In the Shadow of Lightning

56

“I have good news and bad news.”

Demir jerked awake, flailing about himself for a weapon before remembering where he was. He lay on the floor of his tent, his uniform jacket pulled over him for warmth, surrounded by missives and spy reports. The last thing he remembered was giving out a handful of orders to tired messengers in the middle of the night. He rolled over, searching for his pocket watch before giving up and finally turning his attention to Uncle Tadeas sitting on the crate next to his head.

“I like good news,” he mumbled.

“The good news is your ruse with the National Guard worked. They moved into Grent yesterday afternoon, and we just got word that the Grent encirclement of Harbortown is broken. They’re moving south as quickly as they can.”

Demir sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Have you roused the camp? I want the cavalry ready within the hour. If we’re going to hit them on the move, we can’t waste a single moment.”

“You might want to hear the bad news first.”

“Shit.” Demir stared bleary-eyed at his uncle. “What is it?”

“Kerite’s Drakes didn’t go with them. They’re coming right toward us.”

It took a few moments for that to sink into Demir’s addled thoughts, and when it did he scrambled for his clothes. He was running out the tent flap a moment later, shouting at the line of messengers that tried to keep up. “You, tell the Third and the Eighth that we’re switching to plan C. You, get me Halfwing. I need her artillery up and ready to fire. You, tell Coordinator-Lieutenant Prosotsi that I want all support staff to pull back two miles. Tad, how long do we have?”

Tadeas pushed a messenger out of his way to keep stride with Demir. “If she comes straight at us the way she did in the Copper Hills, three hours. But there’s no telling what she’s going to do. What’s plan C?”

“You didn’t read my orders?”

“You gave me sixty pages of orders to read at four in the morning. I didn’t get past plan B.”

“I hope the rest of our officers are more dedicated to winning this glassdamned battle. Plan C is we fall into a battle formation and present ourselves exactly like General Stavri did in the Copper Hills.”

“I really hope that’s a trap, and you’re not just planning to do the same damned thing over again.”

“Of course it’s a trap.” He stopped, swinging to grab Tadeas by the front of his uniform. For the first time in years his mind felt clear. Plans within plans within plans spread out across his mind’s eye, and he wasn’t even using witglass to access them. “Remember what I said the other day? About playing the Grent?”

“Yeah, you said you can play the Grent, but you can’t play Kerite. We may outnumber her right now, but she’s coming at us like a warhorse. She’s got better troops, better godglass, and a record of never losing a battle.”

“It’s her legend. She’s good, no doubt, maybe even the best, but it’s her legend that keeps her going. It gets inside your head.” He made a motion with one finger, like a drill going into his skull. “She’s been studying me. She knows my record. She knows that I’m a broken genius, and she’s going to expect damned grand things. What’s the one thing she doesn’t know?”

“That you’ve gone completely mad?” Tadeas asked lightly.

“She doesn’t know what I’ve been doing for the last nine years. I can do this. I was the best grifter in the provinces, and what’s a general but a glassdamned gambler trying to fix the fight?”

“Gambling with people’s lives,” Tadeas reminded him.

“Yeah, I know.” Demir began to walk again. “She’s going to come over that hill over there” – he pointed to the western horizon a couple of miles away – “and she’s going to see us in exactly the same formation as she fought at the Copper Hills.”

Understanding dawned on Tadeas’s face. “And she’ll think you’re still broken. That you caved to the pressure of having to save Ossa, and the most creative thing you can think of is using our superior numbers against her rather than actual strategy. She’ll think you’re no better than General Stavri.”

Demir nodded. “I don’t want to spend the next four days dancing with her. I want her to come right for my throat so that I can punch her in the face with knuckle-dusters. I’ve already informed our officer corps that you’re my second-in-command, Tadeas.”

“I’m just a major.”

“You’re a blasted Grappo, Uncle, that has refused promotions on seven different occasions because you enjoy crawling through ditches with the Ironhorns more than taking command of large battles. Now find Halfwing. I need our artillery prepped and ready. I have three hours to make sure plan C is actually going to work on this terrain.”

