Powder Mage Trilogy 01 - Promise of Blood

by Brian McClellan

  “A tragedy,” Brigadier Barat said, his voice on edge.

  Tamas said, “A witness at Adopest University saw a man matching your description enter the dormitories late last night. One of his classmates said the boy went with the same man.”

  “Impossible,” Brigadier Barat snarled. “No investigation could go on so quickly…” Barat stopped, sensing the trap. “I hope his killer is caught and brought to justice. That still doesn’t excuse what his father did.”

  “Piano wire is often used as a garrote,” Tamas said. “Those with little experience tend to cut their own fingers. May I see your hands?”

  Barat clasped his hands behind his back and took a step back from Tamas’s desk.

  Tamas took a deep breath. Loudly, calmly, he said, “His father warned me of a traitor among the brigadiers. He warned me that his son was a veritable hostage, and begged me to protect him. He didn’t care that his own life was forfeit when the sorcerer caught up to us. Ryze was no traitor, Barat. He was a patriot. A hero. And he warned me about you.”

  “What rubbish is this?” Brigadier Barat hissed. “You’ve gone mad.”

  “Sometimes I think that would be simpler,” Tamas said. “Who is the traitor in the council? Things will go easier for you if you tell me.”

  “Go to the pit,” Barat scoffed. “You have no evidence, old man. I won’t play this game with you.” He spun on his heel, heading for the door. The door rattled, but did not open. “Why is this locked?” Barat glanced nervously toward the balcony. Olem watched the scene through the window, a rifle in his hands.

  Barat spun on Tamas. “Who the pit do you think you are? Lady Winceslav will not stand for this! What do you think you’ll do? Bring me to justice? Send me to court? The Lady will protect me. I’ll never see a cell, and you will only disgrace yourself in the process. False accusations from a bitter, broken man,” Barat said. His smile grew. “Just like Ryze! Filled with lies and delusions, a traitor to his own country. You’re not even a powder mage anymore.”

  Tamas sniffed. He reached into his breast pocket and removed a bullet. He held it up, rolled it between his fingers. In the other hand he held up a powder cartridge. “Am I not?” He shook his head. “Alas, this is not mine to deal with, no matter how much I’d like to.” He lowered his hands. Loudly, he said, “There’s a pistol underneath the divan cushion. It’s loaded.”

  “What?” Barat demanded. He drew his sword and stepped toward Tamas.

  Brigadier Sabastenien emerged from behind the curtain. He held the pistol up and pulled back the hammer. His hand was firm.

  The shot echoed through the room, sending Tamas’s head spinning. He gripped the desk until the dizziness was gone, then lifted his head to look at the body as Olem stepped into the room.

  Brigadier Barat lay on the floor, his blood and brains scattered across the sofa and the curtain. His body twitched once and was still. Brigadier Sabastenien lowered the pistol.

  The brigadier’s face was pale. His hands shook a little as he tossed the pistol to the floor, and he stumbled over to the sofa. “I believed Ryze was a traitor,” he said after a moment. His voice was agonized, his face contorted by sorrow.

  “He was a good man,” Tamas said.

  “His son…”

  “Dead,” Tamas said. “Olem, I want Ryze’s remains found. He was hit by sorcery, so there won’t be much left. Scour the King’s Wood if you have to. I want him buried along with his son, next to his wife, with state honors.”

  “Of course,” Olem said quietly.

  “What do I tell the Lady?” Sabastenien said. He was stricken. Tamas saw him for the youth he was then, and pitied him.

  “You shot him in my defense,” Tamas said softly. “I’ll not allow a court-martial.”

  “I killed Lady Winceslav’s lover, a fellow brigadier,” Sabastenien said. His voice shook. “I’ll be drummed out of the Wings with dishonor, no matter the reason.” He paused. “May I go?”

  “Of course. You’ll always have a place in my army,” he said. When the young brigadier had left, Tamas said to Olem, “Have someone keep an eye on him.”

