A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (16 page)

“We were also your friends,” pointed out Tovar.

“You still are, Adril.” Ormuz placed his hands on the table-top and clasped them together. “Which is why it pains me to know you’re locked up down here. If you gave me your parole, you could have the run of the ship. And when we reached Obok, I’m sure I could persuade the Admiral to let you go.”

“Obok? That’s our next stop?” demanded Dai.

“No. Kunta, capital of the duchy, is our next stop. But I don’t think it wise to let you loose there.”

“You know we can’t give you our parole, Casimir,” Lotsman said sadly. “We have a duty to our Order.”

Ormuz slapped the table. “Duty!” he snapped. “I’d have thought you were beyond that! You’ve been prisoners aboard
Vengeful
for a quarter of a year. And yet we’ve heard
nothing
from the knights sinister—no requests for news of your condition, no demands for your release. They’ve forgotten about you, Lex. You
failed
and they no longer care.”

Dai answered. Leaning forward, arms crossed tightly across bosom, she glared at Ormuz. “No. You don’t know them. They’ll
never
forget us.”

“You think they’re plotting to free you? They have no agents aboard
Vengeful
.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “Do they, Varä?”

“Actually, Casimir,” the marquis admitted, “I would be the last to know.”

“But they put you close to me as their agent,” Ormuz pointed out.

“True,” Varä said. “But the Involutes are fiendishly cunning. For all I know, the Admiral herself could be working for them.” He put a hand to his mouth and aped shock. “
With
them, I should say.”

Ignoring Varä’s giggles, Ormuz turned back to the
Divine Providence
crew. “I can’t keep you prisoner until this is all over; I don’t
want
to keep you prisoner until this is all over. But what else can I do? The Admiral won’t let you have your freedom aboard
Vengeful
. Perhaps I can persuade her to leave you behind on Geneza after the battle —”

“Well, thank you very much,” grated Dai.

Few ships visited Geneza. After Emperor Edkar I had sacked the world almost 1,300 years ago, and declared his own empire, he had shipped most of the planet’s population elsewhere and converted much of its surface to parkland.

Leaving the crew of
Divine Providence
there would effectively maroon them.

Ahasz came awake to a hand shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes to see his batman, Denever, standing over him. The duke groaned, swung his legs off the cot and sat upright. “What time is it?” he asked. He still felt tired, so he could not have had much sleep.

“Just after five in the morning, your grace,” Denever replied. He proffered a battered tin mug of coffee.

“Damn.” Ahasz had not managed to lie down until two o’clock. His orders had been to wake him at seven. He sipped the coffee, which was hot and bitter. The taste, more than anything, brought home to him his current situation: kipping in a command post in the trench complex he had ordered built in the Imperial Household District. It seemed quite unreal. Despite the constant barrage of directed-energy bolts from the Imperial Palace emplacements. Despite even the assault by the knights militant two days ago. This was a
war
, and this rude shelter, this poor beverage, this uncomfortable cot, all signalled as such.

He put the mug on the wooden floor, stretched out his arms and yawned. He felt dirty, unwashed. And well he should: he had not bathed in the last three days. The constant battering by the Imperial Palace Artillery, and frequent assaults by the knights stalwart and knights militant, had taken their toll.

Supplies were running short, the loads being shipped into the District, on the railway his troops controlled, were lighter each day. He had not planned for an extended campaign and the stockpiles hidden on his estate were rapidly depleting. A handful of nobles had agreed to sell his quartermasters much-needed foodstuffs and equipment—at wildly exorbitant prices. Short-sighted foolishness. Once he was on the Throne, Ahasz would ensure their greed was repaid.

“So?” he asked, yawning. He lifted up his jacket and slipped into it. “Why have I been woken early? I left strict instructions.”

“A runner from the District entrance, your grace. Apparently there are troops massing for an attack.”

The duke barked a laugh. “What? Who would be so damn foolish? They’ll be massacred.”

He rose to his feet, blinked at a slight disorientation. “Never mind.” He held out a hand. “Sword.”

Denever picked up the duke’s sword-belt from a nearby stool and handed it to his master. Ahasz quickly buckled it about his waist, and fiddled with the lockets to ensure the sheathed blade hung free and would not impede movement.

“Let’s go,” he said.

