Free Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan Page B

his chest.
    Mounted soldiers poured through the gates of Sabletooth. They pushed their way through the crowd. Tamas could make out Sabon’s shiny black pate at the head of the column, shouting directions. The crowd was forced back and a cordon opened. A simple prison wagon followed them out.
    The crowd roared as with one voice and surged forward. For a moment Tamas feared that Sabon and his men would be pulled down. Would the king even reach the guillotine?
    The soldiers pushed the crowd back. They inched across the square, soldiers fighting the mob the entire time. The king’s cart came to rest before the guillotines, right below Tamas’s balcony. Soldiers stretched out behind the wagon, forcing the cordon to remain open like a giant snake through the multitudes. Tamas swallowed a lump. Between the two rows of soldiers was a string of over a thousand people, legs connected by chains. The string led all the way back to Sabletooth. They were nobles and their oldest sons, plus many of their wives. Their rumpled finery meant nothing in the jaws of the mob as spittle and spoiled food flew past Tamas’s soldiers.
    “The headman’s going to retire after this one,” Olem said.
    The sight both made Tamas’s heart soar and sickened him, all at once. This was the culmination of decades of planning. He trembled in excitement and shook with self-doubt. If there was one action he’d be remembered for in the histories, this would be it.
    There was a commotion down Queen Floun Avenue to Tamas’s right. His heart jumped into this throat. “Rifle,” he ordered.
    Olem handed Tamas a rifle.
    “Spare charge.”
    Tamas took the spare powder charge and broke it between his fingers. He touched the black powder to his tongue and felt an instant sizzle there. He shuddered and clutched at the railing as the world warped in his sight. He squeezed his eyes closed, and when he opened them, everything was in sharp focus. He could pick out individual hairs on the heads six floors below, and he could see half a mile down Queen Floun Avenue as if he was standing there himself.
    “Dragoons,” he said. “A whole company.”
    The dragoons wore the decorated uniforms of the king’s Hielmen and pushed forward upon mighty warhorses. They shoved through the crowd as if it was an empty street, stampeding over women and children without a glance back. Swords were drawn, pistols out as they thundered forward.
    Olem lifted the signal flag in one hand without being prompted. He twirled it over his head, then leveled it horizontally down Queen Floun Avenue. Tamas could see black-coated men, mere dots in the crowds, begin to head in that direction. They were big, surly men from the famed Mountainwatch, brought in just to work the crowds. The riflemen on the buildings above Queen Floun Avenue shifted to look down upon the dragoons. Tamas spared a glance at Olem: Sabon had briefed him well. Professional, unblinking, even when the Hielmen threatened the very heart of their plans.
    “Don’t fire until my signal,” Tamas said. Olem’s flag jolted out the order.
    The dragoons slowed as they reached the King’s Garden. The crowds were too thick even for their hundred-and-forty-stone animals. More bodies disappeared beneath their horses as there was no place to flee. People turned toward the dragoons.
    The Hielmen’s horses came to a complete stop. Where else could they go? Climb upon the very heads of the mob? The Hielmen frantically urged their mounts forward as wails went up behind them, friends and families screaming in anger, trying desperately to help their wounded.
    The first Hielman was pulled off his mount and disappeared beneath the surface of the crowd. Hands reached for the others, who began swinging their sabers in panic. A pistol shot went off, and the crowd responded as one: with a roar of fury.
    One Hielman lasted for several minutes, forcing his mount in a circle, hooves thrashing, sword swinging to hold off the crowds, before he joined his