“Good.”
Bo left as quickly as he’d arrived, and Adamat found himself alone with Ricard once again.
“Well, that’s interesting. You’ve made yourself some rather fascinating friends.” Ricard plucked a half-smoked cigar from an ashtray and examined it, as if deciding whether to finish it off. He tossed it into the rubbish bin at his feet.
“I’d rather not have had to,” Adamat murmured.
“You need a break. Not more work. I see that now. You should come on a trip with me,” Ricard said.
“What? Where?”
“The grand opening of the Pan-Deliv Canal!” Ricard stood up and threw back the curtains on his window to reveal the ugliness of the factory dock-fronts with the backdrop of a rainstorm raging across the Adsea. He cocked an eyebrow at the weather and closed the curtains.
“I thought it was called the King Manhouch Canal?”
“No king, no King Manhouch Canal.” Ricard opened his cigar box and offered one to Adamat, which he refused.
“I will not let you cheer me up,” Adamat said.
Ricard waved his hand in front of him as if envisioning a sign hanging from the wall. “I wanted to call it the Tumblar Crossing, but my Ministerial Election Committee seems to think that humility looks better to the voting public, while the council wanted something to strengthen ties with Deliv.” Ricard struck a match and lit his cigar. “I give up so much for the greater good.”
“You poor man,” Adamat said.
“You’ll come to the grand opening?”
“No.” What could possibly make Ricard think that Adamat would want to travel, after all his ordeals? He closed his eyes, trying to escape the stink of those oysters. “What about Privileged Borbador?”
“I’ll leave word for my people to help him. Come with me. I insist,” Ricard said.
“Absolutely not. My wife is in no shape to travel. My children—”
“Your children can come. I’ll hire the nannies, and you and Faye can ride in my carriage. We leave this afternoon.”
“Faye will not go!”
“She’s already agreed.”
Adamat narrowed his eyes. “Liar.”
“Cross my heart,” Ricard said. “I visited her yesterday.”
“She would have said something.”
“She didn’t, apparently. Go home and ask her. My bet is that she’s already packed. It’ll do you both good to get out of the city.”
“If you planned this all out, why that rubbish about the profiteering generals?”
“I wanted to get your thoughts on it. You weren’t very helpful.”
“I couldn’t possibly—”
“All expenses are on me,” Ricard said. He leaned over his desk, his nose wrinkling as incense wafted in his face. “Go home and get ready. My carriage will pick you up in three hours. No more arguments.”
“I won’t be bullied.” Adamat tried to get angry. He wanted to lean across the desk and smack Ricard, but the fury just wasn’t there. Ricard was right. He needed to get out of the city and have some fresh air. If the children could come, and Faye had already agreed, perhaps it would do them all some good.
“Three hours,” Ricard said.
Adamat kicked the travel case, sending stacks of banknotes across the floor. “All right, damn it! Just throw out those damned oysters!”
Ricard stood up straight and nodded, pinching his nose at the pungent odor. “Agreed.”
Taniel didn’t know whether to curse his luck or to praise it.
General Ket could very well have sent him to the noose. She had the backing of the rest of the senior staff—all but General Hilanska, it seemed. Fell’s arrival couldn’t have been more timely, and Abrax’s offer of employment with the Wings would let him stay on the front.
But to be thrown out of the Adran army? The thought still made him stumble. He’d been raised in the army. He’d marched and killed and bled for them for nearly half his life and now they tossed him aside like unwanted trash, all because he accused the General Staff of helping Kez.
And perhaps they were. Their retreat orders were suspiciously well timed, and their refusal to hold the line even when the Kez were beaten was baffling.
Nothing Taniel could do about it now except join the Wings of Adom. He’d have a chance to finally finish off the Kez Privileged, and maybe once all those damned sorcerers were dead, they’d stop making Wardens of any kind. Of course, Taniel also needed a way to get Kresimir’s blood so that Ka-poel could kill him.
That seemed like the easy part.
