by Chris Bunch
“All mention of this matter is to be kept from the public, so there’ll be nothing in the broadsheets. Instead, rumor will be permitted to run riot.
“Some other, smaller things, might amuse you.
“I was appointed to a special position, privy adviser to the Rule on the Present Emergency. I was ordered to use all of the magical powers I have to determine whether there is sorcery behind this organization.”
“What the hells do they think Thak is? A wisp of sewer gas?”
“I’m not sure they believe Thak even exists.”
“What was your response, sir?” Kutulu said. I could see how angry he was, and how hard he was trying to hold it back.
“Like you, I lost my temper. I’m afraid I shouted at this point that we don’t need sorcery, we need order.
“Again, I was told that the wardens could handle the matter.
“After all, Nicians will instinctively obey the law. There is no cause for panic.” Tenedos shook his head sorrowfully. “Now you see why I’m not at all convinced reporting the small matter of a country-wide conspiracy bankrolled by one of their own subrulers would matter a beggar’s fart?”
“So what do we do?” I asked.
Tenedos started to say something flippant, then turned serious. “First, we must guard ourselves carefully, and ensure we aren’t the next victims of the Tovieti. If Thak knows of us, and of course he does, then he’ll communicate that knowledge to the Tovieti leaders.
“I’d assume that means we’ll be at the top of their murder list.
“Second, try to ensure that anyone either of you holds close finds a place of safety. I’m not sure what that might be, but suggest somewhere beyond the city, perhaps even outside Dara.”
“I’ve no such person,” Kutulu said, and there wasn’t even a touch of regret in his voice.
I was wondering how I’d tell Marán, and how she would convince her husband.
“The final thing I’d suggest is keep a war bag packed and your weapons handy. Be ready for anything. Anything at all.”
Tenedos got up and went to the sideboard and unstoppered a brandy decanter. Then he looked out the window at the lightening sky.
“No. I’m afraid that’s another weakness to be set aside until better times,” and he restoppered the container.
“That’s all, gentlemen.” We got up to go.
“Thank you,” Tenedos said. “You’ve not only proven yourselves worthy servants of mine, but Numantians of the most noble sort.”
His words meant more than a medal.
• • •
Bugles were sounding the troops awake as I rode into the cantonment. I shouted down a lance, threw Lucan’s reins to him, and told him to take my horse to the stables and feed and water him.
I ran for my quarters, and hastily changed into uniform in time to be at the head of my troop for the reveille formation.
After roll was taken, the day’s orders given out by Captain Lardier, and Domina Lehar had taken the salute and dismissed us for breakfast, the adjutant called my name. I marched up, and saluted him. He handed me a small envelope.
“This was delivered late last night to the officer of the watch, with a request it be given to you personally. Since you weren’t to be found in the cantonment, he gave it to me when I relieved him this morning.”
I saluted him once more and walked off.
Inside the envelope was a second one, this one with my name on it. The handwriting was Marán’s. Inside that, a brief note:
My dearest,
I wish I could tell you this in person, for it might give me a chance to hold you and to feel you in me. But my husband came to me only this noon, and told me that due to the present unsettlements, he feels it best if we leave Nicias until the situation clears.
We will be sailing aboard his yacht this morning, before dawn. He told me we’ll be cruising in the Outer Islands and off the Seer’s home island of Palmeras for at least a month, most likely longer.
I am so sorry, and wish that you could take me in your arms and make me stop crying. But I shall be brave, and think of you every minute of every hour.
O My Damastes, you cannot know how much I love you and want to be with you, even though the times are dangerous. Be good, be well, and dream of me as I shall dream of you.
I love you
Marán
Marán would not have been pleased; the first feeling that came was ovenwhelming relief. She was out of the line of fire. Yes, I’d dream of her, and yes I’d think of her, when duty did not demand full attention. But I’d have few spare minutes in the near future.
I changed into fatigue uniform, went to the stables, and was currying Lucan when the gong clanged alarm across the parade ground. Like everyone else, I dropped what I was doing, as the emergency alert sent me, and everyone else in the Helms, scurrying for our battle gear.
The standby troop should have been formed up and ready to ride out in ten minutes, the rest of the regiment in an hour.
I was ready in that time, as was Lance Karjan, but we were two of a handful.
I heard shouts, curses, and saw confusion as men went here, there, and everywhere looking for their fighting gear, which should have been instantly at hand but instead was “turned in to Supply for fixing,” “loaned to a friend a mine, I think,” “I dunno, sir,” “Guess it don’t fit right,” “th’ straps broke an’ th’ saddler never give it back t’ me,” “I was never issued that item, sir.” Battle garb had been ignored for polished leather and shiny brass.
It was two and a half hours before the Golden Helms of Nicias were in formation.
• • •
Perhaps if we’d ridden out when we should have the catastrophe wouldn’t have happened. But I doubt it.
There’d been a brawl in Chicherin, one of the city’s poorer districts, that began when three shops on a single street simultaneously doubled their price for flour. As it turned out, the three shop owners had formed a syndicate to prevent competition. There’d been an argument with some outraged customers that became pushing and shoving, and then blows were exchanged.
