The Autumn Republic (16 page)

Bo lowered his arms. He glared down the canyon as he plucked at the fingers of his gloves and then set them in Ka-poel’s outstretched palm. She took the gloves and walked down the canyon until she reached the Adran soldiers. One of the men examined the gloves in her hands and gave a sharp nod, letting her pass.

She reappeared a moment later, and she wasn’t alone.

Field Marshal Tamas walked stiffly up the canyon to Taniel. He seemed to have aged ten years in the last few months, and looked more frail than Taniel could ever have imagined him. By his gait, he was hiding a wound. A bad one.

“You look like the pit, Dad,” Taniel said.

“You don’t look a damned sight better,” Tamas said. His back was rigid, and he examined Bo out of the corner of his eye as one might regard a cave lion sitting on one’s porch, before he turned back to Taniel. Taniel took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Last he’d heard, his father was presumed dead, and though there had been cause to consider his survival, Taniel had not had the time to either grieve or rejoice. A torrent of emotions rushed through him, and he struggled to hold them all in check, turning his face into a blank canvas.

“Glad to see you still alive,” Taniel said.

The old man’s face was impassive. The pinnacle of military discipline.

But for the first time since his mother died, Taniel saw tears shining in his father’s eyes. “You too, Captain.”

T
amas gave orders to camp in the valley that night.

He put Olem in charge of setting up camp, but made the rounds himself, walking slowly through the tents, waving off salutes, and reminding the men that they had an early morning and a long ride ahead of them and that they should get some rest. When he had finished, he checked on the prisoners, then with the sentries.

“You need some rest, sir.”

Tamas jumped. Taniel stood behind him on the banks of the small river that ran down the center of the valley.

“I’m all right,” Tamas said.

“You’ve been fiddling since we stopped to make camp. Losing sleep won’t get us back to the front any faster.”

Tamas glanced at his son. Taniel looked older. Lean from weeks of hunger, his cheeks gaunt, he still managed to retain a robust physical appearance. He had put on more muscle since the day Tamas had sent him up to South Pike with orders to kill Bo. That seemed like a lifetime ago. What
had
it been? Six months? Perhaps less?

“We should have ridden through the night,” Tamas said. He stifled a yawn. “I left at too crucial a time.”

Taniel shifted from one leg to the other. “Sorry to be such an inconvenience.”

“I didn’t…” Tamas turned toward his son, suppressing a frustrated sigh. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just, the battle. It was a terrible risk to leave it in others’ hands.”

“You didn’t need to come for me.”

“Well, I know that now.” Tamas chuckled. Even to him it sounded forced. “I should have just left the whole thing to Bo and stayed at the front.”

“Indecision isn’t becoming of you.” Taniel kicked a rock into the river.

Tamas wished he knew what to say. He’d never been a spectacular father, he knew that. But even he could tell that something had changed about Taniel. Something Tamas couldn’t quite put his finger on. He could sense the sorcery clinging to him without even opening his third eye, though it was subtle stuff. Supposedly the work of that savage witch Taniel was so fond of. Tamas had his fair share of questions about that girl.

“Bo’s not a threat to you anymore,” Taniel said. “You don’t have to keep him tied up, under guard. Give him back his gloves.”

Tamas rubbed at his temples. “It’s just until we get back.”

“If we get back,” Taniel said, “and we need Bo’s help against the Kez – which we will get. A little trust will go a long way.”

“I’m short on trust right now,” Tamas said. He rubbed at the wound that was itching beneath his coat. Only the constant buzz of a powder trance kept the pain away, and only just barely.

“Hilanska,” Taniel said.

Tamas cleared his throat to cover his surprise. “How did you know?”

“When Kresimir captured me, he had Hilanska confirm my identity. I know he was the one who sent those bastards.” He jerked his chin toward the makeshift stockade in the center of the camp that contained around a hundred and fifty of Hilanska’s men.

Tamas considered it for a moment, then unbuttoned his jacket. He lifted his shirt, exposing his flesh to the chill of the night. “Stabbed me right between the ribs.”

“Looks bad.” Taniel inspected the wound from a respectful distance, aware how much his father’s vulnerability meant to him.

“I’m lucky. It was a clean wound. Missed anything important.” He let his shirt fall and slowly buttoned up his jacket.

“You need a Privileged to look at it.”

“The Deliv king has a few healers with him. I’ll get it taken care of when he arrives. It won’t kill me before then. Hilanska. That bloody bastard. We’ve been friends for decades. He was a groomsman at my wedding. Was privy to all my plans with the coup.”

