The Autumn Republic (20 page)

Ipille himself sat at the head of the table.

He’d grown morbidly obese since the last time they had met, the night Tamas had tried to kill him. Once a dapper lion of a man, he sat stuffed into a chair that would have been big enough for a pair of grenadiers. He wore swaths of cloth; thick, bristling furs draped over his shoulders, trimmed with gold, and on his fingers rubies that would make an Arch-Diocel blush.

“Tamas.” Ipille’s voice sounded like the inside of a bass drum, and his jowls shook when he spoke.

“Ipille.”

A chair scraped the stone floor, and Duke Regalish shot to his feet. “You will address his august majesty as ‘Your Royal Highness.’ He is a king, you common cur, and you will treat him as such.”

“Shall I put this dog down?” Olem asked, his hand resting on the hilt of his smallsword.

Tamas let his silence speak for him, letting Regalish stand quivering with indignation until Ipille turned his head toward his adviser. “Sit down, my good duke. Your whimpering will have no effect on Tamas. He is a man of iron. Iron does not bend. It only shatters.”

Tamas clasped his hands behind his back and tried to focus through the pain in his side.

Ipille’s fat fingers drummed heavily on the oak table as Olem made his way silently around the room. He bent to lift the tablecloth, then strolled around the table, looking over each of the advisers with a studious eye, ignoring their baleful glares.

“What is this, Tamas?”

“Precaution.”

“We’re here under a flag of truce, are we not?”

“Come now, Your Moribund Majesty. You took your precaution by arriving first. I take mine now.”

Ipille’s deep chuckle forestalled another outburst from Regalish.

Olem finished his search and gave Tamas a nod, and Tamas gestured to the chairs on his end of the table. “Ipille, I will introduce Lady Winceslav – I believe you’ve met. My son, Major Taniel Two-shot. Privileged Nila of the Adran Republic Cabal. Members of my senior staff.”

“Charmed,” the king said. “You know Regalish. I believe you killed his uncle. Some of my advisers back there,” he said with a dismissive wave. “Field Marshal Goutlit. Magus Janna.” Another of Ipille’s deep chuckles. “We’re both scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to Privileged, are we not? Sad times.”

Tamas gestured for his companions to sit, then took his own place at the opposite end of the table from Ipille. “I’d wager on my own companion in a fight.”

“Would you? My spies tell me she’s an untrained apprentice.”

His spies? The royal arrogance showing through. I know he has spies in my army, of course. But for him to admit so is
…
obscene
. “Did they tell you that she cooked the whole of one of your brigades?” Out of the corner of his eye Tamas saw Nila sit up a little straighter, trying to look regal. She was a striking young woman – though the redness on her cheeks marred the image a bit. A little skill and confidence, and she would dominate this kind of negotiation. Bo hadn’t sent her as a rebellious insult, Tamas realized, he’d sent her to learn.

“And fainted afterward!” Ipille made a dismissive gesture. “Auxiliaries. I can always get more men. I imagine you’re running out. Isn’t that right, Lady Winceslav?”

Lady Winceslav gave the king a tight smile and flicked open a fan, fanning herself gently. “War is equally unkind to all, Your Majesty.”

“But especially to those with the fewest troops. Now Tamas, are we going to sit here making veiled insults and threats, or shall we treat together?”

“You have an offer?”

Ipille nodded to Regalish, and the adviser stood, clearing his throat. “This war is costing both our countries millions. By the grace of our lord Kresimir and Ipille II, king of Kez, we extend terms of peace.” He paused to clear his throat again. “We will withdraw our forces to Budwiel and the city will be ceded voluntarily to Kez control. Kez will acknowledge the autonomy of the Adran nation, and in exchange will be paid the sum of one hundred million krana as reparations.”

Regalish continued for another five minutes on the particulars of their offer, consulting an official-looking document twice on some minor detail. When he’d finished, he cleared his throat once more and returned to his seat.

Tamas put one elbow on the table, resting his chin on his palm, and raised one eyebrow at Ipille.

“You’re very amusing people,” Lady Winceslav commented.

“You have no chance of winning, Tamas,” Ipille rumbled. “I can afford the losses of the past six months. They are a drop in the bucket to our population. You cannot. If nothing else, we will win by attrition.”

“Your men have told you that you’re now at war with Deliv, correct? The late Duke Nikslaus made a grave error by attacking Alvation with the intention of blaming Adro, and I understand they’ve invaded you from the north while also sending some sixty thousand reinforcements, which will arrive in just a few days. And
they
still have an entire royal cabal.”

