Ian limped into the battle. With every heartbeat, he willfully abandoned civility and reason. It had no place in this battle. Leaving it behind had served him well before, in ways and at times he refused to consciously remember. He reveled in the scent of blood and the howls of pain. He looked inside himself and allowed the monster to emerge.
A monster to slay monsters.
Stalking through the forest, he stabbed and slashed, puncturing knees and cutting heel tendons. He thrust through throats and eyes, anywhere he could find an opening. He cut demons from the air. If one of his men fell, Ian was beside him in an instant. He slew the creatures preying on his men, and continued on, letting his soldiers believe he’d been there to save them.
It didn’t matter what they thought. Ian’s only intent was to prove himself the most lethal creature walking the woods that day.
Yet for all his energy, the battle would have been lost because the trolls kept coming. Though the tight spaces between trees limited their advances, men’s weapons could only do so much damage. Steel might hurt the trolls, but it took many wounds to bring one down, and many more to finish them. It became a battle of attrition, which the Norghaests’ endless host was bound to win.
Then from the hilltop came a shrieking which Ian was certain, by the chill entering his soul, meant the Norghaest had destroyed Prince Vlad and had unleashed some new horror. It took him a moment to realize he was mistaken, and happily so.
The Shedashee who had avenged the dead cavalry had arrived and attacked the trollish flank. With warclubs a blur, the Twilight People recklessly threw themselves at the trolls. The riders had been besotted and had fallen easily. The Shedashee clearly had to know these trolls were not in the same befuddled state, but that did not seem to matter to them. They, wearing paints that marked them similarly to the Prince’s dragon, swept into the trolls and through them. They slashed and smashed with abandon, using speed as their armor, sowing death and confusion in the enemy ranks.
Recognizing the chance to completely destroy the enemy, Ian picked up a discarded carbine and raised it high. “Fifth Northland, on me. Skirmish line. Advance!”
The men of the Fifth dashed forward, forming up into a tight group, the bayonets jabbing forward. Behind them the wounded men reloaded their carbines and snapped off shots here and there. If the line parted around an injured troll, the Fifth’s wounded would fall on it and finish it grimly, not gleefully.
The Shedashee made it through the trolls, then slipped back behind the skirmish line. There Kamiskwa joined them and then sprinted up the hill to come around and attack the flank again. The Fifth drove harder, pushing uphill, giving the trolls less and less space to fight. With the Shedashee coming in from the north, Ian stretched his line to the south where they joined Owen and Justice Bone and a few Rangers who had gotten cut off from Major Forest’s command.
“Now, damn you, we have them.” Ian stabbed a troll in the groin. “For Queen and Country, men. Kill them all!”
Prince Vlad levered the rifle’s breech closed and handed it back to Nathaniel. “Your shot will count.”
Nathaniel accepted the rifle, then pulled the Prince to his feet. “I’ll die on my feet like a man.”
Vlad smiled and looked at his hands as the trolls thundered forward. He could still see the magick swirling. He could feel it coursing through him, galvanizing his body along the same pathways that Rufus’ magick had used to inflict pain. The Prince directed the magick to quiet angry nerves, and it did.
“I wish I could do more.” He shook his head. “To kill Rufus, I learned really well how to cancel magick. Didn’t have time to learn much of anything else.”
“You did your job, Highness. Ain’t no reason for regret.” Nathaniel raised the rifle and took aim. “I reckon I’ll make the most of the magick I learned.”
Nathaniel fired and magick gave the Prince a whole new perspective on his friend’s skill. Golden curls of energy rippled through the marksman and shot down through his arm to this thumb. Brimstone ignited in the chamber and the bullet emerged in a fiery gout and cloud of smoke. A slender golden thread played out behind it, tracing a straight line for the lead troll. It struck its neck at seventy yards, shredding an artery. It bounced off the troll’s spine, rending more blood vessels as it caromed down into the beast’s body cavity.
That first troll pitched forward, leaving a red mist hanging in the air.
“Nice shot.”
“I can get one more in.”
The trolls stopped in mid-gallop.
