The sun over Egypt was not a star. It was a hammer.
It beat down on the endless dunes, turning the sand into a blinding white mirror.
Charles walked.
One step. Two steps.
He didn't look back. The pillar of green light from the Pharos Lighthouse was gone, but the sky still tasted of ozone.
"Water," Marshal Ney croaked.
The Bravest of the Brave was stumbling. His uniform was torn. His boots were held together with strips of cloth from a dead Redcoat.
"Ration is in forty minutes," Charles said. He didn't slow down.
He checked his compass. North-North-West.
"The boy is right," Jean Chouan wheezed. The smuggler was limping, favoring his left leg. "Drink now, die tomorrow."
They crested a dune.
Below, in the hollow of the sand, lay a horse.
It was one of the British mounts that had fled the explosion. It was lying on its side, panting. Its skin was blistered from radiation burns. Foam dripped from its mouth.
Beside it sat a young soldier. A boy, really. No older than sixteen. His red coat was charred black. His eyes were milky white—blinded by the flash.
"Help me," the soldier whispered. He heard their footsteps. He reached out a hand. The skin was peeling off his fingers like wet paper.
Ney stopped. He looked at the boy. The instinct of a commander kicked in.
"He's alive," Ney said. He reached for his canteen.
"Don't," Charles said.
Ney froze. "He is a soldier, Charles. The battle is over."
"We have two canteens for three people," Charles said. His voice was flat. Empty. "Alexandria is a ruin. The fleet is gone. The nearest well is forty miles away."
He looked at the soldier.
Variable: British Regular.
Status: Blind. Severe radiation poisoning. Third-degree burns.
Resource Consumption: High.
Utility: Zero.
"He is dead already," Charles said. "He just hasn't stopped breathing."
"We can't leave him," Ney argued. "It's inhuman."
"Humanity is a luxury," Charles said.
He drew his revolver. The heavy LeMat.
He didn't aim at the soldier.
He aimed at the horse.
BANG.
The horse jerked once and died.
"Meat," Charles said. "Start carving. The sun will spoil it in an hour."
Ney stared at him. The Marshal had seen war. He had seen the retreat from Moscow in another life. But he had never seen eyes this cold on a child.
"And the boy?" Ney asked softly.
Charles holstered the gun. He walked past the blind soldier without looking down.
"Leave him."
"Please," the soldier begged. He heard them moving away. "Don't leave me in the dark!"
Charles didn't break stride.
"The whole world is in the dark now," Charles said. "Get used to it."
He climbed the next dune. He was calculating the calories in the horse meat versus the energy expenditure of walking.
He felt nothing. No guilt. No pity.
His father, Alex, had taught him math. He had taught him that the world was an equation.
You balance the books, Charles thought. You cut the losses.
He was twelve years old. And he was the most dangerous thing in the desert.
Paris was burning.
Dr. Dominique Jean Larrey ran.
His lungs burned. His boots slapped against the cobblestones of the Latin Quarter.
The city was a nightmare.
The gas lamps were dead, but the streets were lit by fires. Pharmacies were burning. Liquor stores were burning.
And the people.
Larrey hurdled a broken cart. He saw a man sitting in the gutter. The man was chewing on his own fingers. He wasn't screaming. He was gnawing, trying to find a vein, trying to find relief from the itch inside his marrow.
"Blue Drop," Larrey whispered.
He had warned Alex. He had told him the chemical dependency was too high. That the withdrawal would be psychotic.
You liquidated the pain, Larrey thought. Now the interest is due.
"Hey! You!"
Three shapes stepped out of an alley.
They were ragged. Their clothes were torn. Their lips were glowing blue in the firelight.
"Doctor," one of them hissed. He recognized the bag. "Medical bag. Morphine?"
"No," Larrey said. He backed away. "I have nothing."
"Liar!"
They rushed him.
They moved fast. Too fast. Their muscles were spasming, overriding safety limits.
The first one tackled Larrey. They hit the ground hard.
Larrey smelled rot and chemical spirits. Hands clawed at his face. Fingers dug into his eyes.
"Give it to me! Give it to me!"
Larrey didn't panic. He was a surgeon of the Imperial Guard. He had amputated legs under cannon fire.
He reached into his bag.
He didn't pull out a scalpel. He pulled out a bone saw.
He swung it.
The serrated blade bit into the attacker's neck.
Blood sprayed. Hot and black.
The man gurgled and rolled off.
The other two hesitated. They saw the saw dripping. They saw the look in the doctor's eyes.
Larrey stood up. He wiped the blood from his glasses.
"I am a healer," Larrey panted. "Do not make me practice anatomy on you."
He turned and ran.
He reached the heavy iron gates of the Luxembourg Palace.
The guards were gone. They had fled the mob.
Larrey fumbled with the key Alex had given him. His hands were slippery with blood.
CLICK.
The small side door opened.
He stumbled into the dark hallway. It was quiet here. The thick walls muffled the screams of the dying city.
He ran up the stairs. Two at a time.
He reached the double doors of the State Apartment. The gilded cage.
He threw the doors open.
"General!" Larrey shouted.
The room was dark. A single candle burned on a desk.
A figure sat in the chair.
