The staircase was suddenly full of cool, clean air. Adamat gasped in a great breath of it, holding Faye tightly. She clutched the Eldaminse boy to her skirts.
Fire whipped past Bo, over his shoulder. The Privileged turned his head, as if mildly perturbed. Slivers of ice the size of daggers shot from above his head and thwapped into something out of Adamat's sight. Bo nodded to himself.
"You can come down now," Bo said. "I think it's safe."
"You think?" Adamat crept slowly down the stairs until he reached the base.
They passed the kitchen and entered the sitting room at the back of the house. On the near wall, impaled to the masonry by icicles dripping blood, was the other Privileged. It was a woman, Deliv by her dark skin. Bo didn't spare her a second glance. Faye shielded the Eldaminse boy's eyes.
"Faye," Adamat said, "this is Privileged Borbador, the last remaining member of the Adran royal cabal."
"Forgive me if I don't shake your hand," Faye said. "I don't think I want to touch your hands."
Bo's black gloves had been burned off by the flames, but his rune-covered Privileged's gloves were white and pristine, as if brand-new. He clasped his hands and rocked back on his heels. "Understandable. Where's Vetas?" he asked.
"Fell has him," Adamat said.
"That woman, I'd very much like to meet her. Properly, that is."
Adamat couldn't help but wonder what that meant. "I don't think you do," he said.
"I think I'll be -"
A scream from outside cut off Bo's sentence. He cocked his head, like a dog listening for a whistle. "Oh, pit," he said. "You didn't tell me there were two."
"What, another Privileged?" Adamat began casting around for somewhere to hide. But what could protect them? There was no hiding from a Privileged.
Bo sneered, rolling up his sleeves. "Yes," he said. "Get down!"
The world exploded in a blast of plaster and wood. Adamat was thrown from his feet and knocked about, buffeted by forces beyond his control. He tried to grab for Faye – for anything, but found himself on the ground a moment later.
Everything was silent. Had the attack killed Faye? Or Bo, for that matter? Adamat moved cautiously, not sure whether all the parts of him were intact. A beam had fallen across his chest, the air swirling with smoke and dust. It felt like the whole house had landed on him.
He didn't feel anything broken, and he was able to move the beam just enough to wriggle out from beneath the rubble. He used his fingers to gingerly feel across the whole surface of his chest. Not much pain.
Adamat climbed to his feet. The Eldaminse boy was nearby, apparently unhurt. Adamat wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried that through all the excitement the boy had hardly made a noise.
"Go on," Adamat said to him, "hide in the kitchen!" The Privileged might still be here. The boy rushed past, and Adamat shook his head to clear it. Where was Faye?
Panic rose inside of him. Faye. She was gone. Separated from him by the blast. The roof had caved in, and he'd avoided most of it … sweet Kresimir, was she beneath the rubble?
"Faye! Faye!"
"She's right here," a voice said.
Adamat turned to find the eunuch standing in the doorway. He was holding Faye up beneath one arm. It looked like she'd injured her ankle. They were both covered in plaster dust.
Adamat eyed the eunuch. They'd done it. Taken Vetas. Saved Faye. Would the eunuch turn on him now for blackmailing the Proprietor? Bo wasn't here. Adamat didn't even know if the Privileged was alive. Adamat didn't know where Sergeant Oldrich was. No one would ask questions if the eunuch quietly killed them both and disappeared.
"She's safe," the eunuch said.
"Thank you."
The eunuch was surprisingly gentle as he helped Faye into the room. Adamat stepped toward them, arms out.
The stiletto handle seemed to materialize in the side of the eunuch's neck. When he opened his mouth, blood poured out, and he dropped to his knees. Faye, suddenly unsupported, toppled to the side, only to be caught by Lord Vetas.
CHAPTER
25
No one moved at Tamas's shouted order. The thick chaos of soldiers milling against the edge of the river did not change.
Tamas felt his heart begin to beat faster.
"Men of the Seventh! Take the line!"
Nothing. His hands shook. He'd overplayed himself. This false panic he'd meant to create had become real. He'd defeated himself before the battle even began.
"First Battalion!" a voice cut through the crowd. Someone shoved their way out of the press. It was old Colonel Arbor. He held his rifle in one hand, his teeth in the other. "To the line, First Battalion!"
