Powder Mage Trilogy 01 - Promise of Blood

by Brian McClellan

  “You’ve one mark on your record,” Tamas said. “You once punched a na-baron in the face. Broke his jaw. Tell me about that.”

  Olem grimaced. “Officially, sir, I was pushing him out of the way of a runaway carriage. Saved his life. Half my company saw it.”

  “With your fist?”

  “Aye.”

  “And unofficially?”

  “The man was a git. He shot my dog because it startled his horse.”

  “And if I ever have cause to shoot your dog?”

  “I’ll punch you in the face.”

  “Fair enough. You have the job.”

  “Oh, good.” Olem looked relieved. He removed his hands from behind his back and immediately stuck the cigarette in his mouth and pulled hard. Smoke blew out his nose. “It would have gone out soon.”

  “Ah. I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

  “Of course not, sir. Someone’s here.”

  Tamas caught sight of movement just inside. “It’s time.” He stepped toward the balcony door and paused. The hounds rose from their sleep and crowded around Tamas’s legs. He gave Olem a look.

  “Sir?”

  “You’re also supposed to get the door for me.”

  “Right. Sorry, sir. This might take me a while to get used to.”

  “Me too,” Tamas said.

  Olem held the door for Tamas. The hounds hurried in ahead of him, noses to the floor. The room was near-silent despite the growing volume of voices in the Garden. Running on days without sleep, Tamas found the silence soothing.

  He was in a grand office, if a room so big could be called that. Most houses could fit inside. It had been the king’s, a quiet place for him to study or review decisions by the House of Nobles. Like everything else that required a hair of a brain or a single krana’s care for how the country was run, the room had remained vacant for the entirety of Manhouch’s reign—though Tamas had it on good authority that Manhouch lent it to his favorite mistress last year, before his advisers found out.

  Ricard Tumblar stood over a table of refreshments, picking through a stack of sugar cakes for the best ones. He was a handsome man despite his receding hairline, with short brown hair and full features, and lines in the corners of his mouth from smiling too much. He wore a costly suit made out of some animal hair from eastern Gurla, and his beard was worn long in Fatrastan style. A hat and cane of equally eclectic and expensive taste rested by the door.

  Ricard controlled Adopest’s only workers’ union and of all of Tamas’s council of coconspirators; he was the only one that could provide pleasant company for longer than a few minutes. Hrusch and Pitlaugh sniffed at him till he gave them each a sugar cake. The dogs took their prizes and retreated to the window divan.

  Tamas sighed. He hated it when people fed them. They wouldn’t shit right for a week.

  “Help yourself,” Tamas said.

  Ricard grinned at him. “Thank you, I will.” He popped a sugar cake in his mouth and spoke around a mouthful. “You did it, old boy. I couldn’t believe it, but you did it.”

  “Not quite,” Tamas said. “The executions must be carried out, the city brought to order; there will be riots and royalists, and I still have the Kez to deal with.”

  “And a country to run,” Ricard added.

  “Lucky for me, I’ll leave that to the council.”

  Ricard rolled his eyes. “Lucky you indeed. I dread working with the rest of them. We need your balancing hand to keep us from each other’s throats.”

  “I agree,” Ondraus said.

  The reeve entered the room at a slow walk, cane in one hand, a thick ledger under the other arm. He crossed the room and tossed the ledger down on the king’s desk, then dropped down in the chair behind it. Tamas stifled a protest.

  Ondraus opened the book. Tamas would have sworn dust rose from the thing. He stepped closer. It was an ancient tome, with gold-thread lettering stitched onto the front—a word in Old Deliv. Something about money, Tamas guessed. The pages themselves seemed almost black. Closer inspection revealed tiny writing—letters and numbers boxed off, written so densely as to require a looking glass to see the actual figures.

  “The king’s treasury is empty,” Ondraus announced. He produced a looking glass from his pocket and set it on the page, peering through it as he perused a few numbers at random.

  Ricard inhaled sharply, choking on a sugar cake.

  Tamas stared at the reeve. “How?”

