a sound, the snare now deactivated and safe to approach.





He had spent a few years in India with the 13th Hussars, and word had come down that they were preparing to send him to Afghanistan. He enjoyed the Far East; liked the people he served with, enjoyed seeing the far reaches of the Empire. But he was a servant of Her Majesty, did his duty no matter what, no matter where.

Before he could be officially notified of his transfer, the young Canadian government had come to Her Majesty’s Loyal Government with a request; Riel was back in Canada, and had brought with him a source of power that they were afraid they may not be able to counter. Was there a military sorcerer that they could employ to help put down the rebellion?

And so Robert Baden-Powell had been shipped to this God-forsaken flat piece of frozen dirt on the far side of the world. He had often complained about the oppressive heat during the early years of his service in India, but there he had at least lived like a gentleman. And his tracking and fighting skills had greatly improved while there, while his studies with the company’s chief sorcerer had proved fruitful.

So fruitful that he now feared for his life.

Robert had begun running and then riding and then running again for his life six days before, on the day they had hanged Riel. It had seemed that the magic of the Métis and the Indians had not been enough to hold off the combined armed might of the North West Mounted Police and the Canadian military, and that a man of Robert’s talents might not be necessary.

Even with the errors made by fools like Crozier and Otter, the NWMP had managed to put down the bulk of the rebellion. They had required only some minor spell-casting by Robert, background work mostly done to counter whatever weak spells the rebels were weaving.

After the defeat Dumont had fled to the United States and Riel had been captured, his magics seemingly nullified. Robert had barely broken a sweat, and it then looked as if he could go back home very soon. Perhaps even South Africa, if the rumours were correct.

The hanging had come on November 16, in Regina at the jail. Robert had been there, ostensibly as official sorcerer for Her Majesty’s government in Canada. Unofficially, several officers of the NWMP had sternly told him he was to stay in the background, that they still didn’t need “his kind” there. His tenure in Canada had so far proved both uneventful and woefully unpopular with all involved, including himself. Even those who didn’t believe he was aligned with the devil nonetheless usually mistrusted and feared him.

Riel had been marched out and led up to the gallows, hands tied behind his back and fingers also tied together to prevent any casting of spells, leg irons keeping him to a waddling pace. It was the government’s intention, Robert knew, to prove that Riel could die, thus breaking the back of this rebellion once and for all.

It didn’t work.

After getting out of the jail in the Hell that broke loose, and after escaping from the town with the flood of refugees, Robert had had time to think about what he had seen, and what he had sensed. Blood magic had been used, but the sense and smell of the blood had been foreign, alien to Robert, even while at the same time it had a strange familiarity about it. Something hot, moist, huge and angry.

It had been the blood that saved Riel from a snapped neck. He had dropped with only the most minor of flinches, and then hung there, smiling and dangling, before his eyes had settled on the jail’s warden. It seemed to Robert then that a giant beast had emerged from Riel’s head, huge, lumbering, ghostly, hard to focus on. It headed straight for the warden, who had given a strangled cry and then collapsed, skull slowly being crushed and blood almost gushing from his eyes and nose and ears and mouth, mingling with the strange blood that Riel was somehow using to keep himself alive. And then Métis and Cree had come storming over the walls, through the suddenly open gates, cutting Riel’s rope to let him down and slaughtering startled guards and constables and soldiers and civilians without discrimination.

Robert had grabbed at the red silk pouch that contained his Talisman of Mars and held on for his life as he ran straight out the open gates, counting on the power of the inscribed iron medallion to hide him from the invaders, at least momentarily. It had, although he had been forced to duck and then lash out as one Cree had swung at him with a knife, more likely than not responding to something like a fearful blur appearing in thin air rather than swinging at a clearly-perceived enemy.

The town’s white citizens had started their flight almost immediately, allowed to leave by the new provisional government, Riel no longer their leader but rather their Messiah. Robert had joined in with a group of three families, near enough to them to look as if he belonged. The charade had lasted only a few miles, when a Cree shaman had ridden by and sensed the magics that Robert was carrying.

