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

by McClellan, Brian

  The cave lion was fifteen paces from Bo, and Bo was looking tired. Sweat poured from his brow. His fingers twitched, jerked at unseen strings. The lion stopped in its tracks.

  It slowed, shook its hoary head, and continued onward.

  “Don’t just sit there.”

  Taniel felt himself jerked to his feet. Gavril was there. His face was red from a long, hard run. He held a spear in one hand, like the kind used to hunt boar.

  “Shoot the damned thing!”

  Taniel flipped his rifle off his shoulder and sighted. The creature shook its head, as if dizzy, and let out a low howl. It slapped its ears with both clawed hands. It jerked about, slamming its head against the ground as if its skull was full of bees.

  Taniel pulled the trigger. The beast’s head jolted back where Taniel’s bullet hit it. He felt his eyes go wide. The bullet had connected and simply slid off the lion’s ugly face—just like it had the Privileged in Adopest. It howled again and made a gesture of disgust toward Taniel with a taloned hand. There was sorcery in this creature, the kind gods are made of.

  Taniel felt the snow beneath him explode. He was thrown into the air, toward the cliff edge. He landed in the snow and slid, unable to find any purchase. He scrambled for some kind of hold. There was nothing. He’d go over the edge in a second.

  His boots hit solid ground. Rock jutted from the side of the mountain, a sheet a man’s length across beneath his boots that hadn’t been there a moment before. Taniel struggled to climb back up to the trail. He felt hands grab him.

  “Come on,” Darden said. The old Deliv Watcher was armed with a spear in one hand, just like Gavril was. He dragged Taniel up with the other. Ka-poel was there too, lending her small strength. She gave Taniel a wide-eyed stare and then hurried after the others.

  Taniel looked for his rifle. It was on the ground, too far away. Did he have time to reload? One glance toward Bo told him no.

  Bo retreated to his cave, his back against the rocky wall of one side. The cave lion surged toward him on two feet. It plowed onward as if against a current, each step a struggle. A struggle it was winning.

  Gavril reached the lion first. He thrust his spear up, sinking it into the lion’s soft flank. It gave a wail and turned on him. He leapt out of range of the raking claws just in time and rolled back down the trail. Darden jumped over Gavril’s rolling form, spear held at the ready, and rushed the cave lion.

  Darden exploded. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. Blood and ribbons of tissue spattered the mountainside. The cave lion howled triumphantly. Taniel didn’t have time to think, didn’t take a moment to consider Darden’s blood soaking his coat. He aimed both pistols and fired.

  A powder mage can float a bullet for some distance. It gives his shots extra range, and it cost nothing but his own mental exertion and a bit of extra powder. He can also ignite powder, transferring the energy by touch. A good Marked can do it with bullets, giving one the strength and energy to pierce rock or steel.

  Taniel ignited his whole powder horn and pushed the blast behind his bullets.

  They tore right through the cave lion. It screamed as bubbling green blood sprayed the icy trail. The lion turned from Bo, its howls sounding like the scream of a wounded horse, and instead turned to face Taniel. It raised a taloned hand. Taniel felt the heat of approaching sorcery.

  Ka-poel squeezed past Taniel on the narrow trail, throwing herself between him and the beast.

  “Dammit! Pole, no!”

  Ka-poel lifted both hands defiantly. She held something in one hand—a doll. It was naked and about the size of a hand, shaped from wax. The craftsmanship was superb. Every part was accurate to a person—a woman, to be precise—especially the face. It was Julene.

  Ka-poel stabbed the doll with a long needle. The cave lion howled again and clutched its side. She jammed the needle into the doll’s head, scrambling the tip about inside the skull. The lion twitched and growled. It scratched at its ears and face, which left long, bloody cuts. Ka-poel bent forward, took a long, deep breath, and then blew on the doll.

