At the Queen_s command cc-1

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Owen chewed his lower lip. "How reliable are these two?"

  "Reliable? Not much."

  "Can they be trusted to carry a message?"

  Jean laughed. "If carrying it will get me far away from du Malphias, you shall have no better courier, my friend."

  "There's a pound in it for you, a gold pound, if you get it to Temperance."

  Jean nodded avidly, his partner dully.

  Makepeace growled from behind them. "And a lead pound if you don't."

  "Calm yourself, my friend Makepeace. I will be your most obedient servant." Jean smiled easily. "I live to serve, and if I serve you, I shall continue to live."

  Owen wrote up two messages, coding the one to the Prince and another covering letter to Doctor Frost. He sealed the first, then sealed it inside the second. The four of them then split the night into watches and kept the Ryngians under guard. Finally, when morning arrived, they helped the Ryngians load their canoes and sent them on their way.

  With the canoes a dozen yards offshore, Etienne turned back with a dripping paddle across his knees. "Monsieur Woods, have you seen my father?"

  "Yup. Shot him dead. Burned his head. Ain't no more need for no nightmares."

  "Yes, I see. Merci." He turned and drew deep water with the paddle.

  Makepeace spat in the direction of the departing canoe. "By the Grace of God I hope that boy done learned a lesson."

  "Wurms sooner to grow wings, I'm reckon." Nathaniel scratched at the back of his neck. "We're a week to Anvil. Another week to paddle our way across, give or take. Couple islands we could lay up on, ain't there?"

  Makepeace squatted and drew a rough map in the dirt. The outline resembled an anvil with the top running north to south, and the beak pointing north. The lake narrowed toward the east, then broadened out again into the anvil's base. The Green River came in at the southwest quarter, and the Roaring River went out very close to it. The Tillie outflow split the eastern shore in half.

  "Couple small islands near that fort. Jumbles of rocks mainly. Two big ones, one to the north, one straight east of that fort. North we won't see nothing. East we would have a good view, but your man would be an idiot iffen he didn't have no troops there."

  "Why won't we see anything from the north?"

  The giant traced a thick finger through the earth. "Jean called it the heights. Mess of hills."

  "Could we get closer in the hills than the island?"

  "We could up and just walk on in, but ain't likely your man will let us get back out again."

  Owen nodded. "I understand, Mr. Bone, but I need to study that fortress. I need to make maps. Just drifting past and running away isn't enough.

  "I know this is a very dangerous proposition. You are all courageous men but no amount of money could compensate you for this risk. I fully discharge you from any obligation. I'll write a note to the Prince and would ask you to bear it to him. I have no choice but to go there. I do not ask the same of you."

  Nathaniel's eyes became slits. "Iffen there's not money enough to pay for anyone to go take a look-see, how come you're going?"

  "I am a sworn officer in Her Majesty's Army. My orders are to survey Tharyngian positions in Mystria."

  "Wouldn't no one know if you just didn't go. You'd not be the first to take a new name and adopt a new life."

  "That would be true, Mr. Woods, but I would know." Owen lifted his chin. "I do not choose to live a dishonored life."

  "Seems to me you think we would."

  "No, not at all." Owen opened his hands. "Once we sail west of the shore, we will be in territory which, according to the 1760 Treaty of Mastrick, belongs to Tharyngia. Dressed as I am, I will be taken as a spy and shot. You will share my fate. And if a fraction of what we suspect is actually true, a fate worse than death may await us all."

  Nathaniel arched an eyebrow. "This ain't you being all noble and Norillian and all?"

  Owen shook his head ruefully. "You are my friends. I value your lives too much to put them in such obvious danger. I appreciate all you've done for me. I hope I've learned enough to let me complete my mission. I have no choice but to go."

  Nathaniel stretched. "Well now, I is only speaking for me, but I don't reckon I have a choice neither. See, when all them Branches and Casks was a-wagering on how long you'd last out here, I done took their bets. And I doubled up on them, saying you'd be coming back alive. I reckon I have an investment to be protecting."