He had stopped and dismounted, walking over to their group, which had stopped their travel when he had arrived. His eyes had wandered over each of them, stopping to rest on Robert for one uncomfortable moment too long. He stepped forward, and Robert had leapt on him, knife flashing as it plunged deep into the Indian’s chest. The first but not the last time he had been forced to use physical violence since coming to this cold land.

Then, without a word to or from his obviously horrified travelling companions, he climbed on the shaman’s horse and rode south, hoping to make the border before he was caught.





There was food in the trapper’s bag. Some biscuits, venison, a canteen of water. And the real surprise; a Hand of Glory and several small tallow candles. He grabbed these and tucked them in his pack, hoping he wouldn’t have to use them but unwilling to leave them behind. The thought of where it had come from repulsed him.

He untied the snare and tied the dead rabbit to the back of his pack, hoping it didn’t smell too much of the Métis magic. It was a chance he felt he had to take, though. He was weak from hunger, and the supplies in the bag would not last long enough.

He choked down two biscuits, one piece of venison, washed it all down with water, swallowing until he was forced to take a breath. Then, saying a few quick words and inscribing in the frozen dirt to hopefully keep the dead man’s spirit from latching onto him, he cautiously left the ravine.





The Métis had come from the west. He hated the thought of more confrontation, but he doubted he could survive without a horse to get him to safety; he was a damn good scout, but his knowledge of cold-weather survival was less than he might have hoped after the time he had spent here. Keeping low to the ground, Robert followed the scent of magic backwards, towards whatever camp he had come from. Four snares had been laid and reset along the way, easy to recognize now that he had the experience. There were no ley lines here like there were back in England, but the signs of power were now subtly obvious, and the traps were on a path that followed those signs.

The land here was mostly short grass, with the odd copse of trees hugging the flat, distant horizon. Towns, even farms were rare in this region. Normally the wind was fierce on the prairies this time of year, but tonight the breeze was intermittent at best, non-existent at most times.

Finally, in the distance he could make out the flickering of a campfire, the sky beyond it now a dark blue deepening to black. Overhead, stars began to fade into existence, twinkling through the frozen air.

Robert squatted on the ground and pulled off his pack, opened it to inspect his belongings in the failing light. The talisman had saved him twice this past week, but he was afraid the cold iron would stink with the effort of so much magic. If he tried to use it now he could be sure it would light up the night sky, alerting any sensitive quarry to his presence.

He thought about his cards, given to him by Paul Christian himself years ago in Paris before he’d gone on to India, but ruled out any overt use of them so close to the camp. Instead, he quickly separated the conventional cards from the Clavicles, dealt off the four aces and tucked them in his jacket pocket. For use if he needed to hide himself later.

Finally, and more than hesitantly, he pulled the Métis Hand of Glory from the pack. It was a little larger than his own hand, a dried and pickled hand cut from the body of some poor unfortunate hanged soul. He rested it on his lap and laid a candle beside it, then struck a lucifer from his pocket, careful to hide the flare with his body. He then lit the candle afire and dripped some wax into the space between two fingers, then embedded the candle; a slight breeze blew up for a second, then died away and everything was still. The flame stayed lit.

The less chances he took, the better off he’d be. This would hopefully guarantee the men at the fire would stay asleep or be stupefied if awake.

There were three horses standing off to the right side from where he approached, tethered to stakes in the ground. Robert carefully steered clear and downwind of them, not wanting them spooked and spoiling his cover. There were two men at the campfire, one asleep in a bedroll, the other sitting up and staring into the flames. Robert sneaked up behind the awake one, raising his blade.

The flame on the Hand sputtered and died. The man at the fire turned and rolled at the same time, Robert’s knife swinging through empty air. The other man, the sleeping one, sat up in his bedroll with a start, reaching for a rifle lying on the ground beside him. Robert flung his knife in desperation; it found its mark, embedding in the man’s left eye. He collapsed with a grunt.

There was a blinding flash of pain, and then things went black.





