The Autumn Republic

Tamas glanced between Vlora and Olem. Vlora had a darkening bruise on one cheek from the bookshelf and Olem cursed softly as he clutched at his groin. This woman had faced three armed strangers without fear, and she had only meant to incapacitate them? She had dropped Olem in a split second and nearly gotten the better of Tamas himself, even though he was burning a low powder trance.

“You’ve been hiring better people, I see,” Tamas said to Ricard.

Ricard returned to his desk chair and put his head in his hands. “You could have made an appointment, you know.”

“No, sir. He couldn’t,” Fell said from her spot on the floor. “He’s been out of contact for months. The city is in foreign hands. He wouldn’t know what to think.”

Ricard scowled at her for a moment, only for the scowl to slide away, a look of realization replacing it. “Oh. You think I sold the city out to the Brudanians, don’t you?”

“I know,” Tamas said, “that a foreign army holds my city and that I left you, the Proprietor, and Ondraus with the keys to the city gates.”

“It’s bloody Lord Claremonte.”

It was Tamas’s turn to scowl. “Lord Vetas’s master? Adamat didn’t root out that mongrel?”

“Adamat did an admirable job,” Ricard said. “Lord Vetas is dead and his men dead or scattered. We broke him only for his master to arrive with two brigades of Brudanian soldiers and half the Brudanian Royal Cabal.”

“No one defended the city?”

Ricard’s nostrils flared. “We tried. But… Claremonte didn’t come to conquer. Or so he says. He claims his army is only here to help defend us from the Kez. He’s running for the office of First Minister of Adro.”

“Like pit he is.” Tamas began to pace. This army in control of Adopest posed too many questions. If Tamas was going to find out answers, he’d have to do it backed by an army of his own. The Seventh and the Ninth, along with his Deliv allies, were still weeks away.

“Get me a meeting with Claremonte,” Tamas said.

“That might not be the best idea.”

“Why not?”

“He has half the Brudanian Royal Cabal behind him!” Ricard said. “Can you think of any group that hates you more than the royal cabals of the Nine? They’ll kill you outright and dump your body in the Ad.”

Tamas continued to pace. He didn’t have the time for this. So many enemies. So many facets to consider. He needed allies badly. “What news from the front?”

“They’re still holding, but…”

“But what?”

“I haven’t had any good information from the front for almost a month.”

“You haven’t heard from the General Staff for that long? Pit, the Kez could be at the city gates by tomorrow! Damn it, I…”

“Sir,” Fell said to Ricard. “Have you told him about Taniel?”

Tamas whirled on Ricard, snatching him by the front of the jacket. “What? What about him?”

“There have been… I mean, I’ve heard rumors, but-”

“What kind of rumors?”

“Nothing substantial.”

“Tell me.”

Ricard studied his hands before saying quietly, “That Taniel was captured by Kresimir and hung in the Kez camp. But,” he said more loudly, “they’re just rumors.”

Tamas could hear his heart thundering in his ears. The Kez had taken his boy? They had hung him like a piece of meat, some macabre trophy? Fear coursed through him, followed by the fire of white-hot fury. He found himself sprinting from Ricard’s office, shoving his way through the crowd out into the building’s main hall.

Olem and Vlora caught up with him in the street.

“Where are we going, sir?” Vlora asked.

Tamas gripped the butt of his pistol. “I’m going to find my boy, and if he’s not alive and well, I’m going to pull Kresimir’s guts out through his ass.”

CHAPTER 3

Adamat was on his way to arrest a general.

He sat in the back of a carriage, the ground bumping away beneath him, and stared out the window at the fields of southern Adro. The fields were golden with fall wheat, the stalks bent by the weight of their fruit and swaying gently in the wind. The peacefulness of it all made him think of his family; both his wife and children at home and the one sold into slavery by the enemy.

This might not go well.

No, Adamat corrected himself. This could not go well.

What kind of a madman goes to arrest a general during wartime? The government was in disarray-practically nonexistent-and it was a miracle that the courts were still operating on a local level. All federal cases had been suspended since Manhouch’s execution, and it had taken bribery and cajoling to get Ricard Tumblar, one of the interim-council elders, to sign a warrant for General Ket’s arrest. They’d strong-armed two local judges into signing the same warrant. Adamat hoped it would be enough.

The driver of the carriage gave a terse command and the carriage suddenly slowed to a stop, lurching Adamat forward in his seat. A glance out one window showed him the wheat fields and rolling hills that gradually gave way to the mountains of the Charwood Pile, their peaks far in the distance, while the other window gave him an unobstructed view of the Adsea stretching off to the southeast.

“Why have we stopped?”