  The cave lion burst into flame. Bo renewed his attacks, fingers flying, lances of ice bursting from the inside of the cave to smash against the lion. Shakily, Taniel reloaded one of his pistols. He had a few powder charges left, though his horn was empty. What could he do against a creature like this? It was trapped between Bo and Ka-poel’s sorcery but it refused to die. How long could they keep it up?

  Taniel whirled. “Gavril, your powder horn. Now!”

  Gavril, a little ways down the trail, locked eyes with Taniel and tossed him the powder horn.

  Taniel caught the horn and hefted it in one hand. Mostly full. Good. He turned. Bo looked like he was about spent, and Ka-poel juggled the burning doll in her hands, needle and fingers thrusting, a look of savage glee on her face.

  “Down!” Taniel shouted, tossing the powder horn. He grabbed Ka-poel by the shoulders and threw her against the mountainside. The horn landed between the mountain and the cave lion. With a thought, Taniel ignited it.

  His mind warped the blast, guiding it with Marked sorceries to maximize the power of the detonation. The cave lion was thrown into the air, twenty, thirty, fifty paces out from the mountain before it began to curve and plummet. Taniel watched it go, howling, clawing. The howl changed, turning to a scream as the lion’s shape warped into the body of a woman. It bounced off the mountainside, far down, and continued to fall, disappearing through the clouds below.

  CHAPTER

  18

  Tamas stopped underneath a streetlamp to check the address he’d scribbled on plain stationery a few hours before. “One seven eight,” he muttered to himself, squinting to see the number plaques. Olem walked a few feet behind him, pistols hidden under a long coat, keeping an eye out for trouble.

  The Routs was a wealthy part of town, where the banks and the remnants of the old merchant guilds still did business every weekday. It had barely been touched by the earthquake, and not at all by the royalist uprising. Side streets were lined with small but well-kept houses for businessmen, clerks, and merchant liaisons. The lanterns were lit, and there was a common police beat on every street, enough that Tamas wondered if he’d stumbled into the wrong part of town.

  Bad place to kill a man, he noted. He paused, correcting himself as he noticed that there was a splash of darkness on the street up ahead. As he drew closer, he saw that a good half-dozen lamps had blown out—or had been put out, as was the case. He counted the street numbers so that he was sure to find the right house and approached it straight on, stepping up from the street and rapping on the front door three times. There were no lights on, or any sign of life at all. The place looked abandoned.

  The door opened a crack, and he and Olem were admitted immediately. Olem waited in the sitting room while Tamas was taken by the arm and led down a hall and then into what he guessed to be a back room. A match was struck and a candle lit.

  Tamas saw a familiar face over the candle.

  “Good to see you, Tamas,” Sabon said.

  “Likewise. I hope I’m not too late.”

  “The Barbers aren’t here yet.”

  “Good. I want to see how they operate.” Tamas’s eyes adjusted to the light and he glanced around. They were in a small kitchen, the floors and cupboards bare. A man sat on one of the counters in the corner, an unlit pipe in the corner of his mouth. He was a small man, demure and of medium build, his face covered with a thick black beard that made his features almost impossible to see in the dim light. He chewed on the stem of his pipe and watched Tamas.

  “You are our contact?” Tamas asked.

  “Fingers,” the man said.

  “I take it that’s not your real name?” Tamas said, raising an eyebrow.

  “A pseudonym,” he said. “For my protection.” The man was studying Tamas with some intent, his eyes working up and down slowly—judging, weighing. Tamas felt there was something peculiar about the man.

  “You have t
he Knack,” Tamas said.

  Fingers adjusted his long black coat and brushed something off the front. “Ah, yes,” he said. “A lot of spies do. It makes it easier to get things done when you have talents that others can’t judge.”

  “It also makes it damn hard for me to put together a spy network, since Manhouch’s whole system went to ground when I killed the royal cabal.”

  “Fearing for one’s life gives one an incentive to disappear.” Fingers’s eyes darted between Sabon and Tamas. It was clear he didn’t like being in the same room with two powder mages.

  “Yet here you are,” Tamas said.

