The Autumn Republic (35 page)

“Did Borin happen to tell you
why
they needed it?”

“They were looking for high-powered explosives,” Little Flerring said as if it were obvious.

This wasn’t helping at all. “But did they come to him or did he go to them?”

“Oh. They came to him.”

“That’s all we need to know. Thank you,” Adamat said, getting to his feet. “I think it’s time we go. I appreciate your help a great deal.”

“Didn’t think we were much help,” Little Flerring said. “If you track down the samples Borin sold, let me know. I’d prefer they were destroyed.”

“You were a great deal of help. And don’t worry, I’ll tell you.” Adamat shook hands with Little Flerring, then tentatively grasped the Fist’s offered hook. A few minutes later and he and SouSmith were back in their carriage headed toward Adopest.

“Good to see him,” SouSmith rumbled.

Adamat barely heard him, deep in thought. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“Been a long time. Girl’s grown up.”

“Oh? You thinking of settling down, SouSmith?”

SouSmith chuckled. “Too young for me.” He paused. Then, “Why such a hurry?”

Adamat drummed his fingers on the head of his cane excitedly. “Because the Underhill Mining Coalition isn’t a mining company,” he said.

“Don’t follow.”

“They’re a club. A group of thieves and smugglers who call themselves businessmen. They meet to drink and play cards at an exclusive – and hidden – location in Adopest. Most people know them as the Underhill Society and I happen to be friends with one of their members.”

“Who’s that?”

“Ricard Tumblar.”

Nila and Olem hunted the Kez cavalry through the gorges and hills of Brude’s Hideaway for three days. On the first day a low cloud cover descended over the area, obscuring the peaks of the Charwood Pile to the west, and on the second day a heavy fog rolled in. Nila wondered if the fog had some kind of sorcery behind it, but neither she nor Olem could sense anything amiss in the Else.

It was just bad luck.

Nila couldn’t see the ends of their cuirassier lines as they swept the ridges and bends of the highlands. The sun was obscured and the whole world seemed gray.

She stood in her stirrups the third day, wondering how any man or woman could possibly stay in the saddle for hours at a time, let alone several days.
Everything
below her waist hurt, and most of the things above it. Her knuckles were sore from gripping the reins and her spine ached from the jolt of her horse’s stride. Her head spun from hour after hour of trying to maintain her vision of the Else, attempting to spot anything in the fog. Olem told her to drink more water.

Olem sat beside her at the top of a small hill looking to the south – or maybe the north, she couldn’t really be sure, with no point of reference. There was a white chasm at their feet where the earth dipped beneath the fog, and she couldn’t tell if this was merely a divot in the landscape or a valley a mile long.

“The good news,” Olem said, puffing on a cigarette, “is that the fog screws with them as much as it does with us. They’re left reading the ground and listening for echoes in the murk, same as us.”

Nila sniffed. He’d become progressively more optimistic as the hours rolled past. He seemed to hold the opinion that every minute they spent circling the Gurlish Wolf in the fog was another minute he wasn’t abusing the flanks of Tamas’s army. Which, she supposed, was true, if the Gurlish Wolf hadn’t slipped past them and was back on the plain already, attacking the Adran army.

“They have an advantage over us,” Nila said.

“Oh?”

“They can smell your cigarette smoke from farther away than we can see them.”

Olem took the cigarette from his mouth and stared at it sourly before putting it out on his ash-stained saddle horn and tossing it into the damp grass. “Damn it.”

They sat in silence for several minutes before Nila said, “How do they communicate in this?”

“Pit if I know. I haven’t heard a trumpet since the fog descended, so it’s not that.”

“Maybe they have a Knacked?”

“Maybe,” Olem mused. “Someone with very precise hearing. A few years back I heard a story about a pair of Knacked twins that could communicate over a hundred miles just using their minds. That kind of thing is rarer than a Privileged healer, I’d imagine.” He drew his tobacco and rolling papers from his breast pocket, stared at them for a moment, then put them back with a sigh. “No, I imagine they’ve done the smart thing and hunkered down in one of these valleys to wait out the fog.”

Nila studied the ground beneath their feet, looking at the horseshoe prints in the mud – horseshoes marked by a Kez blacksmith. The tracks led into the gully below them. The Kez had split up after being run from their camp three days before. Their tracks seemed to lead everywhere, crisscrossing and doubling back without any clear path to follow.

