Thrall

by E. William Brown

  She was so cute I couldn’t help but hug her back. “Yep. You’re adorable when you get worked up. But I have to leave now.”

  She pouted, and rubbed herself against me. “Do you really have to, Master? Wouldn’t you like to stay, and fuck me again? You can do all that boring human stuff later, can’t you?”

  “There are things I have to get done to keep you all safe,” I told her, taking my cue from Pelagia. “The monsters won’t wait for a convenient time. But I’ll be back.”

  “Promise?” She said. “I really want you to fuck my ass like you did Nomiki. She looked like she was going to go mad from ecstasy.”

  I love my life.

  “Remind me the next time I’m here for a visit, and I’ll show you exactly what she was feeling. Um, what was your name again? I think I was a little too distracted to catch it last night.”

  She dimpled prettily. “I’m Timo, Master. I don’t think I had a chance to tell you last night, but thank you for asking. Um, if you’ll put me down I’ll show you the way out.”

  She leaned against me for a moment when I put her down, just taking in my scent. Then she took my hand, and pulled me into the wall. A moment later we were stepping out onto soft grass.

  “Thank you, Timo. I suppose I’ll have to learn how to do that myself one of these days, but it looks like it’s going to take practice.”

  The lights were still out, but I could just make out her face in the dim glow of faerie magic. She grinned. “You want to practice going in and out of me, over and over? I’ll be happy to help you with that, Master.”

  I swatted her butt again. “Wench. I wonder where my clothes ended up?”

  It took a bit of searching, but we managed to find most of them. I got some knowing looks from the guards as I made my way back to the palace with only one shoe and half the buttons missing from my jacket, though.

  I finally made it to the breakfast room, and found Elin and Tina already there. Elin looked up from her cinnamon roll, and burst out laughing.

  “Goodness, Daniel. You look like you were attacked by a pack of wild animals. It appears that you’ve finally met your match.”

  Avilla leaned over the breakfast bar to look at me, and wrinkled her nose. “Someone needs a bath. Go on, you’ve just enough time before your food is ready.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m going. Thanks for the wakeup call, though.”

  “Oh, it was purely selfish. I was afraid we might lose you forever without a reminder.”

  “I said I’d go find you if you didn’t come back,” Tina put in.

  Elin rolled her eyes. “As if you’d make it past the first nymph you met. We’d find you passed out in a heap of nature spirits sometime after Yule.”

  “I know!” Tina said happily.

  Elin facepalmed.

  I took a quick shower, and ran into Cerise on the way back to my room to dress. She offered me a high five, and a knowing grin.

  “What did I tell you, big guy? Dryads are awesome, aren’t they?”

  “I can’t argue with that. But I think I’m going to limit myself to one nymph at a time from now on. Things got a little hazy after Pelagia and Xenia decided to double-team me.”

  “Lucky dog. So what was the naga like? I’ve never done a snake woman before.”

  “Seduce her and find out,” I said. “A gentleman doesn’t tell.”

  “Gentleman? What the heck is a gentleman?”

  Eventually I managed to get some food in me, and retreat to my workshop to get a little work done. A nap was sounding pretty good by then, but I didn’t trust this temporary peace we were enjoying. Another army could show up on our doorstep at any time, and the next bunch might be worse than the andregi.

  Well, armies I knew how to handle. One thing I’d noticed in our last few battles was that we didn’t have nearly enough mortars to properly cover the approaches to Kozalin. But that was easily fixed.

  I spent most of the day improving the island’s defenses. Thankfully the two mortar bunkers I’d set up at opposite ends of the island had plenty of room, so I was able to expand each battery from two tubes to four. While I was at it I put in a bin for ready ammo storage near each mortar, and installed an ammo hoist from the magazine below so the men wouldn’t have to exhaust themselves running up and down the stairs.

