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

by McClellan, Brian

Tamas gritted his teeth. “Give me an offer.”

  Maxil launched into it immediately, and Tamas realized it was what he’d expected all along.

  “We have a cousin of the king’s within our barricades,” Maxil said.

  “His name?” Tamas interrupted.

  “Jakob the Just.”

  Tamas blinked, trying to remember the royal line. “More like Jakob the Child, he’s a fourth cousin, at best, and he’s barely five.”

  “He’s the closest living relative to Manhouch.” Maxil went on. “We propose that we put him on the throne as Manhouch the Thirteenth. You and General Westeven will remain in control of the army, and we along with your council will combine to form the core of the king’s new advisory board. Your powder mages will be the new royal cabal.”

  “And the king?” Tamas asked.

  “We will advise him until he comes of age.”

  Tamas looked to Westeven. There was a levelheadedness to this proposal that spoke of his influence. The nobility would leave most of the control in his hands. Yet it could not stand.

  “I will never allow a king to have power over Adro again,” Tamas said. “I simply won’t have it. If you want a king, he will be that in name only.”

  Maxil scowled. “A puppet monarchy?”

  “At the very best, and I’m stretching my patience to offer that.”

  “No,” Maxil said. “Adro must have a proper king.”

  “Never again,” Tamas said.

  “You’re refusing us? That’s it? No negotiation? We’ve left the army in your hands. We’ve made you the next royal cabal head. You’d be the second most powerful man in Adro. Are you that greedy that you must keep it all to yourself?”

  Tamas chuckled. “You poor sods. I didn’t do this for power. I did it to destroy the monarchy. I did it to free the people. I’m not going to turn around and put a boy king on the throne so that you can go back to your country villas and continue to bleed the country dry.” He looked at Westeven. “I’m sorry, my friend. No king, no foreign country must ever have power in Adro again.”

  “I will fight you to the end,” Westeven said.

  Tamas bowed to his old friend. “I know.” Tamas felt someone touch his shoulder. Julene was there, her face serious.

  “There’s something wrong,” she said.

  “What?” Tamas said. He exchanged a frown with General Westeven.

  The familiar popping sound of fired air rifles erupted from the barricades. Julene leapt between Tamas and General Westeven, shoving Tamas back. Bullets crackled against an invisible barricade. Julene fell back, throwing fireballs as quickly as she could summon them. They smashed into the barricade, causing blooms of fire.

  The other Privileged launched herself into action just a moment after Julene. Hardened shields of air stopped the crack of bullets from Tamas’s quickest soldiers, covering the sudden retreat of the royalist delegation. The ground rumbled, the air seemed to shake, and the cannon closest to Tamas suddenly cracked, the wheels falling off, the broken metal hitting the ground with a thud.

  Tamas leapt to his feet. They’d attacked him. They’d attacked him under a flag of truce! Westeven knew better than that. Westeven… Tamas’s eyes found his old friend. Westeven’s body was being dragged toward the barricades. He was missing an arm, his whole chest blackened. Was he already dead? He’d been hit by one of Julene’s fireballs. Tamas felt sick.

  “Senseless,” he spat. “Brigadier Ryze! Prime the artillery. We attack at once!”

  CHAPTER

  11

  The Public Archives are just above us,” Adamat said. Somewhere behind him, SouSmith’s lantern wobbled to a stop, and the sound of sloshing stilled.

  “You sure this time?”

  Adamat held his own lantern up to the rusted iron ladder rungs in front of him. There was a plaque on the bricks between the rungs, supposedly to say which building this accessed, but the letters had been worn away long ago. The storm drains beneath Adro were not kept in the best of shape. It was a miracle most of them had survived the earthquake—and a testament to Adran engineering.

  “I may have a perfect memory,” Adamat said, his voice echoing in the long, shoulder-height tunnel, “but all these damned drains look alike.”

  “Heh. I liked the women’s bathhouse.”

  “I bet you did,” Adamat said. “Wonder anyone’s using it, what with Tamas lobbing shells all over this section of town.” He rubbed his finger over the plaque, trying to make out any kind of letters. “This has got to be it.”

