The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns

by Wexler, Django

  He screamed, which made Winter’s opponent look aside for a split second. Winter half turned to get past the point of his bayonet and grabbed the barrel of the musket with her free hand, yanking it out of his distracted grip. He looked back just in time to see the downward saber slash that opened him from sternum to hip.

  Four men were down in the space of as many seconds. Winter let the musket fall and raised her eyes, expecting another charging musketeer. Instead she found herself staring into the barrel of a pistol.

  Oh. Logical, under the circumstances, especially if you were willing to let your comrades charge forward into the fray while you lined up your shot. Time seemed to telescope, on and on. She could see the two-day stubble on the man’s face, the glint of a captain’s bars on his chest where his coat hung open. She could see the open pan of his weapon, ready for the descending flint to strike a spark.

  There was always a chance. Pistols loaded in haste misfired, or failed to fire at all. A malformed ball might emerge at an odd angle, caroming harmlessly away. Springs broke, clamps failed, flints went spinning off instead of properly sparking. Even at close range, it was easy to miss a target, especially for an inexperienced marksman. But Winter had a sudden certainty that none of those other chances were going to break her way this time. The man’s finger tightened on the trigger—

  Then his eyes crossed, as though puzzled, and he toppled forward. The pistol went off, ball zinging off the steps, but the Concordat captain kept going, beginning a boneless tumble down the stairs that ended with him sprawled facedown at Winter’s feet. A heavy knife—almost a cleaver—was embedded at an angle in the back of his skull as though it were a butcher’s block.

  Rose, farther up the stairs, was straightening up from her throw. She caught Winter’s eye and smiled.

  —

  Behind Rose came Raes and an older man Winter didn’t recognize. She assumed this was Danton, although nothing about him suggested the charismatic leader. His shirt was stained with sweat, and his hair was wild and unkempt from days in captivity. His expression was one of beatific satisfaction, however, and one of his hands gripped one of Raes’. Winter wondered if there was something between the two of them. It would explain her insistence on coming along.

  “Is that all of them?” Rose said, stepping carefully among the bodies on the landing. She knelt beside the man Winter had laid out with the pommel of her sword, produced a knife from somewhere, and stuck it almost gently into the side of his head, just forward of his ear. He shuddered and died without a sound.

  “A . . . all.” Winter shook her head, trying to banish the vision of the pistol trained on her head and the certainty that she was about to die. Her heart hammered wildly, and something unpleasant roiled in her stomach. Now is not the time, damn it. “Yes. That’s all the ones who came downstairs. But I was expecting more of them.”

  “It turns out there were a few Armsmen locked up next to the captain,” Rose said. “They’ve got the next group pinned down at the ground floor landing for the moment.”

  “Not for long,” said another voice, accompanied by the rapid clatter of boots. Captain d’Ivoire came into view, looking odd in the unfamiliar green Armsman uniform, a musket in one hand. “We don’t have enough men to really stop them, but after the first volley they’ve gotten cautious. We’re going to have to fall back if they make a serious push.”

  Somehow Winter had not thought this far ahead. She stood on the landing, bloody saber in hand, and felt the captain’s eyes tracking toward her with the same feeling of awful premonition that she’d felt watching the pistol come to bear. If he recognized her—more to the point, if he recognizes me as a woman—

  Then what? The fear of discovery, ground in over long years, made Winter’s blood sing. But who would it actually harm? I could stay with Jane and the others. Tell Janus to find someone else to fight his damned battles.

  It would never work, of course. If nothing else, she could never rid herself of the Infernivore; as Janus had pointed out to her, what felt like a lifetime ago, that meant she was involved whether she liked it or not. Besides, another part of her mind insisted, flooding her with guilt, there’s Bobby to think of. And Feor, and Graff and Folsom, and everyone else in the Seventh.

