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

by McClellan, Brian

  They ate in quiet for several minutes. Taniel was the first one to break the silence. “I heard the Second took a beating a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Aye,” Flint said. “That we did.”

  “We were on the wall,” Faint said. “The wall in Budwiel when the Black Wardens came over.”

  Finley stared quietly into his soup.

  “Faint here,” Flint said. “She punched one of those Wardens in the nose with that ham fist of hers. Knocked him right off the bulwark.”

  “I’d imagine that gave him quite the shock. I heard it was bad,” Taniel said. “I’m glad to see you got out.”

  “Most weren’t so lucky,” Finley said quietly. Flint and Faint’s smiles disappeared.

  Taniel cleared his throat, looking around. Usually a squad would eat together. “All that’s left of your squad?” he asked as respectfully as he could.

  Faint chuckled. Finley pushed her. “It’s not funny,” Finley said.

  “It’s a little funny,” Faint said.

  Taniel wondered whether to smile at the joke. “What?”

  “Not our squad, sir,” Flint spoke up. “This is all that’s left of our company.”

  Taniel felt his mouth go dry. A company was usually about two hundred men. To lose all but three…

  “No wounded?” he asked.

  “Probably,” Faint said. She ladled herself another tin of soup. “But not that we’ve seen. This deal with the Kez, where we clean up our own dead and wounded after each battle, only came about after Budwiel. We left Budwiel at a run. Left behind supplies, ammunition, weapons… loved ones. Everyone who couldn’t run is now a slave, or worse.”

  “What’s worse than being a slave?” Flint asked.

  Finley looked up from rolling a cigarette. “Where do you think they keep getting those Wardens? Why torture and twist your own people if you’ve got prisoners?”

  “It takes years to make and train a Warden,” Taniel said.

  “Does it?” Finley asked. He lit his cigarette with a burning stick from the fire. “Rumors are going around the men, rumors that they’ve got Kresimir himself in the camp.”

  Flint shook his head. “If they had Kresimir, we’d all be dead.”

  “We’ve got Adom reborn,” Faint said. She held up her mutton and bread. “Mihali is keeping Kresimir from destroying us all.”

  Flint rolled his eyes. “Come on, now.”

  “There’s another rumor,” Finley said. He looked up, meeting Taniel’s eyes across the fire. “There’s a rumor Taniel Two-Shot put a bullet in Kresimir’s eye, and now Kresimir wears a mask that covers half his face—and it don’t have no eyehole in it.” He leaned over, offering his smoking cigarette to Taniel.

  Taniel took a long drag at the cigarette. Nasty things, he’d always thought, but he made exceptions for nights like this, when it was more about camaraderie than habit. “I heard a rumor,” he said, coughing and turning his head toward Flint, “that there was Doubin rum at this fire.”

  “Now that”—Faint pointed at Taniel—“is fact.” She retreated to her tent for a moment and came back with an earthen jug. “Get your flute, Finley,” she said. “I’ve had enough of this dark talk.”

  Taniel was offered the jug first. He took a sip of the stuff and felt his whole body shudder. “Gah,” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

  “My da works for Doubin and Company,” Faint said, taking the jug. “Tastes like a demon’s own piss, don’t it!” She threw back the jug, taking a long, hard drink.

  Taniel leaned back, watching the fire, unable to keep from laughing when Flint spat a mouthful of the rum into the fire and the flames flared up momentarily.

  “Don’t waste it!” Faint shouted, nabbing the jug.

  It didn’t take more than a few more passes before Taniel could feel the stuff working through his system. His body loosened and his mind became bleary. He leaned back and watched the fire, and before long Finley began to play his flute.

  It was a low, mournful sound. Not at all the kind of shrill dance Taniel had heard from that kind of instrument before. It didn’t take long until Faint began to sing. Her voice, much to Taniel’s surprise, was a clear tenor that cut through the night.

  He found himself drifting in his own mind. The aches in his body dissolved and the front seemed a hundred miles away.

  There was a rustle of sound, so very slight he could have imagined it, and then Ka-poel slid into his lap. Just like that. No asking or hesitation, but as quick as a long-familiar lover. Taniel would have been uncomfortable if he didn’t already feel so warm. Content. Happy, even.

