In the Shadow of Lightning

15

Idrian’s sword rang like a bell as it clashed with that of his opponent, each blow reverberating through his hand, up his arm, and spreading through his body with terrifying force. He caught a swing, shunting it to one side, keeping his shield tight against his left shoulder as a ferocious patter of bullets cracked against it like hail on glass.

He did not recognize the Grent breacher, but he’d heard of the feathered sigil on his shield. The Hawk was a young man, probably no more than twenty-five, with a goateed face and a wicked grin. All Idrian knew was that the Hawk was ambitious, and it showed in the way he pressed hard, with little consideration for the company of infantry backing him up. His entire focus was on Idrian.

It would, Idrian knew as he fell back several steps, be the Hawk’s undoing.

He caught the Hawk’s sword against his shield, looking for an opening that he did not find, and instead rebounded off his back leg. The push took the Hawk off guard, and Idrian forced both of their shields down enough that he could lean out over them with a head butt. The tightly curled horns on his helmet connected with the Hawk’s left cheek, and the Hawk stumbled back, spitting blood, blinded momentarily.

Idrian pulled his shield up to protect himself from another volley from the Hawk’s infantry. The Hawk was not so aware, and Tadeas’s soldiers took the opportunity to pepper him with musketfire. At least two bullets found chinks in the Hawk’s armor. The Hawk jerked twice, stumbled again, and Idrian had only to spin the grip on his sword and thrust once at the neck with the broad razorglass tip, neatly removing the Hawk’s head.

Cries of dismay went up among the Grent soldiers. Unlike their now-deceased breacher, they seemed well-trained, and they immediately fell into an organized retreat. Idrian could sense the Ironhorns moving behind him, bringing themselves up to capture this next street.

The fighting had gone like this for hours, a ferocious back-and-forth between Grent and Ossan infantry through the rows of magnificent townhouses of the evacuated Grent elite. Idrian’s armor was coated with blood and dust and the air choked with powder smoke. Directly ahead of him, less than a mile away, he could see the rising slope of Grent Hill, topped by the ducal palace, its white stone shining bright in the afternoon sun.

Idrian stared at the palace for a few moments, wrestling with his uncertainties. Would they even be able to capture it against the fierce Grent defenses? Would it really give them a shot at ending this war quickly if they did? More important, would that cinderite still be on display in the foyer for Idrian to steal?

The rest of the Ironhorns had reached him by now, securing the intersection. Mika and her engineers tore up the cobbles to create low barricades to protect against a counteroffensive. A medic paused in front of Idrian, glancing him over to make sure most of the blood on his armor belonged to someone else, then moved on to serve the soldiers wounded in the skirmish.

Idrian was lifting his shield, ready to move forward to the next street, when a whistle cut through the air – a long note followed by two short notes.

Cease the advance.

He ground his teeth, looking over his shoulder, then back again at the ducal palace. If they were to capture it today they couldn’t waste another minute. On the other hand, three clashes with the Hawk throughout the afternoon had left him exhausted. A few moments of rest would do him good.

“Are you all right, sir?” Braileer asked. He had barely left Idrian’s side all day. As before, his sword was still unblooded – the young armorer could not seem to bring himself to kill – but his hammerglass buckler was bashed to piss. Despite his obvious terror, the kid had enough of a spine to remain in the thick of things, defending Idrian’s flank with enthusiasm alone.

“I’m fine,” Idrian answered, taking an offered wineskin and having a swig. He removed his helmet and pressed the cool wineskin against his forehead, then handed it back. “You’re doing well,” he said, “but hold back another ten paces or so. The enemy will focus their fire on me, but if you make yourself an easy target they’ll take advantage of it.”

“Yes, sir!”

The two of them withdrew from the front line, looking for the reason for the order to cease advancing. They found Tadeas back a couple of hundred yards, hunkered down in a restaurant that had been gutted by Mika’s grenades less than an hour before. Most of the pieces of Grent infantry had been carted away, but Idrian spotted a powder-stained finger underneath Tadeas’s planning table as he entered.

