The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2)

by Charles Stross

  It had started with the messenger who arrived just minutes after the vanguard of the raiding group crossed over into the treason room: she’d been close enough to hear the news of the machine guns, and she could hardly fault the duke for being disturbed by that. But as time went by, and the minutes counted on from the incursion, the duke had become even more unhappy. The brief message from Brilliana – she’d been standing right behind him when he received it – had brightened his mood momentarily, but the lack of courier reports was obviously preying on his mind. Clan security didn’t have enough bodies to keep him supplied with a blow-by-blow account of the action, and he knew better than to micromanage a skilled subordinate, but his patience had limits. And so, she waited by the duke’s command table, keeping one eye on Eorl Hjorth – who she trusted as far as she could throw him. Hjorth’s testimony to the council might well decide whether the duke remained in charge of Clan Security. So we’ll have to make sure that his testimony is favorable, won’t we?

  ‘Sir, I have the hourly report from Eorl Riordan.’ The messenger offered Angbard a printout to scrutinize. The duke glanced up. ‘Where’s Braun?’ he demanded.

  ‘Sir.’ Braun – a wiry fellow, one of the distaff side of the Hjorth-Wu side – saluted.

  ‘Messenger for Helmut, or whoever’s in charge, immediate: sweep the cellars for explosive charges.’ The duke paused for a moment. ‘He’s not to attempt to sally from the keep until Stefan’s unit is in place to take out the machine guns.’ Olga glanced over her shoulder: the second platoon, with their heavy equipment, were already climbing the siege tower. ‘Instead, he’s to ensure there are no surprises in the cellars under the keep. I think the pretender’s trying to be clever.’ He delivered the final word with contemptuous satisfaction. ‘What – ’

  There was some kind of disturbance going on at the perimeter. Even as Braun charged off to brief a courier, and the heavy weapons platoon climbed the tower and vanished from its top deck three at a time, a distant noise reached Olga’s ears, like the throbbing growl of distant traffic. She glanced up. Lightning Child! Not here, not now! A pair of guards detached themselves from the group near the awning and trotted towards the table. Reflexively, she moved her right hand close to her jacket pocket, interposing herself.

  The first of the guards stopped three meters short and saluted. Olga relaxed slightly, for a moment. ‘Sir! We have hostiles in view. Sergeant Bjorg is calling a Threat Red.’

  ‘How many hostiles?’ asked the duke, as if it was a minor point of interest.

  Olga cleared her throat. ‘Sir, I think we should evacuate now.’

  ‘Two choppers overhead at last sighting, sir, but it’s not looking good on the ground, either: there’ve been no cars or trucks for a couple of minutes now.’ The throbbing was getting louder. Almost as if –

  The duke shook himself. ‘Get everyone across immediately!’ he barked. He pointedly refrained from looking up. ‘Third platoon, provide covering fire if necessary. Olga!’

  ‘Your grace?’ She stared at him.

  ‘You’re going across right now, with the headquarters staff. Keep an eye on Hjorth – he’s mostly got our interests at heart, if he’s smart enough to understand where they lie.’ The duke gestured at the siege tower. ‘Get moving!’

  ‘But they’re –’ The bass roar of rotor blades was unmistakable now: not just one set, but the throb of multiple helicopters. Olga set her jaw. ‘After you, my lord!’

  ‘You –’ For a moment, the duke looked furious: then he nodded tightly, and stalked towards the tower. A squad from the third platoon raced to take up positions around the entrance and behind the low awning, as the duke’s staff hurriedly grabbed their papers and equipment and trotted towards the platform from which they could cross into the treason room.

  Olga ducked over to the side of the map table and retrieved her rifle and kit – a very non-standard item, more suitable for a sniper than a soldier – then followed the exodus towards the tower. The roof of the tent billowed beneath the thunder, and for a terrifying moment she wondered if she was about to see a SWAT team dropping right through the fabric roof on ropes – but no: The cops won’t do that: they’ll go for a siege. Unless –

  The voice of an angry god battered through the walls. ‘Come out with your hands up! You have ten seconds to comply!’

  Olga grimaced. Bastards, she thought absently. For a routine weekly briefing this was certainly turning out to be an interesting one. I wonder how they tracked us? It couldn’t be the phone Mike had given her – that wasn’t even in the same county.

  The queue at the tower had backed up, bottlenecked at the foot of the stairs, but it was moving fast, the world-walkers jumping as soon as they reached the top step with reckless disregard for whatever might be waiting for them on the other side. Olga could see the duke up ahead, near the top step. He glanced over his shoulder as if looking for her, then reached the platform and disappeared. She took a deep breath, relieved. The throbbing roar of rotor blades and the flapping of the canvas roof were making it hard to think: But we were negotiating: why attack now? she thought. Why? It made little sense. Unless they think –

  A punishingly loud blast of gunfire ripped through the side of the tent, slapping the fire team behind the main entrance into the ground. ‘We can see you. Drop your weapons and come out immediately!’

