Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

“Yessir.” Marcus drew himself up and saluted. “At once, sir!”

He ran to the edge of the square, edged sideways between the surprised rankers, and hurried across the killing ground toward the pikemen. These volunteers, still formed into a rough block, had done nothing but bristle and cheer as the horsemen swept past. Marcus waved his hat at the blue-uniformed lieutenant in charge.

“Captain!” The man-Bosh, Marcus recalled-snapped a salute. “Do you have orders?”

“We’re to attack, on the double.” Marcus pointed up the slope, at an angle that would let the pikes edge around the still-formed squares. “That way. Follow me!”

“With this lot, sir? They don’t know how to march! We’ll just be a mob.”

“It’s what we’ve got,” Marcus said, trying to emulate Janus’ peremptory demeanor. He raised his voice. “We’re going at them! Follow me!”

An enthusiastic cheer came from the ranks of the volunteers. There was nothing for raising men’s morale, Marcus thought, like watching a battle without actually being shot at. He waved his hat in the air again, chopped his hand in the direction he wanted, and set off.

Lieutenant Bosh’s prediction came true almost immediately. As soon as they started to move, the ranks the sergeants had so painfully constructed dissolved, and the formation started to look more like a blob than a rectangle. He heard the clatter of wood and the occasional shocked screech as men tangled their long-hafted weapons, trod on one another’s feet, or fell over.

“Keep those pikes up!” Bosh shouted, walking backward and waving his arms frantically. “Keep together!”

“Double time!” Marcus said, and then broke into a trot himself. The sound of confusion behind him increased, but he could hear the thud of many boots climbing the hill. The Colonials gave him a cheer as he went past, and to either side the cannoneers were running back to their guns.

Crossing the crest of the hill, he was confronted with an immense bank of smoke, just starting to break up in the feeble breeze. Through a few gaps, he could see the enemy line, still putting itself back together after its last attempt to catch the fleeing volunteers. The reason for Janus’ haste was suddenly obvious-until the line got back into shape, and the men reloaded their muskets, there would be no volley of deadly, coordinated fire to break the momentum of the pikemen’s charge. But how the hell could he know that, from the other side of the hill-

Marcus shook his head. One day, he thought, he might learn to stop second-guessing Janus bet Vhalnich. He drew his sword as the leading edge of the mass of pikemen came over the grassy top of the hill behind him. From either side, the boom of cannon resumed as the artillery picked up its attack.

If this works, it’s going to be one of those things that get written down in the history books. He wondered, briefly, what he should say. Oh well. I can always think of something clever later to tell the historians.

“Come on!” He chopped downward, toward the enemy. “Let’s get the bastards!”

Marcus broke into a run. Behind him, the volunteers let out another cheer and followed. They made it halfway to the enemy line before someone with a loaded musket spotted them through the smoke, and a crackle of musket fire came to meet them. Marcus heard balls zipping overhead, and men jerked and tumbled behind him, but for the moment he was untouched. He didn’t dare stop, for fear of one of his own men skewering him from behind.

He expected an awful collision, the crash of body on body and weapon on flesh, but it never happened. The men in the thin line of regulars watched the pikes come on, three thousand strong, and made a rapid assessment of their chances. First one by one, then all in a flood, they broke and ran, sprinting down into the valley, desperate to stay ahead of the vengeful mob. In spite of the shouts of the officers, the panic was contagious, as the companies to either side of where the line had been breached decided they were better off following their companions.

In a few seconds, the solid-looking line of blue had shattered around the charge of the pikes like a pane of glass hit by a stone. The regulars were in full flight, scattered across the valley, and the volunteers whooped and went after them. Marcus slowed to a trot, then finally halted, his sword still unbloodied. He couldn’t have brought his cheering men under control if he’d wanted to, but it no longer mattered. High on the other hill, he could see rearing horses and frantic motions, as Orlanko’s officers and cannoneers also decided on the better part of valor.

The battle was over.

Now what?

MARCUS

The greatest challenge the new government had faced so far was staging the victory parade. The military officers had wanted to hold it in the traditional spot, on the main drive at Ohnlei, while the Deputies-General had insisted it wind through Cathedral Square on the Island to pay proper respect to the representatives of the people. In the end the queen had arranged a compromise-the procession would begin at the palace and make its way through miles of countryside, to finally enter the city and finish at the cathedral. A reviewing stand was hastily erected by the side of the Ohnlei Road, roughly halfway along the route.

Marcus thought it was a bit hard on the soldiers, who had done all the marching and fighting and would now be required to march a few miles more. When he’d mounted the reviewing stand, however, he began to perceive the wisdom of Raesinia’s solution. The side of the road was lined with people, cheering and waving blue-and-silver flags. They stretched in an unbroken line toward the city as far as he could see, as though the entire population of Vordan had turned out to bear witness to their triumph. Trying to cram all of the spectators onto either the palace grounds or into the square would have been a disaster.

He was used to thinking of the queen as a passive participant in the plans of the likes of Janus or Orlanko. But she’s smarter than we give her credit for, isn’t she?

At the moment, Raesinia sat at the front of the stand, in a dress that, while elaborately laced and ruffled, was nonetheless black. Recent events might have blotted out the memory of the king’s death for some, but not for her. The officers present had added black armbands to their uniforms, which served a nicely doubled symbolic duty of representing their mourning and expressing solidarity with the volunteers who’d fought and died only a few miles north of here.

She was surrounded by a mixed flock of courtiers and army officers, the former in brightly colored finery and the latter in dress blues trimmed with silver and gold. It was, as yet, a small flock. Proclamations had gone out immediately following the victory, calling on the great nobles and the colonels of all the army regiments to come and swear loyalty to the new queen and the Deputies-General, but so far only a few had answered. Some noblemen and — women, younger sons and daughters for the most part, had arrived bearing excuses for their families, but few of the counts and almost none of the colonels had turned up. They were frightened by the Deputies-General and its rhetoric, and in spite of the queen’s triumph they were hedging their bets. An aristocrat’s first allegiance was always to survival. The officers who had come were younger men, captains and lieutenants who’d come up through the college and were eager to spit in the eyes of their higher-born colleagues.

No one came to dance attendance on the new Minister of War. They’d offered perfunctory congratulations, but Marcus suspected that most of the officers hoped to persuade the queen to reject the country nobleman in favor of one of their own. After all, they told each other, he’d only gotten lucky, and happened to have his men on the spot in the moment of crisis. And Khandar, well, whipping a troop of gray-skins wasn’t such a great feat when it came down to it, was it?