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

by McClellan, Brian

  Last night they had taken Midway Keep, making enough noise to draw Ipille’s personal guard out of Budwiel and into a half-dozen skirmishes throughout the earliest hours of the morning. The guard had slowed him down by a couple of hours before they retreated into the city, and now their silver conical helmets lined the tops of the walls three men deep.

  A puff of smoke rose over the walls and a moment later Tamas heard the report of cannon fire. The ball slammed into the earth several hundred yards in front of Tamas’s foremost artillery pieces.

  Arbor gave a mirthless chuckle. “Those walls aren’t designed to hold heavy cannon. They won’t be able to shoot back at us with anything bigger than short-range six-pounders.”

  “I’m more worried about the grapeshot when we assault the walls,” Tamas replied. “More’s the pity that we don’t have time to wait them out. We’re going to have to charge straight into their teeth.”

  “Really?” Arbor held his false teeth at arm’s length and picked something out from between them. “I’m all for a good charge, but we won’t hope to put a scratch in that wall today, not if we had fifty more cannon than we do. And, uh, no offense meant, sir, but sending twenty thousand men over those walls will be just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

  “I’m a desperate man, Arbor.” He glanced over his shoulder, craning his head to look back up Surkov’s Alley. He wondered if the main Kez army had grown wise to his plan and were coming up fast behind him. Sulem was to have joined them in battle yesterday afternoon to keep them from marching back down to pinion Tamas against the walls of Budwiel. If the Kez had escaped the Deliv, this would end in disaster. “Come with me.”

  Arbor followed him from their vantage point down toward the largest artillery battery, Andriya shadowing them the whole way. Tamas’s newest bodyguard was coated in dry blood and smelled like a slaughterhouse. Anyone else but one of his powder mages, and Tamas would have had the man forcibly washed. This afternoon, though, he needed Andriya’s gun and blade.

  “Colonel Silvia,” Tamas called, catching the attention of one of the artillery crews. Silvia was a middle-aged woman with brown, short-cropped hair and a mouselike face stained with black powder. The cuffs of her uniform were almost black with the stuff as well. Tamas had to go all the way down to a captain to find an experienced artilleryman that hadn’t been a friend or student of General Hilanska, and Silvia had in a single day found herself a colonel in command of Tamas’s bombardment.

  “Sir!” She stood, snapping a salute.

  “You almost ready?”

  “Getting there, sir. A few more mortars to move into position and then we’ll start the bombardment on your order. We’ll sweep the walls and just behind them with the mortars and focus direct fire on the main gate.”

  “Cancel that. You have a spyglass?”

  “Yes sir.” She produced a spyglass from her kit and snapped it open, then waited for Tamas’s instruction.

  “Go about three hundred yards to the east of the main gate. Do you see a pattern of discolored stones? They look almost like a face. It’s very faint.”

  “I don’t… wait, I see it. Adom, looks like a grinning skull.”

  “Fire a pattern of straight shot right at the nose. Hit, wait seven counts, hit, wait two counts, hit, and wait another four. It might take you a few tries.”

  Silvia had lowered her spyglass to look curiously at Tamas. “Sir?”

  “What is that?” General Arbor asked. “Some kind of combination?”

  “In a manner of speaking. The royal cabal that wove the wards into that wall so many hundreds of years ago left a backup plan in case Budwiel ever fell to the Kez and we were forced to take it back. Do this, and that section of the wall will be vulnerable to our cannon fire.”

  “And how the bloody pit do you know that?” Arbor asked.

  Tamas snorted. “I was the Iron King’s favorite, Arbor. It came with some perks.” And if this doesn’t work, he reminded himself silently, I’ll look like a complete idiot.

  “When do you want me to start, sir?” Silvia asked.

  “Begin your shelling of the main gate as soon as you’re ready. Have a grouping of cannons standing by to wait for my signal to fire at that particular spot. We won’t be ready to attack for at least an hour.”

  Tamas strode back to his command tent, Arbor at his side. “Sir, what happens if Ipille has already fled toward his capital?” Arbor asked.