A command car was waiting on the back-slope of Palace Road, near the exit from the trenches. Dawn was about to break, a faint orange glow lightening the sky to the east above Mount Yama and the ridge running north and south from it. The sky above, a flawless dome of darkness, was dusted with stars. Ahasz breathed in deeply. The crisp air smelt of burnt earth, scorched grass, the hot ozone left behind by directed-energy bolts. He picked his way between the craters to where the car bobbed in silhouette on its chargers. A hatch swung open, letting out dim red light. Ahasz scrambled within.

The command car shot forward before he had even made his seat. He lurched back, put out a hand to steady himself. “Well?” he demanded.

“They’ve been gathering for the last hour or so, your grace. As soon as it’s light, we expect them to charge,” the vehicle commander told him.

“Who holds the entrance?”

“Regimental-Major Bab and the 19
^th
Battalion. Colonel Tayisa has ordered artillery crews to man the emplacements in Sword and Shield.”

“Humf. Good.” Ahasz settled back in his seat. He rubbed the back of his neck, then scratched his bearded cheek. He needed a bath, he needed a change of clothes. But he was reluctant to clean himself up because his current dishevelment at least showed his men that he was fighting and suffering as they were. It was good for morale. Even if his own spirits should suffer from the discomfort.

The command car sped along the grass, skirting the District garrison and avoiding the Knot. As it crested the slope onto the Imperial Mile, Ahasz hung onto a nearby bracket and reflected on the sacrifices he had made for this rebellion. Even when he sent troops into Nevola’s fief, he had not rode in the van. But appeared later, in comfort and splendour, to congratulate his soldiers. Comfortably ensconced in an armoured limousine, resplendent in bright and shining uniform, impeccably turned out.

Because he had expected his victory to be short-lived.

It had taken the Office of the Procurator Imperial less than three days to send in an army of troopers to seize control of the fief, and a small team of senior officers to Ahasz to take him into custody. He snorted in amusement. House arrest. Thinking they could censure him. Nevola had been acutely embarrassed, emasculated before his peers. The Electorate, pretending to a might it did not possess, had told the marquis he was deserving of all that had happened and it was to his advantage Ahasz had taken matters into his own hands. They would not have been so lenient. Nevola had few allies and fewer patrons. Ahasz, on the other hand, was one of the most powerful men in the Empire.

“Your grace,” the vehicle commander said. “We’re there.”

He scrambled past the duke, undogged the rear hatch and swung it wide. Tayisa immediately appeared in the square of red light flung across the grass. Beside him was an officer in a red jacket with black frogging: Bab, Ahasz guessed.

As they walked towards the barricade blocking the entrance to the District, Ahasz looked about him. Sappers had dug up the surface of the Imperial Mile between the two crags upon which sat Sword and Shield. Using that material, they had built an eight-foot-high parapet entirely filling the gap. There was no way through. On a raised platform behind the barricade, Bab’s troopers, armed with hammers and three directed-energy field-pieces, kept an alert eye on the Imperial Mile without. Only a fool would charge such a well-entrenched position.

Ahasz suspected their attacker was just that.

“Have you identified them yet?” he asked Bab.

The regimental-major, heftily-built, bluff, with the heavy features of man who enjoyed his food and his drink, nodded. “Yes, your grace. Household troops of the Viscount Mubona of Iko.”

“I know the name, but not the man. What’s his strength?”

“About three companies, your grace,” put in Tayisa.

“Two hundred and fifty men?” Ahasz was horrified. “The man’s a fool.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Bab, who plainly also knew the name, “he’s looking to repeat the successes of his forefathers?”

Ahasz grunted. The Iko family had gained their rank during the Pacification Campaigns centuries ago, winning a string of victories for the Imperial Throne—some of which had been quite astonishing. They had rested on their laurels ever since.

“Can we do this bloodlessly?” Ahasz asked the two officers. “I’ll not have the deaths caused by Iko’s idiocy on my hands. Enough have died already. And yet more are likely to die before I get my arse on that damned Throne. But I’ll not have a massacre.”

His hands were bloody enough already.

“They might be open to parley, your grace,” suggested Bab.

“Good. We’ll try that. Tayisa, get me a squad of Ashma’s fiercest. Bab, have one of your field-pieces let off a shot—at a tree or a rock, something close by that will provide some educational destruction without actually harming anyone.”

