Servant of the Crown

by Brian McClellan

  They fled hand-in-hand down the alley, then cut across the road and down another. Tamas turned to see the four cabal guards barreling after them, sabers drawn.

  “We’re going to have to fight them,” Erika said.

  Tamas replied, “You’re bloody mad; we can’t stop for that long.”

  “We’ll never lose them with a fresh coat of snow.”

  Tamas swore. She was right. Even if they used their powder trances to outdistance the guards, they would be able to track them without too much trouble. “We’ll have to cut through taverns, inns. A few crowded places and we’ll lose them.”

  “We’re not leading an angry Privileged through an inn full of people!” Erika said.

  “It’s that or our heads.”

  “That is not acceptable!”

  Erika stopped, and Tamas almost fell on the slick cobbles. “Don’t be a fool,” he said.

  “Run if you want, but I never took you for a coward, Captain Tamas.” Erika grasped the hilt of her sword.

  This was a damned bad time for her to prove she was a better person than he’d thought. “Bloody pit,” he said, “Not here. We’ll choose better ground.”

  Tamas pulled Erika further up the street, looking for an alley where they could face the guards two at a time, hoping to cut them down before the Privileged caught up. He felt a tug at his hand and turned to see Erika run down a narrow alley.

  “This way,” she said.

  “No, that will take us back around in a circle, I …”

  Privileged Dienne appeared in the far entrance of the alley. Tamas didn’t bother finishing his sentence. He drew his pistol and fired, pushing the bullet around Erika and at Dienne, whose fingers had begun to move when she saw Tamas draw. Dienne darted for cover. Tamas’s bullet blew through her left hand, and she tumbled into the snow.

  Erika barely seemed to register what had just happened. Tamas shoved her through the narrow alley and into the next street, where Dienne lay clutching her hand and bleeding. Tamas drew his sword. If he left her alive, he was as good as dead.

  The cabal guards caught up too fast.

  Tamas whirled to face them, discarding his spent pistol.

  The four guards had heavy sabers and cuirasses, making them all but impossible to fence conventionally. Both he and Erika would be at a disadvantage with their small swords, even if Tamas had the experience of fighting heavily armored men.

  He and Erika stood back to back, swords drawn, as the four guards surrounded them. “The Privileged won’t be able to fight without her hand,” he said to her. “It’s just us against them.”

  “And them,” Erika said.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see four more cabal guards heading up the street. They wore the same breastplates but bore long pikes in addition to their sabers, and they were coming on at a dead run.

  “Let’s make this quick,” Erika said. She lifted her pistol as she spoke, shooting a guard in the face. She followed through by discarding the pistol and leaping forward, sword swinging at the next guard.

  Tamas wasn’t able to watch how she fared. Two guards came at him quickly. One, the same person who’d elbowed him in the House of Nobles, was a tall, muscular woman. Her saber hit the base of his small sword with enough force that he worried she’d shatter it on a second blow.

  He shoved forward but was unable to find purchase on the cobbles, his boots sliding under him. Abandoning that plan, he stepped to the side and let her momentum carry her past him. His sword flicked at the second guard, remembering the way Erika had showed him to use precision above brute force. He caught the tip of the man’s saber and slapped it aside, then stepped forward to plunge his sword into the man’s throat.

  He spun, expecting to see the tall woman bearing down on him.

  Instead, he found her on her back, twitching, blood fountaining from one eye. Erika stood panting above the corpses of all three of the remaining guards. Her face shone with sweat, her eyes alight with a kind of savage glee. “Pit,” she breathed, “I thought I was good, but with the powder trance …”

  “Pikes,” Tamas reminded.

  Erika turned toward the coming guards, and seemed to falter. “Do we run?”

  Tamas caught sight of Dienne. She had gotten to her feet and fled during the brief fight and was now behind the other four cabal guards and running for a waiting carriage parked at the end of the street.

  “No,” he said. “Load me a pistol.” He grabbed a powder charge from his kit, setting his own sword down in the snow and drawing his knife. He ran forward. Ten paces from the lead pikeman, he threw the charge overhand. It hit the pikeman in the face, and Tamas ignited the powder with a thought.

  The pikeman went down with a cry, and Tamas was inside the guard of the rest of them within a moment. His knife flashed, opening two throats in the time it took to blink. A chance raising of the third man’s pike shaft knocked the knife from Tamas’s fingers. He grabbed the man by his cuirass and slammed his forehead against the man’s nose. The man went down in a spray of blood.

  The first guard had recovered, his face a mess of blood and black powder, and rushed at Tamas with pike set. Tamas smacked the pike blade out of the way with the flat of his hand and bore down on the man. He snatched the guard by the throat and flexed his powder-strengthened fingers, crushing the man’s windpipe.

  “Pistol!” Tamas shouted.

  Erika finished loading the pistol and tossed it to him underhand. He twisted to catch it by the butt and brought it up, only to find Dienne’s carriage fleeing down the road and around the corner, out of sight.

  He pulled up, knowing even he couldn’t make a shot around the corner like that. Erika came up beside him, steam rising from her face and shoulders.

