At the Queen's Command

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Owen frowned. “It was loose, Highness. Scales do fall out from time to time. I don’t see any Green Bloom on him. He seems warm. If he is eating well…”

  “No sign of molt, Captain?”

  Owen shook his head. Wurms periodically shed their scales and spun cocoons of dragon silk. Very strong, it would be harvested and spun into wonderfully tough and lightweight garments. All of the Regiment’s Wurmriders had combat uniforms cut from it. The cocoon was a harbinger of a molt, and cutting a wurm prematurely from the cocoon was vital because no wurm survived chrysalis.

  When freed from their cocoon, they remained asleep for weeks. Some even slept for months. They sloughed off their skin, which had to be cut away. Men highly prized the outer layer of flesh. The Wurmriders all had boots and gauntlets of wurmleather. Once freed of their old skin, the wurms woke up and within a month had grown new scales. Those trained to war took to the their old duties without requiring additional drills.

  “I did not feel any silk, and he has too many scales yet.”

  Vlad stroked a hand over his chin, smearing mud. “Your observations concur with mine and those of my wurmwright, Mr. Baker. My concern is that the loose scales are distributed over Mugwump in a bilaterally symmetrical pattern.”

  Owen frowned. “But it can’t be a molt since he has not spun.”

  “Do we know that cocoons are necessary for a molt?” The Prince held his hands up. “I don’t mean for you to answer that. It’s a question of some minor debate between me and some of my Auropean correspondents. I find the pattern intriguing because birds, to maintain stability in flight, molt in a bilaterally symmetrical pattern. If the ancient stories are true, and dragons could fly, perhaps this loosening of scales presages something more?”

  “Highness, that’s not a question I can answer.”

  Prince Vlad laughed. “It takes a wise man to admit ignorance. There can be other explanations, of course. Mugwump has been in the royal stables for centuries, but he’s not been fought in the last fifty years. Being as how he’s the only wurm in Mystria, there has been no reason to bring him to combat.”

  “It could be, Highness, that he’s about to shed armor he’s not using.” Owen frowned. “I do have to say, he’s the biggest wurm I’ve seen, and…” Owen traced a finger along some scarlet and gold striping running up the muzzle. “I’ve never seen markings like these before.”

  “Nor have I. The Truscian painter, Giarimo, did his portrait just over a century ago. No sign of the markings then.” The Prince patted Mugwump on the muzzle. “If only you could talk, my friend, you could tell me. Is it your peaceful life, or it is something else? Your reaction to this land, perhaps, as Mister Baker believes?”

  The wurm lifted his head and brought it, dripping, over Owen and back toward the puddle. His thick, black tongue swept out, dragging that branch into his maw, then his mouth closed. Mugwump eyed them for a second, then twisted and rolled down into the center of his wallow. He writhed there, grinding his back into the mud, his four legs reflexively clawing toward the roof. His mouth opened again, his tongue lolled out, and his eyes closed.

  The Prince sighed. “Things would be much easier if he shared my love of science and discovery. And forgive me boring you with my inquiries.”

  Owen held his hands up. “Please, Highness, it was an honor.”

  Prince Vlad pointed at the gold band on Owen’s left hand. “Did you bring your wife with you?”

  “No, Highness.” Owen smiled. “Though had she known I would be meeting you, she would have endured the journey.”

  “I’m certain your wife would be delightful company.”

  “You’re very kind, Highness.”

  The Prince’s eyes glittered. “Shall I gather that if I wanted to know any Norillian court gossip, she would have been a good source?”

  “Her one failing, Highness.” Owen sighed. “She told me a great deal before I left, but I did not pay attention. No matter; it would all be old.”

  “And given my aunt’s often mercurial personality, it would likely have changed, or changed back, since you sailed.” Vlad laughed. “There are times when the ocean is welcome insulation from her guidance.”

  Owen smiled politely, not knowing what else to do.