From the barricade, Ahasz peered out at the troops gathering on the Imperial Mile, while Tayisa hurried back to the trenches and fetched a squad of the duke’s household elite. As the sun rose, a line of light crept from the barricade across the highway and revealed four lines of troops. Still diluted by night, the pale orange day lit up bright helmets and the fisted heads of maces. A formidable sight to most, but to Ahasz, backed by Houscarls with directed-energy field-pieces, it all seemed somewhat risible.

Iko’s soldiers shuffled in place, a muttering of booted feet. Officers strode back and forth before the lines, preventing morale creeping away with the night. Ahasz held out a hand and someone placed a telescope in it. He put the instrument to his eye and scanned the soldiers which stood serried before him. Dish-shaped white helmets, jackets quartered in green and white, and black trousers. A banner, fluffed out by an errant gust of wind, caught his eye. The Mubona coat of arms: a curved horn in green beside a white tankard, both on a field of black.

A sudden bright bolt lit up the pre-dawn dimness, fired from the parapet and across the lines of Iko’s troops. A patch of earth beside the Imperial Mile exploded, throwing road-surface and soil up into the air. Smoke drifted across the parapet. Ahasz smelled the crisp odour of burnt soil. More shuffling of boots sounded from the lines of militia.

Bellows rang out from Iko’s officers. They waved their swords, attempting to whip up a martial fervour. Ahasz signalled to Bab with an upward move of his hand. One hundred Housecarls climbed up onto the parapet’s lip.

The duke stepped up to join the Housecarls. He saw attention fasten on him. He wore a sword, so was an officer. His jacket was not the red and black of the Imperial Regiment of Housecarls, but the gold-frogged red of his own household troops. They likely knew him the moment they saw him.

“Ashma’s men here yet?” Ahasz asked Bab.

“Coming, your grace,” the regimental-major replied.

Ahasz looked back into the District and watched a troop-carrier disgorge eight troopers in grey uniforms with gold and red stripes down sleeve and leg. Each carried a long-shafted hammer on a sling over their shoulders and a dagger on each hip. They wore air-hoods of grey canvas, and so were unidentifiable behind small round black eye-glasses and the grills of breathers. The steel caps they wore beneath the hoods gave their crowns the unnatural appearance of a perfect hemisphere. It had led to their nickname: Roundheads.

Not only had Ahasz secretly armed his household troopers with halberds—an act prohibited by law—he had also created a small elite force the equal of the knights stalwart or knights militant. No, not equal—
superior
. They had, after all, taken both Sword and Shield.

Once the Roundheads had reached him, and the sergeant reported for duty, he said brusquely, “Follow me,” and leapt down from the parapet to the ground before the barricade. Iko’s troopers responded by presenting their maces. Ahasz held up his hands, palms forwards. He came in peace, to parley. Thuds behind him told him his Roundheads had joined him.

Ahasz strolled forwards, palms still held out. He gestured the nearest Iko officer towards him with an urgent gesture. The man, a captain by his insignia, looked about him, unsure what course of action to take.

“Here, man,” Ahasz called. “I wish to speak with Iko.”

The captain took a step forward, hesitated. He looked along the line to the next officer.

“No schemes,” the duke assured him, voice still raised. “I intend only to talk. I would not have your men slaughtered.”

Iko’s army shuffled nervously.

Shoving his sword into its scabbard, the captain marched forward to meet Ahasz. Once within conversational distance: “You are the Duke of Ahasz?”

“I am. Now escort me to Iko, captain, if you would.” Ahasz frowned. “I take it he
is
here?”

“Yes, your grace. To the rear, in the command pavilion.”

“Good.” Ahasz dropped his hands. “Take me there. These —” He indicated his Roundheads with a terse gesture—“are to safeguard my person.”

“They look very fearsome,” the captain remarked with a nervous smile.

“Yes.” Ahasz strode forwards and the captain hurried to remain at his side. “They are.”

The line of Iko troopers shuffled aside as the party approached. Mutters and whispers drifted beneath closely-held maces, but none loud enough for meaning to rise above the noise. Head high, Ahasz marched along a passage made of soldiers, faces a mixture of anger, wonder and fear. More joined the passage walls, making it more than four lines deep, directing Ahasz towards the cluster of pavilions well to the rear, from which Iko no doubt intended to direct his campaign. And that tent, the largest and most sumptuous, of rich fabric in green, black and white, must clearly be the viscount’s.