Stands a Shadow

Chapter FOURTEEN

An Ambush



The meeting of general staff had ended barely a half-hour ago – for Creed was counting the minutes on his precious waterclock as he sipped on his lukewarm cup of milk – when the doors crashed open for the second time that morning, and in stamped the Michinè in all their righteous anger, their gold and diamond links jingling over the rustle of their silk clothing.

Chonas and Sinese were at the front of the crowd, their painted faces pale contrasts to the fervour in their eyes. At the sight of General Creed sitting behind his desk with a cup of milk in his hand, Sinese lost all semblance of self-control.

‘You can’t do this!’ the Minister of Defence hollered over the desk, and shook his cane as though he wished to hit him with it.

Creed settled his cup upon the desk and waved the guards at the door away. ‘I can, and I have,’ he told Sinese in a level voice, and returned the man’s incensed stare without blinking.

Chonas, the First Minister, stepped up from behind and tapped Sinese on the arm. The man glared at the First Minister for a moment, then lowered his cane and backed off with his chest heaving.

‘General,’ said Chonas as he settled into one of the chairs in front of Creed’s desk, and the men behind him blinked in surprise, for it was hardly the place of a Michinè to sit before a common-born, not even if he was the Lord Protector of Khos. The act was not lost on Creed either. He nodded to the composed old man who sat before him, a man he had known for twenty years and more, and whom he respected despite all the differences in opinion between them.

‘As Minister Sinese so graciously explained just now, you cannot pursue this plan of yours. We have come to repeal your orders immediately.’

‘On whose authority?’

‘On the authority of the council!’ snapped Sinese, taking a step closer again. ‘Or do you forget your station, man?’

The words hit Creed like a slap to the face, enough to feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. The rest of the Michinè held themselves poised and continued to eye Creed with a cool passion. All at once, he felt the potential of violence amongst this gathering.

Ah, he thought wryly. So the gloves are finally off.

Creed sat back and casually drew open one of the drawers in his desk. A pistol lay within it, loaded and ready to be primed.

‘In case you haven’t noticed,’ he said to them all, while the windows shivered once more to the sound of the guns on the Shield, ‘we’ve been invaded by an imperial army of Mann. While we stand here bickering, foreign forces stand on Khosian soil. By the terms of the Concordance, as Lord Protector of Khos, I am now in ultimate command of the defences of this island.’ He looked hard at Sinese. ‘Above even you, Minister. That is the martial law as it’s written.’

‘I see,’ scoffed the Minister of Defence. ‘So now you wish to play at being a king, is that your game?’

Creed ground his teeth together to contain his temper. ‘I think it is you who forgets your place, Minister.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Please,’ said Chonas, raising a hand to calm them.

Creed continued to glare at Sinese. ‘You do not stand in the council chambers now,’ Creed told the man. ‘You stand in my office, and you would be advised to show some civility, or I shall have you escorted from this building under guard.’

The gathered Michinè exploded with indignation.

‘Gentlemen!’ said Chonas above the sudden shouts of anger. ‘Please! Let us have some order here. Marsalas, we have known each other, you and I, for a great many years now. I respect you deeply, though I may never have told you that before now. All of Khos respects you. Every day the people give thanks to Fate that we have been gifted with such an able general in times as bleak as these. I speak to you as a comrade as much as your First Minister when I say this, so please listen. You cannot go and meet them in the field. You will be outnumbered more than six-to-one, not to mention their advantage in cannon. They will make meat of you.’

Creed sighed. ‘Always you think in numbers, my old friend. That is your problem, all of you. You think this is purely a matter of resources and where to put them most efficiently. But you forget what we are, what we have.’

‘You think the chartassa alone can save us,’ interrupted Chonas. ‘That is what you mean, is it not? The famous Khosian chartassa, feared and respected by our many enemies. The Giant Killer, the Pathians called it. Defeat, the Imperials knew it as in Coros.’ Chonas shook his head sadly. ‘No, Marsalas. It is you who are mistaken. I may be a tired old politician. Our fighting esprit may be strong. But still the numbers cannot be washed away by some vainglorious gesture of defiance. Yes. The chartassa will make for a fearsome sight on the battlefield. And then they will die, all of them. And Khos will be lost to us for good.’

‘What choice do we have?’ snapped Creed. ‘Let them rape and enslave every town in Khos while we hunker behind the city walls? Is that what you would have us do?’

‘No, Marsalas. If we had any viable alternatives, it is not what I would have us do. But it is the terrible situation we find ourselves facing. Even now, the Imperial Fourth Army masses on the Pathian side of the Shield for a major attack on the walls. Listen to their guns! Listen! Have you heard such a thunder since the first years of the siege? They will be coming at the walls with everything they have now, and they will not cease this time – while you, you would take half our men into the field on some reckless venture in suicide.’

