The Crimson Campaign

by Brian McClellan

  “I can’t afford to,” Adamat said.

  “If I decide to ignore our deal, you wouldn’t be able to stop me.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

  “Probably not,” Adamat agreed.

  They locked gaze for a few moments, and Adamat had to remind himself how young Bo really was. Twenty? Maybe twenty-two? His eyes were so much older, like a man who’d seen more than his share of suffering and lived to talk about it.

  “Suit yourself,” Bo said.

  “You’ll only need one night?”

  “Yes.”

  “SouSmith,” Adamat said, “go to Sergeant Oldrich, and then the eunuch. Tell them I plan on acting tomorrow, then meet me at the safe house.”

  The big boxer nodded and left.

  Adamat followed Bo out into the street. The Privileged walked with a purpose, like he had things to do, his head held high and his eyes alert. They had to walk for half an hour before they found a carriage. Bo gave the driver directions and they got inside.

  “The eunuch,” Bo said, taking his hands out of his pockets. Adamat realized he wasn’t wearing Privileged’s gloves. “As in ‘the Proprietor’s eunuch’?”

  Adamat smoothed the front of his coat. “Indeed.”

  “That’s a dangerous friend you have. The cabal tried to kill him a couple times. Failed, obviously.”

  “The Proprietor or the eunuch?”

  “The eunuch,” Bo said. “The Proprietor had an uneasy truce with the cabal, but Zakary never liked the eunuch. Didn’t try to kill him again after a Privileged he sent after the eunuch wound up dead.”

  “The eunuch killed a Privileged?”

  “It’s not common knowledge,” Bo said, “but yes.” The Privileged fell silent for the rest of their trip, looking out the window and fingering something beneath his jacket.

  The demon’s carbuncle, Adamat guessed. The jewel around his neck that would eventually kill him if he didn’t avenge the death of Manhouch.

  “We’re here,” Bo suddenly said.

  They climbed out of the carriage in the middle of Bakerstown. The air smelled of hot bread and meat pies, making Adamat’s mouth water. “I’m going to get something to eat,” he said, stopping beside a pie vendor.

  “Get me one too,” Bo replied, “then come upstairs.” He disappeared inside a squat brick building sandwiched between two bakeries.

  Adamat paid for two meat pies and followed Bo inside. When he reached the top of the stairs, he found himself in a one-room flat. There was a table and a bed, with an old mattress stuffed with straw, and one window looking out into an alley behind the bakery.

  Bo stood on a chair in the middle of the room, pressing his fingers gently against the ceiling.

  “What are you doing?”

  Bo didn’t answer him, but hit the ceiling once, hard. The plaster gave way and a box suddenly dropped into the room, hitting the floor with a crash.

  Adamat waved plaster dust away from his face as Bo opened the box. Inside was a pair of Privileged’s gloves and what appeared to be thousands of crisp banknotes, bundled together by silk ribbon.

  “I would have expected something a little more… magical,” Adamat said.

  Bo pulled on the Privileged’s gloves and flexed his fingers, then began setting stacks of banknotes on the floor next to the box. “I wasn’t raised as a Privileged,” Bo said. “Not like most of the others. I came off the streets originally.”

  “So… a box in the ceiling?”

  “I’m not stupid. The wards on this box will blow anyone that’s not me halfway across the room if they touch it.”

  “Ah.”

  “How much did you pay Verundish to let me go?”

  “Why?”

  “How much?”

  “Seventy-five thousand,” Adamat said.

  Bo handed him two stacks of banknotes. “Here’s a hundred.”

  “I can’t take these,” Adamat said, trying to give them back. “I still need your help, I…”

  Bo rolled his eyes. “Take them. I’ll still help you. I don’t care how you got the money, but it couldn’t have been easy. I pay my debts back double, when I can.”

  Adamat only put the banknotes in his pockets when he realized Bo wasn’t going to take no for an answer. At a quick guess, Bo had over a million krana in that box. It was a mind-boggling number for a man like Adamat. But to a man like Bo, who’d been a member of the royal cabal, it was probably a trifle.

