At the Queen's Command

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Owen went to a knee. “It looks as if he’s been shot.”

  Nathaniel poked the body with a stick. “Clothes are practically falling apart. Bullet hole in the vest, but not in the shirt beneath.”

  Owen pointed instead at the man’s head. “I meant his skull.”

  The other two grunted. The man’s skull had a hole in it, not quite cleanly round. A ball had hit at an angle and had gone in near the temple. It had come out toward the back of the skull, still on that side, and had blown a chunk of bone away.

  “Who would murder a man out here? Why?” Owen grabbed a stick and hooked the edge of a satchel tucked beneath the body. “And why would they leave this if they killed him?”

  “Bigger problem than that, I’m thinking.”

  “Yes, Mr. Woods?”

  Nathaniel stood. “Assuming he fell where he was shot, ain’t no point around here high enough to put a shot in at that angle. And if he were shot below, why drag him up here?”

  Kamiskwa stood and folded his arms across his chest. “Another problem.”

  Owen looked up. “What?”

  “The wound that killed him. Look close.”

  Owen did as instructed. He bent down, holding his breath against the stench. “Holy Mother of God.”

  The bones in the skull: they’d begun to heal.

  Chapter Nineteen

  May 9, 1763

  Bounty, Mystria

  Owen carefully poked the skull with his stick. The triangular piece of bone near the exit wound didn’t move. Though the fracture lines of the bone were clearly visible, they’d begun to lock together.

  “That’s just not possible. How did you know, Kamiskwa?”

  The Altashee shook his head. “Magick taint. Something evil.”

  Owen shifted the stick around and snaked the pouch from beneath the body. The right hand came into view and had a bronze ring around the appropriate finger. “Mr. Woods, can you get that ring?”

  “I’m not of a mind to be robbing graves.”

  “Nor am I, but this is a mystery I’d like to solve.” Owen untied the thongs and opened the pouch. He pulled out a journal very much like the one he’d been keeping, and a half-dozen pencils. “They’re round. Not of Norillian manufacture. Are they made here?”

  Neither man knew. “I’m thinking I’ve seen round in New Tharyngia, but I ain’t claiming that’s the whole truth.”

  “No knife to sharpen them. This one was gnawed.” He opened the journal. Penciled lines and sketches filled many pages. The text appeared to be in Ryngian, but it didn’t make much sense. It also deteriorated over the course of keeping the journal. The letters got bigger and slanted down the page, with sentences occasionally spilling across the gutter onto the next page.

  “I can’t make any sense of this, but here’s an interesting thing. No dates, but there are all these circles that are shaded. I think that’s the moon. He didn’t know the date, so he drew the moon each night.” Owen closed the book. “It is in Ryngian, though. Du Malphias sending out his own scouts?”

  Nathaniel reached down and snapped the ring finger off, then pulled the ring off and flicked some leathery flesh away. “Maggots say he’s been dead for two days. Flesh and bone, I’d put him at dead six months anyway. That’s a mite before your man arrived.”

  Owen accepted the ring and held it up. A simple signet ring, it had been cast in bronze. The flat surface had the letter “P” engraved into it, and the legend “1/3” below. “First company, Third battalion, Phosphorus Regiment. They were destroyed at Villerupt. If he was there, he’s been dead for three years. That’s impossible. He must have once served, came to Mystria to start over, and he died here.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “As good an explanation as any.”

  Owen stood, slipping the journal, pencils, and ring into his pouch. “The Prince will find the journal an interesting puzzle.”

  Kamiskwa agreed with a nod, and they set off again. They pushed past dusk, then made a cold camp. They split the night into shifts, with Kamiskwa agreeing to take the last one and rouse them when it was time to move out. Woods took the first, leaving Owen for the middle of the night.

  Since they’d not made a fire, Owen had insufficient light by which to read or write. Still, he fished out the dead man’s journal and compared the last drawing of the moon with its current phase. Like the presence of the maggots, the drawing suggested the last entry had been three maybe four days earlier. Aside from the head wound, they’d not seen any obvious signs of trauma, so exactly why the man died where he did remained mysterious. And how he got there with that head wound was an even bigger mystery.

