The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns

by Wexler, Django

  “I understand,” Jane grated. “We all understand that. What’s your third condition?”

  “You will be second in command of the unit, under one of my own officers.”

  “Who?”

  Janus smiled, just for a moment, the ghost of an expression. “Lieutenant Winter Ihernglass.”

  “Wait,” Winter said. “Wait a minute.”

  Jane, slowly, grinned. “I think we can accept that.”

  “Sir!” Winter said. “What about the Seventh? What about my men?”

  “Captain Warus has made appropriate assignments to fill the gaps in the Colonials during the voyage home,” Janus said. “First Battalion, Seventh Company has a new lieutenant. Lieutenant John Marsh, if I recall correctly.”

  “You . . . but . . .” Winter’s throat was thick. “Sir. Those are my men. I’m . . . responsible.”

  Janus’ expression softened. “I understand, Lieutenant. Once the emergency is past, I will see what I can do. For the moment, however, it’s best for discipline if the Colonials go into battle under the officers they’ve had for the past three months, and in the meantime Miss Verity’s command requires your attention.”

  “I . . .” Winter shook her head, and her fists clenched. “Would that be my attention as Lieutenant Ihernglass, or as Winter Bailey?”

  “The former. This unit must be seen to be commanded by an officer of the Colonials.” Janus paused. “I assume that most of Miss Verity’s companions are aware of your real identity?”

  “Yes.” Whatever that is.

  “In that case, I suggest you impress on them the need to keep it to themselves. If this experiment is a success, perhaps in time you can dispense with the charade. But until then . . .”

  “They can keep a secret,” Jane said. “Sir.”

  “Very well.” He looked from Winter to Jane and back again. “Was that all?”

  Jane glanced at Winter. “I . . . think so.”

  “Could I have a moment with the colonel?” Winter said. “Please.”

  “Sure. I’ll be outside.”

  The door opened and closed with a soft click. Janus waited patiently. Winter took a deep breath.

  “I have to know,” she said. “You sent me to Jane.”

  “I did,” Janus said. “I wasn’t one hundred percent certain, of course, that she was the friend you told me about, but the balance of probability seemed to indicate it.”

  “And then . . . all the rest. Jane stormed the Vendre. I ended up in the Deputies. And getting you out of prison . . .” She hesitated. “Is that why you put me there? So I could do what I did?”

  “Did I know what was going to happen, in other words?” Janus chuckled. “Ah, Lieutenant. You have no idea how easy it would be to cultivate a reputation for genius, simply by taking credit for things after the fact.”

  “But—if you didn’t know, then why . . .”

  “Do you play chess?”

  Winter blinked. “Not very well.”

  “As a game, it has never interested me,” Janus said. “But it is useful as a metaphor. In chess, against a strong opponent, one can never plan with certainty. A good player does not claim to predict exactly what will happen, and position his pieces just so. Rather, he puts his pieces in the places where they will have the most opportunity to help him, whatever his opponent does.”

  “And I’m just a piece in your game?”

  “You’re a soldier under my command. A valuable asset. I guessed that having you by the side of the notorious Southside gang leader Mad Jane would be more likely to be a good use of your talents than, say, keeping you at court. As it happens, I was right, and Jane proved pivotal. But can I say I knew that would happen? No. Much as I might like to.”

  “I understand.” Winter let out a long breath. “I wanted to thank you. For . . . keeping your word, about Jane.”

  “Of course.”

  “And what about the Black Priests? It was one of them who assassinated Danton. You must have had the Colonials bring the tablets back from Khandar, but—”

  “One thing at a time, Lieutenant,” Janus interrupted. “Right now Orlanko is the opponent in front of us. Once he is dealt with . . . we shall see.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  MARCUS

  “Fitz!” Marcus said, grabbing his ex-lieutenant’s hand. “Damn, I’m glad you’re here. The extra stripe suits you!”

