The Way of Caine (The Warcaster Chronicles)

by Holmes, Miles

  Caine glanced ahead to the stairwell from behind the vat. Montague was there, halfway up. Caine risked a salvo in the direction he was taking fire, then ducked back behind the vat. As more return fire struck his cover he conceived it was now or never to cross the no-man’s land between him and Montague. If there’s no cover, I’ll make my own, he thought. Drawing on his magic, his form became vague, shifting. Emboldened, Caine ran from the vat like a specter, firing as he went.

  A volley of shots followed after him. So many, it was as though he was the only target in a carnival shooting gallery. Scores of shots chased after him as he went.

  All of them missed, save one.

  Caine convulsed forward in mid sprint, falling on his face next to some barrels. In his side, the sharp jab of another bolt, and with it that unbearable fire in his head. Where were those bloody things coming from? He bit his lip at the pain and scrambled to roll behind the barrels. With the bolt in his side, his magical cover dissipated like smoke around him.

  He could see Montague had made the top of the stairs, and now pushed on the exit. Still reeling at the pain, Caine leveled a shaky Spellstorm after him in a lame attempt to wing the man.

  Pursuit had already made it as far as the vat he’d used only moments ago, three men with clear shots despite the barrels he now lay behind. They leveled their hand cannons with cruel smiles. Grimacing with the pain of the bolt in his side and still on his back, he put each man down in turn with rune kissed hellfire. As the last of them fell to the ground, he looked back up the stairwell to see the door slamming shut.

  It’s like that, is it, he sighed.

  He couldn’t flash away, and all around him the shouts of more men closed in. It was clear he wasn’t going to take the stairs without getting hit; they offered no cover at all. Rolling away, he struck off in another direction, firing his Spellstorms wherever he saw movement.

  Caine found a corridor ending in another stairwell up. Pausing, he looked down at his side. The bolt had tagged him by the barest margins, and he tugged it free with a grunt. Gradually the fire it put in him seemed to ebb. Daring to reload, he had made it halfway through when shouts came from around the corner. Slamming both Spellstorms shut, he moved on. He’d lost sight of his mark and he knew he was fading with every drop of blood that hit the ground. I’m not done yet. Taking the stairs, he pushed the burning pain from his head with sheer, stubborn anger. At the second floor landing, there was an access hatch to the side of the building. He seized upon it. Unbolting it, Caine looked out to find a long drainpipe running up the side of the outer wall.

  There, below.

  Caine saw Montague leaping from a fire escape to the alley. The panicked man started running, soon rounding a corner and out of sight. Caine looked across to the adjacent rooftop a story higher up, and stepped back.

  You’re going to lose him, he thought, pain shooting across his body.

  “The hell I am!”

  With an oath, he lurched forward into a running leap, and pushed himself to flash just before he would have hit the wall. With relief, he vanished, only to reappear some ten feet higher in mid-air over the alley. As he came to a skidding stop on the adjacent roof, he looked back the way he’d come, panting with the effort. His head was throbbing, and he felt slightly dizzy. Just the same, he’d leapt not a moment too soon.

  Shots from the hatch he’d left behind chased after him, buzzing wide into the night air. He squinted at the mob, spotting the trollkin with the hammer at the head of them. Caine shook his head in exasperation, and started along to the eaves to try and find his lost mark.

  Fatigued though he was, Caine made his way round a silo, arriving at the north side of the building. Just in time he saw Montague stepping out onto the main street. The man stopped, leaning against the wall to catch his breath in ragged gasps, and looked the way he’d come for signs of pursuit.

  Near as Caine could tell, it was just the two of them now. Montague was headed for the bright lights of the busy avenue, lined with taverns, carriages and foot traffic of all sorts. Caine leveled his pistol, stepping forward along the eaves, hoping once more for a leg shot to slow the man down. As he went, he failed to notice the small stove pipe underfoot. He was suddenly falling, the street yawned three stories below. Flailing, he kept his balance, but went down on a knee, a gasp in his throat. As he did, the unmistakable whoosh of another bolt flew in the place his head had been only a second ago.

