The Mad Lancers: A Powder Mage Novella

by Brian McClellan

  “Look, you stood up for the people,” Rezi said. “That’s your job.”

  “Should have let Tel-islo take a beating so the cuirassiers would go on their way,” Styke muttered.

  Rezi slipped into Styke’s lap, wiggling to get comfortable and putting her face between his eyes and the window. She was trying to distract him, and he was both annoyed and thankful. “I don’t disagree,” she said. “You should have dealt with Prost in a gentler manner. But you didn’t, and this happened, and we’ll just deal with it.”

  Styke twisted his neck to see past Rezi, eliciting a deep sigh from her. “I don’t know the law,” he said. “What’s going to happen next?”

  “Let me see,” Rezi said, raising her eyes to the ceiling. “I imagine they’ll do this for the rest of the day, until Sirod gets bored and goes on his way. If he’s satisfied by this little display, he’ll focus his anger on you. If not, he might levy a fine against the mayor or the town.” Rezi clicked her tongue, clearly annoyed by the second thought. “If it’s just you, they’ll probably let you rot here for a few months, then send you to a military tribunal in Landfall. Your punishment will depend on who’s on the tribunal.”

  Styke finally stopped looking outside, focusing on Rezi with a scowl. He’d been insubordinate plenty of times in his career, but the army always needed someone like him, and he was a big enough, brave enough monster of a fighter that his indiscretions had always been overlooked. But he’d never pissed off a governor before. “And what,” he asked, “might my punishment be?”

  “They probably won’t execute you,” Rezi said with a lopsided smile, indicating that was off the table. “They’ll definitely use you as a political pawn. If it’s convenient to the tribunal, they’ll let you off with a smack on the wrist. If Sirod stacks the tribunal with his own goons, they’ll strip you of your rank and pension.”

  Styke grunted. That seemed like the most likely outcome. An inconvenience, surely, but he’d been penniless before. He mentally ticked through his options, preparing for the berating and humiliations he’d have to go through before he was able to walk free and move on with his life. It felt strange to consider a life outside the military after all this time. “I’ll miss the lancers,” he said.

  “Oh, stop it,” Rezi said, playfully smacking his cheek. “I’ve never seen a luckier piece of shit than you, so you’ll probably end up getting a shitty commission on the frontier. Which won’t be bad, considering you broke the arms of the governor’s brother.” She said the second half of the sentence with the kind of condescending wonder that most people reserved for questioning a drunk’s antics the morning after a bender. “Why did that seem like a good idea to you, by the way?”

  “Ideas didn’t come into it,” Styke replied. He leaned back with a sigh, trying to clear his head of all this anger he couldn’t possibly vent. He let his eyes wander down the front of Rezi’s shirt. “He’s an asshole, and he deserved it.”

  Styke finally looked Rezi in the face. She was smiling, and she’d been playful and cheerful, but he could see in her eyes that she was worried. He wondered what fears were going through the back of her head—whether she feared for the town, or for his safety or career, or if she was just getting used to the idea he would likely be whisked away from this place for good.

  He wasn’t fond of the idea himself. He liked the town. He liked the people. He quite liked Rezi, though he knew neither of them were the marrying type. Leaving had not, until right now, been on his immediate list of possibilities.

  There was a long silence as they both contemplated this future, and Rezi glanced away as the band marched beneath the window once more. “You’d think,” she muttered, “that Sirod would have better things to do.”

  “Where is he, anyway?”

  “He’s making the mayor put on a lavish feast for the officers, and from what I understand, he’s being a real dick about it.”

  “Playing to his strengths.”

  “Pretty much.” Rezi paused. “But really, he has better things to do.”

  “Like?”

  “You didn’t see a newspaper this morning?”

  Styke rolled his eyes. “I only ever take my morning paper after breaking the arms of a Kez officer. No, I haven’t seen a newspaper.”

  “You’re friends with the governor of Redstone, aren’t you?”

  “Lindet?”

  “Yeah, her.”

