Chapter 18
Does this city just light itself on fire a few times a year?
Liam recalled someone mentioning the normally squalid conditions of the city at some point, so maybe it did.
“What do we do?” Baroness Illerand asked tearfully.
“Has the riot reached our part of the city?” Countess Beaumont asked.
The armsman shook his head.
“No, my lady,” he said. “Some people appeared to call the citizens to join ‘em, but that’s ‘bout it.”
“Then we will continue to police our area as usual,” Countess Beaumont said. “Count Monfort is a prideful man: I doubt he would be happy to see us even if he were being hung upside down over one of the piers.”
“This disturbance may not limit itself to the wharf,” Baron Lepin noted.
“We’ll know if that’s the case well before it reaches us,” Lady Beaumont said. “The Merchant Guild office is in Forbin’s jurisdiction. Any remaining anger will be directed against him for allowing Guildmaster Rivard to be taken.”
“And then Lord Reginald instead of us, I hope,” Lord Lepin said.
“I’ll go and see what’s going on,” Liam said.
Lady Beaumont’s assessment of the situation sounded rational, but an angry mob was far from it.
Up on the rooftops, Liam stopped to take in the overall atmosphere of the city. It was decidedly strange, with the west remaining deathly quiet even as the east erupted in violence. The Beaumont Faction’s jurisdiction saw muted activity the previous day due to the Mercenary breakout and its aftermath, and now this new set of disturbances kept things from returning to normal.
It wasn’t exactly undesirable. For one, the resources of the nobility were being strained, which was the intent behind his activities, if not the exact plan. The authorities’ attention would also be drawn to the eastern portion of the city. Even if the other factions didn’t lift a finger to help Monfort, their men would be reorganised to protect their own positions.
The question now was what he could do with that. Would the western wall’s defences be sparse enough to deal with before the rebels arrived? Maybe more could be done to shift the odds in his favour.
With that in mind, Liam made his way eastward. In the minutes since he had first noticed it, the smoke rising from their unseen source hadn’t spread. He walked in its direction, eventually arriving at the scene of a standoff. The people had blocked the main street leading into the warehouse district with a bunch of wagons. In front of the wagons was a set of fires fuelled by wooden scraps and other pieces of refuse, which kept Monfort’s Knights from storming the barricade.
Three, five, seven, eight, eleven…
In addition to the four mounted Knights, thirteen armsmen bearing a variety of weapons could be seen on their side. None were deployed to the rooftops, not that he expected it.
Opposing them, safely behind their makeshift barricade, were several hundred men. Many still wore the trappings of their trade, and all of them were at least armed with clubs or wooden poles. Occasionally, a gust of wind would funnel up the street, eliciting mocking shouts from the citizens as Monfort’s men were assaulted by the smoke and fumes of burning garbage. In response, Monfort’s forces did little more than cough and back away.
Was there some scheme at play? Liam couldn’t imagine them suffering such mockery for long. If Count Monfort had been present, he would have probably ordered his Knights to kill them all.
Liam continued past the street to see what else was going on. The next block over, a handful of armsmen and a hundred odd citizens warily watching one another over a similar barricade. No fires were lit at this one, however, so it seemed that the armsmen had been assigned to contain the riot rather than put it down. Over the next half hour, he found the same standoff at every other entrance to the district.
So what’s the plan here?
It wasn’t just the Monfort Faction that seemed to be at a loss. The citizens would eventually get into trouble, as well. House Blumrush still largely controlled imports to the city, and food definitely wasn’t coming up the river. Lord Reginald would probably turn the whole thing into a win for his own house, allowing the incident to weaken the Monfort Faction and irreparably mar its reputation before swooping in to clean up its mess once the citizens were on the verge of starvation. Alternatively, they could force the issue once their reinforcements from the countryside arrived.
At least that’s what Liam thought would happen if they were the only players in the game. Fortunately for the citizens, that wasn’t the case and they wouldn’t need to hold out for long.
He pulled a Message scroll out of a case in his bandolier, activating the item once he was safely out of sight of the streets below.