  The Privileged bundled it all up in brown paper and wrapped it with a bow like it was one big package he’d just acquired at the store, keeping back four stacks of krana and secreting them about his person. When he was finished, he stood and nodded to Adamat. “Let’s go.”

  Bo wouldn’t let Adamat come with him inside the next time they stopped, nor the time after that. It was the fourth stop, well after dark, when Adamat finally got curious enough to follow him.

  They were in one of the more pleasant parts of town, where the growing middle class lived in smart, two-story houses and walked the line between the nobility and the poor. It was not unlike where Adamat himself lived, if a little more crowded.

  Bo left the carriage and headed down a long alley between two tenement buildings of spacious flats. Adamat waited for a moment before slipping out after him.

  He paused by the edge of the alley, watching around the corner, as Bo knocked on a door. A moment later he was admitted inside.

  Adamat inched his way down the alley until he reached a window looking into the flat.

  Inside, he could see a pair of children playing next to a large fireplace. A boy and a girl, maybe eight and ten years of age. The window was open to take advantage of the stiff evening winds. Adamat moved to the next window that looked into a kitchen.

  A man with a long mustache and burly shoulders stood next to the kitchen table, frowning at Bo. The woman sat at the table, busy with her knitting.

  “Just ten minutes of your time,” Bo was saying. He drew a stack of banknotes from his pocket and tossed it on the table.

  The woman dropped her knitting needles and held a hand to her mouth. The man sputtered over the amount. Bo drew another stack and added it to the first.

  “Whatever you say,” the man said. “Just let me get my coat.”

  The door opened, and Adamat was forced to press himself against the wall, hoping the darkness would conceal him from Bo’s eyes.

  Bo followed the man out into the alleyway and gestured for him to come down farther. They weren’t ten feet from Adamat when they stopped.

  “Now what’s this all about?” the man asked.

  Bo lifted his gloved fingers in the air and snapped them.

  The man’s head twisted around a hundred and eighty degrees. Bo deftly stepped out of the way as the body staggered and fell. He seemed to regard the dead man for a few moments before he turned and headed back toward the carriage.

  Adamat couldn’t help himself. He’d seen gruesome murders in his time, and bad men do terrible things, but the abruptness… He stepped from the darkness. “What the pit is the meaning of this?” he hissed.

  “Keep walking.” Bo grabbed him by the arm in a surprisingly firm grip and spun him about, pushing him toward the carriage.

  Adamat had no choice but to allow himself to be dragged along. The carriage was soon heading down the street, and Adamat struggled to find a voice to express what he’d just seen. The murder had been quick and cold. A trained assassin couldn’t have done it better.

  “Here,” Bo said. He grasped something beneath his shirt and yanked, then tossed it into Adamat’s lap. “Take this. I don’t want the bloody thing anymore.”

  Adamat stared down at the ruby-red jewel sitting in his lap. “Is that the demon’s carbuncle?” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to touch it.

  “It is,” Bo said.

  “I thought you had to kill Tamas,” Adamat said. “How did…?”

  Bo looked rather pleased with himself. Not at all like someone who’d just snapped a ma
n’s neck not two dozen paces from his wife and children. “I had to avenge the king. That man there was the headsman who loaded Manhouch into the guillotine.”

  Adamat finally drew a handkerchief from his pocket and lifted the jewel to see it better by the light of the streetlamps outside the carriage. It was warm – no, hot – to the touch and seemed to throb with its own inner light. He wondered how much a jeweler would pay for a sorcerous piece of art like this.

  “Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Bo said.

  “It can’t have been that simple. A god made the precedence for the gaes. You can’t just kill the executioner and have it be all. Can you?”

  “Kresimir was just a man,” Bo said. His eyes narrowed as if at something that made him angry. “Just a damned man with a bloody huge amount of power. He may be smarter than most, and have more time to think and plan, but even the so-called gods make mistakes.”

  “Is this thing… safe?” Adamat asked.

  “Quite.”

  Adamat wrapped it in his handkerchief and put it in his pocket. “Why didn’t you just tell Tamas?”

