The Autumn Republic (49 page)

The fall might have broken his neck if he hadn’t dropped his rifle to catch himself. His leg plunged into a hole in the grass below his feet, and he wiggled his foot in the empty space, unsure if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Reaching down, he cleared away the grass to find an opening easily big enough for a man worked into the landscaping in a way that made it impossible to see.

He crawled in on all fours, sliding his rifle along ahead of him. Within ten paces the passage turned and opened up into a narrow corridor. He was able to stand and keep moving forward. The ground was damp beneath his feet, cobwebs tugging at his face and arms.

The corridor ended abruptly, leaving Taniel at a dead end. The only sounds he could hear were his own nervous breaths and the distant, almost inaudible cracks of musket and rifle fire.

Putting his ear to the wall, he waited for several moments of silence before he pushed gently with both hands. There was a click and the wall gave way to reveal another dark hallway. He could see a source of light at one end, which proved to be the hairline crack of what Taniel could only assume was another hidden doorway.

This door slid to one side in complete silence, leaving Taniel with a view of a well-lit, curtained-off corner of a room. He recognized that corner. The tall windows, the blue-and-crimson trim, the tapestries gilded with the dueling lions of the Manhouch family crest.

He was in the throne room, directly behind the throne itself.

He crept forward until he reached the curtain, moving it to one side cautiously with his finger. A sudden blast made him jump, withdrawing behind the curtain and pointing his rifle ahead of him. A few shouts followed the blast, and musket shots echoed somewhere nearby. When he was certain those blasts weren’t meant for him, Taniel leaned forward to peek past the curtain again.

The throne room appeared deserted. Dust covered the floor, though it was crisscrossed with footprints, and a couple of the torches were lit. The big double doors at the far end of the room were open about a foot. While Taniel watched, two Brudanian soldiers rushed inside and threw their backs to the door. They wore the uniform but neither held a weapon. Taniel could sense sorcery, and his suspicion that they were Privileged was confirmed when one held up his rune-covered glove.

He said something to his companion, then leaned into the crack of the door, and a blast of ice slipped from his fingers and disappeared. The other Privileged’s fingers danced in the air, and Taniel heard another concussion beyond the doors.

Taniel wasted no time. He wrapped a bullet in cotton and rammed it down the barrel to join the one already loaded, then stuck a spare powder cartridge between his teeth. He got down on one knee and with an elbow propped on the opposite knee he slid the barrel of his rifle through the curtain. He opened his third eye to see the Privileged clearly, then pulled the trigger.

In one instant he burned the powder charge between his teeth, sending the energy behind the foremost bullet. The lead balls flew out of the chamber, one after the other. He let the first fly true and put his focus behind the second, nudging it with his sorcery, adjusting his aim by just a few feet.

The two Privileged dropped together, their brains scattered across the inside of the throne room door. Taniel swept the curtain aside and ran forward. He had to find Ka-poel and get her out of here. He could sense her nearby, he —

“Ahem.”

The sound made Taniel spin.

Ka-poel sat on the throne, her legs dangling above the dais, hands on the armrests, leaning back like she owned the chair. She was wearing new pants and a shirt beneath a brand-new duster, and appeared unharmed, though she was flanked by a pair of Brudanian soldiers. One of them held an air rifle, leveled at Taniel, while the second held a pistol pointed at Ka-poel.

“Lower your rifle, powder mage,” the soldier with the pistol said.

“Ka-poel, are you all right?”

“Lower it!”

Ka-poel seemed unbothered by the pistol barrel pressed against her neck. She gave Taniel a thumbs-up.

Slowly, his eyes on the two soldiers, he lowered his rifle to the ground. Reaching out with his senses, he found no trace of powder on the two men. The pistol looked off, and though he’d never before seen its like, he guessed it operated on air cartridges as well.

“Pistols,” the soldier said, while his partner took two steps down the dais, his aim unfaltering. “Take them slowly from your belt and throw them over there.”

“Just wait a minute,” Taniel said. Both soldiers were big men, as big as grenadiers, with weathered faces and the lean, muscular build of professional killers.

“Do it now!” the soldier shouted. He grabbed Ka-poel by the arm roughly and jerked her from her seat on the throne. “You even twitch and I will —”
H
is sentence cut out in a cry of pain.

