The Autumn Republic (48 page)

Tamas felt his eyes bulging, his mind screaming from the lack of oxygen. He could feel his own struggles growing weaker. A bullet hit Cheris in the cheek and shattered without leaving a mark, pieces of lead ricocheting into Tamas’s shoulder.

“You obstinate shit,” Cheris said. “I would have had you lead my armies. What a waste.” He felt her fingers squeeze and he knew any moment his head would pop off his shoulders like the head of a dandelion torn off its stem. He thrashed and tore, and out of the corner of his vision he saw the swinging rifle stock.

Cheris did not.

The stock hit her in the side of the face hard enough to shatter the whole length of the weapon. Her head jerked to the side, if only slightly, and she turned to face Vlora with a look of disgust. Tamas was thrown, suddenly able to suck in a breath for only a moment before he hit Vlora and the two of them rolled across the cobbles of the square.

Tamas gasped, air cutting like knives through his injured windpipe. Vlora scrambled to her feet.

“Don’t you see that this is just a game to me?” Cheris demanded. “Do you not see how insignificant you are?”

Andriya, covered in blood and gravel and dust and screaming like a pit-born devil, ran at Cheris with his bayonet fixed. He thrust with enough force to skewer a bull. The blade struck Cheris in the belly, bending like it was made of rubber. Cheris twitched a finger and Andriya’s head exploded, showering Tamas and Vlora in blood. The body stumbled and fell, neck still spurting crimson.

“Fire!” Arbor’s voice bellowed.

The crack of two hundred muskets shattered the air, and Cheris turned toward the sudden hail of bullets and faced the ranks of Adran soldiers, as unperturbed as a man walking into a gentle rain. She lifted her hands, and Tamas opened his mouth to scream a warning to Arbor.

Taniel ran at the goddess with all the speed he could coax out of his body. She turned toward Arbor and the soldiers, and he knew that it would take her but a wink to do the same to them as she’d done to Andriya.

His fist connected with her chin and he heard an audible crack. The goddess spun fully around from his blow, toppling to her knees. She shrugged off the punch – a punch that might have put down an elephant – and was back on her feet in a moment, her face an expression of shock and outrage.

So he punched her again.

Cheris’s head jerked back. She raised a hand, and he felt a sudden pressure build in his ears, but he slapped her hand away and slammed his fist into her gut. She doubled over and he brought his elbow down on her shoulder, dropping her to her knees. He drew his fist back, ready to come down on the base of her spine.

Her punch to his stomach felt like he’d been hit by the prow of a Brudanian ship of the line. He stumbled, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth as he tried to regain his footing, but her second punch snapped his head back, sending him soaring through the air. It was with great surprise that he found himself still alive, forty feet away from the god. He stumbled to his feet, preparing to run at her again, but he could see that he now had the goddess’s undivided attention.

She flexed one hand, and Taniel felt as if a steel cage had snapped in place around him. His arms could barely move. His legs wouldn’t respond. The sorcery closed in on him. His bones and muscles protested against the pressure and it took all the strength he could summon to take one step forward.

Sweat poured off his brow and into his eyes. How was this possible? Not even Kresimir’s magic was this strong against the sorcery Ka-poel had woven into Taniel’s bones. Was Brude really stronger than Kresimir? What if Ka-poel’s wards weren’t powerful enough to hold off this god’s power?

He took another step forward and felt a scream of agony wrench itself from his lips. His vision blurred. He could feel the sorcery pushing down on him with the force of a mountain, but he knew that he had to end this. It was the only way to get back Ka-poel.

Suddenly the goddess was in front of him. He swung one fist and she stepped out of the way, catching his arm and slamming the tip of her finger into his shoulder. He groaned and she reached out one hand, grasping his face, and threw him away from her with an angry grunt.

She raised her hands and leapt into the air. He waited for her to come down upon him with the force of a mortar shell, but she stayed in the air, hovering well above his head. “Your lives are nothing to me. Surrender this battle now or I will lift this entire city into the air and drop it from a hundred miles up. Everything you’ve ever known and loved will die at once and there will be nothing you can do to stop it. Surrender!”

Taniel bared his teeth and looked toward his father, who was now on his feet, leaning against Vlora.

“Why don’t you do it, then?” Tamas demanded. “If we’re so insignificant, why do you hesitate to kill us? Go to the pit.”

The goddess laughed. She spread her arms, and the air began to shimmer. Taniel felt a sudden nausea in the pit of his stomach as his entire body grew weightless. Rubble and paving stones suddenly lifted off the ground. His heart leapt into his throat. There was a groaning, wrenching sound and the earth began to quake. Soldiers were lifted off their feet. Horses panicked and screamed as their hooves left the ground, and an immense cannon rose six feet into the air.

