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

by McClellan, Brian

  “They were supposed to be,” Taniel growled. “Look, Bo, hang in there. I have to go find Tamas. We have to make sense of what happened.”

  “Go at it, chap,” Bo said, swinging weakly for Taniel’s chin with his fist and missing.

  Taniel was up and gone a moment later. A fourth lance was now out, and soldiers had managed to dig the dirt from around Bo’s legs. He lay on an incline in the dirt, head back, looking almost peaceful. Nila dared a look at his knee.

  It was completely destroyed. The lance had gone through flesh and bone like a knife through butter. His pants from the thigh down were cooked away and the flesh of his lower thigh and knee was black and cooked. The smell reminded her of the battlefield when she’d killed all of those soldiers, but Nila forced that out of her mind. She couldn’t panic. Not now.

  “Is he dead?” a soldier asked.

  “No, he’s not dead,” Nila said, feeling her heart leap. He wasn’t, was he? “Bo?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.” Bo’s head came up suddenly. “Any of those damned engineers coming to help?”

  “They’re still putting fires out,” a soldier said.

  “Oh. Oh, I see. I’ll just lie here and feel myself cook then. Tell them not to rush.”

  “The horses are doing the trick,” Nila said.

  “They won’t for the one in my leg,” Bo said. “That one will be difficult. They’ll need levers and math and all sorts of things.”

  “Go get the engineers,” Nila told a pair of corporals. “Now!” When they had gone, she returned to Bo’s side. “Bo. Bo? Stay with me!”

  “I’m just resting my eyes.”

  She crouched down beside him and sighed. “Please don’t die.”

  “Not planning on it.”

  “I don’t think most people plan on it.”

  Bo seemed to consider this. “You are wise beyond your years.”

  “Shut up.”

  “All right.” He was quiet for a moment, then said pitifully, “This really hurts.”

  Nila leaned forward and peered at Bo’s knee again. She held up one hand and brought fire from the Else to give herself light. The lance was still hot, and his flesh was cracked and cooked like meat that had been roasted over a flame for hours too long. Bo groaned as the soldiers and their horses removed the fifth lance.

  “It doesn’t hurt as bad as you’d think,” Bo said. “After all, the nerves are all dead. But I can feel the heat of it still. Feel it slowly cooking. Pit, I’ll be lucky to ever use this leg again.”

  Lucky? Nila had no experience with battlefield surgery, but as far as she could tell that leg was gone. “We’ll get you a healer.”

  “It’ll be a rough job.”

  “We’ll get you the best.”

  “If you insist. Just tell them to leave a blackened scar. It’s more roguish that way. And a pit of a conversation starter.”

  “Hush, now,” Nila said.

  “Look, if I stop talking, I’ll probably start crying. And I make it a point never to cry in front of women. Especially ones I hope to bed someday.”

  “Is that so?” Nila climbed to her feet.

  “Yes. Makes me look weak. Women can sense weakness. Oh, sure, some women say they want a sensitive man. But no one ever says they want a weak man.”

  There were just two lances left. The sixth would come out easily enough, but like Bo said, that seventh would be tricky. It couldn’t just be dragged out at an angle by a team of horses. It might rip his leg off completely, and the shock might kill him. It had to be pulled up and out, as straight as possible. She looked it over carefully. She had no idea as to the material—some kind of metal, by the looks of it—but sorcery emanated from the thing. Earth sorcery, no doubt. With fire to make it hot, and air to throw it.

  Bo kept talking to no one in particular. “By Kresimir, this’ll be a conversation starter. I can imagine it now. Some fop in last year’s fashion sitting in the tavern, showing a gaggle of women some scar and telling them he got it from a knife fight with a man twice his size. And then, Bam! I lift my pant leg and show them how the strongest Privileged I’d ever seen blasted a lance of sorcery-hewn metal through my kneecap.”

  “You’ll leave out the crying part?”

  “I’m not crying, I… What the pit are you doing?”