  Kamiskwa nodded. "My sister wants you to bring her doll back. I go."

  Makepeace rose, clapping the dust off his hands. "I been a-waiting for whatever that shepherd done saved me for. I'd be a durn fool iffen I thought this weren't it. Besides, last time I checked, killing Ryngians was more a virtue than a vice."

  Owen nodded solemnly. "One more thing you'd best understand. We are going to be invading enemy territory. We're going to war. I understand war the way you understand the wilderness. From this point forward, I am in command. If I give an order, you obey. Is that understood?"

  The other three exchanged glances, then nodded. Nathaniel tossed him a ragged salute. "Lead on, Captain Strake. Into the mouth of Hell and back out again."

  Caution slowed their pace so that they reached Anvil Lake at noon a week later. It took them until mid-afternoon on the day of their arrival to locate and repair two canoes. Makepeace, using bark, some pitch and prayer managed to duplicate Kamiskwa's work. The patch held just as well, though did not blend seamlessly. When they launched Owen watched for any signs of leakage, but the canoe remained intact.

  They kept to the northern shore and moved at night. They worked their away along carefully, never more than twenty yards out from shore. This afforded them some cover from the northern wind but, more importantly, made it harder for anyone in the fortress to see them.

  They made good time on the water and by the third day, they stopped near the headland where the lake made a jog to the north into the anvil's beak. The northern island lay northwest of them. A sliver of moon provided them enough light to reach it undetected.

  As they approached the island, Owen collected his thoughts and wrote his conclusions into his expedition journal. The trip from Pine Lake to Anvil Lake convinced him how difficult bringing an army up to assault the fortress would truly be. Transport ships could carry an army to Hattersburg, but from there they would have to go on foot. They would have to build a road through primeval forest, an undertaking that would take a month or more and that would be without bad weather or harassment by the Ryngian forces.

  At Anvil Lake they'd need to create a flotilla of flat boats, since approaching by the southern shore would add fifty miles of road-building to the campaign. The forests would yield ample raw materials to build the fleet, but any hope of surprise evaporated. The fortress would have to be taken by siege, which required yet more men and supplies.

  The smartest plan for the Norillians would be to build their own fortress at the outflow into the Tillie. The Ryngians would have to destroy it before moving down the river. That would buy ample time for Norisle to raise other defenses.

  Owen made a solid case for that plan. Someone like Lord Rivendell would never see the wisdom in it. Owen's uncle, on the other hand, would. He would appropriate both the plan and the acclaim that came from it. Anger sparked at that idea; Owen smothered it.

  Finally they reached the northern island. The rectangular plot of earth and stone rose up twenty yards, with a deep bowl in the middle. It had started life as a jumble of rocks, but over the years had grown up with trees and mosses, flowers and shrubs that completely hid the rocks beneath. They drew their canoes all the way up into the interior and made no fire. They kept watches, but aside from calling loons and a moose taking a shortcut across the island, they neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary.

  In preparation for their scouting mission, each man put together a satchel with twenty-four rounds and changed their firestones for new. They assumed, quite rightly, that if they could not escape purs
uit before they exhausted their ammunition, they were as good as dead or worse.

  Owen left behind his journals, his pistol and pens. He included in his load two pencils and A Continent's Calling. He would jot his notes in it, then expand them into his journals. The other men likewise abandoned non-essentials. If all went well, they would make a trip to the western shore, take a look, return to retrieve their gear, then head east again.

  Taking advantage of a low mist on the water, they struck out for the western shore in the early morning. They navigated up a small stream, then hid the canoes on the northern side. Kamiskwa pointed out a few other cached canoes on the way and holed one of Ungarakii manufacture. They crossed the stream and headed south. Kamiskwa found a game trail that brought them to a marsh between hills. They skirted the mire to the lake side, then headed directly up a wooded hill

  Just beneath the crest Nathaniel smiled. "One more hill and we'll see what needs to be seen."