  “I wasn’t sure,” Bo said. “I only had the thought recently, and I would have looked a damn fool if his soldiers had killed an innocent man only for the carbuncle not to come off.”

  “You weren’t sure? What the bloody pit kind of man – ?”

  Bo held up his hand and gave Adamat a cold, long stare. “At what point have you ever gotten the impression that there are good people in the royal cabal?”

  “You’ve given me that impression,” Adamat said. He swallowed hard. “Yes. You have.”

  “Well, get past it.” Bo turned toward the carriage window. “Because I’m not a good man. Not in the slightest. I just pay my debts.”

  Adamat watched the Privileged for several minutes. Was that regret in his voice? A frown at the edges of his mouth? It was impossible to tell. Members of the royal cabal were dangerous men, he reminded himself, and were not to be trusted.

  He just hoped that Bo really was on his side.

  CHAPTER

  22

  Tamas judged he had two hours before night fell and the Kez dragoons would be close enough to scout his position.

  The sound of his soldiers chopping great trees on the edge of the Hune Dora Forest echoed across the floodplains, and teams of men dragged the trees by hand across the dusty grassland to where Tamas had decided to make his stand. Closer, the scrape of a thousand shovels on sandy dirt made Tamas’s skin crawl. He hated that sound. It felt like someone scraping a nail across his molars.

  He found Andriya cleaning his rifle down near the river. The Marked’s belt had become decorated with squirrel tails over the last few days. He didn’t have the same look as the rest of the soldiers. His cheeks were slightly rounded from eating well and his face lacked the lines of exhaustion.

  His eyes, though, betrayed him. They were wide and bright, shifting constantly. Like the rest of Tamas’s mages, Andriya had been floating in a powder trance for weeks running. It was a terribly dangerous thing to do. Going powder blind could see any of the mages dizzy, disoriented, unconscious, or even dead.

  “I’d back off on the powder, soldier,” Tamas said gently.

  Andriya looked him up and down. His lips twisted, and for a moment Tamas thought Andriya would snap at him.

  “Right, sir,” Andriya said. “Probably should.”

  “Where is Vlora?”

  Andriya shrugged. Tamas couldn’t help but wonder where the discipline was going in his army.

  “What was that?”

  “Don’t know, sir.”

  “Find her.”

  “She won’t talk to you, sir.”

  “Come again, soldier?”

  “She said – and of course, I’m only quoting – that you could go to the pit.”

  Tamas inhaled sharply. This wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. He quickly thought over his options. He could have her flogged. Had a regular soldier said something like that to him, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Vlora was… was what? Another time, he might have thought she was kin. But she’d made it clear that was no longer the case.

  Besides, a public flogging on the eve of a major battle? He rolled his eyes to himself. That would help morale.

  He could give her a public reprimand. What if she defied him? He’d have no choice but to impose more severe punishment. With her temper, he might have to have her hanged.

  “Get the powder cabal together,” Tamas said. “I’ve got assignments for you. Tell Vlora to be there.”

  Andriya saluted and went about cleaning his rifle. Tamas headed toward the bonfires to find something to eat.

  The soldiers had been organized into lines. Olem stood at the head of the lines along with the better part of his Riflejacks – all trusted men that could keep the infantry in line. The last of the horsemeat was distributed quickly as soldiers approached with their pewter dishes.

  The camp was coming together even as work continued on Tamas’s preparations. Tents were pitched, small fires made. Parties were sent out to forage the woods or fish the river. Fights broke out and were quickly put down, only to start up again somewhere else. Food seemed to be the main instigator as soldiers tried to get in line for seconds. The meat might keep them going through the night, but morale was low, and the food wouldn’t last through tomorrow.

  “Sir.”

  Andriya’s voice broke through Tamas’s thoughts. Nineteen men and women stood assembled before him: the entirety of his powder cabal, including the recruits Sabon had managed to gather before his death.

  “We’re running low on powder and bullets,” Tamas said without preamble. He caught sight of Vlora at the back of the group, but did not wait to hold her eye. “Tomorrow we’ll be fighting almost sixteen thousand cavalry. I’m setting a trap that should even the odds, but it’s going to be a brutal battle.”

