At the Queen_s command

Chapter Nineteen

May 9, 1763

Bounty, Mystria

O wen 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.