Powder Mage: The Autumn Republic Part 25

"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 partic.i.p.ate 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.

CHAPTER.

22.

Taniel 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 gra.s.ses and catching everything they could along the way. He pa.s.sed 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 p.r.o.ne figure in the gra.s.s. 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 gra.s.s 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 sh.e.l.led 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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. b.l.o.o.d.y 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 b.l.o.o.d.y G.o.d!"

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 gra.s.s 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, d.a.m.n 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. "d.a.m.n it," Bo said weakly. His body trembled and sweat poured down his face. "They're b.l.o.o.d.y enchanted. Fire and earth, woven together to keep them hot. I don't know how long it'll last, but I'm getting b.l.o.o.d.y hot in here."

The rods were cl.u.s.tered 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."