Covenant's End - Ari Marmell Page 0,77
just as he twitched the curtain aside.
“Louis Rittier!” The voice echoed from beyond the wall, more solid than the rain, doubtless audible to every man, woman, and child on the street. “Come forth and address me!” A pause, then, “My word that you will not be harmed or touched.”
“Do we trust him?” the soldier whispered.
Rittier grunted. “He gave his word openly, publicly. He'll have issues in his own ranks if he breaks it.” He wiped the last of the crust from his eyes, wished he had the opportunity for a shave, and stood upon the window pane.
“I am Louis Rittier, Marquis de Ducarte!” he shouted back. “By what possible right have you attacked my home? Ordered your soldiers to fire on their fellow citizens?”
“By right of legal writ, authored by Her Grace, declaring House Rittier—among others—traitors to the city and duchy of Davillon!”
“Even if this were true, which I wholeheartedly deny, this is hardly due process! The duchess hasn't the legal standing to make such a declaration without trial!”
“Oh, but she does! In the presence of, and ratified by, a tribunal of House patriarchs, Beatrice Luchene, the Duchess Davillon, has claimed emergency powers and temporarily reinstated her right to absolute rule by virtue of lands and titles!”
The young aristocrat only realized his mouth hung open when the wind tossed a gulp of rain between his lips. “That authority hasn't existed in generations!”
“That authority hasn't been exercised in generations!” the voice shouted back. “It was never legally abrogated! And Her Grace has decided that the conspirators in her domain need to be sent a message.
“That's you, in case there was any confusion.”
Rittier felt himself held aloft on equal parts rage and mounting terror.
The distant noble continued, making Rittier wonder how he kept from shouting himself hoarse. “If you wish to challenge the legality of all this before a magistrate, I'm sure you'll have that opportunity. If you surrender. If you insist on making this personal, on dueling me gentleman to gentleman, I accept—but I have no choice but to demand our duel be to the death! As part of Her Grace's…message.”
“My lord…” the captain began. Rittier brushed him off. He was hardly the world's greatest duelist, but he was better than most casual swordsmen. And the fellow shouting at him definitely had the superior tone of the aristocracy, not the gruffer mien of a military man. Killing him wouldn't get House Rittier out of this mess, but it would give their allies time to act. Legally or…otherwise.
“And what,” he called back, drawing his rapier and taking a few muscle-loosening swings, “is the name of the miscreant I'll be punishing for this assault upon my property and person?”
“Evrard d'Arras!”
Rittier's rapier halted in mid swoosh, and if his face had paled before, the blood must surely now be pooling in his toes.
“Captain?” Rittier was fairly proud of how steady his voice was.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Please send our messenger back out and inform Monsieur d'Arras that, while we intend to protest this atrocity most strenuously in a court of law, for the time being House Rittier surrenders to city custody.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Thick with smoke, with dust, with powdered stone, the air in the Finders’ Guild's upper hallways seemed more solid than the walls crumbling around them. Coughing, choking, hacking, and spitting were as prevalent as shouting and screaming—questions, orders, demands, and cries of far less coherent meaning. Guns fired, crossbows twanged, and projectiles of every sort gouged furrows into flesh and brick alike.
The cannonballs, along with the first fusillade of flintlocks and blunderbusses, had opened the building like a jar of preserves, cleared those halls of any initial lines of defense, thrown the thieves into absolute, panicked chaos. Now the guards moved in, creeping through the haze, firing at any sign of movement, any sound of resistance. Still, they knew that beyond those clouds, the Finders were also regrouping; that both sides were now equally blind, until the battle moved farther into the complex. That once the element of surprise wore off, no matter how well orchestrated the assault, the guards were going to start taking casualties. It was just the cost of this sort of raid.
“This sort of raid,” however, didn't normally include Widdershins—and Olgun had no eyes for the smoke and particulate to blind.
“Hold your fire!” She hoped the shout, coming from the ranks behind, would carry enough weight for the front-line soldiers; guess she'd soon find out.
Olgun's power wrapped around her as she broke into a sprint, flowing through her like a