The Autumn Republic (40 page)

Tamas sheathed his sword. “Damn it! Gavril, give me the flag!”

Gavril paused to unlatch the flag from his saddle, his sword spattered with gore. He threw it overhand and Tamas caught it, leaping from his horse. “Andriya, make me a path!”

Andriya disemboweled a Kez infantryman and sprinted toward the nearest stairs up to the wall. His rifle was spent and probably useless, covered in blood, and he used the bayonet as a spear as he battled his way up the stairs.

Tamas followed in his path, kicking the dead and dying off the stairs in Andriya’s wake. They entered the second floor of the gatehouse and fought their way through the soldiers within. A moment later they were out in the sun.

The scene took Tamas’s breath away. His thousands were churning forward, their bayonets bristling, and the tops of the walls swarmed with the green-on-tan coats of the Kez infantry. His men came over the wall in their hundreds, but he could see the ranks at the base of the wall wavering. His men would break if they weren’t spurred on.

Tamas tore the Kez flag from its holder above the gates and flung it from the heights. It arched downward and toward the embattled armies like a spear. He watched it fall until a Kez grenadier, easily twice his size, charged at him with an indecipherable war cry. Tamas slammed the end of his flagpole into the grenadier’s chin, toppling the Kez, before raising it high above his head and waving it. A shout resounded among the infantry on the ground and he saw them surge forward with renewed vigor.

“Take this!” Tamas said to an Adran infantryman as he climbed over the wall. “Don’t let it drop while you still draw breath.”

“Yes sir!”

Tamas leapt to the grenadier whom he had beaten down and grabbed the man by the hair, dragging him backward into the second floor of the gatehouse.

“Where’s Ipille?” Tamas shouted in Kez.

The grenadier spit in his face and drew his boot knife. Empowered by his powder trance, Tamas lifted him bodily with one hand and snatched his wrist with the other, feeling the bones snap beneath his palm. He slammed the grenadier into the wall hard enough to bring dust down from the rafters.

“Where is your king?”

The grenadier screamed and swung a fist. Tamas caught it, twisting the grenadier and tossing him down the gatehouse stairs. He ducked back out into the sunlight to find the flag still waving and more of his men pouring over the wall.

It wouldn’t be enough.

“Andriya, find out where Ipille is!” Tamas bounded back down the stairs and leapt into his saddle. “Lances!”

Most of the cuirassiers had fought their way past the courtyard and into the street. Tamas counted over a dozen empty saddles, but there were still plenty on their mounts. Tamas fought his way to them, his eye on the current of the fight. He watched the ebb and flow of the Kez infantry, an experienced eye pulling the pattern out of the chaos. He saw them advance, back off, then advance again.

“Formation!”

As the Kez infantry fell back, his cavalry regrouped, pulling tight into formation, lances at the ready. Gavril fell in beside Tamas. “We need to capture Ipille. We won’t be able to take these walls.”

“We will take these walls if I have to do it myself. Lances, wheel left!”

Only about a third of his cavalry still had their lances. They moved to the middle of the formation while the rest took the sides, fighting off the advancing infantry with their heavy sabers.

“Charge!”

The whole group surged forward, slamming into the disorganized crowd of infantry. Even without the lances, there was more to work with in the open avenue. Infantry went down beneath the armored breast of Tamas’s horse and he leaned forward in the saddle, swinging his saber.

A bullet took the cuirassier to Tamas’s right out of his saddle. Another fell with a strangled cry to the enemy bayonets. Their charge ground to a halt after just a hundred paces, but Tamas could see that it was enough.

The breach farther on down the wall seethed with blue uniforms. His own infantry fought their way in, heavy grenadiers at the front. Tamas’s charge had grabbed the Kez’s attention so that his men could take the opening, and like a dam that had formed a crack, the whole tide of the battle broke.

Tamas felt a knock against his breastplate and suddenly his world turned upside down. He threw himself away from his falling horse, rolled beneath the hooves of another, and struggled to his feet, numbness in one leg.

He raised his sword in time to fend off the stroke of a Kez officer. He parried twice and lunged forward for the kill, but his leg gave out beneath him and he tumbled forward, the officer’s sword crashing against his helmet. He raised his sword to fend off another thrust, but a bayonet erupted from the officer’s stomach and the body was thrust aside.

“On your feet, sir!” Andriya snatched Tamas under the arm and helped him up. “There’s more to kill!”

Tamas took the opportunity to check himself. A deep gash ran along his left thigh – it would be a bad one – and his breastplate bore no fewer than five deep scratches that would otherwise have seen him killed.

“You move too slowly in that thing,” Andriya said.