  He had not lost his tail. Not at all …

  Caine cracked three shots in the direction the bolt had come before diving for a brick half-wall. He saw a shadow move from across the roof and with it the whistle of another bolt. The thing caught him by the coat as he dove, but no more. His own shot had cracked the stone facing of the wall behind the man, and he heard a hiss of anger as brick shards showered him. He glanced at the bolt protruding from his coat. He recognized the undamaged barb as Iosan, very rare. Very dangerous.

  So that’s Zeke. The bastard’s some sort of elf mage hunter, he thought.

  His pursuer might be in cover, but at least he had come out of hiding. He must think I’m done, Caine smiled grimly. Caine could just make him out at this range. He squinted to see the Iosan nock another bolt while leaning against his own brick half-wall. This was a fight he could win, as he saw it. He’d just have to get it over with quickly. Risking a glance over the side of the building, he saw Montague on the main street, approaching a taxi carriage. He glimpsed numbers stenciled on the side of the taxi.

  “Two-nine-three-three,” he whispered.

  Then promptly swore in shock. Up and over the side of the wall, McCoy climbed the fire escape only a few yards away. Getting his bearings, the trollkin turned and looked around. As he found Caine, he smiled his ugly snaggle-toothed smile. Caine groaned. He was about to get caught on both sides.

  Zeke didn’t seem much pleased by the development either. From his cover, he shouted out at the arrival of his colleague.

  “McCoy! I have him!” he cried out from behind cover.

  McCoy grinned, hauling his hammer over his shoulder. “I think not!” he roared back. “This little one put a bullet in me. Two maybe! I will split his head over the affair.” The trollkin laughed deeply, brandishing his hammer to readiness. Caine was only a few strides away from the monster, and totally exposed. He raised a Spellstorm and fired. Three shots now found the trollkin, tearing into his midriff. Dark blood stains appeared in the silk white shirt and vest, but just the same, he only grunted, stepping forward as though walking into a strong wind. McCoy only smiled amicably at Caine as he came on, his hammer rising once more. Caine looked at his pistols hopelessly, then back up at the advancing Trollkin.

  Across the rooftop, his colleague Zeke was undeterred. “Ten crowns you don’t touch him before I get a blade in him?”

  “You’re on,” McCoy shouted back, only three strides away from Caine. He dared a glance back to Zeke, and found the elf was at once clear of his cover. His shadowy figure had become a fluid dance of movement, almost impossible to track. On and on he came, leaping and tumbling over the intervening obstacles. Somehow as he tumbled, a long curved blade had already made its way to his hand.

  Caine nearly let panic take him. On one side, a rampaging monster, hammer ready to strike. On the other, the relentless Iosan hunter was ready to strike with blade and crossbow.

  Death on both sides.

  Caine’s mind raced. Focus shots one way, get taken from the other. Flash away, maybe, but lose the mark and certainly not get far enough to lose this pair.

  No.

  It had to stop. He just needed more time to think.

  Caine recalled the Khadoran raid, and the lesson it had taught him. The path he’d found, that special magic that led him to the place between seconds. He was tired now, so very tired, but he could find it again. He had to. His head throbbed and was fit to burst. Immediately, he thought he’d pushed too hard. It wasn’t going to work …

  The pain was gone. Sound too. Ca
ine opened his eyes to a world of gray and glitter. Zeke and McCoy were radiant shapes on either side of him, their movement reduced to an impossible crawl. He felt the strength to stand. He had time enough to line them up. Not a second longer.

  Time moved again.

  They came screaming at him, wild eyed and open mouthed. With eyes closed and arms crossed, he squeezed a single shot from both Spellstorms. Thunder echoed across the rooftop, the muzzle flash of either barrel hung motionless, rapt in rune-halo.

  Iosan and Trollkin alike were struck square in the forehead, and both were thrown back, their eyes wide. Caine blinked.

  It was no dream, he had done the thing.

  Both men were dead within feet of him, their lifeless eyes looking skyward in stunned silence. He could only chuckle, dropping to his knees.

  Dazed, his eyes drifted down to the avenue below. He smiled weakly, watching the pedestrians moving to and fro. He noticed cabs moving along the avenue, their horses at a trot.