And like a hound looking for a scent, Olem had patiently been following every one of those trails. He kept his formations tight, his scouts plentiful, and never stumbled blindly into one of the fog-concealed valleys.

It all seemed very professional to Nila, but she wouldn’t have had any idea as to any of this if Olem hadn’t been explaining it to her along the way.

“You’re picking this stuff up quickly,” Olem said.

“What stuff?”

“All this.” He tapped the pocket where he kept his tobacco. “Cigarette smoke. Something I didn’t think of, but a Kez cavalryman would. Good call.”

Nila ducked her head. “Thank you.”

“A fighting Privileged,” Olem said. “Six months ago, if I had to guess what extraordinary thing you’d become, I would not have guessed that.”

Nila knew it was meant to be a compliment, but it niggled at her all the same. “You don’t think I’m capable?”

“You’ve shown yourself to be capable.”

“But you wouldn’t have thought that.”

“That’s not quite what I meant.”

“And what did you mean, Colonel Olem?”

Olem removed the rolling paper from his pocket and was about to sprinkle tobacco on the center before he made a face and put it back. “Privileged are born to it. You were a laundress. No offense, but it didn’t seem like something on your horizon.”

Nila opened her mouth, ready to take the argument further, then decided against it. What was she doing, arguing like this? Olem was right, of course. A Privileged? Her? It was laughably unlikely.

“If you don’t mind me saying,” Olem said, “you’ve been on edge. More than just a chafed ass.”

Nila let out what she had wanted to be a dismissive laugh, but it came out as just this side of hysterical. “You could say that.”

“The field marshal has a habit of using the hottest fire to temper soft metal,” Olem said. “I’m not sure if he should have sent you.”

“I’m soft metal, am I? No. It’s not that. Well. It is that. But so many more things. I’ve never ridden before and my body hurts so badly I want to cry every moment. I’m untested, barely trained. This infernal fog!” Her voice rose a little too high and a nearby cuirassier glanced at her.

Olem sat unmoved, listening for several moments before he said, “At least you know your failings.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“Really. I mean it. I’ve met dozens of officers who think their immaculate mustache can move the world. Not knowing one’s weaknesses gets people killed.”

Nila shook her head and gave a short laugh, relieved to hear this one sounding a little less desperate. “Little do they know that an immaculate beard is what it takes.”

Olem grinned at her. “Right you are.” His hand was halfway toward his rolling papers again before he swore under his breath.

“Are you with anyone?” Nila asked, the question leaving her lips before she could stop herself.

Olem glanced up in surprise. “Huh? Well…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Kind of. It’s a tenuous thing.”

Nila was surprised to find herself hurt by his answer. She had turned him down, after all, and that was months ago. Maybe she had hoped he would pine for her a little longer. “Another soldier?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s she like?”

“Long legs. Black hair. Very good at what she does.”

“Oh? And what does she do?” She felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth when Olem’s cheeks turned red.

“She’s a powder mage.”

Nila gave a low whistle. “You don’t settle, do you?”

“Never have,” Olem said, giving her a lingering glance. She opened her mouth, but forgot her response immediately when Olem held up a hand. “Do you hear that?” he whispered.

Up and down the line, cuirassiers grew alert. Nila strained her ears to listen, but couldn’t hear anything. “What is it?”

Olem put one hand on the stock of his carbine. “I thought I heard a horse down there.”

They remained in silence for several minutes, during which Nila barely allowed herself to breathe. The fear and anxiety all returned in those precious minutes of waiting, and she could feel her heart hammering against her chest like a bird trying to escape its cage.

A shadow appeared in the fog down in the gully. Nila thought her heart would burst at any moment, until she saw Olem relax, his finger edging away from the trigger of his carbine.

“It’s one of ours,” a cuirassier said. “Looks like Ganley.”

A horse came out of the fog carrying a blue-uniformed rider. Olem called out a greeting, and Nila sat back in her saddle, trying to find a comfortable spot on which to sit. There wasn’t one. She closed her eyes, trying to reach the meditative state that Bo had taught her – a place between this world and the Else, where she could let her worries fade.

She had yet to reach it.

When her eyes opened again, she found that she’d slipped past her target and gone into the Else – here at least, she sighed to herself, the fog couldn’t penetrate. The hills rolled on in the distance, and she could see that the gully before them was indeed a deep one, extending thirty feet down and on into thick brush in the distance. Hundreds of small flames danced before her eyes like fireflies.

