steel. Monza worked her left hand nervously around the hilt of the Calvez, hanging drawn beside her leg.
“Did you hear that?” Salier’s soft face was pale as butter beside her. His guards, scattered about the garden fingering their borrowed weapons, looked hardly more enthusiastic. But that was the thing about facing death, as Benna had often pointed out. The closer it gets, the worse an idea it seems. Shivers didn’t look like he had any doubts. Hot iron had burned them out of him, maybe. Cosca neither, his happy grin widening with each moment. Friendly sat cross-legged, rolling his dice across the cobbles.
He looked up at her, face blank as ever. “Five and four.”
“That a good thing?”
He shrugged. “It’s nine.” Monza raised her brows. A strange group she’d gathered, surely, but when you have a half-mad plan you need men at least half-mad to see it through.
Sane ones might be tempted to look for a better idea.
Another crash, and a thin scream, closer this time. Ganmark’s soldiers, working their way through the palace towards the garden at its centre. Friendly threw his dice once more, then gathered them up and stood, sword in hand. Monza tried to stay still, eyes fixed on the open doorway ahead, the hall lined with paintings beyond it, beyond that the archway that led into the rest of the palace. The only way in.
A helmeted head peered round the side of the arch. An armoured body followed. A Talinese sergeant, sword and shield raised and ready. Monza watched him creep carefully under the portcullis, across the marble tiles. He stepped cautiously out into the sunlight, frowning about at them.
“Sergeant,” said Cosca brightly.
“Captain.” The man straightened up, letting his sword point drop. More men followed him. Well-armed Talinese soldiers, watchful and bearded veterans tramping into the gallery with weapons at the ready. They looked surprised, at first, to see their own side already in the garden, but not unhappy. “That him?” asked the sergeant, pointing to Salier.
“This is him,” said Cosca, grinning back.
“Well, well. Fat fucker, ain’t he?”
“That he is.”
More soldiers were coming through the entrance now, and behind them a knot of staff officers in pristine uniforms, with fine swords but no armour. Striding at their head with an air of unchallengeable authority came a man with a soft face and sad, watery eyes.
Ganmark.
Monza might have felt some grim satisfaction that she’d predicted his actions so easily, but the swell of hatred at the sight of him crowded it away. He had a long sword at his left hip, a shorter one at his right. Long and short steels, in the Union style.
“Secure the gallery!” he called in his clipped accent as he marched out into the garden. “Above all, ensure no harm comes to the paintings!”
“Yes, sir!” Boots clattered as men moved to follow his orders. Lots of men. Monza watched them, jaw set aching hard. Too many, maybe, but there was no use weeping about it now. Killing Ganmark was all that mattered.
“General!” Cosca snapped out a vibrating salute. “We have Duke Salier.”
“So I see. Well done, Captain, you were quick off the mark, and shall be rewarded. Very quick.” He gave a mocking bow. “Your Excellency, an honour. Grand Duke Orso sends his brotherly greetings.”
“Shit on his greetings,” barked Salier.
“And his regrets that he could not be here in person to witness your utter defeat.”
“If he was here, I’d shit on him too.”
“Doubtless. He was alone?”
Cosca nodded. “Just waiting here, sir, looking at this.” And he jerked his head towards the great statue in the centre of the garden.
“Bonatine’s Warrior.” Ganmark paced slowly towards it, smiling up at the looming marble image of Stolicus. “Even more beautiful in person than by report. It shall look very well in the gardens of Fontezarmo.” He was no more than five paces away. Monza tried to keep her breath slow, but her heart was hammering. “I must congratulate you on your wonderful collection, your Excellency.”
“I shit on your congratulations,” sneered Salier.
“You shit on a great many things, it seems. But then a person of your size no doubt produces a vast quantity of the stuff. Bring the fat man closer.”
Now was the moment. Monza gripped the Calvez tight, stepped forwards, gloved right hand on Salier’s elbow, Cosca moving up on his other side. Ganmark’s officers and guards were spreading out, staring at the statue, at the garden, at Salier, peering through the windows into the hallways. A couple still stuck close to their general, one with his sword drawn, but they didn’t look worried. Didn’t look ready. All comrades together.
Friendly stood, still as a statue, sword in hand. Shivers’ shield hung loose, but she saw his knuckles white on the haft of his axe, saw his good eye flickering from one enemy to another, judging the threat. Ganmark’s grin spread as they led Salier forwards.
“Well, well, your Excellency. I still remember the text of that rousing speech, the one you made when you formed the League of Eight. What was it you said? That you’d rather die than kneel to a dog like Orso? I’d very much like to see you kneel, now.” He grinned at Monza as she came closer, no more than a couple of strides between them. “Lieutenant, could you-” His pale eyes narrowed for an instant, and he knew her. She sprang at him, barging his nearest guard out of the way, lunging for his heart.
She felt the familiar scrape of steel on steel. In that flash Ganmark had somehow managed to get his sword half-drawn, enough to send her thrust wide by a hair. He jerked his head to one side and the point of the Calvez left him a long cut across his cheek before he flicked it away, his sword ringing clear from its sheath.
Then it was chaos in the garden.
Monza’s blade left a long scratch down Ganmark’s face. The nearest officer gave Friendly a puzzled look. “But-”
Friendly’s sword hacked deep into his head. The blade stuck in his skull as he fell, and Friendly let it go. A clumsy weapon, he preferred to work closer. He slid out the cleaver, the knife from his belt, felt the comfort of the familiar grips in his fists, the overwhelming relief that things were now simple. Kill as many as possible while they were surprised. Even the odds. Eleven against twenty-six were not good ones.
He stabbed a red-haired officer in the stomach before he could draw his sword, shoved him back into a third and sent his arm wide, crowded in close and hacked the cleaver into his shoulder, heavy blade splitting cloth and flesh. He dodged a spear-thrust and the soldier who held it stumbled past. Friendly sank the knife into his armpit, and out, blade scraping against the edge of his breastplate.
There was a screeching, rattling sound as the portcullis dropped. Two soldiers were standing in the archway. The gate came down just behind one, sealing him into the gallery with everyone else. The other must have leaned back, trying to get out of the way. The plummeting spikes caught him in the stomach and crushed him helpless into the floor, stoving in his breastplate, one leg folded underneath him, the other kicking wildly. He began to scream, but it hardly mattered. By then everyone was screaming.
The fight spread out across the garden, spilled into the four beautiful hallways surrounding it. Cosca dropped a guard with a slash across the backs of his thighs. Shivers had cut one man near in half when the fight began, and now was hemmed in by three more, backing towards the hall full of statues, swinging wildly, making a strange noise between a laugh and a roar.
The red-haired officer Friendly had stabbed limped away, groaning, through the doorway into the first hall, leaving a scattering of bloody spots across the polished floor. Friendly sprang after, rolled under a panicky sweep of his sword, came up and took the back of his head off with the cleaver. The soldier pinned under the portcullis gibbered, gurgled, tore pointlessly at the bars. The other one, only just now working out what was happening, pointed his halberd at Friendly. A confused-looking officer with a birthmark across one cheek turned from contemplation of one of the seventy-eight paintings in the hall and drew his sword.
Two of them. One and one. Friendly almost smiled. This he understood.
