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

by McClellan, Brian

  The cuirassiers split into three equal wedges. One of them took the north side of the valley while the second went straight down the middle. Nila’s wedge, with Olem at the head, rode along the southern lip. As they drew closer, Nila could see the Kez begin to ride out in waves from the camp—it was no desperate flight, but an organized withdrawal.

  “Faster, damn it!” Olem yelled. He had his head cocked to the wind, and Nila could hear the distant call of bugles from the north and south. “We’re in the clear, we’ve got these bastards!”

  Nila tried to swallow her terror as her mount kept up with the galloping horde. Down in the valley, she could see their center wedge sweep through the Kez camp.

  The valley was not long. Less than a half mile later, it ended in a narrow, steep hill that brought the Kez cavalry back onto the plains. Nila thought the hill would slow them down, but was shocked to see the whole regiment fly up it without a stumble.

  Olem’s cuirassiers were a quarter of a mile behind the Kez cavalry and it was clear even to Nila’s eyes that they were far too slow to catch them. The cuirassiers were weighed down by their armor and heavier weaponry, while it appeared the Kez cavalry had lighter weapons and no armor, and had been forced to leave behind bedrolls and supplies when they fled their camp.

  Up ahead, Nila could see the plains begin to roll steadily, flat fields of wheat disappearing into a myriad of hills cast in darkness by the sun setting behind the mountains. The Kez would reach those hills soon, and something about those shadows made her shiver.

  She could hear Olem swearing at the top of his lungs. He bent over his mount, urging him faster, and Nila wondered briefly how easy it would be for one of these horses to lose its footing and stumble, taking out the entire line behind it. Up ahead something caught her eye, and she couldn’t help the cheer that escaped her lips as Adran dragoons suddenly burst into view from the north.

  They were almost on top of the Kez cavalry. She heard the crack of gunpowder as pistols were fired. Nila expected to see a milling confusion as the Adrans and Kez locked in battle, but the dragoons turned sharply to follow—they hadn’t been able to cut off the Kez retreat.

  Olem suddenly grabbed Nila’s reins and the two of them pulled out in front of the rest of the cuirassiers. “Fire,” he shouted. “Now!”

  Fire? Sorcery! Nila’s mind went blank of all Bo’s lessons and her fingers felt numb. The Kez were too far away! How could she possibly get any of them?

  Raising her hands, she rolled her eyes back and tried to focus on the Else, plucking with two fingers to bring fire racing down on the wind toward the retreating cavalry. To her surprise, flames appeared in the air several hundred yards away, swirling patterns in the sky above the Kez. She moved her off-hand too much and the flames suddenly slammed into the ground, showering the area with sparks. Her hands were shaking too hard, her concentration too unsteady.

  Slowly, she managed to get her fire under control and send it blazing onward. Olem’s dragoons had split to give the fire an avenue. She felt her heart hammering in her chest as the flames closed in on their prey, surging forward like a wave out of the pit itself. This was her! She had the power to catch them and stop them. She struggled to keep control, shoving the flames farther forward.

  An inky blackness seemed to reach out of the shadows of the hills and Nila’s fire suddenly went out. The suddenness of it caught her off guard and nearly sent her tumbling from her saddle. She felt a cold hand brush at the very edge of her awareness, and then it was gone.

  “Call them back!” Olem said.

  A bugle played frantically over Nila’s shoulder and she saw the dragoons slowly pull up. She reined her mount in, wrestling with the excited horse until Olem snatched her reins from her hands and managed to calm the beast.

  “Why did you call them back?” Nila asked, trying to shake the fear she felt from that blackness.

  “Because I’m not following this Gurlish Wolf into Brude’s Hideaway at night.”

  “My fire…”

  “The magebreaker was there. I saw his influence in the Else.”

  Nila took a shaky breath. “What’s Brude’s Hideaway?”

  “A bloody labyrinth of hills and valleys that stretch from here all the way through the western forest to the Charwood Pile.” Olem leaned from his saddle to spit. “Damn it! We had luck on our side for once—they barely saw us coming—and we lost our chance.”

