The Autumn Republic

Chapter 29

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Taniel asked.

He rode alongside Gavril on the western road, trying desperately not to think about Vlora. She still loved him, Gavril had claimed, and she had not denied it. The revelation had been a shock – something that Taniel hadn’t even considered. She’d bedded another man, hadn’t she? That meant that she no longer wanted him, didn’t it? Feelings he’d spent the last six months trying to bury were suddenly bubbling to the surface. Until last night the whole situation had been cut-and-dried. He’d dealt with it and moved on, only to find that he’d never had the facts straight in the first place.

It was confusing and it made him want to shoot something.

The big man beside him sat slumped, looking half-asleep and almost ready to fall out of his saddle. It was a misleading posture. He was watching the road, and he read the wear of hooves in the mud like a scholar might read a long-dead language.

“Eh?” he rumbled. “Oh, you mean back on South Pike?”

“Yes.”

“I was drunk.”

“You sobered up pretty quick.”

“Well, that’s the odd thing. I kinda assumed you knew.”

Taniel peered more closely at the big Watchmaster. “What?”

“It didn’t actually occur to me that Tamas wouldn’t tell you that I was your uncle. Not for a while, anyway, and when it did, there wasn’t a good time to tell you. We were in the middle of a rather violent siege, after all. And I thought he probably had a reason for not telling you that the South Pike Mountainwatch drunkard was your uncle.”

Taniel couldn’t help but feel some indignation at that. “So you weren’t going to actually tell me? I’ve thought – for years – that Tamas was the only close family I had left.”

“Really?” Gavril straightened in his saddle. “You know, every time I think I’ve come to terms with the shit your father does, I find out about something like this. He didn’t even mention me?”

“I have vague memories,” Taniel said. “Of being told about my uncles. Nothing more. No names.”

Gavril grunted and tugged gently on his reins. “I’ve been a fairly reprehensible drunk since your mother died. Maybe Tamas didn’t want me to meet you. Or maybe the memories of another family were too much for him.” He snorted to show what he thought of that.

“Too much? I don’t think the man has emotions.”

“You’d be surprised. Your other uncle was Camenir, my little brother. He was just a boy, not much older than you when we went after Ipille. He’s buried in Kez.” Gavril held up his hand for a halt and pointed at the ground. “Riders. Around sixty came through here yesterday. They rested here. If memory serves, we’re getting pretty close to the Counter’s Road, the north-south highway. We’ll want to slow our pace, prepare for anything. If there’s going to be another ambush, it’ll be soon.”

Taniel stowed the questions he wanted to ask Gavril in the back of his mind and tried to ignore the surge of confused emotion caused by the sight of Vlora coming back down the road toward them. She had been on scouting duty with one of the Riflejacks. He could tell by the urgency with which she leaned forward in the saddle that she had found something.

“We’re about a half mile from the intersection,” she said as she reached them. “And the grenadiers have laid a trap.”

“How do you know?” Gavril asked the question before Taniel could.

“They’re waiting about a little under two miles to the south, flanking the road. I got just close enough to sense the powder and get a feel for their positioning and came back.”

Taniel asked, “Any Privileged?”

“None that I could see with my third eye.”

“Perfect. Their Privileged must have left them behind to deal with us. We have the advantage because we know their positioning. We can turn their trap back on them.”

“Better than that,” Vlora said. “I can just detonate all their powder. Take out the whole lot in one go. Few enough powder mages can do it at a distance.”

“Few enough? There’s just you.”

Vlora gave him a grin. “So they won’t be expecting it.”

“They might have Ka-poel.”

“Not if the Privileged aren’t there,” Gavril said. “They’ll have taken her on ahead if they know what she’s carrying.”

Of course. They would keep her close as they fled. But… but what if they didn’t? Vlora could detonate all their powder, killing her right along with the grenadiers. “I can’t risk it.”

“Can she be seen in the Else?” Vlora asked.

“She has the glow. It’s hard to tell, for most.”

“But you can tell?”

“Yes.”

“Then come with me. The two of us can get close enough, make sure she’s not there. You can put a bullet through any Privileged they may have and I’ll detonate the powder. Our Riflejacks can stay back half a mile and come in to mop everything up.”

Taniel checked his pistols to be sure they were loaded. “That’ll work.”

They continued on until they reached the T-intersection, where their highway ended in the Counter’s Road. Vlora stayed out front with the scouts, and Taniel hung back with Gavril. He wanted to ask the big Watchmaster about his mother, but his mouth didn’t seem to want to form the words. Vlora was still in love with him, his own lover was still held captive by the Kez, and they were about to ride straight into half a company of grenadiers.

“Taniel,” Gavril said, bringing him back to the present. “Bad news.”

“What is it?”

“Someone’s ridden north, here at the intersection.”