Everything happened at once. Ka-poel slipped the soldier’s knife from his belt while he talked and rammed it into his groin. Taniel drew his pistol while the soldier with an air rifle whirled toward his partner.

Taniel’s shot was rushed and went wide, blasting a chunk of wood out of the throne. He tossed the pistol aside and drew his spare, and in the time it took him to do that, Ka-poel stepped forward and smacked the barrel of the air rifle to one side and slid the knife across the second soldier’s throat.

Taniel leapt onto the dais, kicking the air pistol away from the bleeding Brudanian. He snatched Ka-poel up in his arms and kissed her, breathing hard. “You’re unhurt?”

She rolled her eyes and wiggled out of his arms.

“Pole, we’ve got to go. Tamas wants you out of here. We’re going to try to negotiate with Claremonte.”

She shook her head vehemently.

“What do you mean?”

She drew her finger across her throat.

“Kill him?”

A nod.

“We can’t, Pole. He’s a god. He’s Brude.”

Another nod.

“You know?”

She rolled her eyes again.

“Look, Pole, I’ve got to get you out of here so I can go help Tamas. He’s going to get himself killed.”

Ka-poel rounded the throne and reached beneath it, dragging an iron strongbox out and onto the dais with a thud. Taniel helped her pull it around in front of the throne. “What’s this?”

As an answer, she went to the soldier holding his blood-soaked groin and rummaged through his jacket, batting away his feeble attempts to stop her. She took a large iron key and used it to open the lockbox. Inside, Taniel recognized the container she’d made of branches to hold Kresimir’s doll. Gingerly, she removed the casket and set it to one side.

“Good,” Taniel said. “Bring that too and we’ll get out of here.” Taniel staggered to one side as sorcery shimmered around him, shaking the entire building. “Was that you?”

No
, she mouthed, pointed at his rifle still lying in the middle of the throne room.

Taniel fetched it for her. “We have to hurry,” he said. “Something is happening. That sorcery feels so…” He tried to work moisture into his dry throat. “I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s emanating from the other end of the palace. Where Tamas is.”

Ka-poel pulled the ring bayonet off the end of the rifle, then used the Brudanian’s knife to slice the tip of her finger. She let her blood drip all over the slender blade. The color drained from her face and Taniel had to leap forward to keep her from collapsing. “What are you doing?”

She pushed him away and took a deep breath, steeling herself. Stepping over to the Brudanian soldier, she looked down upon him like a priest might look upon a sacrificial victim, then plunged the bayonet into his heart. The man twitched once and fell still, and Taniel watched as his skin seemed to wrinkle and sag, aging fifty years in a heartbeat.

Taniel couldn’t help but feel ill. There was a part of him that knew he’d just witnessed sorcery as dark as anything the royal cabals did in secret. “Pole?” he said, reaching toward her.

She drew the bayonet from the soldier’s chest and handed it to Taniel. It had not a drop of blood on it, but a thin red line ran from the very tip to the ring. He recognized that red line.

“This is what you did for the redstripes, isn’t it? And to contain Kresimir?”

A nod.

“Did you kill people for those, too?”

Ka-poel shook her head, then mimed a pair of tall ears.

“Rabbits?”

She shrugged her shoulders and made a wheel-like motion with one hand. Taniel got the message:
and other small animals
.

“This will kill a god?” he asked.

She raised her eyebrows as if to say,
I hope so
.

“That’s very reassuring, Pole. I don’t suppose you’ll get the pit out of here on your own so I can go help Tamas?”

She shook her head.

“All right. Stay close.”

Nila put a shoulder beneath Bo’s arm and they ran down the next two flights of stairs, spikes of hot iron as big around as Nila’s wrist raining around them.

“How the pit can she do that?” Nila demanded.

“Her primary element is earth. Every Privileged likes to get good at something that’s both effective and physically terrifying. Mine is ice. Those bloody bolts are hers.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs. She headed for the door leading outside, but Bo stopped her with one hand.

“There are worse things going on out there,” he said.

“What could possibly be worse than raining iron?”

“It’s not strictly iron. It’s compressed matter. Iron is just easier to say. And outside you’ll find a pair of gods fighting.”

“You’re joking.”

