“No idea. I’m supposed to bring the lawyer down here and convene a meeting of the General Staff.”
Bo had his head near the window, listening intently to the conversation. He had pulled his Privileged gloves back on, though he held them below the window, and his fingers twitched ever so slightly.
“Well,” the guard said, her voice bored, “that’s going to be harder than you think.”
Oldrich groaned. “What’s happened this time?”
“Uh, well…” The guard cleared her throat, and what she said next was too low for Adamat to hear. Across from him, Nila had a look of concentration on her face.
Oldrich whistled in return. “Thanks for the warning.” A moment later and the carriage rumbled on. Adamat cursed under his breath.
“What’s happening?” he asked Bo. “Did you hear that?”
Instead of answering, Bo looked at Nila. “Did you listen like I showed you?”
“Yes,” Nila said. She ran her hands over her skirt and stared hard out the window. “It seems,” she said to Adamat, “that General Ket has been accused of being a traitor. She has taken three brigades with her and split off from the main army. The army is now in a state of civil war.”
The General Staff command post was a commandeered farmhouse about a mile from the main highway. It sat at the center of the army, some six brigades strong, white soldiers’ tents spiraling outward in an organized but ultimately loose formation of a camp.
Adamat and Bo were left waiting, confined to their carriage, for almost three hours before they were finally led inside. Their guards made it clear that the General Staff were all very busy and that their appointment would take up no more than five minutes of the general’s time.
The farmhouse consisted of just one large room with stone walls, a squat fireplace at one end and two neatly made sleeping pallets in the corner. The table in the center of the room had one leg too short, and there were no chairs to be seen. Several maps lay on the table, their corners weighted by pistols. Adamat glanced over the maps briefly, committing them to his perfect memory, where he could study them later at his leisure.
“Inspector Adamat.”
Adamat recognized General Hilanska from a portrait he’d seen once in the royal gallery. He was not a tall man, and significantly overweight due to complications resulting from the loss of his arm when he was a young soldier. Well into his forties, Hilanska was a celebrated hero who had made his name as an artillery commander in the Gurlish Wars. Rumor had it he was one of Tamas’s most trusted generals.
Adamat nodded to the general and stepped forward to clasp his remaining hand. “This is Counselor Mattias,” he said, introducing Bo. “We’ve come on urgent business from Adopest.”
Bo swept off his hat and gave the general a deep bow, but Hilanska barely graced him with a glance.
“That’s what I’ve been told,” Hilanska said. “You should know that we are still at war. I’ve turned away dozens of messengers from Adro because I simply don’t have time to deal with domestic issues. You’re only here now because I know you were on special assignment from Field Marshal Tamas before he died. I certainly hope you have something important to tell me. Sergeant Oldrich was rather sparse on the details, I’m afraid, so if you could—”
Bo moved forward quickly, cutting Adamat off. “Of course, General,” he said, drawing a sheaf of documents from the case hanging from his shoulder. He flipped through several papers before producing one signed and stamped by Ricard Tumblar and the judges in Adopest. “I’m sorry we couldn’t provide your men with more details, but this is a delicate matter. You’ll see here that we have a warrant for the arrest of General Ket and her sister, Major Doravir.”
Hilanska took the paper from Bo and looked it over for several moments. He handed it back. “Adopest has not been apprised of the situation here?” he asked.
“What situation?” Adamat said.
“I have sent several messengers over the course of the last two weeks. Surely you’ve been informed…”
“We have not, sir,” Adamat said.
“The army has gone to war with itself. General Ket has taken three brigades under her command and split with the main army.”
Though Nila had told Adamat exactly that, he still didn’t have to fake the shock on his face. “How? Why?”
“Ket has accused me of treason,” Hilanska said. “She called me a traitor. Said that I was in league with the enemy, and when the rest of the General Staff stood behind me, she took her men and broke with us.”
Bo stiffened at Hilanska’s words and his hands twitched toward his pockets—to his gloves, no doubt. “And there is no basis for this accusation? No evidence?”
