Of Limited Loyalty cc-2

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Rufus drew himself up, then planted the staff in the ground. “You are bold. Foolish, but bold. Unlike the one I ride, I am not afraid of you. The Shedashee, they once had a name for me: The Sun’s Whisper. Think of that as a key, if you wish. See what it gains you.”

  The Sun’s Whisper. The name made no sense to him, but Vlad came up with a multitude of ideas that fit. That first ray of sunlight at dawn, or the last at dusk. The beams of sunlight lancing through the green forest canopy, or a dust mote dancing in the light. None of these appealed to him as being the wholly correct idea, but they were pieces of it.

  Rufus gestured. A scintillating blue ball arced in and around at Vlad. He raised a red shield on his left forearm and wove the sunbeam image into it. His arm came up and the ball hit heavily, knocking to the right. But it skipped off and splashed against the ground, draining into the earth.

  Not my best idea to use my broken arm to block him.

  Another ball arced in. Vlad reshaped the shield, flattening it, then stretching it and rolling it into a cylinder. He widened it at one end, then curved it down. The Norghaest spell rattled down into the cylinder at the top and shot out the lower end, heading back toward Rufus.

  The Norghaest twisted his right shoulder out of the way, letting the ball sail past. It struck a pine twenty yards beyond him. In an eyeblink it ignited the tree into a torch.

  Vlad stared, having only a moment to wonder what would have been his fate had the spell struck. Flames shot to the sky, the tree a living pyre, and a cold chill ran down Vlad’s spine.

  Rufus’ hands and fingers contorted their way through a more complicated gesture. Energy gathered and crackled. A third blue ball shot toward Prince Vlad.

  The tube won’t work again. Neither will the shield. Vlad called to mind the glacises used to deflect cannon balls from a fort, and conjured one of them.

  Then Rufus’ spell split and split again and again. The eight smaller balls swerved sharply toward the north. The last two skipped off Vlad’s defenses, but the other six, each now the size of a musket ball, struck Vlad from ankle to shoulder and down to wrist on his right side, spinning him into the snow.

  Each strike thrust pain into him without rending cloth or ripping flesh. It was as if he’d had burning thorns driven through his ankle, knee, and hip. His right shoulder, elbow, and wrist refused conscious commands, becoming leaden and useless. He couldn’t even stop himself from rolling in the snow. The fire in his limbs matched the burning where snow coated his face and embarrassment flushed his cheeks. His hat flew off, the feather burning. Agony jolted through him as he struggled to get back on his feet.

  Rufus drifted forward, the disk renewed, and peered down at him. “Were you given four of your lifetimes to study, you might prove a worthy amusement, Vladimir. Your grasp of theory was good. You used my name to fashion counterspells. But you did not understand my name, so they could not work.”

  Vlad slumped back, spirits sinking even as gunfire continued in the forests. “What Rufus does not know is that I am the least powerful of the Mages who have claim to Mystria. Defeating me will mean nothing.”

  “But it means everything to me.” Rufus held out a hand, then closed his fist. Something tugged at Vlad’s throat, then snapped. The gold chain and locket snaked from beneath his uniform and floated to the Norghaest. His hand opened again and it came to rest in his palm.

  He chuckled. “Names may grant power, but this is much more powerful. I can connect through this back to your wife. Ah, and she is with child. Perfect. I can let her know you’re dying, right now, your child, too. I can kill you slowly, and I can even give her the option of accepting your fate unto herself. Would she die to save you, Vladimir? Will she sacrifice herself and your child? Shall we find out?”

  The Prince raised his left hand. “No, you can’t do that.”

  “Why not? They will die regardless. As precious as your wife is to you, she would be nothing to me, not even a diversion were I to take her as the spoils of this paltry little war.” Rufus held his hand up, letting the locket dangle from the slender chain. “Yes, I think I will let her make that choice. I think I will let her die in your place. And do you know why?”

  Vlad shook his head.

