The Autumn Republic

Chapter 41

Nila felt exhausted. Her head drooped and she had to wrap the reins around her hands to keep them from slipping from stiff fingers as she rode. Every inch of her body throbbed from the pain of running and riding, and she wanted nothing more than to lie down in the grass, wet though it was with morning dew, and sleep.

But she knew that if she did that, Olem would die.

If he wasn’t dead already.

Bo looked worse than she felt. He seemed to have gained a second wind, head up and eyes alert, but she could see the rings under his eyes and the grimace that he tried to hide as he was jostled in his saddle.

“Your leg,” she said quietly as they rode just behind the vanguard of the Riflejack cavalry. The scouts were up ahead, following the trail her Kez pursuers had left.

Bo slouched in his saddle. “What about it?”

“They couldn’t…”

“No, they couldn’t. The flesh was too damaged at the knee. Healers can work miracles, but there’s a limit to what they can do. If they had managed it, I’d be two inches shorter on the left side and unable to bend my leg.”

Nila imagined Bo strutting down the street, jerking along like a marionette, trying to look casual. She swallowed an inappropriate laugh, covering her mouth, and tried to play it off as Bo glared at her. When he finally looked away, he said, “Yeah, that would have been kind of funny.”

“I’m so sorry, Bo.”

“Don’t be. I’m lucky to have everything above the knee. Let’s just get this over with so I can get out of this bloody saddle. Are we getting close?”

Nila looked around. “It all looks the same in the fog,” she said, then pointed to a scuff in the dirt on a hilltop. “That’s one of my marks.”

“All right.” Bo took a flask from his pocket and took a swig.

“Should you be drinking before a fight?”

“Better I drink now than pass out from the pain halfway through the battle.”

They rode on in silence until word was passed quietly back that they were to halt. One of the scouts approached Nila and Bo, and tipped his hat. “We have them, Privileged. They’re camped in a valley over the next hill.”

“Carry on,” Bo said.

“Do you want me to stay close?” Nila asked.

“Any other time I would say yes,” Bo said with a tired but flirtatious smirk. “But not this time. The magebreaker might know about you by now. He might not. Regardless, he’s gonna think there’s only one Privileged with the cavalry. If we stay well apart, he might not be able to cover us both with his nullifying sorcery. Remember, air in front of you to stop bullets. Keep your fire to a short distance, lest you blast our own people. A fight like this requires deft execution, not brute force.”

The cavalry split into two groups and created a horseshoe-shaped formation around the valley in which the Kez had camped. Nila could smell cook fires now, and she thought she heard muffled voices in the fog. Her wedge of cavalry formed up and she was assigned an escort of two heavily armed cuirassiers to keep her safe.

Nila tried to steady her breathing as she waited for the signal. She didn’t have the training for this kind of fight. She didn’t have the training for any kind of fight. All she knew how to do was unleash herself, and even then it only seemed to work half the time.

She didn’t have time to panic any longer. A horn was blown and the cavalry leapt forward, charging the Kez camp. They swept down into the valley, swords at the ready, and thundered in among the tents and fire rings.

Nila resisted the urge to summon fire to surround her hands – not only would she burn through her reins but she would work best with the element of surprise here.

She heard the clash of swords and the fire of muskets and carbines, while her own wedge of the cavalry continued forward unopposed. One man beside her commented on the lack of resistance, but they surged on, spurred by the sounds of the clash up ahead.

She recognized this bit of the camp. She remembered sneaking through it last night on her flight out. Somewhere nearby was the poor sentry whose neck she had burned through.

She saw the body of an Adran soldier lying in the mud. “Olem!” she shouted, digging in with her heels. Her horse jumped forward, nearly throwing her. She drew close enough to realize that the body did not belong to Olem. But the man’s head was near slashed from his shoulders, fresh blood pouring from his neck. She saw another body in a similar state, then another. The Kez were killing their prisoners.

A Kez soldier emerged from the fog standing above the kneeling figure of an Adran soldier. She recognized the scourged shoulders and the blood-caked beard of the kneeling man.

