The Autumn Republic

Leaping across a streambed, Nila scaled a steep escarpment and threw herself down the other side, tumbling head over heels down a hill. She was back up a moment later, ready to run, when the sight of a mounted figure brought her up short.

The figure was less than ten paces away. It sat silently, the fog barely seeming to touch it, the rider’s body cloaked against the weather. Steam rose from the horse’s nostrils, indicating it had just made a hard ride.

She was cut off. The Kez had her now. Nila stiffened and waited for the figure to draw his or her pistol and fire.

“Why do you run?”

The voice startled her and she nearly fell. It was speaking in Adran. A male voice. “What?”

The figure slapped his saddle horn angrily. “Why do you run?” he demanded.

Horses rounded the far side of the escarpment thirty paces to Nila’s left. There were a dozen of them, coming hard, and she saw carbines raised to fire.

“Bo?” she asked, breathless.

“You aren’t a fox, fleeing before the hounds! You are a goddess of fire to these ants.”

What was Bo doing here? How had he found her? “The magebreaker is chasing…” Nila ran toward him. The two of them might have a chance of escaping on his horse.

“He’s not with them. You should have stopped to check. Turn and defend yourself. Show them what you are!” Bo’s voice rose to a bellow at the end. Nila stared at him, astonishment freezing her in her tracks.

The crack of a carbine snapped through her thoughts and she found herself whirling in response. She made a flinging motion with her off-hand and fire like liquid gold spewed from her fingertips. The flames crossed the space in the blink of an eye and cut through men and horses like a bullet through paper. Black powder exploded on contact with the flames, and a single cry of dismay reached her ears before the entire party was gone, reduced to a black, smoking skid on hissing soil.

Nila stared at the spot for several moments, trying to process what she’d just done. There had been no thought, no concentration. She’d just killed a dozen men and horses purely by instinct. The air hung heavy with acrid black smoke and the smell of burned meat.

“Well done.”

“I…” She turned to look up at Bo and could instantly see that something was wrong. He slumped in his saddle, his face pale and sweat on his brow. He swayed back and forth, knuckles white on the saddle horn. “Never run from a fight you can win. By the saints, you’re going to be powerful. I’ve never seen such… beauty.” His words were labored and breathless.

“What are you doing here? Are you all right?” Nila rushed to his side and put a hand on his leg, from which she immediately recoiled. She had touched something hard and thin, and when she reached forward to lift his pant leg, she found not flesh, but a wooden prosthetic where his calf had once been.

He didn’t seem to notice. “I got your… note.” He fumbled at his jacket pocket and removed a creased paper. It fluttered from his fingers and he made a weak attempt at catching it.

Nila snatched it out of the air, barely remembering the angry words she’d scribbled down before riding off with Olem. All thoughts of the charred remains behind her were gone. Memories of the way she’d been treated by the Deliv Privileged were shoved aside. “Bo. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing.” He frowned at the paper now in her hand. “I’ve… I didn’t think… it proper… my apprentice off on her… own.” His words were halting and disjointed.

“Bo?”

He waved away her concern, and promptly slid from his saddle. She threw herself beneath him and they both went down in a heap beside the horse. She looked up in horror at the prosthetic still stuck in the stirrup, and the empty pant leg beneath his knee.

“Sorry,” he said. “Feeling a bit fuzzy.”

Nila felt tears in her eyes. Bo was her only hope of getting away, and here he was, crippled and sickly. How would they be able to find the Adran cavalry and return to rescue Olem? She briefly considered leaving him here and taking his horse, but that could very well be the death of him, and she couldn’t do that. Not after he’d brought himself out here to find her.

Bo’s eyes were closed and she could see his chest rising and falling slowly. It hurt her deeply to see him like this, so vulnerable after everything he had done for her. She fought back her tears, angry at herself. This was the kind of weakness he despised, wasn’t it?

“That’s enough of that,” Bo whispered. His eyes remained closed. “You’re safe now.”

“You’re not, you bloody idiot!”

“Oh, I’ll be… fine.”

Nila held him close and knew she had to act soon. She could only save one of them-Bo or Olem. And Olem might already be dead.

“Where are the Adran cavalry?” she asked.

“I got a bit ahead of them,” Bo said, seemingly able to keep his sentences coherent only when he whispered. “I rode hard when I saw your sorcery in the Else.”

“Ahead of them?”

“They’ll be along… ah. There they are.”