The Crimson Campaign (71 page)

He took a few steps back, stumbling in the water, and fell against the opposite bank. Nikslaus had died, from an accident no less, just moments before Tamas reached him.

Tamas hammered his fists into the mud. He kicked a carriage wheel hard enough to break several spokes and bend the iron strake that held the wheel together. He slipped in the mud, falling to his knees.

He slumped forward in the same water that had just drowned Nikslaus, rain falling in his eyes. He still had his shot – for a moment, he considered putting it in his own brain. He’d lost Erika, he’d lost Sabon, he’d lost Gavril. And now he would never avenge them. He gripped his pistol, Taniel’s gift. No. Not everything. He still had his son.

“Please! Please, help me!”

The call brought Tamas back. He looked down to see that Nikslaus’s body was being carried away down the ditch with the force of the storm waters. A fitting end, even if Tamas hadn’t brought it about himself.

He climbed the embankment in time to hear the voice again.

“Please! I’ve lost my knife!”

The carriage driver was struggling in the mud, kicked and shoved by frightened horses as he tried to cut them loose. It looked like he’d managed to free all but two of the panicked beasts.

The fighting continued around them. Tamas knew he needed to get back to level ground and find his officers, to bring some kind of cohesion into the melee. With Nikslaus gone, the Kez might very well break and run.

A horse screamed, and Tamas again heard the sound of the pleading driver.

Tamas climbed the wreckage of the carriage and lowered himself down just behind the driver. The man was on his knees, trying to dodge thrashing hooves as he cast about in the water for his knife.

“Here,” Tamas said. He pushed the man aside and drew his sword, and with two quick strokes, the horses were free. They rolled to their feet and were off, splashing upstream through the ditch, away from the carriage. They would be impossible to catch until they calmed down, and one of them might very well break a leg in these conditions, but at least they were free.

Tamas turned to the driver. The man cowered before him, blinking in fear at the epaulets on Tamas’s uniform.

“Thank you, sir,” the driver said.

“Find the closest Adran officer,” Tamas plucked at the white sleeve tied around his arm, “and surrender yourself. That’s the only way you’ll survive the night.”

The driver ducked his head, the water dripping off the brim of his forage cap. “Sir, thank you, sir. The duke, is he…?”

“He’s dead.”

It may have been the darkness and the rain, but it seemed that relief washed across the driver’s face. “What about the powder, sir?”

“Powder?” Tamas asked. “What powder?”

The color drained from the driver’s face. “The whole city. It’s filled with it. The duke was going to kill all those people!”

Tamas turned toward Alvation. Black powder! That’s why he sensed so much. Nikslaus must have strung it through every building, ready to be touched off at his command. That’s the only way he could have leveled the city in one night.

Tamas struggled up the embankment and began to run back the way he’d come. The Wardens would probably set it off, even if it meant dying themselves. No hope that a conscientious officer would countermand Nikslaus’s orders.

There’d have to be tens of thousands of pounds of powder throughout Alvation to destroy the whole city. They could have set it off and then swept through the wreckage, slaughtering the survivors. What better way to frame Adro for the attack? No one would suspect a Privileged like Nikslaus of using black powder.

Tamas would never make it in time.

The first blast was so large it shook the ground. A cloud of fire rose up over the market district as high as a four-story building and the shock wave knocked hundreds of fighting soldiers off their feet.

Tamas tripped and fell, bashing one knee on the cobbles. He was back running with a limp a moment later, eyes on the city, waiting for the next blast. The fire was gone almost as quickly as it had risen, but Tamas could see the outline of a plume of smoke and steam rising into the evening sky.

That wouldn’t be all of it. He had to get back into the city and…

And what? Stop the Wardens from lighting the powder? He didn’t know where they were, and the city was quite large. He could try to find the powder caches, but no doubt the Wardens would have blown them up already.

Another blast rocked the city, this time on its far side. Tamas was ready for it, and managed to keep his footing despite the rumbling of the ground.

Each one of the blasts was no doubt killing hundreds. He could suppress the blasts, or redirect the energy, but trying to contain that much powder would be like boiling water in a sealed teakettle – it would rip him apart.