Vlad shook his head. “What?” As good as that shot had been, there was no reason they should have stopped.
Then the ground shook as Mugwump landed between the Prince and the trolls. His claws dug deep, scattering ice and snow. He hissed furiously. His breath billowing out in a cloud which shot toward the trolls like an avenging revenant.
And yet even before it could touch them, trolls began to fall as, from the woods on both sides, shooters fired. The volley came raggedly, rippling out in a widening wedge that raked the trolls’ flanks. Old muskets and new, blunderbusses and a few rifles, spat fire and lead. It was not so much that any individual shot dealt death, but that the metal ripped the trolls to pieces.
Chaos reigned. Mugwump’s breath dissolved any trolls it could reach. Those that could, withdrew, scattering in all directions. Some, panicked, came straight for the Prince. Nathaniel dropped another one, and Mugwump gobbling up his fill.
Those which ran into the woods found men waiting with steel axes and scythes, pruning hooks and swords. The weapons gleamed from just having had layers of rust scraped from them. Vlad immediately recognized the axmen as his foresters. But how?
A horse reined up beside him and Count von Metternin cheered. “Yes, Highness, this is going exactly as you explained it would.”
Prince Vlad gaped up at his friend. “What are you talking about?”
“The thaumagraph messages you sent. They were in your hand, I know how you send. You told me to gather all the people who had come to Fort Plentiful and bring them forward. You told me how to deploy them on the wings, and you said they were to strike when Mugwump did.”
“I still don’t understand.” Vlad pointed east as people emerged from the forest, shooting trolls and hacking them to pieces. “Where did they come from?”
The Kessian smiled. “That’s all Major Woods’ fault. When he did his choosing outside Prince Haven, he made it clear what a man had to have to join this fight. And as men went home, they traded for supplies and spread the word. They were a week back of us, and came streaming into Fort Plentiful after you left. I was going to have them ready to oppose the Norghaest as we had discussed, but then your message came through and we came up, advancing this last bit when we heard the cannons go off.”
The Prince, his mind reeling, felt power surge through his connection with Octagon. He looked up and caught just the hint of a green-gold glow fading from within the valley. He wasn’t certain what it was, but it left him sad. “Nathaniel, find Kamiskwa. He’ll need you.”
Nathaniel lowered his smoking rifle. “Rangers are peeking on out of the woods both sides, and boys are back at the cannons.”
And Mugwump is gorging.
The Count laughed triumphantly. “The enemy is in full retreat, Highness. Some may escape, but we can hunt them down later.”
“Yes, very good.” Vlad advanced a dozen feet and dropped to a knee beside Rufus’ corpse. He pulled the locket and chain from the dead man’s hand, then kissed the locket and closed his own fist about it. He visualized his wife and found the connection Rufus had hinted at. He closed his eyes and used magick to convey a sense of relief. He knew she’d get it in a day or two, or perhaps already had it. When didn’t matter, just that she knew, did.
Then he opened his eyes again, trailed in his dragon’s wake, and began assessing exactly what kind of victory they’d actually won.
Chapter Sixty
4 June 1768
Octagon
“Well, I ain’t of a mind to disagree with you.” Nathaniel, as bidden by Prince Vlad, had found Kamiskwa in the Octagon. They both crouched beside a pair of tracks through the snow that worked from the wooly rhinoceros corral on over to where a muddy mixture of snow, ice, and dirt formed a nearly perfect circle. The mud had frozen over, solidifying little ripples and a couple of bubbles that had not yet burst. Dirty snow formed a berm around it and reminded Nathaniel of the tunnel Rufus had dug to escape Happy Valley.
The tracks told one simple story. After dealing with the rhinoceros riders and reversing the magick they used to enslave their mounts, Ezekiel Fire and Msitazi had strolled across the valley floor and into the troll hole. The mud had erased half of Fire’s last footstep, and almost all of Msitazi’s. Given the length of their strides and the crisp outline of their footprints, Nathaniel could easily visualize them walking arm in arm like old friends, leaning on each other for support, passing serenely through the chaos which, in a few places, overlaid troll tracks on theirs. They had strolled straight through the battle, unconcerned and uncaring.
