Brian McCLELLAN - The Crimson Campaign

Tamas counted to ten silently to keep his temper contained – something he’d not done since Taniel was a boy. “Mihali, we’re going into battle the day after tomorrow. Will you help me?”

The god appeared nervous. “I’m not going to kill anyone, if that’s what you’re asking,” Mihali said.

“Can you do anything for us? We’re outnumbered ten to one out there.”

“What is your plan?”

“I’m going to take the Seventh and the Ninth through the catacombs and flank the Kez position. When they try to attack Budwiel, we’ll smash them against the gates and route them.”

“That sounds very military.”

“Mihali, please focus!”

Mihali finally stopped casting about the mess tent as if searching for tomorrow’s menu and gave Tamas a level stare. “Kresimir was a commander. Brude was a commander. I am a chef. But since you ask: the strategy sounds very high-risk with an equally high payoff. It suits you perfectly.”

“Can you do anything to help?” Tamas asked gently.

Mihali seemed to think on this. “I can make sure that your men remain unnoticed until the moment you charge.”

Tamas felt a wave of relief. “That would be perfect.” He waited for a few moments. “Mihali, you appear agitated.”

Mihali took Tamas by the elbow and pulled him into one corner of the tent. In a low voice, he said, “Kresimir is gone.”

“That’s right,” Tamas said. “Taniel killed him.”

“No, no. Kresimir is gone , but I didn’t feel him die.”

“But the whole of the Nine felt it. Privileged Borbador told me that every Knacked and Privileged in the world felt it when he died.”

“That wasn’t him dying,” Mihali said, waving the lump of bread dough still in one hand. “That was his counterstroke against Taniel for shooting him in the head.”

Tamas’s mouth was suddenly dry. “You mean Kresimir is still alive?” Privileged Borbador had warned Tamas that a god couldn’t be killed. Tamas had hoped that Borbador was wrong.

“I don’t know,” Mihali said, “and that’s what worries me. I’ve always been able to sense him, even when half the cosmos separated us.”

“Is he with the Kez army?” Tamas would have to cancel all his plans. Rethink every strategy. If Kresimir was with the Kez army, they might all be swept away.

“No, he’s not,” Mihali said. “I would know.”

“But you said that…”

“I assure you,” Mihali said. “I would know if he was that close. Besides, he wouldn’t risk an open confrontation between us.”

Tamas balled his fists. The uncertainties were the worst part of planning for a battle. It always put him on edge, knowing he couldn’t plan for everything, and this was a god-sized uncertainty. He’d have to go forward with his plans and hope that Mihali’s help in concealing the troops would be enough.

“Now,” Mihali said, “if we’re quite through with that, I need help with tomorrow’s menu.”

Tamas poked the god in the chest. “ You are the chef,” he said. “ I am the commander, and I have a battle to plan.”

He left the mess hall and was halfway to his command tent when he cursed himself for not snagging a bowl of Mihali’s squash soup.

Less than twenty-four hours after Ricard sent him looking for Taniel Two-Shot, Adamat found himself sitting back in Ricard’s office near the docks.

Ricard chewed on the end of a rough-cut pencil and stared across at Adamat. What little hair he had left stuck up from the top of his head like a wind-blown haystack, and Adamat wondered if he’d slept at all in the time between their meetings. At least he was wearing a different shirt and jacket. The room smelled of incense, burned paper, and foul meat. Adamat wondered if there was an uneaten sandwich beneath one of the stacks of records.

“You didn’t go home last night, did you?” Adamat asked.

“How could you tell?”

“Besides the fact that you look like the pit? You didn’t change your boots. I haven’t seen you wear the same pair of boots two days in a row since I met you.”

Ricard looked down at his feet. “You would notice that, wouldn’t you?” He wiped fatigue from his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve already found Two-Shot?”

Adamat held up a piece of paper. On it, he’d written the address of the mala den where he’d found the hero of the Adran army wallowing in his own self-pity. He held the note out to Ricard. When Ricard reached for it, he pulled it back at the last second, as if suddenly changing his mind.

“I read something interesting in the newspaper this morning,” Adamat said. When Ricard didn’t respond, he took the newspaper in question from under his arm and threw it on the desk. “‘Ricard Tumblar to Run for First Minister of the Republic of Adro,’” he said, reading the headline out loud.

“Oh,” Ricard said blandly. “That.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You seemed to have a lot on your plate.”

“And you’re vying to become leader of our new government. What the pit are you doing business down at the docks for?”

Ricard perked up. “I’ve built a new place. Moving into it tomorrow, actually. Still in the factory district, but it’ll be fantastic for entertaining dignitaries. Would you like to see it?”

“I’m a little busy now,” Adamat said. When Ricard’s face fell, he added, “Some other time, I’m sure.”

“You’ll like it. Gaudy. Grand. But stylish.”

Adamat snorted. Knowing Ricard, “gaudy” only began to describe it. He tossed the paper on Ricard’s desk. “Either you had less people looking for him than you made me believe, or your people are idiots.”

“I don’t recognize the address,” Ricard said, grinning so hard it made his cheeks red.

Adamat wasn’t in the mood for the enthusiasm. “After a battle, soldiers go straight for one of two things: either home or vice. Taniel Two-Shot is a career soldier, so I guessed vice. The quickest place to find that near the People’s Court is to head northwest into the Gurlish Quarter. He was in the sixth mala den I checked.”

“You got lucky,” Ricard said. “Admit it. He could have gone anywhere. You just looked in the Gurlish Quarter first.”

Adamat shrugged. Investigative work depended more on luck than he cared to admit, but he’d never tell that to a client. “Any chance you found the record for the address I gave you yesterday?”

Ricard sifted through the papers on his desk. A moment later he handed Adamat back Vetas’s card. It had a name and address written on it in pencil.

“Fell checked herself,” Ricard said. “The warehouse was bought by a tailor – of all things – two years ago. There are no records to indicate it had been sold after the tailor bought it, which means it didn’t fall into the hands of the union. Must have been purchased privately. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help.”

“This is a start,” Adamat said. He stood up and retrieved his hat and cane.

“You’ll be taking SouSmith with you, won’t you?” Ricard asked. “I don’t want you going after this Vetas alone.”

“SouSmith is still laid up,” Adamat said. “He took some bloody damage from the Barbers.”

Ricard grimaced. “He could go see Lady Parkeur.”

Lady Parkeur was an eccentric middle-aged woman who lived with thousands of birds in an old church in High Talien. She always had feathers in her hair and smelled like a henhouse, but she was also the only Knacked in the city with the ability to heal wounds. She could knit together broken tissue and bone with the force of her will, and she cost more money than a Privileged healer.

“I spent every penny I had left to get myself healed by her after the beating I took from Charlemund,” Adamat said. “I had to so I could go after my family.”