The Crimson Campaign

Chapter 19

“Have you wondered,” Taniel said, “why they always sound the retreat?”

He sat at Colonel Etan’s bedside in a small inn off the main road in the town of Rue, about two miles behind the front line. It was a quiet town, though the echo of distant artillery still reminded Taniel that there was a war carrying on without them.

Etan was propped up in his bed by a pile of feather pillows. A nurse was stationed just outside the door to see to his needs, while a steady stream of Etan’s grenadiers had been coming and going all day, wishing him well and taking orders to the front.

Only a wounded colonel would get this kind of treatment, Taniel knew. He’d heard of a few infantrymen who’d broken their backs. Most died from neglect within a few months.

Taniel watched his friend out of the corner of his eye and made a few marks in his sketchbook, outlining Etan’s strong jaw in charcoal. Etan had refused the offer to step down from his post. Said he could – and would – still command the Twelfth Grenadiers, even if he had to do it from a chair. Rumors were that General Hilanska was going to force Etan’s resignation.

Taniel hoped not. Retaining command of his grenadiers was the only thing keeping Etan from surrendering to despair.

“We retreat,” Etan said, “because we’re always overwhelmed.” He dipped a feather pen in an inkwell and finished a sentence on the paper in his lap. He’d cursed and shouted when Taniel had first pulled out his sketchbook. Now he seemed to be doing his best to ignore the fact that Taniel was sketching him.

Taniel studied Etan’s face, his mind elsewhere. Something seemed wrong about the trumpets. The retreats. Every damned time. “You know Tamas’s campaign history as well as any historian. How many times has he sounded a retreat?”

“Seven, if memory serves.”

“Out of how many battles?”

“Hundreds.”

“And the last few weeks how many times have we fallen back before the Kez?”

Etan sighed, setting down his feather pen and rubbing his eyes. “Taniel, what does it matter? The generals don’t have a choice. It’s either fall back with heavy losses or suffer the deaths of every man on the front.”

“What if one of the generals is in league with the Kez?” Taniel mused aloud. “Ordering the retreat early each time?”

“Those are dangerous accusations.”

“Tamas believed there was a traitor–”

Etan cut him off. “And he was right. He caught the bastard. Charlemund won’t see the light of day again, no matter what threats the Church makes.”

“Tamas might not have caught all the traitors,” Taniel said quietly.

“These generals were handpicked by Tamas. Every one of them has supported him for years, even through the coup – where the risks of failure were high, and they’d all be labeled traitors. They are capable and loyal.”

Taniel took a small pinch of powder and snorted it off the back of his hand. He fought to clear his mind. There was a time when the tiniest bit of powder would allow him to focus and think, but it seemed harder and harder to do so.

Powder. That was the other thing bothering him.

“Do you have access to quartermaster reports?” Taniel asked.

Etan finished writing another missive and set it on the table beside his bed. “For my regiment, certainly.”

“I don’t need them for your regiment. I need them for the entire army. Can you get them?”

“I’d need to pull some strings…”

“Do it.”

Etan’s mouth hardened into a flat line. “Because I’m so disposed to doing you favors right now.”

“Please?” Taniel said, sketching Etan’s shoulders.

“Why?”

“Something that’s been niggling in the back of my mind. I just want to see how much black powder the army has been using.”

“All right,” Etan agreed with a sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.” He fell silent and for several minutes there was nothing but the sound of Etan’s feather pen scratching away at the paper. Etan seemed enthralled by his work. Since his paralysis, Etan had rushed headlong into the administrative duties of his rank. He’d spent the last three days checking on supply reports, reading recruitment numbers, and leafing through dossiers of men who might be considered for rank advancement.

Taniel was glad Etan had something to do to keep his mind off his injury.

The sound of Etan’s pen suddenly stopped. “How do the Kez have so many bloody Black Wardens?” he asked. “Didn’t – doesn’t – your father have a hard time finding them as it is?”

“Can’t say for sure,” Taniel said as he gave a little more shape to Etan’s chin in his drawing. He’d wondered the same thing himself. “The Kez purge their countryside of powder mages every two years and make regular sweeps in the meantime. Tamas always assumed the mages they rounded up were executed. His spies never reported anything else.”

Etan tapped the feather pen on the paper. “You think that maybe the Kez have been imprisoning them?”

“That’s my thought,” Taniel said. “Kez has a much greater population than Adro, which could partly account for their numbers. And I think Kresimir is the one turning them into Powder Wardens. It can’t be coincidence that these new bastards appeared at the same time as Kresimir.”