“What do you mean?”

Gavril dismounted and spent a few moments examining the ground of the intersection, mumbling quietly to himself. “Eight, maybe ten split off from the main group. They’re heading north. Everyone else went south.”

“Can you be sure?” Taniel asked, feeling a sudden fear. What if the Kez had planned a second ambush? Taniel’s company would turn south along the road and try to spring the first trap while a second group of them came down from behind. He reached out with his senses, pushing them to their limit to try to feel something else out there – Ka-poel, a Privileged, powder. There was nothing.

“Not completely, no,” Gavril said. “It could be travelers. It could be Adran patrols, unaware that the Kez are even in this part of Adro. Pit, it could be Mountainwatchers, down from the peaks to cut wood or get supplies.”

Of course they weren’t going north. That would be preposterous. There was nothing to the north but Adro for hundreds of miles. They could try the high passes for Deliv, but the Deliv were on the warpath after Alvation. No Kez would make it through their lands alive.

“Norrine,” Taniel said.

The powder mage drew her horse over to Taniel and saluted. “Sir?”

“You’re the best rider of this bunch and you’ve got sharp eyes. Go with Gavril. The two of you move north and try to sniff out a Kez trap. Vlora and I will go south and slaughter the grenadiers. It’ll be up to you two to tell us if the Kez have come in behind us. Flerrier, Doll, and the Riflejacks will take the road and be ready to guard our rear.”

“Yes sir.”

Gavril gave a slow nod. “It’s risky, splitting like this. But it’s the best way to keep them from getting the drop on us.”

“Get to it, then.” Taniel looked around the gathered soldiers and mages. “We have Kez to kill.”

Taniel dismounted and handed his reins to one of the Riflejacks, then collected his pistols, rifle, and sword. Vlora followed him, and together they crept through the forest, flanking the road on the east side by a few hundred yards. It would allow them to avoid any trickery on the part of the Kez and to sneak up on the grenadiers from the side – they wouldn’t expect mages in hot pursuit to slow down long enough for this.

Not that it was slowing them too much. He and Vlora could move through the trees more quietly than most, and they both burned powder trances, which made them move and think faster. Taniel could hear every crack of twigs and creak of trees in the forest for two hundred paces. It was a cacophony of information, but part of his training as a mage had been to filter that information into what were the animal noises of the forest and what was the movement of men.

Taniel found himself relieved that their mission required silence and the clear focus of moving quietly in the woods. He couldn’t afford to let Vlora distract him now. He was able to push those thoughts to the back of his mind, where they haunted him like a half-seen shadow.

He knew they would be back.

He let Vlora take point. Less than half an hour later she raised a fist, signaling a halt, and crouched down into the underbrush. Taniel crept to her side.

“We’re about a half mile out,” she said.

“Very close.”

“That’s about the farthest I dare try the detonation, and I have a clear sense of them all. They’re flanking the road from high vantage points.” She touched her temple and was silent for a moment, her eyes looking unfocused. “I’d guess as many as sixty of them.”

“Sounds right,” Taniel said. “Any Privileged?”

“No. I don’t sense your savage girl, either. You’d better check for her.”

Taniel took a sniff of powder, trying to ignore the way Vlora had said “your savage girl” and the accusation in her tone. He opened his third eye, steadying himself with one hand on the rough bark of a tree, and studied the Kez trap.

He focused on the area where he could sense the black powder and squinted into the trees, looking for the familiar dim glow of pastel color in the Else that indicated Ka-poel’s presence. The strength of her glow was somewhere between a Knacked and a Privileged, but several shades darker in color, which made her more difficult to see.

Several minutes passed before he let his third eye drop. He put his forehead against the back of his hand for a moment, fighting down his nausea. When he’d recovered, he said, “No sign of her. Does it seem odd to you that they have no Knacked?”

“Now that you mention it…” Vlora’s eyes were fixed on the Kez position. “Maybe they had one or two and they were killed in the attack on our camp.”

Taniel brushed off the niggling doubt he felt in the back of his head. “Probably right. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” Vlora moved several feet forward to crouch behind a fallen tree. Putting her back to the hollow trunk, she set her rifle across her knees and closed her eyes. Taniel saw a smile touch her lips and then felt her reaching out with her senses.

He felt the series of explosions rippling through his mage senses. A moment later and he heard angry bangs going off like a fusillade on a battlefield.

“Go,” Vlora said.

Taniel hopped the fallen tree and was sprinting through the forest, rifle held at the ready, eyes sharp for the green-and-tan uniforms of the Kez grenadiers. He heard Vlora fall in behind and to his right. Dry leaves crunched under his feet and branches whipped his arms and face. This wasn’t about stealth now but about catching any survivors before they could recover.

