While the cheers roared on, the technicians went swiftly back to servicing their monstrous machine. At the front of the giant Sun Cannon, the Sun Gem slowly cooled; while in the pass, three thousand Sumbrian troops lay buried under steaming lava.
11
The council chambers of Sumbria echoed to the roar of outraged voices. What had started as a postmortem of the lost campaign had turned into a maelstrom of invective and blame-passing. Blade Captains accused one another of everything from cowardice and incompetence, to outright treachery. The Sumbrian army-the finest, most expensively equipped forces in the Blade Kingdoms-had been utterly overturned. Scouts should have been sent out; cavalry should have intercepted the Colletran horse. Tactics, magic, science, or sorcery should have somehow obliterated the enemy and won the day. Battle mages and unit commanders fought to make their voices heard as they furiously tried to clear their own good names.
Everyone had another man to blame; some old enemy who had long been a secret traitor; some rival whose true colors at last were flown. The snarling madhouse shook papers, pens, and blades at one another around the table-top, while Prince Mannicci simply sat with his head bowed in his hands.
For the prince, the battle had been more than just a military disaster. The contingents of Mannicci's closest allies had been in the path of the Colletran charge. Worse still, the Mannicci regiments had held the pass as it inexplicably collapsed above them. The Mannicci family's forces now scarcely numbered a hundred men, not enough to qualify the prince for a vote in his own council. He sat there upon the sufferance of the Blade Captains, if he sat there at all.
Above the chaos, a single voice rose into a deep, commanding tone.
"Gentlemen! Colleagues… be still! We have only a few hours to stop a disaster from turning into a catastrophe!"
Heads turned; the motion caused more men to lose track of their arguments. The speaker stepped forward into the lessening din with consummate timing and skill. Sweeping open his arms, Gilberto Ilego stood like a pristine figurehead bursting through a storm.
"We are defeated, but we are not destroyed!" Ilego's voice fought to overcome a reawakened roar. "No, not yet! But division can still be our undoing!"
He spoke as though the great battle had not yet been lost and won; flushed and bickering noblemen snatched at the offered straw and began to listen.
"Colleagues! Sumbria is the most powerful of the Blade Kingdoms. As an individual state, we command the greatest wealth, the greatest intellects, and the finest military equipment. And yet we have found ourselves locked into a futile war for years! Rather than taking our place as rightful leader of the Akanal, we have squandered our energies in an endless war with Colletro-and over what? A valley. A single valley." Ilego's voice rose suddenly into a sharp pitch of scorn. "One valley! When the Blade Kingdoms hold a thousand such penny-plots of land!"
Cappa Mannicci shot a sharp, deadly glance at Ilego. The elegant Blade Captain ignored his prince, skipping his eyes across him to grip the crowd with his gaze.
"And why? Why have we wasted our energies on such a futile little war?" Ilego whirled and flung an armored hand at his prince. "Because the Manniccis have commanded it! The Mannicci vision has locked us into a squabble only fit for schoolyard brats. A squabble with a kingdom who could just as well have been our staunchest ally all along!"
The slim nobleman had first won their attention, then eased their hurts-now he shocked them with an outrageous revelation. Men stared at him in disbelief until Ilego passed copies of a letter out into his colleagues' hands.
"I have here a message from the Blade Council of Colletro. A new council! Newly elected, for new times!" Blade Captain Ilego's voice soared like a falcon on god-sent winds. "The old prince is overthrown, and Colletro offers us its blades, its science, and its sorcery. In short- their new, princeless council has asked to merge with Sumbria to form a single great kingdom! At a stroke, we can double our realm in ferocity and size!"
Prince Mannicci launched up to his feet and slammed an open hand against the table, but his angry rejoinder was drowned beneath the uproar of the crowd. Ilego triumphantly orchestrated the furor, letting the volume build until a paid clique led the Blade Captains into howling for a vote.
A few thousand ducats had been spent, and spent well; a flood of anger-like any other flood-is best handled by carefully constructed channels. Prince Mannicci tried to speak, only to be shouted down by young captains asking to see the muster of his men. With no troops beneath his banners, Mannicci lacked the right to even take the floor.
Standing on the table, Blade Captain Furioso-stout, black-haired and wild-shook a copy of the Sumbrian constitution in Mannicci's eyes.
"We demand a vote! A new prince-one with a better plan!"
Ilego smiled, feeling the day's events play straight into his hands. Above him, Furioso let himself be whipped on by the churning crowd.
"Two-thirds majority, Mannicci! Two thirds insist on a vote… an immediate vote. The Articles of Association demand that an election be held for the crown!"
Orlando Toporello-his armor still scarred and unclean from the battle three days before-slammed his battered sword across the tabletop.
"No! We are not a mob… to blame a prince when we have failed him at arms!"
"Ha!" Triumphant at the crest of the crowd, Furioso bit his thumb at the old man. "Can an old dog never leave off sniffing the backside of its old master?"
Toporello gave a bellow of rage and flung himself at Furioso; Furioso's page tried to block the old man's path and took a sword cut in the cheek as Toporello flailed at the packed mob of jeering nobles with his blade. A dozen arms held him back, crushing him in a press of bodies as they kept Toporello and his prey apart.
A vote was cast, yet no one counted the blades that flashed into the air; Mannicci's rule was cast away, and a dynasty lay broken. A hundred voices soared and jeered as Cappa Mannicci sank down into his chair.
Radiant, Ilego opened his arms to the crowd.
"Then it is our will that we have a new prince! A new prince, right here and now!"
Before Ilego could have himself nominated by his paid lackeys, Toporello slammed his sword across the table, broke the blade, and cast the shards away. He turned, signed for his sons and officers, and drove a path to the doors. Gilberto Ilego climbed onto the table and bayed across the assembly like a wild, triumphant ass.
"Where to, Toporello? Will you not cast a vote with your brethren?"
"Never!" Toporello's parade-ground shout almost stripped the plaster from the walls. His huge voice stilled the rabble like a thunderous magic spell.
"To sell our honor to Colletran hands? To cast aside a prince who has served us long and well?" The old man whipped out his hands as though trying to fling them clean of dirt. "Do it if you will-but these are no colleagues of mine, nor do I care to remain within their fellowship!"
"And where will you go?" Ilego made the question into a fabulous little joke. "Will you pack up your toys and refuse to play?"
"A free company is what we once were-a free company we remain! House Toporello takes its blades elsewhere!" Orlando cast a glance that ripped lines of fire across a dozen men. "You, Marello-and you, Ambrosi! Join the jackal pack-but make way for better men!"
Toporello turned to go. Suddenly, a young captain jerked out from the crowd and followed at his heel. They were joined by a second, then a third, all small holders who commanded scarcely two hundred men. Ilego cast them out and let his wild voice echo through the hall.