An explosion sent Taniel reeling. He regained his feet a moment later. Where had it come from?
There was confusion in the Adran camp, but it seemed the explosion had come from the south. Taniel rushed to a hillock and looked south to the Kez camp.
In the far distance, miles away, beyond the Kez camp and the immense beam where Julene hung in the sun, he could see the city of Budwiel. The walls of the city smoldered. Low clouds hung above it—or was that smoke? A gunpowder explosion? Possible.
The Kez camp was a flurry of activity, all of it directed back toward Budwiel. Was that Tamas, finally returning? No, it couldn’t be. Tamas wouldn’t attack the Kez rear unless he was damned certain that the Adran brigades would attack from the front.
It would have been an opportune moment to strike. Taniel cocked his head, listening for the trumpets to call the men to arms.
His gaze drifted to the beam erected in the middle of the Kez camp and Julene’s body hanging from it and he wondered again how she’d ended up there. She had been so willful, so powerful. Had Kresimir done it? Taniel couldn’t imagine anyone else having the power to subdue her like that.
Taniel waited. Silence. There wasn’t even an alarm in case the Kez attempted a surprise attack.
The sun was just setting when Taniel reached his quarters in a small shed. He had a couple hours to find Ka-poel and gather his things. Should he say good-bye to anyone? Etan would remain in contact. Was there anyone else?
Taniel leaned against the door to the shed he’d been using as quarters. No. There wasn’t anyone else. For all his time in the Adran army, Taniel had few friends. That should have made it easier to leave.
It should have…
Taniel opened the door. The waning sunlight slashed across the inside of the room.
Ka-poel lay naked on the cot, her hands stretched above her head, her face hidden in the shadows. Taniel felt his face turn red. He averted his eyes.
“Pole, what are you doing?”
A fist connected with his stomach, doubling him over. A pair of hands shoved him inside. He fell to the floor, trying to gather his wits as the door closed behind him.
Taniel scrambled to get to his feet. Something hard slammed into his back and he felt a blade against his throat. His mouth went dry.
“Don’t move, powder mage.”
A match was struck and the lantern beside the bed lit. There were five men crowded into the small room. They leered down at Taniel. Each one carried a truncheon or a knife. The lot of them reeked of whiskey. They wore Adran military jackets with a patch on the shoulder that showed the emblem of a shovel.
Dredgers. Third Brigade. The lowest of the low in the entire Adran military.
General Ket’s men.
One of the soldiers took a swig from a bottle in his hand and punched Taniel in the face. The blow was hard and well placed, forcing Taniel down farther. By the soldier’s stripes on his shoulder, he was a captain.
Taniel stared at the floor, watching long tendrils of bloody saliva drop on the wood. “Who the pit are you?” he spat.
The captain sniffed. “General Ket told us we’d get this little piece here. We thought we’d start early.” He set the bottle on the nightstand and began to loosen his trousers. “And you’re going to watch.”
Taniel looked at Ka-poel out of the corner of his eye, trying to ignore her nudity. Her face was bruised and black, her lip split and bloody. She’d been beaten ba
dly.
He surged to his feet. Someone was quick enough with a truncheon to bash him across the shoulders. Taniel didn’t even feel it. His right hand grasped the captain’s chin, fingers in the man’s mouth. His left hand grabbed the captain by the forehead.
Taniel felt the pop and tear of muscles, bone, and tendon as he tore the captain’s jaw off. Deep inside, the sound frightened him, but all objections were silenced by his rage.
He took a truncheon blow across the side of the face and turned on the wielder. His fist hit the soldier’s nose hard enough to kill him instantly. Red filled Taniel’s vision like a thick fog, and his body moved as if on its own accord.
Taniel couldn’t remember killing the last three, but he was soon surrounded by five corpses, their blood still warm on his hands and shirt. He dropped to his knees beside Ka-poel. She was breathing lightly. Her eyes fluttered open.
