Into the Storm (32 page)

“How’d you know that?”

“Lord Durham told me as much during one of his visits.”

Cleasby stopped in the middle of the street with a quizzical look on his face. “Lord Durham, the retired general? He visited you in the brig?”

“Yes. We used to serve together. He kept me company while I suffered from the fever sickness.”

“Recently.”

“In the last few days. Why?”

“We’ve got to get some food and drink in you.” Cleasby tilted his head to the side. “You’re not well.”

“I’ll be fine. And you’d be a terrible card player, with a face that betrays emotions so easily. What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know how to tell you this. Lord Durham is gone. He took up his sword again when the Protectorate broke into Caspia. He was killed defending his estate in East Gate.”

“That can’t be . . .”

“Lord Durham has been dead for weeks.”

Madigan took a deep breath and steadied himself. Durham had been real. They’d spoken one to another, just as he and Cleasby were speaking now. Durham couldn’t be dead. Still, he’d had stranger things happen in his life. “Forgive me. It must have been the fever dreams, then. I’m fine now. Where’s Culpin?”

“On the wrong side of an army of Protectorate soldiers. You don’t seem surprised.”

“If it were easy, you wouldn’t have needed me, lad.”

There were only nine men waiting at the Barn when they arrived.

“Suicide mission or not, I was hoping more of them would have stepped up,” Madigan whispered.

“The army has picked us clean for replacements. This is all that’s left of the Sixth . . . and it appears they’ve volunteered to the last man.”

“Impressive,” Madigan said loudly enough for them all to hear. The men looked up to see their former commander standing at the gate, filthy, unkempt, and dressed in rags. “Hello, lads.”

“The lieutenant’s back!” A cheer went up that would have been loud enough to scare the livestock, if they hadn’t already been slaughtered to feed the army.

“How’s that supposed to make
me
feel?” Cleasby asked in mock indignation.

Madigan gave them a sharp salute. The men returned it as one. He lowered his arm. “Status?”

“The men are ready. Equipment and weapons are in top shape,” Rains reported.

“It took a bit of trading is all,” Thornbury said. “No outright robbery.”

“We’ve got rations for a single day.”

“You’re not expecting to have to march back out?” Madigan asked.

“No, sir,” Rains answered. “That’ll just slow us down.”

“If we live, we’ll improvise.” He glanced over at MacKay’s old work area. Their Stormclad was in pitiable shape. Its armor was cracked and blackened, and its shield arm was obviously useless. “How’s Headhunter?”

“Better than he looks, sir. I learned from you that if I made him too pretty the army would want to take him back.”

“It’s only got one arm.”

“I couldn’t salvage the other one, but that’s his
swinging
arm.”

“Neel would be pleased.” Madigan reached up and patted the big man on the shoulder. “Now, let’s go get some more heads for that necklace of his.”

They had what amounted to a lone squad of Storm Knights, but they were eager for the fight. These men had been kept out of the battle for too long. He could see the eagerness in their eyes. They were hungry.

“Fetch me some soap and water. I’ll not go to my death smelling like a junker who died in a scrap heap. Where’s my kit?” The men hurried to fetch his armor. “And get me some food I can eat while we march. I’ve forgotten the last time I had food.”

“Do you need some time to rest up first?” Cleasby asked. “You look like death.”

“And keep Culpin waiting? Everyone gather inside. Cleasby will brief you on the nature of the threat. I’ll address the platoon before we move out.”

Madigan still felt like a shadow of himself. His body was weak, but he tried not to let it show. He couldn’t let these men see weakness in their leader, especially not right now. He washed himself in the freezing water of the old cow trough. The water seemed to give clarity to his thoughts. Lord Durham had been real; Madigan knew that as well as he knew anything. And if his old mentor had been real, he’d been sent back with a message.

His reflection stared back at him, a shadow of what could have been, and Madigan remembered another moment like this, washing the blood from his face in a fountain on the grounds of the palace during a brief lull in the fighting during the Lion’s Coup. The reflection that had stared back at him all those years ago had been so much younger, idealistic even, but ultimately a fool.

King Vinter was possibly the mightiest swordsman who had ever lived, and none of Leto’s men had been able to touch him. He’d approached, still regal despite being drenched in blood, and placed one gauntlet on Madigan’s shoulder.
My brother is a fool if he thinks he can defeat me.
And Sir Madigan had believed his king with all his heart.

What would you have me do?

Because that was what a knight was supposed to say when his lord came to him. And with that he’d been sent on a mission to eliminate Leto’s greatest supporter in the House of Lords. It had been nothing but a final act of spite from a vengeful king, and Madigan had been his weapon.

“What would you have me do?” Madigan whispered to his battered, scarred reflection.

This time there was no answer.

Dressed in the insulated underlayers of his armor, which would protect his skin from the lethal electricity of their galvanic weapons, he joined the men inside the Barn a few minutes later, hopefully looking at least a bit like a proper officer of Cygnar.

