At the Queen's Command

by Michael A. Stackpole

  He never quite got there.

  Nathaniel Woods waved from the shore as he pulled the canoe up. Kamiskwa jumped from the back and helped haul the canoe free of the water. Nathaniel produced a satchel and held it out to the Prince.

  Vlad accepted it. “Where is Captain Strake? Is he?”

  Nathaniel snarled. “He’s alive, or I’ll be killing him next I see him. These here are his journals. If you have some food, drink, and a place we can sleep for a bit, we’ll be heading back for him.”

  The Prince nodded, relieved a bit, but still anxious. “Come with me, gentlemen. I shall see to your needs. You will tell me everything.”

  Their story matched the letters up to and including the Deleon message. After they had escaped the Ryngians, that being a harrowing adventure in and of itself, they’d traveled directly to Saint Luke. They left Makepeace Bone there to be mended, then hurried directly to the Prince. A journey that had taken Jean Deleon two months, they had accomplished in five weeks and looked every bit as lean and exhausted as one might expect.

  Nathaniel sliced an apple in half. “We would not have left Captain Strake, but it was an order. We had agreed. He said the journals was what you needed.”

  “My friends, this is the fourth time you’ve mentioned that order. I understand your anger and anguish, but your actions have not dishonored you in the least. I think more of you now, knowing what you have done, than I did before a feat I would have believed, until this moment, well nigh impossible.”

  The Prince rested his hand on the journals. “I will spend the night examining these journals and, in the morning…”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “We’ll be gone by then.”

  “You cannot go, Mr. Woods.”

  “All due respect being yours, Highness, I ain’t one of your subjects to be ordered about.”

  “Precisely, Mr. Woods, which is why I need you here. The both of you.” Prince Vlad looked from one man to the other. “Captain Strake was right. What you have uncovered is of more importance than you can even begin to imagine. What you have seen is critical if du Malphias is to be stopped. With your help I will construct a complete set of maps. We will work up plans and demands for troops. If that fortress stands, none of us are safe. Not Mystrians, not the Shedashee.”

  “I ain’t leaving Captain Strake out there.”

  “Nathaniel, please.” The Prince pressed his hands flat to the table. “If Captain Strake is alive, he is likely in du Malphias’ custody. If dead, I fear he is as well. If alive, he will be held as a prisoner or shot. In Temperance and just up the coast at Truth Bay, there are two Ryngian agents. I shall order their apprehension and draft a letter to Guy du Malphias offering a prisoner exchange. This is the best chance Owen has.”

  Kamiskwa nodded. “Owen was shot in the leg. It needs time to heal. He could not escape for at least a month. And if they took his leg…”

  Nathaniel hammered a fist against the table. “I know. I know. You’re both right. Don’t mean I like it.”

  “Nathaniel, had you been shot, you would have ordered him away. You don’t like his having fallen and your still being alive.”

  “Ain’t the first time I shouldered that burden, Highness. Don’t need another ghost behind me.” Nathaniel sighed. “Would you be letting me take that note to du Malphias?”

  “I need you here. I’ll send Jean Deleon.” Vlad turned to Kamiskwa. “Prince Kamiskwa, how would the Confederation react if it is proved that du Malphias is creating wendigo?”

  “It is enough that they hold Aodaga. If my father were to call for warriors, two hundred would answer. Many with guns, more with arrows and warclubs.”

  “That would be wonderful. I will have to raise what militia forces I can by next spring.”

  Nathaniel glowered again. “We leave Owen there over the winter, we ain’t never getting him back.”

  “Please, Nathaniel, if du Malphias is raising the dead, we have more pressing problems. We need to know everything about his creatures. We have to know how to kill them.”

  “You shoot them.” Nathaniel smiled. “It worked on Ilsavont.”

  “Yes, but why did it work? Was he bleeding? Did you hit a vital organ? Did you explode his heart? Did you shoot him in the head?”

  Nathaniel looked at Kamiskwa, then back. “Caught him just above his paunch. Don’t recall too much blood.”

  “And there was no sign of what had killed the one that possessed the journal, correct?”

