The Autumn Republic

Chapter 9

Taniel climbed the mountainside, finding a spot several hundred feet above the camp, and settled in to watch the sleeping soldiers until morning.

It was still dark, not long after he’d left the camp, when one of the soldiers climbed from his bedroll and stumbled into the bushes. He returned a minute later and his sudden shouting told Taniel that he had discovered the artwork Taniel had made out of the squad’s air rifles. The rest of the infantry were up in seconds.

They were in a panic. Even from this distance Taniel could hear their hoarse arguments, the curses, and then a call of dismay when they found the first unconscious sentry.

It took them another fifteen minutes before a figure – probably their sergeant – made his way to the top of the waterfall and found the second sentry. They carried her down to the group and then huddled in conference, their backs to the cliffside in a defensive perimeter despite their lack of weapons.

The eastern sky was just getting light when they broke camp. Tired, their fright apparent from their body language, they made their way cautiously back down the valley. Taniel waited until he could continue his climb without the risk of being spotted, and then started the long journey back to Ka-poel.

He ducked inside the cave two hours later. His legs ached from the climb and his body sagged with exhaustion. Three times he had lost his footing, nearly falling down the steep side of the valley. His fingers were bleeding from the climb and his trousers and shirt resembled a beggar’s filthy rags.

His heart leapt into his throat at the sight of Ka-poel. She was curled up in one corner of the cave, his jacket draped over her, using her hands as a pillow. Taniel skirted the facsimile of Kresimir and knelt beside her.

“Pole,” he said, gently touching her shoulder.

Something pressed against his throat. He inhaled sharply and looked down his nose at the long needle clutched in Ka-poel’s hand.

“It’s me, Pole.”

One green eye regarded him for a moment and then the needle was withdrawn. She sat up, shaking the sleep from her head.

“Kresimir,” Taniel said urgently. “What has happened with Kresimir?”

She cocked an eyebrow at him for a moment and then her face lit up. She pointed at the doll of Kresimir, which was bound in the center of the cave. She walked her fingers through the air and then chopped the other hand viciously.

Taniel snorted. “He’s not going anywhere?”

Ka-poel nodded, a victorious smile on her lips.

“How?”

She tapped the side of her head, then pointed at the doll again.

For the first time, Taniel noticed the symbols written in the dust around the doll: a series of vague lines pointing away from Kresimir. They made little sense to him. “What do those mean?”

She made a fist and pointed.

“I don’t–” He stopped and frowned. Then he saw it. They weren’t symbols, but fingers. Kresimir lay in the palm of a hand – her hand, if Taniel wasn’t mistaken. “He’s in the palm of your hand. You don’t have to be awake to keep him under control?”

A nod.

“How the pit did you figure that out?”

Ka-poel rolled her eyes as if looking into one corner of the cave and made a vague gesture.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Both of her eyebrows rose and she gave him the flat look she always used when she was pretending not to understand him. He snatched her by the arm. “Pole, what the pit is that supposed to mean?” He couldn’t help the urgency in his voice. How did she know that Kresimir was still under control? How did she know what symbols held power?

She shrugged, then drew in the dust with one finger and spread the other hand out toward Kresimir’s doll.

“You were experimenting?”

A nod.

“With a god?”

She gave him a sheepish grin. Whatever sleep she’d managed while he was away had done her a world of good. The lines under her eyes had diminished. Her spirits seemed up. She hadn’t smiled in a week.

Taniel released his grip on her arm and ran a hand through his knotted, dirty hair. Several pine needles came away and he tossed them in the corner of the cave.

“How can you possibly know what might or might not work? Pit, I wish I understood something – anything – about your sorcery.”

She pointed to herself. Me too.

“You don’t know anything about your own sorcery?”

She gave him a half shrug, then held up five fingers. She drew in the dust for a moment, then pulled a finger across her throat.

“I didn’t catch any of that, Pole.”

She snorted angrily.

“Be careful experimenting with sorcery, Pole,” Taniel said. “I’ve heard of a few Privileged and powder mages teaching themselves the rudiments. But untrained adepts who try to go further just get themselves killed. They burn themselves to a crisp with the Else or blow themselves up or get powder blindness or… pit, I don’t know how your sorcery could kick back at you, but it will happen.” He rubbed his eyes. “You’re bloody well controlling a god. I’m not sure how you haven’t been strangled with your own powers yet.”

She made a gesture and a consoling smile. Me neither.

Just great.

Taniel fetched the rations he’d stolen from the Adran soldiers. He and Ka-poel set upon them hungrily. The biscuits were hard and salty, the dried beef as stringy as catgut, but he’d never tasted anything quite this good. He went through two meals’ worth before he forced himself to stop eating. He’d get cramps something fierce, and…

The taste of hard cheese brought back a memory that he’d wished to forget: Kresimir standing victoriously over where Adom – Mihali – had once stood. These soldiers were only eating marching rations because Mihali was dead. Taniel kicked the pack of rations away from him, feeling suddenly ill. To his great surprise, he felt a tear roll down his cheek.

He quickly brushed it away.

Ka-poel took him by the arm and forced him to lie on the cold of the cave floor, his head in her lap, then began gently rubbing his temples. He stretched out, careful not to touch Kresimir’s doll, and felt the pain begin to bleed out of his legs and arms and his mind begin to drift.

