Powder Mage: The Autumn Republic Part 45

Tamas drew his belt knife and padded toward the artillery piece sitting at the end. A Kez sentry leaned against it, his soft snores reaching Tamas's ears. He stiffened as Tamas's knife took him between the ribs and a moment later his body lay behind the cannon. Tamas looked back toward the inspection station just in time to see Andriya, silent as a gliding owl, slip over the battlements above the second story. Tamas heard a pain-filled grunt and had to remind his hammering heart that he could hear far better than the guards inside.

He stole through the door to the inspection station. The garrison, if he remembered, correctly, would be on the second floor. He paused at the foot of the stairwell, a sound catching his ear, and went back past the door to the wharf.

Four Kez soldiers were playing dice in the tiny mess hall by the light of a single lantern. Tamas eyed them through a slit in the door. They were intent upon their game and likely a little drunk. He decided to take care of the sleeping ones upstairs first.

He was just about to step away when the door suddenly pushed open, nearly hitting him in the face. He leapt back, and a fifth guard stared at him in surprise.

Tamas slammed his knife into the man's throat and drove him backward into the room, shoving him across the main table. The other four guards jumped to their feet, shouting and scrambling for weapons. Tamas was faster. He pulled his knife hand back and dragged it across a second guard's throat before leaving it in the heart of a third. He leapt the table in a single bound, the powder trance singing in his veins. His foot came down on the bench opposite and he barely had time to swear as it gave way beneath him.

He stumbled upon landing and threw himself into a roll, tumbling across the room. He came up beside the fourth guard just as the man turned on him with a pistol. Tamas reached out with his senses and fizzled the ignition of the powder as the hammer came down. He wrenched the pistol out of the man's hand and slammed the b.u.t.t into the guard's face hard enough to hear his skull crack.

The fifth guard ran for the door. Tamas drew his boot knife and threw, flat-handed. The knife hit her just beneath the shoulder blade. She let out a yell, stumbled, and reached back for the hilt. Tamas crossed the room and broke her neck.

He scrambled for both of his knives and took up a position beside the door. The silence was deafening. Where were the reinforcements? Where were the sleeping guards?

A single pair of boots sounded on the stone stairwell. Tamas hazarded a glance, only to see Andriya appear. The man was covered in blood, but by the looks of him none of it was his own. "You're making too much noise," Andriya said.

Tamas let out a soft sigh of relief, cleaned his knives, and led Andriya back upstairs. They pa.s.sed the bunk room, where Tamas could hear a soft death rattle.

"Take care of that," he said.

On the roof, two sentries lay in pools of their own blood, and Tamas s.h.i.+elded his eyes from the flickering torches and surveyed Surkov's Alley to his south. To his surprise, he saw nothing-no fires, no camping companies of Kez reserves. In the distance, he could see the torches of Midway Keep, and far beyond that the glittering lights of Budwiel.

The entire Kez army was now to his north.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed one of the torches and waved it twice. Within moments the ground to the north of the inspection station was writhing with the dark figures of Adran soldiers as they flooded forward. He was joined a moment later by Andriya.

"Didn't we do this once before?" Andriya asked. "Going behind the enemy's lines? I seem to remember it didn't end so well."

Tamas glanced toward Andriya. Somehow, he had gotten even more blood on him. Olem, he reflected, might not be as good a killer as Andriya, but he was far better company. "You should change your uniform."

"I don't have a spare."

"That was shortsighted."

Andriya licked a bit of blood off the tip of one finger, a not entirely human smile playing upon his lips. "We climb the walls of Budwiel tomorrow. I want the b.l.o.o.d.y Kez to know what's coming for them when they see me."

"If you insist." There was no "sir" when Andriya had his blood up like this. Killing Kez was his favorite thing in this world. "Just stand upwind from me."

Tamas turned to watch more of his army emerge from the darkness. The vanguard had surrounded the inspection station now, and on the road he could see the long, dark snake of his army marching forward through the dark. On the river to his right, several cargo barges moved into view, cutting quietly through the water, loaded down with heavy artillery.