‘You will have General Tanserine, one of the finest tacticians in all the Free Ports, here to lead the defences. And with enough men to hold until our return.’

‘And what if you do not return?’

‘Then you must hold them off until more Volunteers can arrive from the League.’

‘And how will we do that without the reserves you are taking with you? No. We make our stand here in Bar-Khos. What we can spare, we will use to fortify and hold Tume. We will dig in and await aid.’

Creed flexed his jaw. ‘If we dig in, we may all be dead before reinforcements have time even to arrive. If we fight them, we can at least buy ourselves some time. Sweet Mercy, man! The Matriarch herself is here: don’t you realize what an opportunity that is for us?’

Chonas bowed his head as though he was no longer listening. On cue, a man stepped from the gathering of Michinè and approached the desk. He wore the stiff bleached garments of a city professional.

‘General Creed,’ the man announced. ‘If I may draw your attention to article forty-three of the Concordance: At all times, the defence of the Shield must be paramount when apportioning supplies to offensive or defensive operations.’

‘Who is this man?’

‘An advocate,’ explained Chonas. ‘We felt he might be able to shed some light on our differences, should any be remaining.’

‘An advocate?’

‘What the man is saying is this: we can refuse you blackpowder for those cannon of ours you wish to take into the field. It is written in the martial law.’

Creed was speechless for a moment. ‘You would let us meet them without guns?’

‘We are rather hoping, without cannon, you will not go at all.’

The First Minister looked at Creed from beneath his bushy brows. He leaned closer, and when he spoke, he did so quietly. ‘I know you, Marsalas. You have had enough of sitting in your chair behind the Shield doing nothing for all this time. You wish to have a proper crack at them, for all they have done to us, for the lives they have taken, for your own father who died fighting them abroad. You see this as a last chance to meet them in the open theatre of war and prevail. But it is a grand folly only. I implore you to see this now.’

General Creed sat back in his chair, disarmed by the truth at the core of the First Minister’s words.

He was not a person prone to self-doubt, but for an instant he entertained the notion that he was in fact wrong in all of this, and that Chonas was right, that he was leading them all to their downfall. Since hearing of the invasion a few hours earlier, and whilst everyone around him seemed on the verge of losing their heads, Creed instead had found himself thrilled by this sudden development in the war, this chance to make a fight of it.

The Michinè glared at him as he eyed each of them in turn.

It came to him that it wasn’t merely their fears that charged this sudden hostility towards him. He was the first Lord Protector in forty years to gain the full rights of his position under the terms of the Concordance – that century-old agreement forged between the Michinè rulers and their military commander. Now the scales had shifted without warning. With invaders on Khosian soil, Creed could do as he pleased with the army, never mind what the Michinè had to say on it. Predictably, these noble-borns were intolerant to such a turn of events, this sudden collective step down in the grand pecking order of power. And so here they were now, come to dispel such notions from him before he had a chance to exercise his new powers properly.

He thought of all the times they had restrained him, had stopped him from taking on the enemy face to face, more concerned with preserving the status quo than in breaking the siege. He looked to Chonas, the Michinè’s expression eager beneath the great overhangs of his brows.

Aye, the First Minister might be a good man. But when it came down to it, he was still one of them.

Creed rose slowly to his feet. He was larger than these men before him, not in height but in bulk, and in his own capacity for action.

‘I will not stand by and do nothing while good people are put to the sword. My orders stand. We march in the morning.’

He held a hand up to silence them all, and felt a brief moment of satisfaction as their mouths closed again as one. ‘Gollanse!’ he called out.

His ageing orderly shuffled past the group of Michinè, escorting a man who was also dressed in the clothes of a city professional. He had a leather satchel beneath his arm, and a pair of spectacles on his bland, sharp, clever face.

‘Ministers, this is my own advocate, Charson Fay. If you have any legal issues involving my orders then please address them to him. He will construct a case file so that we can all meet together in open session of court upon my return.’

The general closed the drawer with the gun and stepped around the desk. ‘Now, if you will excuse me. I have an army to prepare for the march. Good day to you all.’

Creed strode from the room with the murmur of their discontent like music in his ears.

‘Is it true?’ someone shouted at Bahn as he stepped through the gates of the Ministry of War into the crowd of people gathered there. Behind them, horns were blaring from the Stadium of Arms, calling the city’s soldiery to action; faint wails between the concussions of the distant guns. Every dog in the city seemed to be barking.

‘Have we been invaded, Bahn?’ came the voice again as he pushed through the crowd. He saw that it was Koolas, the war chattēro.

