Powder Mage: The Autumn Republic Part 37

Olem flinched, and Nila wished she could take it back. "You'll do fine."

"Thanks, mother," he said. "Don't worry, I'm leaving the heavy lifting to my officers. If I do one thing well, it's pick good men. If I don't do fine, at least they will."

"You should give yourself more credit."

"Should I?" Olem put the rolled cigarette to his lips, then checked the carbine holstered to his saddle.

"Yes."

"You didn't."

Nila jerked back. What was that supposed to mean? "Now wait a moment."

He held up a hand. "Ancient history," he said. "Forget I said a word."

She scowled at him while he called over one of his officers and gave the order to stake camp. When the man had ridden away, Olem ashed his cigarette.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Nila said.

"Oh?"

"I had my reasons," she continued. Jakob had needed her protection. She hadn't trusted Tamas at that time, and then she had been carried away by Lord Vetas and caught up in Bo's battles. She wanted to tell him all of that, but she hardly knew where to begin. "I really did like you."

"Well, that's a nice consolation prize."

"Don't be such a dense a.s.s." Nila's voice rose. "I wanted to be with you, but I said no because I knew I had to protect Jakob." Her jaw snapped shut, and she blinked at him for several moments, not able to believe she had just said that.

"Oh," Olem said, both eyebrows now raised, his head c.o.c.ked back in surprise.

Nila brushed some dirt from her uniform. "It's just... I'm sorry. Part of me wishes I had said yes, but as you said-ancient history."

Olem remained silent for several minutes, watching his men dismount and set up a picket line for the horses, readying the area for a campsite. When the silence was approaching the point of madness for Nila, he finally crushed his cigarette on his saddle horn and flicked the b.u.t.t into the long gra.s.s. "I'll have one of the boys find you some good stones that we can warm in the fire. It'll help the a.s.s-ache."

"Excuse me?"

"Hot stones, wrapped in the leather. You put them between your legs and all the fiddly bits downstairs won't hurt as much in the morning."

Nila decided she'd liked Olem more when he was being bashful back in Adopest. This seemed entirely too... forward. "Thank you."

Olem merely nodded a reply. His eyes were on something on the horizon.

"What is it?" she asked.

Olem removed the looking gla.s.s from his saddlebag and held it to his eye. Nila squinted to the west and thought, beneath the glare of the half-set sun, that she could see a rider. She heard a sharp intake of breath, and Olem lowered his looking gla.s.s.

"Pack it up, boys!" he yelled over his shoulder. "Kez to the west!"

The speed of it all made Nila's head swim. Within five minutes the whole regiment was back in the saddle, the thunder of their hooves ringing in Nila's ears and the adrenaline of the chase drowning out the pain from a day's worth of riding.

Olem ordered out dozens of scouts and formed his men with the bulk of the cuira.s.siers in the middle and the dragoons on the wings as they crested the hill in the waning light of dusk.

Nila could see the distant speck of the Kez rider galloping across the plains.

"Is there anything you can do?" Olem asked.

"What? I mean, no, what could I do? He's too far for Privileged sorcery, even if I was confident I could hit him at all."

He gave a stiff nod and ordered his men to advance, all while eyeing the scouts fanning out across the plains ahead of them. She could see the indecision in his eyes-was this an opportunity or a trap?

They proceeded on the trail of the Kez rider. Nila watched as the dragoons on their right flank swept up and over a hill to the north, out of sight, and their left flank proceeded along a matching arc a quarter of a mile out past a distant wheat field. She felt cold, apprehensive of the disappearance of those five hundred cavalry. What if it was a trap? Would they return in time?

The sun had nearly set by the time the cuira.s.siers crested a short hillock to look down suddenly into a steep valley cut into the hills. Less than a mile distant, Nila could see the flickering of campfires and groups of picketed horses.

"We've found the enemy camp!" a breathless scout told Olem.

"I can see that." Olem gazed through his looking gla.s.s, a look of consternation on his face.

"Could it be a trap?" Nila asked.

"They're scrambling like a kicked anthill down there," Olem said. "It could be a trap... but we may have gotten lucky. Form up!" he bellowed. "Three lines, flanking formation!"