  Tamas retrieved his pistol and finished off the guards with his knife. He expected some kind of protest from her, but she watched silently. This was not, he decided, the first time she had killed. “You were magnificent,” he said.

  Her eyes glistened. “You were like something out of the pit.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It was.”

  Tamas could feel his heart still hammering inside his chest. He looked down, seeing blood on his hand.

  “You cut yourself on that pike,” Erika said.

  “Not as fast as I thought I was, I guess.”

  Erika shook her head. “I’ve never seen anyone do anything like that.”

  “Did she see your face?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Erika hesitated. “No.”

  “All right. We’ll have to …” Tamas paused. “We’re being watched.”

  “A fight like this would attract attention. We should go.”

  Tamas looked around. He traced the various footprints in the snow, glancing at the alleyways. He had sensed something more than just mild interest. “We’ll get our horses. Looks like you’re coming with me out of the city after all.”

  Erika took his wounded hand, lifting it to inspect the cut, then threading her fingers into his. “That’s what I was hoping for.”

  Tamas lay on a wooded hilltop above his cottage near the King’s Forest. A dusting of snow covered his back and shoulders, and his elbows hurt from propping him up for half the night. He burned a heavy powder trance to fend off the cold and his need for sleep. Erika dozed lightly just beside him, wrapped in a greatcoat and furs.

  It was less than twelve hours after their fight with Dienne, and there was no sign of pursuit. Yet. His vantage allowed him a view for three miles toward the highway to Adopest to the south and to the west along the edge of the King’s Forest. If anyone came looking for him at the cottage, he would see them long before they saw him.

  And most importantly, his bullet would take them off their horse before the sound of his gunshot hit them.

  Tamas shifted slightly and glanced at Erika. Her cheeks were red from the cold, her face peaceful. He swallowed a lump in hi
s throat and resisted the urge to look at the bedroll—his bedroll—they’d shared all night.

  His greatcoat seemed suddenly very warm.

  He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Whatever had happened between them was a onetime thing. He would have to disappear, perhaps leave Adro altogether. Erika would have to lie low for a few weeks until she could discover whether Dienne knew her name. Tamas would never be able to see or speak to her again.

  Tamas resolved to tell her this upon her waking. As if his thoughts had been a summons to bring her out of sleep, she rolled over and stretched. “Good morning,” she said quietly, without opening her eyes.

  He swallowed. “Sleep well?” he asked.

  “Very.” The word was almost a purr.

  Tamas blinked, trying to remember what he was about to tell her. Something important, he was certain.

  “Anyone coming this way?” she asked.

  “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “What time is it?”

  Tamas glanced up through the bare branches of the forest at the sky above them. It was a low cloud cover, the sun invisible, so he pulled his stiff fingers from the stock of his rifle and fished in his pocket for his watch. “Half past eleven,” he said.

  “Have you slept?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “I could stand watch.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to sleep if you did,” he said. “Took too much powder.”

  Erika sat up and stretched. “You still think they’ll come looking for you here?”

  “I don’t have any idea. If the cabal knows about the cottage, they will. All I can do is wait and watch.”

  “For how long?”

  “Days? A week or two? I would rather force a confrontation with whoever they send where I can pick my own battleground.”

  “I’m not sure if I can be gone that long,” Erika said. “My parents will wonder.”

  “About that,” Tamas said, “You should get back to the city as soon as possible. You don’t want to raise any kind of suspicion.”

  She gave him a coy smile. “You don’t enjoy my company?”

  “Look, it’s …” Tamas hesitated, his mind blank. He spent so much time holding back what he wanted to say, that having no words at all was disorienting. “About last night,” he continued.

  “Admit it, you were impressed.”

  “I’m not talking about the fight. I’m talking about after.”

  “So was I,” she said.

  Tamas coughed. “This is serious.”

  Erika’s expression sobered. “I’m sorry. I know. The royal cabal is probably hunting you. Maybe hunting me. It’s a little hard to wrap my head around. I’m just avoiding the subject.”

  “That’s not the subject …”

  “I know what you’re talking about,” Erika cut him off, “And I think it’s the least important conversation we could be having right now.”

  Tamas’s mouth snapped shut. He couldn’t exactly argue with that. He chewed on his words, trying to form a response. He was her elder by seven or eight years. The gap between them was not uncommon, but it made him feel as if he should be in control of their relationship. In reality, he felt anything but.

  “You should go somewhere your family can shield you from the wrath of royal cabal,” Tamas said.

  “I will. Once you’re safe.”

  Tamas almost scoffed at that. He was the experienced soldier, and she the sheltered noblewoman. Why would she be protective of him? “That might not happen.” Tamas was still trying to come to terms with the consequences of their fight with the Privileged, trying to decide if he could salvage his career.

  “I’m young,” she answered, “I have all the time in the world.”

  He shook his head. “Why would you bother?”

  Erika settled back with one elbow beneath her. “Because I like you. Or did I not make that clear?” She paused for a moment, then said, “You think I’m naive and foolish, don’t you?”

  “A little.” She liked him. The phrase made Tamas feel like a giddy schoolboy, and he immediately felt ashamed of it. He was a soldier. He was a commoner, proud of his birth, rising above his station. What was he doing with a noblewoman?

