Vlora left Hrusch Avenue and the scent of black powder and smoky smithies behind, crossing the bridge over the Addown River and into the Old City, where tall houses crowded together on narrow city streets, their brick facades in disrepair. It was in one of these houses that Vlora lived with a dozen other girls and the headmistress, Amory.
Amory was furious when she saw the blood on Vlora’s uniform. She cleaned and stitched the wound, then beat Vlora with a stick she kept above the fireplace and sent her to bed without dinner.
Vlora fell asleep thinking of the pistol she wanted to steal and that maybe she should use it on Amory—though she knew she never would.
Vlora awoke the next morning to the sound of her stomach growling, and she waited in bed for the church bell to strike seven. She knew if she bothered Amory too early she would end up with another beating.
Vlora had just gotten herself dressed when she heard an insistent knock on the front door of the school.
She cracked the dormitory door, careful not to wake any of the other girls in the room.
“Come in, sir,” Amory said in response to a man’s warm baritone voice.
Who would come to call at this early hour? The school doors were rarely opened before eleven. Vlora crept down the hallway, careful to avoid the creaky floorboards, until she could look from the landing down into the sitting room of the main floor.
Amory sat with her back to Vlora. Across from her was an older gentleman with dark hair, hawkish features and cold, dark eyes. He wore a black long-tailed jacket and pants, immaculately pressed, and a white undershirt with a folded collar. He held a top hat in one hand and a cane across his lap.
A suitor, perhaps? Amory used to receive men almost weekly. These days she only received one or two a month and she always said that her responsibility to the girls was going to keep her from getting married.
Vlora missed the man’s introduction, but she heard what he said next:
“I’m here to ask about a girl.”
“A girl?” Amory echoed with some confusion.
“Yes. She’s about this tall,” he held his hand up, “ten years old, with dark hair. A friend of mine informed me that she is under your care.”
Vlora felt her heart skip. None of the other girls her age had dark hair. He could only be describing her.
“You couldn’t possibly mean Vlora?”
“That was her name, yes.”
Vlora tried to recall giving her name to any strangers and remembered that there had been a man with dark skin and a reassuring smile that had spoken to her in the street outside the school. He’d asked for her name, and where she lived. That had been months ago, though. Were he and this cold-eyed gentleman connected?
Amory waved her hand as if Vlora were nothing of consequence. “She is my ward, sir. A ward of the state, really. Her father was a na-baron from the north of Adro. Her mother died in childbirth and her father died earlier this year—a pauper. None of her family wanted her, and the crown was loathe to send a child with noble blood to the orphanage. I am granted a small monthly pension in order to see to her education and upbringing.”
Vlora knew that Amory had a self-pitying smile on her face. She always did when she spoke of Vlora.
“She has no one to take her in?” the cold-eyed gentleman asked. “No one at all?”
“None,” Amory said. “I suppose she has me, but she’s an ungrateful child and so...”
“I’d like to buy her.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I can tell that you love the girl dearly, but I’m certain that for the right price you’d be willing to part with her.” The man pulled a cheque book from his breast pocket and flipped it open.
Vlora tip-toed back to her room. She’d heard enough. The man meant to buy her, and she knew what that meant. The abbess at the Kresim abbey where her mother was buried had told her to avoid old men and their perversions.
She gathered her few toys—a wooden horse, a picture book that had belonged to her grandmother, and a ball made of Fatrastan rubber—and folded them into the sheets of her bed with several sets of clothes. It took a few moments to open her bedroom window without making any noise. All the while the drone of the adults’ voices were coming through the wall.
One of the other girls lifted her head from her pillow and asked where Vlora was going. Vlora told her to hush.
She slipped out the dormitory window, sack over her shoulder, and climbed down into the street.