  Styke considered the question for a moment, not entirely certain he wanted to hear what Rezi had to say next. “It’s a little more complicated than friends, but I suppose I am.”

  “She disbanded the Kez garrison.”

  “You’re joking,” Styke said, unable to hide his disbelief. Lindet had bigger stones than any man he’d ever met, but that seemed like going too far, even for her. “Is that within her power?”

  “She raised her own colonial militia and disbanded the garrison at the point of a bayonet.”

  Styke glanced out the window toward the mayor’s house, wondering why Sirod wasn’t halfway to Landfall right now. A colonial governor committing outright treason should have the entire country on alert. And the governor of Landfall definitely shouldn’t be bothering with a backwater like Fernhollow in a moment of national emergency.

  “Same shit, different day,” Rezi offered.

  “Maybe,” Styke said uncertainly. Lindet had made a move, and now he was outright nervous. This whole affair with Prost and Sirod might not even matter in a couple of weeks. He lifted his chin, scanning the street, feeling a sudden pressure in his chest that told him everyone outside—Fatrastans and Kez alike—shouldn’t be wasting their time like this. He wanted to walk over to the mayor’s house and give Sirod a shake.

  Rezi took his face between her hands and forcibly turned it away from the window. She wiggled her hips, settling further into his lap. “Come on,” she said. “Don’t worry about this shit. If they’re going to take you away, we can at least enjoy the time we’ve got left.”

  The statement made Styke’s heart fall a little. He smiled at Rezi, and she leaned close and spoke in his ear.

  “The cot in my office is very sturdy.”

  Styke stood, lifting Rezi bodily. She laughed, wrapping her legs around his waist, and he began to carry her toward the open cell door. He paused for a moment to adjust his grip, and his eyes fell on something outside the window. He saw lines of citizens standing in the dust, and toward the back of one of those lines he saw a young woman—fifteen or sixteen—bend over and pluck something off the ground. Her arm cocked back, and a stone flew from her hand.

  It struck one of the governor’s bodyguards right in the temple. The man’s head wobbled strangely before he slowly, ponderously, slid from his saddle and collapsed to the ground.

  That’s when all pit broke loose.

  Later that night, Styke half dozed on the jail cell bench, jumping at every noise he heard in the darkness outside. His body was soaked with the sweat of a hot, angry evening, and his fingers twitched with the desire to put his hands on a knife, a sword, a lance—or just around someone’s throat.

  It was almost 3 a.m. when he finally heard the thump of boots on the stairs of the jailhouse. He forced himself awake and turned his head toward the cell door, where the light of a lantern danced its way up the staircase and soon illuminated the entirety of the cell.

  Rezi was a mess. Her skin was covered in a sheen of dusty sweat, her black hair frazzled in every direction. Her clothes were caked in mud. There was even a long, painful-looking gash extending from her thumb all the way along the back of her forearm to the elbow. She set the lantern on a shelf just outside of the cell and pushed the door open, trudging in to drop onto the bench next to Styke.

  Styke opened his mouth to speak, but found he had nothing to say. He put his arm around her shoulder, still feeling his fingers twitch with the rage he dared not expend.

  Rezi’s last words to him had been, “Don’t you move a goddamn muscle from this room!” before she had sprinted
out of the jail and into the growing riot outside. It had started at about one o’clock in the afternoon with the rock thrown by that young girl. By the silence outside—and Rezi’s presence—things had finally settled down. Styke craned his neck to look out one of the windows, only to find darkness looking back at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said.

  “Did you throw that stone?” she snapped back.

  “No.”

  “Then it’s not your fault.”

  “The whole thing…”

  “Shut your mouth, Benjamin, or I will leave you in this room to starve to death.”

  Rezi ran her hands through her hair. Styke wanted to pull her closer, to do something to comfort her, but her movements were stiff and unwelcoming, and he was afraid she might just follow through on her promise if he pushed any further than a reassuring arm. He pushed back against his own feelings—his guilt over the escalation, his frustration of not being able to head out there and knock heads together, and his cold anger at Sirod for making things even worse.

