Sasha wanted to lead the cavalry in, but was advised against it. Steel cavalry had their own commands and signals, and would not understand her. She could not accompany the talmaad as they would be hidden and firing arrows, while she needed to be visible, and was an ordinary shot anyhow. And to accompany the infantry would have been as pointless a waste of her talents as using a svaalverd blade to chop firewood, besides forcing another ten soldiers to divert themselves for her protection.
She settled uncomfortably for commanding on horseback down a main road just short of Heroes' Square, her five protecting guard mounted about her, in the further midst of a hundred men on foot in reserve. She could hear the yells and clashing steel echoing down the winding roads, yet could see nothing. Periodically a man on horseback would clatter into view to shout some recent progress, which others would relay to her, then clatter off once more. It was disconcerting to command a battle that she could not even see. It was even more disconcerting to ask others to fight whilst sitting in the rear with her sword in its sheath.
She received word that the eastern buildings overlooking Heroes' Square had been taken, and talmaad were pouring fire into defensive positions. Then came word that the defenders' counterattack had failed. There was no word from the northern feint, but she guessed it should have engaged by now. As for the cavalry thrust along the grassy bank of Meadow Road further up the valley slope, she supposed that they were unwilling to spare a horse to send word of what was happening.
Noise of the fighting began to fade. Sasha frowned. Why was it fading? There was only one logical reason it might, but it was far too soon for that.
The thought was interrupted by a horseback messenger appearing up the road, and waving them forward, frantically. Sasha yelled for the reserve to advance, which a commander repeated, and a hundred men in tight formation went jogging up the road, armour rattling and shields overlapping. Sasha held her horse to an impatient trot behind them, as they wound between the buildings. Ahead were the scattered remains of barricades, piles of wood, stone, and even an old wagon, strewn across the road as though struck by a giant wave.
She saw the bodies: dead Stamentaast, dead men in plain clothes, with brutal, recent wounds. These first barricades had fallen, and the second barricades, higher even than the first, were just as useless. More dead men, tangled in piles, some still moaning, some screaming and crying, and the cobbles all slippery with blood.
The road opened onto a series of courtyards that ascended the valley slope like a giant's steps, each joined by more human-scaled flights of stairs. Heroes' Square, with statues and monuments in between, flanked by grand buildings that housed the new rulers of Ilduur that Maldereld had helped install. The bodies here were feathered with arrows, and yet more cut down with blades. Steel cavalry circled great clusters of surrendering men, forlorn and frightened with heads down, casting their weapons into growing piles. Far ahead, she saw Steel formations ascending steps to the Remischtuul itself, pressing with ceaseless discipline beneath the grand entrance pillars and archway.
“Secure the courtyard,” Sasha shouted at the captain in charge of the reserve. “I want these adjoining buildings cleared, I want Remischtuul chairs and their assistants arrested, I want none to escape the square.”
A cavalry captain clattered toward her as the other man shouted her orders in Ilduuri, and men ran to fulfill them. “M'lady!” he shouted, and saluted with his sword. “My apologies for attacking early, but your plan worked far too well! They were beginning to collapse even without our charge, so I galloped in to finish them!”
“An excellent decision,” said Sasha, staring upslope to the Remischtuul. “Now use your cavalry to ring the Remischtuul on the open slopes-I don't want important men escaping across the fields.”
He saluted and galloped to do that. Sasha cantered her horse across the rough pavings, slowing to let the animal find its cautious way up the steps to the next level. Talmaad were treating several wounded Steel, but besides a few fallen men at the barricades behind, she could see no more friendly casualties than that. Surely it had not been so easy?
The main Remischtuul steps were too steep for horses. She dismounted with her guard, left the horses to soldiers on duty there, and ran up the steps, her guards flanking her with shields ready. The grand hall reminded her of Baen-Tar Palace, where she had spent the first six years of her childhood. A high ceiling and old dark stone…only here there were chandeliers of gold, and crystal decoration, and great paintings in a lowlands style.
Here were more bodies on the ground, and blood pooling on slate tiles. Further down hallways she heard shouting and fighting, as local staff were rounded up by yelling soldiers, sent scurrying down stairs like sheep mustered for market. Sasha kept striding, past older men in pompous robes and wigs now terrified and cowering, and serving staff pressed to a wall at swordpoint while roughly searched. The grand institution of Ilduur, the centre of power established by the serrin to replace the rapacious feudal families of old, was falling to the forces of its own creation.
She saw a grand doorway ahead and went through it, into a great amphitheatre of seats surrounding a table upon a stage. Here was the heart of the Remischtuul, where all the peoples of Ilduur would be represented. Now it was filled with soldiers, arresting more staff, beating those who resisted. A statue against one wall was toppled with a crash, to cheering from soldiers who apparently did not like the man it portrayed. Sasha felt like she'd slipped whilst climbing a steep hillside, and now skidded downhill with no control or direction. It was a giddy feeling, equal parts horror and glee.
Men saw her enter, and cheered and raised their swords to salute her. It was a roar of lust and power, of men who had corrected some longstanding indignity, of old wrongs righted. And it was the respect of men who had expected a hard fight against difficult numbers, and had instead received an easy one. Such men could come to believe that she could do anything. That she could lead them to such victories as had yet to be written in all the history of the Ilduuri Steel. She dared not break such a belief, for she needed it now, at Jahnd, where it could help to save the future of everything she cared about in all human lands. And yet…was this what it cost?
She strode down the amphitheatre between rowed seats, and leaped up onto the stage beside the table. Here the senior men would sit. Robed ushers held at swordpoint against a wall stared at her in horror, this pagan barbarian who stood upon the centre of their civilisation's power with a sword in her hand. From here she could see the mural on the ceiling, painted by a Tracatan artist's hand so that only the most powerful here on the stage could see it clearly-all the Verenthane gods amidst the clouds of heaven, pointing and kneeling and exclaiming in wonder at the holy light radiating from Aaldenmoot, the symbol of Ilduur and its people. The symbol of their freedom from feudal overlordship. The freedom of all people to live their lives as they saw fit.
About the chamber, conquering soldiers raised their swords at her and cheered anew. Sasha raised her sword in reply, and knew that she was now, as she had never been before, truly the barbarian warlord the Bacosh peoples had always feared her to be.
A second Steel contingent arrived from the east the following morning, and declared themselves in accordance. Messengers had been sent, bearing a bugle seal, a directive of general recall, ordering all of the Steel's arms to Andal. The furthest, Captain Idraalgen told her, would take seven days, including the time the message took to reach them. Sasha sat now upon the edge of a desk in chambers atop the Remischtuul's western wing, watching the fall of morning sun upon the far mountains and scowling as she considered remaining in Andal for another week.