The avenue was not crowded at this time of the evening, but there was enough traffic to worry Adamat that Denni might have the extra bottle of blasting oil on his person. He tried to search his memory as he ran, picturing Denni as he came into the Society room. Had there been a bulge in his jacket pocket? One at his belt as well? That explained the pistol, but the other one could be anything—his knife, another pistol, or the bottle of blasting oil.
He caught sight of Denni sprinting down the thoroughfare, cane in hand, his hat dropped somewhere along the way. Fell was close behind him, but not gaining quickly enough.
Adamat cut across the street as Denni ducked into an alleyway, running parallel to Denni’s escape route until he reached the next street. He rounded the corner a moment later, his lungs burning, and ran toward the next alleyway.
Denni appeared from that alley a moment later. He swung around, heading straight toward Adamat.
“Stop!” Adamat shouted. He drew his cane sword and planted himself in Denni’s path.
Denni didn’t even slow down. He raised his cane and swung with his powerful shoulders, forcing Adamat to parry the blow or risk being brained about the head. Adamat felt the cane sword wrenched from his fingers and saw it clatter off down the cobbles. Denni planted a shoulder in his chest, and Adamat felt like he’d been hit by a charging horse. He was flung to the ground with enough force to rattle his bones.
He rolled onto his hands and knees, spitting blood and cursing. He looked up, expecting to see Denni disappearing down the street.
But Denni had stopped and turned toward Adamat, just twenty paces away. Adamat’s heart leapt into his throat as Denni pulled a stoppered glass vial from his pocket. He didn’t have time to think as Denni flung the vial at him and turned to sprint away.
Adamat threw his arms up over his face. The whole world seemed to slow to a crawl, every regret and mistake flashing before his eyes as the blasting oil arched toward him. He’d seen the power of the stuff. There wouldn’t be enough left of him to scrape off the cobbles, and he found himself grimly hoping that Denni had misjudged the distance and was still within the blast radius.
There was a flash of movement as Fell sped past him. She reached out one hand and snatched the blasting oil out of the air. She pivoted on one leg, spinning, and went to her knee, setting the blasting oil carefully on the cobbles before Adamat’s eyes. A moment later she was off again, chasing after Denni.
Adamat’s hands trembled, but he snatched up the blasting oil lest a passerby accidentally kick it. He wondered how the pit the stuff hadn’t gone off during the scuffle and chase, and chastised himself for ever doubting Fell.
“I thought you said he wouldn’t be armed!” Adamat said as Ricard rounded the corner behind him, huffing and puffing.
Ricard gasped out, “He wasn’t supposed to be.”
“He either got tipped off or he was planning on finishing the job tonight. Hold this.” Adamat put the vial in Ricard’s outstretched hand. “Don’t drop it!” He grabbed his cane sword and set off in pursuit of Fell, hoping that Denni didn’t have the other missing bottle on his person.
He sprinted down the road, listening for sounds of the chase over his own labored breathing. He caught sight of Fell as she raced across a side street. Adamat followed, then crossed another road and ran into a shoe shop. Shoes lay on the floor, shelves tipped over by Denni in his rush to get away. An old cordwainer crouched behind his workbench and let out a startled moan as Adamat tore through the front room, down the hall, and out into the alley.
He entered the dimly lit alleyway just in time to see Fell corner Denni at a dead end. Denni whirled toward her, his spent pistol held by the barrel. When he saw Adamat, he lunged at Fell, likely hoping to take her down before Adamat could help.
The first swing went wide. Fell leapt, catlike, to one side and jabbed Denni in the throat with one hand. The blow would have sent any other man to the ground, windpipe collapsed, but Denni seemed to shrug it off and swung his pistol again.
“We need him to talk!” Adamat shouted, his voice echoing down the alley.
Fell caught the falling pistol butt with one hand, dropping to one knee beneath the force of the blow. Her fist shot out once again, slamming Denni hard in the balls before she got to her feet and closed the gap between them, her hand clawlike on his throat. She ducked, slipping beneath one arm, and came up behind Denni, stiletto in her hand, pressed against his cheek just below the eye.
