The Autumn Republic (5 page)

Adamat shouldered his way through the soldiers, heading toward Etan’s carriage, and felt a hand on his chest.

“I didn’t say to fall out,” the captain said to him. “Back into line before I give you a beating.”

“I have to speak with the colonel,” Adamat said.

“You’ll do no such thing. Back in line!”

Adamat didn’t have time for this. His heart beat with a sudden urgency that had nothing to do with this quick march. “I’m not one of your damned soldiers and you know it,” Adamat said. “I appreciate your help, but get out of my damned face. I’m on assignment from Field Marshal Tamas himself.”

“Field Marshal Tamas is —” the captain started, drawing himself up.

“Captain,” a voice called from the carriage. “Settle down. Let the inspector ride with me.”

Adamat suppressed a triumphant grin. No need to antagonize the man further. He pushed past the captain and opened the door to the carriage, stepping inside.

In the darkness it was difficult to see any of Etan’s features. Adamat was certain he was a large man. He was propped in his seat – probably strapped in place, due to his condition – and leaned on a cane.

“You can get rid of the uniform now,” Etan said. “If someone comes after us now, it won’t be much of a disguise.”

Adamat removed the bearskin hat and the crimson jacket and breathed a sigh of relief. He immediately regretted it as the cold night air reached his soaked suit underneath, chilling him to the bone. “Thank you for this help, Colonel,” Adamat said.

“It’s the least I could do.” Etan thumped on the side of the carriage and they began to move again. “Taniel saved my life. He was a good friend. I know that you are trying to help him. I just wish we could all have done more.”

“There may be more we can do yet,” Adamat said, and quickly added, “for the army, that is.”

Etan made a noncommittal grunt.

“This affair between Ket and Hilanska could be the end of Adro,” Adamat said.

“I’ve washed my hands of the whole thing. I’m returning to the north, quietly going into retirement. No one has use for a crippled grenadier, whether or not we win the war.”

“But…”

“No ‘buts,’ Inspector. I’m glad to help you escape Hilanska’s machinations, but this is the end of it for me.”

“I understand.” Adamat smacked his fist into his palm in frustration.

Etan’s next words were hesitant. “If there’s anything I can do to speed you on your way, I’ll do it.”

“There is,” Adamat said, feeling a surge of renewed hope. “I could use a letter of introduction.”

“To whom?”

“Brigadier Abrax of the Wings of Adom. I think I know how to save General Ket’s troops.”

T
aniel watched the squad of Adran soldiers as they searched the canyon floor far beneath him.

He had been trailing them since they left the Veridi Valley, breaking off from the main company two days before. There were twelve of them in all, dressed in Adran blues and carrying a full kit on their backs and rifles under their arms. They proceeded warily up the valley, covering less than a mile a day and searching every deer trail and crevice along the way.

At this rate it would take them two more days to find Ka-poel’s hiding place.

Taniel fought the urge to stand up and shout. He wanted to rush down the side of the mountain, sliding on the scree, waving his arms to be seen. It had been weeks since he’d had a good meal and a soft bed. His skin was cracked and dirty, his body still aching from the beating at the hands of Kresimir’s soldiers.

He’d long since stopped noticing his own smell – a sure sign that he was too used to the foulness.

The only thing that kept him silent was the nagging doubt of suspicion. It was more than likely these men were looking for him; the mountains of southwest Adro were nigh impassable and their immense network of valleys led to nowhere important. Why else would Adran soldiers be up here? The real question was:
Why
were they looking for him?

No one in command had reason to send two companies to find him. General Hilanska had betrayed Taniel, betrayed Tamas, and betrayed Adro. These could be his picked men. Or perhaps Tamas had returned and they were friendly.

Surely they would be shouting for him if they were friendly. He was wracked by indecision. At a mile away, it was impossible to recognize any of them. Taniel cursed quietly under his breath. If he’d had any black powder left, he could have seen them clearly from five miles away.

It took him several hours to move down the mountain with enough stealth to avoid notice. His boots were full of grit and his calves burned from the descent, and it was nearly dusk when Taniel finally crouched in the shadow of a boulder some hundred and fifty feet above the squad, his body hidden. Sweat poured from his brow. He swore again.

Each of the soldiers carried a rifle with the bayonet fixed. From a distance the rifles’ basic shape could be mistaken for any flintlock, but from here Taniel could very clearly make out the sleek, streamlined barrel and the rounded stock. These weren’t flintlocks. They were air rifles – they fired bullets not with the combustion of black powder but with compressed air.