  All this flashed past her mind’s eye in the instant between when the captain started down the stairs and when he met her gaze. Their eyes met, just for a moment, and she thought she saw something change in Marcus’ expression. It was gone an instant later, though, and he was moving on, pushing past Raes and Danton toward the door to the cells.

  Energy flowed out of Winter like water out of a barrel with the bottom knocked off. She wiped her saber roughly on a fold of Concordat uniform and returned it to its sheath, legs wobbling like a drunk’s. She found Cyte still standing by the man she’d killed. She’d managed to keep her rapier in hand, this time, but she was staring at the bloodied weapon as though she wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  “Are you all right?” Winter said. This time, it took only a moment for Cyte’s eyes to clear. It gets easier every time, doesn’t it?

  “I . . . I think so.” She looked down at herself, astonished to be intact. “Did we win?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What happens now?”

  Winter struggled to remember the plan Raes had outlined. It had been a bit vague on that point, but . . .

  “I think,” she said, “that’s up to Danton.”

  —

  The anteroom on the prison level was crowded to capacity and beyond. The guards’ table had been dragged against the outer door as a stage and impromptu barricade, with Winter, Raesinia, Danton, and the others standing in the doorway and Giforte and the rest of the Armsmen making a thin line on the other side. Beyond them were the prisoners. Captain d’Ivoire had ordered the cells thrown open, and the liberated abductees filled the room and backed up out into the corridors. The angriest among them, mostly from the male contingent but including a number of women as well, had pushed to the front of the crowd and were engaged in a shouting match with the captain, who stood on the table trying to argue with them.

  “Look,” he said, his voice already going hoarse with the effort of trying to make himself heard over the babble. “I know you don’t have any reason to trust me. But my men are going to be with you. Some of them are fighting upstairs right now to give us this time to argue! I am going to be with you. And if we don’t disarm those Concordat soldiers, hundreds of your fellow citizens are going to be gunned down!”

  “We should start by stringing you up!” someone shouted.

  “Bloody Armsmen!”

  “If we fight Orlanko’s men, they’ll just kill us instead!”

  “I heard it’s a bunch of dockmen at the gates,” said someone with a Northside accent. “Are we supposed to sacrifice ourselves for a gang of lazy stevedores?”

  Winter badly wanted to punch this person. From the sound of it the sentiment was shared by many in the crowd, and the ensuing scuffle threatened to engulf the entire room in chaos. Marcus shouted for order. The air was thick and close with the scent of too many unwashed bodies.

  At Winter’s side, Raesinia was speaking quietly to Danton. The orator sat cross-legged with the same stupid smile on his face, nodding absently as the girl read to him from what looked like prepared notes. He reminded Winter of nothing so much as a little boy not paying attention to a lecture from a parent.

  She stepped away from the table, into the cooler air of the corridor, where Cyte stood with her back to the stone. Her eyes were closed, and her face was flushed under the smears of black makeup.

  “What’s going on?” she said.

  “The captain is trying to argue them into taking the Concordat positions from behind. I don’t think it’s going as well as they’d hoped.”

  “What about Danton?”

  “Raes is still coaching him.” Winter s
hook her head. “He’s not what I expected.”

  There was a long pause. Marcus’ pleading was drowned out by an angry roar from the crowd.

  “This wasn’t . . . what I expected,” Cyte said.

  “No?”

  “More blood, for one thing.” She gave a little shudder. “I always pictured . . .”

  “I know,” Winter said. “Like in an opera. You swing the sword, someone falls over. Maybe a little stage blood on your hands.” She looked down. They’d moved the Concordat corpses out of the way, but the flagstones were still stained red and brown. “No matter how much you imagine, it’s never enough.”

  “I thought it would be harder, to kill somebody.”

  “I know.”

  “You tried to talk me out of coming.” Cyte opened her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “It didn’t work.”

  Cyte gave a weary shrug. “The effort has to be worth something.”

  “All right!” said Raesinia, behind them. “You’ve got all that?”

