The Powder Mage Trilogy: Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, The Autumn Republic

by McClellan, Brian

  Lord Vetas examined his hands thoughtfully. He stood up and took his hat off the desk. “I’ll return when I have leverage.” The statement was matter-of-fact, yet the word “leverage” sent a chill down Adamat’s spine. “Meanwhile, as a show of my master’s good faith, we’ll suspend your loan.” He passed by Adamat and tipped his hat. “Consider our employment offer.” He gave Adamat a small card with an address printed on the back.

  It was not until Lord Vetas and his thugs were gone that Adamat remembered the body in his favorite chair. He regarded SouSmith grimly. “Find us some lunch in the pantry. I’m going to figure out something to do with that.”

  “Jakob has a great attachment to you,” the woman said.

  Nila sat across from the woman at a cafe table and sipped from a warm cup of tea. The sun shone overhead, a stiff breeze moving through the streets, and she could almost forget about the barricades just around the other side of the building, where royalist partisans held a wary standoff with Tamas’s more numerous and better-trained soldiers.

  “I can’t stay,” Nila said.

  The woman examined her over a cup of tea. Her name was Rozalia and she was a Privileged. The Hielmen said she was the last Privileged left in all of Adro, but no one knew where she’d come from. She wasn’t a member of Manhouch’s royal cabal. Why she had any interest in Nila was impossible to say. Nila had no idea how to act in the presence of a Privileged. It was impossible to curtsy sitting down. She kept her eyes on her tea and tried to be as polite as possible.

  “Why not, child?”

  Nila sat up straighter. She didn’t consider herself a child. At eighteen, she was a woman. She could wash and press and mend clothes and she might have one day married Yewen, the butler’s son, if the whole world hadn’t gone to the pit with Tamas’s coup. Yewen was gone now, maybe fled, maybe killed in the streets.

  When Nila didn’t answer, Rozalia went on. “We have a parley with Field Marshal Tamas in the morning. If he comes to his senses, if General Westeven can make him see reason, you may find yourself nursemaid to the new king of Adro.”

  “I’m not a nurse,” Nila said. “I wash clothes.”

  “That doesn’t have to define you, child. I’ve been many things in my life. A Privileged is neither the greatest nor the least of them.”

  What was greater than a Privileged? “I’m sorry,” Nila said.

  Rozalia gave a sigh. “Speak up, child. Look me in the eye. You aren’t a duke’s washerwoman anymore.”

  “I’m lowborn, ma’am… my lady.” Nila tried to remember how to address a Privileged. She’d never even met one before today.

  “You’ve saved the life of the closest heir to the throne,” Rozalia said. “Baronies have been gifted to the common folk for less.”

  Nila swallowed and tried not to imagine herself baroness of some barony in northern Adro. This kind of thing didn’t happen to her. She could feel the Privileged’s eyes studying her.

  “You think we’re going to lose,” Rozalia said. She waited a moment for Nila’s response, and then somewhat impatiently added, “Speak up, you can talk to me.”

  Nila did look up then. “Field Marshal Tamas has every advantage,” she said. “He won’t execute half the nobility only to put Jakob on the throne. Within a few weeks he’ll have torn down the barricades and sent Jakob and all the nobles that backed him to the guillotine. I would like to be gone before that happens. I don’t want to see it.” She wondered, not for the first time, if it had been a mistake to bring Jakob to General Westeven. She could have fled with him to Kez. The silver she took from the townhouse would have more than paid for the trip.

  “Smart girl,” Rozalia said, placing a finger on her chin.

  Nila folded her arms across her chest.

  “What will you do?” Rozalia asked. “Once you’ve gotten past Tamas’s blockade and made your way out of the city?”

  What interest could a Privileged possibly have in that? Nila realized that she didn’t know what she’d do. She had the silver. Most of it, anyway. She had needed new clothes and some medicine for Jakob, and a place to hide during the riots. “I can join up with the army. They always need laundresses, and the pay is good,” she said.