  Taniel drifted for what seemed like hours, and woke with a shiver. He didn’t know how long he’d been gone, but the sun had set and the starry sky spread out above them. Had he dreamed that moment of contentment?

  No.

  Flint stared into the red coals. Finley was putting away his flute, and Faint snored softly on the ground beside the fire. Ka-poel was nestled in the crook of Taniel’s arm. Her eyes were closed, a small smile on her face.

  Taniel lifted his free arm and brushed a bit of red hair from her forehead. It was growing back after the fight on the mountain, and it seemed a deeper, more vibrant red than before.

  Taniel felt eyes upon him. Flint was watching.

  “She’s a pretty little thing,” Flint said.

  Taniel didn’t answer. He didn’t trust himself to. Words like impropriety and savage went through his head, but they didn’t have the bite they usually did. What did those things matter? He might die tomorrow.

  “Thank you,” Taniel said to Flint, “for inviting me.”

  “It was our pleasure, sir. Not often soldiers get to dine with a hero like you.”

  “No hero. Not me. Just a man with nothing but rage in his heart.”

  “If you really had nothing but rage in your heart, that girl wouldn’t be sleeping there sound as can be,” Flint said. He winked at Taniel, and Taniel felt his cheeks grow warm.

  “I should warn you, sir,” Flint said.

  “Yes?”

  “The provosts are looking for you. Rumor is General Ket wants to hang you.”

  Taniel scoffed. “If they were looking for me, they could have found me. I’m on the front line every day.”

  “They don’t want to arrest you in front of the men. You’ve saved a right large number of soldiers every day on the line. The men aren’t sure whether you’re a demon or an angel, but they think you’re watching over them—fighting while the senior officers sit farther back and watch us die. There might be a riot if they arrest you on the line.”

  “It’s not hard to find my room,” Taniel said, glancing toward the little shed he and Ka-poel were staying in.

  “The provosts are questioning around all quiet-like. They’ve asked us a couple times.” Flint shook his head with a little smile. “Everyone tells them to look on the front.”

  Taniel picked at a bit of gristle stuck between his teeth. So, the infantry were watching his back. It made him feel sad, more than anything. He didn’t deserve to be looked out for. He was only on the front because he knew nothing but killing. Not because he wanted to save the soldiers.

  “Then I have something else to thank you for.”

  “Don’t thank me, sir,” Flint said. “Just keep looking out for us out there. No one else is.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Also, sir, avoid the Third. General Ket’s brigade love her. Don’t know why, but her men are loyal, and they might just turn you over to the provosts themselves.”

  Taniel shifted Ka-poel’s weight on his shoulder and climbed to his feet, balancing her in his arms. She didn’t respond to the jostling except to nuzzle her face closer to his neck. It was a feather’s touch, soft and warm, and Taniel felt his body react to it.

  “Good night, Flint,” he said.

  “Good night, sir.”

  Taniel carried Ka-poel back to their shed. He laid her down in his bed and covered her with a blanket befo
re pulling a powder charge from his pocket.

  He stared at the charge for several moments. A small hit of the powder and he’d see better in the dark. He wouldn’t have to light a lamp. It wasn’t like he was sleeping these days anyway. How long had it been? Two weeks since a proper night’s sleep? Could humans exist like that? He felt wooden and sluggish, as if walking in a dream.

  But when he had a bit of powder, he was as alive and awake as always.

  Taniel took a pinch of the powder and raised it to his nose. He stopped. Lowered it and rewrapped the powder charge. He found a match and struck it, touching it to the lamp beside the bed. The shed was suddenly thrown into the light.

  He got his rifle out from beneath the bed and began to clean it. The process calmed him, let him think. He pulled his mind away from Ka-poel, lying there in his bed, and away from the provosts and General Ket, and away from his father’s death and the Kez army’s inexorable push into Adro.

  Taniel finished with the rifle and cleaned his pistols, then wrapped a few dozen powder charges. He looked at that powder. He needed it. Wanted it.

