Powder Mage: The Autumn Republic Part 41

"Then you know he's a teetotaler, like you. Well, last night he was p.i.s.s drunk."

"Why?"

"Ipille has ordered the entire Grand Army to make a stand at the mouth of Surkov's Alley."

"So? That doesn't seem like an unreasonable order."

"So?" the woman retorted, before draining the rest of the wineskin. "So Ipille doesn't think he can win. He's been with the army for the last two months and now he's turning tail and running back to Kez. General Fulicote and all the rest have been ordered on what they know is a suicide mission. Ipille told them that any man who runs from the battle will be caught and publicly flayed."

"Do you have proof of this?"

The woman removed a letter from her bodice and smoothed it against her skirt before handing it to Tamas. It bore the royal seal of the Kez king, hastily broken by a clumsy thumb. Tamas opened the letter and skimmed the contents. Ipille was ordering his men to make a stand, but the final threat at the end allowed Tamas to read between the lines, just as General Fulicote and this spy had done: The Kez army wasn't meant as anything more than cannon fodder to slow down Tamas and the Deliv.

Tamas returned to his chair, deep in thought. "What could he possibly gain by this?" he muttered.

"The Kez have all been asking the same thing of you since you attacked after the parley."

Tamas was up on his feet again. "That was Ipille. He broke that parley."

"That's not what his officers think. I've managed to spend the night with four senior Kez officers since then and not a single one of them thinks Ipille actually broke the parley. They're convinced that you and the Deliv fabricated the whole thing so you could push into Kez and try to dethrone Ipille."

"I would do no such thing." Tamas shook his head. Why was he explaining himself to a spy? A niggle of doubt had entered his mind. If Ipille hadn't launched the attack on his men during the parley in order to kidnap Ka-poel, then who had?

He didn't have time to wonder. If Ipille was fleeing and throwing his whole army away, that meant he had some kind of plan. Whether he meant to force Ka-poel to awaken Kresimir or he planned to retreat to his capital and spend the winter raising levies and trying to forge alliances among the Nine, it didn't matter. Tamas needed to end this quickly.

"Report to General Arbor, he'll see that you get somewhere to rest," he said over his shoulder. "Andriya, get my horse!" He ran into his tent and sorted through his maps until he found one of southern Adro.

Thirty minutes later he strode into Sulem's command tent. The Deliv king was surrounded by half a dozen members of his royal cabal and five of his generals. "We need to speak," Tamas said.

Sulem shushed the angry mutters of his generals and cabal with a raised hand. "Everyone out," he said.

They were alone within moments. "Do you read Kez?" Tamas asked.

"Yes."

Tamas handed him Ipille's orders to his general. Sulem read the letter twice and examined the seal. "May I have my Privileged check the authenticity?"

"By all means."

"Vivia!" Sulem called. The caramel-skinned Privileged arrived a moment later and took the letter with a few words of instruction before disappearing.

Tamas began to pace the tent, his mind racing. Royal seals always had the faint touch of sorcery to them, much like a ward. It allowed generals in the field to check for authenticity. Tamas had been able to sense it himself, but Sulem needed to be convinced as well.

"These are the words of a desperate man," Sulem said. "You should be pleased."

"He's trying to buy time. He knows that we won't advance into Kez while the snows fall."

"So what if he does? My armies have by now ravaged the Amber Expanse. They shall retreat to Alvation for the winter and sharpen their bayonets. Come spring we will crush whatever resistance the Kez have left."

Tamas paused in his pacing. He still did not want to explain to Sulem about Kresimir and Ka-poel. Nor did he think that Sulem cared much for the fact that a Brudanian army held Adopest. "He may be able to forge alliances. If Starland or Novi decides to enter the war on their side, this war will last for ages."

"Novi wouldn't dare," Sulem said with a wave of his hand.

One flap of the tent parted as Vivia returned. She handed Sulem the letter. "It's Ipille's," she said, and slipped back out the way she had come.

Tamas advanced to the table in the middle of Sulem's tent and pushed several maps and correspondence out of the way, laying his own map of southern Adro down and rubbing it smooth. "I will not allow this war to last any longer."

"You have a plan?" Sulem approached the table curiously.

"The Kez will likely gather here and prepare for our approach," Tamas said, pointing to the northern entrance to Surkov's Alley. "They're less than half a day ahead of us. I propose that we march double-time into the night tonight and all day tomorrow and catch them unawares."

The Kez king frowned at that. "You mean to stop them before they can secure a defensive position at Surkov's Alley?"

Tamas smiled. "I mean to do much more than that."

CHAPTER.

36.

When Adamat told his carriage driver to take him to the Flerring Powder Company on the west side of Adopest, he hadn't expected them to head well outside of the city and into the countryside.

He and SouSmith climbed out of their carriage at about three o'clock in the afternoon the day after their visit to Uskan and paused to examine their surroundings. The chemical company was at the end of a dirt track several miles off the main highway. It appeared to be a collection of over two dozen buildings of various sizes spread out at distant intervals across a wide field. A creek ran through the center of the complex, providing power to a single mill.

Near the river, set apart from the rest of the buildings by some several hundred yards, Adamat noted a black smudge of dirt that looked like it had once been the foundation for yet another building.

The perils of making gunpowder.

Adamat headed toward the largest of the buildings.

He was stopped just outside the building by a woman holding a blunderbuss. She stood half a head taller than Adamat and had the shoulders of a boxer. Long brown hair half covered her eyes, and she leaned against the building door. She pointed the weapon lazily at his feet.

"Can I help you?"

