The Autumn Republic

Chapter 17

Taniel was more than a little surprised to find that Bo had not killed the rest of the Adran infantry.

Thirty-seven soldiers worked to free the rest of their dead and wounded from the results of the rockslide. A rather conspicuous pile of gleaming slag lay a few dozen feet from the bodies that had already been pulled from the rubble. Taniel thought he recognized air rifles, bayonets, and knives, all melted together by preternatural forces.

“You went easy on them,” Taniel said.

“I asked very nicely,” Bo responded.

“I wish I could have done that.” Taniel caught Bo looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Well,” Bo sniffed. “I’m a little more persuasive than you. Oi! You there, put your back into it! That boulder isn’t going to move itself.”

Taniel watched two of the soldiers try to move a boulder off a half-crushed body, and attempted to sort out the emotions warring within him. These men had come to kill him. No question about it. Even the rankers knew who they were hunting. Part of him wanted to tell Bo to bury the whole lot along with their crushed comrades. But the blood already on his hands took the sting out of his anger.

“You could help them, you know.”

“Not a chance,” Bo said.

“I thought as much. Bo?”

“Hmm?”

“What the pit is that?” Taniel pointed down the valley to a brownish-red stain on the canyon wall. It looked like someone had thrown a handful of wet paint against the stones and left it there to dry in the sun.

Bo tugged gently on his gloves. “I made an example of the first one who tried to bayonet me.”

And splattered him like a grape. Taniel felt ill. “I was wondering why they were all so cooperative. A little messy, don’t you think?”

“I’ve found that a little messiness is like manure on a field when you’re trying to cultivate fear.”

Typical Privileged thinking. “Indeed.” Taniel watched the prisoners work at extracting the bodies for a few moments before noticing Bo tug at his gloves again. “You’re nervous.”

“Not really.”

Bo tugged on his gloves plenty; most Privileged did that. But he had one leg up on a rock, bouncing it rapidly. He was nervous, even if he didn’t want to admit it. “You are. What is it?”

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry your head about it.”

Taniel opened his mouth to argue, but he knew he wouldn’t get any further. Not with Bo. “I’ll go help Ka-poel,” he said. He hurried his way up the narrow path in the canyon wall that led toward the cave where he and Ka-poel had spent the last two weeks. He found Ka-poel just leaving the cave. She had her rucksack slung across her shoulder and had fastened straps from an infantryman’s jacket so that she could hang Kresimir’s casket from her back.

“I can carry something, if you’d like,” Taniel said.

Ka-poel handed him the rest of the rations they’d stolen from the infantrymen.

“Anything else?”

She laid a hand protectively across her rucksack and furrowed her brow. A moment later the frown cleared and she shook her head.

“Pole, I…” Taniel wasn’t quite sure what to say. She’d saved his life. Again. And despite the fact that their time in the mountains had been horrible and dangerous, he knew that his chances of being alone with her once they returned to civilization would be slim. There would be fighting to do, reports to give.

Generals to kill.

He realized suddenly that aside from the edge it would have given him in combat, he didn’t miss the powder.

Very strange.

They made their way back down to Bo and his prisoners. Bo lay on his back on a flat rock, tossing a pebble up in the air and catching it with one gloved hand. He seemed at ease now, even if he was still watching the soldiers carefully.

“I brought you this,” Bo said as they approached, holding out a powder horn that had been concealed in his jacket. “Forgot to give it to you earlier. But if you open that damned thing near me, I swear to Kresimir I will punch you in the face. Just carrying it gives me a rash.”

Taniel took the horn and turned it over in his hands. He could sense the powder within – the power that it could give him. It would soothe his aches and injuries, give him strength for the climb down the mountain. “Where’d you get it?”

“Stole it from a Wings infantryman on my way to get you.”

“Thanks,” Taniel said, looping the strap over his shoulder. Privileged didn’t like black powder. They had allergies to the stuff that made battlefields a nightmare. “Really, Bo. I wish I could repay you.”

“You didn’t shoot me in the head when your dad told you to. I figured it was my turn to do something nice for you.” Bo sat up and jerked a thumb toward the infantry. “We should go. I’ve given them a stern talking-to. They’ll finish their work and bring the bodies back to Adopest.”

“A stern talking-to? You threatened them? I can’t get four squads of soldiers to listen to me when I threaten them.”

“You can’t pull their veins out of their bodies inch by inch. And if any run, they’ll spend the rest of their lives wondering if I’m around the next corner.” He barked a laugh. “Best punishment I can think of, really.”

