Of Limited Loyalty cc-2

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Mugwump opened a golden eye.

  “You’re more ready for this than I am, aren’t you?” Vlad approached and ran a hand over the dragon’s muzzle. In the months since Mugwump had fought at Happy Valley, his scales had thickened and talons had grown longer with each molt. He still had scarlet stripes and spots, but the color marked where the scales had thickened the most. Though he’d never seen inside a dragon, it appeared as if stripes warded his ribs and spots covered vulnerable joints. The ridges around his eyes had become brightly scarlet, and the bony edges and ribs in his wings matched.

  Vlad had wondered for the longest time about the cause of Mugwump’s successful molt and growth of wings. He’d put it down to a varied diet, which included plants and berries which were unknown in Auropa. That, combined with Shedashee knowledge of dragons, suggested they may have had their origin in the New World. While all that made it seem like Mugwump’s changes were part of a natural process, Vlad had concluded that there was more involved.

  Specifically, Mugwump had consumed pasmortes — the corpses that du Malphias had reanimated with magick. He’d gobbled them down quite happily, gorging himself at Anvil Lake. But when du Malphias had killed the spells which animated his corpses, Mugwump stopped feeding and vomited back up the creatures he’d just consumed. Just as greedily, he had snapped demons out of the air at Happy Valley.

  Subsequent to both instances of his having gorged on creatures of magick, Mugwump had changed physically. Vlad could not help but surmise that the consumption of magick had provided the impetus for growth and change, but he knew neither how nor why. That the visions had shown the dragons to have an antipathy toward the Norghaest explained why Mugwump would feed on the demons, but Vlad couldn’t see any connection between those demons and the pasmortes.

  “If you knew, would you tell me?” Vlad shook his head. “I need to know because I have a lot of people here who are willing to face your enemies. The problem is, I know very little about them. Now, the demons, they seem pretty close to gnats as far as you are concerned. And the trolls, I don’t know, bunnies to a hawk?”

  The dragon snorted.

  “Was that a note of contempt?”

  Mugwump shifted, bringing his tail around to hem the Prince in.

  Vlad patted his muzzle again. “I’m not worried for you, my friend; I just wish you had a few more of your friends to join us. A dozen or so dragons should deal with the Norghaest very nicely, I should think. Then again…”

  Vlad leaned against Mugwump’s muzzle. Other dragons might view the Mystrians as the same bother as the Norghaest. “I’m not sure how they would deal with my maintaining you as a possession. Would they be wolves looking at you as a dog, or would you be a captive that they would want to free?”

  A shiver ran down Vlad’s spine. What if there are no other dragons?

  Auropeans had been on Mystria for nearly three hundred years and had never reported seeing a dragon. The Shedashee had knowledge of them, but always prefaced stories of them with “In the time of the grandfathers,” which was the Auropean equivalent of “Once upon a time.” The last clutch of wurms born in Auropa had been laid seven centuries before. Is it possible that there have been none here, since then?

  Mugwump’s ears came forward, then his head up and around. Vlad ducked as the dragon looked to the west.

  A handful of heartbeats later the ground shook. Not hard nor heavy, just a little tremor. The sort of thing one might feel when standing on a bridge over which troops were marching.

  Norghaest troops.

  Vlad strode to the opening. “Mr. Baker, please see to saddling Mugwump. The Count will be joining us, and we’d appreciate having our swivel guns ready to go.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  21 May 1768 Fort Plentiful, Plentiful Richlan, Mystria

  Owen ran to the fort’s parapet. There, on the cusp of the hills northwest across the river, the ground quivered. Greensward pushed up, like a bubble, then burst. Rich, brown earth geysered into the air, piling up around the depression, as if it were a giant gopher hole. Owen shivered, fearing that analogy was not far off the mark, and knowing foul monsters would pour forth.

  I’m sure there’s a Scripture that forewarns of such a thing.

