The Crimson Campaign

by Brian McClellan

  “Bloody Nikslaus,” Tamas said.

  “Should we go back, sir?”

  “Back?”

  “To the army. We’ll have to come up with something to take the Kez by surprise.”

  Tamas examined the bell tower again, then the city as a whole. He ran his gaze along the tops of the buildings, considering angles of attack. He would have to get his men close to the city under cover of night, then cross the shallow river and catch as many of the Kez out in the open as they could.

  The best he could hope for in that situation, even if the Deliv rose up and sided with Tamas, would be a weeks-long urban melee with the Kez. And he couldn’t afford that, not with thirty thousand Kez infantry still coming on from the south.

  “Congratulations, Olem. You’ve just been promoted to colonel.”

  “Sir?” Olem’s mouth hung open.

  “I need someone to head back and give commands to the Seventh and Ninth, and they’re not going to take it from a captain.”

  “But sir, the ranks?”

  “I think we can skip ‘major’ and all that.”

  “Thank you, sir, but I think —”

  Tamas held up a hand to forestall any protestations.

  “I have things to do, Olem. First” – Tamas collapsed his looking glass – ”I’m going in to find Gavril and get him out. I have an old friend in the city who might help me. Then I’ll kill Nikslaus. Then, and only then, we’ll go to battle.”

  Nila sat beside Jakob’s bed and listened to the soft sound of his snores. The boy’s chest rose and fell slowly, his face peaceful. It reminded her of the cherubs she’d once seen painted on the ceiling of a church. Outside the open window she could hear the sound of a carriage clattering by on the cobbles.

  They’d moved from Bo’s apartment in the factory district to a small house in one of the few fashionable areas of High Talien, in Adopest’s northwest side. From what Bo had said, he had several such “safe houses” scattered around the city. She had wondered at one point where he had gotten the money for all this before remembering that he was a member of the Adran royal cabal.

  It was easy to forget, sometimes. Cabal Privileged were known for their cruelty and power. Not for their quiet humor, flirting smiles, and silent generosity.

  But he was leaving tomorrow. Heading south, he’d said, to rescue Taniel Two-Shot.

  Nila would find herself alone once again, sole guardian to the little boy sleeping before her. What was she going to do with him? Go to Fatrasta? To Novi? Live out the quiet life of a single laundress and tell everyone that Jakob was her little brother?

  Would Jakob be able to live with that as he grew older? After all, he’d been a duke’s son. Not more than a couple of months ago there had been the very real possibility of him becoming king. She would have been his caretaker and surrogate mother, maybe even a noblewoman by decree of the new king. She would have had wealthy suitors and servants and actual power.

  How life would have been different.

  But it wasn’t.

  Now she had to figure out where they would go when Bo left the city. It occurred to her that the silver she’d buried in a graveyard outside the city might not even still be there. Someone might have found it and taken it, and then where would she be? She didn’t want to think about it.

  She heard the front door of the house open and shut, and her heart beat faster until she reminded herself that they were under Bo’s protection – at least for another day – and that Lord Vetas could no longer harm them.

  Bo stepped into the room, treading quietly. He knew that Jakob went to bed by eight in the evening. He gestured for her to join him in the kitchen.

  “Can the boy watch himself for a few hours?” Bo asked after she’d closed the door to Jakob’s room. The words were rushed, and his eyes were alight. He was excited about something.

  He wanted to take her somewhere. Where could it be? She felt her cheeks grow a little warm. “Well, he’s sleeping. He might get scared if he wakes up and no one’s in the house with him.”

  “Can he read?”

  “A little.”

  “Good. Write him a note. I need your help. We’ll be back in just a few hours.”

  “I could wake him and take him with us.”

  “You won’t want him with us,” Bo said.

  Nila felt her cheeks flush.

  “Not for that,” Bo said, giving her a lopsided smile.

  Nila’s cheeks felt on fire. Was that disappointment in the pit of her stomach?

  She suddenly wondered how young Bo really was. He seemed so confident, and his status as an Adran Cabal member made her think of him as quite a bit older, but there were times he looked barely twenty.

