Brian McClellan - Return to Honor

“Five, four,” Vlora counted down, tensing.

Vlora’s powder mage senses picked up a sudden shout from the other side of the chapel, and then the unmistakable sound of soldiers scrambling inside. Olem’s men had tipped off the lookout around back.

“Shit,” Vlora said. “Now!”

She slammed one shoulder into the door, only to find it barred from one side. A vision of disaster flashed through her mind-of Olem’s men around back being overwhelmed and killed, of Wohler and his compatriots fleeing, of a running chase in the street that took more lives.

Olem stepped up beside her. “One, two!”

Vlora set her feet and the two of them slammed into the door together. It burst inward, and Vlora leveled her rifle as Olem’s soldiers streamed in behind her.

She took in the building-the chapel was one large room, with pews in the middle and an altar to Kresimir at the front. The pews had been covered in blankets to form makeshift beds. Eight men and women, some of them still wearing the purple of the Prielight guard, scrambled for their weapons.

Vlora detonated the powder of the first Prielight to snatch up her pistol. The crack of the blast rang in her ears and the woman stumbled back with a scream, clutching the remains of her hand.

Glass broke as Olem’s men shattered the windows along the side of the chapel and thrust the barrels of their rifles through the openings. The blast of a rifle went off in Vlora’s ear, and a second Prielight guard stumbled and fell, sword half-drawn. Olem kept his smoking rifle raised, bayonet forward.

The rest of the Prielight guards froze in their places.

The entire entry had taken fewer than five seconds. Vlora searched the room, and panic set in. she didn’t see her target.

He had to be in here somewhere. Maybe in a cellar? Hiding behind the altar? Unless he’d gone out the back before the ambush, or managed to slip out just as they arrived.

“Where’s Wohler?” Vlora demanded.

“Right here.”

Every sense pricked as Vlora felt the tip of a blade press ever so gently against her throat. Her breathing grew shallow and she fought the urge to jerk back, not trusting her reflexes to be fast than Wohler’s. She’d seen what he could do with that sword.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see that Wohler had been concealed by the door as it burst open. No one had swung to cover that side of their approach. Sloppy. Wohler was still half-behind the door now, his arm extended to press the tip of his sword against her throat.

“I can kill every one of your men before you kill me,” she said.

“Detonating their powder?” Wohler asked. “Certainly. But they’re not my men. Just church guards.” Vlora reached out with her senses. Wohler didn’t have an ounce of powder on him.

“Sir,” one of Olem’s men outside the side windows shouted. “I have a clear shot.”

Vlora could feel the tip of the sword tighten against her throat.

“Stand down,” Olem shouted. “Damn it, I said stand down!”

“Drop your rifle, woman,” Wohler said.

Vlora lowered her rifle to the floor.

“Have your men drop their rifles,” Wohler said to Olem.

Olem snorted. “That’s not going to happen.”

“I’ll kill her,” Wohler said.

“And we’ll kill you,” Olem responded coldly. “And we’ll make sure it takes a very long time. Nobody wins that way.”

Wohler sneered. “You have a proposal?”

“Give us the intelligence you took from Charlemund’s estate and we’ll let you walk free,” Olem said.

“Like pit we will,” Vlora said. “He killed Sabon.”

Wohler ignored her. “Bloody Charlemund hasn’t brought me anything but trouble. You can have the intelligence. You swear on your honor as an officer?”

“I do,” Olem said. “None of my men will come after you.”

Vlora felt the prod of the blade and had to take a step to the side to keep from being skewered. Wohler forced her into the middle of the room as he came out from behind cover, the two of them moving together. Wohler, his blade still in place and his eyes on Olem’s soldiers, bent over one of the pews. He lifted a thick case and threw it to Olem’s feet.

“Olem,” Vlora said, “I don’t like this.”

Olem picked up the case and leafed through the papers inside. “You don’t have to like it, Captain,” he said. He nodded to Wohler. “I gave my word as an officer. You can go, Captain Wohler.”

Vlora’s body trembled with anger. How could Olem let this man walk free? Did he really think her life was worth letting Sabon’s killer get away? She watched for a break in Wohler’s focus, but his sword blade was unwavering.

Wohler directed Vlora’s movement again with the tip of his blade. He grabbed his jacket and threw it over one shoulder, then took his hat and forced Vlora between Olem’s soldiers and out into the rain.

They walked together out into the street and down to the end of the block. Vlora waited for the pain of the thrust, for Wohler to take his chances with killing her and making a run for it. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Olem’s soldiers watching their retreat from the door of the chapel.

“Wohler!” Olem’s voice called.

Wohler stopped. He peered back through the rain.

“Wohler,” Olem repeated. “I gave you my word that none of my men would come after you. I forgot to tell you: Vlora isn’t one of my men.”

Vlora let her right leg drop out from beneath her and brought her left arm and shoulder up, slapping the blade away from her throat. The fingers of her left hand grasped the hilt of his small sword. Wohler jerked back, sawing the blade along her arm, slicing through her jacket and into the flesh. She knew that to let go would allow him to bring the tip around to thrust at her chest.

Instead, she jerked on the hilt, bringing Wohler to her. She slammed her right fist into the side of his face. The blow should have broken his jaw, but it glanced off and the two of them stumbled together, tripping on the curb.

Wohler’s forehead connected with Vlora’s nose. She felt a crack, and tasted the blood streaming down her chin. Wohler rolled away from her, slipping from her grasp. He slashed halfheartedly toward her as he leapt to his feet, then dashed down the street.

She wasn’t going after him unarmed, and he knew it.

Instead, Vlora sprinted for the chapel.

She burst past Olem and the soldiers, ignoring Olem’s worried inquiry, and snatched up her rifle before heading back into the street.

She looped the rifle over her shoulder and hauled herself up the metal gutter of the chapel, her left arm slippery with blood, staring up into the black sky. The rain was coming down in sheets as she gained the roof, scrabbling up the slick tiles until she reached the apex.

Her hat had fallen off in the climb, and she had to wipe water out of her eyes. Her left arm was torn up by Wohler’s sword, so she propped it lamely on the apex of the roof and lay the barrel of her rifle across it, sighting down the street the way Wohler had gone.

She stared into the gloom, worried she’d taken too long.

“Come out, you bastard.”

There he was, emerging from an alley four streets over, running for the cover of the next building. He was over three hundred yards away. An easy shot for a powder mage in good conditions. But against a moving target, in the rain and the gloom? Vlora took an extra sniff of powder, willing all of her focus on the running figure. He’d reach the next alleyway and be out of her vision in thirty paces.

Twenty-five.

Twenty.

Fifteen.

Vlora remembered the first time she ever shot in the rain. Target practice when she was thirteen, up near the King’s Forest. She had trembled with anxiety, worried about disappointing Tamas. Sabon had stood next to her, the rain dripping off his hat, and whispered for her to focus on her breathing.