The Autumn Republic

Adamat’s heart fell as he dwelt upon that thought. The Kez still outnumbered Adro by at least four to one, and now that they battled on the open plains, it would be an easy thing for the Kez to spread their superior numbers and engulf the smaller Adran army.

The bulk of the battle was now hidden in the low cover of black musket smoke, obscuring the southern horizon as if an entire city were afire. To the southwest, Adamat could see the Adran cuirassiers struggling to disengage themselves after a successful charge at the Kez flank. Kez auxiliaries were already advancing at a double march to cut off the cuirassiers’ escape.

To Adamat’s horror, the auxiliaries continued to fan out, stretching impossibly far beyond the edge of the Wings’ lines. The Kez must have been expecting Hilanska to take care of the Wings’ flank, and now that the ruse had been betrayed, they had commanded several brigades forward to take care of the job.

And they would do so easily. Even if all those auxiliaries were untrained and unequipped, they more than made up for it in bulk. They would collapse the Wings’ right by sheer manpower.

Beside Adamat, Nila had taken to snapping her fingers, igniting her arm and then putting it out again with Privileged sorcery. She had stopped watching the battle and seemed completely enthralled in her own experimentation. He noticed that the Wings’ colonel had taken a long step away from her, and he did the same. Nila-by her own admission-didn’t have any idea what she was doing, and Adamat didn’t care to find out how many charred corpses it took for most Privileged to figure it out.

The Adran cuirassiers finally pulled themselves away from the Kez flank and fled before the advancing auxiliaries. They had left an enormous dent in the side of the Kez infantry, but their own numbers had suffered, and they retreated to the northwest to lick their wounds.

The auxiliaries slowed when they realized they would not catch the cuirassiers and swung around to march against the Wings’ flank. Adamat, even with his unskilled eye, could see it would end in disaster. He hoped that Tamas was planning on sending more reinforcements to this side, because it couldn’t get much worse.

Adamat swore to himself under his breath. Why had he let that thought enter his head? Of course it could get worse.

It just had.

A brigade of Kez auxiliaries had just broken off from the main body and was marching straight for the camp. Another brigade soon followed, and Adamat realized that nothing but the Wings’ colonel and her one brigade of green troops stood between the camp and the Kez.

Even if they managed a strong defense, it would still be a slaughter. The Kez infantry wouldn’t turn away at the last moment. They would overrun the camp defenders, kill any followers, loot and burn the camp, and then turn to attack the Wings from behind.

The Wings’ colonel gave a rapid succession of orders. Messengers sprinted toward the front, and the companies wheeled from the north to face this new threat.

Adamat drew his cane sword and clutched it tightly in one hand. He immediately felt silly. What would a cane sword do against musketmen with bayonets fixed? He thought to ask the colonel if there was a spare rifle he could use, but she dashed away suddenly, shouting orders at a nearby captain.

That left Adamat alone with Nila. The girl Privileged was still flicking her fingers, sparking blue flames along her arm.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Trying to get this to work,” she answered, not looking up. Another snap of the fingers and the blue flame erupted around her hand. She shook the flames out with a look of frustration.

“Do you think this is the best time for that?”

He noticed that Nila was paying close attention to where she positioned her fingers when she snapped them. Each new try she moved them slightly, and then attempted a quick combination of snaps, rubbing her thumb against first her forefinger, then her middle finger.

“I might not get another chance.”

“Well, look,” Adamat said. He knew what she was thinking. Make it work. Save everyone with her newfound sorcery. But of course she couldn’t learn to use her sorcery in just a few moments, and the very idea of the girl trying seemed incredibly absurd. As absurd as him standing here with his cane sword drawn. “We need to get as far toward the back of the camp as we can. Once the fighting starts, we could make a run for the Adran lines. Then we could… Ah!”

A jet of flame shot from Nila’s hand and traced a finger of blackened earth across the ground twenty paces away, nearly setting fire to a nearby corporal.

Nila gave a scream-half startled, half victorious. “I’ve got it!”

“What? You haven’t got it,” Adamat said. “Do you even know what you did?”