  “Come on,” Bo said.

  She wrote a note for Jakob and left it on the kitchen table beside a glass of water, then joined Bo in the carriage. He pounded on the roof, and they were off.

  “Do you know what you’re going to do when I leave?” Bo asked as the carriage jostled along through the streets.

  Nila looked down. She had hoped that, perhaps, he would stay a little longer. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “I can’t imagine you have much money,” Bo said.

  “A little. I have some silver buried outside of the city that I took the night Tamas’s soldiers came to the Eldaminse house. I hope it’s still there.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  Nila swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  They rode along for several moments in silence, and then, “I’ll leave a couple hundred for you when I go,” Bo said.

  A couple hundred could buy her and Jakob passage to Novi, or pay for a week in an inn.

  “Thank you,” Nila said, not sure what else to say. “That will go a long way toward helping us start a new life.”

  “A long way? It should go the whole way.”

  Nila frowned at Bo.

  “A couple hundred thousand krana?”

  “Hundred thousand…” Nila sputtered. She and Jakob could live the rest of their lives comfortably off a couple hundred thousand krana. “What, why would you…?”

  Bo waved a hand as if it were nothing. Nila turned to stare out the window, partially so that Bo could not see the tears forming in her eyes.

  “The house, too,” Bo said. “The one we’re in now. If you decide to stay in Adro, the house is yours. I’ve already put the title in your name.”

  She couldn’t help but stare at Bo. Who was this man? Why was he doing this? He was a Privileged of a royal cabal – some of the most powerful men in all the Nine. People like that didn’t take notice of orphan boys or lonely laundresses.

  “Why?” she asked.

  Bo shrugged. Several moments passed before Nila realized that she wasn’t going to get a real answer. She dried the tears in the corners of her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Bo was looking at his feet. He seemed uncomfortable with the thanks, as if he didn’t feel he deserved it. Another shrug.

  “Where are we going?” Nila asked.

  “When I was a boy,” Bo said, apparently happy to change the subject – he lifted his finger to the carriage curtain to look at the darkening sky outside – ”Field Marshal Tamas took me in off the streets. He didn’t want Taniel playing with an uneducated ruffian. He gave me a place to sleep and hired tutors for me and Taniel.”

  Nila remembered watching Field Marshal Tamas sleep, her knife ready to kill the man who’d brought so much suffering to Adro and killed the king, before she’d been distracted by Captain Olem. “That seems very kind of him,” she said.

  “I hated those damn tutors. I abhorred reading and writing, but Tamas told me I had to practice my letters. So I did. By copying all of his correspondence while he slept. His old ones, his new ones. Tamas kept all his letters in a strongbox, the lock of which I picked easily.”

  Nila couldn’t help but give a shocked laugh at that.

  Bo smiled too. “I
kept all the copies I made. Just in case. I’ve always been good at planning ahead. Part of being a successful street rat, I suppose. Anyway, in one of those letters, from when he was a young man, Tamas talked about forcing the nobility out of the army in order to combat corruption. It seems that many of the nobles were purchasing supplies with government money and then selling them elsewhere in order to line their own pockets.”

  “And what does this have to do with me?” Nila asked. Bo had spoken at length over the last week about his quest to find evidence of profiteering among the General Staff in order to exonerate Taniel Two-Shot after his court-martial. Nila was willing to help if she could, but it worried her to leave Jakob by himself.

  “Tamas’s letter mentioned one name in particular. Duke Eldaminse.”

  Nila breathed in sharply.

  “We’re going to Duke Eldaminse’s manor,” Bo said. “Or what’s left of it, anyway.”

  Nila hadn’t been back to the Eldaminse manor since the night the soldiers had come and taken away Lord and Lady Eldaminse. Nila had barely escaped being raped before taking Jakob and fleeing into the darkness of the early morning. “I… don’t know how I can help you.”

