The Crimson Campaign by Brian McClellan
And then it was all gone.
Taniel staggered backward, gasping.
Ka-poel had done something similar to him once, several months ago. It had left him breathless in its emotion and magnitude, though it had only been a few moments’ worth of memories.
This was two thousand years’ worth.
It took him some time to recover. When he did, he said, “You are a god.” Not a question this time.
“‘God’ is a funny word,” Mihali said, turning back to his inventory. He made a mark on his paper and silently counted sacks of onions. “It implies omnipotence and omniscience. Let me assure you, I am neither.”
“Then what are you?” Bo had once said that the gods were nothing more than powerful Privileged. With memories like that, how could Mihali be anything but a god?
“Semantics, semantics!” Mihali threw up his hands. “For the sake of argument, let’s say yes, I am a god. I don’t think either of us has the time for a theo-philosophical argument right now. Please, have a seat.” Mihali picked up a wine barrel like it weighed no more than a couple pounds and set it beside Taniel, then went to get another.
Taniel tried to nudge the barrel over a few inches. He couldn’t. He frowned, then looked at Mihali as the chef fetched a barrel for himself and one for Ka-poel.
Ka-poel’s hand casually brushed Mihali’s arm.
“Now, girl,” Mihali said as a man might gently reprimand a daughter, “none of that.” He gently touched her fingers.
There was a flare of fire, and Ka-poel danced away, blowing on her fingertips and scowling at Mihali. Had she been trying to collect a hair from the chef?
Mihali deposited himself on his wine barrel. “Unlike my brothers and sisters, I decided to stay on in this world after organizing the Nine. Hidden, of course. But learning.” There was a far-off look in Mihali’s eye as he stared at something Taniel could not see. “Distant stars are beautiful and curious, but I found the people here so varied and enchanting I couldn’t leave.”
Mihali glanced at Ka-poel. “I’ve studied the Bone-eyes. Not in depth. Being in Dynize and Fatrasta, so far away from Adro, taxes my strength. I never knew how Kresimir and the rest left the planet. They always called me a homebody for not wanting to explore the cosmos. Anyway, the Bone-eyes have incredible magic. So very different from anything Kresimir or the others could imagine. You, my dear, are truly terrifying. So much potential.”
Mihali didn’t look terrified. If anything, he seemed intrigued.
The chef turned to Taniel. “And powder mages! Kresimir wouldn’t have expected that. After all, gunpowder wasn’t invented until hundreds of years after he left.” Mihali drummed a pudgy finger on his chin. “He’s going mad, you know. That Bone-eye bullet you put in his eye was never removed. It’s in his brain, causing him incredible pain every day.”
Taniel tried to work moisture into his mouth. Kresimir, a god, was going mad. All because of him. “Does he know who shot him?”
“I believe he knows. What you did on South Pike is barely a rumor in the Adran army, and the only two to survive that battle on the Kez side were Julene and Kresimir.” Mihali paused. “Of course, he has Julene. Then he must know.”
“He nailed Julene to a beam. Cut off her hands. Why would he do that?”
Mihali frowned. “Julene. Misguided child. She may or may not have deserved that, but I don’t think torture does anyone any good.”
Taniel noticed that Mihali had sidestepped the question about Julene. He decided not to press it.
“How can I kill him?”
“Kresimir? Hmm. What makes you think I’d tell you?”
Taniel rocked back. “But… you’re on our side. Aren’t you?” He felt his muscles tense, a bit of fear touching his heart.
“I defend Adro. It’s my country, after all. However, Kresimir is still my brother. I love him. I will not see him dead. I would, however, like to stop him. Help him. If I can get that bullet out of his brain, I might even be able to reason with him and end this whole thing.”
Taniel’s fingers curled into fists. “I’m going to kill him.”
“That may be your path.” Mihali examined his inventory paper. Once again, he seemed to be counting.