『Hey, it’s me.』
『…wasn’t a country destroyed like that a long time ago?』
『Isn’t that just a stupid story? Sounds like a stupid story to me. Anyway, uh…some stuff happened after the stuff I did last night.』
『I can see that. What in Surshana’s name did you do?』
『Got rid of some people who weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. The people found out what they were doing and the Merchant Guild brought its complaints to the court. Count Monfort didn’t like that. He snatched the guildmaster and executed him. Probably thought he could cow the people. It pushed them over the edge instead.』
『I saw. But it doesn’t look like they’re doing much now.』
『Yeah. The Nobles know that they’ll win if no one does anything. What do you think we should do?』
『That depends. How many people does the Monfort Faction have left?』
『I’m not sure. I killed a bunch of them last night, but the riot might have gotten more. Between their entire faction, there are about five dozen armsmen and four Knights in the streets right now.』
『Hmm…that should mean they’ve brought in people from the other shift. That’s easy to take advantage of. What about the west side?』
『The people are hiding after what happened last night. Laval’s men are pretending it’s all Monfort’s fault.』
『How about the other Nobles?』
『Forbin and Beaumont haven’t changed things much, as far as I can tell. Lord Reginald pulled a lot of his men back to defend the castle.』
『Alright. Here’s how I see things. We can use the angry citizens, but their anger needs results or they’ll lose momentum. That’s already happening and we need to stop it.』
『So you want me to weaken Monfort’s forces so they can keep going?』
『That’s one way to do it. Going by your reports over the last few days, Monfort has all of his men out in response to the riot. They’re going to have a bunch of exhausted guys from the night watch by evening. I’m not sure if you’ll be able to tell them apart, but if you pick off the right people, they’ll become an ineffective mess.』
『I’ll see what I can do. Where are we going with this?』
『Pulling more of the Nobles into the fight. If Monfort breaks, then we push the people towards Forbin. If Forbin’s situation deteriorates, then Laval’s forces have to step in to avoid being cut off from the upper city. If they let themselves get cut off, that works for us, too.』
On paper, it made sense. The independent and adversarial nature of the different factions made it so that they didn’t consider the problems of their rivals a bad thing. Countess Beaumont’s faction was no exception, as evidenced by Baron Lepin.
『Should the Beaumont Faction do anything?』
『Yeah, have them move all of their forces to their jurisdiction. No one will question it with what’s going on. It’ll keep them out of trouble if Lord Reginald starts demanding that the factions start working together.』
『Sure. Oh, when should I let them know what’s actually going on?』
『Uh…as late as possible, I guess? Maybe even until after the rebels get in.』
Was he worried about potential traitors? Liam supposed it was possible. Even if each Noble was fully invested, it didn’t mean that information couldn’t leak through a disgruntled or overly talkative retainer.
So what if it did?
As reckless as the thought was, a part of him wanted to see it happen. House Beaumont’s armsmen were far more suited to dealing with their counterparts from the other houses. The result would likely be no different than what had happened to the Mercenaries in the streets two nights previous.
『This scroll’s gonna run out soon. I’ll get back to you before sunset.』
Liam placed a hand over his bandolier. He didn’t have many Message scrolls left. Had the higher-ups figured out exactly how many he would need, or was it just a lucky guess? It had all started as a mission for the Ministry of Transportation, too.
He returned to the southern gatehouse, finding Lady Beaumont sitting in the watch captain’s office with a worried frown on her face. The young noblewoman gasped in shock as Liam came to stand before her, though he didn’t think he had done anything to avoid her notice.
“Liam! You startled me.”
“Sorry about that. I just spoke with Raul. We have stuff to do.”
“Mister Raul? What did he say?”
Liam walked around the office, checking the doors and windows for potential eavesdroppers. Baroness Illerand was still manning the customs office, and the vast majority of their armsmen worked for House Beaumont.
“Where’s Lord Lepin? Liam asked.
“He went to lead a patrol along the street we share with the Monforts,” Lady Beaumont answered. “I’ve been beside myself with worry since he left. What if he gets attacked by ruffians?”
Who does she think the ruffians are?
Despite the antagonistic nature of her relationship with the other factions, the bulk of the Countess’ mistrust still seemed to be reserved for the cityfolk. It didn’t make much sense to Liam. Maybe he should have been more candid about what was going on in the city.