“Shh,” Taniel said when her mouth opened. He covered her with a blanket and then snatched his only other jacket from the bedpost, throwing it on over his blood-soaked shirt. He grabbed his sketchbook and his kit and threw them in his bag, then lifted Ka-poel in his arms. There was nothing else in this room that mattered.
He spotted her satchel, discarded in the corner, and grabbed it as he left.
Taniel sprinted the entire way to the Wings camp. As soon as he reached the pickets, he began to call for a doctor. Confused infantrymen regarded him from their posts as he raced by.
The brigadiers’ tents were not hard to find in the center of the camp.
“Is this Abrax’s tent?” Taniel demanded.
The two sentries exchanged a glance.
“Brigadier Abrax! I must see her now!”
“Two-Shot?”
Taniel whirled to see Abrax approaching from the way he’d come. She was probably just returning from the Adran camp, and he realized they’d spoken less than twenty minutes ago.
“What the pit are you…” Her eyes took in his bloody shirt and Ka-poel’s bruised body. “What happened?”
“I need a doctor for her. Now!”
“Get a doctor,” Abrax barked at the sentries. “Bring her into my tent. There, set her on the cot. What happened to her? Holy saints, what happened to you? You’re covered in blood. Did you do this to her?”
“No!” Taniel roared the word before he was able to control himself. “No. I didn’t. She’s all that matters. See to her, please.”
“It’ll be done,” Abrax said.
“I’ve just killed five men,” Taniel said. “Soldiers in the Third Brigade. It was in self-defense, but they’ll be coming for me shortly.”
Abrax blinked at the news. She opened her mouth, then shut it. “You were attacked?” she finally managed.
“Yes.”
“Details, man. Now!”
“Five men jumped me in my quarters. They had Ka-poel like this… they were going to… while I watched.” Taniel heard his words flow out in broken, rushed sentences.
“You were unarmed?”
Taniel nodded.
Abrax put her hand to her mouth and studied Taniel. “You’re in shock. Sit down. Were you in a powder trance?”
“No.”
“Five men,” she breathed, almost too low for Taniel to hear. “With his bare hands.” She glanced at Ka-poel. “The doctors will be here soon. Stay here.”
Abrax crossed to the head of the tent. “Stewart!” she bellowed as she went. Abrax stepped outside, but she spoke loudly enough that Taniel could hear her clearly. “Ah, there you are. Get our best internal investigators. Send them to the Adran camp immediately. There has been a quintuple murder and I want to know the exact circumstances leading up to it.”
“We going after someone? Or trying to determine how the victims arrived at their deaths?” a male voice asked. Stewart, Taniel assumed.
“We’re not going after anything but the truth. And they’re not victims, they’re potential rapists. Dig up everything you can on them. I want to know exactly what type of people they were and what they were doing before their deaths.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And close the camp to the Adran provosts and stifle any rumors going around.”
“Of course. Anything else?”
“Stay close. I’m sure I’ll need something.”
Abrax returned to the tent a moment later. Taniel thought to stand, and realized that he’d taken Ka-poel’s hand at some point. He decided to stay by her side.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Believe me this,” Abrax said, her face flushed, her brow furrowed. “If you’ve lied to me, I’ll put the noose around your neck myself. But I won’t see a man lose his life because he defended himself and his loved one.”
The doctor came moments later. Taniel refused to leave the tent, but did avert his eyes as the doctor examined Ka-poel. She struggled a little—he hoped that was a good sign.
“I’ve given her something to help her sleep,” the doctor said after her examination. She glared at Taniel. “She’s suffered a brutal assault.”
“It wasn’t him,” Abrax snapped.
The doctor’s glare lost its bite. “She wasn’t raped, and she had blood beneath her nails, and her knuckles are bruised. She gave them a good fight. That might help you catch them.”
“They’re dead already,” Taniel said flatly.
“Good. Her languid state is from exhaustion. She might have fought them for hours. Her left arm is broken, and she might lose an ear. No concussion, though, and that’s remarkable.”