  Kamiskwa shook his head. “It looked as if he just lay down and died.”

  “These, gentlemen, are the things we need to know. We need to know how to kill them. Yes, you burned Ilsavont’s head. This is good. But we do not know if the shot just rendered him unconscious and if he would have revived, or if your shot put him down.”

  The hunter smiled. “Onliest way to find this all out, Highness. You need you some specimens.”

  “Eventually, yes; and you’ll have that job, Nathaniel. What I need first is your knowledge. I will go through these journals and the maps. I will need you to verify the maps, then I shall build a miniature.” Vlad remembered the idea he’d just scratched into his journal. “Yes, I shall also need you to test something else. Perhaps not tomorrow, but soon, very soon.”

  “We will do that, Highness, but you’ll be having to work with Kamiskwa tomorrow. And I’ll need the lend of a horse.”

  “For?”

  Nathaniel glanced down at a bone-strewn plate. “I reckon someone needs to ride into Temperance and tell the Frosts what happened. Since I know the blame will be settling on me, I might as well deliver the news.”

  Vlad slowly nodded. “Yes, of course. I should have thought of them first. I shall write a note. If you would deliver it for me, I should be most grateful.”

  “As you wish, Highness.”

  The Prince himself showed his guests to their quarters. He gave them rooms facing south with doors that opened onto a balcony. From previous experience he expected they would choose to sleep out there under the stars rather than in the beds.

  He returned to his laboratory and began his study of the maps. Owen Strake had done a wonderful job, indicating heights and slopes as best possible, even sketching in little men to act as a scale. The Prince meticulously measured and transferred information from the journals to a larger sheet. With every wall and obstacle he increased the number of men that would be required to reduce the fort. He also increased his estimates of casualties.

  At the end he made the final calculations and his stomach soured. So many dead, and that is just if we are truly facing what I see here.

  He shook his head.

  With du Malphias in charge, hidden horrors awaited. No man laying siege to that fortress would escape unharmed.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  August 15, 1763

  Anvil Lake, New Tharyngia

  Owen ducked his head, shying from sunlight hitting him in the face. He wavered for a moment, taking enough weight on his right leg that he didn’t topple over. He inched his left crutch forward, then the left foot, becoming steady again. His arms trembled. The crutches dug deep into his armpits, but he refused to fall or turn back.

  But I would not be allowed to fall. Quarante-neuf hovered behind him, ready to catch him. Du Malphias had tasked the pasmorte to see to his every need. To the best of Owen’s knowledge the creature never slumbered and, at least while he was awake, had never been far away. And whenever Owen had awakened from fever-dreams, Quarante-neuf had been there with cool compresses and gentle words.

  The thin blouse Owen had been given did nothing to cushion the crutches. Du Malphias dictated he wear the loincloth he’d received from the Altashee, less as an honor, then it made inspecting the bandaged wounds much easier. The moccasins had likewise been returned to him and this was the first time he had worn them.

  The gunshot to his right thigh had not opened so grievous a wound as the musket. The ball had been smaller and it missed the bone entirely. This did not pleas
e du Malphias. The lack of symmetry between the two wounds somehow ruined his experiment. So, with Quarante-neuf holding the leg steady, the Tharyngian used his hammer and chisel to break the femur.

  When Owen resumed consciousness the Tharyngian was engaged in measuring both wounds by every means possible. He would call out numbers and comments, which another one of the pasmortes scribbled down. Then, apparently satisfied, du Malphias applied five drops of his vivalius along the length of the wound, and proceeded to stitch it up. He then closed the other wound and draped the first with a leather sheet so none of the dripping Shedashee potion would splash onto it.

  Each day he would return, poking, prodding, taking his measurements and making notes. Owen had complained that his right leg did not feel as the left. It felt hot, and as if something was clawing into it. Du Malphias acknowledged his complaints with a nod, added an additional drop of vivalius, but his expression when he examined the wound from that point forward belied the confident noises he made.

  Then the fever began. Owen had no idea how long it lasted because his nightmares never ended. Moments of wakefulness he had, but no true lucidity. He had distant memories of his own ravings echoing through his small prison as Quarante-neuf would bathe him in cool water.

