“Last time it took thirteen of the most powerful Privileged in the world,” Bo said. “She’ll need an entire royal cabal this time.”
“Hence, the Kez.”
“Yes.”
“Why would they help her?”
“Who knows what she’s promised them,” Bo said. “Immortality? Power? Ruling the Nine at Kresimir’s side?”
“We have to tell my father.”
“I sent a warning to him over a month ago,” Bo said. “The answer I got was that he sent you to kill me.”
“I believe you,” Taniel said.
“Very reassuring. Have you written him about Julene?”
“I did.” He had yet to hear a word from his father. What did that mean? Last news from Adopest was a week ago. A Warden had tried to kill Tamas. They’d not succeeded. Taniel had no idea whether his father had been wounded or incapacitated – or whether he was simply too busy to write back. Or maybe he was still planning on sending someone to kill Bo. Taniel was looking over his shoulder every day for another powder mage. None had come.
“I can already tell you he won’t believe all that stuff about summoning Kresimir,” Taniel said. “He’s too practical.”
“You did tell him, though, right?”
“Of course I told him. I told him I couldn’t kill you because I needed your help on the mountain. I told him I saw the Kez army and knew we’d need a Privileged to hold them off.”
“You didn’t see the Kez army until we were on our way back, though,” Bo said.
“But it’s a plausible lie.”
“The only kind that works.”
“I requested reinforcements, too,” Taniel said. “At the very least Tamas will send those.”
“Good. Only problem with a choke point like this is that only so many men can hold it. More soldiers might just muddle things up. I’ll talk to Gavril. Having a few companies camped just down the mountain on the Adran side would allow us to cycle men. Give us more rest.”
Taniel and Bo stared down at the Kez army for a few minutes of silence.
Bo turned to him. “Tamas is really playing with fire, isn’t he?”
“Seems so.”
“I have a question,” Bo said. He sounded hesitant.
Taniel frowned. When had Bo ever held back from asking him anything? “Yeah?”
“What happened to your mother? I’ve heard the official stories. On a diplomatic mission to Kez. Accused of spying and treachery, and then beheaded quickly. There’s more to it than that.”
Bo wanted to know why Tamas had started the war. “I haven’t told you?”
“I’ve never asked,” Bo said. “It seemed a topic you were… reluctant to discuss.”
Taniel opened his mouth to speak and found he had no words. He choked, then coughed into his hand and tried to blink back the tears. No, he had never talked about it. Not even with his closest friend. He worked to find his voice.
“My mother’s mother was Kez. Mother used it as an excuse to visit once, sometimes twice a year. Her status as a noblewoman made her impossible for the Kez to touch, despite their habit of imprisoning powder mages. Each visit, she tried to find a powder mage and smuggle him or her into Adro and under Tamas’s wing, or out of the Nine entirely. Duke Nikslaus found out. The Kez arrested her and my grandparents, and they were all put to death by the time word reached Adro.”
Taniel cleared his throat. “Tamas demanded that Manhouch declare war. Manhouch refused. The crown buried the entire affair so deep that no one asked questions. My father disappeared for more than a year. When he returned, there was rumor that he’d tried, and failed, to assassinate Ipille. That rumor was squashed just as quickly as the one that my mother was put to death without a trial.”
“Your father,” Bo said, his voice flat, “tried to kill the king of Kez and got away with it?”
“He’s never spoken about it. My mother had two brothers. They both disappeared around the same time. I think they were caught, and Tamas got away, and claimed he had nothing to do with it.” Taniel sprinkled powder on the back of his wrist and took a sniff. His uncles were a vague memory. He couldn’t even remember their names.
“Should I watch my back for another powder mage?” Bo asked.
Taniel was glad he’d changed the subject. “I don’t think so,” he said. “With the whole Grand Army here and the better part of the Kez Cabal, Tamas knows he needs you. At least until the army retreats.”
“Fantastic.” Bo managed a smile and slapped Taniel on the shoulder. He turned to head back toward the town. Taniel fingered the rifle in his hands and watched his friend’s back. Bo’s shoulders were slumped, his walk hardly more than a shuffle. He was tired, Taniel realized.
Bo was their best weapon against the Kez, and he was getting dull. Their second best weapon? Taniel felt his mouth go dry. That was a lot of pressure on him. Tamas could thrive on this kind of pressure. He’d throw a hundred bullets into the air and kill every Kez Privileged on the mountainside. It should be his ass up there.
Taniel shouldered his rifle and headed back to the bulwark. He had to do it the old-fashioned way. One bullet at a time. No, he realized. He was Taniel Two-Shot. He’d take two at once.
Chapter 23
Tamas stepped out of his carriage and took a deep breath of country air. Olem already stood in the drive, one hand on the butt of a pistol at his belt, the other tucked into the pocket of his scarlet hunting coat. His nose was in the air like a guard dog as he examined their surroundings. He wore an outfit matching Tamas’s with black laceless boots and dark pants in addition to the scarlet coat and hunting cap, a rifle over one shoulder.
The baying of hounds echoed out across the pastures. The hunting lodge rested between two hills beside a stony creek on the edge of the King’s Wood. It was a vast affair with hundreds of rooms in the traditional bad taste of the Adran monarchy. It had originally been built of local stone and immense oaks the likes of which hadn’t grown in this area for a hundred years. Recent renovations had given it a brick facade. The kennels, a two-story building as big as the king’s stables, were visible across the southern pasture.
“Come on, Hrusch,” Tamas said. The hound dog leapt from the carriage and immediately put his nose to the ground, floppy ears dusting the gravel. Tamas felt a twinge when Pitlaugh didn’t follow Hrusch out of the carriage as he had so many years in the past. A great many things were different about the hunt this year.
Tamas entered the farmhouse and was hit by the nervous titter of uncertain conversation. He was among the last to arrive, yet there were fewer than a dozen people in the main foyer.
“Not many here, sir,” Olem said. A butler gave Olem’s cigarette a disapproving look. Olem ignored him.
“I killed ninety percent of the people who usually come,” Tamas murmured.
Tamas nodded to each of the men and women in the foyer. A couple of merchants of means, and a pair of noblemen with low enough rank to spare them the Elections. Last year they would have worn the pale breeches and dark waistcoats of those not included directly in the hunt. This year, they would wear hunt colors along with everyone else simply to fill out the numbers. Brigadiers Ryze and Abrax chatted idly with the merchants. Tamas exchanged a few words with them and thanked them for their service against the royalists. Conversations died as he passed by the minor nobility.
Lady Winceslav, dressed in colors with a dark riding habit and a black coat with a scarlet collar, swept down the stairs.
“Tamas, I’m glad you made it,” she said. Brigadier Barat, a sullen, impetuous young man that Tamas continually wanted to smack, lurked on the stairs behind her.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Tamas said. “Hrusch needs something to take his mind off things.” The hound looked up from his olfactory inspection of the floor at the sound of his name. “As do I, perhaps,” he added.