The noise around him quickly grew deafening. The unrest Tol had unintentionally incited radiated outward, spreading from the Starwalk through the clogged streets, to the next square, and the next.
“What did I tell you?” Miya shouted above the chaos. “When Husband acts, the world trembles!”
“This is crazy!” Tol protested. “I told them to go home and live for themselves. They think I threatened them!”
Tylocost said, “You did threaten them. You told them they weren’t safe. Safety was the one lie they all believed in.”
Zanpolo bawled orders at his men. Tol, feeling stunned and stupid, mounted his horse.
They headed for the citadel, sited atop the tallest hill in the city. Zanpolo’s hordes banged their sword hilts against their armored chests. The ominous sound frightened the refugees and they shrank from the column of fighting men. The hordes cleaved through the crowd without bloodshed, as Riders swatted slow-moving squatters, or booted them aside.
At the Great Square of Ackal Dermount, near the center of the city, they encountered their first serious opposition. The square seethed with panicked refugees, and at the opposite end of the plaza were several hundred horsemen in the funereal white and silver livery of the Governor’s Own Guard. Their sabers were out.
“Here’s where we cleave a few skulls,” Zanpolo said.
“Can we try persuasion?” asked Tol.
“Not with them, my lord. They take Wornoth’s coin, even as the Lord Governor takes the emperor’s. They’ll fight.”
Tol knew he was right. “Give quarter to any who ask for it, but we must reach the citadel before Wornoth seals himself inside.”
Zanpolo rallied his own horde, the Iron Falcons, with a roar that made Tol’s hair stand on end. With an answering bellow, the Riders raised their sabers high, then extended them at arm’s length. Zanpolo called for a point charge. In the tight confines of Caergoth’s streets, there wasn’t room for a full-tilt attack.
The Iron Falcons bolted across the Great Square. On their flanks, the Lightning Riders and the Bronzehearts surged forward. The Juramona Militia broke out of marching order and formed a wall of shields around those on foot. Tol rode with Zanpolo.
Innocent townsfolk and terrified refugees raced out of the way of Zanpolo’s charge. Some did not make it, and were trampled.
The Governor’s Own men were confused. They thought Zanpolo’s attack was directed at the refugees choking the Great Square. Their hesitation lasted only briefly, but it was long enough. If they had withdrawn immediately up the narrower side streets, Zanpolo’s thrust would have been less effective. Instead, they took the full brunt of the Iron Falcons’ charge.
Tol was bent low over his horse’s neck, Number Six extended. A guardsman tried to deflect his point with the small iron buckler strapped to his left forearm. Dwarf-forged steel pierced the buckler and, propelled by Tol’s strength and the horse’s speed, drove on through with only a momentary scrape of resistance. As their horses collided, Number Six buried half its length through the man’s neck. Tol recovered, and the guardsman slid lifeless to the ground.
After the initial contact, a brisk, slashing battle followed. The weight and power of the Falcons drove the Governor’s Own men back to the walls of the House of Luin, the hall of the Red Robe Order in Caergoth. Stubbornly, the governor’s men fought on.
“We can’t spend all afternoon at this!” Tol shouted at Zanpolo. “Keep going here-I’ll take my footmen on!”
“Can you really get through with that lot?” said Zanpolo, with a Rider’s traditional disdain for foot soldiers.
“They got me here, didn’t they?”
Tol broke off and rode back to his Juramonans, standing at the other end of the Great Square. All the civilians had fled and he made quick time across the empty plaza, sheathing his saber as he arrived.
Tol and the militia would head for the palace, with Zala leading the way. Her father, Voyarunta, and the other wounded would remain behind with the Dom-shu men. Miya, armed with spear and shield borrowed from a Dom-shu warrior, stood ready to go with Tol.
He gave her a surprised look, and she shrugged. “If you get yourself killed and I’m not there, Sister will skin me.”
Tol’s lips twitched at her reasoning, but he addressed himself to Queen Casberry, asking her to remain behind also.
The kender queen, dressed today in a sky blue tunic and matching trousers, consented and immediately invited Voyarunta to join her in a dice game called Three Times Dead.
Tol divided the two thousand men of the Juramona Militia into four companies of five hundred. Each company would follow a different route through the grid of streets, marching parallel to each other and reuniting before the main gate of the Caergoth citadel. Zala gave them quick directions that would allow them to avoid the public plazas, where troops loyal to Wornoth might have congregated.
Tol’s orders were simple. If challenged, the militiamen should fight. But if the opportunity arose, they were to offer opponents the chance to join them, and keep heading toward the palace.
The four companies set off at a trot. Tol, Miya, and Zala went with the center-right column. Tylocost accompanied the far left.
As they progressed, the streets grew increasingly narrow. Miya complained and Tol explained the constriction was intentional, to prevent large bodies of troops from attacking the governor’s palace.
At one intersection they flushed out a band of archers. The militia company charged, but the surprised bowmen, armed only with mauls for close-range fighting, turned and fled.
After passing down another tight street, the Juramonans found themselves before the citadel’s ceremonial gate. This portal, dedicated to Draco Paladin, was open, and some fifty soldiers wearing the governor’s colors milled about it in confusion. As the Juramona spearmen emerged from the alley, the soldiers sent up a shout. The ponderous double doors of the gate began to close.
“Secure that gate!” Tol bawled, and his contingent rushed pell-mell for the portal.
Tol was confronted by a subaltern wearing a fancy gilded helmet. The fellow was half Tol’s age, but wielded his slim blade with skill. Twice he scored, cutting a bloody line on Tol’s right arm and left thigh. Tol tried to cut him with his stronger blade, but his strikes met only air. The young officer was never still for very long. He darted from side to side, avoiding every swing aimed at him.
Sweat stung Tol’s eyes. His breath moved up and down his throat harshly. He’d never been adept at fancy dueling, and as the contest dragged on, his years began telling on him.
Finally, his enemy’s bright iron blade whisked over Tol’s shoulder, snagging briefly on his earlobe. As blood spurted from the cut, Tol managed to seize the man’s wrist.
“Yield!” he said. “Don’t fight us, join us!”
The subaltern punched Tol in the chest with his buckler. Tol staggered backward. The tip of the young soldier’s blade flashed toward his eyes. Reflexively, Tol threw his head back. A cut opened on the bridge of his nose.
Angry now, Tol gripped his saber in both hands. He made a whirling parry, binding up the officer’s slender, straight blade. The fellow hit him again and again with the iron boss of his small shield, but Tol ignored these blows, concentrating on the motion of the blades. At the top of an arc, he flung his hands up, yanking the young officer’s sword high. Disengaging, Tol drove Number Six at his opponent’s heart.
The subaltern brought up his buckler. An iron saber would have been turned aside, but Tol’s steel point punched through the shield’s brass rim and kept going, running the officer through. Mortally wounded, the fellow stumbled backward, dropping his sword. He gaped at Number Six, its hilt nearly touching his chest. There was no pain or fear on his young face, only bewilderment. He simply couldn’t understand how the saber had penetrated both his buckler and his damascened breastplate.