Ipille’s expression gave nothing away. Regalish leaned close to him to whisper in his ear.

“Where is your one-eyed god, king?” Taniel said suddenly, his voice cutting through Regalish’s whispers. “Where are your mighty Privileged and your great armies? Where are your spies and your traitors bought with gold and religion?”

Ipille brushed Regalish aside. “You wish to match yourself against me, boy? You fancy yourself a god-killer? Tell me, did you piss yourself when you looked Kresimir in the face?”

“No. I shot him in the eye.”

“Kresimir lives yet.”

“Resting peacefully, I’m sure,” Taniel sneered.

Tamas flinched.
Watch yourself, Taniel
, he thought.
He only goads you on so you will tell him our secrets.
“That’s enough, Major,” Tamas said, hating the smug smile in the corner of Ipille’s mouth. He removed a paper from his pocket and unfolded it.

“We’re prepared to offer generous terms of our own. You will withdraw from Adro completely, relinquishing all your false claims and recognizing our republic with the Nine as witness. You will grant us ten thousand acres of the Amber Expanse. You will agree to a hundred years of peace, again witnessed by every country in the Nine, and you will return every prisoner of war and grant us hostages to guarantee your agreement.”

“And in return?”

“I won’t slaughter your army like a herd of mad cattle.”

Regalish was on his feet again. “You go too far!”

“Sit down, you snake. I treat with your king, not his dogs. In addition to all this, you will hand over Kresimir.”

“Kresimir is off the table,” Ipille said.

“More like under it,” Taniel murmured.

Tamas gestured his son to silence. “Those are our terms.”

“Such generosity,” Ipille grunted. “Shall I give you my firstborn as well?”

“I already have Beon, though I suppose he’s only the thirdborn.”

The Kez Privileged swallowed a laugh and received a glare from Ipille. “Shall I cut off my leg for you, Tamas?” Ipille continued. “Grant you a dukedom? You ask too much.”

“Those are our terms,” Tamas said.

“And they are intractable?”

“Well. This
is
a negotiation.”

The Kez delegation huddled on their side of the room and Tamas took his own advisers close to the chapel doors for privacy.

“You’re a terrible negotiator,” Lady Winceslav said quietly. “ ‘This
is
a negotiation?’ ” she mimicked. “You might as well tell him you’ll give up ground.”

“I’ve lost patience in my old age.”

“We did not agree on the bit about Kresimir.”

“Taniel already let slip that we know Kresimir is comatose,” Tamas said with a scathing glance at his son. “And besides, we can take whatever guarantees we want from the Kez. If Kresimir manages to come around, he will destroy us regardless of Kez promises.”

“Then what good will having him in our possession do?”

“Our deaths will be that much quicker,” Olem suggested.

Tamas glared at his bodyguard. “We can discover how to contain him. Or kill him.”

“He won’t budge on Kresimir,” Nila said. The young woman’s voice surprised Tamas.

“Are you skilled in statecraft, young Privileged?” Tamas asked, his irritation leaking through. His side had started to throb, and the conviction with which he’d started the day was waning. Politics was supposed to be an old man’s game, yet it wearied Tamas more than war. He preferred the energy and decisiveness of battle to the machinations of bloated monarchs and their council.

“I agree with her,” Taniel said.

Of course
. “Right. On their demands?”

“We won’t pay them a cent,” Lady Winceslav said.

“And it’s unacceptable that we give them any of our land.” Nila again.

“Of course, of course.”

The haggling went on through the afternoon. The Kez made offers, and Tamas countered with his own, only to be rejected. The back-and-forth continued for hours, and they retired for lunch and then dinner provided by retainers from their respective camps.

It was two hours after nightfall when they agreed to conclude for the day and meet again in three days’ time.

“I must consult with my advisers at greater length,” Ipille said. “And discuss the best interests of my people.”

“Because you care so highly for their lives and well-being?” Tamas asked.

Ipille gave Tamas a shallow smile. “The crown is a heavy burden to wear.”

A little later, Tamas mounted his horse and prepared to ride.

“Shall we make camp nearby tonight?” Olem asked.

Tamas shook his head. “I’d rather be back with the army.”

“That’s eight miles from here.”

Tamas looked first to Winceslav, then to Taniel, and then to Nila. “Your preferences?”

“I’ll ride ahead if you camp,” Taniel said.

“And I prefer not to be caught out with the Kez royal guard on the prowl,” said Lady Winceslav.

