shoveled from them recently, the big guns moved out from the fortress. Taniel guessed no one had staffed those redoubts for a hundred years.
Taniel and Gavril descended to the last redoubt on the mountainside. Gavril crossed the walk over the switchback below.
“Who’s the corporal of this redoubt?” Gavril asked.
A man raised his hand. He was regular army, wearing the blue of Tamas’s forces, sent up from Adopest to reinforce the Mountainwatch. He gave Gavril a skeptical look. “Me. Who are you?”
“A Watcher,” he said. “Why are you letting the Kez set up artillery stations and”—he glanced over the wall—“sapper tunnels?”
Taniel frowned. Why would the Kez be working on sapper tunnels? They were too far out to undermine the bastion, and the redoubts could be rushed with enough men—certainly the preferred choice for most generals. They were simply a point at which to give advance fire. As soon as the enemy got past the switchback below, the men would retreat to the fortress.
“Look, I don’t have to take this from you,” the corporal said, interrupting Gavril’s berating. “I may not be a Watcher, but I still outrank you… whoever you are.”
Taniel wasn’t sure of Gavril’s rank. The Mountainwatch had their own system. He pointed to his powder keg pin. “And I outrank you. Listen to him,” he said.
The corporal scowled at Gavril, though Gavril was two heads taller and twice his weight. “Well, what are we supposed to do?” the corporal asked.
Taniel could hear the big mountaineer’s teeth grinding.
“Your rifle loaded?” Gavril asked.
Taniel handed him the rifle. Gavril gave it a once-over, running a finger down the length of the barrel with an admiring whistle. “This,” he said.
He leaned out over the bulwark and fired. A sapper not fifty yards away pitched to the ground. Kez workers scrambled for cover.
Gavril handed Taniel his rifle. “The war’s started,” he said to the corporal. “Rake those bastards with shot until they’re all running scared, or until they get Privileged up here to slap you down.”
The corporal looked to Taniel for affirmation. “Go at it,” Taniel said.
Taniel walked beside Gavril as they headed back to the fortress. Behind them, intermittent musket fire began to pop, followed by the shouts of Kez soldiers.
“Won’t a Privileged just stamp out these redoubts without a thought?” Taniel asked.
The light artillery thumped behind them. “Go at it!” Gavril shouted to the next redoubt. “Anyone that comes in range!” To Taniel, he said, “This whole mountainside is warded. Every brick of those redoubts, and of the bastion, was slathered in protective sorcery when it was built.”
“That was hundreds of years ago,” Taniel said, glancing back uncertainly. The Kez royal cabal would come soon, he had no doubt of it. He wondered how long Bo could hold them off. Not long. He was just one Privileged.
“They had stronger stuff back then,” Gavril said. “They say the power of the Privileged has waned over the centuries since gunpowder. They used to be able to make wards to last a thousand years. Now it’s not often that wards will last past a Privileged’s death.”
Gavril seemed to know a lot about sorcerers and the like. Taniel studied Gavril for a few moments. He barely resembled the drunk who’d guided Taniel up the side of the mountain a week ago.
Mozes, Bo, and Fesnik were waiting for them on the bastion when they reached the fortress.
“I see you started the shooting,” Bo said. He held a cloth over his nose and mouth. Taniel sniffed the air. Clouds from the black powder were already blowing up toward them. It would soon get far worse. Bo was not going to have a good time once the artillery lit up.
“Someone needed to,” Gavril said. Watchers had come running at the sound of gunfire and now watched as the sappers began to retreat down the mountain. “Ho there,” Gavril said to a nearby group. “Prime the batteries. Give them some support. We don’t lack ammunition. I don’t want those sappers getting to the bottom of the mountain.”
Bo and Mozes exchanged a long look. “You’re taking charge, then?” Mozes said.
“Pit, no,” Gavril said. “Just prepping the men for Jaro. Where is he?”
Mozes shook his head. “Something’s taken him. He’s far sicker than we imagined. Can barely move. Doctor says he might not live out the night.”
Gavril’s eyes looked sad for a moment, and then it was gone behind a stony façade. “So be it.” He whirled on one foot and marched down along the bulwarks. “You there! Bring those balls. More