Knight Ice

This month’s short needs a bit of explaining.

When it came time to start on a short story for October 1st, I was DEEP in editing of my fantasy arctic Western novel, The Law of Armelith (which is available as a beta version for feedback, contact me!). To not interrupt the flow of the edit too much and stay in the right headspace, I wanted to write a short in The Law of Armelith’s setting.

I decided to write about an event referenced in the novel: a prisoner’s attempt to build a trading post to help the community, which got destroyed by the knight-gunslingers for reasons unknown.

Pretty quickly I thought wait, what if it wasn’t “a prisoner”, what if it was one of my protagonists, Ambrose? It turned into a chapter of the novel, which probably means it doesn’t work very well as a standalone short story.

But it’s what I have for this month, so uh, here’s Knight Ice, otherwise known as Chapter Nine.

—

“Okay Ambrose, I’m out, I want my pay.”

Ambrose dropped the last floorboard into place. “Can it wait an hour?”

“No.” A drop of sweat flicked off Lutrik Prem’s nose. “Everyone told you this was a bad idea and I’m getting out before you realize they’re right.”

Ambrose straightened and wiped his nose and forehead. It was actually warm. Lutrik had surprised him with a skill at cultivating hotroot under the floorboards, the heat contained within their ice dome. “Lutrik, I thought you’d want to see this through.”

“I have. The outpost is ready. I’d like my pay now.”

“But your percentage for staying on -“

“I don’t care.” Lutrik held out his hand. “I’m out. Percentages are yours. Just pay me for my work.”

Ambrose looked to Iceman Grey and Copper Reynolds, shirts off, Iceman’s chest bound and Copper hanging free, both of them sweating like the place was a sauna. They shrugged at Ambrose.

Well. He was supposed to be a fair boss. “Alright, Lutrik.” Ambrose dug through hidden pockets and extracted handfuls of bullets. Misses. He counted them out into a box. “Fifty.”

Lutrik’s green eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“You did good work and I thought you’d appreciate a bonus,” Ambrose said. “You can just take the forty, if you prefer.”

Lutrik’s stare continued, then with a pop he teleported the box away. “Thanks. Good luck. I really do hope you’re not making a mistake.” With another pop, Lutrik vanished. Likely to the bunk room to pack up.

“A bonus,” Copper said, then she laughed. “Mighty generous.”

Iceman shook his head, tossing ragged-cut hair. “Even with the bonus, that’s only half what you promised us.”

Copper frowned. “You saying that’s unfair, Emily? ‘Cause -“

“Not Emily,” he said, “Iceman.”

“Whatever.”

“Lutrik,” Ambrose cut in, “Was always a flake. Teleport robber can’t stay in one place – surprised he was with us this long. And I’m paying you two more because I appreciate your willingness to work with me fairly.”

Almost said because he was glad they hadn’t tried to kill him or refuse to work with him like the rest of the exiles. Everyone had a price, but he couldn’t pay enough for most.

Ambrose watched them secure the last floorboard – a heavy plank off the Eclipse, heated and humidified to remove the curve. He hoped Copper and Iceman wouldn’t demand their cuts yet. He only had fifty-one Misses, and with fifty gone to Lutrik, his outpost would have to turn quite a profit before he could pay.

Finishing touches over the last week made the outpost feel like a real hub and home. It wasn’t enormous, but the common area, market stalls, kitchen, and private rooms made this the single largest building in the Zone. Soon they’d have vendors and customers paying a premium for the only guaranteed safe area outside of town, right on the border of the Third.

Lutrik popped back in, half-dressed and half-packed, holding a paper note. “Message from the drop box.” He handed it to Ambrose and popped away again.

Ambrose unfolded the rough recycled paper, read the note, and swore.

“What?” asked Iceman.

“Nothing,” Ambrose said. “It’s fine.”

“Doesn’t sound fine,” Copper replied.

He scrunched up the paper and dropped it between the floorboards. “It’s not a problem. We have vendors coming to pay rent. Just… maybe not the Trader or Gunsmith.”