Tamas swung around. The Kez cavalry continued to advance slowly. They were a half a mile out on the western front. The dragoons to the south began to move forward. Vlora and the rest of the powder mages continued to fire from across the river, whittling away at their numbers.
Adran infantry began to peel away from the mob by the river and get to their positions. Too few of them. Too slowly.
Then more. And more. Soldiers left the riverside and raced across the camp to the mound of dirt separating them from the Kez cavalry. They threw themselves to the safe side of the mound and readied their rifles, loading bullets and fixing bayonets. Tamas took a deep breath. He felt his heart soar. If he could have kissed every one of his men then and there, he would have.
He turned back to the Kez advance and his heart stopped.
The advance had ceased less than a quarter of a mile from Tamas's position.
Fifteen thousand Kez cavalry wedged Tamas's army completely against the river and the mountains.
He saw a man ride to the front of the cuirassiers. Had Beon figured out Tamas's game? Did he sense a trap?
The man, Tamas recognized, was Beon je Ipille himself. Brave, to come out to the front of his heavy cavalry, when he knew a powder mage's bullet might end him any second.
Beon seemed to cock his head at Tamas's position. His lips moved briefly, then he kissed his sword and raised it.
A salute. Beon was saluting Tamas. The motion stunned him. You stand and fight, the salute seemed to say, when you could have run.
Beon's sword fell and the earth trembled as fifteen thousand sets of hooves thundered toward Tamas.
"Hold!" Tamas yelled, gripping his rifle. He turned away from the cuirassiers. Their charge would be stopped by the sharpened stakes and crosses. They'd pull up hard and exchange fire with the Ninth, or advance slowly to try to navigate the defenses.
Between Tamas and the dragoons, however, there were no such apparent obstacles – only a thin layer of white fog over the ground and then the raised earthworks behind which his men crouched.
Three hundred yards. The dragoons leaned over their mounts, urging them faster. A bullet whistled over Tamas's head and took a dragoon between the eyes. Tamas raised his rifle, lined up a shot, and fired. He lowered, reloaded, and repeated.
Two hundred yards. Dragoons raised their carbines and twisted their faces in wordless cries.
One hundred yards. Tamas's lines opened fire. Hundreds of dragoons fell from the first volley alone. The rest charged on, heedless of their comrades' fall.
Seventy yards. The dragoons opened fire with their carbines. Tamas's soldiers crouched behind their earthen wall, reloading.
Fifty yards. Dragoons let their carbines drop and raised their pistols.
Thirty yards. The line of dragoons aimed pistols.
Twenty yards.
Ten yards.
The front line of dragoons disappeared.
Tamas closed his eyes for a brief moment as the screams reached him.
The momentum of the cavalry unit at full gallop had carried them headfirst into a concealed trench. Almost twenty feet wide and just as deep, it stretched the entire length of the "opening" Tamas had left in his defenses. The trench was topped with stakes covered in grass and other debris. A poor disguise in the light of the day, but the fog had covered them completely. They cracked under the weight of the warhorses.
Tamas had once seen a row of carriages go straight into the Adsea. The first carriage had plunged around a steep corner and off the end of a pier. The second had followed, the driver seeing the drop only at the last second, while the third driver's attempts to slow his horses had failed.
This was much like that, but instead of three carriages, it was thousands and thousands of dragoons heading straight into his trench.
By the time the dragoons had managed to arrest their charge, the trench was nearly filled with screaming, thrashing horses and writhing men trying to escape the press. The line of Kez dragoons stared in horror at their fallen comrades.
Tamas shuddered at the thought of being at the bottom of that trench.
"Fire!" Tamas yelled.
The Seventh Brigade opened fire at the Kez dragoons. Their horses milled in panic at the edge of the trench, officers shouting and waving their swords, trying to get the horses at the rear of the column to back up so they could organize a withdrawal.
Tamas reloaded and fired again. The dragoons began to organize. If they were given a chance to disengage, they still had thousands left. They could reorganize and hound Tamas's flank when he turned to deal with the cuirassiers.
"Bayonets!" Tamas ordered, lifting his rifle in the air.
Every forty paces of the trench, they'd left a ten-foot-wide path of solid ground. They were unmarked, and the way would be unsure in the fog, but Tamas had to counterattack.
Tamas headed across the closest of these paths, straight into the flank of the withdrawing Kez dragoons.