Shield of the People

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “I’m not going to let him—”

  “You can barely stand. To bed. That’s an order.”

  Vien scowled and limped off.

  “As for the rest of you, focus your energy on something productive now. Tander, Raila, take all three Initiate Cohorts and run drills and intervals with them. All of you. Go.”

  There was a brief moment of stunned silence, until Raila spoke up. “All right, we have our orders. Let’s head to the training room and start with some calisthenics. Come on, people.”

  They filed out of the dining hall, Raila stopping briefly to nod at Amaya. Amaya gave her the same back. She needed Raila right now, she needed Raila to know she trusted her. Right now, someone with a cool head had to be in front of the Initiates.

  That person was not Amaya. She was ready to take a sword and cut heads off until she had Jerinne Fendall safe and back home. But she didn’t know where to go, and that was tearing her apart. It was all she could do to keep these kids from flying apart; she couldn’t let them see her do the same.

  “Ellist, until the Grandmaster comes back, just . . . just make sure meals and household and—”

  “I will attend to all the things, Madam Tyrell,” he said. “You do what you have to.”

  She went to the armory first, selecting her favorite shield and sword, and then made her way to her quarters to change into her mail shirt and regular uniform, passing through the foyer.

  Dayne was there, leaning against the doorframe, looking pale and clammy. “Amaya.”

  “Saints, what are you—”

  “I need to get to the Parliament,” he said, taking a halting step in. “I hurt my leg last night, and I just need a moment.”

  He looked like he was upright on sheer willpower. “Have you even slept?”

  “Have you?”

  “No, I—look, something’s happened.”

  “I know,” Dayne said. “We need to find where those ballots were taken and—”

  “Ballots?” She swore. “No, Dayne, I’m not talking about the ballots. Something much worse has happened.”

  Chapter 22

  JERINNE MUST HAVE FALLEN asleep in the back of the cab, Quinara’s blade still on her neck. She wasn’t sure if she should be comforted or disturbed that she was able to sleep in those circumstances, but it didn’t matter. She needed any bit of rest that she could manage at this point, and her situation wasn’t any worse than it was before.

  Except she was now tied up with sturdy bonds in a dark, musty room.

  No, not musty. The scent was rich, but not unpleasant. She couldn’t quite identify it, but it felt almost comforting.

  Which didn’t change the fact that she was a prisoner.

  The room wasn’t small, which was more than a little surprising. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she could see she was in a wide hall, filled with long tables. Not unlike the mess at the chapterhouse. She was tied to one of those tables, seated on the wooden slat floor.

  “Why didn’t you just kill her?”

  Voices outside the nearby door. Sunlight shining under that door, interrupted by the shadows of passing feet.

  “Thought about it.” Quinara. “We needed her to get away.”

  “Yes, but why bring her here?” Not a voice she recognized. Man. Strong accent. Acoran, but educated.

  “If you let me explain.” Osharin. Also that Acoran accent, but more provincial.

  “Please.”

  “We have leverage right now, but nothing we can use for initial exchange.”

  “So she’s, what?”

  “A sacrificial lamb, if we need one. No need to kill her now, when we can kill her later to demonstrate how serious we are.”

  “Ah,” the unidentified man said. “All right, I can respect that. It’s a risk, but I trust your judgment.”

  “Good.”

  “Despite the two of you getting caught in the chapterhouse and destroying your value.”

  “My fault,” Osharin said. “She came to me, injured, and I was careless.”

  “So what’s next?” Quinara asked.

  “You’re right on one point. We have something of value now, but it doesn’t help us get what we want. We need to make demands, and for that we need a messenger. Maybe this girl can serve that purpose.”

  “No,” Quinara said. “I’ve got a better idea. But I’ll need some people to go back to the city.”

  Back to the city. Which meant they weren’t in it right now. Where was she?

  “We’re running low on good people. You can’t get Pria back?”

  “Not unless you want to spend three hundred crowns a day on him,” Quinara said. “He and the other Firewings say it costs more to fight Tarians.”

  “Rutting mages. Greedy bastards.”

  “You’re safe to go back alone?” Osharin asked.

  “Yeah,” Quinara said. “I know exactly what we need, and it won’t be a fight. We’ll do it quiet, be back in an hour or two.”

  Not too far away from the city. She couldn’t have slept long.

  “No more than two,” Osharin said. “We can’t risk anything else.”

  “Let’s get some breakfast and figure out the details,” the unnamed man said. Footsteps and voices faded.

  That room must have been an office. Near this large dining hall. Outside the city. Maybe some abandoned workhouse or highway camp.

  Jerinne twisted at her bonds. Well-tied ropes. Nothing she’d get out of easily.

  But she’d keep trying, regardless. She couldn’t count on rescue, so she’d have to do that herself. Get out, find out where she was, get back to the chapterhouse, and then bring the wrath of the Tarian Order upon these people.

  * * *

  Dayne couldn’t believe what Amaya was telling him. It was far too much.

  “Osharin?” he finally said. He started to go to the armory. He would need his shield; he would need to be ready for Osharin and the rest of his subversives. “We have to stop them.” He took two steps, grinding his teeth as the fire shot up from his leg.