Vlora’s mother was buried in the cemetery of Talien Square, an abbey in the district across the river, just north of Hrusch Avenue. It was not the first time Vlora had run away from the school since her father died. The priestesses at the abbey there were always very kind, giving her a cot to sleep on and warm bread in the mornings. When Vlora explained the conversation between Amory and the cold-eyed gentleman to the abbess, she was told she could stay for as long as she needed.
The abbess had never much liked Amory.
Vlora began spending her mornings with the abbess, studying the Kresim gospels, and her afternoons on the rooftop of the smithies in Hrusch Avenue, watching the gunsmiths test-fire their muskets.
Less than a week after she’d run away from Amory, she was in her usual spot, keeping an eye out for the opportunity to steal a pistol, when she spotted the Bulldog Twins skulking their way down Hrusch Avenue.
She saw their target immediately. The boy looked to be ten or eleven. He had black hair and a somber face, and he was walking alone down the raised walks in front of the smithies with a pair of books under one arm. He wore the uniform of a schoolboy with short pants cut off at the knees and long socks that almost made up the difference.
He seemed familiar, and Vlora thought she might have seen him once or twice before on Hrusch Avenue.
She shouted a warning, but it was lost in the noise of the city and the boy seemed deep in thought.
The Bulldog Twins closed in on him from behind. Each outweighed the boy by at least two stone, practically towering over him. Trigger came in from the right, smacking the books out of the boy’s hands, and then slapping him across the face. Laughing, Bullet took the books and tossed them into the street.
The boy whirled, a look of horror on his face.
Vlora knew that look, having seen it on so many one-sided fights. She anticipated what would come next: his face would scrunch up and he’d begin to cry, and the Twins would push him down into the mud and kick him until they grew bored of it.
But the boy cocked back one fist and punched Trigger in the nose.
Trigger reeled back in surprise, clutching his face. The boy stood his ground, hands held at his side, his teeth set in anger. Bullet leapt at him, grabbing him by the waist and throwing him to the ground. The boy kicked and punched, but he was outmatched.
Vlora couldn’t believe it. Someone was standing up to the Bulldog Twins. Not an adult, either, but someone her own age! She shimmied down her drainpipe and took to the street, only stopping long enough to snatch up a splintered musket stock from where it had been discarded in the mud.
Trigger watched while his brother wrestled the smaller boy, egging them both on. He turned toward Vlora just in time to take the old musket stock in the middle of the eyes. He crumpled in a heap on the porch.
Vlora planted one foot into Bullet’s ribs. It took two more kicks to get the other twin off the boy. Vlora grabbed the boy by the hand and helped him to his feet.
“My books!” The boy pulled away from her and ran into the street, dodging traffic, to get his books from the mud. He returned just as Bullet was picking himself up off the ground.
“Come on,” Vlora said.
They left Hrusch Avenue and lost themselves in a myriad of side streets in High Talien before Vlora felt safe.
“Why’d they attack me?” the boy asked as they stood gasping in front of a baker’s shop.
Vlora wiped some dirt off the hem of her skirt. “Because you’re smaller. Don’t you know about the Bulldo
g Twins?”
The boy shook his head.
“What’s your name?” Vlora asked.
“Taniel.”
“I’m Vlora.”
He was a little taller than Vlora, with a thin face and hair cut short in the fashion of a soldier. She saw that his knuckles were scuffed, and he had a black eye that had been there long before the Bulldog Twins got to him.
This wasn’t his first scrap.
The boy wiped his bloody nose, and Vlora immediately noticed that the moment of excitement had seemed to pass for him. His eyes were calm, and his breathing, while heavy, was measured. He glanced back the way they’d come as if he contemplated going back for another fight.
“The Bulldog twins are in charge of Hrusch Avenue,” Vlora explained. “They pick on anyone smaller than them. Except for the gunsmith apprentices. They know better than to do that.”
Taniel snorted. “No one’s in charge of Hrusch Avenue,” he said. “Not even the army. That’s what my dad says.”
“Well your dad is probably much bigger than the Bulldog twins.”
