They were almost on top of the Kez cavalry. She heard the crack of gunpowder as pistols were fired. Nila expected to see a milling confusion as the Adrans and Kez locked in battle, but the dragoons turned sharply to follow – they hadn’t been able to cut off the Kez retreat.
Olem suddenly grabbed Nila’s reins and the two of them pulled out in front of the rest of the cuirassiers. “Fire,” he shouted. “Now!”
Fire? Sorcery! Nila’s mind went blank of all Bo’s lessons and her fingers felt numb. The Kez were too far away! How could she possibly get any of them?
Raising her hands, she rolled her eyes back and tried to focus on the Else, plucking with two fingers to bring fire racing down on the wind toward the retreating cavalry. To her surprise, flames appeared in the air several hundred yards away, swirling patterns in the sky above the Kez. She moved her off-hand too much and the flames suddenly slammed into the ground, showering the area with sparks. Her hands were shaking too hard, her concentration too unsteady.
Slowly, she managed to get her fire under control and send it blazing onward. Olem’s dragoons had split to give the fire an avenue. She felt her heart hammering in her chest as the flames closed in on their prey, surging forward like a wave out of the pit itself. This was her! She had the power to catch them and stop them. She struggled to keep control, shoving the flames farther forward.
An inky blackness seemed to reach out of the shadows of the hills and Nila’s fire suddenly went out. The suddenness of it caught her off guard and nearly sent her tumbling from her saddle. She felt a cold hand brush at the very edge of her awareness, and then it was gone.
“Call them back!” Olem said.
A bugle played frantically over Nila’s shoulder and she saw the dragoons slowly pull up. She reined her mount in, wrestling with the excited horse until Olem snatched her reins from her hands and managed to calm the beast.
“Why did you call them back?” Nila asked, trying to shake the fear she felt from that blackness.
“Because I’m not following this Gurlish Wolf into Brude’s Hideaway at night.”
“My fire…”
“The magebreaker was there. I saw his influence in the Else.”
Nila took a shaky breath. “What’s Brude’s Hideaway?”
“A bloody labyrinth of hills and valleys that stretch from here all the way through the western forest to the Charwood Pile.” Olem leaned from his saddle to spit. “Damn it! We had luck on our side for once – they barely saw us coming – and we lost our chance.”
Nila watched him for a moment, listening absently to the curses of the other cuirassiers. No one was happy about this development. “We’re going in there, aren’t we?”
Olem nodded. “Yes, but not until we have daylight on our side.”
Nila wanted to tell him how terrible an idea she thought that was. She’d heard Beon je Ipille’s description of this Gurlish Wolf. Olem had told her about the conversation with the Deliv magus. Going into those hills against the magebreaker was going to get them all killed.
She bit back her words and thought about Bo telling her to act like a Privileged. She felt a flare of jealousy with the memory of that Deliv Privileged leaning over to kiss Bo, and said, “At first light, then. We’ll go in after the bastard.”
Chapter 33
Two mornings after the bombing, Ricard had moved his entire base of operations for the election from the destroyed shell of the Holy Warriors of Labor headquarters to a posh hotel in the middle of Adopest.
Located just a few blocks from Elections Square, the Kinnen Hotel was one of the few buildings in the center of the city that had escaped looting by the riots after Manhouch’s execution, damage in the royalist uprising, as well as severe structural harm from the earthquake in the spring. It was a squat fortress of a building only three stories tall, but with a footprint that encompassed an entire city block.
It also belonged to Ricard Tumblar, a fact that Adamat thought had something to do with why it had not been harmed by the riots – it would have been very well guarded by union muscle.
And it was still well guarded, it seemed. Each of the entrances was watched by no fewer than four union men. There were marksmen on the roof and armed laborers in the street. Adamat had to show his credentials three times before he reached the grand foyer of the hotel, and even then he could feel eyes on his back as he made his way to the east wing of the second floor.
He was admitted in to see Ricard after showing his papers yet again.
The union boss sat with his feet on his desk, chair tilted back, a cigar clenched between his teeth and a cold compress against his left temple. “No, I don’t care how much it costs,” Ricard was saying to a clerk, his voice just a little too loud. “Buy up every bolt of silk in the city and… oh, Adamat!” Ricard waved cigar smoke from his face and shooed the clerk out of the room with a single jerk of his chin.
“You’re buying silk, now?”
“A little economic warfare,” Ricard said, relishing his cigar smoke. “We’ve word that Claremonte has already promised the textile union he’ll lower the import price of raw silk if elected. And he can’t do that if I control everything in the city stores and keep an eye on what he brings in over the mountains.”
“The textile union?” Adamat slid into a chair, feeling far too grateful to be sitting for a man his age. “Isn’t that your territory?”
“The union head was killed in the blast last night,” Ricard said. “We’ll be fighting over a new one for months, and in the meantime Claremonte is going to try to sway their support. And yes, it is my territory. I won’t let him take it.”
“I still think you should use your emergency powers to appoint a new textile union head right away.” The voice startled Adamat and he stood, looking toward where the voice seemed to come from – a window, where a woman perched beside the curtain with her arm in a sling and a glass of wine in her right hand. She was staring down at the street outside.
She was about fifty with rounded cheeks and severe, almond-shaped eyes. She wore a purple dress with black trim. She gave Adamat a quick look up and down.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t see you there.” He ran through the catalog of names and faces in his memory.
She raised her wineglass slightly. “Cheris, the–”
“Head of the bankers’ union,” Adamat finished. “We met briefly a couple of months ago.”
“I apologize, I don’t remember.” She set her wineglass down just long enough to adjust the strap on her sling.
“I’m Inspector Adamat.”
“Oh, yes! The Knacked who can’t forget. Ricard has spoken of you a great deal over the years. I should have remembered you. I do apologize. The things you’ve gone through in the last few months…” She trailed off, clucking her tongue sadly.
Adamat shot Ricard a glance. What was he doing telling this woman – or anyone, for that matter – about his problems?
Ricard gave him an apologetic shrug. “Do you have any leads on the bombing yesterday?”
“Should we talk about that in private?”
“Cheris was with me last night. A beam from the ceiling fell and broke her arm right after the explosion. She’ll want to know about this as much as I.”
But can she be trusted? “You look awfully well for having survived such a catastrophe,” Adamat said.
Cheris blushed slightly. “If you must know, I’ve had a little mala today – for the pain – and more than a little wine.” She gave what Adamat suspected had been meant to be a soft laugh, but it came out as a loud giggle.