CHAPTER 5
His wife's anguished screams pierced William's soul. He stopped his relentless pacing to peek into the birthing room again. Liz, bravely practicing the breathing techniques he taught her, lay sweating on the bed. The team of midwives urged her on, ordering her to push the baby through.
After all the fights with bounty hunters and petty bandits since leaving England a year ago, he knew how tough she was. And that only made her unbearable pain harder to handle. The love of his life suffered in agony, and he could do nothing to help her. One of the women snapped at him, and he shut the door like a boy caught watching a woman bathe.
"Maybe you should wait outside," his fake cousin suggested.
William's primary ancestor was Baron Karl von Richthofen, who Genghis Khan killed while slaughtering the inhabitants of Peking in 1215. The Baron's family swore a blood oath of revenge and recruited quads from across Europe to fight the Mongols. The Khan eventually had to send super-quads to Prussia to wipe out the von Richthofens. Luckily, a girl named Rachel escaped the slaughter, the lone survivor of a family that once ruled the Kingdom of Bohemia.
Widowed while pregnant, Rachel married Taran, the Hero of Kiev, who never knew the child was not his. Now accepted in Mongol high society, she raised her son to continue her family's feud. He started the family tradition of burning the ancient trees that Mongols needed for great wands. As the last living descendent, William carried the burden of his family's long legacy.
Rachel heavily promoted a video documentary after Taran’s death to make her fake Mongol family famously Mongolian to protect her son. Passed from wand to wand, videos cost nothing to copy, so she distributed it to every library in the Empire. The investment continued paying dividends as William, careful to model his hair and beard after a man he pretended to descend from, introduced himself as the great-great-great-grandson of the war hero Taran.
He looked at the kind man who thought he was William's distant cousin. The irony is that he personally liked his fake Mongol relatives even more than he liked most Mongols. Plus, they provided a compelling cover story if anyone ever investigated him.
Their marriage infuriated Queen Margaret. Her punishment was replacing Richard with the now-impotent Aidian as the official Royal Heir. She could not anoint Prince John because his stealing angered the country. However, the English liked Prince Richard far more than Aidian, and the romantic elopement of Lady Elizabeth captured the hearts of the English. Not to mention the sharp contrast between the generous newlyweds and the thieving family of Prince John.
What worried William was the ten kilo bounty on their heads. How ironic that he feared his family's enemies would endanger her, when actually it was her family that endangered him. So much so that they moved to the Mongol capital. William had to bribe the local official to forward the baby's birth date by two years to throw off Prince John, who saw their son as a rival for the throne.
Although not the touchy-feely type, the emotional turmoil of the moment prompted William to hug his fake cousin, then suddenly burst outside into the falling snow for some fresh air. Ever paranoid, William sensed movement on his far left. He turned to see a man peering through bushes at him.
"It's him!" the guy said in terrible Mongolian. William recognized him from his fight with the longshoremen in England the year before.
William pressed his inner arms against his overcoat. Even before those wands sprung into his hands, his boot wands propelled him up, out of the kill zone, even as the first volley smashed the oak door into a thousand splinters.
William flew over the house to get out of their line of sight, then circled to attack them from behind. He killed one with his back to him, then blasted another who apparently didn’t recognize him. William watched his head explode like a watermelon with great satisfaction. At least two others returned fire behind trees. A fireball engulfed one tree and the man behind it, igniting his clothes. It didn't kill him immediately, but the three-degree burns took him out of the fight. William and the fourth man traded blasts, but William -- in the air -- could dodge easier than the ambusher on the ground.
Two bounty hunters from the bushes flew over the house at him. William evaded the blade of one and parried the other. Too close for blasting, William used his superior length to stab one in the chest and slice the other below the knee. Without a foot wand, he fell on the roof, where William chopped his head off. William grabbed his wands to retain their power, then did the same to the other ambushers, finally dispatching the guy still on fire.
In the eerie silence he heard the scared longshoreman cry like a baby as he ran through the woods.
Something made William pause before he realized that he just heard the birth cry of his newborn son. A son! Swelling with pride, William sped after his last enemy, expertly weaving his way through the trees before slicing his leg muscles. With the Englishman’s face in the snow, William landed on his back and chopped off both hands so his enemy could not use his wands. He turned over the terrified tradesman.
"How did you find me?" William wanted to know. Not hearing an immediate answer, his wand shot electricity to his groin, making him wail like a newborn.
"You’ll pay for killing my brother," the man promised. "Prince John spent the last year spreading your wanted poster around the world. Every bounty hunter on Earth is looking for you."
"But why are you here with them?"
"To identify you. You grew a beard and changed your hair, so they wanted to make sure before they killed a baby. And they had plenty of time since they thought it safest to attack during the birth."
This appalled William the father, but seemed like a sound tactic to William the warrior. "How many more are there?"
The dying man laughed weakly. "And dilute their shares? They only promised me one full coin, the cheap bastards. Not bad for a month of flying, but nothing compared to ten kilos."
As he faded out from loss of blood, William transferred ownership of his wands by holding them as he died, then took his leather money sack.
Back at the house, his fake family had fanned out, wands in hand.
"The bastards assumed I was rich," he explained to his fake cousin, who looked at him with both terror and awe. It’s not every day someone you think you know kills several warriors. "I think I got them all, but you better sweep the perimeter to make sure while I check on the baby."
This time, the wet nurse did not shoo him away. William found their beautiful baby boy suckling his mother's teat while the other ladies made silly baby noises. What a difference a few minutes makes.
"He looks like a blond Chinaman," William joked. Liz raised her hand to hit him, but then laughed instead.
"I want to name him after his father," she proposed.
"No," William replied. "Wang is a terrible name. We better call him Billy."
Actually, they already agreed to put Temujin, the birth name of Genghis Khan, on his birth certificate because it was the most popular name among the Khan's male descendents. Society would accept their son more, he’d blend in with the thousands of other Temujins, and it gave him status as a direct descendent of the Immortal through his fake ancestor, Taran the War Hero.
"I love you so much," she declared.
"I love you more," he answered, unable to tell her that they’d have to flee the city because he could not keep her safe.