  “Simply because, Vladimir, I can, and you have no way of stopping me.”

  Movement through the trees alerted Owen to Ian’s ordered retreat. He glanced back. “How are you doing, Kamiskwa?”

  The Shedashee looked up from the pit. “Almost there, but I need your lock.”

  Justice Bone came forward as Owen fell back. Owen went down to one knee beside Kamiskwa and dug into the pouch on his belt. He pulled out a thick lock of the Prince’s brown hair. “Here.”

  The Shedashee took it and twisted several strands into a slender thread. “This should fix it.”

  In digging down they had uncovered the tip of the stone marker which the Norghaest had thrust up through the earth. It formed one of the points of the Octagon-the point through which energy entered the Octagon from the direction of the outpost. Once they had cleared enough dirt and snow away, Kamiskwa had drawn a crown using pine resin. He’d used the Prince’s hair to cover the symbol. The resin stuck the hair fast to the stone. The lock Kamiskwa took from Owen completed the base of the crown.

  Owen nervously tucked the rest of the lock away. “Is this going to work?”

  Kamiskwa took a deep breath. “It better.”

  Owen looked up. “Report, Mr. Bone.”

  “Rathfield’s men is drawing mighty close.”

  Owen patted Kamiskwa on the shoulder. “It will work.”

  The Shedashee closed his eyes. He raised his left hand to the design, letting his middle finger drift over it. Owen hadn’t been told specifically what Kamiskwa was doing, but he knew enough of the new magick to figure it out. The crown represented Prince Vlad. They’d used a similar design to designate his thaumagraph units. The way Kamiskwa touched the design, the directions his fingers took, the pressure, all of these things were linked to his impressions of the Prince. That and the hair, because of its link to the Prince, would combine with Kamiskwa’s magick. The spell anchored within the stone gathered power, then split it to other stones, each of which was represented by a symbol. Kamiskwa’s job was to substitute one for the other.

  Ian’s voice echoed from nearby across the hill top. “Ready. Aim. Fire!” His men responded with a staccato rippling of gunshots. Trolls thudded to the ground, but more kept coming.

  And we’re going to have to stop them.

  Ian arrived, breathless, saber slick with blood. “Have we done it?”

  Kamiskwa gasped, then sagged sideways. The stink of singed hair rose from the rock. Owen glanced over. The crown had been burned into the stone’s gray surface as clearly as if it had been branded into the rock. “It’s done.”

  “Good.” Ian laughed aloud and pointed with his sword at trolls squeezing between the trees. “So, I fear, are we.”

  Owen turned, raising his rifle, and fired a single shot. “Don’t give up yet, General. More trolls need killing and we’ve got plenty of fight left in us.”

  Vlad stiffened, his back arched, as argent fire poured over his body. “No. I forbid it!”

  “You forbid it?” Rufus smiled and made the locket dance on the end of the chain. “You can’t forbid it. You completely underestimate me if you think you can.”

  “Not you. I don’t have your measure.” Vlad pointed his index finger at Rufus as the first trickle of magick streamed to him. “But I do have the measure of the man whose flesh you wear.”

  Vlad shaped the energy flowing from the stone around the most basic spell he knew-the spell that would snuff a fire. With a tiny adjustment, it functioned to cancel magick, but to work, it required a key. It required the person using it to know his opponent so well he could wrap it around that thing which would paralyze his enemy. And while Prince Vlad had no idea what that might be for Sun’s Whisper, he knew it intimately for Rufus Branch.

 
Around that spell he wrapped the image and essence of Rufus’ mortal enemy, Nathaniel Woods.

  Vlad stuck that essence on the tip of a spell like a spearhead on a shaft and stabbed it through Rufus’ left eye. The Norghaest’s hands rose to his face, an inhuman shriek rising from his throat. Sun’s Whisper staggered back a couple of steps. The locket still hung from between his fingers.

