Brian McCLELLAN - The Autumn Republic

“Spymaster for the new Adran Cabal.”

Nila raised her eyebrows. Bo hadn’t mentioned this to her.

Adamat shook his finger at Bo. “Not a chance. Far too dangerous. Far too political.”

“I’ll leave the offer on the table for a week,” Bo said.

Adamat bowed and took a step back. “I should be flattered by the consideration, but I won’t do it. Thank you, Privileged.”

“Shucks.” Bo removed an envelope from his pocket, no doubt stuffed with krana notes, and handed it to Adamat. The inspector bowed again and made his retreat, Nila and Bo watching him go.

“That man is eminently employable,” Bo said. “I’ll get him eventually.” He seemed to forget about the inspector, though, turning to Nila and giving her a look up and down. “Time to get ready for the funeral. Then we have a trip to make tomorrow.”

“Oh?” Nila asked.

Bo unfolded the paper Adamat had given him and looked it over. “South. Not too far.”

The Deliv army had made their camp in a small town halfway between Adopest and Budwiel. Only about fifteen thousand Deliv soldiers remained, the rest having already begun their march to be home before the winter took a turn for the worse.

The camp was semipermanent, meant to last through the winter, as most of the occupants were the wounded and dying, and the surgeons, nurses, and support staff from both the Adran and Deliv armies, as well as several thousand Kez prisoners. The place reeked of blood, disease, and death, and the burial grounds on the plains outside the town seemed to grow by the acre every day.

Taniel loathed it, and from the moment he and Ka-poel had ridden into the camp he had wanted to be gone.

But he had a promise to keep.

He strolled through the camp, rifle over his shoulder, tricorne hat pulled low over his face and the collar of his greatcoat flipped up. Just another Adran soldier on leave, looking among the wounded for friends or relations. No one stopped or questioned him.

Ka-poel clung to his arm, hidden in her own greatcoat. While he felt exhausted, his body spent from so long at war, she looked more vibrant than ever. Days of sleep had done her well, with her skin flushed and her eyes bright. The death around them didn’t seem to bother her, but Taniel knew that, like him, she longed to be gone.

Taniel spotted a familiar figure waiting beside a carriage near one of the hospital tents at the center of camp and stopped to watch his oldest friend for a few moments.

“Did I ever thank Bo for saving my life up in the mountains?” Taniel asked.

Ka-poel nodded, then pointed at herself and shook her head.

“I did too thank you for saving my life! Did you ever thank me for saving yours?”

She cocked one eyebrow, and Taniel’s face flushed. “All right, so thanks all around,” he said.

She gave a perfunctory nod.

Taniel took a step toward Bo, then hesitated when he saw that Nila was with him. Taniel scowled.

Ka-poel tugged on his arm.

“I asked Bo to come alone.”

Ka-poel seemed to reassess the situation, watching Nila for a few moments, then tugging on his arm again. She mouthed the words, She’s fine .

They approached Bo and his apprentice, and Taniel tipped up his hat. Bo just smiled and stepped forward to embrace first Ka-poel, then Taniel.

“Tan. Little Sister. You look well rested.”

“Being dead will do that,” Taniel answered.

Nila scowled viciously at Bo. “Why the pit didn’t you tell me he was still alive?”

“Does it matter?” Bo asked.

“I’ve spent the last week thinking you were a heartless ass because you didn’t seem to think twice over the fact your best friend had been killed by a god.”

“That was kind of suspicious, wasn’t it?” Bo said. “I’ll have to go into mourning when things quiet down.”

Nila rolled her eyes. “Pit, you’re insufferable. Taniel, why haven’t you come forward? Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“That’s kind of the idea,” Taniel said.

“But why?”

“Because,” Bo answered for him, “Taniel would have lived beneath Tamas’s shadow the rest of his life. I don’t think either of us has any real concept of what that entails. They would not have let him be Taniel. They would have expected him to be Tamas all over again. Leading Adro. Being her beating heart every moment.”

Taniel kept his silence. There were so many reasons to remain dead. He wondered if he was a coward, taking the easy way out and leaving everyone else to clean up the mess.

“That doesn’t explain why you kept it from me,” Nila said. “You think I can’t keep secrets? Pit, there’s no one for me to tell! You’re my only confidant.”

Taniel waved a hand between the two of them. “I asked him not to tell anyone,” he said. “Bo is a man of his word, but I’ll let the two of you work that out later. Every moment I linger is a greater chance I’m recognized. Did you find her?”

“I did,” Bo said. “Just inside.”

“Good.” Taniel pulled the pistol from his belt and double-checked to see if it was loaded while Bo tugged on his gloves.

“You sure you need me?” Bo asked.

“I’d feel better about this with you. Don’t have to come inside, just… be here in case.”

“She might have already sensed I’m here,” Bo said. “She and I don’t have the best of relationships. Remember, I threw her off the mountain last time we saw each other.”

“ I’m the one who threw her off the mountain,” Taniel said. He could already feel his heart begin to pound and wondered if this was a mistake.

“She won’t remember it that way.”

“Who are you talking about?” Nila asked. “What are we doing here?”

“Confronting a demigod,” Bo said.

Nila blanched. “Excuse me?”

Taniel lifted the tent flap to the hospital. “Ladies first,” he said to Ka-poel. To Nila: “Don’t worry. She doesn’t have any hands. The two of you can wait out here.”

The tent held three times as many beds as it did occupants, and Taniel wondered whether that was a good or a bad sign. Regardless, the lack of nurses fit their purposes, while none of the wounded seemed coherent. Well, almost none of the wounded.

Julene sat on a cot on the far side, the corner flap of the tent cracked so that she could see outside. She didn’t turn as he and Ka-poel approached.

“I see they cut you down,” Taniel said.

“No thanks to you.” Julene’s voice seemed to have recovered from months staked out in the sun without water. Taniel circled her cot, craning his head to look at her arms. They ended in bandaged stumps. A part of him had wondered if they would grow back after long enough. After all, her sorcery made her stronger than just about anything short of a god.

“You asked me to kill you. Not to cut you down,” Taniel said. Nor would he have promised to do the latter. She’d killed friends. She’d tried to kill him. She’d summoned Kresimir into this world, causing so much death and destruction.

Julene shifted on her cot, lifting her right stub and jabbing it toward him. “And you’ve come to fulfill your promise?”

Taniel drew his pistol in answer.

“I see.” Julene stared down at where her hands had once been, then glanced at Ka-poel. “You’re just something else, aren’t you? I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Have you loaded that thing with one of her bullets? The ones you used to kill Privileged up on South Pike?”

“I have,” Taniel said. He licked his lips. He wanted to lift the pistol and pull the trigger, but something was holding him back. Perhaps it was regret. Caution. Unwillingness to further the bloodshed. He was not certain. “Did they know what you are when they cut you down?” he asked.