“Maybe?”

“Definitely not the Trader or Gunsmith,” Ambrose growled.

“Told you. Pay up,” said Copper to Iceman.

“Hold on. Did it say why?”

Ambrose rolled his eyes. “This is a bad idea and they might consider joining if we’re still here in six months.”

Copper laughed. “Told you. That’s another Miss, Emily.”

“Iceman.”

“Is it a confidence thing or they don’t want to work with Ambrose Merchant?” Copper asked.

“Iceman,” Ambrose declared, “Let’s open up the perimeter, we should have customers soon.” He watched Iceman shoot a glare at Copper, then fall in beside him.

They passed the open kitchen, nothing simmering so as not to waste precious fuel on the makeshift stone grills and precious hand-beaten kettle Ambrose paid three bullets for. In silence, Ambrose and Iceman donned their layers.

“I want to get one more message out to the drop box,” Ambrose said as they dressed.

“Finally going to ask Steel-Eye Moe in?”

“No. I don’t trust him. I want one last try to convince the Trader and Gunsmith to at least send some inventory on consignment. We can even make it a binding contract so they know we’re not conning them. I know it’s too late for opening, but we’ll have income from hunters in the meantime.”

“Sure,” Iceman nodded, “But you don’t need me for that.”

“No. I want to check the perimeter and alarms one more time.”

They shuffled through the underground tunnel that had been the worst part of building the dome. Iceman could make and move ice but it didn’t work well through permafrost earth and stone – that was all done the old fashioned way with borrowed pickaxes and shovels, crude and prone to break.

Ambrose put one hand on the door. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

They stepped out into wind that felt fifty below. Ambrose struggled to close the door, needed help from Iceman.

Together they walked the ice walls around the dome disguised as an irregular snowy hill. The wall structure was a circular maze, not terribly complex, but enough to frustrate large predators, enough for guards to sound an early warning. Once they had guards. Ambrose hoped to make it a requirement of staying at the outpost; Iceman, Copper, and Lutrik all though it should be paid work. Lutrik’s opinion didn’t matter anymore.

“You used to kill people with ice magic?” Ambrose asked, looking at the man-thick construction of the ice walls and dome.

“What do you mean used to?” Iceman laughed.

The outpost took Ambrose over a year to build. Back in Armelith, everything was easier, despite the Law. Here there were no licenses or identification or work orders to fake, no officials to bribe or deceive. Ambrose’d had to deal honestly. He couldn’t avoid seeing these people again, and many would be his customers.

It was a frozen hell of a time trying to get the materials and work done while keeping the outpost secret. They’d finally put out word two weeks ago.

“Perimeter secure,” shouted Iceman over the wind. His voice was difficult to hear, too high for the weather, but he was working on it. “Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For not calling me – for calling me Iceman.”

Ambrose shrugged. He’d always found people easier to manipulate when he remembered what people liked to be called. “Okay. Let’s open the outer wall.”

Iceman raised a grey wood wand he’d carved himself, inlaid with odd colours he wouldn’t talk about. A section of blank white ice turned transparent, then slid away. Outside the ice maze the wind wasn’t as heavy. Wind tunnel, Ambrose noted – they’d have to address that. Or maybe not, since it would help deter raiders and predators.

“It’s the prisoner’s dilemma,” Ambrose said as he scanned the horizon.

“What?”

“The situation with the Trader and the Gunsmith. We have to cooperate to make this work. We only come out ahead if we all choose to trust each other.”

“What’s the dilemma?”

Ambrose shook his head. “Never mind. Look – our first customers?”

Three dark spots on the horizon across the white plains, one bigger than the others. Wind whipped snow into little whorls and sheets, obscuring the travelers.

“Hopefully customers and not more idiots trying to kill you. And me for working with you.” Iceman held his hands to his face, spoke a few magic words, and grew a compact pair of binoculars from crystals in the air. The lenses were the tricky part, he’d told Ambrose before – not just accuracy, holding them too close to the eyes melted them.

