The Autumn Republic by Brian McClellan Read Free Book Online

to her that neither Bo nor Adamat had returned yet. In fact, she hadn’t seen Sergeant Oldrich or his men either. She leaned her head against the wall of the carriage, wondering if she should go look for them or just rest here until they returned.
    Nila thought she heard a soft click from the opposite door of the carriage. She turned, but the carriage door was still closed.
    “Hello?” she asked. When there was no response, she put her hand to her door latch and it occurred to her that in a camp of many tens of thousands, there didn’t seem to be anyone close to her carriage.
    The opposite door suddenly swung open. Nila glimpsed a dark coat, a covered face, and the dull glint of steel in the moonlight. The carriage rocked as someone dove inside. A hand darted toward her.
    Nila threw herself across the carriage, felt a knife catch in her skirts. She twisted away and heard a low curse in a man’s voice as her attacker tried to drag his blade from the cloth. She rolled onto the flat of the blade and kicked out at the man’s shoulder.
    He pulled back with a grunt, the knife no longer in his hand, only to leap bodily upon her.
    She caught him under the shoulders. He batted at her arms, pushing them down, one hand snaking around her neck. She felt his fingers close about her throat and remembered Lord Vetas’s hot breath upon her shoulder when he had done the same.
    The man hissed suddenly, jumping away from her, his jacket on fire. Nila felt the pressure leave her throat, saw the flame dancing on her fingertips, and she leapt on top of the man, fueled by the coals of her rage. He tried to grapple with her, his attention taken by his burning coat, but Nila forced herself inside his guard.
    Her hand still aflame, she grasped the man’s face and pushed.
    Skin and bone seemed to give way beneath her fingers. The man’s scream died in his throat and his body stopped moving. The cushion and the man’s clothes were still on fire and she beat at the flames with her skirt until they were gone.
    The body, most of its head melted into a sickening black goop on the carriage bench, lay still beneath her. Nila slowly backed away. Her head hit the roof of the carriage and she ducked down, unable to pull her eyes away from the corpse lying in the smoldering remains of its own clothing.
    She looked down at her hand. It was covered in cooked bits of bone and flesh.
    “Nila, are you —”
    Bo jerked open the door she had been resting against just a few moments before and stared down at the body. His face was unreadable in the darkness.
    “Come here,” he said gently, taking her by the wrist and pulling her outside. She only noticed the acrid smell of smoke and burned flesh, hair, and wool as Bo led her away. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gently cleaned her hand, emptying some of his canteen onto her fingers. He went back to the carriage and fetched her attaché case.
    “I…” She seemed barely able to take a breath. Her heart thundered and her hands shook.
    She’d just killed a man by burning through his entire head.
With her hand
.
    “We’ll leave the luggage. I’d set fire to the carriage, but it would just attract attention all the sooner. They’ve arrested Oldrich and his men. We have to go find Adamat.”
    Nila looked at her hand, clean now of the charred gore. The phantom stickiness of the blood clung between her fingers. She forced herself to look up into Bo’s eyes. She had to be strong. “And if he’s captured as well?”
    “We’ll save him if we can. If not, he’s on his own.”
    “And all of Oldrich’s soldiers?”
    Bo looked about them furtively. “Not even I can get fifteen men out of an army encampment. They’ll have to face the firing squad for us. Now, let’s go.” He pulled at her arm.
    “No,” Nila said.
    “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
    “You – we – brought them into this. We’ll get them out.”
    “Damn it, Nila,” Bo hissed. “We’d have to have help, and we simply