The Way of the Shield

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  The Justice continued. “And until it’s disbanded, there can’t be elections, thus no new convocation . . .”

  Barton got to his feet. “Millerson, we have to get to the Parliament right now.”

  For once, Millerson didn’t argue about Barton using his name in the council.

  Chapter 21

  “CLEAR! CLEAR!” Jerinne shouted as the carriage pressed through the crowd. People only scrambled away to avoid being crushed by the carriage, and even then they were smashed by the crowd around them.

  “What is going on?” Ressin shouted back to Jerinne.

  “You weren’t expecting this?” The look of disbelief on Ressin’s face told her everything she needed to know.

  Jerinne jumped off the runner and pushed her way in front of the carriage. “Stand aside!” she boomed out in her best imitation of Dayne. Between the voice, the shield, and the uniform, it was enough to get some reaction and clear the road for the carriage.

  “Let them through!” Marshals shouted and forced their own hole through the crowd, probably a bit rougher than they needed to. “Let the Parliamentarian through!”

  The carriage reached the bottom of the stairs, and Jerinne came back to the door to help Seabrook out.

  “This isn’t my entrance,” Seabrook said.

  “Sir, I think we should make do,” Ressin offered, and Seabrook seemed to accept this.

  They took to the stairs, marshals taking flanking positions with Jerinne and Ressin to block Seabrook from the crowd. There were shouts—angry, incoherent—but Jerinne couldn’t make out what the crowd was angry about or why they were mobbing the Parliament. They all made their way inside, and slammed the doors behind them.

  “What the blazes was that about?” Jerinne asked.

  “Language,” Ressin muttered, but Seabrook didn’t seem fazed.

  “I’m quite puzzled. You would think we were the wronging party in the recent events, instead of the victims.”

  “Good sir, you should get to the floor,” one of the marshals said, though he looked as spooked as anyone.

  “Are we going to be able to get out of here?” Jerinne asked. The marshal just shrugged.

  “Matter for later,” Seabrook said, marching around the outer ring of the Parliament hall to reach the Sauriya entrance.

  The Parliament floor was half deserted, though the gallery was not. That was packed to capacity, and not with yesterday’s pressmen and nobility. Today’s crowd was working class: steves and shanas, dockmen and washing women. Of course, every citizen had the right to be in the gallery. Jerinne didn’t think too many people exercised that right, certainly not to this degree.

  “Is this typical for the last day of convocation?” Jerinne asked Ressin as they took their places in the box.

  “There is nothing typical about this,” Ressin said in a haunted voice.

  Welton, one of only about two score of Parliamentarians on the floor, rapped three times. “Be it heard. Be it heard. Be it heard. Today is the thirteenth of Joram, in the year 1215. The Parliament of Druthal has been convoked. It is now ten bells in the morning.”

  “We stand without quorum!” another man shouted. “We cannot be convoked.”

  “Count the numbers, and call the ranks,” Welton said, unfazed by the shout.

  “Are you nutters?” someone yelled from the gallery.

  “You’ve barely got a tetch squad!”

  “I can count, and you’ve only got forty-two!”

  “Silence!” Welton tried to boom out with authority, but the aged man’s voice was not up to the challenge. “We must engage in procedure.”

  “Procedure?”

  “Wasting time!”

  “Wasting crowns!”

  “We must call the ranks,” Welton said again.

  Another Parliamentarian stood up. “This is a matter most grave.”

  “Goddamn it, Perry, I’m going to make your head most grave!” The Parliamentarian who said this dove for Perry, ready to pummel him with his walking stick.

  In seconds there were several members of Parliament in a scrum, and the gallery screamed and cheered.

  Jerinne was out of the box and down on the floor before Ressin had a chance to object. She leaped in front of Seabrook, shield high, as someone from the gallery threw down a bottle. Jerinne blocked it and pushed Seabrook up the steps toward the exit.

  “This is . . . I’ve never . . .” Seabrook sputtered.