“Why are we halting the advance?” Idrian demanded.

“Because we’ve pushed too far ahead of everyone else,” Tadeas responded. He stood over a table covered with notes, correspondence, and a hastily drawn map of the surrounding area. He appeared to be using beans – one pile of black, one pile of orange – to represent troop placements. He took a note from a messenger, dismissed the young woman, and then moved three orange beans from one end of the map to the other.

Valient, Mika’s husband, stood beside Tadeas and gave Idrian a grin. “You’re pushing damned hard today, big man. You got a fire beetle biting your ass?”

Idrian set his sword and shield against a wall and ran a hand through his sweat-slick hair. Without the extra forgeglass in his helmet to prop up his sore muscles, his legs felt wobbly and uncertain. He bit his thumb at Valient, eliciting a laugh. “Braileer, go find us some lunch.”

“It’s almost five o’clock, sir.”

“Have we eaten lunch?”

“No, sir.”

“Then find us some lunch.” Idrian waited until the armorer had gone before continuing. “I thought General Stavri wanted the palace captured by day’s end.”

“Not if it gets everyone killed,” Tadeas responded, frowning down at his bean map.

Idrian joined him. He’d spent enough years staring at Tadeas’s makeshift maps to understand it at a glance, and could see that the Ironhorns had, indeed, pushed several blocks past their allies. The operation included eight battalions – roughly four thousand infantry – and it seemed that the Grent really didn’t want to lose the ducal palace. He found a pile of orange beans just a few blocks to their west. “What’s going on here?”

“Grent roadblock,” Valient answered with a grimace. “I was just over there. The Green Jackets are getting the absolute shit kicked out of them trying to take that intersection. I sent a few squads over with Mika’s grenades, but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference. They’ve got a pretty powerful glassdancer with them. Anybody that shows their face gets eviscerated immediately. We’ve called for our own, but it could be hours before they arrive.”

“That’s what’s holding us up?” Idrian could see that the Ossan advance was contracting on that spot.

Tadeas sighed. “Sure is. Look here – the Grent are pulling back, trying to get the Ironhorns to overextend. Our spies say they’ve got reserves somewhere over here” – he gestured vaguely off the side of the map – “so if we do, we’ll get clobbered without backup.”

“But,” Valient pointed out, “if we transfer everything to reinforce the Green Jackets, those same reserves can move forward and hit us in the flank.”

Idrian walked back outside, looking down the street to where Mika and her engineers were securing the position under the watchful eye of Valient’s soldiers. For the moment, their little slice of the neighborhood was quiet. That could change at any time. Beyond their front line, the ducal palace sat up on that hill, taunting him. Should he tell Tadeas about his secret mission? He certainly couldn’t tell him the reason for the mission. “Yes, Tad,” Idrian muttered under his breath, “I’ve promised to help your nephew save civilization in order to protect my own sanity. I’m going to need you to endanger our battalion on that dubious premise.”

He thought he heard a child’s laughter, echoing as if from the other end of a deep cave. Decades ago, when the madness first manifested itself, he had initially just learned to live with it. He could, if he was paying attention, tell the difference between what was real and what was not. But it had grown apparent that it got worse over time, and doubly so during times of stress. It wasn’t until he had attacked a glassdancer that wasn’t there that he had reported his madness to a friend at the Ministry of the Legion.

The Ministry had been more than willing to add twenty years onto his debt marker in exchange for funding Master Kastora’s efforts to control the madness.

Idrian did not mind the debt. That was life, after all. But he could remember the terror he felt after realizing that he’d swung his sword at the empty air, when he thought he saw a rebel glassdancer standing right in front of him. That was a mistake he couldn’t make again. It could get him killed – or worse, his friends. Fear of doing so had gone away once Kastora perfected his eye. Now the fear was back, nestled in the pit of his stomach like a lead weight.

He turned back to Tadeas and Valient. “Is that map any good?” he asked.

“My maps are always good,” Tadeas replied, looking hurt.

