Brian McClellan - Return to Honor

Vlora closed her eyes, reaching out with her sorcerous senses toward the cobbler’s shop. She moved down into the cellar and up into the second floor, where the owner likely lived. “Powder charges upstairs,” she said. “Could be Wohler, but it could also just be a pistol the mistress keeps for protection. If either of them tries to use it, I’ll suppress the ignition. Ready?”

Olem nodded, and Vlora led the way across the street.

A bell rang as Vlora pushed open the door. The main floor of the building was one large room with two windows in the front and a staircase leading upstairs tucked into one corner. The room was a workshop with benches and shelves, and hundreds of pairs of shoes in various stages of repair, each of them carefully tagged with a name and date.

A woman with long dark hair, wearing trousers and an apron, sat next to one of the benches with a pair of shoelaces in her hands. She looked up, a word of welcome dying on her lips as Vlora drew her pistol.

“Cobbler Karin?” Vlora asked.

The woman threw her hands up, scrambling backward. Vlora leapt forward and caught her by the wrist, twisting it around behind her with one hand and shoving her against the workbench.

“Where’s Wohler?” she demanded.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about!”

“Captain Wohler, where is he?”

Olem drew his pistol and ran upstairs. Vlora heard his footsteps up there, her senses attuned to the powder she’d sensed earlier, waiting to suppress the shot if someone was waiting in ambush. Olem returned a moment later, shaking his head.

Vlora leaned forward, her mouth next to Karin’s ear. “Where,” she said, “is he?”

The woman shook her head. She was trembling.

“Let her up,” Olem said.

Vlora opened her mouth to protest, but Olem’s scowl silenced her. She released Karin’s wrist and stepped back. “Sit down,” she told her.

Karin returned to her seat and looked up at the two of them.

Olem said gently, “We’re soldiers in the Adran army. My name is Captain Olem, this is Captain Vlora. We have a warrant here for Captain Wohler’s arrest.” He took the folded paper from his pocket and handed it to Karin.

“If you’re soldiers, where’s your uniforms?”

Vlora produced her silver powder-keg pin. Karin’s eyes narrowed. “What are the charges?” she asked, raising her chin. She rubbed her wrist and shot Vlora a glare, having apparently recovered from and now resenting the manhandling.

“Treason,” Vlora snapped.

“It wasn’t treason!” Karin said. “He didn’t choose to be part of Charlemund’s guard. It was an assignment.”

“During which he arranged an ambush that saw dozens of Adran soldiers killed.”

“I don’t believe you,” Karin said.

“Maybe it was just an assignment,” Olem said with a quiet, reassuring voice. “But now he’s carrying documents of national importance that could do a great deal of damage to the war effort. We have to bring him in.”

Vlora chewed on the inside of her cheek. She could see the calming effect Olem’s demeanor had on the girl. Doing her best to level her tone, Vlora said, “We’d prefer to bring him in alive. If he tries to flee, we can’t guarantee his safety. Do you know where he is?”

The bell on the door interrupted whatever Karin was about to say.

“We’re closed,” Vlora said over her shoulder. “Come back tomorrow.” She cast a quick glance toward the door, then returned her gaze to Karin.

Karin stared at the doorway, so Vlora took another look.

A man in his early forties stood there in a greatcoat and tricorn hat. There was a piece of bread in his mouth and a pie in one hand. His eyes were wide at the sight of Vlora and Olem, and he reached for his sword with his open hand.

“They’re Tamas’s soldiers,” Karin blurted.

Vlora spun, raising her pistol as Captain Wohler hurled the pie at Vlora and jumped backward out the door. Vlora dodged the flying pastry and pulled her finger off the trigger as Wohler disappeared into the noonday traffic on the street. Without looking back, she flung herself after him.

The wind and impending storm had everyone carrying umbrellas and wearing hats and greatcoats, and Vlora would have lost Wohler immediately if she hadn’t seen the hem of his coat disappearing around the corner into the alleyway to her left. She sprinted after him, fumbling for a hit of powder, and skidded around the corner in time to see Wohler run into traffic on the next street over.

She sprinted after him, keeping an eye on his hat and greatcoat. He might have lost her if he had stopped and tried to blend in, but he had elected to run.

And he was fast, she had to give it to him. He maneuvered through the press of bodies with the learned deftness of a bodyguard, barely slowing despite the shoulder-to-shoulder traffic. Vlora bowled her way through with the strength of a powder mage, curses following her.

She gained on Wohler until she was right on his heels. Just one more person to shove out of the way and…

Wohler whirled so quickly that only an instinctual jump backward saved Vlora’s life. The tip of his sword whooshed inches from her throat in three quick slices. He pulled back on the third slice, and Vlora took the chance to draw her own sword and attack.

Wohler parried her thrust, then performed a riposte that nearly skewered her. They exchanged a flurry of blows, Vlora’s frustration growing as her advantage in strength and speed only barely kept her even with him. A woman screamed and men shouted as she and Wohler hacked at each other, ignoring the widening circle of onlookers around them.

Tamas had once told her that a sufficiently skilled fencer could hold off a powder mage, but she’d never believed him. Now she had the chance to witness it firsthand. She kept trying for the pistol in her belt, but every time her off hand wandered too close, Wohler would press the attack.

Vlora tried to read his patterns, learn his tells, seek out some kind of weakness. It didn’t work. Wohler’s technique seemed to change every few heartbeats, and it was the only thing she could do to keep up. She could feel herself weakening, the days without sleep fouling her speed and concentration. Any second he would get the better of her.

Wohler’s foot moved back and she saw the same riposte he had used a moment ago. She would let him follow through and then counter his thrust. She almost barked out a victorious shout as he batted aside her attack and pushed forward.

The bark came out a cry as Wohler’s blade sliced up the side of her hand to the hilt of her smallsword and neatly disarmed her. She stumbled back, forced to dodge as he followed with a thrust and then a second. Her off hand snatched for her pistol and drew it as she fell.

Wohler threw himself sideways into the crowd of spectators that had grown around them. Vlora hurled a curse and lowered her pistol, forcing herself into the crowd after him, snatching for a handkerchief to wrap around her bleeding hand.

She leapt onto a nearby sidewalk and hooked her good hand around a lamppost, pulling herself up to look around. No flutter of a greatcoat, no hats moving violently to reveal a hasty retreat.

She had lost him.

Back at Karin’s cobbler shop, Vlora found Olem picking strawberry pie off the front of his greatcoat. He had a fresh palm print on his cheek and a sour look on his face. Shoes had been thrown everywhere, display benches knocked over. It looked like there had been a wrestling match.

Karin sat in the corner sulking, hands tied behind her back, the rope looped around the leg of a workbench.

“What happened here?” Vlora asked.

“She leapt on my back the moment you took off after Wohler,” Olem said. He picked up a shoe and used the sole to scrape pie filling off his shoulder. “And thanks for dodging that pie, by the way. I caught it with my chest. Wohler?”