  “Nor have I, sir,” Jerinne said.

  Ressin joined them back in the hallway. “Sir, I think it might be best, for all our sakes, if we made a hasty retreat.”

  “That is absurd!” Seabrook said. “We must have a quorum for the session, or else we cannot disband this convocation.”

  “You’re nearly two dozen short of a quorum, sir,” Ressin said. “Your commitment is laudable . . .”

  “My commitment is my goddamned duty, Ressin! My fellows may have abandoned it, but I will do nothing of the sort.”

  Then the screams outside matched the ones inside.

  * * *

  The uniforms had been perfect. Only five of them, so neither Lin nor Gillem wore them. Hemmit found himself dressed as a King’s Marshal next to Tharek, Yand, Braning, and Kemmer. They looked like a perfect squad of marshals, with Tharek as the First Marshal.

  That meant the Chief, whoever he was, had access either to astounding forgers or authentic material. Either one made a chill run up Hemmit’s spine.

  They had gone to Parliament Plaza, as they had been instructed, with Lin and Gillem in “custody.” The entire walk over Hemmit had done his best to be next to Lin without looking conspicuous about it. Since Yand was leading her, this proved completely impossible.

  “Take up the rear,” she whispered. At least it was right in his ear, even though he wasn’t close to her. He glanced over, and with the slightest nod of her head, she sent him to the back.

  “Just whisper,” he heard as he took his place. “I can draw the sound from your lips, and send sound to your ears.”

  “Really?” Hemmit whispered. “That’s amazing . . .”

  “And it’s hard, so no small talk.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “Besides being ‘arrested’ so you all are let into the Parliament? No. But we need help.”

  “And we can’t trust anyone else in there,” Hemmit offered.

  Yand glanced back at Hemmit from his place in the procession. “What are you on about?”

  “Just talking to myself,” Hemmit said.

  “Right,” Yand said. “And you’re right, we can’t trust anyone in that place. Gotta be on toes.”

  “Stay quiet,” Lin’s voice hit his ears. “Right, we can’t trust anyone. Marshals. Or Constabulary.”

  “Who, then?” Hemmit dared to whisper.

  “I can only think of one person. So when the moment comes, I’m going to take my chance. Just be ready.”

  They reached the plaza—teeming with an angry crowd—taking formation around their “prisoners.” It struck Hemmit that they might match marshals in uniform, but they still looked like a bunch of fools when it came to precision or discipline. Except for Tharek, who took the lead like a champion.

  However, no one reacted like they were frauds. Half the crowd cheered them, half howled and sneered. Hemmit couldn’t figure out where they came from or what they wanted. Maybe the crowd didn’t know what they wanted, either. It wasn’t like they had been given the truth. They were probably angry for the same reasons the Patriots were, but didn’t like the Patriots either. So they raged here, raw and unfocused. Afraid.

  They were the kindling Tharek was going to spark.

  Somehow, the Chief had made this crowd happen here at the Parliament, just a nudge away from violence.

  Tharek shoved himself a path through the cr
owd, just about reaching the bottom of the steps. Other marshals—legitimate marshals as far as Hemmit could tell—were holding a line at the Parliament steps, keeping the crowd from getting any closer. Two waved over at Tharek, and pushed their way closer.

  “What the blazes are you doing?” one asked.

  “Got two of those Patriots,” Tharek said. “Told to bring them in for questioning.”

  “Are you daft?” the marshal asked. “Bringing them up through here?” He leaned in close to Tharek and whispered something, pointing off to the church at the edge of the plaza, away from the crowd.

  Tharek nodded. “To the church, lads.”

  They had all started to work their way back through the crowds when Tharek raised his voice. “You going to give me a problem?”

  Tharek was shoving Gillem, pushing the old man into Lin.

  “And you, brat? You gonna get what’s coming?” He shoved her as well.

  Some poor fool in the crowd must have decided to be chivalrous, or at least had taken a fancy to Lin, because he tried to grab Tharek’s hand before he could strike Lin again.