It was several moments before Taniel spoke again. “The generals. Do they know…?”
“Oh, Tamas told them. Most of them don’t believe it.”
“But they know you’re a powerful Privileged?”
Mihali nodded. “An uncomfortable truth. They asked me to participate in the fighting and I refused. After all, the Privileged with the Wings of Adom are doing a fine job keeping the remainder of the Kez Cabal in check.”
“Did you tell them that Tamas was alive?”
“Of course.”
Taniel blinked at this. “Then why haven’t they told me? Hilanska… surely he would have said something if there were hope.”
“Not even a god sees everything,” Mihali said. “I do not know. But I don’t trust the generals. I’m sure that most of them have Adro’s best interests at heart. But a few…”
“General Ket.”
Mihali shrugged. “The provosts are here, by the way.”
Taniel stepped to the tent flap and took a peek. Dozens of them had gathered outside.
“Pit. Can I get out the back way?”
“They’ve surrounded the tent. It’s probably best that you go with them.”
“I won’t let them arrest me. The bastards. I —”
Mihali cleared his throat. “As I said. It’s probably for the best. For now, anyway.”
Taniel’s mind raced. What to do? Run for it? Go out, dignified, and let them take him away? “Answer me this, first: What has happened to me? I’m stronger and faster than before. I’ve never felt this kind of power. It took enough mala to kill a horse just to get me buzzed. I know it’s more than just being a powder mage. Is it because of her?” He flung his finger toward Ka-poel, who raised an eyebrow in response.
Mihali hesitated for several moments. “You’ve been tempered,” he said. “This girl here has you wrapped in protective sorceries. Kresimir’s returning strike after you shot him was enough to bring down South Pike Mountain. It should have shattered your mortal body. That blow he gave you could very well have killed me, for all my knowledge of sorcery. But you…” Mihali chuckled, as if something was funny. “You, it just made stronger.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, it —”
“It’s time to go,” Mihali said.
Taniel took a deep breath. “All right. Ka-poel, stay here. I don’t want them touching you.” Without waiting for an answer, he stepped out of the tent and into daylight.
The provosts surrounded him quickly, their pikes leveled.
“All right, you bastards. Take me to General Ket, I —”
Someone brought a truncheon down on his head, hard. Taniel staggered forward, spitting blood from the blow. Another hit his stomach, then his knee. He collapsed to the ground. He was cursed and kicked and beaten, and when he thought he could take no more, he was pulled to his feet and struck about the face and head until he lost consciousness.
CHAPTER
20
Tamas listened to his stomach growl as his charger trotted along the road at the rear of the column. Ahead of him, the men of the Ninth Brigade shuffled to the crack of a single drummer boy’s snare. The air was hot and oppressive, even with the cover of tall pine trees. The summer humidity soaked through Tamas’s soiled jacket and made every breath a labor.
He watched one of the infantry in the column ahead of him. The man was tall, with dirty-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail over one shoulder. About twenty minutes ago his shoulders had started to sway dangerously as he marched. He’d be the next to faint. Tamas would have put money on it.
Every so often the soldiers would glance back at Tamas’s charger with hungry eyes. They watched with the same looks every scout and officer who was still riding. It was unsettling.
They’d slaught
“They think they’re going to get a meal soon,” Olem said.
Tamas shook himself from his reverie. He felt light-headed, weak. He’d not eaten in four days. The men on their feet needed it more than he did. At least there was some periodic grazing for the horses.
Olem pointed up to a pair of buzzards circling high above the treetops.
“Ah,” Tamas said.
“They’ve been following us for fifty miles,” Olem said.
“You can’t be sure it’s the same vultures.”
“One of ’em has red on the tips of his feathers.”
Tamas grunted. Words were coming slow out of his mouth. The heat didn’t make him feel much like talking.
“That red-tipped buzzard kept on when most of the others stayed behind at the camp two mornings ago, when we slaughtered the horses.” Olem pursed his lips. “I think he’s hoping for the big payday.”
