Powder Mage: The Autumn Republic Part 12

"They're attacking our own men. General Ket had separated her brigades from the army, and Hilanska is attacking her!"

"Ride!" Tamas bellowed, digging his heels in, feeling his stallion leap forward.

The three of them galloped through the Adran camp and then southwest, following the trail of his brigades. The sweat poured down Tamas's face despite the cool wind racing past. What had happened? How could a disaster of this magnitude occur? He was going to find Ket and string her up by her own bootlaces.

They rode several miles along the main highway, and with each crested hill Tamas got a slightly better glimpse of the forces arrayed to their south. His heart thundered in his chest and he clung to the neck of his horse, urging more speed.

They reached the rear of the Adran lines. Soldiers leapt out of their way as they thundered through. Tamas spotted the command tent placed at the height of a hillock overlooking the artillery and veered toward it. Soldiers were beginning to look curiously in his direction, but he ignored them, pushing on.

He leapt from his mount, tossing the reins to a startled infantryman, and advanced on the command tent. He threw back the flaps. "d.a.m.n it, Hilanska, what is going on here?"

Several dozen eyes stared at him in dumb confusion.

"Well?" Tamas asked.

Chaos broke out among the a.s.sembled officers. There were protestations and exclamations and hands reaching for him. More than one chair was knocked over as men sprang to their feet. A cacophony of voices all tried to speak to him at once.

"Quiet down!" Olem roared.

"Thank you, Olem. Now, tell me, what's going on here?" Tamas searched for familiar faces and was saddened to see so few. Had they lost that many men since he'd been gone?

"We're about to commence battle with the traitor General Ket," a colonel said from the back.

"Like pit we are," Tamas said. "Olem... no, Vlora. Take a white flag across the valley. I want Ket here in person within the hour to give me an explanation as to what's happening."

"She won't come," the same colonel spoke up. "She refuses to see our messengers."

"She'll see me. Was that the Wings of Adom's colors I saw above Ket's camp?"

A female general whom Tamas only vaguely recognized gave him an uncertain nod.

"Then bring me Brigadier Abrax as well, or whoever is in charge. Dismissed, Captain."

Vlora snapped a sharp salute and left the tent at a sprint.

"Wheel our artillery to face south," Tamas ordered. "I want all of our cavalry on our eastern flank-and I do mean all of them. Split them into three groups and wait for my order. The Kez are preparing to advance. They'll come on at about ten o'clock, or I'm a horse's a.s.s. Keep our men facing Ket's troops, but make it d.a.m.ned clear that they are not to engage their fellow Adrans. If the Kez think we're about to attack our own men, they are going to get a d.a.m.ned big surprise. Get to it!"

The tent burst into a flurry of motion.

"General Hilanska," Tamas said, "what are you doing? Sneaking out the back? Get over here."

Hilanska approached along the side of the tent, a wary eye on Tamas. "Sir?" he asked quietly.

"Come with me." Tamas threw back the tent flap. "Move the command tent up the hillside about forty paces," he said to the guards outside. "I want to be able to see everything going on in that valley." He strode up the hill toward the spot he'd indicated, beckoning Hilanska along with him. His body ached from the ride, exhaustion tugged at his muscles, but the excitement of the battle made his fingers twitch.

When they reached the top, he turned to Hilanska, but his words caught in his mouth. "Are you all right?" he asked.

A sheen of sweat had appeared on Hilanska's brow. His collar was already soaked, and he was picking nervously at the b.u.t.tons of his jacket. Four provosts had trailed them up the hill and stood back at a respectful distance.

"Fine, sir," Hilanska said, dabbing at his cheeks. "What was it you wanted?"

Tamas turned toward the Kez forces. There were at least two hundred and sixty thousand infantry out there, along with twenty thousand or so cavalry. It was a sight to behold, but he couldn't let the grandeur of it impress him. He had work to do.

"Hilanska, I want you to put your best gun crews there and there," he said, pointing. "I want them to rain down everything they have on... Hilanska, are you listening, I..." Tamas felt a sharp pain in his side. He scowled and rubbed at the spot. "Like I was saying, I want them to..."

Tamas felt himself shoved forward suddenly and heard a shout. He whirled, a curse on his lips.