Someone pulled a knife and there was a body in the street. Moments later, rocks pelted one of the shop owners and he, too, went down. His shop was looted, and the mob had the scent.
They milled about, then decided to punish the other two shops as well. In one the owner fought back with a spear and was killed, but both stores were ripped apart.
The lunacy spread to other streets and other stores that hadn’t the slightest involvement, until half the district was a raging madhouse.
At that point someone in authority panicked and sent for the army.
This was not the proper response. Squads of wardens should have moved into the district, isolated the ringleaders, and arrested them. If that couldn’t have been done, solid walls of law officers should have gone down the streets and by a combination of fear and brute force the mob would have been quelled in this early stage.
Instead the wardens in the area were dispatched in ones and twos. A few of them were attacked, others fled, and the mob had control.
The army should have been used only to seal Chicherin off, and wardens used to calm the district. Armed soldiers in the streets signify to everyone, passersby as well as madmen, that order has broken down and the state itself feels threatened.
But someone overreacted at some headquarters. Whether this was deliberate or not, I do not know. Later it was claimed the Tovieti were responsible for the events, which I doubt, but if there were any of the stranglers involved I would believe it to be that unknown official.
Also, the Golden Helms should not have been the unit called out, for several reasons. Its incompetence at soldiering can be ignored, since no one was aware of that until far too late. But cavalry should not be sent into crowded streets against massed civilians. Not only can panic erupt, and cause more deaths than the worst riot, but it’s entirely too easy to maim a horse or pull a rider out of his saddle. Foot soldiers sh
ould have been used instead, or else added as reinforcement to our horsemen, but that did not happen.
Instead, C Troop, under the command of Captain Abercorn, was sent in. They weren’t even given proper weapons, but rode in with lances held high and their sabers sheathed. The point column was led by Legate Nexo.
They rode into a square filled with shouting Nicians. About half the civilians were drunk on wine, the other on the rage they not incorrectly felt about the mismanagement of politicians. The mob slowly formed an idea: They wanted to meet with someone from the Nician Council, to meet immediately, and air their grievances. They were hungry, they were destitute, their children were in rags, and it was time the city helped them. All of their plaints were certainly true.
The square had only three entrances. One of them had been barricaded by the mob against the wardens, the second was very narrow, and Legate Nexo’s column blocked the last.
The highest-ranking survivor, a very junior lance-major, said Captain Abercorn had been working his way to the head of the column when Legate Nexo took it upon himself to proclaim that the gathering was illegal, forbidden by the Rule of Ten, and the people in the square were ordered to disperse immediately or face the wrath of the Golden Helms. Why Captain Abercorn wasn’t at the front of his troop, and why the legate, even though he was the next-highest-ranking officer, chose to usurp authority, is unknown. I believe that Nexo, an arrogant and foolish man from a very wealthy family, was appalled that working swine — peasants — would dare demand anything from their superiors, and should have fallen on their knees or at least stood respectfully out of the way when the famous Golden Helms appeared.
Suddenly the front ranks of the mob wanted to get out of the way of the solid line of cavalry, and a shouting struggle began. But there were other, braver men in the throng, and rocks and filth pelted the soldiery.
That was enough for Legate Nexo. He ordered lances lowered and the Helms to attack at the walk.
That was almost the last coherent observation the lancemajor was able to make. No sooner had Nexo cried out his orders than a rock, which the lance-major thought sling-launched, caught him below the rim of our famous helmet, crushing his face and probably killing him instantly.
The mob screamed triumph. Well-trained troops would have paid no mind to the loss of their officer, but would have automatically obeyed his last command. But the Helms were anything but well trained, and hesitated.
In that fatal moment the Helms were struck hard. Missiles rained, some sling-fired, some thrown hard and accurately. People appeared on the roofs and in the upper stories of the tenements, carrying cobblestones, bricks, anything heavy, and a rain of death came down, sending soldiers spinning from their mounts, their horses rearing crazily, lashing out in their own pain and rage.
Instead of the mob breaking, the Helms broke, turned their horses, and kicked them into a gallop, back the way they’d come, straight into the other three columns, and as the chaos spread the mob charged.
Sometime during this, Captain Abercorn was pulled from his horse and beaten nearly to death. Two years later, he was discharged from hospital a broken cripple, with no memory of anything that happened that day.
There were men in that rabble who knew what they were doing — or possibly had been trained by the Tovieti. Men with knives darted close to horses, cutting hamstrings, slicing into bellies, slashing at animals’ throats, and finishing their riders when they came off.
The lance-major who told the story had been knocked from his horse by a well-thrown bottle that shattered and took out an eye. He’d had sense enough to roll into an open doorway and play dead in his gore until the melee was over.
C Troop would almost certainly have been wiped out to the last man if someone hadn’t “seen” army reinforcements coming from behind, the single other open street in the square, and screamed a warning. Now it was the mob’s turn to panic, and in an instant it was no more than hundreds of fear-crazed commoners, each looking to save his own skin. The irony is there were no reinforcements — whoever’d called for the Helms hadn’t thought that more than a single column was needed, and our own commanders didn’t think of providing backup. By the time word of the disaster came to our cantonment, it was all over, and there was nothing for me, and the others, to do but rage impotently.
