Of Limited Loyalty

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.

Over by Mugwump, the air shimmered and the Shedashee stepped through. Guns blazed merrily, blasting demons from the sky. The Shedashee cast their guns aside happily and brought their warclubs to bear. The weapons, some long and straight, others curled and knobbed, each set with obsidian blades, swept out in vicious arcs. Bits and pieces of demons flew in every direction. Warriors crushed and stabbed, forming a living wall between the demons and the dragon.

The bulk of the winged gray horde poured over Fort Plentiful. Men fired in every direction, heedless of what they might hit when they missed. Owen buried a tomahawk in one demon’s breast, then brained another with his clubbed rifle. He couldn’t see past a curtain of wriggling gray flesh, but knew he and his men could never kill enough demons.

But kill Rufus, and this all goes away.

He leaped from the parapet to the roof of the thaumagraph cabin, and from there to the ground. The cabin’s door swung open, with Clara Brown brandishing her musket and the foot and a half of steel mated to the muzzle. Behind her Bethany looked out anxiously.

“Stay in there!” Owen batted another demon from the sky. “You’re to keep her safe, Corporal. That’s an order!”

He waited long enough to see the door close, then ran for the fort’s gate. He pulled a demon off a man’s back, twisting its head around until its neck popped, then helped the man to his feet. Owen recognized him immediately. “Justice, we have to kill Rufus.”

“I don’t need asking twice on that.”

Makepeace loomed over the two of them. “I’m with you. Let’s be quick.”

The three of them ran from the fort toward the northeast corner. One of the cannons had been positioned in a little redoubt nearest the fort’s northeast corner. As they raced toward the gun, what was left of the crew passed them going the other way, demons clinging to them, biting and tearing.

Reaching the redoubt, Owen grabbed a bag of brimstone, gashed it with a tomahawk, then shoved it into the cannon’s muzzle. Makepeace bent down at the other end, lifting the carriage and swinging the gun around to the right. Justice sighted down the barrel, then used a pry bar to shift it back an inch or three. Owen jammed the ramrod into the muzzle and packed the powder in tight, then Makepeace fed a six pound iron ball into the barrel.

Owen looked at the Bone brothers. “You ever shot a cannon before?”

Justice shook his head.

Makepeace smiled. “Cain’t be much worse than a swivel gun.”

Owen tossed him the ramrod. “It is. I’ve done it once, and never wanted to do it again.”

He ran around to the cannon’s closed end and crouched on the carriage. Owen pressed his right palm to the firestone. It seemed cooler than it should have. “Makepeace, get clear!”

“Hurry, Owen.”

“I am.”

But before Owen could invoke the spell to fire the gun, a furious avalanche of winged demons poured over him and buried him alive.

My left arm is broken. Vlad accepted that knowledge with clarity and surprise, because he didn’t yet feel any pain. Still, the odd way that his sleeve hung, and the fact that his hand would not answer commands, gave him no choice other than to realize that he was severely injured and that he would hurt incredibly, very soon.

Until then…

He came up to one knee and let his arm dangle. There, between him and the battlefield, Mugwump lay on his side, his left wing canted at an odd angle. He rocked, as if attempting to roll up to the right to cover his belly. Despite his claws churning the earth, Mugwump could not get enough purchase to right himself.

The dragon’s effort focused Vlad’s attention on the rear saddle. Count von Metternin dangled there, his right foot caught in a stirrup. That leg was broken and the rocking wasn’t helping. Clearly unconscious, the Count made no effort to free himself.

“Mugwump, stay down.” The Prince tried to shout, but a sharp pain jabbed him in the side. He breathed in carefully and got another twinge. Broken rib, too.

He staggered to his feet and ran to Mugwump. He worked his way along to the rear saddle, cut von Metternin loose. The man tumbled into a pile on the ground. Vlad dragged him south by his collar and once he’d gotten him clear, Prince Vlad collapsed next to him.

He watched as the Shedashee drove the demons away from the dragon. They appeared to be Hellspawn themselves, painted up black and red. Though he knew them to be men, he found them very different. Whereas near the fort the Volunteers were fleeing, the Shedashee had pushed the enemy back. It seemed as if the force of their courage, combined with their ferocity, would not allow anything but victory.

