A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2)

by Sales, Ian

The command car shot forward before he had even made his seat. He lurched back, put out a hand to steady himself. “Well?” he demanded.

  “They’ve been gathering for the last hour or so, your grace. As soon as it’s light, we expect them to charge,” the vehicle commander told him.

  “Who holds the entrance?”

  “Regimental-Major Bab and the 19th Battalion. Colonel Tayisa has ordered artillery crews to man the emplacements in Sword and Shield.”

  “Humf. Good.” Ahasz settled back in his seat. He rubbed the back of his neck, then scratched his bearded cheek. He needed a bath, he needed a change of clothes. But he was reluctant to clean himself up because his current dishevelment at least showed his men that he was fighting and suffering as they were. It was good for morale. Even if his own spirits should suffer from the discomfort.

  The command car sped along the grass, skirting the District garrison and avoiding the Knot. As it crested the slope onto the Imperial Mile, Ahasz hung onto a nearby bracket and reflected on the sacrifices he had made for this rebellion. Even when he sent troops into Nevola’s fief, he had not rode in the van. But appeared later, in comfort and splendour, to congratulate his soldiers. Comfortably ensconced in an armoured limousine, resplendent in bright and shining uniform, impeccably turned out.

  Because he had expected his victory to be short-lived.

  It had taken the Office of the Procurator Imperial less than three days to send in an army of troopers to seize control of the fief, and a small team of senior officers to Ahasz to take him into custody. He snorted in amusement. House arrest. Thinking they could censure him. Nevola had been acutely embarrassed, emasculated before his peers. The Electorate, pretending to a might it did not possess, had told the marquis he was deserving of all that had happened and it was to his advantage Ahasz had taken matters into his own hands. They would not have been so lenient. Nevola had few allies and fewer patrons. Ahasz, on the other hand, was one of the most powerful men in the Empire.

  “Your grace,” the vehicle commander said. “We’re there.”

  He scrambled past the duke, undogged the rear hatch and swung it wide. Tayisa immediately appeared in the square of red light flung across the grass. Beside him was an officer in a red jacket with black frogging: Bab, Ahasz guessed.

  As they walked towards the barricade blocking the entrance to the District, Ahasz looked about him. Sappers had dug up the surface of the Imperial Mile between the two crags upon which sat Sword and Shield. Using that material, they had built an eight-foot-high parapet entirely filling the gap. There was no way through. On a raised platform behind the barricade, Bab’s troopers, armed with hammers and three directed-energy field-pieces, kept an alert eye on the Imperial Mile without. Only a fool would charge such a well-entrenched position.

  Ahasz suspected their attacker was just that.

  “Have you identified them yet?” he asked Bab.

  The regimental-major, heftily-built, bluff, with the heavy features of man who enjoyed his food and his drink, nodded. “Yes, your grace. Household troops of the Viscount Mubona of Iko.”

  “I know the name, but not the man. What’s his strength?”

  “About three companies, your grace,” put in Tayisa.

  “Two hundred and fifty men?” Ahasz was horrified. “The man’s a fool.”

  “Perhaps,” suggested Bab, who plainly also knew the name, “he’s looking to repeat the successes of his forefathers?”

  Ahasz grunted. The Iko family had gained their rank during the Pacification Campaigns centuries ago, winning a string of victories for the Imperial Throne—some of which had been quite astonishing. They had rested on their laurels ever since.

  “Can we do this bloodlessly?” Ahasz asked the two officers. “I’ll not have the deaths caused by Iko’s idiocy on my hands. Enough have died already. And yet more are likely to die before I get my arse on that damned Throne. But I’ll not have a massacre.”

  His hands were bloody enough already.

  “They might be open to parley, your grace,” suggested Bab.

  “Good. We’ll try that. Tayisa, get me a squad of Ashma’s fiercest. Bab, have one of your field-pieces let off a shot—at a tree or a rock, something close by that will provide some educational destruction without actually harming anyone.”