Taniel returned to Ka-poel’s side, barely noticing that Abrax lowered herself into a chair nearby to watch them.
Taniel wasn’t sure how late it was when he heard angry shouting outside the tent. Abrax lifted herself warily from her chair and went outside.
“What did I say about a closed camp?” Abrax demanded.
“Brigadier Abrax,” a sharp voice said.
Taniel put his head in his hands. Doravir.
“You’re harboring a man wanted for the murder of four infantrymen and a captain of the Third Brigade. Release him to our custody now.”
CHAPTER
31
Nila felt her fingers shaking as she tried to position the needle beside her target.
“Don’t be nervous,” Bo said. His voice was soft and soothing. He sat cross-legged on a faded pillow in one corner of the room beside the only window, a musty old tome of a book cradled in his lap while he watched her. “If you mess up, it’s all right. I’ll only be burned from the inside out by otherworldly fire, consumed like a bale of hay soaked in lantern oil.”
“You’re not making this any easier,” Nila said. She took a deep breath and stabbed the needle into one of his Privileged’s gloves. The positioning looked right. It had to be perfect for the gloves to work properly.
“I know,” Bo said. She could hear his grin in his tone.
“Why can’t you do this yourself?”
“Because I hate sewing. And you’re a laundress. You’re probably far better at it than I am anyway.”
And Nila owed him. Even if he didn’t say it, Nila was certain it had crossed his mind.
She was painfully aware that Bo had offered to shelter her and Jakob for three days. That had been nine days ago, and she wasn’t entirely certain why he hadn’t forced them out into the street. A Privileged seemed the last type of person to whom she would want to owe a favor, so when he mentioned that he had several pairs of ripped gloves that needed mending, she volunteered.
That was before she knew that the stitching on Privileged’s gloves had to be perfect. Absolutely perfect.
She wondered why else he’d let them stay. Perhaps he expected to bed her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he was watching her. He seemed to do that a lot, but only when he thought she wouldn’t notice. It made her nervous.
But he’d given her and Jakob food, shelter, and the first pleasant company she’d had in a long time. He was calm, quiet, and hadn’t tried to f
orce himself on her. Yet.
Every time she started to wonder what it would be like to let herself sleep with him, she had to remind herself of Dourford, splattered across the street. Bo wasn’t just a man. He was a Privileged. Privileged were dangerous people.
“This requires a skilled seamstress,” Nila said. “I can sew, but this is—”
“You’re doing fine.”
She returned to her task. She’d managed to finish three of the twelve gloves he’d stashed away for repair. Whether any of them could be used…
“Will you really burn from the inside out if I do these wrong?” Nila asked.
“No.”
“You git!”
“They won’t work, though. Which is just as likely to get me killed.” Bo set his book to one side and climbed to his feet, joining her at the table. He put on one of the finished gloves and snapped his fingers. “Nothing. This one won’t do.” He tried on another glove. “Nor this.” He tossed the two useless gloves in their own pile and put on the third. Again, he snapped his fingers.
A small flame appeared at the tips of his fingers. The flame went out and he removed the glove, putting it in his pocket. “This will. Excellent.”
“Do you want me to…” Nila reached for the two useless gloves.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll dispose of those ones.”
For a moment she thought he was going to return to his pillow and his book. Instead, he pulled out a chair and sat down. He kicked out another chair with his feet and put them up, leaning back with his hands folded behind his head. “Where’s the boy? I haven’t heard a peep out of him all day.”
“He’s playing in his room. I told him to keep quiet so that you could read.”
“Very considerate of you.”
Nila made a mistake in her stitching. She cursed under her breath and pulled the needle back out to try again. Why was he watching her? What did he want?
“You’re a very good-looking girl. Did you know that?”
Oh. That was why. Nila felt her heart skip a beat. She’d heard rumors that Privilegeds had a powerful sex drive. That cabal Privileged each had several concubines, and that few women could resist them.
The Powder Mage Trilogy: Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, The Autumn Republic Page 91