  The Prince waved him forward. “Come, let us get you cleaned up. I can do at least that. Eli, my wurmwright’s son, serves as my squire and will get most of the mud off your coat. Those breeches are beyond salvation.”

  Owen ascended the short ladder onto the walkway. “Please, Highness, I appreciate the offer but will decline. Colonel Langford will take some pleasure in seeing me thus.”

  “You mustn’t tell him that Mugwump did this. The man has forever desired to see the wurm. Petty, I know, but denying him that pleasure is one of the few means I have of irritating him. I suspect that speaks well of neither of us but, as vices go, it is hardly the worst.”

  “I will tell him I paused by the river and slipped.”

  The Prince smiled as they closed the doors to the wurmrest. “Clever man. You might actually succeed in your mission.”

  “Thank you, Highness.”

  “I think you will find, Captain Strake, that my assessment will make your life more difficult than you imagine.”

  “Highness?”

  The Prince matched his stride as they headed to the front of the estate. “Let me ask you… No, no, let me tell you: You are a clever man. No need to deny it or hide it. You have a goal. You have a reason for coming here, one beyond your orders. You’re too smart to be looking at this as a grand adventure—though you do realize it will be the greatest adventure of your life. There is something more there.”

  Owen shivered. The image of his beloved Catherine swam into focus. “Yes, Highness.” He almost continued speaking. He almost told the Prince his reason, but in glancing to the side, he saw a steely glint in Vlad’s eyes that told him whatever it was, it was unimportant.

  “Mark my words, Captain Strake. Your mission and its successful completion will be the first step in determining the future of the world.” The Prince’s eyes narrowed. “There will be many who do not want you to succeed, but for the sake of the world, you must.”

  Chapter Five

  April 27, 1763

  Bounty Trail

  Temperance Bay, Mystria

  Owen stopped by the Benjamin River to wash wurm-mud off his clothes. His jacket and waistcoat had gotten the worst of it, so he scrubbed them as best he could, and washed the grime from his boots. He splashed water over his breeches and, after removing his shirt and boots, waded into the river to clean the rest of him.

  Whereas others might have been disgusted, Owen smiled. He almost shouted out happily, but refrained. The unspoiled wilderness didn’t need his voice disturbing it.

  All the stories he’d heard and read about Mystria had not prepared him for the pure delight of the land. In just one day he’d seen so much. There will be many more strange adventures before I am home again.

  A crashing in the brush off to his left brought him around. He swam back to shore and reached for the horse pistol. Owen brought the gun up, his thumb resting on the firestone. He looked toward the sound, steadying the pistol with his left hand. Images of stalking jeopards filled his mind.

  Idiot. That predator would be the whisper of death.

  There, thirty yards away, a massive beast on long legs emerged from the brush and onto a small sandbar jutting into the river. Brown in color save for its long, buff muzzle, its head was crowned with a huge rack of thick antlers. Its stubby tail and brown ears flicked about. The creature surveyed the riverside, then cropped some of the grasses growing at river’s edge.

  Owen lowered the pistol and released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. At that range he couldn’t have hit the beast. No matter. Such was its size that a single lead ball wouldn’t bring it down. Even a jeopard might think twice.

  The monster looked in his direction for a moment, then ambled into the river and s
wam across the deep center channel. Once it had its feet under it again, the creature strolled toward the far shore, nibbling as it went. It never cast a glance back.

  Owen shivered, not so much out of draining fear, as the pure joy of seeing something so different. Yes, it distantly resembled the sort of deer his father and uncles hunted on the family estate, though much bigger. The deer were another product of the estate, more cattle than wild beasts. This, on the other hand, wandered boldly across the countryside as if it were a king.

  Definitely regal and apparently fearless.

  He almost turned back to the Prince’s estate to ask after it, but if that became his pattern, he’d never get back to Temperance before nightfall. He grabbed up his wet clothes, wrung them out as completely as he could, then went back to his horse. He draped the red coat over the back of his saddle, fitting the tails around his horse’s tail, and pulled the damp waistcoat back on.