  “Thank you, sir,” Fitz said. His blue uniform was immaculate as always, and the two silver stripes that marked him as a captain gleamed bright. “It’s only provisional, of course, until it’s confirmed by the Ministry.”

  Marcus laughed. “If we win, I don’t think that will be a problem. And if we lose . . .”

  “My thoughts exactly, sir.”

  “You can dispense with the ‘sir’ now, you know.”

  Fitz looked almost offended. “Oh no, sir. You still retain seniority.”

  Oh well. At least some things never change. “You’re here to see the colonel?”

  “To pick him up, actually.” They were standing outside the front door of the Twin Turrets, and Fitz indicated the two-horse carriage parked in the drive. “He wanted to see the Triumph, where we’re doing the public training. I imagine he’ll want you to come along.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Marcus fingered the hem of his coat, self-consciously. “It’s a little odd, living in a house where the queen wanders in to breakfast in her bathrobe.”

  “I can imagine, sir.”

  There was a long pause, and Marcus felt strangely awkward. He’d spent two years with Fitz, and during that time the lieutenant’s presence had become an organic part of his life. He’d hardly had to issue orders—Fitz had anticipated him and done what needed to be done, as easily as breathing.

  Now, though, he didn’t know where he stood. Fitz was captain of the First Battalion, Marcus’ old unit. Marcus had no doubt he was up to the task; it was his own position that was unclear. He didn’t have a real position, except that of captain of the now-defunct Armsmen and general assistant to the colonel. In the old days, Marcus would have been quizzing Fitz on the state of the troops and what preparations had been made, but now it felt as though that would be infringing on the new captain’s prerogative.

  Fitz frowned. At first Marcus thought he was feeling the same awkwardness, but he said, “Sir. I hate to be the bearer of the bad news, but there’s something you need to know.”

  “Bad news?”

  Fitz nodded soberly. “It’s concerning Miss Alhundt. I know the two of you were . . . close.”

  “Ah.” Marcus swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “And?”

  “She didn’t survive the crossing, sir,” Fitz said. “I’m sorry. The doctors tried their best, but in the end they couldn’t even get her to take water. We had to bury her at sea.”

  Marcus nodded distantly. He wasn’t sure if he should be grieving or relieved. He could remember Jen in the ancient temple, wielding a cracking, spitting sorcery that tore stone to shreds, mocking the time they’d spent together. But he could also see her in his tent, huddled tight against him to fit on the narrow camp bed, her chin resting on his shoulder and her slow breathing tickling his ear. There had been a gentleness there, a vulnerability that he couldn’t reconcile with the vicious creature who’d attacked him.

  Which one was the real woman, and which one was the mask? Now, he supposed, he’d never know.

  “Thank you for telling me,” Marcus said, eventually.

  “I’m sorry,” Fitz said again. “I thought you’d want to know sooner rather than later.”

  “Yes.” Marcus took a deep breath, past the knot in his throat. “What about the others?”

  “Everyone’s doing well, sir. We had a few rankers come down with a fever, and we left them in Vayenne, but otherwise it was a quiet voyage.” He made a face. “The men d
idn’t appreciate having to wait an extra week in the transports, though.”

  “An extra week? What do you mean?”

  “We docked downriver at Ohms a week ago, sir. The colonel’s instructions were to wait there for a message from him, then to make our best time up the Green Road to the city.”

  “And you did an excellent job, Captain Warus,” Janus said, opening the front door. Two of his Mierantai followed, long rifles resting on their shoulders. “I didn’t want the Colonials to march into the city without being sure of their reception,” he explained to Marcus. “So I left instructions for them to wait. And a good thing, too. No telling how the deputies would have reacted to an army regiment turning up unexpectedly.”

  “No telling,” Marcus murmured, remember the couriers riding in all directions as soon as Janus had been released. I wonder what else he had waiting.

  “Shall we?” Janus said. “It’s going to be a busy day. Messengers from the duke arrived this morning.”