Cleasby was using a map of Caspia. “So that’s what it comes down to. The Great Public Works can pump Culpin’s explosive into any neighborhood in Caspia. We saw what happened to First Platoon. Now imagine if the entire western half of the city were to ignite at the same time in such a manner. Those tunnels run beneath the palace, the Sancteum, the great library, the hospitals, the armory—everything.” Cleasby thumped each location on the map as he named it. “Thousands, maybe tens of thousands would die instantaneously. There would be no way to stop that many alchemical fires from spreading. Our remaining defenses would crumble, but by that point it wouldn’t matter, because Caspia, the oldest surviving human city in the world, will have been destroyed. The City of Walls survived the Orgoth, but walls can’t hold back this threat. The only thing left would be the walls because everything inside them would be ash. Any questions?”

The Barn was dead silent.

“That’ll do.” Madigan was glad to see someone had kept up the shrine he’d allowed Wilkins to build. “Come over here, all of you,” he said as he went to the shrine to Ascendant Markus.

There were several surprised glances exchanged as Madigan knelt before the little shrine. He picked up one of the golden coins bearing the symbol of Morrow and pressed it to his brow. The men quickly followed suit, and there was a great clamor as armored knees hit the floor. Even Rains knelt.

Madigan stared at the altar and tried to find the words.
It’s been a very long time
 . . .

“We ask you, ascendant of soldiers, who stood at Midfast against invaders beyond number, to witness our plight. Please intervene and carry this message to the Prophet on our behalf. Morrow hear our prayers.”

“Morrow hear our prayers,” said the men with one voice.

“We go now into battle on behalf of king and country. We fight for our families and our land. We fight for our freedom. We willingly place our lives in your hands. Morrow, guide us so that we may strike true. Give strength to our limbs and clarity to our minds.”

Madigan paused. That was as much as he could remember from the prayers of his youth, so he decided to speak from his heart. “We know the deck is not stacked in our favor, but the way I see it, you wouldn’t have it any other way. You put us here, a bunch of soldiers with bad names and worse luck, and the army expected us to fail, but we showed them, didn’t we? You’ve favored us and allowed these men to regain their honor and their good names. Now Cygnar needs us. So we’re calling on you one last time to help us kill the wretched fools who would menace your sacred city. Morrow hear our prayers.”

“Morrow hear our prayers!”

“With your blessing, a dozen men and a one-armed warjack will end Culpin’s threat once and for all. We ask for
victory.
” Madigan touched the coin to his lips then placed it back on the altar. “Amen.”

Rains thumped his storm glaive into the old Precursor shield. “I think Wilkins would approve.”

“Then it’ll do.” Madigan stood up. “My armor.” Several men rushed to help him into his suit.

“You got one thing wrong,” Cleasby said as he held up the breastplate and Pangborn cinched it tightly to the back plate. It shifted uncomfortably. Madigan had lost some weight. “There are only eleven of us.”

Madigan inclined his head toward the doorway. Savio Acosta was standing there, watching indifferently, already dressed in his storm armor. “I count twelve.”

“What’re you doing here?” Cleasby asked, surprised to see the Ordsman.

“The situation has changed.” Acosta’s shoulders lifted and fell in a heavily armored shrug. “I was leaving the city when a certain lady told me Madigan had found himself another worthy fight.”

“I expected you’d not want to miss this one,” Madigan said as he checked his bracers. “All right, lads. Let’s end these Protectorate scum for Cygnar!”

“For Cygnar!”

They’d marched quickly through the streets of Caspia, pushing through crowds of refugees walking beside overladen wagons and their straining beasts of burden. Madigan had steered them toward the dock district, knowing there would be less foot traffic here. Those who fled in this area had less to begin with, and those who had nowhere else to go would simply hunker down and hope for the best.

They reached the river at sundown. As a child he’d often watched the colors of the sunset on the Black River, blue to orange to shimmering gold and then to black. Now it was all stained with burning oil, flooded into the harbor by the Menites in an attempt to keep out Cygnaran resupply vessels.

Caspia was crisscrossed with lesser walls, but even those lesser walls would have been considered mighty fortifications in most other cities. Luckily the platoon was allowed through the dock gate, even without written orders. It wasn’t under siege yet, but by this point the watch was happy to see any soldiers heading toward the fighting.

They’d run through the narrow streets along the river, their path lit by Skyhammers exploding overhead. Acosta ranged ahead of the rest, keeping an eye out for Protectorate patrols. Headhunter was burning hot, but Rains had made each man carry a sack of coal, and they kept their warjack’s boiler stoked.

Soldiers watched them pass, curious but too exhausted to bother to question the small band of Storm Knights. Trenchers had dug holes in the road and set up their guns in the wreckage of bombed buildings. They received many hopeful glances, wondering if they were relief or reinforcements, but then they pushed past, leaving the brave soldiers to their fate.

Acosta came back at a dead run. Madigan held up his hand and signaled for the Malcontents to halt. The Ordsman slid to a stop. “We’re close. The Protectorate advance has reached the next block. They’re coming this way quickly.”