Denni froze.
The whole fight occurred in the time it took Adamat to reach them. He slowed to a walk, and his heart felt near to bursting. He had to put a hand against the alley wall to support himself.
When he’d finally recovered, he stood up and straightened his jacket, stepping up to Denni with his cane sword in hand. “You have a lot of explaining to do. Where is the last vial of blasting oil?” Adamat asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t have it.”
“Who has it? Who hired you to bomb the union headquarters?”
Denni sniffed, putting up a tough façade.
“The easy way gets your ass thrown in a cell. The hard way, and she carves out one of your eyes, and then we break your kneecaps.”
Denni choked, then inhaled slightly as Fell pressed the stiletto harder against his cheek. “It was Cheris!”
“Excuse me?” Adamat lowered the tip of his cane sword.
“Cheris, the head of the bankers’ union! She sent me to buy the blasting oil. She had me hire men to throw those bombs into Ricard’s office, and she told me to kill him tonight at the Society meeting.”
“That was easy,” Fell said. The tip of her knife didn’t leave Denni’s cheek.
“Bloody pit! Bring him with! Ricard,” Adamat said as the union boss entered the alley from the cordwainer’s back door. “Get the police. We have to move quickly.”
CHAPTER
41
Nila felt exhausted. Her head drooped and she had to wrap the reins around her hands to keep them from slipping from stiff fingers as she rode. Every inch of her body throbbed from the pain of running and riding, and she wanted nothing more than to lie down in the grass, wet though it was with morning dew, and sleep.
But she knew that if she did that, Olem would die.
If he wasn’t dead already.
Bo looked worse than she felt. He seemed to have gained a second wind, head up and eyes alert, but she could see the rings under his eyes and the grimace that he tried to hide as he was jostled in his saddle.
“Your leg,” she said quietly as they rode just behind the vanguard of the Riflejack cavalry. The scouts were up ahead, following the trail her Kez pursuers had left.
Bo slouched in his saddle. “What about it?”
“They couldn’t…”
“No, they couldn’t. The flesh was too damaged at the knee. Healers can work miracles, but there’s a limit to what they can do. If they had managed it, I’d be two inches shorter on the left side and unable to bend my leg.”
Nila imagined Bo strutting down the street, jerking along like a marionette, trying to look casual. She swallowed an inappropriate laugh, covering her mouth, and tried to play it off as Bo glared at her. When he finally looked away, he said, “Yeah, that would have been kind of funny.”
“I’m so sorry, Bo.”
“Don’t be. I’m lucky to have everything above the knee. Let’s just get this over with so I can get out of this bloody saddle. Are we getting close?”
Nila looked around. “It all looks the same in the fog,” she said, then pointed to a scuff in the dirt on a hilltop. “That’s one of my marks.”
“All right.” Bo took a flask from his pocket and took a swig.
“Should you be drinking before a fight?”
“Better I drink now than pass out from the pain halfway through the battle.”
They rode on in silence until word was passed quietly back that they were to halt. One of the scouts approached Nila and Bo, and tipped his hat. “We have them,
Privileged. They’re camped in a valley over the next hill.”
“Carry on,” Bo said.
“Do you want me to stay close?” Nila asked.
“Any other time I would say yes,” Bo said with a tired but flirtatious smirk. “But not this time. The magebreaker might know about you by now. He might not. Regardless, he’s gonna think there’s only one Privileged with the cavalry. If we stay well apart, he might not be able to cover us both with his nullifying sorcery. Remember, air in front of you to stop bullets. Keep your fire to a short distance, lest you blast our own people. A fight like this requires deft execution, not brute force.”
The cavalry split into two groups and created a horseshoe-shaped formation around the valley in which the Kez had camped. Nila could smell cook fires now, and she thought she heard muffled voices in the fog. Her wedge of cavalry formed up and she was assigned an escort of two heavily armed cuirassiers to keep her safe.