  The only relief from nightmares came in brief respites when Bethany Frost appeared. Her smile abated his fever and ended his torments. She would read to him in words that made no sense, but he listened only for her kind tone. She would reach a hand out to soothe his brow and, at times, would lean in for a kiss…

  Only to be torn away from him screaming. Then he would find himself in the forest, running along the winding path. The stick creatures had faces, the faces of his wife and his relatives, dead comrades, and men like Lord Rivendell. They hounded him, nipping, tearing his flesh. He tried to run faster but bullets ripped through his legs. He stumbled and fell, feeling them ever close and drawing closer. He clawed at the earth, trying to drag himself along, and then, as a last resort, he burrowed into the earth for safety.

  And he would awaken in his tiny prison, buried, and feel no safer.

  Though du Malphias never explained what he had done, as Owen healed he came to certain conclusions. The Tharyngian clearly had reopened the wound in his right leg and drained it. He’d set up a second drip of the Shedashee preparation and left the wound open to drain more. Finally, when the heat and redness had vanished, he had reclosed the wound, all the while glaring at Owen as if he had somehow betrayed the Laureate.

  Owen, thanks to Quarante-neuf’s kind treatment and the wisdom of the Shedashee, recovered steadily. He no longer had to be restrained and du Malphias’ stern expressions surrendered to looks of mild pleasure. He’d even brought the crutches and invited Owen to venture forth whenever he felt able.

  I will hobble, then walk, then escape.

  With this goal in mind, Owen forced himself to move. His legs protested mightily at first, but he pushed past this new pain. The stitches held and the wounds healed. Owen did notice that while they seemed to progress at the same rate, the right leg was closing without the puckered trace of a scar. The leg even felt a bit stronger than the left, though the difference in bullets might have accounted for that.

  The things that interested du Malphias only concerned Owen in that as long as the Laureate found him worthy of study, he would remain alive. The look in the Laureate’s eyes especially when he did not think Owen noticed revealed Owen’s ultimate disposition. He was, after all, a spy and, therefore, had to be shot.

  Ironically, of course, he’d wait until Owen healed. Healed enough that after he kills me, he can make me into one of his pasmortes.

  Owen was determined that would not happen. He was not going to die in du Malphias’ frontier fortress. He was going to return to Saint Luke and thank Agaskan for her doll keeping him safe. Then he would go to Temperance and complete his journals, finish his mission, and return home to his wife.

  A cold chill ran down Owen’s spine. During his fevered dreams, it had been Bethany Frost, not Catherine, who had comforted him. His wife did appear in his dreams, but she wore mourning and held back, staring at him in horror as if he were long dead. He reached out to her and she recoiled, calling him a pasmorte.

  Owen did not trust dreams as did his wife, but he sought to make sense of them. His wife’s reaction was perfectly in keeping with her character. She loved him dearly, but had no stomach for dealing with illness and infirmity. While she spent many hours reading to her grandmother as the old woman slowly sank into senility, blood, vomitus, or other leakage would send her running. He counted himself lucky that he had never been seriously wounded. Though many of his wife’s friends volunteered in hospital sick-wards, Catherine never did.

  The reasons Bethany comforted him were myriad. At the very least, she had been kind to him. During his short stay in Temperance, her laughter had put a smile on his face and she had been a very solicitous hostess. Add to that the fact that her mother had sewed his ear back on, and connecting healing with the Frosts was not hard to understand. Separated from his wife, in the throes of delirium, it was expected that his fevered brain might impose her as an image of hope.

  He frowned. Regardless of it being an involuntary consequence of his illness, it was unseemly. He was a married man who loved his wife. He resolved that when he returned to Temperance, he would be cordial to and even friendly with Bethany Frost, but he would make certain there was no misunderstanding between them. He could not tell her of his dreams—this would make her uncomfortable. He would, however, show his gratitude, and hope that somehow she would understand his behavior.

