Of Limited Loyalty cc-2

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Similarly, the fact that most Mystrians came from redemptioneer or criminal stock sent to Mystria in an effort to rid Norisle of undesirables meant that many Mystrians thought themselves inferior to their cousins back in the Home Islands. While Prince Vlad certainly saw little evidence that this idea had any validity, the deference paid to Norillians by Mystrians-even on this expedition-proved that others held it as true. On top of that, Mystrians and Norillians alike obeyed him or Count von Metternin simply because they were nobility. They were primed to feel inferior, and Prince Vlad had to use that.

  Because magick could transform perception into reality in a very material sense, a strength of will and confidence aided a magick user. Prince Vlad’s mentors encouraged him to think of himself as being Rufus’ better. Though Prince Vlad didn’t believe Mystrians were of a subrace, he did invest himself in the idea that Rufus was his inferior. What he knew of the man indicated that he was lazy, selfish, stupid, treacherous, a poisoner, given to drunkenness and wife-beating, and Rufus clearly had run after he tried to murder Nathaniel Woods. That marked him as him a coward. There was no doubt in Prince Vlad’s mind that he was morally superior to Rufus, and well beyond him intellectually.

  This last point became a key for Prince Vlad. He accepted that somehow Rufus had opened himself to being possessed or controlled by another creature. That the Norghaest had magick which could enable possession was obvious given the way the cavalry controlled their wooly rhinoceri. No matter how powerful the sorcerer controlling Rufus might be, he would be limited by Rufus. Vlad was certain he could think faster than Rufus, and that he could understand concepts more complex than Rufus could. He counted on both of these things to give him an edge over his enemy.

  At the chosen spot, Vlad dug down through the snow with his feet so he stood on bare ground. In learning about magick and perception, again it had become obvious that spells were shaped to transform magickal energy into something that men could control. This was all done through imagery. Visualizing the sun and its heat would allow a man to take magickal energy and alter it into the form he needed to start brimstone burning. Because men drew this energy from themselves, magick exhausted them and hurt them.

  But magickal energy could be drawn from elsewhere. With his feet planted firmly on the ground, Vlad calmed himself and sought within. He sought a feeling, a tingle, the sharp crack of a static spark. He visualized it as lightning at first, then changed it into a sunbeam, which he changed again into a cool flowing stream. Once he defined that image, he sought it again, imagining that cool flow passing over his feet, as if he stood in the middle of a stream.

  Which, in fact, he did. Thanks to Owen’s survey of the area, the Prince had selected a nexus point where two of the energy flows met. Though much smaller than the flow coursing around the Octagon, it sent a cold sensation up his spine. He defined it as invigorating, much as having icy water splashed on him would be. He let the sensation drench him and fill him.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, the world had changed. Blue was the river of energy that flowed to his feet. It coiled over him and around him, pooling in his hands. Off to the west, a golden glow defined the Octagon, as seen down a wooded hill and back up again to the crest of the valley. Half a mile away as he was, he could see the tops of ghostly towers, its pennants flying in a breeze that the material world did not feel.

  A little tremor ran through the gold, humming as if it were a plucked string. It coincided with Rufus’ heartbeat, but pounded at a pace that no human heart could sustain for long. It occurred to the Prince that whoever was hagriding Rufus must be hoping to summon to the world a safe haven, so he could again walk beneath the sun. And my job is to see to it that he fails.

  Vlad turned his head slightly, catching sight of Bethany Frost over his left shoulder. “Everyone is in place, yes, Lieutenant Frost?”

  “Even the people at Fort Plentiful, Highness.”

  “Thank you.” He nodded. “I would appreciate if, as we agreed, you would ride back there-get clear. Consider it an order, please.”

  The blonde woman stared at him defiantly for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll be back at the Stone House, Highness.”

  “Thank you, Miss Frost, for everything.” He let the crunch of snow beneath her feet fade before he raised his right hand. Ahead of him by two hundred yards, each atop a small hill, the expedition’s two cannons had been set up. The gunner for each raised a hand to acknowledge his signal.

  Prince Vlad’s hand fell. The Battle of Octagon had begun.

