The Autumn Republic

Taniel fetched the rations he’d stolen from the Adran soldiers. He and Ka-poel set upon them hungrily. The biscuits were hard and salty, the dried beef as stringy as catgut, but he’d never tasted anything quite this good. He went through two meals’ worth before he forced himself to stop eating. He’d get cramps something fierce, and…

The taste of hard cheese brought back a memory that he’d wished to forget: Kresimir standing victoriously over where Adom-Mihali-had once stood. These soldiers were only eating marching rations because Mihali was dead. Taniel kicked the pack of rations away from him, feeling suddenly ill. To his great surprise, he felt a tear roll down his cheek.

He quickly brushed it away.

Ka-poel took him by the arm and forced him to lie on the cold of the cave floor, his head in her lap, then began gently rubbing his temples. He stretched out, careful not to touch Kresimir’s doll, and felt the pain begin to bleed out of his legs and arms and his mind begin to drift.

He started awake, opening his eyes to find his head still in Ka-poel’s lap, her soft hand pressed to his cheek. The cave was well lit by the sun, telling him it was just past noon.

Taniel stifled a yawn and told himself to get up. He needed to be back out there, watching for more Adran squads, but Ka-poel was warm, and despite the cold of the cave floor he felt as if he had been sitting in a hot bath for hours.

“I have to… Pole, is that blood on your finger?”

The tip of Pole’s finger was smeared with crimson. She pressed it to her lips and looked down at him for a moment, her thoughts elsewhere. She then pressed the finger to his right cheek. He reached up to stop her, but her other hand took his in a surprisingly strong grip and she ministered to first one cheek, then the other. He could feel the blood drying on his face.

She licked the blood off her finger and more welled up in its place. It was her blood, then. What was she doing? Was this sorcery? Some kind of savage ritual?

He pushed her away and got to his feet, feeling strange. “Pole, what are you doing?” He wiped one sleeve across his cheek and looked at it. Nothing. Very strange.

Further questions were met with a yawn.

Taniel left Ka-poel passively regarding the doll of Kresimir. He headed out of the cave and climbed to the apex of the mountain, where he followed the ridgeline.

The canyon down to his right was where he had ambushed the squad of Adran infantry. It would take them half the day to make their way back to where their company camped. If they marched double-time, they would only now arrive.

Taniel didn’t need to be that close.

He continued along the ridge, keeping to the eastward side, where he was least likely to be spotted by any sharp-eyed scouts. The ridge began to narrow dangerously, giving him fewer places to hide, but he continued on until he reached a sharp, flat slab of rock beyond which the sky stretched out like the serene surface of a mountain lake. He crawled to the edge of the rock on his hands and knees and peered over the edge.

Veridi Valley was a jagged rend between two tall, gray-capped mountains. The floor of the valley had to be at least a thousand feet beneath him. A river less than twenty feet across trickled down the middle, and tough mountain brush bristled along the valley floor. The canyon where he’d ambushed the Adran soldiers let out into the Veridi Valley to Taniel’s west. The valley, in turn, let out into another, and that led twenty miles or more to the plains of Adro.

On the valley floor were the dots of at least a hundred tents: a company of Adran soldiers. Taniel had little doubt now that they had been sent by Hilanska-and he guessed that every one of them had an air rifle. Where had they gotten the air rifles? From Kez?

Did these men know that they were betraying their country?

Movement caught Taniel’s eye. A small group emerged from the canyon and made their way toward the Adran camp. Taniel shifted to get comfortable and cursed his poor eyesight. In a powder trance he’d be able to see the very expressions on their faces. With his normal sight, he could barely count their number.

This was the moment of truth. Would his act of clemency convince them to turn around? Would they realize they’d been duped by their commander into tracking down an ally? Would they be frightened by Taniel’s show of strength?

He waited for hours, squinting to see the movement in the camp, not even able to venture a guess as to their plans. No doubt the squad would give their report and the officers would convene. The company major would listen to advice from his captains and make a decision.

Solitary figures began to leave the camp. Taniel tracked their movement as they headed toward the various crags and valleys up and down the canyon floor.

They were recalling the other search parties.