The Crimson Campaign(The Powder Mage Trilogy)(73)

"She would have said something."

"She didn't, apparently. Go home and ask her. My bet is that she's already packed. It'll do you both good to get out of the city."

"If you planned this all out, why that rubbish about the profiteering generals?"

"I wanted to get your thoughts on it. You weren't very helpful."

"I couldn't possibly -"

"All expenses are on me," Ricard said. He leaned over his desk, his nose wrinkling as incense wafted in his face. "Go home and get ready. My carriage will pick you up in three hours. No more arguments."

"I won't be bullied." Adamat tried to get angry. He wanted to lean across the desk and smack Ricard, but the fury just wasn't there. Ricard was right. He needed to get out of the city and have some fresh air. If the children could come, and Faye had already agreed, perhaps it would do them all some good.

"Three hours," Ricard said.

Adamat kicked the travel case, sending stacks of banknotes across the floor. "All right, damn it! Just throw out those damned oysters!"

Ricard stood up straight and nodded, pinching his nose at the pungent odor. "Agreed."



Taniel didn't know whether to curse his luck or to praise it.

General Ket could very well have sent him to the noose. She had the backing of the rest of the senior staff  –  all but General Hilanska, it seemed. Fell's arrival couldn't have been more timely, and Abrax's offer of employment with the Wings would let him stay on the front.

But to be thrown out of the Adran army? The thought still made him stumble. He'd been raised in the army. He'd marched and killed and bled for them for nearly half his life and now they tossed him aside like unwanted trash, all because he accused the General Staff of helping Kez.
 
 

 

And perhaps they were. Their retreat orders were suspiciously well timed, and their refusal to hold the line even when the Kez were beaten was baffling.

Nothing Taniel could do about it now except join the Wings of Adom. He'd have a chance to finally finish off the Kez Privileged, and maybe once all those damned sorcerers were dead, they'd stop making Wardens of any kind. Of course, Taniel also needed a way to get Kresimir's blood so that Ka-poel could kill him.

That seemed like the easy part.

An explosion sent Taniel reeling. He regained his feet a moment later. Where had it come from?

There was confusion in the Adran camp, but it seemed the explosion had come from the south. Taniel rushed to a hillock and looked south to the Kez camp.

In the far distance, miles away, beyond the Kez camp and the immense beam where Julene hung in the sun, he could see the city of Budwiel. The walls of the city smoldered. Low clouds hung above it  –  or was that smoke? A gunpowder explosion? Possible.

The Kez camp was a flurry of activity, all of it directed back toward Budwiel. Was that Tamas, finally returning? No, it couldn't be. Tamas wouldn't attack the Kez rear unless he was damned certain that the Adran brigades would attack from the front.

It would have been an opportune moment to strike. Taniel cocked his head, listening for the trumpets to call the men to arms.

His gaze drifted to the beam erected in the middle of the Kez camp and Julene's body hanging from it and he wondered again how she'd ended up there. She had been so willful, so powerful. Had Kresimir done it? Taniel couldn't imagine anyone else having the power to subdue her like that.

Taniel waited. Silence. There wasn't even an alarm in case the Kez attempted a surprise attack.

The sun was just setting when Taniel reached his quarters in a small shed. He had a couple hours to find Ka-poel and gather his things. Should he say good-bye to anyone? Etan would remain in contact. Was there anyone else?

Taniel leaned against the door to the shed he'd been using as quarters. No. There wasn't anyone else. For all his time in the Adran army, Taniel had few friends. That should have made it easier to leave.

It should have …

Taniel opened the door. The waning sunlight slashed across the inside of the room.

Ka-poel lay naked on the cot, her hands stretched above her head, her face hidden in the shadows. Taniel felt his face turn red. He averted his eyes.

"Pole, what are you doing?"

A fist connected with his stomach, doubling him over. A pair of hands shoved him inside. He fell to the floor, trying to gather his wits as the door closed behind him.

Taniel scrambled to get to his feet. Something hard slammed into his back and he felt a blade against his throat. His mouth went dry.

"Don't move, powder mage."

A match was struck and the lantern beside the bed lit. There were five men crowded into the small room. They leered down at Taniel. Each one carried a truncheon or a knife. The lot of them reeked of whiskey. They wore Adran military jackets with a patch on the shoulder that showed the emblem of a shovel.