Olem was shouting, his sword drawn, and was suddenly set upon by all four of the provosts who had followed them up the hill. Hilanska was behind the provosts, a dagger in his one hand.

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y pit is going on?" Tamas demanded. He reached for the b.u.t.t of his pistol instinctively, but his fingers slipped on it. He held them up, blinking back a sudden dizziness. Their tips were red.

He'd been stabbed.

Hilanska had b.l.o.o.d.y well stabbed him.

The one-armed general turned and fled down the hill.

Tamas sat in the gra.s.s, his jacket stripped from him and his shirt soaked with blood, trying to make sense of what had happened.

A surgeon sat behind him with his hands under Tamas's arms while another cut away his shirt and began to examine the stab wound between his ribs. Not ten paces away, the bodies of two Adran provosts were being carted away, while a third surgeon tended to a gash across Olem's forehead.

Hilanska had betrayed him. That much was clear. But how deep did it go? How long had the betrayal been in the works? Had Hilanska let Budwiel's walls fall, trapping Tamas behind enemy lines months ago? Hilanska had to be behind this schism with General Ket, working to ensure the annihilation of the entire Adran army.

"Olem!" Tamas had to know more. The most important question was, Did Hilanska have accomplices?

Olem appeared a moment later, pressing a fresh bandage against his forehead. "Sir?"

"Fine swordsmanship there," Tamas said. Olem had held off all four provosts until help could arrive. "Did any of them survive?"

"Thank you, sir. Two of them survived. One will die by morning. The boys were rough on them when they saw that you were wounded."

"Rough won't even begin to cover it," Tamas said. "Go find out what they know."

"Shouldn't I go after Hilanska, sir?"

Tamas hesitated. "I don't know whom to trust," he said quietly. "Get two squads together-see if you can find any of your Riflejacks-and send them after Hilanska. I want you to stay close."

"Yes sir."

Tamas swore under his breath as one of the surgeons poked a finger at his wound. "Bandage it up and get me some black powder. It didn't hit a lung. I'll live." He beat the surgeons back with one hand and got unsteadily to his feet. The pain in his side was sharp now, and he was reminded of a similar wound he'd taken in Gurla twenty years before. He had been bedridden for weeks and nearly succ.u.mbed to infection.

He didn't have time for that now.

In the valley below them he saw that the Wings of Adom had taken up a defensive ring around Ket's camp and had dug in with fortifications not unlike the kind Tamas had used against Beon je Ippile's cavalry-though not nearly as deep. He spotted Vlora racing along on her charger, white flag snapping in the wind. She reached the Wings' lines and after a few tense moments was allowed past.

The Kez continued to fall into line. Their army looked immense-and it was-but its size made it ponderous. Tamas adjusted his initial guess that they'd attack by ten. They wouldn't be ready until at least noon. Maybe one. They would attack straight out, using their superior numbers to surround and overwhelm General Ket's camp.

Tamas cracked a powder charge and sprinkled a bit on his tongue. Once the initial shock of the powder trance pa.s.sed, he felt younger and stronger and the pain from the knife wound was nothing but a tickle in the back of his mind.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tamas saw Olem approaching.

"Anything?" Tamas asked.

"No sir. Both provosts claim that Hilanska warned them you might return but that it would be a Kez trick-a Privileged disguised as you. They also claim he didn't expect your doppelgnger for weeks."

Tamas snorted. "So he panicked and ran when I arrived early? Let's just be glad he wasn't ready for us. Pit, what other rumors has he spread?"

"I can try to find out, sir."

"Do it."

"Permission to search his quarters?"

"Granted."

Olem was off again and Tamas looked around him for someone he could trust. Most of the generals were with their brigades, and it seemed that at least some of Hilanska's support staff had fled with him.

"You there!" Tamas called. "Colonel, come here." From the side, the young man looked fairly familiar, and when he turned to Tamas, he recognized the colonel immediately. "Colonel Sabastenien, it's good to see you alive."

The former Wings of Adom brigadier was a short man in his midtwenties with muttonchops filled with premature gray and a somber face. Tamas noted that the gray hadn't been there the last time they met, and wondered whether it was dyed. He gave Tamas a respectful nod. "Likewise, sir. And it's not Sabastenien. It's Florone now. I've taken my mother's family name. I prefer not to be immediately recognizable to my former comrades."

