The Autumn Republic (51 page)

Claremonte raised his flint knife and brought it down on Kresimir’s neck. The god toppled before him, and Taniel suddenly lunged forward, freed of the oppressive conflict of sorcery. He gained his balance and grabbed Claremonte by the front of his jacket, thrusting Ka-poel’s bayonet through the soft part beneath his chin and through his brain.

Cheris’s scream made Taniel release Claremonte’s body and clutch at his ears. She ran toward him, hands raised, and he braced himself for the power of her fury.

Cheris stumbled. Taniel looked to find Tamas at her feet, Claremonte’s flint dagger in his remaining hand. Blood poured from Tamas’s ears, nose, and mouth, and black powder stained his chin. He thrust the dagger through her leg.

She yelled again, but more in anger than in pain. “You think that will kill me?” she demanded. She snatched Tamas by the collar of his jacket and lifted his broken body only to recoil as he spit blood in her eyes.

“Let him go,” Taniel roared.

“You have no power to command me,” Cheris said. “I will drink the blood from your father’s corpse. I will slaughter you and your savage and then I will bring my love back. I have that power!”

“Let him go, and you win.”

Cheris hesitated. “What do you mean?”

Taniel drew the bayonet from Claremonte’s lifeless body and flipped it around in his hand. “Here,” he said. “You win.” He tossed the bayonet.

Cheris dropped Tamas and reached up, but the bayonet arced over her fingertips. She whirled, hand extended.

Ka-poel snatched the bayonet from the air and rammed it through Cheris’s heart. The god gasped once and toppled to the ground. Ka-poel straddled her body and drew the bayonet out, ramming it in again and again until Cheris had stopped moving.

Taniel grabbed her arm. “She’s dead, Pole.”

Ka-poel sneered at Cheris, but let Taniel pull her away. He left her to check Claremonte’s and Kresimir’s bodies while he went to Tamas.

His father lay on his side, soaked in blood. Both legs were broken, his left arm shattered and left hand gone entirely. He still clutched the flint dagger in his hand. “Dad,” Taniel pleaded, feeling desperation grab hold. “Dad, come on!”

Tamas’s eyes fluttered. “Lost one of your pistols,” he croaked.

“It’s fine, Dad,” Taniel said, cradling his father’s head in his hand. “Come on. Stay with me.”

“Is it over?”

“Yes. They’re dead.”

“Bloody gods.”

“Stay with me, please,” Taniel sobbed.

“No, Tan,” Tamas said, blood on his teeth. “I don’t think I will.”

Taniel’s vision blurred. “Please, Dad.”

Tamas groped blindly for the front of Taniel’s jacket, his fingers gripping the bloodstained lapel. “I’m proud of you, Taniel.”

“Nothing to be proud of, Dad. I’m a terrible commander. An awful soldier.”

“You’re a good man. A good fighter. That’s all that matters.”

“Just stay alive, Dad. You hear me? Stay alive.”

“I’ve earned this, my boy. I’m ready to rest.”

“No you’re not. You’ve got so much more to do.” There was a rumble and the building shook around them, but it didn’t matter, not anymore.

“I’m going now, son. Get out of here. Brude’s going to have a death rattle, and it won’t be pleasant.”

“You’re coming with me.”

Tamas’s breathing slowed. His fingers loosened and his arm went slack. Taniel ignored another insistent rumble, ignored Ka-poel tugging at his sleeve. “Dad…”

“Hey,” Tamas whispered. His lips curled into a faint smile, and he softly said, “Your mother says hi, my boy. We love you.”

A
damat reined in his horse in the palace gardens, not far from the twisted remains of Skyline Palace’s front doors. He dismounted beside a squad of Adran soldiers tending to their wounded.

“Where’s the field marshal?” he asked.

A captain got to his feet. “He led a company of men inside the palace not fifteen minutes ago. What do you —?” He was cut off by a low rumbling sound. The soldiers exchanged nervous glances.

Adamat replied, “I’m here with news from Adopest. The enemy has been driven off and the new First Minister is safe.”

“Pit, I didn’t even know we were under attack in the city,” the captain said. “We’ve been hunkered down out here all night and morning. Tumblar won the election?”

