by Beth Alvarez
Tahl decided it was best not to honor that with a response. He paused on the next hilltop until he saw Hadren and Oria settled next to a large stone. Her dark cloak almost let them disappear beside it. He joined them and related his intentions as they jogged onward together.
A new sort of urgency pricked at him, something Tahl couldn't quite identify. A sense of restlessness and a need to move fast, both tempered with a sense of dread that only grew heavier as they moved on.
More than once, the party rearranged themselves, changing order to let someone new take the lead. Tahl led as often as he could, but the wind had shifted, the bitter gusts cutting through whoever stood at the forefront of the line. Lean as he was, he could only tolerate it for so long before it felt as if his bones had turned to ice and he would never be warm again.
Eventually, the stars began to fade overhead, the depths of night receding. It was still long before sunrise when Jeran topped a hill and dropped to his stomach, his hands flashing urgently in a signal for extreme caution.
The dread that had been growing for hours congealed in the pit of Tahl's stomach, morphing into a frigid ball of something far more sinister. For all that his instincts made him flighty, the feeling was uncomfortably unfamiliar. Icy tendrils lashed out from it, tangling his limbs and making his feet grow heavy as he knelt, then crawled to the top of the hill.
Fear, he concluded, more to himself as an effort to acknowledge it and brush it away than anything else.
He crested the hill and pressed his chest to the frozen grass.
Below them spread an army.
Chapter 14
“What's the plan?” Jeran asked in a whisper so thin, Tahl almost didn't hear it above the wind.
The army camp below was still quiet, but it wouldn't likely remain that way for long. Paler shades of blue already touched the sky, and the soldier moon had disappeared as its endless patrol across the sky carried it beyond the horizon. Any time, the camp would begin to rouse.
“Someone needs to go back,” Tahl said absently, his eyes investigating every inch of the camp. Theirs was a good vantage point. “Someone needs to warn the Elite.”
Ashyl inched up beside him. “Warn them? They want to kill us!”
Tahl gave her a hard look. “Even the Emperor's Elite won't stand a chance against all this. There have to be at least five men for each Elite in that squad.”
“You think the Elite can't handle that?” Jeran nodded toward the camp below. Dozens of wagons sat in a ring the center of the camp, tents arranged outside them in a lazy spiral.
“They couldn't handle me,” Tahl said. “They're good, but they're not infallible.”
“I think the real question is why he doesn't want the Elite smashed flat.” Ashyl's voice took a sour note. “Having them out of the way could only make our job easier.”
“Maybe you should consider how your client feels,” Oria chimed in. She crouched low on the hillside behind them, as if she didn't dare look over the hill at the disaster that surely awaited.
Tahl nodded once. “If we're going to do this, we're going to do it clean. Which means someone needs to backtrack and let the Elite know what they're up against.”
“And risk us getting sandwiched between the Elite and that army?” Hadren thrust a finger toward the camp. “We don't even know if they have the shipment.”
That, Tahl couldn't argue. They didn't know. Not for sure. He had an inkling of confidence that they'd stumbled on the right place—Brant knew he couldn't fathom what else would justify that sort of escort—but he could only ask the others to trust his intuition so many times. “Then we find out,” he concluded. “And then we act.”
At last, Oria inched up the hill to look down at the camp. Her mouth tightened and a faint furrow creased the space between her brows.
Tahl leaned toward her. “What are you thinking?”
“The tents are mismatched,” the queen murmured. “There are horses, but not enough for all the men that must be down there. No campfires. No signs of cooking. They must have dry rations.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Hadren asked.
“The queen has her own credentials as a ruler,” Tahl reminded him. “Let her speak.”
Oria nodded in appreciation. “It's a mercenary force. I'd put money on it. Atoras's father forbade the existence of mercenary forces.”
“And the only reason for someone to hire mercenaries to escort something coming into the empire would be...” Tahl trailed off with a vague hand motion, hoping someone else would pick up on the importance of her words.
