“My name,” Taniel said, speaking loudly in Kez, “is Taniel Two-shot. I’m a captain with the Tristan Ghost Irregulars.” There was a shuffle and creak as fingers tightened on triggers and footing was reassured. “In case you were wondering,” Taniel continued. “I’m the one who killed your Privileged three days ago.”
“We know who you bloody-well are, powder mage,” the major said. “My name is Major Daxon je Buker and this is the 108th regiment of his majesty’s Peacekeepers. You kill my guards and come into my camp with a loaded weapon? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t order my men to open fire.”
“I’ll give you two,” Taniel said. “First off, my men have this hummock surrounded. Second, I could detonate all of your powder with a single thought, killing or wounding everyone here before they could pull their triggers.”
“Then why haven’t you already?” Buker asked.
“Because like you I’m a soldier. Not a butcher.”
“You’re a powder mage,” Major Buker responded with more than a little disdain. “Don’t pretend like you’re one of the rank and file. Besides, if we were surrounded my guards would have notified me already.”
“Like this one?” Taniel asked, poking Jibble in the small of the back.
Buker eyed Taniel and Ka-poel for a long moment, as if weighing his options. The muskets of his men had already begun to waver, but there was a steely stubborness in Buker’s eyes that made Taniel a little bit nervous. To be honest, he’d be hard-pressed to detonate all of their powder simultaneously. It took a lot of concentration to do so and a spark would very likely reach its bullet before he could warp the blast.
And powder mages weren’t immune to bullets no matter the propellant.
Beside him, Ka-poel mimed shooting Buker with a pistol. “You’re not helping,” he told her quietly.
Buker shot her a look of disgust. Kez nobles rarely thought much of the local savages. Taniel’s time among the Palo had taught him that the feeling was mutual. He didn’t have to wonder how long Buker would last if left along in the swamp with Ka-poel.
“Surely you know why we’re here?” Buker asked, clasping his hands behind his back and thrusting out his chest.
“To take my head to the Kez governor, I’d assume,” Taniel said. It wasn’t the first company the Kez had sent into Tristan Basin to find him and his irregulars, and it wouldn’t be the last.
“We’re here to hunt you, and you’d still accept our surrender?”
“Certainly. War is war. No hard feelings, and all that.”
Taniel shifted his aim slightly so that the bullet would go under Jibble’s arm and strike Buker in the chest if he was forced to pull the trigger. If this all went to shit, he would take the major down with him.
Buker didn’t seem to notice. He looked around the camp, his eyes lingering on the men who didn’t have the energy to pull themselves off the latrine even in the case of an alarm. “If we surrender,” Buker said, “I expect my men and I to be properly cared for as prisoners of war, and ransomed as soon as possible.”
“Agreed,” Taniel said.
Buker’s chin sagged. “In that case, I formally surrender. Men, lower your arms!”
The sighs of relief amongst the soldiers were audible as muskets and swords were dropped.
“Major Bertreau,” Taniel called into the swamp. “You may relieve the Kez of their arms!”
Dozens of men in buckskins, bayonets fixed on their rifles, emerged from the trees and began to round up the Kez, gathering their weapons and supplies for inventory. They were accompanied by an equal number of their Palo allies. Taniel watched them work their way through the camp, noting the way the Palo studiously avoided Ka-poel, before he allowed himself to let out a quiet sigh and lower his rifle.
Sergeant Mapel, a squat, dusty-skinned bulldog of a man with a neck like a tree trunk, was the first to approach Taniel. He took Buker’s sword and pistol, grinning broadly. “Good work, captain,” he said.
“Thanks. Go easy on them. I don’t see any of their Palo guides. If I had to guess, they were abandoned right about the time they all started coming down with dysentery. Would have been a piss-poor fight if it had come down to it.” Taniel glanced at Ka-poel and shouldered his weapon. She shook her head. She didn’t see any enemy Palo either.
Mapel shrugged. “Still think you should have just picked ‘em off, one by one.”
Taniel had no love for the Kez, but his own ire tended to be directed at the Privileged and nobility. He didn’t need to kill every common soldier he came across. Unlike Mapel.
“What should we do with them?” Mapel asked, nodding at the Kez prisoners.
Taniel pursed his lips. “Give them a dozen Palo guards and send them down to Gladeside. Sooner they’re out of our hair, the better.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where’s the major?” Taniel looked around, realizing he had yet to spot Bertreau.
“Called back to camp”
“For what?”
“We’ve word from the outside. Seems the Kez are on the move in our neck of the woods – or swamp, as it may be – and they’re planning for something big. Supposedly there’s a whole brigade on the Basin Highway.”
Taniel was already heading toward a canoe before Mapel had finished his sentence.
The Kez had yet to mobilize any large forces this far inland. If they were, it couldn’t mean anything good for the Tristan Ghost Irregulars. “Pole!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Come on!”
The Ghost Irregulars were camped on a hummock about a mile southeast of the Kez. It wasn’t as good of a position as the Kez had chosen, but it was far better organized. There were no fire or latrine pits to mark their passing, and the men slept in hammocks with mosquito netting, few of them further than a dozen paces from their canoes.
The camp was quiet when Taniel and Ka-poel pulled their canoe onto the hummock. One of the few remaining guards – a lad of no more than fifteen named Heln – tipped his tricorn hat and took Taniel’s kit and rifle. “How’d the raid go, captain?” Taniel nodded in return. Heln had been with them since the beginning. He couldn’t shoot worth a damn, but he had sharp eyes and ears. Watching him try to flirt with Ka-poel was one of Taniel’s favorite pastimes.
“Well enough,” Taniel said. “Only casualty was one of the Kez guards.” He looked across at an unfamiliar canoe lying in the mud. “Whose is that?”
Heln ducked his head toward the only tent on the hummock, which belonged to Major Bertreau. Just as he opened his mouth, a figure stepped out of the tent, putting on a fur cap, and strode toward Taniel.
He was an older man, with a grizzled beard grown to mid-chest. He wore the same frontiersmen fashion as Taniel, but the fringe on his buckskins was mostly worn away and the knees and elbows had long since been patched and repatched. He had the scarred, weather-beaten complexion of one who’d been out in the bush for a long, long time. Maybe an explorer, or a trapper, but either way it explained how he’d managed to find the Ghost Irregulars.
Taniel extended a hand as the stranger approached. “Good afternoon,” he said, hoping to get a quick word about what was happening back in civilization.
The stranger glanced at Taniel, then Ka-poel, his gaze remaining on her for long enough that Taniel almost called him out for it. Then he moved on, ignoring Taniel’s hand as he tossed his kit into the bottom of his canoe and pulled it out into the water. In moments he was gone, paddling through the cypress.
Taniel watched him go, scowling, then exchanged a look with Ka-poel. She shrugged.