When he came back to, the sun was up again, low in the east. The fire had been reduced to red and black coals, casting almost no heat to make up for the cold earth pressing into Robert’s cheek. He tried to sit up, groaned as pain shot through the back of his skull, then groaned again when he tried to put his hands to it and discovered they were tied together.

He was lifted from behind and roughly set in a sitting position. “You should not try to use a Hand of Glory on the person who made it, my friend.” And then his captor stepped round into his view. Robert gasped.

“Ah, you recognize me,” said the man, his accent thick behind the heavy beard, balding forehead, large nose and buckskin jacket that helped identify him. Gabriel Dumont.

“Coming back from your coward’s flight?” Robert winced at this; even talking hurt his head.

Dumont grinned. “I ran in May, against my better judgement, because Louis asked me to.”

Robert snorted. “Of course. And he chose to stay behind to lose the battle.”

Dumont sat on his haunches, across from Robert on the opposite side of the remains of the fire. “The battle was already lost. Middleton must have had almost a thousand men, too many for us to handle with our depleted supplies and with someone on their side preparing wards.” He stirred at the coals with his knife. “That was you?”

“Indeed. Although I can hardly say I was needed. You were weak then, weren’t you?”

“Yes. We were. The battles had been many and hard. We needed something to prove to our possible allies that we were on the side of God.” He crossed himself and then spit in the fire.

“The blood,” said Robert.

“Yes,” replied Dumont, smiling. “The blood was a brilliant stroke, do you not think? Louis planned it, and set me off to do the work.”

“And? What gave the blood?”

“An elephant, my friend. A giant beast from darkest Africa, brought large to our own land, and sacrificed using the very tool that the British had used to subjugate my Cree cousins. The rails.”

“What are you talking about?” This turn of conversation had Robert very confused.

Dumont stood and spread his arms wide, fierce grin showing yellowing, crooked teeth under the cover of his beard and moustache. “Jumbo, the world’s greatest beast, and the very personification of the demon Behemoth! That fool Barnum was easily persuaded to bring the creature across the border, although he would allow his show to go no further than Ontario. So we had men there who made sure Jumbo was on the tracks, and another to make sure the train would run the elephant down.”

He paced about momentarily, then returned to finish the story. “September 15, a great day for us. Oh, the newspapers were so upset over the death of one simple beast! The train crashed into the elephant, and then myself and three others, all men trusted not to make use of it themselves, hurried in to collect blood as it spilled from the creature’s trunk and mouth onto the rails, the keeper Scott wailing and crying so much that no one noticed what was being done. And then the blood was rushed west across the Prairies, packed in ice to keep the power strong.

“We had a man, a priest, inside at the jail, he got it to Louis with two whole days to spare. The results, as I am sure you remember, were spectacular.”

“A lot of people died that day. Were slaughtered.”

Dumont frowned. “Soldiers, police, politicians. We were to let the people of the town leave if they desired. We have no desire to subjugate a people, unlike the government of this so-called Canada.”

With that, Dumont turned away and began to load up the horses. Robert noted that there was a pile of loose earth just past the animals, presumably the burial site for the man he had killed. “What will you do with me?”

Dumont cinched tight a strap, grunted. “I will bring you to Regina where Louis Riel awaits my return. Then he will decide if you are to be returned for a ransom, or perhaps executed as a murderer.” He turned and grinned, fiercely and without any sign of humour. “You killed one, probably two of my friends here, but Louis has taught me as much as I have taught him. I will respect his decision, even though I know what I would like to do. Now get up.”

Robert struggled to his knees, hands no help at all tied behind his back. He knelt there for a full minute, breathing hard at the labour and the pain of his head. Dumont, impatient, came over then and grabbed him roughly by the arms, pulled him up and pushed him over to the horses, then paradoxically gently helped him get up on one, the reins of which he took and tied to the saddle of his own horse.

“Why do you fight for a land that isn’t your own?” asked Dumont, perhaps an hour after they had broken camp.

