In the Shadow of Lightning

6

Grent was a city-state built daringly across the length and breadth of a massive river delta. Countless channels and canals divided the city into hundreds of island districts of various sizes, and incredible levies and dikes controlled the flow of the delta in a feat of engineering that had never been matched. It was a city long used to battling the inevitable, which was one of the reasons it had survived so long mere miles from the capital of the aggressive Ossan Empire.

Ossan soldiers often joked about invading Grent. It was a joke because it was so outlandish: Grent was not a threat to the Empire, and there was far more to lose than gain when invading such a headache of a city.

That joke, Idrian Sepulki reflected, was funny right up until the moment the order came for the invasion.

Idrian returned from the front line bruised, sore, and exhausted after nearly fourteen hours of savage street fighting through the eastern suburbs of Grent. In that time he had killed eighteen people, watched three friends die, and taken one wound that would leave a nasty scar. Killing was part of the job of a soldier, and the wound was already mostly healed thanks to the powerful cureglass sorcery in his breacher armor, but losing friends had never grown easier over his decades in the Foreign Legion.

As was his habit, he would bury his feelings until the end of the conflict, at which time he could properly grieve.

He paused at the top of a hill, leaning on his massive breacher shield, looking across the suburbs where his battalion – the Ironhorn Rams – trudged behind him carrying their dead and wounded. The sun was starting to set, shining gold off the placid river and half blinding Idrian’s view of the delta. Smoke rose from several places along the front lines, where the Ossan Foreign Legion had pushed miles into the Grent suburbs, while the report of artillery duels had been going for almost as long as the Ironhorns had been fighting.

This sudden war was, Idrian didn’t mind admitting to himself, disconcerting and frightening. He was used to shipping overseas, where he’d have weeks or even months to prepare himself for a coming conflict against a distant enemy. This time was different. Just two days ago he was playing cards with Tadeas, enjoying their cushy ceremonial posting in the Ossan suburbs. Now they were on the offensive against their closest neighbor.

“Almost back to camp,” Idrian said encouragingly to a flagging engineer. “Keep your head up.”

“Thanks, Idrian,” came the weary reply.

Idrian was just about to continue on himself when the distant plume of cannon smoke drew his attention. It was followed mere moments later by the hair-raising whoosh of a cannonball flying overhead. He ducked behind his shield by pure instinct, though he knew a direct hit would cut him in half with or without his hammerglass armor. The street, which had been so peaceful moments before, was suddenly chaos. When Idrian raised his head it was to screams of alarm and panic accompanied by choking dust and a terrible rumbling series of crashes.

It did not take him long to realize what had happened – the building just at the top of the hill, a massive five-story tenement, had taken a direct hit and collapsed entirely. Idrian found himself sprinting toward the rubble. An officer wearing the silver braided collar of a major came stumbling out of the dust, eyes wide, mouth gaping like a fish out of water. “They’re shooting at us! They’re shooting at us!” he screamed.

“You idiot,” Idrian snapped, grabbing the officer by the jacket and giving him a shake. “We’ve invaded their glassdamned country. Of course they’re shooting at us.”

“But we’re supposed to be the ones who win!”

Idrian had to restrain himself from throwing the man to the ground. Another Ossan guild-family officer without combat experience, baffled that their enemies bothered to fight back. Damned fools. “Was there anyone in that tenement? Listen to me, man! Was there anyone in there?”

“Half my battalion,” the major finally managed.

Idrian’s stomach lurched. “Glassdamnit, those are your people! Get ahold of yourself and start digging! Every moment you waste is a life lost!”

“Me? Dig?”

Idrian finally did throw the idiot to the ground. He raised his sword in the air, the massive pink razorglass blade catching the light from the sunset. He bellowed, “We’ve got trapped soldiers! All hands to me! Move that rubble!”

He felt a tug on his shoulder and looked down to see Fenny, a soldier in his own battalion. She was a slight woman, little more than a waif whose black flatcap always looked too big on her. Her eyes were wide, her white skin especially pale. “Idrian,” she whispered loudly, “Squeaks was in there.”

Idrian’s head whipped back around to the rubble. “What? How? We just got back!”