Then the Prince watched through the thinning cloud of demons as the trolls regrouped. They turned and drove straight at the fort. With the defenders beset by the demons, the trolls would face no opposition, and would easily tear Fort Plentiful apart.

“Captain Mayberry, first battalion to the fort. The rest of you, on me. One shot at thirty, men, then give them your bayonets!” General Ian Rathfield rose in his stirrups, his saber shining high, then slashed it down. “Charge!”

The Fifth Northland Cavalry entered the small valley from the east and galloped across what had once been flat farmland beside the Snake River. When the Fifth had felt the tremor in the land Ian had ordered his men to saddle up. They left their baggage and supplies to come on as they could and rode quickly west. There wasn’t a man among them who didn’t feel outraged that the battle had begun before they arrived.

Ian didn’t bother to slide his carbine from the saddle scabbard. Through the smoke he recognized their enemy. The winged demons were nothing he remembered from Happy Valley, but he’d seen their like in countless church murals depicting Perdition. He figured them to be a nuisance. The larger figures, the white beasts that walked as men, those he recognized from the Prince’s description of trolls. To them, his men would likewise seem nuisances.

That did not cause him to pause, even for a moment. Though it occurred to him that he might be riding to his death, he knew his duty. Retreat was out of the question. So was anything else short of blind obedience to what the Queen demanded of him, which was that he do his duty to protect her realm. He might as well die with failure, because he certainly couldn’t live with it.

“For God and the Queen, men, God and the Queen!”

From where Nathaniel stood, the charge of the Fifth Northland Cavalry was both the most beautiful and most futile thing he’d ever seen. They came around the hillside, horses lathered, wide-eyed, and plunged into the troll flanks. Carbines fired and bayonets stabbed. One troll spun away, transfixed by three bayonets, then died as a saber harvested its head.

Other trolls turned and attacked, fangs bared and claws flashing. One lifted a horse and rider and hurled it deeper into the formation. Horses toppled and tangled in a mire of broken limbs and screaming men. A paw swiped through the air, tearing the head clean off a horse. The rider leaped clear, but the troll pounced on him and ripped him in half.

Nathaniel looked for Rathfield, but a troll scaled the rampart in a leap, eclipsing the battlefield. The beast raised its arms high and bellowed. Men ran as if scattered by the sound alone. The troll’s lips drew back and its red eyes became slits.

Nathaniel whipped his right arm forward. His tomahawk spun through the air. The steel blade buried itself the troll’s breastbone. A small rivulet of blood matted the white pelt, splashing over the monsters belly and thighs. The creature glanced down, tapping a talon against the metal head. The troll looked up at Nathaniel with the hint of a smile. It plucked the tomahawk from its chest, then took an effortless step toward him, clawed hands raised.

Nathaniel leaped back and caught his heels on a discarded musket. He landed on his backside, staring up at the monster looming over him.

Another tomahawk spun through the air. Thrown from atop the palisade, it caught the troll full in the forehead. The blade pierced the flesh and stuck in the bone. The haft, a feather dangling from the end, rested against the top of the troll’s muzzle. The creature looked at the tomahawk, crossing its eyes, for a heartbeat appearing confused. It raised a hand to pull that tomahawk free as well, but before it could, the blade quivered. More bone cracked. The head sank deeper into the beast’s skull. Three inches, then four, then up to the haft.

The troll staggered. Splitting the bone with a thundercrack, the tomahawk disappeared entirely into the skull. Ruby-gray tissue gushed from the wound. The troll’s eyes rolled up into its skull, then it pitched backward and disappeared.

From above. Msitazi smiled.

Nathaniel got back to his feet. “How, Msitazi?”

“You, my son, threw to hit.” The elder warrior nodded sincerely. “I threw to kill.”

Nathaniel, his mind reeling, bent to retrieve his rifle. I’m gonna have to learn me that trick. As he rose, he realized he’d not have enough time.

The troll cavalry charged.

