The Autumn Republic

“I’m a desperate man, Arbor.” He glanced over his shoulder, craning his head to look back up Surkov’s Alley. He wondered if the main Kez army had grown wise to his plan and were coming up fast behind him. Sulem was to have joined them in battle yesterday afternoon to keep them from marching back down to pinion Tamas against the walls of Budwiel. If the Kez had escaped the Deliv, this would end in disaster. “Come with me.”

Arbor followed him from their vantage point down toward the largest artillery battery, Andriya shadowing them the whole way. Tamas’s newest bodyguard was coated in dry blood and smelled like a slaughterhouse. Anyone else but one of his powder mages, and Tamas would have had the man forcibly washed. This afternoon, though, he needed Andriya’s gun and blade.

“Colonel Silvia,” Tamas called, catching the attention of one of the artillery crews. Silvia was a middle-aged woman with brown, short-cropped hair and a mouselike face stained with black powder. The cuffs of her uniform were almost black with the stuff as well. Tamas had to go all the way down to a captain to find an experienced artilleryman that hadn’t been a friend or student of General Hilanska, and Silvia had in a single day found herself a colonel in command of Tamas’s bombardment.

“Sir!” She stood, snapping a salute.

“You almost ready?”

“Getting there, sir. A few more mortars to move into position and then we’ll start the bombardment on your order. We’ll sweep the walls and just behind them with the mortars and focus direct fire on the main gate.”

“Cancel that. You have a spyglass?”

“Yes sir.” She produced a spyglass from her kit and snapped it open, then waited for Tamas’s instruction.

“Go about three hundred yards to the east of the main gate. Do you see a pattern of discolored stones? They look almost like a face. It’s very faint.”

“I don’t… wait, I see it. Adom, looks like a grinning skull.”

“Fire a pattern of straight shot right at the nose. Hit, wait seven counts, hit, wait two counts, hit, and wait another four. It might take you a few tries.”

Silvia had lowered her spyglass to look curiously at Tamas. “Sir?”

“What is that?” General Arbor asked. “Some kind of combination?”

“In a manner of speaking. The royal cabal that wove the wards into that wall so many hundreds of years ago left a backup plan in case Budwiel ever fell to the Kez and we were forced to take it back. Do this, and that section of the wall will be vulnerable to our cannon fire.”

“And how the bloody pit do you know that?” Arbor asked.

Tamas snorted. “I was the Iron King’s favorite, Arbor. It came with some perks.” And if this doesn’t work, he reminded himself silently, I’ll look like a complete idiot.

“When do you want me to start, sir?” Silvia asked.

“Begin your shelling of the main gate as soon as you’re ready. Have a grouping of cannons standing by to wait for my signal to fire at that particular spot. We won’t be ready to attack for at least an hour.”

Tamas strode back to his command tent, Arbor at his side. “Sir, what happens if Ipille has already fled toward his capital?” Arbor asked.

“Then we’ll hunt him down like a bloody dog,” Tamas said with a confidence he didn’t feel. Ipille might have left two days ago. He could be so far ahead as to make it impossible to catch him. It was a risk Tamas was willing to take.

“Keep everyone working,” Tamas said as he reached his tent. “And keep formations loose. I don’t want the Kez to suspect that we’ll assault today until the very last minute.” He slapped Arbor on the shoulder, and the general saluted him, false teeth still in one hand.

Tamas ducked inside and let himself sag against the main tent post, squeezing his eyes shut. His nerves were raw, his body strung out from too much powder and too little sleep, and the effort of hiding his exhaustion from the men. “One more day, Tamas,” he muttered to himself. “It’ll either all be over tonight or you’ll be dead at the foot of Budwiel’s walls.”

“That’s why most commanders don’t lead the charge themselves.”

Tamas drew his sword and whirled toward the voice. Gavril sat on Tamas’s cot, his whole body caked with road dust, the sleeve of one arm sliced through and stiff with dried blood.

“Bloody pit,” Tamas said, sheathing his sword. “That’s about the closest I’ve ever come to a heart attack. What the pit are you doing here? Where’s Taniel? Get out of my bed.”

Gavril threw up both hands but made no motion to stand. “I’m resting. I just rode all the way down the Counter’s Road, dodging Kez patrols. Reached the Deliv camp a few hours after you left and commandeered a canoe and paddled the whole way here on the Addown.”

Tamas paced his tent. He had planned to plug his ears with wax and catch a few hours of sleep before the attack, while his artillery scattered Ipille’s men from the walls. No chance of that now. “And Taniel? The girl? Where are they? Spit it out, man!”

“Taniel’s alive, Vlora too and Norrine. We lost everyone else in an ambush.”