  Olga stared at the mangled bodies for a fraction of a second, then forced herself to palm her locket open and focus. Some of the surviving guards were shooting blind, suppressive fire through the walls of the tent, while ahead of her half the bodies in the queue were doing just as she was – trying to cross over blind, heedless of hazard. Some of them would make it, some wouldn’t, but at least the crush would clear. The design on the inside of her amulet spiraled and twisted, dragging her eyes down towards a vanishing point. Somewhere behind her, a concussive blast: and then she stumbled forward into a smoke-filled space, the air thick with suspended dust, her head pounding and her stomach coiling. I made it, she thought. Then: We’re mousetrapped.

  ‘Milady!’ Her eyes widened as she turned towards the Clan soldier, lowering the pistol that had appeared in her hand before she consciously noticed his presence.

  ‘Where’s the duke?’ she snapped.

  ‘This way.’ He turned and she followed him, nearly tripping over some kind of obstruction. A fishing net? There was a raised runway above it, and bodies. Too many bodies, some of them in Clan uniforms. She took a step up onto the rough-cut planks, bringing her feet above the level of the netting.

  ‘What happened here?’

  ‘Rope trap, my lady. It’s a partial doppelgänger, if they’d had time to complete it they’d have locked us out, but we used the treason room instead – ’

  ‘I understand. Now take me to the duke. I’m meant to be guarding his life.’

  Her guide was already heading up the servants’ stairs, two steps at a time, and all she could do was follow. Behind her another body popped out of the air and doubled over, retching. It’s not all over yet, she realized.

  The former guardroom was a mess – one wall blown in, furniture splintered and chopped apart by shrapnel, the bodies of two defenders shoved into a corner and ignored – but at least it was in friendly hands. Angbard’s staff clustered around in groups, exchanging messages and orders, and – Where’s the duke? Olga headed for the biggest knot, who seemed to be bending over a table or something –

  ‘Your grace?’ She gaped.

  Angbard glared at her with one side of his face. The other drooped, immobile. ‘G-get –’ He struggled to speak.

  ‘My lady, please! Leave him to us.’ A thick-set, fair-headed officer, one of the Clan Security hangers-on, Olga thought, struggling to recall his name, cradled the duke in his arms. ‘Where’s the corps-man?’ he asked.

  ‘Your grace,’ Olga repeated, dumbly. The world seemed to be crumbling under her feet. Sky Father, what are we going to do now? The abrupt shift in perspective, to having to confront th
is mess without him, was far more frightening than the bullets and bombs outside. ‘Try to rest. We made it across, and we hold the keep.’

  ‘Corpsman!’ the officer called. ‘Milady, please move aside.’ Olga stepped out of the way to let the medic through.

  Eorl Hjorth, lurking nearby, looked at her guiltily. ‘He was like this when I got here,’ he said. Olga stared at him. ‘I’m telling the truth!’ He looked afraid. As well you might, she thought, looking away. If this turns out to be anything other than Sky Father calling his own home . ..

  A loud ‘Harrumph!’ brought her attention back to the stocky officer who still supported Angbard’s shoulder. He met Olga’s gaze evenly. ‘I have operational command here, while his grace is incapacitated. Previously he had indicated that you have your own tasks to discharge, although I doubt you were expecting to discharge them here.’

  ‘That’s true. You have the better of me, sir – ’

  ‘Carl, Eorl of Wu by Hjalmar. Captain of Security.’ He glanced at the communications team, who were still wrestling with their field radio and its portable generator. ‘You report directly to his grace, don’t you? External Operations?’

  ‘That is correct, yes.’

  ‘Well. We could do with a few more of your friends here, for sure.’ Carl grunted. ‘It looks like a mess here, but nothing we can’t break out of in a few hours.’ A frown creased his face. ‘Although whether his grace lasts it out is another matter. And I liked it better when we had no enemy at the back door.’

  ‘He’s –’ Olga shut her mouth and looked back at the medic who, with the assistance of a couple of guards, was trying to make the duke comfortable. ‘He needs an American hospital.’

  ‘Well, he’s not getting one until we break out of here.’ Carl’s mustache twitched. A messenger cleared his throat behind Olga. ‘Report!’

  ‘Sir! We got them!’ The man held up a handful of yellow-sleeved wires.

  ‘Yes, but did you get them all?’

  ‘These were all the fuses first squad could find in the cellars – ’

  A distant thud, like a giant door slamming shut outside, took Olga’s attention. ‘What was that?’ she demanded.

  ‘Don’t know.’ Carl strode towards the nearest window. ‘Damn.’

  ‘What is it?’