Owen kicked and slashed and bit and pushed to free himself. He spat out bitter demon blood and snarled as more of the gray hellions smothered him. He cut and fought, but their weight shortened his breath. The air got hot and their stink filled his head.

Then, suddenly, cold air poured over him. The demon that had been huddled over his head, jerked upright. A blade flashed around its neck. Blood splashed, adding another coat to the gore covering him, but Owen didn’t mind. Another demon got pulled off, then he kicked two more away and stood.

Bethany Frost stood there, bloody knife in hand. Corporal Brown clubbed one demon off Makepeace and Justice dragged another one away.

Bethany fixed Owen with an icy glare. “Not a word, Owen.”

“That word would be ‘thanks.’” Owen crouched on the gun carriage again. “Give the wedge a tap, Makepeace. Just an inch.”

The large man banged his dagger’s hilt against the elevation wedge, driving it deeper and lowering the cannon’s angle. “You sure that’s enough?”

“Four hundred yards if an inch. It’s as good a shot as we’ll get.” Owen grabbed the gunner’s handhold, dropped his palm to the firestone, and invoked a spell. Magick pulsed through him, making his senses swim, then ignited the brimstone. The cannon roared and rocked back, almost toppling him from the carriage.

The six-pound ball flew true but short. The ball landed about a dozen yards below Rufus, on a direct line with him, and bounced up. His left hand flicked out by reflex, to swat the annoyance away. The ball did ricochet from him, but the impact knocked Rufus to the side.

His long hair flying in a whiplash, Rufus stumbled and flailed. He drove his staff into the ground again, clutching it in both hands, and leaned heavily upon it. For a heartbeat it seemed as if he would remain upright, but his staggered steps had brought him too close to the troll hole. The earth gave way. He teetered to the left, then disappeared deep into the dark hollow.

The Fifth Cavalry’s charge had sliced through the marching trolls’ formation. Some of the beasts had continued to fight, but with Rufus’ departure, their resolve deserted them. They turned to flee back toward their hole, which would have permitted the cavalry to slaughter them wholesale.

Unfortunately the mounted trolls remained in control of themselves and their rhinoceri. They raced down the hillside, warclubs still slung on their backs. Their mounts’ horns gleamed and coats flew. The ground trembled as they came, a wall of muscle and horn.

Owen leaped from the cannon, grabbed Bethany, and turned her face away to the east. “Don’t look.”

The trollish charge slammed into the Fifth Northland flank, rolling horses and men over as if they were debris caught in a bloody tide. Men’s faces twisted with pain or wide-eyed with panic. They’d vanish for a moment, then that same face would reappear, stripped of flesh but still somehow recognizable. By the third time the man’s body would have come apart, bloody limbs flying, a skull arcing through the sky with scalp attached by white sinew. Then all that would be ground into a muddy froth, streaked with scarlet, and splashed against the rhinos’ breasts and their masters’ legs.

The mounted trolls were by no means invincible. Steel sabers rose and fell, particularly potent against the trolls. Owen cheered as a rhinoceros emerged riderless from the fight. Another troll wavered in the saddle and fell, life pumping from a severed limb.

But too few of the trolls died to balance the price paid by the Fifth. The mounted trolls rode through them, curling to the north and on to secure the river. The trollish cavalry’s ranks parted, allowing the footsoldiers to pass through to the hole. Half a hundred made it to their sanctuary. What were left of the demons flapped away to the northwest. After the trolls vanished into the earth, the mounted trolls withdrew in that same direction, leaving a half-dozen riderless rhinoceri grazing peacefully on the hillside.

Owen released Bethany as the Fifth’s first battalion moved onto Fort Plentiful’s ramparts. Blood dripped from Owen’s hands. He wasn’t sure if it was his or just demon blood. He didn’t feel any pain, but figured that would come later. He shook his head. “We didn’t kill Rufus. And the cavalry, the troll cavalry, could have crushed us all. Why didn’t they?”

Makepeace shook his head. “Don’t know. Good question, though. I reckon I’ll be thinking on it long past finding the last person out there can use some help.”