“She ran in to buy a bottle of wine from one of the Forty-Second quartermasters. We were gonna share it tonight.”

“Piss and shit. Where was she?”

“Right there.” Fenny coughed, pointing to a no-longer-existing tenement. “I saw her in the first-floor window half a second before the ball hit. She waved at me.” Fenny began to tremble fiercely.

Idrian turned and grasped her gently by the side of the face. “Look at me. Look at me! Your woman is going to be fine. I’ll find her myself. You run back down the hill and find Mika. Tell her to bring all her engineers up here to take charge of the digging.” Idrian gave her a shove to propel her along, then tossed his sword aside and sprinted to the spot that Fenny had indicated. The tenement was little more than a massive pile of shattered bricks, with dust-covered limbs sticking out at odd angles. Screams and shocked moans issued from the pile, sending a shiver down his spine. Idrian shucked his own exhaustion and soaked in the forgeglass sorcery of his armor to give him strength and speed.

He used his shield as a shovel, piling bricks on it until he could barely lift it, then taking it out of the wreckage to dump off to the side. The first body he found belonged to a young man he vaguely recognized from the Forty-Second. The poor bastard was already dead. Idrian was soon surrounded by his own battalion, dozens of men and women bending their backs to move brick and timber, pulling people – both alive and dead – out of the wreckage. Sweat poured down Idrian’s brow and neck, soaking the uniform under his armor.

At some point the sun had set completely, and the site was lit by hundreds of torches and lanterns. Idrian kept digging, periodically calling out Squeaks’s name. Slowly, he became aware he was being watched. A young man stood somewhat back from the edge of the wreckage. He had white Purnian skin, and was wearing an Ossan uniform though he couldn’t have been more than seventeen with that fresh face of his. A large pack rested on his shoulder. He was staring at Idrian strangely.

“Are you going to help?” Idrian demanded.

“I … I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Move bricks.”

“You shouldn’t use your shield like that.”

Idrian paused and shot a glare at the young man, who shrank beneath the gaze. There were few people who didn’t find Idrian’s purple godglass eye disconcerting. This young man was not one of them. “This shield is a tool used to protect my battalion,” Idrian grunted as he lifted it onto his shoulder, heavy with rubble. “One of my battalion is trapped under there. The tool does the job.” He staggered through the rubble until he found a safe place to dump it off to one side, then returned. “Well?” he demanded. “Help or get out of my way. Squeaks! Squeaks, are you in there?”

The young man finally moved, depositing his pack off to one side and joining in with the calls of the Ironhorns.

The digging continued for some time, and Idrian’s stomach twisted whenever he caught sight of Fenny carefully moving across the rubble, tears streaming down her face as she called out the name of her wife. He’d completely lost track of the hour when he heard a muffled sound somewhere off to his left.

“Sir,” the young interloper called, “over here, sir! We’ve got a few live ones trapped under a support beam!”

“Mika!” Idrian shouted. “Mika, come help me!”

Idrian was soon surrounded by a dozen engineers, who carefully helped clear rubble until Idrian could get his shoulder underneath the support beam.

“Wait!” one of them called. “Wait! Hold on! Okay, lift!”

Idrian slowly leveraged the beam up from its resting place. The weight was impossible, probably over a thousand pounds, and despite the forgeglass sorcery enhancing his strength he felt like every sinew was about to pop. He listened to the engineers as they scrambled around him until one slapped him on the back of his helmet. “All clear!”

Idrian dropped the beam and staggered backward, tripping and stumbling until someone caught him and helped him right himself. Relief surged through him as he turned to find Squeaks lying in a clear spot with several others. She was a young woman, just a year or two older than Fenny, and a skilled engineer. One arm was mangled, but she was alive and alert, wrapped in Fenny’s embrace. Idrian breathed a sigh as his adrenaline finally crashed, leaving him hard of breathing and barely able to stand. He made his way out of the rubble, looking for his sword, only to find it lying on the boardwalk next to a nearby tenement. The young man who’d accosted him about his shield earlier was standing over it as if he were on guard.