Adamat noticed the cudgel hanging from her belt and wondered if she was the only guard. He didn't think that likely. Companies like this needed manpower to keep their secrets safe from compet.i.tors. "I'm looking for Flerring the Elder," Adamat said.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"I don't."

"What do you want?"

"I need to discuss a matter of some urgency."

"And that is?"

"I should probably speak with Flerring himself."

The woman tilted her head to one side. "I'll see if he's available. Whom can I tell him is here?"

"Inspector Adamat."

"You here from the state?"

"Yes."

"Then go away until you've made an appointment. Or come back when you've got more goons. We're not rolling over for your idiot regulations."

Idiot regulations? "You think I'm a government inspector?"

"That's what you just said."

Adamat let out a chuckle and smoothed the front of his jacket with one hand. "No, no. I'm not that kind of inspector. I'm investigating a murder attempt."

"And that knowledge is supposed to get you inside?" The woman looked him over skeptically and raised the barrel of her blunderbuss by half an inch.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot," Adamat said, putting both hands out in a calming gesture. "I need to speak with Flerring about his blasting oil."

The blunderbuss was raised until it was pointed at Adamat's chest. "Well, then you're definitely not coming in."

SouSmith stepped forward suddenly, putting himself between Adamat and the gun. "Lower the weapon," he rumbled.

"I don't care how big you are, I don't-"

"Put. It. Down." SouSmith took a step forward.

"SouSmith, it's okay, we don't need to escalate this further."

The woman suddenly lowered her blunderbuss. "Did you just say SouSmith? As in the boxer?"

"That's me." The words came out of SouSmith in a growl. "Problem?"

Her face split into a grin. "Uncle SouSmith! It's me, Little Flerring. My dad's Flerring the Fist."

SouSmith's fists slowly uncurled. "This is that Flerring?" He snorted. "You're all grown up, Little."

She grinned back at him. "Been, what, ten years? People grow up in that time. I haven't seen any of the old crew since Dad moved us out here to start the powder company."

"Never took Flerring for a chemist," SouSmith said.

"Mom does most of the headwork. Dad does the mixing-well, he did anyway. Lost both his hands in an explosion two years ago. He oversees a dozen mixers now and runs the place while Mom is in Fatrasta."

Adamat stepped up beside SouSmith and leaned on his cane. "Do you think we could see your father?"

"You're not bringing us trouble, are you, SouSmith?"

SouSmith looked at Adamat, and Adamat drummed his fingers on his cane. Impossible to tell. If Flerring made the blasting oil, he could very well be complicit in the attempt on Ricard's life. Not that they had to know that. Adamat shook his head. "Just chasing a lead. You probably won't hear from us after today."

Flerring gave a nod and opened one of the double doors that led into the building. "Careful what you touch," she said, "We don't keep a lot of powder in the main building, but you can never be too careful."

They entered what looked to have once been an immense stable capable of housing almost a hundred head of horses. The stalls were filled with raw materials, their doors marked in white chalk telling what was stored inside. They pa.s.sed dozens of them filled with barrels and boxes of sulfur, saltpeter, charcoal, glycerol, nitric acid. Everything was packed in sawdust and straw, which was strewn all about the place.

"This looks incredibly unsafe," Adamat commented.

"We keep everything separate," Little Flerring said. "None of the ingredients are particularly dangerous on their own."

"Lots of straw. Seems an immense fire risk."

"No flames allowed within fifty feet of the building. We do all our work during the light of the day."

Adamat noticed she had left her blunderbuss outside. It did seem they were quite careful. "What can you tell me about blasting oil?"

"I'll let Dad do that," she said, pausing beside one of the stalls. She gestured inside to a makes.h.i.+ft office.

An old man sat at an all-too-small desk in one corner. He was bent over with age, his hair gone gray, but he still had shoulders half a hand wider than SouSmith's. The outer-stall wall had been given a large window, and the man hunched over a book. Adamat instantly noted the man's hands-or, that is, the lack thereof. Immense arms now ended in iron caps. One had a dual hook for grasping, and the other a flat piece of steel in the shape of a paddle.

"Dad, you've got guests," Little Flerring shouted. "Dad!" She gave SouSmith and Adamat an apologetic look. "He's very hard of hearing."

"Eh?" The big man turned toward them. At the sight of strangers he got to his feet, and Adamat almost took a step back. Flerring the Elder-Flerring the Fist-was immense. He towered over Adamat and made even SouSmith look regular-sized. The left side of his face was burned and scarred, making it look lopsided when he smiled. "Is that SouSmith?" he asked loudly.

"Fist," SouSmith said, nodding.

"Fist?" Flerring shook his handless arms at SouSmith. "Not so much anymore." He gave a long, almost mechanical chortle.

The two big men made their greetings and Adamat introduced himself. Flerring the Elder led the whole group around the corner to part of the barn where the stalls had been removed and a comfortable sitting area installed, including several sofas, armchairs, and the entrance to an ice cellar, into which Little Flerring disappeared, only to emerge a moment later with a bottle. She poured them all chilled wine while her father talked.

"Blasting oil," the big man said, shaking his head. "It was our first big discovery. We've done well over the years, creating specialized powder for the Adran army and the Brudania-Gurla Trading Company, but blasting oil was going to make us stupid rich."

Adamat sat up at the mention of Claremonte's company. "You do business with the Trading Company?"

"Everyone does," Flerring said. "And you're nave to think they don't. The company is our biggest source of saltpeter. We have other sources, of course, but they control just about all the import business. Where was I? Oh, yes. Blasting oil."

"Can you tell me about it?"

"Eh?"

Adamat repeated his question loudly.