The Crimson Campaign

by Brian McClellan

Even though Adamat couldn’t open his third eye, he could still feel it when a Privileged standing at his elbow reached into the Else. Sorcery flowed into the world, and Bo threw his arms wide, and the entire face of the building collapsed like a piece of cake sliced by a giant knife.

  Adamat stared at the dust rising from the rubble. Men inside the house stared back, coughing and waving away plaster dust. The shock was plain on their faces.

  Sergeant Oldrich drew his sword. “Charge!” he screamed.

  All pit broke loose.

  CHAPTER

  24

  A column of heavy cavalry appeared on the floodplain downriver, west of Tamas. The plumes on their helmets waved gently in the breeze, their mounts stepping with confidence despite the low cover of fog.

  Tamas lifted his looking glass and examined the enemy.

  The officers were out front with their red epaulets, shouting orders, sabers raised.

  Fools.

  A rifle cracked from somewhere across the river. A few moments later a Kez officer tumbled from his horse.

  They advanced at a leisurely pace, as if it were nothing more than a parade drill. More rifle shots rang out from Tamas’s powder mages, and cuirassiers began to fall. The column continued to advance.

  “This weather might foul our powder, sir,” Olem said, looking up at the clouds.

  Tamas said, “It won’t rain.”

  “It’s awfully damp, sir. Strange, this fog. Never seen it sweep down off the mountains so quickly.”

  “That’s because this is an answer to a prayer.”

  Tamas heard a trumpet echo through Hune Dora Forest and looked to the south. There was movement among the trees half a mile away across the floodplain where only hours ago Tamas’s infantry had been cutting trees and dragging them to camp.

  The dragoons emerged from the forest.

  Tamas felt his breath catch in his throat. So many cavalry in one place.

  He’d seen a force like this perhaps three times in his life. Each time, he’d been numbered among those cavalry, and the enemy had been swept before them. The horses stepped in line, well trained and fearless. Unlike the cuirassiers, someone among the dragoons had the foresight to remove the officer’s epaulets, so they would be harder to pick out for Tamas’s powder mages.

  Behind him, the panic among the Seventh and Ninth Brigades seemed to rise in pitch, and Tamas worried that the act had outgrown itself. He’d witnessed hard infantry of the line break at the sight of a magnificent cavalry formation before.

  And the Kez cavalry were magnificent. The armored breasts of the cuirassier warhorses seemed to form a wall of moving steel. Their plumes quivered with the movement, and the immaculate uniforms of their riders only added to their majesty.

  Tamas searched the line of cuirassiers. In a powder trance, he could see the faces of each man, even at this distance. But picking out one face among so many was nearly impossible. “I wonder where Beon will position himself,” Tamas said. He pointed with his small sword to the southwest. “There, likely, so that he can sweep with his cuirassiers around the barriers we’ve set up and join his dragoons in the slaughter.” Tamas turned to his bodyguard. “Tell me we’re going to win, Olem.”

  “‘We’re going to win, Olem,’” Olem said, putting his last cigarette in his mouth.

  Tamas stepped onto a rocky outcropping to give himself a better view of the battlefield.

  “Men,” he shouted, “take the line!”

  Nila was pushed into a doorway by one of the soldiers.

  She squeezed her eyes closed, fighting tears she knew so desperately wanted to come. To have escaped soldiers so many times and then fall into Lord Vetas’s clutches, and now this? Who were these people? What did they want?

  A man grabbed her by the arm and shoved her up a narrow flight of stairs. They went up two floors, shouting and cursing the whole way. Nila fought them out of instinct more than anything else. She clawed at a soldier’s face, only for her arm to be bent around behind her and her face shoved up against the wall.

  “Pit, this girl is a hellion,” the man said. She tried to twist in his grip. He put pressure on her arm and she gasped from the sudden pain. It felt as if it would snap at any moment.

  She was thrown into the corner of a small, windowless room. The plaster was yellow and bare, the only furniture a squat table with a stub of candle.

  They hadn’t gone far before finding this building, not more than a couple of blocks. Nila had no idea if this was planned, but there seemed some confusion among the soldiers.

