by David Weber
***
“Kill the heretics!”
“Death to all traitors!”
“Holy Langhorne and no quarter!”
“Down with tyranny!”
“Kill the bloodsuckers!”
“Kill the Charisian lackeys!”
“God wills it!”
Well, it would’ve been nice if Daryus had made it in time, Greyghor Stohnar thought as the mob began to pour into Constitution Square from the west behind the yammering thunder of its shouted slogans. There were at least five or six thousand of them, he judged with the eye of an ex-military officer who knew what five or six thousand men standing in one place really looked like. There were quite a few men in cassocks and priest’s caps, as well. He couldn’t make out colors very well from this distance, but he was willing to bet most of them were badged with the purple of the Order of Schueler.
He saw pikes and halberds waving here and there, but mostly swords, clubs, some pitchforks… weapons which could be easily concealed or improvised when the moment came. Maybe that was the reason he and Maidyn had underestimated the potential numbers available to Pahtkovair and Airnhart. They’d had their agents focused on looking for stores of heavier, more sophisticated weapons.
Should’ve remembered they can kill you just as dead with a cobblestone as a pike, Greyghor, he told himself. Of course, it is basically a mob, not an army. No telling how good their morale is. They may not have the stomach for it when they come up against formed troops. Then again, he thought as the screaming tide of humanity reoriented itself, coalesced, flowed together, and started across the square, maybe they will.
He glared at that accursed, ornamental gate in the Palace’s outer wall. What he wanted was a massive portcullis, preferably with murder holes and huge cauldrons of boiling oil and naptha waiting for the torch; what he had was nothing at all. It had always been the Republic’s boast that its citizens had access to the center of its government without let or hindrance, which meant there was no gate set into that gleaming, sculpted archway. The damned thing was so wide it took an entire company of pikemen just to cover it, too, and that was an entire company who’d had to be taken off the wall itself.
The mob obviously recognized just how undermanned that wall was, and it seemed to be under at least rudimentary control by its leaders. Its center hung back slightly, threatening the gate arch but keeping its distance while its flanks flowed forward. It was gradual, at first, but the flanking groups moved more and more rapidly, charging for the extreme ends of the wall in an obvious effort to spread the single defending regiment even thinner.
The bastards are coming over it, he told himself, resting one hand on the hilt of the Republic’s Sword of State, hanging from the baldric looped across his right shoulder. That sword had belonged to Lord Protector Ludovyc Urwyn, the Republic’s founder. He’d carried it through a dozen campaigns and at least twenty battles, and despite all the gold and cut gems that had been added to it over the last four centuries, it was still a fighting man’s weapon. If it had been good enough for the Republic’s first Lord Protector, it would be good enough for the Republic’s last Lord Protector when someone pried it from his dead hand.
Best be getting down there, Greyghor. You’ll get a chance to kill more of them at the wall than you will once they’re inside and -
His thoughts broke off as a sudden crashing roll of thunder exploded from the southern edge of the square.
***
Borys Sahdlyr whipped around in shocked disbelief as the unmistakable sound of a musket volley crunched down on the mob’s baying shouts like an iron boot. Gunsmoke spurted, rising all along the south side of Constitution Square, and for just an instant, the shattering, totally unexpected concussion of at least a couple of hundred muskets seemed to stun the mob into silence.
Then the screams began again, but they were different this time.
Sahdlyr looked around, unable to see over the men packed between him and that wall of smoke. Then he turned and bulled his way through the shocked, motionless bodies around him until he reached the towering bronze equestrian statue of Ludovyc Urwyn. The complex tracery of its elaborate fountains hadn’t been turned off for the winter yet, and he ignored their icy coldness as he hurdled the wall around the catch basin. He splashed through the knee-deep water, then clambered up onto the base of Urwyn’s statue, getting his head high enough to look across the square.
He was only halfway there when the second volley roared out, and he’d just reached the knees of Urwyn’s horse when a third volley exploded.
