Powder Mage: The Autumn Republic Part 3

Bo looked as if he'd been slapped. "What do you mean?"

Adamat felt instant guilt at giving Bo any false sense of hope. "Well, let's at least confirm Hilanska's story before you go into mourning. Taniel may be a Kez captive, or he may have escaped, or..." He trailed off. Bo regarded him with suspicious skepticism.

"Why the optimism?" Bo asked. "Shouldn't you be hoping that Taniel's dead so we can go about finding your boy? Or are you just afraid that I'll go back on my word?"

Adamat was afraid that Bo would go back on his word. "Something is bothering me about Hilanska. The maps on his table." Adamat pictured them in his mind, turned them around, and considered them before speaking. "The only experience I have with battle planning is from my time at the academy, but I'd bet my pension that Hilanska is planning on sandwiching Ket's force between his own and the Kez."

"It would be sound reasoning on his part," Bo said.

"Not if he's trying to reunite the brigades, as he claims."

Bo shrugged and looked off into the distance, his face sullen.

"Bo," Adamat said. "Bo!" He reached around and grabbed Bo by the front of his jacket, turning them face-to-face. Bo jerked his jacket out of Adamat's hands and stepped back. Adamat followed him forward and slapped Bo across the face.

A thrill of fear went up his spine. He'd just slapped a Privileged. Holy pit. What had he done? "Pull yourself together," he said, trying not to let his voice quake.

Bo's mouth hung open, one Privileged glove in his hand ready to be pulled over his fingers. "I've killed men for less."

"You have?"

"Well. I've thought about it. I'm sure other Privileged have. You have seconds to tell me why you thought that necessary."

"Because we have a duty here. This is bigger than one man. This is the fate of our family and our friends and our country."

"You don't understand why I'm here, do you, Inspector?" Bo said. "I'm here because Taniel Two-shot is my only friend. He's my only family. Privileged normally do not have the luxury of either, and I'll be d.a.m.ned if you think this country means more to me than that."

Adamat took a deep breath, relieved that Bo didn't try to kill him then and there. He whispered, "If Hilanska butchers these proceedings, my children will wind up as slaves to the Kez. I have to try and make sure that doesn't happen. If the best way to do that is to help you find your friend, then so be it. You need to get a hold of yourself and discreetly ask around about Taniel. I'm going to look into Hilanska."

Bo blinked several times, taking shaky breaths, and seemed to regain some of his composure. "We're forgetting the mercenaries."

The turn of conversation was so quick it took Adamat a moment to catch up. Of course. The Wings of Adom, the mercenary company in the employ of Adro. They should have had several brigades on the front. Adamat pictured Hilanska's map once more, looking for the flags: a saint's halo with gold wings. There they were, up in the corner. "They're camped about ten miles from here. Probably trying to keep out of this internal spat."

"Smart of them."

Bo flexed his jaw and stuffed his Privileged glove back into his pocket. "Start asking around. Find something out, and do it quickly. Or I'm going to go back in there and question Hilanska my way."

"Are you all right?"

"My cheek is a little sore."

"I meant about Taniel."

Bo looked as if he'd swallowed something sour. "A moment of weakness, that's all. I'll be fine. And Adamat...?"

"Yes?"

"If you lay your hands on me again, I'll turn you inside out."

CHAPTER.

4.

Nila waited beside the carriage for Bo and Adamat to return from their meeting with General Hilanska.

Downhill from her a small stream wound its way through the camp, its banks muddied from the tramp of a thousand boots. Nila watched as a laundress filled a bucket with the dirty water and hauled it back to her fire, where the uniforms of half a dozen soldiers sat piled on her bench. The woman filled her was.h.i.+ng pot with the water and sat back to wait for it to boil, drawing a soiled hand across her brow.

A different choice sometime in the last few months and Nila knew that might have been her. She glanced down at her hands. For years they had been cracked and worn by the soap, water, and lye she'd used to do laundry. Now they seemed remarkably smooth to the touch and, Bo told her, they would be put to better use.

A Privileged. She still couldn't believe it, not even after seeing the fire spring from her own fingertips the first time and during all their practice since.

Privileged were creatures of great cunning and strength. They commanded the elements and made armies quake. It seemed so cra.s.s that a laundress without family or connections could suddenly hold such power.

She couldn't help but feel cheated as well. Had she known it lay dormant within her, she might have used that power to escape from Vetas or to protect the royalists. Nila clenched her fist and felt a slight warmth on the back of her hand-fire, blue and white, dancing across her knuckles as if they were at the center of a hearth. Glancing around to see if anyone had noticed, she shook her hand to put out the fire and then hid it behind her back.

