The Channeling (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 3) Read online

  The Channeling: Book 3

  (Rise of the Witch Guard)

  by

  Luke Sky Wachter

  Copyright © 2016 by Joshua Wachter

  All rights reserved.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. Respect my electronic rights because the money you save today will be the book I can't afford to write for you tomorrow.

  Books by Luke Sky Wachter:

  As of 05-18-2016

  SPINEWARD SECTORS NOVEL SERIES

  Admiral Who?

  Admiral’s Gambit

  Admiral’s Tribulation

  Admiral’s Trial

  Admiral’s Revenge

  Admiral’s Spine

  Admiral Invincible

  Admiral's Challenge

  Admiral’s War

  RISE OF THE WITCH GUARD NOVEL SERIES

  The Blooding

  The Painting

  The Channeling

  RISE OF THE WITCH GUARD NOVELLAS

  The Boar Knife

  Books by my Brother:

  Caleb Wachter

  SPINEWARD SECTORS: MIDDLETON’S PRIDE

  No Middle Ground

  Up The Middle

  Against The Middle

  McKnight’s Mission (A House Divided)

  Middleton’s Prejudice

  SPHEREWORLD NOVEL SERIES

  Joined at the Hilt: Union

  SPHEREWORLD NOVELLAS

  Between White and Grey

  SPINEWARD SECTORS: A TRACTO TALE

  The Forge of Men

  SEEDS OF HUMANITY: THE COBALT HERESY SERIES

  Revelation

  Reunion

  IMPERIUM CICERNUS SERIES

  Ure Infectus

  Sic Semper Tyrannis

  Follow this series at Facebook - The Witch Guard

  (https://www.facebook.com/groups/139516032885492/)

  Join www.PacificCrestPublishing.com for future beta reading opportunities.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Clearing the Border, Worries about Beautification, and Weekly Facial Treatments

  Chapter 2: Trouble with Boots

  Chapter 3: A Last Discussion with Smythe

  Chapter 4: Company Meeting

  Chapter 5: Marching Out

  Chapter 6: On the March

  Chapter 7: Is this a Fighting Company or a Northern Migration?

  Chapter 8: Ice Finger Patrol

  Chapter 9: Arriving at Ice Finger

  Chapter 10: Not Everyone Ignores the Swans

  Chapter 11: The Prince Makes His Plots

  Chapter 12: More Tulla and the Magi Training

  Chapter 13: In Camp and Rumors of Night Raiders

  Chapter 14: The Fresh-Faced Youth?

  Chapter 15: Problems in the Chain of Command

  Chapter 16: Leaving Ice Finger

  Chapter 17: On the March

  Chapter 18: A Woman Standing Outside in the Cold

  Chapter 19: Tulla Summons her Apprentice

  Chapter 20: Foraging

  Chapter 21: Witch Hunters

  Chapter 22: Burning at the Stake

  Chapter 23: Making the Plan

  Chapter 24: To Slaughter or not to Slaughter?

  Chapter 25: The Gratitude of a Healing Wench

  Chapter 26: Hurrying to Catch up

  Chapter 27: Someone else catches up with the main army

  Chapter 28: Marching into the Lands of the Great Frog

  Chapter 29: The Tower Adepts petition the Prince

  Chapter 30: Armies Merge and Falon meets Tulla again

  Chapter 31: Armies in the Field as the Prince advances on the Frog Lands

  Chapter 32: The Prince Parleys the Toad

  Chapter 33: Negotiations Break Down over the issue of taxes

  Chapter 34: The Thunder of the Drums

  Chapter 35: Armies Clash

  Chapter 36: A-Rankin…for a Frog?

  Chapter 37: The Battle Turns

  Chapter 38: Hard Pressed

  Chapter 39: Prisoner of War

  Chapter 40: Negotiating from Weakness

  Chapter 41: The Butcher Bill’s

  Chapter 42: A Pay Day

  Chapter 43: Family Matters

  Chapter 44: The Swans Receive New Orders

  Chapter 45: A Letter, and a Large Sale

  Chapter 46: Seeking Relief

  Epilogue: Saint Aeofia Lives!