“That’s just because I’m getting old. The king?”

“He’s holding court in the Kresim Cathedral. As far as these men know, he’s still there.”

Tamas made his way through the fighting, shielded on one side by Andriya and by the avenue shops on the other. He limped to a high stoop and pulled himself up to survey the battle. It could still go either way – more Kez poured in from the side streets and they still held key sections of the wall. They would make Tamas’s men pay in blood for every inch.

Several of Tamas’s cuirassiers, led by Gavril, found him on the stoop. “Can you ride?” Gavril asked. Both he and his mount had taken a score of cuts, and his calf was soaked with blood, but he seemed ready to keep fighting.

“I can.” Tamas extended his hand, and Gavril pulled him up into the saddle behind him. “Kresim Cathedral,” Tamas shouted into Gavril’s ear. “We have to end this now!”

“Up the main thoroughfare?”

“No, take that street there.” Tamas pointed down the avenue to one of the side streets that seemed to have emptied of all its Kez reinforcements. He waved his sword. “Lances! To me!”

They had to fight through two half-built barricades as they made their way toward the center of the city, but it was clear that the barricades were not properly manned, merely someplace for the Kez infantry to fall back to. Tamas’s cavalry numbered less than thirty now, and every man who fell would be one less he could use to storm Ipille’s final stand.

They emerged from one of the side streets into the cathedral plaza. While the Budwiel cathedral was not nearly as large as its recently destroyed cousin in Adopest, it was still a breathtaking building. Four spires rose above the tallest buildings in the city, framing a bronze dome and magnificent, fortresslike walls.

The plaza was empty. Tamas called a halt, sensing a trap.

He slid down from his spot behind Gavril and put a whole powder charge into his mouth, letting it dissolve, paper and all, on his tongue. He drew a pistol from his belt, checked to see if it was still loaded, and gestured for his men to proceed cautiously.

Their hoofbeats echoed like snares on the plaza flagstone, and the fighting at the wall seemed muted and distant now. Tamas had expected the toughest resistance here, where Ipille would have centered his best and bravest men, but the cathedral seemed all but abandoned. Tamas swept it with his third eye and there were no final Privileged or Knacked lying in wait.

“Something’s not right,” Gavril said, his voice overly loud in the empty square.

Tamas checked his second pistol. His leg burned, even through his deep powder trance, and he was forced to limp. “They may have fled.”

They approached the main doors. One of the pair of double doors was open a crack. Tamas peeked through. He could see nothing but the stone walls of the cathedral entrance hall. His men dismounted, securing their horses, and Tamas nodded to Andriya. “Five men,” he said.

Andriya called out names. The soldiers took position around the door, then threw it open and leapt inside. Their feet echoed in the recesses of the building as they charged through the entrance hall and into the nave. Tamas held his breath, waiting for the crack of rifles and the shouts of fighting men, his muscles tensed to lead the rest of his men inside.

Silence.

“The bastard ran,” Tamas said, shoving his pistol back into his belt.

“Sounds like it,” Gavril agreed.

“Didn’t even have the guts to tell his personal guard.” Tamas kicked the wall and immediately regretted it. He swore under his breath and listened to the sound of his cuirassiers’ footsteps as they cleared the room inside. “Let’s go.”

He limped into the entrance hall only to come within a pace of colliding with Andriya.

“Sir,” Andriya said, his face pale. “You should see this.”

Tamas exchanged a glance with Gavril. Anything that had Andriya worried couldn’t be good.

He saw the first body as he came around the corner. One of Ipille’s elite – green-on-tan uniform with gilded trim and a gray undercoat. The woman’s sword was half-drawn, and she’d been shot in the heart from close range. The next two bodies were mere feet apart, two more of Ipille’s elite locked in battle, knives buried in
each other
.

Tamas entered the nave, his eyes brushing past the immense columns that marched down the center of the room to hold the dome aloft, looking at the battlefield lain out before him. Well over a hundred of Ipille’s elite lay dead or dying. He even caught sight of two dead Wardens. He opened his third eye, but there wasn’t a hint of sorcery in the room.

“What the pit happened?” Gavril said.

Tamas pointed toward the front of the nave. “I bet he knows.”

Using his sheathed sword as a cane, with one pistol in his other hand, Tamas limped his way toward the Diocel’s chair at the front of the room. In the chair sat Ipille, his immense bulk overflowing the armrests. He was pinned in place by a small sword with a jeweled hilt, and the marble floor around the chair was slick with his blood. At the foot of the dais sat a haggard-looking man in his early forties, chin in hand, staring blankly at Tamas.