It was long past midnight when they neared the Adran camp, and Tamas sagged in his saddle. His side hurt and his head felt like a millstone. These negotiations would be drawn out and exhausting. Their only advantage lay in the fact that Ipille would want to finish them before the Deliv army arrived to tip the scales. Deliv would demand to participate in the negotiations from there on out and it would go worse for the Kez.

Tamas was surprised at how high Taniel rode in his saddle. Eager to get back to his lover, no doubt, and maybe farther from the man who was ultimately responsible for his mother’s death. Tamas himself had suppressed thoughts of Erika all day lest he reach across the table and finish the job he’d started with his fingers around Ipille’s throat so many years ago. It had been tiring.

“Sir,” Olem said, breaking in to Tamas’s thoughts. “Something’s wrong.”

Tamas shook his head to rattle away the sleep. “What is it?”

Olem pointed toward the north. The campfires burned on the horizon and the sky, lit by the cloudless moonlight, hung heavy with smoke.

Too much flame and smoke to be cook fires. And there, on the wind – screams?

“Taniel, wait!” Tamas shouted. But Taniel was already well ahead of them, off at a gallop.

T
aniel entered the Adran camp at a full gallop, hurtling past soldiers and camp followers.

The night was full of panicked shouts, punctuated by the screams of the wounded, and the chill air choked with smoke. The flames he had seen from a distance turned out to be fires jumping from tent to tent, burning the trampled grasses and catching everything they could along the way. He passed several bucket brigades working from the nearest streams and soon found himself in a haze of thick smoke near the Eleventh Brigade.

Where his and Ka-poel’s tent had been.

He left his horse with the closest soldier and ran deeper into the chaos. Men milled about, faces obscured by blood and ashes. Taniel grabbed one of them.

“What happened?”

“Surprise attack,” the man shouted, pulling aside the handkerchief covering his mouth. “They came from the west, at least a dozen Privileged and five thousand men!”

“Who?”

“Kez!”

Taniel shoved the man aside and stumbled toward where he thought his tent had been. Five thousand men? A dozen Privileged? The Kez had no Privileged left of any power, and how could they possibly have gotten close enough to launch a surprise attack? The smoke muddled his senses and the darkness disoriented him. The tents in this area were all gone, all burned to cinders. He plowed onward, knowing he’d have to trust to luck as much as memory to find Ka-poel.

He caught sight of a prone figure in the grass. It wore Adran blues and lay unmoving with a rifle a handbreadth from its outstretched fingers. He spotted another body in the gloom, and then another. All Adran. Some of them were little more than charred skeletons, while others looked as if they’d fallen asleep.

Taniel’s head began to pound, and he pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth to protect him from the smoke. His eyes watered terribly. He opened his third eye and, to his horror, found the world drenched in pastels. Sorcery for certain, then.

Perhaps these pastels were just a sign of Bo fighting back? Taniel dismissed that hope. Not even Bo could unleash this much of the Else in a fight. The colors were everywhere, running parallel to the fire in the grass and splattered across the bodies of the Adran soldiers like paint thrown from a bucket.

Where
was
Bo? Where was Ka-poel? Panic set in and Taniel found himself breathing heavily. He nabbed an Adran soldier by the arm. “Bo?”

The man shook his head.

“Where’s Privileged Borbador?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

As Taniel went on, he found more smoldering bodies strewn haphazardly about the camp as if the area had been shelled by enemy artillery. Taniel counted more and more dead Kez, and found where the Adran soldiers had put up a valiant resistance. Fifty men, all in a line, their corpses charred beyond recognition and only discernible as Adran by the remnants of the Hrusch rifles clutched in their hands.

“Bo! Ka-poel!”

Taniel tripped and bashed his knee, barely noticing the ashes that blackened his new uniform. He pushed himself up and limped onward, shouting for Ka-poel and Bo. Rescuers soon joined him, putting out any embers and checking bodies.

“Have you seen Privileged Borbador? Or the savage Bone-eye?”

Each soldier shook his head.

Taniel staggered drunkenly through the pandemonium that engulfed the Adran camp. Soldiers pushed past him, and someone collided with his shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet. He stumbled on, mind in a daze, until he found his father with the Third Brigade, trying to make sense of the chaos.

“Get those fires out!” Tamas shouted. “Olem, I need casualty reports. Who the bloody pit attacked us? How many were there?”

“Kez,” Taniel said. “I saw the bodies. There’s sorcery marks everywhere. There were at least a few Privileged. Somebody said a dozen Privileged and five thousand men.”