He was small. He was cleaning a fingernail with a small knife.
He was wearing a grey coat. It was old. Frayed at the cuffs. But the buttons were polished gold.
Napoleon Bonaparte looked up.
His eyes were grey. Like the sea before a storm.
"Larrey," Napoleon said. His voice was soft, but it carried across the room. "You are late."
"The city..." Larrey gasped, leaning against the doorframe. "The King..."
"I hear them," Napoleon said. He stood up. He wasn't tall, but the room seemed to shrink around him. "The mob is hungry."
He walked to the window. He looked out at the fires burning in the distance.
"He lost control," Napoleon said. It wasn't a question. "The Accountant tried to calculate human misery. He forgot the variable of chaos."
Larrey stepped forward. He held out the key.
"He sent me. He says... he says the debt is paid."
Napoleon turned. He looked at the key.
"Paid?"
"He needs you," Larrey said. "The Tuileries is under siege. The Swiss Guards are falling. He needs a sword."
Napoleon laughed. It was a sharp, barking sound.
"He broke my sword," Napoleon said. "He scrubbed me with lye. He made me a mascot. A 'Hero of Science.' He took my army and gave me a ribbon."
Napoleon walked to the wall. There, hanging on a hook, was a saber.
It was a heavy cavalry saber. Curved steel.
"Why should I save him?" Napoleon asked. "If I wait two hours, the mob will tear him apart. Then I can walk in and take the crown from his headless corpse."
"Because he is the only one who knows the truth," Larrey said. "About the British. About the poison. About the future."
Napoleon paused. His hand hovered over the hilt of the saber.
"And," Larrey added, playing his last card, "because Fouché is there."
Napoleon froze.
"Fouché?"
"He is trapped with the King. He is waiting to switch sides."
Napoleon smiled. It was a smile of pure, predatory joy.
"Fouché," Napoleon whispered. "The rat."
He grabbed the saber. He buckled the belt around his waist.
He walked to the door. As he passed Larrey, he clapped the doctor on the shoulder.
"You look terrible, Dominique. You have blood on your collar."
"It's a bad night, Sire."
"No," Napoleon said. He walked out into the hall. "It is a glorious night."
The Tuileries Palace was a slaughterhouse.
The main doors had splintered. The barricade of furniture was holding, but barely.
THUD. THUD.
Axes chopped at the mahogany. Blue hands reached through the gaps.
I sat in my wheelchair. My pistol lay on my lap. I had two shots left.
Fouché was cowering behind the desk. Talleyrand was drinking wine from the bottle, resigned to his fate.
"They are through," Fouché whimpered. "It's over."
The wood cracked. The barricade collapsed.
The mob spilled in.
They were terrifying. Bleeding, screaming, eyes rolling in their heads.
"Where is it?" a woman shrieked. She lunged at me.
I raised the pistol.
BOOM.
I shot her. She fell.
Two more took her place.
I cocked the second barrel.
"Come on then!" I yelled. "Audit this!"
Suddenly, a sound cut through the screams.
It wasn't a gunshot. It was a roar.
A sound of thunder.
BOOM.
The wall of the antechamber exploded.
Debris flew. The mob turned, stunned.
Through the smoke, a horse leaped.
A white stallion.
And on its back, a man in a grey coat.
He held a saber high. It caught the light of the fires outside.
"FORWARD!" the man screamed.
Behind him, fifty men charged through the breach. Old Guard. Veterans in tattered uniforms. Men with scars and muskets.
They hit the mob like a hammer hitting glass.
It wasn't a fight. It was a discipline.
Bayonets flashed. Stab. Twist. Push.
The mob broke. They were addicts, not soldiers. They scattered before the ghost of the Grand Army.
The man on the horse rode into the center of the room. He slashed a rioter across the chest without slowing down.
He pulled the horse to a stop in front of me. The stallion reared, hooves pawing the air.
The rider looked down.
Napoleon Bonaparte.
His face was streaked with soot. His eyes were burning with adrenaline.
He sheathed his sword. He swung off the horse.
He walked toward me.
The room went silent. The rioters were dead or fleeing. The Old Guard stood at attention, bayonets dripping.
Fouché peeked out from behind the desk. He looked like he was about to vomit.
Napoleon ignored him. He stopped inches from my wheelchair.
He looked at my swollen legs. My dying face. My shaking hands.
He leaned in. I could smell gunpowder and sweat on him.
"You look like hell, Accountant," Napoleon whispered.
"I've had a bad quarter," I rasped.
Napoleon smiled.
He drew a small knife from his belt.
For a second, I thought he was going to cut my throat.
Instead, he cut the rope tying a bag of gold to his saddle. He threw the bag onto my lap.
It was heavy.
"The interest," Napoleon said. "You borrowed my sword. I'm taking it back."
He turned to the room. He looked at Fouché.
"Get up, rat," Napoleon barked. "We have a city to retake."
He looked back at me. His eyes were hard.
"The account is open again, Louis. And this time, I set the rates."
He offered me his hand.
It was calloused. Rough. A soldier's hand.
I looked at it.
I had created a monster. I had unleashed the Tiger to save myself from the Wolves.
I took his hand.
"Deal," I said.