  A single figure rose from within and easily moved east along the ridgeline. Rufus Branch, with his remaining hair grown long and white, gathered into a ponytail, appeared little changed from when they last saw him. He glanced down as he walked, as if distracted by feeling moist earth and green grasses beneath his feet

  Branch wore a black robe secured with a golden girdle around his waist. It had been stripped down from his torso, the arms dangling. The angry red track of a chain scar stood out on his chest and over his left arm. He bore a long staff about a head taller than he was, topped with an ovoid orb which scintillated with golden light.

  The hillside continued to boil with undefined forms undulating beneath the sod. Then the earth split facing the fort. White forms, maggotlike, crawled from the wound, glistening wetly. They rolled downhill into a writhing pile. Their skin became translucent and their black heads went from glossy to dull. Mandibles opened wide, then hands thrust up and out through the mouth. The flesh cracked and trolls emerged. The skin folded itself back onto them, and the mandibles curled into their horns.

  Vlad appeared beside him on the right. “Dear Lord. There must be hundreds.”

  “More.” Owen pointed toward the west. “Cavalry.”

  As the Norghaest infantry arrayed itself in ranks, the daunting silhouettes of trolls astride wooly rhinoceri skylined themselves on the western hill crest. Owen only counted fifty, but could imagine more hidden behind the hill. A greater number would just represent overkill, since the rhinos could flatten anything they chose to run over. Sunlight glinted from copper plates on their foreheads, matching the metal on their riders.

  “Why there?” Vlad frowned. “He could have deployed on this side of the river.”

  “No, Prince Vladimir. Our presence did not allow it.”

  Owen spun, recognizing the voice, but knowing that he had to be mistaken. “How?”

  Msitazi, Chief of the Altashee, stood at his left hand. Below, on the fort’s parade grounds, a hundred Shedashee braves stood. The air around them shimmered, as if it were a fluid, and seemed to drip from some of them. The drops even fled sideways, back into the shimmer, which quickly evaporated. The warriors-twenty from each of the Confederation’s tribes-had painted themselves red and black in a pattern matching Mugwump’s markings.

  They wore leggings, breechcloths, and bone armor chestplates, as well as feathers and bits of shell as decoration. Msitazi had dressed similarly, but had added a red coat and a proper Norillian hat that had both once belonged to Owen. He bore no weapons, unlike his traveling companions, but Owen hardly thought the man with a milky eye defenseless.

  “Your people called us the Twilight People because, in the beginning, they would only see us emerging in the twilight. They assumed we moved through darkness. They were mistaken.”

  “Great Chief Msitazi, you know far more about the Norghaest than you have told.” Vlad concealed his hands behind his back and bowed toward the Shedashee chieftain. “I need to know what you know.”

  The Shedashee ruefully shook his head. “It is not what you need to know, Prince Vladimir, it is what you must understand. You have to learn.”

  Vlad thrust a finger toward the trolls. “We don’t have time to learn.”

  Msitazi smiled in a way which Owen took to be faintly encouraging. “You do. The Noragah must learn as well.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What you have yet to learn, they seek to remember.”

  The sound of a musket-shot spun Owen back around again. “The trolls, Highness, have begun their advance.”

  Atop the berm, Nathaniel ran over to the man who had fired and smacked him with his hat. “You damned fool. You have a better chance of dropping a moose at that range. Reload.”

&n
bsp; The trolls, arranged in thick ranks, naked save for their furred pelts, marched forward. Two companies, ten ranks deep by ten columns wide, they kept good pace with each other. Only when they hit the river and started to wade through did their cohesion begin to fray. That would have been the point to hit them, but the river’s near edge lay a hundred and fifty yards away, and Nathaniel figured that even with green powder training, that was about five times longer than killing range for a musket.

  “Rifles!” Nathaniel pointed with his own weapon. “Ain’t a one of you firing a-fore they get halfway up that slope. The rest of you, thirty yards, no more. Aim for something ain’t covered in bone.”

  The trolls splashed their way through the river and came on at a steady pace. They didn’t straighten their lines at all, but it hardly mattered. Coming as they did-pretty much the way Lord Rivendell had sent his troops against the Ryngian fortress at Anvil Lake-they presented a wall of fur and flesh that the Mystrians couldn’t possibly miss. As they grew bigger and mounted the slope, some of the unseasoned troops began getting antsy, and if their nerves got the best of them, they’d not be able to concentrate enough to invoke the magick that would fire their guns.