“If they were escorting something of dire importance,” Jeran finished. He rubbed his chin and fixed his stare on the wagons in the middle of the camp. “Such as delivering weapons to an uprising in the city.”
Precisely what Tahl thought. He glanced to Ashyl on his other side. Her face was twisted with displeasure, but he thought he saw a hint of grudging acceptance in her eyes.
“Oria,” Tahl prompted softly.
The queen turned to him, her silent question painted on her face.
“Your Majesty,” he corrected himself with a wince. Better late than never, though she hadn't seemed to mind the familiarity. “You should be the one to go. Not only are all of us likely to get ourselves arrested or killed, but the Elite have no reason not to listen to you.”
Ashyl gave him a look so sharp, it could have cut. “You want her to go alone?”
“And give her a chance to betray us?” Hadren added.
Tahl ignored them both. “The rest of us will take on the camp. Oria, hurry. The sooner you catch the Elite and turn them back toward the city, the better. I have an idea, and having a bunch of Atoras's men showing up at the edge of the camp would ruin it.”
The queen's eyes took a stormy, stony look, but she nodded in confirmation and put out a hand to touch Tahl's arm. “Good luck.”
He blinked, staring at her hand until she pulled it away. The warmth in that touch had been strange, foreign, unlike anything he was used to. A message of confidence. A statement of trust. Oria slipped away and pulled up her hood as she departed. Everyone watched her leave, none of them comfortable.
“You're a madman,” Hadren grumbled.
“I think we already knew that about him,” Jeran said. “So, boss, what's the plan?”
Tahl stared after her until she disappeared in the shadows and even his eyes couldn't pick her out. How often had anyone trusted him? His mouth worked a moment before he found his voice again. “Powder.”
“Powder?” Jeran repeated.
Blinking to clear the vision of the queen's trusting hand against his arm from his thoughts, Tahl mustered a grin and trained his thoughts on the half-hatched scheme that had the gears in his head turning. “Tell me,” he began as he slid his bag off his shoulder and flipped it open. “Who all brought flint?”
The sulphur-soaked inch-sticks Tahl kept in his bag always left an unpleasant residue on his hands. He rubbed his fingers together as if that would make it disappear, but he'd just have to handle the little slivers of pine again anyway. No matter. If everything went according to plan, the foul sulphur sensation on his fingertips would be the least of his worries.
“Are you sure that's enough?” Hadren counted out his inch-sticks for the third time before he put them away.
“It'll have to be. Mage or not, I can't do much without them.” Tahl still hated to admit the lacking extent of his power, but he had no reason to hide it from his fellow thieves. They found his smoke creations useful and his mage-lights convenient, but in the end, he suspected the rest of the guild liked the fact their leader couldn't do anything too out of the ordinary. Acrobatics like his could be learned without needing anything more than mundane skill.
Jeran studied his sticks with the sort of thoughtful, bemused frown that indicated he was developing some sort of engineering idea. Any other time, Tahl would have been eager to know what the man was thinking. Right now, that sort of distraction co
uld prove dangerous.
“This is going to get us killed,” Ashyl muttered.
From the way Hadren snorted, he didn't agree. She raised a brow at him, and he gave her a more pointed look. “Speak for yourself. An attractive woman in the middle of a camp of lonely mercenaries? They'd be more likely to build you a throne.”
“I doubt the queen would appreciate having Ashyl as a rival,” Tahl said. “Let's go.”
A few grumbles answered, but at least Jeran pocketed his inch-sticks and seemed ready to move. He wasn't the best fighter, but he'd been the most cooperative. Tahl would remember that when it was time to dole out the mission's rewards.
“The line of tents is most narrow on the northeast side,” Tahl began. “That's the direction we'll leave by, once we get the wagons. The fact the horses were left in their harnesses means the army's planning a quick start, so expect men to come out of their tents armed and ready to fight.”
“Should have brought more thieves,” Hadren remarked under his breath.
Tahl ignored the complaint. “Remember, we only need one wagon to make this work. Adapt as necessary to keep the plan on track, but don't take any unnecessary chances.”