Tamas looked up at the buzzards. He didn’t want to talk about them. He’d seen far too many on far too many battlefields. “I haven’t seen you smoke for a week,” he said.
“Too bloody hot, pardon the language, sir.” Olem patted his breast pocket. “Besides. I’m saving my last one.”
“A special occasion of some kind?”
Olem continued to watch the buzzards. “Gavril told me we might be making a stand at the Fingers. I figure it’ll be nice to die with a cigarette between my lips.”
Tamas couldn’t help but scowl. “Have you told anyone? About the stand, I mean.”
“No, sir.”
“Damned Gavril. Needs to keep his mouth shut.”
“So it’s true, then?”
“I don’t intend to make a last stand, Olem. I intend to break the Kez. Last stands are for men who plan on losing.”
“Quite right, sir.”
Tamas sighed inwardly. Soldiers had a strange sense of fatalism. Most of them didn’t realize that any odds could be beaten with the right maneuvering.
“Olem…” Tamas began.
“Sir?”
“About what I saw the other day…”
A muscle jumped in Olem’s jaw. “What do you mean, sir?”
“I think you know what I mean. Vlora. If I’d come a few minutes later, I think I would have found the two of you in a much more compromising position.”
“That was the hope, sir.”
Tamas blinked. He’d not expected that kind of bluntness. “Can’t hold your tongue to save face, can you?”
“Not to save my life, sir.”
“I won’t have that kind of fraternization, Olem.”
“What kind, sir?” The corners of Olem’s eyes tightened.
“You and Vlora. She is a captain, you are —”
“A captain,” Olem said. “You made me one yourself.” He touched the gold pins on his lapels helpfully.
Tamas cleared his throat and looked up. Those damned buzzards were still there. “I mean that she is a powder mage. You know my mages are a different contingent of the army. I won’t have you crossing that line.”
Olem looked like he wanted to say something. He worked his jaw around, chewing on a phantom cigarette. “Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir.”
The sarcasm in Olem’s tone leaked through like water through paper. It nearly shocked Tamas. Olem was normally so loyal, so quick to obey. He opened his mouth, a rebuke on his tongue.
The soldier with a ponytail staggered and fell out of line, hitting the ground hard. Two of his companions stopped to help him.
“Head up the line,” Tamas said. “Call for rest. The men need a sit-down.”
Only too grateful to get away, Olem spurred his mount on, calling out, “Field Marshal orders the column to halt! Fall out!”
Tamas could hear the order repeated farther up the column. Slowly, the line of soldiers came to a stop. Some men went looking for the closest stream, some men relieved themselves in the woods, and others slumped to the ground where they were, too exhausted to move.
Tamas opened his canteen and drained the last few drops. The water was hot and tasted of the metal. “Soldier,” Tamas said, pointing to a man who looked the least worse for the wear. “Find me some clean, cold water and fill this, then tell your sergeant you’re off latrine duty tonight.”
The soldier took the canteen. “Aye, sir.”
Tamas climbed down from his charger and hung the reins from a tree limb. He paced the width of the road, trying to work some feeling back into his legs after riding half the day. He stopped once and looked south. No sign of the Kez. The woods were too thick. According to the latest reports, the head of the Kez column was ten miles back. They had dragoons ranging in the area in between, trying to catch Adran stragglers and harass the end of the Adran column, but what mattered to Tamas was where the bulk of the cavalry were.
He was going to need that heavy lead.
“Sir.”
Tamas turned to find Vlora standing next to his charger. Her uniform was dirty, jacket loosened at the neck, her black hair tied back behind her head. He had the brief image of her naked beneath the waterfall, leaning in to kiss Olem. He willed the image away, trying not to let his embarrassment show on his face.
“Captain.”
“How is the leg, sir?”