  Off to the right, one of the two small Mystrian cannons fired from the fort. A cloud of smoke jetted toward the trolls. The gunners had loaded it with canister shot. A dozen fist-sized balls flew in a flat arc and hit the trolls’ left flank. Five trolls went down, but two staggered back to their feet. One left most of an arm behind him. He got another thirty feet up the hill before he bled out.

  “Rifles, ready!” Nathaniel shouldered his rifle. “Aim. Fire!”

  All across the firing line, magick pulsed through firestones and ignited brimstone. The powder burned hot and quick in the chamber, propelling a bullet into the weapon’s barrel. The spiral grooves cut into the barrel’s steel started the bullet spinning. It emerged from the barrel in a gout of flame, flying on a flat arc, and struck its target.

  Blood gushed, staining white fur crimson. A few of the trolls paused, probing wounds with black talons with the same curiosity as a man studying a chigger bite. One or two even watched their blood pulse from deep wounds, before collapsing, but for most the shots had passed without notice.

  Nathaniel loaded automatically as the gunsmoke cleared. The volley had dropped some trolls. None had made an attempt to move forward to fill the holes in the line. They just marched forward, relentlessly, remorselessly, and implacably.

  “Everyone get ready. Aim low. Fire!”

  Muskets and rifles shot, sound rippling from the center out. The fusillade ripped into the trolls, cutting the forward ranks down. The cannon boomed again, felling more of them. Almost a third of them lay on the ground, still or thrashing. And yet the others came on, undaunted by the opposition.

  Then Rufus raised his staff and spun it over his head. Light pulsed from the orb and an odd thrumming rattled Nathaniel’s bones. The advancing trolls stopped dead in their tracks, then spun and wandered back toward the river with no order or discipline. Their retreat made no sense, but he had no time to figure it out.

  Rufus stabbed the staff into the earth. Light flashed in a flat disk that washed over the battlefield. It outlined the trolls for a moment, rendering their flesh and fur and muscle all but invisible. That vision lasted for a heartbeat or two, no more, leaving a carpet of dead trolls in its wake.

  Then the bodies began to twitch and quiver. Their bellies swelled as if the creatures were pregnant. The swelling advanced to knees and shoulders, throbbing and pulsing. Then the trolls exploded, their flesh erupting in a shower of ivory maggots. The worms immediately burrowed into the earth, leaving deflated husks behind.

  And, across the way, more, larger worms poured from the hole in the ground. They changed as the others had, and filled the back ranks. More light flashed and the trolls began to spread out. Instead of being packed shoulder to shoulder, they opened their ranks. Whereas before a soldier couldn’t help but hit a target, now he’d actually have to aim-something Nathaniel was pretty sure most of the volunteers hadn’t bothered to do. The lengthened lines also meant the cannon’s fire would be less effective. The only counter to that reorganization would be a cavalry attack.

  Don’t matter none. Rufus gots hisself an endless supply of soldiers, and we ain’t got no cavalry.

  The reinforced trolls began a second march to the river. Mystrians reloaded. Nathaniel paced behind them, making sure to smile broadly. “Cut ’em down, just the way you did last time!”

  Unlike the previous advance, the trolls did not come on in a stately fashion. Once they hit the southern bank they broke into a run. Talons raking the air, mouths open to reveal long, sharp teeth, they sprinted up the slope. The cannon fired again, killing a pair, but not even slowing the rest. Rifles began to bark along the line. Crimson blossomed on trolls, but they kept coming. The muskets spoke in a ragged volley, scattering some of the front ranks.

  Mystrians reloaded again, and soldiers atop the palisade fired. Individual muskets shot, but nothing could stop the trolls. They would gain the berm, then claw their way up. As brave as Nathaniel hoped he and his men were, he figured that one of the trolls would be equal to a half-dozen dire wolves.

  Then a hiss arose with whiplash fury, and the trolls on the southern flank melted away.

