Powder Mage Trilogy 01 - Promise of Blood

by Brian McClellan

  “But…” Adamat said. “Where do I start? Can I speak with Cenka?”

  Tamas paused near the top of the stairs and turned. “If you can speak with the dead, you’re welcome to.”

  Adamat ground his teeth. “How did they say the words?” he said. “Was it a command, or a statement, or…?”

  Tamas frowned. “An entreaty. As if the blood draining from their bodies was not their primary concern. I must go now.”

  “One more thing,” Adamat said.

  Tamas looked to be near the end of his patience.

  “If I’m to help you, tell me why all of this?” He gestured to the blood on the stairs.

  “I have things that require my attention,” Tamas warned.

  Adamat felt his jaw tighten. “Did you do this for power?”

  “I did this for me,” Tamas said. “And I did this for Adro. So that Manhouch wouldn’t sign us all into slavery to the Kez with the Accords. I did it because those grumbling students of philosophy at the university only play at rebellion. The age of kings is dead, Adamat, and I have killed it.”

  Adamat examined Tamas’s face. The Accords was a treaty to be signed with the king of Kez that would absolve all Adran debt but impose strict tax and regulation on Adro, making it little more than a Kez vassal. The field marshal had been outspoken about the Accords. But then, that was expected. The Kez had executed Tamas’s late wife.

  “It is,” Adamat said.

  “Then get me some bloody answers.” The field marshal whirled and disappeared into the hallway above.

  Adamat remembered the bodies of that street gang as they were being pulled from the drain in the wet and mud, remembered the horror etched upon their dead faces. The answers may very well be bloody.

  Chapter 2

  Lajos is dying,” Sabon said.

  Tamas entered the apartments of the Privileged who’d been Zakary the Beadle. He swept through the salon and entered the bedchamber—a room bigger than most merchants’ houses. The walls were indigo and covered with colorful paintings that displayed various Beadles in the history of Adro’s royal cabal. Doors led off to auxiliary rooms, such as the privy and Beadle’s kitchens. The door to the Beadle’s private brothel had been ripped apart, splinters no bigger than a finger scattered across the room.

  The Beadle’s bed had been stripped of sheets, the Beadle’s body tossed aside for a wounded powder mage.

  “How do you feel?” Tamas said.

  Lajos managed a weak cough. Marked were tougher than most, and with the gunpowder Lajos had ingested, now coursing through his blood, he would feel little pain. It was little consolation as Tamas gazed on his friend. Half of Lajos’s right arm was gone—lengthwise—and a hole the size of a melon had been torn through his abdomen. It was a miracle he’d lived this long. They’d given him half a horn’s worth of powder. That alone should have killed him.

  “I’ve felt better,” Lajos said. He coughed again, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.

  Tamas drew his handkerchief and dabbed the blood away. “It won’t be much longer,” he said.

  “I know,” Lajos said.

  Tamas squeezed his friend’s hand.

  Lajos mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

  Tamas took a deep breath. It was suddenly hard to see. He blinked his eyes clear. Lajos’s breathing came to a rasping stop. Tamas made to pull his hand away when Lajos gripped it suddenly. Lajos’s eyes opened.

  “It’s all right, my friend,” Lajos said. “You’ve done what needed to be done. Have peace.” His eyes focused elsewhere and then stilled. He was dead.

  Tamas closed his friend’s eyes with the tips of his fingers and turned to Sabon. The Deliv stood on the other side of the room, examining what was left of the door to the harem where it hung on the frame by one hinge. Tamas joined him and looked inside. The women had been corralled away an hour ago by his soldiers, taken to some other part of the palace with the rest of the Privilegeds’ whores.

  “The fury of a woman,” Sabon murmured.

  “Indeed,” Tamas said.

  “There’s no way we could have planned for this.”

  “Tell that to them,” Tamas said. He jerked his head at the row of four bodies on the floor, and the fifth that would soon be joining them. Five powder mages. Five friends. All because of one Privileged that had been unaccounted for. Tamas had just put a bullet in the Beadle’s head—a man who he’d shaken hands with and spoken to on a regular basis. Tamas’s Marked stood around him, ready in case the old man had some fight in him. They were not ready for the other Privileged, the one hiding in the brothel. She’d sliced through that door like a guillotine blade through a melon, Privileged’s gloves on her hands, fingers dancing as her sorcery tore Tamas’s powder mages to shreds.