  Owen surveyed the fortress from the mouth of a tunnel set halfway between the upper fort and the stone star at the construction’s heart. The pasmortes worked tirelessly—du Malphias noted that some of them had been worked to death and still worked—an oft-repeated joke in which the Laureate took great delight. Owen had concluded that the pasmortes’ abilities and level of service corresponded to how badly damaged they were at resurrection. Quarante-neuf appeared to be quite high-functioning, able to carry on a conversation and even seeming to have emotions. He was a great deal more human than Etienne’s description of his father.

  Others, in various states of decay, functioned as beasts of burden. Du Malphias referred to them as his little “ants,” capable of shifting mountains one tiny piece at a time. When one of the beasts became broken, du Malphias or a couple of the higher-functioning pasmortes like Quarante-neuf, would affect a repair via magick deep in the bowels of the fortress.

  The ability of a pasmorte to use magick shocked Owen, but it made sense. They had become creatures of magick themselves, and the magicks they used were rather elementary. Just as Kamiskwa and Makepeace had repaired the canoes, so magick could reattach a severed arm, or strengthen a broken bone.

  Du Malphias came walking down the path from the upper fort. “Good morning, Captain Strake. How are you feeling?”

  “Pain is a three on your scale in my left leg, two in the right. Discomfort, but nothing insurmountable.”

  “Excellent.” The Tharyngian frowned. “I regret the necessity of this. Come with me to the smith.”

  “Sir?”

  “I cannot have you getting up to mischief.”

  Owen held his head up. “I pledge to you, sir, as an officer and a gentleman, that I have no intention of doing anything of that sort.”

  The slender man’s grey eyes tightened. “You understand, sir, that you stand before me a spy whose life is under immediate threat of extinction. Please accept the honor I do you in treating you like a dangerous foe. I have determined that iron shackles will not impede your recovery, therefore this prudent precaution is one that must be employed now. Quarante-neuf, if he does not follow me, drag him.”

  Quarante-neuf took a step forward, but Owen started after du Malphias. “Please, sir, not so fast.”

  The Tharyngian glanced back, then slowed his pace.

  “Thank you.” Owen caught up wit
h. “I have wanted to ask, sir, after my compatriot. How does he fare?”

  “He perished. Sepsis. Everything I tried, failed.”

  Owen’s stomach imploded. Not Makepeace! He scanned the lines of pasmortes. “Did you…?”

  Du Malphias waved the question aside. “The infection did significant damage to his spine and brain. He was of no use to me.”

  “I should like to pay my respects.”

  “I imagine.” Du Malphias pointed at a stool next to the smith’s anvil. “It pleased me, however, to give him a Viking funeral. I laid him and his equipment in a canoe, lit it afire, and sent it sailing into the lake. The current caught it. His ashes will have washed down the Roaring River and into the Misaawa. On his last journey he shall see more of this continent than he did in life.”

  The smith, a burly man who wore a leather apron to protect a hirsute chest, took a pair of shackles from a burlap sack. He slid one on to Owen’s right wrist, allowing the tabs from the upper and lower halves to stick through a thick, leather sheet. He wrapped the sheet around Owen’s forearm, then drew a glowing red bolt of bronze from the fire. With tongs he slid it through the holes in the tabs, then hammered it flat against the anvil.

  Sparks flew and the metal quickly grew hot. Hairs on Owen’s arm melted into a sickly sweet smoke. The smith pulled the leather away, then yanked Owen forward, dunking his arm to the elbow in a water trough. The bolt bubbled, and steam rose.

  Once the bubbling had stopped, he raised the wrist and showed it to du Malphias. The Laureate, who had a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, nodded. “Proceed.”

  The smith repeated the process with the other hand. Du Malphias studied the results. “We will try your native infusion on those burns, Captain.”

  “Most kind, sir.” Owen smiled despite the throbbing burns.

  “Almost done.” From a pocket du Malphias drew a sharp metal stylus. He caught up each of Owen’s hands in turn and inscribed an oddly angular series of symbols on the head of the bronze bolts. The Laureate then produced two brown leather bracers bearing a great resemblance to clerks’-sleeves. “You will wear these at all times over your shackles until directed to remove them. I would not have Quarante-neuf come to harm.”