  After some time, Rezi put her head on Styke’s shoulder.

  “What’s the damage?” Styke whispered.

  “Seventeen dead,” Rezi said mechanically. “Four of those were Kez soldiers. Two were lancers. The rest were citizens. Thirty-nine wounded. Mostly citizens.”

  “Which lancers?” Styke asked.

  “Hap and Gunny.”

  Styke scowled. Hap was a dim sort, not very good at much of anything, but enthusiastic. Gunny was cheerful, always ready with a joke, and the best shot in the company with a carbine at full gallop. Both would be badly missed. He suppressed a sigh and waited for Rezi to continue.

  “Chatterline’s farm burned down.”

  Styke had thought he’d smelled smoke earlier. “The Kez?”

  “No. Freak accident during the chaos. No one was hurt in the blaze, but she lost two cows, a barn, and the better part of her house.” Rezi forced Styke to sit up straight. Then she lay across the bench so that her head was in Styke’s lap. “Someone threw a rock at Sirod’s bodyguards. Caught the poor bastard right in the temple and knocked him out cold. He slipped, fell, and broke his neck when he landed. I can’t really piece together what happened next. The soldiers panicked and charged into the citizens. More rocks were thrown. There weren’t any gunshots, thank Kresimir, but there was a lot of trampling and throwing and cutting.”

  “Your lancers were good,” she continued. “They put themselves between the soldiers and the citizens, but it was just too damned late.”

  “So what happened?”

  “It took hours to get everything back under control. Took a few more to convince Sirod that he should leave town and take his soldiers with them for their own safety. He left just before dark, and I’ve spent every moment since trying to assess the damage and letting everyone burn out their anger.”

  Styke was nothing short of impressed that she hadn’t killed anyone in a rage. He knew damn well that if he’d been in her place, the town square would be filled with Kez corpses and he’d either be dead or well on his way to hiding out on the frontier. “They’re gone, then?”

  “The soldiers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hours ago,” Rezi confirmed. “I’ve spent the whole night trying to calm down the citizens. But the governor was pissed. I could tell he took the whole thing as a personal affront. Took me and the mayor to convince him not to burn the whole town down.”

  Styke looked down at Rezi, wondering if he should point out that the governor would likely be back, and with far more men. At the very least, Fernhollow was going to get a Kez garrison—and the added expense of having to support them. At the most… well, Styke wasn’t sure of the extent of Sirod’s rage. Sirod was a cold, calculating bastard. He only cared for the things that might affect his reputation. An event like this… well, it was bound to get back to the King’s court eventually.

  Styke would find out the extent of the damage when a military tribunal sent for him. He thought back to the news that Lindet had dismissed the Redstone garrison, and he dared to hope that today would be forgotten in the face of larger problems across the country.

  He decided that this was not the time to discuss more bad news with Rezi. There’d be plenty of time for that going forward, as he sat in this cell waiting for a summons from Landfall.

  “I think you should go,” Rezi suddenly said.

  “Huh?”

  “Break the cell door. Slip out in the night. Fill your saddlebags, take Deshnar, and get the pit out of here.”

  The same thought had crossed Styke’s mind over the last few hours, but he was surprised that it had crossed Rezi’s. She was far more law-abiding than he was. “I won’t leave you to take the heat for that.”

  “I damn well didn’t say I would,” Rezi snorted. “That’s why I’m telling you to escape, rather than to just walk out.”

  Styke almost laughed. He considered the option, leaning his head back against the cool brick wall and running his fingers through Rezi’s sweaty hair. He could go to Redstone. See if Lindet wanted herself a lancer. His thoughts began to follow that road when he noticed something off. The cell was no longer lit by the lantern alone. He could see a harsh, orange light dancing on the ceiling. He looked over his shoulder out the window and accidentally threw Rezi to the floor when he shot to his feet.

  Across the city square, the mayor’s house was on fire. The conflagration consumed the entirety of the home’s façade, and he could see figures running to and fro in the flickering light. He opened his mouth to say something to Rezi when he noticed that, several blocks away, the local church was also on fire.

