“Are they warm?” one of the soldiers asked in Kez.
Taniel heard one of the soldiers climb onto the hummock, mud squelching beneath his boots. Taniel’s breath came fast and short, and the man suddenly stepped into view. Slowly, so as not to attract attention, Taniel leveled his pistol.
The soldier bent over the remains of Taniel’s fire; stuck his finger in them. “A little warm. They were here just a few hours ago. I...”
His head twisted and his eyes grew wide at the sight of Taniel.
“Set it down,” Taniel said in Kez.
The soldier dropped his musket.
“Who’s there?” one of the others demanded.
“A rebel,” the Kez said. “He has a pistol on me.”
“Put down your muskets!” Taniel shouted.
The soldier licked his lips and met Taniel’s eyes. “There’s just one!” he yelled as he dove to the side. Taniel tracked his movement, watched him snatch up his musket and turn to aim.
Taniel squeezed his trigger, felling the soldier with a shot to the heart.
He spun toward the other two, flipping his pistol around to take it by the barrel, feeling the heat burn his palm. He had half a second to decide whether to ignite their powder, killing them both and risking their prisoner, or to cross the space and attack. He’d have to duck past their bayonets and use his only weapon—the butt of the spent pistol.
The water beneath the soldiers erupted. The savage girl came up swinging, her hair whipping about as she hamstrung one soldier with her machete, slit the other’s belly, then returned to the first to cut his throat.
The action had taken half a heart-beat, faster than Taniel could follow, and both men were down.
He and the girl dragged the bodies onto the hummock.
The savage prisoner hadn’t flinched during the short, brutal fight, even leaping on the soldier Taniel had shot to finish him off with his bare hands. His eyes flicked over the three bodies with disdain, and Taniel guessed he was used to killing.
“I am Milgi, of the Stillwater tribe,” the male savage said, his voice deep, his Adran barely intelligible.
“I’m Taniel. Captain with the Fatrastan militia. And powder mage.” He added the last bit to give his words more weight, but wondered as he clasped hands with the savage whether they even knew what a powder mage was. He clasped hands with the savage.
The girl had already set about stripping the bodies of anything useful. Milgi stayed off the hummock, knee-deep in the water, and Taniel thought he saw a bit of fear in his eyes when he looked at the girl.
“Were you the one who was supposed to meet us in Gladeside?” Taniel asked.
“Yes. Your company arrived early, and the Kez--” Milgi paused to spit on one of the bodies-- “caught up to you before we did.”
“Did anyone else make it out?” Taniel asked.
“Most of the company. My brothers are leading them to our village as we speak.”
Taniel let out a sigh of relief.
Milgi went on. “I was looking for you when these three caught me unawares. It was...”
“Embarrassing?”
“Yes.”
The girl found one of the soldier’s powder horns. She popped it open, checking the powder, then resealed it and tossed it to Taniel.
Taniel caught it with one hand. “Can you take me to them?”
“I can,” Milgi said.
“Excellent. Let’s get going before we run into another patrol.”
Taniel took the best of the three muskets and fixed the bayonet. He preferred rifles—they were more accurate at the range that made powder mages so deadly, and the straighter he shot, the less work he had to do to float the bullet. The musket would have to do, though.
They left the bodies to be discovered by the Kez, if the swamp dragons didn’t get them first. “Fear,” Milgi had said, when Taniel wanted to hide them. “Doubt. The swamp frightens them already. This will make it worse.”
The girl ranged ahead of them as they picked their way through the swamp, wriggling her hand at them to indicate a snake or swamp dragon to avoid.
“What’s her name?” Taniel asked Milgi, pointing toward the girl. Milgi had been watching her for some time, and there was a hint of wariness in his eyes.
“Ka-poel.”
“Strange name. Strange girl.”
“Truthfully, I did not expect to find you with--” Milgi lowered his voice. “Her.”
“I thought she was one of you?”
Milgi’s next words were slow, hesitant. “She is. And isn’t. She has no place in our tribe. A foreigner, from across the narrow sea far to the west. But she is a Bone-eye, and we cannot shun her.”
“A Dynize?” Taniel asked.
“Yes.”
No one knew much about the Dynize, save that they were a great empire west of Fatrasta, and that their borders had been closed to foreigners for decades. The savages of Fatrasta were their distant cousins—their looks and their languages similar but as different as Kez and Adro.
Taniel noted that the girl had half-turned her head toward them while she moved quietly through the swamp. She’d been listening.
“Can she speak?”
“No.”
Taniel felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Milgi had stopped. “She’s not to be trusted,” he said.
“She saved my life. More than once already, and the day’s still young.” Taniel’s wit faded when he noticed Milgi didn’t catch the humor in his words.
“Not to be trusted,” Milgi said again, before heading on.
Taniel hurried to catch up with him. “Do you know anything about the Kez companies that attacked us?”
“Only what your major told us this morning, when we found your men. Five companies. Over a thousand muskets, and one Privileged.”
“Major Bertreau survived? I’m glad to hear that. Is your village deep enough in the swamp to hide us, if they decide to come looking?”
