The troll bounded over the fallen log with ease, landing a good ten feet beyond it. His feet sank through the snow, then punched on through the branches which had been laid over a pit running five feet in depth. Normally that would have been a minor inconvenience for the troll, resulting in a bruise as he slammed against the pit’s end, but a handful of sharpened posts had been planted deep into that wall. Three of them impaled the troll, one through a forearm, the other two through the belly, popping free of his back.
More gunfire resounded in volleys as Ian scrambled to his feet. He grabbed his sword and swung it in a grand arc over his head, chopping a demon in half. More flew at him, but they discovered that the nets which had been meant to stop them at Fort Plentiful had been strung through the trees. Demons bit at ropes that had tangled their limbs. Soldiers with steel bayonets thrust up at them, killing them.
Here and there men screamed as trolls caught them or demons attacked, but the Fifth’s discipline held. They kept withdrawing, moving from prepared position to prepared position, loading and firing to command. In the woods, at close ranges, they had an advantage, but Ian wondered how long that would last. Most of his men could manage four or five shots before magick began to fail them. In combat on the continent, at that point, they’d be bayonet to bayonet with the enemy, or riding after them as they retreated. This sustained combat, while effective, would only win the day if the supply of trolls ran out before his soldiers’ ability to kill them did.
Ian ducked out of the way as a pursuing troll triggered one of many traps the Fifth had labored to construct. The bole of a stout tree had been chopped into a six-foot length. Its branches sharpened into stakes and it had been hauled into the forest’s upper reaches. It swung down on ropes, whooshing past him, and branches impaled a troll through the upper chest and neck. Off to the right a deadfall trap broke another troll’s legs. As it thrashed on the ground, men bayonetted it to death. Ian split the skull of a demon which clung on one of his men’s backs, then thrust the weary man west.
“Falling back, in good order.” Ian again raised his sword and laughed bravely. “By God they’ll remember tangling with the Fifth, men. Fall back, take aim, and send them home to Hell!”
In an effort to hide his nervousness, Prince Vlad idly studied the fingernails on his right hand. Over the top he studied Rufus. Golden energy trickled up through the ground and curved down, falling over him as if a gentle shower. The disk exuded small etheric pseudopods, keeping it elevated and moving forward. Before the Prince had studied with Msitazi and Fire, the amorphous feet would have been invisible to him. He would have taken greater heart in seeing them, save that the magick that allowed him to do so was the simplest thing he’d learned, and a prerequisite to the greater magicks he’d have to use against Rufus.
Prince Vlad immediately cautioned himself. You are a fool to think you can stand against him. That’s not the game. Unlike going to war-in which the Prince had always had an academic interest but no desire for glory-a magick duel appealed to him. The victor would be intelligent and have a very strong will-precisely things upon which he prided himself. Were he just fighting Rufus, he had little doubt he’d win. But it’s not Rufus I’m fighting, not yet.
Vlad made the tiniest gesture with a finger. The way energy flowed through the pseudopods formed a simple cycle, looping back on itself. Vlad cast a simple spell which, at first, joined with the pseudopod and flowed with it. Then, on the third revolution it fragmented, ripping through the cycling energy. A pseudopod vanished.
The disk dipped and that attracted Rufus’ attention. With little more than the half-closing of his eyes, Rufus reestablished the foot, and reinforced all four. Instead of flowing fluidly, now they developed a scaled shell, looking very much like Mugwump’s flesh.
Rufus momentarily inclined his head toward Vlad. “So, you have learned from the Shedashee, and from another tradition. Young magicks, unforgivably young. And you, so inexperienced.”
Vlad looked up, as if his enemy was an annoyance. “You presume much, and have me at a disadvantage. You are not Rufus Branch, not entirely.”
“You wish me to talk, to prolong your agony as your men die?” Rufus shook his head. “You could not pronounce my name. The very contemplation of it would damage you. Were I to force this one I wear to say it, his brain would bleed and his mind would shatter.”
Vlad shrugged. “Names have power in magick, so I understand your fear.”
Rufus threw back his head and laughed, but the laughter died as Vlad cut all four feet from beneath the disk. The right edge hit first, and Rufus staggered through the snow for a couple steps. He didn’t touch his staff to the ground to keep himself upright, but energy did stab down from the orb and accomplished the same goal.
Rufus drew himself up, then planted the staff in the ground. “You are bold. Foolish, but bold. Unlike the one I ride, I am not afraid of you. The Shedashee, they once had a name for me: The Sun’s Whisper. Think of that as a key, if you wish. See what it gains you.”
The Sun’s Whisper. The name made no sense to him, but Vlad came up with a multitude of ideas that fit. That first ray of sunlight at dawn, or the last at dusk. The beams of sunlight lancing through the green forest canopy, or a dust mote dancing in the light. None of these appealed to him as being the wholly correct idea, but they were pieces of it.
Rufus gestured. A scintillating blue ball arced in and around at Vlad. He raised a red shield on his left forearm and wove the sunbeam image into it. His arm came up and the ball hit heavily, knocking to the right. But it skipped off and splashed against the ground, draining into the earth.
Not my best idea to use my broken arm to block him.
Another ball arced in. Vlad reshaped the shield, flattening it, then stretching it and rolling it into a cylinder. He widened it at one end, then curved it down. The Norghaest spell rattled down into the cylinder at the top and shot out the lower end, heading back toward Rufus.
The Norghaest twisted his right shoulder out of the way, letting the ball sail past. It struck a pine twenty yards beyond him. In an eyeblink it ignited the tree into a torch.
Vlad stared, having only a moment to wonder what would have been his fate had the spell struck. Flames shot to the sky, the tree a living pyre, and a cold chill ran down Vlad’s spine.
Rufus’ hands and fingers contorted their way through a more complicated gesture. Energy gathered and crackled. A third blue ball shot toward Prince Vlad.
The tube won’t work again. Neither will the shield. Vlad called to mind the glacises used to deflect cannon balls from a fort, and conjured one of them.
Then Rufus’ spell split and split again and again. The eight smaller balls swerved sharply toward the north. The last two skipped off Vlad’s defenses, but the other six, each now the size of a musket ball, struck Vlad from ankle to shoulder and down to wrist on his right side, spinning him into the snow.
Each strike thrust pain into him without rending cloth or ripping flesh. It was as if he’d had burning thorns driven through his ankle, knee, and hip. His right shoulder, elbow, and wrist refused conscious commands, becoming leaden and useless. He couldn’t even stop himself from rolling in the snow. The fire in his limbs matched the burning where snow coated his face and embarrassment flushed his cheeks. His hat flew off, the feather burning. Agony jolted through him as he struggled to get back on his feet.
Rufus drifted forward, the disk renewed, and peered down at him. “Were you given four of your lifetimes to study, you might prove a worthy amusement, Vladimir. Your grasp of theory was good. You used my name to fashion counterspells. But you did not understand my name, so they could not work.”
Vlad slumped back, spirits sinking even as gunfire continued in the forests. “What Rufus does not know is that I am the least powerful of the Mages who have claim to Mystria. Defeating me will mean nothing.”