Impossible! he thought, listening to that thunder of gunfire. We know exactly how many muskets they had in the city arsenals, and they sent all of them to Fort Raimyr! They can’t have that many of the damned things!
But they did, and his blood ran cold as he finally got high enough to see.
At least a thousand men had poured into Constitution Square from the south while the mob’s attention was concentrated on the Lord Protector’s Palace. There wasn’t a single pike among them, either-every one of them was armed with a musket, and Sahdlyr’s belly twisted with sudden nausea as he realized they weren’t matchlocks. They were the new model flintlocks, and they had the new bayonets, as well, and that was just as impossible as all the rest of it. Mother Church had forbidden the Republic to purchase more than five thousand of the new weapons, and Father Saimyn’s agents knew where all five thousand of those weapons had gone. Over three thousand were at Fort Raimyr, but that wasn’t where these had come from. The men carrying them were no Army musketeers; they wore civilian clothing of every imaginable color and cut, but every single one of them also wore an identifying white sash from right shoulder to left hip.
Sahdlyr clung to his vantage point, and his eyes went cold and bleak as a fourth volley crashed out. There were only three ranks of the newcomers, which meant the first rank had fired and then reloaded in no more than twenty or twenty-five seconds, and that was vastly better than matchlocks could have done. Worse, the successive, deafening, smoky cracks of thunder had carpeted a sixth part of the square with dead, dying, and wounded men.
The newcomers were still outnumbered-badly-but they were a formed, cohesive unit, with all the organization his own mob lacked. Worse, they were far better armed, and their sudden, totally unanticipated appearance had stunned his own men. However willing the “spontaneous” mob might have been when it started out, no amount of willingness could armor it against that kind of surprise.
And once a mob like this breaks, Schueler himself couldn’t get it back together again, Sahdlyr thought numbly. If it breaks once, it’ll turn into a rabble forever, and then -
A fifth volley roared, and then came an even more dreadful sound-the unmistakable high, baying howl of the Imperial Charisian Marines.
No! Sahdlyr shook his head in wild denial. Those can’t be Marines! There’s no way they could have gotten here, even if the Charisians had figured out what was coming, and-!
But it didn’t matter whether or not Charisian Marines could be in the heart of Siddar City. What mattered was that the mob, already worse than simply decimated by those deadly, crashing volleys, recognized the Marines’ war cry when they heard it. And they knew what they and their fellows had already done to the Charisian Quarter… and how Charisian Marines would react to that.
Four hundred and seventeen of the “spontaneous rioters” were trampled to death by their fellows trying to get out of Constitution Square in time.
Little more than half of them made it.
***
Greyghor Stohnar passed through the Lord Protector’s Palace’s gate with a guard of thirty pikemen. They had to pick their way carefully over Constitution Square’s corpse-littered, blood-slick paving stones. No one had even begun to count the bodies yet, but there had to be at least a couple of thousand of them.
He approached the command group of the mysterious musketeers who’d appeared in the proverbial nick of time, and his eyebrows rose as a slender figure step
ped forward to meet him. Slim hands rose, pushing back the hood of a heavy coat, and he inhaled deeply. They’d never been introduced, but he recognized her without any trouble at all.
“Madam Pahrsahn, I see,” he said as calmly as he could.
“Lord Protector,” she replied with a masculine bow some people might have criticized as scandalously abbreviated and informal, given Stohnar’s exalted position. Considering the circumstances under which he was alive to receive it, however, Stohnar had no bone to pick with it.
“This is a surprise,” he observed, and she laughed as if they were at one of her soirees rather than knee-deep in bodies in the heart of the Republic’s capital.
“I’m sure Lord Henrai’s been keeping you apprised of most of my activities, My Lord,” she replied. “All of the ones he knew about, anyway.” She gave him a dimpled smile. “Obviously, he didn’t know about quite all of them.”
