A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (34 page)

Ormuz did not wait. He ran forward, his sword out before him. Knocking aside one lieutenant’s blade, he ran him through. And dodged wildly as a billy-club swung at him. Behind him, he heard a clash of steel and knew Pulisz had engaged. He turned quickly about to see an enemy officer lunge for him. But he had his hilt up in time to deflect the blow. Flicked up the point, pinked him in the biceps. And then a step to the side, hammer down on the officer’s wrist with the pommel and pivot smoothly to meet the fourth lieutenant.

Only to be bowled aside as
Vengeful
’s rateds piled into the melee. Ormuz felt a thwack against his ribs. He looked down to see a blade had just missed him. He lifted his own sword. And thrust.

More rateds pushed into the fight. Ormuz was carried forwards. He had his blade point-down, his arms held to his chest. Something struck him a blow on the shoulder. He lashed out with an elbow. No way to know if it had been a
Vengeful
or
Kantara
rated.

He stumbled as he fell out the other side of the ruck. The supply passage ahead was clear. Ten yards ahead he could see an open space. He ran forwards. Footsteps beat off the decking behind him.

He was in the cruiser’s hall, and there some five yards away, a square opening in the roof, ten feet square. The conning-tower!

There were no lifts up the well, only a ramp leading up on two sides. Ormuz set off up the nearest. The charger buried within it provided gravity in its plane—to Ormuz it seemed as though he ran on the level. Pulisz was at his side. Behind them followed more of
Vengeful
’s crew.

As they passed hatchways and passages, Ormuz threw out orders, “Seize what you find!”

He was at the top of the conning-tower now. A single hatch. Open. He stepped over the coaming and found himself in a square chamber high up on the cruiser’s superstructure. A pair of rateds manned a console forward. Behind them stood a petty officer, and behind her, two officers. One was shouting into a glass on a communications-console:

“I don’t care what he thinks! I need him to take me and my crew off! Tell him to warp us in.”

Ormuz stepped forward. He jabbed the enemy officer at the communications-console lightly in the small of his back.

“What is it, damn you?” the man snapped, spinning about.

There was something familiar about the man, and it was a moment before Ormuz realised it was because he had seen his service record in the nomosphere. He remembered his name: Fokuan. A member of one of the first families. And he looked the part: sleek, well-fed and supercilious.

He fell silent when he saw Ormuz and the men behind him. “Who in heavens are you?”

“A boarding party,” Ormuz answered. “And you are the captain of
Kantara
. I’ll have your parole, if you please.”

“What? Parole?”

“We’ve taken your ship, your lordship. So be kind enough to surrender.”

The man abruptly straightened. His expression cleared and he said, “Captain Pim umar Fokuan, Marquess Ukiashi.”

“You yield? Yourself and your ship?”

“I do, sir.” Ukiashi bowed, as to a victor. “Might I have your name?”

Ormuz sheathed his sword. “Casimir Ormuz,” he said. He looked about him. There were windows ahead and to port and starboard. He could see battle raging about him, beams of light from main-guns across the heavens, damaged hulls trailing debris twisting and turning. Ships dying. People dying. Small clouds of… ship fragments? dead crew?

Something huge and black and mysterious moved up on
Kantara
to starboard. Ormuz crossed to the window. It was… a warship. A huge one. Bigger than
Vengeful
.

“What’s going on?” he demanded of Ukihashi.

“
Empress Glorina
is winching us in to take off my crew.”

“She’s
docking
?” asked Ormuz, incredulous. “In the middle of a space-battle?”

“We’re at the rear. I thought it safe enough.”

Ormuz turned to Pulisz. “Get a runner to the Admiral,” he instructed him. “Play this right and we can capture the enemy flagship!”

For one brief moment, Ormuz felt as though he were falling. He could see
Empress Glorina
’s hull drawing near, but it seemed to him as if he were plumetting toward some plain of machined steel. It took an effort of will to dispel the illusion.

He stood in a loading bay, and before him an open hatch some ten feet high by twenty feet wide looked out onto the approaching
Empress Glorina
. Silently and massively, she drifted closer. She began to roll slightly and an open loading hatch on her side rose into view. Two windows—across a gap of one hundred feet of space. Vacuum. If Ormuz stepped through the force-curtain across the hatch, he would die…

Someone aboard
Empress Glorina
waved. Lieutenant Pulisz returned the gesture.