In Demir’s mind’s eye, the formation of the Foreign Legion looked like an overelaborate rat trap. Seventeen battalions of infantry – almost nine thousand troops – lay spread out in loose rows across the farmland. There were few hills to use as cover, but his lone artillery battery squatted behind a stand of trees to his left, while two thousand dragoons and cuirassiers held back behind the low rise far to the right. It felt obvious, but most good traps did to whoever set them up. What mattered was what the enemy saw.

The entire army waited with bated breath. Nobody talked. The only movement came from a steady stream of messengers and short-range scouts, riding to and from the old barrow upon which Demir had planted the purple flag waving the Grappo silic sigil. Just below him, Tadeas kept up a constant dialog with those scouts and messengers. Demir watched the distant storm clouds over the Forge. He wondered if Thessa’s test would work, and hoped the storm passed north of the battle.

Out across the countryside, difficult to see because of the wooded windbreaks between farms, Demir caught his first sight of the Drakes. First, a flag with three blue dragons on a field of green. Within minutes he could see columns of infantry marching in lockstep, sweeping down from the distant hill like a wave rolling lazily toward him. He snapped his fingers at the closest messenger.

“Signal to our cavalry to move to position number two.”

Flag signals were exchanged, and he could hear – but not see – the rumble of cavalry as they shifted from their first hiding spot to their second.

The Drakes continued to approach, and Demir raised his looking glass to watch. They were an impressive lot. Their step was perfect, their uniforms were immaculate, their shouldered muskets with bayonets already fixed. Their very presence oozed confidence. A single line of cavalry moved along their left flank. Demir counted in his head, tallying estimates at a glance.

“Signal our wings,” he ordered, “tell them we’re missing about eight hundred dragoons.”

Tadeas finished with one of the scouts and climbed the barrow to stand beside Demir, gazing at the approaching army. “You really think she’s going to come straight at us?”

Demir bit back a thousand little doubts. “If I say of course will I look like more of a genius if I succeed?”

“And more of a fool if you fail,” his uncle responded.

“Yeah, but we’ll all be dead. So it won’t matter.”

“Fair enough.”

“Looks like she has two more battalions than our scouts reported,” Demir said.

“A thousand infantry is a lot of firepower. Should we shift back our grenadiers?”

Demir glanced to his left and right. He’d placed a battalion of grenadiers – heavy infantry, with cuirassier-like breastplates and sword-bayonets on reinforced muskets – on his two flanks. “No. In fact let’s signal for them to spread out just a little more. I want to look loose. Too loose.”

His own troops adjusted per the signal, and across the field a trumpet was blown, and Kerite’s mercenaries slowly ground to a halt. The two armies stared at each other from a distance of about a mile. Anxious whispering moved up and down the troops. Every experienced officer looking out across the divide could see that the Drakes remained in heavy columns. They looked sturdy and impenetrable compared to the more shallow rows of the Ossan Foreign Legion.

“Right about now,” Demir said to Tadeas, “Kerite will figure out that I’m not using the traditional Ossan signal book. She’s wondering what that’s all about, and whether she should be concerned.” He flinched. “I’m not happy about those missing cavalry. They could be glassdamned anywhere.” All those doubts that he’d resisted mentioning to Tadeas swirled around in his head like so many annoying flies. He spat at them internally, bidding them to piss off.

“This whole damn thing is just a game,” he said. “Kerite and I sitting here like a couple of old men on either side of a board of squares. We might as well drink wine in front of a fire. Hah! Maybe that’s how wars should be fought in the future. Then all these poor bastards don’t have to die. Hey Kerite,” he said, mimicking a politician’s ingratiating drawl, “take the patriarch from my board and you can have Ossa. If I take yours, I can have Grent. That sounds so much more civilized.”

He was babbling and he knew it. Demir snapped his mouth shut and searched for a calming memory. The first that came to mind was a game, just like he’d been imagining, but it wasn’t against some mercenary general – it was against his mother. He felt a smile tug on the corner of his mouth. “Do you remember how much Mother used to love Kings and Pawns?” he asked Tadeas.

His uncle scoffed. “Don’t remind me.”

“You never could beat her, could you?”

“I won a few games when we were young,” Tadeas said, “but she just kept getting better and better and I didn’t. Did you ever beat her?”

