Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

That meant, primarily, Jane. She’d been bouncing from one extreme to the other, alternating between a strange, manic energy and moments of black, vicious temper. The exhaustion Winter was feeling had to be a hundred times worse for her, with everyone looking to her for answers. Winter remembered all too well how draining that could be.

Another crash, from farther down the street, barely registered. The mob had quickly learned the best technique for demolition: a rope, tied tight around key beams, could be tossed out into the street and drawn by hundreds of hands until the whole front of a building came crashing down. Other groups were wandering about with sacks of broken bricks, looking for unshattered windows, or collecting scraps of wood to feed to the bonfires. Anything associated with the Borelgai or the duke was the target of special ire, and Winter had watched furious rioters feed thousands of eagles’ worth of fur or fine fabrics to the flames.

Jane’s Leatherbacks brought in scraps of information, but their picture of what was going on outside the immediate area was sketchy. The Armsmen had rallied on the east side of the Island, protecting the Sworn Cathedral and the bridges to the Exchange. As best Winter could tell, they seemed uninterested in challenging the mob west of Farus’ Triumph, in spite of a few attempts by the North Bank rabble-rousers to gather a force to attack them, and she was happy to leave them be.

The sun was disappearing behind the buildings of the western skyline. Jane half turned, attention caught by some distant act of destruction, and its orange light caught her hair and made it shine like beaten gold. For a moment the sight of her took Winter’s breath away.

“I didn’t want this,” Jane repeated. The shadow of the buildings reached out for her, snuffing out the fire in her hair, and she crossed her arms and looked down. “I just wanted. .”

“I know.” Winter slipped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s all right.”

Jane turned her head away. “I should never have let her go. Fucking Danton. I should have known.”

“There’s no way you could have known today was going to be the day Orlanko would bring the boot down,” Winter said. “But it’s all right . They’ll be fine.”

“What if they aren’t?” Jane’s jaw tightened. “What if they’ve hurt her? Or if she’s. .”

“I trust Captain d’Ivoire,” Winter repeated. “He won’t let anything happen to Abby or the others.” Though God alone knows who’s going to protect him when we get to storming the place.

Jane nodded, miserably, and took a shaky breath. She took Winter’s hand in hers and squeezed. “Balls of the fucking Beast. I’m glad you’re here.”

They stood for a long moment in companionable silence, broken by the crackle of bonfires and the shuddering crunch of collapsing buildings. There was a distant scream, suddenly cut off. Jane frowned.

“At least the Borels had the good sense to run away when they saw us coming,” Winter said. “Along with everybody else.”

That got a weak chuckle. It wasn’t strictly true, of course, and Winter suspected Jane knew it as well. Most of the buildings on the Island were shops or businesses, whose inhabitants had indeed fled at the approach of the mob, and the few residences were mostly abandoned as well. Jane had even used her Leatherbacks to conduct a few families to safety. Now, with the arrival of the Dregs contingent and thousands more from the Docks and the other poor quarters of the city, matters had gotten out of hand. Most of the inhabitants had fled, but Winter had carefully steered away from some groups of rioters who looked as though they’d been engaged in more than mere drunken destruction. Here and there, pathetic bundles hung from the lampposts, like gory decorations. Winter tried to keep Jane pointed in the other direction. She doesn’t need any more on her conscience.

“We should get back,” Jane said. “They must be nearly done with the ram by now.”

“I wish you’d take the chance to sleep.”

“You think I could sleep ?”

Winter shrugged. “ I could. It’s been almost two days.”

“That must be your soldier’s instincts.” Somehow they’d shifted to walking arm in arm, like a young couple strolling out for a night on the town. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Winter said.

“Why Khandar? Why did you go so far away?”

There was a long pause. Winter swallowed hard.

“I wasn’t. . thinking clearly, after I ran away.” Winter paused. “I had this idea that Mrs. Wilmore was some all-seeing monster, I think. Like the Last Duke, only worse. I felt like I had to get as far away as I possibly could, or else they’d come and drag me back.”

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” Jane said. “I remembered her as this huge, evil person. But when I went back there, she was. . nothing. Just a little old woman.”

Winter nodded. They lapsed into silence again, and she couldn’t help wondering what Jane was thinking. If I hadn’t been such a coward, if I hadn’t run away, she might have found me again. Hell, I might have rescued her. If I hadn’t -

“That’s Min,” Jane said, raising her hand. Across the street, the slight girl waved back and hurried over. She was breathing hard.

“We need you at the gate,” Min said. “Now.”

“What’s happened?” Winter said.

“Someone came out to negotiate. Abby’s with him. But Peddoc and the others-”

Winter grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her into a run. Jane was already a half street ahead of them, and accelerating.

The courtyard of the Vendre was even more crowded than they’d left it, with both dockmen and University students pressing in as tight as they could without actually mixing with one another. In spite of the agreement between Jane and the council leaders, tensions between the groups remained high, and by the sounds of argument coming from the center of the yard, they weren’t getting any better.

Winter broke away from Min as the girl pressed through the mob to join a crowd of Jane’s Leatherbacks clustering around their leader. Winter herself stayed on the periphery, but she was close enough to catch Peddoc shouting.

“Of course it’s a damned trap! This is the Last Duke we’re dealing with! He lives and breathes treachery.”

“Besides,” said another councilman, “why should we negotiate? Just the fact that they’re offering means they’re at our mercy. We’ve finished the ram, and once we break down the door-”

“First of all,” said another man that Winter didn’t recognize, “I am Vice Captain Alek Giforte of the Armsmen. I am here on behalf of Captain of Armsmen Marcus d’Ivoire, and I do not answer to the Ministry of Information.”

“Everyone knows this is a Concordat prison!” shouted a dockman from the crowd.

Winter was too short to get a decent view from the floor of the courtyard. She worked her way to the edges, where crates and barrels of supplies were stacked. Chris, who was already perched there, recognized her and obligingly gave her a hand up to share her vantage point. From there, she could see Giforte standing in the center of an angry circle of council people and dockmen. Beside him, a tight-packed mass of young women was centered on Jane, who was hugging someone tight. Winter sighed with relief when she recognized Abby.

I knew Marcus wouldn’t let anything happen to his prisoners. She glanced up at the forbidding bulk of the fortress, now in shadow as the sun sank behind its towers. There were only a few men visible, up on the highest parapet and looking down at the scene below.

“Second,” Giforte thundered, in the voice of a sergeant on a parade ground, “the captain is well aware that we are, as you put it, at your mercy. However, if you insist on storming the gates, we will be forced to defend them, and the waste of life will be enormous.”