They were delicate, unreliable weapons. Soldiers only carried air rifles when they needed to kill a powder mage.

Taniel waited in his hiding spot until after dark, watching the soldiers set up camp, and then headed back up the steep side of the mountain.

Taking goat paths, he crossed over the ridge and then followed it to the east for almost a mile, back into a narrow crevice wedged under two great, flat boulders.

Ka-poel sat cross-legged with her back against the wall of their cave. Her ashen freckles were obscured by mud, her long black duster ripped and worn. There were large, dark circles under her eyes. She looked up at Taniel and her head bobbed slightly from exhaustion.

“A squad of Adran soldiers,” Taniel said. “Armed to the teeth with air rifles.” He lowered himself down beside her, unwilling to look at the wax figure lying on the dirt before her. “No doubt Hilanska’s men.” He felt the fatigue deep in his bones. Every muscle ached and his hands shook from the lack of gunpowder. It was progress. A few days ago he had barely been able to stand from the withdrawal symptoms. “They’re working their way up the valley. They’ll reach the curve soon, then come up this direction. It won’t take them longer than two days. I can’t sense an ounce of powder on them.”

He forced a smile onto his face. Ka-poel leaned her head on his shoulder, and Taniel tried to sit up straight. He couldn’t show his own weariness. It wouldn’t be fair to her.

Not after she had rescued him. Her very sorcery gave him strength.

She who kept a god in check by the power of her will alone.

Taniel finally looked down at the wax figure lying in the dust. He recognized that face, from the delicate chin and the golden hair to the ugly black pit where one eye used to be. A rock the size of Taniel’s fist sat in the center of the wax figure’s chest and one long needle stuck out from its head.

Gently, Taniel pushed Ka-poel’s head off his shoulder. “It’s time,” he said.

She looked up at him, a question in her eyes. He wondered briefly how her voice would sound if she were able to speak. He kissed her on the forehead and climbed to his feet.

“I have to go kill my countrymen.”

Taniel crept down the mountainside just after midnight. The night was deep, thin clouds obscuring a quarter moon. His whole body shook from the effort of the descent, holding himself back so that he wouldn’t disturb the scree or startle small animals out of hiding, and his eyes ached from squinting hard into the darkness.

He had the musket that he’d taken in their mad dash from the Kez camp as his only weapon. Bayonet fixed, it would be little use to him except as a spear, as he lacked both powder and ammunition. He’d left his jacket behind with Ka-poel, as the silver buttons might have caught errant moonlight and betrayed him to the enemy – his belt buckle he had wrapped in leather to hide it.

He felt the lack of powder keenly. A single hit of black powder would have sharpened his senses and allowed him to see clearly in the darkness. It would have dulled the ache in his bones, the soreness of his back and feet, and would have given him strength and speed, so that dealing with a dozen men would have been…

Well, certainly not easy. But not outside the realm of possibility, either.

Crouched on the mountainside, he examined his quarry.

The squad of Adran soldiers camped in the shadow of a ten-foot cascade with their backs to a shallow recess in the cliff wall. One stood guard at the top of the cascade. After several minutes of careful examination Taniel was able to spot the second sentry below the camp, about thirty paces down the valley. It was a good defensive position, impossible to flank.

But Taniel wouldn’t be flanking anyone. Not on his own. The waterfall would be the only thing serving to cover his approach.

His lack of vision in the darkness was a blow, but he had been planning for the possibility of this ambush for over a week. He knew the lay of the terrain by heart. This was one of a half-dozen locations along the valley where scouts might have camped, and he’d been right in his assumptions all the way down to where they positioned their sentries.

Their Adran blues were difficult to see in the dark, but the silver buttons gave them away. Taniel felt a sudden misgiving. He’d been raised among these men and women – perhaps not those hunting him, but certainly their comrades. These were his brothers and sisters.

Then why were they hunting him with air rifles? Only Hilanska would have been able to get ahold of so many air rifles in Adro. Only he would be able to gather this many Adran soldiers loyal enough to him that they’d be willing to go after a powder mage.
I’ve killed Adran soldiers before
, he reminded himself. General Ket’s vile soldiers, sent after him and Ka-poel.
I can do it again
.