  “At best you’ll wind up a soldier’s wife,” Rozalia said. “What a waste.”

  “It’s better that,” Nila said quietly, “than to die here for a lost cause.”

  “What did you think Tamas’s soldiers would have done if they’d have caught you smuggling Jakob out of the duke’s residence? You have courage, child, and don’t try to pretend that you don’t love that little boy. If you cared only for yourself, you’d be halfway to Brudania by now.

  “Stay here,” Rozalia continued. “Watch over Jakob. If the parley tomorrow goes well, you’ll wind up a rich woman. If it doesn’t… you may need to save his life again.”

  If she stayed by Jakob’s side, she could, like Rozalia said, become a wealthy woman. Or follow him to the guillotine block. She remembered the soldier’s hands holding her down, the feelings of helplessness and horror. No bearded sergeant would save her the next time Tamas’s soldiers came through a door. She had silver buried in the corner of a graveyard just outside of the city. She would never have to feel that fear again.

  Nila couldn’t help but wonder if Rozalia had other motives for wanting her to stay. A Privileged used the common folk. She didn’t help them. There had to be a reason she was showing such interest in Nila.

  Jakob came into sight over Rozalia’s shoulder. His pallor had improved despite the stress of the last two weeks. Rozalia had done something for his cough. He smiled and waved to Nila, then was distracted by a butterfly flitting through the rubble of a building knocked over by the earthquake. She watched him dance off after the insect, followed by a pair of vigilant Hielmen.

  “I’ll stay,” she said. “For now.”

  “You can end this quickly,” Julene said.

  Tamas examined the woman lounging in the chair on the other side of his desk. She’d come alone on her own initiative, leaving Taniel and the magebreaker who knew where. She wore a low-cut shirt that revealed enough cleavage to get the imagination going but that was tight enough for her to move quickly when she wanted. Tamas knew the effect was not accidental. Yet he was not a man to make the same mistake twice. Julene was a dangerous woman. She was the type to use any weapon available to her in order to get ahead. He looked away from her chest and at the scar running from the corner of her mouth to her brow.

  He wondered at that scar. There were Privileged who dealt in healing sorcery. It was a tricky art, and they were rare, but with the amount Julene charged for her mercenary services, she could easily afford it. Perhaps she just liked looking deadly.

  “How?”

  “Assassins,” she said. “Send men behind the barricades. Wipe out all their leadership and the rest will surrender easily.”

  Tamas snorted. “I’ve been trying my best to scrape together Manhouch’s old spy network with little success and you want me to find enough assassins to bring down those barricades? You’re mad.”

  “Use the Black Street Barbers,” Julene said.

  “The street gang?”

  Julene nodded. “They will be expensive, but they’re the best at what they do. They’ll end this civil war.”

  “Gangs can’t be controlled.”

  “They can with the right amount of money,” Julene said. “The Barbers are different. More organized. They report to Ricard Tumblar. He uses them to police the docks.”

  “Assassination is risky. It could turn the people against me.”

  “You’re being a fool.”

  “Careful.”

  “If you won’t consider that, then you need me at the parley.”

  “Why?” Tamas checked his watch. The parley was set for ten o’clock. Two hours from now.

  “Because General Westeven is in league with this Privileged we’re hunting. She’ll be there. It wouldn’t surprise me if she makes a move against y
ou.”

  “I have my powder mages for that,” Tamas said.

  “Your boy has shot her three times and put an arm’s length of steel through her stomach. Do your other Marked have anything new to bring to the table?”

  This confirmed Taniel’s reports. This Privileged was something else. Something more.

  “You know her, don’t you?” he said. “This is personal. I can tell by the way you talk. You want this woman dead.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “I’ve had you kill seven Privileged in the last two years. Each time you’ve been cold, mechanical.”

  “And each time I’ve been able to kill them within a day or two,” Julene said. “This is getting personal. I want the bitch dead.”

  “So you don’t know her?”

  “Of course not.”