Dredgers. Third Brigade. The lowest of the low in the entire Adran military.

General Ket's men.

One of the soldiers took a swig from a bottle in his hand and punched Taniel in the face. The blow was hard and well placed, forcing Taniel down farther. By the soldier's stripes on his shoulder, he was a captain.

Taniel stared at the floor, watching long tendrils of bloody saliva drop on the wood. "Who the pit are you?" he spat.

The captain sniffed. "General Ket told us we'd get this little piece here. We thought we'd start early." He set the bottle on the nightstand and began to loosen his trousers. "And you're going to watch."

Taniel looked at Ka-poel out of the corner of his eye, trying to ignore her nudity. Her face was bruised and black, her lip split and bloody. She'd been beaten badly.

He surged to his feet. Someone was quick enough with a truncheon to bash him across the shoulders. Taniel didn't even feel it. His right hand grasped the captain's chin, fingers in the man's mouth. His left hand grabbed the captain by the forehead.

Taniel felt the pop and tear of muscles, bone, and tendon as he tore the captain's jaw off. Deep inside, the sound frightened him, but all objections were silenced by his rage.

He took a truncheon blow across the side of the face and turned on the wielder. His fist hit the soldier's nose hard enough to kill him instantly. Red filled Taniel's vision like a thick fog, and his body moved as if on its own accord.

Taniel couldn't remember killing the last three, but he was soon surrounded by five corpses, their blood still warm on his hands and shirt. He dropped to his knees beside Ka-poel. She was breathing lightly. Her eyes fluttered open.

"Shh," Taniel said when her mouth opened. He covered her with a blanket and then snatched his only other jacket from the bedpost, throwing it on over his blood-soaked shirt. He grabbed his sketchbook and his kit and threw them in his bag, then lifted Ka-poel in his arms. There was nothing else in this room that mattered.

He spotted her satchel, discarded in the corner, and grabbed it as he left.

Taniel sprinted the entire way to the Wings camp. As soon as he reached the pickets, he began to call for a doctor. Confused infantrymen regarded him from their posts as he raced by.

The brigadiers' tents were not hard to find in the center of the camp.

"Is this Abrax's tent?" Taniel demanded.

The two sentries exchanged a glance.

"Brigadier Abrax! I must see her now!"

"Two-Shot?"

Taniel whirled to see Abrax approaching from the way he'd come. She was probably just returning from the Adran camp, and he realized they'd spoken less than twenty minutes ago.

"What the pit are you … " Her eyes took in his bloody shirt and Ka-poel's bruised body. "What happened?"

"I need a doctor for her. Now!"

"Get a doctor," Abrax barked at the sentries. "Bring her into my tent. There, set her on the cot. What happened to her? Holy saints, what happened to you? You're covered in blood. Did you do this to her?"

"No!" Taniel roared the word before he was able to control himself. "No. I didn't. She's all that matters. See to her, please."

"It'll be done," Abrax said.

"I've just killed five men," Taniel said. "Soldiers in the Third Brigade. It was in self-defense, but they'll be coming for me shortly."

Abrax blinked at the news. She opened her mouth, then shut it. "You were attacked?" she finally managed.

"Yes."

"Details, man. Now!"

"Five men jumped me in my quarters. They had Ka-poel like this …  they were going to …  while I watched." Taniel heard his words flow out in broken, rushed sentences.

"You were unarmed?"

Taniel nodded.

Abrax put her hand to her mouth and studied Taniel. "You're in shock. Sit down. Were you in a powder trance?"

"No."

"Five men," she breathed, almost too low for Taniel to hear. "With his bare hands." She glanced at Ka-poel. "The doctors will be here soon. Stay here."

Abrax crossed to the head of the tent. "Stewart!" she bellowed as she went. Abrax stepped outside, but she spoke loudly enough that Taniel could hear her clearly. "Ah, there you are. Get our best internal investigators. Send them to the Adran camp immediately. There has been a quintuple murder and I want to know the exact circumstances leading up to it."
 
 

 

"We going after someone? Or trying to determine how the victims arrived at their deaths?" a male voice asked. Stewart, Taniel assumed.

"We're not going after anything but the truth. And they're not victims, they're potential rapists. Dig up everything you can on them. I want to know exactly what type of people they were and what they were doing before their deaths."