Verundish sought the source of the sorcery. A single Privilege could do in their whole company. Maybe even the second wave, too. It was madness trying to kill him, but it was the only chance she had.
Fire leapt through her men, setting their uniforms aflame and sowing chaos. There, where the courtyard gave way to a street: a Privileged stood in the opening, his gloved hands alight, fingers flickering as he dealt death to the Adran soldiers.
Her men scattered, screaming. None of them could face a Privileged. No one could. Nothing to do but run from a Privileged.
Verundish cursed the blood running down her arm, making her sword-hand slick, and switched her saber to the other hand. She threw herself to one side of the courtyard.
She got her back to a wall and crept, as quickly as she dared, toward the Privileged. She had one loaded pistol in her belt. One chance to fire, and she would need to get close enough for a sure shot.
The Privileged continued to lay about himself with fire. He wasn’t a strong one—no good at multitasking, otherwise he would have burnt the whole company at once. Verundish leaned her sword against the wall and drew her pistol.
The shot took the Privileged in the side. He jerked, falling to one knee, a startled look on his face. Then he turned his eyes toward Verundish.
She snatched up her saber and rushed him. He raised one hand toward her. The heat of sorcery licked at her face, and Verundish felt a twisting pain along her thigh as fire like molten glass hit her hard enough to spin her around. She stumbled forward.
Her saber took three fingers off the Privileged’s right hand. The Privileged screamed, and she slashed with all her might. The blade caught in the Privileged’s shoulder, knocking him over with the force of the blow. She wrenched the blade free and then stabbed it through his heart.
She stumbled again, nearly losing her feet. The pain at her thigh was unbearable. In her mind’s eye she saw the skin boiled and charred, the flesh warped. She dare not look at the wound, else she lose her nerve for the battle.
Looking back, she saw Constaire appear in the breach. Behind him the second wave swarmed inside with bayonets fixed, rushing past the dead and wounded to secure the courtyard and fight their way into the street.
Constaire caught her just as she fell. He stared at her, and then at the corpse at her feet.
“You killed a Privileged!”
“I...” Verundish didn’t know what to say. It seemed she had failed in her quest to die. She knew she didn’t want to die any more, but how could she save her little girl?
She looked up, seeing movement in the corner of her vision. On the walls above them, to either side of the breach, the Gurlish had returned. They had the high ground, and as she watched they began to fire into the Adran second wave.
“Get down!” she said to Constaire.
“We’ll fight them off. To the stairs, men!” He stepped away from her, drawing his sword.
Bloody fool. You’ll be dead before you reach the stairs.
There was a flicker of light up on the wall, alerting Verundish to the presence of another Privileged. Verundish coughed out a laugh. The futility of it all. The damned sorcerer would clear out the entire Hope’s End and the second wave.
The Privileged raised her gloved hands.
Her head exploded in a shower of blood. Verundish flinched at the violence of it, though it happened some thirty paces away. The Privileged’s body slumped, and a cry of dismay went up amongst the Gurlish on the wall.
A figure broke from the ranks of the Adran soldiers, smoking pistol in one hand. Barely even slowing from a run, the figure scaled the rubble that led up to the top of the wall. Small sword flashing, it fell amongst the Gurlish soldiers with inhuman speed.
Verundish couldn’t believe her eyes. Was this a demon from the pit? An angel sent by Kresimir?
The figure gestured with one hand and the powder horns of a dozen Gurlish infantry suddenly exploded, killing their owners.
She choked at the sudden realization. That was no angel or demon.
That was a powder mage.
General Tamas, ignoring his orders, had joined the fray.
Verundish let her head fall against the cool flag stones of the court yard as the pain finally overwhelmed her.
Verundish awoke in a strange room.
Nothing was familiar. The walls were cracked plaster and light came in through a high window. The room was not much larger than a prison cell and she wondered if perhaps it was a cell.
Had the Hope’s End ultimately failed? Had the second wave been slaughtered and pushed back? She remembered thinking she saw General Tamas join the fight. Perhaps he had been killed. There were, after all, five more Privileged inside the fortress. Was she now imprisoned within Darjah?
Surely the Gurlish would have just killed her.
Verundish wondered how much time had passed since the attack. She remembered screaming until her throat was raw and doctors forcing a mala pipe between her lips, blowing the smoke into her mouth. The pain had receded slowly, and the surgeons had gone to work on her thigh with their knives, and stitched the bloody cut up her arm.
She tried to turn her head with only marginal success, letting out an involuntary whimper at the pain it caused.
Why did everything hurt so badly? She felt like every bone in her body was broken.
The door to her room creaked open and a female voice said, “Ah. Colonel, you’re awake. Wonderful news. The field marshal will want to see you.”
Colonel? Surely, they must have mistaken her for someone else. A panic gripped her, and she struggled to move.
“Go get the field marshal,” the voice called out into the hall. Memories of her fevered surgery recognized this voice. One of the doctors. The doctor said, “Now, now. Don’t worry about moving. Your body is stiff, the muscles weak from disuse. You’ve been in and out for a long time.”
“How...” Verundish’s voice cracked, and a doctor moved into view. It was an older woman in an Adran uniform covered by a white smock. She bent over Verundish and brought water to her lips.