  Riding back toward Temperance, Owen looked again at the countryside. The Prince’s words resonated in him, so he began his work immediately. If the war on the Continent was to spill over into Mystria, armies would somehow have to be brought together in a cohesive manner and set to battle. It was his job to find a way for that to happen.

  Within the first mile, several things became readily apparent. Owen had marveled at, and doubted, the feat of marksmanship that brought the jeopard down. That a man could kill a target at a hundred yards, even with a rifle, strained credulity. Even granting it was during the winter, when trees had been stripped of foliage, Owen wondered how the hunter had even seen the target at that range.

  The forests he rode through—and it was all forest save for swaths cleared around small farms or the occasional meadow—barely let him see thirty yards. The beast he’d seen at the river could have been moving through the woods parallel with him, and he’d never see it. He might hear it, but manage a clean shot? Impossible.

  The trail slithered through the countryside and doubtless had its origin in a game trail which many feet expanded. In places where water seeped up, or flowed down from hillsides, the road should have been impassible. In those spots, people had cut trees to shore up the road. They laid eight-foot lengths of log across the path, providing a modicum of stability in what would otherwise have been a marsh of stinking black mud. His horse preferred riding around the makeshift bridges when possible. The logs themselves showed some signs of wagon-wheel wear.

  Though caution had been taken in the wettest areas, the rest of the road hardly remained dry. Men and horses might be able to tolerate little uphill jogs and downhill runs, but a team of oxen pulling a cannon or a supply wagon would never make it. The single virtue of fighting in the Low Countries had been a system of well-maintained roads that made transport easier. Here, moving troops and supplies would be a nightmare.

  Unbidden came the memories of the last campaign on the Continent. The rain had fallen for days over roads better than this track, reducing them to mud. The Mystrians had taken to the hardship better than most. It struck Owen now that might have been because the only way they could feel superior was by refraining from complaint while their Norillian betters wailed and moaned. And the Mystrians hadn’t had any qualms about setting their guns aside to pick up axes and shovels to clear routes and shore up roads.

  But this countryside would take a battalion or more of laborers to widen roads and build bridges. While that would make troop movement easier, it made surprise impossible. Reaching an advantageous position from which one could engage the enemy was important. If the enemy could tell from which direction you were coming, chances were they would occupy that position before you ever could.

  Of course, that is putting winter before fall. Owen had to wonder if there were any suitable battlefields in all of Mystria. The farms he’d ridden past might have, at most, a dozen acres cleared and most had little more than two. That would be enough ground for a battalion to fight, but battalions do not decide battles.

  Aside from the cleared fields making a quilt of the countryside, most of the land was far from level. Farmers had terraced some spots, but mostly left hillsides for cattle and sheep to graze. And the ground was filled with stones, as evidenced by those gathered to form walls at the fields’ edges.

  No, the land was decidedly inhospitable to war. But I will find a way around all obstacles.

  Another shiver shook him. He wanted to put it down to a damp vest and the coming dusk, but a profound wave of isolation washed over him. His wife, his beloved Catherine, had always said that he could find a way around all obstacles. She’d intone the words with reverence, and smile at him in a way that made him feel like a god striding the earth.

  He shook his head, smiling. I so hope you are right, darling, for the sake of our future.

  The sense of isolation bled into caution as the world darkened. He drew the horse pistol and weighed it in his hand. Heavy dark wood, brass fittings binding the steel barrel to stock and brass for the stonelock, the pistol was standard issue for cavalry soldiers. Owen’s thumb fell naturally to the blue firestone at the barrel’s base.

  While Owen was considered a very good shot among his peers, the pistol would avail him little against the hazards of Mystria. He could easily bring the pistol to bear on an enemy, invoke the spell that would ignite the brimstone and thereby propel the lead ball at his target. But that horned creature, or the jeopard, would shrug off such a shot.

