Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

“Behind you, sir,” Giforte snapped, popping back up and charging toward the stairway, staff in hand. Marcus rolled and regained his feet in time to block a downward cut from the bearded man’s cutlass. Steel rang against steel, the blade of the cutlass sliding down to catch on the saber’s guard. The man shoved, grunting, trying to force both blades into Marcus’ face. He was big and broad-shouldered, and Marcus quickly realized he wasn’t going to win a contest of strength.

Instead he faded sideways, pulling his sword away and letting his opponent’s force carry him forward. The bearded man turned it into a spin, cutlass whipping around at head height, but Marcus had anticipated the move. He ducked, his own weapon swinging low and catching his assailant below the knee with bone-cracking force. The man screamed, his leg buckling, and as he fell Marcus delivered an upward stroke across his chest that left him lying on the floor in a spreading pool of blood.

Marcus turned, looking for Giforte. The bare-chested man had met his charge head-on, grabbing the staff before the vice captain could swing and using it as a bar to push Giforte into the wall. He was of a similar size to his late companion, and Giforte’s face had gone white with the effort of keeping the staff from being pressed against his throat. Marcus ran at them, arm drawn back for a brutal downward cut, which the man only noticed at the last moment. He half turned, taking the blade at the base of his neck, a blow hard enough to break bones. When he staggered backward, the saber came free, and blood exploded from the wound. The bare-chested man took one more step backward, groaning, then collapsed to the floor.

Silence fell, and Marcus could hear his own rapid, ragged breaths. Giforte still held the staff in front of his face, unmoving. His eyes were closed, and his throat worked rapidly.

“Vice Captain?” Marcus said. “Are you all right?”

There was a long pause before Giforte opened his eyes, blowing out a deep breath. “I’m fine,” he said. “Eisen? Jones?”

“I’m all right, sir,” Eisen said, voice a little shaky. “Right through my arm. But I think Jones is dead.”

A moment’s investigation showed that he was right. Marcus tried to shift the huge wooden thing off Jones, the other Armsman, but found that he couldn’t even budge it. Opening the wardrobe door, he found the whole thing was stuffed with sacks of bricks. It must weigh a ton.

He indicated the bricks to Giforte.

“They were waiting for us,” the vice captain said.

“Or waiting for someone,” Marcus said. “There might be a lookout upstairs.”

They looked at each other, sharing the image of a man with a pistol trained on the stairs, just waiting for someone to ascend. Marcus took a deep breath.

“I’ll take a look,” he said. “See if you can get this door open.”

“Sir-”

Marcus was already crossing the room, bloody saber still in hand. The right move would have been to wait until the others could get inside, but one man was dead already; he couldn’t stomach the idea of sending another into what might be a trap. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up. Light flickered against the flaking plaster of the roof. Someone has a fire lit.

He paused, considering his options, then raised his saber and took the stairs at a run, hoping to startle anyone who might be waiting into a hasty shot. The wood creaked alarmingly under his boots, but he cleared the last step and immediately threw himself sideways, out of the line of fire, landing in a crouch.

The second floor was another large room, this one unfurnished except for three dingy straw pallets. At one end of the room was a heavy iron cauldron, with a merry firelight coming from inside it. Standing next to it was a young man in worn leathers, in the act of dropping a small bound notebook into the flames.

“Don’t move!” Marcus growled, hurrying over. The young man raised his hands, no surprise evident in his features, and stepped back. A glance into the cauldron confirmed Marcus’ fears. It was a mass of glowing paper. Those bastards downstairs were buying time.

“You’re under arrest,” he said, awkwardly aware that there was probably a proper way for an Armsman to arrest someone, and that he didn’t know it. “Keep your hands up and don’t try anything.”

The young man smiled. He had a thin, expressive face, with a neat beard on his chin but smooth cheeks. When he spoke, Marcus could hear just a trace of a gravelly Murnskai accent.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, and smiled a little wider. “It’s good to meet you, Captain d’Ivoire.”

WINTER

In an effort to calm her jangling nerves, Winter was trying to make an inventory of all the things that were making her anxious. This didn’t help , but once she’d started she found she couldn’t stop.

First and foremost was the dress, or “the damned dress” as she thought of it. It had been uncomfortable to begin with, but she’d assumed that it wouldn’t take long before old habits reasserted themselves. Now it had been two days, and while she was able to go for minutes at a time without thinking about it, sooner or later she would turn around quickly or get hit by a gust of wind, and the feel of the long skirt’s fabric brushing against her legs would have her grabbing for it in a panic.

The top was nearly as bad. It was by no standards indecent, but the short sleeves and billowing fit made her feel half-naked. The figure it draped was, while not generous, still clearly that of a young woman , and every time Winter caught sight of her reflection in a shopwindow she had to fight a powerful urge to find something with which to cover herself. She even found herself missing the tight pinch of her self-tailored undershirts. At least she still had a hat, even if it was a slouching felt thing instead of the brimmed officer’s cap she’d grown used to.

Second-or maybe it was part of the first-was the constant dread of impending discovery . Winter had lived for two years among the men of the Royal Army, knowing that any slip that led to someone finding out her true gender would lead to her being locked up and sent home at the very best. Walking around a crowded city, dressed like this, was worse than walking around naked. She felt like the most brazen of whores, shouting out her most closely held secret for all to hear. The apparent unconcern of those around her would be shattered at any moment by-someone, some authority, who would drag her away somewhere to answer for her crimes.

Third was the more mundane anxiety that she was not getting anywhere with her assigned task. She had given herself a day of simply walking around in her new garb, getting used to the idea. She’d somehow expected to attract stares from every eye, as though the news would race out ahead of her that here was Winter Ihernglass , dressed as a girl ! In fact, nobody paid her the least attention, aside from a few street vendors who took her relatively well-washed appearance to mean that she had money.

Walking through the streets of a city unobserved was a new experience for Winter. A few vague early memories aside, she’d spent her entire childhood at Mrs. Wilmore’s and had gone more than a decade without venturing farther from the old manor house than the neighboring estates. Then she’d run away to Khandar. The Colonials had had the run of the city before the Redemption, but their uniforms and skin color meant they would always be objects of attention.

It was something they’d all gotten used to, and she’d stopped noticing the feeling until it was suddenly gone. Here she was just a girl, one among thousands, a little out of the ordinary for this neighborhood but no more so than dozens of others. She felt as if some sorcerer had turned her invisible.