The gravel shifted beneath his feet as he worked his way down to the top of the cascade. The sentry’s head turned slightly and the barrel of her air rifle came up. Taniel paused, his breathing shallow. An eternity seemed to pass until she lowered the barrel of her rifle back toward the ground and she turned to the east, looking down the length of the valley.

Taniel stepped into the stream and felt the cold water leak in through a hole in his boot. Stepping lightly, he worked his way toward the sentry. He put one hand to the end of his musket to unfasten the bayonet.

A cold sweat broke out on the nape of his neck. The bayonet wouldn’t budge. He twisted harder, but with no success.

He fought down a rising panic. He could still do this with his bare hands, but the lack of a weapon made it both less certain and more personal.

He set his musket carefully down on the bank of the stream and took three long steps forward, snaking one arm around the soldier’s neck and putting the other against the base of her spine. He squeezed instantly, flexing his arm to cut off the flow of air and blood to the brain.

She made a quiet choking noise and dropped her rifle with a clatter into the stream. Taniel’s heart leapt at the sound, and he watched over her shoulder for signs of alarm in the camp below them while he counted quietly in his head.

Twenty seconds for unconsciousness. Four minutes to be sure of a kill.

Her desperate clawing slacked off after just eight seconds. Taniel continued to count, and when it was apparent that no alarm would be raised, he squeezed his eyes shut.

Why should he spare any of these soldiers who were hunting him? If a single one lived through the night, they’d raise the alarm with the company back down the valley and Taniel would have two hundred men or more coming straight for him. For Ka-poel.

The soldier stopped struggling entirely at eighteen seconds. Taniel kept his grip tight, pulling her close. The killer’s embrace, Tamas had called it.

He felt moisture on his cheeks.

He remembered a time not so long ago, in the mountains far to the east of here, looking down the barrel of his rifle at his best friend, marked for death because he was a Privileged sorcerer.

At thirty seconds he let go of the woman, his rage not enough to fuel his strength. He let her sag in his arms and lowered her gently down to the bank of the stream.

A hand over her mouth felt her shallow breathing. Taniel cursed his weakness and made his way quickly down and around the camp. He paused once when one of the sleeping soldiers stirred, but the soldier merely mumbled something unintelligible and rolled over, going back to sleep.

Taniel could hear his heart thumping in his ears. His original plan, tenuous at best, relied on removing the sentries and then killing them all in their sleep. Brutal, but efficient.

Now what could he do? They’d wake in the morning and find they’d been attacked. They would know they had found him, and what would his attack have accomplished? Nothing.

His steps became hurried and careless as he approached the second sentry from behind. A rock turned, the scree moved, and Taniel cursed out loud.

The man turned toward him, a question on his lips.

Taniel sprinted forward and slammed a fist against the base of the soldier’s jaw. Taniel snatched at the front of his uniform and caught his air rifle as it dropped. The man slumped to the ground.

Taniel examined the man at his feet as the moon flashed briefly from behind a cloud. The sentry’s features were soft, young, unworn by years on campaign. He looked about eighteen. A recruit?

He picked up the soldier’s air rifle, running his hands over the length. It had a long, smoothbore barrel not unlike a musket, with a firing mechanism where the flintlock would be and a rounded air canister instead of a stock. Terrible weapons to a powder mage, their expense and unreliability had kept them from becoming more common in the Kez army. Tamas had banned them completely from Adro.

To break the mechanism on the weapon was no terrible difficulty. But Taniel needed to send a message.

He held his hand up to the night sky, looking at the moonlight through the gaps in his fingers. He remembered killing those Adran soldiers – the Dredgers. Remembered putting his hand into the man’s mouth after he spoke of raping Ka-poel and curling his fingers around his teeth, grasping and pulling. He remembered feeling the tendons of the man’s jaw snap as he’d ripped his jawbone from his body.

And all of that without the powder. Only his rage and Ka-poel’s strange sorcery to spur him on.

Taniel grasped the barrel of the air rifle in both hands and flexed. Slowly, the barrel gave way. He bent it all the way to a right angle, his muscles screaming in protest at the force required.

He then snuck back up to the camp. He found a burlap sack and gathered all of the air canisters, then stripped the men of their rations and kits – he gathered a knife, a sword, and enough food to feed himself and Ka-poel for over a month.

He left them all sleeping soundly in their bedrolls. They’d wake in the morning – or when their sentries regained consciousness – to find themselves robbed.

And in the center of their camp, just beside the fire, a neat pile of eleven air rifles, each of them bent into an L-shape.