Just to be sure, Michel checked each of the crates. They needed to be full to be convincing and he had no interest in risking this whole setup just because of a little laziness on his part. He finished his task and covered them back up, then pulled the pistol out of his shoulder bag and loaded it. Time to put things in motion.
He emerged from the catacombs less than fifty paces from the location of the hidden guns. A narrow tunnel let out behind an outcropping in the far corner of Meln-Dun’s quarry, and Michel emerged in the dim morning light and listened for several minutes for any sounds of patrolling guards or wandering quarry workers before poking his head out from cover. He was just above where the quarry fence met the rock wall of the Depths. This part of the quarry was long disused, far from most of the blasting and digging and as distant as one could get from the sounds and smells of Greenfire Depths without actually leaving it.
Michel barely had to glance to his right to look down upon a small but tidy-looking foreman’s house: Meln-Dun’s residence when he didn’t have time to head to his country manor. Michel watched for several more minutes, looking for guards, signs of movement, or anything else suspicious. Nothing. He threw his bag over his shoulder and scrambled down from his hiding spot, crossing to the back of the house in just a few steps.
His heart was raging but his head was cool, and Michel carefully checked each step off in the back of his head. No room for mistakes here.
Picking the lock on the front door took just a handful of seconds. He slipped inside, paused to get his bearings. The house was a one-room residence with a wood-burning stove in one corner, a one-person dining table in another, and a card table in the center of the room. Like the outside, everything here was tidy. Meln-Dun had a maid come twice a day, his three meals delivered from his favorite restaurant, and few visitors outside of his foremen, who came to play cards two nights a week.
Meln-Dun valued his privacy, and only took his Dynize visitors at his office a few hundred yards from the little house. No whores. No friends. Michel had been certain he’d be alone.
After a thorough examination of the house, Michel cracked the door to the one bedroom. One body in the bed. Gentle but deep snoring. No weapons within sight. He pulled his bag off his shoulder and produced his pistol, taking several deep breaths as he left behind Michel Bravis and became Tellurin the thief-taker. With a sharp inhale, he burst through the bedroom door shouting.
“Meln-Dun! Meln-Dun!”
The quarry master leapt from his bed, hands flailing, nightclothes asunder and pure confusion covering his face.
Michel brandished his pistol but did not point it at Meln-Dun. “Quickly, master, is there anyone here?”
“What? No, no, of course not!”
“The Dynize,” Michel said desperately. “Are they near?”
“No, I…” Meln-Dun’s eyes began to focus and they fell on Michel’s pistol. “What are you doing?” he asked in horror.
Michel looked at the pistol as if confused himself, then pointed it at the ceiling. “Sorry, master, I had to be sure.”
“Sure about what?” Suspicion crept into Meln-Dun’s tone. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Wait, I know you! You’re—”
“Tellurin,” Michel stated. “I’ve been working for Dahre. Look, there’s little time to explain, but Dahre has ordered me to get you out of here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’ve uncovered a plot.” Michel grabbed Meln-Dun by one shoulder to steady him. “Mama Palo, that insidious bitch, has set you up! She’s convinced the Dynize that you’re running weapons and spying for the Lady Chancellor Lindet.”
“That’s mad!” Meln-Dun continued to flail around, clearly trying to fight off the dregs of sleep still clinging to his mind. “Where’s Dahre?”
“Of course it’s mad, but she’s managed to do it. We uncovered the plot just an hour ago. Dahre is trying to clean everything up, but the Dynize might be here at any moment. If they get their hands on you, they’ll execute you without hesitation.” Michel swore several times, working himself into a desperate fury.
“I’m their friend! They’ve been good to me!”
“They don’t trust anyone,” Michel hissed. “Why do you think they’ve had that dragonman hanging around the quarry?”
Meln-Dun’s eyes grew wide in understanding. “That dragonman. Pit. Oh, pit,” he wailed. “What do we do?” Meln-Dun began to clutch at Michel’s arm. Michel smiled inwardly. He had him.