“He’d whip them even if they were adults.” Taniel lifted his chin. “My dad wins all his fights.”
Vlora smirked. She’d heard that claim before.
Taniel kept his chin lifted, his eyes daring her to question his word. He held her gaze a moment, then looked down at his books. They were covered in mud, and the cover of one was torn. He leafed through them sadly, and Vlora caught sight of practiced arithmetic and charcoal drawings of trees and animals.
“Sorry they got your books,” Vlora said.
“It’s not the first time someone’s thrown them in the mud,” Taniel sounded glum. “I’ll have to clean them up before lessons tomorrow.” He suddenly perked up. “My dad gave me money for dinner. He’s—” Taniel paused briefly to roll his eyes, “having a conference with my latest governess. Do you want to share a sweet roll with me?”
“Sure,” Vlora said.
Taniel came around again three days later, accompanied by another boy. The other boy had long, reddish-brown hair and was a little taller and broader of shoulder than Taniel. Vlora saw them coming from her hiding spot above Hrusch Avenue and went down to meet them.
“This is my brother, Borbador,” Taniel introduced the other boy. “You can call him Bo. He’s a good fighter. He’ll help us if the Bulldog Twins come around.”
Bo extended a hand, and Vlora shook it. It seemed like a very grown-up thing to do.
“I haven’t seen them for a couple days,” Vlora said. “I think they’re scared after the licks they got.”
Taniel’s somber face suddenly lit with a grin. “My dad taught me how to fight. He says never to start a fight if you know you can’t win.”
“But you do anyways,” Bo said.
Taniel sniffed and shot Bo a look. “Bo’s not really my brother. He’s my best friend, but he does live with us. Bo was from the orphanage. He’s a street kid, like you, even though he doesn’t live on the street any more.”
“Oh,” Vlora said, feeling her cheeks turn red. “I’m not a street girl.”
“You’re not?”
“My parents were...” she stopped, remembering how the other children always called her “Little Highness” when she told them her parents had been nobles. “My parents are dead. I live at a school for girls, but I ran away.”
Taniel nodded seriously. “Governesses and teachers are all the same,” he said. “I don’t like governesses. We have a new one every couple of weeks.” He shared an unreadable glance with Bo. “Why did you run away?”
Vlora was about to explain when she spotted someone over Taniel’s shoulder. “Quick,” she said, “over here.”
They ducked into the nearest alley and Taniel peered out into the street curiously. “Is it the Bulldog Twins?”
“No,” Vlora said, “It’s a noble.” She held out her arm for Taniel to see the long gash running the length of it. It still throbbed whenever she moved her arm and it was only now starting to heal. “He did this to me when I scared his horse.” The very thought of it made her angry.
“Which one?” Bo asked.
Vlora pointed to a man on horseback in the middle of the thoroughfare. She wouldn’t forget his pockmarked face.
He was riding a different horse from last time and he wore a white uniform jacket with gold epaulettes. A sword hung at his side. His shoulders were wide, and his blonde hair was tucked back beneath a white and gold bicorn.
“That’s Baron Fendamere,” Taniel said.
“You know him?”
“I’ve seen him before. My dad knows him.”
“Is your dad a noble?” Vlora looked Taniel up and down. He didn’t seem like a nobles’ son. Nobles’ sons didn’t wander around the city by themselves.
“No, he’s a powder mage. He doesn’t like nobles.”
Vlora didn’t know what a powder mage was. Before she could ask, Taniel went on.
“Dad says there’s nobody crueler in the Adran nobility than Baron Fendamere. See that sword at his hip? Dad says he’s a hab... hab...”
“Habitual,” Bo prompted.
“Habitual duelist. He’ll fight anyone he can. Dad says that on campaign in Gurla, the baron would kill women and children for sport.”
Vlora spotted a steaming pile of horse dung on the cobbles nearby.
“Want to throw shit at him?”
The boys agreed, and they each gathered up a handful of manure and slowly stalked Fendamere down the street as he rode along at a slow canter.