  A mile to the southwest, Owen waited with Kamiskwa and Justice Bone just beneath the crest of the hills surrounding the Octagon. Somewhere back toward the Prince, General Rathfield and the Fifth Northland Cavalry had set themselves up as a screening force. No matter what Rufus did, their job was to keep the Norghaest troops back and give Kamiskwa time to work. If they failed, the Prince’s effort would be for naught, and Mystria would be lost.

  The twin cannonade allowed Owen enough warning that he could poke his head up and look into the valley. About a quarter of a mile away, a square berm had been raised and fifty wooly rhinoceri waited within, their breath steaming from their nostrils. Each wore the headdresses that allowed their riders to control it. As the cannon blasts reverberated over the landscape, trolls stirred beneath a blanket of snow. Armed with lances and their obsidian-edged warclubs, they made directly for their mounts.

  The two cannon balls arced into the valley. One struck a rock beneath the snow and bounced off toward the north. The second bounded through the trolls. It caught one in the shoulder, ripping its arm off. The ball slammed into another, hitting it firmly in the chest. The second troll bellowed, but the ball bounced off. After a couple of sidling steps, the troll resumed his course for the enclosure.

  Off to the north the ground quivered and mud poured up in thick bubbles, staining snow. A geyser blasted skyward, then a hole opened in the ground. Demons fluttered from it, swirling into a black cloud that headed east, and trolls crawled from the opening. Once they reached flat ground, they stood, arrayed themselves in open ranks, and began their slog toward the rising sun.

  Rufus emerged, standing tall on a golden disk. It hovered a foot or two above the ground, clipping the tops of snowdrifts here and there. He bore a staff, looking identical to the one he’d carried at Fort Plentiful. His robe fully covered him, but as he flew forward, he slipped his left arm free to display his scars proudly.

  Once he passed over the hills to the east, the air shimmered just upwind of the rhinoceros enclosure. Steward Fire emerged through the magickal portal first and ran up the hill as the trolls mounted their beasts. Fire’s hands glowed red as he crafted a sphere the size of a pumpkin. Gold highlights shot from within it, and red tendrils drifted up and out. He gave it a shove with his left hand and it floated toward the enclosure as if it were a soap bubble. Then it burst, spraying a red mist over the enclosure.

  Though Owen had been instructed on what would happen, he had not let himself imagine it would work so well. Fire, using magick, had reversed the flow from rider to mount. The trolls had used their headgear to impose their senses on the rhinoceri, but now sensory information traveled in the other direction. The trolls, for the first time, perceived the world as did the rhinoceri, meaning that their vision became indistinct beyond fifty feet, and most of their impressions of the world came through their noses.

  Which is why the Shedashee warriors who next came with Msitazi through the shimmering portal had painted themselves with dragon dung. Though the trolls could hear the war-whoops and see the Twilight People boiling over snow at them, they simply could not perceive them as a threat. The scent of a dragon meant safety to the rhinoceri, and staring dumbly at the Shedashee, the trollish cavalry met their fate without raising a hand in defense.

  Owen could feel no pity for them. The Shedashee moved through the enclosure, their own warclubs blurring. A chop to a knee would topple one of the giants, then warriors would
begin the bloody ordeal of hacking all the way through its thick neck. Dark blood splashed steaming over the snow. Trolls fell to the Shedashee butchery, and yet such was the nature of the enclosure’s berm that none of the trolls pouring out of the ground could see their comrades dying.

  Owen turned back to where Kamiskwa and Justice turned away the last of the earth. “Is it there?”

  Kamiskwa nodded, then sank to his knees and reached into the hole they’d carved into the hillside. “I can feel it, the stone and the magick.” He took a deep breath, then exhaled a cloud of steam. “Now, to make it work.”

  Prince Vlad watched as Rufus Branch glided effortlessly down the hill. Behind him, trolls gathered, and above him, the demons circled. The stick, dammit, I should have gotten myself a stick. Vlad lifted his chin and drew his hands behind his back. If he wasn’t going to have a staff to brandish, he would hide his hands and affect an air of not being concerned at all.