“He did.”

“Glad to hear it. I’ll send a squad in after Field Marshal Tamas to let him know the news.”

There was another rumble and Adamat looked down at his feet. “Did you feel that?”

“Earthquake?” another soldier asked.

“Someone find Colonel Olem,” the captain said. “And find out what the pit that was. If there’s more sorcery about to spew out across the battlefield, he’ll want to know about it.”

Adamat eyed the palace gates and wondered if he should take the news in himself, but quickly dismissed the notion. Best to leave this to the professionals. Last time Adamat charged into a battle he’d gotten stabbed. Twice.

“Get back!” a voice bellowed.

Adamat turned to find a figure running up the road, approaching as fast as a powder mage in a full trance. He was tall and fat and soaked with sweat, his long black hair flying in loose, wet ribbons around his head.

“What is it?” Adamat asked.

“Get everyone back,” Adom shouted. “Now!”

“Who the pit are you?” the captain demanded.

Adom seemed to shimmer and grow, towering over the captain. “I am your god, man, and if you don’t order a full retreat right now, every single one of you will die.”

The order was passed on by a nearby sergeant before the captain could even choke out a reply. He sputtered once, then said, “Tell everyone to get away from the palace. Run!”

Adamat went to Adom’s side. “What’s happening?”

“You remember what happened to South Pike when Kresimir was shot?”

“Yes.”

“That.”

“You’re bloody well joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking, Inspector?” Adom seemed to notice for the first time that his apron had come loose and reached back to retie it. “Faster!” he bellowed. “Get everyone away!”

Though the palace gardens were thick with smoke and confusion, the order seemed to work its way through the Adran lines. Adamat saw a man ride his horse into the palace, straight through the big doors. The ground shook again. A minute later the same man returned, followed by two companies of Adran soldiers hauling their own number of dead and wounded.

Men leapt from palace windows as the tremors came in increasingly more powerful waves, and Adamat had to brace his legs to keep from being thrown to the ground.

“You may want to run, Inspector,” Adom said.

“Will it help?”

Adom seemed to consider this. “No.”

“I’ll stay here, then.” Standing next to a god didn’t seem to be such a bad idea if the world was about to collapse.

The southern wing of Skyline Palace dropped out of sight so suddenly that Adamat leapt back in fright. The section of the building dropped in on itself, and it took a moment for Adamat to realize that the ground itself was falling away, swallowing the palace whole.

The walls caved inward and disappeared, and a plume of plaster dust shot upward from the growing destruction like the steam from an erupting geyser. Adom braced himself, face shining with sweat and grime, legs spread for balance, arms at his sides with palms held open toward the palace, fingers gripping the air. Veins stood out up his arms and his muscles bulged, but whatever sorcery he brought to bear failed to slow the destruction.

Crimson leaked from the corners of Adom’s mouth and nose. A bloody sheen replaced his sweat, and his eyes looked like they might pop from his skull. The wreckage of the silver palace door toppled, swallowed into the widening sinkhole.

Adamat stepped back nervously. That sinkhole showed no sign of stopping, and though he could not see inside, he had the vague perception of depth that made him want to run. He glanced at Adom, whose whole body now trembled like a twig about to snap, and though he was only a Knacked and hardly adept, he could feel the sorcery rolling off of the god.

The sinkhole swallowed more rooms of the palace and continued to widen, reaching toward the throne room and the northern wing. Adamat closed his eyes and stared at the blue sky above him, wishing that he was at home with Faye and his children.

The rumbling stopped. The ground grew still. Scarcely daring to breath, Adamat looked toward the earthen maw and found that it had stopped growing. The air was full of dust and soil, reducing his vision to only fifty yards or so, but he could see the shadow of the northern wing of the palace still standing.

A marble fountain cracked and slid into the sinkhole and then the air went still. Adamat felt as if the entire Adran army had breathed a sigh of relief. Cautiously, the retreating soldiers came to a stop and began to trickle back toward the palace, looking on with horrified curiosity.

“The field marshal!” someone shouted.

Adamat found himself running forward with a dozen soldiers. The dust began to settle and clear as he threw himself to his knees beside the bloody body lying on the gravel drive not far from where the palace door had recently stood.