  Chapter 1: Clearing the Border, Worries about Beautification, and Weekly Facial Treatments

  Falon’s unit was chasing the barbarians over hill and under dale, which in and of itself wasn’t the end of the world. In fact, in a way it was entirely understandable. She was now a knight, after all, and attacking barbarian reavers who’d crossed the newly established border seemed to come with the territory. Sadly of course, this wasn’t her territory now was it?

  Shaking off the thought as unworthy, she continued to lead her patrol from the front. Reaching the tree-covered top of the hill she swept the area for sight of any barbarian warriors before leaning down and looking for tracks. It wasn’t Sir Smythe’s fault that she had been effectively exiled to his new lands and burnt-out manor for the duration of the winter—and right before a hard winter hit at that. So while the vast majority of the Prince’s army, his gentlemen, and various camp followers had been holed up in the nice and snug Ice Finger Castle, where she was doing her duty to King and country.

  At least…she was if you ignored the minor fact that, at least according to the noble members of the New Blood who controlled the Stag Kingdom, a woman—or, in her case, a girl of sixteen years, which was even worse—had no business involving herself with wars and battles as anything except a camp follower.

  Falon snorted. While she agreed in principle—she had no desire to be out here freezing her hiney off in the bitter cold when she could be snug as a bug in a rug back home with her family—in practice so long as she could do the job of a warrior and a knight, then this was where she was going to be. New Blood ideals or no new blood ideals, there were more important issues than matters of principle.

  Things like her family’s estate and the continued happiness of her brothers and sisters who would be effectively homeless, potentially cast out into the street and married off at the will of Richard Lamont. Not that she had anything against the Swan Lord who ruled Brown Creek Grove where her family’s estate was located, but…

  There was the sound of an owl hooting off one hundred lengths to the right, causing Falon’s head to snap around.

  “Looks like the savages found something, Fal,” Duncan huffed and puffed as he reached the summit of the hill behind her.

  “Of course they have. And they’re warriors of the Swan Battalion now—not ‘savages,’ Duncan,” Falon said, shooting him a withering look before seeing movement in the trees ahead. “Be quiet!” she hissed, cocking her head to listen.

  Duncan paused to break wind and then leaned red-faced against the tree, looking entirely too satisfied with himself.

  “Earth and field, next time I’ll leave you at home,” Falon cursed.

  “Please do!” Duncan said eagerly with an almost pathetically hopeful look on his face, “it’s colder than a witch’s teat out here. I’d much rather be sitting at home guarding a fire than chasing one group of savages over hill and under dale with yet another group of savages at my back. It’s downright inhumane to be—”

  Anger gave her speed and with a surge the power of the earth flowed up her leg and into her core. Simultaneously reaching over and grabbing Duncan by the throat, she shoved him against the tree.

>   “Do you think this is a game?” she hissed right before an arrow slammed into the tree passing through the space Duncan’s face had just been occupying before she’d ‘manhandled’ him.

  Duncan gurgled and his formerly red face paled after the arrow thunked into the tree beside him.

  “Yi-yi-yi-yeee!” shrieked the barbarians in the woods. One of the men stepping out holding his bow upside down as he pumped it and his arm several times in triumph before jumping back into the cover of the trees. It looked like a captured kingdom-made bow.

  “That’s gone and torn it,” Falon cursed and then let go of Duncan. He dropped half a foot before his feet touched the ground.

  For a split second she felt a sense of smugness at how much stronger she was with the magic of her ancestors than the older boy—and at how very much she’d been forced to improve her control over that magic during the freezing winter. Truly the winters back home didn’t hold a candle to these frigid northern winters.

