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

by McClellan, Brian

  “Put down the bread dough.”

  “All right.”

  “Wait! Never mind. Keep a hold of it. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “Fine.” Slowly, Charlemund began to knead the dough between his fingers.

  “Stop that.”

  “I’d rather not ruin this loaf,” Charlemund said.

  “I don’t give a damn!” The words came out a shout. Sweat poured down the small of Adamat’s back.

  Charlemund squinted at him, but he didn’t stop kneading the dough. “Have we met?”

  “What kind of a question is that? We have met on several occasions.” Adamat’s heart hammered in his chest, but his annoyance was beginning to overcome his nervousness. This was Charlemund, was it not? He had put on perhaps two stone since their last meeting—an awfully large amount in just a few months—but otherwise it was the same man. Unless Charlemund had employed a relative in his kitchens?

  And had he been singing to himself earlier?

  Charlemund seemed to grow thoughtful, and his eyes focused on something over Adamat’s shoulder. “Oh, that’s right. We have met.” He grimaced. “Not on the best of terms with this body, though. I really do apologize. Let me help you.”

  “Help me?”

  “With your search. You’re looking for a book. I think The Compendium of Gods and Saints should be the right thing. Mostly superstition and rubbish, but it answers your question. It’s back in the library, northwest corner. About three feet from SouSmith’s elbow, actually.”

  Adamat felt his sword arm waver. “How could you possibly know any of that?”

  Charlemund grinned. “Just trying to be a good host. Can I offer you something?”

  “Offer me what?”

  “Something to eat. I made some squash soup last night. I may have leftovers.”

  Tamas stood atop the blasted ruins of the walls of Budwiel with the noonday sun in his face. His body ached and his leg throbbed, skin feeling tight against the stitches. A slash along his cheek itched and he had to remind himself not to rub at it, or the damned thing would never heal.

  The Deliv army approached, a snake of Kelly-green uniforms winding down the highway and into the immense camp of Adran soldiers outside the walls. Tamas’s men lined the highway in their parade uniforms as a sign of respect for their Deliv allies. Sulem and his cabal rode at the head of his army—Tamas could see their banners from this distance even without a powder trance—and he could hear the distant beat of their drums tapping out the march.

  “Sir.”

  Tamas spared a glance for the young corporal who had come up to join him at the wall. “Yes?”

  “Colonel Olem is here to see you.”

  “Send him up right away.” He waited until the corporal was gone to sag against the fortifications and breathe a sigh of relief. Olem had survived. That was good. Too many quality men and women had died these last several weeks.

  A few moments later he heard a halting step on the stone stairs behind him, and then Olem joined him at the ramparts. His face was black and blue, and he bore several visible wounds on his neck and hands. Olem stood slightly hunched, his shoulders curled inward, and Tamas could tell he was in a great deal of pain. He’d seen that stance many times in his long career. It was the look of a man who had been flogged severely. Tamas didn’t even want to know what Olem’s back looked like under the uniform.

  There were several minutes of silence, and then Tamas heard a small sound like clattering coins. He looked down to see Olem’s colonel pins lying on the stones.

  “Did you fail your mission?” Tamas asked.

  “It didn’t go well, sir.”

  “Did you fail?”

  “The magebreaker is dead. His men are killed or captured.”

  Tamas took the colonel’s pins and set them in front of Olem. “If you try to give these back again, I’ll shove them up your ass.”

  “But…”

  “That was your only warning.”

  Silently, Olem returned the pins to his lapels. Tamas glanced out of the corner of his eye to see Olem struggling with the pins, one of his arms in a sling. His face was one large bruise, and his brows and lips between them had dozens of stitches. The bottom of one earlobe was gone.

  “You look like the pit,” Tamas said without reproach.

  Olem finished putting his pins back on one-handed and managed a wan smile. “You don’t look so well yourself, sir.”