  Owen found himself less concerned about the circumstances of the man’s death, than the location. The man had penetrated very close to the point where the Benjamin River became navigable. If he had been scouting for du Malphias, they could have found the most obvious avenue of attack by accident. That was a very lucky stroke.

  The soldier caught himself. Du Malphias could only attack down the Benjamin River if he had the information in the journal in Owen’s hands. The most productive idea was to believe that du Malphias had sent out many scouts, and that at least some of them would successfully return with journals describing other ways to get into Mystrian territory. The journal Owen had found might be useful in picking out a path to du Malphias’ stronghold, but du Malphias would have to defend against the possible loss of a journal or a scout being captured.

  The information in this journal will be very valuable. Owen resolved to pen a note to describe its discovery.

  Owen smiled. “Provided, of course, I survive to write that note.”

  The next morning they continued on, but at a more leisurely pace. While being watchful for trouble, Owen could not help but notice the sheer beauty of the forests. The green canopy glowed with sunlight. Shafts sank through here and there, but green shadows softened edges and warmed the land. He followed the trails Kamiskwa picked out but, as he looked through the trees, countless other trails beckoned.

  They paused by a stream to rest, and Owen stared off at a shrouded pathway heading up a nearby hill. Breezes made the leaves sway just enough that shadows shifted. He thought he saw something and drifted toward it. It looked like a child huddled behind a tree, then it vanished. A bit further a maiden appeared wearing the shape of his wife, but with a Shedashee’s coloring. And then, a bit further along, his mother beckoned.

  A hand landed on his shoulder and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun. Nathaniel stood beside him. Kamiskwa stood at the ready by the stream, a hundred yards away. But that can’t be. How can I have gone this far?

  He looked at Nathaniel and realized the man had a hand over one eye. “What are you doing?”

  “You right handed or left?”

  “Right.”

  “Close your left eye and look again.”

  Owen did as instructed despite knowing it was nonsense. He turned and, suddenly, what had been an inviting trail shifted. Green lights still played through it, but sharp, black shadows predominated. The shape he’d taken for his mother became a bent and angular figure, a nightmare creature made of twisted sticks. And then it blew apart as if hit by a gust of wind, a gust he could not feel nor hear, and which affected nothing else.

  “What is this?”

  “Pikwazahk. It’s the winding path.” Nathaniel looped an arm over his shoulder and steered him back toward the stream. “The Twilight People believe the forest is alive. There are parts what are ancient. Things live there. There’s times they are hungry.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Don’t know.” Woods shrugged. “I felt the call. Times I wanted to walk into the woods, just keep going. Seems so peaceful you just want to drown in it.”

  “What is it about covering the eye?”

  “Your strong hand is the practical hand, according to the Shedashee. That eye, the practical eye. The other, the soul eye.”

  “Cover that and you don’t see the illusions?”
/>   “’Pears to work.”

  They rejoined Kamiskwa, but Owen had a hard time shaking the sense of peace. He recognized so many pieces of it. His mother’s smile. Catherine’s clinging to him with passion just past. Bethany’s smile and even the rough camaraderie of soldiers in the field. All times when the world itself had just faded away, leaving him alone but not alone, reassured that things were right.

  His companions gave him a little time to collect himself. Kamiskwa kept a close eye on him as they headed out, grabbing his shoulder at one point when he’d stepped off the trail.

  “Why is this happening?”

  Kamiskwa looked around defiantly. “They want your power. You have great magic. You have fought far away and killed men they have never tasted before. You are sweet to them. New. They hunger.”

  “Why don’t they want you?”

  The Altashee laughed. “They do, but they cannot have me. Not me, not my children or their children.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When my father was young his sister went missing on the winding path. All were afraid. Fall had come, an early winter promised. The Old Ones wanted prey before winter, before they went away.”

  “Into hibernation?”