  Rufus hovered on a golden disk, keeping himself a bit above eye-level with Prince Vlad, even though four hundred yards separated them.

  “You dare attack?” The pure effrontery of the action, and his affected outrage at it, almost completely covered his surprise.

  Vlad lifted his chin. “I dare. I more than dare. This is not your land. It belongs to Norisle. You are an intruder here. The one you’ve chosen to use is singularly ignorant of the world and incapable of understanding the higher concepts at play here. He does not serve you well, except that you must have found his greed quite comforting, likewise his sense of grandiosity and narcissism.”

  Vlad chose his words carefully, using longer terms that Rufus likely would not have heard before and certainly could not parse accurately. He sensed hesitation in his counterpart. In that moment of inner concentration, the disk dipped and the ordered advance of the trolls faltered.

  But only for a heartbeat. The hands settled on the staff, together, at his navel, the orb glowing with a silvery-white light. “Then you have come to negotiate with me?”

  “Negotiate? I hardly think so.” Vlad shrugged. “I have come to accept your surrender. That is the only way you can avoid your utter and complete destruction.”

  Rufus’ eyes tightened, and his head canted to the side. “You have never before appeared to be mad. Clearly you must be if you have forgotten what I did to your troops so recently. My riders destroyed yours.”

  “And I have destroyed your riders.”

  Rufus looked back toward the valley and again the disk wavered for a moment. His head snapped back around and his eyes blazed. “You cannot stop me. You’re lost. Your people are lost. Your puny weapons cannot stop us. Your feeble sense of magick cannot stop us.”

  He raised his hands and spread his arms. The trolls broke ranks and rushed into the forests. The demons plunged down through the evergreen canopy. “Your minions will soon all be dead, Prince Vladimir of Norisle. And I shall save you for the last, so you will know all hope is gone. Once your heart is broken, I shall crush your body and then sweep your people into the sea.”

  Half-crouched in front of the battle line, Ian Rathfield drew his heavy cavalry saber before the echoes of the cannon shots died. “Steady, men, steady. Just as we planned it.” His heart pounded and his mouth went dry, not from fear, but anticipation and anger. These were the creatures that had destroyed his command. He and his men, just like the Rangers, had spent three days preparing the battlefield. As Rufus had caught them unawares at Fort Plentiful, so the Norghaest would find themselves paying for their lack of foresight.

  Trolls came up over the hillcrest and fanned out into the woods. Their broad feet kicked up snow. They had to twist to shoulder their way between trees. As they rushed on, their ranks closed. They filtered into easy alleyways that allowed them to speed their advance.

  Their clumping together made them simple targets. At thirty yards, a third of a battalion fired. Thirty musket balls blasted into the trolls. Most struck the one in the lead, stippling his fur with dark, bloody wounds. He went down and two others were knocked back, but the rest came on.

  “First line withdraw.” Ian turned his back to the trolls and marched steadily toward the west as a second line of his troopers took aim. “Ready yourselves!” He glanced back over his shoulder.

  “Fire!”

  Brimstone smoke gushed out and balls zipped past him. He heard the thuds as they struck home. A troll thumped down behind him, a bit closer than he’d expected. He ran forward as his retreating men fell back to a third line, then stopped and turned. He slashed with his saber, opening a troll’s belly, then Ian ran off toward the northwest, as planned, while Captain Cotswold gave the orders to the third line to open fire.

  A troll had decided to give chase, and Ian laughed despite the thunder of the thing’s footfalls. He ducked beneath branches and relished the crashing as branches whipped across the troll’s face. Ian ran for a fallen log which lay between two widespread trees. He leaped it, shearing closely to the tree on the left, then stumbled and rolled. His sword flew a short distance away, snow stained with troll-blood marking where it had fallen. He rolled onto his back and looked at his pursuer.

  The troll bounded over the fallen log with ease, landing a good ten feet beyond it. His feet sank through the snow, then punched on through the branches which had been laid over a pit running five feet in depth. Normally that would have been a minor inconvenience for the troll, resulting in a bruise as he slammed against the pit’s end, but a handful of sharpened posts had been planted deep into that wall. Three of them impaled the troll, one through a forearm, the other two through the belly, popping free of his back.