"The Kez army be d.a.m.ned," Tamas said. "Nothing will stop me now."

Nila's first instinct after regaining consciousness was to scream.

She nearly bit her tongue in half to keep herself from doing so. Her hands were bound behind her back and her eyes opened on nothing but darkness. Fear threatened to swallow her whole, adrenaline tearing through her veins and overwhelming the stiffness of her limbs and the saddle soreness at her very core.

She slipped into the place between the real world and the Else almost instinctually-in fact, it was several minutes before she realized what she had done. Her breathing was calm, her heart no longer fluttering. The world floated before her in a translucent haze. Bo had described this as a good place to be calm and to think, but had warned her that her brain would not receive the information that it needed to a.n.a.lyze the world around it. Sounds were muted, and even the feel of the ground beneath her legs seemed distant.

Cautiously, she let herself leave that place, sinking back into the real world. With it came all of the pain and aches of being alive and she couldn't help but let out a slight whimper.

A nighttime camp came into focus around her. She could hear low voices, the crackling of a nearby fire, and the soft whinny of horses off in the darkness. She lay on her side, her left arm numb, and the smell of vomit stung her nostrils. A trail of crust along the corner of her mouth told her that the vomit was hers.

Blinking the tears of pain out of the corners of her eyes, she realized she was staring into a bruised, blood-caked face. The man lay on his side, facing her. He had been stripped to the waist and she could see thick black stripes on his bare shoulders and arms-he'd been whipped and beaten until he was raw. His hands were bound behind his back. The inhumanity of it made Nila want to recoil in horror.

She didn't dare. If she moved, they would know she was awake and she might be given similar treatment. If she was lucky.

Her heart began to race again, the calm she had attained slipping away from her like grains of sand through her fingers. She could feel her arms trembling and then...

She recognized the man lying beside her.

It was Olem.

She bit back a curse. Was he still alive? "Olem," she whispered, her own pain forgotten. "Olem!"

His eyes opened far too slowly for Nila's liking. It took several moments before she could see the recognition in them. His short beard was matted to his face with blood, but she could see the corner of his mouth twitch upward.

"Glad to see you awake." He coughed.

"What the pit did they do to you?" she hissed.

"Just asked some questions."

"They beat you senseless!"

"They didn't like the answers."

She wanted to ask him if she was next, but it seemed insensitive. "Barbarians."

"Yeah." Olem s.h.i.+fted slightly, grunting in pain. "Pit, that hurts."

"They have to give you medicine. I'll shout until they do. How can they do this to a prisoner of war?"

"Shh," he said. "Don't say a word. Keep still for as long as you can. Most of them are asleep. They won't bother you till morning."

Her calm was completely gone now. "And if I wake them?"

"I don't know. The commanding officer is the Gurlish Wolf. He'll do just about anything. The rest of them aren't much better."

"I'll burn this whole camp down."

Olem gave a slight shake of his head, grimacing as he did so. "They don't know you're a Privileged."

"Really?"

"No gloves, remember? I told them you were my secretary."

Nila tried to find that place between reality and the Else again, but had no success. She couldn't believe it had gone so wrong. One minute they'd been alone, and the next these Kez had erupted from the fog to kill them all. "We're finished. Did they wipe us all out?"

Olem's eyes had closed and for a moment she thought he had pa.s.sed out. Then, "No. They hadn't expected us to all be in close formation. It was heavy fighting for a while, then I got separated from the rest of the regiment. Been listening. They captured fifteen or twenty of us, killed a few dozen more, but the rest of the boys are still out there."

"There's hope, then?"

Olem didn't respond to that. "Been listening," he repeated. "They plan on sending my head back to Tamas. Probably with you. Best chance for you to get away from this."

"No!" she said, a little too loudly. When no one seemed to take notice, she went on. "They wouldn't!"

"They're spreading fear and doubt. Trying to get Tamas off of Ipille's trail. My head seems like a solid idea."