  “I haven’t seen this thing since the Iron King died,” Ondraus said, gesturing at the tome. “It records every transaction made in the name of the crown for the last hundred years, to the krana. It’s been in the hands of Manhouch’s personal accountants since he took the throne. They kept solid records; that’s the best I can say for them. According to this, there’s not a krana in the king’s treasury.”

  Tamas made a fist to stop his hands from shaking. How would he pay his soldiers? How would he feed the poor and bankroll the police forces? Tamas needed hundreds of millions—he’d hoped for at least tens.

  “Taxes,” Ondraus said, closing the ledger with a thump. “We’ll have to raise taxes first thing.”

  “No,” Tamas said. “You know that’s not an option. If we replace Manhouch with even higher taxes, stricter control, then it’ll be our heads in a basket within a year.”

  “Why should we raise the taxes?” Arch-Diocel Charlemund swept into the room, long, purple robes of office trailing behind him. He was a tall man, strong and athletic, who’d not lost the power of his youth in middle age like most men. He had a square face and evenly set brown eyes, his cheeks clean-shaven. He was swathed in fine furs and silk, with a round, gilded hat upon his head. There were rings on his fingers with enough gold and precious stones to buy a dozen mansions. But that wasn’t uncommon for an arch-diocel of the Kresim Church.

  “I see you brought the whole wardrobe,” Ricard said.

  Tamas inclined his head. “Charlemund,” he said.

  The arch-diocel sniffed. “I’m a man of the Rope,” he said. “I have a title you may use, though it weighs upon me to inflict it.”

  “Your Eminence!” Ricard mimed removing a hat from his head and bowed low to the ground.

  “I wouldn’t expect a man like you to understand,” the arch-diocel said to Ricard. “I’d call you out, but you’re too much of a coward to duel.”

  “I have men to do that for me,” Ricard said. There was the slightest fear in his eye. The arch-diocel had been the finest swordsman in all the Nine before his appointment to the Rope and he was still known to call men out on occasion and—priest or not—gut them mercilessly.

  “Property,” Tamas said to the reeve. “We own half of Adro now, what with every nobleman and his heir about to find himself tasting the guillotine’s edge. Ondraus, I expect you’ll take great delight in this: Dissolve the property. Slowly, but fast enough to fund all the projects we’ve discussed. Sell it outside the country if need be, but get us some damned money.”

  “There were plans for that property,” the arch-diocel said.

  “Yes, and—”

  “What is being done with the property?”

  Tamas sighed. Lady Winceslav entered the room in a gown that could easily compete with the arch-diocel’s robes for whose used the greater amount of cloth and jewels in the tailoring. She was a woman of about fifty years with high cheekbones and a slim waist, diamonds in her earrings. She owned the Wings of Adom, the most prestigious mercenary force in the world, and was a native Adran. Her forces had been quietly pulled out of foreign postings and recalled to Adro over the last few months in preparation for the coup, and Tamas knew he’d need them desperately in the time to come.

  Close behind her followed a big, bald man in a one-piece robe: the Proprietor’s eunuch. Finally, Prime Lektor—Vice-Chancellor of Adopest University—came in behind them. He was easily as old as the reeve and weighed ten stone more. He staggered over to a chair.

  All six of Tamas’s coconspirators
had arrived: five men and a woman who had helped him plan Manhouch’s downfall and who would now determine the future of Adro.

  “By the pit, Tamas,” the vice-chancellor said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. A purple birthmark spidered across the lower left side of his face, touching his lips and one eye. He wore a beard, but no hair would grow on the birthmark, giving the old scholar a particularly barbaric appearance. “You had to choose the top floor? You’re going to regret it in a few years when your bones start to weary.”

  “Lady,” Tamas said, nodding to Lady Winceslav, then to the vice-chancellor and to the eunuch. “Prime. Eunuch. Thank you for coming.”

  The eunuch slid over to the corner and glanced out a window. He moved like an eel and smelled like southern spices, but the Proprietor, the strongest figure in Adopest’s criminal element, never attended these meetings personally—he sent his nameless lieutenant instead. “We had little choice,” the eunuch said. His voice was soft, like a child speaking in church. “You moved up the timeline.”

