The Reformer

Blue-uniformed troops fought from behind a barricade against rioters, volley-firing in silent puffs of off-white smoke. Men screamed and writhed and lay and bled before the improvised breastwork. . and behind the soldiers a gang of thieves calmly loaded furniture and bolts of cloth and tableware from a mansion into a waiting cart.

'I've got to help him,' Adrian said. 'He's being an idiot, but he's my brother. . how much does that improve the chances?'

There was a long silence in his head; he was conscious, somehow, of Raj and Center speaking at a level and speed beyond his comprehension.

Tell him, Raj said at last.

probability of successful rescue attempt increases to 53 %, ±5, with your participation and full support from raj whitehall and myself, Center said. however, this is an unnecessary risk to you, our operative, and does not advance the prime objective to any significant degree.

That was a long speech, from Center. Raj's voice held a flash of amusement: Center's learned to trust me when it comes to judging men. You're going to do it, son-I would, if I were you and I were alive-and we might as well give you all the help we can.

Adrian nodded, startling the slave with the funnel again, and walked out into the bright morning light. 'Fered,' he said. 'Gather the slingers. I need their help.'

THREE

There was an eerie familiarity to the streets of Vanbert, full of mobs and the bitter smell of smoke from things not meant to burn. Like the visions, he thought.

scenarios, Center corrected. multisensory holographic neural-input simulations of probable outcomes calculated by stochastic analysis.

As you say, Adrian thought. Visions. Raj chuckled softly at the corner of his mind.

That was the only humorous thing in Vanbert this day. Adrian's mounted grenadiers-a hundred men, freedmen new and old-looked military enough with their slings and shortswords to fend off ordinary mobs, even though they were obviously mostly Emeralds. Many of the mobs out today weren't in the least ordinary. He threw up a hand and the column halted with a ragged bunching in the mouth of an alleyway.

'Down with Jeschonyk!' the men in ragged tunics shouted as they ran past. 'Down with Jeschonyk! Long live Speaker Redvers! Long live Bull Redvers! Death to Jeschonyk!'

The rioters weren't armed, technically speaking, although many of the belt knives they waved were considerably longer than was convenient for cutting your food. Some waved torches, others iron spits and pokers, or clubs made from pieces of furniture and the limbs of ornamental trees. A number were pausing now and then to pry up cobbles from the street; and there were thousands of these people. Here and there was a man with a sling draped around his neck; a fair number of the Confed Army's light-armed slingers were recruited from the urban poor. A spray of outrunners went before the rioters, pounding on the shuttered windows of shops. Every now and then a crash and a scream would echo back, a counterpoint to the snarling rumble of the mob. Adrian craned his neck. A hundred yards back was a wagon, full of skins of wine. Men in the livery of a noble's house slaves were handing them out to grasping hands, with a dozen guards in full armor to keep the distribution quasi-orderly.

He turned his head the other way as there was a check in the surging trot of the mob. A line of men from the City Companies stood there, two deep. Their right arms rocked backward at a barked command from a noncom, marked by the transverse red crest on his helmet.

'Throw!'

A curled tuba blatted to emphasize the order. Darts flew up, then down into the front ranks of the mob. The barbed points were designed to punch through shields and armor, and they were driven by lead weights behind the head and the throwers' strong arms. The front rank of the rioters shattered like a glass jar struck by a mallet, men falling dead or screaming and pulling at the whetted iron in their bodies. The slingers among them might have helped break that thin line of armed men, but they were too crowded to use their weapons.

On the other hand, that mob doesn't have any cohesion to lose, Raj observed. Only the ones in front, the ones who can see what's happening, can be frightened enough to run; and they don't have room to run.

'Throw. Throw. Throw.'

Scores of the men packed into the head of the mob were down. Others were throwing a rain of cobblestones, but those simply boomed on the big hemispherical shields. A snapped order, and the rear ranks of the City Companies raised theirs to make a roof. The javelins were gone; another rasp of command, and every man's right hand snapped up behind his left shoulder. A long slither, and the assegais came free, glinting bright and long.

The street was only twenty feet across. The City troops could advance almost shield to shield, stabbing. Confed armies had beat bigger odds, killing undisciplined barbarians until their arms grew too tired, and here the mob had no room to use its numbers against the flanks or rear.

'Jeffa,' Adrian said, pitching his voice to carry over the roar of the mob. Rhetorical training's some good after all, he thought, licking dry lips. The snarl of the crowd touched something older and deeper than any training, something down at the base of his spine and in the scrotum. It felt warm and loose and weak, the touch of fear.

'Four throws and a lighter,' he said, touching his mount's forelegs. The animal crouched with a blubbering snarl of uneasiness.

Adrian stepped forward, his men behind him. There was a short bubble of clear space in front of the alleyway, but that wouldn't last when the bulk of the crowd realized what was going on and tried to escape. There were enough of them that anything in their way would end up as another greasy smear on the filthy pavement of the alley.

'Ready. .'

He unclipped his own staff-sling and put a grenade in the pouch, the fuse hanging free. The other four slingers imitated him, spreading out so that their weapons wouldn't foul each other.

'Target is formation of troops,' he said again, feeling a mild distant astonishment that his voice was firm and calm.

'Light.'

The lighter went from man to man, touching his coil of quickmatch to the fuses. The fuses sputtered and bled blue smoke, but they were more reliable than the first they'd tried.

'Cast.'

He whipped the staff around his head with both hands and loosed at the quiet tone in his inner ear that was Center's judgement of the aimpoint. All he had to do was get the staff moving in the right plane. The cord flew free, and the grenades arched out. His headed towards the noncom commanding the blocking force, and exploded precisely at chest level. The others were within a second and a half of it, and only one shattered on the ground before it burst. That produced an effect he hadn't seen before, a sort of exploding fiery mist up to waist height.

The front rank of the mob was as panicked as the surviving soldiers; those were running-or limping or crawling-away from the blasts as fast as they could. The front rank of the mob couldn't run, although some tried to, turning and pushing at the solid mass of humanity behind them. Some of them were knocked over and trampled as the packed throng went forward, joining the City Companies soldiers as stains on the pavement. He saw a few of the more thoughtful picking up shields, helmets and assegais as they passed the bodies.

Adrian turned and looked at his slingers; they were grinning, laughing, slapping each other on the back. One was dancing the kodax, prancing and snapping his fingers.

'Shut up!' he said, his voice the crack of a whip. They did, falling silent and shuffling their feet, the mounted ones looking down at their saddlehorns. 'Now we've seen what our weapons can do. Let's get moving.'