The cuira.s.siers split into three equal wedges. One of them took the north side of the valley while the second went straight down the middle. Nila's wedge, with Olem at the head, rode along the southern lip. As they drew closer, Nila could see the Kez begin to ride out in waves from the camp-it was no desperate flight, but an organized withdrawal.

"Faster, d.a.m.n it!" Olem yelled. He had his head c.o.c.ked to the wind, and Nila could hear the distant call of bugles from the north and south. "We're in the clear, we've got these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

Nila tried to swallow her terror as her mount kept up with the galloping horde. Down in the valley, she could see their center wedge sweep through the Kez camp.

The valley was not long. Less than a half mile later, it ended in a narrow, steep hill that brought the Kez cavalry back onto the plains. Nila thought the hill would slow them down, but was shocked to see the whole regiment fly up it without a stumble.

Olem's cuira.s.siers were a quarter of a mile behind the Kez cavalry and it was clear even to Nila's eyes that they were far too slow to catch them. The cuira.s.siers were weighed down by their armor and heavier weaponry, while it appeared the Kez cavalry had lighter weapons and no armor, and had been forced to leave behind bedrolls and supplies when they fled their camp.

Up ahead, Nila could see the plains begin to roll steadily, flat fields of wheat disappearing into a myriad of hills cast in darkness by the sun setting behind the mountains. The Kez would reach those hills soon, and something about those shadows made her shiver.

She could hear Olem swearing at the top of his lungs. He bent over his mount, urging him faster, and Nila wondered briefly how easy it would be for one of these horses to lose its footing and stumble, taking out the entire line behind it. Up ahead something caught her eye, and she couldn't help the cheer that escaped her lips as Adran dragoons suddenly burst into view from the north.

They were almost on top of the Kez cavalry. She heard the crack of gunpowder as pistols were fired. Nila expected to see a milling confusion as the Adrans and Kez locked in battle, but the dragoons turned sharply to follow-they hadn't been able to cut off the Kez retreat.

Olem suddenly grabbed Nila's reins and the two of them pulled out in front of the rest of the cuira.s.siers. "Fire," he shouted. "Now!"

Fire? Sorcery! Nila's mind went blank of all Bo's lessons and her fingers felt numb. The Kez were too far away! How could she possibly get any of them?

Raising her hands, she rolled her eyes back and tried to focus on the Else, plucking with two fingers to bring fire racing down on the wind toward the retreating cavalry. To her surprise, flames appeared in the air several hundred yards away, swirling patterns in the sky above the Kez. She moved her off-hand too much and the flames suddenly slammed into the ground, showering the area with sparks. Her hands were shaking too hard, her concentration too unsteady.

Slowly, she managed to get her fire under control and send it blazing onward. Olem's dragoons had split to give the fire an avenue. She felt her heart hammering in her chest as the flames closed in on their prey, surging forward like a wave out of the pit itself. This was her! She had the power to catch them and stop them. She struggled to keep control, shoving the flames farther forward.

An inky blackness seemed to reach out of the shadows of the hills and Nila's fire suddenly went out. The suddenness of it caught her off guard and nearly sent her tumbling from her saddle. She felt a cold hand brush at the very edge of her awareness, and then it was gone.

"Call them back!" Olem said.

A bugle played frantically over Nila's shoulder and she saw the dragoons slowly pull up. She reined her mount in, wrestling with the excited horse until Olem s.n.a.t.c.hed her reins from her hands and managed to calm the beast.

"Why did you call them back?" Nila asked, trying to shake the fear she felt from that blackness.

"Because I'm not following this Gurlish Wolf into Brude's Hideaway at night."

"My fire..."

"The magebreaker was there. I saw his influence in the Else."

Nila took a shaky breath. "What's Brude's Hideaway?"

"A b.l.o.o.d.y labyrinth of hills and valleys that stretch from here all the way through the western forest to the Charwood Pile." Olem leaned from his saddle to spit. "d.a.m.n it! We had luck on our side for once-they barely saw us coming-and we lost our chance."

Nila watched him for a moment, listening absently to the curses of the other cuira.s.siers. No one was happy about this development. "We're going in there, aren't we?"

Olem nodded. "Yes, but not until we have daylight on our side."

Nila wanted to tell him how terrible an idea she thought that was. She'd heard Beon je Ipille's description of this Gurlish Wolf. Olem had told her about the conversation with the Deliv magus. Going into those hills against the magebreaker was going to get them all killed.