“It’s all right. We’ll take care of it. I have to get you out of here. We put you in hiding for a couple of weeks and smooth things over with the Dynize. It’ll take us some time to unwind the evidence that Mama Palo has planted, but I’m convinced we can do it.” Michel gestured. “Quickly, get dressed. Grab anything of value. We have to move fast!”
Meln-Dun threw himself into action, and it quickly became apparent that he’d already put some consideration into what items he’d take with him were he forced to flee, but he’d never actually practiced packing them. He attacked his bureau with vigor, dressing as he did a whirlwind job of his own bedroom. The wardrobe was flung open, a loose board removed from the floor, and a small strongbox retrieved. Meln-Dun fetched a checkbook, two thick bundles of Adran krana, and a couple of small leather satchels, tossing them all into a shoulder bag not unlike Michel’s.
Within five minutes he was standing in the center of the room, looking around, breathing heavily. “I think I have everything,” he told Michel with a fearful nod. “We go?”
“Not that way,” Michel said, taking Meln-Dun by the arm. “Out the back. Through the window. Let’s go.”
Meln-Dun crawled out first. Michel hesitated, giving the room a once-over as well. While Meln-Dun had been trying to think of other valuables to take with him, Michel gave it a critical eye. The place looked, even to an amateur, like Meln-Dun had fled in a panic.
Perfect.
He crawled out after the quarry boss and left the window open behind them. He took Meln-Dun by the arm. “This way,” he ordered. They scrambled up the rock face, Michel being sure to scuff and mark the rock as much as possible, leaving a clear trail behind him. They went up and over, and Michel showed Meln-Dun the narrow entrance.
“Pit,” Meln-Dun exclaimed in wonder as he crawled inside. “Just feet from where I was sleeping. I had no idea this was here!”
Michel didn’t answer him. They gained the main tunnel and were able to stand, and Michel felt around for his lamp. He was able to get it lit within a few moments, illuminating the tunnel and Meln-Dun’s frightened face. That expression almost—almost—made Michel feel bad for what he was doing. But it didn’t quite crack it. Meln-Dun had executed an old woman to cement his own position and then sold out the Palo to the Dynize invasion. There was no sympathy for a man like that.
“Where do we go now?” Meln-Dun asked.
“This way.” Michel led Meln-Dun down the tunnel, past the covered crates of Adran rifles. Meln-Dun was so busy fretting he didn’t even glance at them. They took a right turn and continued down a long hallway that zigzagged for some length roughly parallel to the wall of Greenfire Depths. Michel could hear Meln-Dun muttering to himself and half listened, noting the fear and desperation turn to indignation, then turn to anger.
“How dare they?” Meln-Dun asked himself. “How could they turn on me like this, after everything I’ve done? Greenfire Depths is mine! Mine! They need me if they want to keep the Palo contained.”
The muttering erased any trace of guilt that Michel still felt. Once the anger began to grow, he put Meln-Dun in front of him. The quarry boss didn’t even seem to notice the change, or the pistol that Michel now had pointed at his back.
“Take a left,” Michel told him. “Down there. Good, now to the right. Okay, we’re almost there.”
“Where is there?” Meln-Dun asked.
“To a safe place,” Michel answered. They took a short set of worn stairs up and past a handful of marked tombs, emerging into the
basement of an old Kressian church. Michel ordered Meln-Dun to climb up into the chapel, and they soon emerged into a worn-out room with a handful of pews, lit only by Michel’s lamp and a sliver of morning light coming in through the one stained-glass window high up in the roof of the building.
“Is this it?” Meln-Dun asked, looking around.
Michel let out a long, relieved sigh and dropped into one of the pews. “This is it.”
They remained in silence for nearly a minute before Meln-Dun began to get antsy. “What are we waiting for?”
“Friends,” Michel said loudly. The code word echoed off the high chapel ceiling. He’d barely said it when a pair of figures emerged from behind the altar. Another came up from behind one of the pews. The chapel doors were thrown open, and four more entered.
Meln-Dun whirled, peering at faces in the dim light. “Dahre? Is that you?” He took a step back. “I don’t recognize any of you. Tellurin, who are these people?”