To Idrian’s surprise, the young man had a yellow ram stitched to the front of his uniform jacket. “Why are you wearing an Ironhorn uniform?” Idrian asked, setting his shield on the boardwalk beside his sword and sinking down to lie next to them. He pulled off his helmet, sweat dripping off his face, and tossed it aside.

“I’m your new armorer, sir.”

Idrian lifted his head and stared at the young man. “I’ve been asking for a new armorer for six months, and now I get one? What’s your name?”

“Braileer, sir. Braileer Holdest.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“They really must be short of armorers if they sent you.”

Braileer flinched and tried to stand up straighter. “I’m trained in working steel and godglass. I can make all necessary field repairs. Give me a forge and a glass furnace and I can do anything but a total rebuild. Your armor, sword, and shield will be in good hands with me, sir.”

Idrian had his doubts. Most breacher armorers were experienced professionals in their thirties or forties. “What about my back?”

“Sir?”

“Armorers are also soldiers, kid. I see that little hammerglass buckler strapped to your back and the smallsword on your belt, but do you know how to use them? My job is to keep the Ironhorns alive. I am the sword of their vanguard and the shield of their flank. Your job is to keep me alive. Understand? You care for my armor but you also go into combat zones with me.”

Braileer’s confidence seemed to wane. “I have a few weeks’ combat training, sir.”

“Piss,” Idrian sighed. If he hadn’t done such a number on his shield moving that rubble, he might have sent the young man straight back to the Ministry of the Legion. But he was in a war now, and he needed his armor cared for. “Piss and shit. All right, follow me.” Idrian got to his feet and gestured for Braileer to carry his sword, shield, and helmet. The young man did so without complaint, though he was carrying his own pack as well. They walked around the ruined tenement and headed over the next hill, where they descended into a makeshift camp that took up two streets and three more captured Grent tenements. A fire burned in the middle of it all, next to a banner stitched with a yellow ramshead that matched the sigil on Idrian’s armor and Braileer’s uniform.

“How much do you know about the Foreign Legion?” Idrian asked.

“Um … sorry sir, but I’m trained as a craftsman. They conscripted me less than a month ago and they’ve been teaching me to shoot and stab and not much else.”

Idrian stripped off his gauntlets and ran his sweaty hands across his face. “Glassdamned Ministry just can’t get their training right. Fine. You’ve been assigned to the Ironhorns. We’re a battalion of combat engineers. We repair bridges, put up barricades, level ground for artillery batteries – whatever dirty work needs to be done, we do it and often under fire. We’ve got three hundred proper soldiers, two hundred engineers, and one breacher – that’s me. It’s not a brag to say we’re the most famous battalion in the Foreign Legion, and for good reason. We have a high success rate and a low casualty rate. Veterans think twice before engaging with us directly.” Idrian turned to Braileer. “Our motto is ‘Horns ready, hooves steady.’ Keep your weapon on hand, your feet planted, your eyes sharp, and you might just live through the war.”

Braileer was very clearly trying to keep his eyes from bugging out of his head. “Yes, sir.”

“You okay?”

“It’s a lot to take in, sir.”

“There’s a lot more. I won’t dump it on you now. What do you do for fun, Braileer?”

“I play cards. Play a little fiddle. I … train rats.”

Idrian glanced at him curiously. “Rats?”

“To do tricks. Steal coins. Little fun things.”

“Huh. Good way to catch the plague. Fiddle will make you popular. You’re a corporal, so Tadeas will let you play cards with the officers. He’s our commanding officer. He cheats, though you’d never know it. Mika and Valient are the captains of our little outfit, in charge of the engineers and soldiers, respectively. They’ve been married for longer than I’ve known either of them, and both will try to sleep with you. My advice is to tread carefully on those grounds.” Idrian scratched at the back of his neck. He was absolutely spent, ready to hang up his armor and get a good night’s sleep. He’d need it, too. The Ironhorns would be rotated back to the front before first light. “Help me get my armor off. Repair it and polish it before you hit your bunk. I took that room right there–” Idrian pointed at a tenement window on his left. “I prefer privacy when I can get it. You can sleep in the hallway outside my door.”