  Lord Vetas was pushed to the ground beside her. She stared at him – the only familiar face in this chaos. He was calm, collected. Completely unperturbed. Nila hated that she looked to him for some kind of reassurance. She knew none would come.

  “Watch him,” the woman said. She was young, and could not have been more than ten years older than Nila, but her eyes were as cold as Vetas’s. Nila had heard someone call her Fell. The soldiers seemed hesitant to follow her orders, but after Fell gave them a long stare, they turned to watch Vetas.

  Fell had drawn a pair of wrist irons from beneath her coat. They weren’t typical irons, even Nila could see that. Instead of a horseshoe-looking metal with a crosspiece, they were thick bands with only a single loop of chain between them. The two soldiers turned Vetas roughly onto his stomach, and the irons were snapped around his wrists. He rolled over, examining Fell.

  “Drovian irons,” he said. “Very professional.”

  “Turn around,” Fell said to Nila.

  “No,” Nila said.

  Fell grasped her by the arm and jerked her forward onto her knees. Fell stepped behind her, and Nila felt the cold metal of the wrist irons close on her skin.

  There was a shout from downstairs. Fell turned to one of the soldiers. “Do not take your eyes off of him,” she said, and disappeared down the stairs.

  Despite Fell’s instructions, the two soldiers retreated to the hallway, where they stood near the door, leaning on their rifles.

  “What is happening?” Nila asked Vetas.

  Vetas’s face was impassive, unmoving as always. He didn’t so much as glance at her.

  He watched the two soldiers for a moment before rocking back on his hips and deftly sliding his shackled wrists beneath his legs and out in front of him, like a contortionist performing a trick. Nila felt her eyes widen a bit. The wrist irons hurt like all pit, and even if they hadn’t been so tight, she couldn’t have done that – and Vetas was a man well over forty.

  Nila glanced nervously between Vetas and the soldiers. How could they not see him? Did they just not care?

  Vetas pulled something off the bottom of his shoe: a wooden knob. It looked like the handle of an ice pick Nila had seen men use to move blocks of ice in the winter, but it had no pick attached to it.

  Another handle came off the bottom of his other shoe, and Vetas searched through his slicked hair with his fingers, drawing out a long wire after only a moment of searching. He wrapped the wire around one handle and then the other.

  Nila had been with Lord Vetas long enough to know what it was: a garrote.

  Vetas got to his feet in one smooth motion, like a snake rising from the grass. He crossed the room in a few silent steps.

  One of the soldiers must have seen him coming out of the corner of his eye. The soldier whirled, raising his rifle. Vetas slammed an elbow into the soldier’s throat. The soldier staggered to one side, gurgling painfully for air. The other soldier had his rifle up in time, but the long bayonet was impossible to use in such close quarters. Vetas grabbed the stock of the rifle and smacked the soldier in the nose with it. When the man reeled back, Vetas slid around him, dropping the garrote into place.

  Nila’s mind whirled. She eyed the soldier’s fallen rifle – she could have used it on Vetas if not for the irons locking her hands behind her back. The two soldiers soon lay dead in the hall. Blood trickled across the floorboards, flowing to fill the grooves.

  Vetas, h
is face still and unmoving as stone, searched the soldier for keys.

  The creaking of the floorboards was the only warning. Vetas looked up and suddenly fell back into the hallway, out of Nila’s line of sight. Fell soared past, knife at the ready.

  Nila could hear the dull thumps of flesh on flesh. Grunts, a few quiet curses – those came from the woman.

  The pair tumbled back into the room. Nila screamed as both of them tumbled over her outstretched feet.

  They struggled on the floor, legs intertwined, the knife pressed flat between them. Nila kicked indiscriminately. She wanted them away from her. The knives, the anger – one slip, and Nila could be dead.

  Fell rolled off of Vetas and sprang to her feet.

  She struck at him, fast as a viper. Vetas, still on his knees, caught the knife on the metal of his wrist irons. She struck again, and again, and each time Vetas moved impossibly fast to block her. Between the strikes he managed to regain his footing.