She thought about her time with the royalists and remembered Rozalia, the Privileged who had fought for them. Had Rozalia sensed the latent power within Nila and simply chosen not to mention it? Or had she been kind to her for some other reason? Would Nila become like her someday-old, wise, and powerful? Would people be nervous around her as she had been nervous around Rozalia?

"Risara!"

Nila emerged from deep within her own thoughts, and it took her a moment to remember that was the name she was using as she pretended to be a secretary to Bo-who himself was masquerading as a lawyer. She turned her head to see him hurrying toward her from across the camp. There was an urgency to his step that concerned her.

"Did you find Taniel?"

"No." Bo took her by the arm and stepped around to the far side of the carriage, where they were less likely to be overheard. "General Hilanska says that Taniel's dead."

The dispa.s.sionate way Bo spoke the words made her step back. Taniel had been his obsession ever since he had taken her and Jakob under his wing. His only friend, he claimed. He had been searching for Taniel for months now with a pa.s.sion that Nila had found inspiring. And now this? Bo could be distant at times, even cold, but this...

"There's something else?" she asked.

"We're going to find out for sure. Adamat thinks there's a chance he's still alive, and Hilanska is only one man."

Nila realized he wasn't dispa.s.sionate-he was dazed.

"Where do we stand?"

"Hilanska has dismissed us, but I'm not leaving until I can confirm that Taniel is dead. I want a body or a grave or something more than just Hilanska's word. I'll even go to the Kez camp if I have to. Adamat is corroborating Hilanska's story with the soldiers. I'm going to do the same." He paused and looked her up and down. "This will be dangerous. If Hilanska finds out who I am, I may be killed outright-along with you, Adamat, Oldrich, and his men."

"Just for impersonating a lawyer?"

A smile tugged at the corner of Bo's face, but he stifled it quickly. "I'm serious. Hilanska doesn't like or trust Privileged. He's a man with something to hide, and the mere fact that we're snooping around is going to gain his suspicion. He's like Tamas-he'll do what's expedient. Even if it means killing a whole lot of people."

"That seems like something you would respect."

"And I can respect it by not letting him know what I really am. Or what you are, for that matter." He glanced down at her hands and fell into a long silence. He had told her that no Privileged but the G.o.ds could touch the Else without runed gloves to keep them from being burned from the inside out by pure sorcery.

Except for her, apparently. And she was far from a G.o.d.

She had no doubt that if she said the word, Bo would send her back to Adopest today. This was her opportunity to run. She could fetch Jakob and go into hiding, using the funds that Bo had left for her. She would be able to get out of danger.

If she left now, she would never learn how to control her new powers. She would never find a Privileged as patient or thoughtful or just downright human as Bo. And she would never get the chance to repay him for the kindness he'd shown her and Jakob.

"What can I do?" Nila asked.

Nila waited inside the small wood-and-stone building that had, according to one of the soldiers, at one point been a stable.

The building barely had a roof, and the door was nothing more than a sc.r.a.p of cowhide, but it seemed that the quartermaster of the Twelfth Brigade was making do. The floors were covered in straw and every available s.p.a.ce was stacked with wooden crates and powder kegs.

Bo had told her to ask around about Taniel Two-shot, stifling her protests that his instructions were rather vague, and left her to her own devices. He wasn't exactly the image of rousing leaders.h.i.+p.

She didn't know how to go about asking soldiers about the death of their own. It seemed cra.s.s. So she thought she'd put what she did know to good use.

Despite the horror of being Lord Vetas's prisoner, she had learned many valuable lessons. One of those was the worth of good record keeping, and how it could be used against the very people who kept those records.

The cowhide was swept aside and a woman of about fifty ambled into the room wearing an Adran-blue army jacket with the quartermaster's pin on her collar. She was a slim woman, carrying most of her weight around her hips, and her graying hair was tucked into a bun behind her head.

"How can I help you, my dear?" she asked, dropping carelessly onto a powder keg.

"My name is Risara," Nila said, smoothing the front of her skirt. "I'm the secretary to Counselor Mattias of Adopest and I need access to the brigade records."

"Well then." The quartermaster sniffed. "I'll have to clear that with General Hilanska."

Nila produced an attache case from beneath her arm and opened it on her lap, taking great pains to leaf through the official-looking doc.u.ments within. She withdrew one in particular and handed it to the quartermaster. "This is a warrant granting me access to whatever records I wish to see. Do you think this is something the general wants to deal with during the current turmoil?"

The quartermaster read the warrant over twice. Nila tried not to let her nervousness show. The warrant was perfectly valid, but Bo had warned her that the army operated outside civilian judicial purview-whether legal or not.

"All right," the quartermaster said, handing the doc.u.ment back to Nila. "What do you want to see?"