Nila tried to steady her breathing as she waited for the signal. She didn’t have the training for this kind of fight. She didn’t have the training for any kind of fight. All she knew how to do was unleash herself, and even then it only seemed to work half the time.
She didn’t have time to panic any longer. A horn was blown and the cavalry leapt forward, charging the Kez camp. They swept down into the valley, swords at the ready, and thundered in among the tents and fire rings.
Nila resisted the urge to summon fire to surround her hands—not only would she burn through her reins but she would work best with the element of surprise here.
She heard the clash of swords and the fire of muskets and carbines, while her own wedge of the cavalry continued forward unopposed. One man beside her commented on the lack of resistance, but they surged on, spurred by the sounds of the clash up ahead.
She recognized this bit of the camp. She remembered sneaking through it last night on her flight out. Somewhere nearby was the poor sentry whose neck she had burned through.
She saw the body of an Adran soldier lying in the mud. “Olem!” she shouted, digging in with her heels. Her horse jumped forward, nearly throwing her. She drew close enough to realize that the body did not belong to Olem. But the man’s head was near slashed from his shoulders, fresh blood pouring from his neck. She saw another body in a similar state, then another. The Kez were killing their prisoners.
A Kez soldier emerged from the fog standing above the kneeling figure of an Adran soldier. She recognized the scourged shoulders and the blood-caked beard of the kneeling man.
The Kez soldier’s sword flashed.
Nila reacted out of panic and instinct, her fingers twitching, and her fire took the Kez soldier’s head off as cleanly as a cannonball. The Kez’s body fell, and slowly, tiredly, Olem raised his head.
Nila fought to gain control of her horse as her bodyguards clashed with several other Kez soldiers on foot. When she had calmed the animal, she slid from the saddle and threw herself to the ground beside Olem. He had fallen from his knees to his side. She cut his bonds, only for him to wrench the gag from his own mouth.
“Behind you, you fools!” he bellowed.
Entangled with the few Kez remaining on foot, the Adran cavalry struggled to turn back toward the sudden charge coming up behind them. The bulk of the Kez dragoons slammed into their flank with a thunderous concussion, cutting their way through Adran cuirassiers that had only moments ago held the upper hand.
Nila stretched out one hand, her flames consuming a horse and rider heading straight toward her. Startled by her own precision, she turned and repeated the gesture, searing through another Kez dragoon.
“A sword!” Olem yelled, though one of his arms hung uselessly at his side. He caught a weapon tossed by one of his cuirassiers and spun to deflect the swing of a Kez dragoon. The dragoon roared past and spun to charge forward again, intent on plowing Olem beneath the hooves of his mount, but one of Nila’s bodyguards came at him from behind, slicing neatly through the base of his neck.
Nila helped Olem get back to his feet.
“Ignore me,” he said. “Keep up the fire!”
She flung a ball of flame the size of an ox, consuming the closest Kez dragoon, and then felt a blackness touch the corner of her mind.
Fear seized her as the flames dancing on her fingertips went out.
The magebreaker.
She could sense his influence grow around her, and when she reached for the Else once more, there was nothing to touch. Panic rose in her chest, threatening to overwhelm her. She could not fight with a sword or shoot a pistol. Her one strength was now gone.
She couldn’t pinpoint the location of the magebreaker. Her preternatural senses failing her completely, she threw herself back toward her horse, hauling herself into the saddle, knowing that her options were now limited to fleeing.
There was a flash of lightning in the air behind her, and she turned in time to hear two large explosions somewhere in the fog. She had forgotten about Bo. If the magebreaker was here, if she could keep him distracted, maybe Bo would be able to end this single-handed.
A man screamed out of the fog astride the biggest, fastest horse she’d ever seen. He was clothed in black furs and brown leather, swinging an immense, curved sword. He galloped toward her, blade flashing through the throat of one of Nila’s bodyguards, and then he was past.
Nila raised her hands, only to remember she had no sorcery to throw at him. “He’s going for Bo!” she shouted. “After him!”
Not stopping to see if Olem’s cuirassiers were following, she urged her mount toward where she’d seen the flashes of sorcery.