Of the 119 men who rode out of the Golden Helms’ barracks that morning, thirty-two returned. Forty-six were dead or dying, and forty-one others were wounded.
And this was just the beginning.
• • •
The regiment exploded in blind wrath, wanting to ride into Chicherin and kill everyone in sight. Then came fear, as the men thought an entire city had turned against its favorite gilded toy, the Golden Helms. That fear was almost paralytic. We had five men go absent, which was a rarity. Several legates began talking about transferring to other, more distant posts, or perhaps applying for long leave with their families.
Domina Lehar and too many of the other officers seemed helpless, not sure what should be done.
I requested an audience with the domina, even before the funerals of the men of C Troop, and as politely as I could, which was not very, reminded him that I’d seen real fighting on the Frontiers, as had Lance Karjan and a sprinkling of others. I told him I had personal knowledge that this was not an isolated incident, but he could expect more and most likely bloodier things to happen.
He looked haplessly about his office, found no suggestions in the statues, plaques, and awards various dignitaries had sent the Golden Helms for dazzling them on parade, and said perhaps I was right.
I should immediately begin drawing up a training program for the Helms. He’d approve it instantly, and we could begin schooling the men in the practical aspects of soldiery.
“Sir,” I said. “Can’t we just start teaching? Does everything have to be on paper before it’s done?” I might as well have suggested we all grow wings and become cavalry of the sky. I saluted, and was about to leave.
“Please hurry,” the domina said. “We’ll need your expertise soon, I know. And one other thing. That lance you named … Kirgle or Kurtile?”
“Karjan, sir.”
“Since he’s seen fighting, I want him promoted. Make him a lance-major. No. I want him listened to. Troop guide.”
That was Domina Lehar’s idea of desperate action.
I told Karjan about his sudden rise in fortune, and he refused to believe me. I showed him the written order from Domina Lehar, and his face clouded in anger.
“I turned down th’ rank slashes when y’ offered ‘em back in Sayana, sir, an’ there’s naught that’s happened t’change my mind.”
“You don’t have a choice this time, Karjan. The domina spoke, and by the lance of Isa you’ll sew the damned slashes on!”
“I’ll not!”
I was losing my temper; one of the few competent men I knew was refusing promotion, while all these morons about me were clamoring for greater and greater rank, even though the idea of actual responsibility horrified them.
“You shall!”
Karjan glowered at me and I back. He was the first to look away.
“Ver’ well. I’ll wear ‘em, sir. But I give you m’word I’ll go on a bender th’ first day we’re off an’ wreak enough havoc t’ lose ‘em for good an’ all.”
“The hells you will!” I bellowed, and a vase on the table beside me tumbled and shattered. Karjan looked stubborn.
“Let me put it like this. You will sew on the badges of rank, showing proper respect for the army you joined. You will do your duty as a senior warrant until I tell you otherwise. You will not go on any drunk and you will certainly not tear up any bars, is that clear?
“You won’t for one reason. Because if you do not obey my orders, obey them just as I’ve told you, I will take you out behind these barracks and only one of us will walk back. I promise you two other things: The one who stays on the ground shall not be me, and you shall certainly need a good time in the hospital
before you rejoin the troop. And the minute you’re healed we’ll go back out and I’ll hammer your sorry fool ass again!”
Karjan stared at me, and a look of grudging admiration spread.
“I b’heve you would do just that. An’ I b’lieve you might win.”
“Sir.”
“Sir.”
“Now go get your gods-damned sewing kit out and stop bothering me, Troop Guide. I have a stupid damned training schedule to write!”
But I got no work done on it that day.
The orderly messenger knocked on my office door an hour later. I bade him enter, and he told me, eyes wide in awe, that with Domina Lehar’s compliments, I was to report to the Palace of War in full uniform, two hours hence.
I thought of asking why, but of course the boy, just a fresh recruit, would not have known. I, too, was shocked. The Palace of War was the headquarters for the entire Numantian Army.
“Thank the domina, and I of course shall obey,” I said formally. The messenger started to leave.
“Wait Did the domina tell you who I was to report to?”
“Oh. Yessir. Sorry, sir. I was … too excited, sir.”
“Dammit, lad, the only thing that’ll keep you alive in war is repeating your orders just as they’re given. Now, tell me the rest of what the domina said.”
The boy gulped and told me I was to report directly to General of the Armies Urso Protogenes.
Then it was my turn to goggle. What could he want from a lowly captain?
I couldn’t even imagine, but I had less than two hours. I shouted for Troop Guide Karjan to get his ass back in here and help me.
I was at a complete loss.
• • •
Not quite two hours later, in dress uniform with an armband of black, which all men of the Golden Helms were wearing after Chicherin, I was ushered into the antechamber of General Protogenes’s office.
Waiting for me was Seer Tenedos, which provided a likely explanation as to why I had been summoned. I’d expected the room to be filled with waiting officers, but Tenedos and I were the only occupants, other than an aide who greeted us, asked if we wished anything to drink, then returned to his work.