  “Messengers?” Marcus said, as they started toward the carriage. “With what sort of message?”

  “His Grace demands our surrender, of course. Having defeated Deputy Peddoc’s force, he assumes we are at his mercy. His representatives were very surprised to get the news that the Colonials had arrived.”

  “That should give him pause, I should hope.”

  “The longer the better,” Janus said. “We need time more than anything. Unfortunately, I suspect the duke realizes that as well.”

  “What did you do with them, sir?” Fitz said. “The messengers. I assume they wanted to open negotiations.”

  “Oh, I imagine they’re negotiating as we speak.” Janus flashed a smile. “I told them I was only empowered to defend the city, not to engage in any discussions, and that they would have to talk to the deputies. I last saw them heading toward the cathedral.”

  Marcus barked a laugh. “That ought to keep them busy for a few days.”

  “What if the deputies agree to the surrender?” Fitz said.

  “The deputies,” Marcus explained, “can’t agree on anything.”

  “It may buy us a brief respite,” Janus said, opening the carriage door. “Let’s see what we can do with it.”

  —

  “This isn’t the lot, surely,” Marcus said, looking out at the drilling recruits.

  “No, sir,” Fitz said. “We’ve made our main camp at Ohnlei. Plenty of space in the gardens there for drills, and it’s good to get the volunteers out of the city. Keeps them from wandering off at night. But the colonel requested that we have a company or two take their instruction here in the Triumph so that everyone could see what it was like. It might encourage a few more to sign up.”

  “They’ve certainly got an audience,” Marcus said. “But I’m not sure it’s going to convince anyone.”

  A stream of blistering curses drifted up from one of the Colonial sergeants, in a mixture of Vordanai and Khandarai. The foreign obscenities seemed to make quite an impression, and there was even scattered applause from the onlookers. The recruits were in two long lines, about a hundred men in all, ununiformed but sporting army-pattern muskets. They were being attended to by two blue-coated sergeants, one of whom called out the stages of the Manual of Arms while the other prowled the ranks, looking for shirkers.

  It took Marcus back in time, not even to Khandar, but to his childhood. None of the boys who went to the War College were going to be rankers, but the instructors considered it important that the future officers understand what it was they were ordering their men to do. So the first three months of every cadet’s instruction had been identical to what a newly arrived ranker would get in one of the army training camps, albeit with a bit more attention to the niceties and less summary corporal punishment. Marcus remembered long afternoons in the sun, miming the steps to load, ready, level, and fire until his arm went numb.

  He’d been sixteen, younger than most of the boys here in the square, but he thought that he and his classmates had caught on faster. Though I suppose they’ve only been at it a few hours. And having half of Vordan City staring at them can’t help their concentration.

  Janus was watching the drilling men from beside the coach. Fitz had wandered over to exchange a few words with one of the sergeants, and Marcus had followed him. Now they stood together, but once again Marcus had the feeling of being apart, separated from the unit that had been the only family he had for all of his adult life. He cleared his throat.

  “Yes, sir?” Fitz said. He hadn’t lost his knack of picking up on Marcus’ tiniest hints.

  “How many new men have you got in total?”

  “I don’t have the latest counts. They’re still trickling in, and the sergeants are culling out those who won’t be able to fight. But I’d guess we’ll end up with at least six thousand.”

  Marcus raised his eyebrows. In one sense, that felt like an enormous number—more men than the Colonials had ever had at any one time. On the other hand, only six thousand came forward, out of how many hundreds of thousands in the city? He shook his head. We work with what we have.

  “Have you got six thousand muskets?”

  “No, sir,” said Fitz. “We brought about two thousand spare up the river with us, mostly captured from the Auxiliary’s armory in Ashe-Katarion. Mor has been working to scrounge up whatever he can find here. There’s the stocks of the Armsmen and the palace guards at Ohnlei, but unfortunately it looks like this Peddoc already stripped those pretty clean. The colonel pointed us to a few private sources, but Mor doesn’t think they’ll amount to more than another thousand. Plenty of powder, though, and we’ve got men working on making cartridges.”

