At the Queen_s command

Vlad, exhausted, knew he shouldn't say anything, but he couldn't hold himself back. "I would submit to you, Bishop Bumble, that if the Good Lord didn't want us working on this particular Sunday, He'd not have had it raining Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. He's given us, in His infinite wisdom, a perfect day to get some construction done."

Bumble's eyes narrowed. "Is this how it is, Prince Vladimir? You think yourself higher than God?"

"No, sir. I gave you your time for a service. This is now my time. We have a purpose here, sir. It is to build a road so that our army can go and smite a godless enemy."

Bumble raised a hand toward Heaven. "You blaspheme, sir. God will smite His enemies, and you shall be among them. I shall report your behavior to God and to Lord Rivendell! I demand you give me an escort back to the real army."

I'd rather give you an escort to Heaven. Vlad, standing again, nodded. "Find Captain Strake and send him to me, please."

Bumble snorted and started to walk away dramatically, but having to reach down and dig his shoes out of the muck robbed the gesture of its vehemence.

Vlad leaned back again and patted Mugwump on the flank. "Humbling duty for you, my friend, but without you we would be no where near this close."

The wurm glanced back, blinked a golden eye, and went back to drinking.

The road-building enterprise had been one huge frustrating exercise. The Colonials were called upon to build tracks eight feet wide whenever necessary, but no one thought that would be for the entire two hundred miles to Hattersburg. Unfortunately the long winter had produced greater snowfall and huge runoff. Major Forest's men had worked around things like marshes, but Rivendell insisted that these detours unacceptably lengthened the route.

Even under the best of circumstances, the work would have been grueling. Spade-and-pick crews would carve their way into the sides of hills to widen paths to the required eight feet. Woodsmen would chop down the nearest trees and hack them into eight-foot lengths. These would get laid down on the bare earth, and dirt would be shoveled over them to smooth things out. The resulting "corduroy roads" lived up to their bumpy reputations.

Rains, which had plagued them since the start, simply made things worse. What had been a perfectly good stretch of road suddenly became a sodden mess. Earth eroded, logs slipped, and crews that should have been cutting the path further ahead had to go back and do repair work, all the while being derided by redcoats.

The friction between forces led the Colonials to work at a more leisurely pace, especially when it meant the Norillians camped on the edge of ponds from which great black fly populations rose. Despite being warned against it, troops drank from brackish pools, resulting in chronic cases of the trots. While Kamiskwa and the Altashee had pointed out useful plants for combating such things, the Norillians didn't trust them, and the Mystrians, who were busy brewing up mogiqua syrup by the gallon, kept suggesting the Twilight People cures were witchcraft.

Mugwump had proved invaluable to the effort at road construction. Whereas everyone else seemed worn down by the work, he thrived and grew stronger. He seemed to take it as a personal affront that the earth defied his master's wishes. He also grew in size, bulking up muscles, but also getting bigger. Vlad had to mount via an elbow before he could reach the saddle, and did his best to record measurements when he had time.

Mugwump faced every challenge without reluctance. He dragged logs toward the road and then, chained to a massive log, would smooth the bed before other trees got laid down. At one stream he spat large stones further down stream. Later, at a marsh, they used that strategy to dam the marsh's outflow. They raised the water level and set up a ferry to carry wagons while the soldiers marched around. The Mystrians named it Mugwump Pond and cheered as the wurm swam across, dragging the first ferry rope.

The few ravines that needed bridging resulted in the hardest work, but there Count von Metternin displayed his worth. He culled the smartest of the Mystrians from the work crews and had them range ahead to locate problem areas. They quickly designed bridges, blazed the trees with specific cuts to show where they would fit in the plan, and left one man behind to oversee construction. Work crews would come up, cut wood as needed, and build the bridges even before the road had reached them.

The crews averaged just over four miles a day, and at the start had hit eight. The early success caused all of the disappointment later. Granted that circumstances had turned against them, and the work was grinding them down, but everyone thought they should be doing more. They pushed themselves, but Norillian derision sapped their strength. Most grumbled that the redcoats should hold their tongues and hold some spades. A few suggested they'd be happy digging graves for the soldiers.