Kamiskwa looked up from where he traced a finger around the heel mark of his father’s last step. “Look again, Magehawk.”
Nathaniel scooped up snow, and used magick to fashion the mask Kamiskwa had used on him before. The scene came alive in magick. Whereas the mud lay frozen, glowing blue energy around it still quivered. The hole fairly well seethed with magick, as if it were a pot on the boil. Yet even as he watched, he could tell it was trending toward a simmer. Whatever had opened the hole, and however it had been closed, great magick had been brought to bear, and two men had vanished as a result.
“Your father do that?”
“He did, or they did together.” Kamiskwa twisted and sighted back up the hill. “A few of the warriors said my father ordered them to help me. They thought he would come, too.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “He knew what he was doing, weren’t of a mind to have any of them in the way. Question is, what in tarnation did he do?”
The Shedashee warrior stood. “It feels akin to the portal magick. He used it to send the trolls and demons away from here. What concerns me is this: he has always had to lead the way. Knowing how savage the Noragah creatures are, I have to wonder where he would take them.”
“And can he get back again?”
“Yes, that, too.” Kamiskwa started around the circle’s perimeter. “Come take a look at this.”
Nathaniel followed, and crouched at the circle’s northern edge, almost directly across from where Msitazi’s and Fire’s tracks vanished. There, preserved in the mud, were two delicate footprints of bare feet, obviously female. No steps led up to that point, or away from it. “You reckon that’s the one you seen?”
“Would you recognize Rachel’s footprints?”
“I would, but I done seen them a-fore.”
“And I’ve seen hers, in my dreams.” Kamiskwa sighed. “Every night, she is there. Not teasing me, but she is a mystery. I can hear her voice, but I cannot understand her words. She’s afraid, Magehawk, but feels safe in my company.”
Nathaniel ran a hand over his unshaven jaw. “And these just ain’t no regular dreams.”
“In them she is more real to me than you are right now.” Kamiskwa looked at his hands and brushed his thumbs over his fingertips. “She was here, Nathaniel, not the vision she was before, but here. I think she helped my father and Fire deal with this hole.”
“So she would know where they are.”
“Or she is with them.” Kamiskwa glanced down. “I must find them and bring them back.”
Nathaniel stood. “Are we leaving right quick now, or will morning be soon enough?”
“Magehawk, I cannot…”
The Mystrian raised a hand. “Now you listen here, Kamiskwa. I seem to recall there was a time when I headed out on a fool expedition while I weren’t much better than half-dead, full of hate and stupid. You was the onliest one what stood beside me. Before then and since you done saved my life a passel of times, and I done the same for you. Your pa done took me into your family, and I took a liking to Fire. And if this woman who’s gonna be your wife is involved, there’s one more reason for me to go. And the reason you want me with you is that aside from being wise, and a better shot than you, it was me made sure the last thing going through Rufus’ mind was a hunk of lead. He was the biggest mage I ever done hawked. Where we’re going, I reckon there might be a mage or three even bigger what needs some lead poisoning. I’ll oblige ’em.”
The Shedashee smiled. “Nathaniel, what about the men you led here? You have your responsibility to them.”
“Well, I reckon I do, but I reckon there’s more of a way to handle that than walking back to Temperance with ’em all. Caleb Frost, good Lord willing he made it through alive, and Makepeace, they done led them in this battle. I reckon they can get them home again. Having me head off with you, providing I go round and visit folks when we’s back, will do more for them men than a couple weeks of campfires and tall tales.”
“How does that make sense?”
Nathaniel folded his arms across his chest. “For the longest time I didn’t want nothing to do with civilization—Norillian civilization, mind. Shedashee civilization makes sense to me. But you was right after Anvil Lake: men was feeling all full of piss and vinegar, like they could whip the world. They’d be expanding Mystria, as Fire did, by pushing on out, and they’d be putting pressure on the Shedashee. But that was when they figured there weren’t nothing out here that would push them back, them not reckoning on how hard the Shedashee could push if they was of a mind to.
