Also, next week I'm traveling, so I might not be posting. I'll try though!
Title: The Tank: Prologue
***
The Tank
Prologue: Camille POV
The closer they got to the cave, the worse the weather
seemed to be. Weather thaumaturgy was mostly a myth, impossible on a large
scale, but perhaps Gerald Montgomery, formerly a nobleman of England and a
student at the Universität Zürich, had found the time to bespell his hideout in
the foothills of the Apuseni mountians. Whatever the cause, they could not stay
in the driving snow much longer, or even Camille’s alpine-hardened troops would
freeze to death.
Fifteen men, he had left. Fifteen, of the forty he’d started
his hunt with. They were the best of men, loyal and skilled, but six months of
chasing Montgomery had taught them all to be wary. Camille’s second, Lieutenant
Romilly, caught the edge of his sleeve. “Shall we make for shelter, my lord?”
he asked in the manner every good underling had, that of suggesting what they
considered to be right in such a way as to make it seem like their superior’s
idea.
And it was a good idea. It simply wasn’t feasible, though. “There’s
no time, Lieutenant.”
“Lord Lumière, I fear we must make time.” The
lieutenant gestured around them with a grimace. “This damned snow won’t let us
move with any sort of speed, and Montgomery won’t be able to go anywhere in it
either. Best for us to wait it out.”
“No.” Waiting was the one thing they couldn’t afford to do. “I
will not have another Vienna, Lieutenant.” Or Sopron, or Ocna Dejului. Following
Montgomery hadn’t been challenging, at first—catching him was another
matter entirely. Camille had severely underestimated the amount of support that
the nebulous shadow society of the Dévoué had dedicated to their English
turncoat. Montgomery had escaped them at every turn, sometimes narrowly, always
bloodily. The number of innocent people caught in the crossfire between their
factions was far too high, their blood staining Camille’s hands as surely as
they stained Montgomery’s. The difference was, Montgomery didn’t care.
“My lord—”
“We press on,” Camille interrupted with a slash of his hand.
“We will go up this slope and into that cave and take down Gerald Montgomery,
Lieutenant Romilly, and we will do it now, before he flees too far east for us
to follow. Do you understand me?”
The lieutenant, to his credit, just nodded. “The light will
fail soon,” he said neutrally. “If we are to make it up the slope without
breaking our necks, we must go now.”
“So we must.” Camille turned to look up at the cave, a faint
dark hole against the blinding white of the mountainside. “Get me Deschamps.”
Romilly left him, and a minute later thaumaturge Martin
Deschamps pulled up beside him, puffing and rubbing his hands together against
the cold. Deschamps was Camille’s third thaumaturge since beginning this chase,
and no better than any of the others had been. Uncharitable, he chided
himself. Just because none of them had the skill and determination of Anton
didn’t make them bad at their trade, just…less effective than he would have
wished them. The first had died in Vienna, the second had broken his leg a
month ago after falling off his horse.
Anton wouldn’t have fallen from his bloody horse.
“My lord?”
Camille bit back his sigh and looked at his thaumaturge. “What
cover can you give us as we march up the slope?”
Deschamps worried his lower lip between his teeth. “Lord Lumière,
I have already cast an obfuscation spell on you and the soldiers.”
“And that won’t do us a bit of good if Montgomery has
translated the palimpsest.” It was an open question at this point. Camille had
lost some of his best men to nearly impossible shots over the past few months,
but they had also quite effectively harried Montgomery into constant movement.
Without the time to sit and study the magical booklet that contained the
details of the deadly spell—cast on a gun, it would ensure every shot hit home—it
seemed unlikely he could make use of it
yet. Still. “I need something better than blurred silhouettes.”
“Now?” Deschamps squawked. “In this weather? My lord, there
is nothing more to be done! Any spell I cast will simply blow away on the wind.
It can’t be done, not without more time, perhaps a day.”
“Insufficient.” Camille looked the shivering thaumaturge up
and down. “You have a number of defensive spells on your own person, do you
not? Within the amulet and rings that you wear?” He certainly recognized the
silver protection triquetra at the man’s throat.
Deschamps’ face took on a hunted expression. “Yes, but these
are—these spells are specifically attuned to me, my lord. I can’t simply
hand them out to you and your men.”
And that was the worst thing about Deschamps—he still didn’t
count himself as one of Camille’s men. He had been a late arrival, a solitary
source of reinforcement who clearly thought their mission was pointless. But he
was Camille’s to use, and by God, he would use him. Camille set a heavy
hand on the thaumaturge’s shoulder.