  From the barricade, Ahasz peered out at the troops gathering on the Imperial Mile, while Tayisa hurried back to the trenches and fetched a squad of the duke’s household elite. As the sun rose, a line of light crept from the barricade across the highway and revealed four lines of troops. Still diluted by night, the pale orange day lit up bright helmets and the fisted heads of maces. A formidable sight to most, but to Ahasz, backed by Houscarls with directed-energy field-pieces, it all seemed somewhat risible.

  Iko’s soldiers shuffled in place, a muttering of booted feet. Officers strode back and forth before the lines, preventing morale creeping away with the night. Ahasz held out a hand and someone placed a telescope in it. He put the instrument to his eye and scanned the soldiers which stood serried before him. Dish-shaped white helmets, jackets quartered in green and white, and black trousers. A banner, fluffed out by an errant gust of wind, caught his eye. The Mubona coat of arms: a curved horn in green beside a white tankard, both on a field of black.

  A sudden bright bolt lit up the pre-dawn dimness, fired from the parapet and across the lines of Iko’s troops. A patch of earth beside the Imperial Mile exploded, throwing road-surface and soil up into the air. Smoke drifted across the parapet. Ahasz smelled the crisp odour of burnt soil. More shuffling of boots sounded from the lines of militia.

  Bellows rang out from Iko’s officers. They waved their swords, attempting to whip up a martial fervour. Ahasz signalled to Bab with an upward move of his hand. One hundred Housecarls climbed up onto the parapet’s lip.

  The duke stepped up to join the Housecarls. He saw attention fasten on him. He wore a sword, so was an officer. His jacket was not the red and black of the Imperial Regiment of Housecarls, but the gold-frogged red of his own household troops. They likely knew him the moment they saw him.

  “Ashma’s men here yet?” Ahasz asked Bab.

  “Coming, your grace,” the regimental-major replied.

  Ahasz looked back into the District and watched a troop-carrier disgorge eight troopers in grey uniforms with gold and red stripes down sleeve and leg. Each carried a long-shafted hammer on a sling over their shoulders and a dagger on each hip. They wore air-hoods of grey canvas, and so were unidentifiable behind small round black eye-glasses and the grills of breathers. The steel caps they wore beneath the hoods gave their crowns the unnatural appearance of a perfect hemisphere. It had led to their nickname: Roundheads.

  Not only had Ahasz secretly armed his household troopers with halberds—an act prohibited by law—he had also created a small elite force the equal of the knights stalwart or knights militant. No, not equal—superior. They had, after all, taken both Sword and Shield.

  Once the Roundheads had reached him, and the sergeant reported for duty, he said brusquely, “Follow me,” and leapt down from the parapet to the ground before the barricade. Iko’s troopers responded by presenting their maces. Ahasz held up his hands, palms forwards. He came in peace, to parley. Thuds behind him told him his Roundheads had joined him.

  Ahasz strolled forwards, palms still held out. He gestured the nearest Iko officer towards him with an urgent gesture. The man, a captain by his insignia, looked about him, unsure what course of action to take.

  “Here, man,” Ahasz called. “I wish to speak with Iko.”

  The captain took a step forward, hesitated. He looked along the line to the next officer.

  “No schemes,” the duke assured him, voice still raised. “I intend only to talk. I would not have your men slaughtered.”

  Iko’s army shuffled nervously.

  Shoving his sword into its scabbard, the captain marched forward to meet Ahasz. Once within conver
sational distance: “You are the Duke of Ahasz?”

  “I am. Now escort me to Iko, captain, if you would.” Ahasz frowned. “I take it he is here?”

  “Yes, your grace. To the rear, in the command pavilion.”

  “Good.” Ahasz dropped his hands. “Take me there. These —” He indicated his Roundheads with a terse gesture—“are to safeguard my person.”

  “They look very fearsome,” the captain remarked with a nervous smile.

  “Yes.” Ahasz strode forwards and the captain hurried to remain at his side. “They are.”

  The line of Iko troopers shuffled aside as the party approached. Mutters and whispers drifted beneath closely-held maces, but none loud enough for meaning to rise above the noise. Head high, Ahasz marched along a passage made of soldiers, faces a mixture of anger, wonder and fear. More joined the passage walls, making it more than four lines deep, directing Ahasz towards the cluster of pavilions well to the rear, from which Iko no doubt intended to direct his campaign. And that tent, the largest and most sumptuous, of rich fabric in green, black and white, must clearly be the viscount’s.