“I don’t think anyone can spare the time to pick a fight with us,” Liam said. “The citizens have pushed Monfort’s men out of the wharf area. Monfort’s men are trying to figure out how to get back in. That doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way, though. You saw that Lord Reginald pulled his men back to the castle. Most of the other lords have doubled their deployments or more.”
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“Are we to do the same?” Countess Beaumont asked.
“Yeah,” Liam answered. “There’s no telling what’s going to happen. You should probably limit the Nobles to a couple of attendants, though.”
The young noblewoman frowned at the last.
“The Nobles, as well?”
“You’ll see why later.”
Raul hadn’t mentioned the Nobles, but Liam figured moving them was a good idea. There was a non-zero chance that Lord Reginald would eventually learn that the Beaumont Faction was in league with the rebels: or just randomly come to that conclusion: and he would undoubtedly try to lash out at any of its members he could reach. Then again, moving them might raise suspicions…
Liam shook his head. It was better not to leave them stuck in the upper city when the rebels came in. He just needed to keep Lord Reginald and his allies too busy to focus on anything but the uprising.
He left Lady Beaumont to her arrangements, picking up a crossbow and a satchel of quarrels from the gatehouse armoury before heading back to the eastern part of the city. Not much had changed since he left. The citizens still glared over their barricades at Monfort’s men, though it looked like more had come to join them. A ways back, several women were handing out bread and pouring out cups of water.
Looks like the Guilds are committed.
Not that it was a surprise, considering what had happened to their leader. Due to the shortages suffered over the winter, however, their support wasn’t as impressive as it could have been. Still, Liam would take any help he could get, even if it was unintentional.
He set his crossbow down upon the hastily-fashioned clay tiles of the rooftop, scanning his surroundings out of habit before casting a spell.
“「Disguise Self」.”
It was still his only spell, but his seniors had suggested he learn it for good reason. He altered his appearance, darkening his hair and eyes while flattening his nose. His surcoat took on the appearance of a labourer’s vest, with a well-worn shirt and pants to match. After making sure nothing about him was out of sorts for a young denizen of the city, he picked up his weapon and dropped into a secluded alley behind Guild lines.
“Hey, sister, pass me one of those rolls.”
“You know the rules. One to a man.”
“But it ain’t enough!”
“Ah, shut it. You know ye’d get nothin’ if not for the Guild.”
Liam kept a low profile, doing his best to avoid notice as he observed the ‘rioters’.
His stroll took him on a meandering path, which eventually led him to where he assumed was the origin of the citizens’ uprising. Near one of the main piers was a demolished gantry along a stretch of bloodstained boardwalk. Though little else remained of the initial outburst of violence, the citizens stayed clear of the site.
This might be a problem.
The castle had its own facilities just around the riverbend, so Lord Reginald could potentially send ships over to land men at the unguarded wharf. Then again, the idea might not even occur to them. In the inland regions of Re-Estize, notions of water transport seemed limited to trade and leisure, with the former considered the purview of the Guilds.
No, this isn’t something I can leave to chance.
The problem was that there was only one of him and too much to do. Or maybe that wasn’t quite right. One didn’t have to be a trained agent to do everything. A few warehouses away, a man in a Merchant Guild uniform watched over a team transferring cargo to a wagon. Liam took on a more conspicuous stance as he walked in their direction. The Guild official spotted him before he got within twenty paces.
“You, boy. What have you got there?”
Liam clutched the crossbow to his chest.
“I found it,” he said. “It’s mine!”
“And what use do you have for something like that?”
“I’m gonna wait for the Nobles to come on their boats,” Liam sniffed. “Then I’ll get ‘em like they got my pa.”
The official exchanged a look with the men loading the wagon before coming to kneel in front of Liam.
I’m not that short…
“I’ll tell you what,” the official said in a softer tone. “You give that thing to us, and we’ll set up some men to watch the river. Does that sound good?”
Liam put on a sullen expression, letting several seconds pass before giving the man a reluctant nod. The official smiled, ruffling Liam’s hair before taking his crossbow and handing it to one of the nearby men.
“Get some people to help watch the river,” he said. “The Alchemist might have something to help with the Nobles’ ships.”
There goes my crossbow.
