Wrath of Empire

Chapter 50

It took a day to set up the duel. Vlora stayed in a back room of Burt’s brothel, nursing the cuts on her hands and only leaving once, to send a secure courier to Olem with instructions to inch the army closer to Yellow Creek.

The morning brought a cold wind sweeping down from the mountains, chilling Vlora through her clothes as she stepped outside with an entourage that included Burt and fifty of his armed posse. Most of them were Palo, but more than a few were Kressian or Gurlish. The sun wasn’t even above the trees yet, and traffic was sparse. Children lined the rooftops, watching them pass, and Vlora guessed that word about this duel had spread.

They walked down the main road, passing the hotel where Vlora had spent the first week of her stay. The fidgety manager stood on the stoop, eyes glued to the procession. They kept onward, finally turning off the street and entering a dusty park, where a public gallows stood ominously creaking in the wind. The corner of the park was full of tombstones.

Men and women lined the other side of the park, all of them similarly well armed, and they outnumbered Burt’s people by at least a dozen. Nohan stood at the center of the group beside a dark-skinned Deliv woman in a corseted crimson dress. She was dressed more like a courtesan at a dinner party than someone out early in the morning to watch two people fight to the death.

Vlora leaned over to Burt. “Is that Jezzy in the red dress?” she asked.

“That’s her.” Burt puffed on a cigar. He wore a dashing brown suit, complete with cane and bowler cap, and he, too, seemed to be treating this as a matter of entertainment rather than dire consequence.

“Does she know what I am?”

Burt grinned around his cigar. “She has no idea. She bet her best gold mine against seven of my smaller claims without batting an eye. Either she knows something I don’t, or she doesn’t know that I know her man is a mage.” He looked skyward, as if making sure the order of the sentence sounded right, then nodded to himself. “Whoever wins, this is going to be a lot more interesting than she expects.”

So Burt was betting against the house. It didn’t surprise Vlora, not much, but she was slightly annoyed at how cavalier he was about this thing. He might lose a handful of small claims, but she could be dead in ten minutes.

Vlora eyed the armed men. “Is this going to turn into a battle?”

“It shouldn’t. The deputies are steering clear this morning, but nobody wants a real confrontation. This is just a bit of fun.”

“And all the weapons?”

“Precaution.”

Vlora eyed Nohan. He didn’t look great. He still limped from their tussle, and his arms seemed stiff. He didn’t look like he’d gotten much more sleep than she had – probably he’d been out hunting her each of the last few nights. She had little question that he was running a damned powerful powder trance.

Vlora was confident, but she knew that being too confident could get her killed. This was a trained powder mage who delighted in killing. He was bigger, stronger, and just as fast. Even if she won, she was unlikely to leave this fight unscathed.

She tested the tightness of the stitches Burt’s surgeon had redone on her arms, knowing that she’d probably rip them all out. Taking a powder charge between her fingers, she crushed the paper and reached up her sleeve to rub the powder beneath her bandages, feeling the fire as it reached her bloodstream. She took another charge and sniffed it, turning away from the others lest Jezzy see the act and try to cancel the duel.

She had Nohan out in the open. This had to end now.

Burt checked his pocket watch, then twirled it on the end of its chain. “It’s time, ma’am,” he told Vlora.

“Agreed.”

She and Burt went to the middle of the park, where they were soon joined by Jezzy and Nohan. Jezzy gave them both a toothy, charming smile. “My friends,” she began.

“Can it, Jezzy,” Burt replied pleasantly. “This is the woman you tried to have killed when she wouldn’t work with you.”

Jezzy lifted her chin, looking down her nose at Vlora. “Is that so? The one whose friend killed poor Dorner? Pity, that. Dorner was always a loyal dog. Does your champion have a name?”

“Verundish,” Vlora answered.

“Verundish.” Jezzy rolled the name around on her tongue. “Nohan says he knows you. Is that true?”

“We have a history.”

Jezzy’s smile broadened. “I’m glad we’re here to let you work out your problems. Do you know what Nohan is, little lady? He’s a powder mage. You sure you want to fight him?” Jezzy scrunched up her face, wiggling her nose, her eyes smiling.

