Hope's End: A Powder Mage Short Story (3 page)

Verundish moved across the rugged terrain between the Adran camp and the fortress of Darjah.

Her path was guided only by a sliver of moonlight, and the stars above her that glittered like the campfires of an army stretched across the sky.

They had been camped there for months, exchanging artillery fire with the fortress and mounting two assaults and, but for those attacks, the land had been left untouched. Jackals hunted in the long desert grass where hares and foxes had made their homes to hide from Adran soldiers.

A desert owl hooted somewhere nearby.

She led her company across several small gullies and then into a ditch that went right up to the base of the fortress wall. She had been told the ditch was a runoff from the fortress wells, a place where the Gurlish bathhouses empties into the desert.

They hadn’t mentioned that it also carried away human waste.

One man stopped to retch loudly from the smell, causing the whole company to squat down in the squalor in fear of an alarm. Atop the wall, torches outlined the shape of Gurlish guardsmen. None of them called the alarm and in a low whisper, Verundish ordered her company forward.

They reached the base of the wall and settled down to wait. Verundish unbuttoned the front of her uniform to get comfortable. No one out here would write her up for lack of discipline.

She guessed they had about fifteen minutes until it started.

It wasn’t long until Verundish heard one of her men squirming up the line toward her. She squinted into the blackness of the night, trying to determine who it was.

“Sir,” he whispered, putting his face near hers. The scent of onions on his breath and the sound of his voice told her that it was Grenatio, a soldier who had been given the option of the Hope’s End or a firing squad after stealing from a local family.

“What?”

“Sir, when you said that we wait for the thunder...?”

“The artillery.”

“Oh.” There was a pause. “That makes sense.” Grenatio wasn’t the brightest, it seemed. “Sir?”

Verundish suppressed a sigh. “Yes?”

“I’m afraid.”

“That’s natural.”

“Will it go away?”

“It will.” When a Privileged scours your bones clean with sorcerous fire.

There were a few minutes of silence, and Verundish looked up at the top of the wall. Still no alarm. That was a good sign.

“When will it start, sir?”

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

Bloody pit... “Any minute. Get to your position.”

The soldier moved his way back down the line, making enough noise to wake Adran soldiers back in their camp.

And still there was no alarm.

Verundish looked up at the black stone of the fortress walls and wondered if they would really be able to create a breach. Those walls were ten feet thick, reinforced by Privileged sorcery hundreds of years old. The Adran cannon had been firing on them for months without making so much as a crack.

The Adran Privileged said they could break the walls tonight. What would happen if they did not fall?

She heard a low whistle and had turned to shush her men when the first cannonball slammed into the side of the fortress wall above them. The impact made her stumble and she caught herself with one hand against the side of the gully.

It had begun.

Cannonballs and artillery shells rocked the fortress and shook the ground, causing the walls of the gully in which the Hope’s End crouched to shiver and slide.

The physical bombardment was soon joined by the crash of sorcery. Fire lit the night sky, and slivers of ice the size of a carriage blasted into the wall, weakening it further with alternating heat and freezing cold.

Verundish shielded her face behind the lapel of her jacket against pieces of rock, ice, and iron that ricocheted into their hiding spot.

Gurlish screams told her that the enemy had sounded the alarm. Men rushed about on top of the wall, waving torches and yelling above the cacophony. One of them leaned over and tossed a torch over the wall, watching it fall to the ground below. It landed not far from the gulley that held the Hope’s End.

The Gurlish were trying to discover where the attack would come from.

Verundish knew it wouldn’t take them long to figure it out. When they did, a few dozen musketmen would be able to pick off Verundish’s men with little effort.

She prayed for the wall to fall.

She looked back on her men. One of them raised his musket and pointed it toward the men on the wall.

“Down, fool,” she hissed.

The report of artillery sounded close by. Verundish cursed their luck, and watched helplessly as a rocket soared into the air above the fortress and burst, lighting the desert as if it were day.

Her men were outlined by the light, their faces turned grimly upward. Back down the gully to where it widened into the desert floor, she could see a hundred yards off where the second wave—three whole companies—crouched at the ready in case the Hope’s End was successful.

They were all revealed by the light of the Gurlish flare. And now all would be lost.

A mighty noise suddenly shook the ground; a groaning as if the very bowels of the pit had opened to release its demons. To Verundish’s surprise, the wall gave way beneath the withering bombardment, bursting inward and scattering Gurlish soldiers.

“Climb, you bastards!” Verundish screamed, leaping to her feet.

She scrambled up the gulley and toward the base of the wall, where a mountain of rubble gave her purchase to haul her way up into the breach.

Cannonballs and sorcery shrieked around her, smashing the breach wider and wider with every strike.

Cut the bombardment, damn it! Verundish imagined charging into the breach only to be slaughtered by artillery and sorcery from her own camp.

All at once, the world fell silent. The focused bombardment ceased as the artillerymen adjusted their aim, and then suddenly continued at another point along the wall.

The breach was clear.

Verundish tripped, sprawling in the rubble that used to be the fortress wall. Adran soldiers rushed around her and suddenly she was hauled to her feet by her belt, her saber shoved back into her hand.

She didn’t have time to be embarrassed.

Gurlish soldiers appeared in the breach, and the first Adrans rushed them with fixed bayonets, the two sides tearing into each other with furious cries.

“Push!” Verundish cried. They had to secure the breach. They had to create a gap through which the second wave could pour. If they didn’t succeed in that, this would all be for nothing.

A Gurlish soldier leapt at her, swinging the butt of his musket like a club. She caught the swing with her saber and punched the man in the face, then followed by slicing viciously across his throat.

The Gurlish had not fixed bayonets. They hadn’t been ready for this attack. As impossible as it seemed, the Hope’s End suddenly had an advantage.

“Cut through them, boys!” Verundish urged, crossing blades with a Gurlish officer. The man was quicker than she by far. She managed to parry twice before he was past her guard, slicing down her left arm.

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.