  SouSmith sloshed up beside him. The big boxer was bent almost double. Adamat’s knees and thighs ached from trying to move around in the storm drains, but SouSmith had to be hurting far worse.

  “I’ll check,” SouSmith said. He handed Adamat his lantern and pulled himself up the iron rungs. The ladder squeaked in protest of his weight. “Lantern,” SouSmith said, reaching down a hand.

  Adamat heard a grate move to one side, and SouSmith disappeared. Somewhere above them, closer than Adamat would have liked, he heard the deep thump of artillery.

  “Come,” SouSmith said, his voice muffled.

  Adamat followed him up the ladder and found himself in a high-arched basement. The walls were made of cement, damp and moldy, and a half inch of stagnant water covered the floor. No one had been in this room for a decade.

  “This is it,” Adamat said.

  “Really?” SouSmith looked doubtful.

  “I used to play in these drains as a boy,” Adamat said. “Mother’d get furious. I must have explored half the basements in Adro.” He grinned at SouSmith. “I knew we were close when we found the bathhouse.”

  “Spent a lot of time under there, eh?”

  “For certain. I was once an adolescent boy, after all.”

  They passed through a series of identical arched storage rooms before they found a narrow flight of stairs leading up. The door rattled when Adamat tried it.

  “SouSmith,” he said. He stepped back, letting the boxer squeeze past him. SouSmith braced his hands on either wall and kicked the door. The lock snapped and the door crashed inward, then fell off its hinges. They glanced at each other as the sound echoed through the building.

  They left their lanterns beside the basement door and carried on cautiously. Adamat had his cane, SouSmith a pair of short-barreled pistols. They came out of a long corridor into the main floor of the Archives.

  The building was as large as a parade ground and stacked four stories high. Shelving stretched from one wall to the next. Adamat headed down an aisle. Outside the brick walls, he could hear the sound of rifle and musket shots. The air was dusty, the smell of the books almost overwhelming—the scent of glue, paper, and old vellum, of age and mustiness.

  “No one here,” SouSmith said.

  Adamat glanced back. SouSmith was inspecting the shelves of books with something akin to suspicion. When a man solved his problems by punching them, books were often a foreign thing. “Not surprised,” Adamat said. “General Westeven has given large grants to at least a dozen libraries throughout the Nine, including this one. He won’t let it be touched.”

  They came out of an aisle and found themselves in the middle of the library. A wide space, free of shelves, was filled with tables for the patrons. Light came from a skylight that went up all four stories directly through the center of the Archives. The tables were all clear.

  Except for one. Adamat placed a finger to his lips and signaled for SouSmith to follow. A number of books had been laid out on a table in one corner. They were open, as if left there only moments ago. His frown deepened as they approached. The books were obviously missing pages, and whole paragraphs had been blotted from them. He flipped one of the books to the cover. In Service of the King.

  Adamat drew his cane sword in one swift motion and spun around. He heard the click of SouSmith’s pistols.

  A woman had stepped out between them. She wore a wool riding dress and jacket and had gray in her shoulder-length hair, and
wise, dark eyes that reminded Adamat of a raven. She wore Privileged’s gloves and had a hand pointed at both himself and SouSmith. An artillery blast made the building tremble, kicking up dust from the shelves of books.

  Adamat licked his lips. SouSmith’s eyes were wide, and his finger brushed at the trigger.

  “You’ll get us both killed,” Adamat said to SouSmith.

  “Don’t like this,” was the response.

  “Neither do I. Who are you?” he asked the Privileged, though he already had some idea.

  “My name is Rozalia,” she said.

  “You’re the Privileged that Tamas is hunting.”

  Her silence was enough of an answer for Adamat. His eyes darted to the books on the table.

  “Are you going to kill us?”

  “Only if I have to.”

  Adamat slowly lowered his cane sword. He gestured to SouSmith to put away his pistols.

  “You’re a Knacked,” Rozalia said.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you looking for me?”

  “No.”

  The Privileged looked confused. “Then why are you here?”

