“Remember,” he whispered to Ka-poel, handing her flint and tinder, “don’t light their powder.”
It was only a few paces to the nearest wagons, yet in the tense final moments before an attack, the distance seemed like miles. He crept along, listening to the snores of the teamsters sleeping nearby, and reached out with his senses. The wagon was packed with several barrels of black powder – a prime target for any saboteur, let alone a powder mage. But that wasn’t what he needed right now. He moved on to the next wagon, then the next, until he found a feed wagon with bales of hay and alfalfa for the horses.
Perfect.
Taniel emptied a few lines of black powder from his horn beside one of the bales. He lit the powder with a thought and watched it fizz, hissing to life. He gently blew the embers into the hay. Within seconds a great tower of smoke rose from the cart. He waited a few moments until he heard shouting from somewhere down the baggage train where the rest of the Ghost Irregulars were setting their own fires, and then shouted in Kez,
“Fire, fire!”
Teamsters sprang from their wagons, stumbling out of their bedrolls, panicked cries going up among them. Taniel, undetected, ran to the edge of the swamp. He paused for a moment, checking to be sure Ka-poel had escaped, only to spot a pair of skinny legs sticking out from beneath a nearby wagon. Taniel swore to himself and sprinted back toward her. “Let’s go, Pole,” he growled, grabbing her by the ankles.
Ka-poel’s head appeared, and she bared her teeth at him, slapping away his hands, and then ducked back beneath the wagon. Taniel could hear the sound of her flint striking and realized she’d yet to get her own fire going.
“No time for that now!” Taniel said, grabbing her by one foot.
She kicked him away, there was the sound of the flint several more times, and then she suddenly scrambled out from beneath the wagon, followed closely by a thin trial of smoke. Taniel helped her to her feet.
“You there!” a voice shouted, and Taniel turned in time to see a teamster grabbing at Ka-poel’s shoulder. Taniel threw a wild punch across the man’s jaw and Ka-poel kicked him between the legs. They left him an angry, swearing mess as they sprinted for the cover of the swamp.
The cypresses were lit by an orange glow as the blaze consumed the camp. Taniel could hear the frenzied dash of the other Ghost Irregulars making their escape, and the shouts of Kez teamsters and soldiers as they sought to douse the flames that enveloped at least ten of their wagons.
After about two hundred yards, Taniel stopped running and began to frantically search the bases of the cypress, looking for a knife mark on the roots of one of the bigger trees. A panic struck him as he failed to find the mark, and he feared that he’d gotten turned around in the darkness. Sweat broke out on his brow. All of this waiting and work was for nothing if he couldn’t find the mark. He swore to himself quietly. “Pole. Pole! Where’s the damn tree?”
There was no answer – not that he expected one – but when he looked around, Ka-poel was no longer at his heels.
“Captain,” a low voice said, “is everything okay?”
Taniel found Sergeant Mapel nearby, gasping from his run, leaning against a cypress root.
“It’s fine,” Taniel spat. “I’m just looking for that damned tree.”
Mapel sucked on his teeth, glancing around at the myriad of cypress that surrounded them. He didn’t have the sorcery that allowed him to see in the dark, not like Taniel, and would be no help at all. “You know the drill, captain,” Mapel said. “If you can’t find it, we get out of here. No sense taking needless risks.”
“Go on,” Taniel said. “I’ll be close behind.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“No,” Taniel said. “Get to the rendezvous. That’s an order. Make sure all our boys made it out.”
Mapel nodded reluctantly and headed deeper into the swamp. Taniel swore to himself, watching the sergeant go. Mapel was right, of course. No needless risks.
A sharp whistle caught Taniel’s attention. He looked up and, after a moment of searching, found Ka-poel sitting in the high branches of one of the cypress trees not a stone’s throw away. Taniel felt a wave of relief wash over him. He sprinted over and climbed the tree, checking the knife mark on the way up. This was it, all right.
A cautious climber could make it to the top of one of the big cypress in just a few minutes. Taniel threw that caution to the wind, scrambling up the thick, winding branches until he was at the very top. He found Ka-poel waiting for him, holding out the kit and rifle he’d stashed here earlier.
Ka-poel mimed that the rifle was already loaded.
“Two bullets?” Taniel asked.
She nodded.
Taniel swung around, wrapping his legs around a branch and giving himself a comfortable seat from which to aim. He brought the stock to his shoulder and sighted down the length of the rifle.
The height of the old cypress allowed him a commanding vision of all the tree-tops for miles around but, more importantly, it allowed him a clear view of the Basin Highway and the Kez army camped along it. He could see the fires raging through the baggage train, the dry wood of the old wagons catching as easily as cotton, and felt a momentary pang of pity for the poor sods rushing to put out the flames.
If he knew the Kez command structure, at least one teamster would hang for this.
He pushed away the thought and focused on the task at hand, reaching out with his senses for the wagon of black powder that he’d first approached. He found it easily and noted that the teamsters had already moved it well away from the flames.
In his mind, he designated the powder barrels as target one.
“Powder,” he said, holding out one hand. He felt Ka-poel put a fresh powder charge in his palm, and tore the end off without looking, emptying the contents straight into his mouth. The taste was bitter and sulfuric, the granules crunching between his teeth, but the effect of so much powder was instantaneous.
It felt as if time had slowed to a crawl. Every one of his senses brought the details of the world into sharp focus, allowing him to hear and see everything going on down in the Kez camp as if he was standing down there among them. He felt as if his heart would explode from the rush of adrenaline and his mind would be overwhelmed by all the sensory information, but the nature of his sorcery allowed him to bring it all under control.
He forced himself to focus, moving his aim up and down the length of the camp, reaching out with his senses until he found the Privileged sorcerer walking through the camp.
Even now, after killing several Privileged, he still felt a chill run down his spine when he put one in his sights. It was as if they could see him aiming at them from the distance and were about to raise their hands, twitching gloved fingers to call sorcery into this world and snuff him out as easily as a candle.
Privileged were, blow for blow, far more powerful than powder mages. But of the advantages that a powder mage had over a Privileged one of the most important was that Taniel could sense a Privileged while a Privileged could not sense him.
“Target two,” he whispered to himself.
The seconds ticked by as the Privileged got closer to the fires. A dozen bodyguards clustered around him, eyes on the surrounding swamp, their caution well-warranted. They spread out a bit as their master reached the baggage train and raised his gloved hands, summoning water and wind to do his bidding and put out the fires.
Taniel pulled the trigger.
In his mind’s eye, Taniel burned black powder to control the trajectories of the two bullets leaving the muzzle of his rifle. He adjusted the flight of the first bullet minutely, nudging it slightly up and to the left as it cut through the air and slammed into the center of the Privileged’s chest.