  “There’s more,” Charlemund said. His voice thundered unnecessarily. “He’s trying to claim the property we’ve confiscated from the nobility.”

  Tamas held his hands up to calm a sudden clamor of voices. He glared at the arch-diocel. “We’re not here to carve up Adro,” he snapped. “We’re here to give it back to the people. The king’s treasury is empty. If we’re to keep any semblance of control over the nation in the next few years, we desperately need the money. Your mercenaries will have land, Lady, and Ricard your union will have its grants. Everyone will get a cut.”

  “Fifteen percent for the Church,” the arch-diocel demanded quietly, studying his nails.

  “Go to the pit,” Ricard snapped.

  “I’ll send you there,” the arch-diocel said, stepping toward Ricard. A hand went into his robes. Ricard scrambled backward.

  “Charlemund!” Tamas said.

  The arch-diocel stopped, turned to Tamas. “The Church will collect its normal fifteen-percent tithe. This was the price of our support.”

  “The price?” Tamas said. “I thought this coup was sanctioned by the Church because Manhouch was letting his people starve. Or was it because Manhouch was taxing the Church in order to pay for his palace of concubines? I don’t remember which. The Church will get five percent and be happy with it.”

  The arch-diocel took a step toward Tamas. “How dare you.”

  Tamas matched the step. His hand twitched toward the small sword at his hip. “Call me out,” Tamas said. “I’ll make it interesting and not choose pistols.”

  The arch-diocel hesitated. A smirk stirred at the corner of his lips. “If I were to remove you, this nation would collapse into chaos and anarchy,” he said. “My first charge is toward my God. My second charge is to my country. I will speak to my fellow arch-diocels and see what I can do.” He removed his hands from the robe, spreading them in a gesture of peace.

  Tamas gave Charlemund an insincere smile. “Thank you.” He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  The eunuch spoke up. “If there isn’t any money in the king’s treasury, what has Manhouch been spending?”

  “The Church’s money,” the arch-diocel grunted.

  “Some of it,” Ondraus corrected. “He’s taken out enormous amounts of credit with a number of banks all across the Nine. The crown owes the Kez government nearly a hundred million krana.”

  Ricard gave a low whistle.

  Tamas turned to the reeve. “The crown is about to drop into a basket. Once you’ve started to dissolve the nobility’s property, begin to pay back the domestic banks. If there’s any money to be found, pay off our allies next.”

  “It’s mostly to Kez,” Ondraus said with a shrug.

  “Good. Let them rot.”

  He turned at the sound of laughter. The eunuch was still by the window. He’d fetched himself a glass of chilled water and was now staring into the bottom. “Your personal vendetta against the Kez is going to see us all on the wrong side of a headsman’s blade,” the eunuch said.

  “It’s not personal,” Tamas snapped. But he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone. They all knew about his wife. All the Nine knew. That didn’t stop him from denying it. “That debt explains why Manhouch was so eager to sign over Adro to the Kez.” He paused. “Have any of you actually read the Accords?”

  “They were meant to curtail the unions,” Ricard said.

  “And outlaw the Wings of Adom,” Lady Winceslav added.

  “Have any of you read the parts of the Accords that didn’t have something to do directly with yourselves?”

  Sitting toward the back of the room, the vice-chancellor raised his hand. Everyone else avoided Tamas’s gaze.

  “They would have destroyed Adro as we know it,” Tamas said. “We would have been slaves to the Kez in all but name. The people are starving, the nation suffers under Manhouch and would suffer more under the Kez. That is why we send Manhouch to the guillotine.” Not because the Kez did the same to Tamas’s wife and Manhouch let it happen without protestation.

  “Are you going to say anything?” Lady Winceslav spoke up suddenly.

  “To whom?” Tamas said.

  “To the crowd. You need to speak to the people. Their monarch is about to be beheaded. They will be leaderless. They need to know they have someone to direct them, to get them through the times ahead.”

  Through the almost inevitable war with Kez, she meant. “No,” Tamas said. “I’ll say nothing today. Besides, I’m not stepping in for the king. The six of you are. I’m here to protect the country and keep the peace while you create a government with the interests of the people in mind.”

