The Translated Man and Other Stories - Chris Braak [84]
A handful of the gendarmes were equipped with rifles or pistols, but their attack was characterized by the single most prominent characteristic of the Trowth gendarmerie: disorganization. Riflemen and pistoleers were spread out randomly throughout the attacking mob, firing at whim, choosing targets almost randomly. They did little damage as they approached, as it was generally assumed that the weight of their numbers would overwhelm the sharpsie blockades with little trouble, and the men could use their swords and clubs once the walls were breached.
Unfortunately for the gendarmes, the narrow alleys in Old Bank made the approach to the barricades difficult; they were forced into a large mass as they were fed into a kind of bottleneck, and then showered with phlogiston bottles that exploded in blue and red flames—a weapon that would eventually be called Sharp Brandies. The sticky phlogiston adhered to the men as it burned; they attempted to run screaming from the walls, but found themselves trapped by the men behind them, and succeeded only in setting more people on fire.
At Rampling Street, the makeshift army managed to attack quickly enough that twenty or thirty men actually reached the walls. They attempted to drive the sharpsies away, but were unequal to the staggering agility the sharpsies displayed with their knives. The attackers were neatly butchered, and a row of brandy-throwers raced to the top of the wooden-furniture barricade to throw their incendiary cocktails at the remaining men.
While the first assault by the gendarmerie was a complete disaster, it did give the militia throughout the rest of the city time to mobilize. Men were called up, armed with short swords from the armories; every fifth man was given a rifle with three bullets. They were brought together under the tactical leadership of Edgar Wyndham-Vie, largely because of his family’s prestige.
Just as Wyndham-Vie prepared his assault on the Old Wall Square barricade, fires appeared in Red Lanes. A handful of socialist radicals, who had consigned their criminal meetings to the duetti clubs of Fleshmarket Close, assumed that the sharpsies were starting a revolution, and so they decided to start one of their own. They set ablaze two government offices and an armory that they’d raided. Wyndham-Vie was obliged to send a third of his men to Red Lanes to put that neighborhood to rights.
As the men reached Red Lanes, they found themselves immediately set upon not by the radicals there, but by a small force of indigeae from Bluewater, armed as well with improvised weapons. They had been on their way to attack the Indiga neighborhood, using the sharpsie riots as cover for their own assault on the “race-traitors” who hoarded the wealth brought by the phlogiston industry. The attack on the gendarmes was an unfortunate accident, but it turned what should have been the rout of a few disgruntled radicals into a protracted, three-way brawl that lasted for hours.
Down a third of his army, Wyndham-Vie attempted a subterfuge. He sent the bulk of his remaining forces towards Old Wall Square, in what he hoped would appear to be overwhelming odds. Meanwhile, he would take a smaller group, well outfitted with rifles, to the barricade at High Street. They would take the smaller barricade, and then take up position on the north side of Old Wall to lay down cover fire.
As his smaller force moved into position, another problem soon became apparent. There was another Vault on his side of the barricade; it had been used to hold the notorious gang leader that the broadsheets called Anonymous John, and his own men had seized