“They’re mounted,” Iceman said.

“Good,” Ambrose replied. “That means they have resources.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“What?” Ambrose leaned toward the binoculars as though that would help.

“Knight-gunslingers on wolves,” said Iceman, “Led by the captain. Everyone told you this was a bad -“

“We don’t know why they’re here,” Ambrose placated. “Some of the knights trade for, uh, services, I’ve heard. At least let’s talk before we try the contingency?”

Iceman growled, closed the ice, and walked straight through solid crystal. Ambrose slapped the wall and shouted until Iceman let him in.

They took the hidden shortcut through the maze. With Iceman, Ambrose hurried into the dome and slammed the door. “Lutrik, Copper – knight-gunslingers incoming,” he shouted. “Don’t try to kill them just yet, they might want to trade.”

Copper put on her undershirt while swearing up a storm punctuated with lots of “They said this was a bad idea”s.

Lutrik popped up next to Ambrose, eyes wild. “This is why I wanted to leave. Seriously, Ambrose, fuck you and your ambition, you were warned, you just couldn’t -“

Ambrose turned away. Lutrik followed and went on and on, but they both knew he couldn’t get out of range of the knights now. Wasn’t safe to teleport more than a short distance and Lutrik could only chain so many jumps.

“I’m going to talk to them at the gate,” Ambrose shouted. “If things go bad, pull the lever when they’re inside the tunnel. After I’m through. If they somehow survive the collapse, use the escape hatch.” He looked each of them – Lutrik, Iceman, Copper – in the eyes, all varying degrees of nervous. “We practiced for this. Don’t worry about it.”

Ambrose worried about it. How did knights know about the outpost already? Did someone rat them out? At least it was better to have knights here before customers so they couldn’t make a scene.

He waited outside the front gate of ice mounted on thick ice hinges, staring out into the plains, scheming about what he’d say.

His schemes didn’t matter. The knight-gunslingers arrived, dismounted their wolves, and the two normal-size knights unshouldered their rifles and used them as flamethrowers on the ice as the double-size captain punched the wall.

The ice cracked.

Ambrose couldn’t hear himself shouting at the knights to wait and stop over the roar of flame and the rhythmic heavy impact of the captain’s fists. He stepped closer and one of the knights turned the flame near him, pointed at his feet. Ambrose scrambled back from fire singing fur on his boots. The knight resumed flaming, steadily melting through the outpost’s defence.

Okay. So they weren’t here to trade. Ambrose ran around the side he thought of as south, toward the hidden entrance, and sprinted through the maze toward the dome.

“It’s me,” he shouted into the tunnel. “It’s Ambrose. They’re at the gate, I’m safe, I’m coming in.”

They didn’t collapse the tunnel on him, but Lutrik certainly looked like he’d wanted to. Iceman stood between him and the lever, his hand sheathed in an ice sword pointed at Lutrik’s throat. Copper stood back, arms crossed.

“They’re not here to trade,” Ambrose coughed.

The glow of the knights’ flame penetrated the ice of the dome despite its opacity. “You don’t say,” Iceman growled through gritted teeth.

Ambrose turned to Lutrik. “You can take the lever. Right, Iceman?”

Iceman gave Lutrik a scowl; he smiled in response. Iceman dismissed the frozen sword around his arm and Lutrik jumped to the lever.

While Ambrose was out, Copper had donned her gun rig. It fit loose without her coat, but it held a dozen single-fire pistols, each loaded with a Miss. She could fire two, drop them, grab and fire two more until she was out. She stood with guns leveled at the tunnel door, Iceman next to her with conjured frost dancing on his fingertips.

Ambrose pulled out his one pistol and loaded it with his single remaining Miss. He joined the others, waiting.

The glow of flame outside the dome intensified until Ambrose realized what was happening. “They aren’t taking the tunnel. Move!”