  Clip Clop Clip Clop.

  Caine snapped his head up, focusing his eyes. He scanned the traffic, to find a cab marked two-nine-three-three still in sight. With a groan, he struggled to his feet. Moving to the fire escape, he shimmied down, every muscle screaming in protest. He was soon jogging at street level, guns holstered in pursuit of the errant cab. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he pushed past the crowds along the avenue. He gasped. The cab was too far to catch. He didn’t have the strength left. His steps slowed. As another cab rushed alongside him in the same direction, he grabbed the running bar. Swinging into the passenger compartment, he shouted to the driver breathlessly, “Follow two-nine-three-three!”

  That was when he noticed the cab was already occupied. He looked across the bench to find a middle aged man clutching a ledger, gaping in terror at the sight of him.

  It was Montague.

  Caine started laughing, and shaking his head. Montague made to leave with a whimper, his hand reaching for the door. Caine kicked his leg up, knocking the treasurer back to his seat. He already had a Spellstorm on him, and he cocked it slowly. Montague grimaced, clutching his ledger like a shield, but sat still.

  “As you were driver,” Caine shouted after him, panting still.

  “Please don’t kill me!” the bespectacled man pleaded in flawless Cygnaran. Caine reclined casually behind the man’s desk, his feet up. They were in the fourth floor study of a typical looking townhouse, in the well-to- do neighborhood of Ules. The place seemed unlived in except for this study, which had been well supplied, not least of which included a full liquor cabinet. Caine absently kept a Spellstorm trained on the man across from him as he flipped through his ledger, page by page.

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  Montague only moaned, putting his head on the desk.

  The facts were neatly laid out and immaculately detailed, in fact. There had been four shipments like the one tonight, already sent into Cygnar. It was incredible, really. The ledger included the name of each Cygnaran nobleman implicated, how much they’d been promised, and how much they had received. The names of a dozen mercenary companies, including the Von Baums were listed. Montague had been so thorough as to detail the stages of the operation for which the mercenaries would receive their pay, as appendices. Even if it did not list the exact agenda of the nobles, the fact that it detailed as much information as it did, left one readily capable of deduction.

  Clearly, they were gathering diversionary forces across the periphery of Cygnar while a singular force gathered near her heart. Even more incredible, a payment history showed an earl in Caspia was taking the largest of the gold shipments. It inferred a bribe was in play. Caspia had never fallen. Caine knew that, hell, everyone did. It was the stuff of old stories. Of course, in those stories, the enemies were always on the other side of her thick walls. Was there really someone on the inside capable of compromising her defenses, and actually willing to do it? Caine looked up at the despondent man across from him, baffled.

  This man was running the show? Really?

  The chances he might actually be capable of moving this much gold out from under Rynnard’s nose without him knowing seemed incredible. Yet Rynnard was an old man. It was not impossible, and Thaddeus here might well be putting on a show for Caine. He looked up from the ledger, regarding the man before him as he might a card player.

  “Oh, I suppose you should kill me. This was wrong from the beginning. I begged him against it!” Thaddeus lowered his head, pulling his spectacles from his head to rub the bridge of his nose.

  “Who? Who did you beg?”

  Thaddeus looked alarmed, instantly covering his mouth. Caine shook his head, rolling his eyes.

  “This is Rynnard’s show, isn’t it?” Caine glared at Thaddeus over the top of the ledger. The treasurer said nothing, only keeping his head low.

  Downstairs, there came a pounding at the door. Caine looked at Montague sharply, while Montague himself blanched. With a growl, Caine stood up and grabbed the treasurer by the scruff of his shirt, pulling him out to the balcony. Below, they could see a squad of city guard, knocking at the door. Caine pointed a Spellstorm in Montague’s face, then pointed to the roof above them. The man nodded, shivering in the cool night air. Caine boosted him up, and then flashed himself there an instant later. Montague jumped, startled by the display, but kept quiet. Below, they could hear the door being smashed open. Guards stormed in.

  Caine kept the gun to Thaddeus forehead, and listened. Room by room they moved, calling for Montague. Finally, they were right below, looking out at the balcony.

  “He’s not here, sir!” came the shout in Llaelese.