Idrian rolled his eye. “These buildings here. Townhomes just like these ones outside?”

“Correct.”

“Just like them?” Idrian demanded.

Valient nodded. “Like I said, I was just over there.”

“Then I should be able to come along here,” Idrian said, pointing, “and drop down into here. If I can catch the glassdancer by surprise, we should be in a good position to take the intersection.”

A light seemed to go on in Tadeas’s eyes. “Like that time in Folia?”

“It was Stagro, but yes,” Idrian corrected.

“Ah, right. Stagro.” Tadeas stared at the map, lips pursed. “You remember that redhead in Stagro? Haven’t thought about her in years.” He seemed far away for a moment, then nodded. “All right, I like that. In and out quick before the Grent reserves even know we’ve moved. Valient, take a hundred infantry over to here. I’ll send word to the Green Jackets that we’re moving in.”

“Done.” Idrian slammed his helmet onto his head, fastening the leather strap and then snatching up his sword and shield. The forgeglass in the helmet reinvigorated him immediately. He found Braileer outside, looking dismayed at the meager army rations in his hands. The armorer seemed surprised to see Idrian wearing his helmet again. Idrian said, “Stay here. I’ve got a quick one-man mission. I’ll expect lunch and dinner when I’m finished.” With that, he took off at a run while Valient shouted for his sergeants behind him.

Like so much street fighting, the violence was so close as to be claustrophobic, with enemies within a stone’s throw in seemingly every direction. It was a deadly labyrinth, even here in the wealthy district of Grent where the streets were broad and the townhouses had front and back gardens.

Idrian hurried farther behind his own lines, cutting down side streets and following the picture he held in his head of Tadeas’s bean map. He passed through a contested neighborhood, shield held overhead to block shots from marksmen in the high windows, and reached a narrow alley that cut between the back gardens of a row of townhouses. Here he hunkered down for a moment, looking carefully, until he spotted what he needed next: a chimney sweep’s access ladder, little more than heavy nails bolted into the side of a massive townhouse chimney.

Taking one last look around for the enemy, Idrian sprinted across the garden and threw himself up the ladder.

Within moments he was four stories up, crouched in the shadow of a chimney with a view across the whole neighborhood. He could see the ducal palace, Grent soldiers scurrying back and forth across the lawn. Sandbag barricades provided cover for a garrison that knew the exact purpose of the Ossan mission in this borough.

But they didn’t know his mission. He tore his eyes away from that distant view and focused on the present, where all across his vantage point he could see hundreds of marksmen in both Ossan black and Grent orange waging their own miniature war across the rooftops. Individual shots rang out, spouting plumes of black smoke as figures ducked beneath rooflines and hurried from vantage to vantage, worrying just as much about each other as they did about the soldiers down in the street below.

None seemed to have noticed his presence, so Idrian kept low behind the chimney. His vantage allowed him to look down into two intersections. At one, he could see the Green Jackets forming up for another charge, the bright green stars on their jackets glittering in the sunlight. At the other, hidden back to the point where he could barely spot them, were a hundred Ironhorns.

Valient raised his hand in Idrian’s direction, waving in the affirmative. The charge was ready. Idrian returned the wave.

The blast of a ram’s horn suddenly cut through the air, reverberating off the townhouses, and the Ironhorns advanced at a steady march. Their bayonets were fixed, six lines of soldiers backed up by engineers with slings and grenades. A few beats later, the Green Jackets began their advance.

Idrian counted to ten, then burst from his cover and began to sprint along the rooftops parallel to the charge. He ran hard, feet slipping on the tiled roof as he went up the crown of one, down the other side, then leapt the six-foot gap between townhouses. His forgeglass spurred him on, sorcery humming through him.

One house. Two. Four. By the time he reached the fifth one he was firmly in Grent territory. He came over the crown of one roof and spotted a marksman taking aim at the Ironhorns below. The marksman whirled, trying to bring her rifle up to bear. Idrian was on her in half a second, his sword slicing through musket, arm, and chest in a single stroke that didn’t even slow him down.

