The Autumn Republic

“Kresimir help me, I will set your boots on fire if you don’t get your heads together,” she snapped.

“Sir!” someone called from out in the darkness. “We’ve found Privileged Borbador! Come quickly!”

Nila had no time to reflect on the fact that she had just stepped between two of the strongest, most deadly powder mages in the world. She had no time to think of her fire or her anger. Even the men who followed upon her heels barely touched upon her mind.

Bo could be dead.

Once Tamas and Taniel had been pulled apart, a soldier led them all through the smoke and gloom, torch held over his head. Nila stumbled as she ran, her trembling hands betraying her. The burned grass quickly gave way and clods of dirt fouled her already uncertain step. The torchlight played upon the smoke and then upon immense shapes reaching into the night.

Tamas was called away, and he told them to go on ahead and find Bo, then took off at a run after a messenger.

The smoke began to recede and the smell of soil suddenly filled her nostrils as if she had stumbled into a damp root cellar. They stood among immense mounds of mud, scooped from the ground as if with a spade the size of a house. She did not open her third eye-she dared not, for fear of being overwhelmed. She didn’t need to. She could sense the sorcery still hanging in the air. Potent sorceries had tilled the ground as easily as a plow might turn a field, and the prospect terrified Nila.

Earth Privileged, Bo had called them. Capable of manipulating solid elements and shaping the very landscape.

Nila was shoved aside as Taniel barreled past her. “Bo? Where is he, damn it? Bo!”

Could he not sense the power that had been unleashed here? To Nila it was as if the ground might close around her at any moment-a trap waiting to be sprung by the unwary. She steadied herself against one of the mounds of earth, trying to catch her breath. Her entire body shook from fear.

“Bo!”

Taniel’s certain call drew Nila from within herself and she was running forward before her own fear could stop her once more.

Bo lay half-buried in the dirt. Black rods, each as thick as a man’s wrist and three to four feet tall, peppered the ground around him like a small forest, rammed into the ground at an angle, and with what appeared to be great force. The stench of spent sorcery was so thick Nila could barely approach, and the rods steamed in the chill night air.

“Don’t touch those!” Bo’s shrill, frantic warning came just a moment too late. One unfortunate soldier grasped a rod with both hands and leapt back with a howl, leaving several layers of charred skin on the rod. “Damn it,” Bo said weakly. His body trembled and sweat poured down his face. “They’re bloody enchanted. Fire and earth, woven together to keep them hot. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I’m getting bloody hot in here.”

The rods were clustered closely around Bo like a palisade, leaving him trapped and unable to move. She took a torch from one of the soldiers and held it out over Bo to confirm her suspicions. Blood streaked his hands, his Privileged gloves nothing more than shredded ribbons.

“The rods,” Nila shouted. “We have to get them out! He can’t do it himself. Bring horses and chains.”

No one moved and Taniel whirled on the soldiers. “You heard the Privileged. Go!”

Nila ignored them and edged closer to the rods, flinching from the heat. “Breathe, Bo, breathe! Stay with me. Is there anything I can do?”

Bo made a soft mewling sound, then said, “Just hurry with the horses.”

“What happened?” Taniel asked. “Where is Ka-poel?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought it was pretty obvious we were bloody well attacked!” Bo’s voice rose to a crescendo at the end of the sentence.

“Can you move your hands?” Nila asked.

“Barely. Whoever that was, she did a number on me.”

“I should have been here.”

“You would have been killed.”

“Bring a doctor,” Taniel shouted. “Where are those horses? You there, get shovels. Dig on that side of the slope. We can try to undermine the rods.”

Nila hated that she couldn’t do anything. She had no knowledge of air or earth sorcery, the two kinds that would allow her to remove the lances herself. She counted seven of them and tried to focus on the sorcery that caused the heat. She nudged it with her senses, agonizing on the thought that, had she better knowledge of powers, she might be able to at least pick apart the wards. “How long are these rods?”

“I didn’t see, as that bitch was ramming them through me,” Bo said. “I was too busy trying to kill her back. Kresimir, that hurts and”-he lifted his head toward the men digging downhill from him-“Stop that! The shifting dirt is grinding that thing against me and it hurts like bloody pit.”

“One of them’s touching you?” Nila asked.

“Uh, yeah. That one down there.” Bo waggled his chin. His face was red from the heat. Blood and sweat streamed down his face. “You know, right about where my knee used to be.”