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Chapter Ten

East of Dalhmun Prison

Former Transellia

Natalya Baston


There was an oblivious enemy standing only an arm’s length away from Natalya. She’d determined he was a terrible soldier, even by Almacian standards. Lazy. Complacent. Unobservant. Though, if she was being honest with herself, those traits were probably for the best.

She’d buried herself between the roots of a tree hours ago, waiting for a patrol to pass her by. But they never had. Instead the Almacians had stopped to set up camp right next to her. She could smell their dinner cooking, and it made her stomach rumble with hunger. They were so close that she could hear their conversations, but she didn’t understand much of their language. Even without knowing all the words, they sounded like every other bunch of soldiers she’d ever been around. Complaints and jokes. It was a miracle one of them hadn’t tripped over her yet, and the longer she stayed, the worse her odds of being discovered. Sneaking out at night was her only option, but the sun would set shortly.

And still, the sentry didn’t move.

The problem was the bugs.

Her hiding place had been chosen in haste, and she’d not seen the ant hill directly beneath her belly. They crawled all over her, occasionally biting. Tiny, but painful stings. Had she been further south where the ants were more venomous, it would have been more of a problem. Yet still, all the swarming, tiny bodies crawling over were an annoyance. Annoyance led to carelessness and a loss of focus. She couldn’t afford that right now.

The soldier shifted, turned slightly, and leaned back against her tree. She wished for the ants to drive him away, but sadly they only had bites for her.

Once the sun set, his life would be over.

To pass the time, she thought about the map she’d taken from the young soldier’s body. Natalya had only had a few minutes to look it over, but that had been enough to memorize the important bits that had been different than her map. An area had been marked—only a few miles from her current position—that indicated some kind of forward operating base. If there was a large camp of Almacians, and they were planning a major push against Kolakolvia, it could make all the intel she had gathered for the secret policeman useless. She needed Kristoph happy if she was going to get her parents freed.

The soldier began snoring. He was supposed to be on watch. Such unprofessionalism offended her.

He deserved what was coming.

Once it was fully dark, she reached out slowly, careful not to disturb the leaves, dirt, and deadwood covering her. There was no reaction from the soldier. He was still asleep. She thought about just crawling away, but he was so close, he might hear her and wake up. One surprised shout and she’d be doomed. No. There was no choice. She exhaled slowly as she drew her knife. Natalya emerged from her hiding spot, wrapped one hand tight over his mouth, and drove her blade into the base of his brain. She held him until he was still.

The Almacian wasn’t much bigger than her, so she slowly dragged his body into the depression and covered it with the same leaves and debris she’d been hiding under. It was a temporary solution to her problem, as he’d be found as soon as they changed watch.

It was time to go. But which way? She had been mulling over the two options the whole time she’d been stuck. The first option, return as swiftly as possible to Cobetsnya and report to Vals. She had enough information to have made the trip worthwhile. Probably. But then, was there ever such thing as enough information when dealing with the Secret Police? What would be the consequence if Vals found her intel insufficient?

Option two then<.

The mysterious base marked on the map she had stolen wasn’t too far away. Except distance wasn’t the obstacle. She could cover it quickly, especially given the terrain around the new base.

That was the rub. Terrain.

Flat, coverless terrain. So far she’d been able to use the forest to her advantage. Except the new Almacian outpost was located in a valley that her map had warned was grassland, and thus best avoided.

If anyone saw her—which was likely on open ground—she’d have no place to hide and would likely be shot from a distance. Providing she remained unspotted, and therefore alive, she still had a long way to go to get back to Cobetsnya. But once there, hopefully Vals would consider her acquired information relevant enough to not have her dropped into a gulag . . . or a ditch.

She waited a few minutes after killing the sentry before leaving, just to be certain that no one in the camp had heard. But then the ground shifted where she’d concealed the body. Muffled beneath the foliage came the sound of hungry sniffling. The corpse eaters had already come for the dead. That was far quicker than usual for a single corpse to draw the foul creatures. This had to be cursed ground. Bad things must have happened here before.

Natalya crawled away. The ghouls didn’t usually go after the living unless they were agitated, but she didn’t feel the need to tempt fate this particular time. As soon as she was certain she was out of sight of the other sentries, she got to a crouch, then moved swiftly downhill. She needed to make distance from the camp. Once the monsters started devouring the corpse, the chewing of flesh and snapping of bones would alert the rest of the camp. If she hadn’t been too worried about speaking the prayer aloud, she would have given him the blessing of the stone like she had the last soldier she’d killed, in order to keep the nasty things at bay. Even Almacians didn’t deserve to be devoured by ghouls.

The Goddess of the Hunt had made it so that she could see far better in the dark than most people, so Natalya had no problem navigating through the forest. She made excellent time getting away from the patrol, and should have felt relief, maybe even a sense of accomplishment, but neither came. Instead she was left with a vague unease. Strangely, not from the prospect of scouting the new Almacian base, but rather for what she might find there. If there was nothing, then she had wasted the time of one of the Tsar’s high-ranking Oprichniks. Scouts had been executed for less.

Her instincts told her it was worth the gamble.

After a night of slowly and carefully avoiding patrols, Natalya arrived at her destination. It couldn’t be missed.