  Olem frowned. “He heard it all. He did the right thing. Why should he care if they kick him out of the Wings? The army is certainly a pay cut, but…”

  “The Wings aren’t just mercenaries, Olem,” Tamas said. His weariness was breaking through the powder trance, the pain beginning to bleed into his defenses. “The Wings are a life. A brotherhood. To kill one of their own is the worst of crimes. Even for treason, when they handle it among themselves, the executioner is protected, unknown, so that his brothers will not find out and alienate him. Sabastenien’s career with the Wings is over.”

  Olem turned his frown on Tamas. “Then, why…?”

  Tamas sighed. He brought out another powder charge, longed to sprinkle the powder on his tongue. He put it back in his shirt pocket. “You’ll think me cruel,” he said. “I need Sabastenien on the lines. If he survives this war, he’ll be a general at thirty.” He ignored Olem’s look of disapproval. “Have someone ready to offer him a job when he’s been drummed out. Full commander.”

  Tamas leaned over his chair, head light, and vomited on the floor. He dragged his sleeve across his mouth and looked up at Olem’s worried gaze. “I think I’ll rest for a while now.”

  Olem went to fetch a janitor. Tamas leaned back in his chair, tasting bile. He’d taken care of the fox in his henhouse. Now he had to find the lion among his cattle.

  Nila couldn’t take her eyes off the blood on the sofa.

  She wondered if Field Marshal Tamas had shot the man whose blood spattered the Royal Offices, or if he’d had one of his underlings do it. She knew he could kill casually. She’d seen him gun down Bystre in the streets without a second look.

  “Olem, I…” The field marshal leveraged himself around his dressing screen and stopped when he saw Nila. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Didn’t realize they’d sent someone up to clean up the mess already.”

  Mess, he called it. As if the bits of brain and skull and all the blood were nothing more than the leftovers from dinner.

  “My apologies, sir,” Nila said with a curtsy. “I was just told to come get your uniform.”

  “Of course. The laundress. Olem! Help me get this uniform off.”

  Olem came through the front door, rolling a cigarette between his fingers. He smiled at Nila before heading behind the dressing screen.

  “Damned blood got everywhere,” the field marshal said.

  “That’s what happens, sir.”

  “Ow. Son of a… be more careful!”

  “So sorry, sir.”

  “Damn my leg!”

  “There’s a lady present, sir.”

  The field marshal’s curses lowered to a grumble for a few moments. Olem reappeared a moment later with the field marshal’s uniform tucked under his arm and gave it over to Nila. The bearded sergeant looked different from that night when Adran soldiers had stormed the Eldaminse townhouse. A touch of gray had entered his beard; worry lines at the corner of his eyes were etched a little deeper. Nila had seen him around the House of Nobles, but he’d shown no recognition of her.

  “Think you could wash the curtains, too?” Olem asked. “Who knows when they’ll send up someone to get to the upholstery?”

  “Of course,” Nila said.

  Field Marshal Tamas limped out from behind the dressing screen and over to his desk. He wore a white shirt and blue soldier’s pants. His face was white and bloodless from his ordeals. Nila wondered what that face would look like after she’d strangled him in his sleep.

  Olem removed the curtains from the windows and gathered them all up in his arms. “Sir,” he said, “I’ll help her downstairs with these and be right back up.”

  “Take your time,” the field marshal said, waving him off. “Charlemund has sent me some idiotic church decree that must be read by supper.”

  “I can take them,” Nila said when they reached the hallway.


  Olem tucked the curtains under one arm. “I don’t mind. The field marshal demands time alone now and then.”

  “Aren’t you his bodyguard?”

  “His manservant, more like,” he said without bitterness. “We’ve tripled the guard on the top floor. Anything that can get through the rest of the boys watching his back would have no trouble with me. Cigarette?”

  Nila studied Olem out of the corner of her eye as they went down the stairs. “Thank you,” she said, taking the offered cigarette. He began rolling another one immediately.

  “You don’t seem the shy type,” Olem said. “But the boys say you don’t talk much.”

  Cold fear seized Nila’s belly. Why would Field Marshal Tamas’s bodyguard be asking after her? “I keep to myself, mostly,” she said evenly.

