He rolled over and swiped a hand over his face to clear it. The troll, blood leaking from its thigh, loomed over him, paws raised and talons a glossy black. Ian tried to back away, but his right leg wouldn’t work. He raised the saber in his right hand to protect himself, but knew it would be to no avail. I’m done. Catherine, I’m done! He closed his eyes and thought of her as he waited for death.
But the troll never struck. A mighty shout cut through the din of battle, inarticulate but defiant. The troll roared in response, but a note of pain shot through its voice.
Ian opened his eyes, staring up. A man, he recognized him as Owen, had leaped onto the troll’s back. He’d tangled his left hand in the troll’s mane and yanked back. His right hand rose and fell, steel knife plunging into the troll’s neck. Blood geysered. The creature reached back, trying to pluck the man off him. Owen shifted from its attempts, then sawed the blade through its neck. The troll staggered and toppled. Owen rode to the ground and, standing on its back, lifted the severed head triumphantly.
And then, before Ian could recover his voice, Owen tossed the head aside and was off again.
Captain Cotswold ran to Ian’s side. “Are you hurt, General?”
“Get me up, Captain! All that matters is that I’m not dead.” Ian gained his feet, then found a carbine with a bayonet attached. “Go, man, kill things!”
His subordinate ran off and Ian snarled. He’d seen a look in Cotswold’s eyes, a questioning of whether or not he could continue fighting. And Owen… Owen must have seen the fear and resignation on Ian’s face. The man, both men, would think him a coward, a man broken, and he could not allow that.
Ian limped into the battle. With every heartbeat, he willfully abandoned civility and reason. It had no place in this battle. Leaving it behind had served him well before, in ways and at times he refused to consciously remember. He reveled in the scent of blood and the howls of pain. He looked inside himself and allowed the monster to emerge.
A monster to slay monsters.
Stalking through the forest, he stabbed and slashed, puncturing knees and cutting heel tendons. He thrust through throats and eyes, anywhere he could find an opening. He cut demons from the air. If one of his men fell, Ian was beside him in an instant. He slew the creatures preying on his men, and continued on, letting his soldiers believe he’d been there to save them.
It didn’t matter what they thought. Ian’s only intent was to prove himself the most lethal creature walking the woods that day.
Yet for all his energy, the battle would have been lost because the trolls kept coming. Though the tight spaces between trees limited their advances, men’s weapons could only do so much damage. Steel might hurt the trolls, but it took many wounds to bring one down, and many more to finish them. It became a battle of attrition, which the Norghaests’ endless host was bound to win.
Then from the hilltop came a shrieking which Ian was certain, by the chill entering his soul, meant the Norghaest had destroyed Prince Vlad and had unleashed some new horror. It took him a moment to realize he was mistaken, and happily so.
The Shedashee who had avenged the dead cavalry had arrived and attacked the trollish flank. With warclubs a blur, the Twilight People recklessly threw themselves at the trolls. The riders had been besotted and had fallen easily. The Shedashee clearly had to know these trolls were not in the same befuddled state, but that did not seem to matter to them. They, wearing paints that marked them similarly to the Prince’s dragon, swept into the trolls and through them. They slashed and smashed with abandon, using speed as their armor, sowing death and confusion in the enemy ranks.
Recognizing the chance to completely destroy the enemy, Ian picked up a discarded carbine and raised it high. “Fifth Northland, on me. Skirmish line. Advance!”
The men of the Fifth dashed forward, forming up into a tight group, the bayonets jabbing forward. Behind them the wounded men reloaded their carbines and snapped off shots here and there. If the line parted around an injured troll, the Fifth’s wounded would fall on it and finish it grimly, not gleefully.
The Shedashee made it through the trolls, then slipped back behind the skirmish line. There Kamiskwa joined them and then sprinted up the hill to come around and attack the flank again. The Fifth drove harder, pushing uphill, giving the trolls less and less space to fight. With the Shedashee coming in from the north, Ian stretched his line to the south where they joined Owen and Justice Bone and a few Rangers who had gotten cut off from Major Forest’s command.
“Now, damn you, we have them.” Ian stabbed a troll in the groin. “For Queen and Country, men. Kill them all!”
Prince Vlad levered the rifle’s breech closed and handed it back to Nathaniel. “Your shot will count.”
Nathaniel accepted the rifle, then pulled the Prince to his feet. “I’ll die on my feet like a man.”
Vlad smiled and looked at his hands as the trolls thundered forward. He could still see the magick swirling. He could feel it coursing through him, galvanizing his body along the same pathways that Rufus’ magick had used to inflict pain. The Prince directed the magick to quiet angry nerves, and it did.
“I wish I could do more.” He shook his head. “To kill Rufus, I learned really well how to cancel magick. Didn’t have time to learn much of anything else.”
“You did your job, Highness. Ain’t no reason for regret.” Nathaniel raised the rifle and took aim. “I reckon I’ll make the most of the magick I learned.”
Nathaniel fired and magick gave the Prince a whole new perspective on his friend’s skill. Golden curls of energy rippled through the marksman and shot down through his arm to this thumb. Brimstone ignited in the chamber and the bullet emerged in a fiery gout and cloud of smoke. A slender golden thread played out behind it, tracing a straight line for the lead troll. It struck its neck at seventy yards, shredding an artery. It bounced off the troll’s spine, rending more blood vessels as it caromed down into the beast’s body cavity.
That first troll pitched forward, leaving a red mist hanging in the air.
“Nice shot.”
“I can get one more in.”
The trolls stopped in mid-gallop.
Vlad shook his head. “What?” As good as that shot had been, there was no reason they should have stopped.
Then the ground shook as Mugwump landed between the Prince and the trolls. His claws dug deep, scattering ice and snow. He hissed furiously. His breath billowing out in a cloud which shot toward the trolls like an avenging revenant.
And yet even before it could touch them, trolls began to fall as, from the woods on both sides, shooters fired. The volley came raggedly, rippling out in a widening wedge that raked the trolls’ flanks. Old muskets and new, blunderbusses and a few rifles, spat fire and lead. It was not so much that any individual shot dealt death, but that the metal ripped the trolls to pieces.
Chaos reigned. Mugwump’s breath dissolved any trolls it could reach. Those that could, withdrew, scattering in all directions. Some, panicked, came straight for the Prince. Nathaniel dropped another one, and Mugwump gobbling up his fill.
Those which ran into the woods found men waiting with steel axes and scythes, pruning hooks and swords. The weapons gleamed from just having had layers of rust scraped from them. Vlad immediately recognized the axmen as his foresters. But how?
A horse reined up beside him and Count von Metternin cheered. “Yes, Highness, this is going exactly as you explained it would.”
Prince Vlad gaped up at his friend. “What are you talking about?”
“The thaumagraph messages you sent. They were in your hand, I know how you send. You told me to gather all the people who had come to Fort Plentiful and bring them forward. You told me how to deploy them on the wings, and you said they were to strike when Mugwump did.”