Several things happened at once. First, she screamed. Second, the returning scout, Ganley, fell from his horse, his bloody throat grinning up at them all from the ground, and third, those hundreds of fireflies suddenly shot forward and the rumble of hooves brought Nila out of the Else and into the real world, where horses seemed to erupt from the mist, ridden by Kez cavalry in their green-on-tan uniforms.

Olem’s carbine went off, causing a ringing in Nila’s ears. A dozen other shots were fired before the Kez cavalry were suddenly upon them.

Nila felt a Kez mount ram her own, sending the creature reeling to the side. She sawed at the reins and nearly fell out of her saddle, when a sword flashed in front of her eyes. The cuff of a blue uniform sprang into her vision as Olem countered a stroke meant for her neck. She heard him grunt, swear, then he was gone.

A Kez dragoon leaned into Nila from the side, and she’d barely got her hands up before the guard of his saber cracked into the side of her head. Vision swimming, she latched onto the man’s arm, pulling him closer, and put her fingers around his throat.

She willed the fire from the Else, pouring her anger and energy in behind it, and waited for the man’s head to wither like a burned mushroom.

Nothing happened.

Panic seized her. She pushed herself closer to the dragoon, feeling his breath upon her neck, grasping for the Else. It was still there, she could still sense it at her fingertips, but nothing was happening.

The guard of his saber hit her again. She reeled, unable to grasp her sorcery, yet knowing if she let go, she would die with a split head. She dug her fingernails into his throat and tore. The man suddenly disengaged, cursing angrily in Kez and holding his bloody throat.

Nila remembered the pistol Olem had given her. She grasped for the butt, her hands shaking, and leveled it at the dragoon.

A grin flashed across his face, and the last thing she felt was a tug on the back of her head and the whole world going upside down.

“T
hree days,” Adamat said as he was led into Ricard’s office in the Kinnen Hotel. “It took me three days to get an appointment to see not you but your undersecretary! What the pit is going on here, Ricard? I thought you wanted me working quickly.”

Adamat came up short. Ricard sat slumped behind his desk, hair frayed, jacket discarded in one corner, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose and a newspaper in one hand.

“Pit,” Adamat said. “It looks like you haven’t slept in three days.”

Ricard stifled a yawn. “Five, I think. Well. I’ve caught some naps. Here and there. Fell,” he shouted.

“Right here, sir.” Adamat exchanged a glance with Fell, who was standing right beside him.

Ricard squinted over his glasses. “So you are. Fell, tell the boys out front to let Adamat in to see me immediately no matter what.”

Fell cleared her throat. “No matter what, sir?”

“Unless I’m indisposed. Kresimir’s balls, that’s obvious. Look, Adamat, I’m sorry. I’ve quadrupled the security since the bombing, and you know how it is with logistics like this. Orders get crossed, people can’t see me. It’s a nightmare. You should have just come by my home.”

“I did. Several times. You weren’t there.”

“Sir,” Fell said. “You haven’t left this office for two days. You haven’t been home since before the bombing.”

Ricard scratched his head. “That’s right. Oh well. Wine?”

“It’s nine o’clock in the morning.” Adamat took a seat opposite Ricard.

“Coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

“Fell, have someone get us coffee. And put a little whiskey in mine.”

“That’s awful, Ricard,” Adamat said.

“I’ve had worse.” Ricard hiccupped and pounded twice on his chest with one fist. “Now then, what can you tell me about the bombing?”

“The bombing was done with something called ‘blasting oil,’ ” Adamat said. “It took some time, but I was able to track down the manufacturer.”

“Who was it?”

“The Flerring Powder Company.”

“Never heard of them,” Ricard growled. “And when I’m done with them, no one ever will. I’ll see them out of business! I’ll destroy everything they —”

Adamat cut him off. “That’s quite unnecessary.”

“What do you mean?”

“I interviewed the owner and his daughter. The blasting oil wasn’t ready for sale. It’s too unstable. One of their chemists sold a sample of it behind their backs and they canned him for it.”

“I see. This chemist?”

“Blew himself up the day after they fired him.”

“Convenient.”

“Perhaps. Whether it was an accident or not, Flerring insisted that he wouldn’t have sold the stuff himself, and I believe him.”