Robert gazed at his captor for a second before answering. “Her Majesty is represented within the government here. Canada was a loyal colony and is now a valued ally.”

Dumont grinned, then spit on the ground. “Why do you still fight?”

“I was fighting to save my life,” said Robert.

“Ah. Now that I can understand. Running to save your hide, to live and perhaps go home to sire children and tell them tales of your close call in a far-off land.”

“I was not running to save my hide,” said Robert, teeth gritted. “I knew I would stand no chance by myself, but felt if I could rejoin with the army I might be able to do some good.”

“And so you ride south, to America?”

“Faster. Safer, too, I would have thought.”

“By now, word of our victory will have made it to our brothers and cousins south of the border,” said Dumont. “I expect the American Cavalry will be even more nervous than they were after that foul pig Custer met his death. And with good reason. Our people will support the plains tribes, even as we negotiate peace with the Macdonald and his government.”

“The Americans are more ruthless, Dumont. I don’t see them standing idly by.”

“Then we will offer a new homeland. Perhaps the Americans would like their problem to just disappear. It certainly would be easier for them.”

Robert shook his head. “Unlikely. You fool yourself. I venture to say that if this rebellion really is successful, you will soon find yourselves defending against attacks from the south as well as from the east.”

Dumont took a bite of venison, put the remainder in Robert’s mouth. “There,” he said. “Chew, and stop arguing with me.”

They rode north all through the day, mostly now in silence, through the open prairie and into sparse farmlands. Although Dumont was careful to steer clear of settlements, Robert could see no sign that anyone was inhabiting any he could see in the distance. No smoke from distant chimneys, no farm animals wandering about or making noises that might carry across the open fields. It appeared that word had got out, and that the locals had fled rather than exist under the new provisional government. Indeed, the only signs of life Robert saw all day were three pronghorns in the distance, a coyote, and one distant hawk, riding high in the immense cold blue sky.





Camp that night was in an abandoned sod farmhouse, part of the roof caved in. Dumont had carefully scouted it out after tying Robert to a tree. “This would be less of a concern if I still had my travelling companions,” he had said, glaring at Robert, who carefully looked another way, not wanting to incite him to any violence.

The horses were tied to an old chicken pen outside, left to graze. Dumont had pressed hard all day to learn his name, but Robert would have none of that, and for the most part kept silent.

In the old house he had briefly untied Robert’s hands to allow him to relieve himself, and then was tied back up for a short moment, sat roughly on the dirt floor with a small bag beside him. Then Dumont very quickly sketched a warding circle around Robert. Some figures were recognizable to him, others weren’t.

Before he closed the circle, Dumont reached across and cut the ropes, and then hurried to finish the signs. A quick push at the border proved to Robert that he was trapped.

“There’s food and water in the bag,” said the Métis. “Your own talisman is safe with me, as are the cards from your jacket pocket. I have taken care to make sure you have no tools with you to effect an escape.”

Dumont grabbed some old boards from a stack that was leaning vertically against the wall a few feet behind Robert. He piled a few of them under the hole in the roof, grabbed some kindling and his sparker. A few tries had the flint light up the kindling, and soon a small fire was burning. Robert watched with exhausted eyes as he tamped tobacco into a hand-carved pipe, then pull a burning stick from the fire and light it with a few puffs.

He couldn’t put off the hunger any more. An inspection of the bag provided an overly-dry piece of venison and, if lucky, a swallow of water. He downed both, then put his mind to planning an escape.

The warding circle was imperfect, but strong enough to hold him in. That first abortive test was all he needed to be assured of that.

So he sat, and watched, and waited. Finally, it seemed that Dumont had faded off to sleep. Kneeling, Robert scratched at the dirt. A circle was more powerful than a square, but it was the only incantation he could think of that might work. He hoped the imperfections in the circle were loud enough that his own spell’s imperfections would not show through.

He started with the square, to keep his boundaries. Then, row by row, he carefully etched the letters needed for the palindrome:



R O L O R

O B U F O

L U A U L

O F U B O

R O L O



“Stop!” A stone bounced painfully off his shoulder.