The Kez soldier’s sword flashed.

Nila reacted out of panic and instinct, her fingers twitching, and her fire took the Kez soldier’s head off as cleanly as a cannonball. The Kez’s body fell, and slowly, tiredly, Olem raised his head.

Nila fought to gain control of her horse as her bodyguards clashed with several other Kez soldiers on foot. When she had calmed the animal, she slid from the saddle and threw herself to the ground beside Olem. He had fallen from his knees to his side. She cut his bonds, only for him to wrench the gag from his own mouth.

“Behind you, you fools!” he bellowed.

Entangled with the few Kez remaining on foot, the Adran cavalry struggled to turn back toward the sudden charge coming up behind them. The bulk of the Kez dragoons slammed into their flank with a thunderous concussion, cutting their way through Adran cuirassiers that had only moments ago held the upper hand.

Nila stretched out one hand, her flames consuming a horse and rider heading straight toward her. Startled by her own precision, she turned and repeated the gesture, searing through another Kez dragoon.

“A sword!” Olem yelled, though one of his arms hung uselessly at his side. He caught a weapon tossed by one of his cuirassiers and spun to deflect the swing of a Kez dragoon. The dragoon roared past and spun to charge forward again, intent on plowing Olem beneath the hooves of his mount, but one of Nila’s bodyguards came at him from behind, slicing neatly through the base of his neck.

Nila helped Olem get back to his feet.

“Ignore me,” he said. “Keep up the fire!”

She flung a ball of flame the size of an ox, consuming the closest Kez dragoon, and then felt a blackness touch the corner of her mind.

Fear seized her as the flames dancing on her fingertips went out.

The magebreaker.

She could sense his influence grow around her, and when she reached for the Else once more, there was nothing to touch. Panic rose in her chest, threatening to overwhelm her. She could not fight with a sword or shoot a pistol. Her one strength was now gone.

She couldn’t pinpoint the location of the magebreaker. Her preternatural senses failing her completely, she threw herself back toward her horse, hauling herself into the saddle, knowing that her options were now limited to fleeing.

There was a flash of lightning in the air behind her, and she turned in time to hear two large explosions somewhere in the fog. She had forgotten about Bo. If the magebreaker was here, if she could keep him distracted, maybe Bo would be able to end this single-handed.

A man screamed out of the fog astride the biggest, fastest horse she’d ever seen. He was clothed in black furs and brown leather, swinging an immense, curved sword. He galloped toward her, blade flashing through the throat of one of Nila’s bodyguards, and then he was past.

Nila raised her hands, only to remember she had no sorcery to throw at him. “He’s going for Bo!” she shouted. “After him!”

Not stopping to see if Olem’s cuirassiers were following, she urged her mount toward where she’d seen the flashes of sorcery.

The Kez camp was now a field of bodies of the dead and the wounded, Kez and Adran alike. Horses galloped through the fog riderless, and unseated cuirassiers and dragoons stumbled about, locking in combat when they came across one another.

Nila felt completely vulnerable in the fog and suddenly realized again how helpless she was. Should she try to help Bo now? Or would she just get herself killed?

It was too late to wonder. She came out of the densest fog and upon a string of sorcery-made corpses. Horses and men alike lay dead, murdered by spikes of dripping ice.

She saw Bo, still astride his horse, reins in his teeth to leave both hands free, frost clinging to his sideburns. He twisted in his saddle toward a charging group of Kez dragoons, and wind slammed into the lot of them, sending horses and men tumbling and screaming, carried off into the swirling mist.

Something moved in the fog behind Bo. At first she thought it was a riderless horse, running terrified and confused. But the creature stalked forward with an implacable gait and the shadow became something more like a man. It was large and twisted, fury etched on its mangled face as it crept up behind him. She had only seen Wardens from a distance. Close up, it was all the more terrifying.

“Bo!” Nila shouted.

Bo swung around as the Warden leapt. His fingers twitched, and the creature was suddenly impaled upon icicles as long as spears. The Warden snapped the icicles off at its chest, blood and water dripping behind it as it loped forward, seemingly unaffected. Bo’s fingers twitched again and the creature was thrown backward as easily as a leaf, screaming angrily into the gust of sorcery-fueled wind.