  “I can see that, idiot. Would you like to inform his majesty of this yourself?”

  “N-no. No, sir!” Then, as quickly as they had come, the guards stomped out.

  Caine laughed at the timid man next to him, as the pair sat still on the roof.

  “Why all this … subterfuge, Montague? If Rynnard wants Leto gone so bad, why not just supply the nobles without all this?” The distraught man nodded. A weight seemed to lift from him with each bob of his head.

  “He wanted to be able to distance himself from it, if there was a chance it came to light. Plausible deniability. It’s ambitious. He knew it could blow up in his face, and we’re supposed to be your allies after all. You are Cygnaran, yes? The accent … from around Orven?”

  “Bainsmarket, actually,” Caine corrected, as he glanced back at the ledger.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Thaddeus sighed, despondent.

  Caine looked up at the stars as the odd pair continued to sit on the sloped copper roof. Dawn was coming, maybe another couple of hours. By Morrow, what a night. He had the ledger and the man, too. By Rebald’s order, what came next was clear enough.

  And yet.

  His hand was reluctant to point a Spellstorm at Montague anymore. Instead, he holstered it, and reached into his pocket for a trinket he’d been given in Ceryl. He found it easily enough. Caine turned it over in his hand, and thought about the words of the man who’d given it to him: Lord Brigham Walder. Montague saw the gleam of it and looked over with interest.

  “What is that?”

  Caine looked up, as if breaking from a trance.

  “I reckon it’s the reason I’m not going to kill you. No matter how dear that decision might cost me.”

  Montague blinked.

  Caine and Montague tinked glasses and the fourth round of brandy disappeared in a sudden warm rush.

  “Every day! She used to bake them ev’ry day! You wound’t be’lieev how good they were,” Montague slurred, eyes wide at Caine. For his part, Caine had only managed to get tipsy, but with each new round, the aches and pains of the day receded a little further. In fact, when he’d gone down for the bottle and glasses, he’d managed to patch himself up with some bandages and a cooling balm. It felt wonderful on his shoulder. On the whole, he felt surprisingly good, despite the fact that just about everything he’d touched in the
past week was a smoking disaster.

  He leaned back on the slope of the roof, looking up at the stars.

  “Just remember what I said about yuir brother, Montague,” he said. “If he sold yeh out once, he’ll do it agin.” Montague’s eyes were instantly glistening, and he rubbed them with a sleeve.

  “Thaddeus, Caine. Call me Thaddeus. Kreel, … my brudder, ... he … wasn’t always like this. Before he started playing cards …”

  “Don’t yeh make excuses for him!” Caine snapped with surprising anger. “I mean ... well ...”

  “What … will happ’n to you now?” Montague, still sitting with the bottle between his legs, looked down at Caine, frowning with brandy-exaggerated worry.

  “Hell with it. I don’t care.” Tracing the lines of a constellation with a finger, he shrugged. “Oh, I reckon they’ll toss me out. I got men killed last night, Thaddeus. What’s more, when I get to the one I’m actually supposed to kill, I refuse. It’s a mess.”

  Thaddeus nodded slowly, a frown forming on his face.

  “You’re a better man than I, Mr. Caine,” he said slowly, with deliberate effort. “Whatever your faults, you have a code, and it’s not for sale. Me? I did what I was told, even tho’ I knew it was wrong.” He shook his head, disgusted.

  “Relax.”

  “No! Listen. You’ve shown me. Starting now. This thing tonight? I never saw you. I ...” Thaddeus gestured, lit up and animated now. A second too late, he realized he’d let his grip on the bottle go. As it started to roll down the roof, his eyes grew wide in alarm. He dove for it.

  And disappeared over the eaves.

  Caine laughed, looking at the place Montague had been a second ago. “You stupid bastard!” Heaving himself up, he leaned over the eaves, expecting to see the drunken treasurer on the balcony below.

  Except Thaddeus wasn’t there.

  The treasurer had missed the narrow balcony. He was a splayed heap now, bent in wrong angles on the cobblestones four stories down. A pool of blood was already radiating from him, and the smashed brandy bottle was just out of reach of his dead hand.