Read Chapter 24: A Heated Exchange

The scarred major stood in the mouth of Moreau’s tent, silhouetted against the guttering torches of the night camp. His dress uniform was immaculate, his medals catching the firelight like small accusations. He did not enter. He simply stood there, watching Moreau with the patience of a man who had already won.

“Captain Moreau,” the major said. His voice was smooth, cultivated—the voice of a man who had dined with kings and learned to lie in their language. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Moreau rose from his cot, keeping his weight off his wounded leg. The bandage beneath his tunic had soaked through hours ago. He could feel the slow, hot seep of blood trailing down his ribs. “Major—” he began, searching for the name.

“Duval,” the major supplied, stepping into the tent at last. “Philippe Duval. Though I imagine you know me better as the scarred major your late Sergeant Lefebvre spoke of.”

Moreau’s hand drifted toward the pistol on his belt. Duval saw the motion and smiled—a thin, humorless rictus that pulled at the livid scar running from his temple to his jaw.

“Don’t,” Duval said. “I have a dozen men surrounding this tent. They’ll put you down before you clear the leather.”

“You came alone to gloat?”

“I came to offer you a death with dignity.” Duval clasped his hands behind his back, pacing a slow circle around the tent’s interior. His boots left impressions in the mud. “You’ve been a persistent nuisance, Captain. More so than I anticipated. And now—now you have a map you shouldn’t, and questions you shouldn’t ask, and a loyalty to an Emperor who will be dead by morning.”

Moreau’s blood went cold, but he kept his face still. “You’re wrong about that.”

“Am I?” Duval stopped, tilting his head. “The sniper is in position. The review will proceed at dawn, as planned. Napoleon will mount his horse, and a moment later, he’ll fall. The army will be leaderless, the battle lost before it begins. And I—I will be the one who steps forward to salvage what remains.”

“You’re a traitor.”

“I’m a patriot,” Duval said, and there was something ugly beneath the word. “Look at what he’s done, Captain. Fifteen years of war. A million dead. And for what? A throne built on the corpses of France’s sons. The Emperor is a disease. I intend to apply the cure.”

“You intend to let the British win.”

“I intend to let France survive.” Duval’s voice sharpened. “The army will be shattered at Waterloo, but a core will remain. A core that knows who to follow, when the hour comes. The gold is the seed of a new government, Captain. A new France—one not built on the whims of a Corsican madman.”

Moreau laughed. It came out cracked and dry. “You’re going to steal the army’s pay and call it patriotism?”

“The army’s pay,” Duval repeated, savoring the words. “You think I care for coin? The gold buys loyalty. It buys officers who will turn their coats when the moment demands. It buys the Crown of France.”

“You planted Lefebvre’s body,” Moreau said, buying time, feeling the fire of the tent behind him—no, not fire, just the brazier, but the thought sparked something. “You had him killed because he found your trail.”

“Lefebvre,” Duval said, and for a moment something flickered in his eyes. “A stubborn man. He nearly unmade three years of planning. But he’s dead, and his widow thinks it was an accident, and the regiment has mourned and moved on. As will you.”

Duval drew his sword. The steel whispered from the scabbard, catching the torchlight.

“I won’t be able to claim your death as an accident,” Duval said, almost apologetically. “Not this time. But you’ll be missed, Captain. Mourned. Remembered as a hero who died in the night before the great battle. It’s more than most get.”

Moreau’s hand closed on his pistol. Duval saw it, and his mouth twisted. “I told you, Captain. A dozen men. You’re dead either way. The only question is how painful you’d like your final moments to be.”

“You think you’ve thought of everything,” Moreau said, and something in his voice must have given him away, because Duval’s eyes narrowed. “You think your plan is seamless. But you left a hole, Major. You left a trail of broken men behind you, and I’m not the only one who’s been walking it.”

“Fascinating,” Duval said flatly. “Did you have a point?”

“My point,” Moreau said, stepping back, “is that you took too long to come and gloat.”

He kicked the brazier.

Embers exploded in a shower of orange sparks. The tent flap was canvas soaked in oil from weeks of rain-proofing—it caught instantly, flames racing up the walls. Duval cursed, throwing an arm across his face, and Moreau threw himself sideways, rolling under the tent’s back skirt and out into the cold night air.

“He’s in the tents!” Duval’s voice rang out behind him, sharp and commanding. “Find him! Shoot him on sight!”

Moreau scrambled between the rows of canvas, his leg screaming with every stride. The fire behind him was spreading fast—the munitions tent stood three rows over, stocked with powder and shot in barrels, ready for the morning’s distribution. He had perhaps sixty seconds before the ammunition caught.

He ran toward it.

Behind him, he heard the shouts of pursuit, the tromp of boots. A pistol cracked, a ball snapping past his ear. He didn’t stop. He reached the munitions tent and yanked the flap open, hauling a barrel of powder into the open air. It weighed half a hundred pounds, and his arms shook with the effort, but he rolled it across the mud, wedging it against the path Duval’s men would take.

A second shot. This one clipped his shoulder, spinning him half around. Pain bloomed hot and sharp, but he kept moving, dragging another barrel beside the first, hearing the crackle of the fire behind him growing louder. The flames were leaping from tent to tent now, catching the dry canvas, filling the night with orange light and the screams of men.

Duval burst through the chaos, sword still drawn, face a mask of fury. “Moreau!”

Moreau overturned the last barrel and drew his pistol. He aimed at the powder, not at Duval.

“Tell your men to fall back,” Moreau said.

“You’re bluffing.”

“I’ve cost you the gold. You think I care about powder?”

Duval stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he raised his hand. “Fall back,” he shouted to the shadows. “Now!”

His men scattered just as the flames reached the first barrel.

The explosion was a white-hot roar that threw Moreau backward into the mud. Something struck his head—a piece of wood, a stone, he couldn’t tell—and the world tilted sideways, noise turning to ringing, light to dark. He lay in the churned earth, tasting blood and powder, and watched the fire consume the avenue between him and Duval.

When the smoke cleared, Duval was gone. Only the fire and the chaos remained, spreading through the camp, drawing men from their tents, awakening the whole vast organism of the army to ruin.

Moreau pushed himself to his knees, then his feet. His leg gave out, and he staggered against a shattered supply cart, blood running freely now from the wound in his shoulder, the wound in his side, the fresh cut across his scalp.

The camp burned around him. And somewhere, in the chaos, he knew Duval was already walking away—already counting his gold, already planning his coup.

Moreau began to limp toward the tent he’d seen Duval emerge from. His quarreled over the gold—Major Duval, dining fine on the Emperor’s staff, keeping his secrets close. If Duval had a quarter in the camp, it would hold his plans, his orders, his proof.

The flames rose higher behind him, and the drums of the morning review began to beat through the smoke.