The Autumn Republic

Each of the soldiers carried a rifle with the bayonet fixed. From a distance the rifles’ basic shape could be mistaken for any flintlock, but from here Taniel could very clearly make out the sleek, streamlined barrel and the rounded stock. These weren’t flintlocks. They were air rifles-they fired bullets not with the combustion of black powder but with compressed air.

They were delicate, unreliable weapons. Soldiers only carried air rifles when they needed to kill a powder mage.

Taniel waited in his hiding spot until after dark, watching the soldiers set up camp, and then headed back up the steep side of the mountain.

Taking goat paths, he crossed over the ridge and then followed it to the east for almost a mile, back into a narrow crevice wedged under two great, flat boulders.

Ka-poel sat cross-legged with her back against the wall of their cave. Her ashen freckles were obscured by mud, her long black duster ripped and worn. There were large, dark circles under her eyes. She looked up at Taniel and her head bobbed slightly from exhaustion.

“A squad of Adran soldiers,” Taniel said. “Armed to the teeth with air rifles.” He lowered himself down beside her, unwilling to look at the wax figure lying on the dirt before her. “No doubt Hilanska’s men.” He felt the fatigue deep in his bones. Every muscle ached and his hands shook from the lack of gunpowder. It was progress. A few days ago he had barely been able to stand from the withdrawal symptoms. “They’re working their way up the valley. They’ll reach the curve soon, then come up this direction. It won’t take them longer than two days. I can’t sense an ounce of powder on them.”

He forced a smile onto his face. Ka-poel leaned her head on his shoulder, and Taniel tried to sit up straight. He couldn’t show his own weariness. It wouldn’t be fair to her.

Not after she had rescued him. Her very sorcery gave him strength.

She who kept a god in check by the power of her will alone.

Taniel finally looked down at the wax figure lying in the dust. He recognized that face, from the delicate chin and the golden hair to the ugly black pit where one eye used to be. A rock the size of Taniel’s fist sat in the center of the wax figure’s chest and one long needle stuck out from its head.

Gently, Taniel pushed Ka-poel’s head off his shoulder. “It’s time,” he said.

She looked up at him, a question in her eyes. He wondered briefly how her voice would sound if she were able to speak. He kissed her on the forehead and climbed to his feet.

“I have to go kill my countrymen.”

Taniel crept down the mountainside just after midnight. The night was deep, thin clouds obscuring a quarter moon. His whole body shook from the effort of the descent, holding himself back so that he wouldn’t disturb the scree or startle small animals out of hiding, and his eyes ached from squinting hard into the darkness.

He had the musket that he’d taken in their mad dash from the Kez camp as his only weapon. Bayonet fixed, it would be little use to him except as a spear, as he lacked both powder and ammunition. He’d left his jacket behind with Ka-poel, as the silver buttons might have caught errant moonlight and betrayed him to the enemy-his belt buckle he had wrapped in leather to hide it.

He felt the lack of powder keenly. A single hit of black powder would have sharpened his senses and allowed him to see clearly in the darkness. It would have dulled the ache in his bones, the soreness of his back and feet, and would have given him strength and speed, so that dealing with a dozen men would have been…

Well, certainly not easy. But not outside the realm of possibility, either.

Crouched on the mountainside, he examined his quarry.

The squad of Adran soldiers camped in the shadow of a ten-foot cascade with their backs to a shallow recess in the cliff wall. One stood guard at the top of the cascade. After several minutes of careful examination Taniel was able to spot the second sentry below the camp, about thirty paces down the valley. It was a good defensive position, impossible to flank.

But Taniel wouldn’t be flanking anyone. Not on his own. The waterfall would be the only thing serving to cover his approach.

His lack of vision in the darkness was a blow, but he had been planning for the possibility of this ambush for over a week. He knew the lay of the terrain by heart. This was one of a half-dozen locations along the valley where scouts might have camped, and he’d been right in his assumptions all the way down to where they positioned their sentries.

Their Adran blues were difficult to see in the dark, but the silver buttons gave them away. Taniel felt a sudden misgiving. He’d been raised among these men and women-perhaps not those hunting him, but certainly their comrades. These were his brothers and sisters.