“Powder mages are all fluff,” Vlora said, staring at Nohan. The bastard hadn’t even warned his boss what he was up against. What a weaseling asshole.

“If you insist,” Jezzy said. “Now, then, Burt. Are we agreed on the terms?”

“Your mine. My claims. Straight out bet with Kresimir and all gathered as my witness.”

Jezzy’s eyes flicked up to the armed men Burt had brought with him. “And no funny business?”

“None coming from me.” Burt puffed on his cigar, then extended his hand. The two shook. He leaned over to Vlora. “Don’t make me a poorer man, Lady Flint,” he whispered. Then he retreated back to the other side of the park.

It was the first time he’d outright stated that he knew who she was. Vlora tried not to let it bother her, watching as Jezzy retreated as well, leaving Vlora and Nohan alone. She couldn’t sense any powder on him, and had left hers with Burt. She wanted to focus on this without having to worry about him trying to detonate her powder, and he’d obviously felt the same.

“Just a couple of powder mages,” Vlora said. “High as Gurlish sandriders with a pair of swords between them. This should be fun, don’t you think?”

Nohan glared at her. “I’m not here for fun. I’m here to win back my pride.”

“I’m not sure you had any to begin with,” Vlora said, drawing her sword. Her mentor had always taught her to kill in cold blood – to set aside the quips and the insults and to let her sword talk for her. Vlora, however, was not Tamas. “You’re an asshole, Nohan. You should just have accepted it and tried to rein in your lust for blood. You would have gotten a lot farther in life.”

“What, working in your damned cabal?”

“You wanted to at one point. Now you’re a bitter sword for hire, and you’ve been coaxed into a duel instead of sitting back and shooting at me from the other side of town. It was a good strategy. You should have stuck to it.”

“You sure it was me who walked into a trap?” Nohan demanded.

Vlora let her eyes travel along the men standing on the other side of the park, then to the rooftops, wondering if perhaps she’d made an error. Was Nohan cleverer than she expected? Had he set her up? Or was this a last bit of bravado to throw her off her feet?

“Good-bye, Nohan,” Vlora said, stepping forward.

Audible gasps rose from the watchers as the two crossed swords. Nohan leapt to the offensive, driving Vlora back with a series of thrusts that were almost too fast for the eye to follow. Vlora allowed herself to relax, drawing on instinct to parry and riposte, keeping her footing steady as she backed away. Their blades blurred in the morning sunlight, and dust rose around them from their footwork.

She continued to fall back. Letting an opponent tire themselves out was a time-honored dueling strategy, but that wouldn’t work on a powder mage. At least, not very quickly. But she could let his fury build, keeping him at bay without striking back, and that’s what she did as they circled the park. Within moments she could hear mutters, and someone said the words “powder mage.” Bets were soon being shouted back and forth as the big bosses’ underlings worked themselves into a frenzy.

Vlora parried a particularly powerful strike and was immediately forced to duck below a swing and throw herself to one side. Sweat began to pour down her face, and she focused harder.

Nohan managed to get inside her guard, nicking her right forearm. She answered by cutting off the tip of his nose, causing him to stumble back amid a flurry of curses. She followed him coldly, suddenly on the attack, moving with purpose.

He managed to parry several strikes in a row, but then she was inside his guard. She stabbed his right shoulder, parried a riposte, and stabbed him just below the ribs. His sword arm faltered, and she stepped forward and caught him by the front of his jacket, thrusting her sword through his heart until her hilt touched his chest.

She held him up, his body twitching, his eyes rolling as he died. After a few moments she pulled out her sword and let him fall.

The cheers, jeers, and bets quieted. The dust slowly settled. Vlora turned to Burt, who held his cigar between his teeth with a grin. His cigar was no shorter. The fight had lasted thirty seconds – maybe less. She turned to Jezzy, whose face was ashen, her broad smile gone. Jezzy took two steps toward Vlora, then stopped, hawking a wad of phlegm at her champion.

