At the Queen_s command

Owen looked east and ran for a fallen log. He leaped, grabbing the top with his left hand to slow himself, and brought his legs over. He twisted in mid-air to face the enemy. His toes touched earth.

Then a Ryngian bullet skipped off a rock and slid through a gap between the log and ground. It caught Owen in the left thigh, midway between hip and knee. It shattered his femur, cutting his leg out from under him. He smashed face-first into the log. Lights exploded. Suddenly he was on his back, blood in his mouth, his leg twisted impossibly beneath him. Pain roared through him.

Nathaniel loomed over him. "Just a scratch."

"What?"

Nathaniel stood, tracked, and fired. Another man screamed. The Mystrian ducked down again. "Throw your arm over my shoulder."

"No." Owen grit his teeth against the pain. "Go. Get the journals to the Prince."

"You'll carry them yourself."

"No, Nathaniel. I can't travel. I'm likely dead already. Go. That is an order!"

"Now I ain't…"

Owen grabbed a fistful of Nathaniel's tunic. "You promised. The journals are how you save Mystria. Get them and go. Go!"

Nathaniel snarled, reloaded, and shot again. "You ain't seen the last of me, Owen Strake."

"I'll save you a seat in Hell, Nathaniel Woods."

Nathaniel ran and the other two shot to cover him. Owen tried to grab his musket, but it had fallen too far away. He did manage to catch hold of a rock and twist around so his leg straightened out a little. A wave of nausea washed over him and darkness nibbled at his eyesight, but he refused to pass out.

Shifting his leg didn't do anything to ease the pain. He pulled himself into a sitting position, then took his belt off and wrapped it around his thigh above the wound, yanking it tight.

Grabbing the rock again, he slid over to where a mogiqua fern grew. He stripped off leaves with a bloody hand and shoved them into his mouth. He chewed, welcoming the bitter taste, then spat the mulch out and stuffed it in the wound.

In the name of the Almighty, please work.

Owen tried not to whimper, but he couldn't keep silent. All the times he'd bit back cries when, in school, he'd been beaten all because remaining silent seemed the noble thing to do came back to him. How silly. Pain cut past nobility.

It cut past humanity.

A Ryngian came over the log and swung his musket around.

Owen opened his empty hands.

The man smiled coldly. About the point where Owen noticed the man's cheek had been opened by a splinter gouged from a tree, the solder reversed his rifle and slammed it into Owen's thigh.

Agony exploded in Owen's brain and mercifully snuffed out consciousness. As Owen's world faded to black, the man raised the rifle again and Owen forced himself to smile.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

July 8, 1763

Prince Haven

Temperance Bay, Mystria

P rince Vlad's lungs burned. His goggles had not leaked much; the guttapercha sealed the glass well and the strip inside the leather mask molded tightly to his skin. The goggles provided amazing clarity beneath the waters of the Benjamin, though the lack of light past ten feet limited the view to the back of Mugwump's head.

His lungs demanded air. He pulled back on the reins and the wurm struck for the surface. Vlad grabbed the saddlehorn. The whipping of Mugwump's tail sent shivers through the beast's entire body. Combined with the water pressure, it would have been enough to tear him from the saddle. They rose swiftly, then shot into the air like an arrow, only to splash down again twenty yards upriver.

The Prince laughed in spite of himself. Back on shore his wurmwright and a servant waited, one anxiously, the other with a towel and robe. Baker, the wurmwright, had been dead set against the idea of letting the Prince swim with the wurm since that just was not done. Because wurms began their lives as large water-serpents, conventional wisdom had it that they would escape if allowed to swim freely. Vlad had watched Mugwump splash happily when the wurmrest flooded, so he took a chance.

Though the Prince had only been swimming the wurm for three weeks, Mugwump had taken commands more readily in water than in the field, and certainly seemed to enjoy himself more. The wurm showed greater speed in the water than on land, and proved adept at harvesting schools of fish. He looked forward to their daily swims, so much so that the Prince had even taken him out on a miserable, rainy day.

The Prince tugged on the reins, turning Mugwump toward shore. But the beast ducked his whole head beneath the water, then brought it up again. Water sheeted off the scales and down his snout. He refused to turn and instead, twitching his tail slowly but steadily, headed upriver. He tucked his legs in along his belly as he did so, moving serenely.

Vlad lifted his goggles and shaded his eyes with a hand. There in the distance, a canoe. Mugwump heard the sound of their paddles that far away? That must be a half-mile.