He started awake, opening his eyes to find his head still in Ka-poel’s lap, her soft hand pressed to his cheek. The cave was well lit by the sun, telling him it was just past noon.

Taniel stifled a yawn and told himself to get up. He needed to be back out there, watching for more Adran squads, but Ka-poel was warm, and despite the cold of the cave floor he felt as if he had been sitting in a hot bath for hours.

“I have to… Pole, is that blood on your finger?”

The tip of Pole’s finger was smeared with crimson. She pressed it to her lips and looked down at him for a moment, her thoughts elsewhere. She then pressed the finger to his right cheek. He reached up to stop her, but her other hand took his in a surprisingly strong grip and she ministered to first one cheek, then the other. He could feel the blood drying on his face.

She licked the blood off her finger and more welled up in its place. It was her blood, then. What was she doing? Was this sorcery? Some kind of savage ritual?

He pushed her away and got to his feet, feeling strange. “Pole, what are you doing?” He wiped one sleeve across his cheek and looked at it. Nothing. Very strange.

Further questions were met with a yawn.

Taniel left Ka-poel passively regarding the doll of Kresimir. He headed out of the cave and climbed to the apex of the mountain, where he followed the ridgeline.

The canyon down to his right was where he had ambushed the squad of Adran infantry. It would take them half the day to make their way back to where their company camped. If they marched double-time, they would only now arrive.

Taniel didn’t need to be that close.

He continued along the ridge, keeping to the eastward side, where he was least likely to be spotted by any sharp-eyed scouts. The ridge began to narrow dangerously, giving him fewer places to hide, but he continued on until he reached a sharp, flat slab of rock beyond which the sky stretched out like the serene surface of a mountain lake. He crawled to the edge of the rock on his hands and knees and peered over the edge.

Veridi Valley was a jagged rend between two tall, gray-capped mountains. The floor of the valley had to be at least a thousand feet beneath him. A river less than twenty feet across trickled down the middle, and tough mountain brush bristled along the valley floor. The canyon where he’d ambushed the Adran soldiers let out into the Veridi Valley to Taniel’s west. The valley, in turn, let out into another, and that led twenty miles or more to the plains of Adro.

On the valley floor were the dots of at least a hundred tents: a company of Adran soldiers. Taniel had little doubt now that they had been sent by Hilanska – and he guessed that every one of them had an air rifle. Where had they gotten the air rifles? From Kez?

Did these men know that they were betraying their country?

Movement caught Taniel’s eye. A small group emerged from the canyon and made their way toward the Adran camp. Taniel shifted to get comfortable and cursed his poor eyesight. In a powder trance he’d be able to see the very expressions on their faces. With his normal sight, he could barely count their number.

This was the moment of truth. Would his act of clemency convince them to turn around? Would they realize they’d been duped by their commander into tracking down an ally? Would they be frightened by Taniel’s show of strength?

He waited for hours, squinting to see the movement in the camp, not even able to venture a guess as to their plans. No doubt the squad would give their report and the officers would convene. The company major would listen to advice from his captains and make a decision.

Solitary figures began to leave the camp. Taniel tracked their movement as they headed toward the various crags and valleys up and down the canyon floor.

They were recalling the other search parties.

Inside the camp, men fell into ranks. Taniel’s heart fell as he watched them. Dozens and dozens fell in with their kits at their hips and their air rifles on their shoulders. Bayonets flashed in the sunlight.

They weren’t breaking camp.

A group of between eighty and a hundred – it was hard to tell at this distance – left the camp at a slow march. They were heading deliberately toward Taniel’s canyon.

No mistaking their intentions now.

Taniel had begun to prepare for this eventuality from the time he’d first laid eyes on the company trudging their way up the Veridi Valley.

They would proceed slowly, no doubt, but the strength of numbers would give them confidence and they would move faster than the previous searchers. A regular march, with scouts and sentries at all times, would take the group no more than thirty or forty hours to reach the apex of the canyon and from there they would find Ka-poel’s cave within hours.

Taniel considered the lay of the canyon, picturing it in his mind. There were three choke points where a single man could hold against an entire army. There were five spots steep and rubble-strewn enough that he could start a rockslide. There were over a dozen prime sniping locations.

But they’d just shoot him in a choke point, the rockslide would give away his position, and he didn’t have a rifle.

“Ka-poel,” he said, swinging himself into their cave. “We have to go.”

She crouched above the doll of Kresimir, her eyes unfathomable as a cat’s and a frown on her face. She shook her head slightly.

“They’re coming for us,” he said. “About eighty infantry, all armed with air rifles. We have two days before they find us here – if we’re lucky. There’s no way I could possibly fight that many.”

Ka-poel shook her head again emphatically.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

She pointed at the doll, then walked her fingers through the air. He can’t be moved.

“We have to move him. If we stay here, we die.”

Ka-poel stared at the doll for several moments and then rocked back on her haunches, brow furrowed. She scratched in the dirt with the tip of one of her long needles. She cupped her hand and tapped her palm with one finger, as if indicating a pocket watch.

I need time.

“All right, Pole,” Taniel said. “But if they get close enough to turn this into a real chase, neither of us will survive it.”