  Five officers, their uniforms considerably more ornate than the captain’s, stepped out of the pavilion and bunched up beneath its billowing portico. Shocked imprecations barked out. Ahasz laughed. “Which one of you is Iko?” he called. “You?” He pointed at the man whose jacket bore the most silver braid—thick lines of frogging from neck to waist, several feet of lanyards looping from epaulets—and a sword with a basket-hilt of exquisite workmanship on his hip. Despite his soldierly attire, the viscount was no campaigner: his portly figure owed more to fine lunches than fierce battles, and his hair, artfully teased and coiffed, belonged in a salon not on a battlefield.

  “Who in heavens are you?” Iko demanded angrily. “Can’t you see I have a damned battle to fight?”

  “Go home, you foolish man,” Ahasz replied. “This is no game of soldiers.”

  Iko brindled. “Damn you, sir. Identify yourself!” He lifted a hand and beckoned a squad of troopers to him.

  Ahasz groaned. He had suspected the man was an idiot, but to have it demonstrated so forcibly… “Captain,” he prompted quietly.

  The captain straightened. “My lord,” he said with some vigour to Iko. “My lord, this is his grace the Duke of Ahasz.”

  Iko blinked. He opened his mouth and turned to his command officers. “What?” he said. “Ahasz?”

  The duke snapped his heels together and sketched an abbreviated bow. The curtailed nature of it—social superior to inferior—was enough to cement Ahasz’s identity.

  “Your grace, your grace,” Iko blustered. “What are you doing here? We were planning to attack the moment it turned light.”

  “It’s light now, you buffoon,” replied Ahasz. “Tell your men to go home. I will rip them to pieces if you charge my barricade.” He spun about and, with a sweep of the arm, indicated the hundred Housecarls on the parapet and their three field-pieces. Turning back, he continued, “There is no way through, Iko. You can only lose. Take your soldiers and go home.”

  “I cannot, your grace!” the viscount protested. “I am honour-bound to defend the Throne.”

  Ahasz raised an eyebrow and smiled. “It took you two weeks to decide this? Never mind. Your fellow nobles are equally obliged, and yet…” He made a pantomime of looking to left and right with a hand to his brow. “I’m giving you a choice: leave now or your army will be massacred.”

  Iko shook his head. “No. I am obliged to do battle. It cannot be helped —”

  A voice spoke from the dark recesses of the pavilion. It was a flat, featureless voice, with the sound of something mechanical in it. “No, my lord, you would do best to heed his grace.” A glint of silver in the shadows accompanied the words.

  Ahasz knew that voice. Or rather, he knew the sound of that voice. He strode forward, brushing rudely past Iko. His arm shot out, grabbed hold of cloth, and he hauled the speaker into the light. It was a man—although only his physique allowed him to be identified as such. Dressed entirely in black, he had the build of a quartermaster. His head was concealed within a smooth ovoid of silver, two small round black glasses on the front allowing vision.

  “Involute!” hissed Ahasz. “You sent this buffoon here?”

  The Involute had allowed himself to be pulled out of the tent—Ahasz had neither the strength nor the leverage to have done so.

  “We should talk, your grace,” the Involute said.

  Roundheads guarded the entrance to the command pavilion. Outside, Iko raged; his officers looked by turns outraged and embarrassed; but they could not gain entry. Within, Ahasz and the Involute sat, beneath a fancily-framed light-sheet which hummed at a barely audible frequency and gave out a warm summery glow, on either side of a table inlaid with marquetry depicting some historical victory. The duke glowered at the masked knight sinister, hating the breed for their manipulative conceits and despising himself for having made allies of them. Or had it been the other way round? Ahasz’s family had been conspiring against the Imperial Throne for generations—it had been folded into his childhood catechism. But when he’d chosen to break from his masters, had he approached the Order of the Left Hand, or had they come to him? He could no longer remember.