The Kez camp was now a field of bodies of the dead and the wounded, Kez and Adran alike. Horses galloped through the fog riderless, and unseated cuirassiers and dragoons stumbled about, locking in combat when they came across one another.
Nila felt completely vulnerable in the fog and suddenly realized again how helpless she was. Should she try to help Bo now? Or would she just get herself killed?
It was too late to wonder. She came out of the densest fog and upon a string of sorcery-made corpses. Horses and men alike lay dead, murdered by spikes of dripping ice.
She saw Bo, still astride his horse, reins in his teeth to leave both hands free, frost clinging to his sideburns. He twisted in his saddle toward a charging group of Kez dragoons, and wind slammed into the lot of them, sending horses and men tumbling and screaming, carried off into the swirling mist.
Something moved in the fog behind Bo. At first she thought it was a riderless horse, running terrified and confused. But the creature stalked forward with an implacable gait and the shadow became something more like a man. It was large and twisted, fury etched on its mangled face as it crept up behind him. She had only seen Wardens from a distance. Close up, it was all the more terrifying.
“Bo!” Nila shouted.
Bo swung around as the Warden leapt. His fingers twitched, and the creature was suddenly impaled upon icicles as long as spears. The Warden snapped the icicles off at its chest, blood and water dripping behind it as it loped forward, seemingly unaffected. Bo’s fingers twitched again and the creature was thrown backward as easily as a leaf, screaming angrily into the gust of sorcery-fueled wind.
It managed to land on its feet, and Nila waited for Bo to finish the creature off as it resumed its charge toward him. But his attention was grabbed by the sudden arrival of more Kez dragoons. They raced toward him from the side, only for their horses to stumble against his sorcery. Bo swayed in the saddle, looking like he was ready to fall at any moment. He was too tired to continue this fight, and she could sense the dark presence of the magebreaker. Any second now Bo wouldn’t be able to use his sorcery at all.
Nila snatched at a rock on the ground and flung it at the charging Warden. The rock skipped off its shoulder and it skidded to a halt, its massive misshapen head turning toward her. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of its malevolent, beady eyes. The Warden bellowed and charged straight at her, head low
ered like an angry bull.
Nila backed up, then turned to run. What could she do? The creature would tear her limb from limb. It would kill her and then it would kill Bo, and all she had fought for would be for nothing. The sound of its heavy footsteps pounded behind her and she spun to meet her death face-on.
Panic, anger, and desperation snatched at the Else through the ribbon of darkness that was the magebreaker’s influence. Nila tugged at the Else, forcing the tiniest blast of fire into the world and shoving it like a spike through the Warden’s eye.
The Warden stumbled and fell, a smoking black hole through its head.
Nila’s breath was dashed from her as she was suddenly flung to the ground. She hit hard, rolling to absorb the impact but feeling her arm twist unnaturally beneath her. The magebreaker charged past her, sweeping toward Bo. Bo raised his hands, face twisted in anger, but his sorcery sputtered and failed and only his sudden jerk at the reins carried him out of the way of the magebreaker’s heavy scimitar. The Gurlish rider disappeared into the fog.
Nila struggled to her feet, checking her arm, thankful that it was not broken, and ran toward Bo. “Quick,” she said. “We have to go. We can’t fight him.”
Bo seemed to agree. He urged his horse toward her, reaching out one hand.
Out of the corner of her eye, Nila saw the magebreaker’s charge. The Gurlish Wolf was pounding straight for her on his charger, his scimitar swinging, and she could do nothing about it. She opened her mouth to scream.
Bo’s horse hit the bigger Gurlish stallion on the shoulder. Both horses bucked and reared, throwing their riders and flailing and neighing in panic.
Nila ran toward Bo as he struggled to sit up. She could see his prosthetic still in the stirrup, and as he tried to roll onto his front, the magebreaker had already regained his footing and was sprinting toward Bo, sword at the ready.
The Powder Mage Trilogy: Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, The Autumn Republic Page 146