The man sputtered and fell, an Adran bayonet scrambling his bowels. Verundish pushed the corpse away, unable to mutter a thanks before Grenatio moved on. The onion-breathed man turned to shout over his shoulder.
“You’re right, captain! The fright is gone!”
They were inside the wall now, fighting for the courtyard. Without fixed bayonets, the Gurlish fell beneath the Adran soldiers like lambs before at the slaughter. Verundish paused to tie off the wound climbing her left arm, trying to wipe away the blood.
They could win. They really could win. The second wave would follow them through the breach and help secure the courtyard, and then General Tamas would bring the rest of the brigade through.
Suddenly, Verundish didn’t want to die.
A flash of light blinded Verundish. She stumbled back, blinking to clear her vision, and watched as Grenatio ran toward her with his body aflame, immolated by Privileged fire. His screams echoed in her head.
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.
The Girl of Hrusch Avenue
Ten years before the events of Promise of Blood...
Vlora planned on stealing a gun.
The one thing that made Vlora truly happy was to sit atop the flat roofs of the gunsmithies in Adopest and watch them test-fire their rifles and muskets in the alleyway behind Hrusch Avenue.
The black powder smoke would rise up between the buildings and drift over her vantage point, the sulfuric scent filling her nostrils and instilling a sense of focus and energy. There was nothing quite like it. She’d once tried to explain to Amory, the headmistress of her boarding school, but Amory had dismissed it as a childish fantasy.
And though she was only ten years old, Vlora wanted a one of those guns.
Amory would never let her have one, of course. She never let Vlora have anything.
Vlora knew it was wrong to steal, but she needed a gun. She needed to fire it, and feel the stock kick against her shoulder and the black powder filling her lungs. She craved the music of the gunpowder blast in her ear.
The gunsmiths would sometimes leave a musket unattended for a few moments while they went into their shop to fetch more powder or bullets. Vlora knew that stealing one just meant waiting for the right moment. She could dash into the alley, snatch a weapon, and then be out and running down the street before anyone could catch her.
A musket or rifle was too big, too unwieldy. She wouldn’t be able to hide it beneath her skirts and surely someone in the street would stop her—maybe even one of the Bulldog Twins. And Vlora didn’t have anywhere at the boarding school big enough to hide a musket. If Amory found it, there would be pit to pay.
Vlora would have to steal a pistol.
She slipped from her hiding place, heading across the flat roof above the smithies, and climbed down the old copper drain pipe into the alley below. She headed out into the main thoroughfare and along the raised stone walk that fronted the shops of Hrusch Avenue.
The street was packed, the ring of horseshoes on the cobbles clattering over the cacophony of the crowd. Gunsmith apprentices sat on the front steps of their shops, showing off their masters’ wares: engraved hunting rifles or dueling pistols for the nobility, plain oak-stock muskets for the soldiers, blunderbusses for the country farmers.
Vlora let her eyes wander over the weapons. Displayed along the raised walks of Hrusch Avenue were dozens of models, just waiting to be snatched. There were too many people out here, though. Someone would call the alarm and she wouldn’t have time to lose herself in the throng before she...
Her eyes stopped at the mouth of the narrow alleyway that led behind the Hrusch Avenue shops. A pair of sandy-haired boys sat on empty powder barrels beside the alley. They were each about fourteen, with round, nearly identical faces and upturned noses, their eyes pinched with affected disdain as they watched the passing traffic.
The Bulldog Twins.
Hrusch Avenue belonged to the Bulldog Twins. At least, that’s what they wanted all the orphans and urchins to think. No one begged or stole on Hrusch Avenue without permission of the Bulldog twins and if they caught you alone, they’d beat you to a pulp.
Vlora had heard some children at the school whispering that the Bulldog Twins had once killed an orphan and tossed the body down a sewer drain.
She stopped and pretended to examine a pistol behind the glass of one of the shop windows, her hands behind her back, and hoped that they hadn’t noticed her.
“Oi!” she heard a familiar voice yell. “It’s Little Highness!”
One of the twins, who called himself “Trigger” and was discernable by the scar above his eye, dropped from his seat and headed toward Vlora, his brother �
��Bullet” at his heels.
Vlora felt her heart begin to race. With so many people in the street someone would surely help her if she cried out...
Amory always said that depending on the help of others was foolish.
Vlora decided that maybe, just this once, Amory was right. She broke into a run, cutting straight across the street. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Trigger take off after her.
She cut in front of a carriage and then under a barrel being carried between two men. When she reached the opposite side of the street, she sprinted down the raised walk in full view of the Bulldog Twins, then jumped back into the road. Tucking herself between a pair of carts laden with musket boxes marked for the Adran army, she waited.
It didn’t take long before the Bulldog Twins sprinted past her hiding spot.
She waited just a few seconds and then emerged, heading the other way down the street at a run. They would realize they had been duped sooner or later and come back this way.
Vlora dashed in front of a horse strutting down the center of the street at a cantor. She hoped to put it between herself and the Bulldog Twins—it was one more thing to keep them from seeing her.
Startled, the horse jerked its head away from her and then reared, whinnying loudly. Vlora reeled in terror as hooves pounded the cobbles and the rider fought to keep his mount under control.
“Piss and damnation!” The man cursed and jerked savagely at the reins, leading the horse to one side. “Blasted gutter rats.” He leaned forward in the saddle and Vlora only had a moment to throw her arm up before his riding crop came down.
The thin end of the crop sliced the length of her arm and she let out a scream. The man lifted his arm to strike again but his horse bucked, forcing him to hold on with two hands to keep from being thrown.
Vlora leapt to her feet and bolted into the crowd, tears streaming down her face. Her arm was soon covered in crimson and stung from her palm to elbow.
She paused at the end of the street and looked back, drying her tears for long enough to seek out the man who’d struck her. He was still in the middle of the thoroughfare, cursing loudly as he tried to get his horse under control. He wore a fine riding jacket and he had a flat, broad face covered in pock-marks. She took a moment to memorize that face.
In the Field Marshal's Shadow: Stories from the Powder Mage Universe Page 3