  A powder mage could float a bullet over a mile and hit the bull’s-eye every time. He could angle a bullet around corners with the power of his mind, and ingest black powder to make himself stronger and faster than other men. But he could do little to contest Privileged sorcery at close range.

  Tamas, Sabon, and Lajos had been the only men with time to react, and they’d barely fought her off. She’d fled, echoes of sorcerous destruction following her through the palace as she went—probably nothing more than a show to keep them from following. Her parting shot had been Lajos’s mortal wound, but it had been randomly flung. It very well could have been Sabon, or even Tamas himself, who’d died there on the bed a moment ago. The thought chilled Tamas’s blood.

  Tamas looked away from the door. “We’ll have to follow her. Find her and kill her. She’s dangerous on the loose.”

  “A job for the magebreaker?” Sabon said. “I wondered why you’ve kept him around.”

  “A contingency I didn’t want to use,” Tamas said. “I wish I had a mage to send with him.”

  “His partner is a Privileged,” Sabon said. “A magebreaker and a Privileged should be more than a match for a single cabal Privileged.” He gestured at the wrecked door.

  “I don’t like to fight fair when it comes to the royal cabal,” Tamas said. “And remember, there’s a difference between a member of the royal cabal and a hired thug.”

  “Who was she?” Sabon asked. There was a note in his voice, perhaps reproach.

  “I have no idea,” Tamas snapped. “I knew every one of the king’s cabal. I’ve met them, dined with them. She was a stranger.”

  Sabon took Tamas’s anger without comment. “A spy for another cabal?”

  “Not likely. The brothel girls are all checked. She didn’t look like a whore. She was strong, weathered. The Beadle’s lover, maybe. I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

  “Could the Beadle have been training someone in secret?”

  “Apprentices are never secret,” Tamas said. “Privileged are too suspicious to allow that.”

  “Their suspicions are often well founded,” Sabon said. “There has to be a reason for her presence.”

  “I know. We’ll deal with her in good time.”

  “If the others had been here…” Sabon said.

  “More of us would be dead,” Tamas said. He counted the bodies again, as if there might be fewer this time. Five. Out of seventeen of his mages. “We split into two groups for precisely this reason.” He turned away from the bodies. “Any word from Taniel?”

  “He’s in the city,” Sabon said.

  “Perfect. I’ll send him with the magebreaker.”

  “Are you sure?” Sabon said. “He just got back from Fatrasta. He needs time to rest, to see his fiancée…”

  “Is Vlora with him?”

  Sabon shrugged.

  “Let’s hope she gets here soon. Our work is not yet done.” He raised a hand to forestall protests. “And Taniel can rest when the coup’s over.”

  “What must be done will be done,” Sabon said quietly.

  They both fell silent, regarding their fallen comrades. Moments passed before Tamas saw a smile spread on Sabon’s wrinkled black face. The Deli
v was tired and haggard, but with a hint of restrained joy. “We succeeded.”

  Tamas eyed the bodies of his friends—his soldiers—again. “Yes,” he said. “We did.” He forced himself to look away.

  A painting stood in the corner, a monstrosity with a gilded frame on a silver tripod befitting a herald of the royal cabal. Tamas studied the painting briefly. It showed Zakary in his prime as a strong young man with broad shoulders and a stern frown.

  A far cry from the old, bent body in the corner. The bullet had entered his brain in such a way as to kill him instantly, yet his lifeless throat had gasped the same words as the others: “You can’t break Kresimir’s Promise.”

  Cenka was white as a mummer’s painted face after the first of the Privileged cried out as they died. He’d demanded that Tamas summon Adamat here, to the heart of their crime. Tamas hoped that Cenka was wrong. He hoped that the investigator found nothing.

  Tamas left the cabal’s wing of the palace, Sabon following close behind.

  “I’ll need a new bodyguard,” Tamas said as they walked. It pained him to speak of it, with Lajos’s body still cooling.

  “A Marked?” Sabon asked.