“Of course not!” Hilanska snatched his cane and climbed to his feet. “She based her claim on the report of an infantryman who said he saw me conspiring with enemy messengers.”
“And were you?” Bo asked. Adamat shot him a look, but the damage had been done.
Hilanska snapped back, “Of course not. It was one of her Dredgers, a convict from the Mountainwatch. The worst kind of scum. To think she believed him over me…” He shook his head sadly. “Ket and I have known one another for decades. We’ve never been friends, but we certainly haven’t been enemies. I never thought she would make such a baseless accusation. Unless…” He held his hand out for the arrest warrant and Bo obliged him. His eyes skimmed the page. “Unless she’s trying to cover her tracks.”
Adamat exchanged a glance with Bo. “We came to a similar conclusion ourselves, but in regard to the court-martial of Taniel Two-shot. Taniel sent Ricard Tumblar a message asking him to look into Ket’s accounts, and it was what put us onto her track.”
“Tamas’s boy did that? He’s twice as clever as Ket thought him. Incredibly sad, that.”
Bo slipped to one side of Hilanska, moving casually, a hand dipping into his pocket. “What’s sad about it?”
“Taniel was captured by the Kez,” Hilanska said. “Raised above their army like a trophy.”
“No.” Bo swallowed hard, his hand coming out of his pocket without his gloves.
“The whole army saw it. Rumor has it he tried to go after Kresimir himself.” Hilanska shook his head. “I watched that boy grow from a lad. I’m just glad Tamas wasn’t alive to see it.”
Adamat tried to focus on Hilanska’s tics—the way his left hand fiddled with the empty right sleeve of his jacket, the way his eyes moved around the room. The general was working his way around the truth. He’d told him some of it, but not all.
Unfortunately Adamat had no way of discovering what Hilanska was leaving out.
“And he’s dead?” Bo asked.
“They took his body down quickly after his capture. He was only displayed one day, but he was certainly dead.”
Adamat shot Bo a glance. The Privileged’s face had gone deathly pale. He blinked as if there were something in his eyes, and his breath grew short. Adamat stepped toward him and offered him his arm, but Bo waved him off before suddenly rushing from the room.
Hilanska watched him go. “Strange man. Did he know Two-shot?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Adamat said smoothly. “I was told he’s very sensitive to talk of death.”
“I see.” Hilanska chewed on this a moment, a frown crossing his weathered face.
“Sir,” Adamat went on so as not to give Hilanska time to consider Bo’s behavior, “do you have a plan to close this schism and face the Kez?” If Two-shot was truly dead, Adamat would have to salvage the situation. Would Bo still help Adamat recover his son? Or was Adamat now on his own? Regardless, Adamat felt some duty to country that he should do what he could to reunite the army.
Hilanska headed to the table, where he swept his hand to clear the brigade markers and began to awkwardly roll up one of the maps with his one hand. “I don’t think I should talk of tactics with you, Inspector.”
“Tactics? Will there be a battle?” Adran fighting Adran? The Kez greatly outnumbered the Adr
an army, and infighting would be sure to doom them all. It was a miracle that the Kez had not yet taken advantage of the infighting to attack. Adamat’s thoughts whirled as he tried to reorganize his priorities.
“Of course not. We are doing everything within our power to settle this amicably. In fact, with this new evidence I may be able to sway Ket’s allies away from her. If that lawyer can get his stomach back, have him bring me every bit of paperwork he has. We can show the officers that Ket is just trying to cover up her own crimes. At the very least it will reassure the men that we are on the side of the right.”
“Certainly,” Adamat said. “But the Kez—”
“We have this in hand,” Hilanska cut him off. “Don’t worry yourself any further. I trust that you will return to Adopest and assure the council we will heal this fracture and turn back the Kez threat, and then we will return to deal with the Brudanians.”
It was the first time Hilanska had mentioned the foreign army that held Adopest. Adamat opened his mouth to ask him what he meant, but the general waved his hand to signal an end to their meeting and turned his back.
