The Crimson Campaign

by Brian McClellan

  “I never expect to die in battle. An expectation like that has a habit of coming true. However… there are times, more than others, when the chances I’ll lose are much greater.”

  “That’s a fancy way of saying he expects to die,” Vlora said.

  Tamas shot her a look.

  “Sir.” Andriya raised his hand.

  “Yes?”

  “I signed on to kill Kez. I’ve got fifty-seven notches on my rifle from the last two months. I wanted a hundred by the end of the campaign. Will there be forty-seven Kez there?”

  “I’d expect.”

  “Very good, sir. I’m coming.”

  “The rest of us are, too,” Vlora said quietly.

  “Thank you.”

  “Not doing it for you, sir,” Andriya said. “Doing it to kill Kez.”

  “I appreciate it all the same. Ruper. If you please?”

  They followed the butler through the streets, dodging Kez patrols as they went. Tamas watched the patrols from the shadows. There was an urgency in their step, and an extra vigilance. Tamas recognized the look. He’d seen it before in the eyes of comrades in Gurla, patrolling an unfriendly city on the last day before a withdrawal with the expectation – and fear – that anything could happen.

  The governor’s mansion was back in the same wealthy part of town as Hailona’s manor. Their small group dashed from walled garden to walled garden until they reached a small wooded park well off the main street. Ruper led them into the woods to a groundskeeper’s shack.

  It was a small building, barely large enough for all of them standing. Ruper moved a table, then pulled up an old rug and tossed it aside to reveal a trapdoor. He lit a lantern, and they descended into a cellar.

  The cellar was rough-cut, descending past topsoil and into the clay earth. From a quick glance, it could have been any root cellar, about four feet wide and a dozen long, with a small room at the far end. When they reached the room and turned the corner, a sharply angled tunnel led off into the darkness.

  Tamas counted nearly four hundred paces, sloshing through mud, trying to keep his greatcoat from scraping the damp sides of the tunnel, before they ascended a set of stone steps and came out in a somewhat more spacious basement. It was a stone room, with a dust-covered wardrobe in one corner, a double bed, and an empty musket rack. At the opposite side of the room a spiral staircase led upward.

  “This room and passage,” Ruper said, his first words since joining them, “were made as an escape route long ago, when unrest was common in this part of Deliv.” Ruper gestured toward the staircase. “That will take you up to the second floor. It comes out from behind a false bookshelf into the main office of the governor. I’ll return to my mistress now.”

  Tamas caught Ruper by the shoulder before he could go back down into the passage. “Tell Halley that… tell her I’m truly sorry I never came back.”

  Ruper pulled himself from Tamas’s grip and headed down into the passage with the only lantern, leaving Tamas and his mages in darkness.

  Tamas took a small touch of powder to his tongue, letting him see ever so slightly in the utter blackness. He headed up the staircase slowly, as quietly as he could. It creaked beneath him as the wrought iron ground together beneath his weight.

  At the top of the staircase there was light. It came in through a pair of holes just a couple inches too short for Tamas to look through comfortably. He set his face against the wall, gazing through the looking-holes.

  He could see very little. A double door on the opposite side of the room. A candelabra. The top of a sofa. He opened his third eye.

  There were blots of color in the Else. Just bright enough to be Wardens, but too far away from him to be inside the governor’s office. No sign of a Privileged.

  Tamas pushed gently on the door.

  It rolled forward silently, then slid to the side with nothing more than a touch of a finger. Tamas stepped out into the governor’s office. It was a large room, with dozens of gilded candelabras, shelves full of books, two magnificent fireplaces, and a grand window that looked out over the courtyard in front of the manor.

  The room was empty.

  Tamas let out a sigh of relief and called softly for his Marked to come up. They filed into the room, tracking mud on the pristine red carpets. He directed them with hand signals to cover the doors and windows.

  They checked the adjoining rooms and the hallway immediately outside.

  Vlora joined him by the bay window a few minutes later. “No one in these office suites, sir,” she said. “A couple of Wardens downstairs by the front door. Andriya says he can hear soldiers talking in the servants’ quarters on the first floor.”

