Hope's End: A Powder Mage Short Story
Brian McClellan
Language: English
Pages: 33
ISBN: 2:00240997
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Captain Verundish has two problems. On campaign with the Adran army and far from her homeland, she is helpless when the young daughter she left at home is threatened. To make matters worse, General Tamas has put her lover in command of a Hope’s End—the first charge through a breach straight into the teeth of enemy cannon and sorcery. To save the people she loves, Verundish will have to come up with a deadly solution…
Occurs about nineteen years before Promise of Blood.
two days... well, I want to enjoy that time.” The morning before the attack, Verundish was summoned to see General Tamas once more. A fear gripped her as she approached his tent that he’d decided not to honor her request. That Constaire would still have to lead the charge, and that she’d have to put a bullet in her head to save Genevie. When she arrived the two guards outside the general’s tent looked pensive and tight-lipped. One of them announced her, and then she was nodded through. She ducked
inside, the protest on her lips dying as she surveyed the room. The general’s desk had been overturned, the floor and wall of the tent covered in ink, papers, and scattered gunpowder. The mighty oak table that had held his two-hundred year old map was cracked down the middle and an iron candelabra that had been perched on his desk was a snake of twisted metal. General Tamas sat on a chair in the corner—the only unbroken piece of furniture in the tent—with his legs crossed, surveying the
destruction with a sour look. “Sir?” Verundish asked. He looked up for a moment, then back to his desk. That desk 13 was huge. It took four men to carry it, no doubt, and at least two to turn it over. Yet Tamas was alone. The general stood up, clasping his hands behind his back. “Captain,” he said. “Thank you for coming. I’ve just finished a conversation with Privileged Zakary, the royal cabal’s new beadle.” It was no secret that the royal cabal and Tamas were kept from each other’s throats
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
return to Adopest and take Genevie away from that monster.” Oh, this fool. He only twisted the knife. “You’re not serious.” “I am. Deadly so.” 5 If only it were so easy. But life, as her mother had always told her, was never easy. “He wants a divorce even more than I do,” Verundish said. “Perfect! Apply for a divorce and marry me.” “You know who my father is?” Constaire seemed taken aback. “He’s a priest, I think you said.” “Yes. He’s the priest who married us, and he’d have to sign the papers