  “I’ve had better days.” Tamas’s memories of the battle were a blur of blood and steel and he could not recall where he’d gotten half of his wounds, but he could remember the faces of hundreds of his men whom he watched die. He wouldn’t sleep well for some time.

  “My report’s going to be a bit late, sir. I can’t write left-handed.”

  “Don’t worry too much.”

  “I can give it to you now if you’d like.”

  “Later. Wait. How did the Privileged girl do?”

  “Very well.” Olem hesitated. “I don’t know much about sorcery, sir, but Privileged Borbador said she’s going to be the strongest Adran Privileged in six hundred years.”

  “Bo has been known to exaggerate.”

  “She set fire to a magebreaker, sir. With sorcery. At least, that’s what Bo said.”

  “That’s… remarkable.” Tamas remembered Taniel’s report of the magebreaker Gothen being slain by what turned out to be one of the Predeii. Tamas had barely believed him at the time and might not have believed this either but he felt too tired to doubt Olem. After all, he had seen things in the last ten months to shake the foundations of the Nine.

  He realized with a start that Olem was still talking, and waved him off. “That’s enough. I’ll get the rest later.”

  “Of course. Congratulations on the victory, sir.”

  “We’re not done yet.”

  “Sir?”

  Tamas lowered his voice. “Ipille’s betrayal of the parley? It wasn’t him. It was Claremonte’s men in disguise.”

  “We’ll feed him his own shoes, sir.” Olem’s eyes hardened, and his one good hand tightened into a fist.

  Tamas turned to gaze back over the Adran camp and the incoming Deliv procession. There was a trumpeter at the front of the Deliv column now. The sound grated on his nerves. “I intend to.”

  They watched the procession draw near, and Tamas guessed that Sulem had just five thousand men with him, the rest of his forces camping up north with the captured Kez brigades. He wondered how many soldiers the Deliv had lost during their battle.

  “They look like conquering heroes,” Olem said, a note of bitterness in his voice.

  “They should. They met the bulk of the Kez army to the north of us. Surely you passed the battlefield on your way here?”

  “I saw it at a distance.”

  “They provided the distraction so we could take the city.”

  “To hazard a guess, they had a much easier fight. The Grand Army wasn’t hiding behind the walls with Ipille’s personal guard.”

  Tamas wasn’t going to debate that. “I need them, Olem. His soldiers and his Privileged.”

  “Sir?”

  “We captured nearly seven thousand Kez soldiers the other day. There’s just over six thousand left alive. I can’t keep the peace, not even with my best men. Word has gotten around about the atrocities committed by the Kez in Budwiel, and vengeance is taken out upon them every night. I’m going to hand these prisoners over to Sulem as quickly as possible, or there won’t be any left.”

  “I’ll do what I can to bring order among the men, sir.”

  “Save your strength. We leave for Adopest in the morning.”

  “You won’t stay for the treaty negotiations?”

  “I have to discover what’s happening in Adopest. Claremonte is playing at some larger game and I need to find the end of it. I will make him answer for the attack that disrupted our parley, but I have to do it carefully. He’s holding my capital—he has the knife to our throat. I don’t
know if it’ll take a fight to unseat him or if he wants something else.” Tamas shook his head. “I’m leaving General Arbor in charge here. The negotiations will take months at best. If Ricard Tumblar has managed to scrape together some manner of civil government, I’ll have him send a delegation to join them.”

  “Very good, sir. Will the Deliv help us with Adopest?”

  “Sulem has no fight with Brudania. We’re on our own.”

  “Unfortunate.”

  “I thought so as well.”

  “Do you have orders, sir?”

  “Find one of the Deliv Privileged and get yourself healed. I need you by my side. We may yet have killing to do before this is all over.”

  CHAPTER

  45

  Adamat wound his way through the thick crowd gathered in Laughlin Square on the north side of the city.

  It was a gorgeous autumn day with barely a cloud in the sky and although the wind had picked up, Lord Claremonte’s Privileged had used their sorcery to create an umbrella of calm around the entire square for his biggest public appearance since his arrival in the city. It looked to Adamat’s eye that over five thousand people had turned out for Claremonte’s speech—and the promised announcement of his newest and reportedly most groundbreaking endorsement.

