In the Shadow of Lightning

38

The Ironhorns left Fort Bryce on just a couple of hours of rest – bleary-eyed, exhausted, some of them still with half-healed wounds and a piece of cureglass at their ears. They marched directly south, trailing in the wake of the two battalions of fresh cuirassiers that Demir brought with him from Ossa. The march was brutally fast, double-time down the narrow roads winding through sharp landscape just north of the Tien River. Visibility here was practically nothing, the dark forests of the old imperial hunting grounds now divvied up between the guild-families and used for the same. The forest was broken only by the occasional vineyard stretching across a gentle hillside. Massive estates lurked in the winter gloom if you knew where to look.

At some signal that Idrian was not told, the cuirassiers turned right at a fork in the road, splitting off to head west into what could now be considered enemy territory. Idrian paused at the fork long enough to drink watered wine from the canteen at his belt and watch the last of the cavalry disappear. His hair was soaked with sweat, his uniform dirty, his armor, sword, and shield packed on the mules with Braileer some fifty yards back. It was getting dark, and he fiddled with the sightglass in his pocket, wondering if Demir had some kind of night raid in mind.

“I’m going to miss them,” Mika said, stopping beside him. “There’s something reassuring about having a thousand heavy cavalry in front of you.”

Idrian could only grunt his agreement. His mental faculties were beginning to crumble without enough rest. For the last mile he’d heard the constant laugh of a child from somewhere in the woods. He knew it wasn’t real, but it still made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Do you have any idea what Demir is up to?” Mika asked. “We’ve got enough powder in those wagons back there to blow up a whole fort.” She paused briefly, her eyes widening. “Shit, he’s not going to have us blow up Fort Alameda, is he?”

“Why the piss would he do that?”

“I don’t know! To keep Kerite from capturing it?”

Idrian fixed her with a look that he hoped told her just how stupid that was. “Really?”

“Oh, come on. Everyone is whispering about Holikan. Everyone is…” Mika paused, glanced around to make sure none of the passing soldiers seemed to be listening in, and continued in a hushed tone, “Everyone is talking about how crazy he is. He told Tadeas he was going to go on the offensive with just those cuirassiers and us.”

“I know,” Idrian said. Tadeas had been tight-lipped about the actual plan, which meant that it was probably a bit crazy, and that Idrian himself wasn’t an integral part of it. “Speaking of which…” He nodded back down the column, where he could see Demir and Tadeas coming toward them on horseback. The two reined in beside Idrian and Mika, and Demir stood up in his stirrups and called out to the passing column.

“We’ll make camp just up ahead! We have double rations for everyone tonight – no beer, but triple on the meat. Wine will be on me after the attack!”

Hundreds of sets of tired eyes looked back at Demir. There were no cheers, even at the mention of a triple meat ration, and Idrian cringed inwardly. He could hear nearby engineers whispering to each other about what exactly Demir meant by “attack.” He could see in their eyes that they were wondering if Demir was going to get them killed first thing in the morning. If Demir noticed, he gave no sign, swinging down from his horse and leading it over to Idrian.

“Tad,” he called over his shoulder, “set a triple guard in case Kerite gets wind of our presence, but the glassdancers should provide us with a screen against her scouts. Everyone else needs to get some rest – they’ve earned it. No singing tonight in camp. Keep the noise to a minimum. Mika, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Demir handed the reins of his horse off to one of Valient’s infantrymen and came and threw his arm around Mika’s shoulders. She gave Idrian a wide-eyed glance as she was led away, Demir whispering in her ear, and Idrian turned to Tadeas.

“You going to tell me what the piss is going on?” he asked.

Tadeas snorted. “Demir will when he’s good and ready. Just gotta trust him.”

“What’s this about a double march and then us just making camp? I thought we were hurrying down here to do something.” Idrian could hear the irritation in his own tone. The exhaustion was getting to him too, despite the forgeglass in his ear. He clenched his fists and half turned after Demir, but Demir and Mika had already disappeared around a bend in the road.

Tadeas slapped him on the shoulder. “Get to camp. I already gave orders to put up your tent first. Use some dazeglass if you need to, I want you to get some sleep. Demir says he needs you in your armor by ten o’clock.”

