“The gatehouse is ours! À bas les rebelles! Hurrah!!”

On his knees, his eyes fixed unseeingly on the bridge’s grimy stones, Zephyrin strongly fought the urge to vomit as the last of his tidal wave of deflective magic returned to the void. How many bullets and shells had his magic deflected? More than he could reasonably estimate. He had only meant to maintain a ward over himself, the queen, and her household, but as soon as the soldiers had charged…

“Are you alright?!”

Zephyrin looked up at the sound of the unfamiliar voice to see a smooth-faced drummer-boy—a slight fourteen year-old, by the looks of him—who wore his concern openly on flushed features as he offered Zephyrin his arm. Even with the boy offering support, he was aware that he was only keeping to his feet unsteadily. It had been a near thing. Had the rebels not broken when they did, Zephyrin thought it highly probable his fall would have occurred mere seconds later.

Drawing a deep breath as he pushed the thought from his mind, Zephyrin cast his eyes around to witness the follow-up attack on the royalists… only to see, to his utter stupefaction, soldiers milling about the gatehouse, soldiers laughing, congratulating themselves and their comrades. Some even took a seat to wipe down their rifles, while others amused themselves by hurling taunts across the river to the battered enemy.

Swinging his gaze further still as alarm wrestled down the exhaustion threatening to radiate from his heart and settle in his limbs, Zephyrin quickly identified the cause of the solders’ present inertia. Thirty meters away stood Marquis Euvarhnal, to whose words the queen attended with a frown.

Setting aside the matter of her inadvisable presence so close to the front lines for now, intent on overhearing the queen’s conversation, Zephyrin murmured in a faint voice to the drummer-boy. He quickly nodded and helped him stagger in her direction. The two of them attracted one or two curious stares but no opposition as they approached. Before long the marquis’s clean-cut voice rose above the self-congratulatory chatter of his men.

“—we’ve already secured an outstanding victory. Now is the time to reorganize our defenses. We can hold the Isle for weeks, until reinforcements—”

Zephyrin opened his mouth to cry out and launch a rebuke, to inveigh against the pusillanimity of the young general, to scourge the lack of ambition which characterized all the era’s Gaulyrian commanders—but his body refused to cooperate. Panting for breath, he clutched his chest and could only try to rein in the muscle spasms pulling at his face. His burning heart was protesting, he felt, as if he had taken a shell to the chest.

“Absolutely not!”

Zephyrin looked up. He beheld the incongruous but magnetic presence of Adelaide-Estelle in the soldiers’ midst, and how she captured the attention of all those around her. His grand-aunt’s head was high, her posture regal but easy, as if she were in the habit of regularly holding court on the battlefield. “Retreat, now? The reprieve we grant ourselves we likewise extend to the enemy, who unlike us will not soon be lacking in supplies! We must press our advantage!”

“But Madame, once Madiensis sends aid—”

“What then? While Lutesse besieges the Isle, can a single regiment hope to besiege Lutesse? If so, can we hope for our allies to carry their siege before we succumb to that of the enemy?”

The marquis made no reply as he cast his eyes to the bridge’s cracked stones, gritting his teeth in undisguised frustration.

The queen appraised him keenly. “I think not,” she answered herself, “And so I propose we strike while the iron is hot.” When the marquis still failed to answer, Adelaide-Estelle turned her attention to the retired marshal, who had been looking on silently. “Marshal dy Cassade! Owing to His Majesty’s absence, I will take it upon myself to anticipate his wishes. You are hereby appointed interim commander of the Guard.”

The marquis roused himself from his black stupor to give vent to his incredulity. “Madame, command of the King’s Guard was entrusted to me by His Majesty! This is… this is simply unprecedented!”

“Pardon me, monsieur, I believe you’ve misunderstood,” replied the queen, not batting an eye at his lack of propriety. “Marquis, I have no intention of relieving you of your command. Pray, continue to head the defense of the Isle as commander of His Majesty’s forces; Marshal dy Cassade, meanwhile, shall lead the reconstituted Queen’s Guard.”

Zephyrin exulted in his heart as a strange pride coursed through him, one he would have been at great pains to explain, yet which somehow seemed right, to have come with perfect naturalness. Moreover, whether she realized it or not, by her determination the queen was foiling yet another of her brother-in-law’s agents...

Distracted by these considerations, it took Zephyrin a moment to identify the reason why the youth assisting him tensed up by his side, and why shouts of consternation began to ripple through the ranks. As the drummer-boy’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open, Zephyrin whipped his head around and strained his vision. It wasn’t long before the view that presented itself through the dispersing clouds of smoke instilled in him an equal measure of disbelief.

Far from abandoning their assault, the rebels had merely retreated across the Seicwan to reform at its banks. Contrary to all expectations, Zephyrin saw that despite the losses inflicted, their ranks had only swelled; the Guard’s resistance, it seemed, had been the supreme insult: tradesmen and fishmongers who had refused to commit to either faction now threw in their lot eagerly with the Volunteers, vying with each other to hurl insults across the frigid river at the fathers, siblings, and even husbands who constituted the royalist forces.

Countless cannons were pointed at their position; a resumption of hostilities was imminent.

Realizing the same, the marshal’s vigilant gaze scoured the battlefield until he alighted on Zephyrin. Wearied by his own exertions, there was an edge to his voice as he limped over and grated, “Lad, if you’ve got another barrier in you, we could use it now!”

“I can, but—” Zephyrin sought out his grand-aunt as he leaned heavily again on the drummer boy’s shoulder. “Your Majesty!”

It was no use; she had turned back to contemplate the palace, her eyes undoubtedly drawn to the apartment in which Rudolf XIII stood.

I’m too far away! Zephyrin gritted his teeth as he reached deep down, deeper than he ever had, scooping and shaping the last of his mana to shield himself, erecting a ward sturdy enough to deflect one or two stray bullets at most, no more.

Releasing the terrified drummer boy’s soldier, Zephyrin began stumbling forward. “Your Majesty!” he called. “Please, give me back the aster—” Adelaide-Estelle’s head turned, and in that fleeting instant Zephyrin thought she had heard. In the next his voice was lost in man-made thunder, he and several soldiers staggering and nearly falling as a series of explosions shook the world.

Throwing his arms over the bridge’s side for support, Zephyrin looked across the Seicwan in time to see the falling motion of a red-scarfed rebel commander’s arm.

“Are they insane!?” cried a lieutenant. “Do they mean to destroy the—” That was the last Zephyrin heard of his voice as the fall of flaming hail repeated once more.

“Your Majesty! Get back!” Men cried frantically as the greatest assault ever visited upon the King’s Isle in its thousand year history broke out anew, with redoubled ferocity.

The bombardment of the Great Bridge had commenced.