He was past, leaping a gap, his sword streaming a ribbon of entrails behind him as he landed on the next roof. Two more marksmen saw what he did to their companion. One took aim, firing a shot that Idrian easily blocked with his shield. Idrian skewered him while the other leapt from the roof, clearly more interested in fighting gravity than a breacher. Up ahead, Idrian heard the tight Grent defenses fire off their first volley. He was almost to the end of the row of townhouses. One more gap to jump, and he landed on a flat-roofed maintenance building swarming with Grent marksmen.

Not one of them saw him coming, and it did not go well for them.

Mere moments had passed since Idrian had begun his run. He was now four stories directly above the Grent defensive position, and he could see why they’d been so hard to unseat: two whole companies lay in wait behind high barricades, firing in rotation, a glassdancer hiding just behind the second barricade with several thick shards of glass hovering just over his shoulder, ready to be hurled at the oncoming infantry.

Idrian waited for a few moments, watching down the street until the Ironhorns paused their advance. He could hear Valient screaming orders. The first line knelt and, along with the second line, released a volley at the Grent defenders. The shots had barely been fired when another blast from a ram’s horn sounded. Grenades were flung from slings, arching over the barricades, exploding with enough force to shake the building Idrian was hiding on.

The Ironhorns charged with bayonets fixed, and it was exactly the signal Idrian had been waiting for. He looked down, found the glassdancer again, and saw that the man was ready to hurl death at the Ironhorns. Idrian leapt, sword and shield spread to either side like wings. Four stories of empty air whistled past his ears, barely audible over the adrenaline fueling his blasting heartbeat. Time seemed to slow to nothing, and the glassdancer glanced up half a second before Idrian landed on his shoulders.

Idrian’s used the glassdancer’s body to absorb much of the shock of his landing, but even still he felt the impact through his entire frame. Without the forgeglass to strengthen him, he would have broken both legs.

He felt the glassdancer crumple, rolled across his shield, and came up quickly with a horizontal slice that vivisected an entire squad. He shattered an officer’s skull with his shield, sliced again, and then began to sprint at the next group of infantry. The Grent defense collapsed around him as soldiers turned to face the breacher in their midst mere moments before the Ironhorns flooded over their barricade. The Green Jackets appeared next, hungry for vengeance.

It was a glassdamned massacre. A few pockets of grenadiers – the duke’s own bodyguard – held out for as long as it took Idrian to locate and clear their position. The rest of the Grent infantry either were chewed up by Ossan bayonets, were blasted to bits by Mika’s grenades, or fled.

Less than ten minutes passed before Idrian stood panting among the bodies, his ears barely hearing the screams of the wounded and the occasional cry for mercy from a downed Grent infantryman. The Green Jackets now commanded the intersection, their entire battalion flooding in to shift the barricades and prepare for a counterattack.

If it came, that was their business. Idrian found Valient, who was already organizing his soldiers to double-time it back to their own position.

“Five dead, eighteen wounded,” Valient reported.

Idrian nodded. Not bad, all things considered.

“That was quite the leap. Tash says you landed on their glassdancer. Is that true?”

Idrian grinned. He couldn’t resist. He was, he had to admit, a little impressed with himself for aiming that jump so well. “Last thing the poor bastard saw was my boots.” He raised his head, looking once more to the south, where he could see the palace at the top of the hill. The Green Jackets had a good position now, which meant the entire push could continue.

Valient slapped him on the shoulder, then made a face as his hand came away slick with Grent blood.

“Let’s get back,” Idrian told him. “We’re not going to take the palace today, but we can push them out of the townhouses entirely.” He was close enough to taste it. He was going to lead the charge up that hill, and with any luck he’d be the first one through the front door of the ducal palace. He could secure the cinderite, and if they were lucky, capturing the palace might even lead to the end of this little war. “Oh, and do me a favor.”

“After that jump? Hah! Name it.”

“Find me a sheepskin. I need to wrap up something fragile.”