  “Up and at them, boys!” she shrieked, unsheathing her sword and, with a bend of her knees to test the thickness of the snow, she was off down the hill like the shot of an arrow.

  “Svaaans!” shouted the Ice Fox barbarians in their accented imitation of the Swan name of their battalion.

  “Rankin for a-Swan!” she shrieked, leaping from one tree to the next for cover from the hail of inbound arrows and javelins. Each time her left foot touched down on solid ground—or, in this case, ice-covered snow—she felt a surge of strength flow into her body.

  “Raaah!” roared an enemy savage. He was a big, hairy, brute of a man who surged out of the trees with a half step lunge. It looked like he was initiating a counter charge, but he turned right back around ran back under the cover of the trees long before they engaged.

  Not ten feet away from the false-charging savage a large, six foot long spear shot out of the underbrush.

  Falon dodged, pivoting on her left heel as she ducked and then slid into a controlled skid as her feet lost their traction in the snow. Six feet to her left a spear thunked into a tree and fell to the ground, its stone head shattered from the impact with the icy rock hard exterior bark of the tree.

  “Is that the best you can do!?” she sneered, calling out in a raised, challenging voice.

  The savages responded with another spear ,this one landing a good twelve feet short in the dirt in front of her.

  Falon shook her head. This band of savages seemed better armed than most of the desperate and hungry men her warriors had been dealing with these past few months. Even if they were using stone spearheads, they were still throwing away a number of spears to seemingly little effect.

  Then, like a heavy rain that had suddenly stopped and left everything unnaturally quiet, the enemy barbarians faded away into the underbrush and seemingly disappeared.

  After a long moment staring at the underbrush, Falon cautiously stood back up and raised a clenched fist and then opened her hand, spreading her fingers wide.

  Behind her, half a dozen members of her eight man patrol came forward in long loping ground eating strides.

  “You want we should follow them, Lieutenant?” Sergeant Jake asked, looking past her toward the direction of the disappeared barbarians with a focused, hunter’s gaze.

  For half a moment she was tempted then a shiver rocked her body. Even with the power of the earth flowing through her now that she was standing on the ground, it was still colder than cold.

  She reluctantly shook her head.

  “No,” she said after a moment, “we’re at the edge of the Captain’s land grant. They came, and we ran them off. If we followed them what do you think the odds are we’d walk smack dab into a trap?” she asked the Sergeant.

  “Too high for my taste, Lieutenant,” Sergeant Jake shook his head.

  “Then let’s take it slow and easy to make sure they really are run off before heading back to the barn,” she said, clapping her hands and rubbing them together to try and generate some extra warmth.

  Bringing her hands up to her mouth, she blew into them even though she knew that through the fur lined leather gloves she probably wouldn’t be able to feel a thing. Rubbing the back of her gloved hand across her mouth so as to leave no moisture that might later chap her lips, she felt a light tug and felt something come loose at the corner of her mouth.

  She grimaced bitterly.

  A month and a half into the harshest winter she’d ever experienced, her fake beard had long since fallen off. But she had needed to stay warm and ward off frostbite by any means available to her. There had been several cases of the ‘bite in camp already, and two toes had been amputated. Falon had surrendered, given into peer pressure, and followed Ernest and Duncan into the local wise woman’s tent.

  It was her moment of greatest shame. Almost as concerning, but not nearly as bad, was that the length of her hair had slowly shortened accordingly

  “What’s on your mind, fur-face?” Duncan asked with the worst timing ever displayed by man or beast.

  For a moment, Falon was stunned.

  Then she rounded on the older boy with a fury.

  “You!” she snarled, her hand instinctively reaching up to hide her shame.

  “What?” Duncan asked defensively.

  “I’m an officer, that’s what! I have my dignity. So stop acting so familiar,” she declared, angrily standing on her dignity as an officer and a ‘gentleman.’ So shove off and head back to camp before I exile you to the punishment hut for a night.”