“So it’s a night attack, then?” Idrian asked. “Tad. Tad! Glassdamnit, don’t walk away from me.”

“Get some sleep!” Tadeas called over his shoulder as he hurried down the column. Idrian swore softly to himself and had no choice but to follow. Might as well do as he was told. Who knew what was coming up tonight?

The few hours of sleep Idrian managed to get were restless and unfulfilling, and he’d spent the last half hour before he was meant to meet with Demir scraping yellow glassrot scales off his arms and legs using his shaving razor. The process was relatively painless, which meant he hadn’t done any permanent damage. This time. He edged around the few spots of permanent glassrot on his calves and hips, and one on his left arm. They were scaly to the touch, and though they would come off with the straight razor it would be damned painful and they’d just grow right back.

People always assumed glazaliers were immune to glassrot. He wished it were the case. Resistance was not immunity, and glassrot could still be as painful to a glazalier as to anyone else.

A small scuffle brought him out of his tent, and he made his way to the edge of camp where Valient and a couple of his soldiers stood in a circle around Squeaks. It was the first time Idrian had seen her since helping drag her out of that collapsed tenement in Grent, and he walked over to join them, feeling cranky and defensive. “They bothering you, Squeaks?” he asked.

Squeaks sat on a stump in the center of the little group, Valient holding a lantern up to her face and examining her eyes. She turned away from him. “Thank piss. Idrian, can you tell them I’m not crazy?”

“She’s not crazy,” Idrian told Valient.

“Mmm,” Valient answered, grabbing Squeaks by the chin and steadying her to look in her eyes. “She might be.”

“She’s seeing things,” one of the other soldiers explained.

“I am not seeing things,” Squeaks insisted. She shook like a leaf, her eyes wide, pupils dilated. “There’s a glassdamned monster in the woods.”

Idrian frowned. He was sympathetic to seeing that which wasn’t there, but had spent his whole career judiciously analyzing what was and wasn’t real so that it didn’t affect his job. Was Squeaks mad as well? Did he need to take her aside and have a talk, away from everyone else? He aimed a boot at the closest infantryman. “Go on, get out of here. Leave her alone.” He waited until it was just him, Valient, and Squeaks before he turned back to her. “What did the monster look like?”

Squeaks shuddered. “Like a … Piss, I don’t know! Like a monster! Maybe five feet tall, thin and wispy with a long neck and beady little eyes.” She cast about her, as if looking for the right words, then pointed to her jaw. “It had long jagged teeth sticking out like, uh…”

“An underbite?” Valient asked.

“Yeah, that!”

Idrian grimaced. That sounded nothing like the shadows he saw due to his madness. Perhaps she’d injured her head in the rubble of that tenement, or during the defeat in the Copper Hills. He hoped not. The Ministry of the Legion made an exception for his mental state because he was a glazalier and a damned good breacher. They wouldn’t for Squeaks. She’d be kicked out no matter what anyone said, and then Fenny would be all alone.

“Probably a deformed dog,” Valient suggested.

Squeaks scowled at him. “It wasn’t a dog. I’ve been to the circus, I know what malformed animals look like.”

“What happened to the monster?” Idrian asked gently.

“Thing saw me, turned toward me with those little black eyes, and then poof! Disappeared.”

“All right,” Valient said, standing up. His eyes met Idrian’s over her head and Valient gave an irritated shake of his head. “Go see Glory for some dazeglass and then get some sleep. You’re off guard duty for the night.”

“I’m not trying to get out of it!” she objected. “I really did…”

“You didn’t see anything,” Valient assured her. “Let it go.”

Squeaks looked like she wanted to argue. After a few moments her shoulders slumped. “Yes, sir,” she replied, slinking away to find the battalion’s head surgeon.

Idrian waited until she was out of earshot before turning to Valient, who was staring after her with a scowl. “You okay?”

“Everyone’s just … not doing well,” Valient replied. “That loss to Kerite really shook us.”

“Did anyone else see a monster?”

“No. There’s no glassdamn monster in the woods, but Squeaks isn’t the first soldier to break down today. Morale is low, exhaustion is high.” Valient sighed. “I hope Demir genuinely has a plan.” Or they would all die unpleasantly was the silent implication.

