Michael Stackpole - Of Limited Loyalty

Nathaniel couldn’t really blame them. Most had been caught up in the idea of a glorious battle like Anvil Lake, and the idea of being able to return home a hero. They’d not thought much about fighting another man, and then they faced creatures from the nether reaches of Hell itself. Just the constant flapping of their wings battering a body was enough to drive men insane, not to mention the biting and clawing. Accompany that with the terrified screams of others, and it was a wonder everyone hadn’t gone east fast as they could.

As horrible as all that was, the destruction of the Fifth Northland Cavalry would haunt many nightmares. The cavalry arrived just in time to save the fort from the trolls. Men’s spirits rose as the weight of doom lifted from them. They cheered their saviors, these gallant men, riding with bare steel against the horned behemoths.

And then they got to watch as their saviors were churned into blood and mud and ivory bone chips. When Nathaniel had looked out over the area where the cavalry had disappeared, what shocked him was that he didn’t see bodies. He didn’t see limbs. The tattered scraps of uniforms and scarlet puddles hinted less at their source than scattered autumn leaves described a tree. There wasn’t anything he recognized out there as having been of men, horses, guns, swords, or tack.

A few of the riders had survived-mostly from the front few ranks of the charge. The trollish charge had sliced in behind the cavalry’s leading edge. The surviving members of the Fifth had turned to chase the trolls, but pursuit languished as their horses galloped through what had once been their friends. Only a handful made it to the river, where they stopped just shy of water running red with blood.

The Shedashee had fared somewhat better than the cavalry, having lost only a quarter of their number. Most of those had fallen to trolls. Kamiskwa had made the best of the opportunity and had slain two with his warclub. The rest of the Shedashee eyed him as if he were a god.

Nathaniel handed him the bucket. “I reckon I have a question or three.”

Kamiskwa dumped water over himself, then passed the bucket on and squeezed water out of his hair. “I would keep no secrets from you, my brother.”

“Which ain’t exactly saying you’ll tell me everything.” Nathaniel nodded, then knelt in the river and began to wash his clothes. “I reckon there’s limitations to your moving from one place to another as you did. Why hain’t I never seen that before?”

The Shedashee shook his head. “I had never seen it before. It was my father’s doing. I do not know that I could do it.”

“Fair enough.” Nathaniel grabbed a dollop of lye soap from a small trough and worked it into his loincloth. “Your father, I seen him kill a troll with a tomahawk. Thing done stuck in the troll’s skull, then it pushed itself into his brain. Msitazi said that I throw to hit, but he threw to kill. Now you cain’t tell me there weren’t no magick there, but that blade was steel and he weren’t touching it, so that is double reason it shouldn’t have worked.”

Kamiskwa appropriated some of the soap and began washing his own leggings. “There are magicks you could learn, Magehawk, but you think too much like a Mystrian to believe you can learn them.”

“How do you mean?”

Kamiskwa smiled. “You tell me you saw. You tell me there was magick. But you tell me it could not have worked. How do you know that?”

“Well now, it’s pretty well known…”

“By whom, my brother?” Kamiskwa arched an eyebrow above an amber eye. “It is well known that no man alive could shoot and kill a jeopard with a single shot at one hundred yards, but I have seen it done.”

“And I’ve done it.” Nathaniel frowned. Kamiskwa was right. Nathaniel had never challenged the conventional wisdom that said magick had to be at touch and that it could not work on steel. Even stories he’d heard about knights of old who had enchanted swords were taken to be, well, just stories. But if they was true… “So, now, am I to believe that you knew magick could work on steel and at range?”

“You’ve known it, too, my friend.” Kamiskwa glanced back toward the east. “All the times we have been in the woods and I know where we are, it means I have read what another man has anchored into a tree or rock. In the Antediluvian ruins, there was the writing, and the images on the walls in the Temple. You’ve known, but because you did not perceive, you refused to believe.”

“And you just didn’t think to explain all this to me?”

The Shedashee sighed. “You think like a Mystrian, Nathaniel. It is as my father said. You use magick to fire a gun with the intent of hitting your target. The ball hits, and does more, but your intent is just to hit. That is enough to do what you need done in most cases. Very few men are those who are willing to study and understand more than what is enough, especially if enough serves them well.”

Nathaniel dunked his loincloth and began rinsing it. “You’re saying that if you tried to explain, I’d have said one was as good as t’other?”

“You can be stubborn.”

“I reckon I can.” The Mystrian’s eyes tightened. “Now if I draw some things together here, I’d be thinking that your father done anchored magick in that tomahawk what was meant to kill that there troll.”

“Yes.”

“Does that guarantee it would work?”

“Do you hit with every shot?”

“Fair enough.” Nathaniel wrung out the loincloth, tossed it to the bank, and reached for his leggings. “I reckon it’s my intent to be learning more on this here matter, Kamiskwa, and I would be much obliged for your help.”

The warrior smiled. “Of course, my brother. Learn quickly. I fear that is the only way we’ll stay alive.”

Vlad winced sympathetically as Shedashee swarmed over Mugwump. At Msitazi’s direction, warriors twisted the broken wing and set it. The dragon’s tail thrashed, but hit no one. The Prince smiled ruefully, wishing he’d had a tail to thrash when they’d set his arm, which had then been splinted and hung in a sling. He’d also had his rib tightly bound, and found the treatment bothered him more than the injury.

The Prince withdrew toward the fort as Baker directed men in erecting the wurmrest tent over Mugwump. In addition to having broken a wing, the dragon appeared to have badly bruised his left hip and shoulder. The magickal blast which had knocked him down had blackened scales that had since crumbled into ash. The Prince had seen where the magick had hit. It appeared as if the energy had actually played along the stripes, since those scales had disappeared, leaving others intact.

Count von Metternin sat in a chair someone had fetched for him, his right leg stretched out and splinted straight. Vlad assumed he was in as much pain or more than the Prince, but the Kessian gave little sign of his discomfort. “How are you feeling, Highness?”

“I am well, as are you, I trust.” Vlad gave his friend a smile. “I have good news, news which I intended to share before fighting began but…”

“We were preempted.”

“Quite. You need to know that Princess Gisella is pregnant again.”

The small man clapped his hands. “That is wonderful news. Congratulations. You didn’t tell me earlier because you assumed I would insist you remain behind?”

“Yes.” Vlad glanced back toward Mugwump. “Part of me wishes I would have had and heeded that advice.”

“I never could have kept you away.” Von Metternin smiled. “I shall consider that a good omen. Likewise the fact that Mugwump appears no more hurt than those foolish enough to ride him.”

“I find myself less concerned over his injuries than the knowledge of dragons Msitazi is displaying. He knows more than Baker does, and Baker’s family has been wurmwrights to the Royal House for centuries.”