  The security officer turned back to her. ‘That –’ his thumb aimed at a rising plume of dust ‘– unless I’m mistaken, is the culvert to the river.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘My compliments to Sergeant Heinz, and you can tell him he did indeed find all the fuses in the cellar,’ Carl told the messenger. ‘He’s to hold until the heavy weapons are in place, then proceed with task bravo.’ The messenger ran off. ‘Unfortunately he was in no position to check the pump house for charges,’ Carl continued. ‘Which is a problem. Because we’re bottled up in here under those guns, we have no water, our doppelgänger location is besieged, and his grace is inconvenienced.’ He didn’t say dying, Olga noted. ‘So if you have any suggestions, before I go and attempt to retake the curtain wall in the face of our own stolen heavy machine guns, I’d like to hear them.’

  Olga dry-swallowed, trying to work some juice into her mouth.

  ‘Have you radioed Eorl Riordan to warn him off the American trap?’

  ‘Yes. But he has his own problems. He won’t be able to relieve us in less than two days, and if the royal army is out there, that’ll be too late.’

  ‘But he has a flying machine.’ Olga shook her head. Then she smiled. Do I have to do all the plotting around here? ‘With your permission, I should like to talk to Eorl Riordan immediately. And you might ready such of your men as are ready to world-walk again. I think we might be able to deal with the enemy without mounting a frontal attack on those guns: and in the process, inconvenience the pretender mightily . . .’

  Praise for the Merchant Princes series

  ‘A marvelous romp through this world and others, told by a master of the imaginative thrill-ride. These books will remain on my shelf for many years to come’

  Karl Schroeder

  ‘Inventive, irreverent, and delightful . . . an alternate world where business is simultaneously low and high tech, and where romance, murder, marriage, and business are hopelessly intertwined – and deadly’

  L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

  ‘Shocks, surprises, reversals, and elaborations keep tumbling from Stross’s nimble fingers . . . These books are immense fun’

  Locus

  ‘Fantasies with this much invention, wit and gusto don’t come along every day’

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  ‘Fans of the author’s previous work will recognize his trademark skill at world building – you can almost see the filth on the streets of New England, feel the closeted oppression of the Clan hierarchy, and experience Miriam’s terror at the horrifying circumstances she finds herself in’

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  ‘Fast-moving action with a number of interesting characters . . . Stross’s ability to combine interesting ideas with solid plotting is one of his great strengths’

  Asimov’s Science Fiction

  ‘A rollicking, pacy read and delivers on the fun’

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  ‘One of the defining phenomena of twenty-first century SF is Charles Stross, for the quality of his work at its best . . .’

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  ‘For sheer inventiveness and energy this cliffhanger-riddled serial remains difficult to top’

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  ‘An intriguing and thought-provoking world’

  Vector

  ‘It’s official – Charles Stross can do anything. And what he likes to do best is take hoary old chestnuts – say the space opera or the alternate-Earth fantasy – and roast them over an open fire until the heat has cooked them into something deliciously new and strange . . . It’s never less than completely engrossing’

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  ‘He builds a steampunk future familiar from other sources – zeppelins, primitive automobiles and typewriters, etc. – yet with its own unique twists . . . Stross is having great fun with these books, and it’s contagious’

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  ‘The Merchant Princes is easily one of the finest, most involved and inventive science-fiction series on the market. A very highly recommended series from a master storyteller’

  CivilianReader blog

  THE TRADERS’ WAR

  Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England, in 1964. He has worked as a pharmacist, software engineer and freelance journalist, but now writes full-time. To date, Stross has won two Hugo awards and been nominated twelve times. He has also won the Locus Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Novella and has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke and Nebula Awards. In addition, his fiction has been translated into around a dozen languages.

  Stross lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife Feòrag, a couple of cats, several thousand books, and an ever-changing herd of obsolescent computers.

  By Charles Stross

  The Merchant Princes series

  The Bloodline Feud

  (Originally published as The Family Trade and The Hidden Family)

  The Traders’ War

  (Originally published as The Clan Corporate and The Merchants’ War)

  The Revolution Trade

  (Originally published as The Revolution Business and The Trade of Queens)

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks are due to James Nicoll, Robert ‘Nojay’ Sneddon, Cory Doctorow, Andrew Wilson, Caitlin Blasdell, Tom Doherty, and my editors, David Hartwell and Moshe Feder.

  The Clan Corporate first published 2006 by Tor, Tom Doherty Associates, NY

  First published in Great Britain 2008 by Tor

  The Merchants’ War first published 2007 by Tor, Tom Doherty Associates, NY

  This electronic edition published 2013 by Tor

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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ondon N19RR

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  www. panmacmillan. com

  ISBN 978-0-230-77176-5

  Copyright © Charles Stross 2013

  The right of Charles Stross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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