Idrian nodded in agreement. He desperately wanted to believe in the Lightning Prince, but he still couldn’t tell which version of Demir had marched them down here, all on their own, while an entire division of crack enemy troops lurked somewhere in the vicinity. “Do you know where we are?”

“Vaguely,” Valient replied. “I think Tad has our exact location, but he went off with Mika about an hour ago, along with all that powder Demir brought with us.”

Now what the piss were they going to do with all that? Despite being somewhere just west of Ossa, they were in the large “wilderness” that provided hunting grounds for the guild-family elite. There was literally nothing to blow up out here, unless Demir’s grand plan was destroying a few hunting lodges. It didn’t make sense. Idrian bit his tongue before he could say so.

It was a good thing too, for Demir emerged from the darkness just a few moments later. He had a pistol and smallsword at his belt, and was wearing a piece of sightglass in his left ear. A glassdancer egg hovered over his shoulder in that disconcerting way that some of them liked to keep their glass at the ready. “Did I hear something going on?” he asked Valient.

“Just one of my soldiers having a bit of nerves, sir. I already took care of it.”

“Good. Idrian, armor.”

“Five minutes,” Idrian replied, and returned to his tent. He found Braileer and got help getting into his armor, then told the young armorer to take the rest of the night off, barring further orders. He returned to find Demir standing by himself on the edge of camp, looking out into the forest. With the sightglass in his armor, the world was lit up as if it were early morning, giving Idrian clear vision into the murkiness. Some hundred yards out he saw a fox trot by, pausing to look toward the camp before hurrying on. An owl swooped down, hitting the ground silently and then returning to the trees.

“Ready, sir,” Idrian said to Demir.

The younger Grappo did not move for several moments, then gave a sharp nod and a small sigh. He seemed more at ease here than he had been back at Bingham – but then again, this wasn’t an active war zone. At least, not yet. “Come with me.”

Idrian followed him out of the camp and down a narrow hunting track that forced him to walk behind Demir. Despite wearing sightglass, Demir seemed to be too confident with his movements, walking quickly, taking a fork in the path once, and then another fork a few hundred yards later. They came over a hill, down through a gully, and then up again to find themselves walking along the side of a small lake.

“I used to holiday here as a child,” Demir suddenly said, breaking the silence for the first time since leaving camp.

“Oh?”

“This is a man-made lake,” Demir explained, gesturing across the still water. “You can see a forester’s hut off behind those thick reeds if you look closely, and farther downriver is the Kirkovik’s ancestral hunting lodge. Which is a damned joke, since it’s almost as big as their city estate. My mother and I spent many summers here. Hammish Kirkovik used to take me into the woods and we’d draw up mock battles with sticks and trees. He’s the one who suggested that my mother get me a proper tactician as a tutor, even though I was only six.”

Idrian had never actually been to the Kirkovik’s hunting lodge – or any of these lodges for that matter – but he’d seen maps before. “Good place for an ambush?” he asked.

“Better,” Demir answered. He did not explain himself further.

They wound their way along the lake for some time. Once, Idrian thought he saw people moving on the far side of the water, but when he brought them to Demir’s attention, Demir just shrugged it off. Was that Tadeas and Mika with her engineers? What the piss were they up to? All Idrian could imagine was that they were setting some sort of trap. Not a bad idea, actually, especially if Demir really knew these forests so well. They could draw Kerite away from the river, up into these hills, and do some real damage.

So where had all those cavalry gone? They would be practically useless in these woods.

Demir paused, gesturing him close. “Stay ready for anything.”

Idrian held his sword and shield at the ready, his senses keen, watching and listening for movement in the brush. They split from the lake and began a rapid ascent, working their way up the back of a rather steep hill. It was a long, exhausting hike that made Idrian wish he’d had more sleep. His sorcery hummed along, keeping him going, but the faint nausea of glassrot came on faster than usual and he began to hear rustling whispers in the corners of his mind. He hadn’t spent nearly enough time away from godglass.