  “I have mouths to feed.” He paused, then added, “I’m a very minor Knacked. I can pick locks without a set, open latches from the outside.”

  Tamas had heard scholars talk about this kind of thing. Minor telekinesis, they called it. “Nothing that would be a threat to me,” Tamas said. “Yes, I get your meaning, but I have no quarrel with anyone outside the royal cabals—unless they have a quarrel with me. I need Manhouch’s spies. You let it be known that we’re paying twice what Manhouch did.”

  Fingers removed the pipe from his mouth and coughed into his hand.

  “Are you laughing at me?” Tamas said. He glanced at Sabon. The Deliv just shrugged.

  “What the pit is so funny?” Tamas said.

  “That stuff about paying us more,” Fingers said, “It doesn’t really work that way.”

  Tamas narrowed his eyes. “How does it work?”

  “Spies aren’t like soldiers, Field Marshal. A soldier has loyalty, yes, but at the end of the day he does what he does for a full belly and a month’s wages. Spies do it because they love the game. They love their country, or their king.”

  “Are you saying I won’t be able to use Manhouch’s old spy network?”

  Fingers pointed the stem of his pipe at Tamas. “Not at all, Field Marshal. Some of us were loyal to Manhouch himself. Those have already left the country, or are working for the Kez outright. The rest of us love Adro and will drift back. I suspect the longer I stay alive, being a Knacked and all, the more spies will come out of the woodwork.”

  Tamas rubbed his eyes. When they came out of the woodwork, he’d have to worry about whether they were double agents and whom to trust. It was all a great big headache. “I thought you said you did this because you have a family to feed,” Tamas said.

  Fingers nodded. “Right, well, I may have lied about them.”

  Sabon snickered. Tamas threw him a look. Spies. He’d rather let the whole lot of them rot in the pit. Unfortunately, he needed them.

  “Are the Barbers here yet?” Tamas asked.

  “I don’t know,” Fingers said.

  Tamas jerked a thumb at the door. “Go find out.”

  “Someone will let us know.”

  “Now.”

  The spy scurried from the room, and Tamas went over to the counter, hoisting himself up. He rubbed at the stitches on his chest, resisting the urge to pick at them.

  “I need some advice,” Tamas said.

  “Of course you do. You’re like a newborn babe, without me by your side.”

  The silence dragged on for several moments. Tamas could read Sabon’s eyes. If I’d been there, they said, that Warden wouldn’t have come close to killing you.

  “Mihali,” Tamas said. “The mad chef.”

  “Is this really worthy of your attention?”

  “He’s cooking for the whole army. Morale is higher than ever, mostly thanks to him.”

  “So what more do you know about him?”

  “He escaped from the Hassenbur Asylum,” he said.

  “Ah. A madman.”

  “They certainly think so. They’ve sent some men to retrieve him. He claims he was committed because his relatives and competitors were jealous of him.”

  “Paranoid?”

  Tamas shrugged. “Possibly.”

  “Send him back,” Sabon said. “His cooking is good, but it’s not worth making enemies of the asylum’s patrons. Do you know who they are?”

  “A man named Claremonte.”

  Sabon was silent for a moment. “The new head of the Brudania-Gurla Trading Company?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think that settles it. We can’t risk our supply of saltpeter.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Tamas said.

  “That rubbish in the newspapers?” Sabon snorted. “Mihali claiming to be Adom reborn? Evidence of his madness, I would think. Not many educated men believe such myths.”

  “You haven’t met him.”

  Sabon ran a hand over his smooth head. “You believe him?”

  “Don’t look at me like that. Of course not. But the man’s harmless.”

  “Then what reason could you have to keep him?”

  “Sorcery,” Tamas said.

  “He’s a Privileged?”

  “He has the Knack,” Tamas said. “Something to do with food. He can create the stuff out of thin air.”

  Sabon said, “That doesn’t sound like much.”

  “Have you ever heard of anyone who could create matter out of thin air? Even a Knacked?”

  “Huh,” Sabon grunted. “He’d be the richest man in the world.”