  “That’s what I heard.” He let the conversation lapse for a moment, then, “I didn’t think I’d see you again after that night.”

  Nila’s heart jumped. He remembered her? She didn’t want to be remembered. She didn’t want to be recognized. If he knew who she was, maybe he had figured out it was her who’d smuggled Jakob out of the townhouse.

  “Oh?” she said when she’d found her voice.

  “You seem better suited here than scrubbing livery for some lord,” Olem said. “I like your dress. Better than what you were wearing before.”

  Nila tried to picture her uniform under Duke Eldaminse. She found she couldn’t even remember what it looked like. She needed to turn the conversation away from herself. She didn’t need him asking questions.

  “You were wearing something different, too,” she said.

  Olem fingered the captain’s pin at his lapel. “The field marshal said his bodyguard couldn’t be less than a captain.” He shrugged. “I’m not much of an officer. Never liked them much, myself. I’ll take the pay that comes with it, though.”

  Olem removed his cigarette, switched it to his other hand, and put it back in his mouth. He stopped suddenly, forcing her to turn around. “Would you like to see a play tonight?” he asked.

  Nila blinked. A play? So he wasn’t interested in her in his capacity as Field Marshal Tamas’s bodyguard. She couldn’t help the relieved grin that spread across her face.

  Olem seemed to take that as a yes. “The field marshal insisted I take the night off. Not many better ways to spend it than with a beautiful woman.”

  “I’d be honored.” She gave him a little curtsy and what she hoped was her best shy smile.

  They reached the laundry rooms beneath the House of Nobles and Olem left her. She looked through her supplies to find something that would get the blood out of the curtains and the field marshal’s uniform. As she scrubbed at the stains, she reminded herself that she was here to kill Tamas. She wouldn’t let Olem stop her or distract her. He seemed a good man, but he served an evil master. Tamas had to die before he could get more blood on his uniform. He’d killed men, women. Even innocent children. He had to be stopped.

  Olem mentioned he wasn’t the field marshal’s only guard. If she killed Tamas sometime when Olem was off duty, then he wouldn’t be blamed by the failure. Yes, that would be best. She scrubbed harder at the stains.

  Chapter 29

  Taniel listened to the sound of hoofbeats steadily climb the mountainside. He leaned on his rifle and took a sniff of powder. He’d been watching the rider’s approach since the sun began to set over the mountains behind him. The rider was coming up from the Kez advance base. He rode under a white flag of truce.

  A messenger.

  “Go get Gavril,” Taniel told Fesnik. The young watcher squinted into the dusk and nodded, heading back into the town. Fesnik had drawn lots for the evening watch. Taniel had given him some company, mostly for an excuse to see the engineers and masons at work as they repaired the bastion.

  Fesnik’s watch would be over when the last light disappeared from the sky. Taniel would go in then, and was looking forward to a long night’s sleep. If fate was kind, this messenger would say the Kez were pulling back.

  The mountains were quiet. Only intermittent sounds drifted up from the massive Kez army below. They weren’t preparing for a push this night, nor any night for the last week. The battle for the bastion had weakened both sides, and they’d spent a week gathering bodies, restocking ammunition and supplies, and trying to get a little rest.

  The quiet of the Kez camp made Taniel nervous.

  Taniel turned at the sound of footsteps on stone behind him. It was Mozes, musket on his shoulder.

  “I’ve got the night watch,” he said.

  Taniel stretched. “You can have it.”

  Mozes was a quiet man, not often in for a long conversation, but a good drinking companion. They’d spent plenty of hours together at the Howling Wendigo over the last week.

  Taniel remained at the bastion wall for a few more minutes. Long enough to watch the rider approach the gates and be admitted and a small group emerge from the town to meet the messenger. The group was led by Gavril, his large silhouette immediately recognizable. The conversation was short, and the rider was soon heading back through the gate.

  Taniel nodded farewell to Mozes and headed toward Gavril.

  The group was in a quiet conference when Taniel arrived. All heads turned toward him.

  “What word from Field Marshal Tine?” Taniel asked.