  Nila ignited the fire around her hands. It came as easily as a thought and a twitch of her fingers, and she didn’t have time to wonder at that. She tapped the lance hesitantly. When it didn’t burn her, she grasped it with both hands, set her foot on the ground beside Bo’s leg, and pulled.

  His scream almost made her lose her nerve, but she pulled harder, sliding the pole out of his knee like a needle through cloth. It came loose with a jerk and she fell backward, lance in hand, then tossed it away before she hit herself in the face with it.

  Bo’s body spasmed as he was wracked with sobs. He jerked and screamed, curling on his side and clutching at his blackened ruin of a leg. She threw herself to the ground beside him and took him by the hand. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It’s out now!”

  He wept uncontrollably for a few moments. “All right,” he said between sobs. “I’ll leave out the crying.” And he sagged against her.

  Nila checked his pulse with one hand and then let herself slump beside him. He was still alive.

  Guilt began to crowd her thoughts. Perhaps if she’d been here, she could have helped. She could have turned that Privileged into a lump of charcoal and… and who was she kidding? She was an apprentice. She would have been killed outright. Bo was very powerful, clever, and trained, and he had only barely survived the battle.

  Where were the damned doctors? Wasn’t Taniel sending help? Where was he now? Probably going after his savage girl. After all the worry Bo had showed for him, Taniel couldn’t just stay here to comfort his friend who might be dying?

  She looked down at Bo. He gave out a light whimper when she moved his arm out of the way of the wound. She could see through his kneecap.

  Her stomach turned at the sight of it. Would he ever be able to walk again? She’d heard of healers who’d regrown whole limbs, but those had just been stories. This kind of damage seemed beyond what anyone could heal, no matter their skill.

  She remembered rubbing her fingers together frantically at the Battle of Ned’s Creek and hoping and praying for the right combination of sorcery to bring down those men.

  And it had worked. She’d killed thousands with a gesture.

  Like from the stories.

  Bo said that healers were very rare. That they took great skill. But maybe… maybe she could be something other than a killer.

  Nila bit her lip and wiggled her thumb. The aether. That’s what she needed. She reached out for the Else.

  “What the bloody pit do you think you’re doing?” Bo batted her outstretched hand weakly to one side. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “I felt you reaching out for it. Are you mad? I… oh, pit, this hurts. I don’t know what’s in your head.”

  “I thought that maybe I could just…” She shrugged.

  “You could just heal me? You’re bloody mad, woman, and I’ll have no talk of that. Remember that the aether is a refined matter that creates and breaks bonds. You’re just as likely to make every particle of my body explode as you are to heal me.” Bo grimaced and let out a long whimper. “Now, promise me you won’t ever try to experiment like that on me. Ever.”

  “I promise,” Nila said, feeling like a scolded schoolgirl.

  “Good.” Bo let his head fall against the mud.

  The crew with the horses moved off, leaving the final lance sticking from the ground, now that Bo was fully free. Three men came out of the night bearing torches. Two were the soldiers who had helped dig Bo out, and the third was a doctor.

  “The engineers are coming now,” one of the soldiers said.

  “Never mind the engineers,” Nila told him. “Just help him.”

  “We n
eed to move him out of this,” the doctor said. “Get him to a clean tent and bring me hot and cold water and my instruments.”

  The soldiers lifted Bo onto a canvas stretcher. Nila walked beside him, holding him by the hand as they moved out of the blasted battlefield. They were nearly out of the swath of destruction when Field Marshal Tamas emerged from the darkness.

  “Bo, are you all right?”

  Bo eyed Tamas as a man would eye a meal after having just thrown up. His face was scrunched in pain, but his eyes were clear. “I’ve had better days.”

  “They’ve taken Ka-poel. And her package.”

  “Ah, pit,” Bo sighed.

  Nila frowned. She didn’t know what that meant, but what little color Bo had left in his cheeks was gone.

  Tamas said, “We’re going back to war. Ipille called us to a truce and then blindsided us. I’ve had runners just now that our allies are ahead of schedule. The Seventh and the Ninth will be here soon and the Deliv are just behind them. We’re marching south first thing in the morning and we’re going to throw the Kez from our borders. I mean to destroy Ipille fully for this treachery.”