  The smile on Tharek’s face was one of pure victory. With a swift swing of his arm, Lin’s would-be rescuer was flat on the ground. A few more people shouted and moved on Tharek.

  Lin must have decided this was her moment. Her body began to tremble, and Kemmer caught hold of her, thinking she was about to faint.

  She didn’t faint, and she was keenly focused, eyes to the sky. Her trembling body glowed, bright white.

  “What the blazes?” Kemmer asked. He let go of her, but she stayed on her feet, despite the fact that her body leaned back at a nearly impossible angle. She hovered, held up like a marionette.

  The light engulfed her body, too bright to see anything but white, and then blasted high into the sky. Lin dropped like a sack, but for that moment, only Hemmit noted her at all. Every other eye was on the sky, where the light burst into a vivid image.

  The Tarian shield emblem.

  “Mage!” The cry howled through the plaza, and people ran, some toward Lin and the rest of them, some away. Madness and screams took over. Hemmit scrambled through the rampage of flesh that surrounded him and picked Lin’s body up. He wasn’t alone, Braning was right there with him, trying to pull her up to her feet before she was trampled.

  The whole crowd was clawing and attacking—going for Hemmit and Lin, going for each other, and especially going for the marshals trying to hold the Parliament steps.

  Tharek was not held back. Like a wild dog finally let off a leash, he tore through the crowd with vicious blows, carving his way to the Parliament steps.

  Braning grabbed Hemmit by the collar.

  “We should—”

  That was all Hemmit heard before something cracked across his head.

  * * *

  The Tarian emblem blazed over the sky.

  “That’s Lin,” Dayne said. It had to be; it was exactly like the one she had made when they met at The Nimble Rabbit, except much bigger. He and Maresh had barely gone a block away from the chapterhouse when it suddenly appeared in the air.

  “Where is that?” Maresh asked.

  “Parliament,” Dayne said, but he was already running full bore in that direction. He could hear Maresh trying to keep up—by the time he made it to the plaza, the artist was far behind.

  The plaza was pure mayhem, people screaming and fighting. The entire Parliament building was surrounded as people attempted to storm the steps. Marshals did their best to hold their ground, but it wasn’t going to be very long until they would be forced to retreat. The Parliament doors were closing. Those doors could be barred and reinforced. The Parliament was built to withstand a siege if it had to.

  Today was the day to test that.

  “You . . . have to . . . get in there.” Maresh wheezed, fighting for each gasp. He must have just arrived.

  “There’s no way I can get through that,” Dayne said. He realized he’d left the chapterhouse with Maresh in a rush. He didn’t have a shield or even a sword. The marshals were retreating, dragging their wounded inside as the last doors were closing.

  One of the marshals, up on the highest steps, stood out like a lighthouse, even from this distance. He was no marshal.

  Tharek.

  He went inside—one of the last ones in— as the doors slammed shut.

  Tharek was now locked inside the Parliament, as it was under siege. A wolf in the sheep pen.

  “So are they trapped in there?” Maresh asked, still holding his chest.

  “No, the Parliament is built over the old—” Dayne was about to launch into a history lecture, but then the actual meaning of what he was about to say hit him full force. “Saint Fenson’s!”

  Dayne tore over to Saint Fenson’s Church, on the far side of the plaza, away from the riots.

  Saint Fenson’s was one of the largest churches in Maradaine, rivaled only by the High Royal Cathedral. The building predated the Reunification, the Church of Druthal, and of course the Parliament. What it didn’t predate was the Parliament building itself, as both buildings had long ago been part of the same compound. In the tenth century it was the Inquest Mission. Underneath the plaza were corridors and cells where political enemies of the powerful were tortured and left to rot.

  Those structures had long since been appropriated and put to better use, including housing the offices of the King’s Marshals. Even the cells were still in use.

  As were the connecting tunnels.