  The Prince threw his head back and shouted loudly to the world. “Now, Mr. Woods, if you would be so kind.”

  To be held back as guns cracked in the distance had all but killed Nathaniel Woods. Save for it being an explicit command from Prince Vlad, and its being described as the only chance they had to win, Nathaniel would have refused. He would have been out there on the right, leading the Northern Rangers in place of Makepeace. He would have been shooting trolls dead left and right.

  But the Prince had other plans.

  As Rufus reeled back not fifty yards away, Nathaniel tracked him effortlessly. Settling his thumb on the firestone, Nathaniel steadied his rifle, and formed the spell in his mind. He pushed it into the firestone.

  He shot to kill.

  The ovoid lead slug reached its target less than a second after leaving the rifle’s muzzle. It blew through Rufus’ left hand, burst his eye and shattered bone. It passed into his brain case and hit the back of the skull, cracking it, but it failed to punch all the way through. It ricocheted downward toward the base of the skull, and bounced again to crush the man’s first vertebra. It severed his spinal cord even as blood and brain squirted back out through the entry wound.

  Rufus’ body pirouetted, arms flying out wide. The staff whirled away. The light in its orb died before the staff disappeared beneath the snow. Rufus went to one knee and for the barest of moments Nathaniel feared he’d get back up. The ruin of his face suggested that was an impossibility, but he knelt there, defying gravity even as brains ran down his cheek.

  Finally, his body convulsed, then he collapsed in a motionless heap.

  Beyond where he lay, trolls poured down the hillside and demons took wing. Nathaniel didn’t know if the Norghaest had somehow given them a final command, or had magickally ripped a gaping hole in the earth so more could avenge him, but the legions of Hell raced east. Nathaniel, having no time to reload, ran to the Prince. He knelt and handed him the rifle.

  “I reckon you load and can get one shot off.” Nathaniel drew his tomahawk. “I got a throw in me, which means ’tween the two of us, we outta kill something.”

  Ian slashed a troll’s thigh, opening a gaping gash. The man spun, bringing his saber back down, and wrapped both hands around the hilt. He aimed his cut at the back of the troll’s knee, preparing to hack that half of the limb off.

  The troll twisted, roaring in pain, and backhanded Ian with a glancing blow. It sent him flying. He collided with a sapling, then spun into a larger tree. The impact numbed his back and leg. He rebounded from the tree and landed face-first in a snowdrift.

  He rolled over and swiped a hand over his face to clear it. The troll, blood leaking from its thigh, loomed over him, paws raised and talons a glossy black. Ian tried to back away, but his right leg wouldn’t work. He raised the saber in his right hand to protect himself, but knew it would be to no avail. I’m done. Catherine, I’m done! He closed his eyes and thought of her as he waited for death.

  But the troll never struck. A mighty shout cut through the din of battle, inarticulate but defiant. The troll roared in response, but a note of pain shot through its voice.

  Ian opened his eyes, staring up. A man, he recognized him as Owen, had leaped onto the troll’s back. He’d tangled his left hand in the troll’s mane and yanked back. His right hand rose and fell, steel knife plunging into the troll’s neck. Blood geysered. The creature reached back, trying to pluck the man off him. Owen shifted from its attempts, then sawed the blade through its neck. The troll staggered and toppled. Owen rode to the ground and, standing on its back, lifted the severed head triumphantly.

  And then, before Ian could recover his voice, Owen tossed the head aside and was off again.

  Captain Cotswold ran to Ian’s side. “Are you hurt, General?”

  “Get me up, Captain! All that matters is that I’m not dead.” Ian gained his feet, then found a carbine with a bayonet attached. “Go, man, kill things!”

  His subordinate ran off and Ian snarled. He’d seen a look in Cotswold’s eyes, a questioning of whether or not he could continue fighting. And Owen… Owen must have seen the fear and resignation on Ian’s face. The man, both men, would think him a coward, a man broken, and he could not allow that.

  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.