The Mad Lancers: A Powder Mage Novella Read online

  In her midtwenties, she was ten years his junior but already the head constable of Fernhollow, and could back up her position with a truncheon better than most provosts. Another decade, and she’d be a proper police captain in Landfall.

  She did not look pleased to see him leaving so early. “Stop worrying,” she told him.

  “I’m not.” Styke found his pants and began to dress.

  “It’s just a bunch of soldiers. Between my deputies and Blye, they’re under control. They’ll be gone by lunch.”

  “Hopefully they’re already on their way out of town. I just want to make sure everything goes smoothly. Where’s my jacket?”

  “You left it downstairs,” Rezi said. “Come back to bed.”

  Styke grunted. “I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t move, and don’t get dressed.”

  “I’ll damn well get dressed if I want. You walk out that door and you’ll miss your chance.”

  Styke eyed her for a long moment, wavering in the doorway.

  “Why are you so worried about these Kez anyway?” Rezi asked. “You’ve been skulking since you got back from cutting down poor Kros. I’ve never known Ben Styke to be afraid of anything.”

  Styke snorted. “I’m not skulking.”

  “You are too. Why?”

  He finally stepped away from the door, rounding the side of the bed and kneeling down next to her. He playfully bit her thigh, and Rezi gave a full-throated laugh. “You ever hear of Major Prost?” he asked her.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “He’s a Kez cuirassier. Bastard brother of the governor.”

  “Ohhhh,” Rezi said, elongating the word. “Yeah, I have heard of him. He’s the one who butchered Blind Rock, isn’t he?”

  “He burns villages and kills kids and gets away with it,” Styke confirmed.

  Remi eyed him sideways, obviously worried. She knew his temper, too. She knew what set him off. “Stay in bed,” she said quietly.

  Styke tapped his fingers on the bed frame. She was right, of course. He didn’t need to go out there. He began to unbutton his shirt, ready to climb under the covers, when there was a sudden pounding on the door.

  “Styke!” a voice called. Styke answered. It was Fenrial, one of his colonial lancers. The boy’s face was white. “Sir, you have to come with me right now.”

  Styke shared a glance with Remi. She scowled at him, but rolled out of bed and began putting on her own clothes while Styke nodded to Fenrial, then followed him at a run.

  They left Rezi’s small house on the outskirts of town and headed down the hard-packed dirt streets. It was a nice day, as far as Fatrastan spring went, and it hadn’t rained for almost a week. The morning was hot without being unbearable, a light cloud cover dotting blue skies. They passed a few farmers out and about in the early hours, who tipped their hats to Styke as they headed out toward their fields.

  Styke barely noticed. He began to hear voices from the town square, and he soon spotted the Kez lined up in the street, two hundred or so cuirassiers at attention on horseback, clearly waiting and eager to be gone. He ran along the line, looking for Captain Cardin. He passed an unhappy-looking Sergeant Gracely, who shouted something that was lost to him.

  Styke rounded the corner that led to the town square and almost plowed into the back of a crowd of several hundred people. He paused just long enough to take in the scene: the crowd was gathered just outside The Rumbling Sow. They formed a circle around a cordon of men in Kez uniforms, and even as Styke looked on, he heard a few angry shouts.

  Townspeople shouting at Kez soldiers was not going to end well.

  Behind the cordon of Kez cuirassiers—stone-faced men with carbines at the ready—were three Kez officers. Two of them were obviously drunk, with jackets unbuttoned and shirts soiled, swaying on their feet. They stood over a small man with the red hair and ashen freckles of a Palo, his face and beard streaked with blood, his hands clasped as the two drunks kicked and spat at him.

  The third officer—Cardin—stood off to one side, his expression fraught, desperately trying to calm the situation down.

  The Palo’s name was Tel-islo, and he was the owner of The Rumbling Sow. Styke’s eyes narrowed, and he took two steps into the crowd. “Out of my way,” he growled, letting townspeople part in front of him as he strode toward the cordon of Kez cuirassiers.

  The biggest cuirassier was almost a foot shorter than Styke. He swallowed visibly, eying Styke’s yellow colonial jacket and the silver lance at his lapel.

