is ammunition. They’ll pound away day and night, till either we crack the barrels or the Kez send us to the pit.”
Taniel spent the rest of the morning sending Kez Privileged scrambling for cover. The redstripes cut through the protection offered by the Privileged Tower everywhere but nearest the tower itself. The sorcery was just too strong there, and the redstripes pinged off an invisible shield just as the conventional artillery did. Kez Privileged huddled around the tower, matching its ponderous progress. Some even rode on it, sending halfhearted shots of sorcery up the mountainside in the form of fire and lightning. Not once did a shot make it past the redoubts. The wards protecting the Mountainwatch were too powerful.
The Privileged Tower reached a point three-quarters of the way to the fortress from Mopenhague around noontime. It rolled to a stop on a relatively flat part of the road near a level area of ground big enough for a squat house and a latrine—a resting point for travelers on the switchbacks. Blocks were put behind the wheels and the oxen were corralled. Tents were set up in the shadow of the Privileged Tower.
The Kez Cabal had found their staging ground.
The Kez worked all day beneath the torrent of artillery fire. The air above them shimmered where cannonballs and canister shot rained down upon the sorcery-woven shield. Late in the day Taniel found himself near Bo.
Bo wore his gloves but had yet to make any response to the Kez Cabal. He scowled while he examined the royal cabal’s new position through a looking glass.
“Pit,” Bo said to himself. He stowed the looking glass, when he sensed Taniel’s presence and turned. “She’s down there,” he said.
“Julene?” Taniel asked. “How can you be sure?”
Bo rubbed his temples. “I’ve had my third eye open all day. She’s hiding herself well, and pit, it’s tough to pick out individuals beneath that shield. I’ve seen her well of power manifest twice now. Each time when the Tower got stuck.” He snorted. “Bitch is driving cattle now. I just saw it again, right now. It’s her, all right. Only a Predeii has that flare to them in the Else. She’s barely bothering to hide.”
“What if there’s another one down there?” Taniel asked.
Bo turned white as a cloud. He swallowed and turned around, staring through the looking glass again. After a moment he took it away from his eye. He spit at Taniel’s feet. “You’re a bastard for suggesting that,” he said. He rubbed his eyes. “I’ll be up all night now, looking for a second one. Damn it.”
“So she survived that beating we gave her on the mountain?”
“It seems so.”
“How the pit do we kill her, then? Can it even be done?”
“I don’t know.”
“You inspire a lot of confidence, you know that?” Taniel ignored Bo’s glare. “She’s really trying to come up here to summon Kresimir?”
“Yes.”
Taniel had asked the question fifty times now. He hoped Bo’s answer would change. It hadn’t. He felt like he couldn’t give up trying.
“Why didn’t she do it weeks ago? She could have snuck past us and gone up there.”
“Last time it took thirteen of the most powerful Privileged in the world,” Bo said. “She’ll need an entire royal cabal this time.”
“Hence, the Kez.”
“Yes.”
“Why would they help her?”
“Who knows what she’s promised them,” Bo said. “Immortality? Power? Ruling the Nine at Kresimir’s side?”
“We have to tell my father.”
“I sent a warning to him over a month ago,” Bo said. “The answer I got was that he sent you to kill me.”
“I believe you,” Taniel said.
“Very reassuring. Have you written him about Julene?”
“I did.” He had yet to hear a word from his father. What did that mean? Last news from Adopest was a week ago. A Warden had tried to kill Tamas. They’d not succeeded. Taniel had no idea whether his father had been wounded or incapacitated—or whether he was simply too busy to write back. Or maybe he was still planning on sending someone to kill Bo. Taniel was looking over his shoulder every day for another powder mage. None had come.
“I can already tell you he won’t believe all that stuff about summoning Kresimir,” Taniel said. “He’s too practical.”
“You did tell him, though, right?”
“Of course I told him. I told him I couldn’t kill you because I needed your help on the mountain. I told him I saw the Kez army and knew we’d need a Privileged to hold them off.”