  He didn’t let himself take any.

  His bayonet was last. He took it out of its leather wrappings and examined it in the light of the lamp. There was a bit of dried blood in one of the grooves. He picked it off, then polished the metal. He felt the bed move a little and looked up.

  Ka-poel lay on her side, one hand resting on her hip, the other propped beneath her head. She watched him with those green eyes. Her shirt had ridden up a bit and he could see the ashen freckles at her waist and the sharp curve of her hips. He felt his heart beat faster.

  “I have to kill Kresimir,” Taniel said. “For good this time. But I don’t know how to do it.”

  Ka-poel moved to the edge of the bed. She leaned over, reaching beneath the bed, and opened her satchel. She fished around a little bit before coming back up with a doll.

  Taniel swallowed hard. The doll had been shaped from wax into the perfect resemblance of a person. Gold hair, a handsome face, stout shoulders, and almost feminine lips. Taniel knew that face. He’d seen it on the man who’d stepped out of a cloud after descending from the heavens.

  Kresimir.

  She’d never seen Kresimir. At least, so he thought. How could she know what he looks like?

  “I don’t think even your magic is strong enough to kill a god,” Taniel said. “I shot him with two redstripes.”

  Ka-poel touched a finger to her chin thoughtfully. She slowly drew the finger down her throat and then over her shirt, between her breasts. It stopped, then back to her throat. She made a cutting motion, then spread her hand.

  “Blood?” Taniel asked, his throat dry.

  She nodded.

  “Kresimir’s blood?”

  Another nod.

  “I’ll never get close enough.”

  She mouthed a word. Try.

  “You want me to throw myself at a god, hoping I can draw his blood?”

  Ka-poel swung her legs around to the edge of the bed. She took the bayonet out of his hands and set it on the bedside table. She lowered herself into his lap, legs straddling his own.

  “Pole, I don’t…”

  She put a finger to his lips. He remembered the mala den back in Adopest. With her pressed firmly against him in the hammock, her face so close. He shuddered.

  Ka-poel put two fingers to her lips, then pushed them against his forehead. She mouthed a word.

  It wasn’t spoken, but still seemed to echo in his mind.

  Sleep.

  Sleep.

  He felt his back hit the bed and his eyelids shut, suddenly weighty as millstones.

  Sleep.

  “Why are you courting Lady Winceslav?” Nila asked.

  The centerpiece of the dining room of Lord Vetas’s city manor was a long ironwood table that could seat sixteen. Vetas sat at the head of the table, his plate empty, a glass of red wine in his right hand, his left lying flat on the table with fingers spread. Nila sat on his right. Jakob sat on his left, and Faye sat beside Nila.

  When Nila was a girl, she used to dream of attending fine dinner parties, admiring her reflection in the polished silverware and drinking from a wineglass rimmed with gold. She never imagined that dream would turn into a nightmare.

  For ten days now they’d been eating with Vetas every evening. Despite the normal bustle and the number of men around the house—upward of sixty some days—dinnertime was always quiet. He used the time to instruct Nila in proper dining etiquette, and to shower Jakob with compliments, praise, and gifts. Nila hated every minute of it. Vetas filled every moment with mundane chatter, going on with some instruction or asking them all questions about themselves.

  Nila knew better than to take this as some kind of friendliness. Vetas was prying. Finding out new things about them and filing them away in that insidious mind of his.

  He never let anything slip about himself, of course. He was a master at deflecting questions. Which was why Nila was surprised when he answered hers.

  “Lady Winceslav,” he said, “owns the Wings of Adom mercenary company. You’ve heard of them, I trust?”

  “Everyone has,” Nila said. She glanced at Faye. The housewife sat stiff in her chair, staring at the empty place setting beside Jakob. Each of the last ten nights, that place had been occupied by her son, Josep, a boy of fifteen or sixteen, who was missing the ring finger of his right hand. Tonight that chair was empty.

  “Most everyone, yes,” Vetas said. “Right now they are employed against the Kez army. I’d like to employ them elsewhere.”

  Nila moved the food around on her porcelain plate. She didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to look at Vetas’s soulless face anymore. “And that’s it? They’re mercenaries. Can’t you just… hire them?”