  Adamat jerked his head toward the books. The Privileged still hadn’t lowered her gloved hands. It was making him nervous. He said, “Have you been removing those pages? Blotting those books? And taking the ones at the university?”

  Rozalia slowly lowered her hands. “No,” she said.

  “You didn’t take the books at the university?”

  “I did take those. But I never ripped the pages out. She did.”

  “Who?”

  The Privileged did not answer.

  “What are you doing with the ones you took?”

  “The same as you, it seems,” she said. “Looking for answers.”

  “Kresimir’s Promise,” Adamat breathed.

  Rozalia scoffed. “Simple things,” she said. “There are more questions than you know.”

  “All I care about is Kresimir’s Promise,” Adamat said. “What is it?”

  She tilted her head to one side and regarded Adamat as a cat would a mouse. The sharp crack of rifles filled the silence, and a canon roared outside.

  “I need a message delivered,” she said.

  “What?”

  “A message. One that needs to be delivered in person.”

  “I’ll deliver your damned message. Tell me what the Promise is. Give me evidence.”

  “I don’t trust you,” Rozalia said. “If you deliver my message, then I will tell you.” Her eyes darted suddenly as the thump of rifle butts on a door reached them. The Privileged made a hissing sound in the back of her throat. “Field Marshal Tamas is here. I must go. You won’t find the answer in any of these books. Only from me.”

  Adamat calculated the chance he’d have of catching her unawares. A signal to SouSmith, a blow to the back of the head. They could hand her over to Tamas and let him get the answer out of her. Adamat saw that path ending with his death by Privileged sorcery.

  “Who’s the message for?”

  “Privileged Borbador,” Rozalia said. “The last remaining member of Manhouch’s royal cabal. He’s at Shouldercrown Fortress. Tell him that she will try to summon Kresimir.”

  “That’s it?” Adamat said.

  Rozalia gave a curt nod.

  “And Kresimir’s Promise?”

  She laughed. It was a sharp noise. “Ask Borbador. He’ll know.”

  There were boots on the marble in the Archives’ main foyer. Rozalia turned and ran, vaulting a table like a woman half her age. She had just disappeared down a far aisle when soldiers appeared from the shelving aisles on the opposite side. They wore the colors of the Wings mercenaries and they pointed their rifles at Adamat and SouSmith.

  Adamat raised his hands and sighed. “Tell Field Marshal Tamas that Inspector Adamat is here to see him.”

  The mercenaries glanced at one another.

  “Well?” Adamat said. “He’s nearby, isn’t he?”

  One of the mercenaries headed back down an aisle. SouSmith glowered at Adamat.

  “Not a word,” Adamat whispered. “If I’d known Tamas was going to take the Archives today, we wouldn’t have spent the last two days mucking through storm drains.”

  “Bastard,” SouSmith said, glancing down at his sodden shoes.

  “Inspector?” Field Marshal Tamas emerged from one of the shelving aisles. He carried a saw-handled dueling pistol, the powder on the barrel suggesting it had been used recently. “What the pit are you doing here?”

  “Inspecting, sir,” Adamat said.

  “Of course,” Tamas said distractedly, looking Adamat and SouSmith up and down, and sniffed. “Have you been in the sewer?”

  “The storm drains.”

  “Very resourceful.” Tamas glanced at the mercenaries behind him. “Stand down. Inspector Adamat is under my employ. Check the rest of the library.” The mercenaries headed off, and Tamas turned back to Adamat. “Have you solved my riddle, Inspector?”

  “I have a lead, sir. Nothing definite yet. The books I’m looking for have come up defaced or entirely missing.”

  “I expect you to do more than spend your days leafing through books.”

  “That’s often exactly what investigating entails, sir,” Adamat huffed. “One follows any lead one can.”

  “Very well. Carry on. Wait.”

  Adamat paused.

  “What do you know about the Black Street Barbers?”