“That’s the wound that won’t heal,” Taniel said quietly.

Tamas didn’t trust himself to say anything else, but allowed a nod. When they’d stood for several more minutes, Tamas said, “I could use Mihali. Hah. I can’t believe I just said that. Madman chef-god. I don’t bloody well know what I’m going to do without him.” Tamas felt moisture in the corner of his eyes. They must have been watering from the cold breeze.

“Mihali,” Taniel said. “He…”

“You met?” Tamas supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Mihali had his fingers in every pie.

“Yes. He said that I was different now. Thanks in part to Ka-poel’s sorcery and in part to my contact with Kresimir.”

Tamas remained silent. If Taniel was going to talk, he was going to do it on his own. No amount of prompting would get it out of him.

A few more moments passed, and Taniel said, “Mihali thinks I’m like Julene now. Or at least the powder mage equivalent of a Predeii.”

Tamas ground his teeth at the mention of Julene. So many traitors. So much betrayal. How could Taniel be anything like her? “You can’t take anything Mihali said seriously.”

“I think he’s right,” Taniel said. “I barely ate anything up on that mountain, but I wasn’t very hungry. I didn’t have any powder, but I could still see details at a hundred yards – nothing like with the powder, but my night vision and hearing and smell are all better than they were.” He looked at Tamas and his eyes were suddenly red. “I tore the jaw off of a man. Without any powder! I tore out a Warden’s rib and killed him with it. Well, that time I did have powder.”

“Pit,” Tamas breathed.

Taniel snorted. “I know. I’m damn hard to kill, too. I still bleed, but I’m stronger, faster. Kresimir ordered his men to break my arm. They couldn’t. I’ve changed, Dad, and it’s terrifying. And Mihali is dead and Ka-poel can’t speak, so I can’t learn what is happening to me.” Taniel stared down at his hands. His voice was raw.

“Taniel,” Tamas said. He gripped Taniel’s arm in one hand. “Listen to me. Whatever it is that’s happening to you, you’ll survive it. You’re a fighter.”
You’re my son
, he added silently.

“But what if it’s not worth surviving?”

For a moment Taniel wasn’t a man but the frightened boy Tamas had held after Erika’s death. Tamas grabbed Taniel’s shoulders and roughly pulled him into an embrace. “It’s always worth surviving, son.”

They remained that way for several minutes. Finally, Taniel pulled away and wiped his sleeve across his nose. Tamas let out a shaky breath and hoped Taniel didn’t see his own tears.

“Dad.”

“Yes?”

“I shot Kresimir in the eye. And then, when he caught me at the old fortress, I punched him in the face.”

Tamas stared at his son for a moment, shocked by the absurdity of it all. It started as a twitch deep in his stomach, then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. Taniel joined him a moment later, and they laughed until the tears streamed down their faces and Tamas forced himself to stop because his wound hurt so badly. When they regained their composure, they stared at each other for some time.

“I’m sorry for what I’ve been,” Tamas said. The words hurt to leave him, yet he simultaneously felt a great weight lifted. He watched the side of Taniel’s face for some kind of response, but Taniel was suddenly guarded. He turned and Tamas was afraid he’d walk away.

“You have a lot of children,” Taniel said, indicating the camp with a wave of his arm. “All your soldiers.”

“Only one of them matters.”

“They all matter. Dad, can you do me a favor?”

“Of course.”

“Forgive Vlora.”

Tamas raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t known what to expect, but that wasn’t it. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the scar from the bullet that had grazed his skull at the Battle at Kresimir’s Fingers. “That might take me a little while.”

“Just try.”

“I will.”

“Thanks. And Dad? Ka-poel is carrying around the effigy of Kresimir on her back. She’s the only thing keeping him from killing all of us.”

“She’s
what
?”

“And there’s something else.” Taniel drew a shaky breath. “I’m in love with her.”

Tamas snuck into the main Adran army camp a day later like a man who’d lost the keys to his own front door.

It wasn’t a grand entrance, he reflected, as Olem showed a set of orders to a sentry and Tamas kept the brim of his hat down over his face, hiding behind the lapels of his overcoat. But Tamas didn’t need a grand entrance. He needed quite the opposite.

The sentry looked over the paper for a moment, squinting to read it in the pale morning light, her lips moving silently. They were orders that Tamas himself had written, with his own signature at the bottom. When she finished, she handed the paper back to Olem and glanced suspiciously at Tamas. “Looks like everything is in order,” she said, waving them past.