  “That’s it,” Vetas said. He gave her a tight smile.

  That wasn’t it, of course. There was some other reason why he was courting the Lady. Perhaps he wanted to hire the mercenaries as well, but his plans couldn’t be that simple. Nila didn’t care. She just wanted dinner to be over. It wouldn’t be, though. Not until Vetas said it was.

  “You want to use her,” Nila said.

  “Hmm?” Vetas lifted his wineglass to his lips.

  “For whatever all this is about.” Nila gestured down the table. Aside from the place settings here at one end, the table was covered with papers—correspondence, receipts, lists; everything involved with Lord Vetas’s affairs. She’d read a few, when she’d gotten the chance. None of them seemed to mean anything.

  Vetas smiled at Jakob. “The Lady Winceslav is an eligible widow and a very intelligent woman. She’d make a wonderful wife.”

  “A wife?” The word came out in a burst of laughter. Nila covered her mouth, petrified at the outburst.

  “Yes,” Vetas said, as if he’d not heard the disbelief in her voice. “A wife.” He leaned toward Jakob. “You understand that every lord needs a good wife, and it’s important to marry someone with connections.”

  “Yes, Uncle Vetas.”

  “Good child.”

  “Uncle Vetas, I thought that the nobility of Adro no longer existed.”

  Vetas gave the boy a nod. “The nobility of Adro is in hiding, my boy. Remember, you’re heir to the crown. Someday the nobility will return, and when it does, you will be at their head.”

  Nila ceased moving the fork around her plate. This was the first she’d heard Vetas say anything about the nobility. She’d always assumed that Jakob, in his capacity as next in line for the crown, fit into Vetas’s plans somehow, but he’d never spoken of it.

  She waited for Vetas to go on. Instead, Vetas took a sip of his wine.

  Faye was still staring at the empty place setting across from her. She’d begun to rock back and forth slightly, her mouth hanging open, her forehead wrinkled.

  “You’re just using everyone,” Nila said. “Me. Jakob. Lady Winceslav.” What is your plan? Nila wanted to shout. Why are you in Adopest?


  Vetas looked slightly surprised. “Of course I am. That’s what nobles do. But,” he said, reaching over and patting Jakob affectionately on one hand, “it’s all for your protection. The duty of the nobility is to protect the people, no matter what kind of distasteful things they have to do.”

  Nila slammed her hand down on the table, making Jakob jump. “Don’t!” she said. She gripped the lip of the table to keep herself from shaking.

  “Don’t what?” Vetas asked innocently.

  “Nila,” Jakob said, “why are you shouting at Uncle Vetas?”

  Vetas gave Nila that tight smile again.

  She would have snatched up her knife and leapt at Vetas then and there if Faye hadn’t spoken.

  “Where is my son?”

  Vetas’s fingers drummed once on the table. His attention shifted from Nila to Faye. “Nila,” he said without looking at her, “I think that you should take Jakob to his room, now.”

  “Isn’t there dessert, Uncle Vetas?” Jakob asked.

  “Of course, my child. I’ll have some brought up to you. Run along.”

  Nila still wanted to grab that knife and leap at him. She waited, contemplating, wondering if she could move fast enough. “Jakob,” she said, getting up from her chair and holding out her hand. “Come along.”

  She took Jakob upstairs and put him in his room, helping him get out a number of toys before going into her own room and rushing out into the hallway, stepping carefully to avoid the creakiest boards, until she reached the servants’ stairs that descended into the kitchens. She descended halfway down the stairs and pressed her ear to the wall.

  “… was burned down,” Vetas was saying calmly, his voice muddled through the plaster. “There were eleven graves. Seems the fire took them all in their beds. The townspeople claimed there was nothing but bone and ash left.”

  A loud sob startled Nila. It was followed by the low sound of crying. Faye.

  Vetas went on as if he hadn’t noticed Faye’s reaction. “I won’t have time to go up and investigate it myself, but it seems as if your children are all dead.”

  “Where is my son?” Faye demanded. The crying dried up, followed by a few sniffs.