  “Good work.”

  “What now?”

  “We wait.”

  “Are you sure Nikslaus will come back here, sir?”

  “I have a good guess.”

  Andriya returned to the room at that moment. “Sir, luggage in the master bedroom.”

  Tamas checked his pocket watch. It was just after six o’clock. “Timing will be everything.”

  Tamas watched out the bay window. There were a dozen or so soldiers in the yard. They stood at attention, facing the gate, muskets on their shoulders. Tamas spotted a Warden in one corner of the yard, barely visible from his vantage point.

  He checked his watch every few minutes. Would Nikslaus come back here? Had the news already reached him that Tamas was coming for him? Maybe he’d read Nikslaus wrong. Maybe Nikslaus would rather flee than attempt to catch Tamas.

  Tamas brought his attention back to the courtyard outside as several horsemen came through the front gate. They were followed closely by a carriage decked out with lace curtains and fine gilding. It pulled around the turnabout and came to a stop. Tamas was so close he could have tossed a rock through the window and hit the top of the carriage.

  The door opened and a Deliv woman stepped out. She looked about sixteen. She wore a fine gown that displayed her ample bosom. Tamas felt a wave of disappointment as she got her feet on the gravel drive and looked around regally.

  Not Nikslaus.

  Tamas stepped away from the window.

  “Sir!” Vlora motioned him back over. Someone else was getting out of the carriage. It seemed a struggle for him, leaning his forearms against the door frame. It was a man. He wore white Privileged’s gloves. A Warden appeared from the mansion, grasping one of the arms and helping the man down. His face was partially concealed by a tricorne hat.

  Tamas prayed the Privileged would turn his head just a little bit so Tamas could get a look at his identity.

  The Privileged stopped to talk to one of the soldiers. The voices were too low for Tamas to make out. The soldier gave the Privileged a brisk nod, then turned to the others. “We leave in two hours!” he said loudly. “Anyone who’s not ready to move out by dark will be shot.”

  Tamas’s gaze was still locked on the Privileged in the tricorne. It had to be Nikslaus! But Tamas still couldn’t see his face. Whoever he was, he chatted amiably with the young lady beside him.

  They had just mounted the steps to the mansion when a messenger came galloping hard into the courtyard and came to a stop in a spray of gravel. The messenger leapt from his horse and ran to the Privileged.

  Tamas felt his heart begin to beat faster.

  The messenger saluted and breathlessly gave his report. The Privileged pushed him away with an elbow and spun toward the mansion.

  Tamas heard the doors below burst open. The Privileged’s voice echoed through the building.

  “Get everyone!” he screamed. “All my Wardens, to me! I want five hundred soldiers here in twenty minutes. Give the order! We leave within the hour!”

  “But, sir,” Tamas heard someone say, “the city!”

  “I don’t give a pit about the city. Deliv can enter the war with Adro for all I care. He’s here, you fool! He’s here!”

  “Nikslaus,” Tamas whispered.

  Tamas watched as messengers scrambled out the f
ront mansion drive, going out to give Nikslaus’s orders.

  “Well, Demasolin,” Tamas muttered, “you have your distraction.”

  Urgent steps sounded on the staircase in the foyer accompanied by Nikslaus’s frantic orders.

  Tamas looked down to find one hand already on the grip of a pistol, the other on the hilt of his sword. His fingers itched.

  “He’s coming,” Andriya hissed from his station by the door.

  “Do we wait for him here?” Vlora said.

  Tamas blinked and saw the bodies of Deliv politicians hanging from the steeple of the Alvation cathedral. He saw Sabon’s dead eyes gazing up at him from Charlemund’s gravel drive, and the countless soldiers Tamas had lost trying to catch Nikslaus.

  He saw Erika’s head floating before him. Her face, frozen in horror, blond hair caked with blood, skin severed neatly at the neck. He saw Nikslaus’s grin as he presented Tamas with the head of his dead wife.

  Tamas poured an entire powder charge into his mouth. His body felt like it was on fire as energy coursed through him. Vlora must have seen something on his face.

  “Pit,” Vlora swore. “Andriya, get out of the way.”