  He’d already been going on for almost an hour when Adamat arrived. From the rapt attention of the crowd and the frequent cheering, Adamat guessed it was going quite well for the head of the Brudania-Gurla Trading Company.

  Claremonte himself stood upon a wooden podium erected at the south end of the square. Adamat had to admit that he made a dashing figure dressed in the finest suit and tails, gesturing for emphasis as he promised inheritance tax reform, more public services, and the establishment of a national museum in Skyline Palace.

  Adamat gave up trying to get closer to the podium after twenty minutes of working his way forward and receiving dozens of elbows in his ribs. He retreated to the next best place—a raised walk along the east side of the square that was mostly filled with schoolchildren and shoppers, who had forgotten about the row of stores behind them and now watched Claremonte speak.

  It gave Adamat a clear view of the podium and, more interestingly, of the tent behind the podium. No doubt it doubled as a shaded location for Claremonte’s most prominent supporters, who would also give speeches after the main address, and as a hiding place for Claremonte’s new endorsement.

  Adamat wondered if he could slip around the back and glance inside, but dismissed the notion immediately. Claremonte’s security was tight—Brudanian soldiers were stationed at every possible approach.

  He watched as one such soldier sternly rebuked a young boy who had gotten near the tent, likely with the same aim in mind as Adamat.

  This promise of a public-figure endorsement had been the buzz of the city for weeks.

  The speech itself held little interest for Adamat. He half listened for the big announcement as he let his eyes wander over the crowd, trying to get a sense for Claremonte’s supporters. There were the fervent believers near the front, applauding at every small thing. These could have been either paid performers or the real thing.

  There were the wealthy donors, who had rented balcony rooms in the town houses along the north side of the square behind Claremonte. Most of the crowd seemed to be working-class men and women of all walks.

  Adamat judged Claremonte to have a rather good spread of supporters, with a definite leaning toward the common man, which was more the pity. It meant that Ricard’s command of the union was giving him less traction than one might think.

  Adamat’s eyes caught more than a few familiar faces. Government employees. A couple of soldiers. A large number of the lesser nobility who had avoided Tamas’s cull. His eyes continued to roam until they stopped on one particularly interesting figure.

  It was a woman with dark hair and a narrow face, dressed in black pants and a matching jacket. She stood stoically in the crowd, ignoring her fellow listeners when they cheered, her hands clasped behind her back. Her name was Riplas, and since the eunuch’s death several months ago she had taken over as the Proprietor’s second-in-command. The rumors were that it was not a permanent position. Yet.

  Adamat didn’t have time to wonder at her presence. Claremonte shushed the crowd after a particularly long round of applause and said, “Ladies and gentleman, I am pleased—no, I am honored—to receive the endorsement of one of Adro’s leading citizens and one of the architects of this new government: Ondraus, the Reeve of Adopest!”

  Some members of the audience gasped audibly. Adamat felt his mouth fall open, and sure enough, Ondraus the Reeve emerged from the tent behind Claremonte. He wore the very best finery and sported a gold chain at his breast pocket. He approached the podium while Claremonte stepped to the side, and held his hands up for quiet.

  Ondraus removed the glasses from his pocket and what looked like a ledger from beneath his arm, setting it on the podium. He examined the crowd for a few moments.

  Adamat’s mind churned. What was Ondraus up to? Ondraus was one, no two of the remaining members of Tamas’s council. Didn’t he know that Tamas would wring his neck once he found out? Adamat looked through the crowd until he found Riplas once again. He was one of the only men in the Nine to know that Ondraus and the Proprietor were one and the same, but he couldn’t come up with a connection in this situation.

  Surely there had to be one.

  Ondraus cleared his throat and Privileged sorcery made his voice boom. “My friends and neighbors. I am here today to tell you that I endorse Lord Claremonte for First Minister of Adro. I am not a public man, as surely you may all know, but I thought this campaign important enough to not just show my face but to lend my voice to Lord Claremonte.”