  Makepeace, already at the crest, turned, his face ashen. "May God have Mercy on our souls."

  Owen scrambled up the rest of the way, then flattened onto his belly.

  To the south, where there should have been a wooded hill, construction had scraped a reddish scar in the earth. The hill at the lake's edge had been chopped in half, with the back hauled away, lumber, stones and all.

  And beyond it, in all its dark and angular glory, stood the fortification that would soon become known as the Fortress of Death.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  July 7, 1763

  Anvil Lake

  Lindenvale, Mystria

  O wen had seen many fortresses during Continental campaigns. In medieval times stones walls had risen very high, but with the advent of cannon, such walls fell easily. As a result, engineers designed new fortifications that involved the creation of a glacis: a low slope rising ten feet or more. From the distant hilltop, the glacises gave the fortress an irregular, star-shaped footprint.

  The glacises extended out from the walls for a hundred yards and came to a point. Their sides sloped gently back toward the fortress and stone faced them. Cannon-shot hitting the stone would bounce up over the fortress' wooden palisade wall. Getting cannons close enough that they could hit the walls directly, or moving mortars into range to lob shot over the walls, would be a long and laborious process. It involved digging endless trenches, working ever closer while under enemy cannon-fire from the fortress.

  As bad as that was, other defenses made things worse. The ground above and below the glacises had been set with sharpened stakes. This would slow infantry assaults. Abatises made of logs with stout, sharpened branches crossed the only access near the two small gates on the west side. Those sally-ports would allow Ryngian troops to rush out to counterattack the Norillian trenchers.

  Beyond the stakes, and a dozen feet before the wall, a berm had been thrown up, also strewn with stakes. Beyond it lay a trench which made the walls even taller. With the easternmost part of the fortress being built on the heights, flooding that trench wasn't possible, but down where the assault was likely to happen, sluice-gates by the river would fill it.

  At the lake, the palisade wall came close to the edge of an eighty-foot-tall cliff. Naval gunfire could obliterate that narrowest portion of the fortress, but to get a ship of sufficient size into Anvil Lake would require a transit through Ryngian-controlled rivers and lakes. The final passage would take it past the Fortress of Death cannons.

  The fortress formed a rough triangle, though the walls did boast a few projections that would allow troops to pour a murderous crossfire on any besiegers. With the high point on the east at the cliffs, the fortress spread out downhill to the base, which ran parallel to the Green River. As the scouting party moved west it became apparent that any ship trying to make it through the river would be under the fortress' batteries for five hundred yards. That sort of pounding would reduce the ship to a hulk before it ever made Anvil Lake.

  And to complicate matters further, a smaller fort had been erected across the river on the western plain. Owen suspected chains could be strung between them to completely restrict transit.

  Somehow, all of that wasn't the worst aspect. Pallid, shuffling human beings-or what he supposed once had been human beings-formed a different chain, one of constant motion to and from the hills. Some carried axes and shovels, felling trees and digging into hillsides. Others that moved haltingly carried sacks of earth on their backs, or were roped into teams that dragged trees from where they had been felled. These creatures performed labor that others might have reserved for oxen. While they did not move with great speed, they moved constantly and showed no sign of fatigue.

  After the initial look, Owen signaled for a move to the west. Though the walls had not been completed, and work crews were refining trenches, the vision of what it would become blossomed full in Owen's mind. Without precise measurements and drawings, however, observations would be of little military value.

  They went west and slowly worked their way back east to the shore. Owen made notes and maps in the back of his book. Kamiskwa stayed closest to him, with Makepeace and Nathaniel out and back to keep watch and provide cover. Owen used an average man's height to judge the length of logs, and then used them to provide a scale for the fortress.

  It wasn't until they had returned to North Island, and he began transcribing information into his journals, that he found any reason to take the least bit of heart. "The one thing I didn't notice was enough cannon to destroy a ship."