Etan began to write again, only to stop a moment later. “Oh,” he said. “I got something for you.”

“Eh?”

Etan produced a silver snuffbox and handed it to Taniel. “I heard you lost your old one on South Pike. Thought you’d like it.”

Taniel flipped open the lid. Inside, it was engraved with the words “Taniel Two-Shot, the Unkillable.”

“The Unkillable?” Taniel scoffed.

“That’s what the boys have taken to calling you.”

“That’s absurd. Anyone can be killed.” He held out the snuffbox. “I can’t take this.”

Etan began to cough. He fell back with a grimace, clutching his side. “Take it, you stubborn bastard, or I’ll start screaming at you for being a coward again. You and that girl of yours saved our asses out there.”

“She’s not my girl.”

Etan snorted. “Oh, really? Rumors are getting around, Taniel.” Etan looked down at his hands. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but the General Staff wants you two separated. Says it’s bad for morale, having a war hero gallivanting around with a savage.”

“You believe all that? Agree with it?” Taniel stiffened. He didn’t have to sit here and listen to this drivel.

Etan made a calming motion. “I see your face when you look at her. Same way you used to look at Vlora.” Etan shrugged. “I won’t judge. Just warning you about the rumors.”

Taniel forced himself to relax. The way he used to look at Vlora? This was almost as preposterous as the grenadiers calling Taniel “unkillable.” “What should I do? I’m not going to send her away.”

“Marry her?”

Taniel laughed, shaking his head at the absurdity of the statement.

“I’m not joking,” Etan said. “The General Staff can say anything they want about propriety, but if she’s your wife, they have to stuff it.” He began to cough again, harder this time.

“You need rest,” Taniel said. Etan’s face had turned as pale as Taniel’s sketch paper. In the hours of the afternoon Taniel had almost forgotten the severity of Etan’s injury. His sudden frailty brought it all back.

“I need to write out more orders.”

“Rest.” Taniel took the paper and quill from Etan and set them beside the bed. He put the snuffbox there with them and headed for the door.

“Taniel.”

“Yes?”

Etan plucked the snuffbox off his bedside table and tossed it to Taniel, who caught it in one hand.

“Take it,” Etan said. “Or I’ll have you shot.”

“All right, all right. I’ll take it.” He closed the door behind him.

Ka-poel was waiting in the hallway, sitting on the ground just outside the door with her legs crossed, one of her wax dolls in hand. She stowed it and stood up. If she’d heard what Etan had to say about her, she gave no indication.

“Can you do anything for him?” Taniel asked.

A slight shake of her head.

“Damn it, Pole. You practically brought me back from the dead, and you can’t…”

She held up a finger, her forehead wrinkling in a frown. Taniel thought she might go on, but instead she turned and walked away.

He followed her down and through the common room of the inn, where wounded soldiers talked and drank while they waited to be sent home or back to the front. There was a somber air to the room. A woman sat in one corner, alone, her leg amputated at the knee. She moaned to herself, a lonely keening sound that everyone tried to ignore.

The weather outside didn’t improve Taniel’s mood. The sky had threatened rain for a week now, every day a little cloudier. Yesterday there’d been a misting drizzle in the evening – just enough to make the grass slick and the fighting all the more treacherous.

Taniel stopped just outside the inn and wondered if he should have gotten a drink before heading back to the front.

A pair of provosts approached from the street. Both carried heavy steel pikes and wore Adran blues with green trim and the insignia of mountains crossed by cudgels.

Coincidence, Taniel wondered, or were they waiting for him?

“Captain Taniel Two-Shot?”

“What?”

“You’re to come with us, sir.”

Definitely waiting for him. “On whose authority?”

“General Ket’s.”

“I don’t think I’ll do that.” Taniel touched the butt of his pistol.

“We’re placing you under arrest, sir.”

Arrest? This had gone too far. “On what charge?”

“That’s for General Ket to say.”

One stepped forward, taking Taniel by the arm.

Taniel jerked away. “Get your hands off me. I know my rights as a soldier of the Adran army. You’ll tell me the charges or you’ll go to the pit.” Taniel’s senses told him that they didn’t have an ounce of powder. They’d come ready. For him.

Or had they? The provost jerked hard on Taniel’s arm, like he was some kind of unruly child. “Come quiet-like now. We’re to bring the girl as well. Where is she?”

Where had Ka-poel gone? Taniel looked around, pulling his arm away from the provost.

