by Sales, Ian
“Tayisa,” Ahasz said. “Get some field-pieces unlimbered. Have them fire into the water and create more cover.”
In short order, the colonel had three cannons unloaded from an artillery carriage and pushed on their floating sleds to a position at the edge of the highway. On command, they fired into the fountains. A cloud of concealing steam formed. The soldiers hiding at the parapets looked back up to the highway and waved in gratitude. The firing stopped. The Housecarls below clambered into the water, began wading through it—
Something punched a soldier backwards. He hit the ground on his back. Another soldier stumbled backwards out of the mist. And another.
Advancing shapes appeared, insubstantial in the spray and mist.
“Telescope,” Ahasz snapped.
Tayisa once again proffered it to the duke. Ahasz yanked it open and put it to his eye. One of the ghosts in the mist swam into focus.
“Damn.”
A knight stalwart. Bucket helm, tabard emblazoned with a blank shield. A serjeant from the stave he wielded and the waist-length tabard he wore.
More serjeants appeared, wading through the fountains, punching away at the Housecarls with their staves. In knee-deep water, surrounded by spray, staves had the advantage over hammers. The Housecarls could not swing their weapons with sufficient force or speed. The spiked end of a stave took a Housecarl in the chest, puncturing his cuirass with such force it lifted him from the water. He landed on his back, sending up a great splash and did not resurface.
Ahasz swung the telescope from left to right: the two basins were each one hundred feet long, and knights stalwart were appearing every five or six feet in them. And behind them, another line. And again two more lines.
“Damn!”
More materialised out of the mist. There was too many of them—far more than Ahasz had expected. A Martial Order troop comprised fifty-five men, yet almost twice that number were now visible, reaching the edge of the basins, stepping up onto parapets, swinging their staves—some, the knight-lieutenants, with swords—down at the few surviving Housecarls.
“Get troops here now!” Ahasz stepped back and began pointing. “I want them lined up along the edge of the garden. Stop the knights from advancing. And use the field-pieces to take out those damned spotlights.”
At barked orders up and down the convoy, soldiers ran forward, down to the garden and formed an orderly line. It was enough to cause the knights stalwart to fall back.
Someone bellowed, “Charge!”
A company of Housecarls to the left broke from the line and ran forwards.
“Hold!” yelled Ahasz. The fools!
The rest of the line held.
The retreating knights stalwart stopped, turned back. The melee did not last above a minute. Serjeants ducked hammers, slipped within their guards, punched Housecarls with the ends of their staves, moved quickly back. Eighty men in red jackets lay dead or wounded; not a single knight stalwart was harmed. The officer responsible for the attack—a lieutenant-colonel, Ahasz saw when he focussed his telescope on the man—had hung behind his line. As they fell, he scrambled about and fled.
“Get me the name of that damn idiot,” Ahasz commanded.
The field-pieces fired, a ragged volley. Two aimed for the spotlight and were close enough to cause them to explode with a thunderous bang and hot sprayed glass. The bolt from the third hit some of the retreating knights stalwart. The defenders were too spread out for a single shot to cause many casualties. One serjeant disappeared as the bolt vaporised half of his torso. Another, also caught in the beam, fell to the ground.
More bolts hit the lights. Soon the only illumination was that spilling from the Palace’s windows and balconies. A sharp eye would likely still spot troops approaching through the garden, but it would not be so easy.
The serjeants had retreated back into the Palace. Now the cannon emplacements within the mountain opened fire. The line of Ahasz’s troops moved back. Hot dirt rained down on them
but no one was killed.
“We think on our next move,” Ahasz told Tayisa. “There’ll be no forcing our way in there at present. Get the men pulled back, and call the battalion commanders together for a planning session.”
CHAPTER FIVE
In the darkness, the line of grounded troop-wagons resembled a fortified wall and the grassed area behind them a castle’s bailey. Palace Road itself was a rampart, hiding Ahasz’s makeshift citadel from the Imperial Palace. The highway’s embankment was not high enough to hide the duke’s forces from the Palace’s upper levels, but those floors, he knew, were the Imperial Apartments. No cannons would be emplaced there.