Tamas responded, “The damage is bad, but it isn’t nearly that bad. Bloody pit. I thought the Kez didn’t have any Privileged left. Olem!”

“Yes sir, on it, sir!”

“I can’t find Ka-poel,” Taniel said.

Tamas whirled. “Olem! Find Ka-poel. I want a dozen men looking for her. Taniel, where’s Bo?”

“I can’t find him either.” Taniel tried to push down the panic that threatened to overwhelm him. His breath came short and his stomach was twisted in a knot of fear. He could still see the pastels of sorcery in the Else floating before his vision and he remembered leaving for the parley at Tamas’s insistence. Bo had mussed Ka-poel’s hair playfully. “I’ll keep an eye on little sister,” Bo had said. “Go play politician.”

Taniel couldn’t stop hyperventilating. His chest felt tight. Beyond Tamas, Bo and Ka-poel were all he had left in this world. To lose them both at once…

“Taniel,” Tamas said, putting a hand on Taniel’s shoulders even as he kept barking orders to his men. “We’ll find her.”

“If she’s dead, I’ll – I don’t know. I can’t… Bo. She has to be with Bo.”

“If she’s dead, then we have bigger problems,” Tamas said, his voice steady. “If Kresimir escapes whatever enchantment she has him under, we’re all dead men.”

Taniel grabbed Tamas by the lapels and jerked him around, pulling him close until Tamas’s startled visage was just a few inches from his face. “Ka-poel matters more than that bloody god!”

Tamas slapped him across the face, a distant stinging in Taniel’s panicked world. “Get ahold of yourself, boy!”

Taniel took a step forward, blinded by rage. He raised one fist, but he and Tamas were suddenly pushed apart.

Bo’s apprentice shoved her way between them. “Both of you, stop it!” she said. “Find Ka-poel! Find Bo! We’re on the same side!” Her face was a mask of fury and she managed to loom despite being a head shorter than either of them. “Can’t you see enough blood has been shed tonight?”

“Get your —” Tamas growled, but his threats were cut short as Nila pointed a finger at him and both her arms were suddenly wreathed in flame. She pointed her other finger at Taniel and looked between them, wide-eyed and wild, as angry as a lioness.

“Kresimir help me, I will set your boots on fire if you don’t get your heads together,” she snapped.

“Sir!” someone called from out in the darkness. “We’ve found Privileged Borbador! Come quickly!”

Nila had no time to reflect on the fact that she had just stepped between two of the strongest, most deadly powder mages in the world. She had no time to think of her fire or her anger. Even the men who followed upon her heels barely touched upon her mind.

Bo could be dead.

Once Tamas and Taniel had been pulled apart, a soldier led them all through the smoke and gloom, torch held over his head. Nila stumbled as she ran, her trembling hands betraying her. The burned grass quickly gave way and clods of dirt fouled her already uncertain step. The torchlight played upon the smoke and then upon immense shapes reaching into the night.

Tamas was called away, and he told them to go on ahead and find Bo, then took off at a run after a messenger.

The smoke began to recede and the smell of soil suddenly filled her nostrils as if she had stumbled into a damp root cellar. They stood among immense mounds of mud, scooped from the ground as if with a spade the size of a house. She did not open her third eye – she dared not, for fear of being overwhelmed. She didn’t need to. She could sense the sorcery still hanging in the air. Potent sorceries had tilled the ground as easily as a plow might turn a field, and the prospect terrified Nila.

Earth Privileged, Bo had called them. Capable of manipulating solid elements and shaping the very landscape.

Nila was shoved aside as Taniel barreled past her. “Bo? Where is he, damn it? Bo!”

Could he not sense the power that had been unleashed here? To Nila it was as if the ground might close around her at any moment – a trap waiting to be sprung by the unwary. She steadied herself against one of the mounds of earth, trying to catch her breath. Her entire body shook from fear.

“Bo!”

Taniel’s certain call drew Nila from within herself and she was running forward before her own fear could stop her once more.

Bo lay half-buried in the dirt. Black rods, each as thick as a man’s wrist and three to four feet tall, peppered the ground around him like a small forest, rammed into the ground at an angle, and with what appeared to be great force. The stench of spent sorcery was so thick Nila could barely approach, and the rods steamed in the chill night air.

