Брайан Макклеллан - Wrath of Empire

Field Marshal Tamas had been an expert at detecting wards. He’d even taught Vlora how to pick a ward apart – something that most Privileged still considered impossible for a powder mage – but Vlora had never really caught on to the latter ability. The former, however, she’d grown quite good at.

Yet she sensed nothing, even when she poked around for the telltale signs of a ward that had been folded in on itself to hide it.

She was just beginning to wonder if she’d gone mad when the front door to the townhouse opened. She took a half step back, trying to look inconspicuous. Prime didn’t even look up, staring at the front of his folded newspaper with a scowl as he walked briskly past her. She waited a few moments, then turned to follow him.

Had he already noticed her and was leading her into a trap? She tried to remember every detail about him. He was an academic, supporting Tamas during the Adran coup, and had apparently masqueraded as a succession of vice chancellors of Adopest University for hundreds of years. He might genuinely be absentminded, content that his power kept him hidden.

Vlora was deep in thought when she looked up to find that she was no longer following Prime. Her heart quickened and she doubled her pace, hurrying to the next intersection. She checked doorways and alleys for fifty yards. She even looked back down the street to see if he’d doubled back.

No such luck. He had disappeared entirely.

Vlora swore under her breath. This asshole could disappear, both in this world and in the Else. She couldn’t see him; she couldn’t sense him. He could be standing right behind her and she wouldn’t notice it.

She doubled back around the block several times just in case she had missed him. After waiting for nearly ten minutes for him to reappear, she headed to his townhouse, where she walked up to the front door, took a hit of powder, and closed her eyes. In a deep powder trance she could hear footsteps, heavy breathing, sometimes even a heartbeat. She tried to focus on the house, ignoring the ambient sound of the street.

Nothing.

Searching his residence might turn up clues to the godstone’s location. But if she hadn’t been able to sense him disappear, that meant that he could create wards that she couldn’t sense, either. Walking straight into his house might get her killed.

She waffled on the front step for a moment before noticing an old woman sweeping the steps of the next house over. The woman glanced up, noticed that Vlora was watching her, and leaned heavily on her broom. “What you selling?” she demanded.

The question caught Vlora off guard. “Excuse me?”

“The gentleman who owns that house doesn’t like to be bothered. If you’re selling something, you can tell me and I’ll let him know when he’s next in.”

“Does he often buy things?”

“Never. But he likes to know who’s knocking on his door. So you can either leave me your card or bugger off.”

Vlora hesitated, trying to concoct some sort of story that wouldn’t make Prime suspicious. Coming up with nothing, she tipped her hat to the old woman and made her retreat, heading down the street without a backward glance and frustrated that she’d not learned anything new about Prime.

She corrected herself on that last thought. She had learned two things: one, that Prime could disappear at will, and two, that Prime paid his neighbors to watch the house for him while he was out. If he was worried about being tracked down, it meant he was hiding something, and she was willing to bet it wasn’t just his own sorcerous nature.

The Mad Lancers left Bellport, heading west along the northern coast of the Hammer. They traveled slowly, sending out as many scouts as they dared and avoiding the larger towns and cities already flying the Dynize flag. They even stayed several miles inland to avoid being spotted by Dynize ships – of which, their scouts informed them, there were dozens plying the waters back and forth between Fatrasta and Dynize.

Styke kept to himself for several days, content to ride with the rear guard while recovering from the beating Valyaine gave him and teaching Celine how to handle her new horse. The creature turned out to be more stubborn than Styke had initially guessed, and would have found itself discarded with the rest of the extra horses had Celine not taken an equally stubborn liking to it.

Frequent reports came from Ibana with the vanguard. Styke read the reports and sent orders to the front. During the evenings he helped train the newest recruits – having picked up almost five hundred volunteers in Bellport – while Celine continued to learn Ka-poel’s language.

On the fourth day of riding, Styke heard the distant report of artillery and made his way up the winding line of cavalry, joining Ibana with the vanguard over a mile ahead. She sat on her horse on a cliff top, eyes focused on something in the distance. Jackal, bearing the Mad Lancer standard, sat with her.

To the northwest, Styke was able to see the source of the cannon fire that continued to echo across the water. There was a small fortress, whose name had long since escaped him, positioned at the end of a long breakwater. It overlooked the space between the Hammer and an unnamed island, and it was exchanging a violent torrent of fire with a sizable Dynize fleet positioned in a half-moon around the fortress.

“I’m guessing,” Ibana said without lowering her looking glass, “that you’ve been skulking with the rear guard the last few days because you failed to kill Valyaine?”

Styke glanced around. The only people within earshot were Jackal, Celine, and Ka-poel. Styke looked to Jackal, whose Palo freckles had darkened with all the time out in the sun. Jackal simply lifted his hands. This was not something he wanted to get involved with.

“I’ve been teaching Celine to ride her new horse.”

Ibana snapped her looking glass closed and turned toward Styke. “I heard you let Valyaine beat the shit out of you.”

“ ‘Let’ seems a strong word. He’s a champion boxer.”

“And you have the biggest knife on the continent,” Ibana retorted. “Why the pit did you square up fisticuffs against a champion boxer?”

“I wanted to see if I could kill him with my fists.”

“It didn’t work out. He betrayed you, and he’s still alive.”

“I can always go back and gut him later,” Styke said, the words coming out a little more petulant than he’d intended.

Ibana fixed Styke with a long stare and then turned to Celine. “What’s her name, sweetheart?” she asked gently, indicating Celine’s horse.

Celine beamed. “Margo. She already had the name and I liked it, so I decided to let her keep it.”

“That’s a good name,” Ibana replied. She nudged her own horse, quickly trotting around Margo before nodding. “Looks like a good horse.”

“Ben bought her for me.” There was an edge of challenge in Celine’s voice, as if daring Ibana to question the man who would acquire a horse for a little girl. Styke almost laughed out loud.

He butted in before Ibana could get annoyed. “I haven’t been hiding,” he said.

“Good,” Ibana said simply. She drew closer to Styke, letting her voice fall. She didn’t look happy with what she was about to say, but she continued on. “You know it just as well as I do – the Mad Lancers ride on their reputation. On your reputation. You start sparing people who have betrayed you and people will think you’ve gone soft. The prospect of your knife is the only thing that keeps some of these bastards in line.”