After some time, Demir suddenly gestured for a halt and paused to kneel in the brush. Idrian knelt with him. Several minutes passed before Idrian thought he heard the distant sound of voices. He cast a questioning glance at Demir.

“We’re on the back of Kirkovik’s Rock,” Demir explained in a whisper. “I figured Kerite would send some scouts up here.” Another gesture and he began to creep forward. Idrian followed, keeping an eye on their flanks, ready to leap in front of Demir with his shield in case they were spotted. Kirkovik’s Rock was a massive, stony hill; a landmark that could be seen from much of the river valley where Ossa and Grent met along the Tien. It was about a mile north of the river, and was famous for its vantage point.

They crept another twenty yards or so, right up to the top of the trail, where the ground suddenly leveled out on top of the Rock. Up ahead, Idrian could see four figures all huddled together, wafting the scent of cigarette and pipe smoke. They wore blue-and-green mercenary uniforms and spoke in Nasuud. Their voices were not loud, but they didn’t seem to be trying very hard to stay hidden, either. Why would they? There shouldn’t be another soul all the way from here down to the river. At least they didn’t have any lights on them.

Idrian reached out to stop Demir. “There’s someone sitting next to a tree just about fifty feet to our left,” he whispered. “A sentry.”

“He’s been dead for thirty seconds,” Demir replied.

Idrian shuddered. It was good, from time to time, to remember just how terrifying glassdancers could be. As if to accentuate the point, the faintest sliver of movement caught his eye, like a falcon diving at its prey. It took off from just over Demir’s shoulder. A moment later a groan issued from the group up ahead and, as if they’d been knocked over by an invisible wind, they all just fell.

“Sweet pissing godglass,” Idrian swore quietly. “Why did you even bring me?”

“Check the perimeter,” Demir replied.

“Prisoners?”

“Not tonight. No tongues to wag about what happened here. I want Kerite to wonder.”

Idrian did as he was ordered. He found two more sentries. He managed to jump the first unawares, killing the woman before she could so much as cry out. The second demanded a password in Nasuud, and he received the tip of Idrian’s sword in response. A few minutes later Idrian joined Demir at the crest of the hill, where the younger Grappo had already dragged the corpses over and rolled them into some brambles down the slope.

“I brought you,” Demir said, finally answering the question, “in case Kerite anticipated me and sent a breacher up here with her scouts.”

Idrian nodded in agreement, and walked to the other side of the hill, where the trees opened to bare rock and the world spread out before them. To their right, the glittering lights of the Grent Delta spread out for what seemed like an eternity, the city flowing west to the ocean and south into the far hills. To their left was a bend in the Tien, and a series of hills that prevented a good look at Ossa itself. They could, Idrian suddenly realized, see Fort Alameda. The bastion was mostly dark but for the lights of a handful of sentries on the walls. It was massive and foreboding, its star fortifications looking impossible to breach. Idrian would have been impressed if he’d not heard the report on the state of the Ossan star forts.

“It never occurred to me how good the view was from up here,” he said to Demir. “Why isn’t there a lookout tower?”

“Because the Kirkovik wouldn’t allow it. And besides, there are better lookout towers closer to the river.” Demir pointed to locations that eluded Idrian’s eyes, but he could only assume were watchtowers. Demir led him farther along the hilltop until it began to slant back down toward the river, then stamped around for several minutes before choosing a spot and settling down. He seemed to relax entirely, his silent caution from the walk up now gone. “This will do for our vigil.”

Idrian looked around for a moment. There didn’t appear to be any danger; nothing that warranted his armor at all. “Can I remove my helmet, sir?”

“Feel free.”

Feeling unsettled, Idrian did so, setting his sword and shield to one side and then taking a spot on the ground beside Demir. They sat in silence for several minutes before Idrian’s irritation got the best of him. “Sir,” he said, “if that’s all, maybe I should return to the Ironhorns. There could be more of Kerite’s scouts in these hills and I don’t want a breacher to come upon them unawares.”

Demir set his glassdancer egg on the ground between his knees and spun it around on the dirt. “Stay with me for a time,” he said. “Now, if you look over there to our right, you’ll see the edge of the lake we passed. The moonlight reflects off it nicely. If you look straight ahead for quite a long way, and then down – you see those lights there?”