Everyone nodded in confirmation. Tahl nodded back, and the group split up.
They didn't need everyone to make it to the wagons. For everything to work as planned, they only needed one point of contact. Splitting up was their best chance to make it. It also gave Tahl the opportunity to pursue his own side mission. He closed the distance between their hill and the camp in little time. The soft, subtle sounds of life—whuffing horses and snoring men—hid the near-silent sound of his footsteps in the grass.
The fact the nobles watched Emperor Atoras with contempt was unsurprising. Almost everyone coveted the throne. Tahl was a rare exception; he didn't want more than what he made for himself and a fun challenge or two along the way. Who ruled made little difference to him, so long as the person who governed the empire provided healthy opportunities for Tahl's ambition. An organization like his would thrive best in a stable country, where there were fewer rivals and a burgeoning economy to fatten coin purses throughout the city.
The existence of this Crownwatch Ebitha's nephew had mentioned was not necessarily a problem, but Tahl would have to be a fool to ignore the group's existence and merely hope for the best.
Had he been headed for the wagons, he did not doubt he would be the first one there. Instead, Tahl wove his way toward the tent he'd chosen from the hillside, the large, well-made one that promised to either be a brilliant target or a terrible idea. It could house nobles, members of Crownwatch that Tahl could observe and evaluate, possibly even sway toward a tentative alliance with the guild. Or it could be the leader's quarters, a possibility that could send the rest of Tahl's plans up in flames.
It wouldn't be fun if it was easy, he reminded himself.
Then again, not much about this ordeal had been fun. After so many days on the move, all he really wanted was a good meal, a hot bath, and a long night's sleep.
He paused against the back of a tent. Someone had roused inside. Grunts of displeasure and the soft clank of armor issued from inside. Maybe they'd waited a few minutes too long to start. Tahl forced the possibility of failure out of his mind and pushed on.
The big tent glowed, its thick canvas walls illuminated by lamps inside. Tahl fought back a wince. Too late to nose in, then. Unless he wanted to get himself skewered right off the bat. Getting skewered at all didn't sound pleasant and wasn't part of the plan, but if it had to happen, he hoped that came later in the mission.
Not being able to nose through the private belongings of whoever was heading up the small army was a disappointment, but Tahl refused to let his side trip be wasted. He scanned the tents nearby, determined which was least likely to lead to him being noticed, and positioned himself on that side of the large tent. He'd already caught voices inside, but they were low and cautious, and he couldn't make out anything that was being said until he grew still and listened hard.
“...unlikely we'll be able to move much farther unnoticed, but we already knew that.”
“It's not much farther until we're supposed to split up, anyway. Once we head to our individual meeting points, each of you will be on your own. I hope you're ready for that.”
Each of them? Tahl's brow furrowed. How many people were inside? He eyed the bottom edge of the tent, wondering if he could lift it enough to get a look without being noticed. It was staked down at regular intervals, but if he wiggled a peg free, perhaps...
“Waiting will be the hard part.” That was a third voice, so that offered a hint. “If there were any more docks open—”
“We've been over this already. The shipments will be broken up and separated by several days.” That one was familiar. If that man was doing the most talking, perhaps he was the leader.
All Tahl needed was a peek, a look just long enough to commit faces to memory. If they were planning to enter Orrad, he'd see them again soon enough. He flattened himself on his belly as he locked his fingers around a tent peg and began to wiggle it free from the ground.
“Hey!” a voice bellowed behind him.
Tahl spat a curse and thrust himself from the ground, abandoning the peg. He wasn't supposed to be caught. He definitely wasn't supposed to be the first to get caught. Not waiting to see who had been talking inside, he sprinted off between the tents with angry shouts rising behind him.
All through the camp, mercenaries emerged from tents in mismatched clothes and armor, and the alarm spread.
Ashyl's path intercepted Tahl beside the wagons that had been their original target. “What did you do?”