He wore the uniform of a Kez general, and his resemblance to the fat corpse in the chair was plain. After all, he was Ipille’s oldest son.

The prince stood as Tamas drew near, and presented his sword hilt-first. Tamas came to a halt and gazed at the sword. He suddenly felt very tired. “Florian je Ipille. It appears you have committed a coup.”

Florian seemed to flinch away from the corpse just over his shoulder. “I have done my duty as the crown prince. I have freed my people of a war they could not win. On behalf of the Kez nation, I surrender my sword to Field Marshal Tamas.”

Tamas put away his pistol and took Florian’s sword, holding it up to the light. “This is Ipille’s sword.”

“It is the king’s sword. I am now king.”

Tamas wondered what Kez law would say to that. Or Florian’s younger brother, Beon. He wasn’t familiar with the finer points of Kez succession, especially when it came to coups. This had all the ingredients of a Kez civil war all over it. But that wasn’t Tamas’s concern. “You ask for terms?”

“That the Kez people be treated fairly in a court of their sister nations. That Adro and Deliv immediately cease their attacks on the Kez army, both within and without our borders.”

“I have two immediate conditions for your surrender, in addition to those that will come later.”

“Name them.”

“That you order your men to stand down.”

“Lororlia!” Florian shouted. “Are you still alive?” A figure emerged from the recesses of the nave, a Kez woman with black hair and hawkish eyes, wearing the uniform of a Kez colonel. She walked with a pronounced limp and clutched at her arm.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Send word to our officers. Our men are to stand down at once.”

Lororlia looked to Tamas and he thought he saw a spark of defiance there. “Yes, my lord.” She limped off.

Tamas turned to Gavril. “Send one of our cuirassiers back to the front. Tell our men to accept the surrender of the Kez immediately and to withdraw outside the city walls – all except the infantry of the Seventh. They’re to begin the disarmament of the Kez army.” Tamas glanced at Florian and saw a smile at the corner of his lips. He suspected that there was more to this coup than a means to end the war. “And,” he added in a lowered voice, “get Beon somewhere safe. Put him under heavy guard. I don’t want him getting a knife in the back. Pit, you better go yourself.”

Gavril strode from the room, taking several of the cuirassiers with him.

“What else?” Florian asked.

“Surrender the body of the god Kresimir.”

Florian’s eyebrows went up. “Bah. It’s in the Diocel’s chambers over there. Take it. He has brought us nothing but sorrow.”

“Secure that body, Andriya,” Tamas ordered. “Don’t touch it.”

“Is that all?”

Tamas straightened and held Florian’s sword at arm’s length. “Florian je Ipille, I accept your surrender on behalf of the Adran and Deliv alliance. May Adom smile upon the end of this bloody war.”

T
aniel and Vlora each rode three horses to collapsing as they followed the Brudanian Privileged up the Counter’s Road and east toward Adopest.

They ate up the miles, and Taniel knew they must be gaining on their quarry as they drew closer and closer to the city. His body shuddered from exhaustion, while his mind was a chaotic knot of fear, anger, and hope. There were not many miles left, and if Adopest was in the hands of the Brudanians as Vlora had said, they needed to catch up to Ka-poel and her captors before they entered the city.

They continued on, no words between them, until they rode over a hill and saw Adopest resting on the tip of the Adsea in the distance. Taniel’s mind buzzed from a powder trance, his body sagging beneath days without sleep.

They had had to leave Gavril and Norrine behind. Gavril had gone south to try to warn Tamas about the Brudanian trickery, while Norrine had stayed with their couple of wounded to oversee the Brudanian prisoners. Taniel had not wanted to abandon her, but he knew that he and Vlora would travel the fastest alone.

“There,” Vlora said.

Taniel shook his head to clear his vision and focused on a party just outside the city limits. There were nine riders, and even at a distance he could tell by the overcoat, hat, and small frame that one was Ka-poel. They left a dust cloud behind them as they hurried for the anonymous streets of the city, and Taniel’s hopes of catching them before they reached the city walls were dashed.

He did not reply to Vlora, but leaned over the neck of his horse, urging it forward.

They reached the edge of High Talien on Adopest’s west side less than an hour later. Taniel could feel panic rising in his chest as the midmorning crowds closed in around him, his horse foaming at the mouth, sides shuddering. The Brudanians were gone, and along with them the chances of getting Ka-poel back.

“Taniel.”
H
e heard Vlora’s voice as if far in the distance. “Taniel, we won’t find them now.”

He whirled on her. “I will. I will find them, the bastards. If I have to kill every Brudanian I cross, I will get Ka-poel back.”

“Well, you’re going to have a good start of it.”