Despite his youth and inexperience, Braileer clearly knew his way around a set of breacher armor. Idrian was stripped down to his under-uniform in less than a minute, and Braileer hauled off his armor, leaving him alone next to the fire, where he let his sweat-soaked clothes dry. Despite his exhaustion, he found himself remaining there for some time, meditating as he stared into the flames, letting his body and mind recover from the day’s fighting.

He was soon joined by Mika. She was a short Marnish woman with cropped black hair, skin darker than his own, and wearing an ill-fitting Foreign Legion uniform that made her look like a sack of potatoes in bad light. She carried a massive pack, heavy with tools. Dozens of ram’s horns hung from the back, clacking together as she walked. She swung the pack from her shoulder and sank down on the ground beside the fire, looking up at Idrian. “You know,” she said, “I’m going to miss you when you turn in your debt marker.”

Idrian touched the little silver tag that hung around his neck by instinct. It represented the amount of his life that the Foreign Legion still owned – a debt he owed them until the time was done. “You’ll get another breacher,” he told her.

“Not one who’ll spend hours digging in rubble for a single infantryman. Fenny and Squeaks have always liked you. I think they’re going to worship the ground you walk on now.”

Idrian chuckled and shook his head. “They’ll repay the effort someday.”

“Or they won’t.”

“Or they won’t,” Idrian acknowledged. It didn’t really matter. As he’d told Braileer, his job was to protect the Ironhorns. Idrian took that job very seriously. It didn’t just mean when they were in active combat. “How’s she doing?”

“Squeaks busted up her arm pretty good, but a few days with quality cureglass should have her back on duty. Glory is tending to her now. That cannonball was a fluke. Managed to hit the main support beam of a poorly built tenement. We’ll know the casualty counts in the morning, but I’m guessing we saved two-thirds of that battalion.”

“Now that,” Idrian said, grinning at Mika, “is a debt we’ll collect.”

She grinned back, producing a couple of bottles of wine from her pack. “Already started. These are courtesy of the Forty-Second.” She handed one bottle to him and popped the cork on the other. They clinked the bottles together. “Have you seen Tadeas?” she asked.

“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” Idrian replied, setting his bottle aside for later. “Last I saw him he was called back to headquarters.”

“Did you hear the rumors about his sister and nephew?”

Idrian frowned and shook his head. “Demir?”

“Yeah. Rumor has it that this whole war is because of Adriana’s murder a couple weeks ago. They traced the killers back to the Duke of Grent.”

“Sounds like a pretty flimsy excuse for a war,” Idrian snorted. He’d always liked Adriana, and her death had come as a shock to all of them. She was their sponsor, after all. But he wasn’t going to happily get killed because of a political assassination. “There’s always another reason.”

“From what I heard there’s a lot of reasons,” Mika replied with a yawn. “The duke’s covert operations have grown more and more aggressive over the last few years. Adriana’s death is just the last straw. He poked the sleeping giant one too many times and now we’re at his door.”

It was not an uncommon story, and this would not be the first war Idrian fought purely as a show of force. Peace made the Empire rich, but war reminded everyone else who ruled half the world. “Lucky him. What about Demir?”

Mika shrugged. “He’s back, supposedly. He’s already taken control of the Grappo.”

“Wonder what Tadeas thinks of that,” Idrian grunted, hiding his own surprise. He hadn’t thought that he’d ever see Demir again, much less that the wayward Grappo would ever return to Ossa. “Last time I saw him, I would have bet pretty good money he was going to put a bullet in his own head before long.”

“Returning to guild-family politics might push him over that edge.” Mika waggled her eyebrows comically. It was half a dark joke and half a truth. For Tadeas’s sake, Idrian hoped it would remain a joke. Demir was the only other Grappo left now. Idrian looked around and stretched, watching as the rest of Mika’s engineers stumbled into camp. A few threw themselves onto bedrolls under the open stars, while others headed into the tenements where they’d staked a temporary claim earlier in the day. The conversation was muted, the jokes few. Despite their taking few casualties, it had been a hard day. Everyone was just too damned exhausted and it was only the very beginning of the war.