  “Then we’ll hunt him down like a bloody dog,” Tamas said with a confidence he didn’t feel. Ipille might have left two days ago. He could be so far ahead as to make it impossible to catch him. It was a risk Tamas was willing to take.

  “Keep everyone working,” Tamas said as he reached his tent. “And keep formations loose. I don’t want the Kez to suspect that we’ll assault today until the very last minute.” He slapped Arbor on the shoulder, and the general saluted him, false teeth still in one hand.

  Tamas ducked inside and let himself sag against the main tent post, squeezing his eyes shut. His nerves were raw, his body strung out from too much powder and too little sleep, and the effort of hiding his exhaustion from the men. “One more day, Tamas,” he muttered to himself. “It’ll either all be over tonight or you’ll be dead at the foot of Budwiel’s walls.”

  “That’s why most commanders don’t lead the charge themselves.”

  Tamas drew his sword and whirled toward the voice. Gavril sat on Tamas’s cot, his whole body caked with road dust, the sleeve of one arm sliced through and stiff with dried blood.

  “Bloody pit,” Tamas said, sheathing his sword. “That’s about the closest I’ve ever come to a heart attack. What the pit are you doing here? Where’s Taniel? Get out of my bed.”

  Gavril threw up both hands but made no motion to stand. “I’m resting. I just rode all the way down the Counter’s Road, dodging Kez patrols. Reached the Deliv camp a few hours after you left and commandeered a canoe and paddled the whole way here on the Addown.”

  Tamas paced his tent. He had planned to plug his ears with wax and catch a few hours of sleep before the attack, while his artillery scattered Ipille’s men from the walls. No chance of that now. “And Taniel? The girl? Where are they? Spit it out, man!”

  “Taniel’s alive, Vlora too and Norrine. We lost everyone else in an ambush.”

  “And the savage?”

  “No sign of Ka-poel. When I left, we still hadn’t caught up to the Privileged.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” Had Taniel followed the Kez Privileged down here and slipped inside Budwiel? Had he been captured by Kez patrols? Tamas found himself growing more nervous every moment Gavril didn’t speak.

  “You should probably sit down,” Gavril said.

  “I’ll sit when I damn well feel like sitting!”

  “The Kez didn’t break the parley. It was the Brudanians in disguise.”

  Tamas stumbled to his chair and fell into it. “No,” he said, the word coming out as a gasp.

  “Afraid so. Captured a couple grenadiers in the fight. Imagine our surprise when not one of them speaks a word of Kez. What’s more, they weren’t heading south. They were heading north, going far out and around to avoid any of our people between the army and Adopest. Vlora and Taniel are on their trail now, but we suspect they’re going to meet up with the rest of the Brudanians in Adro. Are you all right?”

  Tamas stared at his brother-in-law for several moments, his mouth hanging open. How could this have happened? He had been played like a fool. The Kez hadn’t broken the parley. He had. Blinded so thoroughly by his own righteous anger, he had ignored Ipille’s pleas for another meeting and dismissed the Kez messengers.

  He was too old for this. Too proud, too angry. He had made mistakes in his time—even the best officer did—but the magnitude of this…

  “You couldn’t have known,” Gavril said quietly.

  “No.” Tamas let out a mirthless laugh. “I’ve become what I most despise. Am I nothing more than a
warmonger, Gavril? Another dictator with an army and a grudge? You know, that’s what the old tales say that the Nine was like back before Kresimir came. They were just a collection of squabbling warlords.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  Tamas went on. “I see a vision of the future, revolutions spreading out across the lands as people pull down their monarchs. The strongest men, unordained by saints or gods, rise to the top and carve out their own petty empires. Men and women die by the millions and all the progress that our world has made in the last thousand years is lost in the dust of time. All because of me.”

  Tamas held his fingers in front of his face, watching them tremble.

  “I think you give yourself too much credit.”

  The vision floating before Tamas’s eyes slowly faded and he felt older than time itself. Every muscle ached, every bone remembered its old breaks and bruises.