“We were aware you’d acquired a… modestly substantial number of rifled muskets, My Lady,” he responded. “Obviously we didn’t know everything we should have, of course. For example, none of us realized you’d somehow managed to train men to use them without anyone’s noticing.”
“Well, just buying guns and not learning how to use them properly would be pretty silly, don’t you think?” She smiled again. “I’m sure Master Qwentyn told you I’ve been heavily invested in agriculture for years now, as well. An interesting thing about a big, commercial farm, My Lord-it’s got a lot of empty space. Plenty of room for five or six retired Charisian Marines to train men one company or so at a time without drawing a great deal of attention. Especially if you’ve taken pains over the years to turn any ears that might overhear them into friends of yours by seeing to it that the local freeholders and their families are treated well.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Stohnar said. “And it would appear to be fortunate the Group of Four clearly underestimated you even more badly than we did.”
“They’ve had more experience underestimating me than you might expect, My Lord,” she agreed, and this time her smile was cold and ugly. “This isn’t the first time I’ve crossed swords, so to speak, with the Grand Inquisitor.”
“No?” He considered her for a moment, head cocked, then barked a laugh. “Somehow I find that easy to believe, My Lady! Might I assume that your opportune rescue of myself and my government indicates you intend to continue ‘crossing swords’ with him?”
“Oh, I think you could, My Lord.” She smiled that cold, ugly smile again. “I think you could.” .
Sarm River, Kingdom of Delferahk
“Easy,” Lieutenant Aplyn-Ahrmahk said quietly as the boat moved slowly towards the riverbank in the dim predawn gloom. The water gleamed faintly as the first blush of yellow and rose touched the eastern horizon, and a wyvern whistled querulously from somewhere ahead of them.
“Over the side and find the bottom, Braisyn!” he continued. “Can’t be too deep this close in.”
“Easy for you to say, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so, Sir,” Braisyn, a tall young topman who’d been part of Mahlyk’s boat crew for over two years, replied feelingly.
“Oh, nonsense! Pretend it’s beer-I know that’ll make you feel better about it!”
Several members of the boat crew chuckled, and Braisyn grinned at the lieutenant.
“Does that mean you’re buying when we get back to the ship, Sir?” he asked, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk laughed.
“For you? ” The lieutenant shook his head. “I’d rather buy water for fish at whiskey prices. It’d cost me less!”
Braisyn’s grin got even bigger, and then he slipped over the side of the boat, hanging on to the gunwale while his feet felt for the bottom.
“Don’t like my beer quite this cold, Sir,” he informed Aplyn-Ahrmahk. “And it’s a mite- Ow! ” He yelped, hauling himself higher in the water and shaking his head. “Found the bottom, Sir. Little rocky for my taste!”
“Then next time, keep your shoes on, you stupid bugger!” Stywyrt Mahlyk suggested helpfully.
“Don’t like squelching around in soggy shoes, Cox’in,” Braisyn replied cheerfully.
“Just take us in, Mahlyk,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said in a tone of exaggerated patience. “Lieutenant Gowain wants us hidden again before sunrise.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Mahlyk said. “Give way all. And you, Braisyn-keep your damned delicate tootsies out of the rocks so you don’t bruise ‘em!”
“Keep that in mind I will, Cox’in,” Braisyn assured him with another grin.
Aplyn-Ahrmahk shook his head, yet the banter between Mahlyk and the members of his boat’s crew was the best possible (and welcome) proof that the men’s morale was doing just fine.
They were just over a hundred and eighty miles up the Sarm River, two-thirds of the way across the sparsely populated Earldom of Charlz, and that was a long, twisty way from the salt water that was a Charisian sailor’s natural element. True, rivers were full of water, but they were also full of rocks, bugs, and shallows where boats had to be dragged across sandbars or portaged around rapids. Fortunately, they hadn’t encountered any waterfalls-yet, at least-but they’d done extraordinarily well to average three miles per hour during the fourteen or fifteen hours of darkness and twilight available to them each day. He was glad they weren’t doing this later in the spring, when the days would be longer, but there were downsides to rowing and sailing your way up an unknown river in the dark… especially for the boat Lieutenant Gowain had decided should scout ahead for the others. They seemed to spend a lot of time hopping in and out of it when it went aground, for example.