  Tamas looked around, suddenly feeling weary. His leg ached. He thought to take some powder, but stopped himself. Save it for the soldiers. He walked to a large rock and sat down, gesturing for the powder mages to be at ease. Most of them sat on the sandy ground. Vlora remained standing, her arms crossed. Tamas ignored her.

  “I’m going to redistribute bullets and powder among the men so that you have enough for the next twenty-four hours. Your first job: Do not let Kez scouts get within a half mile of us. Do not let them take the high ground along the mountain.” He pointed east to the slope of the Adran Mountains. “Do not let them see what we’re up to. The life of every soldier depends on this.

  “However,” he went on, “I want them to see we’re doing something. A little digging. Preparations and rafts. Perhaps trying to rebuild the bridge. Every so often, let one of their scouts get closer, and then let him get away with a bullet in the arm, or something equally convincing.”

  “Tomorrow should be much of the same. I expect Beon to attack as soon as his cuirassiers arrive. He knows an opportunity when he sees one, and he never hesitates to take it.”

  “And if he senses the trap?” Andriya asked.

  “Then we cross the river tomorrow night, and deal with Beon on the other side of the Fingers.” Tamas had a very good feeling that would not be the case. Beon needed to stop them now. The farther north they got, the better chance they had of finding succor in Deliv and crossing back into Adro. Tamas prayed that would spur on Beon. He dreaded the idea of facing the Kez on the open plains of the Northern Expanse.

  “We’ll have teams,” Tamas said. “Nine and three. Nine on watch, killing Kez scouts, and three resting.”

  “We don’t need rest,” Andriya said. He grinned at Tamas. His crooked teeth were stained yellow. “We just need powder.”

  Tamas held his hand up toward Andriya. “You’ll have your time to kill Kez,” he said. “You all need some rest tonight.”

  It was perhaps six o’clock, and the hot sun burned red over the Amber Expanse to the west. Tamas wondered if the coming night would be his last in this world.

&nb
sp; The Kez outnumbered him. He was growing old. Not as fast or as sharp as he’d once been. Beon might see through the trap and outmaneuver him, or circle at a distance, content to pick off Tamas’s troops until Tamas made it across the river, then head west around the Fingers and wait for Tamas on the Northern Expanse.

  Had it been a mistake to order Gavril to destroy the bridge?

  “Sir?”

  Tamas jolted out of his reverie. The powder mages were gone, all but Vlora. For a moment he imagined she was a little girl again – ten years old – seeking his approval. The sun had sunk in the western sky and the camp was completely pitched. The bonfires had burned low, all sign of the horse carcasses gone. Thousands of men worked on the floodplain while thousands more chopped trees on the edge of the Hune Dora Forest.

  “Where are they?”

  “Sir?”

  “The powder mages.”

  Vlora had a hint of worry in her eyes. “You dismissed them over an hour ago. Told me to stay.”

  “And you’ve been waiting this whole time?”

  “You seemed preoccupied.”

  Tamas took a shaky breath. He suddenly remembered dismissing Andriya and the rest of the mages, but it was like looking back in time through a thick fog.

  Getting old indeed.

  “Have you been eating, sir?”

  Tamas’s stomach growled. “I had some horsemeat earlier.”

  “I was watching you, sir. You didn’t take anything when you went to check on the bonfires.”

  “I’m sure I did.”

  Vlora dug in her belt, then handed him a white tuber. “Found these truffles in the forest yesterday. You should eat. Take them, Tamas.”

  Tamas put out a hand reluctantly and she dropped them there.

  He hesitated, staring at the truffles. Truffles grown in forests of the Adran Mountains were delicacies in most of the Nine. They were small and pale-cream colored. He’d never much liked truffles.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Vlora leaned on her rifle, staring over toward the forest. He gazed at the side of her face. He’d watched her grow from a fledgling powder mage into a capable soldier, one of his best. She was strong, with a beauty that the years would dim but never fully diminish. He felt a pang of loss, once again, that this girl would never bear him a grandson. He looked again at the truffles in his hand.