  Adamat was flabbergasted. For Ondraus to say he was not a public man was an understatement. His likeness had never once appeared in any newspaper, even though he was one of the richest and most influential men in Adro. Adamat knew it was because of his double life as a crime lord, but most people assumed he was just reclusive. If anything in Claremonte’s campaign was going to get attention, it would be this.

  Ricard would be furious.

  “I have done the numbers,” Ondraus said. “I have projected the financial future of Adro, and Lord Claremonte’s proposed reforms and laws are the best course for this country, and believe me, I am not unfamiliar with the ebb and flow of coin.” Behind Ondraus, Lord Claremonte stood beaming, hands held high as he led the applause.

  What’s his game? Adamat asked himself. Had Ondraus really changed sides in the campaign?

  There was a commotion in the crowd and Adamat looked for the source of it but could find nothing as a round of applause erupted at Ondraus’s words.

  “If Lord Claremonte is elected, I give you my word that—”

  Ondraus was suddenly cut off as a man threw himself up on the podium. A couple of soldiers rushed forward as the man got to his feet, and a gasp flew through the audience as he suddenly brandished a pistol.

  Three things happened at once: The gun went off, the bullet flying over Ondraus’s and Claremonte’s heads and striking the building behind the podium. Second, one of Claremonte’s Privileged leapt forward, his fingers dancing, sorcery slicing the assailant to bloody ribbons. And third, a gunshot went off somewhere over Adamat’s head.

  Lord Claremonte went down in a spray of blood just as the screaming began. Sorcery lashed out, destroying the roof off the building behind Adamat and forcing him to leap from the raised walkway to get away from the rain of wood and stone.

  Crouching, eyes on the sky, Adamat began to run, forcing himself against the suddenly panicked crowd. The frightened stampede began almost immediately. He felt himself jostled and thrown, and he stopped to help an old woman to her feet. Then forced himself against the crowd once more.

  Everyone was yelling. It was a chaotic mess. There were more gunshots, and Adamat heard the concussion of sorcery blasts and had no way of knowing if they wer
e attacks upon the podium or reprisal from Claremonte’s men.

  He managed to reach the spot where he last saw Riplas. He forced himself through the throng, cursing and shouting and elbowing. Where was she? Had she fled? If so, where to? Adamat had the immediate feeling that something had been engineered by the Proprietor. If Riplas had been going with the flow of the crowd, she would be up ahead.

  He plowed onward until he reached the main street, and threw himself into the nearest alleyway to get out of the chaos. Catching his breath, he worked his way down the sidewalk until he spotted a familiar black coat. Crossing the street was a chore, but he made it only a moment later to find Riplas strolling along, letting the fleeing crowd pass her by.

  Adamat snatched her by the elbow and was startled to find himself suddenly pressed up against a shop window, her forearm across his throat and something sharp jabbing him in the ribs.

  Her eyes searched his for a moment.

  “Riplas,” he said. “It’s me, Inspector Adamat.”

  “I know who you are, Inspector.” She slowly released him.

  He dusted off the front of his jacket. She had begun to walk again, and he jogged to catch up. “I need to see him,” he said.

  “Him?” she asked innocently.

  “Him,” he repeated.

  “Well then.” She scratched at her chin. “That’s harder than you’d think. My lord is pretty busy these days and—”

  “Now, Riplas! This is a matter of national security! Or would he rather I make a house call?”

  Riplas stopped suddenly and turned. “You be careful, Inspector.”

  “I am being careful. He’ll want to know what I have to tell him, and you know enough about me to realize I wouldn’t lie about something like this.”

  “I hope you don’t regret it. Come with me.”

  Adamat was carted around the city for almost two hours by a pair of the Proprietor’s goons, and he was not allowed to take off his blindfold until he was standing in the foyer of the Proprietor’s headquarters.