“Don’t touch those!” Bo’s shrill, frantic warning came just a moment too late. One unfortunate soldier grasped a rod with both hands and leapt back with a howl, leaving several layers of charred skin on the rod. “Damn it,” Bo said weakly. His body trembled and sweat poured down his face. “They’re bloody enchanted. Fire and earth, woven together to keep them hot. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I’m getting bloody hot in here.”

The rods were clustered closely around Bo like a palisade, leaving him trapped and unable to move. She took a torch from one of the soldiers and held it out over Bo to confirm her suspicions. Blood streaked his hands, his Privileged gloves nothing more than shredded ribbons.

“The rods,” Nila shouted. “We have to get them out! He can’t do it himself. Bring horses and chains.”

No one moved and Taniel whirled on the soldiers. “You heard the Privileged. Go!”

Nila ignored them and edged closer to the rods, flinching from the heat. “Breathe, Bo, breathe! Stay with me. Is there anything I can do?”

Bo made a soft mewling sound, then said, “Just hurry with the horses.”

“What happened?” Taniel asked. “Where is Ka-poel?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought it was pretty obvious we were bloody well
attacked
!” Bo’s voice rose to a crescendo at the end of the sentence.

“Can you move your hands?” Nila asked.

“Barely. Whoever that was, she did a number on me.”

“I should have been here.”

“You would have been killed.”

“Bring a doctor,” Taniel shouted. “Where are those horses? You there, get shovels. Dig on that side of the slope. We can try to undermine the rods.”

Nila hated that she couldn’t do anything. She had no knowledge of air or earth sorcery, the two kinds that would allow her to remove the lances herself. She counted seven of them and tried to focus on the sorcery that caused the heat. She nudged it with her senses, agonizing on the thought that, had she better knowledge of powers, she might be able to at least pick apart the wards. “How long are these rods?”

“I didn’t see, as that bitch was ramming them through me,” Bo said. “I was too busy trying to kill her back. Kresimir, that hurts and” – he lifted his head toward the men digging downhill from him – “Stop that! The shifting dirt is grinding that thing against me and it hurts like bloody pit.”

“One of them’s touching you?” Nila asked.

“Uh, yeah. That one down there.” Bo waggled his chin. His face was red from the heat. Blood and sweat streamed down his face. “You know, right about where my knee used to be.”

Nila suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She had thought that the rods were merely meant to immobilize him, that none of them had actually hit him. But his lower body was buried, obscuring the position of his legs…

“Where are the horses?” Taniel demanded. “Faster now, boys! These damn things are killing him.”

“They’re not killing me.” Bo coughed, flecks of blood on his lips. “They’re cooking me. Fine distinction.” The quip had no energy.

Nila reached between the rods to touch his hand. She felt his fingers curl around hers. “If I can get your spare gloves onto your hands, will you be able to free yourself?”

“I’m knackered out, and I think a couple of the fingers on my left hand are broken. I couldn’t reach into the Else to save myself,” Bo said, the sentence ending in a gasp as the rod at his knee suddenly shifted.

“Stop digging!” Taniel bellowed.

Nila heard the jangle of harnesses and chains. “They’ve got the horses,” she whispered to Bo. “You’ll be free soon.”

Horses were backed into place, chains attached to their harnesses and the chains wrapped around the hot lances. The first was pulled out, with only a few pained squeals from Bo. The second and Nila was able to move closer to him. She leaned in and used her sleeve to wipe the grime from Bo’s brow.

He suddenly smiled at her. “How did the parley go?”

“What?”

“The parley? Isn’t that where you were?”

“He’s in shock,” Taniel said. “Where are the damned doctors?”

“Fine, fine,” Nila reassured Bo. “You should have been there.”

“Had to protect little sister,” Bo said. He looked at Taniel and his eyes seemed unfocused. “Did I? Where is she?”

“I don’t know!” Taniel said.

“They came for her. That much was obvious. Cut their way through the brigade. She stabbed one of their grenadiers in the eye with her needle. Damn, that girl has spirit.”

Another of the lances was jerked out by the horses. The ground shifted and Bo, along with the four lances still surrounding him, slid several inches.

“Who came for her? The Kez?” Taniel demanded. Nila wanted to tell him to back off, but Bo’s eyes were now focused, his confusion gone, and he gave a short nod. “Didn’t recognize any of their Privileged. Well, I didn’t get a good look at the one who stuck me, but her aura seemed familiar. Nothing I can place now. Killed another of them. I think there were two more. The one I killed should be over there somewhere.” He made a vague gesture. “Strong lot. I thought you told me all the Kez Privileged were dead.”