The Autumn Republic

“Who are you talking about?” Nila asked. “What are we doing here?”

“Confronting a demigod,” Bo said.

Nila blanched. “Excuse me?”

Taniel lifted the tent flap to the hospital. “Ladies first,” he said to Ka-poel. To Nila: “Don’t worry. She doesn’t have any hands. The two of you can wait out here.”

The tent held three times as many beds as it did occupants, and Taniel wondered whether that was a good or a bad sign. Regardless, the lack of nurses fit their purposes, while none of the wounded seemed coherent. Well, almost none of the wounded.

Julene sat on a cot on the far side, the corner flap of the tent cracked so that she could see outside. She didn’t turn as he and Ka-poel approached.

“I see they cut you down,” Taniel said.

“No thanks to you.” Julene’s voice seemed to have recovered from months staked out in the sun without water. Taniel circled her cot, craning his head to look at her arms. They ended in bandaged stumps. A part of him had wondered if they would grow back after long enough. After all, her sorcery made her stronger than just about anything short of a god.

“You asked me to kill you. Not to cut you down,” Taniel said. Nor would he have promised to do the latter. She’d killed friends. She’d tried to kill him. She’d summoned Kresimir into this world, causing so much death and destruction.

Julene shifted on her cot, lifting her right stub and jabbing it toward him. “And you’ve come to fulfill your promise?”

Taniel drew his pistol in answer.

“I see.” Julene stared down at where her hands had once been, then glanced at Ka-poel. “You’re just something else, aren’t you? I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Have you loaded that thing with one of her bullets? The ones you used to kill Privileged up on South Pike?”

“I have,” Taniel said. He licked his lips. He wanted to lift the pistol and pull the trigger, but something was holding him back. Perhaps it was regret. Caution. Unwillingness to further the bloodshed. He was not certain. “Did they know what you are when they cut you down?” he asked.

Julene shrugged. “The Deliv cabal has been glancing in on me, but I just told them I was a mercenary who’d offended Kresimir, and he kept me alive with his sorcery.”

“And they believed you?”

“Why wouldn’t they? It’s mostly truth. Besides, even if they knew I was a Predeii, they’d know I’m not a threat without hands.”

“You have a lot of knowledge, though.”

“That’s why I’m not telling them,” Julene said, the scar on her face tugged by her shallow smile. “Best get on with it, shouldn’t we?”

Taniel glanced at Ka-poel. Her face was placid. He lifted his pistol.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider going back on your promise, would you?” Julene asked mildly.

Surprised, Taniel lowered his pistol. “You think I would? After all the grief you’ve caused?”

“It was worth asking.” Julene shrugged, as if she didn’t much care one way or another.

“You want to live like this?”

Julene turned her arms over. “I might be able to get it back. The Else, that is. I can still see it, I just don’t have fingers to touch it. And even if I didn’t, maybe I deserve this. Maybe I deserve spending the next thousand years on the Deliv cabal’s torture racks, giving them every ounce of my knowledge.”

Taniel examined the side of her face for several silent moments. He wondered if Julene was truly sorry for what she’d done, or if this was all an act. She regretted summoning Kresimir, that’s for certain. But the murder? The chaos? Did she regret all that?

Taniel stuffed his pistol back in his belt.

Julene’s eyes flicked from him to Ka-poel, then back, widening slightly. “Don’t toy with me, Two-shot. Finish it or don’t, but for those months I spent hanging from Kresimir’s beam, for these hands of mine, you owe it to me not to toy.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Taniel said. “But I’m no executioner. I’m only here because I promised to kill you when you wanted an end. Now that you don’t want an end… I’m tired of the blood. Tired of the fighting. Another gunshot won’t solve anything. But you have to promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“Let it all go. Any grudges you hold for Borbador or anyone else in Adro, they’re finished. Over. You’ve no business here.”

“Agreed,” Julene said, almost too quickly. They watched each other for some time before she raised her chin to Taniel. “I’ll remember it, Two-shot.”

He and Ka-poel left Julene in the tent and joined Bo and Nila outside.

“I didn’t hear a gunshot,” Bo said.

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Is leaving her alive a good idea?” Bo asked, looking slightly nervous. He had begun to peel off his gloves but now had stopped.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think she’ll bother you any more, though.”

“You better believe I’m going to have her watched, regardless.”

“Don’t blame you,” Taniel said.

“Is that it, then?” Bo asked. “Are you leaving?”

Taniel exchanged a glance with Ka-poel. It was almost time for that, yes. But not quite. “I’ve got one last thing to do,” he said.

EPILOGUE