It wasn’t at all what he had intended for the weapon, but at least it helped with something. After a moment’s consideration, he went to where he thought he could find a replacement. He left the riverfront, heading northeast toward the city wall. A frown crossed his illusory face when he arrived at the gatehouse.
This might be a problem.
He had a feeling that it wouldn’t be the last time the thought crossed his mind. At first glance, the gatehouse formerly manned by the Monfort Faction was completely empty. He entered unchallenged, climbing up the narrow stone stairwell to find the captain’s office thoroughly ransacked, but unoccupied. The wall to either side was similarly bare of defenders.
One might argue that it wasn’t fair to expect a group of artisans, clerks, and common labourers to muster the appropriate security, but anyone intent on attacking them would only see their shortfalls as a vulnerability to exploit. If House Blumrush had been quicker to bring in their rural reinforcements, the result would have been catastrophic.
Much like the city’s western gatehouse, this one was a relic of a time when the ruling marquis actually did his job as a defender of the frontier. It was also in a similar state of disrepair. Many of its mechanisms were so neglected that the once-moving parts of its various defensive mechanisms looked like they had fused solid.
The armoury door would have probably also been frozen shut if it had not seen regular use, but it still hadn’t gone completely unscathed by the passage of time. Its bulky ironwood construction ensured that the door itself remained an imposing obstacle, but the lock built into it had been sloppily replaced by a newer iron latch secured by the same type of padlock used to secure doors found all over the city.
A few seconds later, the latch lay open. Liam took inventory of the gatehouse armoury. He had feared what he found inside would match the rest of the building, but, aside from only being partially stocked, he had no trouble finding a few serviceable crossbows with ammunition close at hand. He picked up one weapon and slung it over his shoulder before grabbing a second, silently revising his plans as he left the gatehouse.
With the citizens being so lax with their security, the Nobles couldn’t be allowed the luxury of regaining their footing. Regrettably, this meant he would have to do things that would result in injury and even death for some of the people, but it was better than seeing them get completely destroyed.
He stashed a crossbow with a bag of quarrels on a rooftop before coming down to join the citizens at one of their makeshift barricades. As with the Guild official at the warehouse, the weapon in his hands was the first thing to draw notice.
“Hey, where’d ya get that?”
Liam looked up at a youth who was sitting with his legs dangling out of the back of a wagon.
“The gatehouse,” Liam said. “Someone got the armoury door open.”
Several of the nearby men glanced in his direction before going off in the direction of the gatehouse. They didn’t bother telling anyone, leaving a gap in the blockade’s defences. Liam went to fill the hole, making a show of trying to figure out how his weapon worked. The youth in the wagon came to kneel beside him.
“Gotta crank it before ya put the bolt in,” he said.
Liam frowned, letting his hands hover over the mechanism. Another man came over, crossing his arms as he added some prompts of his own. By the time the thing was properly loaded, Liam had an audience of seven.
He crawled into the nearest wagon, peeking over the side to scan the Monfort forces. A bit back from the line of loose cobblestones that had been cast in their direction, six armsmen bearing spears formed a line barring the street. It was a flimsy defence, considering how many citizens they were up against.
“Get the fat one,” the youth said.
“The fat one?”
Liam examined each of the armsmen. None of them was particularly plump, though he supposed that all of them might seem that way to the emaciated denizens of the city.
“That one there. He was one of the ones who went and took the girls away yesterday.”
He cringed as the youth pointed a finger at one of the armsmen. Fortunately, the man didn’t register the gesture. Liam raised the crossbow, doing his best to remain concealed as he levelled the weapon against his target. While he wasn’t proficient in its use, he was trained in its basics and the armsman wasn’t very far away.
Liam depressed the weapon’s trigger. The crossbow released its quarrel with a click. The projectile crossed the span in a heartbeat, sending the armsman to the pavement as it smashed into his shin, his wails of agony drawing stares from both sides.
Turning around, Liam looked at the men behind him with a feigned expression of disbelief.
“Let me try next!” The youth held out his hands eagerly.
Liam turned the crossbow over. More men crowded around as he worked the weapon. Liam used the commotion to slip away and enter a nearby alley. By the time he recovered the second crossbow and took up a position overlooking the standoff, the armsmen had retreated to cower behind a parked wagon further up the street. A quarrel occasionally flew out from the citizens’ line and skipped off the pavement, well away from its intended targets, but even that was enough to visibly unnerve Monfort’s men.
