trouble in Svardovia 21, holiday bonus

 

 

Chapter 21

 

“Prince Dmitry! And… Who is your companion? What has happened to…” Thorndyke tailed off, terrified to ask.

“Safe,” said Dmitry. “But we need to go over the big rock – Herman and I came ahead to try to find help, and thank the Good Lord, we found the best kind of help.”

“I’ve been patrolling in hopes of signs of you,” said Thorndyke.  “I saw heaps of camp fires on the mountainside, and was wondering if you were hidden amongst them or if it was an army pursuing you; but it did not look regulated enough to be a Germanic army.”

Dmitry laughed.

“They are digging for gold,” he said.

“Gold! The is no gold in the Galassian mountain range that I know of,” said Thorndyke.

“No, nor me; but my Sophie is brilliant, and, dressed as a little boy, she managed to let people find out about a map she had supposedly found where gold had been discovered.  We left in the midst of a mass exodus of villagers and stranded train travellers alike, including some of the soldiery, to head off into the foothills and up the mountainside with tents, blankets, shovels, and all the equipment needed to cross a mountain range in inclement weather, as much as to go prospecting. Only the weather turned, we turned aside to get in the cover of the former cutting, and heard Herman here. He and his men… and others… were just abandoned by Ferdie. One crew shot themselves.”

Thorndyke shook his head.

“We heaved out a few this end,” he said. “Including some trying to stay quiet for fear of what would happen to them.”

“Oh, well, if you have some vehicles, we brought the heat-ray weapon with us for no good reason,” said Dmitry.

“But you have the prototype of the improved version if you took it from the prototype machine the Archduke had,” blurted out Herman.

“Well, considering the amount of trouble the dratted thing has caused us, I am glad of that, though I confess, I hate the idea,” said Dmitry. “But maybe we can learn to counter it.”

Thorndyke was not about to tell the prince about how liftium was flame retardant in front of his new friend, but he looked forward to telling him later.

And he set a course to bring them over the lump of rock, and sent out a pair of boats, one to land, and the other to guard it and its precious human cargo.

 

oOoOo

 

Karol perked up out of half a doze as the day wore on. They had been passing the time telling stories, true ones and fictional, to keep their minds off their unenviable position, but the air was close and stuffy, and the urge to doze was considerable.

“Listen!” he said. “I hear a kerosene engine… I know that note, it’s one of the ‘Thunderchild’s’ boats!”

He  dodged out through the canvas covering, and waved.

And the boat was coming down.

Soon, the refugees were in the boat, and flying up to the bulk of ‘Thunderchild,’ where they were taken to the hospital, able to bathe, and put on nightgowns, and get into real beds with clean sheets.  Telling the story would be for the morrow, and their new friends still on parole.  And the prototype heat-ray now out of their hands, safe, and able to be examined.  By whom and where, Sophie no longer cared.

But she did slip out of her own bed to find Dmitry, and climb in with him, and there the nurse found them in the morning, clinging to each other.

 

oOoOo

 

Kurt asked to speak to his uncle, and came away from that interview chastened. He went in search of Dmitry, and went on one knee to swear vassalage from henceforth until the end of time.

“Of course, old man, but for goodness sake, get well first,” said Dmitry. “You like machines? Well, we need something like those crawlers but with arms and hands on.  If your Gargantua had had hands, some of you might have dug your way out, and certainly those not buried could have helped you more.”

Kurt was filled with ambitions.

 

oOoOo

 

Once the greater part of the admitted part of the story came out, Dmitry and Sophie were once again the darlings of the principality, for protecting everyone from a dangerous enemy.

The Gaumont Company approached the prince to ask if they might make a movie of the daring rescue of himself by the princess-to-be, and another about their daring seizure of a secret weapon.

“Yes, to the first, no to the second,” said Dmitry. “I have no desire for all we got up to to become known to a potential enemy who might use it against us.”

Sophie met the girl who was to play her in the film, and privately thought her too wishy-washy to represent her; but she had big, dark eyes which were appealing to the public, and the director seemed to think she would do well.

As a matter of record, when the film was being shot, the following spring, and Sophie had been invited on set, she was so disgusted with the wailing of the Leading Lady having hysterics over performing ‘impossible’ feats, that Sophie took over as stunt double, something Gaumont tactfully refrained from mentioning in the credits.

 

Before this, however, the wedding was back on, and Sophie had to be refitted for her gown, having lost weight during their rather frenetic escape. But this time, a date was set, and invitations were sent out.

The bride was radiant, and the groom handsome, she in her version of the traditional gown for a Krasnytsyan bride, with flowers in her hair, and he as Colonel-In-Chief of the combined forces. The world’s press was there, and it was generally acknowledged that Princess Sophie was far lovelier than ever Princess Victorina had ever been. And the faithful Magda became a lady in waiting and was Sophie’s chief bridesmaid.

 

 

The King of England, and his lovely queen, came to the wedding of the Prince of Krasnytsya and his English bride, and was introduced to Yon, who had been collected by Karol, and the simple man’s cup overflowed. He was given the title ‘Knight supporter of the crown’ which Dmitry invented just for him; it went with a stipend, which would be administered for him to see that he never wanted, when he was too old to care for his goats. Herman and Helmut were seen in society, and accepted as friends of the prince; and nobody bothered too much about their former nationality. They worked with Kurt to produce a walking machine which was more an engineering machine than a war machine, though it could be equipped with weaponry. The heat-ray was researched, taken apart, analysed, and finally turned into a rock-cutting mining machine.

Ferdinand was invited to the wedding, but refused to come.  He eventually agreed to a treaty to renew the railway line, because the trade route was too useful. And the tunnelling machine was brought from England to go through the mountains, not round; and the tunnel was made just too low for any Gargantua to walk along it.  It was also easier to guard the border.

It was said that when Ferdinand discovered that his favourite toys could not walk along the line, he had an apoplexy; but in any event, he did not survive more than a week after the completion of the new line.

 

oOoOo

 

In future years, Svardovia and Krasnytsia were to be bases which proved a deterrent to Austria’s mobilisation over the assassination of their archduke, and World War One was averted by a very narrow margin.  And the flying ships of Krasnytsia were instrumental in the rescue of the Tsar’s family when the Russian people rebelled; and they lived out their lives in comfortable, but definitely confined, exile, in Baba Gora Castle, where they could not irritate anyone.

 

Sophie presented Dmitry with four children, two boys, and two girls, named Eduard, Karol, Magda, and Maryla. They all did national service in the navy, and Karol went on to become admiral of the wholly Krasnytsyan fleet, lifted entirely by Liftium since Krasnytsya was rich in its raw materials. 

 

Fin

Simon is hoping to finish the Unwanted elves over the holiday but on the expectation that he will still be tinkering with the last chapter,  which he [in theory] on, I thought I'd post the expanded version of 'the fan' and another short which follows it. I have the first volume of a fantasy set in a bronze age world completed, so it's fantasy all the way at the moment. I have so many georgians and regencys started! and I've got the first story arc of the next Black Falcon completed too, and half a dozen connected stories for Copper's Cruise. so, enough to keep everyone entertained for a few months, so I am working seriously on the first weather book which is coming close to completion. I'm on 1816 of years 1811-1820 and have just done a radical reformat as Windows 11 totally loused up what I had - it took me nearly a week working full time to get that untangled.