Idrian heard Tadeas’s voice shouting orders somewhere on the next street and directed Demir’s attention in that direction. Demir nodded, his chin tightening, and in that moment a mask seemed to descend upon his face. The terror in his eyes disappeared, his fingers no longer trembling. Idrian reassessed him, trying to understand what was going on in the younger Grappo’s head. Was he strong enough to hold together?
Who was in that head? The Demir who’d cracked at Holikan, or the Lightning Prince?
36
Saying that Fort Bryce was a disaster was both unfair and an understatement.
Demir stood in the fort commander’s office, looking out the window toward the Copper Hills, where the few roads were jammed with every farmer and townsman from here to the coast desperately trying to get away from the Grent army and their mercenaries and into the protective embrace of Ossa. He wondered what those people would think if he were to tell them that the protective embrace was a lie; that the Foreign Legion was shattered, the forts undermanned and outdated, and the Inner Assembly privately admitting that this weeklong war had been a terrible mistake.
He couldn’t tell them. He couldn’t so much as mention his doubts to anyone, lest they trickle down through behavior and rumor to affect the common soldiery. Piss knew they were already plagued by enough of their own after having been handed the worst defeat witnessed by the Foreign Legion in centuries. Demir needed to wear a mask of confidence that defied all his doubts about this new command, as well as hid the more private horrors lurking around in his mind. Thessa was a Holikan orphan. The savior of his guild-family; his new business partner; someone who had flirted with him – was a victim of his failures. The moment she found out, everything would come crashing down.
He thrust it from his mind and turned to Colonel Wessen, the fort’s commander. Wessen was a mousy man in his mid-forties, wringing his hands, spectacles constantly sliding down to the end of his nose and having to be readjusted. He was so hunched, his face so drawn, that he appeared to have neither shoulders nor a chin. Despite his appearance he was not a coward. Just … ill-prepared.
“Are all the forts like this?” Demir asked.
“Yes, sir,” Colonel Wessen replied quietly.
They had just finished a whirlwind half-hour inspection of the massive star fort, and Demir had found that every one of Father Vorcien’s statements was true: the walls were crumbling, the weapons were out of date, the garrison was fat and ill-equipped. Even the massive earthen bulwarks that were the first defense against enemy artillery were overgrown and eroding – mostly into moats that hadn’t been dredged in decades.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Colonel Wessen continued. “My whole tenure here we’ve had to scrimp and save just to keep the garrison fed. We’re technically part of the Foreign Legion but they don’t treat us like proper legionaries. Shipments go missing, salaries are delayed, I–”
“Does it take money to dredge the moats?” Demir asked. “Or skilled labor?”
“No, sir.”
Demir walked from one end of the office to the other. If Wessen were living the high life – if his office were decorated and perfumed and his home were a big one on a nearby hill – then Demir would assume corruption and have no hesitance in tearing him apart. But the colonel’s uniform was even more moth-bitten than Demir’s, his office dusty, his liquor cabinet bare. This was not a man living fat on a government payroll like most Ossan senior officers.
“I’m not going to lecture you on fort maintenance,” Demir told him, turning back to face the colonel. “You know the situation we’re in. I’ve called in a few favors – Capric Vorcien is arranging for every team of craftsmen and laborers that you might possibly need. The first will arrive tonight, and they will set to work making the necessary repairs to the bastion.”
Colonel Wessen blinked back at him. “But sir, some of those repairs will take months. And … and … shouldn’t we retreat, sir? This fort cannot hold against the Grent and their mercenaries.”
Demir folded his hands across his stomach to display both of his silic sigils at the same time. The effect was not lost on the colonel, who swallowed hard. Demir said, “What repairs can be made in a short time will be done. You will have supplies and new muskets by the end of the day tomorrow. All of this will happen while I, and what’s left of the Foreign Legion, go out there and lay down our lives to slow down Kerite and her Grent masters. We’re not retreating, Wessen. There’s nowhere to retreat to. Understand?”
Another hard swallow, the colonel’s Adam’s apple bobbing up and down comically. “Yes, sir.”
“In the meantime, you and your officers are going to drill your garrison into the ground. Artillery drills, musket drills, bayonet drills. Whip this garrison into shape. I’ll make sure you have the double rations and the equipment to do so.” Demir dropped his hands from his stomach. He didn’t know if any of this would help, but he was damned well going to try. “Now give me the room. Send in Major Grappo, wait ninety seconds, and send in Colonel Jorfax.”
At the mention of Jorfax, Wessen’s eyes grew wide with terror. “Yes, sir.” Colonel Wessen scuttled to the door, took a deep breath, and turned toward Demir. “I wish you’d come along years ago, sir.”
Demir answered with a tight smile. “Believe me, I wish you and your garrison were still being pleasantly ignored because no one actually needed you. Go on.”
Wessen was gone for moments before Tadeas swept in. His uniform was torn, a piece of milkglass at his ear, though his injuries seemed healed. He looked around the office sharply before kicking the door closed behind him. “I knew the forts were dumps, but this is worse than I’d feared.”
“Glassdamned fools, neglecting our last line of defense,” Demir answered.
There was a brief pause, which Tadeas acknowledged with a shrug. “I never thought I’d see you in one of those uniforms again.”
“Me neither,” Demir answered unhappily. He felt his mask slip for a moment, his eyes growing wet, his face warm and his throat tight. “I’m glad you’re here with me, Uncle Tad.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Demir drew a hand across his face, pulling himself together from the inside out. “When Idrian saw me in this uniform, I thought the big bastard was going to faint.”
Tadeas chuckled. “We had a long night. You were a shock to all of us. A welcome shock to be sure.”
“At least my cuirassiers were.”
“Nah,” Tadeas said with a shake of his head. “I don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks or says. I’d be a glassdamned fool if I wanted anyone else opposing Kerite. Stavri almost got me and the Ironhorns killed.”
“And you don’t think I will?”
“At least you’ll do it more creatively than Stavri.”
Demir searched his uncle’s eyes for a lie or omission, but couldn’t find it. He really did want Demir here. Poor, misguided idiot. Demir grinned at him, feeling his mask slide back into place. “Straighten your uniform. Colonel Jorfax will be here any moment.”
Tadeas cringed at the name. “Why?”
“Because she’s in charge of the Foreign Legion’s glassdancers, and if I want to get anything done, I’ll need their help.” A knock sounded at the door. “Come!” he called.
The woman who entered was in every way the opposite of Colonel Wessen. She was tall and beautiful, with short blond hair, an angular, distinct face, and an expression that could hammer an ox to a barn door. Demir had once seen a gossip column refer to her as an ancient beauty chiseled from granite. The columnist had disappeared the next day and the body had never been found. Jorfax fell into a military pose in the middle of the room facing the desk, despite the fact that Demir was at the window. Her hands were clasped in front of her in a way that displayed the silic sigil of a glassdancer on her left hand and the much smaller silic sigil on her right that indicated that she’d been adopted by the Vorcien guild-family.