“The time has come for you to step forward and prove your
fealty with the strength of your own abilities. You shall lead us up the slope,
Specialist Deschamps.”
The man’s hunted expression turned positively sickened. “My…my
lord, I cannot…surely, I’m not…I have not had time to—”
“You sit with your alembics and concoctions each night,
layering more and more spells on yourself. You exert yourself mightily on your
own behalf, Deschamps. It’s time for the rest of us to benefit from that.”
Camille pushed the thaumaturge forward. “And I’ll be right behind you the whole
time.”
“My lord, I—I—”
“Move. Now.”
With Camille’s hand exerting steady pressure on his back, Deschamps
began to trip up the side of the mountain toward the cave. He had one hand on his
pendant, the other frantically drawing glyphs in the air in front of him. The driving
snow that had been pummeling their faces suddenly vanished.
A sudden crack rent the air, and the shield that
Deschamps was maintaining suddenly caved in the center. Deschamps squeaked, but
the shot didn’t penetrate.
“Good,” Camille said grimly. “Continue.”
“My lord, I beg of you—”
“Keep your focus and work your craft if you want to live,
man!”
They made it ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. The mouth of the cave
was clearly visible now, but the men within it were still obscured. More shots were
fired down the slope, though, all of them impacting the shield. None of them
made it through, but Deschamps was beginning to moan.
“My spare stores of energy are nearly exhausted,” he
whimpered. “I can’t maintain the protection much longer!”
“Fifteen more feet.” They were almost there.
“I can’t possibly—”
The next shot hit the shield, but this one didn’t fall to
the snow. It ricocheted into the rocky mountainside, bypassing their
protection, and slammed into the line three men back. Its victim died immediately.
Montgomery was making himself known at last. Apparently he’d
translated the spell, but only treated his own weapon. Paranoid, but it meant
they still had a chance. “Faster!” Camille shouted, bodily shoving Deschamps
ahead of him like a cringing battering ram. “We can’t let him have the chance
to reload!” If he was using a pistol, if he had but six shots—
Crack. Crack. Crack! Three more men went down by the
time Camille and Deschamps crested the cave entrance. The scene within was far
from inspiring—half a dozen men hunkered down behind rocks, only the tops of
their heads and the barrels of their guns showing. “Fan out!” Camille shouted,
keeping Deschamps right where he was. If his men moved fast, they could find
cover of their own and pick their targets.
“Fire on the tall one!” Montgomery shouted from his perch in
the back of the cave. Bullets spat at Camille, no longer bouncing off of
Deschamps’s shield but sticking in it, like flecks of fruit in a wobbling pudding.
Deschamps was hyperventilating so hard he could barely keep his hand moving,
glyphs forming feverishly as Camille pushed him toward Montgomery.
“We won’t make it within five feet of him!” Deschamps cried.
“He’s too heavily warded!”
Now wasn’t the time to explain why that wouldn’t matter in a
moment. “Press on!”
Camille might be down to twelve men, but they still
outnumbered Montgomery’s force. Dug-in fighters who would have focused on
Camille were distracted, then taken down, by a grim-faced Lieutenant Romilly
and his brigade. Montgomery raised his magical weapon and fired, but despite
the weakening of the shield the bullet still ricocheted, this time striking one
of his own remaining men in the neck. The fur-covered gunman collapsed, blood
spurting like a faucet from beneath his jaw, and Deschamps shrieked as he saw
it, his spell finally dissolving.
Camille pushed Deschamps out of the way and lunged for
Montgomery, who was already starting to squeeze his trigger. Camille caught his
foe by the hand and slammed it into the rock wall, dislodging the gun just as
it fired a final bullet. Again there was ricochet, a new arc of certain death streaking
into the air—
A bat, its tiny body practically obliterated by the round,
fell to the ground with a splat. Camille smashed his elbow across
Montgomery’s face, stunning him, then rolled him over onto his stomach. “Resist
me and I’ll break your arm,” he told him.
“Forgot about your little parlor trick,” Montgomery croaked,
his voice a parody of laughter. “Can’t damn a man to hell who’s already damned,
eh? I should have brought a cannon.”
“Yes, you should have,” Camille agreed. He looked back at
his party. All twelve of his remaining men were alive, and mostly undamaged. His
thaumaturge was slumped on his back, staring at Camille with uncomprehending
eyes. Montgomery’s supporters were all dead.
And high time. Once Camille delivered Montgomery to
the emperor, perhaps then, finally—finally—he could see Anton again.
It could not come soon enough.
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