Jiniel was the first figure Michel recognized. Ichtracia stepped into the light of his lamp a few seconds later. Michel lifted his pistol and pointed it at Meln-Dun. “Meln-Dun, meet Mama Palo.”
The quarry head tried to run. He caught a fist in his belly and doubled over, collapsing to the feet of one of Jiniel’s foot soldiers. She looked down at him dispassionately until another foot soldier got a good look at his face. “It’s him, ma’am.”
“What’s going on?” Meln-Dun moaned from the ground. He was silenced by a swift kick from one of the foot soldiers.
“Son of a bitch,” Jiniel breathed. “I can’t believe you actually pulled that off.”
Michel put up his pistol. “He’s yours,” he reported.
“And what did you leave behind?”
“The Yaret Household will receive anonymous evidence of Meln-Dun’s collusion with the enemy general Lady Flint within the hour,” Michel said. “They’ll rush to confront him and find that he’s fled ahead of any accusations that might be leveled. They’ll further find a stash of Adran rifles just behind his house. The evidence will all be there. They’ll shut down his quarry and put a price on his head.”
“How can you be sure?” Jiniel asked.
“I’m not completely. But that’s how they’ll operate. The best part of all of this is they’ll tear apart his organization. Imprison a few for questioning. Scatter the rest. If they try to cover up his alleged involvement with Lady Flint, we’ll leak it to the newspapers.”
“You tricked me,” Meln-Dun hissed in horror.
Ichtracia laughed. Pure mirth, tinged with a small, terrifying splash of cruelty. Michel stood up. “Good-bye, Meln-Dun.” He took Jiniel by the arm and led her out through the front doors of the chapel, then turned to her. “Remember, you’re not to kill him.”
“He deserves it,” Jiniel sniffed.
“I have my reasons.”
“You’re going soft?”
“Softness has nothing to do with it,” Michel replied. “What I have in mind for Meln-Dun is far better than a quick death.”
CHAPTER 30
Vlora examined both the Adran and Dynize camps in the morning gloom. Smoke from the charred remains of the southern Dynize camp obscured her view and made her eyes water. The place looked like the floor of a butcher shop that had recently burned down, the ground carpeted with the bodies of the dead, dying, and wounded in between the smoldering remains of tents and supply wagons.
The northern Dynize camp—General Etepali’s—looked practically cheery in comparison. It had been hastily abandoned in the wee hours of the morning, leaving behind tents, unnecessary gear, and random spots of tidy occupation where the camp followers hadn’t been fast enough to follow their retreating army. Vlora’s own soldiers were currently picking through the scattered remains to look for anything of value that General Etepali might have left behind.
Vlora stared at it all through bleary eyes, functioning on a few hours of deep sleep, smarting from fresh stitches from one of her medics. Last night felt like a nightmare to her, a series of half-remembered events that barely formed a cohesive narrative. Yet here she was, looking at what remained.
Someone had thrown a blanket over her shoulders at some point, and she clung to it like a drowning man to a plank of wood. Beside her, General Sabastenien read out reports. She half listened, nodding when she was expected to nod and saying a word or two when she was expected to respond.
“Final word has come in from our scouts,” he was in the middle of saying. “It seems that once General Etepali realized what was happening last night, she woke her soldiers and organized an attack. They pushed our flank hard—that was a stroke of brilliance, having us build those barricades, by the way—but once they realized they couldn’t take advantage of the attack, they pulled up stakes and retreated. They’re about five miles directly to our southwest now.”
“About what I expected,” Vlora said dully.
“I wonder why she attacked our flank in our camp,” he mused out loud, “rather than attacking our troops that were undertaking the slaughter of her allies.”
Vlora roused herself enough to look at Sabastenien. “Because she didn’t expect us to leave anyone to defend our rear. She expected us to be completely absorbed in the slaughter, which would have allowed her to crush our camp and then sweep in behind us. That would have been more effective than going to the aid of her allies.”
Sabastenien blinked at her. “She allowed her allies to be slaughtered as a distraction?”