  “I can’t spare one. Not now.”

  “I’ve had my eye on a Knacked,” Sabon said. “A man named Olem.”

  “He’s a soldier?” Tamas asked. He thought he knew the name. He held his hand just slightly below his eyes. “About this tall? Sandy hair?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s his Knack?”

  “He doesn’t need sleep. Ever.”

  “That’s useful,” Tamas said.

  “Quite. He has a strong third eye as well, so he can watch for Privileged. I’ll have him briefed and by your side for the execution.”

  A Knacked wouldn’t be as useful as a powder mage. Knacked were more common, and their abilities were more like a talent than a sorcerous power. But if he could use his third eye to see sorcery, he would be of some benefit.

  Tamas approached the barred doors of the chapel. A pair of Tamas’s soldiers emerged from the shadows by the wall, muskets at the ready. Tamas nodded to them and gestured at the door.

  One of the soldiers removed a long knife from his belt and slid it between the doors to the chapels. “He flipped the Diocel’s latch,” said the soldier fiddling with the knife, “but he didn’t even bother to stack anything in front of the door. Not very enterprising, if you ask me.” He flipped up the lock and he and his companion pushed the doors open.

  The chapel was large, as were all the rooms in the palace. Unlike the rest of the palace, however, it had been spared the seasonal remodeling customary of the king’s whims and remained close to what it must have looked like two hundred years ago. The ceiling was vaulted impossibly high, with boxes for the royalty and high nobles set about halfway up the walls in between columns as wide across as an oxcart. The floor was tiled in marble designed in intricate mosaics of various shapes and sizes, while the ceiling contained paneled depictions of the saints as they founded the Nine Nations under the god Kresimir’s fatherly gaze.

  Two altars sat at the front of the chapel, raised slightly above the benches, next to a pulpit of blackwood. The first altar, smaller, closer to the people, was dedicated to Adro’s founding saint, Adom. The second, larger altar, sided by marble and covered with satin, was dedicated to Kresimir. Beside this altar huddled Manhouch XII, sovereign of Adro, and his wife Natalija, Duchess of Tarony. Natalija stared behind and above the altar, her lips moving in silent prayer to Kresimir’s Rope. Manhouch was pale, his eyes red, lips drawn to a thin line. He spoke in a desperate whisper to the Diocel. He stopped as Tamas approached.

  “Wait,” the Diocel called, one hand rising as the king jogged down the steps from the altar and stormed toward Tamas with purpose. The Diocel’s old face was fraught, his robes wrinkled from a hasty rush to the chapel.

  Tamas watched Manhouch march toward him. He noted the one hand held behind his back, the fury of emotions playing across Manhouch’s aristocratic young face. Manhouch looked barely seventeen thanks to the high sorceries of his royal cabal, though in reality he was well into his thirties. It was supposed to reflect the monarchy’s agelessness, but Tamas had always found it hard to take such a young-looking man seriously. Tamas stopped and regarded the king, watched him falter before coming closer.

  Five paces away, Manhouch revealed his pistol. It came up swiftly. His aim was sure at that range—after all, Tamas himself had taught the king to shoot. It was an unfortunate reflection on his detachment from the world, however, that Manhouch attempted it at all. He pulled the trigger.

  Tamas reached out mentally and absorbed the power of the powder blast. He felt the energy course through him, warming his body like a sip of fine spirits. He redirected the power of the blast harmlessly into the floor, cracking a marble tile beneath the king. Manhouch danced away from the cracked tile. The ball rolled from the barrel of his pistol and clattered to the ground, stopping by Tamas’s feet.

  Tamas stepped forward, taking the pistol from the king by the barrel. He barely felt it burn his hand.

  “How dare you,” Manhouch said. His face was powdered, his cheeks blushed. His silk bedclothes were rumpled, soaked with sweat. “We trusted you to protect us.” He trembled slightly.

  Tamas looked past Manhouch to the Diocel still beside the altar. The old priest leaned against the wall, his tall, embroidered hat of office balanced precariously on his head. “I suppose,” Tamas said, shaking the pistol, “he got this from you?”

  “It wasn’t meant for that,” the Diocel wheezed. He stuck his chin up. “It was meant for the king. So he can take his life honorably and not be struck down by a godless traitor.”