  Tamas burst through the double doors of the office, drawing his pistol in one hand.

  “Nikslaus!” he bellowed.

  CHAPTER

  43

  “Citizens of Adopest,” Lord Claremonte’s voice boomed.

  The shock of the amplified sound made Adamat’s knees grow weak. “Pit,” he hissed, “he has Privileged with him!” It was the only way he could be heard above the roar of the crowd like this.

  “My friends,” Lord Claremonte continued, “my brothers and sisters. My countrymen! I bring you greetings from the farthest corners of the world. I have come today to meet you, my fellow Adrans, and to lower myself humbly before you on gracious knee to offer myself as candidate for the post of First Minister of our fair country.” At this, Claremonte lowered himself down on one knee and bowed his head. A moment passed and he rose back up, spreading his arms as if to embrace every man, woman, and child on the riverbank.

  “This is a great nation! We have so much. We have the unions, the army, the Wings of Adom, the banks, and the Mountainwatch. We have industry unparalleled in the modern world. We have the mightiest heroes that any country could hope for in the likes of Taniel Two-Shot and the late Field Marshal Tamas.”

  Lord Claremonte sighed and bowed his head, as if overcome with emotion. “Field Marshal Tamas died for you, my friends. He died for me. For all of us to be free of the Kez tyranny. He had such incredible vision and stride, and I will not let it die with him!”

  The crowd was utterly silent now. Adamat heard someone drop a coin, and he cursed himself for waiting with bated breath for Claremonte’s next words.

  “For what this country needs now is hope. And for that, I have brought with me nine thousand of Brudania’s finest soldiers to throw in with the Adran army and push back the Kez aggressors.” He threw his hand back toward the line of Trading Company ships waiting in the river. “I have brought cannon, and rifles, and supplies. I have brought food, and money. I bring treasures from the four corners of the world, all of which will be put toward the war effort against the Kez.”

  “I do this freely. I ask no thanks, nor hold back any of my wealth on reservation. I only ask that you consider me a worthy candidate for the coming election.”

  Adamat noticed that other longboats were being lowered now. These ones were filled with Brudanian soldiers, and they were free once they hit the water and began rowing toward the riverbank. Claremonte’s own longboat had drawn anchor and was slowly drifting closer to the amphitheater.

  “My countrymen,” Claremonte continued in the silence that followed, “this country needs change. This is a forward-thinking nation! A place of intellectual and industrial prowess. In my ministerial duties, I will continue to support that change and push us forward into the coming century. We will forget the old ways. The superstitions. The foolishness.

  “Gods – what have they done for you?” He shook his head. “Nothing. These rumors you’ve heard about Kresimir and Adom returning? They are true! But know this; we will not tolerate them. They have no place in this world of ours, and I mean to show them that.

  “We may be mortal, but we are fierce and we are proud, and even the gods will tremble at this mighty nation of Adro.

  “It starts today, my friends. Our new world.”

  The final word seemed barely a whisper, but Adamat felt his heart hammering in his chest. Something was happening. What was Claremonte about to do? What could he possibly be…? Adamat brought the looking glass in his hands, hitherto forgotten, back to his eye and focused on Claremonte.

  Claremonte turned to a woman at his shoulder. The woman raised her hands to reveal white gloves covered in crimson runes – a Privileged.

  Adamat read the inaudible words on Claremonte’s lips: “Bring it down.”

  Sorcery cut through the clear sky, eliciting a gasp of terror from the assembled crowds. White lightning, like knives flashing, cut through the air above the amphitheater and smashed into the Kresim Cathedral. Dust billowed in great clouds above the immense building as invisible blades sliced clean through the stone façade.

  An invisible fist smashed into the dome of the cathedral, and all at once the building collapsed in on itself. People ran from the falling stonework, screaming in terror, but the destruction was contained by sorcery, and to Adamat’s eyes it looked as if no one was harmed.

  When the dust had settled, Adamat turned his eyes back on Claremonte. Once again the man stepped to the prow of the boat to address the crowd. He raised his arms.

  “This is only the beginning, my brothers and sisters. This world. We will take it back!”