“Detour went bad. Go!” He motioned her toward one of the wagons at the same time he almost slammed into the back of another.
Ahead, Jeran poked an eye around the corner. “What happened?”
Tahl silenced him with a sharp cutting gesture, then flung open the back of the wagon. A familiar scent greeted his nostrils and he couldn't help a grin. He slipped into the wagon and drew a knife to help pry open the nearest crate.
Dozens of polished steel barrels gleamed inside, stacked in neat rows.
Hello, reward. He slid his fingers down one of the muskets. Then he slammed the lid closed and spun to search the rest of the cargo. He could admire the workmanship later. Right now, there was still work to do.
“Where do we want these?” Hadren asked from beside the back of Tahl's wagon. He had a small barrel on either shoulder and didn't seem bothered by the weight at all.
“Away from the cargo,” Tahl said as he uncovered a barrel of his own and rolled it toward the back. “Oria's paying us to steal it, not destroy it.”
The larger man grunted. “Should've asked for money up front.”
“Next time we pull a heist for the crown, I'll keep that in mind.” Tahl hauled a second barrel out from between the crates. He'd hoped for more, but when he delved back into the depths of the wagon, he found no more of the barrels stashed anywhere. A few smaller boxes—heavier than he expected—proved to contain hundreds of small metal spheres. Balls to fire from the muskets, Jeran had explained. Tahl had spent more of that explanation nodding and pretending he understood than he wanted to admit. He shoved the boxes back into place and hurried back to the barrels.
Outside, the first boom rocked the camp—and the wagon Tahl was in. Outside, the horses hitched to the wagons shrieked and the wagon lurched again. Tahl swayed on his feet and regained his balance before he leaped out and hefted a barrel onto his shoulder the way Hadren had done. The former porter had made it look easy. The barrels were heavier than they looked. He clenched his teeth, silently praying the horses wouldn't bolt before he could get the second barrel.
The wagons were no longer in a line, the horses straining to escape from that first explosion. Ashyl teetered on the edge of her wagon's bed. Instead of trying to carry her barrels, she kicked them out the back of her wagon. Then she climbed over the top and let out
a muffled cry. Tahl spun toward her just in time to see a soldier slice the harnesses and turn her wagon's horses free.
A moment later, his wagon stopped inching along and another pair of horses bolted into the field.
Shouldn't have tried to snoop. Tahl growled under his breath, frustrated he'd been the one to bring trouble down on the job. They would have been found eventually, but he'd been at fault. Maybe he should have gone the other direction, instead of leading the whole camp straight to their target.
“Change of plans!” he called over the sound of soldiers. “Jeran, horses. Ashyl, to me.”
A few paces away, Hadren froze, his barrels still on his shoulders.
Tahl lowered his voice to address him. “Leave those. Get all the cargo into one wagon.”
Hadren grunted, but lowered the barrels and sprinted away. Tahl swept in as Ashyl joined him. “Grab one of those,” he ordered, tapping a barrel with his toes. Ashyl dropped to pick one up and grimaced at the weight.
The moment she had it in her arms, the first mercenaries were on them. Unwilling to let them strike, Tahl made his move. Gathering his power, he twisted the flows of energy in the air and focused them at his feet. Smoke spewed from the ground like a geyser, halting the mercenaries in their tracks.
Precious seconds gained. Tahl held the magic tight as he spun toward where Ashyl had been a moment before. With both his hands supporting barrels, he searched for her with an elbow, and she yelped when he found her.
“Cut south. Blow it up.” he whispered as he sprinted past. The mercenaries would plunge into the smoke after a moment, he was sure. The last thing they wanted to do was linger where they would be found.
Ashyl vanished into the smoke without a sound. Tahl hoped she'd put together a good distraction without his aid. It was all he could do to keep the smoke blowing. Whether it helped Hadren and Jeran complete their jobs, he didn't know. Some distance into his smoke cloud, Tahl stopped and lowered a barrel to the ground. He slammed a knife into the end and twisted to make a crack.