  The defenses around each bunker also needed some work. I moved the nearby quad-mount air defense machine guns to small bartizans atop the corners of the bunker, each one surrounded by a stone parapet to protect the gunners. I also installed a couple more machine guns on the outward-facing side of the bunker, where they could cover the lower fighting deck of the wall that the whole structure was built on.

  But most of that had to be open to the air, and given the increasingly arctic conditions trying to stand long watches out there would be pretty brutal. So I put in a fully enclosed ready room next to the mortars, with a ladder leading up to a watch post protected by a dome of transparent quartz. That way the men could keep someone on sentry duty no matter how bad the weather got, and the weapon crews could all stay warm as long as they weren’t actually fighting.

  The men seemed pretty enthusiastic about the improvements. Partway through the first bunker Demetrios showed up to have a look at what I was doing, and nodded approvingly.

  “This will be very useful, milord. I don’t suppose you could put a barracks up here while you’re at it? It would be easier to keep the mortars manned if we could quarter the crews nearby.”

  “Sure, we can do that. I don’t want to build anything else on top of the wall, but I can open up some more rooms under the bunker. How many men are you planning to keep here?”

  I ended up putting in a barracks and mess area big enough for a platoon, buried deep inside the wall. Connected to that was a large storeroom, an armory, some private rooms for sergeants and officers, and a couple of extra rooms for future expansion.

  Once we had the alterations worked out I did the same thing to the other mortar bunker, and then set up two more of them so the island would have one at each cardinal point. Sixteen mortars ought to be enough to hold off anything, as long as they didn’t run out of ammo.

  We already had a pair of factory enchantments running twenty-four hours a day to make mortar bombs, and I thought we were building up ammo stocks at an acceptable pace. But I went ahead and built a new one to make training rounds. Instead of exploding on impact, those would just emit a bright colored light for a few minutes. Drawing on yesterday’s amulet experiments I even managed to set it up so there were six colors to choose from, and the mortar rounds were marked with a ring of the same color as the light they’d make.

  It was a lot of work, but it left me feeling better about the prospect of leaving the city if another mission came up. If there was some enemy working on a clever plan to take out the mortars they’d need time to account for the changes, and the bunkers would be much tougher targets than before. Give the new crews a week to practice, and assaulting Kozalin with a conventional army would become more or less impossible.

  Too bad conventional armies weren’t our only problem, as Elin pointed out over lunch.

  “Not that I object to your making Black Island even more impregnable, but it’s already the strongest fortress in Europe,” she said. “As often as you throw yourself into the thick of battle, shouldn’t you be more concerned about your own equipment? You need much better armor, and didn’t you have some idea for a new weapon?”

  “I’m trying to arrange things so I don’t have to keep doing that,” I explained. “No matter how good you are, if you keep putting yourself in harm’s way the odds will eventually catch up with you. Besides, I can only be in one place at a time. So I’m trying to set things up so our troops can handle as many problems as possible without my help.”

  “I suppose you’ll be less a target for assassins if you’re not so obviously the lynchpin of our entire faction,” she conceded. “But I still don’t like it.”

  “You know, Elin, if you�
�re that worried you could always start going out with us,” Cerise said. “You’re pretty handy in a fight, and having two healers would be awesome.”

  “No, thank you,” Elin protested emphatically. “Every time I leave the island to help I end up almost dying, and I’ve had quite enough of that for one lifetime. I intend to wait out the remainder of Ragnarok behind the safety of our walls.”

  Cerise frowned. “It’s not that bad, is it? I mean, sure, there was the thing with the dwarves, but that took us all by surprise. You did fine in the big night battle with the andregi.”

  “You mean the one where my medical station almost got overrun by savages who rape every woman they get their hands on?” Elin said severely. “It’s only luck that Daniel received warning of their intentions in time. And don’t forget my first battle, with Hel’s legion. I still have nightmares about those giant bone golems rising out of the water between me and safety.”

