The Autumn Republic

She literally tripped over the first sentry. He lay in a thicket, musket on his chest, gently dozing until her foot hit him. He shot awake, a startled exclamation on his lips. She could see the outline of his face in the darkness. She saw his eyes take in her blue uniform and then his mouth open to yell a warning.

Her hand shot forward, taking him by the throat.

She would not allow Olem to die for her safety. She would not allow herself to be beaten and humiliated and used by foreign savages.

Blue fire shimmered and she felt his flesh give way beneath her fingers. She squeezed, feeling the melted flesh and warm, sizzling blood between her fingers. Her fingers wrapped around his spine and even that seemed to slide away, leaving the man’s head to roll down a hill and farther into the thicket.

Nila was up and running a moment later. She didn’t have time to think about the murder. It was just one more on top of the countless she’d committed over the past few weeks. She had to flee. The Kez magebreaker might have sensed her sorcery-he could be on her trail in minutes.

She navigated the hills with the use of her third eye, fighting down nausea. Between the darkness and the fog, her regular vision would be useless. She ran, forcing herself forward though each step made her want to scream in agony. Her thighs hurt from riding, her body from a night with her arms tied. Tears rolled down her cheeks from the pain, and her stomach pitched like she had been at sea for weeks.

Hours passed. She stopped on every hilltop to listen for pursuit, but no sound followed her. She ran blindly-she would be hopeless at getting her bearings in the misty darkness. She knew that, for now, she had to get as far away from the Kez as possible. Though every hilltop looked the same to her in the Else, she attempted to memorize each one, tearing up grass or piling rocks whenever she could. She hoped that in the light of day she would be able to lead the Adran cavalry back the way she’d come.

It was Olem’s only chance.

The earliest light of morning tinged the mist. Nila could no longer open her third eye. Exhaustion flooded her senses and it was all she could do to keep stumbling through the dew-soaked grass. Her uniform was ripped and sodden, her boots full of water. She clutched her arms to her chest, shivering violently.

She stopped to rest at the bottom of one of the countless ravines she had traversed. Her fingers stiff, she used what was left of her strength to coax a nimbus of flame from the Else. Kez pursuers be damned, she had to get warm! The flame sheathed her hands, then her arms, and she felt a dull warmth work its way into her bones. Her shivering slowly subsided. Steam rose from her clothes, and with a startled curse she realized that the flame now covered her whole body.

It winked out, leaving her standing at the bottom of the ravine, the world once again cold and wet. She wanted nothing more than to lie down in the muck and sleep. The Kez be damned. Field Marshal Tamas be damned.

A vision of Olem’s face, his beard matted with blood and his flesh torn to ribbons, sprang into her mind. That was all it took for her to begin to climb the side of the ravine.

The rising sun began to burn away the mist. If the fog cleared, she could get her bearings. She would head east in the hope that the rest of the Riflejacks were looking for the Kez camp to save Olem. It was risky, if the Kez were, in turn, looking for her. But she had no choice.

It was not long after her rest that she caught a distant sound on the wind. The neigh of a horse, perhaps? The peaks and valleys of Brude’s Hideaway played tricks on her ears, and she struggled on to the next rise, where she stopped to listen, peering into the thinning morning fog.

She thought she heard a shout. Whether Kez or Adran, she did not know. It was impossible to get a bearing on the sound. Please, she thought, please be Adran. She strained, head tilted to the side, until she heard it again.

The sound came from behind her. She began to move again, heading cautiously onward. An Adran scouting party could have gotten behind her. After all, she didn’t know north from south right now. She could be heading just about any direction.

Another shout. Nila’s senses pricked at the sound and a chill went down her spine. It hadn’t been quite intelligible, but that sounded Kez.

The clop of hooves on stone reached her ears. She had crossed a series of flat rocks a while back, hadn’t she? Those hooves were following her, and the shouts were getting closer.

She broke into a sprint, calling up every ounce of her energy for the run. They were on her trail now and when they found her, they would run her down like a tired dog in the street. A glance over her shoulder showed men on horseback less than two hundred yards behind her.