Taniel approached the back wall of the palace, passing the statue of the old King Manhouch the First. He ran his hands over the thick stone blocks of the foundation, ransacking his memory for an image of the entrance his father had showed him sixteen years ago.
He continued along the wall for twenty paces, feeling every crack and nook to no avail, his heart beating harder with every second that passed without finding the entrance. Back at the statue he gazed for several moments at the wall – all that lay between him and Ka-poel – before taking a step back.
The fall might have broken his neck if he hadn’t dropped his rifle to catch himself. His leg plunged into a hole in the grass below his feet, and he wiggled his foot in the empty space, unsure if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Reaching down, he cleared away the grass to find an opening easily big enough for a man worked into the landscaping in a way that made it impossible to see.
He crawled in on all fours, sliding his rifle along ahead of him. Within ten paces the passage turned and opened up into a narrow corridor. He was able to stand and keep moving forward. The ground was damp beneath his feet, cobwebs tugging at his face and arms.
The corridor ended abruptly, leaving Taniel at a dead end. The only sounds he could hear were his own nervous breaths and the distant, almost inaudible cracks of musket and rifle fire.
Putting his ear to the wall, he waited for several moments of silence before he pushed gently with both hands. There was a click and the wall gave way to reveal another dark hallway. He could see a source of light at one end, which proved to be the hairline crack of what Taniel could only assume was another hidden doorway.
This door slid to one side in complete silence, leaving Taniel with a view of a well-lit, curtained-off corner of a room. He recognized that corner. The tall windows, the blue-and-crimson trim, the tapestries gilded with the dueling lions of the Manhouch family crest.
He was in the throne room, directly behind the throne itself.
He crept forward until he reached the curtain, moving it to one side cautiously with his finger. A sudden blast made him jump, withdrawing behind the curtain and pointing his rifle ahead of him. A few shouts followed the blast, and musket shots echoed somewhere nearby. When he was certain those blasts weren’t meant for him, Taniel leaned forward to peek past the curtain again.
The throne room appeared deserted. Dust covered the floor, though it was crisscrossed with footprints, and a couple of the torches were lit. The big double doors at the far end of the room were open about a foot. While Taniel watched, two Brudanian soldiers rushed inside and threw their backs to the door. They wore the uniform but neither held a weapon. Taniel could sense sorcery, and his suspicion that they were Privileged was confirmed when one held up his rune-covered glove.
He said something to his companion, then leaned into the crack of the door, and a blast of ice slipped from his fingers and disappeared. The other Privileged’s fingers danced in the air, and Taniel heard another concussion beyond the doors.
Taniel wasted no time. He wrapped a bullet in cotton and rammed it down the barrel to join the one already loaded, then stuck a spare powder cartridge between his teeth. He got down on one knee and with an elbow propped on the opposite knee he slid the barrel of his rifle through the curtain. He opened his third eye to see the Privileged clearly, then pulled the trigger.
In one instant he burned the powder charge between his teeth, sending the energy behind the foremost bullet. The lead balls flew out of the chamber, one after the other. He let the first fly true and put his focus behind the second, nudging it with his sorcery, adjusting his aim by just a few feet.
The two Privileged dropped together, their brains scattered across the inside of the throne room door. Taniel swept the curtain aside and ran forward. He had to find Ka-poel and get her out of here. He could sense her nearby, he–
“Ahem.”
The sound made Taniel spin.
Ka-poel sat on the throne, her legs dangling above the dais, hands on the armrests, leaning back like she owned the chair. She was wearing new pants and a shirt beneath a brand-new duster, and appeared unharmed, though she was flanked by a pair of Brudanian soldiers. One of them held an air rifle, leveled at Taniel, while the second held a pistol pointed at Ka-poel.
“Lower your rifle, powder mage,” the soldier with the pistol said.
“Ka-poel, are you all right?”
“Lower it!”
Ka-poel seemed unbothered by the pistol barrel pressed against her neck. She gave Taniel a thumbs-up.
Slowly, his eyes on the two soldiers, he lowered his rifle to the ground. Reaching out with his senses, he found no trace of powder on the two men. The pistol looked off, and though he’d never before seen its like, he guessed it operated on air cartridges as well.
“Pistols,” the soldier said, while his partner took two steps down the dais, his aim unfaltering. “Take them slowly from your belt and throw them over there.”
“Just wait a minute,” Taniel said. Both soldiers were big men, as big as grenadiers, with weathered faces and the lean, muscular build of professional killers.
“Do it now!” the soldier shouted. He grabbed Ka-poel by the arm roughly and jerked her from her seat on the throne. “You even twitch and I will–” His sentence cut out in a cry of pain.
Everything happened at once. Ka-poel slipped the soldier’s knife from his belt while he talked and rammed it into his groin. Taniel drew his pistol while the soldier with an air rifle whirled toward his partner.
Taniel’s shot was rushed and went wide, blasting a chunk of wood out of the throne. He tossed the pistol aside and drew his spare, and in the time it took him to do that, Ka-poel stepped forward and smacked the barrel of the air rifle to one side and slid the knife across the second soldier’s throat.
Taniel leapt onto the dais, kicking the air pistol away from the bleeding Brudanian. He snatched Ka-poel up in his arms and kissed her, breathing hard. “You’re unhurt?”
She rolled her eyes and wiggled out of his arms.
“Pole, we’ve got to go. Tamas wants you out of here. We’re going to try to negotiate with Claremonte.”
She shook her head vehemently.
“What do you mean?”
She drew her finger across her throat.
“Kill him?”
A nod.
“We can’t, Pole. He’s a god. He’s Brude.”
Another nod.
“You know?”
She rolled her eyes again.
“Look, Pole, I’ve got to get you out of here so I can go help Tamas. He’s going to get himself killed.”
Ka-poel rounded the throne and reached beneath it, dragging an iron strongbox out and onto the dais with a thud. Taniel helped her pull it around in front of the throne. “What’s this?”
As an answer, she went to the soldier holding his blood-soaked groin and rummaged through his jacket, batting away his feeble attempts to stop her. She took a large iron key and used it to open the lockbox. Inside, Taniel recognized the container she’d made of branches to hold Kresimir’s doll. Gingerly, she removed the casket and set it to one side.
“Good,” Taniel said. “Bring that too and we’ll get out of here.” Taniel staggered to one side as sorcery shimmered around him, shaking the entire building. “Was that you?”
No, she mouthed, pointed at his rifle still lying in the middle of the throne room.
Taniel fetched it for her. “We have to hurry,” he said. “Something is happening. That sorcery feels so…” He tried to work moisture into his dry throat. “I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s emanating from the other end of the palace. Where Tamas is.”
Ka-poel pulled the ring bayonet off the end of the rifle, then used the Brudanian’s knife to slice the tip of her finger. She let her blood drip all over the slender blade. The color drained from her face and Taniel had to leap forward to keep her from collapsing. “What are you doing?”