Brian McClellan - Servant of the Crown

Tamas fingered his own hilt, wishing that he had powder at his disposal. The duke seemed ready to surge forward when a soft voice suddenly interjected itself.

“My good Duke of Linz.”

The duke went white. Tamas turned to find a Privileged standing nearby, hands tucked into the sleeves of her long dress with just a hint of white to show that she was wearing her gloves. It was the woman from the House of Nobles, the one who smelled of jasmine, and he even now got a whiff of her perfume.

“Privileged Dienne,” the duke said, ducking his head and taking a step back.

“Excuse us please, Duke Linz.”

“Of course, Privileged.” The duke gave another bow and hurried off.

Tamas eyed the woman suspiciously. He had seen Privileged out on campaign. He knew that they could speak on an equal footing to most noblemen, but he’d never seen one dismiss a duke!

Dienne turned her gaze toward Tamas. He felt his palms begin to sweat. “Privileged Dienne,” he said, giving her a bow somewhat lower than the one she’d received from Duke Linz. He tried to remember how one was supposed to address a Privileged. With a noble it was easy — a lot of bowing and scraping and “my lord this, my lord that.” But a noble could only have you flayed, while a Privileged could flay you themselves. That meant a world of difference in Tamas’s mind.

“Captain Tamas,” Dienne said. Her voice was soft like satin. “I understand that you have just been to see the king.”

“I have.”

Privileged Dienne glanced at the nearest member of the royal guard and then walked a little further away. Tamas had no choice but to follow.

“Please, Captain. Tell me what the king wanted of you.”

Tamas tried to hide his confusion. He opened his mouth to ask her what she could possibly mean, when everything snapped into place.

If his suspicions were correct, the Privileged were already watching Tamas and may have even encouraged his suspension. They didn’t like a man — a powder mage — who could kill from such a distance climbing the ranks of the army. The king, on the other hand, had no such qualms. Summoning Tamas to his personal chamber, even to just stand there for fifteen minutes, would cause a mighty stir inside the cabal.

This was some kind of petty politics between the king and his Privileged. Tamas almost laughed at the simplicity of it.

“Is something amusing, Captain?”

“No, Privileged. I regret to inform you that I’m not at liberty to discuss my conversation with the king.”

Dienne tilted her head. Her hands came out of her sleeves, baring her white, rune-embroidered gloves and their ever-present threat of elemental sorcery. “Are you sure about that?”

“I am.” He eyed her gloves for a moment, then met her gaze. He would play the king’s game. For now. The Privileged would likely not believe him if he told her the truth anyway.

Dienne stepped forward. There was something vaguely threatening in the simple movement, and Tamas steeled himself. “Captain Tamas,” she said in his ear, “Be very, very careful what you say and what you do. We’re watching you. If you misstep, even slightly.” She snapped her fingers, making Tamas jump. Then she reached up, touching his cheek gently with the fingers of one gloved hand. “Be careful, Captain.”

Tamas left the city the next morning.

He headed north past the university, then left the main highway to travel east toward the King’s Forest. It wasn’t a long journey, no more than three hours by horseback, and by the time he reached his destination it was just half past ten in the morning.

The sun was shining but the world was bitterly cold, frost crunching beneath his horse’s hooves as he made his way down a little-used dirt track that ran along the very edge of the King’s Forest.

Tamas crossed over a hill, upon which he turned to look back toward the city rooftops still barely visible in the distance. He contemplated the view for several minutes, wondering about his past and his future, examining the web of choices and actions that had taken him this far in life and trying to predict those which would take him even further.

His eye was caught by a small group of figures a couple of miles off across the farms and rolling hills, following his same dirt track. The village of Huntshire was further down the road. Not more than a dozen houses all told, but it seemed their likely destination.

He continued on his journey, soon leaving the dirt path for a barely perceptible trail through the trees that took him down into a glen just outside the official borders of the King’s Forest. The cottage at the end of the trail was disheveled and falling apart. Weeds grew around the doorway and the thatched roof looked ready to cave in.

He hitched his horse for long enough to check on the house. It had belonged to his parents since long before he was born. His father had passed eight years ago and his mother not long after, but he liked to keep the old place for when he was off campaign. He suspected he would be spending far more time here than he’d planned over the next few months.

He swept the cobwebs out of the rafters and brought in enough firewood to last him for the weekend. Once he was done he rode his horse another mile through the woods, following a path that only he knew.

The glade was a wide meadow in the forest, flat as a city street and almost three hundred yards from one end to the other. Tamas walked the length of it, the brittle fall grass crackling beneath his feet, and set up a number of cans and old newspapers with faces drawn upon them.

Back by the close end of the glade, he sprinkled a charge worth of powder on his tongue before loading his pistol. He closed his eyes, listening to the chirp and rustle of the forest, letting anger flow out of him. He put his fist in the small of his back, then opened his eyes.

He drew, leveled his arm, and pulled the trigger, all in the space of a heartbeat.

A normal pistol had an effective range of not much further than ten yards. Anything beyond was wildly inaccurate and likely not even to make it to the target.

Unless you were a powder mage.

Tamas’s sorcery lit the powder still in his kit at his belt, transferring the energy with his mind, adding it to the strength of the powder that had been loaded in the barrel of his pistol. The bullet soared through the air. Ten yards. Fifty. A hundred. Two hundred.

His sorcery focused and pushed the bullet onwards, allowing for less powder. He nudged the flight of it with his mind, correcting slightly for wind and the inaccuracy of the pistol itself. At three hundred yards it connected with a newspaper, shearing straight through the name of Duke Linz on the second page.

Tamas nodded to himself. It was a good shot. In the city he was always limited by the length of the military ranges, and practicing out on some farm or another always attracted attention. It had been too long since his last attempt, and he was worried he had grown rusty.

He only wished his shooting range was longer.

He began to load the pistol again, already envisioning the next target. An old empty peach can, stamped with the portrait of a peach on the front. He aimed to take off the peach stem.

Deep in his thoughts, Tamas barely noticed the crunch of boots in the leaves off in the forest. He paused, wondering if his ears had played a trick on him.

It was a very slight sound. Someone used to moving stealthily was on the approach, their boots barely stirring the leaves. A normal person would not have heard them. But his mage senses picked up the slightest movements, and he swiftly finished loading his pistol.

He couldn’t be sure if there was only one of them. He remembered the figures following him down the dirt track and cursed himself. He should have given them more heed. He pictured them again, deciding that there had been five.