Something suddenly shook the building, followed by a deep groaning sound. “That would be them.” Bo grimaced. “Pit, be glad you’re not attuned to the Else like I am. I feel like I’m walking naked through a battlefield. I wish Adom would just kill her already.”

“Well, I think I would have preferred to remain ignorant of what’s going on.”

Bo limped on ahead, leading her through a series of servants’ rooms and out into the main hall of the first floor. “Keep close,” he said. “I’m losing strength. I can only do so much.” His fingers twitched and Nila ducked involuntarily as the ceiling above her exploded. The iron spike that plunged down through the ceiling would have impaled her from head to foot if Bo’s sorcery hadn’t slapped it aside, sending it clattering down the hall.

“What can I do?” she demanded. “I can’t form shields, I’m not that quick!”

“You’ll learn.”

“If I survive this!”

“Good point. Air, can you do air?”

“Only a little.”

“Air behind your fire. The hottest fire you can make. The fire will melt the iron, air will spread the molten metal around you.”

“And shower anyone nearby? That’s mad!”

“This is sorcery!” He stopped her with an arm across her chest. “Shit.” The building shook and they both nearly fell. “One of those bloody Privileged is trying to help Brude. I don’t know if it’ll do anything, but to pit with me if I let him.” He reached out one hand. Nila noted his fingers moving slower, his eyelids drooping. “Damn it, I’m getting tired. This damned leg!”

“Tell me what to do.”

“Privileged. There.” He pointed up and to his right. “Two stories up. Do you feel him?”

Nila reached out with her senses. She could feel that Privileged and she could sense something greater outside the building. It was thick and ominous, far stronger than the Gurlish magebreaker’s sorcery nullification. This turned her bowels to jelly.

“Okay,” she said, her voice shaking.

“Kill him.”

“How?”

“Be creative.”

Nila scowled. Reaching up, she flung her sorcery at the ceiling, her own fire splashing back to singe her clothes before melting through marble, wood, and plaster and boring a black hole right through the guts of the building.

She felt the Privileged wink out of existence, his light in the Else snuffed out. “I did it. I did it!”

“I’m very proud of you. Just don’t let it go to your head. He would have countered you if he had been paying any attention. Keep going, there are still two more of them. Lourie’s still on the fifth floor, but she won’t stay up there long.”

The iron spike came from nowhere, slamming through Bo’s shoulder and flinging him across the hall. His response was almost immediate, his fingers twitching even as he was thrown, spikes of ice flying through the air and impaling the Privileged who had appeared in the stairwell ahead of them.

Bo tried to wrench the spike from his shoulder, screaming as it seared his flesh. His wrists were suddenly pinned to the wall by air, and then a smaller spike went straight through the palm of his right hand.

Nila stared in horror as Lourie strode into the hallway, ignoring her comrade pinioned to the wall with ice like some kind of insect. Nila sneered, raising her hands, but was instantly batted down by an invisible fist.

Her head pounded as she struggled to regain her feet, and watched helplessly as Lourie approached Bo. The Brudanian Privileged stopped in front of him, then turned to regard Nila for a moment. “What are you, his apprentice? You should have carried extra gloves, little girl. A fight like this will burn them off.” She turned to Bo and put a finger under his chin. “I’ll make the offer one last time. But if you want to survive this moment, you’ll beg me to kill this imp you call an apprentice and you’ll laugh as she screams.”

Bo choked a couple of times.

“Well?” Lourie demanded.

“Nila,” Bo croaked. “Remember the magebreaker?”

“You’re not answering me,” Lourie said. “You have five seconds.”

“You have my answer, you bitch.”

Nila struggled to her feet and reached for the Else.

“And what is that answer?” Lourie said, tilting her head forward in a mocking manner.

“Burn,” Bo replied.

Nila tapped into all of her fury, spurred on by memories of her fear and helplessness at the hands of all who had abused her. She used that strength to wrench sorcery from the Else. It poured through her, more power than she could possibly hold. Lourie turned toward the danger, molten matter compressing into a spike above her shoulder and soaring toward Nila. But Nila threw air behind her fire just as Bo had said, and the spike melted to her flames and was splashed away by the air. She heard herself scream as the flames washed over Lourie and plowed on ahead, blasting through columns and walls.