Doranth’s arms shook with fury. Moments passed, and Tamas could feel the sweat rolling down his back and wondered idly if he really could take the magus with him. He was getting old. His reflexes weren’t what they once were.
Doranth lowered his arms and tugged his gloves off. “I will kill you, Powder Mage.”
“I’ll probably be long dead before you get the chance.” Tamas stepped away. “Let’s go, Olem.”
It wasn’t until they were out of the Deliv camp that Tamas allowed himself a relieved sigh. “Pit,” Tamas said, wiping his brow, “I should not threaten allied Privileged.”
“I thought it was an interesting tactical choice,” Olem said.
“And I thought you were around to keep me from doing stupid things.”
“You looked in control from where I was standing.”
“Then why did you draw your pistol?”
Olem shrugged. “Just in case.”
“You’re a man to inspire confidence.”
“I try.”
Tamas could sense a plan forming in his head. “Find me Beon je Ipille. And that Privileged girl. Meet me in my tent in twenty minutes.”
“His name,” Beon said, “is Saseram.”
Tamas watched Beon through narrowed eyes. He’d undone his jacket, as his tent felt warm and muggy despite the cool breeze outside. There was an ache deep in his bones, and he wondered how many years it had been since he last had a drink. “That’s a Gurlish name.”
“That’s because he is Gurlish,” Beon responded.
“A Gurlish cavalryman, fighting for the Kez? That seems a stretch.” Tamas glanced at Olem, who had raised a skeptical eyebrow. Nila stood beside him, looking uncertain of herself. She’d changed out of her scorched dress and now wore a white daydress with a violet scarf.
“He changed sides during the third campaign – it was his defection that allowed us to take Delfiss. This was all when I was very young, of course. All I know is what I’ve heard from father.”
“I’ve always wondered about Delfiss. So he’s a magebreaker?”
Beon smoothed the front of his uniform. “Well, I didn’t want to give up any state secrets, but if you already know – yes. That was a condition of his defection. He was once a very powerful Gurlish Privileged. My father wasn’t interested in allowing a foreign Privileged the run of his army. The way he tells it, Saseram agreed almost too quickly. He willed away his Privileged powers and became a magebreaker.”
“Magebreakers are former Privileged who are able to nullify sorcery,” Tamas said to Nila, who was looking more than a little lost. “Most of them had little power to start with, and that’s reflected in how close a proximity they must be to stop magic. I hired one once. He was fairly weak and had to be within spitting distance to stop sorcery. A powerful Privileged turned magebreaker can stop quite a bit more.”
Beon glanced toward her. “May I ask who this is?”
“So he’s a Gurlish Wolf rather than a Kez. Why have I not heard of this man?” Tamas asked, ignoring the question.
Beon’s eyes lingered on Nila for a moment. “Because he changed his name when he entered Kez service.”
“And who was he before that?” The Gurlish Wars had been a bloody series of campaigns half a world away involving most countries in the Nine. Tamas could think of half a dozen powerful Gurlish Privileged who had died or disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
Beon smiled in response, and glanced at Nila, but Tamas shook his head. He wasn’t about to reveal Nila’s identity over this. Not just to sate his own curiosity. “Anyway,” Beon continued, “he’s been rotting in some border town for the last fifteen years. He’s a bloody good cavalryman, maybe even better than me – and an expert in guerrilla warfare. I imagine that you’ll have a very hard time catching him indeed.”
Tamas didn’t have time for this. A few hours ago, he had been ready to order his men to march through the night so he could catch the Kez forces at Auberdel. Now he discovered that his allies – fifty thousand strong, including a third of a royal cabal – had been cowed by a single regiment of Kez cavalry.
“Thank you, Beon.”
The Kez nobleman seemed to know he was being dismissed. He stood, brushing his hands together, eyeing Nila. She met his gaze, and Tamas chuckled inwardly. He had known that there would be a day when the Adran Cabal would need to be rebuilt. He had secretly hoped it would be long after his death. But he could do a lot worse than having Borbador and Nila as its foundation.
With Beon gone, Tamas climbed to his feet and rebuttoned his jacket. “Olem, have you created a cavalry regiment for your Riflejacks yet?”
“Yes sir. Six hundred dragoons and three hundred cuirassiers.”
“Excellent. Take another five hundred cuirassiers – the Fifteenth won’t miss them – and hunt this Gurlish magebreaker down.”
Olem straightened. “Sir!”
“You wanted a command, Olem. You’ve got it now. Don’t let me down.”
“I won’t, sir!” Olem grinned proudly, his shoulders squared.
“And Privileged Nila.”
Nila swallowed hard, but she met Tamas’s eye. He held his hands behind his back so that she couldn’t see his nervousness, and wondered if he was making the right decision.
“You’re going with Olem. Burn those bastards to the ground.”
He had the brief satisfaction of her eyes growing wide before he strode out into the sunlight to let his men know they would be leaving at first light.
Chapter 32
A few hours into her ride, as her legs began to cramp and her ass began to hurt worse than anything she’d ever felt, Nila wondered if Tamas would have allowed her to say no.
Perhaps he might have, if it had occurred to her to refuse. She had her doubts. It seemed likely that few people told Tamas no. This was the same man who had slaughtered the Adran royal cabal in their sleep and then guillotined his own king. One didn’t say no to a man like that. Instead of refusing what sounded like a horribly dangerous mission, she had asked him to give a hastily written note to Privileged Borbador. Tamas had seemed slightly put off by the request, but Nila didn’t know who else in the camp she could have asked, and in the end, Tamas agreed.
She had an ever-growing notion that this expedition was a terrible idea and that it would end with her corpse lying in some farmer’s field. The darkness on the horizon that sorcery could not penetrate, the darkness that had tied her stomach in knots, had been a magebreaker, and she was now riding toward him.
“What the pit good am I going to do?” she asked, trying not to let the pain come through in her tone. Back straight. Act like the Privileged you want to be.
Olem stood in his stirrups, looking annoyingly at ease in the saddle, his eyes scanning the horizon. “The idea,” he said, “is that we go straight for the throat. We identify and kill the magebreaker and then you unleash your sorcery on his cavalry.”
Behind them, a trail of dust rose over thirteen hundred Adran cavalry. They were a stunning sight, she had to admit. The uniforms of the dragoons were dirty and rumpled from the road, but their swords were held straight and their carbines laid across their saddle horns, while the breastplates of the cuirassiers shone in the setting sunlight. She now wore a uniform that matched the dragoons – Adran blues with silver trim and red cuffs, and pants, which were so much better for riding than a dress.
“Didn’t the Deliv already think of that?”
“Likely,” Olem said.
“And they failed.”