  “We can use him to feed all of Adro if we need to. Even during a famine. We may need him badly the longer the war lasts.”

  “Parlor tricks?”

  Tamas said, “I think not. Olem and I both watched him carefully. He pulled an empty pot down from its hook and set it on the stove, only to have it full of stew and boiling the next time I looked at it. He put ten loaves of bread into the oven and pulled out a hundred.”

  Sabon frowned. “It could still be sorcery and tricks. He could be a powerful Privileged, hiding his true strength. There’s no telling what Privileged are capable of. Not even the royal cabals know everything that aura manipulation can do.”

  “Yes, that crossed my mind as well. Rumors are spreading, however, and I fear that a cult might form. Among my ranks, no less, for Olem says he’s become very popular with the seventh brigade. They love his food.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I can’t just dismiss him and send him back to the asylum,” Tamas said, “not after what I’ve seen. At the very least he’s a powerful Knacked—if an odd one—and we’ll want him as our ally. As I said. The worth of food during wartime is immeasurable.”

  They were interrupted by the door opening again. It was Fingers.

  “Everything is ready,” the spy said. “Come with me.”

  They followed him in the dark up to a small room on the second story, at the front of the house, with a good view of the street. The curtains were drawn back, but the room was completely dark so as to hide them from any prying eyes. Fingers directed them to a pair of chairs set a pace back from the window. They sat and waited.

  “So this is him?” Tamas asked quietly, nodding to the house across the street before realizing they couldn’t see his movement.

  “It is,” Fingers responded. “A long-term spy for the Kez. He owns a small shipping company on the Adsea. The Warden that tried to kill you: He was smuggled into the country on one of this man’s cargo ships.”

  “And you’re certain he’s involved?”

  “The man’s in deep. He’s a banker here in the Routs and has friends among the city council. He’s been talking a lot at the local town hall, spouting about how the powder mages are going to get us all killed and we should pull down your council and surrender to the Kez.”

  “That’s awfully bold,” Tamas said.

  Fingers said, “Yes, and I would have thought too bold for a spy, if we hadn’t been watching him since he immigrated to the country fifteen years ago. There’s no doubt that he was involved getting the Warden here.”

  “I want to make something clear,” Tamas said, his voice dropping to barely a whisper. “I don’t want a wholesale slaughter of Adro citizens. I don’t want a police state. We’re only doing this to rid ourselves of Kez spi
es, so unless you have evidence that a dissenter is indeed a spy, simply pass him on to the local precinct that he needs to be watched. I’m not ready to wage war on our own people and the Kez.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Understood.”

  “Good. Is everything working out?” Tamas said. “Working with the Barbers? I must admit I have reservations about using them.”

  “They’re a wonder,” Fingers said. “I’ve not seen anything like it, even among our own killers. I’m surprised we’ve never used them before.”

  “That good?” Sabon asked.

  “That thorough,” Fingers said. “They kill quietly and they clean up their messes to perfection. Not a single drop of blood left behind, and the bodies just gone. It’s flawless.”

  Tamas remembered the barricades and the bodies of nobles and royalist leaders lying in their blood-soaked beds, throats slit wide. “So they have some restraint, then?”

  Fingers gave a low chuckle. “Yes, well, when they want the bodies found, it’s quite messy. It keeps their street reputations intact and keeps the larger gangs from messing with them. We asked them to do it quietly, though, and I’ll be damned, they are.” There was a wince in his voice that Tamas barely caught.

  “And the problem?” Tamas said.

  “Sometimes no sign at all is worse than a body. It starts rumors when there’s not a book out of place in the whole house and a family was there yesterday and gone tomorrow. Bad kinds of rumors, like ghosts and demons and gods.”

  Tamas thought of South Pike Mountain, smoking in the distance, and of Adamat’s explanation of Kresimir’s Promise and of Mihali’s cryptic warnings. Rubbish. The common folk would believe anything. “I don’t want any more of these rumors. See if you can make things a little more organic.”