  Adamat summoned up his knowledge of them, thinking it over for a moment. “Their leader is a man named Teef. Among Adro’s underworld they’re considered the top assassins. They’ll take any job, is the rumor, as long as it pays well. At least a dozen Barbers have tried killing Adran kings over the last few hundred years, when the price has been right. None have succeeded, not with the royal cabal there to protect them. I’ve met Teef. He’s the… least mentally unbalanced of the crew. Frankly, the entire gang belongs in an insane asylum. I hope you’re not thinking of…”

  Tamas nodded briskly. “Thank you.” He strode away.

  … employing them,” Adamat finished quietly.

  Adamat retrieved his cane from where he’d dropped it when the mercenaries arrived. He glanced the way Rozalia had gone and pondered her cryptic message. “Time to go to Shouldercrown,” he said to SouSmith.

  “Jakob!” Nila pushed past a royalist soldier and tripped over brick rubble that had spilled out into the street from the latest artillery blast. She lifted her skirt and was back on her feet, stumbling along as she shouted the boy’s name.

  There was blood on her dress. The cannonball had whistled over her shoulder and taken the head off a man named Penn as they’d sat over a meager breakfast. She could still hear the sound in her head like a horrible kettle, instantaneous death passing inches from her ear. The cannonball had knocked a hole in the wall behind Penn, straight through Jakob’s room in one of the more intact buildings behind the barricades. Penn’s body still sat in his chair, shoulders slumped, one hand clutching a spoon. Jakob should have been in bed. He wasn’t.

  Nila found one of Jakob’s Hielmen guards picking grit out of his uniform. His name was Bystre, and he was about thirty-five. A steadiness about him reminded her of the bearded sergeant back at Duke Eldaminse’s townhouse.

  “Where’s Jakob?” she asked.

  “He’s not in bed?” Bystre said.

  “No.”

  “Pit, he must have wandered again.”

  A canister shot exploded overhead, sending everyone diving for cover. Nila found herself on the ground, beneath Bystre.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’ll be fine. Find Jakob.”

  He helped her to her feet and they ran through the street, calling Jakob’s name. Nila heard the crack of muskets and was struck by the choking smell of spent powder. Down the street was one of the barricades. Royalist soldiers and volunteers crouched behind it, shooting at unseen Adran soldiers on the other side.

  The par
ley had been five days ago. Every day since, Field Marshal Tamas’s soldiers had pressed the attack. Cannon and musket fire resounded day and night. The air reeked of sulfurous black powder.

  Someone shouted a warning. A moment later, blue uniforms swarmed over the top of the barricade like water bursting through a dam.

  “Run,” Bystre instructed. “Fall back to the next barricade!” he shouted at nearby volunteers.

  Bystre grabbed Nila by the arm. “We have to find Jakob,” he said. He spun suddenly, his plumed hat falling from his head as an Adran soldier appeared from a nearby alleyway. Bystre drew his sword, parrying the thrust of a bayonet. The soldier cracked him across the jaw with a rifle butt. Bystre fell to the ground. The soldier stood over him, bayonet ready.

  Nila could barely lift the paving brick she grabbed. She swung it up over her head and brought it down on the back of the Adran soldier’s neck. The man collapsed to the ground without a sound. Bystre held his jaw and tried to shake off the blow.

  She pulled him to his feet.

  “There!” she said. She caught sight of Jakob running across the street, closer to the barricade. A bullet kicked up dirt in front of the boy, startling him, and he fell with tears in his eyes.

  Adran soldiers had taken the barricade. They were barely a hundred feet from Jakob. Nila was half that distance. She lifted her skirts and ran. She could hear Bystre right behind her. The soldiers on the barricade were more interested in securing their victory than they were in a stray child in the street. Nila fell to her knees beside Jakob and swept him up in her arms. Bystre helped her to her feet, and they both ran toward safety.

  Nila stopped short when she realized Bystre was not beside her anywhere. She turned to see him staring back toward the fallen barricade.

  “It’s lost,” she said.

  “Him!” Bystre drew his sword.

  “What are you…” She saw it. Field Marshal Tamas stood on the barricade with his men, surveying the street beyond. Beside him, she saw someone familiar. The bearded sergeant who had saved her that night in the townhouse kitchen.

  “Bystre, we have to get Jakob to safety.”

  “Nothing is safe from that treacherous bastard.”