Idrian squinted, trying to orient himself. The lights Demir was referencing were on the north side of the river, and they certainly weren’t the lights of a city. If he had his bearings right, they were spread out across a series of large floodplains that were left fallow during the spring rains and then farmed during the summer and fall. They’d grown disused over recent years, the crops famously suffering from the muck dumped into the Tien by Ossa’s Glasstown just a few miles upriver.

Idrian’s breath caught. “Is that the Grent army?” he asked.

“That it is. Both the duke’s forces and Kerite’s mercenaries, with reinforcements coming up the river by the hundreds every hour. There’s an island just off the north bank that represents a blind spot in Fort Alameda’s defenses. Kerite can set up her artillery there and fire away without being hit back. I suspect she has already done so, and will begin the bombardment first thing in the morning. It’s a position with every advantage: her back is to the river, easily supplied by Grent, on soft ground that would be very difficult for us to hit with cavalry. We don’t have the present strength to mount a frontal assault, so she can grind down Fort Alameda and then hit it hard from several sides at her leisure.”

Idrian found himself staring at Demir. “How the piss do you know all of this?”

“I’ve been coordinating with our scouts the last few hours, and I have access to the Inner Assembly’s combined spymaster reports. As for the blind spot: I noticed it during one of my military architecture lessons when I was eleven years old. I told my tutor, and he said I was a fool, so I double-checked my work and my mother fired him.” Demir paused briefly, chuckling to himself. “I even sent a letter to the Ministry of the Legion to point out the flaw. I never got an answer, and they never made an effort to fix it.”

“And you think Kerite knows about it too?”

“As soon as I saw her camped on that floodplain down there, I knew exactly what she was up to.”

“It sounds like we would need twice her number just to root her out.”

“At least,” Demir admitted.

“So we have to play this defensively? We have no choice, right?”

Demir cast him a sidelong, unreadable glance. He did not answer.

“Then why,” Idrian continued on, feeling emboldened by the lack of rebuke, “did you tell Tadeas that we were going on the offensive?”

“Because we are.”

“When?”

“This very night.”

The word “bullshit” very nearly escaped Idrian’s lips. That definitely would have crossed a line, and he was glad he held it back. But what the piss was Demir up to? He’d already said that the soft ground Kerite was camped on was impervious to cavalry. So where did he send those thousand cuirassiers? None of it made sense, and Idrian found that it caused his own nerves to come unsettled.

The night wore on. An hour passed, then another. Idrian kept track of time by the movement of the moon and tried to force himself to enjoy the quiet night. Demir was not unpleasant company, and he talked a little about his time out in the provinces, telling stories of fleecing provincial bookies that Idrian did not necessarily believe, but found quite entertaining. Idrian returned the favor, telling Demir about the campaign in which he and Tadeas had become friends in far-off Marn.

He’d almost forgotten their purpose here – or rather, what little purpose Demir had revealed – when he spotted lights bobbing through the hills below them. He tapped Demir on the shoulder and brought them to his attention. Demir stared for several moments before speaking. “Dragoons, by their speed. Maybe fifty of them. Probably sent off to loot the guild-family hunting lodges. Gotta pay for the war, right?”

Idrian reached for his helmet. “Shall we intercept them? The two of us alone should be enough with the element of surprise.”

“Hmm.” Demir checked his pocket watch. “If they’d arrived a half hour ago, I would say yes. But I think we’ll be okay. The road they’re following comes up the tributary into the Kirkovik’s hunting grounds.”

Idrian watched the line of torches continue to move. His whole body itched at the sight of them. “We should warn Tadeas,” he finally said.

“No.”

“Sir!”

Demir smiled. “Tad has his own sentries down there. He’ll see them coming. But they won’t be a problem.”

Minutes continued to tick by. The dragoons grew perilously close to that sliver of lake that Idrian could see over the treetops. He could hear no alarm, see no movement of the Ironhorns among those trees. Fifty dragoons might not be much compared to a battalion of combat engineers, but the two groups stumbling on each other in the dark would cause casualties – and then the dragoons would return swiftly to Kerite and betray the Ironhorns’ position. Idrian got to his feet. “Sir, I can’t–”

“Wait!” Demir said, cutting him off but standing up next to him. Demir held his pocket watch, his attention fixated on the dragoons. “Wait,” he said again, drawing the word out. Even in the darkness his gaze was intense, and after a few more seconds he whispered, “Now!”