  Several priests were clustered in the vestibule when Dayne came in, all of them focused on the riot outside.

  “What is going on?” one of them demanded.

  “I don’t know how it started, reverend, but I need your help.”

  “We should go out there, minister to the wounded.”

  “Call the Constabulary, you mean.”

  “Yes, please,” Dayne said. “Yellowshields as well. But I need to get inside the Parliament House as quickly as possible.”

  “You’re going to have a hard time with that,” a young priest said, pointing to the riot.

  “There’s no way to get in there,” said another. They all gave each other guilty glances.

  Dayne scanned the group of them until he locked eyes with the eldest one there. He pulled his medallion out from under his tunic. “I am Dayne Heldrin of the Tarian Order, and I am a loyal servant of crown, throne, and the saints. I beg your aid.”

  “Come with me, son.”

  * * *

  People came rushing inside the outer ring hallway of the Parliament House—marshals from outside. As they rushed through, they slammed the doors shut behind them and threw crash bars down. No one was coming in.

  “What’s going on?” Jerinne asked, raising her shield a little higher.

  “A blazing riot!” one of them snapped. “Get back in the main hall!”

  “There’s a riot in there as well,” Jerinne said.

  “Sir,” Ressin offered, pulling Seabrook closer to the wall, “perhaps we should retire to safer chambers of some sort, just for a short time The lower levels, perhaps?”

  “Yes, perhaps so,” Seabrook agreed. “But only for a moment. The work of the Parliament must continue.”

  The marshals continued to barricade themselves in, and there were shouts among them to quell the upper balconies.

  “You!” Ressin snapped at the closest marshal. “We need to get to the lower levels.”

  “Right, right,” that marshal said. Jerinne imagined he wasn’t much older than she was, and looked scared out of his mind.

  “We’ve got injured!” another marshal yelled, carrying someone whose head had been cracked open. “We need to get him to the medics below!”

  The young marshal stammered for a moment, eyes darting in every direction. He couldn’t possibly be ready to ma
ke any decisions.

  “Just point the way,” Jerinne said. “We’re all together here.”

  “Right, right,” he muttered. “You, big guy, help carry the wounded. And lead the Parli down below.”

  A large marshal walked past them, heaving one of the unconscious ones over his shoulder. Two more went ahead, helping a third limp his way.

  “Let’s go, sir,” Ressin said. “When things calm down, we’ll return to the floor.”

  Seabrook nodded. “Lead on. Jerinne, with us.”

  Jerinne took position leading Seabrook, behind the group of marshals. They made their way around the curve of the outer ring until they reached a spiral stairway. Going up, of course, would lead to the galleries. They followed the procession down, through three full spirals of the stairs, to a candlelit hallway, cold white stone, leading off to distant shadows.

  “I have never liked coming this far down,” Seabrook said as they went down the hall. “It reminds me far too much of catacombs.”

  “How fitting,” the tall marshal said, as he unceremoniously dropped his charge to the floor. “Since this is where you’re going to die.”

  Jerinne recognized the voice, and cursed herself for not spotting the rest sooner.

  Tharek.

  He spun around, blades flying out of his hand. Three of them hit true, killing the other marshals instantly. A fourth would have gone right into Mister Seabrook’s neck, were it not for Jerinne’s shield.

  “How dare you!” Seabrook shouted. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Oh, I know, Mister Seabrook. But do you know who I am?”

  “I do,” Jerinne growled, drawing out her sword. “Run, sir.”

  “Poor Tarian pup,” Tharek said, taking his out as well. “You have no idea what you’re facing.”

  “I know you, failed Spathian,” Jerinne spat back. She took stance—High Position One— in the center of the hallway, body turned to the side, sword held over shield.

  “You think me failed?” Tharek barked, blasting a fury of sword strikes at Jerinne’s upper body. Even with both shield and sword, Jerinne had to race to block and parry each blow. “They failed me. He failed me!” His blade pointed accusingly at Seabrook.