Bahn brushed past the man without comment, but Koolas matched his stride as he headed for the path that would lead him down from the Mount of Truth. The war chattēro was sweating even in the cool breeze that ran in from the sea, the man too heavy to make the hike to the summit easily. His great paunch bounced beneath his shirt at the pace Bahn set for them. Still, Koolas had energy enough to laugh incredulously as they walked, and to sweep the curls of his black hair from his face in strands wet enough for it to be raining.

‘It’s true, then!’

Bahn scowled at him but held his tongue. Koolas made his living by writing news on the war for the copy-houses of the city, and for the proclaimers on the wailing towers of the bazaars. He knew that within an hour the news would be spreading like wildfire throughout the city.

It hardly mattered, he supposed, as they came down off the hill onto the Avenue of Lies. The horns were announcing a full call to arms, and everyone could hear them. The mood in the streets already seemed close to panic. Citizens bawled at each other in their haste to be home or at their local tavernas. Mothers were plucking their children off the streets. All about, he could see Red Guards hurrying towards the Stadium of Arms, and old retired veterans, the Molari, heading for the stadium too, bearing dusty shields and their long chartas bundled in oiled canvases.

‘Come on, now,’ Koolas said to him amicably enough. ‘They already know we’re in trouble. All I’m after are some details so their imaginations won’t run wild on them. What are we up against here? Is it a raid or a full invasion?’

Bahn held up a hand to wave down a passing rickshaw. The bearer sped past him without stopping, the rickshaw empty of passengers. He swore under his breath as he looked around for another, finally managing to get one to stop for him.

‘Olson Avenue,’ he told the bearer quickly, and just before he climbed into the seat he made the mistake of glancing back at Koolas just once.

‘Fool’s balls,’ Koolas exclaimed as he caught the look in Bahn’s eyes. ‘Is it that bad?’ He sounded appalled, and for a moment Bahn was reminded that Koolas was more than a simple chattēro after a story, that he was Khosian too, born and raised in the city, with his own friends and family to worry over.

Bahn sagged within his armour. ‘One moment,’ he said to the rickshaw bearer, and stepped closer to Koolas.

‘It’s an invasion, that’s all we know right now.’

‘How many? Which army?’

‘Reports indicate it’s the Sixth Army from Lagos, with auxiliaries from Q’os.’

The man drew himself straighter. ‘How many?’ he insisted.

Bahn turned as though to walk away, but paused. ‘All I can say is that we’re calling up every man we can. We’re emptying the jails and stockades of veterans. Even the Eyes.’

‘What? Those murderers and lunatics?’

‘Any that can still carry a shield, aye.’

‘And the council, what do they make of it? I just saw a delegation go inside the Ministry.’

‘Does it matter? We’ve been invaded. It’s out of their hands now.’

Koolas rubbed his face ruefully. ‘Aye. And I’m sure Creed made that more than clear to them. There’s a man with a chip on his shoulder if ever I saw one.’

Bahn scowled, and left before the chattēro could ask anything more of him. He climbed into the rickshaw, and nodded to Koolas as the bearer pulled him past.

He offered the bearer an extra five coppers to make a faster pace of it, and sat back and tried to calm himself as the rickshaw wove between the bustle and traffic of the streets.

In the far north of the city, in a small avenue lined with cherry trees turned bronze by autumn, Bahn climbed down with a thanks to the bearer and stepped into the house that had been his family home for seven years now. The rooms were cool inside, everything still. A smell of incense still hung in the air from their small shrine to Miri, the Great Disciple who had brought the Dao and the Great Fool’s teachings to the Midèrēs.

His son Juno would be at the schoolhouse today. Upstairs, he heard his infant daughter begin to cry.

Bahn found Marlee in the backyard, turning the soil in their small vegetable patch as though oblivious to the distant horns, yet her movements were quick and frustrated.

‘Hey,’ he said to his wife as he slid his arms around her waist from behind. Marlee straightened against him, her body tense. ‘Can’t you hear her?’ he asked.

‘Of course I can hear her. She’s teething again.’

‘Need anything?’

‘No, we still have some mother’s oil left. I daren’t give her any more, though.’ Marlee turned around and looked up at him. Her smile faltered. ‘What is it, Bahn? Why the alarms?’

He heard the sigh escape his lips. ‘I haven’t long. I should be at the stadium right now helping with the preparations.’

‘Preparations?’

He squeezed her arm and could not speak.

‘Oh, Bahn,’ she said, and her eyes shone moist. ‘They’ve landed here?’

He nodded stiffly.

Ariale wailed even louder from inside the house. Neither of them could find any words to say. Marlee looked to her feet and took a deep breath of air, then looked up again. ‘I’ll go and settle her,’ she said quickly. ‘Then you can tell me how bad it really is.’

He reached out to stop his wife.

‘I’ll go,’ he said with a smile of sadness, and left to settle his daughter.