The Autumn Republic

He felt tired, his strength waning. Every old, sorcery-healed scar ached, and the memories of how he got them all seemed to flow together. He remembered the campaigns in Gurla and the countless charges and battles. He recalled his flight from Kez after his attempted assassination of Ipille, and the years of planning his own monarch’s fall that ended in Manhouch’s head in a basket. The battle against the royalists and his flight across northern Kez toward Alvation all seemed to blend together.

He was so tired, and this needed to end.

“You, Captain,” Tamas said, splitting his force in two, “bring your platoon and come with me. Major, take the rest of the men up to the second story and work your way north. There are a half-dozen galleries between here and the throne room that will give you the high ground. Give Colonel Olem what reinforcement he might need from above.”

“Sir?” the major asked. “Where are you going?”

“I have a score to settle.”

Taniel worked his way through the gardens and hedgerows, past the fountains and statues, over the decorative walls and around the north face of Skyline Palace.

The fighting grew thicker, bullets whizzing over his head, black powder smoke hanging like a fog over the ruined gardens. The smoke gave him strength and clarity of mind as he avoided the clusters of Brudanian troops and sprinted behind the lines of Adran soldiers slowly advancing on the palace.

He moved like a man possessed as he rounded the northeast corner of the palace, sprinting with all his strength. He cut across a polo lawn and heard the crack of muskets and the whiz of bullets cutting through the air behind him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a squad of Brudanian soldiers leave their cover in pursuit, but he left them behind as he cut through a hedge maze, throwing himself through the prickly walls of greenery with an arm over his face.

He came out on the other side of the maze and descended a hill into a grove of birch trees in a hollow behind the palace. The sound of fighting was muffled and distant, and this part of the garden was overgrown but untouched by the conflict. A dry streambed, once fed by the same pumps that kept the fountains going, meandered through the grove.

Taniel approached the back wall of the palace, passing the statue of the old King Manhouch the First. He ran his hands over the thick stone blocks of the foundation, ransacking his memory for an image of the entrance his father had showed him sixteen years ago.

He continued along the wall for twenty paces, feeling every crack and nook to no avail, his heart beating harder with every second that passed without finding the entrance. Back at the statue he gazed for several moments at the wall-all that lay between him and Ka-poel-before taking a step back.

The fall might have broken his neck if he hadn’t dropped his rifle to catch himself. His leg plunged into a hole in the grass below his feet, and he wiggled his foot in the empty space, unsure if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Reaching down, he cleared away the grass to find an opening easily big enough for a man worked into the landscaping in a way that made it impossible to see.

He crawled in on all fours, sliding his rifle along ahead of him. Within ten paces the passage turned and opened up into a narrow corridor. He was able to stand and keep moving forward. The ground was damp beneath his feet, cobwebs tugging at his face and arms.

The corridor ended abruptly, leaving Taniel at a dead end. The only sounds he could hear were his own nervous breaths and the distant, almost inaudible cracks of musket and rifle fire.

Putting his ear to the wall, he waited for several moments of silence before he pushed gently with both hands. There was a click and the wall gave way to reveal another dark hallway. He could see a source of light at one end, which proved to be the hairline crack of what Taniel could only assume was another hidden doorway.

This door slid to one side in complete silence, leaving Taniel with a view of a well-lit, curtained-off corner of a room. He recognized that corner. The tall windows, the blue-and-crimson trim, the tapestries gilded with the dueling lions of the Manhouch family crest.

He was in the throne room, directly behind the throne itself.

He crept forward until he reached the curtain, moving it to one side cautiously with his finger. A sudden blast made him jump, withdrawing behind the curtain and pointing his rifle ahead of him. A few shouts followed the blast, and musket shots echoed somewhere nearby. When he was certain those blasts weren’t meant for him, Taniel leaned forward to peek past the curtain again.