The Autumn Republic

“I think he’s right,” Taniel said. “I barely ate anything up on that mountain, but I wasn’t very hungry. I didn’t have any powder, but I could still see details at a hundred yards-nothing like with the powder, but my night vision and hearing and smell are all better than they were.” He looked at Tamas and his eyes were suddenly red. “I tore the jaw off of a man. Without any powder! I tore out a Warden’s rib and killed him with it. Well, that time I did have powder.”

“Pit,” Tamas breathed.

Taniel snorted. “I know. I’m damn hard to kill, too. I still bleed, but I’m stronger, faster. Kresimir ordered his men to break my arm. They couldn’t. I’ve changed, Dad, and it’s terrifying. And Mihali is dead and Ka-poel can’t speak, so I can’t learn what is happening to me.” Taniel stared down at his hands. His voice was raw.

“Taniel,” Tamas said. He gripped Taniel’s arm in one hand. “Listen to me. Whatever it is that’s happening to you, you’ll survive it. You’re a fighter.” You’re my son, he added silently.

“But what if it’s not worth surviving?”

For a moment Taniel wasn’t a man but the frightened boy Tamas had held after Erika’s death. Tamas grabbed Taniel’s shoulders and roughly pulled him into an embrace. “It’s always worth surviving, son.”

They remained that way for several minutes. Finally, Taniel pulled away and wiped his sleeve across his nose. Tamas let out a shaky breath and hoped Taniel didn’t see his own tears.

“Dad.”

“Yes?”

“I shot Kresimir in the eye. And then, when he caught me at the old fortress, I punched him in the face.”

Tamas stared at his son for a moment, shocked by the absurdity of it all. It started as a twitch deep in his stomach, then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. Taniel joined him a moment later, and they laughed until the tears streamed down their faces and Tamas forced himself to stop because his wound hurt so badly. When they regained their composure, they stared at each other for some time.

“I’m sorry for what I’ve been,” Tamas said. The words hurt to leave him, yet he simultaneously felt a great weight lifted. He watched the side of Taniel’s face for some kind of response, but Taniel was suddenly guarded. He turned and Tamas was afraid he’d walk away.

“You have a lot of children,” Taniel said, indicating the camp with a wave of his arm. “All your soldiers.”

“Only one of them matters.”

“They all matter. Dad, can you do me a favor?”

“Of course.”

“Forgive Vlora.”

Tamas raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t known what to expect, but that wasn’t it. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the scar from the bullet that had grazed his skull at the Battle at Kresimir’s Fingers. “That might take me a little while.”

“Just try.”

“I will.”

“Thanks. And Dad? Ka-poel is carrying around the effigy of Kresimir on her back. She’s the only thing keeping him from killing all of us.”

“She’s what?”

“And there’s something else.” Taniel drew a shaky breath. “I’m in love with her.”

Tamas snuck into the main Adran army camp a day later like a man who’d lost the keys to his own front door.

It wasn’t a grand entrance, he reflected, as Olem showed a set of orders to a sentry and Tamas kept the brim of his hat down over his face, hiding behind the lapels of his overcoat. But Tamas didn’t need a grand entrance. He needed quite the opposite.

The sentry looked over the paper for a moment, squinting to read it in the pale morning light, her lips moving silently. They were orders that Tamas himself had written, with his own signature at the bottom. When she finished, she handed the paper back to Olem and glanced suspiciously at Tamas. “Looks like everything is in order,” she said, waving them past.

Tamas gave a small sigh as they headed into the camp and lost themselves among the tents to throw off any suspicious guards that may have followed. He would have wanted his men to do a more thorough search of strangers-they were trained not to put up with any of this cloak-and-dagger bullshit that officers from the nobility had always seemed to like. But on the other hand, Tamas was glad to get in without being questioned further.

The camp was beginning to stir, the men climbing from their tents, brewing coffee over the coals of their cook fires, laundresses working their way through the camp to return clean uniforms. He and Olem discarded their overcoats and slipped the last hundred yards up to the command tent. Only a few men were about, and those that recognized him shook off their grogginess and snapped salutes.

“Morning, sir.”

“Morning.”

“Fine bit of work the other day, sir. I meant to congratulate you earlier, but haven’t seen you.”

“Thank you. Carry on,” Tamas said, gesturing a lieutenant back to his breakfast. He leaned over to Olem and whispered, “Well, I assume we won by the fact that the army is still intact.”

A captain interrupted him with a salute and a “Good morning.” “Congratulations on the victory, sir,” the woman said. “Sending the Hundred-and-First up the center like that was inspired work.”