“Twice,” Demir replied thoughtfully. “The first was when I was seventeen. The second was…” He trailed off. The second was just a few months ago, the last time they saw each other. She had demanded a game, and they’d made a bet – if she won, he’d return to Ossa with her and restart his career. If he won, she would never ask him to do so again. “I wish,” he said quietly, “that I only won that once.”

“She ever tell you about her other games?” Tadeas asked.

Demir shook his head. “She didn’t like to boast.”

“She often played against other Assembly members. I think she won four out of every five games against Father Vorcien, and nine out of ten against Aelia Dorlani.”

“Glassdamn. I knew she was good, but … damn.” Demir wondered where his old set was – the crystal pieces and silver board she gave him when he’d won election as governor. “Could anyone beat her?”

“Just one person.”

“Who?”

“Your dad,” Tadeas chuckled. “About half the time. Before you were born, I used to watch their games. I’ve never seen two players so evenly matched. They would play for hours and hours, and by the end all three of us would be so drunk that the hotel staff had to carry us to bed.”

Demir tilted his head, listening to the nervous whispers of the soldiers lined up in front of him. “You know, nobody ever talks about my dad.”

“It was…” Tadeas hesitated. “… painful for your mom to talk about him, or to listen to others talk.”

“I’d like to hear more stories about them both,” Demir said.

“I’ve got a few good ones.”

“Then I have something to look forward to after this battle.” The nervous whispers got louder, and all up and down Demir’s lines soldiers shifted with a palpably anxious energy. No wonder. The last time they’d faced the Drakes they’d been overwhelmed in minutes. “Hold this,” Demir said, handing his looking glass to Tadeas. He strode down from the barrow and through the rows of soldiers, slapping them on the back and shaking hands as he did.

“Chin up,” he told one. “Legs squared,” he said to another. “You look good. Damned good. Is that brooch at your neck for luck? I wish I had one myself.” He reached the front of the formation, where he walked another ten yards out and turned back.

Thousands of eyes stared at him expectantly. He felt something inside of him wilt, his bowels shifting. He forced back his demons and threw his arms wide.

“Citizens! Friends! Companions-in-arms!” he shouted. “We are all that stands between our glittering city on the Tien and a pack of mercenary mongrels who wish to grind it to dust for a handful of banknotes and some glory to hang from their belts!” Only the breeze responded. Demir plowed on. “They say they are the best. You’ve read it in the newspapers, how the Drakes crushed you in the Copper Hills. How they’ll do it again. And their commander? Far better than the broken, barely tested Demir Grappo.

“It’s bullshit,” Demir spat. “You are the Foreign Legion. You are the best of us. You are the Ironhorns, the Desert Rats, the Winged Jackals, the Mighty Lions! These mercenaries,” Demir said, flinging his arm toward the enemy army behind him, “have fought on every continent. So have you! They’ve made themselves some money, but you have built an empire! You are the best soldiers from every corner of the world. You will not be laid low.”

Demir felt tears streaming down his cheeks as flashes of a burning city rolled across his mind’s eye. He wasn’t sure whether it was the specter of Holikan or fears of what would happen to Ossa. Perhaps both. “We have all failed at times, but failure has not kept us down. We rebound stronger than before. My friends, prove yourselves to me and I swear to you that I will prove myself to you.”

The silence was so heavy that Demir thought it might crush him. He let his arms fall and began to walk back to the barrow. As he entered the columns, he slowly became aware of a rattling sound. It was a low whisper, like rocks rolling down a distant ravine. Not a word was spoken, not a voice raised, yet all around him infantrymen shook their ammunition bags.

“What are they doing?” Demir asked Tadeas as he regained his commanding position.

Tadeas wore a lopsided smile. “You told them not to cheer or raise any sound of victory.”

“Then what are they doing?”

“They’re answering your call – this is a deal struck, Demir. We will all prove ourselves together.”

Demir didn’t bother to wipe the tears from his cheeks. They flowed freely, his whole body trembling. He took his looking glass back and raised it to his eye. “Kerite is watching,” he told Tadeas. “Hesitating, looking for the trap. Perhaps she’s waiting for her cavalry to get into position.”