"We'll make a run for it," Nila said. "We'll slip out in the middle of the night. We can-"

Olem was shaking his head again. "Too dangerous. They'd just kill you too. This is the best way. That's why I told them who I was."

"Olem." Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. "Olem, don't say that."

"Is all right," he slurred. She could see his head droop. He was pa.s.sing out.

"Olem, stay with me!"

There was no response. Nila tried to wake him several more times, and short of a cold bucket of water she didn't think anything would do it. She prayed silently that he wouldn't die right then and there.

She rolled over on her back and took stock of her surroundings. Forms around the nearby campfires snored in their bedrolls, and she could no longer hear any talking. She and Olem appeared to be unguarded, and that seemed odd to her. It took several moments of considering this to realize that they had no need of personal guards. He was beaten to within an inch of his life, and she was a mere secretary, and unconscious to boot.

She reached out and touched the Else. She could feel the sting of fire on her chafed wrists as her bonds melted away beneath her sorcery. A brief hint of burning hemp touched her nostrils and she was free.

Cautiously, slowly, she got to her feet. She checked Olem's pulse-he was still alive, thank Adom-and then she began to walk quickly through the camp. No one paid her any mind. No one was awake to do so, and if they were, the still-thick fog obscured their vision. A few minutes later and she was past the last campfire.

She literally tripped over the first sentry. He lay in a thicket, musket on his chest, gently dozing until her foot hit him. He shot awake, a startled exclamation on his lips. She could see the outline of his face in the darkness. She saw his eyes take in her blue uniform and then his mouth open to yell a warning.

Her hand shot forward, taking him by the throat.

She would not allow Olem to die for her safety. She would not allow herself to be beaten and humiliated and used by foreign savages.

Blue fire s.h.i.+mmered and she felt his flesh give way beneath her fingers. She squeezed, feeling the melted flesh and warm, sizzling blood between her fingers. Her fingers wrapped around his spine and even that seemed to slide away, leaving the man's head to roll down a hill and farther into the thicket.

Nila was up and running a moment later. She didn't have time to think about the murder. It was just one more on top of the countless she'd committed over the past few weeks. She had to flee. The Kez magebreaker might have sensed her sorcery-he could be on her trail in minutes.

She navigated the hills with the use of her third eye, fighting down nausea. Between the darkness and the fog, her regular vision would be useless. She ran, forcing herself forward though each step made her want to scream in agony. Her thighs hurt from riding, her body from a night with her arms tied. Tears rolled down her cheeks from the pain, and her stomach pitched like she had been at sea for weeks.

Hours pa.s.sed. She stopped on every hilltop to listen for pursuit, but no sound followed her. She ran blindly-she would be hopeless at getting her bearings in the misty darkness. She knew that, for now, she had to get as far away from the Kez as possible. Though every hilltop looked the same to her in the Else, she attempted to memorize each one, tearing up gra.s.s or piling rocks whenever she could. She hoped that in the light of day she would be able to lead the Adran cavalry back the way she'd come.

It was Olem's only chance.

The earliest light of morning tinged the mist. Nila could no longer open her third eye. Exhaustion flooded her senses and it was all she could do to keep stumbling through the dew-soaked gra.s.s. Her uniform was ripped and sodden, her boots full of water. She clutched her arms to her chest, s.h.i.+vering violently.

She stopped to rest at the bottom of one of the countless ravines she had traversed. Her fingers stiff, she used what was left of her strength to coax a nimbus of flame from the Else. Kez pursuers be d.a.m.ned, she had to get warm! The flame sheathed her hands, then her arms, and she felt a dull warmth work its way into her bones. Her s.h.i.+vering slowly subsided. Steam rose from her clothes, and with a startled curse she realized that the flame now covered her whole body.

It winked out, leaving her standing at the bottom of the ravine, the world once again cold and wet. She wanted nothing more than to lie down in the muck and sleep. The Kez be d.a.m.ned. Field Marshal Tamas be d.a.m.ned.

A vision of Olem's face, his beard matted with blood and his flesh torn to ribbons, sprang into her mind. That was all it took for her to begin to climb the side of the ravine.