Field Marshal Tamas was missing a hand, and his clothes were black with blood. The blood on his brow was smeared as if someone had held him. His body lay alone, broken. Adamat pressed his hand to the field marshal’s neck, feeling for a pulse. He felt his stomach fall as he relayed the news. “He’s dead.”

Someone let out a choked sob. The quickly growing crowd split, and Adom plodded to the body, kneeling opposite Adamat. He scooped his arms beneath Tamas, lifting the body the way a child might lift a doll.

“Where’s Taniel Two-shot?” a soldier asked.

Another shouted, “Get Colonel Olem!”

Adom cleared his throat and looked toward the gaping ruin. “Taniel Two-shot is dead. There lies his grave. You may look, but you won’t find the body.” He ignored the questions thrust at him by the gathered soldiers and pulled Tamas’s body tight to his chest.

And there, among the ruined splendor of Skyline Palace, Adamat saw a god weep for the hero of Adro.

N
ila paced the marble floors of the People’s Court, her footsteps echoing in the early morning silence. It was less than a week since she and Bo had bested what remained of Claremonte’s cabal, and memories of the fight still gave her nightmares. She never wanted to set foot in this building again. Yet here she was.

“Why are they making us wait?” she asked.

Bo sat on one of the hard benches nearby bouncing a rubber ball off the opposite wall of the hallway, pausing every other bounce to squeeze the ball experimentally. He did not wear his gloves, and his right hand had a pink scar from the healing job done by the Deliv Privileged. “Because,” he sighed, “they’re trying to show us who holds authority now.”

“That’s arrogant.”

“Welcome to the world of politics, my dear,” Bo said.

Nila stopped pacing and crossed her arms. She’d had very little sleep and she had a full day ahead, and she could feel her mood already beginning to turn for the worse. “I’m not going to play their games.”

“This is your life, now.”

The thought made her want to retch. For five days they had been interrogated by politicians and pulled into late-night meetings with Vlora, Ricard Tumblar, and a hundred men and women whose names she couldn’t possibly remember as they tried to force some kind of order onto the government in the wake of Tamas’s death.

“I should just leave,” she said.

Bo frowned. “You’re welcome to whenever you like. I would be very sad.”

She resumed her pacing. “You’d get over it.”

“I would never!”

You got over Taniel’s death awfully quick
, she wanted to say. But she dared not utter it out loud. No sense in driving a wedge between them when they so desperately needed to present a unified front to the world.

“You must admit,” Bo said, “while less exciting than being shot at and chased, and battling sorcery, at least spending all day in meetings won’t make you shit your pants. In there” – he pointed to the closed door down the hall – “they won’t try to take your life. Just destroy your career.”

“The joke is on them,” Nila said. “I don’t want this career.”

“Then you’re the best woman for it. Come on, they’ve kept us waiting long enough.” Bo got up, adjusting his prosthetic and pulling on his gloves.

Nila drew a pair of gloves out of her pocket and tugged them on. She didn’t need them, but she’d found in the meetings over the last few days that people took her far more seriously when she wore them.

Bo held the door for her, and she brushed past the secretary who tried to stop her as she went into the inner chamber.

Nine sets of eyes looked up as she and Bo entered the room. Nila only recognized two of the men and three of the women, but she knew these were the newly elected regional governors of Adro. They, the new Hall of Magistrates, and First Minister Ricard Tumblar made up the three legs of the new Adran government.

The governors sat around a half-moon table, a light breakfast being cleared from before them. Governor Ratchel, a woman of about fifty with short gray hair and hands curled and bent from rheumatism, scowled.

“We’re not ready for you yet,” Ratchel said.

“Yes,” Bo said with a charming smile, “but we’re burying Field Marshal Tamas in less than six hours in a ceremony in front of millions. We don’t have time for your shit. If you want something from us, get on with it.”

A round of indignant scoffs went up from the governors. Ratchel, to her credit, merely fixed Bo with an annoyed squint. “The time has come to determine the place of the Adran Cabal within our new government,” she said. “Or to determine if the cabal even has a place among us.”

“Are you trying to tell me the Adran government would dare continue in this strife-laden modern era without a cabal?” Nila asked, feigning shock.