Verundish sputtered and choked, but managed to swallow a mouthful. When the doctor stepped away, she said, “How long?”
The doctor put a hand gently on Verundish’s shoulder. “The attack on Darjah was four weeks ago.”
“Four weeks?” She couldn’t help the urgency in her voice. The letter from her husband, before the Hope’s End, had already been five weeks old. In less than a month, Genevie would be sold to slavers. Verundish struggled to get up, her body shaking.
The doctor pressed her back down to her bed. “Wait, colonel. Please calm down.”
“I have to get up.”
“The field marshal will be here any moment, colonel.”
Field Marshal Beravich was coming to see her? What could he possibly want to see her for? “Verundish. I’m Captain Verundish.”
“I’m afraid not,” a male voice said from the doorway. “Doctor, please give us a moment.”
The doctor nodded and left Verundish’s side, only to be replaced with General Tamas. “Good morning, colonel.” Tamas said, sitting beside her bed.
“Sir?” she asked weakly.
“You’re a lieutenant colonel now, Verundish. The necessary paperwork was finished three weeks ago, though I’m waiting until you recovered to assign you to a battalion.”
That wasn’t possible. She couldn’t believe it. She had advanced two whole ranks. Surely she didn’t deserve that, not even after leading a Hope’s End. “I... thank you, sir.”
Tamas waved it away with one hand.
“Sir, was I really out for four weeks?”
“You’ve been in a mala stupor for much of that, in order to kill the pain. Getting seared the way you did by Privileged fire causes great physical and mental trauma on a regular person.”
“I see.”
Tamas nodded, his mind clearly elsewhere.
“Field Marshal Beravich?”
The corner of Tamas’ mouth
twitched upward. “What of him?”
“Was he coming here?”
“I’m afraid Beravich is dead. Two days after we took Darjah his own forces were overrun by Gurlish partisans. He’s been avenged, I assure you.”
“Oh.” It took Verundish a few moments to process the information and grasp the implication. “Congratulations, sir.”
Field Marshal Tamas inclined his head in a modest gesture. He stood, stretching, and looking up toward the slash of light coming in through the window above them. “Now that you’re coherent, we’ll get you a proper room. They have to wean you off the mala. I’m told it will be several months until you’re fit for command.”
Verundish struggled to sit up and failed, the effort exhausting her. Several months? She had to return to Adro now. She had to get back before her hated husband could make good on his threat. Even the fastest of ships might not take her home in time.
Tamas cocked an eyebrow at her struggles. “Going somewhere, colonel?”
“Sir,” Verundish said, trying not to sound desperate. “I need to return to Adro. To attend to personal matters.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Tamas said. “You’re needed. I intend to finish this bloody war by winter, and then we’ll all get to go home.”
Genevie wouldn’t be there by then. She’d be gone, sold into slavery and used like a... Verundish squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back to tears.
“Colonel?”
“Sir?”
“Is there anything you’d like to tell me, colonel?”
“No, sir.”
There was several moments of silence, and Tamas remained facing away from her, looking up at the window. “Pride,” he said, “is a strange thing.”
“Sir?”
“We allow ourselves and our loved ones to suffer so much just to appease this feeling in our gut. Sometimes I envy those men who don’t let pride cloud their judgment.”
Verundish didn’t trust herself to speak.
Tamas continued, “The Arch Diocel of Adro owes me a favor. The paperwork for your divorce should go through” —he paused, as if considering the date— “within a week or two. Your daughter will be in your parents’ custody until you return. If I were in Adro I would challenge your husband to a duel and kill him myself. Children, I think, should be exempt from the petty bickering of adults.”
Verundish felt the tension in her body melting away and could no longer hold back the tears. “I agree, sir. Thank you.”
Tamas took a deep breath. “I don’t normally interfere in this way, but as you might know I have my own son, barely two years old. I take this kind of thing... personally.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, sir, how did you find out?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
Constaire. Of course. A man with no pride. The silly fool had just saved her life. Something stirred in Verundish.
“Oh,” Tamas added as he opened the door to go. “Major Constaire has asked me to marry the two of you. If you feel the same way, it could be done as soon as we have word of your divorce.”
Major Constaire. He had gotten his promotion for leading the second wave against Darjah.
Verundish couldn’t help the smile on her face. “It would be an honor.”
“Good.” A smile flitted across Tamas’ serious face, and then he was gone.
For more in the Powder Mage universe:
Promise of Blood
The Powder Mage Trilogy
Orbit, April 2013
Sample
The Crimson Campaign
The Powder Mage Trilogy
Orbit, February 2014
“The Girl of Hrusch Avenue”
A Powder Mage Short Story
June 2013
Contact Brian McClellan
Website . Twitter . Facebook
Goodreads
[email protected]
Acknowledgements
Michele McClellan - editor
Sunny Morton - copy editor
Isaac Stewart - cover artist
Martin Hodo - beta reader
David Wohlreich - beta reader
Megan O’Keefe - beta reader
Josh Vogt - beta reader
Mark Lindberg - beta reader
Jesse Koepke - beta reader
Doug Smith - beta reader
Gavin Pugh - book maker
Table of Contents
HOPE’S END
Hope's End: A Powder Mage Short Story Page 3