  “Sounds good. And Taniel?”

  “He wants to—he must go after Ka-poel. If they know what she’s carrying, we’re all dead men.”

  “Bo, what is he talking about?” Nila asked.

  Tamas looked at her. His body sagged from exhaustion and his face was creased with lines of worry and fear. “Not something to discuss in the open, my dear.”

  Nila seethed. What did he mean by that? Did he not trust her? Did he not trust Bo? She felt Bo’s hand on her arm and he whispered, “I’ll tell you later.” He let out a hiss and suddenly writhed in her arms.

  “I’ll give you mala for the pain,” the doctor said, searching his bag.

  “Do you see this?” Bo thrust a finger at his charred leg. “I’m not smoking anything!”

  “You’re in shock.”

  “I’m cooking, that’s what I am. Get me whiskey. Lots of it.”

  The doctor looked to Nila as if for some kind of confirmation. Not knowing what else to do, she nodded.

  “The Deliv healers will be here within a couple of days,” Tamas said. His face was impassive.

  “I don’t think he should wait that long.”

  “Get a carriage,” Tamas snapped to one of his men. “We’ll send him to them.”

  “I’m going with him,” Nila said.

  Bo gave Tamas a sudden, wolfish grin. “Get me patched up and me and Tan will go after the savage.”

  “You’re going to the Deliv army,” Tamas said sternly. “Taniel has already left. Olem is gathering a squad to send after him. And you, my dear”—he turned his eye toward Nila—“you’re staying here.”

  “What do you mean? I’m not leaving Bo alone.”

  “He’s a grown man.” Nila didn’t like the dangerous glint in Tamas’s eye. “You,” he continued, “I’m going to unleash on the Kez.”

  CHAPTER

  23

  Taniel rode alone into the night.

  He urged his mount as hard as he dared—the horse would have to carry him for as long as it took to catch up with Ka-poel’s captors and he couldn’t risk riding it into the ground. He stopped frequently for water and once to give the horse long enough to eat. The eastern sky began to grow from black to blue, heralding the morning.

  He carried two rifles, four powder horns, three pistols, and enough provisions for two weeks.

  The Kez had a seven-hour head start on him, taking the road northwest toward the Black Tar Forest. It was a curious direction, as their main force was to the south, but Taniel thought that they would follow the road into the forest and then turn south, thus avoiding the bulk of Tamas’s army that camped on the plain.

  Catching them wouldn’t be easy. They had planned for this, after all—a dash into the camp with less than two hundred grenadiers but four Privileged, torching everything in their way until they reached Ka-poel and then immediately retreating. They would have a nearby camp, including spare horses and maybe even more men.

  The chain of command left in charge of the Adran forces was still in some confusion after Hilanska’s betrayal, and they had not mounted an immediate expedition. Nor should they have. Without powder mages their men would have been torn apart.

  And now the Kez would be fleeing with the fear of god in them, knowing that Field Marshal Tamas and his mages would be on their heels.

  The sky grew light as Taniel continued on, sleep held at bay with the low buzz of a distant powder trance. The terrain grew more jagged as he neared the mountains, the air warmer as dawn approached, and he worried for his weary horse. He stopped at a farm just off the main road, where a sleepy farmer confirmed that he’d heard a large company of men on horseback pass in the middle of the night.

  Despite the reassurance he was on their trail, Taniel began to worry more with every mile. Was Ka-poel even still alive? If they knew about her and about Kresimir, why wouldn’t they have killed her outright? How did they know about her? What was he going to do once he caught up with them?

  The doubt began to work its way deep and to spread. There were too many of them. Even after the damage Bo did to their party—it was doubtless a surprise for them to find a Privileged in the Adran camp—they still had at least three Privileged and fifty men. One Privileged and a squad or two, Taniel could handle. Pit, he could take two Privileged. But three was too many.

  It was made all the worse by the knowledge that he’d left his best friend to die alone. No one could survive that kind of damage, not even a powder mage. Bo may be hardier than most Privileged, but he would be dead within a day or two, and Taniel hadn’t even said good-bye. He had left in a panic to try to retrieve Ka-poel and he knew he’d regret it for the rest of his life.