The goddess suddenly fell to the ground. She landed in a crouch and blinked at the world around her as the rubble and dust all settled back down to where it had once been. There were shouts of relief, and some of pain, as men fell back to the ground.

“What is this?” Cheris demanded.

A figure appeared in the haze and the goddess turned to face it. Taniel squinted, trying to make out its identity.

“You’re dead,” the goddess said.

The figure was tall and fat, with black hair. One moment he looked like Charlemund and the next like Mihali. His features warped and slid into something vaguely in between. He wore a white apron and a tall hat and stood with his hands on his hips.

“You’re mistaken,” he said.

Tamas stumbled over to Adom, his senses still reeling from Cheris’s attack. “I’m glad to see you show up,” he said hoarsely.

Adom didn’t respond. He raised his chin at Cheris and she sneered back.

“Get out while I let you leave,” she hissed. “I’ve never been as fond of you as my other half has.”

“You’ve killed them all,” Adom said sadly. “I went looking for them. All of our brothers and our sisters. Novi and Ishtari and Deliv and all the rest. You’ve managed to lure them all back here and murder them. All right under my nose. Only Kresimir and I are left. And you.”

The goddess snorted. “Kresimir won’t last the day. I’ll spare you his fate if you stand down now.”

Adom seemed to consider her threat. He turned to Tamas. “You should go.”

“What do you mean?”

“To the palace. Claremonte – Brude – he’s going to kill Kresimir. You can’t let that happen.”

“But this…”

“You won’t be any help here. Taniel’s the only one who can hurt her, and Ka-poel will need his help at the palace. If Brude kills Kresimir, he’ll do the same thing he has done with all the rest of my brothers and sisters and absorb a portion of his power. Don’t let that happen.”

Tamas tore himself away and began to run. He flinched as a wall of the People’s Court suddenly exploded in a shower of plaster and stone and sorcerous fire flared through the hole. “Vlora, get inside. Get the new minister to safety. Taniel, come with me. General Arbor, evacuate the city center! You’re in command here!”

Tamas turned as he reached the edge of Elections Square and looked back toward the two gods who were now facing off.

Adom drew a ladle from his apron string and leveled it at the goddess.

“Get out of my city!”

N
ila ran back down the hallway toward the minister’s office, only to stop and dash back to help Bo along. Sorcery enveloped them both and a blast rang in her ears, nearly knocking her off her feet.

“Caught it in time,” Bo said, sweat beading on his forehead. “Keep moving.”

The blasts continued. Each time magic came close to incinerating them, she could feel Bo’s threads into the Else suddenly pull his own sorcery into the world as a counter. Marble flooring erupted behind them, spraying shards and dust into the air, knocking holes in the walls and ceiling. Flame and wind buffeted the air around them, but it all bounced harmlessly off of Bo’s shields of air.

“Wait, wait!” Nila said. “If we go this way, we’ll lead them straight to the minister.”

“Can’t be helped.” Bo hobbled on ahead, out the back of the office and into the servants’ stairwell. Nila looked down the stairs and could still see the fleeing minister’s staff. Back out in the hallway Brudanian soldiers had gained the landing and were taking up positions in doorways and behind columns.

Nila stepped away from Bo and leaned into the hallway, stretching out one hand, plucking at the air with the other. Flames shot from her fingers, rolling and snaking through the doorway. A bullet splintered the door frame beside her head, but she didn’t allow it to distract her. She focused on the heat of the flames, dragging sorcery through the Else and into this world.

She stiffened suddenly as an icy feeling crept up her spine, as if she had suddenly found herself plunged into shadow on a sunny day. “Bo, what just happened to me?” Her fire trickled off, expunged by her sudden doubt, and she dared not move.

Bo hobbled up beside her, his prosthetic clicking. “Well done,” he said. “You’ve set the building on fire, but I’ll give you points for the effort. That thing you felt was me, by the way. Come on.” He grabbed her by the arm and they made for the back stairwell.

“What did you do?” she asked as she helped him on the stairs.

“Quiet,” he whispered. “Trick an old lover taught me. I took a tiny bit of your aura and left it where we were just standing. Leaves a splash of color in the Else that burns like a person and covers our tracks. They’ll see through it quickly, but it might give us time to get behind them.”

They passed the fourth floor and Nila rushed through the door and into the office beyond, approaching the door to the main hallway. Soldiers stood down the hall, gathered around the main staircase, muskets pointed cautiously upward. Among them was a female Privileged – Lourie, she had no doubt.

“Now?” she asked.

“No, down one more floor.”