Milgi scowled. “From the men? Yes. Further in the basin, the water is deep and the hummocks are few. It would take a thousand men years of searching to find us.” He paused. “But when I was captured, I pretended I did not know their tongue and listened to the soldiers speak to each other. They said that their Privileged was going to burn her way through the basin.”
Taniel felt a coldness in his gut.
“I’m sure they won’t find us,” Milgi said, waving his hand as if to dispel the fear.
Taniel knew Privileged sorcery. He knew what they were capable of. His father had told stories about some of the strongest cabal heads from the Nine—men who could slaughter thousands with a casual gesture.
He’d felt that Privileged’s power last night when she attacked the company. Not as strong as a cabal head, but no pretender, either. She could lift the earth, burn the trees, and part the water, giving her men safe conduct through the swamp and finding the militia and savages no matter where they were hiding.
“We have to go back,” Taniel said.
Milgi stopped and stared at him.
“Are the Kez camped in Gladeside?” Taniel asked.
“Yes,” Milgi said, “but we can’t go back. They won’t find us deep in the swamp. Nothing to do against a Privileged but hide.”
“I’m a powder mage.” Taniel didn’t feel so well. His side ached, his head was light from little food, and his feet hurt. He hadn’t been dry since last night, and the idea of being anywhere near that Privileged scared the piss out of him.
But if he didn’t go back, his militia company and their savage allies would die.
“Privileged.” Milgi wagged his finger under Taniel’s nose as if Taniel were a slow child. “You don’t have a Privileged, and you can’t fight them.”
“Powder mages,” Taniel said, repeating what his father had reiterated over the years, “were made for one thing: killing Privileged.” He forced the words out, wondering if he still believed them. Sitting in a barracks, listening to his father’s stories, it ha
d been easy enough to think he could kill a Privileged. But with nothing between him and their sorcery but a mile of space and single bullet, he wasn’t feeling so confident.
Milgi seemed torn. He looked the way they were going, then back the way they had come. “No,” he said firmly. “There is no shame in hiding from a Privileged. We can’t fight them.”
Taniel began heading back. “I’m going.”
“Then you go alone. You’ll never find your way.”
Taniel attempted to get his bearings, but Milgi was right. It was easy to get turned around in this swamp. He didn’t know the terrain, and he didn’t know how to spot swamp dragons and snappers hiding in the water.
“Ka-poel!” he shouted, startled to find the girl already at his side. “Ka-poel. Can you lead me back to Gladeside?”
She gave Milgi a mocking smile and nodded.
“She has no fear,” Milgi said. “She will get you killed.”
Ka-poel narrowed her eyes at Milgi, and the man took half a step back.
“I don’t have time for fear right now,” Taniel said. “I have to kill someone.”
He could have sworn that Ka-poel’s green eyes twinkled at that.
“I need to come out of the swamp either north or south of Gladeside. Two miles away would be best—somewhere I have a clear shot at Gladeside, and an easy path back into the swamp.”
Ka-poel listened, her brow furrowed, then gave a short nod.
She led them back the way they had come, leaving Milgi behind. The water was still, the day windless, and Taniel spoke to try and forget the pain in his side.
“It all looks alike,” he said. “How do you know where you’re going?”
Ka-poel pointed to her eyes with two fingers, then to the forest. She indicated a nearby hummock of gumbo and inkwood trees, then pointed to a uniquely twisted cypress rising out of the swamp to their left. She jabbed a finger behind her, toward a boulder that lay on its side in the water.
“Landmarks?” Taniel asked.
She nodded.
That’s how he’d been taught to track and survive in unfamiliar land, but the landmarks in this swamp seemed few and far between. He’d have to try harder, it seemed.
She stopped him as dusk fell, halting him with the flat of her hand. She pointed toward the sky, then traced the path of the sun until she pointed at the ground.
“It’ll be dark soon?”
A nod. She made the walking motion with her fingers and indicated the forest around them, then drew a finger across her throat.
“Very dangerous after dark.”
Another nod. She gave him a small smile, then spread her hands. What did he want to do?
“Can you see well in the dark?” He remembered her guiding him through the swamp last night, away from the Kez searchers.
She wobbled her hand uncertainly. Somewhat.
“The powder,” Taniel said, drawing a line of black powder on the back of his hand and taking a snort. “It lets me see in the dark almost as well as I can see during the day. Let’s keep going. We’ll make camp outside the basin. I’m not completely comfortable sleeping here with snakes, swamp dragons, and Kez patrols.”
Ka-poel nodded.
The sun had set before they managed to clear the swamp. Climbing the hillside that marked the edge of the Tristan Basin, they made their way to a hilltop some quarter of a mile away from the swamp edge and set up camp as best they could with no fire and no bedding.
Taniel took first watch.
He didn’t bother waking Ka-poel for a second watch. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Shooting a Privileged, his father had once said. It seems like the easiest thing in the world. Just like shooting a target.
You’ll do well to remember, though, that the most deadly thing in the world is an angry Privileged.
Don’t miss.
Because if you do, he’s going to decorate the landscape with bits of your corpse.
Taniel sat with his back to an oak tree, watching the distant town of Gladeside. It was a little over two miles away in the darkness. With a strong enough hit of powder, he could see the Kez sentries at their posts, just outside the town.