Vlora ducked behind a pair of barrels and turned to her accomplices. “Ready?” she asked.
The two boys nodded, and they stepped out from behind their cover and each of them aimed and threw. Bo’s shot missed, while Taniel’s slapped into the baron’s white uniform jacket and Vlora’s smacked wetly against the back of the baron’s neck.
The baron whirled, a roar on his lips, but Taniel was already sprinting down the street. Vlora followed hard on his heals, Bo taking up the rear.
“Can you climb?” Vlora asked between breaths. Not waiting for an answer, she swerved down an alley. “This way!”
She shimmied up her drain pipe to the roof above Hrusch Avenue. Taniel and Bo followed her up.
They lay low for some time, watching the baron rage in the street below, kicking over powder barrels and display stands, cursing those damned gutter rats. He looked everywhere for them, enlisting the help of several shop apprentices, before finally giving up and heading off.
Bo slipped away not long after, saying something about an older girl he meant to see.
When Bo had gone, Vlora led Taniel to her spot above the alley where the gunsmiths test-fired their muskets. The alley was empty, but the residual smell of gunpowder made Vlora feel happy.
They threw pieces of broken clay shingles off the rooftop, listening to them clatter in the alley below.
Vlora remembered what Taniel had said earlier about his father. “What’s a powder mage?” she asked.
“You don’t know?” Taniel pulled his arm back and threw a piece of shingle across the alley, where it hit the slanting roof of the opposite building and rolled back down, catching in a gutter.
“Of course I do,” she said. “I was only joking.”
“Oh.”
She waited a few moments, then felt guilty for the lie. “I don’t, really. I just didn’t want you to think I was stupid.”
“Well,” Taniel said, “Everyone should know what a powder mage is.”
Vlora looked down at her hands. He did think she was stupid, didn’t he?
“I mean, so I’ll tell you,” Taniel went on. “A powder mage is a man who can manipulate gunpowder with the force of his mind,” Taniel said. “He can breathe it and taste it and it makes him stronger and faster than regular men. A powder mage can shoot bullets over great distances, miles even!” Taniel leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “Powder mages can even kill Privileged sorcerers.”
Vlora had been enjoying his story until then. She turned away and folded her arms.
“What?” Taniel asked.
“You do think I’m stupid.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. Nobody can kill Privileged sorcerers.”
“Powder mages can. They have.”
“It’s not true.”
“They can! I swear it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my father is one, and he has killed Privileged before. And someday, I’m going to be a powder mage.”
Vlora still didn’t believe it. Privileged sorcerers were the most powerful people in the Nine. They could level cities with the flick of their fingers. Who could possibly kill one of them? She tried to imagine what it would be like to kill someone as powerful as a Privileged when a sudden thought sparked in her mind like flint striking steel.
She leaned close to Taniel. “Can a woman be a powder mage?” she asked in a whisper.
“Sure. My mom was a powder mage, too. When she was... alive.”
Vlora tried to contain her excitement. She shifted closer to the edge of the roof so that her feet dangled over. “I’m going to be a powder mage.”
“You can’t,” Taniel said.
“Why not? I thought you said women could be powder mages.”
“Some women can. Only people with the talent can be a powder mage. Dad says it’s very rare.”
Vlora sniffed. “I want to be a powder mage.”
“Sorry.”
They sat in silence for some time before Taniel got to his feet. “I should get home. I’ve got school in the morning.”
“Thanks for throwing shit at the baron with me,” Vlora said.
Taniel smiled at her. “Let’s do it again soon.”
Amory caught up to Vlora the next week.
Vlora was in Bakerstown. She’d found a twenty krana coin in the street and planned on buying a hot pie to share with Taniel and Bo. The coin clutched in one hand, she had her face pressed up against a baker’s front window, peering in at all the delicacies.
In the Field Marshal's Shadow: Stories from the Powder Mage Universe Page 4