Sappers had erected a pavilion against the Housecarls’ headquarters car, and set up a battlefield-consultant beneath the canvas. Wan red light leaked from the entrance slit. Ahasz pushed between the curtains of cloth, reflected sourly that the scarlet-jacketed officers were made indistinct in the crimson lighting, and stepped forward to the battlefield-consultant. Its table-top glass displayed a map of the environs, but no new intelligence had been added.
Leaning forward, hands flat on the glass, he looked up at his officers—Housecarls lieutenant-colonels and regimental-majors; captains of his household troops. For one brief moment, a black shroud seemed to settle over the faces gazing back at him, causing features to blanch and ossify, shadows to gather beneath noses and eyes. He blinked. And it was gone, the bloody light back once again.
He took in their expressions of martial eagerness, not the least blunted by the earlier carnage, and was momentarily offended by it. Some of these, he told himself, would die within the next few days. Yet they clearly felt they were invulnerable, immortal. They were driven as much by a desire for glory as by loyalty to the duke and his cause.
Cannons were indiscriminate killers, but in combat the enemy was personal. An ineffable belief in their prowess with a sword was all the armour these men and women required. They knew themselves to be skilled—amongst the best, even. Yes, the Imperial Regiment of Housecarls enjoyed a reputation as a fearsome fighting force. It was also large: twelve full-strength battalions. Ahasz knew the reputation to be historical—the Housecarls had not fought a real battle in over four hundred years. The size, he suspected, was more a result of the regiment’s duty to protect Shuto, its proximity to the Imperial Court, than of its reputation.
“Gentlemen, ladies,” Ahasz said, slowly, a little tiredly. “You know the situation. We had not anticipated such fierce resistance. Or so many defenders.” The thought reminded him. He paused, peered through the red gloom, scanning each officer’s face. “Narry?” demanded. “Where are you, man?”
A tall lieutenant-colonel with a long face, and pendulous lips hidden beneath a moustache in need of trimming, raised a hand and smiled inanely.
“You’re Narry?” The duke stared at the Housecarl. His likeness prompted a surge of anger—the foolish features, the tremulous mouth. The man looked a buffoon. Ahasz welcomed the fury: he could not win this battle with officers such as Narry under his command. The sooner the others realised that, the better for all. “Tell me, Narry,” Ahasz said, striving for a conversational tone, “where is the battalion of Cuirassiers which was stationed in the garrison?”
“I don’t know, your grace.” The lieutenant-colonel shrugged. “They were sent on manoeuvres earlier today.”
“And the Palace Artillery? Where might they be?”
Narry blinked, recognising that the answer was obvious. “They were sent on manoeuvres too.” He gave a nervous cough. “But they’re in the Palace now.”
“So—” Ahasz stopped and reined in his temper. “So, might we suppose the Cuirassiers are with them? In the Palace?”
Another shrug. “A reasonable assumption, your grace.”
“You—” The duke slammed a hand down on the battlefield-consultant. “I should have you hung, Narry,” he growled. “Instead, you will redeem yourself:
“At first l
ight, you will take a pair of your companies and rush the entrance to the Palace. Try and keep as many of your men alive as possible. I need to know how sharp are the Artillery, and what it will take to pull the knights out of the mountain.”
“But your grace!” protested Narry, straightening in surprise, “My men will be wiped out!”
“Indeed they will.” Ahasz’s voice hardened. “And solely because you were too damned idiotish to mark the removal of the Artillery and the Cuirassiers from the garrison.”
“Your grace,” insisted Narry, “I protest!”
Ahasz closed his eyes and clenched his fists—the incompetence of this lieutenant-colonel! “You,” he said slowly and menacingly, “will obey my orders.”
Opening his eyes, Ahasz glanced once more about the pavilion. “Where is Buta?”
A regimental-major stepped sheepishly forward and gave an abbreviated nod.
“You, and any of your men that might have survived your foolish charge earlier, will join Narry.”
Buta chose wisely not to protest. Features wan and smiling apprehensively, he stepped back.
