“Per our agreement, but I despair that no one out there can replicate Kastora’s work. He was the best.”
“We’ll find you someone.”
The words were hollow in Idrian’s ears, but still offered a margin of comfort coming from a friend. “I have a policy of never grieving for someone until after the war, but it was hard last night. Kastora saved my sanity. He was a good man, and our own stupid, glassdamned soldiers bayoneted him to death. He should not be dead right now. Captured, maybe, but not dead.”
“I know he meant a lot to you,” Tadeas said softly. “Both as a friend and, I suppose, a doctor of sorts. What form has the madness taken?” Tadeas leaned forward to examine Idrian’s godglass eye like a surgeon.
“Child’s laughter.”
“I don’t remember that one.”
“It’s new.”
“I should report this to the Ministry,” Tadeas said unhappily. “For your safety.”
Idrian snatched Tadeas by the arm. “Don’t.” The last thing he needed was to be dragged off by Ministry doctors, taken away from his friends and observed like an asylum lunatic for all hours of the day. “I’ll be fine.”
“The madness will not impair your ability to fight?” The question was asked carefully and Idrian snorted in response. Tadeas already knew the answer.
“No, of course not,” Idrian replied.
“You’d tell me if it did?”
“Yes.”
Tadeas gave him a doubtful look. “Perhaps your mind was just reacting to Kastora’s death, and it’ll settle back down. Your eye is still full of color. You should have a couple years to find another master siliceer before it runs out of resonance.”
Idrian swallowed, holding back a thousand worries and insecurities. He found no shame in voicing them, but it was unnecessary. Tadeas knew them all. Instead, he said, “I can only hope.” He did have to bite back the urge to tell Tadeas about the phoenix channel. He trusted Tadeas with any secret, of course, but he took his promise to Demir seriously. It would not leave his lips again, nor would he let it cloud his thoughts. If godglass disappeared, Idrian’s fate would be sealed. No sense in dwelling on it more than that.
Tadeas shook his head, touching Idrian gently on the shoulder. “I’m sorry. When this war is over, I’ll help you deal with the Ministry and finding a new master siliceer.”
“That’s kind of you to offer,” Idrian replied. It definitely helped to have a friend who cared at his side. Breachers were important, but a guild-family member could get results easier than Idrian. “Sometimes I wonder if I’d have gone mad if I’d never lost this eye.”
“And I wonder if I’ll be able to resist killing your father if I ever meet him,” Tadeas snorted. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Patricide doesn’t look good in front of a Ministry tribunal.”
“Only if they can find the body.” Tadeas checked his pocket watch. “Shit, I have to get to a staff meeting with General Stavri. Nothing for you to do today, so get some rest. Mika will be through here any time with one of those artillery regiments. Stay out of sight or one of those puffed-up guild-family pricks will try to bully you into guard duty.”
Idrian bid his friend farewell with a raised hand, watching Tadeas jog down the street. He touched his godglass eye briefly. Most people assumed he’d lost his eye in battle. He let them think that. Only Tadeas knew about the paternal cruelty – of the screaming and the beatings. He tried to cast it all out of his mind. He needed the rest after yesterday’s events, but he wished there were something for him to do, if only to keep his thoughts off of his own encroaching madness. He paced nervously, ignoring the looks from the Ironhorns’ support staff as they cleaned the camp and washed and mended uniforms.
Braileer came out on a nearby stoop, laying out Idrian’s armor, sword, and shield. Idrian paused his pacing long enough to watch. Perhaps the young armorer would do a better job at his repairs in the light of day. Even if he was just coming out to give them another polish, it was good that he was staying busy.
Idrian joined him, sinking down onto the stoop and staring up into the sky. “Do you think a lot about death, Braileer?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“You will, if you stay with the Foreign Legion long.” Idrian bit his own tongue immediately after the words slipped out. It wasn’t like him to maintain such a dark mood around someone he barely knew, and a fresh recruit at that. Braileer didn’t deserve it. “You’ll see the best of life as well,” he added.
“Yes, sir,” Braileer said, ducking his head to his work. Idrian wondered if he’d scared him.
A movement caught Idrian’s eye, and he turned to see a small girl watching him from the window of a tenement down the street. Most Grent civilians had fled ahead of the fighting, trying to stay well clear, but thousands were left hunkering in their homes with nowhere to go. Idrian waved. The girl waved back. A young woman suddenly appeared behind the girl and pulled her inside, closing the shutters with a quick, angry glare at Idrian.
He didn’t blame her. Nobody wanted this: not the civilians, not the soldiers. If not for the orders coming down from on high, he might be on holiday on this very street right now, enjoying the solstice and Grent’s darker, higher-quality winter ale.
The sound of a small explosion reached him, and Idrian’s head came up. Another followed, far too close for comfort. “Braileer,” he hissed. “Those are Mika’s grenades.” He was on his feet in half a moment, pinpointing the sound. “Arm yourself and come with me,” he ordered, snatching his helmet from Braileer’s hands and slamming it onto his head. He grabbed his sword and shield and set off at a run, not bothering to make sure the armorer had followed.
As he drew closer to the source of the explosions he could hear screaming. “Grent breacher!” someone shouted. “We have an incoming breacher!”
Idrian emerged from an alleyway to see a full-fledged battle taking place in front of him. A dozen artillery pieces were stretched out down the street, their crews huddled around them protectively, trying to keep the horses from panicking, while a mix of soldiers and engineers with the Ironhorn crest on their uniforms formed a perimeter.
That perimeter had already collapsed at the head of the column. A Grent breacher wearing full-plate armor chopped a brutal path up the line of artillery. Two horses were already dead, their artillery pieces cleaved into useless pieces, the bodies of crew and Ironhorns alike scattered around them. As Idrian watched, an artillery officer lost his head. In moments that breacher had killed the next horse, sliced off the wheel of a six-pound gun, and cleaved through half the crew. The rest fled, while the Ironhorns peppered the breacher’s armor with musket shot.
“You can’t go out there without your armor,” Braileer gasped as he caught up. He carried his smallsword and hammerglass buckler, and looked absolutely terrified.
“Try and stop me,” Idrian snapped. A wave of Grent soldiers – probably a small company’s worth – followed in the wake of their breacher, bayoneting the wounded and returning fire to drive the Ironhorns back. Idrian searched his comrades until he found Mika standing with her engineers, right in the path of the enemy breacher. She held a sling, loading it with a small grenade before whipping it over her head to send the explosive soaring into the enemy. The explosion drew their attention, and Idrian used that to his advantage.
He broke cover at a full sprint, praying that the sorcery in his helmet would be enough to get him through this. He hit the Grent soldiers from the side, sword-first, sweeping through them just as easily as their own breacher was slicing up the Ironhorns. Their organized shouts became screams and within moments he was covered in gore.