  “Well, I hope you can,” Bo said. “I’ve not heard word from the south since finding out that Taniel was being court-martialed. At best he’s in prison. At worst, he’s already dead. I need evidence to condemn the General Staff that court-martialed him, or I’m going to have to go down there and kill a lot of soldiers to get him out.” Bo scowled at his ungloved hands. “I’d rather not do that. So inconvenient.”

  They arrived at the manor an hour later. The sun had set and the streets were dark. Rows of city manor houses rose like ghosts of ages past out of the shadows. Less than six months ago this street had been well lit and home to dozens of noble families and hundreds of servants. Now the windows were dark, the yards silent. A chill went up Nila’s spine at the sight of the Eldaminse manor. Even in the darkness she could tell that fire had destroyed part of the roof, and one of the chimneys had collapsed.

  “Are you all right,” Bo asked. She felt his hand touch her shoulder. He was wearing his Privileged’s gloves.

  Nila cleared her throat. “Yes.”

  He handed her a lantern and then lifted his own, lighting it with the snap of his fingers.

  “Thank you,” Nila said. The light illuminated the drive and threw the yard into deeper shadows. Somehow, it reassured her. “This way.”

  She led him up the front drive and in through the main door. The grand hall had been ransacked. The paintings and sculptures were gone or defaced, and the chandelier had been cut down and stripped of semiprecious stones. Someone had written illegible words on the wall with what might have been feces. The house smelled like a farmyard.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked.

  “A safe,” Bo said. “Somewhere Eldaminse would have kept his correspondence and books.”

  Nila lifted her lantern high and headed toward the stairs. “It’ll be gone already. Everything of value has been looted.”

  “I have to try.”

  The rest of the house looked much like the grand hall. The furniture was smashed or missing, everything of value removed, the walls covered in graffiti. Nila couldn’t help but feel sorrow at that. The house had once been a happy place, full of life and riches. Jakob had once run down these halls, chasing the servants with a wooden musket. She was glad Bo had left the boy in his bed.

  The duke’s office was on the second floor in the southeastern corner of the house. The moment she entered the room, she knew they weren’t going to find anything. The room was covered in scorch marks, and part of the floor and outer wall were missing. Someone had tried blowing open the safe with gunpowder. They’d used a lot, by the looks of it. The duke’s desk had been reduced to splinters by the explosion.

  She pointed to the mangled lump of metal over a dozen paces from where the safe had once sat.

  “That’s it,” she said. “The duke’s safe.”

  Bo stooped to examine the safe. Anything that had been inside it would have been destroyed by the explosion, or stolen after. He kicked the metal, then swore, hopping around the room on one foot while he held his toe. “Pit, pit, pit!” Bo stumbled toward the hole in the floor and Nila found herself grabbing him by the back of his jacket, pulling him back before he could fall.

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “Ten days of work and this was my best lead.” He dropped onto the floor, cross-legged. “Are you sure there’s nothing else?”

  “I was just a laundress,” Nila said. “I’ve only been in this office a couple of times, and I was always trying to think of a way to keep Eldaminse from taking me to his bed.”

  Bo pounded a fist on the floor. “Damn!”

  “Can’t you just go down south and…” She made a gesture with her hands.

  “And what? Magic Taniel out of whatever cell they’ve locked him in? It’s a bit more involved than that.”

  Nila sat on the floor next to Bo.

  “If I don’t have the evidence to convict the General Staff, I’ll have to use sorcery,” Bo said. “Well, I’ll start with bribes. Bribes might work, but they’re notoriously unreliable. Someone is just as likely to take your money and then turn you in as they are to help you. If bribes don’t work, I’ll have to kill people. I don’t actually enjoy killing people, despite what some might think of royal cabalists. And I certainly don’t want to kill Adran soldiers. Taniel wouldn’t ever forgive me.”

  Bo stared at the floor, looking angry and sad all at the same time.

  “Wait!” Nila got to her feet.

  “What…?”

  “I came in here once and Lord Eldaminse was kneeling by the fire.”

  “Most people do,” Bo said, his tone a little annoyed.