If only Ahasz hadn’t needed the Housecarls… But now, of course, given the cannon in the Palace, he needed them more than ever.
Ahasz took a moment to calm himself—lifted up his hands, stretched out his fingers until the muscles protested, then flexed them a number of times. “I will have every officer here,” he said, gazing at his splayed hands, “do their duty to the utmost of their ability.” He looked up, searched the faces arrayed before him, saw that their expressions had not changed. No matter: they would learn soon enough.
“Tayisa,” he said. “Progress report?”
The colonel stepped up to the battlefield-consultant. “All the trains have arrived as planned, your grace.”
“Good. And our casualties so far?”
“Two hundred and fifty-five.”
“Sword and Shield?”
“Commander Ashma has reported in: both are fully secured. He has two troops of knights prisoner.”
Ahasz frowned. Two troops? Up to six cohorts—one hundred and twenty-six knights and one thousand two hundred and sixty serjeants—were normally stationed in Shield; and the same in Sword—the two Orders’ only garrisons on Shuto. The Involute had told him that four cohorts each of knights stalwart and knights militant had been sent to assist the Admiral’s forces on Geneza. Four troops of fifty-five stood duty in the Imperial Palace, so… Where were the missing four cohorts?
There was only one possible answer: in the Palace.
“How many knights stalwart was that we fought?” someone asked, as if following Ahasz’s own train of thought.
“Close on two hundred, I’d wager,” put in a Housecarls officer.
Ahasz listened to the exchange, his mind still on the reason for the unexpectedly large contingent of knights. They had known of the attack…
The Involutes had lied to him.
A command car carried the duke beneath the Knot, shooting across the grass under its swooping roadways. The junction appeared even more other-worldly in the darkness, a tangled constellation of guide-lamps and scintillae of reflected light. Onto Exchequer Road, and past Glorina Park. Ahead, spotlights directed against the straight lines and sharp corners of the Exchequer’s frontage made the building seem composed of graceful curves and gentle angles. The mountain behind it loured menacingly, as if it squatted with enfolding arms. The vehicle drew to a halt at the Exchequer’s main entrance and bobbed lightly once, twice. Regimental-Major Urnagi undogged the rear-hatch and scrambled out. Ahasz joined him, and found himself looking up at a young regimental-lieutenant. A wide stair fronted the Exchequer and the young officer stood some three or four steps from its top.
“Well?” demanded the duke. “You insisted there was something I must see.”
The officer descended a step or two. “Your grace, yes,” he replied. “It is most… puzzling.” He turned to lead the way.
According to Colonel Tiyasi, the officer, Regimental-Lieutenant Sanduk, had been among the first to report in after the signal to attack had been given. His platoon had been on guard duty in the Imperial Exchequer, alongside a platoon of the Emperor’s Own Cuirassiers. His men had quickly subdued them.
Ahasz ascended to meet Sanduk. The young man was clearly eager—if not to prove his mettle to the duke, then to have this “puzzle” explained to him. As Ahasz drew near, Sanduk backed away, climbing the steps behind him, drawing the duke towards the building’s entrance. Pulled forward by the officer’s retreat, Ahasz followed him into the Exchequer. There, Sanduk turned about and led the way at a smart pace across the echoing lobby towards the gaping archways of four lift-shafts.
Unlike many nobles of his acquaintance, Ahasz had never worked within the civil or regnal governments. He held no sinecures nor directorships; he needed no patronage nor favours. The Vonshuan family had been among the first rank in wealth and influence for thousands of years. Family history claimed that Edkar I could not have formed his Empire some 1,200 years ago if the Vonshuans had not chosen to support him.
What few visits Ahasz had previously made to the Exchequer were to visit noble friends who held offices there. But he was not ignorant of the institution’s operations. The Exchequer managed the finances of the regnal government, of those offices, bureaux and agencies which were the responsibility of the Imperial Throne and not the Electorate. It administered the funds diverted from taxes as the Emperor’s Allocation; it supervised the collection and spending of Tithe.