Nila tried not to show her surprise at being granted access so easily or to let on that she didn't actually know what she was looking for. What would help her track down Taniel? His movements before his reported death? "Give me a copy of all requisition reports of the last two months."

"All of them?" The quartermaster rocked back on her powder keg. "That's several hundred pages."

"Get a scribe in here. I'll wait."

The quartermaster grumbled under her breath and began sorting through the crates piled in one corner. Nila waited, trying to put on as patient an air as possible. Lord Vetas had forced her to run many of his errands-not all of them strictly legal-and she had quickly learned that if she only acted like she belonged someplace most people would a.s.sume she did.

"Is there anything else you need?" the quartermaster said, wrist-deep in sheaves of paper. "I don't want to have to go through all this again."

"What records do you have on individual officers?"

The quartermaster lifted a pile of worn yellow paper almost as thick as Nila's hand was wide. "You'd have to see the general's adjutant for that."

"Of course." Nila took the records from the quartermaster and leafed through them. "Do you need to make copies?"

"They're all in triplicate. That's why the column for order signatures is blank. I'll have another copy made up when someone has time. Anything you're looking for in particular?"

Nila hesitated a moment. If she mentioned her goal, it might raise suspicion. But the idea of combing through all those reports was incredibly daunting. "Do you know if Captain Taniel Two-shot made any requisition orders?"

"He did." The quartermaster scratched her head for a minute as if to run through her memory. "There are a few dozen, I think. I can't tell you the exact days, but any requests made by a powder mage are marked with a 'pm' in the order column."

"You've been most helpful. Thank you. Do you mind if I look through the copies here?"

The quartermaster shrugged her bony shoulders. "Fine by me. You'll have to excuse me for a moment, though. I'll just be takin' a p.i.s.s."

Nila was left alone with the records. It took her a few minutes to get a feel for how the pages were organized. They were covered in small script and several columns. Names, dates, orders, and whether they were fulfilled. There were notes in half a dozen different handwritings-various quartermasters, she a.s.sumed. Once she found the first 'pm'-a request by Taniel for more powder, which was denied-it wasn't hard to spot more.

She had just found the fifth powder request when she heard the old quartermaster behind her.

"Right there," the woman said. Nila glanced up out of politeness, only to see herself trapped in the small building by two big soldiers. The men wore dark-blue Adran uniforms with red trim and tall bearskin hats. Not regular soldiers. Grenadiers.

"Ma'am," one of them said, "would you come with us, please."

Nila's heart was in her throat. "Is something the matter?"

"Please," he said again. "Come with us." He glanced behind him, as if nervous. "Try not to make a ruckus, ma'am."

Nila didn't see that she had much choice. She could yell and scream, with only a small chance of attracting Bo. But even then, what could Bo do? For the purpose of this mission they were not in a friendly camp. "Of course, just let me gather my things." Nila scooped up the requisition orders, securing the whole thing with a string, and forced them into her attache case before following the men out of the building.

"Stay with us, please," one of the men said in a low voice before moving on ahead. The other, Nila noted, fell back some ten paces. It was almost as if they didn't want to be seen with her.

She was led past General Hilanska's headquarters and over a slight rise and into another part of the camp. She examined the various standards, trying to remember the brigades and regiments of the Adran army and failing completely. If not General Hilanska, who were they taking her to see? Or were they taking her straight to the stockade?

The man in front of her suddenly stopped beside a white-walled tent and turned as if taking up the guard. He gestured to the flap. "Go on in."

The other soldier had disappeared. Nila stared at the tent for a moment, both curious and fearful about what she'd find inside. She clenched her jaw. She was a Privileged now. She was going to have to get used to danger-and taking risks. She ducked inside.

A man sat in the middle of the tent, scribbling furiously in a notebook on his lap. He didn't look up when Nila entered, only pointed to the chair opposite him and continued to write. Nila looked around carefully. No sign of danger here, though that could all change in a moment in a camp full of soldiers. She took the offered seat.

By the size of the tent, Nila guessed that this man was an officer. He was a big man, well over six feet tall standing, with wide shoulders and thick arms. He had a face that looked like it had been punched one too many times, with a crooked nose and high cheekbones. His chair was wheeled, of the kind used by invalids.

She spotted the man's army jacket hanging in one corner, with two hawks over the Adran Mountains emblazoned on the shoulder. It also held four bars over a chevron-Nila knew enough to recognize he was a colonel. Had she read something in the newspaper recently about a colonel being paralyzed in a heroic action?

He finally stopped writing and pushed himself up straight in his chair. "You're the girl that came in with the lawyer this afternoon?" he asked.

"I am Counselor Mattias's secretary."

"How long have you been with the counselor?" The colonel watched her face intently.