  He forced the thought out of his mind. There was nothing he could do about it now. He had to save Ka-poel.

  Tamas said he would send help, but Taniel knew whoever Tamas sent would move too slowly.

  Taniel rode across the farmlands of Adro for another hour before the sun finally rose over the Adsea behind him, illuminating the Charwood Pile Mountains ahead and the Black Tar Forest, which spread out at the mountains’ base. At the top of a particularly high rise, he sniffed a pinch of powder and squinted across the fields.

  Something moved in the distance.

  He took another sniff to sharpen his eyes, increasing the strength of the trance. He could make out a trail of dust from a large group of riders off in the distance. They were at least fifteen miles away and they would be inside the forest within an hour.

  He was curious why they had not tried to cut across the plains, but decided that his initial suspicion was correct. Once within the forest, they would turn south at the Counter’s Road, taking them to Surkov’s Alley and the protection of the Kez army. They would be inside of Kez-held lands within two days, even taking this roundabout way.

  Taniel considered cutting across the farmlands to the southwest himself. But there was no good way to do it. Trying to navigate the forest would slow him down and he might miss them entirely. Far better to come up from behind and pick them off one by one from a distance. But even then, could he do it quickly enough before they reached the main army?

  He felt the weight of despair in his stomach like lead shot. He wasn’t going to be able to get her back. They would kill her and free Kresimir, and then Adro would fall. Mihali—Adom—wasn’t here to protect them anymore.

  A movement a few miles off caught his eye. He blinked several times to let his eyes refocus, and scanned the horizon. He saw just an old farmstead. Short, with stone walls and a thatched roof. He likely saw the farmer making his morning rounds. Nothing to get excited about.

  Taniel was just about to dismiss the farmstead entirely when something new caught his eye. Near the edge of the farmhouse, he made out a uniform of green-on-tan, with a tall black cap with red accents. The man was crouched by the side of the building, staring straig
ht toward Taniel. Without a powder trance, it was unlikely he could even see Taniel.

  An ambush. How many men, Taniel couldn’t say. He would guess at least a dozen. He opened his third eye and looked again, but was unable to see any sign of a Privileged anywhere near the farmstead. Did they have air rifles? He wished he had asked about that before he left the Adran camp.

  Taniel would need to get closer to find out.

  He threw his bedroll down and caught an hour of sleep before he continued on, knowing it was his last chance at rest in the near future. Back in the saddle, he crossed the distance of a little over three miles at a trot so that the sun would be just over his shoulder as he approached.

  When he was a half mile away, he checked with his third eye again. No Privileged and no Knacked. But these men would be grenadiers—as with Adran grenadiers, they would be bigger, stronger, and better trained than the average soldier.

  At a quarter mile, Taniel slid from his saddle and staked out his horse so he could approach on foot. He put two pistols into his belt, fixing the bayonet onto his rifle and holding it across his chest.

  He reached out with his senses, looking for powder, and he found it quickly. Powder horns, charges, loaded weapons. He sorted the information in his mind, assessing the arsenal of each man, and guessed there were six grenadiers.

  A piss-poor ambush. Likely just meant to slow down pursuers, not stop them entirely.

  Either way, these six were not ready for a powder mage. They were in for a damned big surprise… unless one of them had an air rifle. Then Taniel was in for a surprise. But nothing he could do for that.

  He could sense the first grenadier behind a haystack a hundred and fifty yards away. Taniel took a deep breath, set his rifle to his shoulder, and pulled the trigger. He burned a little powder behind the bullet to make sure it went through the haystack. The crack of his rifle was quickly followed by a scream.

  Two grenadiers immediately came around the corner of the farmhouse. Their muskets cracked and powder smoke rose over their heads, but they weren’t going to hit anything at this distance. Taniel had already rammed a bullet down the end of his rifle, sans powder, and lifted it to his shoulder. He burned a powder charge in one pocket to propel the bullet and took one of the grenadiers through the eye. The second threw himself back behind the house.