The Almacians sprawled across the valley. Tent after tent after tent, thousands of men. Large wooden buildings, their purpose unknown, had been constructed recently, and the Almacian flag—a golden spear on a field of blue—flew from each of them.

Natalya found a ravine and hid among the cattails. With dawn breaking, the encampment was already buzzing with activity. Hundreds of men drilled in the morning light, gray uniforms crisp. She watched them through her scope. How many could she kill before they found her? Five? Ten? From this distance, it would be just under three seconds from shot to grave.

Yet, she knew that would accomplish nothing. It would be a miniscule number when compared to this massive force. She had been taught that an Almacian division consisted of approximately ten thousand men. This had to be at least that. And they were preparing for something.

Thankfully it had been a wet winter, so the grass here was tall enough to conceal her. She spent the rest of the day slowly circling the camp, hiding, watching, and making notes. Riflemen practiced with their weapons, shooting at and hitting targets a hundred yards farther than what was expected from Kolakolvian infantry rifles. They were armed with the new needle guns, the same as the captured one slung across her back. Davi had been right. The weapon was worth studying.

The big buildings were obviously recent additions. She couldn’t tell what was going on inside of them, but from the activity, noise, smoke, and unpleasant chemical smell, they brought to mind the factories of Cobetsnya. The few times the barn doors were open, she saw big metal storage tanks inside. At one point a horse-drawn wagon entered one of the buildings, and then came out a short time later loaded down with obviously heavy crates. It left the camp heading north, under guard. Curious, Natalya decided to follow it.

Just north of the base, the wagon stopped at a much smaller encampment, which appeared to be an entrenched artillery battery.

Natalya spotted an ancient stone cairn and used that as a hiding place to observe. She’d seen hundreds of rock piles like this during her travels. Her Rolmani elders had taught her these boundary stones were cursed, left over from before mankind settled these lands. But cursed or not, it was the best concealment she was going to find, so she settled down next to the moss-covered boulders and waited.

Almacians wearing strange masks unloaded the wagons. Those soldiers weren’t in the standard grays of the Almacian infantry, but rather bulky brown suits that covered every bit of skin. The heat must have been stifling in them, even now in the cool spring. In the summer such protective gear would be insufferable. But like all military equipment, Natalya knew it had to be purpose driven. It was impossible to read facial expressions from such a great distance, but it was clear that the regular soldiers were eager to get away after their wagon was unloaded.

The crates turned out to be filled with cannon shells. Was this base some kind of munitions factory? But it was an oddly isolated place for such an industry.

Then the strangely dressed Almacians prepared their cannons, and then they just stood there, clearly waiting for a signal from a spotter atop a small wooden tower. She wasn’t sure what the spotter was waiting for, but she spent so much time watching nothing happen that she began to regret not staying near the base where the interesting things were. It wasn’t until she realized they were watching the wind move the grass, carefully judging direction and speed, that Natalya realized what was going on. Instinct told her she was fine, but to check she licked her thumb, and held it above the grass to test, confirming she was upwind of the battery.

They began launching shells. Apparently their target was a small herd of sheep. Gas billowed when the canisters hit the ground, quickly covering the plains in putrid yellow clouds.

Almacian death smoke.

She’d heard tales of the vile stuff, but she’d never seen it in action herself. Concentrated enough it could kill a man. But as the poison spread out it became less lethal, but still enough to blind the eyes, and burn the lungs. The goal was incapacitation followed by execution or capture by a trailing force of Almacian soldiers.

Only this turned out to be something much worse.

The sound of screaming animals reached her ears, even from this distance. It was horrible, making her want to weep for the innocent creatures. The sound abruptly died off. Natalya watched until the cloud dissipated. The sheep were nothing more than piles of dissolving meat and jutting bones.

This was something new. Something evil. This was far worse than any previous versions of the toxin she had ever heard of.

Almacia was known for its alchemy and technology. Their weapons were often more effective than those of the Tsar, but they also tended to be complicated and fragile, while the weapons of the empire were simple but rugged. Armies were defined by limitations. The Almacians’ reliance on their machines made them weak. While their marvelous machines often failed, the empire’s courage and magic never did.

Only this was flesh-melting madness. She imagined it drifting across the trenches, eating the poor infantry inside. Just the thought of being trapped in that gas like the sheep made her skin crawl. If she hadn’t seen it, she wouldn’t have been able to properly warn Vals. This could kill them all. This could end the war, violently, in Almacia’s favor.

Seeming satisfied with their grisly test, some of the Almacian gas troops began marching back toward their factory. Now she could see that their masks had a giant cylinder affixed to them, horizontal where the wearer’s chin would be. It had to be a filter of some sort. They had glass circles for eyes. The gear gave the soldiers the appearance of bugs.

She thought about trying to obtain a cannister of the gas, or even just a suit, but that would be an impossibility. Scouting the perimeter of the Almacian base a second time wouldn’t accomplish much except increase her chances of exposure. So Natalya tucked the notebook away, resecured her gear, and began making her way toward Kolakolvia.

Vals had sent her to this forgotten land to find one old man, and instead she had found something that could change the course of the war.


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Framed