“Where does that leave us? The owner claiming innocence and the chemist dead? I don’t like it.”

“They told me who their chemist sold the sample to.”

A young man entered the room carrying a silver platter with two cups and a pot of coffee. When the drinks were served and the man had left, Ricard leaned forward. “Who bought it?”

“The Underhill Mining Coalition.”

Ricard made a strangled noise and spit some of his coffee out down the front of his shirt. “Pardon?”

“The Underhill Mining Coalition,” Adamat repeated. “Which, if my memory serves, is a front for the Underhill Society. The name they use when one of the members wants to buy something with funds that can’t be easily traced.”

“
If memory serves
.” Ricard scrunched up his face and mimicked Adamat in a high voice. “Bloody Knacked and your bloody memory. You can’t be certain.”

“It’s the only lead I have.”

“Perhaps you got the explosive wrong. Maybe it was something else.”

“I put the time to good use while I was waiting for my appointment with Fell,” Adamat said, removing a paper from his pocket. “I employed Flerring the Younger, the heir to the Flerring Powder Company, as an expert in my investigation. She examined the union headquarters and has given me written evidence that the explosion was indeed caused by blasting oil, and that the oil was purchased by the Underhill Mining Coalition.”

“How the pit did you get her to sign that?”

Adamat coughed into his hand. “I swore that we wouldn’t prosecute her or her company.”

“You’re a bastard.”

“If we need a scapegoat, the dead chemist is as good as any. But we don’t need a scapegoat. We just need the location of the Underhill Society.”

Ricard sprang to his feet. “Absolutely not.”

“Why is that?”

“What’s the point of a secret society if it’s not secret anymore?”

“They tried to kill you.”

“They? More likely just one or two of the members.” Ricard cursed under his breath. “I rose up through their ranks. I’ve been friends with those men and women for the last twenty years. I’ve given every one of them good jobs, business opportunities. Pit, I’ve kept three of them out of jail.”

“How many members are there?”

“There are —” Ricard’s mouth snapped shut. “I’m not supposed to talk about it at all. Secret society, remember?”

“I think they waived their right to secrecy when they decided to use the society as their front while trying to kill you. Are any of them particularly stupid?”

“It’s not as stupid as you think. Less than fifty people in Adopest even know that the Underhill Society exists. Giving the name to some small powder company means absolutely nothing, and let’s be honest – we only know it was this blasting oil because of you. The police didn’t notice anything different about the explosion.” Ricard slumped back in his chair and drained his cup of coffee. He bent over suddenly, his face twisted in a grimace.

“Are you all right?”

“That coffee was really hot.” Ricard recovered and went on. “I can’t do it. I can’t betray them like this.”

“They betrayed you.”

“One or two of them. Maybe! Pit.”

“I understand this is hard for you, Ricard.” Adamat leaned across the desk. “They’ll try again, though.”

“How can you be certain? You said they only had a sample.”

“After examining the union headquarters, Flerring the Younger said she thought two explosions weren’t big enough for them to have used all the blasting oil. They may still have enough blasting oil to make several more bombs.”

“Well, pit.”

“If you can give me the names of one or two of the society members you suspect, I can trail them. I would need some men to help me, but we might be able to find out where they keep the blasting oil or their next target.”

“I know where they’re keeping it,” Ricard said miserably.

“Where?”

“At the Society building.”

“They’re keeping an unstable explosive at the Underhill Society? How stupid are they?”

“Not as stupid as you think.”

“You have to tell me where it is.”

Instead, Ricard turned and shouted for Fell. When she appeared at the door, he said, “Get together five of my most discreet men.”

“When?”

“As quickly as possible. Within the hour.”

“Yes sir. What is it for, sir?”

“We have to search the basement of this building for a powerful explosive.”

Adamat was astonished at how quickly Fell prepared the operation.

At Fell’s insistence, Ricard left the building – ostensibly to meet Cheris for an early lunch – and several of his most valuable lieutenants were suddenly called away. Within thirty minutes, two men and three women had gathered in an empty hotel room. Adamat could only assume they were union members who had earned Ricard’s trust but not yet been given any duties of importance.

Adamat stood near the window of the hotel room. Two of the women sat on the bed, and a third near the door, while both men had their backs to the wall. Everyone watched intently as Fell entered the room and closed the door behind her.

She began quietly, “What we say at this meeting does not leave this room, understand?”