  "I reckon that's good." Nathaniel drew the fortress in the dirt with a stick. "They probably started with the fort on the hill, then expanded down. Second one down where the river meets lake. Put up a wall to link them. Then the third point, link that."

  Owen nodded. "Makes perfect sense."

  "Well now, we didn't see none of it because of where we was, but if they still have them internal fort walls up…"

  Owen groaned. "You have smaller fortresses that still have to be taken."

  Makepeace stirred their little fire. "'Member Jean saying du Malphias was digging down, too? If they build themselves tunnels and redoubts, that's a trap waiting to be sprung."

  "Right. Tomorrow, then, we're going to have take a look from the hills on the other side of the Green River. We should be able to see from inside."

  Nathaniel stood and rubbed his fort out with a foot. "If we're going to do that, best move now."

  They took the expedient of hacking some branches off trees to decorate the right side of their canoes, then started back toward the narrows, then across. In the distance, in the stingy amount of light shed by a sliver-moon, they would look like nothing more than debris in the water. As they traveled, Owen watched the ramparts with his telescope, but he could see little. At best he thought he saw the silhouettes of a couple sentries marching along the high wall.

  Once they reached the southern shore, they worked their way west and entered a small stream about a hundred yards shy of the Roaring River outlet. They dragged their canoes out of sight on the western shore, then found another hollow where they built a fire and stashed their gear.

  Owen tore the maps he'd drawn from the back of A Continent's Calling and tucked them inside his journal. He secured them in their oilskin cases, and then stuffed them into his large pouch. In doing so he found the doll Agaskan had given him. He smiled and, on a whim, tucked it into his smaller pouch, along with the book and the pencils.

  They got on the water again before dawn and used the mist to provide cover. They had to paddle out onto the lake to avoid being pulled in by the Roaring River. Though the mist largely hid it, Owen still made out dim rock teeth through which the water flowed. The river's thunder hinted at torturous cataracts below.

  Once past, they made for the western shore, as close to the mouth of the Green River as possible. They brought their canoes in through a marshy area then stashed the canoes and went directly overland toward the fort.

  The view confirmed what Nathaniel had suspected. T
he fortress' river wall bristled with cannon ports. Likewise, the river side of the smaller fort, a miniature of the larger fort, complete with glacises, trenches, and palisade walls. It had been built on an artificial hill created by taking the earth down all around it. While that provided a flat battlefield, it presented two problems. Trenches would end up running below the water-table, so would quickly become mires. Any army caught in the plain might also be subject to sudden flood if du Malphias could breach the riverbank.

  Owen explained this to Nathaniel. The guide nodded and pointed at the river's southern bank,just east of the small fort. "I might just be seeing things, but looks like the bank was shored up there, by that little dock."

  Owen studied it with his telescope. Pilings had been sunk along the bank. At a casual glance it looked like a wall erected on either side of the little jetty. "But there's no reason for a jetty there."

  He collapsed the telescope. "A southerly breeze will shroud the field in smoke. Any army laying siege to the smaller fort would never see the bank collapse. Du Malphias must have the angles marked, the range measured. Blind men shooting at midnight could hit it with every shot."

  "And see there, in the fort-you have your internal walls and that stone fort in the middle."

  Owen nodded. What had once been tall external walls on the two lower forts had been chopped down to half their height, making the interior of the fortress a wonderful killing ground. Moreover, in the heart of it, du Malphias had created a stone star. Glacises and spikes protected it and the roof of the circular enclosure at its center only rose four feet high. Soldiers within could shoot out at all sides of the fortress, and the lack of doors hinted at tunnels that fed into it.

  "Short of lobbing a mortar shell on top of it, there is no way to destroy it from outside." The soldier's shoulders slumped. "This is a lock on the heart of the Continent, and I cannot see that we have the key."

  "Yep. And busting this lock will take more than a big rock."