Dumont ran over, stood at the edge of the circle and mumbled something. A breeze came up, blew soil around, obscured the letters and the square. The circle remained untouched.

“Idiot!” grunted Dumont. “If that worked, at best you would have died. At worst . . .” he shuddered.

“Why?” asked Robert, glaring at the Métis. He rubbed his shoulder. Another spot to add to the list of pains.

“You were calling for Air using Earth. Not easy to do, to control both at the same time, especially when you are under another’s wards. And I have heard about that spell you were trying. Even if it did work, did you think that turning yourself into a crow in a land where many consider the crow sacred would get you anywhere?” He spit on the ground. “My Cree cousins have not had time to teach me everything, but I do know how Crow would take to being usurped by a British.”

He walked back to the fire, turned and looked back. “Try nothing else. I’ll know if you try to break the circle with magic.”

Robert sat and watched Dumont, thinking. Dumont settled back into the rhythmic breathing of sleep. Outside, the horses muttered and shuffled, then settled back down as well, the brief stink of magic having only momentarily touched their nostrils.

I’ll know if you try to break the circle with magic.

The stone that had bounced off his shoulder had shown that the circle was open to inanimate objects. So perhaps . . .

Robert checked his pocket, found his packet of lucifers still there. Next, as quietly as possible, he tore a strip of cloth from his undershirt, rolled it into a ball. The first two didn’t light, and then the third one flared to life. He paused, watching carefully for a sign that Dumont had heard. Nothing. Hopefully the stink of sulphur would be covered by the smell of Dumont’s own fire, even if only briefly.

He set the ball alight. When the flame seemed steady, he tossed it across the edge of the circle. It came to rest against the rotted wood of an old pile of planks, guttered for a few seconds, and then lit with new force. The wood then seemed to all light up at once; Robert quickly untied the laces of his boots, used a square knot on them to form a short rope. What had kept his hands tied was next to useless, cut short and stinking of magic.

So far the wind seemed to be with him. The smoke was blowing away from Dumont. Flames continued to lick at the boards, and finally one of them burned down enough to begin to shift. He took the stone that Dumont had thrown and, knowing he would have no second chance, tossed the stone at the bottom of the plank.

The throw was accurate. It broke the burned portion of the wood, and the plank leaned back and completed what seemed an agonizingly slow fall towards Robert, finally falling across the circle and obliterating several of the wards.

It was broken! He jumped and ran across the boundary, careful to step on the wood as he crossed over, watched as Dumont awoke and groggily reached for his knife. He jumped the last few feet with arms outstretched, and grabbed Dumont’s head, wrenching the man to the ground. Dumont, awake now, swung his blade in a desperate flash, but Robert had his makeshift rope around Dumont’s throat, pulling as tight as he could as he dodged the knife.

Dumont flung his head back now, anxious to make contact, but Robert danced to the side, still holding the rope tight. As the knife came up for another swing Robert kicked at it, knocked it skittering across the dirt floor. Then, with a grunt accompanied by a weak cough from Dumont, he pulled the Métis man off his feet and slammed his skull against the stone base of the wall.

Dumont lay still, blood seeping from beneath his unruly hair, but still breathing. A raw angry ring peeked out from beneath his beard, bruises turning blue from red even as Robert watched. Robert leaned over, catching his breath, noticed that his hand was bleeding; the knife must have scored.

But that could be worried about later. He had to get going now. It made no sense to arrest Dumont and take him to America, not with either one of them in such bad condition. But he couldn’t very well kill Dumont, either, not in cold blood while he laid there injured. He was no one’s executioner.

Dumont would stay unconscious for a while, he decided. Long enough to not worry about having to use magic here to keep him in place, but rather lay some simpler spells of confusion along the way. He grabbed the supplies, left Dumont his knife, a little water, and two small pieces of venison.

Then he saddled up the horse he had ridden on and sent the other two running. It was time to ride south now. And pray he ran into no one else.