  “He said to consider hostilities resumed,” Gavril said. “Any sign of a nighttime attack?”

  Shit. “No movement on the mountainside all day long.”

  “The diggers?”

  “No sign of them, either.”

  The sappers had kept going, even through the week-long truce between the armies. Taniel had wanted to go down and flush them out, but Gavril insisted they keep their side of the truce.

  “What are they digging for?” Gavril growled. “They’re too far out to undermine us, and Bo said they haven’t been using sorcery to dig.”

  “Have you seen Bo?” Taniel asked. “He’s been feet-up in a mug of ale all week and looks like he’s been to the pit and back. I don’t trust he can tell sorcery from a molehill right now.”

  “Oh, come now,” a quiet voice said. “I’m not that bad.”

  Taniel turned to see Bo standing a little ways off from the group. Had he been there the whole time? He frowned at his friend. Bo carried a flask, and he was leaning on Katerine. The woman gave Taniel a withering look.

  Taniel said, “You need to be sleeping, not drinking.”

  “There’s trickery in this,” Bo said, gesturing toward the Kez army. “Who knows what they’re planning?”

  “What can we do?” Taniel said. “They’re well covered from artillery fire. When we bombarded the hill above their cave, there was no sign of having collapsed their tunnels. We have no idea how deep those tunnels are, or where they lead to. They could be trying to undermine the bastion, or come up in the middle of the town, or pit, with the help of sorcerers they could be trying to pass under the whole Mountainwatch and come out in Adro.”

  “A sobering thought,” Bo said. “But you said you’ve not seen sign of the diggers all day.”

  “They’re still going. No doubt about it.”

  “That’s why I’ve come to a decision,” Gavril said. They both looked to Gavril. “I’m going to lead a sortie to clear the mine.”

  “When?” Taniel took a sniff of powder.

  “Tomorrow,” Gavril said. “If I can sober Bo up.”

  “I’m plenty sober,” Bo said. He swayed, and would have fallen if Katerine had not been holding him up.

  Gavril appeared not to notice. “I want to say it will be a minimum-risk sortie. Their army is hours away. But if Julene is there—or even a couple of lower-grade Privileged—we’ll need more than just Bo.” He looked expectantly at Taniel. “The sortie will be… volunteer.”

  Taniel tried to snort. It made his sinuses hurt. He’d done his best to stay off powder for the last week. He’d failed, but at least his nose hadn’t bled for a few days.
“I’ll go, of course.”

  “Thanks,” Gavril said. He looked somewhat relieved. “It’s not just you I need, though.”

  Taniel frowned, and then it dawned on him. “Ka-poel.”

  Gavril nodded.

  “I don’t know…” Taniel said. “She’s so young.”

  “She’s a sorcerer,” Gavril said. “A powerful one. I’ve had a talk with Bo. He’s very interested in her.”

  “Very,” Bo said.

  Taniel scowled at them both.

  Gavril paused for a moment, then added, “Not that way.”

  “Of course not,” Bo said.

  Taniel still scowled. “Ka-poel is under my protection,” he said. In reality, he was under hers, or so Bo would have him believe. “Sure, she’s helped me track Privileged, been in a scrape or two…” He remembered how she’d thrown herself between him and Julene up on the mountain. She was stronger than she looked.

  Bo sighed. “Taniel, she makes most of the Kez Cabal look like children. We’re going to need her.”

  Taniel suddenly remembered the day he’d faced off against Rozalia in the museum at Adopest University. She’d been nervous about Ka-poel joining the fight. Had she been able to sense something Taniel hadn’t? “I don’t think she’s that powerful, but let’s say she was—I won’t put her in danger.”

  “It’s not up to you,” Gavril said.

  “By pit, it’s not.”

  “I already asked her. She’s coming with us.”

  Taniel leaned back, blinking. “You just went right past me on that?”

  Gavril rolled his tongue around in his cheek. He met Taniel’s eyes. “I know the risk we’re taking going down there, and she’s a bigger asset than even Bo at this point. I wanted to know she’d come before I made the decision.”