“I’m going to bed,” Idrian said. “If you see Tadeas, tell him to only wake me if it’s important, I–” He was cut off by the arrival of Valient. Mika’s husband was a light-skinned Purnian, tall and willowy, with a clean-shaved head and a musket slung over one shoulder.

“Hey Idrian,” he interrupted, yawning. “There’s a guy just over there claiming to be a guild-family member. Wants to talk to you.”

Idrian blinked back at him, then turned to stare into the darkness in the direction Valient had indicated. There was a tiny bit of sightglass in his false eye, giving a very slight boost to his senses and allowing him to see in the dark better than most. He could see a hooded figure lurking just beyond the light of the fire. None of the other Ironhorns paid the figure any mind. “You didn’t get a name?”

“Didn’t give one.” Valient yawned again, sitting down beside his wife and putting his head on her shoulder.

Idrian glanced around, fighting a feeling of frustration. Some soldiers took on a client role with guild-families, but he’d always been very careful to avoid that entanglement. The closest he ever got was the Grappo sponsorship paying a portion of his wages, and that was more about their public prestige than anything else. It didn’t leave him beholden to them. So who the piss was lurking around in a war zone wanting to talk?

“You want me to get rid of him?” Mika asked.

“Nah. I’ll do it myself.” Idrian walked over to where the figure stood out of earshot of the others, peering hard to try and get a look under that hood. He could make out embroidered cuffs and fine cloth. Whoever it was had money for sure, but was also wearing gloves to hide his guild-family sigil. “I’m Idrian Sepulki,” he said, drawing himself up.

“Hello, Idrian. Been a long time.”

Idrian’s senses all perked up at once and he peered harder. He recognized that shadowy jawline and the clever glint of the firelight off those eyes. They looked exactly like a younger version of Tadeas. “Demir?”

Demir made a shushing gesture. “I’d prefer people not know that I’m hanging out in a war zone,” he replied quietly.

Idrian lowered his voice and tried to hide his shock. Had Demir been loitering here long? Did he hear Idrian and Mika gossiping about him? “Does Tadeas know you’re here?”

“Not yet. I tried to catch him earlier but he got pulled into a meeting with General Stavri.” Demir grimaced. “Like I said, I’d rather people not know I’m here. I need a favor. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

“Now?” Idrian looked around, bewildered. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet and soldiers were already snoring. He wanted to do the same.

“Unfortunately, yes. I need an escort behind enemy lines.”

Idrian snorted. “I need direct orders for something like that.”

“Not from your new sponsor, you don’t. I have some prerogative over your assignments.”

Idrian was still reeling from Demir’s presence. This was the Lightning Prince; the provincial governor who squashed a major rebellion and made it look easy while doing it. Even though Holikan was ultimately remembered as a disaster, soldiers still whispered about just how good a commander Demir was on that campaign. The heights he’d fallen from were truly dizzying. “Escorting you behind enemy lines is stretching that a bit, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. But I understand you have some interest in my mission.”

“Which is?”

“I need to extract Master Kastora from the Grent Royal Glassworks.”

Idrian had to resist the urge to reach up and touch his godglass eye. “Is he in danger?”

“I believe he is. I’ve been meeting up with my mother’s old spies all afternoon. The Grent Glassworks was hit early this morning in an attempt to capture their designs, stockpiles, and siliceers. They repelled one of our regiments, but Kastora was wounded badly. Fighting in the area has tapered off and soldiers from both sides have moved east. The two of us should be able to slip in and slip out without being noticed.”

Idrian’s mouth was dry. If something had happened to Kastora, he didn’t know what he’d do with himself. This time, he did touch his eye, thinking of the master siliceer who made it. “You’re absolutely sure about that intelligence?”

“There shouldn’t be any obstacle that a breacher and a glassdancer can’t handle,” Demir assured him.

Idrian warred with himself briefly. He was still reeling from Demir’s sudden appearance and would be well within his rights to rebuff the demand. Demir had been gone for nine years, after all. Could he even be trusted? But this was Tadeas’s nephew, and if Master Kastora was in danger … “I’ll get my armor,” he said.