She bit back her words and thought about Bo telling her to act like a Privileged. She felt a flare of jealousy with the memory of that Deliv Privileged leaning over to kiss Bo, and said, "At first light, then. We'll go in after the b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

CHAPTER.

33.

Two mornings after the bombing, Ricard had moved his entire base of operations for the election from the destroyed sh.e.l.l of the Holy Warriors of Labor headquarters to a posh hotel in the middle of Adopest.

Located just a few blocks from Elections Square, the Kinnen Hotel was one of the few buildings in the center of the city that had escaped looting by the riots after Manhouch's execution, damage in the royalist uprising, as well as severe structural harm from the earthquake in the spring. It was a squat fortress of a building only three stories tall, but with a footprint that encompa.s.sed an entire city block.

It also belonged to Ricard Tumblar, a fact that Adamat thought had something to do with why it had not been harmed by the riots-it would have been very well guarded by union muscle.

And it was still well guarded, it seemed. Each of the entrances was watched by no fewer than four union men. There were marksmen on the roof and armed laborers in the street. Adamat had to show his credentials three times before he reached the grand foyer of the hotel, and even then he could feel eyes on his back as he made his way to the east wing of the second floor.

He was admitted in to see Ricard after showing his papers yet again.

The union boss sat with his feet on his desk, chair tilted back, a cigar clenched between his teeth and a cold compress against his left temple. "No, I don't care how much it costs," Ricard was saying to a clerk, his voice just a little too loud. "Buy up every bolt of silk in the city and... oh, Adamat!" Ricard waved cigar smoke from his face and shooed the clerk out of the room with a single jerk of his chin.

"You're buying silk, now?"

"A little economic warfare," Ricard said, relishing his cigar smoke. "We've word that Claremonte has already promised the textile union he'll lower the import price of raw silk if elected. And he can't do that if I control everything in the city stores and keep an eye on what he brings in over the mountains."

"The textile union?" Adamat slid into a chair, feeling far too grateful to be sitting for a man his age. "Isn't that your territory?"

"The union head was killed in the blast last night," Ricard said. "We'll be fighting over a new one for months, and in the meantime Claremonte is going to try to sway their support. And yes, it is my territory. I won't let him take it."

"I still think you should use your emergency powers to appoint a new textile union head right away." The voice startled Adamat and he stood, looking toward where the voice seemed to come from-a window, where a woman perched beside the curtain with her arm in a sling and a gla.s.s of wine in her right hand. She was staring down at the street outside.

She was about fifty with rounded cheeks and severe, almond-shaped eyes. She wore a purple dress with black trim. She gave Adamat a quick look up and down.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't see you there." He ran through the catalog of names and faces in his memory.

She raised her winegla.s.s slightly. "Cheris, the-"

"Head of the bankers' union," Adamat finished. "We met briefly a couple of months ago."

"I apologize, I don't remember." She set her winegla.s.s down just long enough to adjust the strap on her sling.

"I'm Inspector Adamat."

"Oh, yes! The Knacked who can't forget. Ricard has spoken of you a great deal over the years. I should have remembered you. I do apologize. The things you've gone through in the last few months..." She trailed off, clucking her tongue sadly.

Adamat shot Ricard a glance. What was he doing telling this woman-or anyone, for that matter-about his problems?

Ricard gave him an apologetic shrug. "Do you have any leads on the bombing yesterday?"

"Should we talk about that in private?"

"Cheris was with me last night. A beam from the ceiling fell and broke her arm right after the explosion. She'll want to know about this as much as I."

But can she be trusted? "You look awfully well for having survived such a catastrophe," Adamat said.

Cheris blushed slightly. "If you must know, I've had a little mala today-for the pain-and more than a little wine." She gave what Adamat suspected had been meant to be a soft laugh, but it came out as a loud giggle.

"Of course. It's to be expected." Adamat returned to his seat.

"Did you go with the police yesterday?" Ricard asked.

"Yes."

"And? Do you think it was Claremonte? It was Claremonte, wasn't it? The b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I'll tear him limb from limb, I'll-"

"It wasn't Claremonte," Adamat said.

Ricard leapt to his feet and instantly began to pace. "What do you mean? Can you be sure?"

"I'm quite certain," Adamat said.