The Autumn Republic

Taniel grasped the barrel of the air rifle in both hands and flexed. Slowly, the barrel gave way. He bent it all the way to a right angle, his muscles screaming in protest at the force required.

He then snuck back up to the camp. He found a burlap sack and gathered all of the air canisters, then stripped the men of their rations and kits-he gathered a knife, a sword, and enough food to feed himself and Ka-poel for over a month.

He left them all sleeping soundly in their bedrolls. They’d wake in the morning-or when their sentries regained consciousness-to find themselves robbed.

And in the center of their camp, just beside the fire, a neat pile of eleven air rifles, each of them bent into an L-shape.

CHAPTER 7

Nila waited northwest of the Adran camp, her dress damp from the grass beneath her. The stars above were hidden by a veil of clouds, and despite the thousands of cook fires in the camp to the southeast and Bo’s warm body by her side, she felt utterly alone in the wilderness.

During the day she knew she would have seen the plains of southern Adopest stretching all the way to the mighty Black Tar Forest that skirted the Charwood Pile Mountain Range to their west. To the east was the Adsea, and the Adran Mountains to the south that separated Adro and Kez.

She had once been told that they were called the Adran Mountains by Adro and the Kresim Mountains by Kez. She rubbed her hands together to get them warm and wondered how these mountains were labeled in the maps of those outside of Adro or Kez. The autumn chill was here and the leaves would fall from their trees any week now. All her clothes were in the luggage on top of their carriage where they’d left it in the Adran camp.

And inside that was the corpse of an assassin with a melted face.

“Are you still going to help Adamat find his son?” she asked. It occurred to her, just after she’d spoken, that if Bo was willing to lie to Adamat, he wouldn’t hesitate to hide the truth from her.

Bo shifted beside her. They had slipped out of the camp with little trouble, some trick of Bo’s sorcery, stepping around soldiers and sentries as if they were invisible. He hadn’t said much since then.

“I keep my word,” Bo said. The slight hesitation. The regret in his voice. He didn’t want to.

“You’re thinking you shouldn’t have brought Adamat and Oldrich along in the first place,” Nila said quietly.

Bo snorted but said nothing.

“Well?”

“Of course I am. It proved nothing but a complication. Certainly it got us a meeting with Hilanska, but I only endangered their lives and made it harder for us to get anything done. On my own I could have slipped into the camp, tortured a few key people for information, and gotten out again.”

It was odd the way Bo expressed regret over endangering the lives of those men in one breath and spoke of torturing innocent soldiers in the next. In Nila’s mind those two items were mutually exclusive, and yet she still thought of Bo as a good man. Was she wrong, or was it more complicated than that?

Bo waved a hand dismissively, as if in response to something she didn’t say. “He’s out of harm’s way by now.”

“Can you be sure?”

“The missing prisoners have certainly been discovered,” Bo said. “If Hilanska wanted to make much ado about it, there would be search parties combing these fields already. Perhaps riders going after Colonel Etan. No. Hilanska will sweep it under the rug. Perhaps he doesn’t have the time or manpower to organize a search.” Bo’s head tilted toward Nila and she thought she could make out the shadow of a smile on his face. “Perhaps the assassin with a melted head has discouraged pursuit.”

Nila cleared her throat. She didn’t want to talk about that. Pit, she didn’t want to remember that. The feel of the man’s skull giving way beneath her burning hand would give her nightmares for months. She shuddered. “What are we watching for out here?”

“Spies,” he said.

She couldn’t help but scoff. “Spies? Out here? It’s pitch-black!”

“Don’t look toward the fires of the camp. Even at this distance they can damage your night vision.”

She had been doing just that, wishing she had someplace warm to sleep tonight. Her teeth began to chatter and she scooted a little closer to Bo. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere. Why would a spy come up here?”

“To circle around the sentries,” Bo said. She could see the shadow of his arm as he pointed. “Hilanska’s camp is down there. And over there,” he said, pointing due south, “about seven miles away is Ket’s camp. Beyond them are the Kez. And up there”-he pointed to the northwest-“are the Wings of Adom, a mercenary company in the employ of Adro.”

“They’re keeping their distance while their employers are fighting each other?”