Part 45 (1/2)
Tamas drew his belt knife and padded toward the artillery piece sitting at the end. A Kez sentry leaned against it, his soft snores reaching Tamas's ears. He stiffened as Tamas's knife took him between the ribs and a moment later his body lay behind the cannon. Tamas looked back toward the inspection station just in time to see Andriya, silent as a gliding owl, slip over the battlements above the second story. Tamas heard a pain-filled grunt and had to remind his hammering heart that he could hear far better than the guards inside.
He stole through the door to the inspection station. The garrison, if he remembered, correctly, would be on the second floor. He paused at the foot of the stairwell, a sound catching his ear, and went back past the door to the wharf.
Four Kez soldiers were playing dice in the tiny mess hall by the light of a single lantern. Tamas eyed them through a slit in the door. They were intent upon their game and likely a little drunk. He decided to take care of the sleeping ones upstairs first.
He was just about to step away when the door suddenly pushed open, nearly hitting him in the face. He leapt back, and a fifth guard stared at him in surprise.
Tamas slammed his knife into the man's throat and drove him backward into the room, shoving him across the main table. The other four guards jumped to their feet, shouting and scrambling for weapons. Tamas was faster. He pulled his knife hand back and dragged it across a second guard's throat before leaving it in the heart of a third. He leapt the table in a single bound, the powder trance singing in his veins. His foot came down on the bench opposite and he barely had time to swear as it gave way beneath him.
He stumbled upon landing and threw himself into a roll, tumbling across the room. He came up beside the fourth guard just as the man turned on him with a pistol. Tamas reached out with his senses and fizzled the ignition of the powder as the hammer came down. He wrenched the pistol out of the man's hand and slammed the b.u.t.t into the guard's face hard enough to hear his skull crack.
The fifth guard ran for the door. Tamas drew his boot knife and threw, flat-handed. The knife hit her just beneath the shoulder blade. She let out a yell, stumbled, and reached back for the hilt. Tamas crossed the room and broke her neck.
He scrambled for both of his knives and took up a position beside the door. The silence was deafening. Where were the reinforcements? Where were the sleeping guards?
A single pair of boots sounded on the stone stairwell. Tamas hazarded a glance, only to see Andriya appear. The man was covered in blood, but by the looks of him none of it was his own. ”You're making too much noise,” Andriya said.
Tamas let out a soft sigh of relief, cleaned his knives, and led Andriya back upstairs. They pa.s.sed the bunk room, where Tamas could hear a soft death rattle.
”Take care of that,” he said.
On the roof, two sentries lay in pools of their own blood, and Tamas s.h.i.+elded his eyes from the flickering torches and surveyed Surkov's Alley to his south. To his surprise, he saw nothing-no fires, no camping companies of Kez reserves. In the distance, he could see the torches of Midway Keep, and far beyond that the glittering lights of Budwiel.
The entire Kez army was now to his north.
He s.n.a.t.c.hed one of the torches and waved it twice. Within moments the ground to the north of the inspection station was writhing with the dark figures of Adran soldiers as they flooded forward. He was joined a moment later by Andriya.
”Didn't we do this once before?” Andriya asked. ”Going behind the enemy's lines? I seem to remember it didn't end so well.”
Tamas glanced toward Andriya. Somehow, he had gotten even more blood on him. Olem, he reflected, might not be as good a killer as Andriya, but he was far better company. ”You should change your uniform.”
”I don't have a spare.”
”That was shortsighted.”
Andriya licked a bit of blood off the tip of one finger, a not entirely human smile playing upon his lips. ”We climb the walls of Budwiel tomorrow. I want the b.l.o.o.d.y Kez to know what's coming for them when they see me.”
”If you insist.” There was no ”sir” when Andriya had his blood up like this. Killing Kez was his favorite thing in this world. ”Just stand upwind from me.”
Tamas turned to watch more of his army emerge from the darkness. The vanguard had surrounded the inspection station now, and on the road he could see the long, dark snake of his army marching forward through the dark. On the river to his right, several cargo barges moved into view, cutting quietly through the water, loaded down with heavy artillery.
”The Kez army be d.a.m.ned,” Tamas said. ”Nothing will stop me now.”
Nila's first instinct after regaining consciousness was to scream.
She nearly bit her tongue in half to keep herself from doing so. Her hands were bound behind her back and her eyes opened on nothing but darkness. Fear threatened to swallow her whole, adrenaline tearing through her veins and overwhelming the stiffness of her limbs and the saddle soreness at her very core.
She slipped into the place between the real world and the Else almost instinctually-in fact, it was several minutes before she realized what she had done. Her breathing was calm, her heart no longer fluttering. The world floated before her in a translucent haze. Bo had described this as a good place to be calm and to think, but had warned her that her brain would not receive the information that it needed to a.n.a.lyze the world around it. Sounds were muted, and even the feel of the ground beneath her legs seemed distant.
Cautiously, she let herself leave that place, sinking back into the real world. With it came all of the pain and aches of being alive and she couldn't help but let out a slight whimper.
A nighttime camp came into focus around her. She could hear low voices, the crackling of a nearby fire, and the soft whinny of horses off in the darkness. She lay on her side, her left arm numb, and the smell of vomit stung her nostrils. A trail of crust along the corner of her mouth told her that the vomit was hers.
Blinking the tears of pain out of the corners of her eyes, she realized she was staring into a bruised, blood-caked face. The man lay on his side, facing her. He had been stripped to the waist and she could see thick black stripes on his bare shoulders and arms-he'd been whipped and beaten until he was raw. His hands were bound behind his back. The inhumanity of it made Nila want to recoil in horror.
She didn't dare. If she moved, they would know she was awake and she might be given similar treatment. If she was lucky.
Her heart began to race again, the calm she had attained slipping away from her like grains of sand through her fingers. She could feel her arms trembling and then...
She recognized the man lying beside her.
It was Olem.
She bit back a curse. Was he still alive? ”Olem,” she whispered, her own pain forgotten. ”Olem!”
His eyes opened far too slowly for Nila's liking. It took several moments before she could see the recognition in them. His short beard was matted to his face with blood, but she could see the corner of his mouth twitch upward.
”Glad to see you awake.” He coughed.
”What the pit did they do to you?” she hissed.
”Just asked some questions.”
”They beat you senseless!”
”They didn't like the answers.”
She wanted to ask him if she was next, but it seemed insensitive. ”Barbarians.”
”Yeah.” Olem s.h.i.+fted slightly, grunting in pain. ”Pit, that hurts.”
”They have to give you medicine. I'll shout until they do. How can they do this to a prisoner of war?”
”Shh,” he said. ”Don't say a word. Keep still for as long as you can. Most of them are asleep. They won't bother you till morning.”
Her calm was completely gone now. ”And if I wake them?”
”I don't know. The commanding officer is the Gurlish Wolf. He'll do just about anything. The rest of them aren't much better.”
”I'll burn this whole camp down.”
Olem gave a slight shake of his head, grimacing as he did so. ”They don't know you're a Privileged.”
”Really?”
”No gloves, remember? I told them you were my secretary.”
Nila tried to find that place between reality and the Else again, but had no success. She couldn't believe it had gone so wrong. One minute they'd been alone, and the next these Kez had erupted from the fog to kill them all. ”We're finished. Did they wipe us all out?”
Olem's eyes had closed and for a moment she thought he had pa.s.sed out. Then, ”No. They hadn't expected us to all be in close formation. It was heavy fighting for a while, then I got separated from the rest of the regiment. Been listening. They captured fifteen or twenty of us, killed a few dozen more, but the rest of the boys are still out there.”