Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

“Gladly,” Marcus said. “If you can assure me that my men won’t be harmed.”

“I think I can manage that.” Rose paused a moment longer, thinking. “All right. Sit tight, Captain. I’ll be back.”

Her face vanished. Marcus tried to get a look at how she was climbing the wall, but the narrow gun slit blocked any view but straight ahead. He gave up and shook his head.

“All right,” he said, to the darkened room. “It’s not as though I have any choice.”

RAESINIA

“Raes?” It was Faro. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah.”

This was one of those times that Raesinia wished she could sleep. The binding drained the weariness from her body, like any other injury, but she missed the refreshing feeling of waking up from a real sleep.

Or she thought she did, anyway. It had been so long since she’d died that she wasn’t sure she really remembered. She wondered what it would be like fifty years from now, or a hundred, trying to recall that increasingly tiny slice of her existence when she’d been a human being like all the rest.

I’ll find out. As far as she could tell, she didn’t have any alternative.

Her makeshift shelter was just a triangular lean-to of carpet tied to a protruding window frame and weighed down with stray bricks. It provided her with a place to get away from the crowd, which had gotten increasingly violent since the shooting in the courtyard. The carnival atmosphere of the evening had evaporated, and the mob had separated into armed camps, clustered around their bonfires. Jane’s Leatherbacks, the closest thing the Dockside contingent had to leaders, had already had to break up several fights between their people and the council followers.

The carpet twitched open, and Faro slipped in on his hands and knees. There was enough spare fabric to cushion the cobbled street, and Raesinia had found a torn feather pillow and a lantern somewhere. He looked around approvingly.

“Very cozy.”

“Thanks.” Raesinia sat up and yawned, for effect. “Did you talk to Abby?”

“It took a while to pry her away from Jane and Winter, but yes.”

“And?”

“She hasn’t seen Cora.” Raes’ disappointment must have shown on her face, because he added, “She said the women and children were kept in a bunch of separate cells, though. And she said that the Concordat troops were pretty rough on them, initially, but that Captain d’Ivoire stepped in and put Armsmen guards in place before anyone got seriously hurt.”

“Captain d’Ivoire.” The bluff, bearded officer she’d met with Vhalnich. Raesinia pursed her lips thoughtfully. “All right. That’s something. What do you make of Mad Jane?”

“She doesn’t seem all that mad to me. Her people have really taken charge. I think most of the crowd came here looking for Danton, but with him locked up Jane has been organizing everything. She’s got a bunch of young women and dockmen working for her directly, and the rest seem to have a lot of respect for her.”

“Any idea what her goals are?”

“No more than she told us: to get the prisoners out. Maurisk and Dumorre have been trying to explain to the Dockside people how it’s their manifest destiny to throw off the ancient chains of servitude and assume their proper role in the running of the state, but it’s an uphill battle. It sounds good when Danton’s saying it, but coming out of those two. .”

“Danton.” Raesinia shook her head. That was another problem. “God only knows what they’ve made of him in there.”

“They can’t have really figured him out,” Faro said. “Otherwise they’d have bribed him with a beer and sent him out to tell everyone to go home.”

“We have to get him back.” Raesinia ran a hand through her hair distractedly and winced as her fingers caught in the knots. Pure reflex, of course-she didn’t feel the pain anymore. “We’re running out of time. We got away because Orlanko has more important things to deal with, but Ohnlei can’t let this go on forever. Sooner or later they’ll send in the real troops.”

She could only imagine the panic at the palace and the ministries. She wondered if her father was still alive, if Indergast’s operation had saved him, or if he was dead and Orlanko was simply keeping the fact from the outside world. She wondered if she’d been missed yet-how long could one continue to be in hysterics? That may be the least of our worries. If Orlanko has decided to bring the knives out for good and all. .

She needed to be in five places at once, and none of them was here , waiting outside this fortress. But Cora was in there, and Danton, and probably Sarton as well. I can’t leave them.

“We won’t have long to wait,” Faro said. “Peddoc was arguing strategy with Jane, but they’re bringing up the ram. Once they have the gate down they’ll storm the place.”

“Saints and martyrs. If the guards open fire-” Everyone had been so sure they’d surrender, but that had been before the rifleman had tried to kill Jane in the courtyard.

“It’s a death trap,” Faro said. “But they haven’t got enough men to keep us out.”

“And then it’ll be a massacre on both sides.”

Faro nodded. “They’re already shouting, ‘No quarter’ in the courtyard.”

“This isn’t going to work. What if the guards start killing the prisoners? Hell, what if they decide to blow the magazine?” There was a gloomy thought. Raesinia imagined sitting up, alone, her skin a blistered ruin, amid the wreckage of half the Island and thousands of corpses.

“I know. But what else can we do? As you said, we’re running out of time. If we wait around until they send in the army, things will be even worse.”

“I need to talk to Jane. Can you set that up?”

“I can try,” Faro said.

“Tell her. . tell her I have a plan.”

Faro blinked. “You have a plan?”

“No.” Raesinia sighed. “But I might think of something by then. We have to do something . This is our fault , Faro, even if we didn’t want it to end up like this. We wrote every word Danton said. I’m not going to let this turn into a bloodbath.”

“All right,” Faro said. “I’ll do what I can.”

He turned around and crawled out of the little shelter. Raesinia held the carpet up for a moment after he went, looking out at the fire-studded darkness.

She’d always known that her path would provoke some kind of confrontation. Once they’d started using Danton, that had become a near certainty. But she’d always imagined it as being. . more civilized, somehow. A gathering of statesmen. Eloquent arguments in marble halls. Perhaps a few mass demonstrations to peacefully show the will of the people. Orlanko and his cronies would be forced out, but. .

Not like this. Not mobs with battering rams, shouting, “No quarter!”

Either she’d overestimated her ability to control the situation or underestimated the viciousness of Orlanko and those underneath him. Or, most likely, both. Damn, damn, damn. She could feel Ben hovering nearby in the darkness, smiling gently.

What did you expect, Raes? A peaceful revolution?

“Raesinia.”

The voice came out of nowhere. Occupied as she was communing with ghosts, Raesinia started, getting tangled in the hanging carpet and nearly bringing the whole makeshift thing down on top of her.

“Who-” she got out, before realization dawned. “Sothe!”

Her maidservant appeared from the shadows, like a patch of mobile darkness. Raesinia extricated herself from her shelter and scrambled to her feet.

“Are you all right?” Raesinia said. “I shouldn’t have sent you on by yourself. I didn’t know things had gotten this bad.”