The Autumn Republic

“Really?” Taniel was skeptical. Bo had once boasted that despite being the youngest Privileged in the Adran Cabal, he was one of the strongest. Tamas had confirmed that boast. For Bo to say something like this… “You’re intimidated by her?”

“No,” Bo said. “Julene was intimidating. And I went to bed with her. Nila is just…”

“You’re intimidated because she’s a better person than you are.”

“Go to the pit,” Bo said.

Taniel scowled. He’d just caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. His breath quickened, and he shifted slightly, trying to look to his left without being obvious about it.

“Well, don’t go all silent suddenly,” Bo said. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Quiet.” Taniel reached inside his jacket and flicked the cap off of the powder horn. Bo saw the action and stiffened. He checked his gloves.

“What is it?” Bo hissed.

“I saw a flash of Adran blue. A uniform,” Taniel said. “Farther down the canyon. About thirty yards.”

“Are you sure?”

Taniel reached out with his senses. “Yes. I’m sure.” He stood up, and Bo quickly followed, spinning to look down the canyon.

A rock tumbled down from a ledge fifty feet above them, then another on the opposite side of the canyon. An infantryman’s forage cap emerged, and Taniel could see the barrel of a rifle. Then another. Then another.

All around them, soldiers appeared on the canyon walls. Taniel stopped counting at twenty-five. “The rest of the infantry company,” he said, “the ones camped in the valley. Did you confront them, too?”

“I didn’t know there were more,” Bo said. “The camp I passed had less than a dozen men in it.”

Taniel sensed Bo reaching into the Else, and felt sorcery leak into this world. A breeze-touched with sorcery-lapped around Taniel’s legs and ruffled his jacket as a dozen more soldiers rounded the bend on the canyon floor, leveling their rifles. “They have gunpowder,” he said. “They’ll have to come a little closer for me to detonate them.”

“No need for that,” Bo said.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you recognize that insignia?”

Every one of the men had a patch on his shoulder-a chevron with a powder horn below it. He remembered the same patch on the uniforms of the men who had been guarding him when he awoke from his coma. Someone had told him that they belonged to a special regiment called Riflejacks.

“They’re not pointing their guns at you,” Bo said.

Riflejacks. That special regiment reported to Field Marshal Tamas’s bodyguard.

“Privileged Borbador,” a voice called. “If you would please remove your gloves.”

Bo’s fingers twitched. Taniel could feel his sorcery tightening, like muscles moving beneath the skin. A wave of conflict flashed across Bo’s face and he slowly stepped away from Taniel. From up on the ridge and down in the canyon, every rifle followed him. Taniel remembered the gaes that had held Bo, the one that would have forced him to kill Field Marshal Tamas.

“Don’t do it, Bo,” Taniel said. He could see Bo’s arms tense and his fingers wiggle in anticipation. Taniel didn’t know what he could do, but this would only end in a great deal of bloodshed if Bo unleashed his sorcery.

Ka-poel suddenly stood up, leaving Kresimir’s casket on the ground. She strode around in front of Bo before Taniel could stop her, and held out one hand to him.

“You don’t want to stand there, little sister.”

Ka-poel thrust her hand at him emphatically, palm up.

“Give her the gloves, Bo. I won’t let them kill you,” Taniel said. And he wouldn’t. He’d kill a hundred of his own countrymen if they came after Bo. He’d die by his friend’s side if that was what it meant. He stared hard at Bo until the Privileged gave a barely perceptible nod, acknowledging that he had gotten Taniel’s meaning.

Bo lowered his arms. He glared down the canyon as he plucked at the fingers of his gloves and then set them in Ka-poel’s outstretched palm. She took the gloves and walked down the canyon until she reached the Adran soldiers. One of the men examined the gloves in her hands and gave a sharp nod, letting her pass.

She reappeared a moment later, and she wasn’t alone.

Field Marshal Tamas walked stiffly up the canyon to Taniel. He seemed to have aged ten years in the last few months, and looked more frail than Taniel could ever have imagined him. By his gait, he was hiding a wound. A bad one.

“You look like the pit, Dad,” Taniel said.

“You don’t look a damned sight better,” Tamas said. His back was rigid, and he examined Bo out of the corner of his eye as one might regard a cave lion sitting on one’s porch, before he turned back to Taniel. Taniel took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Last he’d heard, his father was presumed dead, and though there had been cause to consider his survival, Taniel had not had the time to either grieve or rejoice. A torrent of emotions rushed through him, and he struggled to hold them all in check, turning his face into a blank canvas.

“Glad to see you still alive,” Taniel said.

The old man’s face was impassive. The pinnacle of military discipline.