The Crimson Campaign

“Hailona…” Tamas took a step forward.

Ruper got between them, blocking the path to his mistress with his body.

Tamas narrowed his eyes at the butler. “Hailona, I need a way into the governor’s mansion. I’m going to kill the man who killed my wife and your brother.”

Ruper moved forward until his chest touched Tamas’s. “My lady has said for you to leave, sir.”

Hailona held up a hand. “Ruper, it’s all right.” She dried her eyes with a handkerchief. Her hand remained up, as if asking for time to think. After a few moments, she let it drop. “Ruper, I want you to show Tamas the secret passage into the mansion.”

“Are you sure, ma’am?”

“Yes.”

Tamas stepped back from the butler. “Thank you, Halley.”

“Kill the bastard, Tamas,” Hailona said. “Make him suffer.” She took a shaky breath. “Then I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“I understand.”

Tamas left the mill. Vlora was waiting for him out in the rain. She wore a tricorn hat and a greatcoat. She tipped the hat toward Tamas, water pouring off the front. She leaned against a rifle, and he could see her blue uniform beneath the greatcoat and a pistol at her hip.

“Did Olem head back to the army?”

She nodded.

“Where are the others?”

“Waiting.”

Tamas nodded. A few minutes later Ruper joined them in the street and they made their way out of Millertown. At the edge of the mill district, lounging around the outdoor seating of an otherwise abandoned streetside café, was Tamas’s powder cabal.

He’d only brought the best. The ones that Sabon had been training during the summer in Adopest were still in the city. They didn’t have the experience or training for a mission like this.

His powder cabal was outfitted much the same as Vlora, in greatcoats and tricorn hats. Every one of them had as much weaponry and powder at they could carry, from pistols to swords and daggers. Tamas felt a smile touch his lips. Eight men and women, every one of them a talented powder mage. As good as an army, as far as he was concerned. Tamas checked the streets quickly for any sign of Kez patrols, then turned to his mages.

“We’re going to provide a distraction so that the Deliv can rescue the political prisoners being held by the Kez,” Tamas said. “Gavril is among those prisoners. I’d like to be there to get our man out, but we have a more important task.

“Ours is to cut the head off this Kez abomination of an occupying army. We’re going straight for the throat. You all know my history with Duke Nikslaus, so you all know that I choose to do this with some… relish.”

There was a low chuckle among the powder mages.

“But as I said, we’re to provide a distraction. I intend on luring in as many soldiers as possible. There will be Wardens, no doubt. Perhaps several dozen. The odds, despite our skills and talents, will be very heavily against us. This mission smacks of revenge for me. I won’t ask you to throw your lives away for my vengeance.”

One of his mages, a girl not much older than Vlora by the name of Leone, spoke up. “You expect to die here, sir?”

“I never expect to die in battle. An expectation like that has a habit of coming true. However… there are times, more than others, when the chances I’ll lose are much greater.”

“That’s a fancy way of saying he expects to die,” Vlora said.

Tamas shot her a look.

“Sir.” Andriya raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“I signed on to kill Kez. I’ve got fifty-seven notches on my rifle from the last two months. I wanted a hundred by the end of the campaign. Will there be forty-seven Kez there?”

“I’d expect.”

“Very good, sir. I’m coming.”

“The rest of us are, too,” Vlora said quietly.

“Thank you.”

“Not doing it for you, sir,” Andriya said. “Doing it to kill Kez.”

“I appreciate it all the same. Ruper. If you please?”

They followed the butler through the streets, dodging Kez patrols as they went. Tamas watched the patrols from the shadows. There was an urgency in their step, and an extra vigilance. Tamas recognized the look. He’d seen it before in the eyes of comrades in Gurla, patrolling an unfriendly city on the last day before a withdrawal with the expectation — and fear — that anything could happen.

The governor’s mansion was back in the same wealthy part of town as Hailona’s manor. Their small group dashed from walled garden to walled garden until they reached a small wooded park well off the main street. Ruper led them into the woods to a groundskeeper’s shack.

It was a small building, barely large enough for all of them standing. Ruper moved a table, then pulled up an old rug and tossed it aside to reveal a trapdoor. He lit a lantern, and they descended into a cellar.

The cellar was rough-cut, descending past topsoil and into the clay earth. From a quick glance, it could have been any root cellar, about four feet wide and a dozen long, with a small room at the far end. When they reached the room and turned the corner, a sharply angled tunnel led off into the darkness.