Tamas understood that. While he'd done nothing illegal or untoward in murdering a traitor in Tamas's defense, Sabastenien had been cast out of the Wings of Adom because the traitor had been a fellow brigadier-and Lady Winceslav's lover.

"All right, Saba... Florone. I need a battle plan. Where are you a.s.signed?"

"I'm with the Twenty-First Artillery."

"And you have artillery experience?"

"Seven years of it with the Wings."

"Good. Congratulations, Florone. You're now a general."

The colonel blinked in surprise. "Sir?"

"Take command of the Second. Bring their artillery around to the south and have the gun crews standing by. Have your infantry dig in to the east and west."

"Yes sir. Thank you, sir."

"Don't thank me yet. I don't know who I can trust in Hilanska's brigades. You might get stabbed in the back by the end of the day. If you have any trusted support staff, take them with you."

"Yes sir."

"And General, have Mihali sent up here, would you?"

Florone hesitated for a moment. "No one's told you yet?"

"Told me what?"

"Mihali is dead. He was killed by Kresimir two weeks ago."

Tamas whirled to look back at the Kez formations and a cold sweat broke out over his body, the back of his neck p.r.i.c.ked by an eerie sensation of shock and grief, breaking the calm of his powder trance. If Mihali was dead, why hadn't Adro been swept aside already? There shouldn't be anything left of Adopest or the Adran army but dust without Mihali to balance his brother's power, and yet the country and its capital still stood.

What could possibly be holding Kresimir back?

His attention was caught by movement in the Wings of Adom camp, and soon Vlora was racing back up the hillside. She blew past the Adran sentries and didn't stop until she reached Tamas, leaping from her horse and tossing the reins to a startled messenger.

"Where's Ket?" Tamas asked.

"Gone," Vlora gasped. "She was ousted by Abrax and Adamat just yesterday on accusations of profiteering. Abrax thought it might mend the schism between the camps, but... sir, are you wounded?"

"It didn't mend the schism," Tamas said, "because Hilanska planned a betrayal all along. And what the pit is Adamat doing down here? d.a.m.n it all, this is when I needed Ket the most. Aside from Hilanska, she was the most capable commander here. Where's Abrax?"

"On her way here."

"We don't have more than a couple of hours before the Kez attack. Gather the General Staff-I want as many senior officers as you can get within twenty minutes. We'll send orders to the rest via messengers. Olem, what did you find?"

Olem arrived at a sprint and paused briefly to catch his breath. "He left everything. Hilanska's been in bed with the Kez since the beginning. I found dozens of letters."

"Anything to tell us who his accomplices are?"

"I haven't had time to sort through it all."

"Time. b.l.o.o.d.y pit, we need time more than anything else. I can't plan a defensive on such short notice, not against that monstrosity."

"Olem," Vlora said, "did you find Hilanska's personal seal?"

"It was there with everything else."

"Get me a fresh horse!" Vlora yelled.

Tamas asked, "Where are you going?"

"I need one of the Wings' code breakers," Vlora said. "Someone who can replicate Hilanska's cipher. If we move quickly, I think I can buy us an extra day."

Tamas dictated a message for the Kez commanders based on the language Hilanska used in his own letters and notes, then had a Wings code breaker translate it into Hilanska's cipher. The message stated that Hilanska would be able to get someone close enough to Abrax to a.s.sa.s.sinate her if she let down her guard, but that that would require the Kez to appear to withdraw and get ready for an attack the next day.

The whole process took nearly two hours and looked, to Tamas's eye, like a rush job. It would be a miracle if the Kez believed it.

But if they did, it would buy them twenty-four precious hours to prepare for the Kez attack. Time they desperately needed in order to have any chance at winning this battle.

Tamas lifted his eyes to Olem, who was waiting in the entry to the command tent, hand casually on his pistol, as the Wings' code breaker applied Hilanska's own hot wax and seal to the forged message. Tamas took it from him and blew on the wax to cool it, then handed it over to Olem.

Olem snapped a salute. "I've found a few of my most loyal Riflejacks, sir. I'll send one of them over to the Kez with it."

"They know it's a terrible risk? If the Kez sniff out the deception, they'll be killed. Or worse."

"Already have a man for the job. He knows."