“We don’t have a choice, Idrian,” Tadeas said. He didn’t look happy about it either, and Idrian knew that giving that order would pain him deeply. “We can’t face Kerite until we’ve regrouped.”
Idrian took a calming breath. Tad was right. He was always right, damn him. When Idrian trusted himself to speak again, he said, “Then we should get out of here before the real panic sets in. Where’s Valient?”
“He’s just around the corner. I–” Tadeas was cut off by the sound of screams coming from their west, back in the immediate direction that Idrian had come from. A series of musket shots brought Idrian’s hackles up, and he could feel the panic wash through the packed streets.
“Glassdamned skirmishers are here,” Idrian swore, “and they’re trying to start a stampede. Now I’m really pissed that the garrison isn’t out here helping.” He slammed his helmet on his head. The musket shots were coming faster and more furious now, and he thought he heard the thunder of cavalry. Dragoons. Even better. “Get everyone out of Bingham,” he told Tadeas. “I’ll do my best to hold them off and then meet you to the east.”
“Piss on you,” Tadeas spat, “we’ll be right behind you. Valient! Mika!”
Idrian didn’t argue. He raised his sword to the hundreds of frightened eyes now looking in his direction and gave his voice all the backbone he could muster. “Out of my way, pissants! The Ram has mercenaries to kill.” The cheer that went up was decidedly half-hearted, but a path was made, his coming told ahead of him as he rushed west down the street. He craned his neck, pausing momentarily to try and get a view of what was happening or how many enemies he faced. The musket shots grew more frantic, and then petered out. He could no longer hear hoofbeats.
After several blocks the jammed traffic grew lighter, then disappeared entirely as he reached abandoned carts and discarded luggage from those who had simply fled from the sound of fighting. Though his path was completely clear, Idrian proceeded with caution. If he was going to die facing a company of skirmishers, he wanted to take some of them with him.
To his shock, it was not a Grent or mercenary uniform that he spotted first. It was an Ossan cuirassier bestride a magnificent warhorse, black uniform a little dusty but looking fresh, standing in her stirrups while she peered off in the distance. Idrian joined her quickly and followed her gaze, hardly daring to hope that help had finally arrived when he saw two squads of cuirassiers charge past a crossroads two blocks distant, their silver and hammerglass breastplates glinting in the morning sun.
The woman wore the gold collar of a major. She lowered herself back into her saddle and finally regarded him with a nod. “Fair meeting, Ram.”
“More than a fair meeting.” Idrian grinned. “You are a sight for sore eyes. How many are you?”
“A battalion. Enough to get these skirmishers off your back. Are the Ironhorns nearby?”
“Not far behind me,” Idrian responded. “We thought we were all that was between the Grent and these people.”
“You’re not,” she assured him. “You’ll want to check in with my commanding officer.”
Idrian blinked at her in surprise. “I thought everyone above major was dead.”
She gave him a tight grin. “He took a squad of my cuirassiers on foot into that tenement there,” she said, pointing to the next block over, “chasing some of their skirmishers.”
“Does he need help?”
“I doubt it.”
Idrian scowled at that, proceeding on toward the tenement she’d indicated. It was the first time he noticed that Braileer had followed him, still hauling their packs. Idrian sent the armorer back to find Tadeas.
Just after Braileer retreated a pistol shot went off, and then there was the sound of breaking glass. Idrian looked up to see a second-floor window suddenly fold in on itself, as if sucked into the room by a mysterious force. A glassdancer. Friend, or foe? The answer came a moment later as the body of a mercenary skirmisher was hurled out the empty window and landed on the ground just feet in front of Idrian. The woman’s eyes stared sightlessly upward, a piece of glass the length of Idrian’s fist rammed through her heart.
Several more shots followed the first, then a scream. Another window shattered and was sucked inward. Then silence. Idrian turned back to the cuirassier major. “Who’s the glassdancer?” he called.
She just pointed, and Idrian turned back to the door of the tenement to see a string of young children rushed out through the door, followed by cuirassiers on foot. Seeing the man that emerged behind them might have been a bigger shock than losing that battle yesterday, because Idrian would have bet his life he’d never see Demir Grappo in an Ossan uniform again. The uniform was moth-bitten, hanging off the younger Grappo as if taken in hastily by a poor tailor.
“Idrian,” Demir called, “good to see you.”
“Demir?”
“That’s ‘General Grappo’ to you, Ram,” Demir responded.
Idrian stared back at him, still at a loss for words. It suddenly hit him, and before he could stop himself he said, “Holy shit. You’re the most qualified officer left in Ossa, aren’t you?”
“Until Hammish Kirkovik or Maj Madoloc get back from the provinces, yes,” Demir answered. He gestured to the cuirassiers, who fetched their horses and then escorted the group of children back toward the center of the town. Demir nodded after them. “Makeshift orphanage in that tenement. Their minder fled in the middle of the night, the bloody coward, and then those mercenary skirmishers tried to use the kids as shields.”
“I take it that didn’t end well.”
“Sure didn’t.” Despite his almost jovial tone, there was a hard anger to Demir’s eyes.
Idrian took a step closer to him. It might not be proper etiquette, a breacher acting so familiar with a general, but damn it, Demir was practically his nephew-by-proxy. “Are you all right?”
“No,” Demir replied. “No, I am not. Almost died once this week, and now I’ve got to try and scrape together whatever is left of the Foreign Legion and make a stand against Devia glassdamned Kerite. I’m going to…” He paused, his eyes looking up above Idrian’s head. Idrian whirled to see a skirmisher in a blue-and-green uniform on the roof of the next tenement over. The skirmisher raised his rifle just as the window on the floor beneath him shattered, coalesced, and then shot upward. The skirmisher jerked once as he was impaled from below by a finger-thick, eight-foot spike of glass. He seemed frozen for a moment before he toppled, shattering the spike with his own weight as he fell.
Idrian turned back to Demir. The vein on the younger Grappo’s forehead throbbed violently. Demir touched a finger to that vein before continuing, “I’m going to rally the Foreign Legion at Fort Bryce, and then figure out what the piss to do against Kerite. Find Tadeas for me.”
“The Ironhorns were right behind me,” Idrian replied. “They should be here any moment.”
“Excellent.”
“Sir, did you get the package I sent?” Idrian asked, glancing around to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. There had been no communication since he dropped off the cinderite at the Hyacinth.
Demir gave a sharp nod. “I did. Kastora’s protégé is already at work using it to re-create Kastora’s work.”
Idrian let out a sigh of relief. At least something had gone right. If he survived this war he might have a future without madness to look forward to. He examined the side of Demir’s face, then glanced down to see that the man’s fingertips were trembling. Idrian looked closer at his eyes to see his pupils dilated, the whites bloodshot. Demir, he realized, wasn’t actually angry. He was terrified, and he was channeling fury to try and cover it up. Would it break him?