  “I’ve got it, Princess,” Danton said. “Afterward—”

  “Afterward you can have whatever you like, Danton,” Raesinia said, with a glance at Winter and Cyte. “But those people are waiting to hear your story.”

  “Okay.”

  Danton got to his feet. Raesinia smoothed the front of his ruined shirt and tugged on his cuffs for a moment, then gave up.

  And then Danton—changed.

  It was astonishing to watch. He straightened up, altered his stance, ran a hand casually through his hair. A moment earlier he had given every appearance of amiable dullness—on the verge of idiocy, Winter would have said. Now his eyes were full of fire, and he moved with an obvious sense of purpose. Captain d’Ivoire stepped aside and the orator mounted the table and raised his hands for silence. To Winter’s amazement, he got it, or as close to silence as a crowd of that size could manage. The shouts and arguments snuffed out like candles in the wind as he cast his gaze about the room.

  “You might want to move down the stairs a bit,” Raesinia said to Winter. “There are going to be a lot of people coming this way in a minute.”

  Winter and Cyte stepped away from the doorway, and Raesinia came to stand with them. Rose, so still and quiet Winter had forgotten she was there, came with her.

  “You really think he can convince them?” Winter said in a low voice.

  “Call it a hunch,” Raesinia said.

  “Brothers!” Danton began. “And here, in this pit, we are truly brothers. I say to you . . .”

  —

  The crowd of roaring, cheering men surged up the stairway like water bursting from a broken dam. They passed the tiny group of Armsmen fighting a rearguard action and hit the Concordat troops opposing them with the force of a tidal wave. The soldiers who had loaded muskets fired them, and here and there in the mass a man went down, but these were pinpricks on the flanks of the great beast that was the mob. The black-coats were bowled over, disarmed, grabbed by many hands, and borne in triumph down to the cells, while the rest of the crowd pushed on toward the front gates.

  With the death of Captain Ross and the roar of the mob outside, the Concordat soldiers manning the barricade were in a fragile state of mind. The firefight at the stairs had put them on edge, and the swelling chorus of shouts coming up the corridors only heightened their anxiety. Some of them turned around to see what was coming, and a few had the presence of mind to fire. No one thought to try to wheel the great mortar around, with its massive load of canister, until it was far too late. The enraged crowd was on them.

  Squads of women sat on the soldiers to keep them down until they could be safely detained, and the older children scurried about picking up the fallen muskets. A gang of men set to work heaving the huge iron bar away from the door. It opened to reveal the astonished besiegers clustered around their ram, huddled together with weapons raised in expectation of a trick or sortie.

  A few minutes later, the crowd inside had dissolved into the crowd outside. Cheers spread from the gate like ripples on the surface of a pond radiating out from a dropped stone, until the entire island seemed to ring with hoarse shouts of joy and triumph, peppered by the pop, pop of muskets fired jubilantly into the air.

  The Vendre had fallen.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  RAESINIA

  “Raes!”

  “Cor—”

  Raesinia didn’t have time to get the word out before the girl hit her at speed, knocking the wind out of her and hugging her so tightly she had trouble sucking in another breath. Raesinia let this go on for a while, but eventually she tapped Cora on the shoulder, indicating that a slight decrease in pressure would be appreciated. Raesinia didn’t really need to breathe, but it was difficult to talk without air in her lungs.

  “Cora,” she got out, once she was able. “Are you all right?”

  “More or less,” Cora said, still pressed close against Raesinia’s shoulder. “They were a little rough when they tied us up.”

  “They didn’t . . .” Raesinia hesitated, and Cora gave her a squeeze.

  “I’m fine. The black-coats were threatening some of the women, but the captain replaced them with Armsmen before anything came of it.”

  “Thank God.” Raesinia had been having waking nightmares of finally taking the prison, only to find a pile of mangled corpses, in spite of what Abby had told her. “Have you seen Sarton? We heard he was taken as well.”

  “I saw him just now,” Cora said, and made a face. “He was walking around on the old prison levels. They have machines there for . . . well, for a lot of unpleasant things. You know Sarton and machines, though, whatever they’re for.”

