The Autumn Republic

“He’s holding court in the Kresim Cathedral. As far as these men know, he’s still there.”

Tamas made his way through the fighting, shielded on one side by Andriya and by the avenue shops on the other. He limped to a high stoop and pulled himself up to survey the battle. It could still go either way-more Kez poured in from the side streets and they still held key sections of the wall. They would make Tamas’s men pay in blood for every inch.

Several of Tamas’s cuirassiers, led by Gavril, found him on the stoop. “Can you ride?” Gavril asked. Both he and his mount had taken a score of cuts, and his calf was soaked with blood, but he seemed ready to keep fighting.

“I can.” Tamas extended his hand, and Gavril pulled him up into the saddle behind him. “Kresim Cathedral,” Tamas shouted into Gavril’s ear. “We have to end this now!”

“Up the main thoroughfare?”

“No, take that street there.” Tamas pointed down the avenue to one of the side streets that seemed to have emptied of all its Kez reinforcements. He waved his sword. “Lances! To me!”

They had to fight through two half-built barricades as they made their way toward the center of the city, but it was clear that the barricades were not properly manned, merely someplace for the Kez infantry to fall back to. Tamas’s cavalry numbered less than thirty now, and every man who fell would be one less he could use to storm Ipille’s final stand.

They emerged from one of the side streets into the cathedral plaza. While the Budwiel cathedral was not nearly as large as its recently destroyed cousin in Adopest, it was still a breathtaking building. Four spires rose above the tallest buildings in the city, framing a bronze dome and magnificent, fortresslike walls.

The plaza was empty. Tamas called a halt, sensing a trap.

He slid down from his spot behind Gavril and put a whole powder charge into his mouth, letting it dissolve, paper and all, on his tongue. He drew a pistol from his belt, checked to see if it was still loaded, and gestured for his men to proceed cautiously.

Their hoofbeats echoed like snares on the plaza flagstone, and the fighting at the wall seemed muted and distant now. Tamas had expected the toughest resistance here, where Ipille would have centered his best and bravest men, but the cathedral seemed all but abandoned. Tamas swept it with his third eye and there were no final Privileged or Knacked lying in wait.

“Something’s not right,” Gavril said, his voice overly loud in the empty square.

Tamas checked his second pistol. His leg burned, even through his deep powder trance, and he was forced to limp. “They may have fled.”

They approached the main doors. One of the pair of double doors was open a crack. Tamas peeked through. He could see nothing but the stone walls of the cathedral entrance hall. His men dismounted, securing their horses, and Tamas nodded to Andriya. “Five men,” he said.

Andriya called out names. The soldiers took position around the door, then threw it open and leapt inside. Their feet echoed in the recesses of the building as they charged through the entrance hall and into the nave. Tamas held his breath, waiting for the crack of rifles and the shouts of fighting men, his muscles tensed to lead the rest of his men inside.

Silence.

“The bastard ran,” Tamas said, shoving his pistol back into his belt.

“Sounds like it,” Gavril agreed.

“Didn’t even have the guts to tell his personal guard.” Tamas kicked the wall and immediately regretted it. He swore under his breath and listened to the sound of his cuirassiers’ footsteps as they cleared the room inside. “Let’s go.”

He limped into the entrance hall only to come within a pace of colliding with Andriya.

“Sir,” Andriya said, his face pale. “You should see this.”

Tamas exchanged a glance with Gavril. Anything that had Andriya worried couldn’t be good.

He saw the first body as he came around the corner. One of Ipille’s elite-green-on-tan uniform with gilded trim and a gray undercoat. The woman’s sword was half-drawn, and she’d been shot in the heart from close range. The next two bodies were mere feet apart, two more of Ipille’s elite locked in battle, knives buried in each other.

Tamas entered the nave, his eyes brushing past the immense columns that marched down the center of the room to hold the dome aloft, looking at the battlefield lain out before him. Well over a hundred of Ipille’s elite lay dead or dying. He even caught sight of two dead Wardens. He opened his third eye, but there wasn’t a hint of sorcery in the room.

“What the pit happened?” Gavril said.

Tamas pointed toward the front of the nave. “I bet he knows.”