Powder Mage: The Autumn Republic Part 26

"What happened?" Taniel asked. "Where is Ka-poel?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was pretty obvious we were b.l.o.o.d.y 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 b.i.t.c.h 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 d.a.m.n 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 d.a.m.ned doctors?"

"Fine, fine," Nila rea.s.sured 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. d.a.m.n, 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."

"They were supposed to be," Taniel growled. "Look, Bo, hang in there. I have to go find Tamas. We have to make sense of what happened."

"Go at it, chap," Bo said, swinging weakly for Taniel's chin with his fist and missing.

Taniel was up and gone a moment later. A fourth lance was now out, and soldiers had managed to dig the dirt from around Bo's legs. He lay on an incline in the dirt, head back, looking almost peaceful. Nila dared a look at his knee.

It was completely destroyed. The lance had gone through flesh and bone like a knife through b.u.t.ter. His pants from the thigh down were cooked away and the flesh of his lower thigh and knee was black and cooked. The smell reminded her of the battlefield when she'd killed all of those soldiers, but Nila forced that out of her mind. She couldn't panic. Not now.

"Is he dead?" a soldier asked.

"No, he's not dead," Nila said, feeling her heart leap. He wasn't, was he? "Bo?"

"Yeah, I'm here." Bo's head came up suddenly. "Any of those d.a.m.ned engineers coming to help?"

"They're still putting fires out," a soldier said.

"Oh. Oh, I see. I'll just lie here and feel myself cook then. Tell them not to rush."

"The horses are doing the trick," Nila said.

"They won't for the one in my leg," Bo said. "That one will be difficult. They'll need levers and math and all sorts of things."

"Go get the engineers," Nila told a pair of corporals. "Now!" When they had gone, she returned to Bo's side. "Bo. Bo? Stay with me!"

"I'm just resting my eyes."

She crouched down beside him and sighed. "Please don't die."

"Not planning on it."

"I don't think most people plan on it."

Bo seemed to consider this. "You are wise beyond your years."

"Shut up."

"All right." He was quiet for a moment, then said pitifully, "This really hurts."

Nila leaned forward and peered at Bo's knee again. She held up one hand and brought fire from the Else to give herself light. The lance was still hot, and his flesh was cracked and cooked like meat that had been roasted over a flame for hours too long. Bo groaned as the soldiers and their horses removed the fifth lance.

"It doesn't hurt as bad as you'd think," Bo said. "After all, the nerves are all dead. But I can feel the heat of it still. Feel it slowly cooking. Pit, I'll be lucky to ever use this leg again."

Lucky? Nila had no experience with battlefield surgery, but as far as she could tell that leg was gone. "We'll get you a healer."

"It'll be a rough job."

"We'll get you the best."

"If you insist. Just tell them to leave a blackened scar. It's more roguish that way. And a pit of a conversation starter."

"Hush, now," Nila said.

"Look, if I stop talking, I'll probably start crying. And I make it a point never to cry in front of women. Especially ones I hope to bed someday."

"Is that so?" Nila climbed to her feet.

"Yes. Makes me look weak. Women can sense weakness. Oh, sure, some women say they want a sensitive man. But no one ever says they want a weak man."

There were just two lances left. The sixth would come out easily enough, but like Bo said, that seventh would be tricky. It couldn't just be dragged out at an angle by a team of horses. It might rip his leg off completely, and the shock might kill him. It had to be pulled up and out, as straight as possible. She looked it over carefully. She had no idea as to the material-some kind of metal, by the looks of it-but sorcery emanated from the thing. Earth sorcery, no doubt. With fire to make it hot, and air to throw it.

Bo kept talking to no one in particular. "By Kresimir, this'll be a conversation starter. I can imagine it now. Some fop in last year's fashion sitting in the tavern, showing a gaggle of women some scar and telling them he got it from a knife fight with a man twice his size. And then, Bam! I lift my pant leg and show them how the strongest Privileged I'd ever seen blasted a lance of sorcery-hewn metal through my kneecap."

"You'll leave out the crying part?"

"I'm not crying, I... What the pit are you doing?"

Nila ignited the fire around her hands. It came as easily as a thought and a twitch of her fingers, and she didn't have time to wonder at that. She tapped the lance hesitantly. When it didn't burn her, she grasped it with both hands, set her foot on the ground beside Bo's leg, and pulled.