“We’ll give up the advantage of height.”

“I’d rather give up the high ground if it means we’re not trapped. Besides, you set fire to the top floor.”

They returned to the stairwell and descended to the third floor. Bo approached the servants’ door, sweat now pouring down his face, grimacing with every step on his prosthetic. He’d lost his cane somewhere in the chaos. Nila ran ahead of him and grabbed the door, but was suddenly thrown backward by a burst of sorcery. She slammed into the wall, plaster falling on her shoulders, the breath knocked out of her.

A man strode through the remains of the door. He wore Privileged gloves and he was big, as big as Colonel Etan. Bo made a warding gesture, which the man seemed to brush away. He grabbed Bo by his wrists and swung him around and into the banister. It cracked beneath Bo’s weight and both men toppled backward and plunged from sight.

Nila gathered herself off the floor and ran down the steps after them. They lay on the next landing, Bo underneath the behemoth of a Privileged, wrists pinned at his sides. The big Privileged laughed and cracked his forehead against Bo’s nose. Bo screamed with pain.

Nila grabbed the man by the back of his neck. He whirled, spittle flying from his mouth as he threw her off of him. His eyes twitched toward her hands, checking for gloves, before he turned his attention back to Bo.

“Shouldn’t be looking at me,” Bo said, blood bubbling from his nostrils.

Nila’s burning fingers seared through the man’s spine as easily as a shovel through snow. He gave a strangled scream before she was in his lungs, and he died with her hand around his heart. She shoved the body off of Bo.

“Are you all right?”

“I’ve felt better.” He wiped at the blood streaming from his nose. “Up, quick.”

She helped him to his feet, and then there was a great whining sound. The building trembled, and blades of hot iron suddenly leapt through the wall above their heads, raining wood and plaster upon them.

“Run, run!”

Tamas didn’t bother to find his horse, but rather threw another powder charge into his mouth and ran all the way to Skyline Palace.

Taniel ran beside him, rifle clutched in his hands, blood caked around his nostrils and at the corner of his mouth. They reached the winding road that snaked its way up the hill to Skyline. Tamas stopped them both there, gasping for breath. The powder trance spiked his adrenaline, giving him strength and energy, but he was far too old to do this for long. He could hear cannons and muskets firing, and smoke rose from the hill above them.

Olem must have started the attack.

“Find the girl,” Tamas said. “I’ll look for Kresimir’s body.”

“Do we have a plan?”

“If we can get Ka-poel out and maybe Kresimir himself, we might have leverage over Claremonte,” Tamas said. “I’ll distract him.”

“That’s suicide.”

“That’s why I’m doing it.”

Taniel clutched at Tamas’s jacket. “I can survive his sorcery.” Tamas could hear the earnestness in his son’s voice, the insistent, almost pleading tone. He wanted to be the one to go in after Claremonte. Tamas would not allow that.

“Cheris almost squashed you like a bug, Taniel. You won’t do any better against her other half. Get Ka-poel. Get her out of the building. If we have her, we have leverage. Those are your orders.”

Taniel let his hands fall from Tamas’s sleeve. There were several moments when Tamas thought his son might argue. Taniel gritted his teeth, anger slowly turning to resolution. Finally, he nodded.

They continued up the road until they reached the extensive gardens in front of Skyline Palace. It looked like a war zone. The cannons had stopped firing, but the crack of rifles and the screams of men filled the air. Tamas heard a very un-powder-like detonation and could sense the sorcery emanating from the building.

“Too small for a god,” he said. “Claremonte must still have some of his Privileged here. Keep an eye out.”

“I see her,” Taniel said, his eyes focused on something far away, half-lidded from looking into the Else. “She’s in the throne room.”

“If Claremonte is still hiding his true power, he might be impossible to find. I…” Tamas opened his own third eye and swept his gaze from one end of the palace to the other. Opposite the throne room, all the way at the other end of the palace, the Privileged wing where Tamas had slaughtered the royal cabal shone like the sun in the Else. The power felt like it might burn his face, and he knew that it could only be Brude. “Never mind. He’s not hiding.”

A fact that couldn’t mean anything good.

Tamas searched until he spotted some of his soldiers crouching behind one of the immense marble fountains in the garden. “Taniel, do you remember the trapdoor in the gardens behind the throne room? I showed it to you when you were a boy.”

“Vaguely.”

“It’s behind a statue of Manhouch the First – old man, big ears. Go in that way. You’ll come out in a passage right behind the royal throne.”

“All right.”

“Get at it, soldier.”

Taniel nodded and stepped away, only to stop and look back. Tamas met his eye.

“Dad?” Taniel said.

“Yes, son?”

