The Autumn Republic

Taniel collected two knives and a bayonet that he’d taken from the Adran soldiers the other day. He regretted not stealing an air rifle. He could have at least used it as a pike with a bayonet on the end, but in his arrogance he’d broken them all in the Adran camp.

He kissed Ka-poel on the cheek, trying not to be put off by the way she turned away from him, and then left the cave behind, heading up and over the ridge and then following it to the east toward the Adran camp.

It didn’t take him longer than an hour to spot the advance elements of the company of Adran infantry. Six of them worked their way up the canyon slowly, cautiously, their rifles clutched in both hands and their eyes on the ridgelines high above them on either side.

He took up a position about three hundred yards above the floor of the canyon and hunkered down to wait.

The vanguard turned out to be fifty paces ahead of the rest of the company. The company was forced to advance in single file and, unlike the vanguard, they weren’t apprising themselves of their surroundings. They were fresh and overconfident. Some of the men joked, their chipper voices bouncing off the canyon walls. Taniel had hoped that his display to the squad the other day would make them more cautious, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

After all, they were only hunting one man and this was broad daylight.

Taniel knew he couldn’t fight all eighty of them. He didn’t stand a chance.

He waited until the entire company was within sight, strung out as they were along the canyon floor, and the center of the company was directly below his position. Then he lashed out with one foot at the log beside him and dashed out of the way as twenty tons of rubble immediately began to thunder down the canyon walls.

He couldn’t win, but he would damn well take as many of them to the Pit with him as possible.

The canyon echoed with the screams of the dying and the yells of the survivors as the thunder finally subsided in the wake of Taniel’s avalanche.

The sound made Taniel sick. He hadn’t wanted to kill his own countrymen. These men had friends and family. Children and wives and husbands. He might have fought beside some of them. He might have trained beside them.

It was no different from killing any enemy, he reminded himself. This was war. He had to kill or be killed.

Taniel stealthily stuck his head out from his hiding place to examine his handiwork.

The avalanche had cut the Adran company in half. At least ten of them had been buried by the falling rocks and another dozen or so wounded. A captain was pinned to the floor of the canyon by a boulder on his leg, and Taniel could hear his howls of pain. A lieutenant stood above him, directing a simultaneous defense-and-rescue mission. The infantry had scattered to whatever cover they could find, and now everyone had their eyes on the canyon’s walls.

They began to dig out their wounded, and when it became apparent that an attack was not imminent, two squads continued their journey up the canyon.

This was good news and bad news. The good news was that he’d split their forces. The bad news was that those two squads were heading toward Ka-poel’s cave.

He set off at a run just beneath the ridgeline, where he could be plainly seen by the soldiers below. A shout of alarm followed him a moment later and he heard the soft pop of air rifles. The distance was far too great for them to actually hit him, but he ducked behind a boulder anyway and took a moment to look back.

The lieutenant pointed toward him, shouting after the two squads. The two squad sergeants conferred, and then one squad headed straight up the steep incline toward Taniel while the other set about looking for a goat path or some other way to flank him.

Taniel had their attention now, and that’s what mattered.

He led the two squads on a chase along the ridgeline for over a mile. Of the twenty-four men, only three kept up with his pace, outstripping their comrades in their attempt to catch up. After all, they only had to get close enough for a shot with an air rifle to bring Taniel down. Hilanska must have offered a reward for his head. Soldiers normally weren’t this zealous.

The thought hardened Taniel’s heart against his reluctance to kill more of his countrymen. These men would gun him down without hesitation. They were hunting him like a dog.

He risked a dash across open ground, flinching at the pop of air rifles and the sound of bullets skipping off of the stone behind him. They were still just out of range, but a lucky shot aimed high might wound him. He leapt a fissure and continued on for some thirty paces before the ground gave way to rockier terrain and he leapt back into cover.

Out of sight of the squad, he doubled back, running in a crouch beneath the lip of a boulder until he was inside the fissure that he’d jumped only moments ago.

Taniel wondered what his father would say if he saw any of his own men being led into such an obvious trap.

Probably that the damned fools deserved to die.