They would be confused and disoriented from the explosions – more than likely wounded – and thinking that a whole brigade of Adran troops were about to fall on them. Taniel had to reach their position quickly and take them captive or kill them before they realized they were only facing two powder mages.

He reached the top of a hill and paused to get his bearings. “Where?” he gasped.

“Next rise!” Vlora didn’t pause, racing past him and taking point. She had already fixed her bayonet. Taniel cursed and fixed his own as he chased after her.

He skidded to a stop near the top of the next rise and ducked behind a tree. He could see Vlora up ahead. She had slung her rifle over her shoulder and drawn a pistol. Slowly, she stood up.

Taniel waited for her signal to move forward and strained for the sounds of the wounded and dying. Nothing. Even with his powder-enhanced senses the forest was utterly still. No birds, no animals. Had Vlora’s powder ignition killed every single one of the grenadiers outright? That didn’t seem possible.

The moments stretched on while Vlora stood silently, and Taniel finally lost all patience. He dashed to her side, rifle ready.

The scene on the hillside below them stopped him dead in his tracks. He could see the road from this vantage, and the evidence of powder detonations all along this hill and the hillside on the opposite side of the road. Black stains marked the trees, leaves smoldered, fallen branches burned, and the scent of the spent powder hung in the air like a fog. The ground was pockmarked with small craters.

But the only victims were the trees themselves and a couple of unfortunate squirrels.

Taniel lifted his rifle further and spun around. His eyes scanned the surrounding forest, looking for a trap within a trap. Not a creature stirred.

“I don’t understand,” Vlora said. “Is this some kind of distraction? Something to slow us down?”

A nearby motion caught Taniel’s eye. Upon closer examination he found it to be the leather strap of a powder horn, the ends burned off, but the leather itself surprisingly unharmed. It swung from a branch gently, as if mocking them. Taniel felt his heart thundering in his chest as he tried to discover not how they’d been tricked, but why.

“Do you hear something?” Vlora asked.

Taniel cocked his head to the wind and waited for the sound to reach his ears. It didn’t take long.

“Screams,” Taniel said. He was already running for the road as he said it. The screams were coming from the north. From the Riflejacks they’d left behind.

This wasn’t the entire trap.

Taniel raced down the hard-packed dirt tracks of the western highway.

He could hear Vlora’s pounding feet behind him as he tore a powder charge from his belt pouch and stuffed it in his mouth, feeling the grit of the black powder in his gums. In his haste he dropped several charges, but he didn’t have time to stop for them.

The trick was so simple. So obvious. They knew that Tamas would send powder mages after them. The mage would sense the trap, approach with caution, and then be ambushed from the rear. Or, in this case, he’d be separated from his men entirely. He had fallen for it without hesitation!

It took him and Vlora less than two minutes to cross the mile between the false ambush and where their men waited on the road, but even that was too late.

He took in the scene as he rounded a bend: sixty or more Kez grenadiers, armed with pikes and heavy sabers, their kits stripped of black powder, had fallen upon the Riflejacks. Bodies of men and horses littered the road and surrounding woods, and though less than fifteen Kez grenadiers remained on their feet, the Riflejacks, along with Doll and Flerrier, had been slaughtered.

Taniel put on a burst of speed, ready to close with the surviving Kez, but he felt a pair of hands on his side and he was thrown from the road and into a dry streambed.

He landed with an oof and Vlora on top of him.

“What…?” he started.

“Shh.”

He fell silent for long enough for her to poke her head from the streambed. “What the pit was that?” he hissed.

“Our men are down,” she said. “No sense in rushing in like fools.”

Taniel collected his hat. “Within minutes they’re going to figure out that there were more than two powder mages in the group and come looking for us.”

“Give me a moment, I’m thinking.”

Taniel gripped his rifle. “We don’t have a moment. Gavril and Norrine, remember? They’ll have heard the screams as well as us.”

“Shit.”

Taniel slapped her on the shoulder. “Go on. Back across the road. Take that hill over there and hit them on my signal.”

“All right.” Vlora retreated along the streambed, back to the bend in the road, before crossing over. Taniel gave her thirty seconds and then made off at a crouching run.

He circled behind a knoll some forty paces from the road. His eyes, accustomed to forest tracking in Fatrasta, saw the signs of the grenadiers immediately. They had hid behind this very knoll, waiting for the Riflejacks to cross their path, then descended upon them – probably from both sides, considering their lack of muskets. They needn’t have worried about cross fire.

He reached the top of the knoll and hunkered down beside a tree with a clear view of the road. The grenadiers had rounded up three bloody, wounded Riflejacks and were questioning them aggressively, while their comrades tended to their own wounded.

Taniel loaded his rifle with two bullets and looked for the stripes of the grenadier commander, a captain. It was the man doing the questioning, and as Taniel watched, he leaned over and casually slit the throat of one of the Riflejacks.