  Nila watched him for a moment, listening absently to the curses of the other cuirassiers. No one was happy about this development. “We’re going in there, aren’t we?”

  Olem nodded. “Yes, but not until we have daylight on our side.”

  Nila wanted to tell him how terrible an idea she thought that was. She’d heard Beon je Ipille’s description of this Gurlish Wolf. Olem had told her about the conversation with the Deliv magus. Going into those hills against the magebreaker was going to get them all killed.

  She bit back her words and thought about Bo telling her to act like a Privileged. She felt a flare of jealousy with the memory of that Deliv Privileged leaning over to kiss Bo, and said, “At first light, then. We’ll go in after the bastard.”

  CHAPTER

  33

  Two mornings after the bombing, Ricard had moved his entire base of operations for the election from the destroyed shell of the Holy Warriors of Labor headquarters to a posh hotel in the middle of Adopest.

  Located just a few blocks from Elections Square, the Kinnen Hotel was one of the few buildings in the center of the city that had escaped looting by the riots after Manhouch’s execution, damage in the royalist uprising, as well as severe structural harm from the earthquake in the spring. It was a squat fortress of a building only three stories tall, but with a footprint that encompassed an entire city block.

  It also belonged to Ricard Tumblar, a fact that Adamat thought had something to do with why it had not been harmed by the riots—it would have been very well guarded by union muscle.

  And it was still well guarded, it seemed. Each of the entrances was watched by no fewer than four union men. There were marksmen on the roof and armed laborers in the street. Adamat had to show his credentials three times before he reached the grand foyer of the hotel, and even then he could feel eyes on his back as he made his way to the east wing of the second floor.

  He was admitted in to see Ricard after showing his papers yet again.

  The union boss sat with his feet on his desk, chair tilted back, a cigar clenched between his teeth and a cold compress against his left temple. “No, I don’t care how much it costs,” Ricard was saying to a clerk, his voice just a little too loud. “Buy up every bolt of silk in the city and… oh, Adamat!” Ricard waved cigar smoke from his face and shooed the clerk out of the room with a single jerk of his chin.

  “You’re buying silk, now?”

  “A little economic warfare,” Ricard said, relishing his cigar smoke. “We’ve word that Claremonte has already promised the textile union he’ll lower the import price of raw silk if elected. And he can’t do that if I control everything in the city stores and keep an eye on what he brings in over the mountains.”

  “The textile union?” Adamat slid into a chair, feeling far too grateful to be sitting for a man his age. “Isn’t that your territory?”

  “The union head was killed in the blast last night,” Ricard said. “We’ll be fighting over a new one for months, and in the meantime Claremonte is going to try to sway their support. And yes, it is my territory. I won’t let him take it.”

  “I still think you should use your emergency powers to appoint a new textile union head right away.” The voice startled Adamat and he stood, looking toward where the voice seemed to come from—a window, where a woman perched beside the curtain with her arm in a sling and a glass of wine in her right hand. She was staring down at the street outside.

  She was about fifty with rounded cheeks and severe, almond-shaped eyes. She wore a purple dress with black trim. She gave Adamat a quick l
ook up and down.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t see you there.” He ran through the catalog of names and faces in his memory.

  She raised her wineglass slightly. “Cheris, the—”

  “Head of the bankers’ union,” Adamat finished. “We met briefly a couple of months ago.”

  “I apologize, I don’t remember.” She set her wineglass down just long enough to adjust the strap on her sling.

  “I’m Inspector Adamat.”

  “Oh, yes! The Knacked who can’t forget. Ricard has spoken of you a great deal over the years. I should have remembered you. I do apologize. The things you’ve gone through in the last few months…” She trailed off, clucking her tongue sadly.

  Adamat shot Ricard a glance. What was he doing telling this woman—or anyone, for that matter—about his problems?

  Ricard gave him an apologetic shrug. “Do you have any leads on the bombing yesterday?”

  “Should we talk about that in private?”