Adamat found Bo sitting outside the farmhouse, his back to the stone wall and the tails of his jacket in the mud. Adamat grabbed him under the elbow. “Come on.”
“Leave me be.”
“Come on,” Adamat insisted, pulling him up. He spoke in a fierce whisper to get Bo’s attention, leading him away from Hilanska’s guards. “We still have work to do.”
“Bugger it all. You heard him. Taniel’s dead.” Bo jerked away from Adamat.
“Quiet down! He may not be dead.”
Bo looked as if he’d been slapped. “What do you mean?”
Adamat felt instant guilt at giving Bo any false sense of hope. “Well, let’s at least confirm Hilanska’s story before you go into mourning. Taniel may be a Kez captive, or he may have escaped, or…” He trailed off. Bo regarded him with suspicious skepticism.
“Why the optimism?” Bo asked. “Shouldn’t you be hoping that Taniel’s dead so we can go about finding your boy? Or are you just afraid that I’ll go back on my word?”
Adamat was afraid that Bo would go back on his word. “Something is bothering me about Hilanska. The maps on his table.” Adamat pictured them in his mind, turned them around, and considered them before speaking. “The only experience I have with battle planning is from my time at the academy, but I’d bet my pension that Hilanska is planning on sandwiching Ket’s force between his own and the Kez.”
“It would be sound reasoning on his part,” Bo said.
“Not if he’s trying to reunite the brigades, as he claims.”
Bo shrugged and looked off into the distance, his face sullen.
“Bo,” Adamat said. “Bo!” He reached around and grabbed Bo by the front of his jacket, turning them face-to-face. Bo jerked his jacket out of Adamat’s hands and stepped back. Adamat followed him forward and slapped Bo across the face.
A thrill of fear went up his spine. He’d just slapped a Privileged. Holy pit. What had he done? “Pull yourself together,” he said, trying not to let his voice quake.
Bo’s mouth hung open, one Privileged glove in his hand ready to be pulled over his fingers. “I’ve killed men for less.”
“You have?”
“Well. I’ve thought about it. I’m sure other Privileged have. You have seconds to tell me why you thought that necessary.”
“Because we have a duty here. This is bigger than one man. This is the fate of our family and our friends and our country.”
“You don’t understand why I’m here, do you, Inspector?” Bo said. “I’m here because Taniel Two-shot is my only friend. He’s my only family. Privileged normally do not have the luxury of either, and I’ll be damned if you think this country means more to me than that.”
Adamat took a deep breath, relieved that Bo didn’t try to kill him then and there. He whispered, “If Hilanska butchers these proceedings, my children will wind up as slaves to the Kez. I have to try and make sure that doesn’t happen. If the best way to do that is to help you find your friend, then so be it. You need to get a hold of yourself and discreetly ask around about Taniel. I’m going to look into Hilanska.”
Bo blinked several times, taking shaky breaths, and seemed to regain some of his composure. “We’re forgetting the mercenaries.”
The turn of conversation was so quick it took Adamat a moment to catch up. Of course. The Wings of Adom, the mercenary company in the employ of Adro. They should have had several brigades on the front. Adamat pictured Hilanska’s map once more, looking for the flags: a saint’s halo with gold wings. There they were, up in the corner. “They’re camped about ten miles from here. Probably trying to keep out of this internal spat.”
“Smart of them.”
Bo flexed his jaw and stuffed his Privileged glove back into his pocket. “Start asking around. Find something out, and do it quickly. Or I’m going to go back in there and question Hilanska my way.”
“Are you all right?”
“My cheek is a little sore.”
“I meant about Taniel.”
Bo looked as if he’d swallowed something sour. “A moment of weakness, that’s all. I’ll be fine. And Adamat…?”
“Yes?”
“If you lay your hands on me again, I’ll turn you inside out.”
CHAPTER
4
Nila waited beside the carriage for Bo and Adamat to return from their meeting with General Hilanska.