“Be careful.”

“You too.”

Taniel was off at a crouching run as he ran from bush to bush, covering his approach. Tamas went the opposite direction, toward the group of his soldiers he’d spotted earlier. He came up behind them and threw himself down behind the fountain where they hid. “Report!”

One of the soldiers, a woman of about forty with a major’s stripes on her uniform, snapped to attention. “Sir! We’ve encountered heavy resistance, sir. They’ve got marksmen in all the windows and at least three Privileged inside. They had around a thousand men in the gardens, but we were able to sweep through with our superior numbers.”

Tamas had expected Claremonte to have some kind of contingency for if he lost the election. After Adamat’s information that the ships hadn’t been fully loaded, Tamas had had his men follow them up the river to where they disgorged the rest of their troops. Those troops had then circled back around to garrison Skyline Palace.

But Tamas wasn’t making the same mistake he’d made attacking Charlemund’s manor. He now had over twenty thousand men closing in on the palace.

Whether that would mean anything in the face of a god… “Casualties?” he asked.

“No idea, sir, but it has to be at least fifteen hundred men. Those Privileged were unleashed the moment we took the gardens.”

“Where are they?”

“North side of the palace grounds, where the fighting is heaviest.”

Tamas craned his neck to look out from behind his cover and toward the north. At the north wing of the palace was the throne room. Taniel was walking into a full-on battle. “Where’s Colonel Olem?”

“We cracked the main palace door in two volleys from our cannon. Five minutes ago he led two companies into the palace to try to clear it out. Haven’t heard from him since, but the marksmen’s fire on this side of the building has died down.”

“Have your men tighten the perimeter. I’m going in after the colonel.”

“We’ll send a company with you.”

“Excellent.”

Just a few minutes later Tamas approached the front doors of Skyline with two hundred soldiers at his back. The mighty silver-plated doors had been rent asunder by light artillery. The entryway was littered with the bodies of the dead and dying, both Adran and Brudanian alike, and he left ten of his men to move the wounded back out into the relative safety of the royal gardens.

He paused in the mighty foyer and, by the pattern of the dead and wounded, could see the progress of the battle heading off to his left and up the stairs around one corner. Olem had led his men toward the throne room to try to come out behind the Brudanian soldiers who were holding the northern palace doors. The sheer size of the palace could easily swallow up Olem and his two companies. The thought made Tamas wish he’d brought an entire brigade with him.

He felt tired, his strength waning. Every old, sorcery-healed scar ached, and the memories of how he got them all seemed to flow together. He remembered the campaigns in Gurla and the countless charges and battles. He recalled his flight from Kez after his attempted assassination of Ipille, and the years of planning his own monarch’s fall that ended in Manhouch’s head in a basket. The battle against the royalists and his flight across northern Kez toward Alvation all seemed to blend together.

He was so tired, and this needed to end.

“You, Captain,” Tamas said, splitting his force in two, “bring your platoon and come with me. Major, take the rest of the men up to the second story and work your way north. There are a half-dozen galleries between here and the throne room that will give you the high ground. Give Colonel Olem what reinforcement he might need from above.”

“Sir?” the major asked. “Where are you going?”

“I have a score to settle.”

Taniel worked his way through the gardens and hedgerows, past the fountains and statues, over the decorative walls and around the north face of Skyline Palace.

The fighting grew thicker, bullets whizzing over his head, black powder smoke hanging like a fog over the ruined gardens. The smoke gave him strength and clarity of mind as he avoided the clusters of Brudanian troops and sprinted behind the lines of Adran soldiers slowly advancing on the palace.

He moved like a man possessed as he rounded the northeast corner of the palace, sprinting with all his strength. He cut across a polo lawn and heard the crack of muskets and the whiz of bullets cutting through the air behind him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a squad of Brudanian soldiers leave their cover in pursuit, but he left them behind as he cut through a hedge maze, throwing himself through the prickly walls of greenery with an arm over his face.

He came out on the other side of the maze and descended a hill into a grove of birch trees in a hollow behind the palace. The sound of fighting was muffled and distant, and this part of the garden was overgrown but untouched by the conflict. A dry streambed, once fed by the same pumps that kept the fountains going, meandered through the grove.

Taniel approached the back wall of the palace, passing the statue of the old King Manhouch the First. He ran his hands over the thick stone blocks of the foundation, ransacking his memory for an image of the entrance his father had showed him sixteen years ago.

He continued along the wall for twenty paces, feeling every crack and nook to no avail, his heart beating harder with every second that passed without finding the entrance. Back at the statue he gazed for several moments at the wall – all that lay between him and Ka-poel – before taking a step back.