  “You have some explaining to do,” Ahasz said. He slammed a hand down on the table-top. “You assured me the Palace defences would be out of action. I’m now stuck in this damned siege as a result.”

  “The knights stalwart and knights militant,” the Involute said, “proved more shrewd than we had anticipated.”

  “You seem to ‘anticipate’ very little these days. I seem to recall a similar reaction when the knights signet came to arrest me.”

  “You bested them.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “We would not have put this plan into action, your grace, had we thought you incapable.”

  “Don’t posture, you faceless imbecile. I’m trapped in this valley with six thousand men because of your ineptitude. I’ve already lost over four hundred because you couldn’t meet your promises—vital promises! Am I to lose everything I’ve worked for, everything my family has conspired to achieve, because you could not anticipate?”

  Ahasz pushed his chair back from the table, crossed his arms and glared at the Involute. If the glower had any effect, the Involute’s mask hid the response.

  “Your grace—”

  “You wished to speak to me for a reason,” the duke interrupted. “Go ahead.”

  There was a moment of silence. The Involute spoke: “We suspect Triumphant may declare for the Emperor.”

  “You assured me she would remain neutral.”

  “And so Commodore Magwagi had said. We persuaded him that he should do nothing unless he felt bound to honour Edkar’s Promise—not that we thought it likely the Emperor would resort to it.”

  “So what caused his change of heart?”

  “The Lords of the Admiralty tell us you have control of the Navy Accounting Mechanism. You have threatened to destroy their financial records if they do not remain neutral.”

  “I have.”

  “Your grace, you should have told us you were planning such a tactic. It’s… far too dangerous. We would have advised against it. There’s no telling how the Navy will react.”

  “Your advice,” Ahasz replied, “is of no consequence. While you skulk about in the shadows, I fight this war. I’ll not listen to someone who lacks the courage to stand openly beside me. While Skattia keeps his finger to the Mechanism’s switch, the Navy will dare nothing.”

  The Involute shook his head. “The Lords of the Admiralty are pressing Magwagi to retake the Admiralty Fort. Their personal fortunes are also at stake.”

  “Built on funds they’ve siphoned from the Navy Budget. Involute, I’ll not reward corruption. In fact —” He lifted a fist and clenched it in graphic illustration—“once I take the Throne, I’ll root it out in every instit
ution—even if I have to put yeomen in charge of the ministries and bureaux.”

  “Your attack,” the Involute pointed out, “would not have been possible but for the monies you paid out in bribes and garnish.”

  “And you think I wish to leave myself vulnerable to the same tactic? Credit me with more sense, Involute. What I do, I do for the good of all in the Empire.”

  A strange noise sounded from the lapel-mounted caster from which the Involute spoke. It was a moment before Ahasz identified it as a bark of laughter.

  “You’re brave with other men’s sons, Ahasz. And free with other men’s money.”

  “Look at me, you silver-headed fool! Look at me!” Ahasz snapped. He put a hand to the hilt of his sword. “Do I look as though I’ve been luxuriating in comfort behind the lines? And you know full well I’ve spent millions of my own crowns preparing for this assault. Never question my motives or my commitment. Or, damn it, I’ll run you through. I may not know who you are beneath that metal piss-pot you wear on your head, but I’ll warrant you know there are few can best me at sword-play.”

  The Involute was silent a moment. His gloved hands sat on the table-top and he brought them together, interlacing the fingers. “Point taken, your grace. I apologise. But given the Navy’s impending involvement, I would have you do more than throw insults about. At the very least, I would like to know how you plan to counter an attack by Triumphant.”

  “If the Lords of the Admiralty send a boat over the District, my swivels will shoot it down. If Magwagi is fool enough—and he wouldn’t have been given command of the Navy’s flagship if he were—to drop a detachment of marines into the District, my Roundheads will see to them. If they do anything, I will beggar the Navy.”

  “Do not underestimate the Imperial Marines, your grace.”

  Ahasz gave a grim smile. “Do not underestimate my Roundheads, Involute. I would pit them against any body of soldiers in the Empire and know they’ll win the day.” He looked up thoughtfully, then glanced back at the entrance to the pavilion. Yes, it would make an excellent example.