The Autumn Republic

Chapter 39

“I never thought I’d see the day when I assaulted one of my own cities.”

Tamas stared at the walls of Budwiel. The city sat in the narrowest spot in Surkov’s Alley, flanked on either side by the immense, sheer cliffs called the Gates of Wasal. There was no way into the city but over those formidable granite walls, each stone protected by sorcery as old as the city itself. If not for what he now knew to be Hilanska’s treachery, the same walls on the south side of the city would have withstood months of bombardment by the Kez army.

And now Tamas had to take the city in a single day.

General Arbor eyed the city, leaning on his heavy cavalry saber the way a gentleman might lean on a cane. The ancient general looked older than ever, but there was an excited fire in his eyes. He flexed his jaw, popping his false teeth out into one hand. “Aye. It’ll be a pit of a fight.”

“Ipille has lined the walls with his personal guard,” Tamas said. “They’ll fight tooth and nail for their king. Once we breach the city walls, every street will be a bloodbath.”

“I can give you some good news on that,” Arbor said. “I’ve dug up Ket and Hilanska’s spy reports, and if they’re to be believed, the Kez have left few enough of our people inside unmolested. Most were slaughtered in the initial attack and the rest have been sold as slaves.”

“That’s the worst good news I’ve ever heard.” Tamas wanted to spit, but he knew it wouldn’t remove the bad taste in his mouth.

Arbor gave him a toothless grin. “Just trying to say that there’s no harm in shelling the city! You have to look at the bright side of these things, sir.”

“You’re not making me feel any better.”

Doubt assaulted Tamas on all sides. Where was Taniel? There hadn’t been word or sign of him yet. If he had succeeded in his task of rescuing Ka-poel, Tamas would have heard by now. He didn’t want to think of the alternatives.

Around Tamas, his camp swirled with motion. Artillery that they had sent south on the Addown River was being moved into position as earthen fortifications went up. Ladders and hooks, spare ammunition, and fresh rifles were all being unloaded from the barges. Tents had been pitched, and his tired men were taking shifts to get a couple hours’ rest before the attack.

Last night they had taken Midway Keep, making enough noise to draw Ipille’s personal guard out of Budwiel and into a half-dozen skirmishes throughout the earliest hours of the morning. The guard had slowed him down by a couple of hours before they retreated into the city, and now their silver conical helmets lined the tops of the walls three men deep.

A puff of smoke rose over the walls and a moment later Tamas heard the report of cannon fire. The ball slammed into the earth several hundred yards in front of Tamas’s foremost artillery pieces.

Arbor gave a mirthless chuckle. “Those walls aren’t designed to hold heavy cannon. They won’t be able to shoot back at us with anything bigger than short-range six-pounders.”

“I’m more worried about the grapeshot when we assault the walls,” Tamas replied. “More’s the pity that we don’t have time to wait them out. We’re going to have to charge straight into their teeth.”

“Really?” Arbor held his false teeth at arm’s length and picked something out from between them. “I’m all for a good charge, but we won’t hope to put a scratch in that wall today, not if we had fifty more cannon than we do. And, uh, no offense meant, sir, but sending twenty thousand men over those walls will be just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

“I’m a desperate man, Arbor.” He glanced over his shoulder, craning his head to look back up Surkov’s Alley. He wondered if the main Kez army had grown wise to his plan and were coming up fast behind him. Sulem was to have joined them in battle yesterday afternoon to keep them from marching back down to pinion Tamas against the walls of Budwiel. If the Kez had escaped the Deliv, this would end in disaster. “Come with me.”

Arbor followed him from their vantage point down toward the largest artillery battery, Andriya shadowing them the whole way. Tamas’s newest bodyguard was coated in dry blood and smelled like a slaughterhouse. Anyone else but one of his powder mages, and Tamas would have had the man forcibly washed. This afternoon, though, he needed Andriya’s gun and blade.

“Colonel Silvia,” Tamas called, catching the attention of one of the artillery crews. Silvia was a middle-aged woman with brown, short-cropped hair and a mouselike face stained with black powder. The cuffs of her uniform were almost black with the stuff as well. Tamas had to go all the way down to a captain to find an experienced artilleryman that hadn’t been a friend or student of General Hilanska, and Silvia had in a single day found herself a colonel in command of Tamas’s bombardment.

