completely insane. No one has…'
In accord with the experimentation the Prince had been conducting through the spring, a second assembly had been fitted snuggly to the saddles, forward of them. It consisted of a steel post a foot and a half high, with a semicircular bar fixed to it by four spokes. The semicircle and spokes lay parallel to the ground. A six inch spike rose in the center of the arc.
A one-pound swivel-gun had been mounted on the post, secured with a water-tight leather sheath and cork plug. The ramrod had been fitted with a gimbaled guide, so it couldn't go missing in the heat of the battle. The center spike prevented the cannon being fired straight forward-hence the rear gunner could not shoot the rider, and the rider could not shoot Mugwump. Oilskin saddle-bags before and behind the rider's legs contained premeasured charges and rounds for the guns.
The Prince hauled himself into the saddle. 'Baker, find Colonel Daunt. Tell him to charge the high fort on my signal.'
The wurmwright gaped up at him. 'Signal, Highness?'
'He'll know it. Go.'
Vlad turned in the saddle and smiled at von Metternin. 'Use the spike to gash the charges when you reload. It's all grape, and designed to kill pasmortes.'
Von Metternin laughed. 'This is not stupid, Highness, it is spectacularly stupid.'
'Only if we die, my lord.' Vlad smiled and touched Mugwump's flank with his heel. 'We're off to save Mystrians. The devil can take all else!'
By the time the Private returned, the battle had deteriorated. The Mystrians had stalled on the left flank. One battalion had been trapped near the hill's summit. Whenever a squad tried to advance, cannon blew them to pieces. The survivors hunkered down, unaware that once the Tharyngian cannon had finished with the Fourth Foot and smoke had thinned enough for gunners to aim, it would rake their flank and clear them off the hillside.
More firing came from the right, sporadic but steady. Owen couldn't make any sense of the noise. The smoke drifting up from the battlefield made seeing anything difficult.
In the Norillian center, the Second company had pushed forward and had actually reached the walls. The Third slid right, breaking contact with the Mystrians, to follow the Second through the forest of spikes. Bridging went over the trenches. Siege ladders leaned against walls. Soldiers started to climb, and then the Platine Regiment mounted the battlements. With deadly precision they opened fire. Musket balls blasted men from the ladders. Bayonets stabbed down. Norillian gunfire slew Ryngians-several bodies hung lifeless from the top of the palisade wall, but far more Redcoats fell.
Then Owen saw it, on the right. 'There, Tharyngian troops mustering at the corner.'
Unstone looked toward Rivendell. 'His lordship is gone, sir.'
'What?' Owen turned just in time to see Langford disappearing into Rivendell's tent. 'Sergeant, send a man back down there.'
'Won't do no good, sir. Smoke. He can't see a thing.'
Owen grabbed Unstone's lapels. 'Then we have to do it, Sergeant. We have to get the reserve battalion over there.'
'Sir, I can't give those orders.' The Sergeant shook his head adamantly. 'It's not my place. I will be court- martialed and shot.'
'Listen to me. All of you.' Owen looked at the entire squad. 'It's your friends who are going to die, and you know damned well that Rivendell couldn't care less. Do you think they will survive if we don't act?'
Unstone glanced at his feet. 'We won't survive if we do.'
'I'd rather die saving friends than live watching them die.' Owen shoved the man away and started off down the hill. 'Shoot me for escaping, or come with me and be a hero. Your choice. Me, I'm going to kill some Ryngians.'
Mugwump charged from the wurmrest, then paused on the crest of the hill. His head came up and nostril slits flared. He turned, looking back at the Prince. Vlad could have sworn great intelligence burned in that golden eye.
The Prince nodded. 'Yes, it's into that Hell we're going. Plenty of pasmortes. All you care to eat.'
The wurm blinked slowly, then loped down the hill as cannons boomed. They rode down into a cloud of gunsmoke, then appeared in the valley as if conjured. Soldiers who had been pulling back stopped. Mugwump curled his tail around to corral a few more.