“It sounds,” Bo said, looking equally surprised, “like they’re trying to put us out of a job!”

“If you’ll just… ,” Ratchel said.

“Well.” Nila threw her hands up. “I got my wish. Thank you for calling us in here to let us know. I think I’ll go spend the rest of the day in bed.”

“I’ll join you!” Bo said with a wink, linking his arm with hers and turning them both toward the door.

“Where the pit do you think you’re going?” Ratchel demanded.

Nila and Bo both turned back toward the governors. “If you don’t want us,” Bo said, “we’re more than happy to leave.”

Ratchel shuffled the papers in front of her angrily. “It’s not that we don’t want you,” she said. “It’s that we have yet to determine how the cabal will serve our government.”

“Ah,” Bo said. Prosthetic clicking, he went and grabbed one of the chairs from beside the wall and dragged it noisily into the center of the room, plopping himself down in it and leaning forward on his cane. Nila took up a position behind him. “The cabal,” he said, “intends on serving as it always has. But instead of the king, we will serve the best interests of the people.”

“That’s very vague.”

“I’m glad you noticed.”

“It’s too vague. The cabal must report to someone.”

“We do. We report to the army, who reports to the First Minister, whose actions are answerable to both the Hall of Magistrates and the esteemed governors before me.”

“There
must
be more direct oversight.”

“And you,” Nila said, “propose that we report directly to the governors’ council?”

“Yes,” Ratchel said curtly, fixing Nila with that same annoyed squint she’d used on Bo earlier.

“We’ve already gotten similar offers from both the First Minister and representatives of the Hall of Magistrates.” Bo laughed. “And we’ve decided that it is in the best interest of Adro for the cabal to remain independent. We will fight the nation’s wars. We will fight for the people’s interests. We will not be lapdogs to any single group of politicians.”

“And who decided this?” Ratchel demanded. “The two of you?”

Nila said, “The two of us, as well as the recently promoted General Vlora and the remaining half-dozen members of Tamas’s powder cabal.”

“We’ve combined, you see,” Bo said. “So if you want to have this conversation again, you can do it with a handful of war heroes in the room in addition to the last two Privileged you have left.” He slapped his hands on his thighs. “Well, out of time. Good day to you all.”

Nila helped Bo to his feet, taking satisfaction in the stunned silence that followed as the two of them left the room.

Outside the office, Nila watched men scrub at the blackened marble farther down the hallway while Bo adjusted the straps on his prosthetic, wondering if it was her fire that had caused the stains or fire from one of the Brudanian Privileged. Frankly, she was shocked that the entire building hadn’t been condemned after that fight.

“I thought that went rather well,” Bo said cheerfully.

Nila nodded. Part of her agreed. Bo was right. The spirit of this new government would be crippled from the beginning if any one branch of the legislature had the cabal at their fingertips. Going it alone, however, meant there was no one else to blame for their failures and shortcomings. Sometimes taking orders was the easiest way.

“Borbador!” a voice echoed down the long hall.

Nila turned around to find Inspector Adamat heading in their direction. The inspector wore a new suit, and his eyes had dark rings beneath them from lack of sleep. He gave Nila a half bow, then turned to Bo.

“Inspector,” Bo said. “How are you?”

“Well, thank you. Tired. Busy. But well.”

“Your family, how are they?”

Adamat covered his grimace well. “Wonderful. Thank you for asking.”

“And Jakob?” Nila asked.

“Faye considers him one of her own.”

“That item that we discussed… ?” Bo said.

Adamat handed him a folded piece of paper. “You’ll find her here.”

“Very good.”

Nila glanced curiously at Bo, but his face gave away nothing. “You’re making this poor man run errands still?” she asked.

“Thank you for the consideration,” Adamat said, coughing into his hand, “but half a day’s work for fifty thousand krana seemed like an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

“How do you feel about a more permanent position?” Bo asked.

“I have one, thank you,” Adamat said. “I’m an ambassador now.”

“Congratulations,” Nila said. “To where?”

“We haven’t quite gotten that far, actually.”

“You’ll get it sorted out, I’m sure,” Bo said. “I promise, though, that I pay better than the government.”

