GUNPOWDER MAGNOLIA Chapter 4: Fear the Tiger (Patreon)

Hi Dagger Tier! 

Here's the fourth chapter of Gunpowder Magnolia ahead of the newsletter. Hope you enjoy! Not caught up yet? Find links to previous chapters here.

Intellectually, Lanthe had always been alright with the idea of dying. Her parents would still have their gentle daughters and strong sons. Her little village would still sit safely in its nest of hills and trees. As long as she could die protecting that, she could die content. She returned to that sense of peace and purpose every time she lay into a charge or faced one.

This was the first time it didn’t work.

There was red at the bandits’ hooves as they galloped toward the gap, churning up not just dust but the flaking dried blood of Yao who should never have been this far east. And casting her mind back to green Heba didn’t bring Lanthe serenity, just a sickening surge of worry. The Yao attack had changed everything, casting a red shadow on the map of Lanthe’s mind. War with Yao would mean that Lanthe’s village near the border was no longer safe. Her family was not longer safe. If she died now, she would die uncertain of Ro’s future. And this was an unacceptable thought.

Use this, Lanthe, the commander in her said firmly. It was what she would have told a frightened soldier as the bandit horde descended. Ro’s enemies thought they fought as they did for an inhuman lack of fear, but the foreigners misjudged. The true Ro felt everything with superhuman intensity—fear, rage, sadness, anxiety—and turned it to fire. So, Lanthe let fear burn wild in the pit of her stomach as she cocked her pistol and prepared to take her only shot.

If you’re afraid to die, Lanthe, then fight like you mean to live!

Eighty foot soldiers against two hundred horsemen might seem like impossible odds, but men of Ro had prevailed against impossible odds before. Why not Lanthe’s men? Why not Yansey?

She had just reoriented herself with this new determination and taken aim between a set of barbarian brown godmarks when the world pitched off course again.

A shout went up among the bandits… not a war cry. A cry of alarm.

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