  Tamas’s first bullet would have taken Nikslaus through the eye if a Warden hadn’t flung the Privileged aside. The bullet slammed into the Warden’s shoulder, making him jerk. The twisted creature drew his sword and bounded up the stairs toward Tamas.

  Tamas drew his sword and charged the Warden. The creature bellowed a challenge, and Tamas answered with a silent snarl. Their swords clashed loudly once, twice, and then Tamas was inside the Warden’s guard. He grabbed the Warden by the neck, feeling the strength of the powder coursing through him, and tossed it off the hallway balcony to the foyer below.

  Nikslaus had rolled down the stairs and picked himself off the marble floors. One of his gloves had come off – Tamas paused at that. No, the whole hand had come off.

  He had been wearing false hands. A ruse to fool his own soldiers into thinking he could still do sorcery? Perhaps. Tamas didn’t care as he flew down the stairs three at a time.

  Nikslaus fled toward the front door, gesturing wildly at Tamas and screaming at his men, “Kill him!”

  The air was already bitter with the scent of black powder. Tamas felt a surge of energy, and an explosion tore through the Kez soldiers as Vlora ignited their powder.

  Soldiers came at him with swords drawn. Nikslaus was smart enough to keep some of his soldiers without powder, it seemed. Tamas caught a thrust with the tip of his sword, flipping it to the side and ramming his own sword into the soldier’s chest. He kept moving forward. Nikslaus backed away from him, face painted with terror.

  A knife spun past Tamas’s face and clattered against the marble banister behind him. He spun toward its owner, a Warden, and grunted as the creature hit him with the force of a charging bull.

  Tamas felt himself lifted into the air and then slammed into the banister. It cracked from the force of the blow, sending him and the Warden tumbling over the edge of the stairs and a short drop to the floor.

  He felt the creature’s fingers close on his throat. Tamas grasped it by the wrist and slammed his other palm into the Warden’s elbow. The creature’s arm snapped, bending ninety degrees the wrong way. Tamas grabbed the Warden by the lapels and kicked, flipping it off of him.

  By the time Tamas had gotten back to his
feet, the room was filled with soldiers. Most of them were dead or dying, shot by a mage or blown to bits by their own powder horns, but there were still enough of the Kez to get in the way.

  Tamas spotted Nikslaus as he fled down a side hallway.

  “Pit!” Tamas swore. He lurched to his feet only to fall again. The Warden with the broken arm had grabbed Tamas’s leg. It swung a knife at Tamas.

  Tamas jerked his leg out of the Warden’s grip, and its knife slammed into the marble floor. The beast surged forward, and Tamas deflected the knife with the guard of his sword. He pummeled the Warden’s face with his hilt, then danced back out of range of another knife thrust.

  The creature got to its feet.

  And came crashing down again as Andriya leapt from the upstairs hallway and landed behind it, bayonet ramming through its skull and brain.

  “Well,” Andriya said, running toward the Kez infantry, “go kill the duke!”

  Tamas dashed toward the hallway where Nikslaus had disappeared. It was a long hall, perhaps a hundred yards into another wing of the manor. Tamas opened his third eye, fighting off the dizziness, and searched for signs of Wardens or the Privileged.

  A soldier leapt out of a side room with a shout. Tamas closed his third eye, reeling back as he felt a sword slice cleanly along the side of his stomach. He fended off another thrust and drew his second pistol, firing from the hip. The shot took the Kez soldier in the chest. The man lurched forward, then tried to step back. A look of surprise crossed his face as he fell to the ground.

  Tamas left him where he was and sprinted along the hallway. The pain of his bad leg throbbed like the beat of a drum and the cut along his side stung in the open air. He slowed as he rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, only to find another hall leading off a hundred paces long.

  No sign of Nikslaus.

  “Sir!” Vlora came up beside him, breathing hard.

  “He came this way,” he said.

  She nodded and trotted out ahead of him.

  Vlora was about fifteen paces ahead of him when a Warden burst out of the cover of a doorway and slammed into her. His momentum took them both across the hallway and out of sight, into another room.