Tamas gave a small sigh as they headed into the camp and lost themselves among the tents to throw off any suspicious guards that may have followed. He would have wanted his men to do a more thorough search of strangers – they were trained not to put up with any of this cloak-and-dagger bullshit that officers from the nobility had always seemed to like. But on the other hand, Tamas was glad to get in without being questioned further.

The camp was beginning to stir, the men climbing from their tents, brewing coffee over the coals of their cook fires, laundresses working their way through the camp to return clean uniforms. He and Olem discarded their overcoats and slipped the last hundred yards up to the command tent. Only a few men were about, and those that recognized him shook off their grogginess and snapped salutes.

“Morning, sir.”

“Morning.”

“Fine bit of work the other day, sir. I meant to congratulate you earlier, but haven’t seen you.”

“Thank you. Carry on,” Tamas said, gesturing a lieutenant back to his breakfast. He leaned over to Olem and whispered, “Well, I assume we won by the fact that the army is still intact.”

A captain interrupted him with a salute and a “Good morning.” “Congratulations on the victory, sir,” the woman said. “Sending the Hundred-and-First up the center like that was inspired work.”

Tamas nodded politely, and when they’d passed her, he continued, “And it seems none have been the wiser.”

“Well done, sir,” Olem said, cracking a smile. He had been in hysterics over the idea of leaving to fetch Taniel, and Tamas might have never done it if Vlora hadn’t shouted down Olem’s objections. “I suppose you can say you told me so.”

“I’ll wait for that until I hear the casualty count,” Tamas said, stopping to shake hands with two privates who were stirring the coals for their breakfast. He and Olem reached the command tent a moment later and the guards snapped off their salutes, one holding the tent flap while they slipped inside.

The white walls of the tent allowed enough light in for Tamas to see several figures. Vlora, he expected. She lay across several chairs, her boots on the ground beside her, snoring lightly. The others Tamas had not expected. Brigadier Abrax snoozed on a chair beside the door, her hat tipped over her face and chin resting on her chest, while Inspector Adamat mumbled in his sleep from his spot on the ground. Someone else was curled up in the corner, a mess of curly auburn hair spread out over her blanket.

“Captain,” Tamas said. No response from Vlora.

Olem leaned over her. “Vlora.” He nudged her knee, then gently touched her cheek. She startled awake and blinked groggily at Olem, and then at Tamas.

“Sir,” she said, getting to her feet and managing a less-than-snappy salute.

“At ease, Captain,” Tamas said. He looked at Abrax. Maybe they should step outside. He really didn’t want to wake her. These things were best done one at a time. “How did everything go?”

Vlora rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Quite well, sir. The Kez fell for our trap completely. We were able to surprise them with our offensive, while the Wings held off theirs. It was a decisive victory. It went almost exactly as you said.”

“Almost?”

“I had to improvise a few times. I’ve written a full report. It’s on your desk.”

“I look forward to reading it.”
And I better do so soon, if we’re to keep up the farce that I was here the entire time giving orders myself
. “Casualties?”

“Fifteen thousand one hundred and seventy-four.”

Tamas staggered at the number. So many? That was a fourth of his army, not counting the irregulars. “Pit,” he said.

“The regimental breakdown of the losses is also on your desk.”

“And the Kez?”

“They’ve retreated all the way to Fendale.”

“Their losses?”

“We can’t be entirely sure yet, sir, but we estimate around ninety thousand. We’ve captured about twenty-five thousand.”

Tamas felt some of the tension drain from his body. “That’s significant.”

“It is, sir. Congratulations.”

Tamas allowed himself a deep breath and some hope for this war. “Thank you for staying here.”

Vlora looked down at her feet. “It’s the least I could do after fighting to have you go after Taniel. I did the best I could.”

“I think you were equal to the task.”

“Just following your orders. Sir?”

“My mission was successful, Captain, if that is what you’re asking.”

Vlora gave a none-too-subtle sigh of relief. Tamas wondered what she would feel about Taniel’s declaration of love for the savage – for Ka-poel. He had advised that his son keep it under his hat for a while longer, but truth be told, Tamas didn’t know what
he
thought of it. Not something he had the luxury to deal with right now. He glanced at the piles of papers on his desk. He would have to scour everything in there to learn the details of the battle. If Vlora had made mistakes, it would be his own fault for leaving her here alone.