  The thump of artillery brought Tamas back to the present. “Are you wounded?”

  Gavril glanced at his blood-soaked sleeve. “Just a scratch. I gave myself stitches while I rode.”

  “You should have them redone. Probably looks like they were made by a blind monkey.”

  “Poked myself a few times, but they’re straight and the wound is clean. You forget I’ve spent far more time in the saddle than you.”

  “Mostly running from jealous husbands.”

  “Some of them were very dangerous. Oh, I forgot to tell you. The Deliv have engaged the main Kez force, but I passed a column in the middle of the night.”

  “Kez?”

  “Yes. Coming for you. Didn’t look like more than a few thousand—they’re far more worried about the Deliv infantry—but it’ll be enough to put you in a damned tight spot.”

  “How far?”

  “A couple hours.”

  “You should have probably mentioned this earlier.”

  Gavril yawned. “It was a long night.”

  “You hear any news about Olem?”

  “No,” Gavril said. “Should I have?”

  “He’s chasing Kez cavalry that got behind us up north. Never mind that. Andriya!” Tamas shouted.

  The powder mage put his head in the tent. “Sir?”

  “Tell Arbor we have company coming up behind us. He has forty-five minutes until we assault the walls, and we’ll only have time for one attack.”

  “Yes sir!” Andriya left to find Arbor, looking as giddy as a schoolboy.

  “There’s something wrong with that boy’s head,” Gavril said.

  “You know, he’s one of the ones Erika saved. A year before she was…”

  “That doesn’t explain the blood all over him.”

  “He revels in killing his former countrymen. Perhaps a little too much, but people like that have their uses. For instance, there are few soldiers I would want more clearing the way for me as we go through the breach or over that wall.”

  Gavril ran his fingers gingerly over his shoulder. “I don’t think you should take part in the attack,” he said.

  “I always have.”

  “You’re not a young man anymore.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Tamas shook his head. “Some men lead from the back. I prefer to do it from the front.”

  “It just takes one lucky musket ball. One thrust of a bayonet.”

  “That knowledge has never stopped me before.”

  “When will your luck run out?”

  Tamas extended a hand. “Maybe today. Maybe never. Help me up. I have another king to kill.”

  “I thought you just meant to capture him.” Gavril helped Tamas climb to his feet.

  Tamas grimaced. “I will. Wishful thinking, I suppose. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Gavril went on ahead. Once he was alone, Tamas leaned over, hands on his knees, and took several deep breaths. He’d made a horrid mistake. Many of them over the course of this short war, now that he paused to look back. Too many. Misplaced trust. Bad timing. This final misstep with the Kez—it needed to be his last. When it was all over, he had to put down his pistol and walk away, or else everything he had fought for would be for naught and his vision would come true.

  Straightening, Tamas adjusted his sword and checked his pocket to be sure he had enough powder charges, then marched out into the sun.

  It was time.

  CHAPTER

  40

  Adamat’s questioning of the kitchen staff revealed two important things:

  The first was that Ricard’s security was not nearly as good as he claimed it was. The second was that a man named Denni of Rhodigas had left the blasting oil behind the silver over two weeks ago. He told one of the scullery maids that they were bottles of imported vodka specifically for Ricard’s next birthday and gave her a fifty-krana note to keep quiet about the “surprise.”

  The poor girl had broken down weeping when Fell told her what, exactly, the bottles were. It was enough to convince Adamat that she wasn’t in on the plot, though he still told Fell to have her watched for a few days.

  Adamat knew Denni, but only by reputation. He was a jack-of-all-trades—a con man, muscle-for-hire, thief, and smuggler. He lacked both ambition and vision, and while he had helped Ricard set up the first union, he had not wanted the responsibility of actually running anything.

  “He’s really not a bad guy,” Ricard repeated for the third time in as many hours.

  Adamat leaned against the cold brick wall of the basement Underhill Society secret room, clutching his cane in one hand, the head already twisted so he could withdraw his sword swiftly. The candelabras were lit, a deck of cards laid on the table, and cold drinks set out. Everything was prepared as it should be for the society, in addition to hiding two of Ricard’s enforcers in the basement niches and placing SouSmith innocuously near the front door of the hotel.