  More gunfire resounded in volleys as Ian scrambled to his feet. He grabbed his sword and swung it in a grand arc over his head, chopping a demon in half. More flew at him, but they discovered that the nets which had been meant to stop them at Fort Plentiful had been strung through the trees. Demons bit at ropes that had tangled their limbs. Soldiers with steel bayonets thrust up at them, killing them.

  Here and there men screamed as trolls caught them or demons attacked, but the Fifth’s discipline held. They kept withdrawing, moving from prepared position to prepared position, loading and firing to command. In the woods, at close ranges, they had an advantage, but Ian wondered how long that would last. Most of his men could manage four or five shots before magick began to fail them. In combat on the continent, at that point, they’d be bayonet to bayonet with the enemy, or riding after them as they retreated. This sustained combat, while effective, would only win the day if the supply of trolls ran out before his soldiers’ ability to kill them did.

  Ian ducked out of the way as a pursuing troll triggered one of many traps the Fifth had labored to construct. The bole of a stout tree had been chopped into a six-foot length. Its branches sharpened into stakes and it had been hauled into the forest’s upper reaches. It swung down on ropes, whooshing past him, and branches impaled a troll through the upper chest and neck. Off to the right a deadfall trap broke another troll’s legs. As it thrashed on the ground, men bayonetted it to death. Ian split the skull of a demon which clung on one of his men’s backs, then thrust the weary man west.

  “Falling back, in good order.” Ian again raised his sword and laughed bravely. “By God they’ll remember tangling with the Fifth, men. Fall back, take aim, and send them home to Hell!”

  In an effort to hide his nervousness, Prince Vlad idly studied the fingernails on his right hand. Over the top he studied Rufus. Golden energy trickled up through the ground and curved down, falling over him as if a gentle shower. The disk exuded small etheric pseudopods, keeping it elevated and moving forward. Before the Prince had studied with Msitazi and Fire, the amorphous feet would have been invisible to him. He would have taken greater heart in seeing them, save that the magick that allowed him to do so was the simplest thing he’d learned, and a prerequisite to the greater magicks he’d have to use against Rufus.

  Prince Vlad immediately cautioned himself. You are a fool to t
hink you can stand against him. That’s not the game. Unlike going to war-in which the Prince had always had an academic interest but no desire for glory-a magick duel appealed to him. The victor would be intelligent and have a very strong will-precisely things upon which he prided himself. Were he just fighting Rufus, he had little doubt he’d win. But it’s not Rufus I’m fighting, not yet.

  Vlad made the tiniest gesture with a finger. The way energy flowed through the pseudopods formed a simple cycle, looping back on itself. Vlad cast a simple spell which, at first, joined with the pseudopod and flowed with it. Then, on the third revolution it fragmented, ripping through the cycling energy. A pseudopod vanished.

  The disk dipped and that attracted Rufus’ attention. With little more than the half-closing of his eyes, Rufus reestablished the foot, and reinforced all four. Instead of flowing fluidly, now they developed a scaled shell, looking very much like Mugwump’s flesh.

  Rufus momentarily inclined his head toward Vlad. “So, you have learned from the Shedashee, and from another tradition. Young magicks, unforgivably young. And you, so inexperienced.”

  Vlad looked up, as if his enemy was an annoyance. “You presume much, and have me at a disadvantage. You are not Rufus Branch, not entirely.”

  “You wish me to talk, to prolong your agony as your men die?” Rufus shook his head. “You could not pronounce my name. The very contemplation of it would damage you. Were I to force this one I wear to say it, his brain would bleed and his mind would shatter.”

  Vlad shrugged. “Names have power in magick, so I understand your fear.”

  Rufus threw back his head and laughed, but the laughter died as Vlad cut all four feet from beneath the disk. The right edge hit first, and Rufus staggered through the snow for a couple steps. He didn’t touch his staff to the ground to keep himself upright, but energy did stab down from the orb and accomplished the same goal.