  “Cheris was with me last night. A beam from the ceiling fell and broke her arm right after the explosion. She’ll want to know about this as much as I.”

  But can she be trusted? “You look awfully well for having survived such a catastrophe,” Adamat said.

  Cheris blushed slightly. “If you must know, I’ve had a little mala today—for the pain—and more than a little wine.” She gave what Adamat suspected had been meant to be a soft laugh, but it came out as a loud giggle.

  “Of course. It’s to be expected.” Adamat returned to his seat.

  “Did you go with the police yesterday?” Ricard asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And? Do you think it was Claremonte? It was Claremonte, wasn’t it? The bastard. I’ll tear him limb from limb, I’ll—”

  “It wasn’t Claremonte,” Adamat said.

  Ricard leapt to his feet and instantly began to pace. “What do you mean? Can you be sure?”

  “I’m quite certain,” Adamat said.

  Lady Cheris interjected, “But how?”

  “Believe me, ma’am. It wasn’t Claremonte.”

  “I’ll believe you when I know how you can be certain,” Cheris said. “He has the means and the motive. He almost certainly ordered it done.”

  “Bah.” Ricard stopped his pacing just long enough to fetch and light another cigar. “If Adamat says it’s not Claremonte, then it’s not Claremonte. But who?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ve only just begun my investigation. You have enemies, don’t you?”

  “No,” Ricard said, sounding somewhat offended. “I make friends. It’s what I do best. Friends are far more useful than enemies.”

  Adamat gave Ricard a long look.

  “Well, maybe. All right, yes. I have enemies. But not an overabundance of them.”

  “Any of them who would want you killed?”

  “I don’t know if any of them hate me that much. Perhaps some of the other union bosses. One or two of them have been angling for my job for the last couple of years.”

  “Who?”

  “Jak Long, the head of the blacksmiths’ union. Lady Hether, the head of the street cleaners’ union.”

  “She died in the bombing,” Cheris said quietly.

  “Oh. Right.” Ricard stabbed his finger into the air. “The gunsmiths of Hrusch Avenue might have had something to do with it. They certainly know gunpowder, and they don’t like that I’ve been trying to unionize them.”

  “Do you have candidates for a new textile union head?” Adamat asked, voicing a sudden thought before it slipped his mind.

  “Of course. I can’t stand any of them.”

  “And you have the power to just appoint one?”

  “Technically. In an emergency. It would make a lot of people very angry, though.”

  “There’s a foreman in the textile mill off of Vines Avenue. Her name is Margy. Very intelligent. Might shake things up a little if you appointed her.”

  “An unknown,” Cheris said. “Intriguing.”

  “It’s just a thought. She’s politically conservative, vocal about her opinions, but not a troublemaker. She has no love of Tamas or the council, but there’s no chance that she’d back Claremonte. Not after he leveled all of the churches in the city.”

  “Fell!” Ricard yelled. “Fell, where are you, damn it!”

  The woman appeared in the doorway before he finished his sentence. She gave a slight bow at the waist. “You called, sir?”

  “Look into a woman named Margy. See if she’d make a good candidate for the head of the textile union as an appointee. She’s a foreman in the mill in…”

  “On Vines Avenue,” Adamat supplied.

  “Yes. On Vines.”

  “Yes sir. Good afternoon, Inspector.”

  “Good afternoon, Fell.”

  “I’ll send a man over, sir,” Fell said to Ricard.

  “Do it quietly. I don’t want anyone getting wind of this.”

  The grandfather clock on the far side of the room suddenly chimed twice. Lady Cheris removed a pocket watch from the folds of her dress and checked it, then approached Ricard, kissing him lightly on the cheek. “I have to go.”

  “Come by tonight?”

  “Of course.”

  She bid Adamat a good afternoon and left quickly. Ricard moved over to her spot by the window, his fist under his chin. “What was that?” Adamat asked.

  “What was what?”

  “The kiss. Are you two…?”

  Ricard flashed him a tight grin. “Perhaps a little.”

  “I remember you mentioning that she hated you.”