Taniel’s bullets caught the grenadier captain in the right temple, and a sergeant, likely his second-in-command, in the stomach. Before Taniel could load more bullets, the grenadiers sprang into action. They readied their pikes and kicked rifles and powder horns away from them. These men were trained for fighting powder mages.

One ill-timed kick lost a grenadier his leg as the powder detonated. Taniel grinned, reloading his rifle as the Kez scrambled for cover. His next double-shot hit only one of his targets, taking the woman down with a gut shot. He heard one of the grenadiers shout in a language that was most definitely not Kez.

Was that Brudanian? Why would Kez soldiers be shouting in Brudanian? Taniel didn’t have time to think about it. Ten big Kez soldiers leapt from their cover and rushed Taniel’s knoll. None noticed as one of their number was gunned down from behind.

Taniel didn’t have time to finish loading another shot. He leapt to his feet, throwing another powder charge into his mouth and blocking the thrust of a pike with his rifle barrel. He was forced back, unable to counterattack due to the closeness of the trees, and helpless to do anything but watch the grenadiers flank him.

He let go of his rifle and leapt to the side as the soldier’s momentum carried him forward. Taniel drew his belt knife and rammed it between the grenadier’s ribs, thrusting the man aside and taking his pike, whirling to block the thrust of a saber.

He dispatched two more, taking a heavy cut above his brow that poured blood into his eye before Vlora joined the fight. She whirled through the remaining grenadiers with her short sword and a powder trance, giving her a huge advantage in speed in the close quarters, cutting down every remaining man in moments. By the time Taniel had wiped the blood from his face, the fight was over.

Winded and half-blinded, Taniel turned toward the sound of hoofbeats pounding up the road. He snatched up his rifle and loaded it, ready for the worst.

Gavril’s and Norrine’s horses stopped short of the slaughter, refusing to go any farther. Taniel could hear Gavril’s curses from the woods.

“Taniel!” Gavril yelled.

“Here,” he called back, already jogging toward the road.

“It was a damned trick,” Taniel said. “The powder was set a mile down the road, laid out like men lying in wait, and the grenadiers hiding here in the woods.”

Gavril swung from his horse while Vlora ran to free the two surviving Riflejacks.

“Sorry, sir,” one of the Riflejacks said to Taniel, wincing as Vlora helped him to his feet. “Came out of the woods like ghosts. Flerrier and Doll fought like the pit, but we were overwhelmed after our first volley. The pikes did in our horses without trouble.”

Gavril put down one of the frightened, thrashing horses with his pistol, while Norrine gave Taniel stitches on his brow. “Gather their survivors,” Taniel ordered. “I want to find out what the pit they know.” His head spun and he was still trying to make sense of it all. The trap had been perfect, and he’d walked right into it. It made him furious to see those Adran soldiers – his soldiers – lying dead in the road. There was no one to blame but himself.

There were twenty-three surviving grenadiers, and Taniel could tell at a glance that most of them would be dead of their wounds by morning. His own two surviving Riflejacks might survive if they could avoid infection, having gotten off with a dozen light wounds between the two of them. The Riflejacks’ horses – and Taniel’s and Vlora’s – were either dead or had thrown their riders and fled.

Taniel climbed to his feet after Norrine finished his stitches. He’d had time to catch his breath and let the pain and anger simmer. He had to come up with a plan now. They’d lost valuable time, and they’d lost their advantage of five powder mages.

Norrine knelt beside one of the Kez grenadiers, removing her own needle and silk thread.

“No, don’t,” Taniel said. “They’re not getting any help until they tell us what the game is.” He walked up and down the line of grenadiers, now stripped of their jackets and with their hands tied behind their backs with their own belts. Gavril stood over them, arms crossed, teeth set. He did not look like a man to cross right then.

“How about it?” Taniel asked. “First man who tells me how many men your Privileged master has left will be the first man to get medical treatment.”

Some of the soldiers stared at their feet. Others stared at him dumbly. A few of them moaned from the pain and one was weeping and holding his bloody side.

Taniel repeated his offer in Kez. The soldiers glanced at each other but did not answer. “Any of you speak Brudanian? I don’t know more than a few words.”

“I do.” Gavril said, then rattled off a few sentences. The men seemed to perk up at this, and one of them answered. Gavril switched to Adran. “He says it’s just three Privileged, six grenadiers, and the savage.”

“Why the pit would they be speaking Brudanian?” Taniel asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Because they’re Brudanian,” Vlora said. “Like the army that’s holding Adopest right now.”

Gavril said, “Norrine and I followed fresh tracks, nine sets, north. We only turned back when we heard the fighting. They’re taking your girl to Adopest.”

“Bastards have pulled one over on our whole damn army,” Taniel said. “Tamas is fighting the wrong war.”