The Way of Caine ,The Warcaster Chronicl - By Miles Holmes Page 0,44

His head throbbed and was fit to burst. Immediately, he thought he’d pushed too hard. It wasn’t going to work …

The pain was gone. Sound too. Caine opened his eyes to a world of gray and glitter. Zeke and McCoy were radiant shapes on either side of him, their movement reduced to an impossible crawl. He felt the strength to stand. He had time enough to line them up. Not a second longer.

Time moved again.

They came screaming at him, wild eyed and open mouthed. With eyes closed and arms crossed, he squeezed a single shot from both Spellstorms. Thunder echoed across the rooftop, the muzzle flash of either barrel hung motionless, rapt in rune-halo.

Iosan and Trollkin alike were struck square in the forehead, and both were thrown back, their eyes wide. Caine blinked.

It was no dream, he had done the thing.

Both men were dead within feet of him, their lifeless eyes looking skyward in stunned silence. He could only chuckle, dropping to his knees.

Dazed, his eyes drifted down to the avenue below. He smiled weakly, watching the pedestrians moving to and fro. He noticed cabs moving along the avenue, their horses at a trot.

Clip Clop Clip Clop.

Caine snapped his head up, focusing his eyes. He scanned the traffic, to find a cab marked two-nine-three-three still in sight. With a groan, he struggled to his feet. Moving to the fire escape, he shimmied down, every muscle screaming in protest. He was soon jogging at street level, guns holstered in pursuit of the errant cab. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he pushed past the crowds along the avenue. He gasped. The cab was too far to catch. He didn’t have the strength left. His steps slowed. As another cab rushed alongside him in the same direction, he grabbed the running bar. Swinging into the passenger compartment, he shouted to the driver breathlessly, “Follow two-nine-three-three!”

That was when he noticed the cab was already occupied. He looked across the bench to find a middle aged man clutching a ledger, gaping in terror at the sight of him.

It was Montague.

Caine started laughing, and shaking his head. Montague made to leave with a whimper, his hand reaching for the door. Caine kicked his leg up, knocking the treasurer back to his seat. He already had a Spellstorm on him, and he cocked it slowly. Montague grimaced, clutching his ledger like a shield, but sat still.

“As you were driver,” Caine shouted after him, panting still.

“Please don’t kill me!” the bespectacled man pleaded in flawless Cygnaran. Caine reclined casually behind the man’s desk, his feet up. They were in the fourth floor study of a typical looking townhouse, in the well-to- do neighborhood of Ules. The place seemed unlived in except for this study, which had been well supplied, not least of which included a full liquor cabinet. Caine absently kept a Spellstorm trained on the man across from him as he flipped through his ledger, page by page.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Montague only moaned, putting his head on the desk.

The facts were neatly laid out and immaculately detailed, in fact. There had been four shipments like the one tonight, already sent into Cygnar. It was incredible, really. The ledger included the name of each Cygnaran nobleman implicated, how much they’d been promised, and how much they had received. The names of a dozen mercenary companies, including the Von Baums were listed. Montague had been so thorough as to detail the stages of the operation for which the mercenaries would receive their pay, as appendices. Even if it did not list the exact agenda of the nobles, the fact that it detailed as much information as it did, left one readily capable of deduction.

Clearly, they were gathering diversionary forces across the periphery of Cygnar while a singular force gathered near her heart. Even more incredible, a payment history showed an earl in Caspia was taking the largest of the gold shipments. It inferred a bribe was in play. Caspia had never fallen. Caine knew that, hell, everyone did. It was the stuff of old stories. Of course, in those stories, the enemies were always on the other side of her thick walls. Was there really someone on the inside capable of compromising her defenses, and actually willing to do it? Caine looked up at the despondent man across from him, baffled.

This man was running the show? Really?

The chances he might actually be capable of moving this much gold out from under Rynnard’s nose without him knowing seemed incredible. Yet