8FOLD: Mancers # 12, "Past Lives"

[Scott Eiler]

On 2020-06-21 21:57, Tom Russell wrote:

>     "He was kind of a bogeyman for The Company," says David.
> "Unstoppable, invulnerable. Standing orders from on-high were to abort
> any mission where he showed up. That day, he wiped out your whole
> squad - everyone but you. He let you go. Maybe it was because you were
> new and young, and hadn't gotten your hands dirty yet. Or maybe he
> expected you to run back to base, to tell them what happened, so that
> the legend of Marcus could grow."
>     Beth smiles sadly. "Probably a little bit of both. Marcus was like that."
>     "But you didn't go back to base," says David. "You tracked him
> down. And you killed him. I mean, you were green. You had had your
> magic for maybe a week, maybe two? People had been going after him
> with years of experience and he just shrugged them off."
>     Maile stares at the back of her hand. At her mancer's mark. "Was I
> that good?"
>     "Maybe you were that lucky," offers Beth. "Or that clever, or that
> ruthless. Or the right combination of all those things."

That's a good bit of backstory.

I also liked the stuff about The Necromancer.

-- 
-- (signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> ------ http://www.eilertech.com/ -------

The soldiers presented a pathetic but inspiring spectacle. The
hospitals were crowded with sick and wounded; the walls were
gradually crumbling under incessant shell fire, yet that garrison
of heroes remained undaunted.

It was as Buck said, "just as if they had been Americans."

- from "The Airship Boys in the Great War", De Lysle F. Cass, 1915.
Coming soon to Project Gutenberg.  gutenberg.org