Taniel’s mouth opened but he could find no reply. People were staring at them and their near-dead horses. He followed Vlora’s gaze off to his left. Brudanian soldiers flooded onto the street ahead of them, shouting and pointing.

“Leave the horses,” Taniel said, sliding from his saddle. He untied his saddlebags and threw them over his shoulder, taking his pistols and rifle, while Vlora did the same.

They slipped down a nearby alleyway, abandoning their horses and moving over to the next street. Taniel could see the soldiers flanking them, moving to keep up and spreading out up ahead. He put one hand on his pistol, ready to draw.

“We shouldn’t have a running fight here,” Vlora warned. “Too many people.”

“To the pit with the people. I’ll take first blood if they come any closer.” Taniel knew they had to get out of there. Vlora was right. A fight in the middle of the city would just attract more attention and draw in more soldiers. There’d be no backup. Adopest was now hostile territory. If the soldiers goaded them into a fight, they would no doubt bring in a Privileged sooner rather than later.

Taniel had fought a Privileged in Adopest before. It was less than pleasant.

“You recognize this part of town?” Vlora said.

“We’re near Hrusch Avenue, aren’t we?”

“It’s our old haunt.”

“I didn’t spend a lot of time in the streets,” Taniel said.

“I did,” Vlora answered. “And under them. There’s an old bathhouse up ahead. We might be able to slip into the storm drains.”

They crossed two more streets, watching warily as the soldiers continued to flank them while keeping their distance.

“What are they waiting for?” Vlora asked.

Taniel had just been wondering the same thing. They had the numbers. Even if Vlora detonated all of their powder – and she wouldn’t, not with all the people around – she might miss a few and they would close in with bayonets and swords, or worse – some of them might have air rifles.

The old bathhouse was a ruin of a three-story building at the end of the street. The doors and windows were boarded up, with signs telling the local children it was a dangerous place to play. Taniel spotted a Brudanian uniform up ahead of them.

“They’ve gotten in front of us,” he growled.

“Not only that.” Vlora’s face had gone pale. She didn’t have to finish her sentence. Taniel could sense the Privileged moving in on their position, one behind and one ahead of them.
That
was what the soldiers were waiting for. How the pit had they gotten two Privileged here so quickly? Either he and Vlora had been insanely unlucky, or the Brudanian commander had counted on needing reinforcements when Ka-poel’s kidnappers returned.

“Quickly!” he said.

They headed around to an alley running behind the bathhouse. Taniel thrust his bayonet beneath the board barring the back door and wrenched it away.

There was a crack of a musket and Taniel flinched away from where a bullet struck the wall beside him. He ripped off another board as Vlora squeezed off a shot, dropping the soldier at the head of the alley. Taniel slammed his shoulder against the locked door, bursting it in two heavy hits, and they rushed inside.

“The Privileged are getting close,” Vlora said.

“I know! Where’s the damned storm drain?”

“In the basement. Down the hall. Go, go!”

Taniel sprinted down the dark, damp hall of the bathhouse and past the shadowed, sludge-filled baths. A voice called out behind them in accented Adran.

“Adran soldiers, surrender now!”

Taniel slowed, pushing Vlora on ahead of him, and brought up his rifle. He waited in the darkness of a doorway for a soldier to put his head into the back door of the bathhouse.

His bullet took the man between the eyes. There was shouting, and Taniel felt the pressure of sorcery being pulled into this world. He sprinted after Vlora, following her down the steps and into the blackness of the basement. An extra snort of powder gave him clarity in the depths. He found Vlora in the farthest room from the stairs. She had pried the grate away from the storm drain and tossed her own saddlebags down the hole.

Taniel could hear footsteps pounding along the floor above them. “Why haven’t the Privileged attacked yet?” he demanded.

“Quiet!” she said. “Go, now!” He sensed her reach out toward the soldiers’ powder, detonating a few choice charges to sow confusion. The sound of the explosions echoed through the building.

Taniel climbed into the storm drain, his hands slipping on the rusted ladder bolted to the walls of the drain. He lowered himself down until his feet touched water and then let himself drop the last foot to the drain floor.

“Come on!” he called back up to Vlora.

Vlora stood above the storm drain, her head tilted as if listening for something. “Wait,” she said quietly. “There’s something…”

Her words were cut off by a sudden trembling. Taniel threw his hand above his head, his heart leaping into his throat as he heard the foundation of the building give a deafening crack. There was a strangled scream above him. He choked on dust, wiping water from his face.

“Quick!” he yelled.

His voice no longer echoed. Peering up through the gloom, he saw nothing but stone above him.

The building had collapsed on Vlora.