His own troops adjusted per the signal, and across the field a trumpet was blown, and Kerite’s mercenaries slowly ground to a halt. The two armies stared at each other from a distance of about a mile. Anxious whispering moved up and down the troops. Every experienced officer looking out across the divide could see that the Drakes remained in heavy columns. They looked sturdy and impenetrable compared to the more shallow rows of the Ossan Foreign Legion.
“Right about now,” Demir said to Tadeas, “Kerite will figure out that I’m not using the traditional Ossan signal book. She’s wondering what that’s all about, and whether she should be concerned.” He flinched. “I’m not happy about those missing cavalry. They could be glassdamned anywhere.” All those doubts that he’d resisted mentioning to Tadeas swirled around in his head like so many annoying flies. He spat at them internally, bidding them to piss off.
“This whole damn thing is just a game,” he said. “Kerite and I sitting here like a couple of old men on either side of a board of squares. We might as well drink wine in front of a fire. Hah! Maybe that’s how wars should be fought in the future. Then all these poor bastards don’t have to die. Hey Kerite,” he said, mimicking a politician’s ingratiating drawl, “take the patriarch from my board and you can have Ossa. If I take yours, I can have Grent. That sounds so much more civilized.”
He was babbling and he knew it. Demir snapped his mouth shut and searched for a calming memory. The first that came to mind was a game, just like he’d been imagining, but it wasn’t against some mercenary general – it was against his mother. He felt a smile tug on the corner of his mouth. “Do you remember how much Mother used to love Kings and Pawns?” he asked Tadeas.
His uncle scoffed. “Don’t remind me.”
“You never could beat her, could you?”
“I won a few games when we were young,” Tadeas said, “but she just kept getting better and better and I didn’t. Did you ever beat her?”
“Twice,” Demir replied thoughtfully. “The first was when I was seventeen. The second was…” He trailed off. The second was just a few months ago, the last time they saw each other. She had demanded a game, and they’d made a bet – if she won, he’d return to Ossa with her and restart his career. If he won, she would never ask him to do so again. “I wish,” he said quietly, “that I only won that once.”
“She ever tell you about her other games?” Tadeas asked.
Demir shook his head. “She didn’t like to boast.”
“She often played against other Assembly members. I think she won four out of every five games against Father Vorcien, and nine out of ten against Aelia Dorlani.”
“Glassdamn. I knew she was good, but … damn.” Demir wondered where his old set was – the crystal pieces and silver board she gave him when he’d won election as governor. “Could anyone beat her?”
“Just one person.”
“Who?”
“Your dad,” Tadeas chuckled. “About half the time. Before you were born, I used to watch their games. I’ve never seen two players so evenly matched. They would play for hours and hours, and by the end all three of us would be so drunk that the hotel staff had to carry us to bed.”
Demir tilted his head, listening to the nervous whispers of the soldiers lined up in front of him. “You know, nobody ever talks about my dad.”
“It was…” Tadeas hesitated. “… painful for your mom to talk about him, or to listen to others talk.”
“I’d like to hear more stories about them both,” Demir said.
“I’ve got a few good ones.”
“Then I have something to look forward to after this battle.” The nervous whispers got louder, and all up and down Demir’s lines soldiers shifted with a palpably anxious energy. No wonder. The last time they’d faced the Drakes they’d been overwhelmed in minutes. “Hold this,” Demir said, handing his looking glass to Tadeas. He strode down from the barrow and through the rows of soldiers, slapping them on the back and shaking hands as he did.
“Chin up,” he told one. “Legs squared,” he said to another. “You look good. Damned good. Is that brooch at your neck for luck? I wish I had one myself.” He reached the front of the formation, where he walked another ten yards out and turned back.
Thousands of eyes stared at him expectantly. He felt something inside of him wilt, his bowels shifting. He forced back his demons and threw his arms wide.
“Citizens! Friends! Companions-in-arms!” he shouted. “We are all that stands between our glittering city on the Tien and a pack of mercenary mongrels who wish to grind it to dust for a handful of banknotes and some glory to hang from their belts!” Only the breeze responded. Demir plowed on. “They say they are the best. You’ve read it in the newspapers, how the Drakes crushed you in the Copper Hills. How they’ll do it again. And their commander? Far better than the broken, barely tested Demir Grappo.
“It’s bullshit,” Demir spat. “You are the Foreign Legion. You are the best of us. You are the Ironhorns, the Desert Rats, the Winged Jackals, the Mighty Lions! These mercenaries,” Demir said, flinging his arm toward the enemy army behind him, “have fought on every continent. So have you! They’ve made themselves some money, but you have built an empire! You are the best soldiers from every corner of the world. You will not be laid low.”
Demir felt tears streaming down his cheeks as flashes of a burning city rolled across his mind’s eye. He wasn’t sure whether it was the specter of Holikan or fears of what would happen to Ossa. Perhaps both. “We have all failed at times, but failure has not kept us down. We rebound stronger than before. My friends, prove yourselves to me and I swear to you that I will prove myself to you.”
The silence was so heavy that Demir thought it might crush him. He let his arms fall and began to walk back to the barrow. As he entered the columns, he slowly became aware of a rattling sound. It was a low whisper, like rocks rolling down a distant ravine. Not a word was spoken, not a voice raised, yet all around him infantrymen shook their ammunition bags.
“What are they doing?” Demir asked Tadeas as he regained his commanding position.
Tadeas wore a lopsided smile. “You told them not to cheer or raise any sound of victory.”
“Then what are they doing?”
“They’re answering your call – this is a deal struck, Demir. We will all prove ourselves together.”
Demir didn’t bother to wipe the tears from his cheeks. They flowed freely, his whole body trembling. He took his looking glass back and raised it to his eye. “Kerite is watching,” he told Tadeas. “Hesitating, looking for the trap. Perhaps she’s waiting for her cavalry to get into position.”
“There’s not as much terrain here as there was at the Copper Hills. There’s no position to get into.”
Demir didn’t answer. “Use a traditional signal to tell our left flank to hold steady.” He waited another two minutes, watching that left flank. “Signal again. Make it look desperate.” He waited. “One last time.” Once the signal was sent, he could see the grenadiers over on that flank start to crumble. They broke ranks, the whole battalion seeming to shiver in fear and pull back.
“Demir,” Tadeas warned, “they’re breaking ranks.”
“As they should.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Tadeas warned. “Layered orders are difficult to keep straight on the battlefield.”
“They can do it,” Demir assured. He prayed he was right. “I have spent the last week studying our own troops just as much as I have the enemy’s. I know their exact capabilities – who can follow orders to a letter, who will buckle, who will rally. I know when to push and when to pull.” As he spoke, his entire left flank began to crumble – the grenadiers were only the beginning, and the next battalion followed them, and then the next. He thought back to the cudgeling bets he’d made with Ulina Magna, and then to the note he’d sent to the various battalions on his flanks with the simple instruction that “hold steady” meant to do the exact opposite.