What was she doing out in the rain like that?
Taniel turned to ask one of the men smoking under the awning if they could see the girl, when something caught the corner of his vision.
Halfway up the road, on the hillside above the town, Taniel could see a strong glow of color in the Else.
“Privileged!” Taniel screamed, and threw himself to the muddy street as lightning sliced through the air and slammed into the common house behind him.
The explosion left Taniel’s ears ringing, and he struggled to get to his feet. Most of the common house was scattered across the street in pieces of debris not more than a foot long. What remained was on fire, and Taniel could hear the screams of the dying and wounded.
He helped pull someone to their feet-one of the militiamen who’d been smoking on the porch-and struggled to open his bayonet case. Where there was a Privileged there would be Kez soldiers.
He struggled to blink the echo of the lightning from his eyes, willing them to adjust to the darkness once again. A few moments later, and he saw the Kez soldiers running down the road into the town. They wore canvas ponchos over their tan uniforms and they had their bayonets fixed.
The Fatrastan militia was heavily outnumbered. Even without the Kez Privileged, the entire company would be decimated in minutes.
“Run for the swamp!” Taniel said.
“Are you mad?” a militiaman asked.
“It’s the only chance, damn it. Into the cypress!”
Taniel rushed into the smoldering remains of the common house. Survivors were picking themselves up off the ground, their weapons in hand. Taniel couldn’t find Major Bertreau in the chaos, but he snatched Sergeant Mapel by the shoulder.
“The swamp,” Taniel said, pointing in the direction opposite of the charging Kez soldiers.
Mapel nodded and began bellowing the retreat.
“Dina,” Taniel shouted. “Dina, damn it!” He kicked a bench out of the way, checking the charred bodies that had taken the brunt of the sorcery.
“Here.”
The old priestess was already on her feet, directing others after Sergeant Mapel.
Taniel suppressed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want a relative’s life on his hands, even if she was a Kez. “Have you seen Bertreau?”
“Out front,” Dina said.
Taniel dashed back into the street to find Major Bertreau organizing a line of some twenty men to meet the advance of Kez infantry.
“We have to lose ourselves in the trees,” Taniel shouted at her.
Bertreau drew her sword. “This is the rear-guard. Go on with the rest!”
“It’s suicide!” Taniel’s words were swallowed by a blast of lightning striking a nearby building and the accompanying roll of thunder. In the light, he thought he saw the same savage girl standing off to one side, her back to the swamp.
Then the Kez were on top of them.
Taniel turned a bayonet thrust with the stock of his rifle and cursed himself for not fixing his own bayonet when he had the chance. His heart hammered in his ears as he spun his rifle to hold it by the barrel, the way he’d been taught, and brought the stock down across the Kez soldier’s face.
Steel clashed and screams filled the air. Taniel drew the pistol from his belt, his powder mage senses telling him that the powder was still dry, and fired it into an infantryman.
Major Bertraeu turned suddenly and thrust her sword, and Taniel was bowled over by the dead weight of the Kez soldier that had taken her blade to the heart.
He pushed the man away and, not taking the time to thank Bertraeu, deftly slipped his bayonet out of his pouch and over the end of his rifle, twisting the ring to feel it slide into place. He dropped his weight onto his back leg and set himself, slipping past an infantryman’s thrust and driving his bayonet into the man’s eye.
With the powder in your veins, his father had said, you’ll be faster than other men-it’ll be as if they are moving under water and you are not. You know this feeling from your training, but you won’t in truth understand until you’re in a real melee.
Taniel suddenly knew what his father had meant. He could feel himself reacting faster than the others around him, even than Major Bertreau’s experienced sword. It was like battling children.
They didn’t stand a chance.
Don’t let yourself become overconfident. Trust yourself to react quickly, and you’ll kill them before they even realize what they’re fighting.
Taniel cut through three more infantry before there was no one else to fight. More Kez were coming down the road, but the militia had managed to fend off the first platoon.
Bertraeu stared at him, wide-eyed. “Pit, you’re fast,” she said.
“The swamp,” Taniel said.
“To the trees!” she yelled. “Run for it. Leave the wounded.” She winced as she said it.
They sprinted down the town streets, chased by sorcery. Lightning flashed, and fire soared overhead in streaking balls that detonated among the buildings with the strength of exploding mortar shells. Taniel considered finding a place to hide from the pursuing infantry and taking a shot at the Privileged, but he knew that it would be a stupid risk. He might be able to try once he’d lost the infantry in the swamp.
He caught sight of an old woman limping ahead of him.
“Come on, Dina, you have to move faster!”
Taniel threw his shoulder under Dina’s arm and half-carried her onward. The limp was a bad sign-an open wound in the swamp would put her on her way to a slow death by disease or a quick death by natural predators.
Fatrastan militiamen passed them at a sprint, trying to save their own skins in the relative safety of the swamp. Taniel recognized several members of Bertraeu’s rear guard. He and Dina were the last of the survivors to retreat.
Taniel could see the edge of the cypress forest looming out of the darkness just ahead. He was ready for the land to drop beneath him, the water of the Tristan river splashing beneath his boots, but the steep slope came up so quickly that he still tripped and tumbled down it. He landed on his back in the water, sputtering and cursing.
He scrambled about for his knapsack and rifle, recovering both. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Dina croaked.
His powder mage senses told him that most of his charges were wet. He paused only long enough to snort a pinch of powder from one of the few dry ones, renewing his trance.
Go easy on the powder, his father had always said. Even the strongest mage risks dependency and powder blindness.
Taniel banished that thought. No time for that kind of caution now.
The darkness left few secrets for him with his trance-enhanced sight, but the tumble down the hill had reminded him to be cautious. Slowly, he and Dina began to navigate into the swamp.
“Keep to the solid ground,” Dina said. “You won’t be able to see anything beneath the water. Sinkholes are common-they’ll pull you right down. Take it one step at a time, and if you feel your one foot start to sink, step back to firm ground.” Her voice came out as a raspy rush. “One foot at a time… oh, Kresimir, give me strength.”
“We can’t stop,” Taniel said as Dina began to fall.
“I’m all right,” Dina insisted. “Keep going. There will be frequent hummocks of dry land rising above the water-that’s the best place to rest.”
Taniel’s next words died on his lips as he caught sight of the savage girl he had seen in the street before the battle. She stood a couple dozen paces off, just like she had back in the town, facing him, catching his eye, her face emotionless. Taniel felt like cold fingers were tracing their way up the small of his back.
“Do you see…”
“I can’t see a blasted thing in this darkness,” Dina said. “You’re a powder mage, you’ll have to guide us on.”