  They circled warily, and Nila pulled herself into the corner as much as possible.

  She hoped they’d kill each other. But what then? She had no way of getting the irons off her hands.

  Fell and Vetas seemed at an impasse. Their circling stopped. Fell changed hands with her dagger, then changed back.

  Nila didn’t hesitate. Months of anger and fear came to a head, and with a shriek of rage she kicked Vetas in the back of the leg.

  Fell struck out at Lord Vetas at the same time. The blow to Vetas’s leg sent him leaning backward. The knife slid past his eye, cutting one cheek badly. He caught Fell’s hand, deftly sliding the garrote around her wrist, and swung about.

  Fell had no choice but to follow his swing, or risk losing her hand. Vetas stepped close to her, and she tried to step away. It was like some kind of grisly dance.

  Vetas slammed his head forward into Fell’s cheek. The woman staggered backward, hitting the window.

  Vetas had let go of his garrote. Dazed, Fell couldn’t have seen the kick coming. She took a boot square to the chest, and tumbled out the window.

  Vetas turned to Nila. There was a quiet click, and his wrist irons fell off. He held the key up in one hand.

  Nila shrank away from the darkness in his eyes.

  “You bet the wrong way, laundress,” he said. He tossed the key on the floor. “You’ll pay for that tonight. I promise. If not you, then the boy will.”

  He left the room, leaving Nila to let the sobs wrench themselves from her throat. Her whole body shook. She crawled over to the key. It took a few minutes with her trembling hands to get it into the lock and free herself.

  She stared at the destruction. Two dead soldiers, a broken window, and Lord Vetas was gone. She took the time to collect herself. Deep breaths stopped the sobs, and she dried her tears. This wasn’t the time to give in to emotion.

  She could run. She knew that.

  But if she ran, Vetas would do unspeakable things to Jakob. It was no empty threat. He wouldn’t hesitate.

  Nila crept down the stairs, only to find the other two soldiers dead in the hallway on the first floor. One’s head was twisted at an impossible angle. The other had been bayoneted with his own rifle.

  There was a crowd gathering in the street looking at the bodies through the open door. A woman was screaming for the police. Someone pointed at Nila.

  It only took a moment to find a back door to the building. Nila took it, slipping down an alleyway and into the crowd.

  She had to make her way back to Vetas’s house and try to get Jakob away.

  Adamat put his head down and charged into the gaping hole left in Vetas’s headquarters by Bo’s sorcery.

  He shot the first man to raise a weapon, and then tossed aside his spent pistol and drew his cane sword.

  Oldrich’s soldiers were the first to follow Adamat into the fray, their bayonets making short work of Vetas’s goons. The eunuch’s men followed them in, and Adamat could hear pistol shots and the sounds of fighting from the other side of the buildings. They’d formed a cordon around Vetas’s headquarters. Now they just had to tighten it.

  A horizontal pillar of flame shot through the wall of one of the rooms inside, missing Adamat by not more than a few feet, the heat of it sending him reeling to one side.

  The flame splashed over one of the eunuch’s men, sending him screaming, running into the street. The pillar grew longer by the second, extending into the street and completely enveloping Privileged Borbador.

  Adamat felt his heart leap into his throat. If Bo died, Vetas’s Privileged would kill them all…

  The flames abated, leaving Bo standing unhurt, like a rock that had been pounded by the surf. Bo advanced, his hands held out in front of him, fingers plucking at invisible strings.

  Wind tore at Adamat’s coat and buffeted through the innards of the building, knocking men from both sides off their feet before slamming through the wall and pushing back the pillar of flame. Bo raised his hands above his head and was suddenly running forward, his jaw locked and determined.

  Lightning shot at Bo. He batted it aside with one hand as he scaled the rubble into the building, then leapt through the inner wall with a roar.

  The house shuddered and shook as the two Privileged locked in battle. Adamat stopped in his tracks as he realized they could all be killed by the slightest mistake by either of the Privileged. One finger twitched the wrong way, one hand pushed aside accidentally, and every one of them would be dead.