  “Move,” Styke told him.

  “Sorry, sir,” the cuirassier said. “I can’t do that. Orders.”

  “I am a major,” Styke said impatiently, watching over the cuirassier’s head as an officer who Styke had now decided was Major Prost planted a kick in Tel-islo’s ribs. “Your major is obviously drunk, so I am the ranking officer here. Move, or I will make you move.”

  The cuirassier licked his lips and glanced to his left and right, as if wondering if his fellow soldiers would back him up in the face of such a giant. Another blow landed on Tel-islo, and Styke reached forward, jerking the carbine out of the cuirassier’s hands.

  “Hey!”

  Styke gripped the carbine in both hands and brought it down over his knee, snapping the stock like a matchstick. He handed the pieces back and shoved past the cuirassier, striding toward Major Prost.

  Cardin attempted to intercept him, sputtering an explanation, but Styke stiff-armed him to the ground. He had no interest in explanations. Someone under his protection was being attacked.

  Styke set his sights on the other officer—the man who was not Prost, and bore the pins of a captain on his drink-stained lapels. Styke grabbed the captain by the back of the shirt, lifting him bodily so that his next kick went wide of Tel-islo. He panicked, his feet kicking the air as Styke held him aloft. Styke tossed him toward the nervous cordon of cuirassiers.

  The street, he noticed, had gone deathly silent—until a voice broke out from the back of the crowd: “You show those Kez assholes, Major Styke!” Another voice joined the first, and then a round of jeers opened up. The cuirassiers tightened into a knot, clearly wondering whether they should run or open fire, and Styke was more than cognizant of their greater number of companions waiting just a few streets over.

  A wrong word, and this would end in a bloodbath.

  “Everyone shut up,” he bellowed. Silence returned, and he turned toward Major Prost and Tel-islo. Major Prost swayed on his feet, looking at Styke in cross-eyed confusion.

  Styke lifted Tel-islo to his feet. “Can you walk?” he asked gently.

  Tel-islo nodded, his eyes fixed fearfully on Prost.

  “Go inside, lock your doors, and clean yourself up,” Styke ordered, giving Tel-islo a little shove to propel him toward his inn. He turned toward Prost, looking him in the eyes. Definitely still drunk. Prost lurched after Tel-islo, brandishing a riding crop.

  “I’m not done with you, Palo!” He came to a quick stop, eyes focusing on Styke as if seeing him for the first time. “And you,” he said, pointing the riding crop at Styke’s chest, “have just made a very big mistake. I will deal with you as soon as I’ve finished with that foxhead whore’s son over there. You hear me, foxhead? Come back here this instant!”

  Styke waved Tel-islo inside with one hand and snatched Prost by the lapels, lifting him into the air with both hands and pulling him so close their noses touched. “You will drop the riding crop and take your soldiers and leave this very instant, or I will break both of your arms.”

  Prost let out a noxious burp in Styke’s face, his weak jaw twisting in a drunken sneer. “Unhand me, you colonial tit.”

  “These people are under my protection,” Styke said calmly. He didn’t want this to escalate any further, but he would not allow the Kez to bully his people. “Set aside your pride and let Captain Cardin lead you out of the town before things go poorly.”

  Prost stared at Styke, the sneer still fixed on his lips, his eyes gradually fo
cusing. Slowly, deliberately, he closed his lips and sucked his cheeks in. Styke could see exactly what was going to happen next, and he decided in the back of his head that he was just going to let it happen.

  The wad of phlegm smacked him just below the left eye, splattering all cross his face and dripping down his cheek. He heard an audible gasp from among the closest members of the crowd and a very distinct, “Oh, shit,” from Captain Cardin.

  Styke dropped Prost to his feet, snatching him by the left arm before his drunk legs could give out beneath him. He grasped Prost’s wrist in one hand and his bicep with the other, then brought the major’s elbow down over his knee like he’d done to the cuirassier’s carbine. There was a sickening snap, bone and blood tearing through Prost’s uniform, and an almost startlingly long pause before Prost began to scream.

