GUNPOWDER MAGNOLIA Chapter 5: Creatures in the Dark (Patreon)

Hi Dagger Tier!

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

Every soldier’s first battle was a frightening experience. Lanthe’s first battle had been one of Ro’s most profound defeats in a century.

Apparently, General Fen had lost a little piece of his mind when his son died of an infected blade wound. Apparently, he had hit the rice wine a little too hard in the aftermath. Apparently, he had ordered his fresh troops to charge too early. Apparently, General Chang was still two days out with the planned reinforcements. All this, Lanthe had learned later. That day, she was just a new soldier, scrambling to be a good cog in the great war machine of Ro.

She didn’t remember the doomed charge at the border, nor the whistle and fleshy thud of arrows mowing down the lines before her, nor the impact that had rendered her unconscious. Her memory of that day began with her choking, her mouth full of a thick taste of metal, and her chest crushed under a smothering weight. A fellow soldier lay atop her, blocking out the midday sun. When she tried to squirm from beneath his bulk, something sharp carved a stinging cut through her brow. The body’s head lolled to the side, and she recognized him as a fellow recruit named Paru. The thing that had grazed her brow was an arrow protruding from the back of his neck. And, when she moved her tongue around her mouth, Lanthe realized what that metallic taste was. Turning onto her elbow, she retched, spitting gobs of Paru’s blood into the dirt.

Had Lanthe stood up, she would have seen Fen’s entire army—eight thousand Ro—lying in a great blanket across the field, stitched with Angtei arrows. Thank Heaven she did not stand up.

In the distance, someone called a command in lilting Angtei, and arrows sang from several thousand bows to darken the sun.

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