Still, everyone seemed cheerful enough so far, and unusually (in Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s experience) everything was actually going according to plan and more or less on schedule.
Which obviously means something’s bound to go wrong sometime soon , he reflected, glancing over his shoulder at the silhouettes of the other, larger boats behind them.
No one had noticed them when they first started upriver. The sun still hadn’t risen when they went rowing past the Sarmouth waterfront, and given the dozens of other boats from the squadron which had been headed towards the waterfront with fell intent, it probably wasn’t too surprising no one had paid them any attention.
As an added touch, Admiral Yairley had ordered the boats repainted in mismatched shades of dirty white, gray, and black, and then scuffed the new paint in ways no Navy boatswain would ever have tolerated. They’d passed several small towns and isolated farms as they headed upstream from Sarmouth, and every time they’d shouted their warning that the Charisian heretics were attacking up the river. Sarmouth was on fire! Sarmouth Keep had been reduced to rubble! Run! Run for your lives, the Charisians are coming!
Frankly, Aplyn-Ahrmahk had thought that particular touch would be too much when Sir Dunkyn came up with it. In fact, it had worked beautifully. It had allowed them to row straight through the daylight hours for the first day and a half and get over a hundred miles upriver without anyone wondering what six ship’s boats were doing that far north of the port.
After that, they’d restricted themselves to the night hours and progress had slowed, but even so His thoughts chopped off as something flashed blindingly in the shadows ahead of them. There was a solid, meaty thumping sound and Braisyn grunted explosively, then turned his head and looked up at Aplyn-Ahrmahk with an incredulous expression. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was a gush of blood and then he disappeared into the river as his hands released the gunwale.
“Out of the boat!” Aplyn-Ahrmahk heard his own voice bark even before the topman lost his grip. “Cutlasses and tomahawks! No muskets! Move, damn you! ”
He was talking to an empty boat by the time he got to “move,” and he heard another bullet “thunk” into the wood as he snatched up his own sword baldric, then rolled over the side into the icy water. They’d gotten closer to the shore, and the water was less than armpit deep, but he crouched, keeping just his head above the surface as he
hurriedly slung the baldric over his shoulder.
“Stywyrt, hang on to the painter-don’t you dare lose this boat!” he hissed at the coxswain. “The rest of you-with me!”
More gunshots exploded out of the darkness ahead of them, and he swore silently as he heard screams from farther out on the river. He had no idea who was behind those shots or what in God’s name anyone was doing out here on the riverbank in the middle of nowhere an hour before dawn. What mattered was that the boats on the open river were far more visible than the men hiding in the impenetrable shadows under the willows, alders, and conewood along the bank.
“Stay low!” he commanded, pitching his voice as low as possible. “Keep in the water as long as you can and follow me!”
Wading through ice-cold, neck-deep water would have been a slow, exhausting process even without the current. They couldn’t possibly move as quickly as he wanted to, and with gunshots continuing to crack from the darkness, it seemed to be taking even longer. Then someone in one of the boats managed to begin returning fire, which added the delightful possibility of being shot in the back by their own people. The good news-for Aplyn-Ahrmahk and his people, at least-was that there seemed to be at least three times as many bullets headed out from the bank at the other boats and away from them.
He felt the river bottom underfoot smoothing as it shallowed, more sand mixed among the rocks and gravel, and breathed a silent prayer of thanks as the footing improved. He’d picked his destination more by instinct than by anything resembling deliberate thought, but that instinct had served him well, he realized. He and his boat crew were coming up on the river side of a huge, fallen conewood trunk that screened them completely from anyone on shore.