  And so his mission loomed before him, gigantic and possibly insurmountable, just like Mystrian fauna. If he failed, many would expect him to use the pistol to blow his own brains out. It would be the honorable thing to do, after all. Wouldn’t be proper to have the family’s name besmirched by his failure.

  They’d expect me to take a gentleman’s way out. Owen laughed to himself. And then would claim I’d never been a gentleman at all. In fact, if his uncle had the means to do it, the story would be changed so that a Ryngian assassin had killed Owen. The tale would ennoble his death, allowing Owen to enhance the reputation of a family that had little earthly use for him.

  No matter what I do, the Duke will find a way to make it serve his purpose.

  Owen laughed again, the sound disappearing into the forest. Since his uncle would turn anything to his advantage, Owen needed to make sure he succeeded well enough that it benefited him and Catherine as well. Only then could he escape his uncle’s influence and find true happiness.

  He slid the pistol back into the saddle scabbard and looked over Temperance from the hill above it. It struck him that perhaps this new world—so far away from and alien to his uncle—would give him the chance he’d not ever had before. Catherine was certain of it. He chose to believe in her dream, and that had him smiling all the way back into town.

  Night had fallen by the time he reached the Guards’ headquarters. He slid out of the saddle, surprised. The building was shut up tight with no sign of life. There wasn’t even a guard stationed nearby.

  A young man detached himself from the shadows. “You’d be Cap’n Strake?”

  Owen nodded. “And you are?”

  “I’m to take you to your billet. Colonel Langford had your things delivered.” The young man shrugged and began walking off along Generosity.

  Owen ran after him and caught his arm. “Wait. Where is Colonel Lang-ford?”

  “Don’t know. Home, I imagine.”

  “And the guards?”

  The man turned. Clean shaven, tow-headed, tall, a bit on the gangly side, he gave Owen a lop-sided grin. “Don’t do things here quite as they might across the water.”

  “Meaning.”

  “Likely they’s down to the Queen and Crown slaking a thirst.” He turned again and started walking. “You’ll be wanting to come along. Mother’s got some supper for you.”

  Owen ran back, grabbed his horse’s reins, but didn’t climb into the saddle. He sensed this was what the man expected him to do. First rule of winning any fight was not to do what the enemy expected. He caught up with the young man
after a short run.

  “I’ve been billeted at your house?”

  “Were it my house, you’d not be staying.” The man slowed a bit so Owen could pull even. “It’s my father’s house.”

  “And your father is?”

  “My father is the smartest and the most honest man in this here whole colony. You’ll not be treating him like a servant. And you’ll not be rude to my mother, you won’t beat the young ones, and if you so much as look at my sister…”

  “Sir, I am a most happily married man.”

  “Didn’t seem to make no nevermind to t’others.”

  “So, if I look at your sister, you’ll leave me for some jeopard?”

  “No, I like jeopards.” Despite the adamancy of the man’s clipped reply, the hint of a smile crossed his face.

  “I shall take it, sir, that I am not the first Queen’s officer who has been a guest in your home.”

  “My father is thinking it’s his duty to host officers.”

  “This guest, he was a noble who was arrogant and rude?”

  “The last one, the one before that, and the two before that.”

  Owen chuckled.

  “Being as how you think this is funny…”

  “No, sir, I take your warning seriously.” Owen forced his smile to broaden. “Those noble officers purchased their commissions. I earned mine on the battlefield. And I’ve seen Mystrians fight. I was impressed.”

  “Was you?” The man’s eyes tightened, but he nodded.

  “My name is Owen.” He offered the man his hand.

  The man hesitated, then did his best to crush it in a grip of surprising strength. “Caleb. Caleb Frost.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Caleb.” Owen matched his grip firmly, pumped his arm, then freed his hand. He let Caleb see him flexing it. “If I could trouble you…”

  Caleb arched an eyebrow.

  “On my ride back from seeing the Prince, I encountered a beast, eight foot at the shoulder, dark brown, long legs, huge rack of antlers.”

  “Bowled or more like branches?”