Return to Honor by Brian McClellan Read Free Book Online Page B

unmolested. No one questioned him or his companions as they passed through the old city’s western gates or as they left the city once again to reach the suburban northland.
    Tamas saw Brudanian ships in the harbor along the river and their tall masts out in the bay to the south. The mountain-crossing canal that Ricard’s union had been building must have been a success, he noted wryly. It was the only way oceangoing vessels of that size could reach the Adsea.
    Tamas lost track of the number of destroyed churches and monasteries. It seemed as if every other city block had a pile of rubble where a church had once been. He couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the priests and priestesses that staffed them and why they in particular had been targeted by the Brudanian Privileged.
    It was something he’d have to ask Ricard.
    Their journey took them an hour north of the city by foot, where the school stood on the bank of the Ad River. It was an old brick building, a decommissioned clothing factory with a field off to one side that had been turned into a firing range. As they came off the road, Vlora grasped Tamas’s arm. He sensed panic in her touch.
    Tamas felt his chest tighten.
    The windows of the dormitory above the school were shuttered, and the main door hung off its hinges. A wooden placard, emblazoned with the silver powder keg of a powder mage, had been knocked from its place above the door and lay broken in the mud. The grounds around the school and the firing range beside it were quiet and abandoned, the grass overgrown.
    “Vlora,” Tamas said, “take the south side by the river. Olem, swing around to the north.”
    The two moved off with a “yessir” and no further questions. Vlora removed her hat and crept through the tall grass, while Olem continued up the street past the school, sauntering casually, before cutting across the firing range to approach the school from uphill.
    Tamas waited for them to be in position before he continued cautiously down the path to the school. He opened his third eye to look into the Else, searching for signs of sorcery, but it revealed nothing about the contents of the building. If anyone lay waiting inside, they weren’t Privileged or Knacked.
    Nor could he sense any powder mages, for that matter. Why was the school empty? Telavere had been left in charge. She was a powder mage of little raw power but excellent technical skill, a perfect choice to teach the recruits. Could she have taken them into hiding when the Brudanians arrived? Had they been attacked?
    Tamas drew his pistols as he neared the school, pausing only to sprinkle black powder on his tongue. A powder trance gripped his body, his eyesight, hearing, and smell sharpening and the pain of the ride ebbing away behind a curtain of strength.
    A low sound filled his ears, almost drowned out by the sound of the gentle flow of the Ad River. He couldn’t quite place the sound, but he knew the smell that filled his nostrils. It smelled of iron and decay. Blood.
    Tamas checked the front window of the school. The glare of the morning sun prevented him from piercing the darkness within. The low sound seemed a roar now in his trance-enhanced hearing, and the scent of death filled him with dread.
    He kicked the front door off its hinges and dove in with both pistols ready. He froze in the entryway, eyes adjusting to the dim light.
    His caution was unwarranted. The foyer was empty, and the silence stretched throughout the building—but for the low drone of what he now saw were thousands of flies. They buzzed and churned in the air, dancing against the windowpanes.
    Tamas shoved both pistols into his belt so he could tie a handkerchief about his mouth and nose. Despite the flies and the smell, there were no bodies in the entryway, and the only sign of violence was the smear of rust on the floors and splatters on the wall. Men had been killed here, and the bodies dragged away.
    He followed the trail of smeared blood from