  “What the pit did you do…” Rezi trailed off as she cleaned herself off the floor. They both stared, dumbfounded, at the growing fire. “What is going on?” Rezi whispered. She ran for the stairs just as there was a loud crash from below them.

  “That was the door,” Styke warned as Rezi opened the cell.

  “I know,” she snapped, taking one long step into her office and returning with a big, fixed-blade boz knife in her hand. There was a shout downstairs, and the angry thump of footsteps. Rezi leapt for the stairs and Styke found himself following her involuntarily.

  There was a strangled gurgle in the stairwell. Styke froze, his hands on the bars of the cell, watching as Rezi came to a sudden stop. “Rezi?” he called.

  She stiffened, then seemed to suddenly float back up the stairs, coming so quickly that Styke took half a step back. She reached the top of the stairs and was thrown backwards, sprawling on the landing and revealing the two men who had just shoved her up the stairs on the end of their bayonets. Styke stared down at Rezi’s unmoving body, then at the four soldiers who rushed up to take the landing, spreading out with bayoneted muskets pointed at the barred cell door. They trampled her underfoot, not even giving her a second glance.

  Styke recognized one of the soldiers. It was Sergeant Gracely, the Kez who’d insulted him in the street two mornings before. Her mouth was drawn into a thin, grim line. “That’s him,” she said, brandishing her musket.

  Styke stared down at Rezi. Then he looked at Gracely, and back to Rezi.

  “Shoot him in the knees,” Gracely ordered. “Captain wants him to burn.”

  Styke braced his hands on the ceiling, lashing out with a leg and every ounce of his strength. The cell door, still unlocked and part open, crashed into—and then through—its own frame and off the hinges. The weighty iron smashed into the row of muskets, and two panicked shots in the small space made Styke’s ears ring.

  He didn’t know whether he’d been hit, and he didn’t care. He followed the door out of the cell. One of the four soldiers tumbled down the stairs, while the other three were knocked down onto the floor of Rezi’s office. Styke bent over the closest, grasping him by the throat and squeezing hard, crushing the bastard’s windpipe. He grabbed the musket of a second as it was aimed at him and with a deft twist pulled off the musket’s ring bayonet. He flipped
it around and buried it in the soldier’s eye.

  Gracely lay underneath the bulk of the cell door’s weight, her musket trapped. She tried to free her weapon in vain, glancing up at Styke in a panic as he stepped over her.

  “I didn’t want to,” she insisted. “But orders…”

  “Prost did this?” Styke demanded. The light from the burning buildings outside now completely illuminated the room, and he could only imagine that the whole town would soon be in flames.

  “Yes,” Gracely said. “I mean, no. Prost is giving commands, but Sirod ordered it.”

  “Why?” Styke demanded, listening to the movement of the soldier in the stairwell.

  “He was humiliated! You can’t cross the governor’s family like this!”

  “Where’s Prost?”

  “He’s burning down the mayor’s house. Look, Styke, I was just following orders. You would have done the same!”

  “No,” Styke said. He bent and lifted the iron door off of Gracely with both hands. “I wouldn’t have. I may be a monster, but at least I have standards.” Gracely tried to bring her musket to bear, but Styke flipped the iron door up and brought the bottom of it down hard, crushing Gracely’s skull like an egg beneath it. He scooped up her musket, stepped into the stairwell, and unloaded it into the chest of the soldier still trying to find his senses.

  Styke tossed aside the musket and knelt down beside Rezi. He was surprised to find her eyes open, her lips moving slightly. He looked down at her stomach. It was a scrambled mess of black blood and guts. Not even a Privileged could save her, not after a bayoneting like that.

  “I can’t move,” she whispered.

  “Bayonet must have grazed your spine,” Styke said gently.

  “Am I dead?”

  Styke felt his brow furrow, his chin quiver. His vision was suddenly blurry. “You’re dead,” he confirmed. He reached down, running a finger across Rezi’s cheek.

  “How long?”