“There’s not as much terrain here as there was at the Copper Hills. There’s no position to get into.”

Demir didn’t answer. “Use a traditional signal to tell our left flank to hold steady.” He waited another two minutes, watching that left flank. “Signal again. Make it look desperate.” He waited. “One last time.” Once the signal was sent, he could see the grenadiers over on that flank start to crumble. They broke ranks, the whole battalion seeming to shiver in fear and pull back.

“Demir,” Tadeas warned, “they’re breaking ranks.”

“As they should.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Tadeas warned. “Layered orders are difficult to keep straight on the battlefield.”

“They can do it,” Demir assured. He prayed he was right. “I have spent the last week studying our own troops just as much as I have the enemy’s. I know their exact capabilities – who can follow orders to a letter, who will buckle, who will rally. I know when to push and when to pull.” As he spoke, his entire left flank began to crumble – the grenadiers were only the beginning, and the next battalion followed them, and then the next. He thought back to the cudgeling bets he’d made with Ulina Magna, and then to the note he’d sent to the various battalions on his flanks with the simple instruction that “hold steady” meant to do the exact opposite.

Across the way, the enemy army did not move. Tadeas swore. “She’s not taking the bait. Dangling some uncertain troops in front of her isn’t going to work. She’s not going to bother attacking until we’ve all broken.”

“She’s not going to wait much longer,” Demir answered. “Kerite might be the best, but she’s also vain. She loves to be seen to be clever. She loves the glory. Chasing down a fleeing enemy will get her neither of those things. She’s going to either take the bait or sense the trap and withdraw. I hope,” he added under his breath. “Come on, Kerite. This is your chance to clobber the Foreign Legion and the Lightning Prince.”

Demir felt all his senses straining, days’ worth of plans balanced on a knife’s edge. His heart began to fall. She wasn’t going to take the bait. She’d sensed the trap, somehow outthought him.

“Sir!” someone shouted. “We have a cavalry charge coming from the south!”

“Perfect,” he breathed, and across the way a hundred trumpets suddenly blared. Kerite’s thick columns of infantry ground into motion, their heavy tramp stirring the air. Demir was once again struck by the uniform precision of it all; the tidal wave rolled forward. Could he break it?

“Did you know,” he said sidelong to Tadeas, “that slingers of old could send a piece of lead shot over twelve hundred feet?”

Tadeas shook his head.

“Mika only got me eight hundred feet. Too much weight in the grenades. Too much wobble from the powder. But eight hundred will do.” He snapped his fingers once more at a messenger. “Signal our left flank to restore cohesion.” The signal was sent, and within thirty seconds the disorganized rabble of fleeing grenadiers firmed back into a soldier line, returning to their position. Demir half expected another trumpet call; for Kerite to withdraw her troops. It never came. She was committed now.

“Are you going to do anything about those cavalry?” Tadeas asked. “It wasn’t in the notes you gave me for Plan C.”

“Yes.” Demir tilted his head to listen, and it wasn’t long until the sudden roar of cannons split the morning. “I’m going to shoot them in the face with grapeshot from Halfwing’s cannons hidden behind those trees.” As if to accentuate his point, the screams of men and horses soon followed, a far more unsettling sound than the artillery fire that preceded it. Directly in front of them, Kerite’s lines suddenly opened up and dozens of breachers raced forward, charging faster than horses, their swords raised.

“Slingers!” Demir shouted. His entire army, two whole brigades of infantry, knelt as one. The only people who remained standing were a few hundred engineers, whirling slings over their heads. “Loose!” he bellowed. Small grenades, looking tiny and fragile and insignificant, soared in a high arc up across the field. He followed them as black specks until they started to land. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the explosions started, turning much of Kerite’s line of breachers into a tangled mess of flesh and godglass.

“Ossa-ha!” someone shouted, their tenor voice carrying clear and steady in the echoing wake of the explosions. The infantry remained on their knees as the engineers spent the rest of their grenades, targeting lone breachers. “Ossa-ha!” the rest answered. “Ossa-ha! Ossa-ha! Ossa-ha!”

Demir turned to his uncle. “Now,” he said, “we have a battle.”

Kerite’s infantry charged.