Tamas entered the city, shoving his way through the melee, and spread his senses outward. There was a munitions dump on the next street, he could feel it. Enough powder to level ten city blocks.

Tamas sensed the match being touched to powder somewhere inside the munitions dump, and already it was too late to suppress the explosion. The pressure built in Tamas’s mind, the explosion rocketing outward from the gunpowder.

Tamas grasped the energy, ready to redirect it. His mind reached out for the rest of the powder to see how much he’d have to stop.

A scattering of powder charges was easy. A powder horn was no problem. Even a barrel of powder, Tamas could redirect.

Fifty barrels of powder went at once.

Tamas grasped the energy and pushed it straight down beneath him. It felt like he’d attached a hundred cannons to his boots and fired them all at once. The energy coursed out, throwing up dirt, rock, and cobbles, and Tamas could see the shocked faces of the soldiers closest to him just before they were vaporized in an instant.

It was too much. He couldn’t contain so much powder. His body groaned and twisted, and his skin felt ready to split.

All of this took less than a heartbeat. Tamas could feel consciousness slipping, and with it the will to control the force of the explosion.

He’d failed his wife. He’d failed his soldiers, his son, the people of Alvation and Adro.

He’d failed them all.

The world went black.

Taniel landed square on the shoulders of one of his guards. The man crumpled beneath him, absorbing some of the impact, but Taniel’s legs still buckled beneath him and he rolled, howling in pain, up against the base of the beam.

The two remaining guards froze, their eyes wide, in the midst of trying to bring Ka-poel under control.

Taniel forced himself to his feet and caught the swing of a musket butt on the rope binding his hands. He lashed out with one boot, kicking in the side of a guard’s knee, and then slammed his tied hands across the face of the other.

Ka-poel’s hood had fallen back in the struggle. Her eyes were wide, her short red hair wild. She lifted her chin under Taniel’s brief scrutiny. The moment was over, and she wicked a drop of blood off the end of her long needle and darted forward, drawing her belt knife to saw through Taniel’s bonds.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Taniel said.

She finished cutting his bonds and thrust a powder horn into his hands. He tore the plug out with his teeth. The powder poured into his mouth, tasting sulfuric on his tongue, crunching between his teeth. He sputtered and choked, but forced himself to swallow a mouthful of black powder.

The powder trance raced through him, warming his body, tightening his muscles. The pain of his wounds and bruises faded to the back of his mind.

Ka-poel finished dispatching the four guards with her belt knife. She stood up and sniffed, wiping the blood off.

Taniel looked around. Despite the activity in the camp, plenty of soldiers had begun to notice their fight. An officer was running toward them at the head of a squad, pointing and shouting for others.

Taniel rubbed at his wrists. He and Ka-poel were in the center of the Kez army, completely cut off and with no hope of rescue. He’d have to kill a hundred thousand men to escape this.

“Pole.” He bent at the knee, fetching one of the guard’s muskets, and winced. Not enough powder in the world to completely drown out the pain. “I don’t think we’re going to get through this.”

Ka-poel surveyed the Kez army, like a general surveying her troops.

Taniel hefted the musket. It was a cheap make, nothing like the Hrusch rifle he was used to. He retrieved the bayonet from the guard’s kit and fitted it into place. It would have to do. The Kez were coming – fifty, maybe more now. And any fighting would bring the notice of the rest of the army.

“Pole,” he said, “I love you.”

Ka-poel touched one finger to her heart, then pointed at him. She tossed her satchel on the ground in front of her. It landed with the top open, and she lifted her hand.

Her dolls began to rise out of the satchel. Taniel remembered the fight at Kresim Kurga and the power she had shown.

“It won’t be enough this time, Pole.”

The dolls kept coming. Ten. Fifty. A hundred. A thousand.

An impossible number rose out of the satchel and spread out evenly in the air surrounding them.

The Kez soldiers had come to a stop twenty paces away and were watching her sorcery, perplexed. A Kez captain lifted his hand. “Load!”

Taniel ignited their powder with a thought. Muskets ripped apart and powder horns exploded and the air filled with the scent of spent powder and the sound of screams.

