The Autumn Republic (30 page)

Beon smiled in response, and glanced at Nila, but Tamas shook his head. He wasn’t about to reveal Nila’s identity over this. Not just to sate his own curiosity. “Anyway,” Beon continued, “he’s been rotting in some border town for the last fifteen years. He’s a bloody good cavalryman, maybe even better than me – and an expert in guerrilla warfare. I imagine that you’ll have a very hard time catching him indeed.”

Tamas didn’t have time for this. A few hours ago, he had been ready to order his men to march through the night so he could catch the Kez forces at Auberdel. Now he discovered that his allies – fifty thousand strong, including a third of a royal cabal – had been cowed by a single regiment of Kez cavalry.

“Thank you, Beon.”

The Kez nobleman seemed to know he was being dismissed. He stood, brushing his hands together, eyeing Nila. She met his gaze, and Tamas chuckled inwardly. He had known that there would be a day when the Adran
C
abal would need to be rebuilt. He had secretly hoped it would be long after his death. But he could do a lot worse than having Borbador and Nila as its foundation.

With Beon gone, Tamas climbed to his feet and rebuttoned his jacket. “Olem, have you created a cavalry regiment for your Riflejacks yet?”

“Yes sir. Six hundred dragoons and three hundred cuirassiers.”

“Excellent. Take another five hundred cuirassiers – the Fifteenth won’t miss them – and hunt this
G
urlish magebreaker down.”

Olem straightened. “Sir!”

“You wanted a command, Olem. You’ve got it now. Don’t let me down.”

“I won’t, sir!” Olem grinned proudly, his shoulders squared.

“And Privileged Nila.”

Nila swallowed hard, but she met Tamas’s eye. He held his hands behind his back so that she couldn’t see his nervousness, and wondered if he was making the right decision.

“You’re going with Olem. Burn those bastards to the ground.”

He had the brief satisfaction of her eyes growing wide before he strode out into the sunlight to let his men know they would be leaving at first light.

A
few hours into her ride, as her legs began to cramp and her ass began to hurt worse than anything she’d ever felt, Nila wondered if Tamas would have allowed her to say no.

Perhaps he might have, if it had occurred to her to refuse. She had her doubts. It seemed likely that few people told Tamas no. This was the same man who had slaughtered the Adran royal cabal in their sleep and then guillotined his own king. One didn’t say no to a man like that. Instead of refusing what sounded like a horribly dangerous mission, she had asked him to give a hastily written note to Privileged Borbador. Tamas had seemed slightly put off by the request, but Nila didn’t know who else in the camp she could have asked, and in the end, Tamas agreed.

She had an ever-growing notion that this expedition was a terrible idea and that it would end with her corpse lying in some farmer’s field. The darkness on the horizon that sorcery could not penetrate, the darkness that had tied her stomach in knots, had been a magebreaker, and she was now riding toward him.

“What the pit good am I going to do?” she asked, trying not to let the pain come through in her tone.
Back straight. Act like the Privileged you want to be
.

Olem stood in his stirrups, looking annoyingly at ease in the saddle, his eyes scanning the horizon. “The idea,” he said, “is that we go straight for the throat. We identify and kill the magebreaker and then you unleash your sorcery on his cavalry.”

Behind them, a trail of dust rose over thirteen hundred Adran cavalry. They were a stunning sight, she had to admit. The uniforms of the dragoons were dirty and rumpled from the road, but their swords were held straight and their carbines laid across their saddle horns, while the breastplates of the cuirassiers shone in the setting sunlight. She now wore a uniform that matched the dragoons – Adran blues with silver trim and red cuffs, and pants, which were so much better for riding than a dress.

“Didn’t the Deliv already think of that?”

“Likely,” Olem said.

“And they failed.”

“We’ll just have to succeed where they failed.”

“Are you going to get me killed?”

Olem stroked his beard and lowered himself back into his saddle. She wondered briefly how her life would be different if she had let him court her and had given up on her obsession to protect Jakob Eldaminse. Would she still be just Nila the laundress, another soldier’s lover, toiling with the rest of the camp followers? Or would she have been captured along with so many others when Budwiel fell, and now be either dead or enslaved?

“I’ll try not to,” Olem said. He began to roll a cigarette. “If – when – we catch these bastards, I want you to stay near the middle of the column, where it’s safest.” He paused to lick his rolling paper. “To be honest, nowhere is safest in a cavalry skirmish, but that’ll have to do. The magebreaker will have heard about the Battle of Ned’s Creek, but if we’re lucky, he won’t suspect that we have a Privileged with us.”

And he won’t see my glow in the Else because of my limited experience
, Nila finished silently. “What if I can’t do sorcery?”

“Keep your head down.”

“Easy for you to say. You have a sword.”

“And a pistol and carbine,” Olem said.

“You’re very reassuring.”

“That’s what Tamas says, strangely enough.”

“Tamas? Are you on a first-name basis with the field marshal?”

Olem grunted. “That was inappropriate of me. Sorry. Nerves are a bit frayed. I’ve ridden with cavalry before, even been in a few skirmishes, but this is my first command.”

“Oh, now that
is
reassuring.”

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 ass.” 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 cocked 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 butt into the long grass. “I’ll have one of the boys find you some good stones that we can warm in the fire. It’ll help the ass-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 glass 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 glass.

“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 cuirassiers 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 cuirassiers 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 glass, 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 cuirassiers 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, damn it!” Olem yelled. He had his head cocked 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 bastards!”

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 cuirassiers 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 cuirassiers 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 cuirassiers. “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 snatched 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 bloody 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. “Damn 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 cuirassiers. 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.