  Kamiskwa shook his head. “Into hiding. There are things that will feed on them, too. My father did not fear. He walked the winding path. They sent many warriors to stop him, but he defeated them all. He took his sister back. He exacted a promise that they would not feed on us for four generations.”

  Owen’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t certain if the tale he’d just heard was true, or another fanciful story like those sold to scouts and other officers who had come on his mission before. And yet, he could still feel their desire. He wondered if the sirens of old Hellenic tales were old spirits hungering for men?

  “Such things are long gone from Auropa.”

  “Are they?” Kamiskwa smiled. “Or do they just now live in other places? Cannot one get lost in your cities, your forests?”

  A chill ran down Owen’s spine. “There are always stories of children gone missing. In the Low Countries men vanished. We thought they deserted, but, perhaps…”

  He took another look around. “This land is even more dangerous than I can imagine, isn’t it?”

  Nathaniel laughed. “I reckon, iffen that’s the case, they done sent the wrong man to be scouting.”

  Owen raised an eyebrow and fixed him with a stare.

  The Mystrian held a hand up. “Didn’t say I thought it was true, Captain Strake. I was just supposing. Truth be told, you seen more in just a handful of days than most all your countrymen put together. You ain’t whimpering for a return to Temperance, so you’s likely the right man after all.”

  Though he felt no real inclination toward it, he let Nathaniel’s remark mollify him. It wouldn’t do to get upset over a simple remark, especially when it was based in the truth. Owen had spent a great deal of time in school and the military fighting prejudice based solely on his being half-Mystrian. He was used to it. Being thought deficient for entirely different reasons caught him by surprise.

  As he thought about Nathaniel’s remark—and reclaimed his hat from where a branch had knocked it yet again—he discovered the difference in criticisms. Norillians looked down upon him for something he could not control: the circumstances of his birth. Mystrians were judging him for something he could control: his lack of experience. Nathaniel and Kamiskwa were even helping him gain experience, and protecting him from perils he had no way of understanding. They might be wary of him, but they were also willing to give him a chance.

  He caught up with Nathaniel as they entered a narrow meadow at the base of a wooded valley. “I appreciate all the help you’re giving me. I want you to know that.”

  “That’s kind of you.” Nathaniel nodded solemnly. “I reckon I been a-judging you by other Norillians, and that weren’t quite fair. My apologies, Captain.”

  “Not necessary, sir.”

  Ahead of them Kamiskwa slowed as he moved through the waist-high grasses. Nathaniel pressed a hand to Owen’s chest.

  “What?”

  “Iffen we’s gonna see a jeopard in these parts, this is the kind of place it likes.” Nathaniel pointed off across the meadow toward a tree leaning against another at the edge of the woods. “Like this when we shot the Prince’s jeopard. It was perched atop a log like that one over…”

  Woods whistled loud and Kamiskwa dove forward. The Mystrian brought his rifle up with no further warning. His thumb covered the firestone. Fire jetted from the muzzle. Thunder roared and smoke blossomed, half-blinding Owen.

  But not before he saw a puff of smoke in the distance, heard the blast of gunfire and the hiss of a ball scything through grasses before it knocked him flying.

  Chapter Twenty

  May 9, 1763

  Bounty, Mystria

  Owen’s musket flew into the tall grasses. He spun away from it, landing on his left hip. Pain jolted through it. He glanced down. The ball had caught him there, but he didn’t see a hole or much blood. By rights blood should have been gushing and the pain of a shattered pelvis should have left him screaming.

  Keening war cries and another gunshot eclipsed any chance to check his injuries. One of the Twilight People, this one with his face painted black save where a single white eye had been painted on his forehead, appeared at his feet. The warrior raised a warclub and shrieked.

  Owen rolled to the left as the club pounded the ground, just missing him. Then in one smooth motion, as the warrior spun and raised the club again, Owen drew the pistol from the small of his back. His thumb covered the firestone. The warrior’s eyes widened.

  Owen invoked magick.