  “What about the other half of the recruits?”

  “We’re giving them pikes. I don’t know if it’ll be worth anything, but . . .” He flicked his eyes at Janus. “I think the colonel has a plan.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “You see how we’ve got them doing the Manual of Arms before anything else?”

  “Yes.” Marcus frowned. “That is odd. When I was at the College, we started with formations and marching.”

  Fitz nodded. “Colonel’s explicit orders. When I asked why, he said that we might be able to teach them to shoot a musket in a few days, but we haven’t got a chance of getting them to march straight, so we shouldn’t bother to try. I can’t say that I disagree, but I still don’t follow his reasoning.”

  “The joys of serving under Janus bet Vhalnich,” Marcus said, carefully under his breath.

  Saints and martyrs. Pikes and men who can’t march. He tried to imagine being on the battlefield with a pike—little more than a long pole with a spiked blade at one end. The boom of guns, the rattle of musketry, smoke and flashes everywhere, men falling in screams and blood. And you out there with a pointy stick, like it was two hundred years ago.

  And as for marching, any infantry that couldn’t reliably form square would be decimated if it was caught in the open by enemy cavalry. At least one cavalry regiment had been quartered at Midvale, he knew, and Orlanko might have been able to scrape together more.

  “Hell,” he said aloud. “I hope he’s got a good plan.”

  “We’ll get through it, sir. The Colonials have faced worse odds than this.”

  Marcus winced. The sentiment was well meant, but the last time they’d faced well-equipped troops, it had been General Khtoba’s Auxiliaries. That engagement had cost the lives of hundreds of men, and it had cost Adrecht—Marcus’ best friend—his arm, and possibly his sanity as well. Let’s hope we do better this time.

  “Very good, Captain,” Janus said, coming over to the two of them. “I want you to take them to live rounds as soon as you feel they’re ready. Every man should feel the kick of his weapon before he takes it into battle, and I don’t know how much time the duke will give us.”

  “Understood, sir.” Fitz
saluted.

  “I’m going to look in on things at Ohnlei,” Janus went on. “Fitz, I’ll need you with me. Marcus, I’d like you to check in with our artillery contingent and see how things are progressing.”

  “Understood, sir,” Marcus said, with a salute of his own. He was relieved to be assigned a definite task. “Where can I find them?”

  “Captain Vahkerson is at the University, working with the crews. Captain Solwen is looking for tubes, so he’ll be out in the city, but I imagine Captain Vahkerson will know where to find him.”

  “Yes, sir. Anywhere in particular at the University? It’s a big campus, if I recall.”

  Janus’ smile flashed across his face. “You can just follow the noise, I expect.”

  —

  Boom. It was odd how the sound of a gun going off changed as you got closer to it. At a distance, only the bass thump of it was clear, like thunder growling far away. As you got nearer, the higher tones became audible, until it was a full-throated bang that resonated at the back of your teeth and in the pit of your stomach. And when you thought it was so loud you must be nearly on top of it, you found that you were still a couple of hundred yards off. Get closer and it grew louder still, until your ears rang like cymbals in the silence that followed each detonation.

  Marcus was able to find the Preacher, not only by walking toward the booms but by following the crowds of curious, nervous University students. They looked very somber in their black scholar’s robes. Most of them were young men, but there were a few older students and even a couple of women among them.

  The University itself consisted of low, ancient stone buildings, veiled with climbing ivy, tile-roofed and rambling. Additions, extensions, and new construction had gone up over the centuries without any plan, dividing the grounds into a set of irregular courtyards whose grass was maintained to exacting perfection by the famously dictatorial University gardeners. Most of the windows were the old lead-lattice sort, filled with warped, bubbly glass, so as Marcus walked by he got distorted, fish-eyed views of rooms and students within.