  “I am naive,” she admitted. “But I am not foolish. Do you think I’m here because of some passing fancy? That I’m looking for the thrill in the arms of a dangerous man?”

  “It had crossed my mind,” Tamas said honestly, immediately wishing he hadn’t.

  Erika pressed a finger against his chest. “You asked me why I want to learn to use my powers. Last night, you asked me what I meant when I said I was returning the favor by saving your life. I will answer both those questions, Captain Tamas. I first heard your name when I smuggled a fugitive powder mage child past the Kez Longdogs and into Budwiel not more than a few days before we met.”

  “You did that?” Tamas breathed. The Longdogs were the royal magehunters. Had Erika been caught, she would have been tortured and executed despite her family name.

  Erika went on, ignoring his question, “The child I brought across the mountains was able to enter Budwiel because the guards there were prepared for fugitive powder mages and let her in despite the Longdogs on her tail—on my tail. They didn’t do it for money. They did it for a little wine and some new boots that you brought them. But most importantly because they admired and respected you.”

  Tamas was astounded. Nobility, he had always found, put themselves before others with very little exception. Erika had already proved herself above any noble he had ever met, but this was beyond his imagination. “You risked everything,” Tamas said.

  “I did.”

  “For what?”

  “To save the life of a child who didn’t deserve to die. That seemed good enough cause. That’s why I want to learn to be stronger and faster. Because it won’t be the last time I do something like that.”

  Everything Tamas had ever fought for seemed suddenly so petty. Certainly, he strove for rank so that he could one day make a difference for the common man, but he battled primarily for his own gain and honor. In the end, he had nothing to lose but his life. This woman had so much more to lose and nothing to gain.

  “Perhaps I’ve been wrong about the nobility all this time.”

  Erika laughed. “Oh, you’re right about most of us. But there are a few who try to be better than what’s expected. My point is, neither of us would not have escaped had the guards on the Adran border not thought so much of you. You saved my life and hers, and that, ultimately, is why I sought you out.”

  “I am … humbled.” Tamas took her by the hand, touching her knuckles softly to his lips, and wondered if he might, against all odds, be in love. It was a gut-wrenching, forbidden thought.

  “Don’t be. I have never seen fire in the eyes of a man like I saw in yours the first time we met. You will do great things one day.” She looked down at her hands. “Now see, I just refused to have this conversation and here I am having it. I think that’s enough.” She leaned over and kissed him, and he forgot about the world for the next few minutes.

  Tamas made a decision. He was not going to wait and hide, wondering if the cabal was hunting him, wondering if his life and career had been destroyed. The cabal be damned.

  Tamas climbed to his feet and rubbed the stiffness out of his legs.

  “Where are you going?” Erika asked.

  “To see the king. He’s the only one who can call off the royal cabal.” Silently, he added, It’s the only hope I have to keep my life here in Adopest, near you.

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “No,” Tamas said. “Not at all.”

  Tamas was shocked to find a messenger in the king’s colors waiting for him just outside the city with immediate summons from the king. Tamas was led east, skirting the walls of Adopest, straight toward Skyline Palace.

  Tamas and his lone escort reached the palace by late afternoon, and Tamas’s unease deepened as they took the gravel drive that wound
up the hill. He could feel the eyes of every royal guard on his shoulders, and he remembered realizing that they would do nothing if Duke Linz attacked him.

  The guards, after all, were for the safety of the king. Not some commoner upstart. If they hadn’t been willing to step in against Duke Linz, they would not protect him from a Privileged.

  Once they reached the front of the palace Tamas saw Privileged Dienne only a moment before she saw him. She stood outside the silver doors to the main foyer, arms crossed, jaw set, surrounded by a brand new cadre of guards. She looked none the worse for the wear of their battle, her hand likely healed by one of her compatriots.

  Their eyes locked and her lip curled, and Tamas edged his hand toward his carbine only to remember that the guards had already relieved him of it. He braced for the inevitable onslaught of sorcery.

  Nothing happened.

  Dienne’s sneer turned into a cruel smile, and she watched as Tamas was led past. He turned in his saddle to look back at her, worried now about that smile. Why had she not come after him? What did she have planned?

  The messenger led Tamas down the facade of the palace until they reached a small door where they dismounted. As he was taken inside he realized this was the first time he had entered the palace in daylight. And the first time they had taken him this particular way. Did either of those items contain any significance? Or were they mere coincidence?

  He was kidding himself. The Iron King was still playing a game with his Privileged. One that would get Tamas killed.

  Inside, he did not recognize the myriad of narrow servant’s passages that he was brought through until he was, once again, ushered into the Iron King’s billiards room.

  Manhouch stood with his back to the fireplace, hands clasped, and fixed Tamas with a long, thoughtful look the moment he came through the door. Tamas thought it was the first time he had locked eyes with the king, and he felt a cold sweat break out in the small of his back.

  Tamas had prepared a speech for when he had managed to bribe, bully, or fight his way into Manhouch’s presence. Now that he had been led in without incident, he had forgotten it all.