“Sir!” She stood, snapping a salute.

“You almost ready?”

“Getting there, sir. A few more mortars to move into position and then we’ll start the bombardment on your order. We’ll sweep the walls and just behind them with the mortars and focus direct fire on the main gate.”

“Cancel that. You have a spyglass?”

“Yes sir.” She produced a spyglass from her kit and snapped it open, then waited for Tamas’s instruction.

“Go about three hundred yards to the east of the main gate. Do you see a pattern of discolored stones? They look almost like a face. It’s very faint.”

“I don’t… wait, I see it. Adom, looks like a grinning skull.”

“Fire a pattern of straight shot right at the nose. Hit, wait seven counts, hit, wait two counts, hit, and wait another four. It might take you a few tries.”

Silvia had lowered her spyglass to look curiously at Tamas. “Sir?”

“What is that?” General Arbor asked. “Some kind of combination?”

“In a manner of speaking. The royal cabal that wove the wards into that wall so many hundreds of years ago left a backup plan in case Budwiel ever fell to the Kez and we were forced to take it back. Do this, and that section of the wall will be vulnerable to our cannon fire.”

“And how the bloody pit do you know that?” Arbor asked.

Tamas snorted. “I was the Iron King’s favorite, Arbor. It came with some perks.” And if this doesn’t work, he reminded himself silently, I’ll look like a complete idiot.

“When do you want me to start, sir?” Silvia asked.

“Begin your shelling of the main gate as soon as you’re ready. Have a grouping of cannons standing by to wait for my signal to fire at that particular spot. We won’t be ready to attack for at least an hour.”

Tamas strode back to his command tent, Arbor at his side. “Sir, what happens if Ipille has already fled toward his capital?” Arbor asked.

“Then we’ll hunt him down like a bloody dog,” Tamas said with a confidence he didn’t feel. Ipille might have left two days ago. He could be so far ahead as to make it impossible to catch him. It was a risk Tamas was willing to take.

“Keep everyone working,” Tamas said as he reached his tent. “And keep formations loose. I don’t want the Kez to suspect that we’ll assault today until the very last minute.” He slapped Arbor on the shoulder, and the general saluted him, false teeth still in one hand.

Tamas ducked inside and let himself sag against the main tent post, squeezing his eyes shut. His nerves were raw, his body strung out from too much powder and too little sleep, and the effort of hiding his exhaustion from the men. “One more day, Tamas,” he muttered to himself. “It’ll either all be over tonight or you’ll be dead at the foot of Budwiel’s walls.”

“That’s why most commanders don’t lead the charge themselves.”

Tamas drew his sword and whirled toward the voice. Gavril sat on Tamas’s cot, his whole body caked with road dust, the sleeve of one arm sliced through and stiff with dried blood.

“Bloody pit,” Tamas said, sheathing his sword. “That’s about the closest I’ve ever come to a heart attack. What the pit are you doing here? Where’s Taniel? Get out of my bed.”

Gavril threw up both hands but made no motion to stand. “I’m resting. I just rode all the way down the Counter’s Road, dodging Kez patrols. Reached the Deliv camp a few hours after you left and commandeered a canoe and paddled the whole way here on the Addown.”

Tamas paced his tent. He had planned to plug his ears with wax and catch a few hours of sleep before the attack, while his artillery scattered Ipille’s men from the walls. No chance of that now. “And Taniel? The girl? Where are they? Spit it out, man!”

“Taniel’s alive, Vlora too and Norrine. We lost everyone else in an ambush.”

“And the savage?”

“No sign of Ka-poel. When I left, we still hadn’t caught up to the Privileged.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Had Taniel followed the Kez Privileged down here and slipped inside Budwiel? Had he been captured by Kez patrols? Tamas found himself growing more nervous every moment Gavril didn’t speak.

“You should probably sit down,” Gavril said.

“I’ll sit when I damn well feel like sitting!”

“The Kez didn’t break the parley. It was the Brudanians in disguise.”

Tamas stumbled to his chair and fell into it. “No,” he said, the word coming out as a gasp.