Tamas flexed the muscles in his leg, felt them twinge. Riding hadn’t helped it loosen at all, but the pain wasn’t too bad. “It’s fine, thank you. Any luck hunting?”
“The deer are keeping well away from the column. If we range more than a mile or two from the road, we won’t be able to carry our prey back. A few squirrels and rabbits. Enough to keep the powder mages fed.”
At least his mages were keeping up their strength. He felt his stomach twist at the mention of rabbit.
“If we camped for more than one night, or even slowed down a bit, we might be able to bag some deer.”
“Sorry, Captain. I can’t allow that. We have to reach the Fingers well ahead of the Kez.”
“The scouts say we’ll be there in two days, sir.”
“That’s right,” Tamas said. “Once we cross the first river, we’ll burn the bridge and take it easy for a couple of days. Rest and restock.”
“I certainly hope so, sir. The men are looking poor.”
Tamas turned his attention to the soldier who had fainted. He was sitting up now, drinking out of a canteen, talking to one of his fellows. Tamas clasped his hands behind his back and faced Vlora.
“Captain, you and I both know that what happened the other day was completely out of order.”
Vlora didn’t even blink. “You mean, when you watched me bathe?”
Tamas could have slapped her for that. Damned girl. She knew what he wanted to say, and she wasn’t going to make it easy.
“You and Olem…”
“Sir, I don’t think that’s any of your business. With all due respect.”
“I am your commanding officer —”
“Yes, sir. And you’ve always made it very clear that what two soldiers want to do in their spare time is up to them, as long as it doesn’t break convention between the ranks.”
“This is different.” This was different, Tamas told himself. “I won’t have one of my Marked gallivanting around with my bodyguard, do you understand? I won’t have my bodyguard going around with… with…”
“A whore?”
She had spoken quietly, but Tamas felt the breath taken from him.
“That’s what you want to say, isn’t it, sir? You want to call me a whore for what I did to Taniel? A slut? I can hear the words on the tip of your tongue, even if you don’t speak them.”
&n
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Permission denied.”
Vlora ignored him. “You don’t think I know what I did to Taniel? You don’t think it kills me inside knowing that I threw away everything we had for a few months of passion with some idiot?”
“Permission denied, Captain.”
“You don’t hear the men talk.” Vlora’s voice rose. “You don’t hear what everyone says about me behind my back – even to my face. You don’t see the sneers. ‘Vlora, she’ll spread her legs for anyone now.’ You don’t hear them whisper that outside your tent at night, placing bets on who can be the first to get me on my back.”
“Permission denied!” Tamas stepped forward. Any other soldier would have shrunk beneath the red fury in Tamas’s eyes, but Vlora refused to back down.
“I spent eighteen months alone while Taniel was in Fatrasta because you sent him there. Taniel, the war hero. People talked about how every woman in Fatrasta was ready to throw themselves on him. And then to hear he had a little savage girl, following him everywhere. What was I supposed to think of that? No man would look twice at me at the university. They knew who I was. They were too afraid of Taniel to say any nice thing to me.”
Vlora spat the words in Tamas’s face, her voice dripping with bitterness, her whole body trembling with rage. “Then a man appears who doesn’t care whose fiancée I am. He charms me, loves me, and assures me there’s not another in the world that can make him so happy. I trusted him.” Vlora’s face twisted in disgust. “Then I find out he was bedding me just to make you look bad.”
The pain in Vlora’s eyes and the malice in her voice was more than Tamas could bear. Once, he had been her father, her friend, her mentor. But now he had become nothing more to her than an object of hatred, an enemy to despise.
“Get out of my sight, Captain. If we weren’t at war, I’d have you court-martialed.”
Vlora leaned forward, closer than anyone who didn’t know Tamas as well as she did would have dared. Close enough to embrace him. Close enough to stick a knife in his ribs if she wanted. “Kill me yourself, if you want it done so badly,” she said. “Don’t hand the job over to lesser men.”