The rising sun began to burn away the mist. If the fog cleared, she could get her bearings. She would head east in the hope that the rest of the Riflejacks were looking for the Kez camp to save Olem. It was risky, if the Kez were, in turn, looking for her. But she had no choice.

It was not long after her rest that she caught a distant sound on the wind. The neigh of a horse, perhaps? The peaks and valleys of Brude's Hideaway played tricks on her ears, and she struggled on to the next rise, where she stopped to listen, peering into the thinning morning fog.

She thought she heard a shout. Whether Kez or Adran, she did not know. It was impossible to get a bearing on the sound. Please, she thought, please be Adran. She strained, head tilted to the side, until she heard it again.

The sound came from behind her. She began to move again, heading cautiously onward. An Adran scouting party could have gotten behind her. After all, she didn't know north from south right now. She could be heading just about any direction.

Another shout. Nila's senses p.r.i.c.ked at the sound and a chill went down her spine. It hadn't been quite intelligible, but that sounded Kez.

The clop of hooves on stone reached her ears. She had crossed a series of flat rocks a while back, hadn't she? Those hooves were following her, and the shouts were getting closer.

She broke into a sprint, calling up every ounce of her energy for the run. They were on her trail now and when they found her, they would run her down like a tired dog in the street. A glance over her shoulder showed men on horseback less than two hundred yards behind her.

Leaping across a streambed, Nila scaled a steep escarpment and threw herself down the other side, tumbling head over heels down a hill. She was back up a moment later, ready to run, when the sight of a mounted figure brought her up short.

The figure was less than ten paces away. It sat silently, the fog barely seeming to touch it, the rider's body cloaked against the weather. Steam rose from the horse's nostrils, indicating it had just made a hard ride.

She was cut off. The Kez had her now. Nila stiffened and waited for the figure to draw his or her pistol and fire.

"Why do you run?"

The voice startled her and she nearly fell. It was speaking in Adran. A male voice. "What?"

The figure slapped his saddle horn angrily. "Why do you run?" he demanded.

Horses rounded the far side of the escarpment thirty paces to Nila's left. There were a dozen of them, coming hard, and she saw carbines raised to fire.

"Bo?" she asked, breathless.

"You aren't a fox, fleeing before the hounds! You are a G.o.ddess of fire to these ants."

What was Bo doing here? How had he found her? "The magebreaker is chasing..." Nila ran toward him. The two of them might have a chance of escaping on his horse.

"He's not with them. You should have stopped to check. Turn and defend yourself. Show them what you are!" Bo's voice rose to a bellow at the end. Nila stared at him, astonishment freezing her in her tracks.

The crack of a carbine snapped through her thoughts and she found herself whirling in response. She made a flinging motion with her off-hand and fire like liquid gold spewed from her fingertips. The flames crossed the s.p.a.ce in the blink of an eye and cut through men and horses like a bullet through paper. Black powder exploded on contact with the flames, and a single cry of dismay reached her ears before the entire party was gone, reduced to a black, smoking skid on hissing soil.

Nila stared at the spot for several moments, trying to process what she'd just done. There had been no thought, no concentration. She'd just killed a dozen men and horses purely by instinct. The air hung heavy with acrid black smoke and the smell of burned meat.

"Well done."

"I..." She turned to look up at Bo and could instantly see that something was wrong. He slumped in his saddle, his face pale and sweat on his brow. He swayed back and forth, knuckles white on the saddle horn. "Never run from a fight you can win. By the saints, you're going to be powerful. I've never seen such... beauty." His words were labored and breathless.

"What are you doing here? Are you all right?" Nila rushed to his side and put a hand on his leg, from which she immediately recoiled. She had touched something hard and thin, and when she reached forward to lift his pant leg, she found not flesh, but a wooden prosthetic where his calf had once been.

He didn't seem to notice. "I got your... note." He fumbled at his jacket pocket and removed a creased paper. It fluttered from his fingers and he made a weak attempt at catching it.