“Now, sir! Don’t make us–”

Taniel’s fist connected with the provost’s chin, sending the man to the ground. The other provost lowered his pike and stepped forward threateningly. Taniel shifted to one side, grabbed the pike by the shaft, and jerked the man off balance. The provost stumbled forward, and Taniel planted a fist into the side of his head.

The first provost came to his feet, already swinging. His ears were red, his face twisted in an angry grimace at having been sucker punched to the ground. The provost was easily a head taller than Taniel and weighed four stone more.

Taniel caught the provost’s fist and slammed his opposite hand into the man’s elbow. He heard the snap, saw the blood and the white bone sticking out of the flesh.

The provost’s scream drew more attention than Taniel wanted. He let the man fall to the ground and then started walking briskly toward the front.

Arrest him? General Ket had the gall to arrest him? It seemed like Taniel was the only thing left between the Kez and Adopest. He’d killed half of their remaining Privileged, giving the Wings a clear advantage on the field, and he’d run out of room for notches on his rifle, he’d killed so many infantry.

Ka-poel joined him a few moments later. One minute he was walking alone, trying to ignore the stares of anyone who’d seen him break a provost’s arm, and the next she was beside him, strolling along as if nothing had happened.

“Where the pit were you?”

Ka-poel didn’t respond.

“Well…” Taniel gritted his teeth. Pit. A general had an arrest warrant out for him. They’d come sooner or later, in force. What could he do? Break the arms of every provost in the army? “If they come again, disappear just like that. I don’t want them getting their damned hands on you.”

She nodded.

Taniel felt his steps grow in purpose as he headed back toward the front. He changed his course a little and went toward the cooking tents.

Taniel found his goal in the third mess tent he looked inside.

The master chef, Mihali, was alone inventorying barrels. He held a piece of charcoal in one hand and paper in the other. His long black hair was tied behind his head in a ponytail.

“Good afternoon, Taniel,” Mihali said without turning around.

Taniel came up short as the tent flap fell closed behind him. “Have we met?”

“No. But I’m friends with your father. Please, come in.”

Taniel stayed warily near the tent flap. Ka-poel had come inside behind him, and she seemed to have no reservations about plopping down on a barrel in one corner.

“Tamas is dead,” Taniel said.

“Oh, don’t be silly. You don’t believe that.”

“I’ve come to accept it.”

Mihali still hadn’t turned around. Even with his back toward Taniel, he had a kind of presence that made Taniel second-guess his decision to come there. There was something about him. A smell, maybe? No. Something more subtle. Just the slightest sense of familiarity.

“Tamas is very much alive,” Mihali said. His lips moved silently, finger wagging as he counted barrels in one corner of the tent. “Along with most of the Seventh and the Ninth. They’re being pursued heavily right now by three full brigades of cavalry and six brigades of infantry.”

Taniel snorted. “How can you know all that?”

“I am Adom reborn.”

“So. You do claim to be a god?”

Mihali finally turned around with a sigh, making marks on his paper. He had a pudgy, elongated face that spoke of a mix of Adran and Rosvelean ancestry. His white apron was stained with flour and blood, and there was a piece of potato peel stuck to the side of his clean-shaven chin. “Is it that hard to believe? You’ve attempted to kill one god.”

“I saw Kresimir descend from the clouds. I saw his face. I looked upon Kresimir and I knew with every bit of me that he was a god. You…” Taniel trailed off, watching the master chef for the anger that was sure to come.

“Not so much?” Instead of taking offense, Mihali laughed. “Kresimir was always so much better at appearing effortlessly grand. Your father needed to come to believe on his own. You, I think, need a more direct approach.” Mihali approached him and held a hand out toward his head. He stopped suddenly, recoiling. Taniel noticed that Mihali’s hand was trembling.

“May I?” Mihali asked Ka-poel.

Ka-poel returned his stare, her eyes daring him to try.

Mihali extended his hand once more toward Taniel. As it drew closer, it trembled harder and harder, as if affected by some unseen force. Finally, the chef’s fingers brushed Taniel’s skin.

Taniel felt a spark.

Then it seemed as if the universe flashed before his eyes. Countless years zoomed by, filling Taniel’s memories like they were his own. He saw Kresimir’s original descent from the heavens, and then felt Kresimir call to his brothers and sisters to aid him in rebuilding the Nine. He witnessed the chaos of the Bleakening, and the relentless march of the centuries. Lifetimes rushed past in a blink of an eye.

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.