It managed to land on its feet, and Nila waited for Bo to finish the creature off as it resumed its charge toward him. But his attention was grabbed by the sudden arrival of more Kez dragoons. They raced toward him from the side, only for their horses to stumble against his sorcery. Bo swayed in the saddle, looking like he was ready to fall at any moment. He was too tired to continue this fight, and she could sense the dark presence of the magebreaker. Any second now Bo wouldn’t be able to use his sorcery at all.

Nila snatched at a rock on the ground and flung it at the charging Warden. The rock skipped off its shoulder and it skidded to a halt, its massive misshapen head turning toward her. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of its malevolent, beady eyes. The Warden bellowed and charged straight at her, head lowered like an angry bull.

Nila backed up, then turned to run. What could she do? The creature would tear her limb from limb. It would kill her and then it would kill Bo, and all she had fought for would be for nothing. The sound of its heavy footsteps pounded behind her and she spun to meet her death face-on.

Panic, anger, and desperation snatched at the Else through the ribbon of darkness that was the magebreaker’s influence. Nila tugged at the Else, forcing the tiniest blast of fire into the world and shoving it like a spike through the Warden’s eye.

The Warden stumbled and fell, a smoking black hole through its head.

Nila’s breath was dashed from her as she was suddenly flung to the ground. She hit hard, rolling to absorb the impact but feeling her arm twist unnaturally beneath her. The magebreaker charged past her, sweeping toward Bo. Bo raised his hands, face twisted in anger, but his sorcery sputtered and failed and only his sudden jerk at the reins carried him out of the way of the magebreaker’s heavy scimitar. The Gurlish rider disappeared into the fog.

Nila struggled to her feet, checking her arm, thankful that it was not broken, and ran toward Bo. “Quick,” she said. “We have to go. We can’t fight him.”

Bo seemed to agree. He urged his horse toward her, reaching out one hand.

Out of the corner of her eye, Nila saw the magebreaker’s charge. The Gurlish Wolf was pounding straight for her on his charger, his scimitar swinging, and she could do nothing about it. She opened her mouth to scream.

Bo’s horse hit the bigger Gurlish stallion on the shoulder. Both horses bucked and reared, throwing their riders and flailing and neighing in panic.

Nila ran toward Bo as he struggled to sit up. She could see his prosthetic still in the stirrup, and as he tried to roll onto his front, the magebreaker had already regained his footing and was sprinting toward Bo, sword at the ready.

Nila felt the tears in the corners of her eyes. She strained at the blackness that cut her off from her sorcery, reaching through the inky depths for the Else. She had pushed through it once and she had to do it again.

It was there. She could feel it, seemingly just beyond her reach. She clawed for the Else and it felt as if it were there at her fingertips.

The magebreaker’s shirt burst into flames. He threw himself to the ground, rolling to put them out, his face a mixture of confusion and rage. Nila strode forward. The Else slipped from her fingers and she drew up, trying desperately to reach it. The magebreaker whirled on her now, sword held in both hands, and she scrambled to recover the Else.

She threw herself out of the way of the first swipe. Flames sputtered in front of her hands, singeing the magebreaker’s arms. It put him off long enough for her to scramble away, but in only a moment he was after her again.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see Bo crawling toward her, helpless to stand without his leg, and his prosthetic still stuck in the stirrup.

The magebreaker swung, missing Nila’s face by inches. In her haste to get away she fell to the ground, trying to grab once more at the Else. It would not come to her. The sudden blast of a pistol from just a dozen feet away made her jump.

The magebreaker tripped and slumped to the ground. He writhed for a few moments, blood pouring from his mouth and nose, and then did not stir.

Bo sat on the ground, good leg tangled in his empty pant leg, suit dirty and hair disheveled. “Pit, I hate gunpowder,” he said, tossing the smoking pistol off to one side with a grunt. “Did you happen to see if that Warden was missing a ring finger?”