“Breacher Sepulki,” Demir greeted Idrian. The soldier cracked open one eye, saw that it was Demir, and made to get to his feet. Demir stopped him with a wave. “Don’t let me interrupt.”
“There is nothing to interrupt, sir,” Idrian replied, his voice a deep, vibrant bass. “I am simply emptying my mind of violence.” He opened both his eyes, revealing that the right had been replaced long ago with a false eye made of purple witglass. Demir had asked around a couple of weeks ago, but no one seemed to know when he’d gotten that glass eye, or why it hadn’t killed him yet. Taking godglass into one’s own body wasn’t unheard of, but it was very dangerous, even to a glazalier.
“Sounds healthy,” Demir responded. “I was enjoying the sunset, myself.”
Idrian fixed Demir with that unsettling, one-purple-eyed gaze. There was no fear in that gaze, and for that Demir was grateful. At least someone in this army viewed him as more than a monster. But then again, breachers were little more than state-sponsored killing machines. Power understood power. “It is quite striking, sir. Congratulations on the victory.”
Demir gave Idrian a cool nod and wondered if it irked the breacher to call someone less than half his age “sir.” “It does seem to be a victory, doesn’t it?”
“The enemy has been crushed. Whatever strength they have left has fled to the mountains. Holikan lies defenseless before us.” Idrian nodded to himself. “At least, that is the intelligence I have received. You may have more current information.”
“No, that’s about the sum of it.”
Idrian snorted. “Thank you, sir. Do you happen to know where my battalion is?”
Demir considered this for a moment, going through a catalog of the thousands of commands he’d sent out over the last twenty-four hours. He wouldn’t usually keep tabs on a single battalion, but Idrian belonged to the Ironhorn Rams – they were commanded by Demir’s uncle Tadeas and they were the best combat engineers in the Ossan Empire. Idrian would normally be with them, but Demir’s plans for this battle had required an extra breacher.
“Haven’t caught up to us yet,” he answered. “I imagine they’re still blowing up bridges along the Tien.” He frowned. “That reminds me, let’s send a fast horse to let them know the war has been won. No need to destroy infrastructure that doesn’t need to be destroyed.”
“Of course, sir. Should I carry the message myself?”
“Eager to join back up with them?”
“They’re my friends, sir. I don’t like them being without their breacher.”
“Ah. No, stay with me a while yet, at least until I’m completely certain of the enemy’s surrender. We’ll send a horse, and I’ll make sure you rejoin them soon.”
“Thank you, sir.” Idrian paused. “If I may?”
“Yes?”
“The soldiers are calling you the Lightning Prince. I thought you might want to know.”
“I hadn’t heard that.” Demir took the name on his tongue and rolled it around. “Is it meant to be a diminutive for my age, or a celebration for the speed of my campaign?”
Idrian hesitated just a moment too long.
“Come now, be honest.”
“Both, I think.”
Demir chuckled. “I like it.” The Lightning Prince. Most great men were middle-aged before they’d earned an honorific like that. He hummed to himself, enjoying the way the nickname sounded in his head. It almost made him forget the blood soaking his boots. Maybe he would get used to this. Maybe he would harden to killing, and to ordering others to kill.
He shuddered. No. More importantly than being a glassdancer or a general, he was a politician. He was in charge of this campaign by circumstance only, and within a few days he planned on heading right back to his province, where he could put the bloodshed behind him and focus on helping his people.
Idrian climbed to his feet, towering over Demir by eight inches. “Sir, I believe that your staff is looking for you.”
Demir glanced the way Idrian nodded to see a small group approaching on horseback. They were an odd mix of Ossan political liaisons – here to oversee negotiations with the enemy – and grizzled officers sent along to make sure this young upstart governor didn’t make a complete disaster of his first campaign. The lot of them grinned at him like asylum fools. He could see in their eyes that they expected to gain prestige, land, and merits on the coattails of his victory. Demir didn’t mind. Sharing credit meant they would be beholden to him in the future; a card to keep in reserve for if he ever needed it.
He let his eyes wander across the group for several moments, making mental notes of who he could use in the future, who might be trouble, and who he could forget. Tavrish Magna was a great potbellied jokester with few ambitions. Helenna Dorlani whispered behind Demir’s back constantly, undermining him with the subtlety of a company of cuirassiers. Her cousin Jevri gladly took Demir’s bribes to report on her. Three members of the small Forlio guild-family had managed to finagle their way onto his staff, and they stood to gain the most from this campaign, while Jakeb Stavri had made deals in the Assembly that bet strongly against Demir’s success. He would lose hundreds of thousands, and based on the look on his face, he knew it.
It was a complex group, both personally and politically – untrustworthy adders slithering about his feet, any one of which might bite at any time. Even in victory he needed to be cautious, lest one of them turn on him for their own gain.
The man out front was named Capric Vorcien, and he was a personal friend that Demir had brought on campaign to cover his back against all the rest. Capric was a tall, thin man in his early twenties with the black hair and olive skin of an Ossan native. Tattooed on his right hand was an inverted triangle crossed with the wavy lines of a sun setting over the desert – the silic symbol of the Vorcien guild-family. He saluted Demir grandly and swung down from his horse.
“Hail, Victorious Grappo!” Capric called. The others echoed the words with various levels of enthusiasm. Demir gazed back at the group, still evaluating each person, noting the secrets hidden in the eyes of each. Behind their pleasure at a battle won, there was fear there, just like the soldiers’. How many glassdancers were there in the officer corps, after all? Not many. Capric was the only one who didn’t seem to walk on eggshells. “That was an incredible battle,” he complimented Demir.
“Satisfactory,” Demir demurred. “That countercharge from their dragoons surprised me.”
“But you shattered it anyway. Glassdamn you, man, take some credit!” Capric clasped his hand, pulling him into a congratulatory hug during which he whispered, “Look over my left shoulder. If you want to go ahead with your next plan, now is the time.”
Demir’s eyes found an unfamiliar trio among his staff: a middle-aged woman with the blond hair of an eastern provincial, accompanied by two bodyguards, all three of them looking haggard and defeated. He pulled back from Capric and gestured at the group. “What is this?” he asked loudly, though he knew exactly who they were.
“The mayor of Holikan has come to surrender.” At Capric’s gesture, the woman approached Demir, hands held out in supplication. She fell on her knees, pressing her face to the ground.
“I surrender the city of Holikan,” she intoned. “I do not ask for terms – but I offer my life in exchange for the lives of my subjects. They do not deserve the wrath of the Empire.”
Demir blinked down at her. He had discussed this moment with Capric at length. It was the crux of the next step in his political career, and yet it still managed to surprise him. Beside the prostrating mayor, Helenna Dorlani produced a short silver lance and now held it, pommel-first, toward Demir. Tradition dictated that he accept the surrender and then pierce the mayor’s neck with the ceremonial weapon, executing her on the spot. She was a rebel, after all; an insurrectionist and traitor to the Ossan Empire. Demir glanced toward Idrian, his confidence wavering at the idea of such immediate, formalized bloodshed, but the breacher had taken two long steps back as if to say that a soldier had no business in this kind of thing.