The gathered group exchanged looks before giving their unanimous consent. Some of them glanced at Adamat and he wondered if any of them knew who he was. He recognized three of the faces by happenstance, but didn’t know any of their names.

“There is a strong chance that someone has placed a bomb beneath this building,” Fell said. To their credit, none of them headed for the door. “The perpetrator does not know that we know, and we are going to search the premises quickly and quietly until we find it. We will start with the basement and work our way up. Before any of you ask, this is not a volunteer assignment. If one of you leaves the building before I say so, you will never find work in this country again.”

Adamat noted that one of the men had started to sweat violently. Fear? Or guilt? The woman by the door swallowed hard.

“That being said,” Fell went on, letting a smile touch her lips, “once we find and dispose of the bomb, each of you will find yourself well rewarded. You’ll receive promotions within the union and a not-insignificant amount of money. Inspector Adamat and I will lead the search. Questions? Yes, Draily?”

The woman by the door lowered her hand. “I don’t know a damn thing about bombs. How am I going to help with all this?”

Adamat cut in before Fell could respond. “No one knows anything about this kind of bomb,” he said. “It’s not gunpowder, but something called blasting oil. It does not respond to flame but rather to concussion, which means that our search needs to be very, very careful. Handle everything gently and, for Adom’s sake, do not drop anything!”

“Then what the pit are we looking for?” the sweating man asked, his voice strained.

“I don’t know,” Adamat admitted. “A container of some sort. The blasting oil was sold in ten clear glass vials, stoppered at the top with corks. Our suspect may have transferred the oil to a new container, or it may still be in those same vials. We’ll make a thorough examination of any liquid on the premises.”

“Does this have anything to do with the bombing at the union headquarters?” one of the women on the bed asked.

“Possibly,” Adamat said. They didn’t need to know anything more than that. “Any other questions?”

A round of headshaking.

“Good,” Fell said. “And again, be damned careful! If you find anything suspicious, let Inspector Adamat know immediately. Don’t make a scene. We want to do this as quietly as possible. Now, everyone to the basement.”

Adamat stepped over to Fell as they all filed out of the room. “The brunette,” Adamat said.

“Little Will?”

“Yes. Something about all this was making him nervous as pit. Grab him and put him under guard.”

Fell gave a quick affirmative and left the room quickly after Will. Adamat passed them in the hall, Fell with her hand on Will’s shoulder and Will’s collar soaked with sweat. Adamat followed the rest of the group down to the cellar. Lanterns were handed out quickly, and voices talked in hushed tones. Adamat held his lantern high and gripped his cane tightly. A tingle went down his spine as he descended into the damp stone basement.

The four union workers looked to him when they reached the bottom, and he realized that Fell had not yet come down. He was seized by sudden suspicion. If even one of them was in on this bomb plot, they might make a go at him. He found himself sizing each of them up, planning the best way to defend himself.

A few moments passed before he realized they were still watching him.

“Well, get to it.”

“Uh, sir,” Draily said. “Look.”

Adamat shook the fear from his head and stepped forward. They stood in a long, arched hallway with walls of stone, and off the hallway to the right were a dozen niches that extended out beneath the hotel. At the far end of the hall was a low, heavy door.

Draily was pointing into the first niche. Adamat held his lantern inside and squinted. “Nothing but wine,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Is it?”

“Oh.” Realization set in. Of course. Any of these wine bottles could be the bomb or bombs he was looking for. It would be the best place to hide something like that – in plain sight. Adamat tapped his fingers on his stomach, then said, “Search everything else. I’ll check the wine.”

The rest of the group moved on to the other niches, and Adamat began to inspect the wine. At first glance he estimated upward of two thousand bottles here, and Adamat wondered if this was the other part of Ricard’s wine collection or whether the hotel was just this well stocked.

Adamat removed his jacket and hung it from a peg on the wall, rolling his sleeves up. He began examining each wine bottle, starting at the top row. They came in every variety; some were slender, dark-brown bottles, while others were fat green bottles with long necks.

He looked for consistency; the thickness of the dust, how the labels were positioned, as well as the size and shape of the bottle itself. He felt a growing despair as he went – if the blasting oil had been hidden inside a wine bottle, it might be impossible to find. A hotel such as this went through wine at an alarming rate. Some of the bottles had been here for months or years, and those were easy to tell from the layer of dust, but there were still at least eighty bottles that had been handled recently.