Renewed jeering issued from the barricade, drawing more people from the surrounding neighbourhood. Eventually, the men who had left to loot the gatehouse returned. More quarrels zipped through the air, accompanied by the angry shouts of the citizenry.
“Scum! Get out of our city!”
“Fuck Monfort!”
“The gods curse ‘em!”
Put a sword in a man’s hand, and he’ll give it a swing.
Liam shook his head as he recalled one of Miss Linum’s lessons. People were too easy to manipulate. With a simple act, he had directed them to the point of no return and they happily went off running.
An armsman dashed out from behind the wagon. The citizens sent a half dozen bolts in his direction, but the man made it around the nearest corner with little real risk. Liam settled in to wait, mentally going through how he could influence things based on the Nobles’ response. A few minutes later, the armsman returned ahead of a Monfort Knight and his squad. The Knight looked down the street from atop his armoured steed, then to the sentries running up to join him.
“Where’s Giroux?”
“He’s dead, Sir Denault,” one of the armsmen replied.
“Dead?” The Knight said incredulously, “I was told he was wounded in the leg.”
The sentries shook their heads. One of them gestured to the wagon they had taken cover where a single figure was sitting still against a wheel.
“He took a quarrel just under the knee. Didn’t look that bad at first, but then he was dead a few minutes later. It must have hit him funny.”
“These pissants grow too bold,” Sir Denault growled. “Bring in some wagons for cover.”
“What about the ones who did this?” One of the armsmen asked.
“They’ll get what’s coming to them,” the Knight answered. “I will report to Lord Monfort once I finish my rounds.”
It was a more tepid response than Liam would have liked, but it suggested a few things about the Monfort Faction’s situation. They clearly didn’t think they had enough strength to put down the uprising, else they immediately would have done so. Additionally, they didn’t seem to have a way to retaliate at range. That was something he had overlooked, as Lady Beaumont’s men were all Rangers who touted their own bows. He could only assume that Lord Monfort had accepted the task assigned to police the city: or, rather, Lord Reginald had simply dumped it on the city’s leading factions: and was ill-equipped to handle anything beyond bullying a long-abused population.
Three of the armsmen left to carry out Sir Denault’s orders, leaving two to nervously eye the distant barricade. Liam dispatched the first from the rooftops. The second retreated even further up the block.
These guys are going to run out of street.
When the other armsmen returned, they pushed their wagon into place near the edge of the neighbouring jurisdiction. Once the citizens grew bold enough to relocate their barricade, the handful of sentries assigned to the area by the Forbin Faction confronted Monfort’s men.
“Hey, what the hell are you idiots doing?!” One of them demanded.
“We’re stopping these rebels from overrunning you mooks!” A Monfort armsman shot back.
“You look like a bunch of cravens to me,” another Forbin armsman said.
The barb caused Monfort’s men to round on the speaker angrily. Several more from the Forbin Faction rushed to join the growing altercation, spears gleaming in the afternoon sun. Liam looked on in fascinated disgust, wondering if they would start stabbing each other right then and there. Their quarrel was cut short, however, as literal quarrels started to clatter off the pavement around the gathering. One caught one of Forbin’s men in the shoulder, sending him sprawling to the ground. Two of his fellows rushed over to drag him away, cursing at the Monfort armsmen who had dove to take cover behind their wagon.
“Fuck! This is your fault, you incompetent nits!”
“Monfort should’ve hired some scarecrows instead!”
The noise over the street grew as the nearby angry crowd added insults of their own to the verbal assault. Liam sent several bolts at Forbin’s men, just in case they thought the people’s anger was reserved for Monfort alone. Rather than stand in solidarity with the Monfort faction, they vacated the street, leaving the four Monfort armsmen to face the growing mob on their own. He watched as they inevitably wavered and abandoned their position, leaving the way to the rest of the city wide open.
Liam let out a long sigh, setting his crossbow down to fish a Message scroll out of his bandolier. If it was that easy to dislodge the Nobles’ forces from their positions, he and Raul would need to rethink their plans.