“Why a Hope’s End? Why now?”
Constaire examined his boots. “Field Marshal Beravich has ordered the city taken immediately. I can’t imagine what threats he holds over General Tamas’ head.”
“When will it be?” Verundish asked.
“Three days from now. We’ll redouble our artillery until then. The Privileged say that they’ve found a weakness in the wall and will exploit it with sorcery the night of the attack. It will form a breach just large enough for us to enter the fortress.”
Verundish leaned back on her cot. The Privileged sorcerers, with their powerful elemental magic, might indeed be able to finally cause a breach in the wall. Yet a Hope’s End was a common enough tactic. The Gurlish would be ready.
“I should run,” Constaire said.
“They’ll brand you a coward.”
“I’d rather be a living coward than a dead hero.”
Verundish squeezed his hand. “You won’t get far. You know how General Tamas feels about deserters. He’ll catch you and hang you, and you’ll be both dead and a coward.”
“I can get away,” Constaire said. “I have friends…” he trailed off, as if considering his course of action.
“Don’t do it,” Verundish said.
A flicker of doubt crossed Constaire’s face.
“Spend the night,” Verundish said. “And promise me that you won’t do anything rash until tomorrow.”
She took Constaire in her arms, thinking she might have a solution for both of their problems.
General Tamas was not a man to cross.
The son of an apothecary, he was the first commoner to ever achieve the rank of general in the Adran army. The people adored him, and the king respected him. He was both a tactician and a fighter, and the only powder mage in the all the Nine to hold such a lofty position.
It was said that even the king’s cabal of Privileged sorcerers feared him.
They were right to do so. Powder mages could imbibe common gunpowder to make themselves stronger and faster than normal men. They could use their sorcery to float a bullet across an entire battlefield, killing their target at a mile or more. They were some of the most efficient and capable killers in the army.
It was the morning after Constaire had come to Verundish. She stood at attention in the corner of Tamas’ command tent with her hands at her sides, legs together, and back straight. The general bent over a large table with a map of the Gurlish terrain smoothed flat beneath his hands. His eyes scanned the yellowed paper for several minutes, his lips moving slightly as he did figures in his head.
“This map,” he said, breaking the silence of over fifteen minutes, “is almost two hundred years old.”
“Sir?” Verundish said.
“Two hundred years old, captain. We have the greatest army in the entire world, and we can’t get an updated map of the bloody area. Is there something you needed, captain?”
Verundish opened her mouth to speak, only for Tamas to cut her off.
“Darjah is one of the oldest fortresses in all of Gurla. The walls are laced with protective sorcery, the ground around the foot of the fortress thick with wards that could kill a man to step on them.” Tamas pushed himself away from the table and began to pace one end of the tent.
“Field Marshal Beravich has given me just half a brigade and only four Privileged sorcerers. A hundred men could hold Darjah against us, and the shah hiding back there has over a thousand. And seven Privileged. Seven!”
Tamas dropped into a chair at one end of the tent and cocked his head at Verundish. “Beravich loves watching me fail. Doubly so because it happens so infrequently. He doesn’t care how many men have to die in order for that to happen. Now, what did you want to see me about?”
Why would Tamas tell her all of this? Most officers would find it unprofessional to speak so candidly to one of lesser rank. Verundish cleared her throat.
Tamas held up a finger, cutting her off again. “I should tell you that I’ve had soldiers come through here all morning petitioning me to rescind my order that Captain Constaire lead the Hope’s End. I know you’re his lover. I don’t care how popular the man is, he’s leading the charge. Everyone around here has to put their life on the line sometime. Now is that what you came here about? To waste my time?”
The last thing Verundish wanted to do was exacerbate Tamas’ already foul mood. She fought down the urge to fight with him.
“Not at all, sir. I’ve come to offer myself as Constaire’s replacement.”
The chair creaked as Tamas leaned back, stroking his black mustache thoughtfully. For a moment Verundish thought she could see his thoughts turning behind his stern brown eyes as he reevaluated her.
“Intriguing,” he said, getting to his feet. “You’re a smart, brave young officer. You’ll likely advance through the ranks over the coming years as you prove your worth. Constaire, on the other hand, is a fop. He has no value to me. Why the pit would I let you die in his place?”
Young, he’d called her, though as a man in his forties, Tamas couldn’t be more than a decade her senior.
“Because I volunteered,” Verundish said, “And you know that a volunteer will more effectively lead the charge.”
“Is that a challenge I hear in your tone, captain?” Tamas asked. “No, don’t answer that. I always hated it when a superior officer made me choose between dishonesty and my pride. I won’t do it to you.” He paused to clean bits of black powder from beneath his nails. “Perhaps I have orders from my superiors that Constaire lead the charge.”
Verundish felt her heart beat a little faster. An order like that would only come from Field Marshal Beravich or from the king himself. Was Constaire involved in some kind of plot? Or had he been made a pawn in some nobleman’s maneuverings?
“I don’t, of course,” Tamas said, waving away the thought with a small smile. “Can I ask why, beyond some misguided sense of affection for that fool, you would sacrifice your life for Constaire?”
“Sometimes, sir, the attack succeeds. If it does, I’ll be up for immediate promotion. I’ll be a hero, sir.”
“That’s awfully optimistic,” Tamas muttered. He stood up, indicating that the meeting was over, and said, “I’ll take it under advisement, captain. You’ll have your answer by this evening.”
Verundish went through the rest of the day in a fog.
She had a way out. In two days she would lead a Hope’s End through the breach and into the face of musket fire and Privileged sorcery where she would be killed almost instantly. She would die a hero’s death and be given a hero’s burial, and Genevie could take pride in the mother she barely knew.
Her hated husband would release Genevie into the care of Verundish’s father and mother, and she would receive Verundish’s ample pension for the rest of her life.
If General Tamas gave her leave to lead the charge.
She was walking through the camp, reviewing her company, when Constaire found her.
He took her firmly by the arm, not saying a word, and steered her behind the relative privacy of a colonel’s pavilion tent.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, shaking off his grip.
“No,” he hissed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Constaire’s face was red with anger. In four years of campaigning together, she had never seen him so furious. “I’ve just been informed by General Tamas that you volunteered to take my place at Hope’s End. I won’t allow it!”
“There’s nothing you can’t allow me to do,” she said.