“See, most of these men love the idea of the wilderness. It makes it safe for them. Iffen a farm fails, they pack up, move west, make a new farm. And me, I is a reminder that the west is always there. Now Caleb has ties to Temperance, and Makepeace is from a Virtuan family, soes they gots more in common with these men than I do. So when I tell the men, and let it be told, that there’s some unfinished business out here, and that you and me is going out to handle it, but they should be ready to help. We make them safe again, and important. They’ll know we’ll be a-calling them, and if you and I is heroes, and we need them, they’re heroes, too.”
Kamiskwa’s amber eyes narrowed. “It is probably best that you remain out here, Magehawk, away from civilization. That kind of animal cunning would make you dangerous in the cities. I think we should depart after we reach Fort Plentiful. We will go to Saint Luke. The Altashee will need to elect a new chief. Then we begin our hunt.”
Nathaniel nodded and jerked a thumb toward the southwest. “Start at the Antediluvian ruins?”
“In a practical sense, yes. First, however, we must visit the other tribes. We know what the Altashee know of the Noragah. We need to know more.” Kamiskwa’s lips pressed into a grim smile. “We learn everything we can, then we hunt, Magehawk, killing anything that would stop us along the way.”
Owen found Bethany wandering through the encampments on the southern edge of the battlefield. The combatants, exhilarated but exhausted, had grouped together in small meadows and hollows. Pickets had been set out in case any demons or trolls that had escaped decided to come back and raid. Most people believed they’d not stop running or flapping until they reached the far coast, and many were hoping they’d starve to death before they ever got there.
He looped around to approach her from the front. She was completely lost in thought and did not notice him. “Bethany, are you well?”
She looked up, momentarily startled, then smiled as she pressed a hand to her throat. “Oh, Owen, please forgive me.”
“What’s the matter?” Owen glanced back toward where the Prince had set up his pavilion. “I just saw Caleb. Aside from a couple of cuts, he was fine and happy.”
“Yes, I saw him.”
He looked around. “Clara wasn’t…?”
Bethany shook her head. “She’s fine as well. She killed five
demons, but won’t stop talking about the fact that I shot two with a pistol.”
Owen started to comment, but thought better of it. Shooting a demon with a handgun meant Bethany was far closer to combat than she ever should have been. Her having been able to reload to shoot a second time meant she was in danger longer than he liked. Still, the expression on her face—a mix of embarrassment and anger—suggested Caleb had already given her a lecture and she didn’t want to hear any more.
“Something is bothering you.”
She nodded, her brows arrowing together. “When the Prince sent me back to the Stone House, Clara and I headed off as ordered. But not far back we found Count von Metternin and people, lots of people. We found everyone we’d left at Fort Plentiful, and many of those who had left after the battle. There were even more of those that Nathaniel had dismissed at Prince Haven and other volunteers who had joined along the way. They were just all there, waiting. When the cannons went off, they surged forward, just two wings of an army that I didn’t know was there and I’d swear Prince Vlad didn’t know was there either.”
“How did they come to be there?”
“Count von Metternin said it was on the Prince’s orders, but I never sent any messages.” Bethany looked up at him. “I thought, then, that the Prince had sent orders independent of me, because the Count said they were in the Prince’s hand. But Prince Vlad didn’t have a thaumagraph. Or I thought he didn’t, but maybe he did, and maybe he sent messages in secret.”
Owen reached out, resting his hands on her shoulders, stroking her upper arms. “He couldn’t have thought you were a spy.”
“No, I know. I didn’t think that.” She glanced back toward the east. “Before he met with Caleb and the other captains, he pulled me aside. He asked if I’d sent orders independent of him to bring the reinforcements up. I denied it, of course, because I didn’t. But he kept questioning me, asking me if I had gotten any messages or had seen anyone near the thaumagraph. I told him I hadn’t, and that I’d taken the precaution of removing the identification disk. The thaumagraph wouldn’t work without it.”
Of Limited Loyalty: The Second Book of the Crown Colonies Page 49