  She was lying. Tamas could tell by the way her eyes hardened when she spoke. It was a small tell, and he’d only recently figured it out, but Julene put a little extra fire into her lies when she wanted to be believed. Now, why wouldn’t she tell the truth?

  “You think you can handle her if she tries something?” Tamas said.

  “Of course. Every time we’ve begun to fight, she’s run. At the very least I will scare her off.”

  “Be there,” Tamas said. “In an hour. Bring Gothen and Taniel and his pet savage. And don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I’ll only be there to protect you,” Julene said.

  Tamas stood next to a repaired field gun and watched a line of men make their way over the barricade under a white flag. Olem was on the other side of the gun, leaning against the barrel, speaking quietly to Sabon. Vlora stood somewhere behind him with Brigadiers Ryze and Sabastenien, the only two mercenary commanders posted in the city. From a building across the street Taniel trained his rifle on the barricades. Julene tugged idly at her gloves, her magebreaker partner beside her. A whole company of Adran soldiers stood at attention twenty paces back. Tamas wanted General Westeven to know exactly how bad his odds were.

  This would be a crucial meeting. Tamas felt he held most of the cards, but General Westeven was an incredibly capable commander. He could ruin Tamas’s plans simply by protracting the civil war.

  “A sorry lot, sir,” Olem said, motioning toward the approaching royalists.

  Tamas withheld judgment. The royalists had been crouching behind their barricades for eight days. They were dirty and disheveled, but they showed no signs of imminent starvation or even fatigue. Behind ramshackle barricades they may be, but General Westeven would see that every man and woman at his disposal slept on a good bed and had plenty to eat—not hard, when they had captured the city’s main granaries. The royalists were eating better than most of the city right now.

  Tamas floated in a light powder trance, allowing him to examine faces at a distance with ease. He knew General Westeven, a tall, bald man with bloodspots on his scalp. Age had reduced the general to little more than skin stretched over bones, his whole body moving slowly from advanced rheumatism. Still, that was no reason to underestimate him. His mind was sharp as a fine dagger.

  Tamas didn’t recognize a single one of the men with the general. They were nobles, judging by their bedraggled finery. Men who’d slipped through his soldiers’ nets the night of the coup, or were too minor to warrant attention.

  He did recognize the woman with them. It was the Privileged who’d killed Lajos and the rest. She looked none the worse for the wear despite the wounds Taniel had supposedly given her. Perhaps Taniel was wrong. Maybe he’d missed. Tamas locked eyes with her for a moment. She returned his gaze unflinchingly.

  Taniel wasn’t known to miss.

  There was a pause among the royalist group and a brief argument before they finished their trek down the street and formed up opposite Tamas and his mercenaries. There were twenty of them, and Westeven was the only soldier of the whole lot. This wasn’t opposition, Tamas realized with disgust. This was a committee.

  “Field Marshal Tamas,” said a fat noble with a stained cummerbund. “Order your men to stand down! We’ve come beneath a flag of truce.”

  Tamas glanced at the soldiers behind him. They were at attention, their rifles shouldered. “Westie,” he said. “Good to see you.”

  Westeven returned his nod. “Would it were under different circumstances, my friend.”

  “There’d be no hard feelings if you stepped away from this lot right now. You’d be a formidable ally in rebuilding the country.”

  “The way I see it,” Westeven said, “is that you are the one destroying it.”

  “Surely you can see the corruption?” Tamas said. “Nothing short of the destruction of the nobility would have saved Adro.”

  Westeven’s eyes were tired, his face strained. He seemed as if he desperately wanted to say yes. “There is more at stake here than you know. And you killed my king, Tamas. I can’t forgive you for that.”

  “Your king was about to give the whole country to the Kez!” Tamas’s voice rose sharply. Westeven was a smart man. No, a brilliant man. How could he not see what Tamas was trying to do? How could he stand in the way? “I could not allow the Accords to be signed and this country sold into servitude. What more important is at stake than the people?”