“Are they really so stupid?” Ormuz asked.

Surely they could see that the two dozen or so crew waiting in the loading bay were not
Kantara
’s?

“They think they have nothing to fear, my lord,” Pulisz replied.

The Provost-Aboard had not left Ormuz’s side since they had captured the cruiser’s captain.

The two warships were about twenty feet apart now. One of
Empress Glorina
’s petty officers hurled a coiled rope. It unrolled across the gap, its weighted end flying through
Kantara
’s force-curtain and hitting the deck with dull thud. A rated picked it up and made it fast to a bollard.

“How far now, do you think?” Ormuz asked.

Pulisz cocked his head. “Perhaps ten feet, my lord.”

Ormuz’s heart began to beat faster. He put his hand to the hilt of his sword to stop it shaking. He waited… a second. Let her drift a foot or two closer…

“Now!” he yelled.

He ran at the loading hatch. And leapt. Pushing off from the deck as hard as he could. Eyes closed, mouth shut. Fierce cold struck at him, seemed to drive picks of ice into his ears. He felt the skin of his face began contract and turn numb.

And then he was across.

He flew through
Empress Glorina
’s force-curtain. Snapped his eyes open as he felt warmth sting his cheeks and set the tips of his ears aflame. He hit the deck and landed more heavily than he’d expected. His ankle jarred and he ran on almost out of control.

More thumps sounded around him as
Vengeful
’s boarders rained down on the deck.

Ormuz had his sword out now. He spun about, looking for the officer in charge. There he was, a mate, by the chamber’s exit, loudly demanding an explanation. Ormuz ran up to him.

“Your parole,” he demanded.

“Who in hells are you?” the mate replied angrily.

“A boarding party. From
Vengeful
.” Ormuz gestured impatiently with his sword. “Now give me your parole. Or fight.”

Someone fought behind Ormuz. It did not last long. Then further thumps and scrapes as more of
Vengeful
’s crew made their way across from
Kantara
.

The mate detached his scabbarded sword from his belt and, bending down, laid it at his feet.

“Pulisz!” called Ormuz.

The Provost-Aboard hurried up. “All secure, my lord,” he reported.

The battleship crew in the chamber had all been subdued. Some were plainly dead, some were out cold, and half a dozen had surrendered. They were watched over by a pair of provosts.

“I have your parole,” Ormuz told the mate. “Go over there and keep your rateds from interfering.”

At the head of over eighty
Vengeful
crew, Ormuz led the way into
Empress Glorina
. Pulisz, who was familiar with the class, gave directions. Anyone they met en route, they fought—and killed or subdued. They ran along gangways, up ramps, charged into groups of enemy rateds, fought their way through hatches. In the battleship’s Great Hall—so much larger than
Vengeful
’s—they met a contingent of
Empress Glorina
’s officers.

Ormuz found himself confronted by a pair of well-dressed midshipmen. Both were older than himself and, judging by their ornate swords, high nobles. They’d be skilled, then. But Ormuz was a master now—perhaps even better. Ahasz was a renowned swordsman and Ormuz was his clone.

The two midshipmen pressed their attack but Ormuz had his blade up in time. They were not used to fighting as a pair: they copied each other’s moves, hoping Ormuz could not parry a pair of blades. He did not need to. He thrust for one midshipman’s left shoulder, forcing him to turn away. Towards his fellow. Now he was in danger of stabbing him. He lifted his blade. Ormuz lunged. The midshipman went down, blood jetting from his neck. The other let out a screech as red splashed against him. Stumbled. And slipped. He was dead before his shoulders hit the deck.

Stepping forward, Ormuz saw Pulisz to his left, and Varä to his right. Someone moved in front of him and their blades clashed. Ormuz did not want to kill; he’d rather people did not have to die. But a fierce determination had come upon him and he could think only of felling all those before him. He relished the thrust and parry, lunge and riposte; the skill of it all, his
mastery
. He revelled in the blood and the smooth pistoning action of a point sliding into flesh to wound or kill. He grinned as his foes fell at his feet, as their eyes rolled up in their heads, as death took them.

And he knew himself for a hypocrite.