  He continued to scream as Styke forced him around and did the same to the other arm. It was done in just a few seconds, then he let Prost fall to the ground, where he rolled in the dust, screaming in pain and bellowing for someone to kill Styke.

  Styke looked up to find Cardin staring at him. Beyond, several dozen of the mounted cuirassiers had arrived, with Sergeant Gracely at their front. They froze in indecision when they saw that the source of the screams was their major, and Styke could practically see the calculations on Gracely’s face as she wondered whether she should kill Styke, and then whether she could.

  “Take him and get out of my city,” Styke told Cardin. Styke raised his head to the gathered crowd and spoke over the screams of the man at his feet. “You will disperse now. Constable Remi will be around later to talk to the witnesses of this crime. Thank you.” He turned his back on the crowd and the cuirassiers and headed toward the front door of the inn, where he spotted Tel-islo’s face in the window. There was a thump, and then the sound of a latch sliding.

  Styke stepped inside the quiet of the inn and headed to the bar. “Something bitter,” he told Tel-islo, waiting patiently until the mug of beer was set in front of him. He took a sip, then pressed the cool mug against his temple as he listened to the muffled sounds of soldiers trying to quiet Prost’s screaming.

  “Thank you, Major,” Tel-islo said, not meeting Styke’s eye.

  “Your wife owes me an apple pie this fall,” Styke said gruffly, wishing he’d stayed in bed with Rezi and knowing she was going to spend the next few days reminding him how that would have been a much better idea.

  Tel-islo gave Styke a grateful smile. “You’ll have one every day for a week.”

  That, Styke decided, might actually make this whole thing worth it. Running a hand through his hair, he asked Tel-islo, “What was this whole thing about, anyways?”

  “I asked him to pay his tab,” Tel-islo gulped. “He… objected to my request.”

  “What an asshole,” Styke muttered. “Look, it’s all right. You’re under my protection, Palo or not, and I’m not gonna let some continental piece of shit kick you around.”

  “Again, thank you.”

  Styke listened to the sound of hoofbeats and the shouting of soldiers outside. If Cardin was properly motivated to keep a riot from happening, he would have his men out of town within a quarter of an hour. He’d rush Prost to Landfall to find a healing Privileged, and within a couple of days word would reach the governor. Styke cursed his own temper and tried to decide what he was going to do next. The governor was not going to be happy, to put it lightly. Perhaps, Styke thought, he should quietly retire, heading up into the mountains before someone came to arrest him.

  Styke counted down the minutes, growing slightly concerned as the sound of hoofbeats suddenly grew louder and a few angry shouts came from the street. He turned around on his stool. “What’s going on?”

  Tel-islo rushed to the window. His face grew ashen, and he took a step backwards.

  Before Styke could get to his feet, the door opened. He was surprised to find Captain Cardin and a small group of soldiers in Kez uniforms who were definitely not cuirassiers. Beyond them, he could see that the crowd had not dispersed and that the cuirassiers were definitely still here. These new soldiers each had a red feather stuck in their lapels, and they held their muskets menacingly.

  “I thought I told you to go,” Styke said.

  Cardin was pale, sweating visibly. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but this is out of my hands. Major Benjamin Styke, I arrest you in the name of Governor Crillot je Sirod, and I ask that you come along with me quietly.”

  Styke felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end. The sounds he’d heard—those weren’t soldiers leaving. They were soldiers arriving. Something clicked in his brain, and he recognized the red feathers. Of course. They were the governor’s personal bodyguard. Which meant that the governor himself was here.

  Talk about bad damned luck.

  Styke finished off his beer and approached them. Cardin took a long step to one side, and the soldiers all backed away slowly as Styke ducked out the front door of the inn to stand on the stoop outside. The crowd of townspeople was now almost entirely encircled by a newly arrived company of soldiers, each of them wearing the red feather in their lapels. At their center was a tall man with a thin face, a receding hairline, and a goatee hiding a weak chin. The similarities between him and Prost were unmistakable.