  “He tried to kill you,” Adamat replied.

  Ricard sat behind the card table, fiddling with a corkscrew. “He might not have known.”

  “Oh?” Adamat rolled his eyes. “That you, the head of the union, would have been at a union function in your own headquarters when he threw a bomb into your office? Or maybe he threw the second bomb, the one that landed beside your wine collection, where you spend plenty of time.”

  “He might not have thrown the bombs at all,” Ricard said. “He might have bought them for someone else.”

  Fell sat beside Ricard, chewing thoughtfully on a handful of cashews. “That’s what we mean to find out.”

  Adamat felt for Ricard. He really did. The members of the Underhill Society had been his closest friends and allies for over twenty years and secrecy was part of the mystique of their business cabal. Betraying something like that was very difficult.

  But it had to be done.

  “He’s late,” Adamat said, checking his pocket watch.

  “He’s always late,” Ricard responded.

  “You’ve delayed the others?” The only way to get Denni to come in was to hold Ricard’s regular weekly meeting. Everything had to seem completely normal. That required invitations to everyone else in the society.

  “Yes,” Fell said. “They’ll all be at least a half hour late. Denni isn’t usually more than ten minutes behind schedule.”

  “And you’re sure he’ll come?”

  “I’m sure,” Ricard said. “He doesn’t get a lot of work these days. Lots of time on his hands.”

  “Unless he suspects something,” Adamat muttered.

  “He was here last week,” Fell said.

  Ricard asked, rubbing at his bald spot, “Is this really necessary? I could just talk to him.”

  “You’re being naïve, Ricard,” Adamat said.

  Ricard picked beneath his fingernails with the corkscrew and gave an exasperated sigh. “All right, all right. Maybe I am. Get on with it, damn it. Look at me, bullied around by my own hirelings.”

  “If I was just another hireling, I would have turned down the job,” Adamat said sharply. “I am here as your friend. Understand?” He o
pened his mouth to continue, his ire raised by Ricard’s unwillingness to do what was necessary, but the sound of footsteps on the basement stairs caught his attention. It was a heavy tread and it came down the hallway without hesitation. He tightened his hand on his cane.

  Denni of Rhodigas was a little shorter than Adamat but built like a strongbox with broad shoulders, thick arms, and very little body fat. He wore a brown tailored suit and held a top hat in one hand and a cane in the other. His curly black hair was cropped above his ears. His eyes went to Fell, sitting beside Ricard, and he frowned. Then he saw Adamat waiting over by the wall.

  “Denni,” Adamat said. “We have some questions for you.”

  Adamat threw himself out of the way as Denni leapt forward, swinging his cane like a truncheon. He raised his own cane, ready to deflect another attack, but it had only been a feint. Denni was already gone, sprinting back up the hallway.

  “Now!” Adamat cried. He set upon Denni’s heels, with Fell right behind him. By the dim light of the basement hall he caught a glimpse of a struggle. “Careful!” he said. “He might have—” There was a spark, and he was deafened by the sudden blast of a pistol going off in the confined space.

  One of Ricard’s enforcers collapsed. By the time Adamat reached the scuffle, the second enforcer was reeling beneath the butt of Denni’s pistol. He stumbled backward and tripped, falling into the hotel’s wine collection. The roar of a hundred glass bottles smashing to the floor at once seemed distant in Adamat’s deafened ears.

  Adamat swung his cane, but only managed to strike air, as Denni was already on his way up the stairs. Adamat was pushed aside by Fell, who he scrambled to follow.

  Adamat rushed through the halls of the hotel, then the kitchen and the pantry, and then out a back door into the alley behind the building, barely catching glimpses of Fell’s back as she chased Denni. He passed another of Ricard’s enforcers lying in the alley behind the hotel, clutching at a fresh knife wound. Adamat was already breathing hard, his heart pounding, when he reached the main road.