“Afraid so. Captured a couple grenadiers in the fight. Imagine our surprise when not one of them speaks a word of Kez. What’s more, they weren’t heading south. They were heading north, going far out and around to avoid any of our people between the army and Adopest. Vlora and Taniel are on their trail now, but we suspect they’re going to meet up with the rest of the Brudanians in Adro. Are you all right?”

Tamas stared at his brother-in-law for several moments, his mouth hanging open. How could this have happened? He had been played like a fool. The Kez hadn’t broken the parley. He had. Blinded so thoroughly by his own righteous anger, he had ignored Ipille’s pleas for another meeting and dismissed the Kez messengers.

He was too old for this. Too proud, too angry. He had made mistakes in his time – even the best officer did – but the magnitude of this…

“You couldn’t have known,” Gavril said quietly.

“No.” Tamas let out a mirthless laugh. “I’ve become what I most despise. Am I nothing more than a warmonger, Gavril? Another dictator with an army and a grudge? You know, that’s what the old tales say that the Nine was like back before Kresimir came. They were just a collection of squabbling warlords.”

“It’s not like that.”

Tamas went on. “I see a vision of the future, revolutions spreading out across the lands as people pull down their monarchs. The strongest men, unordained by saints or gods, rise to the top and carve out their own petty empires. Men and women die by the millions and all the progress that our world has made in the last thousand years is lost in the dust of time. All because of me.”

Tamas held his fingers in front of his face, watching them tremble.

“I think you give yourself too much credit.”

The vision floating before Tamas’s eyes slowly faded and he felt older than time itself. Every muscle ached, every bone remembered its old breaks and bruises.

The thump of artillery brought Tamas back to the present. “Are you wounded?”

Gavril glanced at his blood-soaked sleeve. “Just a scratch. I gave myself stitches while I rode.”

“You should have them redone. Probably looks like they were made by a blind monkey.”

“Poked myself a few times, but they’re straight and the wound is clean. You forget I’ve spent far more time in the saddle than you.”

“Mostly running from jealous husbands.”

“Some of them were very dangerous. Oh, I forgot to tell you. The Deliv have engaged the main Kez force, but I passed a column in the middle of the night.”

“Kez?”

“Yes. Coming for you. Didn’t look like more than a few thousand – they’re far more worried about the Deliv infantry – but it’ll be enough to put you in a damned tight spot.”

“How far?”

“A couple hours.”

“You should have probably mentioned this earlier.”

Gavril yawned. “It was a long night.”

“You hear any news about Olem?”

“No,” Gavril said. “Should I have?”

“He’s chasing Kez cavalry that got behind us up north. Never mind that. Andriya!” Tamas shouted.

The powder mage put his head in the tent. “Sir?”

“Tell Arbor we have company coming up behind us. He has forty-five minutes until we assault the walls, and we’ll only have time for one attack.”

“Yes sir!” Andriya left to find Arbor, looking as giddy as a schoolboy.

“There’s something wrong with that boy’s head,” Gavril said.

“You know, he’s one of the ones Erika saved. A year before she was…”

“That doesn’t explain the blood all over him.”

“He revels in killing his former countrymen. Perhaps a little too much, but people like that have their uses. For instance, there are few soldiers I would want more clearing the way for me as we go through the breach or over that wall.”

Gavril ran his fingers gingerly over his shoulder. “I don’t think you should take part in the attack,” he said.

“I always have.”

“You’re not a young man anymore.”

“Don’t I know it.” Tamas shook his head. “Some men lead from the back. I prefer to do it from the front.”

“It just takes one lucky musket ball. One thrust of a bayonet.”

“That knowledge has never stopped me before.”

“When will your luck run out?”

Tamas extended a hand. “Maybe today. Maybe never. Help me up. I have another king to kill.”

“I thought you just meant to capture him.” Gavril helped Tamas climb to his feet.

Tamas grimaced. “I will. Wishful thinking, I suppose. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Gavril went on ahead. Once he was alone, Tamas leaned over, hands on his knees, and took several deep breaths. He’d made a horrid mistake. Many of them over the course of this short war, now that he paused to look back. Too many. Misplaced trust. Bad timing. This final misstep with the Kez – it needed to be his last. When it was all over, he had to put down his pistol and walk away, or else everything he had fought for would be for naught and his vision would come true.

Straightening, Tamas adjusted his sword and checked his pocket to be sure he had enough powder charges, then marched out into the sun.

It was time.