  Governor Sirod was dressed in a stiff-collared riding jacket and cravat, his nose turned up to the crowd in front of him, his hands daintily clutching his reins. While Prost was known for his public sadistic streak, Sirod was quietly vain—he owned hundreds of plantations, employed the finest Kressian tailors and cobblers, kept the largest art collection in this hemisphere, and even had his own personal Privileged sorcerer. As far as governors went, he was egotistical and amoral; his only job in Fatrasta was to keep up cotton and tobacco shipments at whatever cost, and therefore bolster his own reputation in the King’s court back in Kez.

  Sirod’s bastard brother lay at the feet of his horse, weeping while a Privileged set his arms and healed them. Styke let his eyes linger on the Privileged for a moment—his own sorcerous Knack allowing him to smell the brimstone of the Privileged’s magic—before returning his gaze to Sirod and wondering what he’d look like wearing his own innards as a cravat.

  Styke briefly caught sight of Blye in the crowd, clutching a carbine. Styke locked eyes with him and gave a small shake of his head.

  Cardin exited the inn and came up beside Styke, every bit of his body language screaming that he didn’t want to be there. He cleared his throat, coughed into his hand, and said, “Major Styke, sir. Please come along quietly.” There was a pleading tone to that “please” that at once irritated and complimented Styke. Even with hundreds of soldiers here, Cardin was scared of him.

  What a bunch of cowards.

  “You’re a gentleman, aren’t you, Cardin?”

  “I… I like to think so, Major.”

  “Then give me your word that all the responsibility for what happened will fall upon me. Not the innkeeper. Not the townspeople. Not my lancers.”

  Cardin let out a relieved sigh. “I’ll do that, Major.”

  “Good. Then I’ll come along quietly.”

  Styke sat in the only cell on the second floor of the Fernhollow Jail. It was a large room, meant to be able to hold drunks and dissenters for as long as it took them to calm down, and had bare brick walls and a worn wooden floor. It was separated from the constable’s office by a plank wall and a large iron-bar door, which currently stood open—which would have been a tempting avenue of escape if Styke wasn’t doing his best to let this whole thing blow over.

  There were three windows looking out into the town—glass, protected by iron bars. Styke sat on the only bench, one knee drawn up beside him as he looked out one of those windows. A couple hours had passed since his arrest, and the streets outside were a lively spectacle that made him want to spit.

  Every citizen had been called to town and now stood obediently in the summer heat while the governor’s bodyguard and Prost’s c
uirassiers paraded around the city square. Their horses kicked up dust, coating everyone in a thin film, and their company band—two drummers, three pipers, and five horn blowers—played a discordant racket that made Styke wince every time they marched past his window.

  While the citizens stood glumly on the sides of the street, Styke’s own colonial lancers were forced to stand at attention, unmounted and unarmed, in the city square. That made Styke’s blood boil more than anything, and he forced himself watch the sweat pouring off their brows, mixing with the dust to create a muddy complexion while the governor’s bodyguard rode past again and again, laughing amongst themselves. It was humiliation to the highest degree.

  “You’re just going to give yourself a heart attack if you keep watching.”

  Styke turned his head to find Rezi leaning in the doorway, looking at him with the kind of infuriating pity that one might turn upon a kicked dog.

  “I need to watch,” Styke said, looking back out the window.

  “Just torturing yourself.”

  “That’s kind of the point.”

  “Oh, come on.” Rezi crossed the room and leaned on his shoulder, casting a glance out the window before trying to pull him away from it. “You’re not going to help anyone by feeling guilty about this.”

  “I don’t feel guilty,” Styke said, wishing he’d up and killed Prost. “I feel pissed. I shouldn’t be in this cell, and they shouldn’t be standing out there. It was some damned bad luck.”

  “What, that the governor happened to show up a few moments after you broke his brother’s arms?”

  “Yeah, that. Or that those cuirassiers even came through here at all. Did you find out why Sirod is here?”

  “Like you said, bad damned luck,” Rezi said. “There were some military drills over in Jerrinshire. He was on his way back when he heard his brother was here, so he changed his route to meet up with him.”

  Military drills. Styke wanted to spit. He thought of all the rumors coming out of the north. For the most part, Fernhollow had managed to avoid the unrest sweeping the country. And now they had the regional governor marching his bodyguard back and forth through the town like it was some den of dissention that needed to be tamed.