  As Mugwump landed and furled his wings, Prince Vlad swung the forward swivel gun to the right and fired. Pain shot through his hand-not as much as had when he fought at Anvil Lake-but igniting the gun’s brimstone charge still stung mightily. The shot, each ball being the size of a hen’s-egg, knocked a pair of trolls flying. Behind him, in a saddle fitted over Mugwump’s hips, Count von Metternin fired another blast. More trolls fell.

  Mugwump lashed out with his tail. The tip hit, slicing a troll in half. Then the dragon hissed again. His vaporous breath staggered trolls, dissolving fur and quickly melting the flesh beneath. The trolls, horns evaporating, screamed and clawed at their own skin. It came off in bloody ribbons, their compounding the damage Mugwump had done.

  Prince Vlad catalogued their injuries, noting that Mugwump’s second hiss did not do as much harm as the first. The natural philosopher put this down to Mugwump’s salivary gland running dry. He also realized that the trolls needed more killing than the demons. This did not bode well for Mugwump’s entry onto the battlefield, and that prompted alacrity as the Prince reloaded his swivel gun.

  Rufus shouted a command in a discordant tongue which made Vlad’s flesh crawl. The trolls responded as one, turning and driving toward the dragon. Mugwump, almost catlike, leaped to the side and the south, drawing the trolls away from the fort. His tail flicked, snapping one troll in half, and launching another pair into the oncoming mass. Vlad and von Metternin fired again, this time benefiting from the way the trolls had massed. More fell, torn and bleeding, but others leapfrogged the corpses, eager to get at the dragon.

  Mugwump proved too agile for them. He sprang back, then lunged, catching one troll in his jaws. It struggled for a moment, then bones popped loudly. The dragon swallowed and withdrew, baiting the trolls, stretching their lines and parading them before the fort.

  From the berm, fire poured into the trolls’ flank. Each ball and bullet might not have amounted to much individually, but the sheer weight of metal hurled at the trolls reaped a red harvest. The enfilade fire drove them down the hill, concentrating them, so Vlad’s fire could do even more damage.

  The trolls hesitated as volleys from the swivel guns cut down their front ranks. For a moment, whatever resolution had driven them dissipated. Forward ranks backed away, some trolls tripping and falling over prostrate comrades. Those nearest the fort turned and started downhill, running and occasionally knocked flying by a lucky shot. Confusion reigned in the Norghaest ranks. Their formation completely disintegrated.

  Hissing defiantly, Mugwump leaped into the air again, his wings unfurling proudly. He rose quickly, affording Vlad a glimpse of chaos below. The Prince’s heart leapt as
the trolls fell back.

  Then, from the hilltop, something flashed.

  Mugwump jolted, shrieked and, wings flapping weakly, he plummeted from the sky.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  21 May 1768 Fort Plentiful, Plentiful Richlan, Mystria

  As acrid gunsmoke blew away, Owen swiped at a tear. His thumb was beginning to throb. He glanced at it as he levered his rifle’s breech open. The thinnest of bloody lines had appeared at the cuticle. Before he’d learned to reshape magick, the three shots he’d already fired would have had blood much thicker. He’d touch his nail to the brass fang on the firestone collar, letting the hot metal melt through to relieve the pressure.

  Across the way, Rufus thrust his staff toward the dragon. Fire lanced across the battlefield. What looked like a fiery red comet exploded against Mugwump’s breast. The blast knocked the dragon higher into the air and twisted him around. His wings fluttered as he fell. His tail hit first, then his right hindquarters crashed heavily into the earth. A wing bent, then snapped. The ground shook as Mugwump bounced once and lay on his side, very still.

  Before Owen could even begin to comprehend what had occurred, two new things happened almost simultaneously. A gray torrent of the demons flew from the troll hole, filling the air. The creatures swirled high, then dove straight at the fort. At the last moment, they split. A third of them swooped toward the dragon, while the rest came straight on at Fort Plentiful. Men yelled orders to deploy the nets, but panic had set in. Even before the demons had reached the fort, the Volunteers had dropped their guns and were running for their lives.