He had, in Idrian’s experience, no personality whatsoever. The military was his life, but he was only an officer of middling competence, and his command of the Grent campaign had left Idrian feeling neither confidence nor terror. Wariness, perhaps. Grent would need a tougher nut to crack it than Stavri. How long would the street fighting continue before he was replaced? General Stavri whispered with his aides for almost a full minute before walking to the front of the stage and clearing his throat. He was all business, his face expressionless, a sheaf of reports carried under one arm.
“Officers of the Third, Seventh, and Twelfth,” he said with the voice of a natural drill sergeant, “there has been a change in the winds of war today. Some of you may know that Kerite’s Drakes, the mercenary company, overwinters in the Glass Isles. Our government has been in negotiations for their services ever since Adriana Grappo’s murder.”
A pleased murmur swept through the assembled officers, but Idrian found himself frowning. General Stavri certainly didn’t sound happy about it. At the mention of Adriana, a few nearby officers glanced at Tadeas. Tadeas, for his part, kept his expression neutral.
Stavri continued, chewing on his next words in an obvious effort to keep his temper in check. “I’ve been informed that negotiations broke down, and the Grent government hired Kerite’s Drakes. They are landing just south of Harbortown as we speak, and plan to march on Ossa immediately.”
All around Idrian the pleased murmurs turned into angry muttering. “Oh, glassdamn,” a captain said. “We have to fight Kerite now too?”
“Pissing mercenaries!” someone shouted.
“Ach!” Another made a disgusted sound. “We’ll clear them from the field!”
Idrian exchanged a glance with Tadeas and could see his own worry reflected in Tadeas’s eyes. Devia Kerite, the Purnian Dragon, was widely considered the greatest battlefield commander in the world. Her career had spanned thirty-five years, mostly fighting in Marn and Purnia. She’d fought both for and against Ossa in proxy wars. To Idrian’s knowledge, she’d never lost a battle.
He quietly asked Tadeas, “How many soldiers do the Drakes have?”
“Last I heard?” Tadeas chewed on his bottom lip. “Around ten thousand. She’s got breachers, glassdancers, and artillery.”
“Quiet! Quiet!” Stavri shouted, raising his hands until he could command silence. “Pissing mercenaries is right, and we will sweep them from the field. But Kerite should be taken seriously. To that end the Assembly has summoned every available brigade from the provinces; ten whole divisions are coming to our aid.”
“Yeah, but when will they be here?” someone shouted from the back.
Stavri glared toward the voice, clearly trying to figure out who had spoken out of turn. Finally he said, “Weeks until the first of them arrive. Our orders have changed!” he shouted over a rising wave of discontent. “We are pulling everything out of Grent and focusing on the north bank of the delta. Our orders are to stall Kerite’s forces until our troops arrive from the provinces.”
A stunned silence quelled the group in a way that Stavri’s glares couldn’t. Idrian could hear his own heartbeat. His mouth was suddenly dry, his thoughts jumbled.
“Holy piss,” Mika whispered. She stood on her tiptoes and shouted, “All that glassdamned street fighting and we’re pulling out?”
Idrian choked on his own words, but managed to get out, “We’re half a mile from the ducal palace! We’ve conquered half the city!” A well of emotions seemed to spout from within him, lending an angry edge to his voice. It wasn’t just the losses they’d already suffered; the fighting for a city they didn’t care to conquer, on the orders of an Assembly that wasn’t here to fight the war themselves. If they pulled out today, he wouldn’t get a crack at the palace. He wouldn’t retrieve that cinderite for Demir.
He and Mika weren’t the only ones shouting. Curses flew across the hall, people shouting questions and demands, lamenting the soldiers they’d lost in the last few days for, apparently, nothing. Others questioned this new arrival, demanding to know how the Assembly could be so stupid as to let the Grent outbid them for such a large and famous mercenary company.
Beside Idrian, Tadeas was notably silent. He glanced sidelong at Idrian and shook his head.
“What?” Idrian demanded. He felt hot under the collar now, his left eye twitching. From somewhere in the back of the hall he heard a child’s laughter.
It took a full five minutes before order was restored again, and General Stavri stood red-faced in front of them all. When he could finally be heard, he said, “We must protect Ossa at all costs! We will oppose Kerite in the Copper Hills. The Grent forces in the city will surely dog our withdrawal, so extraction orders will be given carefully to each battalion and they are to be followed to the letter. Wait outside until you get your orders. Dismissed!”
The hall vomited out its contents – a hundred furious officers, swearing quietly, some of them still shouting at Stavri long after the general had left through a back door.
Idrian followed Tadeas and Mika through the crowd and across the street, to a quiet spot in a hillside park where Tadeas paused to produce his pipe and tobacco pouch. He packed the pipe in silence, his calm almost as infuriating as General Stavri’s announcement. Idrian looked around for something to punch. When he didn’t find it, he sat down on the hillside and gripped the grass with both hands like he might fall off the world at any moment.
Mika plopped beside him, and Tadeas came around in front of them both as he puffed his pipe to life. “They’re doing the right thing,” he said.
Idrian scowled at his friend. “Don’t,” he said, raising a finger in warning. He was in no mood for this.
“They are,” Tadeas insisted, plowing on. “I’m not happy about the soldiers and engineers we’ve lost over the last few days. Feels damned meaningless to give up all the territory we gained through sweat and blood, but if Kerite and the Drakes are attacking, we need to pull everything back and face her head-on. If we don’t, she’ll just go around us and burn Ossa to the ground. We are the Foreign Legion, after all.”
“Let her attack,” Mika snorted. “She’ll bounce off our defensive lines.”
“You mean the ring of star forts around Ossa?” Tadeas shook his head. “I used to play cards with one of their commanders. They haven’t been updated in a hundred years. They are undermanned, underarmed, and dilapidated.”
It made sense. Of course it made sense. Idrian wasn’t even thinking about giving up the gains they’d made in the city anymore. He was furiously casting about for some other way to get a piece of cinderite for Demir. He’d made a promise to do anything Demir needed in exchange for use of the phoenix channel, and if Idrian didn’t fulfill it, he would slowly, painfully, descend into madness.
If, of course, he lived through the war.
As Idrian fumed, he slowly became aware that both Tadeas and Mika were staring at him. He scowled back. “What is it?”
“Something is going on with you,” Mika answered, and Tadeas nodded in agreement.
“Don’t know what you mean,” Idrian responded. Even to his own ears it sounded half-hearted. His fury seemed to whistle out of him like air from an inflated pig’s bladder, replaced with cold uncertainty. He had no idea what to do next, and that was more terrifying than charging an artillery battery alone.
“She means,” Tadeas said between puffs on his pipe, “you’ve been like a man possessed since we shifted over to the palace assault yesterday morning. The engineers could barely keep up. I haven’t seen you like that since our second tour in Marn.”
Idrian regarded them both warily. What excuse could he give? Both of them had been with him for twenty years. They knew his tics. They knew why his eye was so important to him.