The first rank of Strikers launched their javelins and drew their swords; the second rank threw over their comrades’ heads and plunged after them. Confed soldiers were dying—not only soldiers, Esmond vaulted over a whore in spangles and body paint, whimpering and pulling at the spear through her gut—and others were running, probably for their weapons. Some tried to make stands, grappling with the Emeralds or snatching up stools and eating utensils.
Esmond plunged through the chaos, over flagstones slippery with wine, spilled food, already wet with blood. Sword and buckler moved in clear, precise arcs; he seemed to be wading through honey, in a strange amber world in which everyone else moved very slowly, and he had more than enough time to do whatever was necessary. A solid wedge of men were following him, shields up and swords out. . . . A scrim of bodies marked the entrance to the barracks, men trying to get in, others trying to get out with snatched-up shields and assegais. The one in front of him stumbled and went down with a spear in his back, and then Esmond was facing an armed man at last.
The big shield with the crossed thunderbolts of Allfather of Vanbert on it—Allfather Greatest and Best—punched at him. The tip of the assegai glittered, held low and point-up for the gutting stroke. Esmond spun to the side, light on his feet as a dancer, hooking his buckler around the far edge of the oval shield and wrenching sideways to pin the Confed’s spear arm against the frame of the door. His sword hilt went up high, like a beast fighter dispatching a greatbeast in the Vanbert arena after he’d teased it with the cape. The point punched down, in over the collarbone—unnecessary, the man hadn’t had time to don his mail shirt, but you didn’t think in a fight, you reacted on drilled reflex.
A wrench and jerk and the Confed went down. Esmond’s foot and point snapped forward in a longe-lunge, skewered a thigh, pulled out with a twist to open the artery. He slammed his shoulder into another hastily-raised shield, and he was through the door. A Striker crowded through behind him, and in the dim light of the oil lamps he could see swarming confusion within, whores running and shrieking and the more sensible ones hiding under cots, men ripping weapons down from racks or stumbling in drunken bewilderment and getting in the way of their more sober comrades . . . and more of his men coming in the tall open windows. Barracks didn’t run to glazing, but you wanted plenty of ventilation in this climate.
“Strikers!” he shouted. “Strikers to me! Down Vanbert! Down Vanbert!”
The Strikers were mercenaries, yes. They were also Emeralds almost to a man, and if there was one battle cry in all the world Emeralds could agree on, it was that.
Half an hour later, Esmond tucked his helmet under one arm and walked into the shrine room of the Confed headquarters, stepping over the bodies of the knot of men who’d died on its threshold. The slash on his thigh would make the leg stiffen in a little while, but for now he ignored it as he lifted out the ebony pole, with its golden wreath and hand and campaign-ribbons. He carried it himself onto the colonnaded porch that overlooked the courtyard, and the assembled Strikers roared his name as he held it high.
“Men!” he shouted, when the noise had died down a little. “So much for the invincible Confederacy!”
Another roar, with heartfelt emotion behind it this time. “Strikers,” he went on. “We’re soldiers loyal to our salt. But we’re Emeralds, too. This—” he waved the standard “—has fouled the land of the Hundred Cities far too long. This war is against the Confederacy.” A hush, then. “You know the gods favor my brother and me.”
Nods. Or at least, my brother’s productively crazy . . . hands of the Shades, maybe the gods do talk to him. Something does.
“The gods foretell the fate of the Confederacy—they tire of it. Vanbert shall burn!”
Wild cheers, and Donnuld Grayn looking at him with a raised eyebrow—the expression looked a little odd on the scarred, beaten-iron face.