“Ah.”

Bo’s gaze shifted to Ka-poel. “Good to see you again, little sister. Taniel knocked you up yet?”

“You bastard!” Taniel swung halfheartedly for Bo, who stepped deftly out of the way.

“Oh, don’t give me that. I knew you were in love with her that day you came for me on South Pike. Little sister, what have you got… oh dear Kresimir above!” Bo backpedaled suddenly, leaping away from Ka-poel with agility Taniel wouldn’t have credited him with.

“What’s wrong?” Taniel asked.

Bo cowered behind a boulder. He poked his head out from behind it after a few moments. “What the pit is in that box on her back?”

How would Taniel explain this to Bo? There was no possible way he could understand. He opened his mouth, only for Ka-poel to speed through a series of hand motions, pointing at Bo and then touching her finger to her throat, then back to him.

Bo licked his lips while he watched her go through the motions again. “What I just said?”

Ka-poel nodded.

“ ‘What have you got…’?”

Ka-poel made a get on with it motion.

“ ‘Oh dear Kresimir above’?” Bo said.

Ka-poel nodded again.

“ ‘Kresimir above’?” Bo confirmed.

One more nod.

“You’ve got Kresimir in that box?”

Ka-poel gave him a tight smile. To Taniel’s shock, it looked as if Bo believed her. Hesitantly, the Privileged worked his way out from behind the boulder. He was pale in the face, and he kept Taniel between himself and Ka-poel as he rejoined them.

“I could have fixed you up with a nice girl,” Bo said. “A girl from east Adopest. Someone who doesn’t go around keeping gods in boxes.”

Taniel took Ka-poel’s hand. “Not my type.”

“Of course not,” Bo said bitterly, tugging at the backs of his gloves. “Now, can we get moving?”

“Are you in a hurry?”

“No,” Bo said as he set off at a brisk pace down the canyon. “Well,” he called over his shoulder, “yes. A little.”

Taniel jogged to catch up. “What is it?”

“Nothing at all. Can the girl get a move on?”

“Her name is Ka-poel.”

“Can little sister get a move on? I’m going to need some rest tonight and I would prefer to get it in the valley and not in this bloody canyon.”

“When’s the last time you slept?”

Bo counted silently on his gloved fingers. “Five days?”

“Pit, Bo, you–”

“That’s not really important.”

“Then what is?”

“I may have left my new apprentice in a war zone. And I killed both my horses getting here in time to save you.”

“Wait, wait. You have an apprentice?”

“Very nice girl. The kind I could have set you up with. She has some peculiar powers, and I’ve grown quite fond of her. She’s actually the one who figured out where you were. I wouldn’t have left her, except…”

“Yes, yes. You were coming to save me.”

“Right.”

They continued on in silence for the better part of the afternoon. Taniel forced Bo to slow down so that Ka-poel could keep up, and they worked their way down the canyon. They finally stopped to rest an hour after the sun had left their canyon in shadow. Ka-poel dropped Kresimir’s casket on the ground unceremoniously, making Bo wince.

“Tell me about this apprentice,” Taniel said as they made a meal of infantry rations.

Bo winced as if he had just cracked a tooth on a piece of hardtack. “How do you people eat this stuff? Blech. My apprentice? Not much to tell, really. Another sorcery slinger. You know.”

“You said you were fond of her.”

“Did I?” Bo made a show of gnawing on the brick-hard biscuit.

“You slept with her already, didn’t you? Isn’t there some kind of code of conduct against that type of thing?”

Bo glowered first at Taniel, then rolled his eyes over to Ka-poel, who sat on the ground fiddling with a latch on her rucksack.

“Pole’s not my apprentice!” Taniel protested.

Bo rolled his eyes. “I haven’t slept with Nila.”

“Oh, she has a name now, eh? And you expect me to believe you haven’t taken her to bed?”

“… yet.”

“I see how it is.”

“And I don’t think I will.”

“Now, that would shock me,” Taniel said.

“I’m serious. I like her too much. She’s clever, resourceful. And she’s going to be far stronger than I ever will.”

“Really?” Taniel was skeptical. Bo had once boasted that despite being the youngest Privileged in the Adran Cabal, he was one of the strongest. Tamas had confirmed that boast. For Bo to say something like this… “You’re intimidated by her?”