  The general glanced at the members of Tamas’s guard. “I won’t speak of it here.” His eyes hardened. “We’re here to negotiate,” he said.

  “From what grounds,” Tamas asked. “You’re completely surrounded. I have more men—”

  “I have twenty thousand behind those barricades.”

  “—including women and children, maybe,” Tamas snapped. “You might have a few dangerous Knacked at best, and this.” He gestured to the Privileged. “Yet I have a dozen powder mages and enough field guns to destroy half the city.”

  “You mean the half that wasn’t destroyed by the quake?” Westeven’s calm was infuriating. Tamas gritted his teeth.

  “I have time,” Westeven continued. “I hold the main city granaries and armory—food and weapons you need, because the Kez ambassadors will arrive any day now, and if they see that we are at war among ourselves, then they will smell blood, and a Kez army will be knocking on our door within weeks. Even if they don’t, the people will begin to tire of this civil war. They will see your soldiers and mercenaries as a burden. They will turn on you when you can’t feed them, when you can’t rebuild their city.”

  The bastard could read his problems like a book. Tamas sized up the collection of noblemen. “What do you propose?”

  The man with the soiled cummerbund stepped forward. “I am Viscount Maxil,” he said. He lifted a length of paper and looked it over. “We have a list of demands.”

  Tamas snatched the paper before Maxil could object. He ran his eyes down the list.

  “You expect me to step down? To arrest myself?” He gave the nobles a look of disbelief.

  “You committed high treason!” one of them said. “You killed our king!”

  Tamas stared them down until another man said quietly, “We’re willing to negotiate on that point.”

  Tamas went back to reading. Before he’d gone another paragraph, he was shaking his head. “You want all the king’s land and that of the executed nobility divided up among yourselves? What do you take me for, a fool?”

  “These are points of negotiation,” Maxil said.

  “A moment ago you said they were demands.”

  “More like negotiation,” Maxil said, looking away.

  Tamas gave the list back. “Westie, surely you can talk some sense into them?”

  Westeven shrugged. “Negotiate, Tamas. I beg of you.”

  “Give me a moment.”

  Tamas stepped back behind the cannons and beckoned over the brigadiers. He was joined by Olem, Vlora, Sabon, Brigadier Ryze, and Brigadier Sabastenien. Julene still stood off to the side, staring at the other Privileged with the intensity of a cat.

  Brigadier Sabastenien spoke first. “They have no grounds to negotiate f
rom.” The man was young, barely older than Taniel, and Tamas had a hard time taking him seriously. Yet one did not become a brigadier of the Wings of Adom at that age for nothing.

  “I’m afraid they do,” Sabon said. “Westeven is right. We don’t have time. If the Kez ambassadors arrive and see us in this state…”

  “Not to mention the granaries,” Tamas said. “We’ve reduced rations by a third for the army just to have a bare minimum for the city breadwagons. The people are starving. They won’t put up with this for long.”

  “Your council will be angry if you make any decisions without them,” Vlora pointed out. “Sir,” she added.

  “This is a matter of war, Captain,” Tamas said, “and in that they have given me full power. I’ll negotiate as I see fit.” He turned to Ryze. “Can we take those barricades without losing a few thousand men?”

  Ryze considered a moment. “Only if we give them a good shelling first. Even then… it will be costly.”

  Tamas rolled his eyes. Ryze had been an artillery commander before joining the Wings of Adom. He saw shelling as a solution to everything.

  “If we don’t shell them?”

  “It will be a bloodbath,” Ryze said. “On both sides.”

  “Shit.”

  Tamas returned to the royalists. “Give me an offer,” Tamas said. He motioned to the paper in Maxil’s hand. “A serious offer. Not that list of pig shit. And it will include her”—he pointed at the Privileged—“giving herself up to await execution for the murder of my men.”

  The Privileged gazed back at Tamas with the severity only old women are capable of. To her, they were all children playing at children’s games.

  “That won’t happen,” General Westeven said. “Be realistic, Tamas. This is war. Casualties are a fact of that war.”