How He Got The Name
The Five-Minute Witchy War, Part 3
GetImg slapped this together. It’s rough but close.
No preamble, let’s jump right into it. Bad Bill is down in Louisiana trying to settle his debts, while Sarah is on the run in Appalachia.
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Chapter 6
Bad Bill’s luck goes from bad to worse. He shows up to get paid for the duel, only to be double-crossed by his patron and takes a bullet to the shoulder for his trouble. Then he encounters a pair of “beastkind”—human/animal hybrids who descend from Eldritch/Cahokian magic—who warn him of a pending conflict on a large scale. Bad Bill has a connection to this conflict. Before they can tell him more, he passes out from his injuries and the two beastkind take him to get help.
The prostitute Lady Cathy patches Bill’s wounds and tells him about the beastkind who brought him in. He doesn’t have time to worry about that—he goes to settle his debts but is again ambushed by others who want their pound of flesh out of him, and by the end of the chapter he’s broke, weaponless, and under arrest by the chevalier of New Orleans for killing his son in last night’s duel.
Chapter 7
A mix of action and lore-dumping, all of it good: Reverend Angleton has dreams about catching Sarah, and since he’s both religious and a student of magic, he puts a lot of stock in dreams. He’s nervously confident that the dreams mean he’ll catch her, but he has lingering doubts. He leads a squad of dragoons up Calhoun Mountain, only to get blockaded, mocked, and forced to retreat by Iron Andy Calhoun.
Meanwhile Sarah, Calvin, and Thalanes spend the night in a cave, going over their stores and preparing the next leg of their journey, with the destination of New Orleans. Thalanes is taking Sarah to Bad Bill, who knew her father back in The Day. While Kyres Elytharias (Sarah’s real father) was a consort to Emperor Penn, Bad Bill was a soldier in his service, and was friends with Kyres. Thus Empress Hannah Penn entrusted one of her triplets to Bad Bill, shortly after Kyres was murdered by another dragoon.
The key takeaways are Sarah learning her brother’s name—Nathaniel—and the name of her biological father’s killer: Bayard Prideux. The final bit of lore explored here is the mention of the “regalia of Cahokia,” consisting of a crown, a sword, and an orb. These are royal relics and as the firstborn daughter of Cahokia’s king, they are Sarah’s birthright, though their whereabouts are unknown.
Chapter 8
We briefly check in with Bill, who gets a taste of a “speedy trial” by having his few remaining possessions stripped from him, then he’s shame-walked to a boat where the police row him out to a hulk—a prison made from a ship that is no longer seaworthy. A cherry on top of this entire procession of bad luck: the warden is none other than Bayard Prideux, his former comrade-at-arms and the man who killed King Kyres. He promises to make Bill’s life hell in prison.
With Sarah & co., the long walk to New Orleans offers lots of time for lore-exploration and such. Thalanes tells a story about Adam’s first wife, before Eve, and Sarah asks him questions about how “gramarye” works—that is, magic tied to the use of language (in this case, Latin.) After a few days on the road they pay for lodging at an inn and they all briefly part in search of food and showers.
Shortly after parting, Sarah approaches Calvin and leads him out into the woods for a talk, only to attack him without warning…
Chapter 9
This chapter is bookended with Calvin fighting for his life against what turns out to be a fake muddy homonculus of Sarah. He gets his bell run for a minute and is finally able to vanquish the thing by shoving a silver coin into it, breaking the spell that gave it animation. Then he runs off to find Sarah, figuring she’s in trouble.
In between those sections of the fight, we get a glimpse of Obadiah Dogsbody traveling with Reverend Angleton and the “Philadelphia Blues”—the aforementioned dragoons who were repelled off Calhoun Mountain. Dogsbody still has lingering effects from Sarah’s love spell and it troubles him, causing changes to his behavior.
Meanwhile, the captain of the Blues, named Will Berkeley, is at odds with Reverend Angleton over the course of their trek; while Angleton obviously has his own methods of magical divination, Berkeley puts a lot of faith in tarot cards (referred to by their older name in this series, Tarock). One card that keeps popping up is Simon Sword, an omen of war.
Chapter 10
At the same time that the “mocker” attacked Calvin, another mocker attacked Sarah, and she tries fighting back with some of the gramarye-magic that Thalanes taught her. It’s mildly effective at first, but during the fight she takes a hit to the face that ends up dislodging something from her bad eye: an acorn.
With the acorn gone, she now sees the world with two forms of sight, one being mundane and the other magical. Just then Calvin arrives to fight the mocker; with her magical sight she can tell them apart, and she uses gramarye again, this time successfully vanquishing the mocker.
Over the next several days Sarah & Co. continue to travel along ley lines, specifically the “Natchez Trace,” which Thalanes is able to follow. Sarah can see it now with the acorn dislodged. She can also distinguish between Firstborn and others, because the Firstborn have a bluish magical aura. After another week or so on the road she’s approached by two beastkind—the same two beastkind who previously approached Bad Bill and Lady Cathy. They inform Sarah that “Peter Plowshare is dead.”
Once again, this is a metaphor for a coming conflict, but Sarah can only pretend she knows what they’re saying. They recognize her royal/magical lineage and under Thalanes’ guidance, she deduces that it would be a mistake to expose her own ignorance.
We cap off this chapter with a visit to Angleton/Berkeley/the dragoons chasing Sarah. Berkeley wants to follow the path that the Tarock cards tell him, but Angleton’s visions are getting stronger, and he knows that Sarah is following a ley line to New Orleans. He’s desperate to beat her there.
Conclusion:
Things are moving faster now, and the chase is on. Personally I find Bad Bill to be the most entertaining character, we just don’t get much of him yet because this is Sarah’s story—and that can’t be told without understanding her inheritance, which could fill volumes. Thalanes taking on the Gandalf role in this story is really helpful.