  “Dayne, you can barely walk.”

  “I can—”

  “Dayne,” she said firmly. She took his face in her hands and locked eyes with him. “I know what you want to do. I want to do the same thing, and I want to do it together. All right?”

  “I can’t let Jerinne—”

  “She is my charge. And technically, so are you.”

  “But—”

  “This is what you are going to do. We’re going to get you up to that infirmary and let Clinan tend to that leg. No argument. I’m going to search Osharin’s quarters, see what I can find. You get yourself right, and when we know where we’re going, you can count on every saint that you and I will ride there together. We will get her back. Am I clear?”

  Dayne nodded. She was right. He’d be no good to Jerinne if he couldn’t stand against her abductors. And Clinan’s ministrations were exactly what he needed.

  “Help me get there,” he said.

  She put herself under his shoulder and bore his weight. “Always.”

  Clinan was a strange sort, a wiry old man with leathery skin and powerful forearms. He was a fixture in the infirmary, but not a proper doctor. He had never gone to university, but he seemed to have an innate understanding of bodies, muscles, and pain.

  “Hey there, Dayne,” he said as Amaya helped him into the infirmary. “Looks like you’ve twisted something up.”

  “Rather. Fell off a balcony onto my side. I don’t think anything’s broken.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a lot more to pain than broken. Strip to your cottons and get on the floor. You’re a little too big for my table. We’ll work out what’s going on with that leg of yours.”

  Amaya helped him get his dress uniform off and lie down on the floor. “I won’t go runnin
g off without you.”

  “Don’t worry about my feelings,” he said. “If you can save Jerinne, get on it.”

  She smiled warmly. “Get him up and running again, Clinan.”

  “We do what we can here,” Clinan said. She left, and he knelt down next to Dayne, massaging the leg with his strong, powerful hands. The pain of it was intense, but Dayne was familiar with Clinan’s methodology. Work through the pain to get to the other side of it.

  “Yeah, that’s a banger, all right,” Clinan said. “You just shut your eyes, and focus on your breath. Let’s get this back together.”

  * * *

  The Alassan Coffeehouse had a reputation, especially amongst the students at the Royal College, so all but the most daring or degenerate were terrified to step foot in the place. Hemmit had tried it once, entering entirely because of its reputation, but found Imach coffee was not to his taste at all. The usual customers were the type who would sit around talking revolution, talking about it as an end in itself. Hemmit wondered why Kemmer wanted to meet here of all places.

  “But why do we want to find Kemmer?” Lin asked as she followed behind Hemmit and Maresh. Her nose was crinkled in disgust. “This place smells awful.”

  “Hey, hey,” the man behind the counter—an Imach man with a thick mustache and thicker accent—said, snapping at them. “What you want?”

  “Three coffees,” Maresh said, putting a couple coins on the counter.

  “You want the cream? You want the sukkar?”

  Maresh looked at Hemmit for guidance, but Hemmit had none to give him. “Yes, of course.”

  “Three! With the cream and sukkar!” The man behind him went to work filling mugs.

  “We really aren’t here for the coffee,” Lin said. “In fact, I’ve heard—”

  “We can’t be impolite,” Maresh interrupted.

  “Come on,” Lin said. She looked at the man behind the counter. “We’re looking for a fellow named Kemmer. Is he here?”

  The man just snarled something in Imach and looked away.

  “Is that a no?”

  The other man, the one putting their mugs of coffee on the counter, shook his head. “He is old country.” His accent was not as pronounced. “Does not want to talk to women who are not his wives.”

  “Wives?” Lin asked.

  “The man you want is in the back.” He pushed the three mugs forward. “Enjoy.”

  Hemmit picked up a mug, and went to the back room, Lin and Maresh following him. And there was the man himself—Kemmer, looking rather smart and well-groomed. That was the biggest surprise of all. On seeing Hemmit, he waved to the chairs at his table.

  “Hemmit,” he said. “Good to see you—the actual you, without the disguise. And I presume your name isn’t Jala.”

  “Lin Shartien,” she said.

  “Well,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you to be Linjari. I must congratulate you on your excellent deceptions. And you must be Maresh.”

  “I must be,” Maresh said, sitting at the table.

  “So what can you tell us?” Hemmit said, taking his seat. He sipped at the coffee, which was somehow bitter and sweet, rich and light, intense and mild all at the same time. Perhaps the last time his mistake was not taking it with the cream and sukkar.

  “Right to business,” Kemmer said. “I presume you weren’t followed or such.”

  “No,” Hemmit said. “Nor did we bring authorities.”

  “I’m not that worried about constables or marshals right now. And, frankly, none of them are looking for me. At least not in regard to last month’s unpleasantness.”

  “That’s what you call four members of Parliament murdered, not to mention—”

  “Tharek Pell’s doing, not mine. From reading your pamphlet, and what I’ve pieced together, he had his own agenda. In fact, many people did, and none of it to help Druthal or its people.”

  “But you’re not like that,” Lin said with condescension.