“No,” Bo said. “Julene was intimidating. And I went to bed with her. Nila is just…”

“You’re intimidated because she’s a better person than you are.”

“Go to the pit,” Bo said.

Taniel scowled. He’d just caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. His breath quickened, and he shifted slightly, trying to look to his left without being obvious about it.

“Well, don’t go all silent suddenly,” Bo said. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Quiet.” Taniel reached inside his jacket and flicked the cap off of the powder horn. Bo saw the action and stiffened. He checked his gloves.

“What is it?” Bo hissed.

“I saw a flash of Adran blue. A uniform,” Taniel said. “Farther down the canyon. About thirty yards.”

“Are you sure?”

Taniel reached out with his senses. “Yes. I’m sure.” He stood up, and Bo quickly followed, spinning to look down the canyon.

A rock tumbled down from a ledge fifty feet above them, then another on the opposite side of the canyon. An infantryman’s forage cap emerged, and Taniel could see the barrel of a rifle. Then another. Then another.

All around them, soldiers appeared on the canyon walls. Taniel stopped counting at twenty-five. “The rest of the infantry company,” he said, “the ones camped in the valley. Did you confront them, too?”

“I didn’t know there were more,” Bo said. “The camp I passed had less than a dozen men in it.”

Taniel sensed Bo reaching into the Else, and felt sorcery leak into this world. A breeze-touched with sorcery-lapped around Taniel’s legs and ruffled his jacket as a dozen more soldiers rounded the bend on the canyon floor, leveling their rifles. “They have gunpowder,” he said. “They’ll have to come a little closer for me to detonate them.”

“No need for that,” Bo said.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you recognize that insignia?”

Every one of the men had a patch on his shoulder – a chevron with a powder horn below it. He remembered the same patch on the uniforms of the men who had been guarding him when he awoke from his coma. Someone had told him that they belonged to a special regiment called Riflejacks.

“They’re not pointing their guns at you,” Bo said.

Riflejacks. That special regiment reported to Field Marshal Tamas’s bodyguard.

“Privileged Borbador,” a voice called. “If you would please remove your gloves.”

Bo’s fingers twitched. Taniel could feel his sorcery tightening, like muscles moving beneath the skin. A wave of conflict flashed across Bo’s face and he slowly stepped away from Taniel. From up on the ridge and down in the canyon, every rifle followed him. Taniel remembered the gaes that had held Bo, the one that would have forced him to kill Field Marshal Tamas.

“Don’t do it, Bo,” Taniel said. He could see Bo’s arms tense and his fingers wiggle in anticipation. Taniel didn’t know what he could do, but this would only end in a great deal of bloodshed if Bo unleashed his sorcery.

Ka-poel suddenly stood up, leaving Kresimir’s casket on the ground. She strode around in front of Bo before Taniel could stop her, and held out one hand to him.

“You don’t want to stand there, little sister.”

Ka-poel thrust her hand at him emphatically, palm up.

“Give her the gloves, Bo. I won’t let them kill you,” Taniel said. And he wouldn’t. He’d kill a hundred of his own countrymen if they came after Bo. He’d die by his friend’s side if that was what it meant. He stared hard at Bo until the Privileged gave a barely perceptible nod, acknowledging that he had gotten Taniel’s meaning.

Bo lowered his arms. He glared down the canyon as he plucked at the fingers of his gloves and then set them in Ka-poel’s outstretched palm. She took the gloves and walked down the canyon until she reached the Adran soldiers. One of the men examined the gloves in her hands and gave a sharp nod, letting her pass.

She reappeared a moment later, and she wasn’t alone.

Field Marshal Tamas walked stiffly up the canyon to Taniel. He seemed to have aged ten years in the last few months, and looked more frail than Taniel could ever have imagined him. By his gait, he was hiding a wound. A bad one.

“You look like the pit, Dad,” Taniel said.

“You don’t look a damned sight better,” Tamas said. His back was rigid, and he examined Bo out of the corner of his eye as one might regard a cave lion sitting on one’s porch, before he turned back to Taniel. Taniel took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Last he’d heard, his father was presumed dead, and though there had been cause to consider his survival, Taniel had not had the time to either grieve or rejoice. A torrent of emotions rushed through him, and he struggled to hold them all in check, turning his face into a blank canvas.

“Glad to see you still alive,” Taniel said.

The old man’s face was impassive. The pinnacle of military discipline.

But for the first time since his mother died, Taniel saw tears shining in his father’s eyes. “You too, Captain.”