His scream almost made her lose her nerve, but she pulled harder, sliding the pole out of his knee like a needle through cloth. It came loose with a jerk and she fell backward, lance in hand, then tossed it away before she hit herself in the face with it.

Bo's body spasmed as he was wracked with sobs. He jerked and screamed, curling on his side and clutching at his blackened ruin of a leg. She threw herself to the ground beside him and took him by the hand. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! It's out now!"

He wept uncontrollably for a few moments. "All right," he said between sobs. "I'll leave out the crying." And he sagged against her.

Nila checked his pulse with one hand and then let herself slump beside him. He was still alive.

Guilt began to crowd her thoughts. Perhaps if she'd been here, she could have helped. She could have turned that Privileged into a lump of charcoal and... and who was she kidding? She was an apprentice. She would have been killed outright. Bo was very powerful, clever, and trained, and he had only barely survived the battle.

Where were the d.a.m.ned doctors? Wasn't Taniel sending help? Where was he now? Probably going after his savage girl. After all the worry Bo had showed for him, Taniel couldn't just stay here to comfort his friend who might be dying?

She looked down at Bo. He gave out a light whimper when she moved his arm out of the way of the wound. She could see through his kneecap.

Her stomach turned at the sight of it. Would he ever be able to walk again? She'd heard of healers who'd regrown whole limbs, but those had just been stories. This kind of damage seemed beyond what anyone could heal, no matter their skill.

She remembered rubbing her fingers together frantically at the Battle of Ned's Creek and hoping and praying for the right combination of sorcery to bring down those men.

And it had worked. She'd killed thousands with a gesture.

Like from the stories.

Bo said that healers were very rare. That they took great skill. But maybe... maybe she could be something other than a killer.

Nila bit her lip and wiggled her thumb. The aether. That's what she needed. She reached out for the Else.

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y pit do you think you're doing?" Bo batted her outstretched hand weakly to one side. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"I didn't do anything."

"I felt you reaching out for it. Are you mad? I... oh, pit, this hurts. I don't know what's in your head."

"I thought that maybe I could just..." She shrugged.

"You could just heal me? You're b.l.o.o.d.y mad, woman, and I'll have no talk of that. Remember that the aether is a refined matter that creates and breaks bonds. You're just as likely to make every particle of my body explode as you are to heal me." Bo grimaced and let out a long whimper. "Now, promise me you won't ever try to experiment like that on me. Ever."

"I promise," Nila said, feeling like a scolded schoolgirl.

"Good." Bo let his head fall against the mud.

The crew with the horses moved off, leaving the final lance sticking from the ground, now that Bo was fully free. Three men came out of the night bearing torches. Two were the soldiers who had helped dig Bo out, and the third was a doctor.

"The engineers are coming now," one of the soldiers said.

"Never mind the engineers," Nila told him. "Just help him."

"We need to move him out of this," the doctor said. "Get him to a clean tent and bring me hot and cold water and my instruments."

The soldiers lifted Bo onto a canvas stretcher. Nila walked beside him, holding him by the hand as they moved out of the blasted battlefield. They were nearly out of the swath of destruction when Field Marshal Tamas emerged from the darkness.

"Bo, are you all right?"

Bo eyed Tamas as a man would eye a meal after having just thrown up. His face was scrunched in pain, but his eyes were clear. "I've had better days."

"They've taken Ka-poel. And her package."

"Ah, pit," Bo sighed.

Nila frowned. She didn't know what that meant, but what little color Bo had left in his cheeks was gone.

Tamas said, "We're going back to war. Ipille called us to a truce and then blindsided us. I've had runners just now that our allies are ahead of schedule. The Seventh and the Ninth will be here soon and the Deliv are just behind them. We're marching south first thing in the morning and we're going to throw the Kez from our borders. I mean to destroy Ipille fully for this treachery."

"Sounds good. And Taniel?"

"He wants to-he must go after Ka-poel. If they know what she's carrying, we're all dead men."

"Bo, what is he talking about?" Nila asked.

Tamas looked at her. His body sagged from exhaustion and his face was creased with lines of worry and fear. "Not something to discuss in the open, my dear."

Nila seethed. What did he mean by that? Did he not trust her? Did he not trust Bo? She felt Bo's hand on her arm and he whispered, "I'll tell you later." He let out a hiss and suddenly writhed in her arms.

"I'll give you mala for the pain," the doctor said, searching his bag.