  “I was an idiot. Probably still am. But I’m an idiot who’s got a hold of something real.”

  “A Grand Ten?” Hemmit asked. “Some high conspiracy against the crown and country?”

  “I can’t say I know what they want. But I can say they were the impetus behind the initial attacks from the Patriots.”

  “I thought Chief Toscan—”

  “Was pulling the strings? Yes. But they were pulling his.”

  “Who are they?” Maresh asked.

  “Still working on that,” Kemmer said after a brief pause. “I don’t know who they all are, but one of them—”

  Before he could say, the woman with the hatchets came right up behind him and clocked him across the head. Kemmer fell like a sack of potatoes.

  “I don’t care what he was saying,” she said. “You are coming with me.” She had a pair of musclebound guys behind her to back up the assertion.

  “All of us?” Maresh asked.

  “Not her,” she said, pointing an axe at Lin. “I don’t need to deal with a magic girl.”

  Lin grabbed Hemmit’s wrist. “Where are you taking them?” Hemmit noticed a spark of shock at her touch.

  The axe-woman looked at Hemmit. “You said you could tell our story, pretty beard. So it’s time to hear it.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Let me make something clear,” she said, spinning the hatchet in her hand and then bringing it to Maresh’s face. “You and Spectacles are going to come with me, or he gets a very close shave.”

  Lin stood up sharp, and the woman brought another axe up. “Don’t even try it, lady. I know a thing or two about mages.” She moved behind Maresh, kissing his forehead as she slid the axe blade up his cheek. “In fact, you drink those three cups right now.”

  “You want me to what?”

  “Drink the coffee. All three.”

  “Lin,” Maresh said in a terrified whisper.

  She picked up her cup, her hand trembling, and drank its contents down.

  “Go on.”

  With a hard sneer, she picked up Maresh’s and drank it down as well. Then she picked up Hemmit’s and did it again. “Are you happy?”

  “Quite.”

  Lin was about to say something, but crackles and sparks began to snap and pop from her fingers. Then a large crack of lightning jumped from her hands to her feet, making her knees buckle.

  “What—” she said, and another series of crackles ran up and down her body.

  “What did you do?” Hemmit asked.

  “Coffee doesn’t agree with mages,” the woman said. “Get him.”

  Her goons grabbed him and started to drag him out. Lin, writhing on the floor while sparks and flashes danced all over her, reached out to him. Despite the fact she was obviously suffering, she mouthed something out to him.

  “Go. I’ve got you.”

  That was all he saw before he was dragged out of the Alassan. It was notable how no one else in the place tried to stop them, or even reacted. As if abductions were so common, it wasn’t worthy of notice.

  “Come along,” she said as they reached the street. There was a carriage waiting outside, which they shoved him and Maresh into. The rest of the goons all got in, crowding their bodies into the two of them.

  “Where are we going?” Hemmit asked.

  “You don’t need to know that,” the axe-woman said as she hopped into the driver’s seat. As if in response to that, one of the goons threw a sack over Hemmit’s head, leaving him in the dark as the carriage surged forward.

  Chapter 23

  DAYNE’S HIP MADE a very satisfying pop as Clinan pulled and stretched his leg out wide.

  “Yeah, that’s what we wanted,” Clinan said. “Let’s see if you can get on your feet.” He took Dayne’s hand and helped him off the ground. It was something of a marvel how strong this wiry m
an was. Dayne tested putting weight on his leg, and while it was still sore, he could bear it. He took a few tentative steps, and it was miles better than when he had arrived.

  “Another miracle,” Dayne said.

  “I don’t know about that. Just doing what I do, so you can do what you do.”

  Amaya came in, carrying two sets of shield and sword. “You able?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “What do we know?”

  “Not a lot. Looks like Osharin was part of something called the Deep Roots, and he had some letters from his cousin, a woman named Quinara Essaryn, but nothing that gave me a sense of where we might find them.”

  “Deep Roots?” Dayne asked. “Chief Samsell mentioned them, in the same context as the Patriots, the Open Hand, Sons of the Six Sisters.”

  “Some other radical group bent on tearing down Druthal?”

  “Sounds like you two should get out to the marshals,” Clinan said.

  “Shall we move?” Dayne asked. She handed him the shield and sword. As he put the sword to his belt and his hand through the shield’s straps, the words came to his mouth like instinct, a whisper in volume but shouted from his heart.

  “With shield on arm and sword in hand

  I will not yield, but hold and stand.

  As I draw breath, I’ll allow no harm,

  And hold back death with shield on arm.”

  Amaya said it with him, the smile on her face growing as she did. “Come on. Let’s ride.”

  “Ride?”

  Amaya had two horses saddled and ready outside the chapterhouse, and Dayne happily mounted the larger one. Amaya got on hers, a stallion with a brilliant rich brown coat, and spurred it to a canter. She was riding, perhaps too recklessly for the city, but Dayne matched her speed as they pounded down the streets to the Parliament building. They tied off the horses and went up the steps to the Parliament.

  “Did you have the authority to requisition horses for us right now?” Dayne asked as they approached the doors.