  “The cold hut?” Duncan sounded alarmed. “What did I do to earn that? ‘Fur-face?’ Except for a couple of the barbarians, we all look like we’re yetis or abominable snowmen.”

  “Two nights!” she shrilled, beginning to lose what little dregs were left of her temper.

  “Fine. I’m a-gettin’, I’m a-gettin’,” Duncan said, hastily backing away with his hands raised in mock surrender.

  Seeing him turn to go, Falon’s shoulders slumped and she heaved a weary sigh of relief. If it was tinged with a bit of sorrow, no one needed to know.

  After several steps, Duncan stopped and half-turned.

  “You know, maybe it’s because you were born a noble or something about how they raised you. But you really shouldn’t worry about your looks so much,” he said consolingly before looking around furtively, “besides, I have it on good authority from the wenches that the wildman beard gives you a roguish look that would warm their cockles even if you weren’t a Knight Lieutenant. I know of at least three that would gladly share your furs…”

  “You,” she hissed, her hand blindly groping for the hilt of her imperial-style sword.

  He trailed off in the face of Falon’s increasingly wrathful face.

  “Shutting up now,” he said, his eyes bulging as her hand finally found the hilt of her sword. He turned around and broke out into a flat out run for the safety of the winter camp, swearing in retreat, “Lord of the Field!”

  “Duncan Farmer!” she shouted after him, pulling out her sword and giving chase. However, the scoundrel was a young man on the move and while she could probably catch him after the first minute by forcing her way through knee-high snow, she decided he simply wasn’t worth it and came to a gasping halt.

  Checking to see if anyone was around, she leaned against a nearby tree to hide her face and worked to keep from bursting into tears. She couldn’t afford to have freezing water on her face when it was this cold.

  Inside, she gave herself a long minute to wallow in self-pity and give in to despair before she finally straightened. A mask of resolve all that was left to see on her roughly bearded face.

  When this was all over and she could finally go home, what man was going to want to marry a scar-faced bearded woman she asked herself silently?

  She grabbed her beard with both hands and started to pull, determined to tear it out before suddenly remembering the last time she fell into a fury and pulled out almost all the hair on her left cheek. By the time the patrol was over th
e left side of her face was nearly frost bitten and she had to sit so close to the fire to warm up her face she burnt the bangs on the left side of her head.

  “Well…at least you’ll naturally fall out sooner rather than later,” she said flatly before releasing her grip on the hateful facial hair. She silently cursed the inventor of the beard spell with all her silent fury. Whoever had created the terrible thing deserved to roast in the pit for a hundred—or even a thousand years. It was criminal, that’s what it was!

  The worst part about it—other than the minor issue that she looked uglier than a cow or billy goat given woman form? It was that while Ernest and Duncan and most of the other men only had to go in for the hair transplant treatment every two weeks or so, she on the other hand could hardly go a week and a half before the terrible thing started to fall out in large clumps. And that was using her own hair, to boot! It turned out it would stay in longer than putting some random stranger’s hair on her face, but still she was forced to endure the procedure far more often than her fellows!

  Thanks to Duncan and the beard spell, she now knew she was appearing increasingly attractive to the camp wenches. Her once-long braid was slowly inching its way up her shoulder blades, and the worst thing of all was that until this northern cold front was gone there was nothing she could do about it.

  It looked like dreams of Prince Charming—or at least some half-decent, knightly substitute—were right out the window.

  In a foul mood, Falon followed the rest of the patrol and found her way back to camp.

  “Isn’t this a fine kettle of fish?” she grumbled.

  Chapter 2: Trouble with Boots

  After arriving back at camp, Falon threw open the door and stomped into her room. Wiping her feet on the old, blood-stained shirt doing duty as a doormat, she tried to clean and dry them as much as she possibly could—mostly failing on the latter account—and she took a step forward, pivoted to the side, and collapsed into one of the few surviving, fire-charred chairs in the manor.