Empress Glorina
’s conning-tower, like everything aboard this flagship, was bigger than
Vengeful
’s. Ormuz led the charge up to the Flag Bridge, feet thudding on the deck, the clash of steel, the wet slap of billy-clubs hitting flesh, of bones breaking and skulls splitting, the cries of the wounded and dying. Bodies fell from the gallery on each deck and floated like ghosts in the conning-tower well. Droplets of blood, vivid and red, drifted in clouds and, once over the galleries and within the influence of chargers, fell like heavy rain with wet smacking sounds.

He burst through the last hatch. Pulisz had fallen somewhere behind him. At his back he had only three rateds. It was enough. A single man stood alone on the Flag Bridge, his back to the battle-consultant, his hands gripping its edge. His uniform was the most ornate Ormuz had ever seen. The epaulets and cuffs were thick with gold braid and lanyards of gold rope hung across his chest. He was tall, but portly, with fleshy features and a neatly-trimmed halo of black hair about a bald crown.

“Your grace,” said Ormuz. “I have taken your ship. Surrender.”

Admiral Risto umar Mishuan, Duke of Courland, sneered. “I’ll not give my word to a prole.”

Ormuz turned to the rated beside him. “See if you can find Lieutenant Pulisz. Or any other officer from
Vengeful
.”

Approaching Courland, Ormuz remarked, “You’ve lost your ship. And the battle. I don’t see that refusing to give me your word is going to help you.”

“I’ll still not give you my parole.”

Ormuz laughed. “You know what? I don’t particularly care. You’re my prisoner.
I
captured you.” He jabbed at the admiral with his sword. “Give me your sword, or I’ll get these two to take it off you by force.

“And then, I think, I’ll have you thrown in your own brig.”

Sappers had built a raised rampart of earth some two hundred yards back from the ridge and in its shadow Skaria set his command tent. Standing by a support-pole, Rinharte crossed her arms and watched the regimental troopers and Imperial Marines lining up for the first attack. The only blue uniform present, she felt an outsider amongst these brightly-coloured regimentals. She fought in enclosed spaces, never knowing when injury or death would strike. It fostered, perhaps, a false sense of invulnerability. But to run towards an enemy that was firing cannons seemed, in her eyes, an act of supreme courage.

Or utter foolhardiness.

Her gaze drifted to the tent’s interior, where Skaria and Marine-Captain Zaif mar Najib, Viscount Magnoon, briefed the officers. One of the Regiments had brought a battlefield-consultant, and cartographic lieutenants had mapped the surrounding area and loaded it into the device. The battlefield-consultant’s flat circular glass depicted the valley the Admiral and the Serpent were about to fight over. An unremarkable piece of ground, it had likely been little more than a minor suburb of ancient Swava. And yet these two armies battled here for a throne.

She caught Kordelasz’s eyes. He grinned and raised his eyebrows in anticipation. He was eager to fight, although land battles were not the Imperial Marines’ forte. An Imperial Skirmisher lieutenant standing beside Kordelasz leant forward and put a hand to the marine-captain’s shoulders.

Najib’s plummy tones drifted across to her: “… biggest worry will be those damned field-pieces the enemy’s brought onto the field. We’ve no choice but to take them out —”

A Gromada Dragoons officer interrupted the marine-captain: “Orbital bombardment?”

Najib shook his head. “The Admiral will have her hands full holding the high ground against the Serpent’s fleet. No, we’ll have to take them out ourselves.”

Rinharte tuned the officers out. If only the Admiral had succeeded in winning an artillery regiment to her side, the battle would be more even. These thirteen thousand troopers and officers gathered here were not only out-numbered but out-gunned.

Skaria’s voice rose out of the murmur about the battlefield-consultant: “We have one factor on our side: General Gwupek. The man’s a cretinous oaf. He’ll insist on command and his officers will have no choice but to follow his orders.”

So much, thought Rinharte on hearing this remark, depends on personalities. The Admiral’s ground forces were outnumbered near three to one, but with an idiot in charge of the enemy their chance of victory improved. She had seen battles lost by a rigid adherence to the
Fighting Instructions
, by an inability to do what the situation demanded. It was a reason for the Admiral’s success: she believed the
Fighting Instructions
were out-dated and dangerous.