“It might have worked, too. It’s why I left Nila and Bo back in the camp.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Sabastenien cleared his throat. “She managed to do some damage, I’ll give her credit for that. Most of our casualties last night came from her. About two thousand men killed or wounded.” He let out a half sigh, half laugh. “Initial estimates on the Dynize are twenty thousand casualties. I’d say that’s a resounding victory. Congratulations, Lady Flint.”
Vlora tried to smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“General, could you excuse us for a moment?” It was Bo, sidling up to Vlora’s left and nodding at Sabastenien. Bo looked a little worse for the wear, with bags under his eyes and a tiny bit of his hair singed off the top. Vlora wondered just how close Etepali’s Privileged had gotten to overwhelming him and Nila.
“Of course,” Sabastenien replied, tipping his hat to Vlora. “Lady Flint. Magus Borbador.” He retreated down the hillside.
Vlora felt Bo take her by the elbow and allowed herself to be steered back into her tent. They were barely inside before Bo released her and began to pace violently, then finally rounded on her. “What the pit is wrong with you?” he demanded.
She tried to find her voice, failed.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed? Are you that bloody-minded right now that you accompanied our troops on a night attack in your condition?”
Under normal circumstances she would have snapped right back. His tone was accusatory and venomous. Nobody talked to her like that. But all she could see was the faces of her dead grenadiers.
Bo continued, “I just talked to Davd. He saw that fight with the dragonmen. Said that you would have died before he had the chance to load his rifle if not for a handful of cuirassiers that rode down that dragonman. Blind luck. The cuirassiers didn’t even notice you.” He leaned forward, taking her gently by the sides of the face. She could see the anger in his eyes warring with concern. “You are not a powder mage anymore, Vlora. You can’t do that!”
“Just because I’m no longer a killing machine doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t lead from the front,” Vlora managed.
“Yes, it does,” Bo responded, letting go of her and resuming his pacing. “And we’re not just talking about the lack of your sorcery. You almost died less than two months ago. You shouldn’t even be out of bed for more than an hour or two, let alone charging into an enemy camp in the middle of the night. You…” He stumbled on his words, turning to peer at her face. A sudden realization se
emed to dawn in his eyes. “You were trying to get yourself killed,” he whispered.
“Don’t be absurd.” The very idea cut through Vlora, stunning her.
“This is about Olem, isn’t it?” he asked. “Did you engineer this whole battle, planning on getting yourself killed over some soldier?”
“Olem isn’t some soldier,” Vlora finally snapped. “He is the love of my life and he’s your friend. He abandoned us. Me. He walked away from this thing, and…” Vlora sputtered, her words stumbling into a cough that threatened to knock her off her feet. “I didn’t engineer anything,” she finally managed. “I made a tactical decision.”
“A tactical decision to get yourself killed,” Bo said, his voice rising. “You know that this isn’t just about you, right? This is about an entire army that crossed an ocean to help you stop something horrible. Never mind that you have more important things to worry about than Olem—people here are ready to die for you, Vlora. They have died for you. Or have you already forgotten the grenadiers who were torn apart by those dragonmen?”
Faces flashed across Vlora’s vision. Bloody, startled faces. She didn’t even know the names of those grenadiers.
Bo’s outburst was interrupted by the tent flap being thrown open. Nila strode into the room and grabbed Bo by the shoulder. “Out,” she ordered, shoving him back out the flap before he could respond.
Vlora stared into the middle distance, unable to move, unable to respond. Had she tried to kill herself? Death by enemy wasn’t unheard of. Officers whose lives had taken a dark turn and volunteered for dangerous missions. Soldiers who charged without orders. Was it possible that she’d tried to off herself, without her even knowing?
Bo’s words suddenly hit her—she’d heard them when he spoke, but now that he’d been shoved outside, they seemed to slam into her gut like a kick from a horse. He was right, of course. She’d gotten her bodyguard killed. All of them would still be here if not for her insistence on charging in with the infantry. She lifted her eyes, looking at Nila without seeing her. “They’ll call it a victory,” she muttered.
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