  Cerise hung her head. “I’m sorry, Elin. I guess we’ve kind of been letting you down.”

  “Not at all,” Elin declared. “I volunteered for each of those missions, and you did everything you could to protect me. For that matter, I suppose I’m not entirely an easy target for our enemies. But I don’t have the temperament for such heroics, Cerise. You may crave danger and excitement, but I’d very much prefer to do my healing from a safe location.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Just because you’re capable of protecting yourself doesn’t mean you should be forced to take chances. How is the healing going?”

  She smiled in relief. “Quite well, actually. Did you know some architect from Kozalin has started a construction business down on the street level? They specialize in finishing out your buildings with interior walls, doors, window shutters and so forth. It’s really quite amazing how quickly they can work, especially with the building supplies those machines of yours make. I’ve managed to turn my little storefront into a proper clinic.”

  “That sound useful. Are you getting a lot of customers?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m only open for a few hours in the mornings, but I had to start charging or I’d be overrun with refugees. I’ve hired a couple of assistants to help manage things, and I’m thinking of taking on an apothecary.”

  “Sometimes I help,” Tina put it. “Yesterday we had a patient who was having a really bad delivery, but I blessed her and everything got better!”

  “She’s a walking fertility blessing,” Elin explained. “If all of Bast’s priestesses had that sort of power, I can see why her church was so prominent in ancient Egypt.”

  “Well done, Tina. I’m glad you can help out. Elin, what do you think about expanding your clinic into our main treatment center for injured soldiers? I’m planning to make more vehicles for the troops sometime in the next week or two, and I’m sure I can come up with something for transporting wounded. That way the next time there’s a battle you can work here, instead of venturing out into the city where things could get dangerous.”

  “I’d been hoping you might agree to a plan of that nature,” Elin agreed. “I already have a triage station, and a room where we can set up cots for the wounded. Only, it would be best to have some recovery rooms for the more serious cases. There’s no one in the space next to mine, so perhaps I could take it over?”

  “That will work. Just check with Tavrin first, in case he had plans for it. At the rate we’re expanding I’m going to have to put up another building soon to make room.”

  “Yes, the street level is becoming quite lively. We have an inn now, along with two tailors and a carpentry shop, and a tea house just opened next to the produce market. At this rate the entire street will be full in another week.”

  “Sounds like I need to do some more expansion soon,” I mused. But my thoughts were interrupted by the sudden arrival of one of Sefwin’s agents.

  “Milord!” She called. “There’s trouble at the docks. The refugees are rioting, and trying to board the merchant ships!”

  Ah, shit.

  “I’m coming,” I said. “Get a message to Captain Rain to muster his company, and move to secure the docks. Cerise?”

  “Right with you, Daniel.”

  As we raced through the halls of the vast fortress I’d built, I contemplated that I really, really needed to do something about our communication problems. It would probably take half an hour to get all my officers in the same room, and that’s an eternity in a crisis. Not to mention that we’d be relying on messengers to find out what was happening outside, which meant long delays in responding to any change in a situation.

  So instead of heading for a command post like any sane ruler, I led Cerise to the roof. If I wanted to see what was happening and deal with it properly I’d have to do exactly what I’d just told Elin I was trying to avoid, and go there in person.

  “What’s the plan?” Cerise asked as we emerged into the cold. It was a clear day, so at least we had decent visibility.

  “Fly over and see what we’re dealing with first,” I answered. “I’d rather not kill civilians if we can avoid it, but we need to protect those ships.”

  I took to the air, and swooped across the harbor looking for the disturbance. Cerise sprouted wings, and followed me.

  There. A ragged mob surged around a couple of piers where ships were docked, screaming and struggling with the sailors. Some of them had torches, and they weren’t just for show. A wooden shack overlooking the piers was on fire, and so was one mast of the merchant ship closest to shore.