  Tamas sent forth his senses, looking for more powder charges, but there were none. “You only brought one pistol, with one bullet,” Tamas said. “It would have been kinder to bring two.” He glanced at the queen, still directing her prayers toward Kresimir’s Rope.

  “You wouldn’t…” the Diocel said.

  “He won’t!” Manhouch spoke over him. “He won’t kill us. He can’t. We are God’s chosen.” He took a deep, shaky breath.

  Tamas felt a ripple of pity for the king. He knew Manhouch was older than he looked, but in reality he was nothing more than a child. It wasn’t all his fault. Greedy councillors, idiot tutors, indulgent sorcerers. There were any number of reasons he’d been a bad—no, terrible—king. He was, however, king. Tamas squashed the pity. Manhouch would face the consequences.

  “Manhouch the Twelfth,” Tamas said, “you are under arrest for the utmost neglect of your people. You will be tried for treason, fraud, and murder through starvation.”

  “A trial?” Manhouch whispered.

  “Your trial is now,” Tamas said. “I am your judge and jury. You have been found guilty before the people and before Kresimir.”

  “Don’t pretend to speak in God’s name!” the Diocel said. “Manhouch is our king! Sanctioned by Kresimir!”

  Tamas laughed mirthlessly. “You’re quick enough to invoke Kresimir when it suits you. Is he on your mind when you’ve got a concubine wrapped in your silk sheets or when you eat a meal of delicacies that would have fed fifty peasants? Your place is not at the right hand of God, Diocel. The Church has sanctioned this coup.”

  The Diocel’s eyes grew large. “I would have known.”

  “Do the arch-diocels tell you everything? I thought not.”

  Manhouch gathered his strength and matched Tamas’s gaze. “You have no evidence! No witnesses! This is not a trial.”

  Tamas flung his hand out to the side. “My evidence is out there! The people are unemployed and starving. Your nobles whore and hunt and fill their plates with meat and their glasses with wine while the common man starves in the gutter. Witnesses? You plan on signing the entire country over to the Kez next week with the Accords. You would make us all vassals to a foreign power simply to dissolve your debt.”

  “Baseless claims, spoken by a tr
aitor,” Manhouch whispered weakly.

  Tamas shook his head. “You will be executed at noon along with your councillors, your queen, and many hundreds of your relatives.”

  “My cabal will destroy you!”

  “They’ve already been executed.”

  The king paled further and began to shake violently, collapsing to the floor. The Diocel slowly made his way forward. Tamas looked down on Manhouch for a moment and pushed aside the unbidden image of a young prince, perhaps six or seven, bouncing on his knee.

  The Diocel reached Manhouch’s side and knelt. He looked up at Tamas. “Is this because of your wife?”

  Yes. Tamas said aloud, “No. It’s because Manhouch has proved that the lives of an entire nation shouldn’t be subject to the whims of a single inbred fool.”

  “You would dethrone a God-sanctioned ruler and become a tyrant, and still claim to love Adro?” the Diocel said.

  Tamas glanced at Manhouch. “God no longer sanctions this. If you weren’t so blinded by your gold-lined robes and young concubines, you’d see it is so. Manhouch deserves the pit for his neglect of Adro.”

  “You’ll surely see him there,” the Diocel said.

  “I don’t doubt it, Diocel. I’m sure the company will be anything but dull.” Tamas dropped the empty pistol at Manhouch’s feet. “You have until noon to make your peace with God.”

  Chapter 3

  Taniel paused on the top step of the House of Nobles. The building was dark and silent as a graveyard this hour of the morning. There were soldiers stationed at intervals on the steps, at the street, and at every door. He recognized Field Marshal Tamas’s men in their dark-blue jackets. Many of them knew him by sight. Those who didn’t saw the silver powder keg pinned to his buckskin jacket. One of them raised a hand in greeting. Taniel returned the gesture and then produced a snuffbox and sprinkled a line of black powder on the back of his hand. He snorted it.

  The powder made him feel vibrant, animated. It sharpened his senses and his mind. It made his heart beat faster and soothed frayed nerves. For a Marked, powder was life.