Of Limited Loyalty: The Second Book of the Crown Colonies

by Michael A. Stackpole

  When he figured he’d done enough, he passed the disk over to Kamiskwa. “Well?”

  Kamiskwa held it between his hands, then stared at it hard. He looked at Nathaniel, his amber eyes reduced to slits. “What I have is a bear which is a salmon from the waist down, wearing a crown, clawing the earth open.”

  “How in tarnation did you get that?” Nathaniel shook his head. He knew how. Kamiskwa had not been sleeping well since his encounter with the Norghaest woman. The Altashee had confided that she’d met him in dreams, and that made his sleep less than restful. It’s not helping him see clearly.

  “I got that, my brother, because of what you anchored in the disk.”

  “Well, magick’s damned hard work when your hands is froze.”

  “Hands have nothing to do with it. Did you imagine weaving again?”

  “Yep, just like you do.”

  “Ah, Nathaniel, you never were a good weaver.”

  “Well, I ain’t no good at painting, neither, and I ain’t mastered whittling.” He capped his head with his hands. “Ain’t much else to work with.”

  “Why don’t you try writing?”

  “I’m a better weaver than I am a scribbler.”

  “Yes, my friend, you are.” Kamiskwa handed him a new disk. “But you have worked at writing because writing is necessary for the man you are becoming. So is learning to anchor a spell.”

  “Right, soes I can anchor all sorts of killing into things.”

  “I actually think the crowned bear-salmon would likely distract someone.” Kamiskwa laughed.

  Nathaniel sighed. “Alright, but don’t you go complaining about my penmanship.”

  “I won’t, my brother.” Kamiskwa looked out into the night where Nathaniel was certain he could see a glowing city and golden woman standing in a tower window. “You must make patterns, and I must break them, and only in this way can we save the world.”

  Prince Vlad waved his visitors to a pair of chairs in the thaumagraph office. Msitazi and Ezekiel Fire sat, each man nodding respectfully to the other. “I wish to thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I shall be very direct, if you don’t mind. Please know I have the utmost admiration for the both of you.”

  He looked at the Shedashee. “Msitazi, you said I needed to learn as much as the Norghaest did. I believe I understand what they have learned, and have shaped a plan to deal with it.”

  The Altashee chief clapped his hands together. “I had no doubt.”

  “What I have learned of myself is that I know far too little of what the Norghaest know. Their power is incredible. I need to know how to counter it. I need to know what the two of you know of magick, and I have a handful of days to master it.”

  Fire shook his head. “No, Highness.”

  Vlad stiffened. “Steward Fire, please recall that I rescued you from death, placing myself, my friends, and my family at risk of the same sentence. I am out here with a small force facing the greatest threat we have ever discovered on this continent. If we fail here, nothing will stop the Norghaest from taking all of Mystria and advancing over the rest of the world. For you to withhold what you know is not acceptable.”

  Msitazi raised a hand. “I think, Prince of Mystria, you mistake what he has said.”

  Fire nodded. “You don’t kneed to know what we know, or to master it. You merely need to know how to undo what the Norghaest do.”

  “I do not have time to argue semantics, Steward.”

  “It is not the game of words, Highness.” The Shedashee smiled. “You already know what you need to know. In the next six days, we will simply teach you how to do it well.”

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  4 June 1768

  Octagon

  Richlan, Mystria

  Prince Vlad took a deep breath as he strode to the chosen spot. He’d pulled on the uniform he could, by rights, wear in his capacity as Governor-General of Mystria. Though he would have much preferred to don the simple green coat and buff trouser worn by the Mystrian Rangers, he chose the white uniform with gold buttons and braid, full with a gold satin sash and gold satin waistcoat beneath it. Because snow still fell in thin curtains, or curled up off the ground, chased by winds, he had donned the corresponding cape and a tall white hat, with a plume up over his right ear, which made him look every inch a popinjay.

  On the journey from Fort Plentiful, he had spent many long hours in conversation with Steward Fire and Chief Msitazi. Their discussions had confirmed many of the things he had thought to be true, and had opened doors for him to yet other realizations. The two men also learned from each other. A bond formed between them which pleased the Prince, but made him feel excluded, since they understood things between them which he was never sure he would fully comprehend.

  The key thing which they both pointed out was that perception could become reality provided one put enough energy into making it so. He’d seen that in politics many times, in situations utterly divorced from magick. Men standing for office, or officers writing their memoirs, would create a picture which, naturally, elevated themselves and usually ran someone else down. The late Lord Rivendell’s book The Five Days Battle of Villerupt had left many people on either side of the ocean believing that Mystrians were incompetent cowards. Not only did that breed contempt into many Norillians, but it inspired shame in many Mystrians. One man’s poorly written and quite fictitious account of a war had caused people to think less of their own capabilities.

  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.