The Prince looked down at astonished faces. 'Done already? By God, I've just gotten to the fight.'
Mystrians stood there, dumbfounded, not even bothering to duck when another cannon roared. One man pointed back up the hill. 'Highness, you can't go up there. You'll be killed!'
'I'm not abandoning the Third!' Vlad pointed at the fortress. 'I'll meet you at the top!'
The man who'd spoken stared at him as if he was mad, but another man raised his musket and shouted. 'To the top! To the top.' Mugwump roared and more men took up the cry. 'To the top! To the top!'
Vlad pumped a fist into the air. 'To the top!'
The men turned, heading back toward the battle. Vlad tugged on the left rein. Mugwump looked back as if to ask, 'Are you serious?'
'We're meeting them at the top.'
The wurm growled, then set off to the east, running parallel to the line of battle. He began to gallop, exhibiting more fluidity and speed than Vlad had ever imagined he could. The Prince shouted to von Metternin. 'By God, he knows he's going to war!'
'He was trained to it.' The Kessian laughed as his hat blew off.
Vlad had a heartbeat to consider pulling back on the reins when Mugwump reached the lakeshore. The wurm didn't bother to slide down the embankment, he just leaped. His legs, fore and back, came in. The Prince drew in a deep breath and ducked down, holding tight to the swivel-gun. The wurm's dive carried them deep. A wall of water hit Vlad hard, almost tearing him from the saddle. Water rushed in, booming against his body.
Mugwump took them deeper. The water went from warm to cold, then the wurm's nose came up. His tail twitched once, sending a powerful shudder through his body. They exploded from the depths. Water sheeted off as they flew upward, then stopped hard.
Mugwump's claws sank into the cliff face. Stones cracked and fell away but the wurm's grip remained strong. Effortlessly Mugwump climbed up the rock face, and swiftly enough that Vlad almost didn't have enough time to pull the plug from his swivel-gun's muzzle. Mugwump came up over the cliff edge with enough velocity that he grabbed the top of the palisade wall and hung there. He surveyed the interior as if he were a dog peering over a picket fence.
Vlad stripped off the leather sheath, swung his swivel-gun around to the right, and angled it up at the cannon batteries blasting away at the Mystrians. He clapped his right hand over the firestone, feeling cool smoothness beneath it. His hand tingled as he triggered the spell firing the small cannon.
The swivel-gun's load was the Prince's own creation. It consisted of pea-sized bits of lead and iron, meant in equal parts for the living and the dead. The shot expanded in a cloud, raking the crews. Pieces pinged off cannons. Perfect uniform coats tattered. Hats flew. Men spun and a loader pitched back over the wall, taking his waxed-paper cylinder of grapeshot with him.
Mugwump's weight snapped lumber. He clawed away more of it and a portion of the palisade wall collapsed. Supports for two small gunnery platforms snapped, spilling cannons and crews into the main compound. The wurm landed atop the debris and scrambled forward, his claws shredding a trooper.
Vlad yanked open a saddle bag and pulled out a cloth cylinder knotted at both ends. A musket ball glanced off Mugwump's scaled head, hissing past the Prince. Vlad tipped the gun up, gashed the lower half of the cylinder on a spike at the cannon's muzzle, and let a little brimstone pour into the barrel before he jammed the entire bag into the weapon. The ramrod came around and down, slamming things home. He retracted it, then swung the gun around, aiming toward that battery again.
His next shot went low, cutting men's legs from beneath them. It blasted one gunnery carriage wheel to bits. That cannon sagged. Carriage locks ripped free of shattered wood. The heavy bronze gun rolled, crushing the gunner and snapping another man's leg.
The Prince's hand stung as if attacked by a dozen wasps. Numbness nibbled at his fingers, and color bled into his skin. I bleed, they bleed. Two shots had sent nearly a dozen men to Perdition. Is this all it takes to kill?
Count von Metternin fired to the left, sweeping a Platine squad from the fort's inner wall. Half of one man went