  The Privileged’s flames had lit curtains on one side of the house. The fire spread to the table, quickly, and black smoke filled the ruined building.

  He had to find Faye.

  A man with a scar cutting across his lips stumbled toward Adamat, half blinded by the smoke. He swung a small sword wildly, crashing into a chair. Adamat leapt back, blocking a second swing with his cane sword, then a third. He felt the handle of his cane shift beneath his fingers – it was not meant to block the flailing sword of a man this big, and would splinter from the shock.

  He leapt inside the scarred man’s guard and drove the cane sword between his ribs. The man lurched back, bellowing in pain, and Adamat let him go.

  “Faye!” he yelled. “Faye!”

  The smoke was getting thicker. Where would Vetas have kept her? The basement? Did he have other prisoners here? The boy had been on the second floor when Adamat saw him in the window weeks ago, but the boy was not his concern.

  Adamat heard a woman’s scream. It was coming from upstairs.

  The building was being quickly abandoned. Men ran past Adamat, some of them fighting the flames, some of them fighting each other. Adamat blinked through the tears brought on by the smoke. There, the staircase.

  He made his way to the stairs. The house creaked. The flames were moving quickly now, spreading across the furniture at alarming speeds. There was paper everywhere, even in the foyer. Parchments and books, tables against all the walls. It looked more like a clerk’s office than a place where Lord Vetas planned whatever campaign he was waging.

  What if he wasn’t keeping Faye here? What if she was somewhere else and the scream Adamat had heard was another?

  Smoke filled the staircase as Adamat made his way up it. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, pressing it over his face. He stood dismayed at the top of the stairs, staring down a long hallway and a row of at least a dozen doors. The heat from downstairs was growing. It would spread up the stairs at any moment – if the smoke didn’t kill him, the flames would. It would take too long to search the place. How could he find Faye in time?

  “Faye! Faye!”

  Adamat tried the first door. Locked. He kicked it open. A small room with two soiled beds and a nightstand. Empty.

  He drew his foot back to kick open the next door when a scream came from farther down the hall. He rushed toward the source of the sound. One of the doors was open. He swung around the corner, cane sword raised.

  Faye stood over the body of a man, a bloody candlestick in one hand. On her face sh
e wore a look so vicious that Adamat scarcely recognized her. Adamat saw the face of a small boy peeking out from behind a curtain on the other side of the room.

  “Faye!”

  She looked up and nearly collapsed when she saw him. She dropped the candlestick and might have fallen had Adamat not caught her.

  They stared at each other for one long moment, and Adamat wondered if it was perhaps she who was supporting him and not the other way around, as his knees felt like so much jelly.

  “Where’s Josep?” Adamat asked.

  “Gone. They took him.”

  “I’ll get him back,” Adamat said. He looked at the boy. “That’s the Eldaminse child, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Faye said. “Come on.” She held out a hand to the boy. “Don’t be afraid, this is my husband.”

  Adamat stared at his wife. “I…” he said.

  “Shh.” She pressed a finger to his lips. There were tears in her eyes. “We have to go.”

  Adamat nodded. “Quickly, let’s —” He stopped in the hallway. The smoke was too thick, and there were flames leaping from the staircase. He tore off his jacket. “Press this to your face,” he said to Faye, and gave his handkerchief to the boy. He led them away from the stairs, down the hallway and toward the front of the building. They might have to jump to the rubble below, but a broken leg was much preferable to being roasted alive.

  Adamat froze as a great groaning noise rose above the sound of the flames. Was it the house creaking under the strain of the battle or some kind of sorcery?

  “This way,” Faye said, pulling him back into action. She led him around the corner, where another staircase went down to the first floor. There were no flames shooting up this one, but he took it cautiously.

  Something slammed through the staircase wall and tumbled down the stairs into a pile of smoldering clothes. Adamat thrust Faye behind him, pointing at the pile with his sword.

  Coughing, sputtering, it stood up.

  It was Bo. Flames still licked at his clothes, and his muttonchops were singed. He beat at the flames for a moment, and then scowled through the smoking ruins of the stairwell wall.