Mihali appeared to finish his explanation.
Kresimir shook his head adamantly.
Mihali frowned. A sad smile crept onto his face and he opened his arms.
Taniel suddenly felt his heart beating faster. He lifted his musket to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel at Kresimir. Two miles. Not a hard shot for him, but the bullet was a regular ball and it would take far too long to reach Kresimir. Taniel could only provide a distraction.
Kresimir suddenly threw his arms wide. For a brief moment, he looked as if he was ready to embrace his brother.
Taniel clutched his hands to his face and stumbled back, falling to the ground as a light brighter than a thousand suns erupted from Kresimir. Taniel braced himself, waiting for a shock wave and the deafening boom of an explosion.
Neither came. The light blazed on so brightly that though Taniel covered his face, he still felt as if he was staring into the heart of the sun.
A hand touched him. He reached out, grabbing Ka-poel. What did she see? Was there anything to see? She had to be as blind as he was. He pulled her to him and clutched her to his chest, trying to protect her eyes from the blaze. Sweet gods, what was this sorcery?
Taniel felt the brightness begin to fade after what seemed an eternity. Fear crept through him when he opened his eyes and saw nothing. Had he been blinded?
It must have been twenty minutes before shapes began to manifest themselves in his vision. He blinked rapidly, trying to dispel pools of color, trying to grasp what he’d just seen. That blaze – so bright and intense, but without heat or sound. Not an explosion.
Taniel tried to recall his knowledge of Privileged sorcery. What had Kresimir done?
Slowly, it dawned on him.
Kresimir had opened the Else itself to the world.
Taniel’s returning sight began to show him that both the Kez and Adran camps were in chaos now. It seemed that no one could see. Hundreds of thousands of men crept on their hands and knees, wailing and crying out.
In the center of the field, positioned between the two camps, Kresimir stood alone. Mihali was completely gone, not even ash where he’d once stood. Kresimir’s mouth was open, his face frozen in a silent scream.
Taniel watched as Kresimir’s shoulders slumped. Kresimir stared blindly for a moment at the spot where Mihali had been. Then the god dropped to his knees and wept.
Taniel sagged against the mountainside, overcome with exaustion, his body racked with the pain of his wounds. A few minutes passed in silence before he looked down at his bloody, vomit-stained shirt. There was a rushing sound in his ears, and his hands shook with sudden excitement.
“Pole,” he said. “My shirt is soaked with Kresimir’s blood.”
Adamat couldn’t take his eyes off Lord Claremonte as he finished his speech. He’d worked the crowd perfectly. There weren’t cheers or shouts – no, not even Claremonte would have expected that.
There were grumbles. Murmurs of discontent. Someone near Adamat told the woman next to him that Claremonte had a point. A rising sense of indignation washed through the assembled masses, and Adamat knew that Claremonte had convinced them. Maybe not all of them. Maybe not now. But the few screams of protest when Claremonte’s Privileged destroyed the Kresim Cathedral had been stifled quickly.
All up and down the Ad, Brudanian soldiers pushed their longboats up onto the riverbank and disembarked. At quick glance they seemed to be working in teams of about fifteen, each one accompanied by a Privileged. They carried bayoneted muskets and barrels of black powder, and Adamat saw the first team reach a church on the other side of the Ad and begin pushing people away.
They were preparing it for demolition.
If Adamat wasn’t so horrified he’d be impressed. Claremonte had arrived with reinforcements and supplies, given a brilliant speech for his ministerial candidacy, and now he was setting about destroying the religious buildings of Adro. He’d taken the horror of the people – the fear of the Brudanians invading the capital – and turned it on its head. Everyone would be so relieved that Claremonte was not pillaging the city that he could do just about anything he wanted.
Adamat wasn’t a religious man by any stretch, but he wanted to rush to the nearest church and stop the soldiers from destroying it. These were historical icons, some of them close to a thousand years old! He had the feeling that any move to stop the soldiers would see him killed.
Less than forty paces away, Claremonte’s longboat was pushed onto the bank. Ricard was already hurrying toward it, his assistants and bodyguards following cautiously. Adamat shouted at him to stop.
A sailor helped Claremonte onto the muddy ground and then up the shore and onto the street.
Adamat knew from the set of Ricard’s shoulders that he was about to do something stupid.
“Fell! Grab him!”
It was too late. Ricard cocked his fist back and punched Claremonte in the nose, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.
Brudanian soldiers surged forward, and Claremonte’s Privileged raised a gloved hand, fingers held together as if about to snap them. Adamat’s heart leapt into his throat.
“Stop!” Claremonte climbed to his feet. He laid a calming hand on the Privileged’s arm. “No need for violence,” he said, holding his nose with two fingers.
“What the pit do you think you’re doing?” Ricard demanded, cocking his arm back as if about to swing again.
“Doing?” Claremonte said as he tilted his head back to keep his nose from bleeding. “I’m running for First Minister of Adro. You are Ricard Tumblar, I presume?”
“Yes,” Ricard said icily.
Claremonte stuck his hand out. “Lord Claremonte. It’s a delight to meet you.”
“That delight,” Ricard said, “is not shared.”
“Well, that is too bad.” Claremonte let his hand drop. “I assumed we were friends!”
“Why would you assume that?”
“Because,” Claremonte said, “you brought out half the city to greet me and hear my speech. That’s the kind of thing friends do.” Claremonte’s smile had dropped on one side – only slightly, but it now came across as a leer. His eyes swept past Ricard and Fell and over the other union bosses and came to rest on Adamat. The corner of his mouth lifted back into a full smile. “Really,” he said, still speaking to Ricard, “I must thank you for that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an election to win.”
Tamas felt the familiar jolt and rocking of a carriage as he fought his way back to consciousness.
It brought a panic in him. Where was he being taken? Who was driving the carriage? Where were his men?
Memory of the battle outside of Alvation, of finding Nikslaus’s body, and of trying to stop the explosion of thousands of pounds of gunpowder all came back to Tamas at once.
He was on his back, and when he opened his eyes, he stared up at the roof of a stagecoach. It was light outside, so he must have been out for some time. The air was cool and thin, and that brought another wave of worry to Tamas’s muddled mind. Was it winter? Had he been out for months?
His arms wouldn’t move on his command. After fighting down yet more panic, he decided that yes, his arms could move but they were restrained, and it was a struggle just to shift. Had he been taken captive by the Kez?
The first face that Tamas saw was not one he expected.
It belonged to an ebony-skinned Deliv man with gray hair curled tight against his scalp. He wore a kelly-green Deliv uniform without epaulets or insignia. The man leaned over Tamas, regarding him contemplatively.
“Good. You’re awake. The doctors were beginning to think you might be out indefinitely. We’re almost to the summit.”
Tamas closed his eyes again. Perhaps his mind was too foggy to hear correctly. Had the Deliv said “summit”?