  “It would be wise to say something,” the vice-chancellor said, his birthmark shifting strangely as he spoke. “To keep the peace.”

  Tamas took them all in with his gaze. “The people want blood right now, not words. They’ve wanted it for years. I’ve felt it. You’ve felt it. That’s why we came together to pull Manhouch from his throne. I’m going to give them blood. A lot of it. So much it will sicken them, choke them. Then my soldiers will funnel them toward the Samalian District, where they can loot the nobility’s houses and rape their daughters and kill their younger sons. I intend to let them choke on their madness. In two days’ time I will stifle the riots. Proclamations will be made. My soldiers will put down the rioters with one hand and give food and clothing to the poor with the other, and I will restore order.”

  The six members of his council stared back at him silently. Lady Winceslav had paled, and Ricard joined the eunuch in a study of the bottom of his glass. Tamas would let them think on that. Let them consider what he would do to protect his country, to see that justice is done and order restored.

  “You are a dangerous man,” the arch-diocel observed.

  “You speak as if you can control a mob,” the eunuch said. There was disdain in his voice.

  “Mobs can’t be controlled,” Tamas said. “But they can be unleashed. I’m willing to accept the consequences. If you must object, then do so now, but I tell you: These people need blood.”

  The rest of them remained silent. After a few moments Tamas continued. “We’ve many other things to discuss.”

  Tamas took a seat in the corner and did more watching than talking as his coconspirators argued over the details of the coming months. Governors had to be appointed, laws rewritten, workers paid. They had a long, hard road ahead of them. He gave a low whistle, summoning the dogs, then rested a hand on each of their heads as he listened.

  Tamas raised his head when the door to the balcony opened and he suddenly realized he’d been dozing.

  “Sir,” Olem said. “It’s time.”

  Tamas stood up, shaking the sleep from his head. He went to the door, holding it open for Lady Winceslav. “My lady.”

  The group filed out onto the balcony. Tamas looked out over the Garden and the sight took his breath away. Not a single cobblestone could be seen between the pack of bodies belo
w. People stood shoulder to shoulder, the murmur of voices sounding like the lap of waves on the beach. The crowd filled the King’s Garden to excess and poured out into the five connecting streets. There was no end to the throng for as far as the eye could see.

  “Sir,” Olem said.

  Tamas forced himself to look away from the crowd. He prided himself on being a man who felt little fear, but the size of such a throng made him feel small. He wondered briefly if he was mad. No one could control that writhing mass. The looks on the faces of his companions assured him that they shared his awe—even dry, annoyed Ondraus was speechless.

  Tamas adjusted his hat to block out the noonday sun and ran a hand across his cheek. He realized he hadn’t shaved in two days and the stubble was thick on his jaw. Hardly appropriate for a field marshal in a dress uniform.

  The sound below them had sunk to a barely audible whisper. He turned and felt a surge of his heart when he realized that every face was directed at him.

  “Never have I seen a crowd so large. An audience so willing,” Tamas murmured. “Is everything ready?” he said to Olem.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tamas scanned the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. His powder mages and his best marksmen lined those rooftops, rifles sighted into the crowd. Tamas tried to picture the face of the Privileged who’d ripped apart his mages the night before. Weathered, older, with gray in her hair. Wrinkles in the corner of her eyes, and a robe that smelled of dust. He wondered if she’d show here in a bid to rescue the king. Up at Skyline Palace, visible on the horizon to the east, Taniel and the mercenaries were picking up her trail.

  Tamas glanced at his companions on the balcony and wondered what they’d say if they knew they were bait for a Privileged. He could sense that Olem’s third eye was open and examining the crowd.

  “Give the signal,” Tamas said.

  Olem lifted a pair of red signal flags. He waved them twice.

  The gates to Sabletooth opened with a grinding shriek heard for half a mile around. The crowd turned away from Tamas, bodies twisting in giant waves as their attention was fixed to the opposite side of the King’s Garden. Tamas leaned forward, heart ringing like a hammer in his chest.