“Ricard is very generous with his friends.” Adamat paused, clearly cautious. “Just out of curiosity, what did you have in mind?”

“Spymaster for the new Adran Cabal.”

Nila raised her eyebrows. Bo hadn’t mentioned this to her.

Adamat shook his finger at Bo. “Not a chance. Far too dangerous. Far too political.”

“I’ll leave the offer on the table for a week,” Bo said.

Adamat bowed and took a step back. “I should be flattered by the consideration, but I won’t do it. Thank you, Privileged.”

“Shucks.” Bo removed an envelope from his pocket, no doubt stuffed with krana notes, and handed it to Adamat. The inspector bowed again and made his retreat, Nila and Bo watching him go.

“That man is eminently employable,” Bo said. “I’ll get him eventually.” He seemed to forget about the inspector, though, turning to Nila and giving her a look up and down. “Time to get ready for the funeral. Then we have a trip to make tomorrow.”

“Oh?” Nila asked.

Bo unfolded the paper Adamat had given him and looked it over. “South. Not too far.”

The Deliv army had made their camp in a small town halfway between Adopest and Budwiel. Only about fifteen thousand Deliv soldiers remained, the rest having already begun their march to be home before the winter took a turn for the worse.

The camp was semipermanent, meant to last through the winter, as most of the occupants were the wounded and dying, and the surgeons, nurses, and support staff from both the Adran and Deliv armies, as well as several thousand Kez prisoners. The place reeked of blood, disease, and death, and the burial grounds on the plains outside the town seemed to grow by the acre every day.

Taniel loathed it, and from the moment he and Ka-poel had ridden into the camp he had wanted to be gone.

But he had a promise to keep.

He strolled through the camp, rifle over his shoulder, tricorne hat pulled low over his face and the collar of his greatcoat flipped up. Just another Adran soldier on leave, looking among the wounded for friends or relations. No one stopped or questioned him.

Ka-poel clung to his arm, hidden in her own greatcoat. While he felt exhausted, his body spent from so long at war, she looked more vibrant than ever. Days of sleep had done her well, with her skin flushed and her eyes bright. The death around them didn’t seem to bother her, but Taniel knew that, like him, she longed to be gone.

Taniel spotted a familiar figure waiting beside a carriage near one of the hospital tents at the center of camp and stopped to watch his oldest friend for a few moments.

“Did I ever thank Bo for saving my life up in the mountains?” Taniel asked.

Ka-poel nodded, then pointed at herself and shook her head.

“I did too thank you for saving my life! Did you ever thank me for saving yours?”

She cocked one eyebrow, and Taniel’s face flushed. “All right, so thanks all around,” he said.

She gave a perfunctory nod.

Taniel took a step toward Bo, then hesitated when he saw that Nila was with him. Taniel scowled.

Ka-poel tugged on his arm.

“I asked Bo to come alone.”

Ka-poel seemed to reassess the situation, watching Nila for a few moments, then tugging on his arm again. She mouthed the words,
She’s fine.

They approached Bo and his apprentice, and Taniel tipped up his hat. Bo just smiled and stepped forward to embrace first Ka-poel, then Taniel.

“Tan. Little Sister. You look well rested.”

“Being dead will do that,” Taniel answered.

Nila scowled viciously at Bo. “Why the pit didn’t you tell me he was still alive?”

“Does it matter?” Bo asked.

“I’ve spent the last week thinking you were a heartless ass because you didn’t seem to think twice over the fact your best friend had been killed by a god.”

“That was kind of suspicious, wasn’t it?” Bo said. “I’ll have to go into mourning when things quiet down.”

Nila rolled her eyes. “Pit, you’re insufferable. Taniel, why haven’t you come forward? Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“That’s kind of the idea,” Taniel said.

“But why?”

“Because,” Bo answered for him, “Taniel would have lived beneath Tamas’s shadow the rest of his life. I don’t think either of us has any real concept of what that entails. They would not have let him be Taniel. They would have expected him to be Tamas all over again. Leading Adro. Being her beating heart every moment.”

Taniel kept his silence. There were so many reasons to remain dead. He wondered if he was a coward, taking the easy way out and leaving everyone else to clean up the mess.