  “It’s an alliance of convenience. For both of us.”

  “So she doesn’t hate you?”

  “Oh, she does. And I hate her back. We’ve been on-and-off lovers for the last fifteen years. You know how it goes. Passion, politics.”

  “And you’ve never told me?”

  “A man has to have some secrets.”

  “You’ve been married to various wives for much of that time.”

  Ricard gave a noncommittal shrug. “Cheris is very smart. And ambitious. That’s attractive to me. And my money and ambition are attractive to her. It’s a match made in the pit. We’ll be back to trying to kill each other after this whole thing is over.”

  “Interesting choice of words.”

  “What? Oh. I know what you’re thinking,” Ricard said. “Cheris didn’t try to have me killed. She’d have nothing to gain from it. She’s not in my will and most of the other union bosses hate her. Without my support she’d be out of the union within a year.”

  “I see.” Adamat wasn’t convinced. He’d have to go through his memories later and try to sort out anything he knew about Cheris—or anything Ricard had mentioned about her. If the two had been lovers for that long, they had certainly hid it well. It reminded Adamat that boisterous and loud though Ricard could be, he also had a talent for subtlety that most people missed.

  “Something good has come about from this whole affair with Claremonte,” Ricard said.

  “Oh?”

  “Apparently I have the support of the religious right.”

  Adamat couldn’t help but bark a laugh. “Is that a draft in the room, or has the pit frozen over?”

  “Cigar?” Ricard offered after a quiet laugh. “Glass of wine?” Without waiting for an answer, he shouted for Fell again.

  The undersecretary appeared once more in the door, a bottle of wine already in one hand and two glasses in the other. “Ahead of you, sir.”

  “Adamat, have I told you that I couldn’t live without this woman?”

  Fell poured two glasses and handed one to Adamat, who swirled it around and took a sip. He eyed the undersecretary cautiously. Assistant, political liaison, seductress, bodyguard, assassin. Trained at the most exclusive finishing school in the world, Ricard had said. Somewhere between a slave and an indentured servant, Fell was the most capable person Ricard had brought onto his staff in… well… ever.

  C
ould she have betrayed him?

  Adamat pushed the thought away. Ricard had let Fell completely into his confidence. If she wanted to kill him, she could have done so any number of ways. She could have killed or destroyed him several times over in the last few months. Unless she had something more long-term in mind…

  “Ricard.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can Claremonte really win?”

  “What? Of course not. He’s a foreigner. He destroyed historic public property. The man is a menace.”

  “Seriously, Ricard.”

  Ricard returned to his pacing, wine in one hand and cigar in the other. He paused on the opposite side of the room and drained the rest of the glass in one long draught.

  This wasn’t going anywhere. Adamat turned to Fell, who had slipped into a chair along the back wall of the suite. She had one foot tucked under her and the opposite knee pulled up to her chest—no mean feat in a black tailored suit. “Can Claremonte win?” he asked her.

  She glanced at Ricard, then said, “He has a good chance. He has managed to gain a remarkable amount of support in just the last few weeks—much of it had already been arranged through intermediaries.”

  “Lord Vetas?” Adamat asked, the very name making his skin crawl.

  “Some,” Fell admitted. “That’s what he’d been in town doing, after all. Paving the way for Claremonte. When we took Vetas, we got a list of names of people he’d bribed, cajoled, and threatened into backing Claremonte. Some of them we’ve been able to turn. Others are still in his pocket.”

  “But it’s worse than we thought.”

  “Much worse,” Fell said. “Several of the prominent gunsmiths have backed him and—coincidentally—the Brudania-Gurla Trading Company has signed countless new contracts for Hrusch rifles. Dozens of big merchants are campaigning for him and will not even see our people. We think they fear the Trading Company and the power they have over shipping. His public approval is high because of his perceived protection of the city.”

  “I saw that in the newspaper the other day,” Adamat said. “He claims that the Kez haven’t dared attack the city ever since his army arrived. No word about Field Marshal Tamas or the Adran army.”