  I hovered over the scene for a few moments, taking in details. The crowd was at least a thousand strong, maybe more. Almost all of them were young men, dressed in worn and ragged clothing like most of the refugees. Most of them carried clubs, though, and they didn’t hesitate to use them.

  “They came here looking for trouble,” Cerise observed.

  “I was noticing the same thing,” I replied. Improvised weapons had become common in Kozalin, but there was no reason they’d be carrying lit torches around in the day unless they planned on burning something.

  There were too many of them for my troops to disperse, unless I wanted them to open fire on the crowd. Not to mention that at the rate they were going they’d burn at least a couple of the ships before Rain’s men could get here. But maybe I could put the local fear of magic to good use.

  I dropped onto the deck of the burning ship, and quenched the flames with an angry gesture. Some idiot took a swing at me, and his club broke against my shield. I shoved him away with a burst of force magic, sending him careening over the ship’s railing and into the water. Then I drew Grinder, and turned it on.

  My weapon’s keening howl immediately drew every eye, and the rioters closest to me shied away nervously. But just waving the plasma blade around wasn’t enough to discourage them. Kozalin is a much rougher place than my world, and its inhabitants aren’t as easy to intimidate as the civilized people I grew up with. Not ten feet away from me a knot of rioters was methodically beating a sailor to death with their cudgels, and only one of them even glanced in my direction.

  I stalked over, and cut him in half with Grinder.

  Fragments of broken bone and charred flesh sprayed out across the deck of the ship. I could barely hear my victim’s scream over Grinder’s howl, but I couldn’t stop there. I swung again, taking a man’s arm off, and then the group in front of me was finally trying to run.

  I turned to look for another target, and found an unnatural shroud of darkness spreading across half the ship. Terrified rioters stumbled out of it, some of them bleeding from knife wounds. But they couldn’t get away, because the crowd still advancing on the wharf was packed too tight to let them through.

  Damn it, I didn’t want to kill them all. Most of them were probably just hotheads, whipped into a frenzy by some rabble rouser. But what could I do that would be showy enough to terrify the whole crowd, without immediately killing most of them?

  None of my weapons would work for this. But I wasn’t in any real
danger here, so I could afford the time it would take to weave a spell manually. I took off again, reaching out to spin a web of force magic over the dock. When I’d first come to this world I’d had serious range problems with my magic. But thanks to Cerise I knew how the local wizards and witches got around those issues, and now I put that knowledge to good use. My spell grew quickly, spilling out along the dock in both directions. As long as the spell’s heart was within my grasp, I could extend its reach until the cost outgrew my mana supply.

  Covering the entire dock barely put a dent in my amulet’s output. Then I took hold of the spell, and rose higher. Hundreds of startled rioters were suddenly jerked off the ground, and dragging into the air kicking and screaming. I flew down the length of the dock, pulling them all along in the air behind me, and then started dropping them onto the heads of the crowd in the streets.

  Sure enough, that got their attention. The crowd pulled back from the outlandish spectacle. I pushed forward, scooping up dozens of fresh human projectiles and raining them down on the heads of their comrades. I was dropping them from a couple of stories up, and while the field of force magic slowed their fall it probably looked like they were all going to die.

  The crowd broke, and fled screaming into the city.

  For a few minutes I worried that I’d gotten carried away. But as the streets cleared I was relieved to see that there were only a few bodies here and there. Most of the people I’d dropped had landed lightly enough to pick themselves up and hobble away, which was what I’d been aiming for.

  I cast about for someone in charge, and spotted Harbormaster Lund surrounded by a knot of armed men by one of the warehouses. I stalked over to him, and Cerise joined me along the way.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “The damned thieves were after our grain,” one of the other men spat. “I can see I’ll need more guards, if I’m to risk this voyage again.”

  “The dukes have cut rations for the refugees again,” Lund said. “What they’re handing out now is just slow starvation, and the common folk can hardly afford to buy more when wheat is going for twelve pennies a bushel.”