Given the monies which flowed through the Exchequer, the lobby was surprisingly austere. The floor boasted a mosaic of the Imperial device, a “star” of five armoured gauntlets, each holding a different item and symbolising the five institutions which contributed to Imperial stability: a crown for the Imperial Throne, a grain-sack for the Order of Replenishers, a sword for the Imperial Regiments, a sextant for the Imperial Navy, and a quill for the Electorate. Great pillars to left and right, fashioned of the same pale stone as the walls, floor the building’s façade, stretched three storeys to a flat and unadorned ceiling. The atmosphere was heavy with the weight of the financial burden handled by the Exchequer. Ahasz had always found it oppressive.
The two stepped into a lift-shaft, and a shelf appeared beneath their feet. Ahasz expected to descend since the vaults were below. Regimental-Lieutenant Sanduk and his platoon had been charged with seizing them—and the Exchequer’s Accounting Mechanism. Control a man’s purse-strings, Ahasz knew, and his destiny was forfeit. Sanduk, however, passed a boot across a number by his feet and the shelf began to rise.
The lift drew to a halt on the third floor. The duke followed Sanduk into a foyer. To left and right, a gleaming white corridor stretched to the limits of the building. On these corridors were many doors, the size and design of which indicated the importance of the offices behind them.
The regimental-lieutenant led Ahasz at a smart clip along the corridor to the right. Some halfway along its length, Sanduk pushed open a narrow door of plain wood, revealing a large chamber containing five rows of five desks apiece, all facing a larger desk raised above them on a dais. The room was not empty.
At four of the desks in the first row, clerks bent to consoles built into the desk-tops. They ignored the duke’s entrance. He saw, standing at a dark window and limned by the glow from the spotlights outside, a pear-shaped woman in a loose-fitting plum-coloured dress. Ahasz knew her: Sofia demar Druzh, the head of his spy corps.
He smiled. He had wondered when she would make an appearance. Her intelligence had fed this campaign, a diet without which it would not have lived. He crossed to her and she turned to watch his approach.
Taken individually, Druzh’s features were not unattractive: liquid brown eyes, a straight and well-formed nose, wide plump-lipped mouth… but together on a wide-browed, square-jawed face, their arrangement was less pleasing. The effect was heightened by white-blonde hair in an ear-length
bob.
“So,” Ahasz said. “Sofia. I had not expected to find you here.”
She nodded. “Your grace, I needed to confirm a persistent rumour I had heard. I’d sooner not bring tales to you, which is why I hadn’t mentioned it.”
“Some tales, Sofia, I’d rather you had brought. You’ve heard that the Cuirassiers and Artillery have holed up in the Palace? With several cohorts of knights stalwart and knights militant?”
“I’ve been apprised, yes. My sources had no information on the matter beforehand —”
Ahasz gestured dismissively. “Or you would have said. Yes, yes. But what brings you to the Exchequer? I don’t need to know how much money the Emperor can call upon, I need only to prevent him from doing so.”
Druzh moved away from the window, walking with a surprisingly sensuous gait towards the clerks. Ahasz followed.
“I have Jimun and the others hunting through the Accounting Mechanism and the Exchequer data-pool, trying to unravel the Throne’s finances.”
“Why?” asked Ahasz.
“Your army on Geneza, your grace,” Druzh replied, putting a hand on Jimun’s shoulder and stooping to read the glass of his console. “It is Princess Flavia who opposes you, not the Throne. I found that puzzling. If she’s known of your conspiring these six years, why has the Emperor never attempted to prevent you? He must have known of it.”
Ahasz shrugged. “He was blocked in the Electorate. I made sure of that. The Regimental General Staff refused him the troops he’d need.”
“True. But he had the Martial Orders. He could send cohorts of knights stalwart wherever he needed.” She straightened, and turned to the duke. “Your grace, the Electorate has always resented the regnal government, but they can do little to prevent its operations. The only group of people with influence in both civil and regnal governments are the Involutes. But even they could not prevent the Emperor from doing something that clearly needs to be done. There could only be one reason why he failed to act.”