The remains of the common house had been cleaned up. A few houses had been burned down, and a pair of corpses had been strung up on a scaffold in the center of the town.
Rebel sympathizers, most likely. Probably the mayor—he had given Taniel’s company succor, after all.
The Kez were anything but subtle.
White tents were pitched throughout and around the town. Taniel counted them, just to be sure. With two to a tent, Taniel pegged their number at almost a thousand. Five companies and a Privileged, just like he’d been told.
A force to be reckoned with.
He let his eyes wander around the outskirts of the camp, singling out their sentries. One was picking his nose. Another’s lips were slightly parted, and though Taniel couldn’t hear it, he knew the sentry was whistling to himself.
Taniel had been on sentry duty before. Anything to keep yourself awake.
He rolled his eyes back in his head and let out a slow breath, then opened his third eye to see the Else.
The world became awash in pastel colors. Throughout the town and in the swamp immediately next to Gladeside, swatches of faded color stood testament to where the Privileged had used sorcery the night before. One of those swatches marked where Dina had died.
In the town itself, Taniel could see several dull, lesser spots of color. Knacked—men with minor sorcerous power. There was usually at least one in every company. Their skills always proved useful in any army.
His eyes stopped on one bright dot in the Else.
The Privileged. She was inside one of the houses, probably sound asleep in a feather bed.
He could try a shot right now, while she was asleep and unmoving. It would be the easiest thing.
But even if he managed to float the bullet through a window and around the corner—almost impossible at this range—he’d still afterwards have to flee into the swamp at night. He’d already tried running into the swamp in the dark once this week. He didn’t relish a second attempt.
He glanced at the girl.
Of course, he’d get her killed, too. He should have sent her back into the swamp hours ago. This was something he had to do alone.
“Ka-poel,” he whispered, some time later.
It was now near dawn. He could see the slight brightening on the eastern horizon, the moon dipping to the west. The Kez soldiers in the camp were beginning to stir.
He shook the girl awake. She was on her feet moments later, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, her red hair bedraggled.
“It’s time,” Taniel said. He listened to his stomach growl. It had been thirty hours or more since his last meal. The numbing vine Ka-poel had pressed into his wound had long ago lost its potency, and now his whole body hurt. His side felt tight, the arm stiff.
This wasn’t going to be an easy shot.
He settled himself on the hilltop beside a maple tree and pointed the musket’s barrel toward Gladeside, resting it on one thick, gnarled root.
“I have one shot,” Taniel told her. “If I miss, the Privileged will be alarmed and raise a shield around herself. I’ll try again regardless, just in case she’s sloppy, but that first shot is the only good one I’ll have.”
He glanced at Ka-poel to see if she was listening. She’d laid down on her belly beside him, watching the town.
She nodded to him.
“Two shots at most,” Taniel said. “And then we run for it.” He pointed down the hillside toward the basin. “She’ll send her soldiers after us. We have to move quickly. With a little luck we’ll be gone by the time they reach us. They won’t be able to track us in the swamp.”
Taniel checked the musket for the fifth time—the pan was primed, the barrel loaded, and the powder dry. Not all of that was necessary for a powder mage, but each bit of preparation made the shot a little bit easier.
He settled the butt of the musket against his shoulder and sighted down the barrel toward the house where he’d seen the Privileged.
Taniel opened his third eye.
The smudge of color that represented the Privileged was still in the house.
Taniel could hear his heart drumming in his ears. This wasn’t melee—there wasn’t a surge of black powder and adrenaline pushing him through the fight, years of training taking over to help him through the kill.
This was a calm, meditative shot.
The smudge of color was moving. Taniel closed his third eye and watched the house from the outside, focusing on the front door and the window facing him. Through the open window, with his powder-enhanced vision, he could see a washbasin and a tall mirror and one post of a bed.
Taniel lowered the musket and tapped out a line of powder and snorted it; felt it calm his nerves.
Back to his vigil. There was some movement through the window, and the Privileged came into view.
She was not at all what he had expected.
She was thirty at the oldest, younger than Major Bertreau. Her face hadn’t been marred by years of sorcery and cruelty, like most Privileged Taniel had met. Her nose was small and pinched. She wore a night shift, sagging to bare one shoulder, her blond hair curled and wild around her head. She splashed water on her face and looked at herself in the mirror for a moment.
Taniel regretted his sorcerous sight; cursed the black powder that gave him the power to see his target with such clarity.
She looked like a girl Taniel knew from university. Soulin. In fact, she could have been Soulin’s older sister. She had the same color hair, the same slight features, and even looked to be a similar height.
The barrel of his musket wavered. His hands were shaking.
He let his head fall away from the stock and closed his eyes a moment.
Ka-poel was staring at him. She scowled and made a pistol with her fingers, pointing at Gladeside.
Shoot.
Taniel took a deep breath and slowly let it out, setting his cheek against the rifle stock.
The Privileged was still in her room. She had finished washing her face and stepped away from the window, only to reappear a moment later wearing a clean shirt.
In the Field Marshal's Shadow: Stories from the Powder Mage Universe Page 10