  Had it not been for long hours of drill and hot minutes spent in battle, he never could have triggered the spell. Panic and pain he’d long since learned to shunt away. Almost without thought, he conjured the formula then pumped it out through his right thumb. The energy burned into the firestone, igniting the brimstone.

  The warrior’s face evaporated. The .50 caliber ball caught him right above the bridge of the nose, shattering bone. Scalp stretched, trapping the fragments, then the ball burst out the back. Blood and brains jetted in both directions. The shot lifted the man off his feet and dumped him in the long grasses.

  With no time to reload, Owen snatched up the dead man’s warclub and stood. His hip held, but something wasn’t quite right. The stiffness didn’t matter, as another warrior drove forward. The man backhanded a warclub at Owen. Owen blocked the blow, then tipped his club forward and jabbed. The blade plowed into the warrior’s chest.

  The Shedashee stepped back, fingers probing the wound, but Owen kept coming. Another jab smashed the hand holding the warclub. As it dropped, Owen buried the club in the man’s stomach. The warrior pitched forward. Owen crashed the club into his skull. The warrior collapsed and lay still.

  Owen limped ahead. Kamiskwa blocked an overhand club blow with his rifle, then whipped the butt around. His opponent’s face crumbled and teeth flew. Woods, rifle in his left hand, snapped his right hand forward. A bloody tomahawk spun through the air, catching another warrior in the flank. He’d been sneaking up on Kamiskwa. The Altashee Prince spun, whipping the rifle’s butt around in a blow that dropped his assailant.

  Another shot rang out from the same spot as the first. Owen dove for cover. He found himself crouching near Nathaniel with a body between them. From other rustling Owen took it that Kamiskwa had also ducked out of sight.

  “The shot came from the fallen tree.”

  “I saw. I’ll get him once I reload.”

  “Don’t, he’ll see you.”

  The Mystrian laughed. “He would if I had to stand to load.”

  Nathaniel grasped a lever that had previously sat flush in a groove on the stock. He forced it down and the whole firestone assembly at the base of the barrel slid back. A gimbaled cylinder tipped up. Nathaniel stuffed a paper powder cartridge into it, then seated a bul
let in the opening. He pushed the cylinder back down, and worked the lever to advance the assembly and seal the chamber.

  Owen smiled. “Very quick work.”

  “Thanks. Kamiskwa, you reloaded yet?”

  “By the time you miss I shall be, yes.”

  Nathaniel grinned. “Reckon I cain’t afford to miss.”

  “I’ll draw his fire.” Owen heaved himself up and thrashed his way through the grasses. He cut at an angle to the tree so the shooter would have to track him. He bobbed up and down, his red coat contrasting vividly with the green grasses, waiting for the shot.

  The sniper obliged him. The bullet whizzed past Owen’s head, leading him by a couple of feet. Then Nathaniel shot. Even with his rifle blast still echoing in Owen’s ears, there was no mistaking screams of mortal agony from the fallen tree.

  Owen cut back to where he’d dropped the pistol and quickly reloaded it. He fed powder from a paper cartridge down the barrel, then rammed the paper and a ball home. He slid the ramrod back into its place beneath the barrel. “My pistol is ready.”

  “I’m ready. Kamiskwa?”

  “I’ve been waiting on you.”

  Owen found Nathaniel again. “How do we do this?”

  Nathaniel gestured to one of the bodies. “These are Ungarakii. They’re part of the Seven Nations. They travel in packs of six or so. We got most all of them. The painted eyes say they were scouting. Probably for the Tharyngians.”

  Owen looked toward the fallen tree. “Likely a Ryngian or two down there then.”

  “Most like.” Nathaniel pointed at him. “How’s your hip?”

  Owen took his first good look at it. Wooden splinters peppered his hip and thigh. He plucked one out, then tossed it aside. “Ball must have hit my stock. Long range for a musket shot, so it just broke wood and knocked me down.”

  “Stiffening up, is it?”

  “I’ll limp for a bit.” Owen paused. “Don’t hear anything. He’s dead or getting away.”