“A powder mage!” someone yelled. The call went on through the camp as soldiers discarded their muskets and scrambled for swords and knives. More men came running – first a trickle, then in force. Taniel gripped the barrel of his musket and prepared for the fight.

It started as a small, out-of-place movement in the corner of his eye. A Kez soldier stopped in the middle of the camp and rammed his bayonet into the neck of the man beside him. The soldier seemed perplexed at what he’d just done before he suddenly turned and cracked his musket butt across the teeth of another Kez infantryman.

Another soldier suddenly held his powder horn up to his flintlock and pulled the trigger, blowing himself and three of his companions to the pit.

Fistfights broke out, and the tide of Kez soldiers heading toward Taniel and Ka-poel began to ebb as they turned on one another.

Ka-poel stood, legs braced, eyes on her dolls as if she were examining a chessboard. Around her, the dolls were moving of their own accord. Some of them fought each other, while others tumbled and stabbed at shadows. Taniel felt a terrible fear grip him. She was controlling an entire army, thousands all at once!

An unoccupied infantryman charged Taniel.

Taniel slapped aside the thrust of a bayonet and rammed his own through the infantryman’s eye.

“We should go,” he said to Pole. “You can’t keep them forever.”

Ka-poel caught his sleeve and made the shape of a gun with one hand, pointing at her dolls.

“You want me to shoot them?”

A nod.

Taniel dropped the butt of the musket to the ground and quickly loaded it. Lifting it to his shoulder, he looked to Ka-poel for confirmation.

She made a hurrying motion with one hand.

Taniel aimed at her field of dolls and pulled the trigger.

A sound like thunder cracked out of the late-morning air, sending Kez soldiers diving for cover. A nearby soldier suddenly splattered across a tent like he’d been hit by a cannonball. Taniel could hear the cries of dismay, and someone shouted, “Artillery fire!”

Ka-poel threw her head back in a silent laugh.

“That’s sadistic,” Taniel said. He grabbed her by the hand. “Let’s go.”

They raced through the Kez camp, heading toward the eastern mountains that lined Surkov’s Alley. Ka-poel’s dolls kept pace with them, floating, fighting shadows. By the time they reached the edge of the Kez camp and began to climb the nearest hill, the number of dolls had diminished.

Ka-poel panted heavily as they climbed. Taniel looked behind them. No one was following, but it wouldn’t be long until they did. He pulled on her arm and felt her sag to the ground, her eyes suddenly cloudy from exhaustion. Taniel swung his musket onto his shoulder and then lifted Ka-poel in his arms, continuing to run.

The hill grew steeper, and Taniel soon found himself climbing more than running. He was forced to set Ka-poel on a large rock in the scree and pause to rest, turning to look at the valley.

They weren’t being chased.

The entire Kez camp was in an uproar. Brother fought brother. A weak Privileged was slinging sorcery in a panic. Wardens were trying to restore order by killing “ringleaders” in a perceived uprising among the troops – it only added to the chaos.

All because of Ka-poel’s dolls.

Taniel uncorked his powder horn and poured a measure onto the back of his hand. He snorted it. The immediate danger may have passed, but the Kez could still send infantry or even riders after them. There’d be no getting away if they did. He could feel fatigue circling him, like a pack of wolves around a wounded deer. The burning flame of his powder trance would go out soon. No amount of fuel would keep it going, and then he would be useless.

He and Ka-poel would need to walk the steepest part of the scree north for over three miles to get even with the Adran camp.

Then there was the matter of the traitor Hilanska.

Near the front line, the chaos seemed the least pronounced, and plenty of the Kez soldiers were still watching as Kresimir and Mihali spoke alone between the camps. The two gods faced each other, no more than a few feet apart. Taniel would have given a fair amount to read their lips. Neither seemed to notice or care about the confusion in the Kez camp.

Mihali reached out, resting a hand on Kresimir’s shoulder.

Kresimir shrugged it off.

Mihali spread his hands in a calming gesture. Kresimir raised one hand in the air, pointing at the sky, shouting something.

Mihali kept speaking. His lips barely moved and his face was serene.

It was several minutes that Mihali spoke. Much to Taniel’s surprise, Kresimir seemed to listen. The god’s hand fell to his side.