“You cheated,” Jezzy spat.

The assembled crowd immediately erupted into chaos. Accusations flew from both sides. Burt held his arms up in alarm, shouting, “No!” over and over again, while muskets, blunderbusses, and swords were shaken angrily on all sides. Vlora whirled, her head spinning, her thoughts hard to focus after the euphoric adrenaline of the fight.

“Nobody cheated,” she said to Jezzy. “Your man lost. Pay up to Burt, or everyone here will see you for a coward.” She turned back to Burt, hoping he’d back her up, when she heard a musket shot.

Most people assumed that powder mages were infallible when it came to black powder, that they could stop every powder ignition and that any bullet that managed to fly would somehow miss them. This was, of course, a myth that Vlora had been disabused of from an early age. Any powder mage could be shot – all you had to do was overwhelm them, confuse them, or just take them by surprise.

She felt the bullet hit her in the back a fraction of a second after she heard the blast. She stumbled forward, falling to her knees, watching the surprise spread on Burt’s face. Burt suddenly leapt for the ground, and the world erupted in violence as both sides opened fire. Bullets whizzed over and around Vlora, a soft undertone to the cacophony of powder blasts and men screaming.

Vlora struggled to open the button on the breast pocket of her jacket, only to remember that there was no powder inside. Her head was fuzzy, her thoughts confused. She felt a burning between her shoulder blades that she could not ignore.

All around her, men and women died. Weapons were fired, and it quickly became apparent that both sides had stationed people on the roof. The exchange grew more frenzied and wild, and Vlora forced herself to her feet and began to walk.

In the chaos and the dust and powder smoke, it was difficult to tell who was shooting at whom. She reached out with her senses toward the armed gang behind her, where Jezzy was being protected by her men, and detonated their powder with a thought. The kickback from touching off over three dozen sources of powder at once nearly caused her to pass out, but she pushed on until she fell on her knees beside Burt.

Burt seemed unharmed. He held his hands over his head, cigar crushed in the dust and cane lost as he pressed his face against the ground. She forcibly turned him over, searching his pockets for her spare powder cartridges and shoving them into her own jacket.

“Remember our deal,” she growled, regaining her feet.

She detonated the powder of a trio of armed women on a roof across the street, ripping them – and the building on which they stood – in half. The exchange of gunfire continued, and Vlora wondered just how many men both sides had brought with them. Her ears ringing, she could make out gunfire from all over, extending well into the streets.

Both of these fools had brought their entire private armies with them.

She limped away from the park, back the way they’d come down the main street, snorting powder to quell the pain between her shoulders. She assessed the damage; her chest and the muscles of her back were tight, every step causing a spike of pain to bleed through her powder trance. She could still move her arms – though not as well. It would have to be good enough.

The acrid smell of smoke caught her attention, and she knew immediately that it was not powder smoke. There was a fire somewhere behind her, maybe even set by her own detonations, and she thought of all the slapdash wooden buildings crammed in together in the valley. Fire would spread damned fast. She redoubled her efforts.

The streets were full of people screaming and running. Vlora was jostled and shoved, but otherwise ignored. Some people ran away from the firefight; others called for a bucket brigade and ran toward the flames.

She reached Burt’s brothel, fetched her pistol from Burt’s office, and then went for her horse in his stable. A curious stable boy saddled the animal for a handful of pennies, while Vlora rested on a hay bale in the corner. Blood dripped down both arms, and when she finally regained her feet, the hay was crimson. It took the stable boy’s help to get her into the saddle.

Vlora rode out of town, slumped in the saddle, trying to get as far away from the fighting as possible. This wasn’t her war – this wasn’t why she was here. She drifted in and out of consciousness, barely holding together enough to direct her horse up the road leading to Little Flerring’s compound.

“What the pit is going on?” Little Flerring demanded from her vantage point above her cabin. Vlora tried to answer as she attempted to dismount, and only managed to slip from the saddle and fall to the ground in a heap.

The last thing she remembered was hands lifting her toward the sky.