  “No. Eldaminse always sat by the fire. He had this great big chair.” Nila skirted the hole in the floor and approached the fireplace. “Right here. And he never put the wood in himself. Always summoned a servant to do it. So when I saw him kneeling there, I thought it was strange.”

  Bo was on his feet now, too. “A lockbox, you think? Hidden under the flagstones?”

  “Maybe,” Nila said. It had to be. It was all Bo had left, and Nila suddenly found herself wanting him to find the answers he needed. She dropped to her knees beside the fireplace and began trying to squeeze her fingers between the cracks. She searched for a hidden switch or a recess she could grab to move the stone. Nothing.

  “Move,” Bo said. He tugged on his Privileged’s gloves and raised his hands. Nila scrambled out of the way. The flagstone suddenly cracked, and the pieces – each far bigger than Nila could have lifted herself – flew to the side. Bo grinned down at the floor. Beneath the flagstone, untouched by the explosion that had destroyed the safe, was a small lockbox. She grabbed it by the straps on the sides and lifted it out.

  Bo destroyed the lock with a flick of his gloved fingers and the lid sprang open. Inside were several leather-bound books, each about the size of a pocket ledger, and Nila realized that could very well be what they were.

  Bo opened one of the books and flipped through it. The grin on his face grew wider. “Yes,” he said. “This is exactly what I needed.” He dropped the book back into the lockbox. Then he closed his eyes, hands flat on the lid of the lockbox. He almost looked like he was praying.

  A thought occurred to Nila. “Bo,” she said.

  “Yes?” He didn’t open his eyes.

  “Won’t they arrest you when they find out who you are?”

  “More than likely.”

  “And won’t they kill you if you try to rescue Taniel with sorcery?”

  Bo’s eyes opened. “Almost certainly. I’ll be right back.” He left the room, hurrying like a man who had just realized he’d left the kettle on in the kitchen.

  Nila listened to his footfalls down the hallway and then down the stairs. She could hear the sound of his boots crunching on the gravel drive outside.

  S
he was alone now, in this great manor that had once been her home. She lifted her lantern and did a slow circuit of the duke’s office. Several minutes passed, and Nila began to wonder where Bo had gone. Had he abandoned her?

  No. She realized that the lockbox was still sitting on the floor, and beside it a pair of Bo’s Privileged’s gloves.

  She sat down next to the lockbox and flipped open the lid. Taking a book in one hand, she began to leaf through it slowly. She recognized the duke’s penmanship on each page. There were what appeared to be diary entries and then, later on, columns and figures. Once in a while there would be a name, underlined. None of it made any sense to her.

  She put the book back. The next one was much the same, and again with the third. Bo would have to sort these out and find what he was looking for, but he seemed happy to have these. She picked up his gloves. Strange that he would leave them here.

  Nila listened for the sound of his footfalls in the house or on the drive. Nothing.

  She stared at the gloves by the light of the candle. This was one of the pairs she’d mended. She could tell by the coffee stain next to one of the runes. On an impulse, she slid the glove over her hand.

  She’d expected a shock. Perhaps something that would hurt her. There were stories about Privilegeds who warded everything they owned so that other people couldn’t use them. But nothing happened when she put the glove on. She slid the other over her left hand.

  They were too big for her by quite a bit. Why had Bo been so eager for her to put them on? She didn’t remember ever having to put on gloves when the Privileged dowsers had visited her orphanage when she was young.

  Nila held her hand away from her face and shied away, closing her eyes. She snapped her fingers.

  Again, nothing.

  “I really thought that would work.”

  Nila nearly leapt out of her skin. She tore the gloves off her hands and threw them on the floor.

  Bo stood in the doorway, watching her.

  “What?” Nila said, getting to her feet. “You thought what would work?”

  Bo strolled into the room. How had he gotten back upstairs without making any sound? “You don’t have the glow in the Else,” Bo said, “but people who haven’t before tapped their potential rarely do. I thought there was something about you. Perhaps a Knack, or maybe even sorcery. I’ve been waiting almost two weeks for you to finally try on a pair of Privileged’s gloves.”