Downhill from her a small stream wound its way through the camp, its banks muddied from the tramp of a thousand boots. Nila watched as a laundress filled a bucket with the dirty water and hauled it back to her fire, where the uniforms of half a dozen soldiers sat piled on her bench. The woman filled her washing pot with the water and sat back to wait for it to boil, drawing a soiled hand across her brow.
A different choice sometime in the last few months and Nila knew that might have been her. She glanced down at her hands. For years they had been cracked and worn by the soap, water, and lye she’d used to do laundry. Now they seemed remarkably smooth to the touch and, Bo told her, they would be put to better use.
A Privileged. She still couldn’t believe it, not even after seeing the fire spring from her own fingertips the first time and during all their practice since.
Privileged were creatures of great cunning and strength. They commanded the elements and made armies quake. It seemed so crass that a laundress without family or connections could suddenly hold such power.
She couldn’t help but feel cheated as well. Had she known it lay dormant within her, she might have used that power to escape from Vetas or to protect the royalists. Nila clenched her fist and felt a slight warmth on the back of her hand—fire, blue and white, dancing across her knuckles as if they were at the center of a hearth. Glancing around to see if anyone had noticed, she shook her hand to put out the fire and then hid it behind her back.
She thought about her time with the royalists and remembered Rozalia, the Privileged who had fought for them. Had Rozalia sensed the latent power within Nila and simply chosen not to mention it? Or had she been kind to her for some other reason? Would Nila become like her someday—old, wise, and powerful? Would people be nervous around her as she had been nervous around Rozalia?
“Risara!”
Nila emerged from deep within her own thoughts, and it took her a moment to remember that was the name she was using as she pretended to be a secretary to Bo—who himself was masquerading as a lawyer. She turned her head to see him hurrying toward her from across the camp. There was an urgency to his step that concerned her.
“Did you find Taniel?”
“No.” Bo took her by the arm and stepped around to the far side of the carriage, where they were less likely to be overheard. “General Hilanska says that Taniel’s dead.”
The dispassionate way Bo spoke the words made her step back. Taniel had been his obsession ever since he had taken her and Jakob unde
r his wing. His only friend, he claimed. He had been searching for Taniel for months now with a passion that Nila had found inspiring. And now this? Bo could be distant at times, even cold, but this…
“There’s something else?” she asked.
“We’re going to find out for sure. Adamat thinks there’s a chance he’s still alive, and Hilanska is only one man.”
Nila realized he wasn’t dispassionate—he was dazed.
“Where do we stand?”
“Hilanska has dismissed us, but I’m not leaving until I can confirm that Taniel is dead. I want a body or a grave or something more than just Hilanska’s word. I’ll even go to the Kez camp if I have to. Adamat is corroborating Hilanska’s story with the soldiers. I’m going to do the same.” He paused and looked her up and down. “This will be dangerous. If Hilanska finds out who I am, I may be killed outright—along with you, Adamat, Oldrich, and his men.”
“Just for impersonating a lawyer?”
A smile tugged at the corner of Bo’s face, but he stifled it quickly. “I’m serious. Hilanska doesn’t like or trust Privileged. He’s a man with something to hide, and the mere fact that we’re snooping around is going to gain his suspicion. He’s like Tamas—he’ll do what’s expedient. Even if it means killing a whole lot of people.”
“That seems like something you would respect.”
“And I can respect it by not letting him know what I really am. Or what you are, for that matter.” He glanced down at her hands and fell into a long silence. He had told her that no Privileged but the gods could touch the Else without runed gloves to keep them from being burned from the inside out by pure sorcery.
Except for her, apparently. And she was far from a god.
She had no doubt that if she said the word, Bo would send her back to Adopest today. This was her opportunity to run. She could fetch Jakob and go into hiding, using the funds that Bo had left for her. She would be able to get out of danger.
If she left now, she would never learn how to control her new powers. She would never find a Privileged as patient or thoughtful or just downright human as Bo. And she would never get the chance to repay him for the kindness he’d shown her and Jakob.
The Powder Mage Trilogy: Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, The Autumn Republic Page 110