There was nothing. Idrian scowled at Demir, then down at the dragoons, then back at Demir. He opened his mouth, only to have the words snatched from his breath by a deep, reverberating thump that rattled through the rocky earth and up deep through his bones. The sound came from the direction of the Ironhorns. Down below them, the company of dragoons came to a stop, their torches flickering uncertainly in the night.

“What just happened?” Idrian whispered to Demir.

“Listen!”

Idrian turned his head, straining with all his senses. The whole world seemed to have gone completely still. He could hear nothing. Except … He shook his head. It was as if the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears was growing steadily louder. It made no sense. Idrian peered into the darkness, wishing his sightglass was even better, when the torches of that company of dragoons just … went out.

Not all at once. The lights disappeared one at a time, in rapid succession, and Idrian found himself staring in horrified fascination as the very earth seemed to swallow them up. He thought he heard a few screams, but they were difficult to make out over the rushing sound in his ears. A slow realization reached him, and he found himself fighting for the right words before finally turning to Demir.

“That man-made lake down there. You just blew up the dam, didn’t you?”

Demir didn’t answer for a long time. He stood frozen, holding his pocket watch up in front of him like a coach-service conductor noting the time on her arrivals. The seconds ticked by, and then the minutes, before the rushing sound in Idrian’s ears finally began to abate slightly.

“If,” Demir finally spoke up, “my calculations are correct, the water should arrive any moment.”

Idrian turned his attention back to Kerite’s camp. One by one in rapid succession, just like the torches of the dragoons, cook fires began to go dark. It was a silent, eerie process, as if a giant were pulling a blanket over the entire camp. Inky black spread along the floodplain, and the distant sound of shouts reached him. “Did you just destroy all of Grent?” Idrian asked, his whole body numb with the realization of what was happening.

“Of course not. I’m not a monster. Grent’s flood-control measures are far too good, and the lake Mika just emptied far too small. But those floodplains Kerite is camped on are specifically meant to be flooded.”

“And our cavalry?” Idrian asked. As if to answer his question, he suddenly heard the distant cracks of muskets, carbines, and pistols. He thought he saw muzzle flashes on the northwest end of the floodplains. No, he definitely saw muzzle flashes there. Battle of some kind had been joined.

“Kerite’s forces not swept away asleep in their tents will try to reach high ground on the Grent-Ossan Highway. Those two battalions are sweeping along it at this moment.”

“A cavalry attack? At night?”

“I … might have confiscated a very large, very valuable shipment of sightglass from a Magna warehouse earlier today, and distributed it to our cuirassiers.”

Idrian could do nothing but watch, dumbfounded, the chaos unfolding in front of him. It was difficult to make out in the darkness, even with his sightglass, but he could understand at least some of what was going on. It was devastating and brutal, and for some reason it made him feel sick. Demir could not hope to take Kerite on the battlefield, so he’d unleashed the very forces of nature upon her.

“You wanted me to see this, didn’t you?” Idrian asked breathlessly.

Demir was quiet for a moment, his eyes fixed on the distant events. Finally he said, “I know what everyone is saying about me, even among the Ironhorns. I know they think that I’ve broken, that I’m insane, that I can’t be trusted to keep them alive. I did want you to see this. Tadeas might be the head of the Ironhorns, but you’re the beating heart, and I want you to understand that all of those things might be true – but that there is still a little of the Lightning Prince left in me.”

Demir turned suddenly, putting his pocket watch away and heading back the way they’d come. He stopped after a few paces and continued, “More importantly, I wanted you to see that Kerite is not invincible. She can – she will – be beaten. Come, let’s get back to camp.”

Idrian tore his gaze away from the horizon and set it upon the retreating shoulders of the younger Grappo. All his doubts and worries of the last week were still there, tumbling about in his head and heart, but Demir’s words seemed to mute them all.

The Lightning Prince was back, and he would do anything it took to protect Ossa.