  “I know.” The ghost of a smile crossed Raesinia’s lips, then vanished. “Cora . . .”

  “What about the others?” Cora looked up. Her hair was a rat’s-nest tangle, and her eyes were red from crying, but there were no tears there now. “Were they arrested?”

  “Maurisk is downstairs, arguing with someone, I suspect. Faro as well.” Raesinia closed her eyes. “Ben . . . Ben’s dead.”

  She felt Cora’s hands tighten on the back of her shirt. “He . . . you’re sure?”

  “I was with him. He saved my life.” That was a lie, of course, but she thought it a kind one under the circumstances. “Orlanko’s men tried to kill us both.”

  “Ben . . .” Cora swallowed hard. “God. I never thought things would get this bad.”

  Guilt made a lump in Raesinia’s throat. “Neither did I.”

  There was a long silence. Eventually Cora loosened her grip and stepped away. They were in one of the Vendre’s tower rooms, long disused and empty except for dust and an ancient table and chairs. Raesinia went to one of the latter and sat down, gingerly, half expecting it to collapse. It let out a groan, but held for the moment.

  “What the hell happened?” Cora said. “The guards wouldn’t tell us much. Just that there was a mob attacking the prison.”

  “They arrested Danton,” Raesinia said. “The Armsmen did, I think, but afterward the Concordat must have thought it was time to make a clean sweep. They picked people up all over the city.”

  “I know,” Cora said. “I was at the church in Oldtown. We sent everyone out the back when we saw them coming. I was going to try talking to them, but they just kicked in the door and grabbed me before I could say a word.”

  Raesinia nodded. “They’re onto us, obviously. It was bound to happen eventually. I just didn’t think the Last Duke would try something like this. He’s supposed to be smarter than that.”

  “But where did this riot come from?”

  “All over. A woman named Mad Jane brought a huge gang of Docksiders over because they’d taken some friends of hers. I went to the Dregs and helped Maurisk round up the students and hangers-on. And once it got started people showed up on their own. I think ha
lf the city must be down there now.”

  Cora shook her head. She glanced at the gun slit in the wall, where a faint gray light was just starting to make itself felt against the glow of the candles.

  “It’s nearly morning,” she said. “What happens now?”

  “I don’t know.” Raesinia shook her head. What she wanted more than anything else was time. Time to let emotions cool, time to gather the scattered members of her cabal and make a proper plan, time to get her own head in order. Time to mourn Ben the way he deserved. But she was equally aware that she was not going to get it. Half the city might be gathered in the streets, but they wouldn’t stay there for long. Something was happening, and it was happening now, whether she wanted it to or not.

  If we don’t get control of it, someone else will. Right now the fall of the prison had produced a triumphant atmosphere, but the anger was still there. And God only knows what’s happening at Ohnlei. If Father is dead, then Orlanko will be trying to take control. There were too many variables, too many possibilities. Maybe I can leave Cora and Maurisk in charge here, and—

  There was a knock at the door. Cora started and spun.

  “It’s me,” said Sothe.

  “Come in,” Raesinia said.

  Cora looked surprised but said nothing as Sothe slipped in and shut the door behind her. Raesinia gestured wearily from one to the other.

  “Sothe, you know Cora. Cora, this is Sothe. She’s an . . . agent of mine. She’s been working with us since the beginning. I trust her with my life.” Or the nearest equivalent. “We couldn’t have taken the prison without her.”

  Cora frowned, then bowed in Sothe’s direction. “Then I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “No need to thank me,” Sothe said, with a glance at Raesinia that told her they’d have words later. “It’s part of my job, after all.”

  “What is your job?” Cora said, curious.

  “Chambermaid,” Raesinia said. Sothe suppressed a smile. Cora looked between them and shook her head.

  “They’re planning a grand council downstairs,” Sothe said. “To arrange for something along the lines set out in your declaration.”