Michael Stackpole - Of Limited Loyalty

Vlad chuckled. “My aunt’s surrogates would drown in paper, and that would keep them too busy to pay to much attention to what we are doing.”

“And if men like my brother and Samuel Haste urge compliance with the law, pointing out that burying the Queen in paper is better than burning her in effigy, the people will do it for the amusement. When you have countless receipts all signed with a man’s mark to sort through, the system will collapse.”

“True.” Vlad tossed his glasses on his desk. “However, it will still increase resistance to the Crown in the future albeit more slowly than otherwise.”

“Highness, do you think you can insulate the Crown from its own stupidity?”

“No.” Vlad slowly shook his head. “I just hope I am able to insulate the people from the Crown’s ire.”

17 March 1768 Slow Creek Richlan, Mystria

Nathaniel crouched with Makepeace and Kamiskwa on the crest of a wooded hill. A light breeze carried down from the north across the snow-choked valley to where they waited, blowing their scent far to the south. The light snow clung to their buffalo robes and fur hats, helping to further conceal them. Each man wore double-layered mittens with white rabbit fur on the outside, and a slit thumb that gave them access to their rifles’ firestones.

Nathaniel nodded to Makepeace, who smiled happily. Makepeace had seen odd tracks on a patrol to the southwest of Plentiful. He’d described what he thought had made them, but neither Nathaniel nor Kamiskwa believed him. They’d all bundled up and headed out, hoping to backtrack the trail before the snow obliterated it. None of them had expected to see what lay in the little valley below.

Makepeace had been right in that the tracks had been made by a wooly rhinoceros. It was fully grown, making it about half-again as large as Peregrine. Its horn had to be three and a half feet long if an inch, and its thick brown fur was more than enough to insulate it from a March storm. What they’d not expected, however, was a harness holding a copper plate tight to its head. The harness fitted blinders over its eyes, and held a fist-sized stone set in the middle, which looked for all the world like a firestone.

More impressive than that was the creature riding the rhino.

Nathaniel had seen one of them before, in a quick glimpse, in the Antediluvian Temple. Ten feet tall as measured against the rhino’s horn, it had ram’s horns of its own and a shaggy white coat. Its thick build matched it to Makepeace, if he’d been stretched up, out, and back. Fur shaded its eyes the way it would on a sheepdog, but the black claws on its hands reminded him more of jeopards than dogs. It wore a brown leather girdle and strap that ran from hip to shoulder and back behind, with shiny copper fittings. A flattened warclub with obsidian blades jutting from each edge dangled at its right hip, and it bore a stone-tipped spear in its left hand. Another leather strap bound a copper plate to the creature’s forehead, set with a stone that matched the one on the rhino.

Kamiskwa tapped Nathaniel on the shoulder, pointed to the rifle, and raised an eyebrow.

Nathaniel frowned. He figured the target was about a hundred twenty yards out, which would have been beyond the rifle’s range save for all the green powder training he’d done over the winter. Prince Vlad had told him what was really going on, and he’d helped train members of the Northern Rangers. The new magick pushed his rifle’s range out far enough, and made a killing shot possible at nearly a hundred yards. Ain’t a single bullet going to kill that beast.

He shook his head.

Kamiskwa shucked his buffalo robe and warclub, then pulled off his tunic. He touched a new tattoo on his left breast, right next to where his medicine bag dangled from a cord around his throat. The tattoo was of a bear paw, yet the large pad had only been done in outline. In the middle of it had been drawn an open eye design. Kamiskwa covered the image with his hand, and when he pulled it away seconds later, the paw remained, but the eye had closed. He picked up his warclub, and worked his way to the right, moving from tree to tree, and down the hillside toward the valley.

Makepeace moved out the other way. Nathaniel waited until Makepeace had paused behind the bole of a tree and brought his rifle to bear before he moved forward. He advanced ten yards and took up a similar firing position. Makepeace then advanced, ranging a bit further out. Nathaniel continued his descent until he reached a fallen log approximately eighty yards from his target. The wind was blowing across his line of fire, but came light enough that he wouldn’t have to compensate too much.

Kamiskwa broke from cover, screeching at the top of his lungs. Snow sprayed up with each step-steps which slowed as the Shedashee waded into a deep drift. He held the warclub aloft in one hand, and paddled at the snow with the other.

The troll looked in his direction, then the rhino began to gallop. The rider couched the spear as a lance. Snow flew up and back. The stones in the harnesses blazed with green intensity as the rhino charged. The creature plowed through the drifts as if they were no more substantial than fog.

Nathaniel measured the range with a practiced eye, then invoked the spell to ignite brimstone. Prince Vlad had directed him to think of something hot and burning. Most men thought of embers or the dull, red glow of iron fresh from the forge. Nathaniel allowed as how those things were hot, but he went for something else, something suitable to the winter. He recalled the burning pain of frostbitten fingers slowly warming up, and pumped that through the firestone, adding in, for good measure, the murderous rage he’d been experiencing at the time of that particular recollection.

Makepeace fired a half-second before he did. The man’s bullet flew true, hitting the troll high in the chest. It struck with enough force to rock the creature back and tip the spearpoint up.

Nathaniel’s rifle bucked against his shoulder. The bullet sped out, but the troll’s reaction to Makepeace’s shot had shifted Nathaniel’s target. He’d been aiming for the throat, hoping to hit higher or lower than that. The troll’s being knocked back lowered its head just enough that Nathaniel’s shot slammed into its forehead, directly over the left eye. It snapped the leather strap, but the bullet ricocheted to the side, chipping off half of the troll’s horn.

With the rhino thirty yards away and in mid-charge, Kamiskwa dove to the left. Nathaniel and Makepeace each levered their rifles open and reloaded, forcing themselves to calmly complete a ritual they’d done hundreds of times before. Nathaniel refused to look at the rhino and trusted to his brother’s ability to get clear. If he let worry interfere, he’d never get his rifle loaded for the shot that could save Kamiskwa’s life.

He levered his rifle’s breech closed, then sighted on the rhino.

Just in time to see the beast rear up and hurl the troll from its back. Churning up a cloud of snow, the rhino turned quickly and ducked its head. The horn came up, and the troll flew again, all limp-limbed, the forehead plate clattering against the whole horn. The rhino attacked the troll again and again, ripping great holes in its torso, then finally trotted off to the side, snorting out great jets of steam. Its course took it upwind of the troll’s corpse, which stank of musk and bile, then the rhino shook its head and cleaned its horn in the snow. It pawed at the ground and began to graze peacefully a minute later.

Nathaniel worked his way back up the hill to recover Kamiskwa’s gear and met him halfway to the valley floor. Makepeace joined them. The Shedashee pulled his clothes on, but refused to indicate that he’d felt the cold at all.