Water ran from the wall, steam boiled into warm air, and the enormous armoured captain kicked his way through the weakened wall of the dome. He stepped inside, towering over Lutrik. The two other knights climbed through the steaming hole in the ice. All three looked around.

“Hold,” Ambrose whispered.

“Nice place. Must have been a lot of work,” said the captain. He pointed at the center of the dome’s ceiling. “Hole there for smoke, then burn it all.”

“What? Why?” This had nothing to do with the knights. Ambrose was reforming, wasn’t he? Playing nice with others, cooperating?

“I fucking told you Ambrose -” Lutrik screamed shrill, and then went silent when the captain kicked his chest so hard it crunched.

One knight fired an explosive blast from their rifle at the ceiling, showering Ambrose with ice shards. The other turned their rifle flames on the Eclipse-wood walls, floors, furniture – months of nailless carpentry about to burn to coal.

The captain stepped toward Ambrose, one boot bloody, the floorboards straining under his weight.

Iceman quick-grew crystal daggers in his hands. Copper pointed her pistols at the captain. Ambrose only had one Miss.

Iceman darted beneath the captain’s arms and jabbed the daggers into the weak points below the armpits. The ice daggers shattered. The captain did not react while Iceman frantically jabbed daggers at what should have been weak points – even threw one at the neck joint lined with fur rather than metal. Nothing worked.

The captain sighed.

“Move!” Copper shouted, pistols ready. Misses wouldn’t hit Iceman, but ricochets might.

Ambrose looked back and forth. The captain raised his fist. Iceman ducked aside and Copper aimed her guns.

Ambrose shot Copper in the heart.

Everyone stopped. Copper fell to the floor dead. The knights’ helmets turned to Ambrose. Iceman’s eyes went feral and he raised his knives.

“Explain,” rumbled the captain.

“Copper Reynolds thought she found a way to hurt you,” Ambrose made up on the spot. “A new spell that could break the Law.” Careful, he told himself. Be concise, don’t ramble. “She didn’t tell us the details, but she hoped this whole enterprise would draw out the Sheriff.”

Iceman’s face was blank. He let the ice knives melt away.

“I couldn’t go through with it,” Ambrose continued. “It wasn’t -” he almost said it wasn’t right, but they wouldn’t believe that. “I didn’t see how killing the Sheriff would get us on the train home when you’d all still be there to stop us.”

The outpost burned around the captain. He stepped closer, looked down at Ambrose down through the slits in his helmet as Ambrose craned his neck and tried to hide the tremors in his legs. The captain took one casual step over to Iceman. “Is this true, prisoner?”

Iceman shot Ambrose a horrid, venomous glare. “Yes.”

“Hmmm,” said the captain, his voice like rolling stone. “Your claim will be investigated. You are free to go.”

Ambrose and Iceman fled the burning outpost as the heat rose, the knights resumed their flamethrowing, and the captain lifted Copper’s body with one hand. Smoke billowed out the hole in the melting, collapsing dome.

They ran through the line the knights had bored through the maze, slipping on refrozen ice. When they were out in the snowy plains and howling wind, Iceman shoved Ambrose to the ground and shouted “What did you do?”

Ambrose sat up and wiped snow from his face. “Saved your life,” he yelled back. “Next time -“

“Next time?!” Iceman kicked snow at him and froze it to a spray of ice that stung Ambrose’s cheeks and forehead. “Fuck next time. Lutrik was right. You were warned. We were warned. I should have listened when they told me not to trust you.” He took a running start and then froze the snow in front of him into a frictionless runway. “Fuck you, Ambrose,” said Iceman as he skated away.

Ambrose wrapped his face up and sealed in what heat remained. He sat and watched his year-long project burn.

The warnings weren’t the problem. Clearly he’d been too big and loud about this. His next project wouldn’t go public until he knew why the knights wrecked this one or until he was confident it wouldn’t happen again.

He’d tried to do this above aboveboard and fair so the others would trust him. That didn’t work. Fine – Ambrose would go back to the way he used to do things. Lies, deceptions, using people and being gone before they noticed.

Quiet.